My birth was a means of survival, a claim to power. My birth was a way to keep being in control.
Both my parents knew exactly what kind of monster I would turn out to be. They made sure I was perfectly constructed to destroy everything around me, even myself.
Now I had to pretend none of that was disposable information. None of it was open for discussion.
As far as my parents were concerned, I wasn’t supposed to know any of this. All I was supposed to be was present, accessible, and glorified.
Khaos was the only one who knew about our parent’s motives. None of his knowledge was surprising. He always seemed privy to information he shouldn’t have. I only found out by accident, not a happy one either.
Now feeling like an orphan was a perfect time to break every rule I only ever bent.
Abigail’s black, long-sleeve, form-fitting dress seemed pretty simple, but on her chestnut skin kissed with random freckles, it looked anything but average. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a bun with her baby hairs framing her features.
I was sitting on my bed toying with the Xanax pill bottle distracted by her trying to balance while strapping her heels to her ankles with the split in the dress showing off her thigh.
Distracting was an understatement.
Abigail was exotic in every way. Freckles didn’t match her almond eyes or even her hair color. Every part of her was mismatched and puzzled together. I couldn’t be the only man who found her stunning, but her letting me worship her made her feel put together just for me.
“You look…” My words got tangled up in my thoughts, and my heart picked up the pace.
“Horrible? Hideous? Grotesque?”
Strutting over to me like the model she really should have been, her long legs crossed over the other effortlessly, like walking so elegantly was natural. Stopping in front of me, my hands found the slit on either side, pulling her closer to me, skin to skin.
“Beautiful, Abigail.”
“You can’t look at me like that. We don’t have time.”
She tugged the band holding her bun up on the crown of her head, and I watched her crimped hair fall down slightly past her shoulders. She was right; we didn’t have time if we wanted to be remotely on time to my parents’ house in Malibu. The drive alone was painful, never mind what the night held.
“It’s a long drive, toots.” Standing up, our chests touched, and I looked down at her in the painted-on skull makeup sprayed down with hairspray by one of the waitresses who worked at Sins and Forgiveness. Apparently, it was her day job doing stage and special effects makeup, so she handled making paint work as a mask.
My parents wanted me to be the good little Clave member, so I was going to give them as much death as possible.
I could tell she wanted to say something, but nothing snuck out of the gap between her open lips. Her chest was raging the same way mine was, and I could tell by the smallest amount of pink sitting on her cheeks that she was turned on just being this close.
I wanted to tell her she had the same effect on me, but that meant relinquishing some of the only power I still held, which wasn’t much compared to Abigail’s grasp on my balls.
That came in second to what we were both thinking about, the results, pregnant or not.
Relinquishing power to Abigail was something I could get right with. Relinquishing power to my parents or the Clave who shot down any idea of her being on my arm tonight? Wasn’t going to happen.
Originally I was supposed to be Jessica’s date tonight. Also not happening. Abigail was still waiting on test results from her doctor, but it didn’t take a genius to know there was a tossup chance it was coming back positive.
She wasn’t just Abigail, the woman I’m secretly loving. She’s Abigail, the woman who is going to be mine forever for a reason other than I love her. This was so much bigger than control either of us possessed at this point.
The Surreal Ball was hosted at my parents’ house, their place in the Hills. Instead of the Estate that was a good couple hours’ drive out of the city, this was a stone’s throw away instead. I didn’t give Abigail any hints to what she was walking into either. It was easier to take it all in and just draw your own conclusions. Each room was a different adventure and all of them were made for each sense: taste, touch, auditory, visual, and smell.
Taste was better known at tripping, even though I took so many pills the dull chalk taste didn’t actually taste like anything anymore.
Touch was where things got sexual, naturally.
Auditory was a room with a projector playing mind bending Illuminati 101 videos meant to work in conjunction with the drugs.
Visual was the dancers, which, if we’re being honest, all the senses blur into each other.
Smell was the blindfolded dinner.
Now you try explaining that to the woman you love, who is possibly pregnant with your kid, who has zero ties to this fucked up world. She greeted my monster with open arms, but a whole cult of fucked up people? That’s testing boundaries when I knew they wouldn't accept her in return.
She would accept any part of me, and I knew that now.
That L-word vibrated in my mind again.
The house I grew up in was plenty big with a cast of darkness over it, like it was once haunted or subject to a whole bunch of murders. Ryan Murphy would probably pay the big bucks to shoot some fucked-up show here. The American Dream, privilege, and all the dead bodies piled up that led whoever lived here to stand on to look so tall.
Lanterns lined the long driveway, and the mood shifted even from safely from inside the car. Abigail noticed it, and her fingers dug into the inside of my thigh even more.
“It’s not that bad.” I tried to reassure her, when I needed someone to reassure me too. This shit was a grenade waiting to go off with the pin in my hand, and I was standing way too close.
“I’ll be the judge of that. This is where you grew up?”
“Yeah, it is what it is... I basically grew up at boarding school with the guys. It's tradition.”
Abigail’s eyes frowned. “That must have been hard for you guys growing up away from your families.”
Just when I thought you couldn’t surprise me… Leave it to Abigail to feel sorry for us.
There was a man standing with a clipboard next to the valet stand, customary. He was the gatekeeper of the ball. We were all given the clues to decipher the code word to use tonight. If you got it wrong, they would assume you weren’t Clave and be disposed of… I’m sure it was more drastic than just being asked to leave.
Khaos was the one only excited to solve the riddle:
What is easy to get into but hard to get out of?
Trouble.
Getting out of the car, the guy opened Abigail’s door, probably the only nice gesture she would see come her way tonight. I spoke the word to the man, and his white glove shook my hand. These could have been the gates of Hell.
Abigail’s arm looped around mine, staying close, while we walked up the staircase to the ball. I was already dreading it and ready to turn around to leave.
“Just don’t leave my sight,” I whispered into her before we truly entered this ninth ring of Hell.
My parents were front and center, both wearing the traditional masks they always wore: stag and doe masks, dripping in decadence. The masks we wore were supposed to conceal who we were, but still allude to the status in the Clave we truly were. It was clear they were the top of the pyramid.