Kill Switch (Devil's Night 3)

She doesn’t want to belong to you.

She doesn’t want to belong to you.

Oh, I knew. And I was going to take great pleasure in delivering lots of what she didn’t want.

But every muscle in my body tightened and knotted anyway, unable to let go.

She doesn’t want to belong to you.

I closed my eyes, hearing the words echo in my ears.

“You belong to me,” my mother says. “You belong to me, and I belong to you.

She lays beside me, slipping an arm underneath my head, looking down at me as she holds me close. “We’ll always be each other’s, Damon. Mommy will be yours no matter what. For the rest of your life. I’m yours, baby.”

I nod, but absently, I close my fists, the sheets of her bed bunching in my hands. I sleep with my mom a lot. She likes to keep me close, but I don’t tell anyone. I’ve been to other peoples’ houses—other kids my age—and I know this isn’t how they do things in their homes.

My mother’s silk nightgown caresses my chest, and her black hair tickles my arm. She gazes down at me with a small smile.

“I don’t belong to your father,” she says. “Not the way I belong to you. I was only thirteen when he first saw me. Did he ever tell you that? I was only a couple of years older than you are now.”

She dives in and tickles my neck, and I let out a little laugh before turning my head and pushing her hand away.

“He came to see my ballet troupe perform,” she goes on. “He came a lot, and I would see him watching me from the audience. All the other girls were so jealous, because I got flowers and presents, and I never did before. He called me his little princess, and I would dream he was going to take me home and make me his little girl and take care of me, so I didn’t have to live in that cold theater anymore with so little to eat.”

She looks off for a moment, her smile falling. I know my mother was young when she married my father. I hear people whisper when they find out she has an eleven-year-old son.

“And then one night,” she continues, “a big, black car came to get me. I was told to dress in my prettiest costume, they did my hair and makeup, and I left the theater. I was taken to his house, outside of Moscow, and he asked me to dance for him.” Her face lights up again, and she dives in, whispering as if it’s some secret. “And I did. I twirled and leaped and danced under the chandeliers on the marble floors of the hall, feeling like I was in a dream. He let me eat cake and drink champagne.”

One finger of her hand trails down the center of my torso, and then all of her fingers fan out across my stomach, making the little hairs on my body stand up. That feels good.

“And when I fell asleep,” she says, watching her hand caress me, “I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten to the bed. To his bed.” She stares off, lost in the memory. “I’m not sure when I woke up. Maybe I’d only been asleep for a moment, but when I opened my eyes, he was pulling my costume down… baring my little body…and ripping off my tights and slippers.”

I freeze, listening to her and surprised but not surprised, either. I haven’t heard this before.

But my father does awful things.

“I started to cry,” she tells me, “scared and screaming when he kissed me all over and bit my body so hard, and when he pulled down my panties and shoved himself inside me, I…” She breathes hard, still locked on the images in her head. “I liked it, Damon. I liked it.”

I know what she’s talking about. What he was doing to her. I’ve seen it before.

But she was thirteen. Her ballet studio in town had girls who were thirteen. I can’t imagine any of them…

“I liked being ravaged by him,” she continues. “I was a big girl now and he was so much rougher than the men I’d seen taking some of the other dancers when I would peek in the rooms of the theater. This is what men do. They ravage. They’re strong and they ravage, Damon.

She looks down at me, and that’s when I snap out of it and realize her fingertips are trailing down the front of my sleep pants.

“And it’s time you start practicing,” she says.

She reaches inside my pants and takes me in her hand, rubbing it.

I shake my head, squirming as I try to inch away from her.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” she croons, kissing the corner of my mouth and moving her hand faster on me. “Do you feel that, baby? It’s getting hard. That means you like it. You like what Mommy’s doing.”

No, I don’t. She’s not supposed to do that. She’s not…

I still, closing my eyes as it pumps with blood and sticks up straight.