The Glass Castle

1.

The waiter uncorked the red and poured. Jack spun it and brought the bouquet to his nose. He inhaled. He tasted. He sucked at the air and swivelled the wine across his pallet. He shut his eyes. It was theatre.

He wore flashy suits and slicked his hair and drove a convertible. He knew nothing of cars or wine or fashion. Only that all three inevitably lead to sex.

He looked back to the waiter - standing there stiff and upright like a penguin - and revealed a set of porcelain white teeth, "Sublime!"

Jack returned his gaze to her across the candlelight. Blonde and full breasted, she watched him with a flair of gaga eyes. Lips red to match her dress. He let his mind wander to the colours that lurked behind it.

The waiter filled her glass and she drank. He lingered a moment too long, held in a hot haze by the swell of her cleavage. His neck arched like a swan. His eyes pulsing in their sockets. She lowered the glass and out came this paradoxical balloon of pink bubble gum. It popped obnoxiously between her lips, snapping him back to reality.

"Ah-hem," he startled, "will that be all, Sir?"

"Yes, thank you...wow, bubble gum and wine. Now there's a combination," he laughed.

She blushed a bright scarlet and her eyes snapped shut in child like embarrassment. "O, my God! I'm so sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me!" Her accent was blue collar and playful, tinted with hints of a foreign land from generations long departed.

"No please, I didn't mean anything by it."

"It's a force of habit," she said removing the pink mass from her mouth. "I forget it's even there," she chortled.

"Well, it's the best damn ice breaker I ever saw," he laughed. "Cheers."

2.

They spoke of themselves and their lives as if it were a pitch meeting. A concoction of lies and half truths. Instagram profiles personified.

They were getting tipsy, getting loose. Toward the end of the meal he ordered a third bottle of wine and with a devil's grin, she asked if he was trying to get her drunk.

He smirked under the shadow of his brow: "Maybe."

With that, she slipped a bare foot from her gloss red stiletto beneath the table and swam it toward him. She found his leg and he felt her slide up him, like a boa. His throat tightened as he forced down a piece of 60 dollar fillet.

She leaned closer. Her eyes stunned. Deep pools of blackwater, soupy from arousal and wine, they vibrated in their sockets and he felt as if he was wishing into a well.

"You wanna have me, lose control?" Her toes reached his thighs and she parted them without resistance. "To succumb to your will, is that what you're after ?" Her foot reached his crotch as she caressed her lip with the tip of her tongue.

His facial muscles had gone dough like and within those enormous orbs embedded in her cheeks, he caught glimpse of his expression. Like that of a teenage boy touching his first tit.

A low vibrating giggle travelled up her throat. "I can feel you...throbbing," she whispered. She retreated her foot and placed it securely back in the heel. "I'll be right back," she rose for the restroom and he watched her go.

Beads of sweat formed and trickled down the small of his back and dampened the waistline of his briefs. He reached for his glass and drained it whole.

Steady yourself Jacky boy.

Next to their table an elderly couple exchanged a sideways glance and a hushed laugh. He reloaded his glass and drank from it again. He caught their waiter's attention and signalled for the bill.

The next bottle would be to go.

3.

They drove with the top down. The city blossomed in technicolour delight and the warm night air was alive and electric. He was doing 70 in a 40 zone and felt the rush of adrenaline from his balls to his ears. She was pressed tight to the Porsche's leather, her eye's wide with thrill. She laughed a girlish squeal like in the movies as he let it go and brought it to 90. Empty streets zipping past like strobes at a rave.

They zoomed through Broadway and went straight for the towering treeline that loomed large over the city.

She brought her voice above the howls of the engine, "WHERE ARE WE GOING?"

"YOU'LL SEE!"

The city lights at their backs as they climbed, the dark becoming total - pierced only by the headlights - brought with it an intoxicating danger. She felt her thighs clench and dared not blink.

He took the corners with reckless abandon. They climbed higher; the wind and the engine roaring in their ears formed a horror duet of banshee and jungle cat.

They burst through the treeline and the tires turned over and skidded out aggressively across dirt road and saturated the air with the smell of singed rubber. He felt his luck running out and the wine leaving his veins. He pulled it over and killed the engine and dropped his head to the steering wheel in a wave of relief and laughter.

She reached over and smacked him, "You crazy son of a bitch!"

