The Visitor
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Eventually I spotted my uncle shuttle a small, blonde into the home. Unlike the others that had disappeared, after several days my uncle called me down to the main hall, proud and beaming, the small blonde teen at his side. He introduced him as Jakob, and me as Cole, rather than as Master McDowell. I wondered at this breach of etiquette, recalling Jakob’s shabby clothing and unwashed hair, which had both been cleaned since his furtive entrance. This was explained when my uncle stated Jakob would be staying with us in one of the rooms, and that he would live with us as my brother.
My hand still gripping Jakob’s in greeting, I paused as my uncle’s words echoed through the hall. I examined Jakob, the difficulty of whatever place he had come unable to hide the softness of his cheeks, the blue of his eyes, or the loveliness of his hair. He managed to look me in the eye, though it was a struggle for him, being little more than an adolescent, and me close to leaving it. It gave him an appearance of shy kindness and I couldn’t help but imagine what my uncle would do to him once dusk arrived.
When Jakob joined me at the dinner table, it only reinforced my initial impression of him. We ate in relative quiet, only making cursory statements to the servants and each other. I longed to ask him where he was from or how my uncle had found him. However, his quiet nature seemed to insulate him in a gentle air that I did not wish to disturb. This only buried me deeper in my shame as I felt it was only a greater sign of my own cowardice that I should not try to warn or protect him. We dined for several nights in a row, ending with me going to complete my studies and he escorted off by my uncle.
One night I braved up to my rescue fantasy enough that I stealthily followed them to see my uncle lead Jakob into his library. As that did not seem the place for nightly emissions, I chose to hope that my uncle was, in fact, earnestly educating Jakob. Such was my pusillanimity.
This false, naive hope lasted until another nocturnal knock came at my door and I squeezed my eyes shut wishing my uncle leave. This was dashed when I heard my bedroom chamber door open. However, this time, the sound was not the heavy, sliding footsteps of my uncle, but light and quick. Finding my courage, I sat up to see Jakob standing by my bedside. His appearance, with his unblemished skin, thin frame, and straw hair, was so unlike my uncle that I couldn’t help but smile. The idea of spending a night with someone as gentle and guileless as Jakob touched me in a way I no longer thought possible.
This faltered quickly, though, when I looked Jakob in the eye and saw nothing of his gentleness there. In his eyes was the same hard avarice that I had come to expect in my nightly visitations. This was only reinforced by the quick and direct way he climbed onto my bed and pulled his own nightshirt off. His prick was hard and standing and I found myself staring at it as he pulled on my own shirt, attempting to access me in a familiar way.
While a part of me remained paralyzed as I had many nights before, I found a part of me was repelled by Jakob behaving so unlike the gentle boy I shared dinners. I grabbed his wrist, stopping his advance. This sparked such an anger in his eyes that I felt fear lance through me despite his smaller size and younger years. I began to vocalize a protest, but before I could Jakob spat out the words, “Now? After all this time, now you resist?”
It was then that I witnessed something change in Jakob’s blue eyes, as if he were swimming to the surface. His verbalizations became clouded as well, words merging together until they were incoherent. I had read of seizures such as the ones Caesar had endured and I imagined the pain and uncertainty they caused were much like this. But in a moment, the apoplexy passed and only Jakob’s fear shone through his eyes to meet mine. He stuttered out my name and sat up, confusion and panic shining through as his eyes darted around my room. Before I could say anything else, he slid off the bed and fled, a platinum shadow that escaped the room.
The next evening’s dinner, I sat to eat alone. When the servant Charles served me, I inquired as to whether Jakob would be joining me. Charles only flashed his white smile and said that Master Jakob was no longer in the house.
For the first time in my recalling I pulled the dark hair out of my eyes and spoke to Charles directly. “What’s become of him?”
Charles glared down at me as if he were the lord of the house. “He did not rise to Sir McDowell’s expectations.” With that lone statement, Charles set down my dinner and exited. This left me with such a void that, despite the hunger my physical lessons had left me with, I only pushed my food around and contemplated the previous evening’s strange happenings.
Those were mirrored that night when my uncle slid into my room. He crossed it and grabbed my bed covers to pull them from me. Rather than submit to him in my usual shame, I grabbed his wrist, feeling so different than Jakob’s, but stopping him much the same. “What became of Jakob?”
A familiar anger shown through the dark in my uncle’s eyes and, in a flash, he did something he had never done before – he struck me. He cuffed me across the cheek so hard and so fast that it turned my head and caused my ears to ring. As he spoke, I rotated my head back to him, wiping blood from my lips.
“He was a failure, unworthy of the McDowell name. You will never speak of him again.” My uncle spoke with all the authority he could muster, but I found on that night it collided with the palisade of my pain. Seeing something had changed, my uncle huffed and left, muttering about completing his work.
The blood still in my mouth and ringing in my ears, I waited until I could barely hear my uncle’s retreating footsteps. I then followed him.
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