Grandpa’s mansion is no home. And it never will be but simply this: an expensively built dollhouse made of marble, and she, a prettily painted porcelain doll propped on the highest shelf within its great and terrible walls, along with the rest of Grandpa’s private collection of the finest artworks. 

So she runs away. Well, it’s not exactly running away. 

She will eventually return to the mansion because he always finds her. 

He always does. 

She doesn’t make it difficult for him either. 

Like in the fairy tales, she leaves a trail of breadcrumbs: a pair of pink Manolo Blahnik pumps on the side of the road; an impression of her painted red lips on the glass of the nearest bus shelter; a slightly deflated Happy Birthday balloon with 20 on the other side tied to a coat rack in the diner she often frequents—after she buys a chocolate cake, of course; her Saint Laurent scallop lace-trimmed panties on a spike of the wrought-iron fence enclosing Grandpa’s private cemetery. 

In their game of cat and mouse, she’s his little mouse. 

He will find her. 

She wishes to be found.

The cemetery at night is a quiet city of the dead. And Jenny haunts the grounds ghostlike. She truly is a sight in nothing but a white silk nightgown with side slits, a pair of dirtied white ruffle socks, and a faux fur moss-green coat. She moves in a daze in the small-scale labyrinth of the few tombstones tactically scattered about and statues of naked figures standing erect, on guard, their carved eyes staring with a warning. They stare at her. 

Grandpa’s mausoleum, the miniature version of the mansion on the green hills, becomes visible in the fog. It stands melodramatically, grand as a palace, fit for an emperor; Grandpa thinks himself an emperor. 

She shakes her head in disapproval. 

Grandpa hides behind opulence. He is afraid, especially when it comes to death. It is too final, he once told her. And in a more serious tone added he would have his bones painted gold and his pockets stuffed with dazzling gems as if God will be persuaded otherwise and let him in through the pearly gates. The devil will appreciate the sentiment and save him a seat in hell, but Grandpa will probably go for the devil’s throat for the throne.

The trees thin out, and the tombstones become fewer. In the moonlight, a statue of a weeping angel with arms outstretched welcomes her. She still isn’t entirely sure where her parents’ gravesites are; Grandpa had made it abundantly clear that burying them in his private cemetery without markers was already too great an act of kindness. The angel must simply do, and she sits at its stone feet and digs into her chocolate cake with a plastic fork. 

“Happy birthday to me,” she whispers. 

No one whispers back but the wind.  

She falls asleep counting stars, the darkness in the sky spilling into her mind like ink. It is a dreamless sleep, which scares her most of all. She is never alone in her dreams; her family often visits, faceless and blurry; they wait for her. But not tonight. 

An owl is heard hooting from a crooked branch of a crooked tree. 

Jenny startles, waking, stiff and achy, the fallen leaves prickly beneath her, the blades of grass an unfitting makeshift bed. She keeps her eyes shut, the cool wind caressing her eyelids. She whimpers, not exactly cold, but desperate for touch, for a warm hand to wrap around her neck and squeeze, for someone to have mercy and beg her to breathe. 

Familiar footsteps sound. And her lips upturn into a small smile. 

“There you are.” The voice is rich like whiskey, unforgivable like sin. 

Here I am. 

She opens her eyes and meets a pair of pretty ones. 

Donald.

He towers over her, more solidly built than the statues in the cemetery, like a bored god in true form. He looks like a god. Like he stepped right out of a fashion magazine. Tonight, he wears what he almost always: neatly-pressed and ironed black trousers; a starched white shirt buttoned to the neck; a fitting vest; polished leather shoes; and shoulder holsters that house his firearms. His luscious black hair is sexily pushed back. He has a beautiful, strange face only a cubist artist could dream up with a paintbrush. 

He is, what Grandpa says to friends, a gentleman with great promise. To enemies, he is a monster with great aim; Grandpa will have him no other way—his perfect, pliable right hand, his second-in-command. 

He easily scoops her up in his arms and carries her to his sleek and shiny black car, the newest model of Ties, the Whisper, Grandpa’s present to him, parked right outside the gates, her very own Cinderella carriage. 

She holds him tight and buries her face in the crook of his neck, smelling him; expensive cologne, and cigarette smoke. He smells good; he doesn’t smell like the silk-stocking, well-heeled crowd. He smells cool. 

He’s so cool.

He tucks her into the passenger’s seat without saying a word and shuts her door. He lights a cigarette outside and smokes it, leaning against the hood, in no real hurry. She squirms in her seat as she watches him through the windshield, impatient, tired, and starved for his attention. When he finally climbs in, he takes one last drag, flicks the cigarette out the window, and blows, smoke curling around their necks. It’s like she’s falling from the sky, tumbling through the clouds fast. She’s really just unbuckling her seatbelt, leaning over the gear shift console, and resting her head on his thigh while the engine purrs, and the radio plays classical music; she thinks it’s Claire de Lune.

He rests his big hand on her cheek. “You have chocolate on your face,” he murmurs, rubbing the pad of his thumb across her chin, but he doesn’t stop there and skims along her bottom lip.

“Had chocolate cake.” She wraps her lips around his thumb and sucks. 

He leans back against the headrest and sighs. “You ate an entire chocolate cake? All by yourself?” 

“Mmm-hmm.” 

“Didn’t save a slice for me?” 

“Nuh-uh.” 

“Insatiable brat.” 

She hums. 

“Jenny.” 

She sucks his thumb deeper. 

“What is this? The third time this month you’ve run away from home?” 

She sucks harder.

“Jenny,” he grabs her chin abruptly, forcing her to open her eyes and look up at him. “I’m done chasing after you, baby girl.” 

Pop— she releases his thumb, a dribble of saliva at the corner of her mouth. She smiles. “Are you tired, old man?”

