The Glawackus: Next of Kin Ch. 03

I plopped down on the couch in the living room with morose. I was so exhausted by the idea of sex. It seemed like a complicated thing that just threw things out of balance. I had sex for the first time and it's already hurting the friendship I have with my best friend. Christ. Why didn't I just tell her? God my jaw was still hurting. I guess Master wanted the lesson to stick. How could I have explained to her about the spring? The creature I fucked? The things I said and did and what the Glawackus turned into?

No, it was going to wind up the same way. If I told her about Master and was honest about how I found him, she'd get angry that I'd tell her a fairy tale as opposed to the truth. Well, she was on her way to Master's domain. It wasn't hard to find it if she kept moving west. Since we hiked together, I know she'd follow a single direction so it was easier to come back when she was done.

I waited.

An hour passed and Sarah hadn't come back or texted me. I sighed and turned on my PlayStation in the living room and set my phone as an internet hotspot so that I could watch HBO Max. I solemnly watched Black Adam from start to finish without any response from Sarah. Maybe she found Master. Perhaps she was in the cave right now being explored by him. I hoped so. If only so that she could have some sort of handle on what I had actually done.

I played Juno for my next movie and thumbed through my phone, looking over the last text message Sarah sent, letting me know that she was on her way over here this morning.

I was hungry, and decided to make a grilled cheese sandwich, eating it while watching The Menu. My mind was trying to occupy itself from the thought of Sarah going missing. I hoped she wasn't. Should I text her? Should I trust that she was with Master? If she was with Master, was she still mad at me? Would he let her come back here before nightfall? I looked down at my phone and saw that it was about three in the afternoon. At this point, she had been gone for almost six hours. If she was with Master, what the hell were they doing that was taking so long?

A twinge of jealousy sliced through my heart and ached in my stomach. Was Master enjoying her more than me? Was he claiming her over and over again because Sarah was more agreeable to him? If I went down there now, would I be blocked out from the spring? I felt angry at the thought of being on the other side of the wall, hearing Sarah and Master moaning loudly and making sport of my jealousy.

I was returning the empty plate to the kitchen and trying to dismiss my covetous thoughts when I saw movement coming up over the hill. It was Sarah. My anger melted away and I quickly approached the patio, opening the door. I stepped out onto the worn deck and watched as she walked toward me with a slow and shocked pace. She looked like she had a million thoughts on her mind, but was otherwise unharmed.

"Sarah?" I kept my tone light as she stepped up onto the patio and approached me. She stared across my eyes for a few moments before she spoke.

"Holy shit, Jenni." She said under her breath.

"What?" I asked. I didn't want to assume she found him.

"I found and entered the cave with the spring." Sarah answered. I exhaled in relief and then nodded.

"And... did you meet..." I was trying to form the question when she answered non-verbally with a nod. I sighed in relief again and looked at her, grabbing her hands.

"That's who I met, Sarah." I said, finding the truth was a relief now that she knew about Master, "that's... what happened."

She was still in shock. She was alright, but she was having the same existential thoughts that I did about a demon. She sighed and gripped my hands, then walked us over to the patio chairs to sit us both down.

"I wish you had told me the truth, Jenni." Sarah repeated what she did earlier.

"Could you have believed me? I think telling you that a supernatural beast took my virginity would've been a stronger slap in the face." I hoped she wasn't hurt by that accusation.

"No, you're right," she didn't protest my explanation, "I would've been madder if you stood behind that story." She rationalized.

"...How was it?" I asked, meekly.

"Fucking incredible." She spread her lips into a smile and looked across my gaze. I smiled back at her as she continued to explain.

"At first I didn't know what the hell was happening. I felt like I was in over my head when he appeared before me, and I kept trying to rationalize and think my way out of what I was seeing. Then, I was trying to rationalize what I was feeling." That sounded familiar. I couldn't think or rationalize when Master was with me as well.

"And then what?" I knew deep down what happened, but now I had someone to talk to about all of this.

"God, everything. Everything happened, Jenni." She rubbed her fingers against her eyes and sighed in contentment.

"I felt like I did when it was my first time. He knew everything that I wanted that I've never told anyone and did everything that I had been searching for." Sarah blushed, and I knew she was thinking about Master.

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled. Sarah clammed up for a moment and looked guilty.

"I never told you something, Jenni, but I had a good reason for it." She confessed, and I scoffed.

"Huh, and here you were yelling at me for hiding something from you. What is it?" I asked.

"I know. I have to give you a trigger warning, Jen. It's about something that happened when I was thirteen years old." I felt prickles stab at the back of my head like I was about to hear something I didn't want to know. But, I wanted to understand my best friend.

"Go ahead." I said with an assuring tone.

