Sins and Reborns

Chapter sixteen

GRACE

Blood oozed out of my mouth. The metallic tang on the tip of my tongue, touched my tonsils, so it hurt to swallow. Paired with the blue and purple bruises, everything ached. My teeth bit my lower lip hard when I moved, winced at the pain above my ribs. Right now, I was bent over the toilet, gripping my stomach as my fingers went down my throat. Touched more blood, choked like I was dying. But I refused to open my lips, refused to let it fall in chunks into the toilet.

Make it go away, it can make it go away.

My vision watered at the incessant pain; cheeks stained with puffs of pink. What other choice did I have? The pain refused to let go, made itself known with tense bursts. At last, I slumped forward against the lid, the final remains leaving me, spat it all out. Flushed it all down, watched the thick, crimson gooey remains. The water turned into a hurricane below my face, reaching, reaching until it lowered.

A knock sounded on the door. "Grace, my dear, are you okay?"

Mr Mayer. I was still there. I was still at his house, and he didn't make the pain any better. If possible, he worsened it. I choked out a sure 'yes', heard his heavy footsteps retreat down the hallway. He repulsed me with the need to get too close. Mr Mayer was a doll collector. He liked the young, fresh little dolls with porcelain faces. But he threw the old dolls (his wife) away, moved onto new. It was a repetitive cycle of want, hormones, and boredom. All day, I'd long for him to find a newer, shinier doll. What he truly saw in me, I didn't know.

It all came down to sex. Gerald Mayer was merely a man who ran on basic, primal instincts. But it could've been far more sinister. Like with Father and Mother.

I almost threw up again at that.

After rinsing my mouth thoroughly, I left the restroom, fixed the uniform. Gerald was perched in his study, glasses on the bridge of his big, crooked nose. Mouth turned in a snarl as he scribbled on files with a blue-ink pen. He was man of a very few words, though. Yet the empty, mouldy green eyes spoke all, belonged in a grave with other devils. He deserved to have maggots crawling all over his rotten corpse, chewing on leftover skin.

God, what was I thinking? Those kinds of thoughts were not for a young woman or any decent human, at all.

"Grace, my dear, come join me." Mr Mayer's mouth twisted into grin as he beckoned me forward.

"Um, shouldn't your wife be home soon?" I attempted my best to make time for myself, for a chance to escape. I wished for Evelyn to walk through the front door and scream 'hello' to him. I'd be safe. If she was there, I wasn't in harm. Her hatred I could stand; his filthy touch I could not.

His fingers bent as if to urge me to move. "I think we should have a chat before that. She's in a meeting."

Anxiety crippled, the bile rose again. "My mother... my mother wants me home right about now. She called earlier –"

"For God's sake, Grace!" He shouted, smacked those rough palms on the desk. The fit of rage burst out of him in a violent surge. "I am your superior. How is that hard to understand? I own this house, this room, and anything that comes with it. I bought this house with the money I have earned, and all the crystal bowls and expensive silverware. I have bought it all, so I own it. And so I own you too. I bought you, Grace. I pay you good money and let you flaunt around in that fucking uniform, so where is my respect?"

He'd put me in my place, shown that I spoke into a wall. Unspent tension raked through me. His words made me want to run for the hills. To never look back. Yet there was this doubtable question that remained, put a hole in my tummy: was he right?