He lightly smacks her cheek, then, rather helpless to the simplest of temptations, caresses her. “These children’s games are getting old, Jenny.”

“Don’t be mad,” she says. “It’s my birthday.”

He looks at her intensely, her neck, her chin, her cheeks, her eyes, her parted lips. 

“Open,” he says and slips his thumb back inside her eager mouth. He can never stay mad, not at her.

“He forgot my birthday, you know?” she says to him as he carries her across the foyer, his footfall heavy against the marble flooring. He climbs unhurriedly up one of the dual grand staircases, the Swarovski crystal trimmed chandelier dangling from the high ceiling between the two staircases like the centerpiece it is. A costly work, original, the heart of the mansion, at best, the liver, or some other useless organ, at worst. 

“Your grandfather is a very busy man.” 

“I’m his only granddaughter.”  

“He’ll make it up to you.” 

“By croaking?” 

He pinches her plump ass. 

“Ow.” 

“Don’t talk like that.” 

“Grumpy old man,” she mutters and sets her chin on his shoulder. 

They reach her bedroom, an endless expanse of damask wallpapered walls and mural-painted ceiling of sky and tiny soaring birds. A gilded cage. When passersby peek in through the keyhole, they see glitter and gold and the strangest bird of all, Jenny, alighted on a big bed, surrounded by sheer white curtains. 

He carefully sets her down in her cage. “Get ready for bed,” he says, standing in the doorway. “If you’re hungry, Martin left you dinner,” he nods to the tray of food on her nightstand, “I know you skipped supper.” 

“I’m not hungry,” she rummages through her top drawer for a clean nightgown, shrugging off her coat to the floor. 

“Cake is not dinner, Jenny.” 

She rolls her eyes and begins to undress. He lets out a long sigh and shuts his eyes. “No peeking,” she teases him and hears him snort. She turns around, her nightgown bunched at her waist, her breasts naked, exposed, her nipples stiff — his eyes are still closed, much to her disappointment, his fists clenched more tightly. She slowly peels off the rest of her dirtied nightgown, a striptease for no one watching, and puts on a clean one — pale pink silk — and shuts the drawer loudly; she doesn’t bother putting on panties. 

Her steps, softened by the carpet, lead her to him, and she stands before him, a willing sacrificial lamb before a butcher. She wraps her arms around his wide waist. “I’m sorry,” she says. Sorry for eating an entire chocolate cake. Sorry for running away. Sorry for making him worry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. 

He puts his arm around her and lightly kisses the top of her head. “I know.” 

“You forgive me?” 

“We’ll see,” he says smugly. 

Smug bastard. She holds him more tightly. 

“Hmm.” 

“What?” she asks.

“It looks like your grandfather made it up to you, after all.” He gently turns her around and directs her attention to a little red box with a big bow that sits on the upholstered armchair by the stained-glass window. “What did Grandpa get you this time, princess?” 

She slowly opens her present: an 18-inch pink pearl necklace, surely expensive. It pools in the dip of her palm like a coiled snake, cold, a string of afterthoughts in the shape of gems; she is always Grandpa’s afterthought. 

“You don’t like it?” 

“It’s pretty.” She puts the necklace back into the box and climbs into her bed, too tired to rip apart the pearls. 

He retrieves a thin package from the top of her desk before joining her. “Are you too tired to open my present then?” 

Her eyes light up. “You got me a present?” 

“It’s nothing — ”

She takes it from his hands and rips the top of the package. A crisp white envelope slips into her lap. She opens it. Inside the envelope is a neatly folded paper, a poem written in fine calligraphy. 

“Like I said, it’s nothing — ” 

She reads it and rereads it, each elegantly written word its polished black pearl, solidified in the softest of hand touches; she hides each line between each palm line and holds them tightly in her fists. “No,” she says, “it’s everything.” 

Reaching over, she opens the top night table drawer and retrieves a wooden box with a lock and key. She unlocks it. A bundle of poems written by his hand, tied together with twine, is set on a red velvet cushion. She places the latest edition with the rest. 

“You keep them?” he asks, surprised. 

“Of course.” 

The corner of his mouth quirks up into a promise of a small smile. He almost allows it.

“Donald?” 

“What is it?” 

“Will you tell me your real name?” 

“What do I say to you every time you ask me?” 

She frowns. “No.” 

“No.” 

“Will you kiss me then?” 

“Oh, is that all?” 

“Just one kiss,” she suddenly leans forward on her hands and knees, her nose nearly touching his, the thin straps of her nightgown slipping off her shoulders, “Come on, Donald. It’s my birthday.” 

He pretends to think deeply. “Isn’t it Wednesday? It feels like a Wednesday to me.” 

“Kiss me,” she begs, pretty, prettily pleasing. 

“You’re acting like a child.” 

“I’m twenty.” 

“A year older and none the wiser.” 

“Kiss me.” 

He grows angry. “Don’t test my patience, Jenny.” 

She slams her fists at her sides like a petulant child. “ Donald .”

He huffs out a frustrated exhale and presses his lips against her forehead. “There. A kiss.” He gets up. “Goodnight.” 

“I want a kiss. On the mouth.” 

“Baby girl, I’m not your pet to command.” 

In other words, he’s not hers.

She blinks back hot angry tears. 

“Only Grandpa can command you, right?” The words creep out of her mouth like a bitter scorpion, striking him a thousand times; she wants to hurt him; she wants to stop hurting. 

“What did you say?” He moves lightning-quick, the mattress dipping with the weight of his knee on it, roughly cupping the back of her head with his calloused hands, fisting her loose, tangled hair; he yanks a little, drawing a little yelp from her little mouth. “Grandpa can only command me? No one commands me, baby girl,” he growls lowly, showing his teeth. “If I wanted to kiss you, I would’ve already.” 

“Please.” 

