Silence of the Nine 2 Page 4

  Despite being raped in the past, it had been a long time since a man touched her flesh. Since the event she decided would be the last. He was Richard Toddling, a friend of her father who enjoyed her so much he stopped coming over to keep her father company, and instead hit it back to Isabel’s room.

  Richard was always atrocious. He smelled of alcohol, old meat and body gas and he never bathed. For years, she wondered how he was able to live with himself, let alone step into the space of another human being.

  Reaching under the pillow her head rested against, as he pumped into her body, she removed the blade and severed his penis from his groin. Blood splashed over everything visible as he rolled off of her and slammed against the floor. His un-humanlike wail caused Victory and Blake to fly into the room. The moment they ogled the bloody sight, they rushed him out of the house and he was taken to a small private hospital where Kerrick gave a lot of donations. A hospital that kept Prophet secrets when they were beyond his patchwork.

  Kerrick was devastated after learning what happened to his grandchild and how the man lost his penis. Incest was one thing, allowing an outsider to rape his grandchildren was another. So as always, he managed to make the controversy go away. No one ever heard from Richard again and no one ever touched Isabel either.

  But every now and again, when the colors were too loud or too bright, she gave herself pleasure by flicking her clitoris in an effort to ease the crazies.

  It always worked.

  Although beautiful to behold, Isabel was a whimsical teen with an imagination as vivid as that of a child with a box of new Crayons. As a result, through self-induced orgasms, she developed a way to escape within the walls of her mind. Ironically, she experienced bouts of clarity most of the time.

  Most said she would never give her body to a man without severe pain and after what she’d been through, Isabel did not disagree.

  When Alice failed to lick her pussy correctly, Isabel slapped her roughly in the face. “Do it properly, Alice. Like I told you. I bore easily and today my mind is a mess. I wouldn’t want to hurt you. On purpose or in pleasure.”

  Alice was in ecstasy.

  ****

  After sex, Alice was perched in the corner of Isabel’s room. Her back was against the cool wall while Isabel’s head lay nestled face up in the center of her lap. One of her cousin’s braids was squeezed between Alice’s fingertips as she thought about her trials and tribulations. “Tell me something, Isabel, do you adore Nine Prophet?” she asked softly. “Have you fallen under her spell like grandfather and the others?”

  “I have to confess, I don’t know her like I should,” Isabel sighed. “One moment she didn’t exist and the next she suddenly appeared, as queen to the Prophet throne.” Isabel grinned. “As if she came from the ground. Like she’d always been there but we didn’t see her until that moment.” Isabel looked up at the ceiling, still grinning. The idea of rising from the depths was fascinating. “You have to admit, someone with the power to control grandfather is worth knowing.”

  Upon hearing her foolish statement, Alice felt her blood brewing inside. “I disagree. Anybody like that should be watched carefully, not revered.” She paused. “Besides, she’s crazy, you know?”

  “And so am I,” Isabel reminded her. “Don’t let the long moments of sanity fool you. I know who and what I am.”

  “Whatever,” Alice continued, waving the air. “In all of your craziness, at least you’re an authentic member of this family. She is not even a real Prophet, Isabel. The sooner you and the rest of the family realize that, the better off we’ll all be.”

  “Tell me, Alice, what makes a real Prophet?”

  “One who is born with fair skin and one who is of grandfather and grandmother’s bloodline.”

  Isabel rose and leaned against the wall next to Alice. “Doesn’t she come from Aunt Kelly and Uncle Avery?”

  “If you ask me, that’s still up for debate. While it is true that it appears as if she were born from a Prophet, why is her skin so dark? Why does she look nothing like the rest of us?”

  Isabel shrugged. “Oh, Alice, try to rest your mind. You act loonier than me at times. There are so many things going on in this family. So many secrets and so many lies. Let’s not fight amongst each other for grandfather’s throne.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked seriously, with the taste of her cousin still on her tongue.

