She swapped her hand across the boy's bottom. He yelped, squeezing his eyes shut at the pain. She did it once more, again and again. "I told you to quit doing that shit!" yelled Lordy. "I'm hungry mom!" Royce exclaimed.
Five more swats across the ass. After a round of 60 spankings, Royce stood in front of his mother, rubbing his ass. "I slash you across the thighs, you still don't understand. I tell you with my words, you still don't understand. I've done what I could do, you still don't understand." Her brows furrowed, she looked at her son. His hair black, sleek-back, but nappy. Her eyes soften as he looked back at her.
Lordy sat in her high luxurious red chair of her deep dark colored room. Black carpet, black square tilted walls, and a balcony in the back looking out towards the garden. "I don't know." He mumbled, turning his eyes to the floor below. He faced her, "why do you do it?"
"Because your mother is in pain…" she emphasized. She patted her thighs to beckon Royce to her. Lordy picked up her son and sat him in her lap. "Mama has been through some shit. You know your mama used to be toothless."
His eyes widen. For boy as young as him. He understood what that meant. His mother wasn't one to hide information from her children. As a young vampire, he understood being toothless all too well. "I saw a toothless vamp at school." He spoke.
"You did?" It rose questions in her head. "You're in elementary. You shouldn't see that in school, but maybe they changed the rules."
Royce shook his head, "No, this kid was in the higher grades." It was still bad. In the moment, Lordy supposed taking her child out of school. But what came out of her mouth, "you're staying home for the rest of the week."
"But it's just Saturday." He pouted.
"There's a reason for everything. Remember, I can see the future." She tapped the side of her temple. "Because of the amulet, right?"
She tilted her head, "Yeah… it is. Or your mom has some secret superpowers."
Royce squinted his eyes. He knew his mother was weird, she did questionable things like; dance in the kitchen with no pants on, talk to herself, or stop in middle of the halls against the wall. Once time she got out of her bed and travelled to one end of the house and laid on the floor. Her excuse for this? She told her children and husbands, 'It feels familiar to me.' Which Uncle Troy said was bad and sign of illness.
"Maybe you do." Said Royce. "But mommy, why do you bite yourself?"
Her mood seemed to sink, "I'm crazy." She rubbed her thumb along the side of his face. "I'm crazy with trauma and we call that PTSD."
"That sounds like a curse."
"It is. Some people have PTSD because of monsters." Royce began to glower. "I'm a big kid. Not a baby."
She chuckled. "Ok, Mr. Man. Bad shit happened to your mother because of situations. Like her teeth being pulled out or the time a group of hunters shot her in the leg. Plus, the time she had to sneak into an abandoned apartment, pull out that bullet, shit in the woods, and fight a dog." Her eyes dropped to see Royce's bewildered face. Lordy shook her head, fighting away the monsters that crept through her calm behavior. "It's not because we're black. It's because we're strong." She taped his nose. "Mexicans, Arabs, Asians; we are strong people. When you start a war, you fight to show strength or make a point clear to another. Do you understand?"
He wasn't concerned with anything else except the last sentence she said. That poked at his curiosity the most. "What happened to you?"
She sighed, "I was a pet."
"A pet?" his teeth grinded against each other.
"I was a vampire pet." She said bluntly. "My father is Gabriel, or you know, Regal. His way of revenge is cutting niggas in half and harvesting the blood."
"Pills?" he noted. "You're talking about the pill they give vamps, so they don't drink from people?"
"That's right. It makes them shy; we don't go to Maine."
"Why?"
"Because talking to shy people—it's aggravating." She smacked his bottom gently. "Ok, no more stories. Let's go get something to eat." Royce hopped off his mother's lap. "Oh, tomorrow is going to do a training day."
"Training?"
"I used to be in the military… I want to make sure you boys and girls know your way out of a situation." She smiled. Lordy paced towards the kitchen in the direction of the west wing. "And not step on graves…"