In the Devil's House Ch. 03-04

CHAPTER 3:

Disclaimer: You're the audience. Don't like the show? Change the channel, get a refund...

...

Phoebe stormed into her home, on the acreage adjacent to property of Jacob's uncle Martin Tavish. She swept through the common room of the four-bedroom ranch home, unerring toward her room. Her step-father, Dale, craned his neck to look over the back of the couch -- some talking-head news pundit spewing their garbage on the television.

"Supper's in the oven, baby." Dale called at her back, his eyes tracing down to her denim-covered lower half.

"Thanks, Dale." Something in Phoebe's voice caught his attention, told him something was up. As Phoebe's door closed heavily, Dale stood up from the couch and straightened. The news wasn't all that different today, anyway.

Turning the TV off, he scratched at his stomach through his stained tee-shirt, adjusted his crotch through his jeans, and stepped into the house shoes that his wife insisted that he wear. Seemed silly to him, but he wasn't about to argue with the woman... she put up with him and he'd never been happier than when she'd agreed to marry him. Sure, she could be bitchy from time to time, and their daughter was a hellacious pain-in-the-ass most days (especially now that she was going to the Junior College and staying out all hours)... but he wouldn't trade it for the beer-swilling, skirt-chasing idiocy he'd stumbled in for much of his twenties and thirties. He still did dumb shit, but he knew he meant well. Fuck everybody else if they couldn't deal with it. Sighing heavily, he walked into the back of the house, hefting up on his belt to settle his jeans just below his navel.

Knocking on Phoebe's door, Dale sucked on his teeth, rubbing a hand across his mouth as he tried to ready himself for whatever lay beyond.

"What?" came Phoebe's muffled reply. That was her"it's ok to open the door" answer, so Dale took a breath, nodded to himself, and opened the door.

"Heya, sweetie." Dale offered a smile, only to see that Phoebe was laying face-down on her bed. Her narrow frame was that of a dancer, with a pert, round ass fairly poured into her jeans. Her shirt had ridden up her back slightly, giving Dale a glimpse of the creamy skin of her back and the alluring curve of a red thong riding high on her hips. He ogled a moment, giving himself literally a "one Mississippi" in his mind, waiting for her to turn over before he politely coughed and looked down at the floor.

"Baby-girl, what's wrong?" Dale walked into the room, occasionally stealing glances at her ass and the narrow strip of her back that he could see.

Her long brown hair was splayed around her, hiding her face. She rolled onto her side, which pulled her shirt a little further up, giving him a sudden display of her flat stomach and the toned curve of her waist and the lowest outline of her ribs. Her eyes caught him looking and she scowled.

"I'm not twelve, Dale." She rolled her eyes, giving him the benefit of the doubt. "It's a girl thing, I'll wait for mom to get home."

"Right... sorry." Dale chewed his lip and backed away to the door. "Dinner's..."

"In the oven, thanks." Phoebe finished, turning back to lay on her stomach. "Shut my door, please."

"Sure thing, baby." Dale backed out and shut the door softly, embarrassed that she'd caught him staring at her ass... or her stomach... or...

Keys in the front door saved him from that train of thought, as Michele returned home.

"I'm home!" Michele called, and Dale all but ran to greet her.

Dale relished Michele's pant suit, the cut of her blouse, and the beckoning curve of her breasts -- slung perhaps a little higher than they would naturally sit in a very low-profile bra. He was looking very nearly at Phoebe in another twenty years. He smiled at Michele and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling their hips together to demonstrate his delight in her. Grinding his pelvis against her, Dale kissed her sloppily in welcome.

"Ugh, Dale..." Michele pushed back, smiling politely. "Could you shave, please? The stubble doesn't feel near as manly to me as you think."

"Sorry, baby." Dale ducked his head toward her shoulder and gave her a gentle bite. "You bring out the Wolverine in me."

Michele groaned, playfully mocking his juvenile machismo.

"Alright, Logan." She lifted his face to her and kissed him with more deliberateness. "Cut those whiskers, Samson, and we'll see if we can unleash the Beast, later."

"Different char-" Dale started to correct her.

"Excuse me?" Michele's hands found their way into his belt and down to his hardening prick. "You were saying something?"

"Nope." Dale shook his head briskly. "Not a damn thing, Ma'am... I'll see the barber right after supper."

"Mmm." Michele purred, stroking ever so slightly in the tight confines of his boxes. "Punctual and attentive. I like."

