Free The Bitter End by Rue Volley Page B

nostalgic feel of it pissed me off and I stopped torturing myself. You can try your best to mimic memories or feelings of safety, but you will never truly have them unless you are happy. I think my happiness died when I was 8 and I caught him fucking a maid in this very room when I woke from a nightmare and needed someone to console me. He had seen me, so had she, and she disappeared from the staff the next day but her stench remained and my Father never looked the same to me again.
    “Y ou confuse me, not unlike your mother did.”
    I pulled from my memories of the maid bent over the large desk before me and blinked a couple of times.
    “Well then it should make you feel like old times,” I said as I leaned back and decided to just be me and not pretend that I have no anger in me.
    “There is that venomous anger,” h e said as he puffed on his cigar and I watched the thick smoke rise into the air.
    “I guess once a Bittermend, always a Bittermend,” I said and he smiled at me.
    “That you are , Bethany.”
    I paused and then decided to get to the point.
    “I need money,” I said and he stopped smoking and stared at me. He adjusted in his large chair and placed the cigar in his ivory ashtray which weighed too much to move without two people lifting it. It was a ridiculous trophy as was everything here.
    “I tried to help you, I tried to make an arrangement with you that would have given you the life you wanted.”
    “Well I fucked up,” I said and he looked confused.
    “What is wrong with you?”
    I looked around the room and adjusted on the chair.
    “Nothing, I fucked up. I am sorry.”
    He stood up and placed his hands on the large desk, staring at me closely.
    “Have you been in an accident?”
    “No.”
    “Drugs?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    He sat back down and then he laughed so hard it startled me a bit and I jerked in the chair. He stopped and pointed at me with his large finger and placed the cigar back into his mouth and shook his head.
    “What?”
    “You fell in love , did you not?” he asked me and I leaned forward and placed my hands on the large armrests to each side of me.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. I will be living in poverty if you do not help me.”
    He slammed his fist on the desk and I actually jumped back into the leather behind me. He rose up as he had done so many times before when I was a child and he looked like a beast to me. I swallowed hard and told myself he would never hurt me. Even after all I had done while growing up to test his will he never once struck me and on occasion I wished that he had. Sometimes discipline is the only salvation and perhaps that is why I like it so rough in the bedroom.
    “Do you not think that I worry about you , Beth?” he said and I almost laughed, as it sounded ridiculous to me that he would ever worry about me. I was his disappointment, his mistake and reminder of what my mother refused to give to him. It would not shock me at all if he believed she willed to have me be a girl and not a boy. Not one bit. I am certain that the fact that she aborted children after me to spite him ate him up inside too but whose fault is that exactly? It would be his and his inability to keep his dick in his pants.
    “I would be shocked, ” I said as I gritted my teeth a bit and he sat back down looking a bit upset about my answer.
    “Well, I do as any Father would. I know you hate me , Beth. I know you have hated me for a long time but hear me now. I am your Father and you are my daughter as hard as you have fought against it and me. Now, you have two brothers who will inherit our legacy but I would hope that you will know them as family and not as strangers as you do me.”
    I sighed as I looked down at my hands. My palms were sweating a bit and this was the first time I could ever remember him talking to me with the slightest bit of civility and true compassion in his voice. I then stood up as I swayed a bit on my feet. I guess this is how we react to