The Unwanted Wedding

Chapter 15-Prepriations Behind the Mask

"Men like to play games. And they like to play to win. The key to cheating them of victory is to choose when to give them what they seek and when to refuse them of it..."

- Book of Encounters

Vin 

I dodged her latest blows; thankfully she was old enough to get tired after bursting into my room in a mission to beat me for no reason. Which wasn't really unusual for mother to do, but only today she seemed persistent to break me open.  After a few more hits, she must of exhausted herself and stopped.

"Meet me in the breakfast room!" She snapped, "and bath and dress. You look like a disgusting animal." Just like she came in, she was gone just as quick.

I did as she bid, but the more I moved the more the bruises settled in. With wariness I noted that she didn't hit my face, and that usually was a bad sign.

I walked down the stairs and dawdled into the sunbathed room. It was covered with flowers in vases. Mother stood in the archway of an open French door. Slight breeze rolled in, yet neither her high hair nor stiff violet dress moved.

"Mother...." I murmured. I ran a nervous hand through my hair, sleeking it back into neatness.

To my surprise and instant horror, Mother turned and smiled brightly. If I were a stranger I'd believe her smile real. "Son, what a pleasant surprise for you to join us?"

What I ever do in creating to ever be birthed to the punishment of gaining such cruelty as a mother. So cruel and manipulating. I watched as she sat at the small table and at a cupcake, then scowled until I sat too. Then what she said struck me, "Us?"

To my masked fear, Mother's henchman, Cedric appeared. I wanted to shake like a leaf until the wind took me. The man made my already horrendous childhood more horrific. Cedric never missed an opportunity to humiliate and punish the skinny boy who once dwelled. That skinny boy was now a skinny man, and I wasn't going to give in.

"Cedric, old man." I said through false cheerfulness. "How have you been?"

The beastly man grunted a response. Mother rolled her eyes and stared at me, her face not amused and stern.

"What is required of me, mother?" I said softly, "I do have engagements today. Ones that can't be broken" I intended it without pun, only after I said it I recognized it could be taken differently.

"Too bad, not sad." She drolled, "Come! I have more friends for you to meet, you must be prepared." She stood and glided out of the room, the bull of a man followed his commander. I followed reluctantly, dragging my feet along the floor.

In a room I've actually never been in before, furnished in glorious silks and bold patterns. I hesitated in entering, but finally did after it become too awkward to simply stand in the doorway. The room was filled with people I barely knew.  Yet one or two were familiar. My grandmother glared at me from underneath her grate wide hat, black in colour like her jacket, her purple gown spilled like water, pooling around her. Her wig was piled like a large hive. Her pale eyes watched me every move like as cat to a mouse. Catherine never did like her only grand child. Aunt Penelope, let her unfashionably short hair curl around her shoulders. The blonde curls coiled at the back.  Her sharp green eyes observed everything. She was very long and thin, her yellow gown made her look like a stick of dried grass. There were many others in the room dressed to the brim of fashion. Both the women and men looked utterly ridiculous in my eyes, they were like drips of candy.

The few servants we had in our household worked like animals, pampering and serving these scatterbrains. Massaging feet, feeding them, grooming them, and all other shit that made me want to hit something. I wondered if any of these pompous dandy's would hit back if I smashed my fist into them. I mean what type of man wears pink. Pink! And wears wigs! And make up! No man with balls that I know of, how their manhood must shrink.