Evanna McIntyre

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Everything had happened so fast: a head in the refrigerator, Titus’s fingers in your cunt, and you somehow speaking the unspeakable to your father, all in the name of ending the game. It had never occurred to you that the game might get topped off to full--freshened up with a devilish splash from a black bottle--after the ring was on your finger. And that was perhaps a mistake, that underestimation, because now you had to face your family in the cold light of day. Without the champagne flowing. Without the string quartet drowning out any improper questions. Without the benefit of chaos.

Titus was out on the veranda taking a phone call. Barring a more brash spray of silver in his curls, he looked almost identical to the man you had met all those years ago in Luxembourg. The comparison fascinated you for a moment, as you considered how the same could not be said for you. The girl that wiggled her hips at the beast was not the one who now bore his name. That girl would be stunned, horrified, at what you had become.

Oh well, you thought, as the absolute boulder on your ring finger caught the summer sun pouring in through the gauzy curtains and flamed with cold fire. Someone gazing too directly at the wrong angle might suffer permanent vision loss. You liked that, too. Titus turned around, catching your gaze, and from the slow, predatory smile that spread across his face, you were reminded that, most importantly of all, it was what Titus liked. With a ring that big and extravagant, there was no mistaking who owned you.

Your smile curdled slightly, but you reached for your glass and took a sip of cold water, no longer alone in the huge, empty dining room. It was the restaurant attached to the lodge, but Titus had made sure it was reserved for this moment.

“Just us and your parents,” he said, watching for your reaction. You had been in bed together, naked except for the ring, which he insisted you wear all night, even if it caught constantly on the lace trim lining the pillows. The why behind the arranged meal spread across you like a withering rash. You schooled your expression just in time, revealing nothing.

“That will be lovely,” you replied, reaching up to cup his cheek.

Titus rubbed his nose against yours, delighting in the chance to be grotesquely domestic while you both circled around his real desire. Which was, as ever, to win, to establish the hierarchy in new and twisted ways—Titus on top, you beneath him. Your job, as you determined it, was to fight just hard enough to make the triumph meaningful.

“I’m sure they’ll have questions,” Titus continued, his voice full of gravel from how much he had used it the night before. “Your father in particular.”

A staff member escorted your parents across the vast dining room, taking the most circuitous route, presumably at Titus’s request, giving them the maximum amount of time to take in the tableau—their darling, only child seated at a table by the windows, dressed in chic perfection, her improbable husband standing just to the side of her chair, bending down to lovingly brush a kiss across her temple. Your parents approached with the enthusiasm of criminals being led to the gallows. A normal man would have given your mother a warm, reassuring son-in-law embrace, and your father a confident handshake, but Titus was an imp from hell with the long shadow of a biblical king, and so no such graces were offered.

“Mr. Danforth,” your father said, cold. He glanced at you, eyes narrowed, fists clenched. “Ducky.”

Titus’s hand tightened on the rung of the chair closest to your ear. Subsequently, you straightened and chose your words carefully. “Good morning,” you said, looking for all the world like a regular bride basking in the post-nuptial glow.

“Ducky?” Titus asked softly, just to you, lifting a brow.

“He’s always called me that,” you said with a little shrug.

Nobody had invited your parents to sit. They hovered awkwardly on the other side of the table. It felt like they were strangers, like you were seeing them for the first time.

“Do you like that he calls you that?” Titus asked. He had yet to really acknowledge that your mother and father had arrived at the pre-planned time at the pre-planned destination. They could have been houseplants; they could have been flies.

“Not particularly.”

Your father was not a kind man. Love was assumed and performed between you, but he had never been shy about lamenting that you were a daughter and not a son. It was your fault, somehow, that they had never conceived again, and your fault for being a girl. He didn’t need to say those parts, you just felt it, in his total indifference to your inner life, in the way he scoffed at your ideas and complained when you needed, well, anything. Your obedience, effort, and success weren’t enough. Not until this moment. Not until a deadly predator stood at your side.

