Gwendolyn...

Photo credit: @nubellorona

Darkness slowly crept in as dusk's invasion of the day steadily began to gather momentum. Like the fleeing sun, I quietly left the house before the evils of the night sucked me in along with it. And as quick steady steps took me further away from the deaths about to happen, I thought again about the events which had led all up to this point...

We hadn't been the perfect household, but at the start we had worked out just fine. The Browns had taken me in, or rather taken us in when I was but a child. They were newlyweds back then, and mum's presence had made sure they could fully enjoy the early bliss of their marriage. Or at least so she told me for many many quiet nights when I had asked her why we didn't stay with father.

Father was an unanswered question. One which mother always found a way to make me forget. Perhaps I should be ashamed, for I did enjoy many excesses in his name. I thought it was smart back then, mother would allow anything just so I left the topic, but little did I truly know...

The Brown house gave me my childhood education. Here was where I learnt to thread a needle, and polish glass. I learnt how to curtsy to the masters, and how to dress to fit my place. Mrs. Brown taught me to spell the alphabets, and how to hold a quill. Mother taught me where the dust laid and where the cobwebs were found the most. But most importantly I learnt how to keep my place. I learnt that on my own just before I became a woman...

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It had been an eventful day. The Browns had hosted a party, and the house had been filled. This was one of the times I truly enjoyed in the Brown household. I loved watching the other masters from the other families talk with their exaggerated airs of superiority. I loved watching the ladies glide gracefully with their long gowns and patterned hair while I dreamt of how I would glide if I did have a gown like that.

But mostly I loved seen Julio, the driver of the Williams'. Mother had always said he was bad for me, but I never felt that way with him. How would I when he looked at me like that, when my stomach tickled whenever he held my hands? I loved the parties because of him, and that day, in the small kitchen at the back of the house he had said it for the first time.

"I like you Gwen."

It was not as I had experienced for many nights while I slept, or dreamt during the many days while I knited. But what followed was the perfect first kiss, one which made the contrasting events of that night all the more dark and painful...

The party was over and almost all the work done. Mrs. Brown was already asleep, mother said she always tired after these long parties. Mother herself was getting ready for bed, suggesting that I do the same. But Mr. Brown had summoned me to his study, and there my childhood had ended...

I knew it the moment I saw him, the way he looked at me. I knew I wouldn't be able to stop him, and I knew mother wouldn't come. For I had seen him look at her the same way over and over, those nights when she 'waited on him' in his studies while I went to bed. I discovered the truth in those preceding moments, and that night everything changed.

That was six years ago...

I took one last look at the Brown house just before Julio pulled up. The lamps illuminated the rooms, but I still felt the sting of the darkness. I was doing this for mother, for myself. But most importantly I was doing this for Mrs. Brown. She deserved a better man than Mr. Brown, a man who had no legitimate child, but still took away the innocence of his daughter...

Julio smiled at me as I sat next to him. I smiled back. He too was a victim, though in a different way. And he wouldn't know until it was too late. That the last one of his tablets was nestled in my stomach, close to the abomination that grew inside of me...

I closed my eyes, and the image of the Brown house reappeared. No he couldn't know...

THE END

#SladenSpeaks

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Written for @thewritersblock's Art Prompt Writing Contest

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