He covered up as she swung blindly at him in the dark.

"Heyyy, hey! Fuck! You loved it!" he chuckled loudly, "wait wait stop, Anika...look," he pointed.

She fell back into her seat and followed the dark outline of his outstretched arm. The mountains had split off into a deep canyon and nestled within the fissures of its ancient ravines was the city, shimmering in the quiet of the valley.

She felt the assault of adrenaline dissipate and her breath trail off into a slow and steady rhythm.

They watched it together.

4.

The night poured into them. The moon shone faintly and illuminated them in a gossamer light. The distant glow of the city enchanting and beautiful, twinkled like a sorcerer's spell.

Anika thought of the faces held within its walls, millions of them trying to find their way. Trying to survive. It stood indifferent to those who built it. She knew of its indifference and the sense of divorce one could have from the place they've always been. No matter where you went, the city turned its back on you in a vacuous abandonment. And when the day was done you rushed for cover to hide from those the city left exposed, to rot. But from here it shimmered in silent promise. An inanimate contradiction.

"Why did you bring me here?"

Confused by her tone, he turned and faced her. "What?"

"Do you bring all the bimbos you date here?"

"Hey, wait a second who said anything about bimbos?"

"Oh please, I know what I am to you."

"Is that so?"

"Yea, it is." Her breathing was coming quicker now, flustered in confrontation. She tried to master it. "I'm just a big boobed fuckin' bimbo to you. A whore."

"Now wait a second! I wasn't the one playing footsy with my testicles at dinner and-"

"Yeah, it's called playin' the fuckin' part, alright?" She was teetering on the edge of feeling silly, like a liquored up teenager. She felt a combination of tears and temper swirl in her chest as she searched for her voice. "I didn't go to your Ivy league shit, I don't come from money, alright? I know how I sound and I know how I look."

"Jesus. What's a guy to do here huh? You get me all fired up at dinner. You're laced in red and you're giving me the eye and whispering like the god damn Devil himself!"

Regret began to chisel away at her psyche. She resisted it. "You don't get it," she said quietly.

"Oh come on! You wanna be treated like a whore is that it? All that 'lose control' shit."

"I want to be treated nice!"

"How is this not nice?"

"You didn't bring me here to 'be niceee' - You brought me up here to fuckin' show me what it is you could 'give me', you condescending prick. It's fake. It's bullshit. You're telling me that you think I'm beneath you. You're thinking: 'I know what I'll do, I'll take her up to the view of the city in my big dick convertible. Show her what she's missing.' Well let me tell you something: We don't live in the same city."

He released a hard sigh and sat back into his seat. Retorts poured into his mind but he hung onto them. He did bring all his dates up here after all. But none of them ever gave him heat for it. He was showing off, sure. Trying to impress. Was it his fault he had money and she didn't? He needed to fix it. Fast.

Otherwise you just blew 400 bucks down the crapper, Jacky boy.

"Listen, Anika. I'm sorry if all this, upset you." That's it, turn on the charm. "I thought maybe you'd like to see the city from up here and fine I was trying to impress you. But I didn't mean anything by it, you got the wrong idea."

She allowed his words to trail away into the night and hoped he would give her the silence that followed. He did. And for a while, they just sat.

Anika was first to speak.

Her tone was hushed and held a fighter's weary resilience. "I have to live my life everyday, Jack. I wake up me and I go to bed, being me." He watched the silhouette of her head look to the sky and her hand slide into the bodice of her dress.

The snap of a zippo sparked a solitary flame and she brought it to a cigarette perched on her lips. She pulled on it hard and the warm glow of tobacco briefly revealed a face of tired vulnerability. The thought that he was now on a date with a whole other woman entered his mind. She exhaled and continued, "If I wanna go on a random date for some ice-cream and maybe some sex and just forget about being me for a few hours...I should be able to without being made feel like some ditzy skank who needs to be wowed by your car or your fuckin' fancy restaurant in order sleep with you."

Looks like you blew the 400 either way, Jacky boy.

He watched her smoke.

She had revealed herself. He felt himself squirm, intimidated in the presence of her honesty. He decided to go with his own and hoped for the best.

You fallin' for this chick Jacky boy?

"Ice-cream and sex sounds good..."

He let out a laugh and to his relief, he heard her join him.

5.

