“Dad... Dad, what are you...? You're here? What, what...? I don't know what you mean? Todd's voice shook uncontrollably, trailing away to a whisper as he shrank from the horrifying vision before him. “I'm not waiting for anything. I'm not... I don't understand...? Why are you here...?” He tried to back up, tried to run--but there was nowhere to go in his head...no way to get away from his father. He fell to one knee, head spinning and stomach lurching as Peter came closer still.

“The girl, asshole...the girl! What do you think I'm talking about? I've been watching, waiting for you to finally get up the nerve to screw this luscious little bitch--and what are you doing? What?” he yelled, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of total exasperation. “Playing games? Telling stories? Damn it, boy--didn't you learn anything from me? She's begging for it, for Christ's sake! Let her have it!”

His father's words scraped savagely through his consciousness, ripping open jagged little wounds with every newly uttered syllable. Todd scrambled to get his mental footing, rising swiftly to face the onslaught of his father's overwhelming presence. “No, no! It's not like that... You don't... you don't understand. This is Téa,” he protested weakly, gesturing towards her. “She's different, she's my wife, Dad,” he added, trying to sound more composed... “I can't... force her when she's scared and confused... I... I don't want to treat her like that.”

“Don't be an idiot,” Peter sneered. “She's female isn't she? She's no different. Women are all the same, they're only good for one thing--you and I know that.” Peter grabbed Todd by the neck and jerked him around to get a clear view of Téa. “Look at her, feel of her, Todd. Smell that sweet smell, feel the heat, the trembling? That's not fear, that's passion, boy--can't you see she wants it? She's sweating, creaming--just for you. Act like a man for once... Go take what's yours...before it's too late!”

* * * *

Téa looked into the darkness of Todd's eyes, searching for some trace of the sad, lonely little boy that she had just seen so clearly... But nothing remained... She could find no hint of his haunting presence. The cold, calculating hardness that glittered menacingly back at her left little doubt that the boy was gone. My God...she thought sadly... what's happened to you in your life...? How many awful things has he done to you?

She slid her hands slowly up his arms to his shoulders, then to his neck, caressing him gently with her fingers. “I'm sorry, Todd. I'm so sorry. I wish I could erase that memory from your mind... I wish I could make it all go away,” she whispered gently, touching his jaw with her fingertips. “Are you okay?” she asked hesitantly. “Todd...?”

For a long moment he gazed silently at her, his expression unreadable. “That's right...comfort me...” he finally murmured, intrigued by the distress and love he saw mirrored in her eyes, by the trembling contact of her fingertips against his skin. “Touch me with those...hands of yours... Whisper to me in that sweet, sweet voice...” he mocked softly, moving closer, relaxing against her. He rubbed his scarred cheek slowly across hers, his lips coming to rest gently against the corner of her mouth. He paused, eyes closed, breathing warmly on her skin, then covered her mouth with his and enveloped her in a deep, soft, lingering kiss...

He stayed close as he released her, surveying her features possessively. “Tell me all the...the things you'll do for me, Téa...” he whispered, pulling her arms from his neck and pushing them down to the bed, away from her body. “...to make me...feel better...” he breathed softly, moving his mouth close to her ear. Slowly he slid his palms down her arms, gently grasping her hands and stretching them towards the edges of the bed. He moved his lips over her face again, pausing to tongue kiss her cheek, her chin. Then, with a soft moan of pleasure, he slid tongue first into her mouth, pushing her head back into the pillow...

Surprised, but unable to resist the gentle seduction, Téa allowed herself to enjoy the contact. Upset by his terrible story, she was thankful for the shared comfort of a tender, erotic moment. Her slender fingers caressed and interlaced with his as she returned his kiss. She felt him squeeze back sensuously, stroking the insides of her wrists delicately with his thumbs. Inwardly she smiled at his response, sensing instinctively that his desire for her was far deeper and more loving than he was willing to admit...

She was still fully determined to find a way to weather this storm, to find a way to reach him, to love him in spite of his angry protests and threatening outbursts. She was relieved that he was allowing her to touch and talk to him again--knowing that the freedom to do those things gave her at least a small chance of being able to reason with him and soothe his anger. She had little doubt that he was toying with her, but at least he was no longer poised to strike...and she took that as a positive sign. She knew that she was probably being set up, that whatever she said now would most likely be used against her, but she answered his question anyway... “Whatever you need, Todd...” she responded carefully, as he gently broke contact with her... “...whatever you want...”

