The Ravencroft Women

Been a while, huh?

As always, all characters engaging in sexual activities are 18 and over.

Do forgive any typos/grammatical errors.

Approx. 28k words.

Hope you enjoy.

***

"Sounds like a boyfriend," Sam said as we walked home together after work the next day. "I mean, why else would he be calling her that much?"

The question of Noah's identity had been bugging me ever since I left the Ravencroft estate. It got so bad that I ended up turning to Sam in the hope that he might offer some useful insight. I really needed to stop overestimating him like that.

"Dude, what if he's big? Or jealous?" he said with a stupid grin. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me like he'd had some grand revelation. "No, wait...What if he's big

and

jealous?"

"Thank's, Sam," I said dryly. "Really what I needed to hear."

While he had a good laugh at my expense, I found my eyes drifting over to a sporting goods store we were passing. There was an aluminium baseball bat on display in the window and I was seriously considering buying it just in case any big, jealous boyfriends came knocking. But then Sam surprised me by offering another, more thoughtful, possibility.

"Well...it could also be her dad," he said. "Did you ever think about that?"

His words hit me like a slap in the face. I was so stunned that I came to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk. It was obvious. So obvious that I wondered why I hadn't considered it myself.

"Damn, dude," I said in astonishment. "That's actually a really good point."

"Um...thanks," he said. "But could you try sounding a little less surprised?"

"But wait a minute," I said, ignoring him. "Why would she call her dad by his first name?"

"Maybe she doesn't like him?" he said with a shrug. "Look, I don't know shit about her so I can't be sure but, from what you've told me, she doesn't sound like the kind of girl who has a strong relationship with her father, if you know what I mean."

"So...daddy issues?"

"Yup. Daddy issues."

"...Maybe," I mumbled as I started walking again.

Ignoring the fact that Sam wasn't qualified to be psychoanalysing

anyone

, what he'd said did make a lot of sense. Admittedly, it felt a little cliche casting Izzy as the stereotypical troubled teenage girl, acting out to get daddy's attention, but it also fit her to a 'T'. It was like the missing piece to a puzzle had just neatly fallen into place. I silently apologized to Sam for doubting him earlier.

...But then he started talking again.

"But if you ask me, it's totally her boyfriend. Definitely of the big and/or jealous variety. I'd bet my next pay-check on it." Then he turned to me with a shit-eating grin. "Hey, dude. You wanna bet on it?"

I heaved an internal sigh. I

really

needed to stop overestimating him.

"Do you want me to die, Sam?" I said. "You hopin' to get my shifts if this guy kills me? Is that it?"

Sam laughed and slapped me on the back. "I'm fuckin' with ya, man. Stop worrying about it so much. Look, even if it is her boyfriend, it's not like he knows who you are or where you live, right?"

"Right..." I said doubtfully, remembering the paranoid feeling of being followed I'd had just a few days ago before push the thought aside.

After joking around for a little while longer, Sam and I parted ways at an intersection. I walked the rest of the way home in thoughtful silence, my mind still playing with the possibility that the mysterious 'Noah' I'd been fretting about might really just be Izzy's dad. I wanted it to be true. Aside from the relief I would feel from knowing that I wasn't cucking some poor guy, not having to go back to looking over my shoulder again would be a huge plus. A disapproving father had to be easier to deal with than a jealous boyfriend, right?

I kept thinking about it as I took my usual path home, paying very little attention to my environment as I did so. It was a rough area filled with gang members and the homeless, not to mention the occasional drug addict, but I had enough street smarts to avoid all of them, even while distracted. When I finally arrived at my apartment building, an old six story walk-up that had seen better days, I climbed the stairs to the third floor, still lost in my thoughts. However, unlike outside on the streets, that lack of environmental awareness wasn't something I could easily get away with while walking the halls of this building, and I was rudely reminded of that fact as soon as I opened my front door.

"BAKER!" came a loud, gruff voice saying my name so harshly it made me flinch.

"Shit," I muttered before hastily closing my door and turning around. "Good afternoon, Mr. Faulkner."

I found a crochety-looking old man with a face that appeared to be stuck in a permanent grimace glaring back at me. He was a veteran of the Vietnam war, as he so often reminded me and the other tenants, and he spent most of the day roaming the halls in search of someone to unload on. He was like a drill sergeant with a micro-penis everyday of the week, and twice as bad on holidays.

