Chapter Eight

A Smile That Won't Fade

Flashback: Jack, age 13

She was sitting with me in the living room, listening as I read her favorite poem aloud.

"And the blood in her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love's refrain..."

Her arm, which had been tight across my shoulders, holding me close as I read to her, grew limp, and I turned to see that she was sleeping. There was a peace on her face at times like this, when her soul felt free to escape the disguise it wore at all times when the one who hurt her was near. I wished that I could alleviate her concerns; I wished that I was able to rescue her, but he was too strong for me. I felt like a failure each and every time I saw her with a newly blackened eye, with her beautiful mouth broken and bloody, while she did her best to comfort my fears and assure me that no matter what happened she would always love me.

I stood up and bent down to pick her up, knowing that if she were to sleep on the couch that she'd awaken with a sore back and neck. She had chastised me in the past for carrying her, saying that it wasn't necessary for me to do so, but in the end she had relented when she saw that I had no intention of stopping.

I hated going into their bedroom, I hated the smells that clung to every surface, the fear that seemed to permeate every corner, the harsh odor of the other one's sadistic need to cause pain, the rank trace of the indignities that had been forced upon her, a woman who was so beautiful and so good, and mixed in liberal doses amongst the miasma were the thick fumes of alcohol, the cologne of choice for the one who took so much pleasure in hurting those around him.

I put her down gently on the bed, pulling the covers up tight around her shoulders so that she wouldn't catch a chill, and had retreated from the room that caused a different sort of chill to trickle down my back, the hated anxiety that seized me when I thought of what might happen if I was to be forced into another confrontation with the one person I hated...the one person who I was terrified of.

I had just pulled the door shut, taking care to be as quiet as possible, when the other bedroom door opened, and the one that I loved second-best of all stepped out, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Her name was Jilly...that's twisted huh, Jack and Jilly...but I always referred to her as my cuddly moppet. He had been the one that suggested that we be named after characters in a nursery rhyme, thinking that what happened to Jack and Jill was tremendously funny.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," I said, bending to pick her up and carry her back into our bedroom. Most people would say that it was creepy for a thirteen year old boy to share a bedroom with his six year old sister, and they were right in their estimate that it was unnatural, but there were no other rooms to be had, and I hated leaving her by herself, never sure that she was safe unless I was close by. Also, let me assure you that I certainly never had any sick fantasies about my baby sister, and I'd happily eviscerate anyone who suggested otherwise.

"I woke up and the tree was watching me again," she answered, burying her face against my neck as she started to cry. I patted her back and shushed her, comforting her for what seemed like the hundredth time. She was terrified of the dead tree outside our window, with its gnarled branches and decaying bark, swearing again and again that it turned into a hunched old man when no one else was watching, and that the old man always told her that he watched her closely, and that one day he would sneak into the bedroom and get her. I'd tried to convince her, unsuccessfully, that it was just a dead tree, which couldn't hurt her, but no matter what I said, I just couldn't persuade her to believe me.

"I'll tell you what I'll do Moppet," I said, kissing her cheek as I smoothed her hair back from her face. "I'll cut that tree down, first thing tomorrow, and then you'll never have to worry about seeing it outside the window again."

Her crying stopped and she looked at me intently. "But he said he'd kill you if you ever tried to touch the tree again," she answered, fear entering her eyes, the type of panic a small child should never have knowledge of.

"Don't worry about him," I whispered, doing my best to sound brave. "He'll be drunk when he comes in and won't know it's gone."

I had tried to cut the tree down three months before, while he was out, but he'd returned earlier than I'd expected. He was in a rage because he'd lost all of his money on a bet, and the bartender had refused to allow him to put any drinks on a tab, knowing all too well that my father would never pay back the money. Long story short, he'd found me with the axe, poised over the tree and had flown into a rage. Apparently he thought that the tree had lots of character, and had taken it personally that I intended to cut it down, just because some "whiny bitch" was scared of it.

I held my sister in my arms, remembering that day, and how angry I had been with him, for mocking my baby sister and for blowing all of his money on some stupid bet. Of course, if it hadn't been on a bet, it would've gone for liquor, and either way, we would be going hungry that week. If I hadn't gotten so upset I wouldn't have dared to talk back to him, but my temper fueled my tongue to act foolishly, and I had wised off about him being a worthless drunk who never took care of his responsibilities.

