Unreal - Page 4
*****
“Shelly, dear!” her self-titled “father” called out. “Father's made a bit of a mess in the parlor; be a lamb and clean it up.”
“Yes, father.”
Shelly moved promptly, but unhurriedly toward the sound of her father's voice so as not to invoke yet another chastisement on the evils of “rushing.” Entering the parlor she saw her father fastidiously wiping off the fireplace poker with a jacket she didn't immediately recognize as the jacket his guest had been wearing when he had arrived.
A glance at the floor revealed the guest's body, as well as his blood pooling into the carpet.
Her father tossed the jacket over the body and stoked the fire to make the room warmer. “I never could stand the smell of burning blood,” he muttered. “Ah, there you are, Shelly,” he said as he turned to her. “I need to return to work, so take care of this, will you.” It wasn't a question.
It never was.
“Yes, father,” Shelly responded with practiced obedience. She started to kneel down to remove the body so she could get started cleaning the stain on the carpet, but paused as she realized she'd only make a bigger mess by moving the body.
The man who told her to call him “father” realized it too.
“Don't get your dress all bloody, dear,” he said with a fussy wrinkling of his nose. “Take it off,” he absently commanded, his thoughts already turning toward his work.
“Yes, father.”
While his command may have been given almost in afterthought, Shelly still removed her dress slowly, just as he liked. She wore nothing underneath her dress, of course.
That was something else he liked.
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