Punishing

X


Looking sharper than ever, Quatre began his second day of testimony.

\"My father\'s business ventures were booming and he had bought out many of the relatives in Saudi Arabia when it once again occured to him that I wasn\'t quite perfect. I hadn\'t latched myself on to any girls at his business functions or mentioned any school beauty queens in passing. To him, the time was ripe for an arranged marriage...to ensure the continuing vitality of his business.\"

++

Quatre had just turned twelve when the subject of marriage came up. All of his sisters were married, and though, it was logical for a boy his age to be unattached, the elder Winner began to worry.

Mr.Winner mentioned the problem in brief to his business associates who good-naturedly laughed the subject off. The prospect of arranged marriage for their young children, no matter how much money was involved, still stung them with unease. Suddenly, finding a bride for his son, a wealthy one, at that, became tricky for Mr.Winner.

He began to research companies worldwide gifted with eligible female heirs and mismanaged assets that he could streamline and turn a profit from. After working his way down a sizeable list, he finally came across an Ivan Kruschev, head of a clean fuel efficiency development company, with a single daughter, Titiana Kruschev.

The age gap between Titiana and his son was hard to miss, but it didn\'t faze Mr.Winner at all.

Nineteen years.

Winner and Kruschev finalized their business negotiations late into Quatre\'s thirteenth summer, with the complacency of Titiana, who had partied her way past her sell-by date and had come to the point where she could care less about the age of her potential suitor.

It was a messy business to get Quatre to sign the consent forms and marriage certificate, but Mr.Winner managed.

++

\"I may have been young, but I wasn\'t stupid. I knew my rights,\" Quatre explained. \"But, unfortunately, my rights don\'t matter nearly as much in Arabia. At the time, I was working towards naturalization. My father wouldn\'t permit me to have my citizenship hearing until I had consented, and if I didn\'t, he would have sent me back to Saudi Arabia, in which case, if I ever made it back to the United States, I would have to start naturalization all over again. Naturalization isn\'t everything, though...I would have stuck through it. However, he had one last card to play, and that was an ultimatum for me to either a) sign the marriage forms and protect the Winner wealth or b) refuse the marriage, ship off to Saudi Arabia, and deny my sisters their inheritance from my father\'s will. I couldn\'t be responsible for all of my sisters like that, so, I signed the forms.\"

++

When Quatre was fourteen, Titiana was thirty-three.

And they were wedded under the eyes of the law, but never before the eyes of God.

It was a muted ceremony with only a handful of people in attendance.

Quatre was in a formal suit that he often wore for debate club meetings, and Trixie came dressed up in her mother\'s extremely elaboate wedding gown with a train that stretched back nearly the length of a full-grown man.

During the ceremony, Quatre felt a sickness so deep that he could have died where he stood.

Titiana was so mind-blowingly old, and so obviously interested in the money that she hadn\'t bothered to do much more than introduce herself in the barest of fashions to her future husband.

Whenever he looked at her, all he could see was ugly and sickening.

She eyed him from time to time, sizing up the man that he would grow up to be.

That made him even more ill.

++

The night of their unholy union, Quatre retreated to the new rooms appointed to him in the Winner mansion.

He sat on the bed thinking, mostly about the wedding and the life ahead, but sometimes about other things that he couldn\'t recall later. While he meditated like this, he didn\'t notice the door open and close and the feminine figure approach him out of the dim light of the room.

When she was upon him, he took notice.

Literally.

Upon him.

\"Oh my god! Get off me!\" he shrieked and struggled.

Titiana sat on his stomach and regarded him with a curious light in her eyes. She knew that he wouldn\'t hurt her, not intentionally, at least. She could tell that much, and she wondered in her freaky little mind how far she could carry this debauched little fantasy of hers before he cracked.

She leaned in for a kiss, but he turned her away with a free hand. He was breathing hard, but his non-arousal was obvious, even to Trixie. She fancied herself a walking sex-bomb and found this blatant rejection more annoying than she found her behaviour troubling. She ground against him in a terrible way, but he wasn\'t having it.

He managed with a great feat of bean-pole strength to roll in such a way that she toppled clear off of him and into an undignified heap on the floor.

Not waiting for her to get up, Quatre seized the moment to voice his indignance, mortification, and intense anger in a series of weak, but emotional statements, \"I can\'t believe you! I\'m only fourteen! Fourteen! Me-you-\" this was where words nearly failed him in his wrath \"NEVER! Never in a million years! Never! Never! Never!\" This was where words did, indeed, fail him, and he stormed off in an inarticulate rage while Titiana was still picking herself up.

++

From the witness box, Quatre peered down at Trixie, still angry, but better controlled.

\"My father had intended Ms.Titiana to become my stable, but she instead came to me as the crop that spurred me towards independence. I became clever and studied earnestly under the tutelage of my father in the workings of what I was to inherit and retained counsel from a pro-bono attorney, Nikolas Schiff, to put my affairs in order. I\'ve kept excellent records since my wedding night which I have since furnished to this court for review. I may not have loved Ms.Titiana, but I never did wrong by her,\" his gaze had receded once more leaving his eyes sharp in the abscence of its luster. \"I do not want her money, nor do I wish her to live so freely off of mine. I have grown her wealth for her, and if she squanders it henceforth, I do not see how it is of my concern.\"

He regarded Trixie for a moment, pitiless, but not harshly.

It was very faint, but Trowa could percieve from emanating from Trixie the heavy darkness of shame.

Quatre\'s eyes turned an icy hue, seeming very near to self-satisfaction. He inclined his head a few degrees to the side, \"She needs to learn how to provide for herself, and to provide for the employees of Altenrgy Inc.\"
It was almost unnoticable, but Judge Dreiser\'s head nodded.

Quatre closed his eyes and breathed a moment before he spoke again, \"My father died three years ago due to sudden cardiac arrest. He\'d suffered two heart attacks within the four years previous, but the third one killed him. His last will and testament named me executor to dispense with his posessions and industries as I so choose. I have already bequeathed what there is to give to my sisters and extended kin and kept what I can manage reasonably to myself. He left no proviso regarding the continuation or cessation of my marriage, nor nothing aside regarding Ms. Titiana. I am within my rights to deny her the fruits of my father\'s work which she has not earned.\"

Quatre folded his hands very neatly in his lap and supressed the beginnings of a smile, \"That is all that I have to say.\"

++

Trowa glanced at Schapery who was late in rising from his seat.

Schapery had the look of a doomed man, and Trowa could sense the argument within him.

He knew that if he did opt to cross-examine Quatre, he\'d be mincemeat; but, also, he was very aware of how damaging Quatre\'s testimony left \'as is\' would be to Trixie\'s case.

Trowa and Schapery turned to regard Trixie in nearly the same moment and grappled with lawyer ethics. Their first duty was to do right by their client (without doing wrong by the law), and they couldn\'t decide on which option dealing with Quatre would hurt less.

Trixie turned her head and looked back at them, and both grimaced simultaneously and turned away to take another stare at Quatre.

Quatre\'s face took on a more sultry light the longer that they stared, and they both reached the same conclusion:

The case is fucked, anyway.

Schapery rose at the third summons of Judge Dreiser, apologized, and declined a cross-examination. Then, he took his seat.

Judge Dreiser adjusted his glasses and declared that he would render a decision after the weekend.

\"This court is in recess until eight A.M. Monday.\"


TBC.....


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