I had felt the first punch, the one that had knocked me off of my feet, but the rest pummeled me without my notice because he had knocked me unconscious. I woke in my bed some hours later, my mother's face hovering over me as she caressed my hand, her face covered with brand-new cuts and bruises. She had tried to protect me, had placed herself directly in his path, and had received a beating of her own for her interference.

I hated him, just as I hated our neighbors, who would never call the police, to corroborate my story that my father was abusing us. See, I had reported him, time and again, but the cops never did anything against him...I guess that "bond of brotherhood" crap was something they took very seriously.

I shook my mind free of the memories, stubbornly holding back my own tears so that I wouldn't upset Jilly, and had tucked her back into her bed with a whisper of good-night, standing back to watch her as her eyes fluttered shut.

The room went dark as something crashed into the back of my head and then I had slumped to the ground, my baby sister's scream reverberating through me before everything went black.

...He was humming when I regained consciousness, sounding very happy, and fear so strong that it made me want to vomit welled up inside of me. He was never this happy unless he'd hurt someone, and my own injuries weren't substantial enough to warrant this amount of joy.

I tried to sit up, to look for my mom and my sister, but the room started spinning and a horrible ache seized me as I tried to raise myself, and I dropped back down to the floor with a groan of pain.

"All awake now Jack-in-the-Box?" the bastard asked in a singsong voice. "Well, that's good because I've got a surprise for you in the other room."

He hauled me up off of the floor, snickering as I tried to suppress another moan of pain. "You were a bad boy again," he said. "And bad boys have to be punished so that they can learn to be good boys again."

He dragged me towards the living room and the throbbing in my head worsened with each step he took. "What have you done to Mom and Jilly?" I asked, fighting to keep the fear out of my voice.

He chuckled again, a maniacal sound rife with cruelty. "That bitch is always so depressing, shuffling around this house, never happy, and her gloom was wearing off on the little bitch as well, so I fixed them."

We entered the living room, which was still gloomy despite the rising sun. I could see that there were two people sitting on the couch, a big person and a little person, and knowing that they had to be Mom and Moppet I started to stumble towards them, but my father stopped me by grabbing hold of my arm.

"No, no you dummy," he said, pulling me towards him. "That would ruin the surprise." I didn't know what surprise he was talking about, and truth be told, I didn't want to know. I had seen him do things that were unimaginably evil, and it scared me to ponder what depths of depravity he was capable of.

He reached over and flipped on the light, flooding the room with illumination, and what I saw on the couch, what had been done to my loved ones, caused me to scream, something I hadn't done in years. I screamed and I sobbed, sinking to the floor while the most profound disgust and sorrow that I had ever felt in my life filled me, consumed me.

"What the hell are you caterwauling about?" he asked, smacking the side of my head, sending shock waves of agony through my skull once more. "They wouldn't ever smile at me and I fixed it. I made it to where they wouldn't have any choice but to smile from now on. I gave them both a smile that won't ever fade."

I was still crying as he hauled me up to my feet once more, leading me over to where my mom and sister were sitting, the ghoulish grins carved into their beautiful faces raw and inflamed, seeping blood onto their necks. "Don't worry, son," the monster murmured as he threw me down onto the couch. "Soon enough you'll know how to find the humor in this as well."

Violet's POV

I was wrapped up in a vision of Jack and me, sunning ourselves on a beach, when suddenly it turned into a moment straight out of From Here to Eternity. Jack was Burt Lancaster, pressing me, filling in for Deborah Kerr, into the sand, and kissing me passionately as wave after wave pounded onto our writhing bodies. The only difference was that Jack and I were bare-assed naked, and kissing wasn't all that we were doing in the surf.

It was all so real for me, the scent of Jack as he rode me into oblivion, the harshness of our breathing, the sea breezes passing over our wet bodies, the water of the waves, and just as I came apart beneath Jack, crying out from the intense ecstasy, another scream, both terrifying and filled with terror pulled me from my dream with a start.

I opened my eyes to find Jack sitting up in the bed, his hands gripped tightly in his hair. I reached over and touched his arm, still drowsy from being awakened so suddenly, but filled with the need to offer him some comfort. He jumped when I touched him, as though he'd forgotten that I was in the room with him, and the next thing I knew I was flung backward on the bed, one of his arms pressed against my neck while I was confronted with a knife, whose presence I hadn't even been aware of in the house, let alone in our bedroom.

