sweetsalome | Salome's father

Author's Note: Behind the cut deals with some disturbing behaviors. I do not condone such behaviors, this is fiction and nothing else. Any problems with the content shall be directed to the big Gorilla in back, who's really, really hungry. Ya dig?

Salome’s father, Liam Collins, was a tall bear of a man. With dark hair and dark eyes and a neatly trimmed, but equally black goatee, he wore the continence of a man who had seen hell and had no problem showing it to others who crossed him. A son of a whore, he grew up fighting everyone and everything he saw as a threat, which earned him a few nasty scars and a reputation that followed him to America. He started working in shipyards as soon as he could pass himself off as of legal age. As a member of the IRA, he used his position at the docks to help smuggle in weapons and explosives. After a few successful runs, he realized it was more profitable to work for both sides, a philosophy he would follow the rest of his life.

If Salome is sunshine, Liam Collins is a black hole. It’s hard to believe the two are actually related, a speculation that ran wildly through out his organization until he put a stop to it. He rarely laughs; when he does it’s a joyless sound, more like a bark then anything else. Everything around him is dark, brutal, and cold. When he enters a room a silence falls and a chill fills the air. It’s something about him, his aura, something that sinks into everyone’s soul. If he had cultivated a different image, someone might actually feel sorry for him. As it stands no one feels sorry for Liam Collins, not even the devil who holds the deed for his soul. No one except his daughter.

Liam Collins has very few weaknesses, most of them are expected, liquor, beautiful men and women, and of course his family. In his favor he spoils his vices, gifts, money, and physical affection. As soon as the tide turns, you are cast out of Eden, if not worse. He is a man who doesn’t believe in monogamy or moderation, but demands it from those around him. Beautiful things are his to possess, and no one else, many a men and women have found out the hard way how serious he is about his demand for loyalty. Like a child with a short attention span, he very rarely spends more then a week with the same person. He’s a whore, part of his heritage that he has fought hard to bury from the public, but he relishes in his private life.

His sexual appetite is something he’s never hidden from his child; it wasn’t hidden from him, and sees nothing wrong with parading men and women in front of her. He did nothing to discourage her from watching, from exhibiting the same behaviors as the women he brings home. He tells her they are whores, worthless pieces of trash, but allows her to sit on his lap and kiss his mouth. He never told her that there was good touching and bad, appropriate for two people who care about each other, but not for those related by blood. She sees her father spend time with these people and wishes that she could have the same attention. What is an attempt to win his affection and his love is really perverse. She just wants him to love her.

Liam Collins doesn’t love anyone or anything, but he uses the word as if he knows what it truly means. He uses it as a weapon, as another means to inflict pain, and exhort control over someone. This is what he uses on his daughter. For he sees what she wants from him, and instead of seeing it as something sweet and tender, to be encouraged and respected, he sees it as a weakness and a means to an end. If she loves him then she would be a better little girl. If she loves him then she would obey, she would keep her mouth shut, she wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t be such a burden. If she just listens to him then he would give her what she wants, and what she wants is his love. His love means sleeping in her bed at night, and doesn’t that feel good, little girl?

His mood swings are erratic and extreme, from tender and caring, to violent and hateful. When she was young, Salome fell ill, keeping her at home and in bed for days. Racked with a fever she remembers him sitting by her side, keeping her cool, and holding her hair back as she got sick. She remembers him holding her, rocking her gently back to sleep, remembers him letting her cry on his shoulder. When she got better she desperately tried to get sick once more in order to get the same love and affection as before. Except this time when she came to him crying and miserable, he turned her away. Shaking her, screaming at her to suck it up, life is hard and miserable, get use to it. At least he didn’t hit her.

Salome has been conditioned to be the thing her father wants the most, something beautiful and sweet. Something that always has a smile and that laughs, and dances for his amusement. In his mind, he is King Herod, but there is no John the Baptist or Herodias to stop him from looking at his daughter. Now that she has given him what he wants, a true heir, she has fallen out of his favor. She has served her usefulness and he no longer loves her. That doesn't mean she is free to simply love someone else, that just means that he no longer has to pay attention to her.

Salome has been cast out, and for her, that is a punishment she can not stand. Because what is a daughter without the love of her father?

(1016)