He laughs quietly. “Don’t beg like a desperate slut, Jenny.” His hot breath in her ear sends a shiver down her spine. “You’re a fucking Jones. Never beg.” 

“Please.” 

She hiccups, a single tear falling down her cheek. He blinks, silent, stunned. Both realize too late how close they are, how they move even closer, how their insides burn — he licks the tear up with the tip of his tongue, his eyes two dark abysmal pools of carnal want, animalistic longing, and lingering sadness; Jenny lets out a soft groan. 

“Jenny,” he murmurs, drawing her nightgown up her thighs with his hand. 

“Donald.” 

He growls again.

“Kiss me.” 

There’s violence in the way he kisses: he brutally slams his mouth down on hers, bruising her lips, prying them open, his tongue plundering her mouth, stealing her breath; he completely consumes her. 

There's desperation in the way she kisses, a sloppiness, an eagerness: moaning into his mouth, squirming in his arms, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. Heat pools between her thighs. An ache. An emptiness. 

She fantasized about this, again and again, in bed, late at night, with her fingers deep in her cunt. But it’s not nearly enough. It never is. She wants —she needs⁠—

“Are you wet down there?” he asks, nipping her bottom lip between his teeth. 

A shiver runs through her. She nods.  

He sighs. “I’m not gonna fuck you, Jenny.” 

She whines. 

“Enough. Enough,” he admonishes. “You asked for a kiss. I gave you one.” 

“But I want more.” 

He slowly pulls away, his eyes never leaving hers as he gets up, undoing the top three buttons of his dress shirt, his cuffs. “You know I’m a mean man, don’t you?” He rolls up his sleeves, baring his tattooed forearms, his thick veins. “I’ve done terrible things. A man with bloodstained hands wrote those poems you keep.” 

She gulps. “I don’t care.” 

“Don’t be naive, Jenny,” he sits down on the same armchair Grandpa’s present had been set down; he stretches out his legs, “I could be mean to you.” 

“Maybe I like mean.” 

He throws his head back and laughs. It’s a simple laugh, one that burns her cheeks, the back of her neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.” 

Her body trembles. “I need — ” 

“You’re a needy little thing. A spoiled brat. A greedy slut….” 

“I need you.” 

His eyes turn darkly.

“Jenny,” he warns.

“I need you, Donald.”

He is lost. Logic forgotten. 

“I can be merciful,” he softly whispers to himself — ”Come here.”

She practically leaps out of bed, an eagerness in her steps. It’s endearing, really, but it makes the wanting her worse, especially when she’s standing in front of him, squeezing her thighs together, practically dripping slick, feverish with want. He reminds himself what is not allowed of him: her.

She is forbidden.

“I won’t fuck you, Jenny,” he tells her again. “But I’ll let you use me. Just this once. Understood?” 

“Yes,” she says breathily. 

His cock twitches in his pants. He exhales sharply and pats his thigh. “What are you waiting for, baby?” 

Her eyebrows furrow. 

“Fuck yourself.” 

Oh. She licks her bottom lip. 

“Use me.”

Her body hums. She reaches out, holding onto his shoulders, and straddles his thigh. She sighs as she begins to rub her pussy up and down his clothed thigh; it doesn’t take her long to find a good rhythm.

She belongs here with Donald, whatever his name is, whatever he has done. 

“You’re riding my thigh so well, Jenny,” his hands find her hips, gripping her tightly, “You should thank your Grandpa for those horse riding lessons.” 

She grits her teeth, panting. Smug. Bastard. She slows her movements and runs her fingers up and down her soaked slit, wetting them before she pries his mouth open. “Suck.” 

Surprisingly, he obeys her and sucks her fingers deep into his mouth, his glorious tongue swirling around her digits, moaning her name; he releases her fingers, and kisses her fingertips. “So sweet. So delicious.” His hands start to move up over her breasts, tugging at her nipples through the fabric, pulling down the straps of her nightgown to expose them. “So perfect.” He covers them with his large hands and squeezes them. “Such perfect, round tits.”

Jenny shuts her eyes, grinding down harder, faster, his praise washing over her. She is soaking his pants; pools of her want surely to leave stains on them.  

“You’re making a mess, baby,” he says, his voice sounding pained. 

“Mmm,” she throws her head back, lips parted, provocative wet sounds filling the room. 

“You’re such a good girl, Jenny. You know that?” 

She shakes her head wildly. No. She doesn't believe it. She doesn’t believe him. He's a liar. This is him being mean, cruel, and unkind. She is a needy thing. A spoiled brat. A greedy slut. 

But she desperately wants to be a good girl. His good girl⁠—

“Say it, Jenny. Say you’re a good girl.”

She rides his thigh with abandon, clinging to him, pressing her sweaty forehead against his and whimpering, “I’m—I’m a good girl.” 

“Yes, you are. You are such a good girl, Jenny. And what do good girls get to do?” 

“Come,” she whispers into his neck. 

“That’s right, baby.” 

She’s so close. So close⁠—

“Come, Jenny. Come for me. Only for me.” 

She clamps her hand over her mouth, muffling her loud, obscene moaning as she finally comes undone in his lap, her orgasm sweeping over her in waves. She collapses into his waiting arms and shivers, her body trembling. 

He soothes her, rubbing circles on her back. “Good girl.” 

Good girl. She’s a good girl—she smiles at the way his pants are tented in the front—His good girl, His—she rubs her palm over the bulging hardness. 

He stops her. “No,” he says softly.

She’s too tired to make him see she’s his good girl. So very tired. She curls her hand into a fist and crawls out of his lap to go to the bathroom; she cleans herself up, unthinking, unfeeling.

When she returns, she climbs into bed, dreams lightly kissing her heavy eyelids, the ghost of his fingertips quieting her beating heart. 

“Happy birthday, Jenny,” he says, standing in the doorway.

“Mmm.” 

