Bedtime Stories

[Merelas]

“You whore! You little slut! One more incident like that and I’m going to bind your knees together with barbed wire--you understand me, trollop?”

 

The girl only sobbed as her grandfather shoved her back into her bedroom, followed her in, and slammed the door.

 

“What the hell is the matter with you? You sick, twisted, whore-of-Babylon! If I ever catch you with that boy again, I will take your head in my hands and twist it so hard that your neck will simply break! Do you understand me?”

 

Her only reply came in gasping, teary sobs. The old man strode across to the bed where she had fallen and roughly grabbed her face with both hands. “Do you understand me?!” When she didn’t respond, he released her face, and turned as if to leave.

 

He turned again just as suddenly and brought the back of his hand hard across her face. The blow knocked her over on the bed.

 

“I asked you a question, slut. Answer me!” He grabbed her by the shoulders, sat her up, and hit her again. A splash of red sprang up on her cheek where his ring had crossed her fair flesh. She nodded, still sobbing, her eyes puffy and red. The man stood silent for a moment, looking down upon her. The only sound that filled the room were her sobs and gasps for breath between sobs.

 

She wanted to turn away from him and bury her face in her pillow. She wanted to turn up the ends over her ears with her face in the middle, crying into the floral pattern on the case. I can’t do that…it will only make him angrier.

 

He wanted to throw her back onto the bed and rip off her clothes. He wanted to teach her a lesson for her impurity—swapping spit with that plowboy. He wanted to tie her wrists and ankles to the bedposts and ravage her; that would teach her the error of her ways. I can’t do that…she might tell her mother, and then I’ll be fucked.

 

They moved at the same time. She stood, and he reached down to gather her into his arms. They collided, her chest against his head. Her eyes widened as she braced herself for another slap, but it never came.

 

He laughed.

 

He laughed slowly, quietly at first, and then harder. Eventually, he sat down on the bed, and she sat next to him. He wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, and her head tilted in to rest in the crook of his neck. His other hand reached up to brush her hair out of her face, tucking it gently behind her ears. “I’m s-sorry, grandpa.” She stuttered as she spoke, trying desperately to calm the sobs and gasping for air.

 

“I know, pumpkin. I know.” He tussled her hair, and kissed her forehead. They sat like that for twenty minutes until she finally stopped crying. The old man stood to go, and was almost at the door.

 

“Grandpa?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Tell me the story?”

 

“Which one?”

 

~*~ To be continued…