All characters are over 18
It's quiet in the house. Strangely quiet, a shroud of silence fallen in the instant of my passage through the door, a feeling of foreboding deep inside my belly that I don't know how I could explain. The kind of feeling that you sometimes get when you're up alone at night and you hear a noise coming somewhere from downstairs, or when you think you do, and all the shadows suddenly loom larger, darker, staring at you from the corners of the room. When the voice of reason in your head tries patiently to counsel that there's no such thing as monsters, that you outgrew such fears a long, long time ago, that it's childish to freak out about imagined noises in the dark...but your heart still pulses worried in your throat, and you have to flip on all the lights you can before you peek your head out into the hall. Making sure the world is still the one you know, that nothing's lurking there in wait for you, with scaly skin and glowing eyes.
"Dad?" I toss my backpack down upon the couch, glad at least to lose the burden. The ambiguous uncertainty I feel reflected in my voice, high and tight with trepidation. I don't know why I'm even calling for him - he's almost never home before me.
So it's another faint surprise, one that lodges nervous in my breast, to hear him answer back. "Come upstairs, Sarah." Serious. Solemn. His voice resonating through the house, sounding somehow as though he's right beside me despite the distance and the walls between us. There's no choice but to obey him, a nameless worry crawling slow along my spine, my breathing slightly shallow, rapid as I make my way up through our aging staircase. Steeper, darker in this moment than it's ever seemed before. The creaking of the wooden boards beneath my feet is the only sound I hear, and its low and steady tempo only serves to magnify my dread.
At the landing, now. The lights are on inside my room, the door is opened wide. Dad's there beside my desk, his arms crossed at his chest, a frown upon his lips, and my throat is pulled already tight with panic. I only hold there in the doorway, afraid to enter, to approach. He's mad at me. The kind of anger that he never shows, that he never feels, now painted thick and glaring on his brow. I don't know why. What did I do? What could I have done?
"Come here." His voice is iron, cold and hard, growling in my ear. No patience for my fear, my apprehension - and if I'm frightened to approach him at this moment, the thought of my defying him is even worse. I have to do it. Tiny steps in his direction, as slowly as I dare, delaying what's before me for as long as I can manage. My eyes downcast, penitent for whatever wrong I've done, risking only little glances at him through my lashes. He stands so big and tall right now, towering above me as I draw closer. As though I'm just a little girl again.
"What is this?" His words hiss threatening at me while I'm still six feet away, his hand extending in a sweeping gesture to the computer that I didn't see before. My computer, my monitor, the browser open to a page I've seen before. I can't make out the text itself, not quite, but the colors and the layout I can see are enough to tell me all too clearly what it must be. What he's found, the reason for the fury I see boiling in his eyes.
"Dad," it comes out desperate, pleading, a word stumbling for purchase. Panic flooding helpless through my mind, twisting queasy at my stomach. What can I say? What reason could I ever give, what explanation wouldn't make things worse? "Daddy, I...it isn't what you think. I just - there was a link, you know, someone posted it, they didn't say what it would be, and I only clicked on it, that's all." It tastes like poison, lying to him, the deception clumsy on my tongue. "I didn't even read it, mostly, not really. I wouldn't, daddy, I didn't..."
A moment passes as I trail into silence. His eyes still dark on me, staring, heavy and intense. Unreadable. Then he speaks again, repeats. "Come here, Sarah." His body language telling me he wants me there before him...I'm trembling as I draw closer, pushing forward my protesting feet that tell me just to run away, to hide, to flee. But if I did, he'd only catch me, and my punishment would be far worse. I must do as he says, as he orders, drawing closer step by step. Three feet. Two. He's a mountain there before me; I have to crane back my head to try to look him in the eye. A feeble, ghostly smile forced onto my lips, struggling to lend support to the explanation that I gave. It was just an accident. I didn't seek it out. Please believe me, daddy. Please.
I don't see him move - I only feel it, a sudden shock of white sensation as he backhands me across the face, as I stumble, almost fall down at his feet from the force of his attack. Tears well up in my eyes before the pain has time to reach my consciousness...but it finds me soon enough, the stinging sharpness that blooms pinkly where he struck me, glowing hot upon my cheek, while my heart pounds swiftly in a greater agony of fear. I've only just regained my footing when he takes a step in my direction, advances on me with his jaw still set, his gaze still hard and sharp as steel, and I stumble backwards, terrified of what he'll do. "Daddy, no..." Helpless pleading as I back away, tears trickling along my cheeks. He's reaching for me, his hand extending out to grab me, and there's no further I can get away, my back already pressed against the wall. His fingers curling around my neck, squeezing with a tiny fraction of his strength that still leaves me gasping, struggling to breathe, staring desperate up into his eyes as though he were a vengeful god.
"Do
not
lie to me, Sarah." His grip closes briefly tighter with the word, precise and threatening, a warning to which I can only pitifully nod. I'm pinned against the wall, I can't escape. He's so much bigger than I am, so much stronger. Looming there before me, leaning down to look me in the eye, his stern and rugged features filling up my vision as he speaks again. The bitter taste of venom in his voice, painful in my ear. "I know about the stories you've been reading. I know what you've been doing up here, masturbating like a little whore."