  “Let’s see, you and I fuck like it is normal. Our family breeds amongst each other, each feeling that it’s okay because it’s the Prophet way. And every one of us is mentally ruined because of it. I’m just the only one who expresses it sometimes.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Isabel.”

  “Of course I do.” She grabbed Alice’s hand. “What difference does it make if Nine has dark skin? Have you forgotten that she shares the same complexion as grandfather?”

  Silence.

  Staring into space, she asked, “Why do you think he loved her more than me?”

  “But he did love you, Alice. Just differently.”

  “But he never took me into his bed like he did Nine.”

  “Because your body was spoiled, like mine, by your father. Nine was without another man until grandfather took her. At least that’s what I heard.” Isabel giggled a little to lighten the mood. “You are my favorite cousin. You stay with me whether I’m sane or insane. But I must be honest about my perception.”

  Alice turned her head to wait for her statement.

  “You aren’t really concerned with her dark skin. You are more concerned with who holds the power. And since she does, you covet it badly…don’t you?”

  Silence. Alice looked away.

  “You don’t have to say a word, Alice. Besides, you and I know that I’ll probably forget this entire conversation a few days from now. So let me do my best to make myself clearer.” She paused. “Don’t go against Nine Prophet. Don’t throw a stone at the one who sits on the throne. You will not win.”

  Alice turned her head back to look into Isabel’s eyes. She spit on Isabel’s hand and flashed her a cold, evil smile. “I smelled your pussy a few moments ago, Isabel. You stink of rotten fish! Next time, wash thoroughly, or I won’t be so quick to pleasure you!”

  ****

  Alice and Isabel walked through the front door of the luxury condominium where she lived with her parents Marina and Joshua Saint. When Alice opened the front door and smelled the sweet stank odor associated with smoking crack cocaine, her stomach churned.

  “So I guess Auntie is home,” Isabel said shaking her head. She placed her fingers over her nose for fear of getting high and going crazier than she already was.

  Embarrassed, Alice said, “Just help me pack some clothes to stay over your house. I don’t want to be here longer than I have to.”

  As they walked down the hallway and bent the corner toward Alice’s room, they stopped short when they saw Marina sitting in the lotus position smoking a crack pipe. At one point, Marina was one of the most beautiful Prophet sisters, which was how she landed Joshua Saint, a wealthy real estate mogul in his day. She received the blessing to marry outside of the family from Kerrick but now she was only a shell of her former self.

  Her tall, lanky body was so emaciated that you could see the formation of her skeletal system beneath her pale skin. Most of her hair shed a long time ago and what was left in its place were a few straggly ends that could be blown away with a soft gust of wind.

  Marina may have fallen off in the looks department but she wasn’t the only one to go downhill. When the real estate market crashed, Joshua lost all of his investments and could never get a foot back into the industry because of his drug habit.

  Now he was the director of a non-profit agency for children, and no one was aware of his addiction.

  Marina, upon seeing her daughter and niece, inhaled the smoke deeper into her lungs and exhaled. With a wide smile, she said, “If you girls knew how I felt right now you wou
ldn’t be judging me.” She raised it in their direction. “You’d be joining me.”

  Alice rolled her eyes and stomped toward her room, the pungent odor of the drugs perfumed her clothing and skin. When she made it to the last door down the hallway she pushed the door open. In a hurry, Alice dropped to her knees, slid out a pink and black suitcase from under her bed and tossed it on top of the mattress.

  While she busied herself, Isabel leaned up against the wall and took a moment to look around. The room was much smaller than the one she had when they owned a mansion, before Nine reduced Marina’s monthly allowance to one percent, due to her drug habit and disdain for Alice, but everything was neat. There wasn’t a stitch of clothing or furniture out of place in the pink and white room. Not even a piece of hair or lint. It looked as upright and honest as the sweet clothing Alice wore to conceal her inner demons.

  “I don’t get you,” Isabel said leaning against the wall, before sliding down and pulling her knees toward her chest.