He looked at her for a moment, smirking slightly, then laid his cheek against hers again. He seemed calm, but Téa felt uncertain--she didn't trust him. His coldness, the sarcasm, the steely glint in his eyes contradicted his gentle touch--his soft, sensuous kisses. What's going on...she wondered... Is he planning something new...? Or did remembering his childhood trigger some kind of change...? Oh Todd...she pleaded silently... I don't understand...give me some kind of break here... Something I can use to pull us back together... He seemed so distracted, so disengaged suddenly...almost as if he were stalling, concentrating on some other agenda. “Women,” he whispered softly into her ear, sending an uncomfortable chill shooting through her... “You're all a bunch of lying whores...”

Téa tensed at the words, expecting the start of another angry tirade. But he fell strangely silent, his body still, his forehead lying lightly against the side of her own. Several seconds passed...then a few more...but nothing changed. Téa couldn't figure out what was happening. She began to wonder if she should do or say something. Suddenly a tremor racked his body, like the involuntary jerk before the onset of sleep. She held her breath for a moment, thinking maybe he had drifted off. Then he startled her by lifting his head and smiling radiantly. “But that's okay... I don't mind,” he said softly--a teasing, playful edge to his voice. “I'm used to whores. I've messed around with a lot of them. They're not so bad,” he laughed, wrinkling his nose up slightly...

Téa stared at him in complete, speechless amazement. She had never seen such a totally precious expression on his face before. “I like it better this way...” he added, pulling her arms up and wrapping them around his ribcage again. “Hey, you want to hear another story? There's a whole, big collection of them. I could tell you all about Peter's whores...if you want.”

* * * *

“Let go of me,” Todd snapped, pulling out of Peter's painful grasp, anger sparking deep in the recesses of his mind. “You don't know shit about her...or me, old man...and you know nothing...nothing about women!” He jerked completely free of Peter and backed away, out of the specters reach, a violent shudder of revulsion coursing through his body...

Peter's presence engendered feelings that were brutally sickening. Todd tried desperately to ignore them, but it was futile. He fought to convince himself that nothing he was experiencing was real, that he was merely trapped in the surreal again--locked in another punishing hallucination. But poisonous echoes and shadows from the past came swirling out of the dark to attack him, paralyzing his thinking processes, his rationality. Confusion and chaos started to take over, choking off all reasonable thought. His mind began to fill with broken, scattered pieces of agonizing memories. Without warning his awareness capitulated to the obscenity engulfing him and the surreal turned luridly real. Slowly, the illusion became concrete and the phantom before him solidified into repulsive flesh and blood... As he stared, transfixed and helpless at the loathsome creature in front of him, razor edged fragments of unspeakable suffering and limitless pain began to slowly rip apart his consciousness... Hatred began to pulse inside of him like a living, breathing thing...

“Well, one thing I do know, son,” Peter continued, unphased--his face distorting into an evil smile. “When you've got a beautiful woman sweating under you with her legs spread... ...and your dick's loaded and twitching at the gateway to paradise... You don't waste time spinning melodramatic tales about your misspent youth... You give the little slut what she's aching for... You nail her...!”

“She's not like that... She's not a piece of meat,” Todd snarled, bristling at Peter's references to Téa. The hatred smoldering deep inside him flared, blazing to life and spreading like wildfire through his brain, swiftly obliterating the shock and fear of this unbearable confrontation. Sinking deeper into the illusion, he began to recall small, bitter moments from his hateful childhood. He shifted his weight restlessly, careful to keep his distance from his father. “That's all women are to you... I know, I've seen... I remember,” he added, emphasizing the last word accusingly...

Peter didn't react. He merely watched Todd, the leering grin still frozen on his face. “And just exactly what is it that you remember...? What is it that pains you so much about history, Todd...?” He questioned softly--a sly glint creeping into his icy, blue eyes...

