Ophelia knew something had to be done the moment her sister re-entered their twisted lives. She worked and waited for twenty years to be Mrs. Addams, her sister had one day and poof, Gomez's heart and body were stolen in one night, and she had to hear it.
She had to hear all of it, and it disgusted her. That night, that first night when Morticia played the victim, talking about how terrible Ophelia was. Telling Gomez that she locked her in the closet, that she told the entire school that Morticia murdered the family dog. Well, she did, damn it. She did and, and above everything else, she took what she wanted. No, what she needed.
Ophelia may not have liked her sister, but she had to admit that she could have any man she wanted. No matter how frightening or stoic they thought Morticia, if seduced, they would be gone. She knew it. But yet, all those twenty years ago, she had to seduce the one man that Ophelia needed. She had to seduce Gomez Addams.
God, it was an awful sight and Ophelia grimaced at the memories. The way he would kiss her, whisper those ridiculous Spanish names to her, the way he- if Morticia asked for the world in a box, he would either get it for her or die trying. It disgusted her immensely. How was it possible that one man, one man loved Morticia, of all people like that?
By the beauty standards of all the men, and women, in Mockrage, Ophelia was it. Her build was small, her hair was blonde, her skin was fair. She was perfect, enviable. But compared to her sister, she was… average, beauty-wise. Ophelia had been called beautiful, desired (only ever physically, but nonetheless desired), she had been showered with gifts by boyfriend after boyfriend. And when she met the one man who didn't want her, he ended up being the one man she would gladly spill her own blood for. Why? His money.
Yes, Gomez Addams and the enormous fortune he sat on. Ophelia's own mother, Esmeralda Frump, once said that if Mr. Addams paid to send each individual member of the Addams clan to Harvard two hundred times, he would still have enough money to provide a decent life for a family of seven, and send all of them to the moon, twice. And that was just his personal account.
Ophelia needed him, desperately. Him and his fortune. The lifestyle it would provide her would be a dream, living in the lap of luxury, never having to work a day in her life. Presents and a butler and high social standing once she fixed up that odd family. But, there was just one problem with that fantasy, soon -she thought- to be reality: Mr. Addams didn't want her. He wanted her macabre, stoic, bewitching, younger sister. Yea, bewitching, Ophelia had thought. A bewitching little bitch.
Her sister had not a thing to do in order for Gomez to fall for her. All she had to do was look into his eyes, with that illusive gaze that -while it made Gomez's heart beat faster- made Ophelia want to smash her head into a brick wall. It wasn't fair, not at all. How dare her sister take what she never even deserved? She took everything, and what's more? Morticia, still, had Gomez at her feet, willingly.
So, in a way, she had to enact Sensus Inversus, to even the score. Yes, that was true. She had to. Of course she did. She had to, to even the score. After twenty years of suffering, ten of which were spent, dancing in a cage, and living it up with men ranging from ages twenty-five to sixty-five, Ophelia deserved it. Her body was in good shape, but certainly was no longer going to get her far. It was not going to get her that fortune, that title. A beautiful body can belong to anyone, but not Gomez Addams.
Then, then, after everything was going perfectly, Morticia had to show up and ruin it all. She had to come in and look at Gomez. That was it. Gomez, whether he liked it or not, was Ophelia's. But when Morticia came back, she knew she lost him. She lost him to the Rosewood town weirdo. That, unsurprisingly, did not set well with her. No, not at all. Gomez would remain Ophelia's. Gomez, and that beautiful fortune down in the… basement.
Ophelia, when confident that Gomez was asleep, slowly got out of bed and silently walked out of the bedroom, the door shutting behind her without a creak.
She walked down the long hallway in her short, strappy, silk, yellow nightgown, lined with white lace. Carefully, she studied the pictures lining the walls, and most of them were of her. There were photo-shoot-like pictures, and paintings. Some were of her and her family, or her and her husband, which she admittedly wished there were more of now that Morticia was here. The light brown, wooden hardwood was newly polished, and the boarders of the cream-coloured hallway walls ranged from floral to pastel. Almost nothing, which was unusual, even for someone unlike Morticia, in that entire estate was black. Almost nothing, except for parts of the library.