"You want a beer? I'ma have a beer." Dale glanced back toward the kitchen, then remembered Phoebe. "And... ah... you might wanna have a talk with Phoebe. Little bit's sure upset about something, but she don't wanna talk ta me."

"Behave yourself, young man." Michele squeezed his dick playfully. "And you can make it up to me, for dessert."

"Mhm." Dale pulled their hips together, causing Michele to wrench her hands free of his pants to steady herself against him. "Yes, ma'am, I'm a perfect gentleman."

He squeezed her plump ass, the luxurious, silken material of her suit sliding over her skin lewdly beneath his fingers. Michele gave an appreciative moan and pouted playfully.

"Make a plate for me, Dale?" Micheled looked toward the hall, and Phoebe's room further on. "I'd better go see what's the matter. What'd you make for dinner?"

"Pizza." Dale answered predictably. "The Hut's best for my best gals."

"Thank you, sweetie." Michele kissed him again and broke away. "See you... in a few."

"Uh-huh." Dale swatted her ass as she walked away.

Michele rolled her eyes as soon as her back was turned. Some boys never really grew up, no matter how many years passed. Stepping out of her high-heels, she scooped the impractical footwear into one hand and flexed her ankles as she made her way to Phoebe's door.

Knock knock.

"Yeah?" Phoebe's defacto response for "don't come into my room."

"It's me, sweetheart." Michele said, nearly pressing her lips to the door. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." Phoebe's attempt to sound aloof was undercut by the sound her mother knew too well -- the tell-tale whine of her child in pain.

Michele admired Phoebe's wall art a moment as she walked in, her shoes forgotten in her hand as she moved toward the bed and sat next to her only child on the full-size bed. Michele liked some of the art, drooled over some of the far-too-young-for-her men whom she thought likely too old for her daughter -- even if they were probably around the same age -- and then noticed her daughter was scribbling her name over and over in her journal.

Except it wasn't her name... she'd appended a different surname than her father's... Michele remembered doing much the same when she was younger. The colorful, flowery, curling embellishments were hard to read at first, so Michele started with what she thought was a reasonably easy goal.

"Who's the lucky boy?" She ventured, remembering her first serious crush -- and the fleeting nature of such experiences after twenty or thirty years.

"Jacob." Phoebe's voice cracked, and she slammed the journal shut, rolling over and clutching the book to her chest. Her eyes were filled with tears yet to fall -- but they were ready at the nearest provocation.

Michele sucked in her breath slowly, having made out the surname "Tavish" on the page.

It's a coincidence. It's got to be a coincidence... or a distant relative...God, let it be anyone else. She forced a smile to her face, which her daughter didn't seem to notice due to her own preoccupation.

"Who's Jacob?" Michele tried her hand at the girlfriend game of dishing.

"God, he's..." Phoebe set the journal on her bedside table and unconsciously put a hand to her heart as she sat up, swinging her legs neatly over the edge of the bed. "He's... I don't even know, mom."

"So, what's the deal? Spill it." Michele took a conspiratorial tone, leaning over and nudging shoulder to shoulder.

"He's just..." Phoebe smiled, taking a shaking breath. "He's just perfect..."

"Right. Perfect." Michele nodded sagely. "Like: he's rich, handsome, mysterious, great in bed..."

Her daughter's mortified reaction gave away enough.

"You had sex with him?" Michele's jaw wagged. "I didn't even know you were dating!"

"I'm sorry!" Phoebe shrank away, clutching a pillow to her chest and burying her face in it.

Michele found herself in a mother's mine-field. Any way forward seemed to have an explosively bad reaction.

"No. No, you don't need to be sorry... I'm just... I'm surprised, Phoebe." Michele scooted closer and hugged Phoebe, smooshing the pillow between them. "I... I figured my Mom-sense would have warned me, first."

Phoebe shook her head against the pillow. Mumbled something Michele couldn't discern.

"Did you use a condom?" and Phoebe's head popped up in indignation.

"Mom!" Phoebe blushed, but Michele could see the truth plainly enough.

"Do we need to -?"

"Mom, no!" Phoebe buried her face in the pillow, and screamed into the filler.

"Right." Michele's eyes searched the floor, but her mind was busy looking for another way to approach this. "What's his name?"

A muffled reply.

"Sweetie, please just talk to me." She squeezed Phoebe's shoulders gently.