“I remember the women...” Todd replied acidly. “...all those women you went through while I was growing up...all the ‘girl friends’ you brought home...all the little parties you had in the middle of the night.” As he spoke, the ugly bits and pieces of his childhood roiled and tumbled in his head, slowly congealing into dark, dreamlike scenarios. The sickening memories began to play like demented videos clips in his mind, each new scene attacking and eating away at his emotional barriers, tearing down the wall of denial that he had worked all his life to build...

“I'm not talking about the society bitches...the ones with status and money,” he continued. “The ones that you treated pretty good--as long as you thought there was something in it for you... I'm talking about the others, the ones that you paid for...your little hooker friends...” he hissed, disgust clouding his face. “What you did with them was just...just... It was sick, Dad...” he whispered, nervously licking his lips. “I've never done that kind of stuff to women...to anyone... I'm not like that...”

Peter threw back his head and laughed. “Oh no...no you're not like that--I forgot... You're a saint, aren't you... A champion, a protector of the weaker sex... Just ask that Saybrook woman or that smart ass lawyer who managed to throw you in prison,” he chided caustically. “I'm sure that they could testify as to your gentle, compassionate treatment of women... Your pure, chivalrous ideals...”

Todd moved closer to Peter, hatred driving him to reckless impulse, his face contorted and strained. “I know I've done things...awful, terrible things... I've acted like a filthy animal...” Todd growled menacingly. “But lets face it Dad, I had a good role model... didn't I...? You were a great teacher... I was just following all of Daddy's... good examples...” he sneered, stopping just inches from Peter, his body language tense and threatening...

“You were nothing like me in that area... I knew how to take care of my...personal business...” Peter sniffed disparagingly. “You were weak...pathetic... Always making messes that I had to clean up. You couldn't even take care of a couple of stupid females without getting caught and screwing everything up completely...”

“Oh yeah, that was it...that was my real mistake... I got caught--right, Dad?” Todd snapped sarcastically. “I got caught... That was the thing that really pissed you off so royally... It wasn't what I did--it was the way I did it. I was sloppy...stupid...and people found out... That was the unpardonable sin... Everyone found out...and that made you look bad...”

Suppressing the urge to smash the grinning face before him, Todd continued, his voice thickening with emotion. “So you deserted me... You just left me there to hang, because I embarrassed you, because I didn't follow the family code of ethics... I didn't follow your slimy little rules...” he said scornfully. “We Mannings never let ourselves get caught... No, we keep our dirty little games a deep, dark secret... don't we, Dad...buried way down inside--so no one, no one ever suspects a damn thing,” he hissed, spitting the words in Peter's face. “...And most important of all...most of all...we make sure that we never, ever pay for any of the ugly, disgusting garbage that we do...right...?

But I screwed up... I'm just a fuck up, a loser... I did get caught...and I did have to pay,” he snarled, jerking back as Peter reached out for him. “Sorry...but I had to pay in front of everyone, in front of the whole damn country. I had to pay for my stupidity...for my sins...for not living up to your damned, perverted expectations...”

He backed further away, glaring angrily at his father. “I've paid and paid for those crimes a thousand times over...” he hissed, pounding himself accusingly in the chest with his fist. “...and I'll keep paying for them for the rest of my fucking life... But you...” He paused, his voice suddenly dripping with sarcasm. “Oh, you're right... I was never like you... You were always smart... You always got away with it...all of it... You never had to pay for a single thing...did you, Dad...?” he laughed hollowly, sidestepping quickly as Peter closed in on him. “No... You never paid for anything...for any of the sick, twisted shit that you did...”

They stood facing each other silently. He studied his father's expression, waiting for some reaction, but none materialized. As he looked into Peter's cold, blue, emotionless eyes, an amazing realization quietly dawned on him. Stunned, he continued softly, “The only one who ever paid... The only one who keeps on paying...over and over and over again...” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled dejectedly... “The only one who keeps on paying for everything...for all your filthy, disgusting sins...is me...”

The protective barriers suddenly splintered into oblivion in his mind, unleashing all the hidden obscenities--all the ugly, ruthless abominations. His own protections were gone and so was the barrier that kept him separate from the seething blackness of the construct. A brutal torrent of bitter memories spilled mercilessly into his consciousness, pushing his mind to the brink of madness. He felt himself slipping further into the entity, merging and becoming one with the unspeakable rage and suffering there. Trembling, he looked deep into the icy eyes of his father, fighting to hold back the bitter gorge that rose in his throat...

