Already I could see the erection in his slacks. The way he tried to adjust himself, move out of the light. He left for maybe a minute and returned with a knife. Slowly he cut through the ropes on my ankles and wrists, his whiskey breath on my face.
“Stand.”
“Wha—”
“NOW!” he growled from deep within his chest.
I shuffled to my feet. My body was so unbelievably sore. There I stood, naked in front of him. In one swift, rough motion, he clutched onto the back of my neck and forcefully threw my ass onto the bench of the piano.
I barely had time to register what was going on when he sneered, “Play.”
“Play wha—”
“Play,” he emphasized each letter.
I felt like this was a test that I was going to fail miserably at.
“Juliet,” he warned right next to my ear. “If you don’t start playing, I’m going to whip your fuc—”
My fingers began moving, and I played what came naturally to me. It was one of my favorite pieces to perform.
There was so much emotion.
So much depth.
Intensity.
Craze.
I played what I was feeling, all the hysteria he was putting me through with his multiple personalities.
One finger right behind the next, my hands danced from one end of the piano to the other. My body and head moving in sync with each other. I got lost in the music, in the vibrations, in the mania of the tips of my fingers, becoming one with the sounds I was evoking. Closing my eyes, I let myself be one with the melody and the life this song was breathing into me.
His vicious words.
His cruel demeanor.
This power he held over me from the moment I’d first seen him.
It was all overwhelming, consuming, breaking me into a million pieces.
Like a shattered doll.
A broken toy.
I. Was. His.
No mind of my own.
No thoughts for myself.
No opinion.
No talking back.
He was stripping everything away from me.
I wanted it to stop.
Please, God … make it stop.
The song was beginning to end, over too soon. I never wanted to let it go. I had to; he would make me. Giving me pleasure and pain was what he did best. I held on for as long as I could, seeking refuge in the only place I always could.
I didn’t want to open my eyes. When I did, this would be over—the high I was riding on would come to a complete stop.
I wouldn’t be Juliet…
I would only be his pet.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Donovan
I was sitting in the closet, all the way in the back corner, where he couldn’t see me at first. It didn’t matter how far back I hid in the darkness; he always found me.
I cried; I couldn’t help it.
I didn’t like it in here.
“Sir … please let me out. Please, Dad. I’ll be a good boy. I promise; I’ll be the best boy.”
He didn’t listen. He never did.
My body was shaking.
I was scared.
What would he do to me this time?
Tears streamed down my face; faster and faster, they fell down my cheeks as I waited for the punishment that always came.
“Shhh … baby … shhh…”
I recognized her soothing voice, knowing who was in my room with me.
“Play for me, Mama,” I murmured so low she wouldn’t hear what I said.
He didn’t like that. When I begged for her. It’d only make him meaner, madder, hurt me more than throwing me in my closet with the door locked on the other side so I couldn’t get out.
I was trapped.
Alone.
It wasn’t long before I heard her playing on my piano for me. She always did when she could get away from him, long enough to comfort my fear of him. He was never nice. He didn’t smile, or laugh, or play with me like I’d see in movies and television shows.
Nothing.
He yelled, and hit, and threw me in the closet. Sometimes it felt like I lived in here, with my sadness and my tears that never stopped. Mama started playing Clair de Lune, my favorite song.
I don’t know how many times she repeated it until all of a sudden, I heard his hateful roar, “Did you think I wouldn’t have found out?”
She stopped playing, her finger sitting on a key for a second too long.
I gasped, thinking he was talking to me, but he wasn’t. I could see through one of the holes in the door that he made one night with a knife. He stabbed it so many times, screaming that I was a bad boy who never listened to him.
I did.
I tried to.
It wasn’t enough.
It never was.
“I asked you a question, pet. Don’t make me ask you again.”
I jumped, hating every second of what was happening, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
I was stuck.
I couldn’t move, trying to breathe through the terror I was feeling. Exactly how Mama taught me to.
“Master, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You fucking liar!”
The sound of his whip was the next thing I heard, instantly hitting Mama’s skin. I didn’t make a sound. Even though I wanted to scream, shout, beg him to stop beating her. Usually, he’d strike her a few times and then stop; this time, he wasn’t stopping himself.
“Master, please…”
“Donovan, do you see?! Do you hear your lying whore of a mother?!”
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
He struck her so many times I lost count. She fell to the floor by the bench of the piano.
Surrendering in mercy.
Usually he would stop. This time he didn’t hold back on his assault.
“Donovan…” he sang in that voice I hated more than anything. “Tell him the truth, pet. Where did my boy come from?”
“Master, please… I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“You’re a horrible fucking mother, lying to him for this long. I can’t trust you with anything, you stupid bitch!”
Over and over, he hit her.
I looked right at the whip with wide eyes, terrified of if he would stop.
Would he?
It didn’t feel like it.
“You like that, son?” he asked like he could see me. “Maybe you will turn out to be something and someone after all.”
He was in front of the closet in four hard steps, and I instinctively shot back into the wall behind me.
There was nowhere I could go, but that didn’t stop my mind from thinking I could hide from him. He unlocked the closet and opened the doors.
Was this a trick?
What do I do?
“Come here.”
I looked at my mama from across the room; her face was sad and afraid. She always had the same face when he was around. She wasn’t the same mom with him in the house.
“I. Said. Come. Here.”
I didn’t like the sound of his voice as I moved toward him.
“Crawl to me, Donovan.”
“Sir—”
“Did I say you could talk?”
I shook my head, getting down on my hands and knees. Slowly, I did what he ordered.
“This cat o’ nine tails, son,” he said, moving his head toward it, “carries so much power. You have no idea how much control and power you have with this simple weapon. Now, this is your chance to prove to me that you aren’t fucking worthless. I want you to take it and hit your mother. Do you understand?”