The Cult of Rohesia: Mark (2/3)

Yeah, okay. That's roughly what I thought Michael was up to. I just couldn't figure out what kind of lie he could tell Dora to get her to come here. In hindsight, it makes sense. Kind of?

When Michelle died, I thought Dora was upset because that was when she realized it could have been her. And it probably still was, given the way she fixated on the possibility of Michelle getting fired from a hypothetical job she doesn't actually have for missing work. But that can't be why Michael was able to get her to come out here, after an entire weekend of silence, by (apparently) telling her Michelle was dead and not waking up. Also, she looks really upset this time. Not just angry. Like she could cry or something.

"He used your phone, Michelle. You're not an idiot." Her face is getting redder by the second.

"I didn't tell him he could lie! It sounded like he was talking about Nicolas."

"But you knew he wasn't. You had to have known. You're just like the rest of them!"

Michelle opens her mouth, then glances around and closes it. What was she about to say? What does she normally say about us to Dora when they text? I never really thought about it until now. "How do you mean?"

"You've bought into the same delusion as the rest of them and you're willing to do whatever it takes to uphold it, even if you have to coerce people. The only thing that makes you different is you want to have your cake and eat it too, so you pretend to be skeptical, all while playing along and doing nothing to stop any of this!"

"Stop what, exactly? I can stop going any time I want, and so can the others, so what else is there to stop?"

Dora snorts. "Yeah, you say that, but you never went through with it, did you? And you knew I was being blackmailed, but you never really tried to help me."

"I did all I could! What was I supposed to do, make Nicolas forget whatever it was he was holding over your mom's head?"

"If you'd stopped going—and if what you're saying is even correct, which it's not—then Nicolas would have no reason to blackmail me any more. All it would have taken was one person putting their foot down. And with all your talk, I really thought it might be you. But I guess that was pretty stupid of me, wasn't it?"

"Dora, remember how when I died you found out Nicolas was feeding us different information based on what he thought would keep us coming? You know what he told the rest of us, that I didn't tell you?"

"Oh, okay, so you were withholding information all this time too. Great. Thanks for that."

"Not my point. He told us he would die if even one of us stopped coming. And I guess now we know he wasn't lying!"

"So then, actually, you couldn't just stop going any time you wanted, because then you'd feel responsible for someone's death."

"I still could have stopped coming any time I wanted. There wouldn't have been any legally admissible way to hold me responsible."

Dora blinks and scowls. "So why didn't you?"

“Just because I could have stopped coming didn't mean I wanted Nicolas to die because of it—”

"Have you considered the possibility that Michelle simply doesn't like to be wrong, and will compulsively argue her way out of any statement you utter that she doesn't like?" Emilie interjects.

Michelle makes a face like she just saw Emilie empty her bowels in the middle of the living room. "Thanks, Emilie!" she finally manages.

"You're welcome," Emilie says back.

And that's when I see something move out of the corner of my eye. A look over my shoulder confirms what I thought I saw: Nicolas's eyes are open. He still doesn't look good, and he may or may not be able to move, but he's alive. Or at least, he'd better be alive. "Nicolas?"

His lips move, but no words come out. Only a faint rasping sound. He shakes his head, slower than he probably meant to. Michelle flees downstairs.

Emilie sits in front of the couch and watches him. "Michael. Go get some blankets from the linen closet." She piles them on top of Nicolas after Michael hands them to her.

He doesn't protest. After a few minutes, he manages to roll over and hide his eyes against the couch cushion. "Dora. You came back."

"Sounds like I fucking shouldn't have," Dora shoots back.

Emilie glares at her, but Nicolas chuckles. "That's right. You shouldn't have."

"Don't say that," Emilie scolds him.

"Jeanne and Thomas aren't here to care. I'll say it all I like," Nicolas grumbles back.

"If you really wanted to die, then why did you blackmail me into coming here in the first place?" Dora asks.

“Wasn't blackmail.”

"I don't need your information anymore, anyway. The cops came for my mom last Friday. What does that give you? One more month?"