As he fixed Peter with a hateful, withering glare, the terrors of his past rose up around him, whispering and calling his name. “I did sick things all right...” he said, his voice controlled and tight. “But, I was just a novice, a beginner... a rank amateur compared to you. When I did stuff, I was angry... My head was screwed up and I was trying to get revenge, to get back at someone. But you...you, Dad...you just did it for kicks...for the hell of it... Because it...it turned you on... It made you feel good...”

Todd stepped back, eyeing his father contemptuously, as crippling pain began to build in his mind. His voice shifted lower, becoming cold and menacing. “I held a woman down on a bed and raped her... I stalked and tormented another when she was helpless and blind. That was sick all right...that was my disease...my sin... But I've never wanted to do the kinds of twisted things that you've done...”

His consciousness writhed as the sharp discomfort of long suppressed childhood shock flowed freely through him again. “I've never poured a bottle of whiskey down a little girl's throat, pinned her on top of a pool table and worked her over inside and out with a pool cue,” he snarled. “I've never threatened and tortured her with a broken bottle, and then brutalized her with my own body until she was half dead and throwing up her guts. No...no, Dad...that was your specialty...one of your sweet little games.” He paused, grimacing--hearing the muted cries and groans, the piteous sobbing pleas to be released, that had drawn him downstairs to the game room that night. Seeing the blood, watching Peter force the teenager to submit to savage bouts of oral and anal sex even after she'd been beaten and injured... Seeing the whole nauseating scene replay luridly through his ten year old eyes again...

Peter cocked an eyebrow at Todd, smiling at the memory. “She was just a hooker, boy...” he commented quietly. “She was well paid... I took care of her...” he chuckled softly, reaching for Todd's arm once more. “You always were too damn sentimental for your own good...”

Todd stumbled slightly as he twisted to avoid Peter's grasp again. Dizzy, he had to fight through the pounding pain in his head to transform the rampaging flood of memories into recognizable language. He had spent so many years denying everything, deeply burying the ugly transgressions that were forced upon his young mind and body. He wanted to block everything out, to return to the relative safety of denial, but he no longer possessed the power to do so. To have scenes from his life playing out all around him, painfully fresh and gruesomely vivid was almost more than his consciousness could handle...

A new malignant vignette opened in his mind, provoked by the memory of the game room incident. Memories of a young boy, held in captivity on countless Saturday nights, forced to witness the many atrocities of Peter's sickening entertainment. “And I never once...” he continued slowly, laboring to concentrate and be coherent. “...not once, Dad...felt like I needed to drag my kid out of bed and make her sit and watch--night, after night, after fucking night--while I screwed women I pulled in off the street...” he spat out viciously, clenching his teeth against the pain...

Waves of distorted, ugly images washed over him, memories of gut wrenching insecurity, confusion, and shattering embarrassment. Closing his eyes in agony, he saw an older boy, powerless to stop the endless games his father masterminded, powerless to fight his own maturing body as it responded, betraying him again and again. He remembered all those nights spent sweating in nervous, alcohol induced arousal, while every possible sexual experiment was risked and executed. The cloying hands, the soft faceless bodies, the nauseatingly sweet smell of cheap perfume, the primal heat of raw sex--these pictures hung in the air all around him, stark and shameful. Shaking visibly, he inched closer to Peter, pain and hatred dancing lividly in the tortured depths of his eyes. “...And you know what else, you filthy son of a bitch?” he growled menacingly. “I've never...and I will never toss my kid into bed with one drunken prostitute after another...and pay them...to molest her...to arouse, abuse and humiliate her, year after year, until she's like some perverted little animal...” His voice dropped to a dangerous, venomous hiss. “...just so I can watch and jerk myself off...”

* * * *

“Todd?” Téa asked cautiously, looking into his eyes again. The coldness had totally disappeared, replaced by a deep, warm, amber glow that radiated love and trust. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, his face open and beautiful...

“Well, do you want to hear about the whores, or not...?”

To be continued...