He chuckles and turns the lights off.

“Goodnight, sweet girl.” 

Darkness takes her and holds her throughout the night.

Grandpa’s guests are plastic dolls put into penguin suits and designer dresses. Posh playthings. Chess pieces. Perfumed and powdered. He contorts them to his liking, poises them properly like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon throughout the mansion’s many rooms, sits them for their last supper, and stuffs their mouths with hors d’oeuvre. They chew, and they laugh. And they laugh some more. In vain, they do because Grandpa rarely if never tells jokes. 

Grandpa is no comedy king. 

Jenny sighs, leaning against the newel post, resting her chin in her palm. She is a party of one at the bottom of the stairs, a silent spectator, a silhouette in a black corset cocktail dress with a notched neckline and a slit jersey skirt, dripping in diamonds. A pretty ornament that is best seen, not heard. 

She grabs a glass of champagne from a passing server’s tray and wanders, becoming another face in the crowd of grinning faces. 

The party is one elaborate play. 

Everyone has a role to perform: the drunkard in the corner, sipping his tenth gold-finish glass flute of champagne; the conversationalist prattling pseudo-intellectual stuff and nonsense into the ears of the impressionable; the pianist long since seated on the bench, being particular at the piano, playing weepy music, the keys moaning beneath his slender, quick fingers; and the flirt sliding her hand underneath the table, easing two of her fingers into her lover’s wet pussy while reciting by heart the lines she once spoke in an obscure film she starred in. 

Jenny is simply the girl. The subject of gossip, side-eyes, and not-so-innocent shoves. She is a dressed-up nobody. She doesn’t belong here. 

But she is a Jones. 

And Grandpa is the wonderful party host. 

Of course, there is Donald, ever-present, ever-attentive, always on the qui vive. 

She’s not too sure what role he plays: perhaps the prodigal son, the knight in shining armor, the trickster. 

He makes no effort to certainly play a role. 

Wherever Grandpa goes, he follows, making nice with Grandpa’s friends, and closing Faustian deals with Grandpa’s associates like a devil. 

He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t dawdle. He is simply Donald, the man who had let her come on his thigh. 

Her cheeks flush red with the memory.  

Good girl. 

Jenny downs another glass of champagne. 

Grandpa throws his arm around Donald’s shoulders and laughs. 

He loves Donald most of all. It’s a perverted sort of love that doesn’t involve the heart.

Grandpa doesn’t have a heart. 

Jenny would have staked him if he had one a long time ago. 

The library is characteristically quiet, except for the echoes of stories from old, words scratching like mice in walls, and yellowed pages whispering. Jenny runs her hand over the spines of the books. 

She has no story of her own. 

Jenny walks around the mahogany desk set in the middle of the library and before the obscenely large portrait of a serious Grandpa looking down, looming over a seated version of herself, his bony hand tightly clutching her shoulder, a pretend smile on her lips, a pair of piercing eyes that hides nothing, not even her pain, framed in custom gold wood. She opens the top drawer and retrieves a porn magazine, blanketed underneath a pile of papers, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. She lights a cigarette and blows smoke at the portrait, wishing it to disappear from her sight. 

It doesn’t. 

She unceremoniously plops herself down in an upholstered chaise lounge chair and plants the rotary telephone in her lap. She calls Amy. 

“Hello?” 

“Guess who?” 

Amy snorts. “Is it my sanity?” 

“Oh, no. What’s wrong?” 

“Just helping Tina set up for her art show. You know Tina—” Like clockwork, she hears Amy’s sister Tina’s voice in the background, No, I think I want that piece to go on this wall. Yeah, this wall. Perfect — “The theme,” Amy continues, “is Sisters, Splendor, and Sorrow.” 

“Interesting.”

“You’re coming, right?” 

“Of course. After Fashion Week, yeah?”

“Yup! I spoke to Donald yesterday. He had to fly to France for last-minute preparations. Edgar’s super excited to walk the runway. And nervous.” 

“He’ll do great.” 

“That’s what I keep telling him … What are you doing?”

“Smoking—” 

“A nasty habit⁠—” 

“Perusing a porn mag⁠—” 

“Naughty—” 

“Hiding out in the library.” 

“Why are you hiding out in the library?” 

Jenny naturally shrugs. “Grandpa is throwing one of his parties. Not really sure what the occasion is, but I know no one here.” 

“Do you want me to whisk you away?” 

She chuckles and hears Tina again, Amy? Amy, I need your help — No, this piece goes with this piece —“Do you need me to whisk you away?” 

Amy sighs. “No, I promised Tina I’d stay and help.” 

“I should probably let you go then? See you Saturday.” 

“See you Saturday, Jenny. Tina, I’ll be right over. Yes, that looks fine —” 

The line goes dead. 

The cigarette dangles over her bottom lip, smoke billowing out like a mushroom cap, a gray curtain that hides her from the world outside the library.

She idly flips through the porn mag and imagines herself naked, maybe collared, kneeling before a lover, sucking thick cock, definitely acting like the brat she is; perhaps she is even spread across her lover’s lap, thoroughly spanked, completely pleasured. 

She thinks all this and thinks of Donald. 

Good girl.  

The night is not over. 

“You are so generous, Johnny,” an overly-friendly guest says as she sits in Grandpa’s lap and feeds him fresh sliced chocolate-coated strawberries, “taking in an orphan. Truly, a saint.” 

“I suppose.” Grandpa sips his Moscato d’Asti white wine. “I couldn’t leave her to the wolves, could I?” 

“She’d been eaten,” another guest chimes from across the room. 

“Chewed. Spit out.” 

“She’d taste poorly.” 

Grandpa nibbles at the strawberry offered to him. “Certainly. Both her parents were distasteful. Weak,” he says. 

“But your son⁠—” 

“My son is dead.” A pause. “He will always be my greatest disappointment.” 

