Sasha peeked at Tyler from behind her towel. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize,” her mother said. “I was the spell caster. I created the love that stirred between the two of you last week and only I can make sure the love child you have created will be protected.”
“You did curse me.” The words were out of Tyler’s mouth before he could stop them.
The woman laughed a single, hearty note that echoed around the bathroom. “There are no curses, only spells.”
“You think you’re a real witch?”
Sasha grabbed his arm. “Please.”
Sasha’s mother ignored the comments. “And no spell can really work unless the foundation for the spell already exists. My daughter loved you and so I cast a love spell to help her woo you, but that spell would never have worked if you had no love in your heart for her.”
Not love, lust. He didn’t want her heart—he wanted her big breasts, her firm legs, her warm middle. Christ, was she actually pregnant? He needed to get rid of Sasha’s crazy mother so he could address the real issue.
Drag her out with you and kick her down the stairs.
“I have to go,” he said and hoped such simplicity would work.
Sasha gripped his arm more tightly. “Please,” she said again.
The black spray paint had faded to resemble a massive bruise in the middle of her face. “Sorry,” he said and shook off her arm.
“It is time.” Sasha’s mother removed a large carving knife that had been hidden somewhere in her dark layers.
* * *
She told them to strip naked. Sasha took off her shirt and unfastened her bra, breasts dropping loose, and started to undo her pants without objection. She had suffered this humiliation before. If the kids at school knew, Sasha would be the eternal joke from now through fifty years of reunions.
When her breasts came free, Tyler felt a moment of desire but it vanished almost immediately. There was nothing sexy about the way she undressed. It was too mechanical, like an abused child dropping pants to take the nightly punishment. If the school knew, Sasha would be put in a foster home and her mother in a jail, or an asylum. Maybe that wasn’t so bad.
“I’m not doing anything,” Tyler said.
Sasha looked at him with broken eyes that begged for his cooperation. Don’t leave me alone, please.
Her mother pointed the blade of the knife at him. He didn’t let his mind reason his way out of this. He started to undress. This was, at least partially, all his fault. He had done something he shouldn’t have and now this was his punishment. He hesitated when he got down to his boxers but Sasha wasn’t gazing expectantly, so he pulled them off too. An inner cold sprouted bumps across his exposed flesh. His balls had knotted themselves as close to his body as possible and his penis stuck out like a plump finger.
“Place all the clothes in the tub and turn on the hot water. We must let them soak.”
Sasha did what her mother said and Tyler watched in panic as water drenched his clothes and his jeans began to float as the tub filled with steaming water.
“I’m so sorry,” Sasha whispered to him as she turned from the tub.
“Face each other.”
They did. He tried to keep his eyes on hers but they drifted to her breasts before he realized it and when he snapped his focus back up to her face her expression was so weak and pathetic that he wanted to hit himself for being so inappropriate at this moment.
Inappropriate? his mind squealed. What’s inappropriate is her mother forcing you to stand naked in the bathroom while she holds you hostage with a giant knife.
“Raise your hands palms out to each other and join hands but do not clasp to each other. There must be a connection but it must not be one of force or born out of fear, desperation, or panic.”
Her hot and sweaty palms felt good against his hands which felt like they had been dipped in an ice bath.
“Kiss,” her mother said. “Do not do anything but touch lips to lips. There is no lust here, not now—not yet. This is the joining of life forces already merged in an act of creation.”
Her lips were as warm as her hands and for a few moments he was somewhere else. He was with her, yes, but not naked standing in a bathroom in front of her mother; they were off somewhere dark and private where they could kiss and bask in that warmth without fear of what would happen next.
Sasha broke the kiss and Tyler expected Sasha’s mother to command them to kiss again because their life forces weren’t yet joined or something, but instead the woman stood in the bathroom doorway using a lighter to heat the tip of the knife. She was lost in the small flame flickering around the metal tip. If ever there was a time to run …
“What is she doing?” Tyler whispered.
“… I don’t know.”
“But she’s done this before?”
“No.”
“I can get past her.”
“No.” She turned to him. “Don’t leave. Please.”
She’s as crazy as her mother, that voice insisted. Now they’re going to cut off your dick and cauterize the wound. They’ll keep your cock in a jar and use it in their witch rituals. Maybe they’ll even name it. “Bring forth Little Ty,” they’ll say with a giggle.
“Are you really pregnant?
“I’m sorry.”
Her mother snapped from her trance and approached them. “On your knees, hands still together.”
They got to their knees. The tile was cold, though the air had turned warm and humid.
“Kiss again, and this time don’t stop until I tell you.”
Beads of condensation ran down the wall over the tub like blood.
He shut his eyes and they kissed again. The rushing water in the tub might have been a secret waterfall in a cave somewhere, something they could share while they embraced.
The woman grabbed his wrist. Fiery pain melted into his hand and he screeched in Sasha’s face. Her mother kept a firm grip on his wrist while she pressed the glowing tip of the blade against Tyler’s hand. She uttered some phrase over and over again but Tyler couldn’t decipher it from the scorching pain burning through his flesh.
Sasha grabbed him around the neck, forced him to look at her. “Don’t move,” she said, “it’ll be easier if you don’t.”
For a fraction of a second this seemed like a good idea. Do what Sasha says, let her mother finish the ceremony, and then run home. But the pain shattered that logic and he pulled from both Sasha’s and her mother’s grips, and fell back against the tub full of steaming water.
“Get away from me!” he screamed, his voice strained and confused. “You’re crazy, both of you!”
The back of his hand was bright red where the metal had branded his skin. It was an arrowhead glowing faint orange. The damaged skin was starting to bubble, rising above the rest like some relief map.
Sasha tried to comfort him, but he pushed her back and she tumbled into the front of the toilet.
“We are not finished,” her mother said in that deep, dead voice. “You must both be marked.” The flame flickered beneath the blade again.
The pain in his hand kept intensifying, burning louder and louder throughout his body like a screaming madman let loose in his brain. The flesh puffed like cooking dough and bubbled like melting cheese. If he touched the injury, his skin would rip, maybe even expose the bone.
Sasha held out her hand to her mother, who took it and brought the tip of the knife to her hand. Sasha’s whole body rocked with the initial touch of burning metal against skin, yet she did not pry her hand away. She gritted her teeth and cried profusely but said nothing while her mother repeated the magical phrase again and again. This time, Tyler picked up the words.