Chapter Text
Maelle examined the liquor cabinet in the parlour. It was outfitted exactly the same as the one at home. Really, Maman’s memory was outstanding. Well, either that, or she was an alcoholic.
She pulled out a bottle of intense green liquid with a clink. Absinthe. It was a favourite of Clea’s, the sort of thing she’d drink with her friends from the university, Alicia peering into Clea’s room to see her serious sister unusually giggly.
She turned to Renoir with the bottle in hand. He sat in his armchair by the fire, a book in his lap. That was Papa’s little vice, in her world and in this. Despite all the heavy tomes outfitting the walls of the parlour about artistic theory and analysis, Papa liked best to retire at the end of the day with a novel.
“Can I try some of this?” she asked, waving the bottle with a look of mischief.
He peered up above his book. “You’re rather young to drink.”
“I was old enough to drink a lifetime ago,” Maelle said. A childish whine infiltrated her voice.
He flipped a page with more force than necessary. “Then tell me; why do you beg like a child?”
Maelle pouted.
He sighed, put the book down on his lap. “The glasses on the bottom shelf. The small ones. You shan’t need much. It’s very strong.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
She unstoppered the bottle, humming to herself as she filled the glass. She picked it up, tilting the little crystal flute this way and that. The colour was like magic. It made her think of the Emerald City, of Oz.
“Where is Verso?” Renoir said. He was still putting on a fine pretence of reading his book.
“Out with Gustave, apparently. Seems talking about their girl troubles really brought them together. They’re best friends now,” she said airily. “I know I ought to be pleased, but it really is unfair I cannot go with them.” She refilled Renoir’s glass, too, while she was at it.
“A few short years and you will be able to visit the brasseries yourself. It will go by in an instant.”
She sunk down onto the chair opposite Renoir. “I ought to Repaint Lumiere to lower the drinking age,” she grumbled.
“I’m trying to read, my dear.”
He kept his tone mild, but Maelle heard the tamped down annoyance in it. Something wild jumped in her chest in response.
She knew her presence was unwelcome. She’d barged into Papa’s parlour, during the time he liked to spend in quiet reflection. But it was hardly her fault that Gustave and Verso had abandoned her, was it? Couldn’t Papa take pity upon her?
She took a sip of her drink, and wrinkled her nose. One day, she’d figure out exactly why people drank this stuff. She took another sip, anyway, and kicked out her slippered feet, back and forth.
“Maybe you and Sophie could have a girl’s night, while the boys are out,” Renoir suggested pointedly.
“Sophie is boring since I Repainted her,” Maelle said glumly.
He glanced up. “That’s an unkind thing to say of your own Creation.”
She shrugged. “Why? It’s true.”
Maelle wondered what it would take for her patient papa to lose his temper with her.
Since Gustave’s visit, Maelle continued to find herself playing this role; that of a misbehaving daughter. She gently poked, prodded and otherwise disobeyed Renoir, all to see what he would do.
She hadn’t noticed the behaviour herself, until Verso stopped her, hand upon her elbow. What’s happened? Why do you keep bothering Papa?
She’d stared at Verso. I’m bothering Papa?
Even knowing she was doing it did not stop the behaviour. It felt like an itch she continued to scratch, a kind of compulsion.
But despite it all, Renoir refused to break. Her Papa, ever so patient and kind. Despite it all, he wouldn’t even raise his voice to her.
It made her heart ache for the sweetness of it all. And it made her want to kick something out of frustration.
She pulled down the closest mildly interesting book from the shelf, something by one of the Brontes, and started to read. In between, she sipped the absinthe and cringed.
Grateful for the silence, Renoir returned to his reading. The fire crackled in the hearth as they sat together in the quiet.
Only when Renoir finished his chapter and looked up did he discover that Maelle had long since finished her glass, and not just that, but several more, judging from the state of the bottle.
“Maelle!” he said in a castigating tone.
“What?” Maelle’s mind felt pleasantly warm and fuzzy. “It didn’t do anything, so I had a few more. I’m not drunk.”
Renoir was out of his seat, snatching the bottle from the sidetable. He put it back in its place in the cabinet, and closed it. “You’re certainly not sober.”
He stood over her, pushing her fringe back off her head to feel her heated forehead. His figure was so tall and imposing that she shivered. She leaned into his hand; it felt so cool and nice against her skin.