  “What’s there to get?

  Isabel looked around again. “You don’t strike me as someone who would be as orderly as you are.”

  Alice opened the suitcase and walked to her dresser to remove several sets of folded panties, pajamas and church dresses. “What does that mean, Izzy?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “You’re just…different.”

  “Well you see order and I see a room built for a pygmy. I’m not supposed to live like this, Isabel. Before Nine cut me out of the fortune and reduced my mother’s take, we had a home! A real home not this piece of shit and it’s not fair! Grandfather didn’t mean for me to live like this! I know he didn’t. He would probably roll over in his grave if he saw what Nine has done to me!”

  Her constant ranting about grandfather and Nine irritated everyone, especially Isabel. Alice’s problems in Isabel’s opinion paled in comparison to her own.

  “At least you have your sanity,” Isabel said softly. “I would give anything to be able to stay in the present. To prevent my mind from going to strange places that don’t exist. Every time I go somewhere, every time I come in contact with another human being, I fear I’ll leave my mind and not remember who or what I am.”

  “With the way my life has been going, I would kill for your reality, Isabel.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because at least you get to stay in your body and have an escape,” Alice said in a heavy whisper. “This world is overrated. You have what I want and I have what you want. I guess that’s why we work.”

  When the front door closed, Alice smiled and turned to face her bedroom door. She looked as if she were a child waiting on a big surprise on Christmas day. Every second that passed, it looked as if she were about to explode, as if the anticipation was killing her and as Isabel saw her tense body, she figured it was.

  It took a few seconds but eventually the man of the hour appeared in the doorway. Her father. Joshua Saint. “Look at my sweet, innocent little girl,” he said licking his lips before taking his gaze up and down her body. “I see you’re wearing the dress daddy loves.”

  Although Alice was twenty-two, Joshua preferred to look upon her as a child, which was why she dressed like a juvenile instead of the grown woman she actually was.

  “Hi, daddy,” she said grinning. “I almost missed you. But I’m so glad I didn’t. I’m leaving to stay with Aunt Victory for a little while.”

  “Well I’m glad I’m here, sweetheart.” He rushed into the room and planted his arms around her before giving her a soft peck on the lips.

  Unlike Isabel’s father who raped Isabel, Joshua used a slyer form of molestation to win his daughter’s heart. He seduced her into a sexual relationship for most of her life and she was gone, unable to accept the reality that her father was nothing more than a vile pedophile.

  Alice saw things another way.

  In her mind, they were in love but couldn’t be together because others wouldn’t accept their adoration for each other. His manipulations poisoned her mind, causing her to compete with Marina, thereby destroying the bond a mother and daughter should share.

  While they greeted each other, Isabel sat on the floor and looked up at them with detestation. She hated him. Hated everything he represented but especially the sly smile he exposed whenever he was in Alice’s presence.

  And whenever he looked at her.

  Isabel might have been deemed touched, but she was far smarter than the average Prophet and she knew some things were off limits. And that included men sleeping with their own daughters.

  Even grandfather didn’t go for that, she thought. Despite the relationship he had with Nine.

  “So you walk right past me without saying anything just to come see this bitch?” Marina asked, walking into the doorway and leaning on the frame. Her eyes were as glossy as marbles, consumed with ego and void of life. “I’ve been waiting for you to get home all day, Joshua. What about me? Don’t I deserve at least a hello?”

  Joshua released the hold he had on Alice, turned around and looked over at his wife. Sensing a fight, Isabel stood up, grabbed a few items out of the closet and threw them in the suitcase before closing it in a hurry.

  “You were getting high, Marina,” he said through clenched teeth. “Without me, at that.” He paused throwing his arms up in the air before dropping them by his sides. “Besides, ain’t nothing wrong with a man greeting his daughter if he wants to.”

  “I was getting high without you because I bought it myself. Remember the rule? You made it! If you don’t put in on it, you can’t get none.”