His eyes were unfocused, his mind wrapped up in a memory, the remnants of which had terrified him. I knew that it wasn't my face that he was seeing, and that whoever it was that had done whatever they had to him was the one that he wanted to kill.

His arm tightened across my throat, hurting me, cutting off my ability to speak, and almost causing my breathing to cease when suddenly Jack was hit from behind and his eyes shifted in and out of focus, before meeting mine, and the look that filled them made me want to cry as he quickly moved away from me, sheathing the blade that he'd threatened me with.

The puppy had jumped onto the bed, and placed her body near me, but was turning and whining in Jack's direction as well, showing that she was protecting me, but that she was still loyal to him. I waited for him to speak, knowing that he was filled with self-disgust over what he'd done, and I longed to reassure him that everything was fine, that he hadn't really hurt me, but I was hesitant to be the one who spoke first.

He was shaking, his body shuddering as he bowed his head. I was shocked to see that there were tears flowing down his cheeks, that was something that I would have never expected to see, something that I hadn't prepared myself for the possibility of.

"Jack," I said, moving towards him on the bed, blushing as I noticed that I was naked as a newborn babe. "Sweetie, I know that you're upset, but please listen when I say that I'm not mad at you and that you didn't hurt me."

He didn't respond to what I said, he just continued crying, his hands curling into fists beside his body. "You bastard," he whispered softly, and at first I thought that he was talking to himself. "You are a malicious abomination. Look what you've done to me. You did this to me. You ruined everything you touched. You damaged them just like you damaged me. You made it to where I can't ever show any emotion. I'm always smiling. It doesn't matter if I'm happy or not. You took away my ability to frown, to show any sadness at all. You carved my face up, just because you could, and now I go around with this horrific smile on my face for the rest of my fucking life!"

His last words were wrapped up in sobs that wracked through his whole body. I was crying now as well, having some idea of who it was that he was talking to, and it tore at my heart to imagine what he had endured in his life. I wondered who he was talking about when he said "them", but now certainly wasn't the time to question him. I reached out for him, wrapping him in my arms and pulling him up close against me.

He froze for just a moment and gasped, as though he were shocked that I was touching him. He buried his face against my neck, breathing deeply, shuddering as I rubbed his shoulders and pressed myself more firmly against him. I murmured comfortingly to him, meaningless words that provided nothing but consolation, which made them especially important to him at that moment.

He nuzzled my neck hesitantly, pressing soft kisses to the flesh beneath his lips, and in spite of the emotional upheaval we had experienced I felt myself heating from his ministrations, my orgasmic dream a lingering memory between my thighs.

"Dainty," he whispered between kisses. "I'm so sorry that I did that."

"Shush," I answered, gasping as he suckled and then bit down gently on the spot where my neck connected with my shoulder. "There's nothing for me to forgive, okay?"

"There's a lot for you to forgive," he countered. "But I'll drop it if you want me to. By the way, do you know that your nipples are hard against my chest and it's about to drive me crazy...well, crazier than I already was, that is."

Of course I knew that they were hard, that they were aching, and I reached down to take hold of his hand, pressing it against my breast, biting down on my lip as a burst of sensation caused me to tighten the inner workings of my femininity.

"I wouldn't blame you," he said, closing his fingertips onto my nipple, pulling it further into a throbbing point. "I'd understand if you wanted to leave here, to leave me, and I wouldn't hold it against you."

I was too aroused to launch myself fully into anger, but I made sure that he understood that I'd had enough, and that the subject of me being angry and/or me leaving was closed. "Not another word about that Jack," I said, attempting to insert irritation into my voice, but my efforts to appear stern and commanding were foiled as he clamped his mouth onto the nipple he'd been playing with, swirling his tongue around the aching bud, sucking it between his teeth and nipping me gently.

He pulled me onto his lap and slid his hand between my legs, delving his finger into me and he growled as he traced the contours of my excited flesh, obviously pleased to find that I was so ready for him. He reached one arm around my waist, pulling me closer towards his body and with the other hand he positioned himself against my saturated center.

He slowly made his way inside, taking care as he had the night before, and I tensed for just a moment, fully expecting to feel pain once more, but it never arrived. Then he dropped his arm away from my waist and sat still, waiting for me to continue on my own, handing me the reigns and allowing me complete control over what happened next.

