Page 3 of Feed Your Fiends

He knows I haven’t.

“You weren’t curious about the new installation?”

I follow his gaze to the slim, long black covering on the floor that I can’t figure out. Not that I tried, because I simply don’t care.

“No,” I say bluntly. “I had a lot on my mind.”

“This will help you relax.” He walks to the wall and flips a flushed switch I hadn’t noticed before.

When the smooth cover retracts, it’s like the gates of hell have opened because that’s what I hear rushing manically below. I rise slowly, joining him near the edge of what I can now see is a tank. The penthouse is two floors, partially. Bart bought one of the flats below to create a basement where the tank must be. The pool’s slim, and the sleek black walls are oddly angled and shiny.Too shiny. Impossibly slick.

“An aquarium?” I ask slowly as he rips the cage’s door open, and two crystal pits shine out at me.

“You’ve heard of infinite pools. How about an impossible one?”

I eye him curiously, my heart’s wings fluttering madly as sheer euphoria rushes through my brain.

“What goes in can’t come out. Not on its own.” He stoops to tear the beast out.

The massive splash of ice-cold water doesn’t fall to the ground before I fly down the theatre ramp to watch the show below. But then I trip as my eyes land on her, the feature focus of the room.

My mother gazes at me, too, one eye slashed open, the other piercing through my soul. Her teeth, once perfectly aligned and pearly white, are broken, jagged, blood-stained nubs. Her head’s lulling at an unnatural angle, her neck completely broken, her skin blotched with plum patches from burst blood vessels.

Her glass encasement, or preservation as Bart deemed it, is angled, casting a reflective illusion so that she’s staring at you three-hundred and sixty degrees. I’d tried blocking out the glass, but she still stared at me from the vaulted, reflective ceiling I couldn’t reach with stock ladders. The lights can’t be adjusted to black her out either because this isn’t a traditional theatre. It’s a showcase. A reminder.

Bart had theartisticportrait installed for my arrival home from my mother’s funeral,alone. He’d had a flight to catch. But something draws my attention away from the corpse portrait. I’d never thought it possible to be down here and not look at her. I creep toward the right wall of glass, utterly enthralled by the frenzied whirlpool and the dark shadow swirling inside.

“You think I don’t listen, but I remember every detail of that little story you told me,” Bart’s voice curls around my ears that erupt in goosebumps. “The way she suffered at his hand. I heard your desperation when you urged me to find him, even though I knew exactly where he was. Right beside me.”

I swallow. It’d been a raged-fuelled moment of weakness that sent me to my father. I wanted who hurt my dove. I wanted to gut them from their soft, pink insides outward.

“You think my moves and calculations are because I don’t care, Gant, but I do. I just understand the long form. You must learn to be patient. Everything in due time, and haven’t I come just in time?”

He’s right because the corners of my lips touch the crinkled corners of my eyes as an unnatural smile that shows all my teeth transforms my features in the shiny glass’ reflection.

I watch, utterly transfixed as the shadow tries to scamper out, as it throws itself onto those impossibly smooth walls just to fall again and again into the black water. Into the churning abyss.

Bart’s fingers curl onto my shoulders like they did when I was a little boy, and a rare surge of pride overcame him. It’s the only form of physical contact I can remember, barring the occasional handshake.

I feel like a little boy, too giddy to be a man. My head’s floating up into the fucking stratosphere as euphoria saturates my blood. This is the best gift I’ve ever received, besides my baby’s pretty pussy that choked my cock with each aftershock.

My eyes flutter shut for a half second as I drink in the moment because the visual is that overstimulating. The guttural gasps, the feeling of sheer helplessness, the same helplessness my doll felt when she was shoved in at nine years old by the only man meant to protect her back then.

Sight. Sound. All I’m missing is a taste. I lick the freezing glass with one slow broad lick as the beast looks for mercy.

“Are you pleased?” Bart coos.

My heart flutters faster, my soul shooting from my eye sockets. “No. I’m downright delighted. Jubilant even.”

“I love to see that cruel smile. It’s like looking in a mirror.”

His smug smile matches mine in the glass of my new tank, and we both know how much he loves himself.

Is that why it took my mother so long to fall in love with me, unlike her firstborn? I’m Bart’s carbon copy. It must have felt impossible to love someone who resembles the person you despise.

When I was born, was she shattered for a second time? To see this face all over again? To see it even when he was never around? A constant reminder.

Not a prince. A memento.

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