He was also my landlord.

"Still workin' at that shit job, Baker?" he barked.

"Yes, sir," I said with the military precision of an army conscript. It was a manner of speech I slipped into whenever I spoke to Mr. Faulkner as it seemed to pacify him. He spat on the floor near his feet, and I took the opportunity to spare a quick glance at my door, double checking that it was indeed closed.

"Rent's due soon," he growled. "Not gonna be comin' to me with no excuses again, are ya?"

"No, sir," I said.

He grumbled something under his breath as he eyed me up and down.

"I don't know why you don't just join the army like a real man. Yer old enough, aint' cha? What are ya, scared? Fuckin' pussies. All o' ya little shits with yer smart phones and yer 'Tiky Toks'. When I was yer age..."

And off he went. I'd learned some time ago that interrupting this man was like sticking my dick in a hornet's nest. I'd made the mistake of talking back to him once before. Just once. That lapse in judgement had earned me an earful that lasted nearly twenty minutes. From that experience I'd figured out that the best approach was to remain silent, give simple 'Yes' or 'No' answers to any questions he asked, and wait for him to burn himself out. Classic rope-a-dope tactic. Muhammed Ali would be proud.

"...That's the problem with yer generation: everything's too fuckin' easy! What ya need is a nice hard kick in the ass, that's what I say..."

I really had no idea what I'd done to make the old coot so pissy all the time, but I put up with his shit because the rent was cheap. Besides, there really wasn't anything he could say that could actually get under my skin anyw-

"Do yer parents know what yer doing with yer life!? Ringing up groceries and livin' in this shithole?! Doin' nothin' and goin' nowhere!? Huh?! Do they?! Ya listenin' to me, boy?!"

My jaw clenched involuntarily. I felt the neutral expression on my face begin to twist into something less controlled, while my hands balled themselves into fists. However, after sparing another quick glance at the door to my apartment, I got a hold of myself.

"...Yes, sir," I said stoically.

"Yes, yer listenin' or yes, yer parents know what a fuck up they raised?!

Another flash of anger. Followed by thoughts. Memories. What it was like to-

'No. Stop. Don't think about it. Don't remember...'

"...Yes, sir...I'm listening."

"Oh, so they don't know," he said with a kind of smug satisfaction. "What? Ya too embarrassed to let 'em see how ya turned out?"

"...No, sir."

"Ha! No shame at all, huh? Yer just like my good-for-nothing shit of a grandson. No respect. No gratitude for the people who brought you into this world. What ya need to do," he said as he poked his finger into my chest, "is pull yer head out of yer ass and do right by the people who made yer life so easy."

I could feel my mask begin to slip again as adrenaline entered my veins. The urge to tell him exactly what he could do with his unsolicited opinion flared up inside me, but I forced it back down. I had to remain calm. Just remain calm.

"...Yes, sir," I said, and Mr. Faulkner snorted in disgust.

"Pathetic. Fucking pathetic. Just make sure the rent is on time. Ya got that, Baker?!"

"...Yes, sir."

He looked me up and down one last time before finally stomping away, grumbling all the while. I waited until he was out of sight before I finally entered my apartment, unconsciously slamming the door shut behind me before I began pacing back and forth. Mr. Faulkner had given me plenty of shit over the years, but he'd never brought up my parents before. And rightly so; the bastard didn't know shit about them. Part of me wanted to march down the hall and give the old fucker a piece of my mind, tell him exactly what he could do with his unsolicited opinions, even if it meant I'd be arguing with him for the next two hours.

...But I couldn't do that.

My eyes drifted over to the cause of my hesitation, a brand new big screen T.V. sitting on the floor propped up against the wall. But, while Mr. Faulkner was sure to have an opinion about the newest addition to my apartment, the T.V. wasn't what I was hiding from him. It was the massive hole in the wall directly above it that I didn't want him to see. A hole I'd created through my own stupidity.

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking out the trash when I came across something amazing next to the dumpsters; an untouched big screen T.V., still in it's box, with a sticky note on it that said 'Take me.' Hardly believing my luck, I dragged the thing up two flights of stairs to my apartment. Once I had it inside, I excitedly set to work mounting it on my wall. I still don't know where I went wrong.