“I don’t. I don’t know what it is you want from me, Maelle,” he said, through gritted teeth, snatching his hand away from her as though she’d burned it. “Why it is you’re playing these games. You say you want to be an adult, but you act like a petulant child.”
She gazed up at him, expectant. “I’m sorry, Papa…” she murmured. She pressed her thighs closer together, squeezing. It wasn’t subtle.
“When you look at me like that, I…” the words were etched in pain, torn from Renoir.
He wet his lips. “If you are to act like a child…” as though something had snapped inside him, his eyes grew shadowed, “...then I will have to punish you like one.”
Maelle shivered at the sudden shift in Renoir, the hollow intense look in his eyes. “Papa?” she asked.
“Pull down your trousers,” he demanded roughly. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
Maelle’s breath grew ragged, both with fear and an obscene excitement. She did not move from her seat on the armchair.
“Please, Papa, no. I’m sorry,” she begged, grabbing at his sleeve.
“The time for apologies is over, Maelle. Take your trousers down, or I will do it for you.”
Maelle sobbed as her trembling fingers unbuttoned her trousers. As she pulled them down around her calves, Renoir grabbed her, hauled her bodily into his lap, her bare bottom exposed to the air. Something cold and terrible seemed to possess him.
Maelle recognised it; it knew her name.
The same creature had stalked her dreams since her earliest memories, since before she had memories. Outside the Canvas and in, it’d lapped at her heels, salivating, waiting for weakness to overtake her, to claim the last of her wretched ruined soul at last.
Her tears soaked into the armrest as Papa swatted her ass until it reddened, rougher than he needed to be.
“‘m sorry, sorry for being naughty,” she said through her tears. It was beginning to become hard to think. Just like in the atelier, her thoughts became simpler. The hands that grasped the armrest felt smaller.
Even through her tears, her fear, a small, dark part of her luxuriated in her punishment; this was what she deserved.
This was what she was meant for.
It was intoxicating, how easily Maelle submitted to his punishment. Like new synapses firing in his mind, laid dormant all these years, waiting for the right young thing to walk through his door. And in walked Maelle. She had practically offered herself to him.
He felt himself growing hard as her slender body trembled in his lap. The way her sobs gathered like lightning, her body tensing as he struck her. He could do whatever he pleased to her, and she would no doubt take it. She’d listen to her Papa. She’d take his cock just as she took her punishment; tearfully, begging him not to. But in the end, she’d accept it, and she’d kiss him goodnight.
The power. The control. Sacred and utterly sublime. It was no wonder it drove men mad, like those who drank the fumes at the Oracle of Delphi without the fortitude to withstand the secrets the smoke revealed.
“Papa, please,” she begged, “no more. I learned my lesson. I promise, I promise…”
…What was Renoir doing?
This wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t a monster. He was a father.
He froze mid-swat. Maelle trembled, body tensed for his strike. It made something plunge deep in his chest.
He thought he had known the darkness in his heart. But all these years, and he had not known the secret depths that lurked in his heart. How bottomless the darkness travelled.
“It’s alright, Maelle. It’s OK. I’m not angry anymore. Come here–”
He pulled her up into his lap, dragging her panties back up, drawing her into his embrace. She sank into it with a gratefulness that tugged against Renoir’s wretched heart. He’d hurt her, humiliated her, and still she clung to him with the desperation of a ship-wrecked sailor to the wreckage. Like a life-line, like if she let go she’d be washed out to sea. As though he was the only thing keeping her afloat. As though he wasn’t the one who had nearly drowned her.
“Sorry, Papa,” she said, sniffing up phlegm. She was that child in his arms again, using her sleeve to mop up her tears, her other hand curling around his jacket. “I’ll be good.”
“You–” his voice caught on his own wretchedness, “you have no need to be sorry, my dear.”
“Wanna be good,” she mumbled again, something unfocused in her eyes.
“You are good.”
“‘m not,” she mumbled. Her hand trailed down Renoir’s jacket, to his belt. She began to unbuckle it.
He caught her hand, perhaps more sharply than necessary. “What are you doing?”
She gazed at him in surprise. “Playing,” she said, as though it were obvious.
A cold chill grasped him, as though a frozen hand clasped around his heart. “Who asked you to play this sort of game with them, Maelle?”
She frowned at him in response.
“One of your foster parents? Who?”
He felt her trying to peel away from him. “Can’t talk about it. Promised,” she said.
“Who did you promise?”
His grip on her wrist was too tight. “It hurts!” she screamed.