Gomez, for whatever reason, had forbade Ophelia to go near that library with her paint brush and fix-it tools. And, for whatever reason, Ophelia had actually listened. However, she was not going to dare let the girls set foot there. They hadn't the slightest notion that Ophelia even had one. So still, after a nearly two decades… that library remained untouched by anyone in the house but her husband.
She continued down the long hallway, smiling at her pictures. God, if only her husband knew about those tummy tucks and mommy makeovers she had gotten after she pushed out his children. Unlike his former, forgotten wife, Ophelia's body was not kind to her. Perhaps it was karma for everything she had put it through. After all, screwing half the town at such a young age did not make for a comfortable person.
Morticia, on the other hand, had quickly lost the extra baby weight after she had the children. It was not terribly hard, even after Pugsley, which was easily her hardest pregnancy. Not that Gomez had thought any less of her radiant beauty either way, he loved her with everything he had. He would always find her irresistible, no matter what. And that did infuriate Ophelia to no end.
She walked down the stairs, the same light hardwood as the floor, to the fourth floor. The hallways were the same throughout the house. However, the frames on the pictures varied from white marble, (rose) golden porcelain and diamond to gold, antique Victorian-style frames with intricate designs. But those frames, the Victorian ones, were mostly saved for all of Ophelia's solo pictures.
Then, soundlessly, she passed the doors of her children. Their doors were white, and across from one another. Both doors were white, with crystalline handles. Their names, in calligraphy-style font, were painted on the door, centered in the middle. Wendy's name was painted on in a pastel pink shade, and Peter's in a baby blue.
She did not bother checking in on them, as she continued walking and crept down the stairs to the third floor, where her butler's bedroom was.
She knocked on the eggshell door three times, and Jeeves understood who it was.
Quick and quiet, Jeeves opened the door, and shut it behind his mistress when she walked in. "Mrs. Addams." He gave a nod, greeting her. He wore a cotton, white nightshirt, down to his ankles with buttons at the top, and a matching cap, which Jeeves removed in Mrs. Addams' presence.
Ophelia looked around the room.
Its floor was white wood, while its walls were lilac with a white wooden boarder, and silver floral patterns painted on the boarder. The double bed was seemingly comfortable, with grey, cotton bedsheets and fluffy pillows. The closet was an average-sized walk-in, and the dresser was mahogany wood. There was a small television atop the dresser. Jeeves could not hide from Ophelia, even in his bedroom. Her photos were there, lining one wall, staring at him, boring holes into his shallow soul. By the door was a black coatrack, as Jeeves had purchased it. A hat and navy-blue trench coat hung on the rack, as if Jeeves were going anywhere any time soon.
"Are we alone?" Ophelia asked, studying the fish -some exotic, like the Amazonian puffer and some quite commonplace, such as his clownfish, Nemo- in the small tank near Jeeves' bed.
"Apart from Wayne, Jade and Nemo?" Jeeves chuckled, but Ophelia returned his humour with a cold, serious glance. Jeeves abruptly stopped laughing. "Yes."
"That's what I wanted to know. Not the names of your fish." Ophelia stepped closer to him, waiting.
Jeeves was ready to begin perspiring, he was so nervous. Twenty years of making more than he would be if he were working for the white house, and now it all might come crashing down, because her sister had to rain on the parade. He did not know what was so important, he did not know why Ophelia hated her younger sister so.
"Jeeves?" Ophelia had said to him, about nineteen years ago now, "Should my younger sister, Morticia A. Frump ever come to stay… be alert. Should I be there when she comes, if she comes… be afraid. Because then, I am going to need you."
Jeeves and Ophelia then sat on his bed, apart from each other yet sitting upright, as professional as one can get on a bed.
"So… your sister is back." Jeeves said.
Ophelia shot him a hateful look. "Are you trying to be smart with me?"
"No, Madame, of course not." Jeeves replied, nervous. "But, she is back. Is she not?"
Ophelia gave a small nod. "She is."
"And?"
"And I need you." Ophelia looked him in the eyes.
"For?" Jeeves questioned.
"You know what for."
"No." Jeeves shook his head. "Truly, I don't. What is it about your sister that is so awful?" He inquired. "Besides her obvious… oddness."