  Joshua’s teeth began to grind. “Forget all that,” he responded waving her off. Joshua was a lot of things but he never used profanity. “Like I said, ain’t nothing wrong with a man spending time with his daughter. If you got a problem with it so be it!”

  “It is a problem if a man’s daughter wants to fuck him!”

  Their relationship went on under her nose for years and now, with the drugs in her system, she forgot about her part in the situation. How she allowed his molestation to happen, and pretended not to know, for fear that he would leave and she would be the only Prophet sister alone.

  Isabel pulled the suitcase off the bed, grabbed Alice’s hand and whispered, “Let’s go. Don’t let her do this to you.”

  But Alice was unresponsive. Her mother had her undivided attention and she couldn’t hear a thing but her evil words replaying over and over in her mind.

  It is if she wants to fuck him.

  “He’s my daddy. And you just…”

  In seconds flat, Marina was in front of her daughter and wiping her dirty nails down her face, pulling flesh along with her stroke. Alice, too afraid to fight, protected herself by balling up tightly and running in the corner. Blood trickled down her face and she was about to rip her up again when Joshua grabbed her from behind and tore her away. “What is wrong with you? She’s your daughter!”

  “She ain’t none of my daughter! She’s just some bitch who wants my husband! She can’t have him!” She looked at Alice with a contorted glare. “Do you hear me? You can’t have him!”

  Not wanting to be around the drama, which would cause her mind to go awry, Isabel grabbed Alice’s hand, pulling her out of the room and toward the door. Once they were outside of the condominium, she dug into Alice’s jean pocket and removed the car keys. Alice was in a zombie-like state and Isabel felt sorry for her.

  She wasn’t big bad Alice Prophet anymore.

  She was a child. A product of dysfunction.

  She softly lifted Alice’s hand and placed the car keys in the middle of her palm. “Let’s go home, Alice. You don’t have to stay here.”

  Alice turned around and looked up at the condominium. “You believe in reincarnation?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Never gave much thought to it before I guess.”

  “You think if I die and come back, I’ll get a mother who loves me?” She turned to Isabel and a single tear rolled
from her eye. “Oh, Isabel, I would give up everything if that were true. Everything.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Take him and cut him out in little stars.”

  - William Shakespeare

  Mo Wright lay on the damp bed, his long leg dangling off the edge as he gripped the back of sixteen-year-old Sheena’s neck tightly. Stabbing the center of her warm vagina repeatedly with his penis, he was in ecstasy at how deeply he’d fallen for the youngin’.

  Their rendezvous wasn’t supposed to be that way. It wasn’t supposed to be that powerful. He knew she was much younger than he was and that her father would kill him, but he allowed himself to fall deeper for someone he was not supposed to have.

  When he felt himself about to surrender to her strokes by cumming deeply inside of her womb, he released the hold on her throat and smacked her in the face, forcing a lustful smile to span the corners of her mouth.

  Oh how she enjoyed pain by him, because at least his attention remained on her. Where it belonged.

  He was trying to regain control over a relationship where he had none. She was in charge and if she took herself away from him, he would be lost.

  “I love you, Sheena,” he moaned. “Even though we shouldn’t be together. I know it’s fucked up because Antonius will never understand how much I love you.”

  “Let nothing stop us from enjoying this moment, Mo. Not age. Not circumstances and not my father.”

  He was about to release into her when suddenly the front door leading into the polluted motel room came crashing down. Mo Wright, forever quick with his whistle, was too sedated that night and he received a bullet to his palm as he reached for the .45 on the table next to the bed.

  Twenty-five armed men crawled into a space built for two. And despite the crowdedness, the soldiers split down the middle, making way for Nine to stroll calmly through.

  Sheena may have been causing a commotion by screaming and yelling at the top of her adolescent lungs, but it didn’t stop Nine’s soldiers, called the Legion, from speckling Mo Wright with red laser lights. In case he got gymnastic, they would push so many holes through his body he would be liquefied in seconds.