Now your father looked more than ready to listen and engage. Not with relish or anything approaching pleasure, but with the straight-backed desperation of a man who knew he was staring down the barrel of an invisible gun.

Titus sat down beside you, unfolded his napkin and settled his hand on your thigh under the table. “Tell him that.” He stared calmly at the side of your face. “Tell him not to call you that anymore.”

Your father had called you “Ducky” since before you could remember.

“Don’t call me Ducky,” you said. The word “daddy” almost slipped out, but you wrangled it back in time. Titus had made it abundantly, clit-pinchingly clear that he and he alone owned that title.

Your father bristled, chewing his cheeks.

God, it was kind of invigorating. As a conscious adult, you had never backtalked your father or let him hear you complain within earshot. Now there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, and it felt good. Titus squeezed your thigh. A waiter appeared and began filling their water glasses.

“Won’t you join us?” you asked, the consummate wife, the consummate hostess.

Your mother broke first, taking the seat closest to you. Your father looked as if he couldn’t wait to leave, vanish, and die, probably in that order. He adjusted his tie as he sat beside your mother, a glance exchanged between them that did not escape Titus’s notice. You felt the tension ripple across his body as he shifted almost imperceptibly closer to you. Married life already looked good on him; the smooth dunes of his chest were just visible beneath the cotton fabric of his nine-hundred-and-fifty-dollar hazelnut-colored Bruno Cucinelli t-shirt, the even tan across his forearms and face bringing out the copious freckles that, like everything else about Titus, lay in wait.

Titus accepted a bottle of champagne from a waiter, pulling a switchblade out of his pocket and swiveling to point the neck toward the wall, using the knife to deftly, decisively saber off the cork in a single stroke. The end exploded like a gunshot. Staff scurried forward to catch the spray of Armand de Brignac Brut that ejaculated in a spectacular arc. Titus handed off the bottle and wiped his hands, then settled in his chair as the first course arrived.

In agony, you watched the chilled shrimp cocktail land in front of you. Nobody moved or said anything. You looked helplessly toward Titus. Please.

“This is my way of saying thank you,” Titus explained, and it was almost convincing, but you detected the flow of ice beneath each word. “And for being flexible.” His hand landed on your thigh again, high up enough to make the waiters look deliberately elsewhere.

“We should be thanking you,” your mother said. Her hand fluttered nervously over her throat, her eyes watery with fear.

That pleased Titus immensely. His smile touched his eyes, briefly, as he bit the head off of a shrimp and gestured for someone to bring you orange juice for your champagne. A staff member leaned down to whisper that they were out of orange juice, but perhaps the lady could tolerate grapefruit?

“Fucking savages,” Titus muttered. Your mother had started saying something else, more flattery, more platitudes, and Titus spoke over her as if nobody else were in the room. He shifted his hand from your thigh to your wrist, lifting your hand to his lips and kissing the space just above your sparkling ring. A sizzle of desire flashed across your skin. You could feel your cheeks burning as his eyes held yours, his fingernail scraping along your palm. “Darling, can you endure the grapefruit? They’re terribly sorry.”

They. The kitchen. The staff. Never him.

“I’ll survive,” you said, with the slight sighing edge you knew he loved.

“So practical.” Titus chuckled, returning your hand but not before offering another heated glance above your fingers. He swiveled back toward your mother and, suddenly gracious, asked her to repeat what she was saying. The next course arrived, the half-eaten shrimp whisked away. Every tiny movement echoed in the cavernous dining room. A breeze stirred the curtains, reminding you there was a whole world out there, away from this horrid exercise. Your gaze followed the wind, and you lifted your face to feel the soothing gust that bathed the table in a cool, grass-sweetened breath.

You couldn’t hear your mother. Titus was the only one who really ate. He finished his small portion of layered crispy potatoes with caviar, then dabbed at his lips and followed your line of sight, out toward the fields, and further, to the distant cottage where your fiancé had drawn his final breath. Titus leaned toward you, perhaps captured by your dreamy expression, and kissed the warm apple of your cheek. It was the gentlest, most husbandly gesture he’d managed in the last twenty-four hours.

