“No, you can’t,” Jamie responded harshly. The girls turned and ran down the hallway in the opposite direction.
As I turned back to my toy cars, I could hear their feet pounding up the stairs. My brow furrowed, and my lower lip pushed forward in a pout. Why did Jamie always have to exclude me from the fun?
Finally, I touched my fingers to my cars, but I just pushed them around now, no longer interested. I kept thinking about sneaking upstairs to spy on the girls. The stairs are creaky though; they’d probably hear me before I got close and send me away.
I was about ready to pick up my cars when I heard a roaring sound that reminded me of waves crashing at the beach. It came from the direction of the stairs that lead to the attic.
When I turned in that direction, a burst of wind whooshed toward me. My skin breaks out in great big goosebumps as it passed by. I followed and found the impossibly heavy grandfather clock was no longer flush against the wall but sitting out at an angle. In the wall behind it was a hole barely an inch in diameter.
Intrigued, I crawled over to the hole and peered through it. What I saw made me stifle a gasp to avoid being heard.
My parents were in bed, but they weren’t sleeping. They were both completely naked. Dad laid over Mother, kissing her, and rocking his hips against her. She moaned and ran her hands over his bare back and hips.
Between me and them, I could see the “gust of wind”. As if it was waiting for me to find it again before it moved on. When my eyes focused on the blur that reminded me of how air dances above sweltering asphalt on a scorching summer day, it moved and whirled its way into my mother’s open mouth.
I couldn’t take my eyes off my parents. Something held me in place like a stone statue. Though I didn’t know what they were doing, it felt wrong to watch them. Tension in my pants slightly distracted me, and I dropped my hand to my lap to massage it.
Dad moved faster, and Mom moaned louder. Their skin was flushed, their breathing heavy. Sweat dripped down my father’s face.
I sat glued to every movement, every hitched inhale.
Mom cried out, a startling sound that surprisingly didn’t indicate pain. Dad’s body stiffened as he grunted and shook. He fell on her, and it seemed to be over. Much too soon. Some part of me wanted them to keep moving.
They both got up, and Mom moved to a chair between me and the bed to put on her stockings. I watched her soft hands smooth them up her silky legs.
She turned her head and her sultry eyes met mine.
“What are you doing?”
I nearly jumped from my skin when my sister’s disgusted voice boomed behind me.
* * *
As I pull into the drive of the mansion, the wave of shame washes through me yet again. My cheeks burn with the same embarrassment I’d felt back then. The humiliation of being caught touching myself while watching my parents through a hole in the wall hadn’t faded over time.
I’m surprised to remember that day so clearly—or at all; I’d forgotten about it until just now. Call it a repressed memory. One that I wish had stayed that way.
Why my sister never told on me begins to make sense. I can still see her, face as pale as a sheet, standing across the hallway.
At first, I thought her wide eyes held disgust, but as she continued to gape at me I recognized the look for what it was: terror. Becky stood beside Jamie with a similar look, clutching her stomach as if she would be or had been sick.
As quickly as I’d been noticed, I seemed to be dismissed. Jamie’s eyes morphed from horrified to vacant and drifted away from me.
“I’m going to go.” Becky’s voice had been hollow, and she looked around dumbly as if she didn’t know where she was or how she got there.
Jamie didn’t even acknowledge her friend. Becky left, and my sister shuffled off to her bedroom without another word or glance in my direction.
I climb out of my car and stare up at the three-story sprawling building. Why a family of four ever lived in such a large place, I’ll never know. Its presence towers over me as much now as it did when I was a child. Two lit windows on either side of the door make the house look like a fiend ready to swallow me.
I hold an umbrella over my head and stand there, delaying my entry as my body trembles in protest. No part of me ever wanted to return to this place.
None of us were the same after that day.
My father began to have heart problems and needed to see specialists frequently. Becky never returned, and Jamie never mentioned her again. I think the Ouija board had been abandoned in the attic, but I never had the courage to confirm this suspicion.
My sister became a weak, empty version of herself. She was most alive around our mother as if she received some sort of nourishment from the strange interactions.
I began masturbating nightly from that day on. Occasionally, I found some of my dad’s girly magazines or borrowed some from friends at school. No matter how attractive the women in the photographs were, my final strokes, the ones that brought me to a climax, only happened while picturing my mother’s new eyes.
Standing outside my childhood home, I realize that I’d forgotten about my family shame after I moved out. I had regained some normalcy by my absence which increased when I met Meisha. She helped me heal and move on.
It wasn’t until the drive back that I remembered any of it.
Maybe I should have brought her with me. I could drive back now, sleep in my bed next to my wife, and return with her in the morning.
Except I won’t. I can’t bring her to this place. Nor my son. They’re the only good things I have in this world.
This house changed my mother, emptied my sister, and ate my father. I know that now, and I won’t give the beast any more victims. Especially not those I love.
I survived it then. Barely. But I can survive it again. Just one night; just long enough to go through the house with the appraiser in the morning, sign the papers, and never see this front door again.
With a deep breath, I square my shoulders and trudge up the damp walkway.
After a turn of the brass knob, the ornate, burgundy door creaks open. I feel rather than hear a voice say, “Welcome home, John.”
This is not my home though. My home is elsewhere with…is with…. For a moment, I don’t remember.
* * *