“And the girl?” 

“We’ll see how well she measures up.” 

The girl.

She. 

She has a name. She had a family. 

Jenny balls her hands into fists.

A guest turns and spots her near the buffet table. “Girl, do bring some more champagne.”

“Champagne?” she repeats.

“Yes, a few of our glasses are empty.”

“Of course.”

It will be a lie if she says something came over her or someone possessed her. A wound inside her simply reopens, not violently, but slowly like a bud in spring; she is tired of watching herself bleed.

A glass crashes to the floor, shattering into tiny sharp islands. 

Shocked faces, inaudible gasps, eyes watching, eyes watching her.

Grandpa is furious. 

Donald shakes his head. No, he wants to say. 

Too late. 

She grins and drops another glass. 

“That is enough,” Grandpa says. 

 She picks up a tray, balances it one-handed, and plucks a glass off it. 

“Don’t you dare⁠—”

She drops the tray and downs the glass of champagne. “Cheers.”  

Grandpa’s office is dark and cold, confining like a coffin. 

The living haunts here: Donald, sitting on the velvet couch, silent, a painting of a leopard above his head; Grandpa, mindlessly fidgeting with his pinkie ring, seething; he would foam at the mouth if he could; and Jenny, standing before him, memorizing the strange patterns on the rug, feeling not a thing but total gladness. 

“Look at me, girl,” Grandpa says calmly. 

When she looks up, it is a mistake. He smacks her. Hard. 

Her face feels like cracked porcelain, a stinging pain blossoming inside her cheek. She cups her face with her hands, holding the broken pieces of her in their place. 

“How dare you make a mockery of me?

Donald only allows himself a moment of stunned silence. He rises to his feet. “Sir, don’t —“

Grandpa holds his hand up as if to say, Not another word. He laughs, “Look how you are pitied, girl,” and tells Donald, “Do not pity her, my boy. She does not deserve it.” 

She will not cry. Not here. Not here.

The phone rings.

“Yes,” Grandpa answers. “Yes, yes, I’ll be right down.”

The call ends.

“I’m needed in Exegol. I’ll be gone for a few days. You will stay here. Yes?”

Donald gives a slight nod.

Grandpa grabs Jenny’s chin, forcing her to look at him. “I’ve been too lenient with you, girl. You will be punished accordingly. Donald, see to it my granddaughter learns her lesson.”

When he is gone, the world becomes big again. 

But Jenny is still so small. A trapped canary in a cage, angry. The big world, the cage, and Grandpa’s office swallow her up. Keeps her in the cool dark. 

“Jenny?”

 There is too much violence inside her, too many bad feelings. 

All the good feelings grow in a garden trapped inside a fence of thorns. Jenny wants to unroot them, put them in vases on the windowsills, water them, and care for them.

But the bad feelings win out.

Fuck. Him.

And she chooses destruction.

“Jenny.”

Papers are torn into confetti. Books are thrown across the room. The desk is nearly cleared of all things; she scratches the wood with her nails and bares her teeth out like a badly wounded wolf. A lamp is knocked over. A chair, too.

“Jenny, that’s enough now.”

She is an unstoppable tempest.

“Jenny.”

She is lost in her fury. 

A million hands are on her, what seems to be a million, suffocating her, dragging her farther and farther into an abyss; she can’t even recognize his hands.

She grabs a letter opener from on top of the desk and turns, slashing skin. His face.

She drops it. “I’m—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Donald. I'm so sorry.”

Donald brushes his fingertips at the wound she gave him. It’s a mean cut, chasmic; one can look into it and see what he is made of.

“I’m sorry.”

Tears well in her eyes.

He wipes them away, smearing some of his blood on her already-flushed cheeks.

“Stay here,” he says.

“But—” she sniffles.

“Will you stay here, please?”

Please is not a word Donald often uses. Yet, the word lingers on his lips like a soft prayer whispered in the dark.

Jenny nods, unsure but exhausted to do anything else.

“Stay,” he says again. “I’ll come back.”

Alone again, she crumbles to the ground, curls up, and falls into a dreamless sleep. 

Someone pours a drink.

“Wake up, princess.”

Her eyelids flutter open like butterfly wings like she’s been asleep for a hundred years, only now waking. But no spell fades from her sweat-sheen skin. No fairy tale is written in her favor. She is still on the floor, in Grandpa’s now destroyed office, her fists clenched at her sides, a little nobody.

“Are you alright?”

Donald is seated on the couch, a furious pink line running down the side of his face. She did that. She hurt him —

She smiles, feeling sick pride. The mark on his face is hers. Her signature.

He wears it so well.

“I’m fine,” she says, offering the tiniest of smiles.

“Good.”

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you bad?”

He chuckles darkly. “Baby, you can’t hurt me.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I can try.”

He looks at her, his eyes slitting ever so slightly. “You’re a spoiled little brat because nobody ever punished you right.” He takes a sip from the whiskey glass in his hand. “But Daddy is going to take care of it. Daddy is going to take care of you.”

A thrill runs through her; her blood curdles.

She gulps. “Daddy?”

He puts his finished drink down. “Don’t be afraid.”

“What? You’re going to punish me?”

“I think you want to be punished, Jenny. I think you want the bad out of you. I think you want to feel good.”

Yes, yes, yes, I do.

Jenny's lips tremble. “And you? Daddy? You’re going to take care of me?”

He smiles sickly sweet, deliciously dark. “Won’t you let Daddy take care of you, Jenny?”

He crosses the distance between them. He would cross oceans to get to her.

“Do you want to be punished?”

She pushes her doubts away roughly and sprawls herself over the desk. “Yes, Daddy.”