"One month too many." Is this what Emilie's been seeing him like for the past year? She never really told me any details.

"So that's it, then? You're giving up that easily?"

"The least you could do is act a little bit happier about it, Dora, since you hate these gatherings of ours so much."

"But it doesn't make sense. Why go to the trouble of blackmailing my mom, or lying to me, just to crumble at the slightest resistance?"

Nicolas laughs at that, but it quickly turns into coughing. "Slightest resistance? Oh, that's a good one, Dora. I'd hate to see what you'd do in a bar fight."

"You're not answering my question."

“She's still alive, yes? Your mother.”

“Yeah, no thanks to anyone here.”

“Have you considered that even prisons have doors?”

“What are you saying? You wanna help break my mom out of jail?”

<<>>

"Does Michael think Dora likes me? Don't tell him I asked."

That's a text I just got from Michelle. She's on her way in from Montreal. Maybe even with Dora right now.

Dora clearly does, otherwise why would she talk to Michelle but avoid the rest of us? None of the rest of us even has her number.

But that isn't what Michelle's asking, is it? Especially if she doesn't want Michael to know she asked. Hell, even just the fact that she's asking me to ask Michael instead of just asking me or him is kind of a giveaway.

Kind of reassuring that she would go out of her way not to ask me about that kind of thing. We've never talked about it, but I don't really "like" anyone that way. Never have.

And never has that ever been as apparent as these past six months with Michael around. I used to get offended when people would say all men thought about sex every seven seconds, but if whoever started spreading that around only knew men like my brother, then I don't think I can blame them anymore.

Come to think of it, Michael's probably biased, too. His answer might not be any more reliable than mine. But Michelle specifically asked what he thought. I put my phone away so he and Emilie won't make the connection, wait for a lull, then wait for one more just to be on the safe side.

"Hey, uh, do you guys think Dora likes Michelle?” I ask. “Like, in a gay way?"

Emilie gets that little smile in her eyes that she only gets when she knows she knows something someone else doesn't.

Michael's eyes bulge at me, then he splutters and laughs. "Oh man, what gave her away? The way she constantly looks like she wants to eat her out, or the way she looks all feral whenever Nicolas and Michelle are any closer than sitting across the table from each other?"

"So that's a 'yes.'" I just want to be sure. And there's no way I'm quoting Michael's actual answer back to Michelle.

"That is a 'fucking duh,' Mark. No offense."

<<>>

Nicolas drank more than usual tonight, so I volunteered to drive him home. He's only a few minutes away from the house by car, after all.

"Now that we're all here," he says when I stop at the end of his driveway, past the trees hiding his house from the road, "Why don't you two come in? There's something I need to talk to you both about."

"I thought we were waiting for that until Sunday," Michael says, probably just to be contrary.

"No. We're not. Come on. Both of you."

I can feel Michael looking at me from the back seat as I pull the key out of the ignition. Nicolas is walking with much more confidence than he was when we were at the house. Was he only pretending to be drunk? Why would he do that?

Why us, and not Emilie and Michelle? And Dora?

He made a joke, once. That if he told Michael too much, he'd run screaming. Except it hadn't sounded like a joke at the time. And he said that what he was talking about applied to Michael but not Dora or Michelle. I'm only just now noticing that he didn't say anything about me. Or Emilie, but she's not here now, is she?

We pause for a few seconds in the screen porch at the front of the house while he unlocks the door. It's more of a cottage, or a cabin. Tiny. Two bedrooms, a small living room, and an even smaller kitchen with a breakfast nook and pantry. I can't remember the last time I was here, but it's definitely happened more than once. When he flips the lights on inside, I notice a laundry basket with a pillow and blankets next to the couch. We follow him to the kitchen table.

There's a tray already on it, with three juice glasses and a bottle of something clear. Gin. We sit down. He pours himself half a glass. "You two are welcome to as much of this as you want, but Mark, I'm going to need your car keys if you're going to drink."

"It's fine," I say. "I'll go without." Michael is already sipping the glass Nicolas poured him.

