The Ring - Training
INtrinSicliValud
The Ring - Training
By INtrinSicliValud
Copyright © 2022 INtrinSicliValud
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: intrinsiclivalud100@yahoo.com
“Your mother is dead.”
At Treacle’s utterly calm, flat words, my heart thumped. Instead of sobbing, I only stared. On a rough brown blanket, I sat on the corner of the bed, gazing out across the dust-coated vineyards. I mean, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. She’d been a heavy user. A sigh escaped my shaking lips. So was dad, before they’d killed him. Whoever “they” were. Mom’s pimp? His supplier? Her supplier? So much I didn’t know. And even more, I tried to forget.
In a chipped, wooden, once white frame, flanked by gray-planked shutters, glass-paneled doors hung open. Beyond them was a shallow balcony enclosed by a tattered, rickety wood railing. Hanging above the brown, scrub-covered slopes of distant hills, the sun shone from a clear blue sky. Below the balcony, in gray cassocks, a trio of nuns moved along a yellow-dirt path just this side of a small grove. Under the bright sunlight, the short trees’ deep-green leaves glimmered. A sudden dry, heated gust carried snippets of French; they were discussing evening prayers.
At that sight, I chuckled under my breath. If they knew what’d been happening in this outbuilding since we’d arrived a week prior…. God, a single week? I was fairly sure it’d been a week, but time was—weird. Every muscle ached. Then again, perhaps the nuns were already aware of us. Treacle had her ways of—persuasion. My vision blurred at the edges—tears. She had tried. My mother, I mean. She simply wasn’t any good at—mothering. Before my unexpected arrival, she hadn’t much chance to become an adult.
As warmth trickled down my cheek, a longer sigh escaped my parched mouth. While running my tongue over dry lips, I spared a quick glance around the tiny chamber. With a low ceiling of thick dark beams, it was just large enough for my narrow bed, a battered wooden chest of drawers, and a small writing desk. An oversized crucifix was affixed to the peeling white plaster of one wall. A convent? How appropriate. At my snort, I returned to the stunted trees, their leaves shimmering in another warm gust.
The floor boards creaked as Treacle walked closer, moving around the bed to stand beside me.
“Are you okay, little one? I know these things are meaningful to…. To your kind.”
Though she feigned concern, by now…. After so many—years? Or was it actually only a week? Time—differed. Anyway, I’d recognized the lilt in her voice. Her attention was, as always, on the goal. To her credit, she remained still as my hand slipped under her hem to tug his thick, dark mast free of its soft, warm cotton holster. Only the softest whimper left her as I leaned to take the already thickening flesh of his pulsing knob between my lips.