Donald growls and falls upon her. His hands are all over her, her arms, back, and hips. He moves down to the hem of her dress and shoves her dress up and up, around her waist, hooking his fingers around the waistband of her black panties, yanking them down so hard she hears them tear. He leans forward, his body covering hers, his hands cupping her bare ass. He says, “Good girls are rewarded. But you’ve been bad. Haven’t you, Jenny?”

She squirms beneath him. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” he says, lifting her ass a little higher until she’s on her tippy-toes.

“Yes, Daddy. I’ve been very bad.”

“And what happens to bad girls?” 

Jenny shuts her eyes and braces herself. “They get punished.” 

“They get punished,” he echoes and brings his hand down, smacking her right ass cheek.

She gasps.

“Wanted to mark me up, didn’t you, Jenny?” he whispers close to her ear. “Wanted everyone to know I’m yours?”

Smack.

“Yes!”

Smack.

“Yes, what, Jenny?”

“Yes, Daddy. Yes!”

Smack. Another blow. Smack. Another sharp sting.

“Oh, god!”

“No one here to help you, baby.”

Smack. 

He gives her pain, and she takes the pleasure; she takes it all until her legs give out, and they go down, Donald, on his knees, Jenny, splayed across his thighs, her reddened ass in the air, together, entwined, positioned like a twisted rendition on the Pietà.

“You want me to be yours, Jenny?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“I’m yours, baby. Always have been.”

Smack.

She moans.

She aches. She aches so well.

“What are you, Jenny?”

“I’m a bad girl.”

“Yes, but you’re my good girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes, yes. “

“Won’t you be a good girl? For me?”

Oh, yes. For him, she can be anything, everything, nothing.

“Yes, Daddy.”

He strokes her, soothes her, crushes her to him, and kisses her hair. “That’s my good girl.”

Good girl.

I want to be good.

The stars explode silently like open mouths full of soundless screams. Brilliant bursts of hot light ruptured like incandescent light bulbs. It seems that way to Jenny, at first. Or it is what she wishes to see, pretends to see. 

There are no stars in the moonless night sky. Just a blanket of darkness. An empty universe. Only a swarm of faceless photographers scurrying like ants on the newly paved sidewalk outside the setting for tonight’s fashion show, below, bidding for the perfect shot up her simple deep v-neck red cady dress. 

Miss Jones! Over here! Miss Jones! Look here! Here! 

Her middle finger itches. 

She swallows her screams, buries them deep inside her throat, and offers them a show-stopping smile. 

Won’t you be good for Daddy? 

She meets Amy at the front entrance. “You look stunning.” 

Amy is in a floor-length gown, a navy number with silver flowers embroidered around the bodice, the skirt like delicate petals stitched together. “An Andrew original,” she says, grinning. “And you! You look sinful. Lady in red.” 

“The Devil is off tonight,” Jenny hands over her coat to the stoic attendant in the cloakroom.

“Tasked to tempt potential sinners?”

“Tasked to be good.”

The room is dark. Like inside a movie theater, the lights are low. Cool. The catwalk is strategically placed right down the middle like a clean-cut. Rows of chairs lined on either side. Fashion designers, journalists, photographers, and alphabetized celebrities from A-listers to C-listers sit like perfect statues and wait; Jenny and Amy sit in the front row. 

“No Tina?” Jenny asks. 

“No, she’s still busy preparing for the art show, but she sends her love.” 

“I can’t wait.” 

Amy chuckles. “Neither can Tina.”

The room then quiets.

Orchestral sounds spring up from somewhere in the dark, growing louder and louder into rhythmic drumming. It sounds like a steady heartbeat that echoes inside Jenny’s body, mimicking her steady beat. 

Spotlights shine down, and the first model appears. Then another.

Another.

All dressed in couture, in costumes sprung from Donald’s imagination, his drawings all come to life.

They strut down the catwalk. 

Edgar makes his debut. Walks with confidence, with grace. He is poetry in motion — Amy claps, proud, in love; Jenny claps alongside her. 

A standing ovation at the very end.

Donald bows.

The audience claps long after. 

Daddy sees you, darling. 

“How did I do?” Edgar asks once he finds them at the bar in the chaos that is the after-party.

Amy jumps into his arms, spilling most of her wine onto the floor. “Fantastic, Edgar!” 

“You were great,” Jenny says, handing him a drink. 

“And so sexy,” Amy adds. She looks him up and down, appraising his stylish look for this evening: a composition of fitting green slacks and puffy unbuttoned and low camp collared shirt and leather loafers. “Very sexy.” 

Edgar’s eyes twinkle, bashful; he kisses her forehead. “Thanks, babe. But you—Wow—you are a freaking masterpiece.” 

“Really?” 

“Absolutely.” 

“Get a room!” Donald shouts in a teasing tone, making his way over. He slings his arms around Edgar and Amy. “These two make me believe in love, dammit.” 

Jenny rolls her eyes. “The horror.” 

“It’s terrible.” He sighs. “It gives me hope.” 

Amy playfully pats Donald’s cheek. “Hope is a good thing.” 

“I’ll cheer to that,” Edgar raises his glass, “to hope.” 

Donald grabs a glass and toasts, “ To hope, to the hopeless, to my closest, dearest friends. Cheers.” 

“Cheers.” 

Jenny hides in the restroom long after midnight, the party still ongoing, and sits in the last sink, mascara running down her cheeks, and beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. She stares at the girl in the mirror while someone pukes their insides in a toilet and a couple of fucks in a stall. She caresses the girl’s cheek and feels nothing, kisses the girl, but the girl in the mirror doesn’t kiss back. 

Give Daddy a kiss, baby. 

She takes out her phone and calls Donald. 

“Hello.” 

Sounding from the stall, a loud, primal moan answers him. 

She quickly hangs up. 

And the girl in the mirror smiles. 

