The room was dimly lit, the chandelier slowly abandoning the world to dusk as the sun fell below the horizon. In other corners of the estate the hustle and bustle of servants racing to finish their tasks so they could return to their own quarters was only picking up, but in the study the mood was much more relaxed. Sitting comfortably on an extravagant sofa was William, typing out the exploits of his plucky heroine in a fantasy novel he was half a decade into writing, while on his lap lay Clementine, providing ‘inspiration’ for a steamy scene.

 

He was alternating between intense nibbling on her ear and simply repeating out loud the words he wrote in the same seductive voice he used the first night they met, replacing the name of the book’s protagonist with Clementine’s own. 

 

“Lost in the moment and her insatiable lust, Clementine refused to extinguish the demon she had captured, instead allowing his tail to part her lips and begin pumping her body full of sin itself. Like metal drenched in acid, Clementine felt her immortal soul melting into the demon’s sin, heaven’s chosen herself losing her innocence by bit with every moan. She wanted to fight it, needed to fight the darkness if humanity was to have any hope of surviving Satan’s twisted parody of the rapture, but her amulet wouldn’t let her muster even the littlest bit of will. As her soul melted away, becoming ever smaller and more twisted by the demon’s trick, she finally realized she had been betrayed. Rowan, her armorer and lover, had been working for the demonic legions the whole time.”

 

Lying on her lover’s lap, feeling his intimacy, and absorbing grand tales of her own sensual corruption, why that was Clementine’s heaven. 

 

“Heaven”, Clementine couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought. 

 

 

 

 

 

Truly nothing could sully this tender, wicked moment, nothing except:

 

 

They say Motherhood is a gift, the most glorious and fulfilling thing an individual can do. 'They' being Clementine in moments like these when she needs to remind herself not to punt the crying baby out the window, or whatever the young adult version of that is.

 

As much as she would love to continue to lay here and be her husband’s eager muse, now that the obligation had surfaced it would be impossible to truly enjoy herself without first ticking it off. 

 

With a heavy heart, she broke the scene.

 

“Hubby?”

 

William: “Yes love?”

 

Clementine: "Darling, your more wonderful and delicious than words can do justice, but there’s something on my mind we must discuss before I’ll be able to relax."

 

William: “Oh?”

 

Clementine: "It's the plebian our daughter fancies, or rather the viper within her. I believe a change in tact is prudent."

 

The air stood still for a moment, as William processed the mood-shift and what his wife might be referring to. With an air of uncertainty, he relented.

 

William: "You think we were mistaken to let Rose rejoin the family?"

 

Clementine’s tone was dismissive. 

 

Clementine: "No, that was necessary. As much hope as we had for the idea of scaring Rose straight, that idea failed a long time ago and, being honest with ourselves, we should have seen it coming. You know we didn’t raise a girl who’d lie down for anything, and she wouldn’t be much of a predator if she didn’t bite back at her parents at least a little bit."

 

William: "So what do you suggest we do? We need to find a way to make Rose embrace her heritage, and the wench’s influence over her seems to only grow with time."

 

Clementine grinned with devilish delight. There were few things she loved more than manipulation, the thrill of twisting people to her will, wrapping them around her finger, but getting the chance to monologue about her dastardly schemes was a close competitor. 

 

Whereas before she spoke with the voice of a mother, now she spoke with the voice of a puma, circling sadistically around a gazelle. 

 

Clementine: "Yes, exactly! Our daughter is smitten with a street rat, woe is us, truly. Despite all our best efforts she has well and truly shackled herself to her, such that any attempt to push the rodent back will only grow the divide between us and her, between her and her family. What’s worse is that that street rat seemingly was infected with a most horrible ailment, a neurologic parasite which commands her to dismantle our family's carefully crafted nest to feed a billion lesser creatures. A disease which aspires to turn vipers into grass, predators into prey. A disease which has spread to none other than our sweet little Rose."

