MIDNIGHT

Stefan
By the time I got home, it was well past midnight. I went directly to my room, not sure if she’d have done as she’d been told or not, but there she was, asleep in my bed. She was still dressed and on top of the sheets. Her arm hung over the side, and a book lay facedown on the floor.
She must have been waiting up for me. Or trying to.
I watched her for a few minutes. She wore white shorts and a yellow tank top, and long wisps of chestnut hair had fallen all over her back and arm. Her legs had tanned a little, and looking at her bare feet turned in a little at the toes, it made her look like a child. Like she needed protection.
And she did.
More than she knew.
I touched her face. She made a sound and turned away, still asleep. I picked up her book. When Nietsche Wept. I raised my eyebrows.
“Interesting choice.”
After setting her bookmark in the page that was open, I placed it on the nightstand, then sat on the bed and pushed the hair off her face to look at her.
She wore no makeup and slept so soundly. I couldn’t remember ever sleeping like that. Nightmares had ruled my childhood and carried well into my adulthood. Always evolving while at the same time, always staying the same. I was envious of Veronica. I didn’t begrudge her. I was simply envious of her.
She rolled over onto her back at that moment, her arms falling open on either side of her. She wore no bra, and her tank top stretched across her chest, emphasizing the small, round mounds, the dark nipples. Her short shorts showed off her nicely toned legs. I sat on the bed beside her and, feeling a little like a creep, I undid her shorts. When she didn’t stir, I dragged them down off her legs. She wore pale pink lace panties. My cock was hard at the sight of it, at the little triangle of dark hair just beneath the lace.
Clearing my throat, I adjusted my cock and stood.
“Veronica,” I said softly.
Nothing.
“Veronica.”
Again, no response. The girl could sleep.
Lifting her to sit up, I pulled her tank top over her head. At that, she stirred, blinking several times, giving me a half smile, then closing her eyes again. I smiled back, stupidly, knowing she couldn’t see me. She was asleep.
I drew the sheets back and lay her down and slid her panties off as well, liking her naked in my bed. Liking looking at her. A moment later, I forced myself to cover her again, then went into the bathroom to shower and climbed into bed beside her.
“I’m in your bed,” she muttered, rolling toward me and throwing her arm over me. “Like you said.”
“I see that.”
But she was out again. I wrapped an arm around her, holding her close to me. Did I feel guilt over what I would do to her, to her sister? I would destroy Kingston Winery to punish her grandfather. I knew it meant I would destroy her in the process. I had no doubt my promise not to leave her on the street didn’t absolve me.
How ironic, how parallel our lives seemed. How strangely the same. Our paths didn’t merely cross. They moved along exactly the same path. What her grandfather had precipitated, the loss that had killed my mother, I would repeat it. I would repeat history knowingly. I would set fire to the Kingston lands. Obliterate the vineyard and the Kingston name.
I fell asleep to these thoughts running through my mind, and the nightmare I’d had a thousand times before was different this time. I knew it by the way it began, knew it as I choked on the smoke, trying in vain to reach her, knowing I’d be too late.
I was always too late.
This time, the house was different.
This time, there were no sirens, only the sound of fire and destruction in an already destroyed house. This time, when I reached the bedroom and pounded on the door and heard her inside, I knew it was too late, knew what I heard was her dying.
And this time, when I broke the door down, it wasn’t my mother’s charred body I found. It wasn’t hers at all.
I shot up in bed, breathing hard, sweat covering me. My eyelids flew open, banishing sleep, leaving only the carcass of this version of the nightmare that had been repeating for six years. I looked over at Veronica beside me, who somehow still slept.
Would she be the Sleeping Beauty who would turn to ash this time?
Would it be me to strike that match and set the fire?
Who else but me who would destroy her?
I told her I wouldn’t be a beast to her, but wasn’t that my intention all along? Wasn’t her destruction central to this plot of vengeance? Wasn’t it in motion now, fully in play, after that change her grandfather had made to the contract?
I was a monster. I knew that. But to destroy her?
Her?
While my mind warred, she lay sleeping, oblivious and unconscious beside me. She held such a strange power over me.
Why couldn’t I hate her? I was supposed to fucking hate her.
I got out of bed, angry and irritated and frustrated as fuck, and went downstairs, through the kitchen, taking old faithful-my favorite bottle of whiskey-with me. I didn’t bother with a glass. Didn’t need one. I knew where I was going. To that hated place.
Still no fucking lock on the door. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t chance not being able to get in there.