The tenement building overlooks a park. It barely reaches high, a tower of brick, its shadow a bruise over the city, its exterior staircase a crooked skeleton. Jenny easily enters it, the hallways narrow and dim, and climbs the stairs to the third floor. 3E. She breaks into Donald’s flat without issue; she’s always had a talent for picking locks— Little thief. 

She turns on the light. 

Donald’s flat is clinical. Clean like a surgeon's hands, the hardwood floors scrubbed, the egg-shelled white walls washed. Very little furniture like an animal emptied of its guts. Nothing personal. No picture frames or art. There is a round table and two chairs; a nearly empty fridge except for a carton of milk, a pack of beer, a few lemons, an onion, and cold pizza; a cabinet of five dishes and some cups and polished knives, spoons, and forks in a drawer; a couch but no TV; a bookshelf with hardly any books—she opens a collection of poems and sees a hurried scribble written inside it, It’s you and me, kid. We’ll make it through okay. 

She calls him again. 

“Hello.” 

She doesn’t answer. 

A pause fills with unsaid words. 

“I can hear you,” he says, at last. 

She hangs up and inspects his bedroom. His mattress is on the floor, and a blanket is flung about it like a burial shroud, with two flat pillows on it. A lamp is set near it. A pile of books, too. There is a chair by the window. The curtains are long; they brush the floor. The clock on the floor reads 3:47. 

She calls again, puts him on speaker, and takes a look inside his closet, a monochromatic wardrobe, unwrinkled shirts, and slacks precisely put, arranged by shades, leather shoes unboxed, belts and ties hanging from hooks. 

When he answers, he doesn’t say anything at first. He lets the silence drag, lets her imagine the words he’ll use. Will they be pretty? Sweet? Or will they be dirty? 

“I know it’s you.” 

Jenny shivers, tightly gripping the tie she picks out from his collection, clenching her thighs. 

“Did you want to hear Daddy’s voice? Is that it?” 

She nods— Yes —and plucks a dark navy buttoned-down shirt from its flat wood hanger. 

“Ah, you did,” his whisper is erotic, deep like an abyss; she wants to fall into it; she wants to fall forever. 

“What do you want to hear, baby?” 

She ends the call and puts together an outfit for him to wear, laying it out on top of his bed, pretending to be a good little wife for her darling husband.

The room becomes smaller with her in it as if the walls inch closer, as if the floors want to open up and swallow her, surround her in an embrace like his. 

Daddy will take good care of you. 

She calls one last time. 

He sighs. “Come home.”  

She shuts her eyes. She desperately wants to⁠— 

“I have no home. Neither do you.” 

He sighs again. “Then we’ll be each other’s home.” 

Grandpa is still away, but he’s left his handprint on her cheek, his ghost in every hallway, and his remains in every room like snakeskin. No amount of cleaning will ever rid the mansion of him. No amount of scrubbing her cheek will ever wipe him from her memory. Maybe a soft caress, a gentle kiss will. 

She changes into a nightgown before she goes looking for him. 

Daddy’s here now. 

She ventures into the library by chance, the fireplace lit, warm, a pretend-home, and finds Donald and Martin sitting opposite each other, an upholstered, rectangular-shaped ottoman between them, playing a serious game of chess. 

“Miss Jenny,” Martin addresses politely and moves a pawn. 

Donald doesn’t look up from the board. “How was the show? The party?” 

“Good,” she says. 

“Just good?” 

“Very good.” 

“Brat,” he mutters, “getting a word or two is like pulling teeth.” 

She smirks and sits by the fire, her body haloed in orange-red light, hissing tongues of flames nearly licking the sweat off her body. She waits for their game to end. She could wait all night. 

Her eyelids are half-closed, heavy with sleep. 

When the game finally comes to an end, Donald sits comfortably back in the armchair. “Martin,” he says, “close the door on your way out.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

The door closes⁠— 

“It’s just the two of us now,” he says quietly, his eyes searching, unfathomable, unknowable depths; he taps his fingers against his thigh. “Come here.” 

She crawls on her hands and knees to him, nestles between his stretched-out legs, and rests her head against his thigh. 

He strokes her hair. “Missed me?” he asks innocently, his voice like honey, sweet; his other hand wraps around her neck, and he gives her a soft squeeze.

His touch awakens her.

“Missed Daddy?” 

Her moan turns into an agonized whimper.

“Daddy missed you.”

He releases her neck and slides down the front of her, slowly, methodically, his clever fingers pinching her stiff nipples through the silk fabric, tapping down her belly, creeping underneath the hem of her nightgown until his hand is between her thighs; he completely covers her bare cunt, feels her wetness gather beneath his fingertips. 

Her breath hitches. 

“So wet.” 

She squeezes her eyes shut, and licks her bottom lip. “Please.” 

“My baby is so polite, isn’t she?” he presses the heel of his hand harder against her mound. “So polite and so good.” 

“Yes, Daddy. I’m a good girl.” 

“I know you are, Jenny. My good girl.” 

“Please.” 

He leans down, his lips barely brushing against her neck, his breath hot. “Would you like Daddy’s fingers inside you? Would you like Daddy to touch you?” 

“Oh, yes. Please, Daddy.” 

She squirms as he spreads her legs apart and pushes a finger inside her tight hole; he plunges another thick digit inside her; it’s a ruthless breach, merciless. 

He opens her, fills her, and his thrusts hard, fast, deep. 

“What would your dear grandfather say if he saw us now, with my fingers deep in your wet, warm cunt?” 

She covers her mouth with her hands, burying her moans, her litany of Yes, Daddy, yes, yes, blankly staring at the portrait of her and Grandpa. 

“What if Martin walks in? A maid? What would they think of you, Jenny? Would they call you a dirty whore?” 

She wraps her arms around his neck, sobbing, his body bent over her, covering her, keeping her tethered to him. 

“You are a whore, aren’t you, Jenny?” he circles her clit, and rubs hard. “A desperate slut fucking my hand.” 