"Jacob Tavish." Phoebe looked up just long enough to blurt out before burying her face to the pillow again.

Damn. Michele frowned, but fought to keep her composure.

"Martin's son?" Michele tried in vain -- she knew Martin didn't have any children.

Phoebe's incoherent response pulled an exasperated sigh from Michele.

"Phoebe Virginia..."

"I don't know, mom, alright?" Phoebe shouted at her, the tears breaking loose like a flood. "I don't know, and we weren't really dating, and he hasn't even graduated from high-school and... and... I'll probably never see him again because he left this afternoon!"

Once Phoebe had sheltered back into her pillow, the real sobbing began. Michele stayed put, cradling her daughter and rocking her gently. After a few minutes, Dale glanced around the corner of the doorway with a raised eyebrow. Michele gave an apologetic tilt of her head, mouthing "I'm sorry."

Dale nodded, pulled the door shut, and ventured back to the kitchen to finish his beer and pack the leftovers into the fridge. With a resigned sigh, he went to his computer and started surfing some of his old porn haunts... it was likely to be a late night to bed, anyway.

...

"Ms. Delacroix, can you hear me?" A thick, warm voice cut through the dense fog in Gwen's mind. She struggled toward it, finding a cool white light swirling around it in the darkness of the void in which she floated.

"Ms. Delacroix... Gwen? Gwen?" A face took shape in the fog, a monolith or one of the heads from Easter Island... the features seemed to bend as she fought to swim her way through the nothingness.

"Elliot, are the paramedics on the way?" The face tilted slightly, like it was looking somewhere else, before turning its stony gaze to her again. There was something familiar about that face... she couldn't quite place it.

"Yes, sir." another voice seemed to plummet from high overhead, splashing emptily into the void around her. Whoever it was, they were not in the light with the giant face.

"It's alright, Ms. Delacroix." The voice was soft, soothing, but it didn't fit the face... the face was like chiseled granite or basalt, a dark olive hue with steel blue eyes that seemed to be the source of the nebulous white fog lighting the void. The voice sounded like it was coming from just in front of her, but the face was immense and swallowed the void with its enormity. The fog began to spread, and Gwen became aware of her arms and legs, a terrible aching in her head, and a heavy weariness in her chest.

"What...?" She managed to mumble.

"She's awake, thank God." Sam Tavish continued to cradle Gwen's head gently. "Tell them she's awake... Gwen, it's alright, try to relax."

His voice matched his face even less, now, she thought, though she could not quite grasp why she needed to remain calm. The fog was slowly receding, but the room around her was still painfully out of focus. Something like a stiff, itchy mattress, was pressed to her back.

I'm laying down. She realized, her eyes bringing the room into alarming focus. At first, she didn't recognize the room, or the man kneeling above her. His face, for all the concern in his voice, was just as immutable as the stone it had been made from only moments ago.

"It's going to be ok, Gwen." Sam's eyes found her, and she flinched instinctively from him. "Help is on the way."

"Help?" Gwen still couldn't concentrate.

"Elliot, I think she's had a seizure." Sam looked up only briefly, toward a man in his late forties who relayed the information to someone on the other end of a touch-tone phone. The phone looked especially unusual to Gwen, and she stared at it for several moments -- even as Sam Tavish continued to remind her to be calm, his massive, warm hands to either side of her head.

"You have a really old phone." Gwen finally said. Her thoughts were still foggy, but she latched onto the icon of the phone and tried to continue making sense of her environment. She was laying on a thick rug or carpet, beneath the frame of a doorway in a home she didn't recognize. Dread crept out from the base of her skull, telling her to flee this unfamiliar place and these unfamiliar men... men who would probably try to...

"Tavish?" She snapped to the realization of Sam's name with a lazy slowness, but the result was a more solid connection to place, people and time. For a moment, she relaxed, satisfied that she had puzzled-out where she was.

Then she remembered something else... something that still seemed trapped behind the last traces of the fog plaguing her. Something about Sam Tavish... and someone else? Something they did, or might do? A question she'd had... why had she shown up in the first place?

"It's alright, Ms. Delacroix." Sam must have been a broken record, and she found the idea annoying -- except that his warm, strong hands were only just touching her hair... a finger grazed her ear, or her jaw bumped his palm... so careful, like she were fragile porcelain. "Help is coming, and you are safe. Do you understand?"

She nodded, even though she didn't fully understand what he was saying.