Maybe I underestimated the weight. Or maybe I needed longer screws to get into the studs in the wall. Or maybe it was just time taking its toll on the old building. Whatever the case, I got to enjoy my new T.V. for all of ten minutes before it came crashing down to the floor, taking a huge chunk of the wall with it.

I didn't dare tell Mr. Faulkner. The old man already didn't like me; he was sure to have me out on my ass the moment he saw the damage. My only option was to hide the hole until I could fix it myself. I'd been saving up to get the things I needed - paint and other construction supplies - but it was slow going.

I heaved a sigh as I collapsed onto my couch and tried to calm myself down. I aimlessly flicked through the channels on my now cracked T.V., but I couldn't stop my mind from drifting back to the things Mr. Faulkner had said and the ugly thoughts they'd dredged up. Things I tried not to think about any more. I ended up slipping into a silent battle with the shadows in my head, losing track of time and falling into a progressively darker mood. Then, after what felt like nearly an hour, my phone rang.

When I picked it up to see who was calling me, I winced. The words 'Little Sister' were displayed prominently on it's screen, the caller I.D. still unchanged from when Isabelle had entered it yesterday. After a few more rings, I declined the call. I really wasn't in the right state of mind to play pretend siblings with her at the moment. However, a few minutes later, she called again. I declined the call a second time while frowning at her persistence. It was on her third attempt that I finally answered.

"What," I said shortly as I answered the phone.

"Big Brother!" came Isabelle's bubbly yet slightly annoyed voice. "Why were you ignoring my calls!?"

"Listen Isabe-... Listen Izzy," I said while rubbing my forehead, "this isn't really a good ti-"

"Anyway, are you home?" she said, cutting me off mid-sentence.

"What?"

"Are you at home right now?" she repeated.

"Yeah...Why?"

"Do you have windows in your apartment?" she said, ignoring my question.

"...

What

?" I said, completely lost at this point.

"I mean, can you see the sidewalk?"

"...Yeah, I can...But why are you asking?"

Her mischievous laugh came right on the heels of my question.

"Go look and you'll find out, big brother."

For a moment I was confused, but then I felt my eyes go wide once I understood what was happening. I had been so focused on trying to figure out Noah's identity yesterday that I had given Isabelle's driver my exact home address without a second thought. And that was practically the same thing as giving it to Isabelle herself. I quickly walked over to the window, knowing what I would find once I got there but still hoping I wouldn't. Of course, once I pulled back the curtains, my hopes were dashed.

There she was, standing in the middle of the busy sidewalk, waving up at me with a big smile on her face.

"Hi, big brother," her bubbly voice sang out through the phone. When I sighed in exasperation she just laughed again.

"Izzy, I'm really not in the mood to go anywhere right now," I said, noticing the long black limo parked behind her. However, she caught me off guard with her response.

"Oh, that's fine," she said brightly. "We're not going anywhere. I'm coming up."

'Coming up?'

I thought.

'She wants to come up...

here

?'

I looked around at my apartment. Details that I barely took notice of suddenly stood out to me like bright neon signs. They didn't bother me at all when I was on my own, but the idea of letting someone else see them...Someone like Isabelle...

'No...No way...Absolutely not.'

"Izzy, really, it's not a good time right now," I said as I groped around for an excuse. Ultimately I settled for a white lie. "Uh...I haven't cleaned my apartment in a while, you see. It looks like shit...and it smells like it, too. Trust me, you don't want to come up here."

"What?" she said. "I don't care about that? Come on, buzz me up. I wanna play."

She said that last part in a flirtatious tone but it went right over my head. The only thing I cared about was keeping little miss '5-star-everything' out of my apartment. After seeing the literal mansion she lived in, there was no way I was going to let her set one foot in here. However, as I struggled to come up with an excuse she would accept, Isabelle offered me an ultimatum that backed me into a corner.

"Big brother," she said in a low tone that was somehow playful and threatening at the same time, "if you don't buzz me up right now, I'm going to march up and down this sidewalk yelling 'Nathan Baker is a sister-fucker' until you do."