She rolls her hips and grinds so hard against his hand, her pussy juices dripping down his wrist onto the carpet. 

“Yes.” 

She is so close. So close⁠—

“Daddy,” she whines. 

“You’re daddy’s fucking whore.” 

“Yes, yes, yes.” 

“Come for me. Come for Daddy⁠—”

Jenny cries out in pleasure and comes down from a hidden place of euphoria, aching, burning, unmade, undone. 

“Thank you, Daddy.” 

Donald gathers her into his lap, holds her, and lets her suck his fingers clean like the good girl she is.

You’ll behave tonight, won’t you? 

The dancer writhes inside the cage like a canary comes to be well-versed in its capture, wings clipped but put to show. Most of the club-goers gather to watch her, wanting more than anything for her to dance. She shows them her sharp teeth, her wolf grin. She doesn’t dance for them; she doesn’t sing for them. But on good nights, the trick is this: move with her and move like a wave, feel just as trapped, even if the dancefloor below is open, and she will fly and touch the remodeled ceiling and forget they ever existed. 

The music is loud. Jenny screams her order to the bartender, “Vodka on the rocks, please,” and swivels on her stool and stares out at the sea of dancing bodies, at the ghosts waltzing in circles, in thoughtless steps. She has no itch to dance. No real thirst to drink. She sighs instead. 

Grandpa’s club, one of many, is downtown, burrowed between two tall buildings; outside, it looks like a mouth; whoever enters it is swallowed up, chewed on, and spat out on the sidewalk, sweaty and drunk. 

I need you good, baby.  

She’s not here to party as the heiress of the Jones fortune, although dressed in a fun little partygoer number. 

She’s not here to play in pinstriped suits and talk business over a couple of drinks. 

She is simply here. 

And so is Donald.  

“You shouldn’t be drinking.” Donald takes the glass from her before it touches her lips and downs the drink to not waste it. 

Jenny pouts. “I only wanted a sip.” 

“Drink some cranberry juice?”

“I’m not a child, Donald.” 

“But you’re under my care,” he shuts the dressing room door behind him and places the empty glass down on the counter. Jenny sinks into the leather couch and stares at his reflection in the mirror opposite her, sulking like a child. He shakes his head and carefully places the dry-cleaned costume on the coffee table. 

“Can’t we go home?” she says. 

“I thought you didn’t have a home.” 

“I don’t. But you’re my home,” she hugs a pillow to her chest, “Pick somewhere to go, anywhere but here, and I’ll follow.” 

He pulls up a stool and sits in front of her. He looks like he might break it, big as he is; he embraces the space; everything in the room dulls in comparison to him: the colorful flowers in the vase, the bright light bulbs surrounding the mirror, the dramatic costumes on the clothes rack. He looks like he might scold her, but he doesn’t. 

“You’re here with me now,” his right hand splays on her left knee; they both notice the hole in her stockings. 

She narrows her eyes. “You have a date,” she spits the word out in disgust. 

“A meeting in the VIP room,” he corrects, picking at the hole in her stocking, “with important associates.” 

“Tell them to leave.” 

“I can’t do that.” 

“You can. You choose not to.” 

“Don’t be a brat.” 

“Or what, Daddy?” 

The word is a sharp blade. She knifes it in his heart and twists it. 

Donald springs forward and wraps his hand around her neck; his mouth so close to hers, his breathing heavy, hot, he sneers, “Don’t think Daddy won’t punish you, princess.” 

She digs her fingernails into his forearm and smiles. “Punish? What did I do? All I did was ask a simple question, Daddy.” 

“No, you’re acting up.” 

“No one is watching.”

“Is that what you want? To be watched? You want me to spank you in front of a crowd? You want to be seen?”

“I want you to give me my reward.” 

“You think you deserve a reward?” 

“I think I deserve to feel good. Don’t we all deserve that?” 

He rips her stocking entirely at the knee. 

Oh. 

Her open mouth is like a blossomed flower, and he kisses her there violently, tearing the petals off her lips, breaking the stem right off her tongue, his tongue plunging deep into the soil of her throat, searching for her roots. 

“I was going to have the dancers come in here and keep you some company while you wait,” he murmurs against her cheek. 

She squirms. “I don’t like them.”

“Why not?”

“They ignore me and talk to each other like I’m not here.”

“My poor, poor baby.” His hands slide down her arms, slowly, tortuously.

“Sometimes, they talk about me.” 

“Do you really care what anyone thinks?”

“No,” she lies.

He sees right through her and chuckles. “I think you do. I think you care a lot.”

“I care about what I think, what my friends think. I care about what you think.”

He gets to his feet. “I think you’re a brat, Jenny.”

“Donald.”

“You were so good, Jenny.” 

“I am,” she whines. 

He wags his finger at her, “No, baby, you’ve been bad. You’re bad tonight. My very bad girl.”

“I can be good. Please.” 

“Begging already?” — he undoes the cuffs on his sleeves. 

She gets on her knees and begs even more.

She looks depraved: her stockings ripped, her tight dress hiked up over her hips; her hair undone; she doesn’t care. “Please.” 

He puts away his mercy. 

“I was going to eat your pussy, but now I think I’d rather have you choke on my cock.”

Jenny. 

He unzips his pants and pulls his cock out.

His cock is beautiful. Thick and hard. And big. 

“You want to be good again?” he strokes himself. 

She licks her lips and nods. 

“Good girls do what they’re told,” he wraps her ponytail around his free hand, and gently nudges her head down, “Won’t you be a good girl, Jenny, and suck Daddy’s cock?”

I’ll be good, Daddy. I promise. 

She tastes him first—her tongue swiping the pearly-white precum on the head. He tastes so good. Salty and delicious. She rubs the cockhead in circles with her thumb, looking up at him. He hisses.