"She is a despicable human being. She tried to seduce Gomez in the past, and I don't know if it worked. She left for Paris years ago, but I have always suspected her of-"
"Stop." Jeeves held up a hand. "Please, tell me the truth, Madame. How can you expect me to remain loyal to you if you start out our teamwork with a lie as to how it truly began?"
"Very well." So, Ophelia did tell him. She told Jeeves the real truth, the truth that no one knows. She told him of how her sister stole the man she wanted, the woes of her life, the trials she faced, the almost-murder in the library, the trial… and her moving away, for twenty years, and this -the relationship, the money, even Jeeves' position- had only been created mere days ago. "And now she is back. She is back and she will not undo what I've created. I have Gomez, I have children and I have… you." She looked him up and down and put a hand on his thigh.
Jeeves grew uncomfortable, confused and wondering if his mistress was indeed willing to be just that, to get what she wanted. "Yes, you do." He felt beads of sweat form near his brows.
"And I intend to keep it that way." Ophelia smirked. "Now, tell me what you've seen."
"Well, Mrs. Addams, she was indeed flirtatious. They drank tea together and talked for hours. And he could not stop staring at her with a gaze almost… very," Jeeves decided. "Hungry. Yet, adoring. I don't know how it could be possible to adore someone you -in this reality-" He added quickly. "You hardly know. But he looks like he does. And every word out of his mouth directed at her is delivered so smoothly, almost like he is trying to take her right there with his words."
Syllable after syllable that Jeeves spoke made Ophelia want to shoot her sister and watch her bleed out ten times over.
"He looks like he loves her."
Twenty.
"When you told me of what your sister did to him that night, when you knew she had to be rid of…" Jeeves thought for a moment. "Well, you can take the man out of the life, but you cannot take the life out of the man."
Thirty.
"With all due respect, Madame, I would not be surprised if she was seducing him as we speak.
Destroy every trace of the bitch.
"Vindictive little whore." Ophelia muttered.
"Pardon?" Jeeves asked.
"That's all you've seen?" Ophelia was holding back her anger as much as she could.
"That, and a snake." Jeeves told her. "But I don't see- "
"A snake?" Ophelia inquired, curious. Her sister was a witch, after all. What if this snake was… more? One can never be to careful about these things. But most, never have to worry about these things.
"Yes, Mrs. Addams. It bit me right here." Jeeves craned his neck and showed her the mark.
"Mmm…" Ophelia nodded. "Jeeves, I need you to listen to me, carefully."
Jeeves nodded. "Yes?"
"Be subtle, say not a word to a soul -or to Morticia, obviously-" Even now, when her sister was not here, Ophelia had to take a stab at her. "I want you to watch her. Watch her like a hawk. But like a…" Ophelia tried to think of the right word. "Like a really subtle hawk." She said, terrible at similes.
Jeeves, afraid and desperately wanting to keep his job, nodded. "I will." Was all he said.
"I know you will." Ophelia inched closer to him, so close to the point where she was at her uncomfortable butler's ear. "I trust you." A manipulator, a very, very good manipulator.
Jeeves smiled. "You…" he gulped. "You do, Mrs. Addams?"
"Of course, I do." Ophelia replied. "You'd never be disloyal to me, would you?"
"As long as you keep me busy." Jeeves replied, hastily.
"I promise." Ophelia practically whispered. Then, like a daisy, she sprung up and off of the bed. Then, she opened the door back out to the hallway. "Remember what I told you, Jeeves."
"About keeping me busy or about keeping the secret?" Jeeves put his nightcap back on and laughed, nervously.
Ophelia winked at him. "Both, dear."
Trying to be the fox her sister was, she nearly tripped closing the door. But Jeeves was too nervous to notice.
She then began to walk up the stairs, thinking of her next move. Morticia wanted Gomez, and Ophelia wanted money. In turn, needing Gomez. Gomez was Morticia's oxygen, and wealth, sex and power was Ophelia's. So, what to do about this problem? Ophelia knew the answer.
She knew she had to buy their time, at least until their anniversary passed. For whatever reason, Ophelia felt after the anniversary, it would all be over. And one way or another, she was right.