Jay stretched out on his bed and felt his aching body bunch uncomfortably. He ran his hand down his naked abdomen, feeling the bumps of muscles that would inevitably disappear without the daily grind of work. He climbed out of bed and stood in front of the long mirror near the wardrobe. He flexed his arms first up and then down and tightened his core then Jay dropped his arms and turned to the side. For the first time in his twenty years, he liked what he saw.
He had never had the time to be overtly vain. His own worth was always tied directly to a monetary value that he himself did not care for or for how much attention he could get from girls. Now, he had the weight of his shackles off and he felt himself filled with pride at having gotten not only himself, but all his brothers out of a situation that would eventually kill them, from the inside out. He had time to love himself now and really liked how it felt.
Jay slid the satin night shirt on and left it unbuttoned. He wandered to the desk and gathered a leather wallet of toiletries, including a new silver razer. He had just shaved a while ago but he wanted the first day of his new life to be special and so a shower and shave were in order. He left his room, the door clicking shut behind him. He didn’t bother to take his old, ill-fitting clothes with him. He had seen things in the walk-in dressing room that he wanted to inspect.
In the bathroom, which he had scouted out the previous night, he first shaved his face. He had never used a brush and bowl lather before, but he was smart and quickly had his face clean and smooth. It felt right to take care of himself because he wanted to, not because he would be told off for not shaving. He was thankful that his mother had trimmed his hair before he had left, but he thought that he might even be alright with it being longer. There was just a new confidence in him that he relished. He turned on the tap to shower and stepped in.
After the hottest shower he had ever taken, scrubbed cleaner than he had ever been, with the best smelling soap he had ever used, Jay decided to find something to wear in the enormous closet that Mr. Avery had shown them. He wrapped his towel around his waist and left the bathroom.
He found the twins doing exactly the same as him, Two with a small square of toilet paper stuck to his upper lip.
“What you shave for? You ain’t got nothin’ to cut off but your own skin,” he teased as he entered.
“I see that now,” his brother said as he pulled on a pair of dark washed jeans. They fit him like nothing he had ever had on and he looked twenty pounds lighter. Jay commented on his look and smiled at him.
“If Momma had dressed us properly, we wouldn’t have been picked on half as much.” Toe said as he himself pulled on matching jeans.
Jay sniggered and pulled down a white t-shirt and held it up. It looked like it would fit better than anything he was used to wearing. He slipped it on, and it hugged his body, narrowing at his taut waist and pulling comfortably on his biceps. He turned and looked into a mirror and shook his head in amazement.
“I look older.” He turned and showed the twins who both smiled in response.
“There’s underwear in one of the middle drawers over there.” Toe gestured with his chin to one of the narrow walls lined with drawers. Jay beamed as he drew out a pristine pair of tight, white underpants.
“My own underwear that have never touched no one’s ass but my own,” he said in amazement. He slipped them on and tossed his towel on a narrow bench that ran down the middle of the room. He flexed in a mirror again, bit his lip and laughed out loud. His tanned, muscular thighs tensed as he bent his knees. “This is fuckin’ amazin’.”
“Everythin’ smells so good, too.” Two said as he buried his face into the light blue t-shirt he had in his hands. Jay nodded as he yanked on a pair of tight black jeans.
“I ain’t never been turned on by dressin’ myself before, but damn.” He laughed as he zipped his fly. “We look good, boys.” The twins laughed and slipped similar looking shirts over their heads simultaneously.
“We were always good lookin’, Jay. You had enough girls to know it but not enough sense to see it,” Toe said wisely, echoing Jay’s own thoughts from earlier that morning.
“Yeah, I ‘spose that’s true. But now we have time to look and feel as good as we really are. And fuck me, I feel great.” He rubbed his hands together and looked around the room again. “Socks…”
He found them in a drawer below the underwear in nearly every color he could have wanted. He plucked a pair of black socks from the deep drawer. Then he sat on the long bench and pulled them over his feet, feeling how soft they were as well as how tightly they hugged his feet. New socks, too, felt different.
Next, he looked around the bottom edge of the room and found a pair of bright red chucks, a kind of shoe he had always wanted. But he had gone straight from plain black uniform school shoes to black steel-toed boots for work. Impossibly, the chucks were exactly his size, a comfortable twelve, and he laced them up with joy. He had given up his parents, but he regretted nothing. Just dressing himself in clothes that were new, that fit him, was worth leaving them behind. One last wink to himself in a long mirror and he left the twins to find breakfast.
Jay found Indie and the littlest brother wandering the first floor of their new home, also in search of food. They were both still in their satin pyjamas and slippers and Jay wondered how long they had been awake. Together, the three of them found the kitchen, an absurdly large commercial grade establishment of a room, but the wide fridge that probably housed all the food was locked. Jay shrugged his signature half-shrug and looked around for some sign or direction for what they should do about breakfast when he heard a bell tinkling from the entryway. The three left the kitchen and got to the main hall just as the twins were coming down the stairs.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Breakfast will be served shortly, gentleman. You can find a seat there, to the left in the dining hall.” They were greeted by a small woman with tiny glasses pinched on the end of her long nose. Her snug, black dress buttoned up to her neck and ended mid-calf. She wore her silver laced hair in a severe looking bun on top of her head and she had exactly zero adornments on her person. Jay wondered who she was and what her role could be. Her eyes landed on him and she smiled, but no trace of the smile reached her pale grey eyes.