By the time the ambulance service arrived, she was feeling much more lucid -- but that did not help her remain calm. Sam's comforting presence began to feel more and more looming, more ominous, as she recalled walking into the study... the naked, shameless behavior of the strange woman... Carlysle... Linda Carlysle... then, Gwen remembered falling... falling for an eternity into nothingness.

"Cancel my appointments and notify my insurance, please." Sam Tavish was saying aside to his butler, his neatly pressed gray suit contrasting against the blue and white shirts of the paramedics lifting her into a gurney and strapping her down.

She answered their questions as best she could -- they kept asking the same things over and over, but Gwen implored them to stop a moment.

"What the fuck happened?" Her mouth was dry, and the words were still a little clumsy.

"You had a seizure." One of the paramedics said.

"I don't have seizures." Gwen protested. Sam stepped forward.

"Listen to her." He directed. "All the more reason to get her to the hospital. For all I know, she had an allergic reaction, or a minor stroke."

"I didn't." Gwen tried again, but the paramedics set about with more urgency at the word "stroke".

"Ma'am, it's alright." one of the paramedics said. "We'll get you to the hospital and they'll get you checked out."

"Wait." Gwen turned her head as best as possible to stare daggers at Sam. "Where's Linda Carlysle?"

"I'm sorry?" Sam Tavish's stony face made only the slightest indication of surprise, but it gave nothing else.

"Sir, Mrs. Carlysle is scheduled to arrive... well, that's her car in the drive, I believe."

A well-kept maroon Mercedes sidled up to the ambulance, and Linda Carlysle sprang from the driver's seat. Her rose pink business jacket and skirt, with matching low-heeled shoes complimented her dusty blonde hair. She looked exactly... well, not exactly as Gwen remembered.

"Dr. Tavish?!" She rushed to Sam, clasping his shoulder with one hand. "What's happened? I had no idea the ambulance was for..."

"Mrs. Carlysle, please." Sam gave her a polite motion to walk with him. "Our appointment will have to be rescheduled, but I am quite well."

"Oh?" And Linda seemed to see Gwen for the first time.

Gwen wasn't certain, but maybe Linda didn't seem to recognize her. But she had been so sure...

"To which hospital are you going?" Sam Tavish queried of the paramedic crew, before turning to his butler. "Elliot, keys."

A set of car keys flew in a low arc into Tavish's hand, and he set a deliberate track for his car.

"Memorial's closer." said the driver.

"I'll see you there." Sam Tavish's eyes found her, again, and she flinched. "I pray you a speedy and full recovery, Ms. Delacroix."

"Gwen." She answered reflexively as the gurney was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Before the doors shut her in, she thought she saw the hint of a smile on Tavish's lips. The idea unsettled her.

...

Nine hours. Gwen thought furiously. Nine fucking hours!

"Hi, Gwen!" the nurse behind the desk waved her over, to finalize her release. "Let's get you home. Do you have a ride? Do you need us to call you a cab?"

"No, and no." Gwen pouted, hoping to use the bank of payphones in front of the hospital. "I'll spend a quarter."

"Oh, you don't have to do that." The nurse smiled broadly, stapling a packet of documents together and handing Gwen a bag of her personal effects. "You can use the courtesy phone. Besides, those payphones haven't worked for years."

"Nope..." Gwen checked the bag and found her cell phone. "We're good... what's the damage?"

"I'm not showing a balance for a co-pay, so we're billing your insurance first and then you'll receive a modified invoice." The nurse picked up a water bottle and took a long swig from it. "Let's go over your discharge orders and get you scheduled for a follow-up with your primary..."

...

It was dusk when Gwen walked out of the front of Memorial Hospital, and she skimmed through the notes and messages on her phone. She found the appointment reminder... the note she'd left herself just before getting out of her car, and the call log where her mom had called just before she entered Tavish's house. She frowned, running the math in her head several times before angrily punching it into the calculator on the phone.

It fit. Perfectly. She wanted to get her hands on the 911 call log, but didn't think it would matter... other than to make her more angry.

Damnit. She thought, pulling up her contacts list and calling her sister.

"Heyo, bitch." Naomi answered, the sound of video-game gunfire and explosions loud in the background.

"I need you to pick me up at the hospital." Gwen kept her voice level.

"Why are you at the hospital, Penny-Gwen?" Naomi's voice was interrupted by a series of loud cheers and some cursing. "Eat my shit, lil' bitch! BOOM!"