“And you’re going to make me wait to see that video because that’s part of your plan to keep me on the edge.” She butter-n-jammed a piece of toast. Why not? She was hungry, and it wasn’t as if she was eating out of his hand, physically or figuratively.
He bit into his piece, chewed, then sipped coffee. Max waited patiently, enjoying the taste of jam and toast. The bastard could make her wait as long as he wanted. In the end, he’d show her. He was simply dying to. All she had to do was wait. And try to remain calm.
As it hit a certain spot on its ascent, the sun streaked across the kitchen table between them, devouring Bud in light prisms and obscuring his face.
“Did you really come for the video, Max?” he asked through the haze, merely a voice emphasizing the word come.
“The only thing.” She squinted against the bright light, but couldn’t see him beyond a dense shadow within it.
“I can answer every question you’ve ever had, Max,” he went on with a seductive voice of the night.
Her body reacted as if he’d offered to tell her sexual things. She didn’t have to fight it. It was only a bodily reaction. Dr. Shale, the psychiatrist she’d worked with on last week’s case, told her the molester uses the physiological reaction to elicit the psychological one he wants. Max had the key. She knew what Traynor was trying to do. Now, she separated herself from her body. It could manifest any physical reaction it chose. She was beyond succumbing.
“I can find the answers without you,” she answered mildly.
“True, Max. But it will take so much longer. Let me show you now. Come upstairs with me. I’ll make you come with knowledge. I’ll fuck you with power. I’ll fill your mouth with everything you’ve ever wanted. Think of hours where all I do is exercise my lips, my mouth and my tongue for you. One long, continuous information orgy, Max.”
Beneath her shirt, her nipples puckered. He knew her desires as if reading them on her face. He was a master. He listened, learned, and then used what a person wanted most against them. He’d done it with his daughter, who’d only wanted to be loved. He’d told her do this, little girl, and I will love you. Wendy had done exactly what he wanted, but Bud Traynor was incapable of love, and his daughter’s fantasies never materialized.
“Is that how you got someone to kill Lance for you?” she asked, inordinately proud of her steady voice. “By offering them their heart’s desire?”
He laughed, a soft sound that vibrated deep inside. “Now why would I want Lance dead, Max? Another of your many questions. Upstairs lay all the answers you require.”
“In your bed?”
“When you’re on your knees before me, Max, then you shall receive everything.”
The image made her want to puke, but her mouth salivated. She fought the shame of it, fought the power of her heart’s desire: answers, solutions, knowledge, information.
“I’ll tell you all, Max. Anything you want to know. Ask your questions, take my cock in your mouth, and truth will pour forth.” He sat in the shaft of sunlight and whispered to her as if he saw himself as God.
She knew he was worse than the devil. He was a man. The devil couldn’t do shit to anyone without a man to act for him. Bud was evil unto himself.
“What you know won’t do me any good if I’m dead,” she mused.
“I have no intention of killing you, Max.”
She smiled mirthlessly. “You wouldn’t need to. I’d have to slit my wrists after touching you.”
A chuckle. “You’re so dramatic, Max. Just like Wendy was.”
As suddenly as it had come, the shaft of light shifted and fell away, revealing him. A powerful voice, but no match for her.
“You have crumbs on your lips, Max. Shall I lick them off?”
Meeting his gaze, she lifted a napkin to her lips. “Are you done with the games, yet?”
After a deep breath, he rose, not bothering to hold his robe together, a sliver of white flesh stark before the apparel fell into place. She suddenly saw her uncle as if he stood before her. Open robe, his penis dangling unnoticed from the leg of his blue boxer shorts, her uncle uncaring of his immodesty.
“Max.”
She snapped back. The smile was gone from Bud’s lips, as if he knew he’d lost her and didn’t like it. “The video.” She reminded herself as well as him.
Bud nodded. “Do you want me to dress first?”
Of course, he’d wanted her to say yes, so that he could revel in pointing out her telling discomfort with his nakedness.
“I don’t give a shit what you wear.”
He smiled as if he knew she lied, then held out a hand. “Shall we watch then? You know the way to my den.”
She stepped in front of him, aware that he drew in the scent of her hair as she passed.
“I smell the sex on you, Max. I smell the desire.”