“I’m Ms. Glynnis and I run the daily ins and outs of the Lux Initiative. I make your schedules and arrange for your meals. I’m the single most important person you will meet here.” She sniffed at him and looked at each brother in turn. She paused when she looked at the youngest, and he smiled at her in a winsome way. She nodded once and beckoned him over. “You’re the Prime?”
“Do you mean I got gifts? ‘Cuz I got tricks I can do.” The little boy was confused, it seemed. Jay shifted impatiently and sighed.
“Ah, yes. I see. They have not briefed you yet. Then, welcome. You will eat breakfast and then you will be given a schedule for the day. If you would like to amend any part of it, you may submit it to me for review.” Her gaze drifted across Indie and the boy in their pyjamas. “Next time, dress before leaving the second floor, please.” The woman gestured for them to follow her and lead the way to the dining hall. As they walked, Jay idly wondered if there was any leisure time built into the schedule and if they had a library.
“We have both an extensive library of mundane human literature and Nightbound historical books, both of which will be accessible to you very shortly. Your leisure time will be scheduled in due course.” She paused when Jay frowned. He had not said any of his thoughts aloud which only meant that she, too, was gifted like his brother. She nodded in response to his unasked question.
“What do you mean when you say, ‘mundane human’?” Two asked. Ms. Glynnis looked at him in a stern and annoyed manner.
“Unconverted or not yet officiated obviously.” Then she stopped herself. “I keep forgetting that you are not yet briefed. Well, you currently are classed as ‘mundane’ because you’re untrained. You have no grasp of the arcane. Soon, after you have been briefed and then you have had a sponsor take over your training, you will understand the minutiae of the Initiative.” She unlocked yet another set of double doors and pushed them open.
The dining hall was vast with a huge table with room for fourteen in the middle. Three glittery crystal chandeliers lit the room with help from the amazing window. Along the wall past the door was a long buffet with silver covered platters and dishes. It smelled amazing in the room and all five brothers groaned in hunger.
“You can sit anywhere you like. We are expecting no one else to join you today.” Jay turned to give his thanks, but she had already gone, the door left wide open.
“This is just incredible,” Jay said as he took a heavy ivory colored plate from a stack of ten or so near the beginning of the buffet table. He lifted the silver lid off the first dish and found a huge platter of bacon. Subsequent dishes held fresh fruit, sausage, pancakes, waffles, fried eggs and a ridiculous bowl of hot oatmeal drizzled with maple syrup. Several glass jugs of milk and juice were already on the table. Each brother poured glasses of each drink, guzzling for the first time in months, whole milk undiluted by their mother to make it go farther.
Indie helped the littlest get his plate, who demanded at least some of everything, the oatmeal included, and they all sat near each other in the warm sunshine filtering in from the gauzy curtains at the other end of the hall.
“What you think this place is all about?” Toe asked as he pulled himself closer to the table.
“They wanted Rat, we’re just here because I made Avery take us.” Jay said arrogantly. He wasn’t sure if his brothers were aware of how much he had had a hand in their removal but now that he didn’t have to act on his threat, he was proud of how things had worked out.
“Yeah, but what do they want him for? What do they want us for?” Two replied. He looked at the youngest brother and smiled gently at him.
“Who fuckin’ cares? We’re free of Pops and Momma, that’s what matters. We get to eat like kings, dress in clothes that fuckin’ fit. I have done more for you in a day than Momma could ever have done,” Jay said, his tone final and annoyed.
“I’m just not sure how we fit into the picture,” Toe pressed. “Rat’s been special his whole life but we’re nothin’.”
“We ain’t nothin’. Mr. Avery told me that he could find me a place here and I made sure that we all had a place to be,” Jay fibbed. He had only wanted himself out but having gotten his brothers free in the deal benefitted them all.
“I’m just glad that Rat didn’t have to come alone,” Indie said quietly as he put a slice of bacon from his own plate onto the boy’s nearly empty one.
“He woulda been fine,” Jay argued. “He’s tougher than Momma ever gave him credit.” He looked at the boy and winked. “Ain’t ya?”
“Sure, Jay,” the boy agreed. They all sat in silence for a moment as they ate.
“What if I get to learn how to be real good at this and then they let us go home to Momma and Pops?” The boy’s mouth was full again and he smacked his lips as he swallowed. “That’d be great.”
“I ain’t goin’ back. I’ll take what I can from here and then find a job someplace. Maybe find a way to go to college.” He had no patience for talk of going home.
“I’ll stick with you, Rat.” Indie smiled at the littlest one, but he looked a little sad. Silence fell again as they continued to eat.
“How did y’all sleep?” Jay finally asked his brothers with a mouth full of crisp, salty bacon. Two and Toe stopped shoveling food into their faces long enough to answer.
“Great. The bed was nice,” Two began.
“But lonely,” Toe finished. The next youngest brothers both nodded. Only Jay shook his head in disagreement, not having had to share a bed with anyone in years.
“Ain’t nothin’ lonely about my bed. I guess the weirdest part was not listening to you four fuckin’ whisper and snore all night.” He shoved a bite of waffle into his mouth, chewed once and swallowed, then rinsed his mouth out with a huge gulp of milk. “Fuck me, I could eat like this every day.”
“Do you think we will?” the littlest asked as he sipped on his orange juice.
“’Course. This place is not just classy, it’s fuckin’ fancy.” Jay laughed and all four of his brothers looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t really laughed openly in so long that it was awkward, even to himself. Something about being here made him so light and happy that he felt like he could run down the halls screaming. He was finally free.