 

William: "I-"

 

Clementine: "Right from under our noses the rat scrounges and pilfers her instincts, tells the viper sweet lies to make her stop stinging the lesser creatures around her, and so the venom builds. Without an outlet it builds and builds, until it has nowhere to go but backwards, back inside the very body which created it, and so the viper finally shows symptoms of the sickness. A terrible anguish, a grievous display of self-immolation, and the perfect opportunity for the rat to assert her influence, to assert herself ever further as strings glued to the vipers back! For the vipers' sweet, caring parents back at the nest, all seemed lost, their efforts having fallen to not, their empire and their family alike melting into the desert sands with all the inevitability of Ozymandius!"

 

William: "This all-"

 

Clementine: "Little did they know, oh little did they all know, that nature had one last trick up her sleeve. An ace, a weapon, a light at the end of the tunnel, no, a shining beam of light illuminating all that which fell under the power of the great desert sun! Nature does not take kindly to those that step out of their niche, their role, their place! Little did they know, little did they all know, that the vipers would win in the end, for we always do."

 

William: "Clem-"

 

Clementine: "While the rat was executing her scheme, manipulating the viper, turning her against herself, making her ill just so she can nurse her, she never thought to appraise the other side of the coin. She was spreading her disease, yes, but that didn’t make her immune to the venom that drenched the air all around her tender victim, nor provide her a whiff of protection against the influence of the nest! We can still win this war for our daughter’s soul, in fact I think we may even still have the winning hand. All we must do is play it."

 

If William had been uncertain and lost before, by this point he was downright confused.

 

William: "You’re saying we should poison Emma?"

 

Clementine couldn’t help but crash her face against her open palm.

 

 

Clementine: "No, of course not. That would only serve to alienate Rose to an unconscionable degree, and potentially even push her away for good. No, I’m saying we should induct her into our way of doing things, eliminate the moralist threat in Rose’s mind before it can fester any further by corrupting its very source, and in the process showing her the true face of humanity."

 

William was aghast.

 

William: "You propose we throw our child into the arms of a bricklayer's lesbian daughter?"

 

Clementine: "I know it's not ideal, believe me I would kill her myself if I thought we could, but it's better than all the alternatives. That girl has some viper in her, buried of course under a mountain of slave morality, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just today I visited her to drop off a few gifts and I got to bear witness to a glimmer of Vaeni in her eyes."

 

William: "You did what!"

 

As Clementine expected William was horrified to learn of her unilateral actions, but after two decades of marriage she was more than adept at managing him:

 

• Rule 1: Always, on any matter worth a fuss, better to ask forgiveness than permission; and 

• Rule 2: Never apologize for anything, the man is infinitely more attuned to the soapbox then actual conflict.

 

Clementine took a deep breath in and out, and prepared her ‘combination of innocent dope and machiavellian strategist’ voice. It was a hard path to cross, simultaneously pretending not to have known she was going behind William’s back and perfectly understanding the rest of the situation enough to manipulate it to their shared advantage, but Clementine had had many years to practice it. 

 

Clementine: "I had a little talk with her, that's all! Talked about how I approved of her darker side and gave her a housewarming car to ease the tension. We both know at this point she’s not going anywhere, so the best chance we have of preserving our influence with our heir is to stop alienating ourselves to her lover. As they say, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar."

 

William sat and stewed for a moment, before finally accepting he was beat.

 

William: "Well, what’s done is done."

 

Clementine: "Indeed, and, even as I outstretched my arms I made sure she knew who would be the leader in their affair. Our daughter may be dead set on uplifting the peasant to royalty, but that won’t change the fact that she was still born to the purple whereas Emma will forever be a mere consort."

 

William chuckled.

 

William: "Oh what a joy it is to hear you say that, ‘Clementine Anderson’."

 

Clementine playfully gasped and launched a mock punch into William’s chest.

 

Clementine: "A $450 million trust fund is nothing to sneeze at!"

 

William: "No, but we both know who was, how did you say it, “uplifting” whom?"

 

Clementine mock pouted, then clasped her hands together in prayer and looked up at her husband.

 

Clementine: "You got me Master, I surrender."

 

Clementine leaned over and offered her forehead to William as tribute, prompting her "Master" to kiss her softly as mere inches from his face the biggest grin Clementine had borne in weeks emerged across her own.