They drove in a shared silence. The cards now on the table, they knew what was to follow. To talk further would run the risk of undermining the path that had been set before them.

Anika smoked. A weight had been lifted, the truth bearing witness to the charade atop the viewpoint.

With each passing minute Jack felt a tension build between them in expectation. Something carnal and stripped of intimacy. His throat tickled and he noticed the pressure of his molars grinding together. He thought of her bare foot caressing his balls at dinner and he gave the engine a little more juice.

6.

They arrived at the front of a gated compound. Jack hit a button on the rear view mirror and the gates split in two and opened and revealed a long cobblestone pathway through vast gardens saturated in moonlight.

At its end lay the mansion house. Hollow and unlived, its exterior pristine and manicured. A museum piece.

The car doors slammed shut and rang out over the property. They moved into one another as they approached the arched entry. The wine lending a syrupy texture to their movements. They scuffled against the door with teeth and tongue. Her breath sultry and tinged with alcohol and tobacco.

They entered and at once Anika was struck by a faint smell of oiled leather and metal.

A staircase rose through the centre of the building and trailed away down corridors veiled in darkness. The walls hung bare and without colour. She expected glamour and extravagance, but instead a cold chill cloaked the place. A molested art deco.

"Do you live here, year round?"

He stumbled into the room to their left; his movements triggering ceiling lights as he went deeper into the building. She watched him move further away down a hall of blank grey stone with his shoes creating a sharp echo and automated ceiling lights trailing him. He turned to look back for her, his face cloaked in odd shadow and before she had time to understand it, a thought to run came and went.

"Is everything alright?" he called out. "The kitchen is down this way, what's the matter?"

She moved toward him on hesitant feet, telling him she was simply admiring the space.

7.

The kitchen was a stainless steel structure that wouldn't go a miss in the finest hotels. Jack worked the wine bottle over an island counter of heavy marble running east to west, separating the expansive room between kitchen and living room.

Floor to ceiling glass walls encircled them. The windows mirrored their own reflections back into the room and disguised the outside from view. Anika felt gooseflesh break out across her shoulders and neck and she told herself she needed a drink.

"Don't you worry about privacy?"

Smiling, he tipped wine into her glass: "You mean the windows?"

"Yeah I gotta say I'm a bit creeped out. No offense." She reached for the wine and took a heavy hit. "Sorry," she laughed.

"Blame my architect. Something about natural light, blah blah. After a while you get used to it. There's not another person up here for miles so what the hell."

They drank. Jack gazed drunkenly at her.

"Suppose when you got the place walled like a castle it ain't too much worry," she said. "It's weird, you feel so much safer when there's more people. But that's when you're most vulnerable, y'know?"

Jack took her glass and placed it on the marble and drew her close, "You feel safe now?"

She smiled and raised her lips to meet his. "Look at the rich," she whispered, "not a care in the world. Don't even need house alarms."

They interlocked and moved with abandon into the living room. Items of clothing being flung like confetti as they aimed for the sofa. They bowled over its edge plunging and clawing in free fall and sinking deep into its billowy interior.

She felt his full weight take her. Her hands posturing off his pectorals and running down along his tight abdomen and gripping his buttocks and thrusting his glutes between her waiting hips.

It was difficult to say how the next few seconds unfolded. Shock and fear have ways of moulding time to their own ghastly shape. A moment can stand still or move at a speed that eviscerates all recognition.

It had lingered with him since they entered the house. It was odd that he hadn't set the alarm. He always did. An extensive security system for a property of such magnitude wasn't just recommended, it was demanded. He always set it. Always. Yet, there it was: Don't even need house alarms. Of course he had an alarm. He had cameras. He had a panic room. He had everything money could buy to protect the inside from the outside. This was his castle. His fortress. And he never left it unprotected.

If you set the alarm Jacky boy, then why didn't you have to turn it off...

He wanted to ask her what she had said, to repeat the words, to help him remember, to help him visualise the memory, punching in the code and arming the sensors, leaving to collect the naked goddess that now lay beneath him. But it was too late for that. Her eyes told him what he already knew. He had set the alarm and was too drunk to notice it never triggered when they arrived. Because you can't trigger a disabled alarm. And whoever disabled it caught Anika's eyes before he ever had a chance to ask her to say it again.

Her eyes, they screamed.

8.

"Well isn't this romantic."