"Remember when I used to have to go next door to Doctor Havers' house after school, since my parents didn't trust me by myself?" She asked, and I nodded quietly, letting her continue.

"Well, I never told anyone for good reason, but Doctor Havers," she paused, and then lifted her shoulders in an implied shrug, "well, let's just say there's a reason that man never had a wife and when he did have a girlfriend, they didn't appear all that much older than we are right now."

I placed my hand over my mouth and pulled in a deep breath, letting out a slow exhale. My eyes were wide in shock. She was telling me something that I probably would've reported to the police.

"When you were thirteen?" I asked, trying to confirm it. She nodded, and it took me about a minute to let the realizations hit me and the reality of her after school life was at the front of my mind.

"For how long?" I wanted to know.

"Altogether, I saw him that way for about three years. It kind of started as a special exam, and eventually, I just chose to go over there whenever I wanted. Sometimes I'd lie to you and lie to mom and dad and tell them I was staying over at your house."

"But you'd be-"

"With Doctor Havers." Sarah interrupted me. "Eventually, when I was 16 years old, he told me that if I didn't want to visit him anymore, I didn't have to. So I stopped." I thought back to when she would tell me some Friday nights that she had something going on with her parents. The truth may have been that she was probably with Doctor Havers.

"Why? Why didn't you ever tell anyone?" I asked, trying not to sound upset on her behalf.

"He said it was our special bond that nobody could ever know about. Eventually when we had health classes at school and we learned more about the dangerous side of sex, I knew what he was doing was wrong. After a certain point, I told myself if I kept it up, then maybe he wouldn't go after anyone else."

God, my best friend was so strong. She knew what that man was doing to her was wrong, and she took it. She even let herself like it enough to keep going back to it on her own. I pressed my lips together and hesitated to come back to the point.

"You told me this because I wanted to know what you meant by what you had been looking for." I reminded her.

"OH! Yeah." She dismissed the story she just told me and shook her head. What a fucking creep that doctor was.

"So, because of... all that... I developed some very dark tastes, Jenni. I have a lot of things that I liked that Doctor Havers did to me that a lot of high school guys aren't willing to do." She explained, "But Master did all of it."

It felt weird to hear her call him Master like it was second nature to her. Here, I had been forgetting to call him that and being punished for it. She was calling him Master like it was all old hat. I tried not to appear thwarted by it.

"So did you make a bargain with him as well?" I asked. Her brows knitted, showing confusion to my question.

"What do you mean?" then I realized he may not have told her, but now she wanted to know.

"Um, so," I drew in a deep breath, "I agreed to carry a child for him."

"Oh," she raised her brows in surprise, "no, I just enjoyed the last five or so hours being fucked by Master the way I've been needing since I stopped seeing Doctor Havers." She was so cavalier with her deliverance. I nodded just lightly, feeling a small stomach ache.

"Are you really going to carry his child? He didn't offer that to me." She remarked with some relief in her voice.

"Yeah, I am." I raised my shoulders in a shrug, "I kind of begged him to breed me the first time we fucked."

Sarah laughed melodiously at my answer and she shook her head.

"Oh my God, Jenni. You actually begged to breed with him?" The way she framed it made me feel upset.

"Yeah, I did." I sounded defensive and she paused. The smile faded from her lips and she realized that my feelings were hurt.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, Jen. I forget that you just had your first time and this is probably a sensitive topic to you." I nodded a little bit and calmed myself down.

'It's far from conventional, I know."

"No shit. Your first time is with an actual demon. How many girls can say that?" She smiled again, and I smiled back.

"Truth." I didn't know where to go from here. "He's probably going to come over sometime tonight."

"Well, if it's to uphold your bargain, I'll make myself scarce." Sarah said. I nodded gently, thinking about how weird it would be if she stayed. I wasn't sure what Master's intentions were with Sarah, but I'm glad she got what she needed out of it.

"I won't keep any secrets from you, Sarah. I didn't mean to make you think I wasn't wanting to tell you." I said calmly.

"I understand that, now." She nodded. We sealed our understanding of the situation with a hug.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"I could eat a cow. What do we got?" She pulled away and the two of us went inside.

"We have grilled cheese, some grilled cheese, and because my parents went to the store late at night, we have grilled cheese." I smirked. Really, there wasn't much to eat since mom and dad spent most of the cash on a single dinner and left behind bare essentials.

"Alright," Sarah walked over to the island counter in the kitchen and picked up her keys, "we're going for about a 25 minute drive to a pizza place."

What was I going to do? Turn away the chance at some better food than grilled cheese? I smiled and grabbed my phone wallet, closed and locked the doors behind us.

I was so glad that Sarah was here.