Page 24 of Twice as Twisted

He chuckles. “No. I told her I’d fuck her with a saw next time she tried to run.”

“She ran away?” I ask, surprised.

“She tried a few times at first, but she learned quickly that I always follow through on my punishments,” he says. “The last major infraction was when she smarted off, so I broke her jaw with a pear of anguish. I did a good job setting it. It seems to be healed up perfectly.”

“What’s your plan for her?” I ask carefully.

“I figure I’ll keep her around until something goes wrong and she doesn’t make it. I’d really like to open up her head anddo some things in her brain, but I haven’t gotten further than drilling a hole in her skull once. And electrodes, of course. Those are interesting.”

“No, I mean, when we go get Mabel,” I ask. “You’re going to bring her back, and we’re all going to live here with Jane in the basement?”

“I don’t see why not,” he says. “Jane is a specimen, not a girlfriend.”

“But you fucked her,” I point out.

“I have needs like anyone,” he says. “Mabel is rational. She’ll understand.”

“I don’t know about that,” I mutter. Even rational people get jealous. And if we want Mabel, we have to offer her more than a house she could easily afford for herself, two men she hates, and a crazy side chick that one of them is probably still fucking, judging by the noises I heard downstairs.

“You underestimate Mabel,” Baron says, not sounding at all concerned as he goes to the stove. “You have to open the cans, dumbass. You’re lucky they didn’t explode. And you put them in a pan to heat them up, or a bowl in the microwave.”

“I didn’t know,” I protest. “I’ve never cooked anything before. I’m not gay.”

Baron takes the cans off with an oven mitt and proceeds to puncture a hole and let the steam out, then open them with an instrument that looks like it’s from the 1800s before dumping them into three bowls.

“Damn. Cooking’s a lot of work,” I say, searching for a spoon. “How’d you learn all this?”

“To work a can opener?” he asks, holding up the thing he used and giving me a look.

“I’m not stupid,” I say. “I’ve heard of a can opener. I’ve just never had to use one, so how would I know what it looked like?”

Baron just shakes his head and hands me a bowl. I sit down, and he sits opposite me, and a minute later, Jane walks in. She’s clean now, which makes her about a million times less hideous, but I still wouldn’t fuck her. She looks one skipped meal away from death, and I was never really into the whole anorexia thing girls did in high school. Plus, she shaved her head while she was in there, so all that’s left of her hair is a half inch of fuzz, which makes her look kinda dykey.

“Jane, sit,” Baron says, in exactly the voice people use for their dogs. He kicks out a chair, and she pauses before approaching warily and slipping into the chair.

“Should I get dressed, Master?” she whispers to her bowl.

“No,” Baron says. “You can eat like that.”

“Master?” I ask, giving my brother a questioning look.

“That’s what I am to her,” he says. “Her owner, her ruler, her god. I give her life, and I’ll take it away when I’m ready.”

“Can I eat, Master?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “You can watch us eat. When we’re done, if we don’t want seconds, you can eat what’s left.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Isn’t she good?” he asks, taking a bite of soup.

I’ve lost my appetite, and I start to push my bowl away, but I know my brother. He won’t say we’re done until we’ve both eaten our fill. So I slurp down my bowlful fast enough to burn the fuck out of my mouth. I want to leave half of it for Jane over there, who’s obviously starving to death, but Baron would call me on it and probably dump it down the drain rather than let me show her mercy. Mercy is weakness in his eyes.

When I’m done with my bowl, Baron’s only finished half of his. He’s talking to me like everything is normal, like we’re not dining withA Nightmare Before Christmas.

I must be answering adequately, because he doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss. My knee is bouncing under the table,and I want to tell him to hurry up because I don’t want to watch this chick keel over while she waits patiently, her head bowed, her scrawny little tits barely more than nipples, a bandage over the gruesome wound on her chest.

Baron finally finishes, and I let out a sigh of relief, but then he hooks his finger into the top of her bowl and drags it over. “Want more?” he asks me.

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