Renoir dropped his grip instantly. She looked at him so fearfully.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Maelle swayed on the spot. She knelt down beside him, resting her head on his good knee.
“Love you, Papa.”
He sighed, put a hand on the top of her head. “I love you too.”
She nuzzled her head into his leg. “You’re so nice.”
He chuckled wetly. He felt anything but.
Foolishly, Renoir thought the danger was over, until he felt again Maelle unclasping his belt buckle with small fingers far too dexterous at the task.
“I said no, Maelle.”
“But I want it. Want it, Papa. Want to be good for you.”
He felt his willpower running thin. He seemed to watch from outside his body as the girl undid the man’s belt, unzipped his fly; he stood above, watching, a cruel and callous overseeing angel.
The girl smiles, happy Papa is finally playing along. She takes his cock in hand; an awful, swollen thing, beastly in her sweet slender hands.
“Alicia, no, that's not…” the man's protests fade weakly as she presses a little kiss to his turgid member. He doesn't realise it's his own daughter's name tripping off his guilty lips.
Any thought of repentance leaves him as the girl’s tongue darts out. Little kitten licks up his shaft.
It was a lie, of course.
Easier to detach himself. Easier to pretend he took no part in it. As though Renoir hadn’t bitten down a moan on the back of his knuckle, head thrown back against the armchair.
“Papa… Papa… Papa.” The words weren’t Maelle’s own; they were scripted. Decades later, she was still performing.
Easier to pretend it was some anonymous foster parent. But he’d known, hadn’t he, from the moment Maelle called for him in her sleep. He’d known it in his own physiology, in his spoiled chroma itself.
When Maelle nosed up against his cock, big blue eyes fixed up upon his, murmuring his name like a school hymn, “Papa… Papa… please, ” no force on earth could have stopped him from coming.
Renoir had been Painted in the image of a monster.
Maelle climbed up into his lap. Renoir tried not to focus on how a string of his cum had painted a pearl necklace around the girl’s slender neck.
“Did I do good, Papa?” she whispered into his ear.
“You…” Renoir trembled, and settled on honesty, “you did good.”
She smiled, all teeth, and settled herself on him, straddling his lap. She rocked herself there, against the friction of his thigh.
She really was a good girl, for she even knew to avoid his injured knee.
“Papa, please…” she said, “do it the way you always do.”
What was one more sin, atop multitudes?
He slipped his thumb under the elastic of her panties. He pushed through the curls of hair to the slickness between. She was incredibly wet. It took only a moment’s investigation before he found her clit.
Before long, she was moaning and clenching around his thigh as Renoir fingered her towards completion. Heat radiated off her. From her cunt, from her bruised and reddened buttocks. He watched her rock herself back and forth, face screwed up in pleasure, her hands balled into Renoir’s shirt. It was erotic. It was sickening. Renoir felt himself grow hard again from the sound of her little hiccuping sobs. No small feat for a man his age.
She came with surprisingly small fanfare, fingers tightening, going incredibly still. Her breath tightened.
Then it finished. She loosened her grip. Her eyes went glassy.
“Good girl,” Renoir said, pressing a kiss up against her temple. She did not respond.
She did not speak as he helped her back into her trousers. She let him, as limp as a doll, watching him with disinterested eyes. She made no comment when he suggested it was time for bed. He lifted her, and without his cane barely staggered across the hall to her own bedroom. She was boneless in his arms.
Renoir’s knee was screaming by the time he placed Maelle down in her bed. He tucked her in, keeping up a steady stream of chatter to tide over the swelling darkness he knew was waiting in the wings to subsume him. “Now let’s get your nightie on. How about this one, hm? That’s it, lift your arms. There’s a good girl. I’ve left you some water on the side here if you get thirsty in the night. Do you need anything else?”
Maelle had thus far ignored all his chatter in favour of gazing glassy eyed at the ceiling like a broken down clockwork toy. But now her eyes moved to the dresser. She lifted a finger.
“Of course. Can’t forget Esquie.”
Renoir proffered the Esquie teddy Verso had bequeathed to Maelle. She took him and crushed him to her chest.
He did not kiss her goodnight. He’d done quite enough of that already.
“Papa,” she called, when Renoir leant down to blow out the lamp. He was relieved to hear her still capable of speech.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I love you,” she said, the words muffled in Esquie’s plush fabric.
Renoir’s heart clenched painfully. “I love you too, Alicia.”
He blew. The flame went out, and from out of hiding the darkness slunk, claiming what was rightfully Hers.