“She’s not even listening,” you heard your father mutter.

The second course disappeared. Out came the third. As the lobster eggs benedict landed in front of each of you, Titus wrenched his attention away from you. He didn’t glare at your father, he didn’t need to, he simply looked, simmering there with one fist clenched on the table. This is what those poor fuckers in Pompeii must have felt like as the smoke erupted.

“Don’t do that.” Titus laughed, dark, fidgeting and rubbing his thumb and forefinger together where everyone could see it. He tilted his head this way and that. His other hand was on your leg again, climbing, darting smoothly under the silky fabric of your short dress. You kept yourself steady, breathing in even gusts, sipping your (admittedly) shitty grapefruit mimosa before taking a prim bite of your food.

“Don’t speak to my wife like that,” he added, when your father didn’t answer for himself.

“Mr. Danforth—” Your mother pleaded with your father in a stricken undertone. But with seemingly little regard for his own safety, your father brushed her off. “The way this has all been done, it is outrageous, insupportable—”

“Don’t fucking raise your voice at my table.” Titus was visibly enjoying himself. This was another one of his ambushes, a trap, he had wanted your bumbling father to hang himself this way, say just enough to justify Titus’s temper. “Don’t raise your voice in front of her. Did you see it?” Incrementally, Titus leaned forward, unblinking, eyes trained on your father, who had gone a troubling shade of purple. “She flinched when you yelled just now. We all saw it.” He canted his chin in your direction, addressing you without ever taking his eyes off of his chosen enemy. “Do I make you flinch, baby?”

You cleared your throat before the laugh could ruin his fun. Did he make you flinch? In the hour before this scheduled brunch, Titus had put you face up on the bed in your newlywed suite and placed your hands above your head, warning you, in a tone that made your blood freeze, not to move until he was finished. I’m going to fill you up, baby. Your tummy is going to be so full. You’re going to be so full of daddy’s cum, can you handle that? He had squeezed your tit like he was trying to tear it off your chest. Stars exploded in front of your eyes. You promised you could handle it. He popped a Viagra, chased it with a line of coke off your collarbone. You lost track of how many times he came, his cock stilling and shrinking then growing again but never leaving your cunt. He kissed you like the only air on the planet came from your lungs. He slumped on top of you between rounds, moaning into your neck. When your own body responded, when you had the energy, he watched you shiver and whine with electric eyes. Make me a daddy, make me a daddy, make me a daddy.

“Never,” you said, batting your lashes. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

“That’s right, princess.” Titus grinned, every tooth a fang. “A real daddy never makes his baby flinch.”

Your mother studied her potatoes resolutely.

“I don’t have to put up with this...this unholy alliance,” your father finally bit out, grunting in pain as if Titus had punched him directly in the dick.

Unholy alliance. He had no idea.

“I’m afraid you do,” Titus countered. “I don’t just own your daughter, no, I own all of you now. But don’t worry, you won’t see much of us. If you’re needed for a holiday or a photo or a baby shower, my chief of staff will be in touch.”

Your own smile arrived. That suited you just fine. You were suddenly less daunted by the task ahead of you, the rest of the courses; you were, in fact, hungry. Ravenous. Titus’s hand arrives at its destination, the pads of his right fingers ghosting across the damp fabric of your panties. You canted your hips forward, meeting his touch. You knew that when you finally stood, the stain on the chair would be embarrassing if you had any shame left to feel. His own cum leaked against his skin as he hooked one finger around the fabric and grazed his knuckle up your slit. Your throat tightened around a gurgle. He had fucked you so many times already and it wasn't even noon, yet you would happily sweep the plates from the table and let him have you again. Again and again. All the while, he kept his gaze steadily on your father, lips quirked playfully to one side.

You ate, discovering the lobster was cooked perfectly, so perfectly that you moaned quietly with delight.

“That’s right, baby, eat up,” Titus purred. Across the table, your father made a strangled noise. There was no telling if your mother even still existed. “You should tell them the good news.”