Annabeth Preston sat at the kitchen table in their shared home on 969 Turning Oaks Drive, idly flipping through the glossy pages of a gossip magazine. She didn’t even bother glancing up to acknowledge her son’s presence when Nicholas entered the room behind her. ‘How’d it go out in Arkansas?’ she asked, wetting a manicured fingertip with her small pink tongue and flipping another page.
Nicholas’s heart pounded in his chest. His hands trembled. His armpits flooded with sweat. His temples throbbed. His pulse raced.
Annabeth Preston finally turned around when he didn’t immediately answer her. Her emerald eyes locked onto his, freezing him in her paralysing cobra stare. ‘I asked you a question, son. I said, how’d it go out in Arkansas?’
Nicholas tried to speak but no words would come out. His tongue felt too swollen; his vocal cords too tight, the crashing in his brain too loud.
Annabeth Preston studied the sheen of fear in his eyes and rose to her feet. The belt on her white satin robe fell open at the waist to reveal her beautiful body. A silver Tiffany heart necklace was cushioned between her ample breasts. A lacy black bra supported perfect white globes. A small brown mole winked out at Nicholas from the left side of her chest. She took a languid step in his direction.
‘You want this, son?’ she cooed, pursing her painted lips and running her fingers through her ink-black hair, letting the strands cascade over her shoulders in a glorious display of seduction. ‘You want to take your mother to bed and show her what a big, strong man you are?’
Annabeth Preston slid a finger teasingly along the elastic waistband of her white satin panties. ‘Are you ready for me, Nicholas? Finally ready to do something with that bulge I see in your pants all the time? Do you like what you see, boy?’
When Nicholas again failed to answer her, Annabeth Preston laughed. ‘I know that you and your little brother like me,’ she said, taking another step forward. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t. I see the way you two boys have been looking at me lately. Disgusting, foul little perverts. Don’t you know that little boys aren’t supposed to look at their mothers that way? It’s unholy.’
Nicholas took a step back and held up his hands in a futile effort to keep her away. He should have known better than to come here tonight. There was no escaping his mother. Never had been. Never would be. She owned him.
Nicholas’s worked the muscles around his mouth. When his voice finally emerged from his badly constricted throat, it shook uncontrollably, reduced to sounding the same way it had when he’d been a confused, pre-pubescent boy who didn’t understand the feelings he felt. ‘No,’ he said, taking another step backward and feeling the wall next to the refrigerator press into the small of his back. ‘This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be doing this to me. You shouldn’t have done a lot of things you did to me.’
Annabeth Preston cocked her head to one side and took another step forward. ‘Like what, son? Tell me exactly what you’re talking about here.’
Nicholas’s eyes filled with tears, blurring his vision. ‘You shouldn’t have…’
Annabeth Preston took another step forward and cupped a hand to her right ear. She was no more than three feet away from him now. ‘Yes, son? Go on. I shouldn’t have done what?’
Nicholas felt his heart break into a million tiny pieces inside his chest. ‘You shouldn’t have… molested me,’ he breathed, his voice shattering in his throat. ‘I was just a little boy. You were supposed to protect me.’
Annabeth Preston threw back her head and barked out a short, ugly laugh. Her eyes flashed like heated emeralds. ‘Molest you?’ she asked incredulously. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? I never laid a finger on you a day in my life, boy. You were a freak, but I still took care of you. I fed you. I bathed you.’
Annabeth Preston shook her head again and exhaled a disgusted breath through her mouth, producing a hard pfft sound with her beautiful lips. ‘Molested you. Give me a fucking break. You can just go to hell, for all I care, you ungrateful little sissy.’
The pure venom coating Annabeth Preston’s voice finally caused the sturdy wall inside of Nicholas to break. Taking one quick step forward, he punched his mother square in the mouth with all his might, releasing all the