The Amazing Otis Vale

Chapter 3

At that moment the room was very quiet.

Otis stood there.

Marcus was looking at him now with something that had moved past amusement into something colder. He stood up slowly from the sofa, straightening to his full height, which was considerable. “She's been very patient with you,” he said. His voice was calm and even.  

“More patient than you deserved.” He looked Otis over once, up and down, the way you assess something you're about to deal with. 

“You haven't touched her, have you? In the marriage?”

Otis looked at him.

“Answer the question,” Marcus said.

“He held my hand,” Cara said, before Otis could speak. 

“Once or twice. That's all I ever allowed.” She said it like it was a point of pride.

Something shifted in Marcus's eyes. What had been cold became something harder. 

“Your hand,” he repeated quietly. He looked back at Otis and the relaxed expression was completely gone now. 

“She let you touch her hand.”

“That's all it was,” Cara said again.

“That's already too much,” Marcus said.

And then he moved.

The first hit came fast, the back of Marcus's hand connecting with the side of Otis's face hard enough to turn his head. Otis stumbled back a step, his shoulder catching the edge of the doorframe, and before he could straighten, Marcus was already in front of him, driving his fist into Otis's stomach, once, twice, folding him forward.

Otis tried to cover himself, arms coming up to protect his ribs, but Marcus grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back against the wall.

“You think you can just walk in here?” Marcus's voice was still even, which somehow made it worse. He drove his knee up into Otis's side and Otis gasped, the air leaving him all at once. 

“You think you can stand in the same room as her and open your mouth?”

Gerald and Diane had moved to the archway now, watching. Nobody moved to stop it.

Cara walked calmly to the side of the room and lifted something from the chair near the wall. It was a riding whip, thin and long, the kind one of the guards had been holding earlier near the door. She walked back toward Otis with it in her hand, and the look on her face was not angry. That was the thing that made it worse. She did not look angry. She looked satisfied.

“Every time you tried to come near me,” she said, raising the whip, “every single time you tried to close the distance between us, every time you looked at me like you had any right to—”

The whip came down across his back.

Otis's teeth clenched. The pain was sharp and immediate, cutting through the wet fabric of his shirt like it was not there.

“Do you know the embarrassment?” She raised it again. 

“Do you know what my friends thought? What they said about me?” Again. 

“Because of you.” Again. 

“Because I was tied to you.”

The whip fell again and again, each one landing with a crack that echoed in the high-ceilinged room. Otis stayed on his feet as long as he could. His shirt split open across the back from the third or fourth strike, and after that he could feel the pain spreading.

He did not beg.

He pressed his lips together and he breathed, short and tight, through his nose, and he did not beg.

“You can die,” Cara said, breathing slightly harder now from the effort, “and join your mother for all I care.”

Marcus stepped back in then, nodding to the guards who had moved up behind Otis. He straightened his sleeve and looked at Gerald. 

“I think we've given him enough of our time.”

Gerald nodded once, sipping his drink.

“Get him out,” Marcus said to the guards.

Then he looked at Cara and his whole face changed, soft and easy.  “Go get changed,” he said to her gently. 

“Our reservations for the date has been confirmed.”

Cara looked down at Otis one last time. Then she turned and walked away up the stairs without a backward glance, and Otis listened to the sound of her heels until they disappeared.

He had barely processed any of it when Diane's voice.

“Oh, and Otis? The money.” She paused. 

“There isn't any. There never was going to be. Sign the divorce papers and maybe, maybe we'll discuss it.”

Otis lifted his head.

They were all looking at him. Gerald, Diane, Felix, the cousins, the guards standing on either side of him. All of them watching to see what he would do.

He thought about his mother.

He thought about the hospital. The doctor's voice. 

He thought about the bone marrow. Twice. Lying on that operating table the second time, looking up at the ceiling lights while they prepped him, wondering if he was going to open his eyes again.

He thought about Cara's face just now as the whip came down. The satisfaction in it.

“Fine,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper but it was steady. “Bring the papers.”

Diane smiled. Someone went and got them quickly, too quickly, which told Otis they had been prepared already, sitting somewhere close by, waiting for this exact moment.

He took the pen they handed him.

He signed.

He set the pen down and looked at Diane. 

“The money,” he said. “One hundred thousand. That's all I'm asking for.”

Gerald tilted his head back and laughed. and looked at Otis.

“Money?” he said. 

“Boy, you just signed away the only thing that was keeping you relevant in this house ever since my father brought you in.” He set his glass down on the cabinet. 

“You deserve nothing. You are nothing. Now get out and beat him properly.”

“Get out,” Diane echoed softly.

“Get out,” Felix said, grinning.

Otis opened his mouth.

“Throw him out,” Gerald said to the guards.

Immediately They grabbed him before he could finish the breath. One on each arm, hauling him back through the entrance hall, past the chandelier, past the tall front doors that someone pulled open ahead of them, and then they were outside and the rain hit him again, cold and immediate, and then there was nothing under his feet and he was falling.

His back hit the stone of the front steps and he rolled, once, and came to a stop at the bottom of the driveway, face up, the rain coming straight down, and immediately the bodyguards boots started landing on him from different directions, he tried to cover his face, his body but he couldn't his strength was gone.

Now the bodyguard Boots connected to his head, kick after kick to the point his head was like a tomato that was already got bad.

His head covered with blood, he could not move.

Everything hurt, 

The blood from his back, his head, nose,  mixed with the rainwater

At that moment his hand came up slowly, weakly, and his fingers found the necklace at his chest. The chain was still there. And hanging from it, pressing cold and small against his skin, was the ring. The one he had carried with him every day for years. The one he had never once taken off.

His fingers closed around it, his eyes stayed open, looking up at the rain, at the dark sky, at nothing.

And then his hand dropped.

His eyes closed then suddenly he saw himself on a blink space.