I opened the cellar door, the smell already taking me back years and years.
Was this a twisted sanctuary of sorts? A tangled, dark thing, one I couldn’t escape, one I dreaded that drew me back time and time again?
I drank gulps of whiskey as I made my way down the stairs. No lights tonight. I didn’t need them. I knew every inch of the place, and the two small windows at the top of the one wall let in enough moonlight. It fucking highlighted the whipping post, as if it were a spotlight shining on the thing.
I drew back the cover of the first table, letting it fall to the ground. A spider crawled away, its long legs delicate on the worn leather. Whips lay all coiled as if waiting for their turn. They wouldn’t get it, though. Never again. Not on my back.
For a long time, I stood looking at them. I knew the feel of each one and flinched at the remembered pain.
The whippings only took place at night. Always after I’d gone to bed. Maybe I was still conditioned to wake up at the same time as those nights. I think he liked it. Liked knowing I slept with dread, never sure if I’d be shaken awake and dragged to this place to be punished for sins I didn’t even know. I don’t even think it mattered to him whether or not I’d done anything. Whether or not any of us had.
I drank again, swallowing half the bottle this time. My throat burned, but I didn’t care. I needed it. I needed that burn as I reached out and touched the long fine leather of one of the whips, the one he’d used the most. Without thinking, I wrapped my hand around the braided handle. It was worn, the sweat from his exertion a part of the thing now. Lubricating it. Keeping it supple even years later.
When I drew my arm back, I watched, transfixed, as leather slowly uncurled like a snake. I snapped my arm back, cracking it on the floor, flinching with the sound, a thing I could never forget. Memory made my back tense in its attempt to protect itself.
I drank more of the whiskey. Then, keeping the bottle at my side, I turned my attention to the whipping post. It, too, was worn in places. The carvings were softened where flesh had hugged it time and time again. I drew my arm back and struck it, heard the sound of leather wrapping around wood, remembered how the tail would circle back as if each stroke would count for two.
As if the leather itself were greedy. Ruthless.
But what did it feel like for him? To stand here behind me, or behind her, hearing our cries, seeing our pain, watching blood slide down our backs. What did he feel to stand here and hold all that power? To be master of our pain? What?
“Stefan.”
Her voice broke the silence of the room. Disrupted the chaos of my mind.
I knew she’d come.
“I want to know,” I said, looking at the worn wood, as if she’d heard my thoughts, and I was just continuing the conversation. “I want to know what it felt like for him.”
When I did finally shift my gaze to her, I found her standing at the bottom of the stairs barefoot, my T-shirt hanging to midthigh, her arms wrapped around herself. She watched me, her gaze veering to the post, the whip, to my white-knuckled fist around the handle.
“Are you drinking?” she asked.
I realized I still held the bottle in my other hand and brought it to my mouth, draining it, then sent it smashing against the far wall.
Veronica jumped.
I faced her, took a step toward her. Then another.
“Come here,” I said.
“Put the whip down,” she said.
“I like holding it. I like how it feels.”
“No. You don’t.”
“I do. I really do.”
“What happened tonight? Why are you down here? It’s after one in the morning.”
“Come here.”
She eyed the whip and shook her head.
“Are you afraid of me?”
She studied me, her forehead furrowing a little. “No.”
A lie.
“Then come to me.”
It took her twice the steps it should have to cross the space between us.
“Did you undress me? I woke up naked.”
I nodded and touched the curve of her waist, bunched up the T-shirt in my fist, and pulled her to me. “I like you naked.” I snaked my fist around behind her, holding her to me, and leaned down to kiss her.
One of her hands wrapped around my shoulder, the other clutched the wrist that held the whip, keeping my arm at my side.
Her lips trembled a little, betraying her caution.
Drawing her closer, I pressed my face into her hair, inhaling the scent of shampoo. I closed my eyes and breathed deep. “I want to feel it,” I whispered against her ear. “It’s sick, isn’t it?”
The hand that had circled my shoulder now moved to my face. She looked at me with pity in her eyes.
I hated pity. I fucking hated it.
I wanted it gone.
And it was, in the next instant. I felt my face change, my eyes darken, and knew the moment she processed the change because fear replaced that pity.
To be pitiful was to be weak. I would not be weak. I’d decided that the night I’d killed him.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Veronica. I accept myself as I am.”
“No, Stefan. This isn’t how you are. It’s not what you want… you shouldn’t drink…”
I released her and stepped over to the post, laying my hand on it for the first time in years. I remembered the ridges, knew them intimately.