I froze for just a moment, unsure of what I should do, having been placed in such an unfamiliar position, but then instinct kicked in, along with my need to complete what we had started, and very hesitantly I lowered myself, pushing him more deeply inside.

As before, I felt that I was filled completely by him, almost to a point that was painful, but it was that "hurts so good" type of painful, something I'd never experienced before I met my Jack. Before him I had assumed that all pain was a bad thing, never realizing that there would be aches in my future that I would welcome, and even relish, all while feeling as though I were the only woman in the entire world who knew what it was like to feel this good.

Jack's eyes were trained on my face, still reddened from his earlier emotions, and his hands were twined in the covers, his knuckles going white, and I wondered why he was doing that to himself. I reached down to grab one hand and then the other, and placed them on my breasts. His palms chafed against nipples that had blossomed fully with my lust and I moaned, clenching my inner muscles on Jack, causing him to groan and lean his head forward, to rest his cheek against mine.

I was momentarily diverted by our little puppy, and I saw that she had removed herself from the bed, how long before that moment I wasn't sure, and was now sitting on the floor, her back politely turned away from the lascivious behavior of her new owners. I briefly wondered at the ability for a dog to have tact and manners before returning to the task at hand.

I moved cautiously to begin with, experimenting with this new position, and it wasn't long before that fire that Jack was an expert at stroking to life within me began to smolder, and my movements sped up, whimpers and moans escaping my throat, the bed frame bouncing against the wall as I rode my Jack harder and faster.

Jack was breathing harshly, groaning between teeth that were clenched tight. "Soon my Dainty," he whimpered. "Please tell me it's soon."

I knew what he meant, knew that he was just about to lose all of his control. My movements had grown frantic by this point and suddenly I shattered, crying out his name as wave after wave of release crashed through me, and Jack joined me, his own cries blending with mine as we soared together.

We clung weakly to one another afterward, as those who have survived a shipwreck might, our bodies glistening from the efforts of our exertions, our breathing slowly calming. It was then that I became aware of the presence of an odd warmth that had flowed inside of me at the moment of Jack's culmination and my eyes grew wide with shock as they sought out the little box beside the bed, the one that held the contraceptives that we hadn't used this time.

Jack zeroed in on the fact that I'd seemed to have ceased breathing, his eyes following mine to land on the box of condoms. "Does it scare you, Violet?" he asked quietly. "Are you terrified by the knowledge that I may have just sown my seed inside your womb?"

I had expected him to be angered by the fact that we had been swept away, that we hadn't taken any precautions, but that didn't seem to be what was bothering him. "That doesn't scare me," I answered, resting my hand on his face. "I wouldn't be upset if I were to be pregnant with your baby."

His eyes brightened for a moment, but then grew guarded once more. "Are you aware of what it is that you are saying, Dainty?" he asked, turning his head to kiss the palm of my hand. "You know what I'm capable of, and yet you have no idea what sort of horrors I might still have resting within me, what sort of wickedness runs freely through my veins."

I had a pretty good idea exactly what it was that he was talking about, but I also knew that the wounds were too fresh for him. They were long suppressed horrors that were starting to break free from his subconscious, and I didn't want him to push himself to face them too quickly.

"Do you want to know something true?" I asked, changing the subject, feeling the need to point something out to him that he'd obviously overlooked. "You show a lot of emotion with your eyes. I can always tell what you're feeling when I look at your eyes."

He seemed taken aback by both the change in conversation and by my revelation. What I'd said was true, I always relied on what I saw in his eyes to affirm his feelings. They were eyes that were filled with life and if he truly were a completely soulless monster, as he thought himself to be, then his eyes would be flat and dead as well.

"That is why it doesn't scare me at all," I said, leaning forward to brush my lips over each of his scars. "You've done things that you, Jack, are ashamed of. That doesn't make you a monster though, and if there is life growing in me, I'll love that child just as much as I love their father...are we clear on that?"

He nodded his head jerkily and crushed me against his chest, his hands tangling in my hair. "Thank you," he whispered, his lips searching for mine, and we passed the morning away in that bed, holding one another, comforting away any residual fears that may have remained.

Disclaimer: The line of poetry mentioned in this chapter is from The Highwayman, written by Alfred Noyes.