They stood casually over the sofa. They wore black. Their faces masked. The one on the left was small but wide. The one on the right was tall and slouched. His heavy shoulders concaved around his chest and his head drooped loosely on his thick neck which gave him an air of idiocy. A long barrelled shotgun rested over his forearm and pointed at the floor.

The small man raised his gloved right hand with index finger pointed and rested it softly to his lips. There was silence.

"Stand up."

Jack suddenly became aware of their nudity. He looked to Anika. Her head was bowed. Her arms hugged her legs against her chest shielding her breasts. Her shoulders rattled silent sobs through her torso and her lips moved in prayer.

He looked back at the masked men. They stood motionless. Small stared at Jack, almost smiling. Waiting. Tall watched Anika with unblinking dead eyes. His mouth hung open; a wet snarling mass of flesh.

Small spoke again, his tone menacingly polite: "Stand up. Or my associate is going to get violent."

Jack stood.

"Stand her up."

Anika whimpered. A guttural prey like shriek escaping on each breath.

"Please. Please just take what you wa-"

"Do you think we need your permission? Can't you see that that's exactly what we're doing? If she doesn't stand up, he's going to blow a hole through your guts. Last time. Stand that cunt up."

9.

Jack's hands are on my shoulders now and my legs are like water and I fall against him and I'm begging, pleading, please oh please don't let this happen to me please. His lips are moving but I can't hear the sounds and his eyes are wide and frenzied and he's watching the men as he partially shields me with his body.

I avert my eyes and cover my breasts. I'm cupping my genitals and my body is shaking. I'm cold and I can't catch my breath and the sounds refuse to register. I can't look at them. I won't look at them.

The floor vibrates like a drum and Jack backs into me his arms spread wide and there is a struggle and someone is taking me and awful sounds spill through my body and I'm thrashing and biting as fingers like rough blades burst into me and I'm clawing and scratching and praying as my head is buried into the quartz flooring.

I can see blood and some of my teeth scuttling like beetles across the tiles. The sickly smacking sound of skin against skin echoes around the room and I can see myself and my raping within the walled windows and I wait for it to be over.

10.

He sags on top of me and his hand is still netted in my hair and his mouth is wet and close to my ear and he's muttering and gasping foul breaths into the back of my neck. His filth is in me.

I feel his weight shift as he begins to detach when a flash of white fills the room and is followed by the cracking sound of a gun.

11.

I turn to Anika. She's curled into a tight ball in the corner of the sofa. She's whispering intensely beneath her breath. Prayers in a foreign tongue.

I gently call out to her but she doesn't seem to hear me.

I crouch to her and place my hands on her soft shoulders. I begin raising her from her shell and I feel the immensity of her nakedness, her vulnerability, diffuse into the room like blood in a shark tank.

Her breath is ragged and when she plants her feet her legs buckle. I catch her and she is crying desperate shrieks as she clutches me and I am useless. Utterly useless. I try to tell her it will be okay. I lie to her.

I steady her and stand between her and them. Pathetically I raise my arms. A naked Christ ready for the slaughter. They remove their masks and it is this gesture that seals our fate.

We are to die here tonight.

12.

Before I have time to find my courage, the tall one has begun moving. His face is a heavily fleshed meat sack. Battered and scarred like a butcher's block. His eyes are black pits. Lunar craters drilled into the depths of his skull. And they look beyond me to his prey.

He hands over the weapon and rounds the sofa and crosses the space between us with menace. He's larger in full view and the ground quivers beneath his booted feet and suddenly he has engulfed my vision and I hear the crunch of bone on bone.

I'm on my back and there is spinning. Anika is being dragged from me, rabid as a wolverine. He has her lifted as if she were a child and he hauls her toward the kitchen. Just fucking kill us I say but instead there is only a hellish silence. Gradually it is replaced with the methodical grunts of a beast.

Small stands over me. His face, that of a viper.

He points the gun and I wait.

13.

Within the realm of mirrors and reflection, Anika observes herself discarded and battered. A cum rag for fiends. Her blood has pooled around her head and the dim light of the kitchen rests upon it like a portal to hell.

14.

Somewhere beyond this place coyotes yip and circle the carcass of a meal beneath a burning firmament raging above, desolate and without cause as wicked creatures roam it's spheres and plunder what little light they bloom from one another in the forever night.