"I wouldn't recommend that. None of us are going to like what I have to say."

Unlike some people, I don't need alcohol to cope with my problems, but I compromise and put my keys on the window sill anyway.

Nicolas keeps finding little gestures or tangents that seem to be distracting him from whatever he's really supposed to be telling us. Is this why he's been so secretive? What could possibly be so bad he'd spend six months avoiding talking about it to us?

He tells us what he means by "rites." It sounds—well, predictable enough. Weird, but benign. Basically how I would expect an occult ritual to work. Is it because he was raised Catholic? Or at least, he went to a Catholic school when he was our age. Then again, I thought Catholics were super into ornate rituals?

He's stopped. That must mean he's getting to the bad part. And whatever it is, he says we'll both have to do it at some point. Me first, apparently. Great. I think I'll try the gin, after all.

He—he definitely said the word penetrate, but what does that mean? Is it some kind of occult jargon? None of us says anything for at least a minute.

What did Nicolas mean by "penetrate"? Does he mean spiritually? What exactly would that entail? Would it hurt? Nicolas is refusing to explain any further. Why is he—

Wait.

"Okay, okay, okay. Fine." Michael has that weird self-assured tone to his voice now. Like when he's making innuendos but with more of an edge to it. "But could you elaborate?"

Penetrate as in penetrate sexually. That has to be what Nicolas meant.

"I still don't know exactly what to expect here." Michael's sarcasm couldn't be clearer. Nicolas just told us we have to have sex with him in order for the rituals to work.

What the fuck is he thinking? I can hear him talking, but my brain refuses to process the words anymore. I think I heard something about a high. Fuck that. Does he think that's going to make us more likely to go through with this? If I wanted to get high—and I don't—there are way easier ways. I'd just be a stoner. Hell, I could steal Grandma's pain pills, even. I could chug cough syrup. I could huff paint. There are all kinds of ways to get high that don't involve getting fucked by someone I was raised to see like a relative.

Did Nicolas know this was coming? Did all of them know? They must have known all this time. And they didn't tell us. I can understand not telling me and Emilie when we were younger, but surely he could have mentioned this to us before we started fasting and dying and going to the house for dinner every month.

Was that on purpose? Were we supposed to get attached to each other? To the vague promises Nicolas kept making? Did they really think that would make me more likely to do sex rituals in the basement of Emilie's house every month? With a man I grew up with? Who I used to feel safe around, like he was family or something?

Michael won't stop laughing. Every time he laughs, Nicolas stops talking, but he isn't finished. He's just waiting for Michael to stop laughing. "Michael, let's get this over with," I say.

Nicolas keeps going. He asks us if we have any questions.

"How often?" I'm only asking because I want to know exactly how much bullshit he was thinking I might go along with.

"It varies," Nicolas says.

It. Varies.

So he finally tells us something specific about what we were walking into, only to get evasive again? Fuck all of this. Why does Michael keep talking? Eventually, the conversation conveniently runs into Nicolas reminding us it'll kill him if we don't do what he says.

That was one thing when there wasn't anything sexual involved. But now? "Cut the crap."

"What was that? You don't believe me?"

Damnit. I told him to cut the crap. "You're trying to make us pity you. So we go through with—this."

"No, Mark, I'm really not. In fact, I'm every bit as unhappy about the situation as you are."

Yeah. Right.

"I cannot emphasize enough how much I do not want any of this. But I owe it to Jeanne to present you with the opportunity, should you all decide it's worth it."

It's always her fault, isn't it, Nicolas?

"That's the extent of my obligation, however. If you're basing your decision on my own well-being, then the sooner you abandon the house, the better."

Fine. He can have it his way. Michael is trying to hustle me out the door. My face is hot. I must look pretty angry. Maybe he's worried I'll try to deck Nicolas or something.

I'm not like that. He'd know if we'd grown up together. If our dad hadn't taken him away. What is it with the men in our lives? Even Grandpa is complicit in this. Or did he not know what exactly the members of Jeanne's group had to do to stay young for so long?

I reach for my keys, but Nicolas snatches them away.