Conversations part Three
Title: Conversations pt2
Type: Original
Rating: PGish
Summary: It's taken years but Claudia Verdicchio has finally tracked down the man she thinks can lead her to her father.
When next she woke Claudia found that every inch of her body ached-especially the spot between her eyes. Well at least I didn’t throw up. After a moment, Claudia decided that this was an improvement.
With a groan she tried to sit up and forced crusted, dry eyes to open. A sharp stab in her sinuses told her that that had been a very bad idea indeed and she immediately shut them again. The effort altogether too much, Claudia threw herself back into a prone position and realized that she was lying in the same bed she’d woken up in previously. It seemed to have been cleaned, she noted, at the same time she realized that she was nude.
Alarm shot through her system and she tried once again to sit up. A very strong, large hand pressed against her chest to stop her.
Claudia opened her mouth to scream but the sound cut through her throat like a razor and choked upon its own creation. Her fingers scrambled against the arm attached to that infringing hand, manicured nails tearing at the flesh and tugging at what cloth she could find. The hand’s twin broke against her cheek.
“So he was right,” a distantly familiar but far too close voice noted from somewhere above her. “You are a handful.”
“Where are my clothes?” Claudia growled.
“Your clothes,” the man responded in the darkness of her eyelids and he laughed. “In your position I’d really be worried about a lot more than that.”
His hand released her and after a moment she heard something rattle across the room. Silverware or a glass, she thought. “You may not want to move much just yet. The walls here are reinforced. Barry would have put you through one were they not.”
At first this information didn’t want to sink into Claudia’s pounding, tired mind. During this time the rustling ceased and something soft and silky landed upon her exposed midriff as if it had been thrown there.
The memory of attacking Barry returned with a jolting clarity and Claudia fought to suppress a cry of alarm. To think herself capable of attacking a stranger that way was horrible enough but more disturbing yet was the easy way in which she’d been dealt with. Yes, she’d been weak and hungry but his reaction time was almost instantaneous… it was as if he’d been expecting it.
As if he’d been attacked like that before.
With a little more care than she’d been bothering to show thus far, Claudia asked, “Who-can I ask your name?”
The disembodied voice gave a soft chuckle. Had it been Barry, Claudia would have expected him to gloat. Though it was not, she was still a little surprised that this person did not.
“Michael.”
She sat up with a soft cry, her eyes opening wide. “You’re-AURG!”
Just as quickly, Claudia found herself upon the bed once again and this time it was of her own accord. When she forced her eyes open again the ceiling and bedpost appeared in her blurred vision, swimming.
“I warned you,” Michael stated as he appeared, hovering, at the edge of her vision. Claudia blinked a few times to clear her eyes and she was able to get her first good look at him.
Just as her memory-however distant and fuzzy-had informed her, Michael looked a great deal like herself. In him she could make out her rigid, well defined nose, chiseled cheeks and pointed chin. Like her, Michael sported a shaggy head of jet black hair which seemed to be just as board straight. They shared their olive skin and the puffy, well-shaped mouth that Barry also possessed. Only Michael’s eyes were not her own-his looked black as pitch in the thin light of the room. Claudia’s were bright amber.
Her head hurt.
“If you’re thinking about throwing up, don’t,” Michael continued in that same, bored drawl. “You’re messes are my responsibility since you’ve pissed Barry off. He was inclined to toss you out with the dogs-I told him you’d be housebroken soon enough.”
Claudia knew she should be angry about something in that sentence but the throbbing in her skull couldn’t tell her what and the look that Michael had fixed her with said quite clearly that what he’d said wasn’t a suggestion. Since she didn’t have a clear direction for her anger and, she was beginning to realize how much trouble her emotions were landing her in as of late, Claudia decided to ignore the entire thing.
“Don’t need to throw up,” she slurred and attempted to shrug. That was just as painful as sitting and she stopped.
“Good.” Michael punctuated the word with a snort and left her bedside. With utmost care, Claudia turned her head to watch him walk over to the table Barry had been using before. It didn’t seem to look any worse the wear for having been tipped over… and there was yet another tray set upon it.
“Why…” Claudia began to croak and then stopped herself. Michael half-turned his head towards her and Claudia took it as a sigh to continue. “Why are you doing this?”
The man returned his attention to the table. Over the crackling of the hearth fire Claudia could hear him pouring something. Slowly he replied, “I am doing as my father did for me and as his mother did for him, and her mother before her, so forth and so on.”
Michael returned to the bed as he spoke, a wooden goblet in his hand, “as you may well do one day for Stacy.”
“You can’t be my father.” Claudia informed him through the disquieting chills running over her body.
“Can’t I?” He seemed amused and tilted his head to the side. In the firelight his eyes bleached gold.
“You’re too… young. My father would have to be in his fifties, at least.”
“Fifty-three, to be precise,” Michael clarified and gestured with his free hand that she should sit up. Claudia stared at him in disbelief and Michael repeated the gesture shortly.
“Did you not just see what happened?”
With a roll of his eyes, Michael shifted to sit upon the bed beside her. His free arm slid about her naked shoulders and hoisted them a few inches above her pillow. The cup he shoved rudely against her lips, the liquid inside sloshing to meet her flesh. In that instant her mind was lost.
Claudia was distantly aware of her hands grasping at the cup, regardless of the aching protest of her arms. She heard, but did not care, the affronted grunt of her “Father” as she tore the object from his hand. More real to her was the metallic taste in her mouth and a hot, raw sensation ravishing her throat. A fire kindled in her stomach and quickly spread through her body-
Then the cup was empty.
She licked the last few, precious drops from the rim with greed, a keening whine resounding through the room. Michael ignored it, and spoke before she could think to question the origin of the sound. “Now that that is taken care of we need to get you some real food.”
Michael took the goblet and rose from the bed as Claudia realized that she was sitting up on her own and there was no pain. Whatever had been wrong with her body was cured now, it seemed. Without anything else to focus her bewilderment on, Claudia stared at her hands and tried to place the origin of the brown grit lodged underneath the remains of her last manicure. “For that,” Michael continued as he collected the tray and pitcher from the nearby table, “You’re going to need to get dressed. Unless you wouldn’t mind the others seeing you like this.”
Claudia’s head lifted in surprise. “There are others?”
The look which Michael favoured that question with made Claudia shrink back against the headboard when he turned from the table. He nodded at the crumpled pile of cloth still lying over her legs and then towards the door that stood to the left of the fireplace. “The bathroom.”
That said, her so-called father turned for what she suspected to be the door which lead to the hallway. As he opened it, he looked over his shoulder. “I’ll send Alyssa to show you around.”
Claudia gave a nod and Michael shut the door behind him. Though she listened hard, Claudia did not hear a lock being turned into place. Minutes passed before she was confident enough to try and put her feet over the edge of the bed. Slowly she pushed herself to her feet and though she wobbled, she did not fall. With a good deal more confidence, Claudia grabbed the garment from the bedspread without looking at it and wobbled her way to the bathroom.