Chapter 44 Angel

Chapter 44 Angel
When Malcolm set me free from my room, I thought my punishment was over, but as it turned out, it had only just begun.
"My father loved his horses," said Malcolm, pacing around as I stood there helplessly, chained to a post in the barn. "In fact, I think he loved those beasts more than me."
I didn't know what to do, so I kept my head down and said nothing. I was terrified of angering him, although he already seemed to be working himself up into a frenzy.
"If they so much as neighed or whinnied," continued Malcolm. "He'd go running to tend to them. But me? I nearly lost an eye when I was set upon by a gang of bullies at my school. And all my father said was, 'Quit your complaining, boy!'"
Malcolm was beginning to scare me with all this talk about his father. I'd always seen him as a paragon of stability and maturity, but it was starting to become clear that Malcolm had some deeply unresolved issues.
"I'm sorry you went through that," I said, hoping he'd see that I was on his side.
"I don't need your pity!" shouted Malcolm, stopping to glare at me. "What I demand from you is your obedience."
I didn't dare move a muscle.
"Say it!" said Malcolm, his face only inches away.
"Yes, Daddy," I said, remembering my line.
"That's better," said Malcolm, giving me a warm smile.
But then out of the corner of my eye, I saw him walk over and take down a long, leather whip from a nearby compartment, which frightened me terribly.
"I understand your animal instincts. I really do," said Malcolm with a low chuckle. "Because I had them once too. I used to lust after every boy I saw."
Every boy? Surely, he had mispoken, right?
"But my daddy whipped those sinful thoughts right out of me!" said Malcolm, tapping the butt of the whip with one hand. "Greatest present he ever gave me."
"Please, Malcolm, you don't have to do this," I said, even as I began to tremble all over. "Please, no! I promise I learned my lesson."
Malcolm shook his head and then leered at me. "Now, you see? There you go again with all that backtalk. That's the kind of thing that can really get a young person in trouble."
I wanted to protest, to defend myself, but seeing that whip in his hand scared me into silence.
"You know, I bet you're wondering why I chose your mother out of all the women in the world," said Malcolm, pacing back and forth once again. "I just love her so much, you know? She's my angel."
What in the world was going on inside his head? One minute he was talking about his father abusing him, and then switched to talking about my mother? It was crazy.
"I'll admit it. My previous marriages were a complete failure," said Malcolm with a rueful chuckle. "The constant fighting, the infidelity? It was enough to make me go crazy."
Yeah, no doubt about it!
"Honestly? I'd given up all hope of finding true love," said Malcolm. "But then one day, my car got a flat tire. I got out to stretch my legs while Alfred took care of it. And that's when your mother walked by."
Even in my advanced state of fear, I had to admit that a part of me was curious to learn how my mother and Malcolm had gotten together. It was one of the things I'd wanted to catch up with her about after she returned from their honeymoon.
"She thought I was going to her book club, which was being held in a nearby cafe. Can you believe it?" said Malcolm with a little laugh. "I said to myself, ah, perhaps the fates have not abandoned me just yet, so I followed her inside."
I remembered my cousin telling me they had met at my mother's book club, and now I finally understood the circumstances of how that had all gone down.
"She was just so sweet and so nice and so lovely," said Malcolm with a little sigh.
Um, yeah, of course! She's my mother. Everyone likes my mother.
"At first, I thought she had recognized me and was just playing dumb," said Malcolm. "But then after a while, it became clear that she had no idea who I was."
My mother couldn't tell a lie to save her soul, which was one of her best qualities. But I guess Malcolm was used to double-dealing and trickery from all of his business negotiations.
"I fell in love with her right there on the spot," said Malcolm, his voice going soft as he got lost in his memories. "A man knows when he knows, you know? Anyway, Alfred eventually popped his head inside to tell me the car had been fixed."
Something about what Malcolm had said sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
"I waved him off, though, because I had one final test to make sure that your mother was truly genuine," said Malcolm. "When the meeting ended, I went over to her, and I said, 'Those are such lovely earrings." She thanked me for the compliment."
That all tracked - my mother had always been very fastidious about her appearance.
"I said, 'Give them to me. I want to examine them more closely,'" said Malcolm. "And she took them out and handed them to me without hesitation. And that is when I knew, yes! This is a woman who would never betray me."
In my state of being handcuffed to a post in the barn, I now had a pretty good understanding of why that little stunt meant so much to Malcolm - he valued obedience above all else.
"Alas, later on as, I discovered that she had a daughter," said Malcolm, pausing to give me a hard stare. "Oh, your mother promised me that you were cut from the same cloth. And I wanted to believe her. But both know that isn't true."
My mother was a widow who raised a child on her own, so who was he to compare her to me? Our circumstances were completely different!
"You inherited your wildness from your father, a loser who ran off and abandoned his family in their hour of need!" thundered Malcolm.
"He didn't abandon us!" I retorted, too angry at his slander to keep quiet.
But my words were cut off when Malcolm raised the whip and slashed me across the legs, leaving me in excruciating pain.
"Shut up, whore!" shouted Malcolm, his face contorted into a sneer. "Do you really believe that story about a heart attack? He was a filthy animal just like you, and his lust destroyed him!"
I knew for a fact that my father had passed away from a heart attack as a result of a congenital condition, so for Malcolm to be spouting all this nonsense meant that he had truly lost his mind.
"But don't worry," said Malcolm with a sinister laugh. "I'm going to set you free of your sins, just as my father did for me."
All I could do was try and brace myself as Malcolm lifted the whip and approached me, a maniacal gleam in his eyes.