I froze. With anyone else, and under normal circumstances, I would have played it off as a joke. But this was Isabelle. She had already demonstrated to me several times that her brain didn't work like a normal person's. On top of that, if she really did start making a scene outside while yelling my name, I ran the risk of it drawing Mr. Faulkner's attention. And although the thought of her seeing my apartment was about as pleasant as another lecture from the old man, the latter had the potential to become much worse.

I sighed, wishing that I'd just kept ignoring her phone calls, and gave up the fight.

"...Apartment 307," I said.

She said something in response, but I didn't hear her. I'd already taken the phone away from my ear as I walked over to my intercom and pushed the button to let her in. After that, I sat down on my couch and waited in silence, dreading what was about to happen.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at my door. I didn't have a peephole. Instead, I had a latch that allowed me to crack the door open just enough to see who was outside. I pulled it open until that latch caught and found Isabelle looking at me with a smile on her face. She was wearing skin tight white jeans and a red top that hugged her perky tits. She was barefoot, probably because she just finished climbing two flights of stairs. In one hand she held a pair of red high heels, in the other a Louis Vuitton handbag.

"Hi, big brother!" she said. "I came to play!"

"Shhh!" I hissed. After closing the door and unhooking the latch, I opened it again and leaned out into the hall. It didn't look like Mr. Faulkner was around, but it would be better for me to get her inside before he showed up and started asking questions. I knew that, but I still hesitated.

"Come on, let me in," she said happily, oblivious to my discomfort.

Finally, after a long exhale through my nose, I took a few steps backward to make room for her to enter. But I didn't step to the side. I remained right in front of her, using my body to block her sight and delay the inevitable for just a little longer.

"You should have warned me that there was no elevator," she said as she walked around me. "These shoes are new, so they're still a little uncomfort..."

Her voice trailed off and she came to a complete stop next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face go slack with shock as she took it all in. Yeah...that was pretty much the reaction I'd been expecting. Even without turning around, I could easily guess what she was looking at just by following the movement of her eyes.

Obviously, the first thing she looked at was the gaping hole in the wall, the current centerpiece of the room because of its shocking size. Next, her gaze shifted to the expensive big screen T.V. sitting on the floor beneath it. No doubt the large crack in the screen didn't go unnoticed.

After that her eyes were drawn to my

'coffee table'

, which was actually nothing more than two milk crates supporting a glass tabletop I'd bought from a neighbour. He'd also sold me his couch, the next thing Isabelle noticed. It also served as my bed, since I didn't have one. That couch was probably the nicest thing in the entire apartment aside from the T.V., as long as you ignored the fact that it was missing both legs on the left side. I was temporarily using two stacks of old magazines tied together with twine to support it until I could find something better.

Finally, she reached the most striking thing about my apartment aside from the hole in the wall: the

'kitchen'

. For whatever reason, the previous occupant had knocked down the walls around the bathroom, leaving the toilet and sink completely exposed. Since that sink was the only source of water in the apartment, I placed a long table next to it to serve as a counter and did all of my food preparation there. Her eyes appeared to shift back and forth between the exposed toilet and the 'kitchen counter' several times before she finally found her voice.

"You...

live

here?" she said as she took a few slow steps forward.

Yes, I did live here. In fact, I had been lucky to find it. The rent for this apartment was a little cheaper than usual because of how small it was and the state the bathroom was in. It never really bothered me before but, at that moment, I felt my stomach twist with an intense feeling of humiliation.

"...You live here..." she repeated, and this time it wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact that even she seemed to be having a hard time accepting. "God..."

I gritted my teeth as I felt my humiliation gradually turning into something else. Everything she did was beginning to grate on my nerves. The horrified tone in her voice, her hand covering her mouth in shock, and the frown on her face that I could only interpret as disgust.

"...Is this really where you've been staying all this time?"

I hadn't asked her to come up here, and I sure as hell wasn't making her stay. I already had to put up with the old man judging me for the way I lived. I didn't need it from her, too. I just wanted her to leave...

"Nathan...how can you live like th-"

"You know what, Isabelle," I snapped. "If it's so fucking bad, you can go whenever you like. No one's fucking keeping you here!"

I saw her visibly flinch at my sudden outburst, but I kept going anyway.