“Dr Josef Mongola.”
Josef stood up as his name was called out by Professor Deckard, he’d put on his best fake smile for this graduation since he knew it was all for show anyway. But hearing his name, he couldn’t deny that that fake smile turned a little bit real, thinking about how hard he’d worked for this moment, even if it was a pile of shit, he was now a doctor, and that meant something.
Josef got onto the stage, took the degree from Deckard’s hand and brought the professor in for a hug.
Deckard whispered in his ear. “I don’t take pleasure in harming your career Mongola, I hope you’ve learnt from this.”
“Oh don’t you worry Professor, I’m still learning.”
Josef left the stage, hoping that the cameras picked up on Deckard’s worried face as he tried to compose himself for the next graduate.
“Congrats hun.”
Katherine launched herself into Josef’s arms, giving him a big kiss for his triumph. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, but I’m happy it’s over with, I might skip your ceremony next year.”
“You absolutely will not mister, I worked just as hard as you to pass this shit.”
“I’m kidding Kat, of course I’ll be there, you deserve the recognition.”
“And so do you, no matter what you’ve worked hard to get here and don’t let anyone take that away from you.”
“Thanks babe, but I’m thinking he might.”
Katherine turned round to where Josef was looking, and saw Jonathan walking towards them. “John, I didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“I wasn’t planning to, but I did a little snooping on mum and dad and neither of them were coming so I figured I was safe to make an appearance.”
Josef’s smile faded slightly. “They said something came up, I take it that was another lie.”
“Well judging by their text messages, mum is either hungover or drunk, I couldn’t tell the difference, and dad just straight up forgot that it was happening today.”
“I expected nothing from them, and I’m still disappointed. I don’t know why I haven’t just cut them out my life yet.”
“Cause you’re a young man Joey, and it’s hard to turn your back on family, even with how often you do it to me.”
Katherine saw the look on Josef’s face and intervened. “Hey now, you’re here now so at least that’s something, let’s all get dressed up and we’ll join the others for drinks, sound good?”
Josef nodded, his face still stiff from his annoyance at Jonathan. “Yeah, sounds good Excuse me a moment, I need to talk with some colleagues.”
Josef left without a word, leaving Katherine and Jonathan alone, as soon as Josef wasn’t looking, she slapped Jonathan’s arm.
“Ow, the hell Kat?”
“Look, I get that you two have a troubled relationship and I get that Josef’s not handling it very well, but there’s no need to push his buttons like that.”
“It was just a bit of fun Kat, he knows I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Does he? Cause while you might see this as just brotherly banter, Josef’s still got four years of little to no contact with you to get over and that’s on top of the stress he’s dealing with thanks to his career being flushes down the fucking drain.”
“Ok, ok, you made your point, I’ll apologise to him when he’s back. Nice to see somebody else gives a shit about Joey apart from me.”
“I know where I stand with Josef, I know that he’s got his issues and I know he might never love me in the same way I love him, and he might say something to hurt me without even realising he’s doing it, but I can be myself with him, I’m comfortable with him, and that’s worth everything to me.”
There was a beat of silence followed by a small chuckle from Katherine as she listened back to what she said. “Goddamn, that might be the first time I’ve actually admitted that I love Josef, and it wasn’t even to him. I swear our relationship is just as fucked up as yours.”
“Doubtful, but I’m happy Joey has two fucked up people looking out for him.”
Katherine nodded and looked over to Josef, watching him congratulate his fellow doctors, it was an odd feeling admitting that she loved him after a four year relationship, but she had to tell herself the truth at some point.
Now how to tell him?
The trio returned to the flat just as Josef’s phone rang, he looked at the caller I.D. and saw his mother’s name.
“Shit, it’s mum; probably asking about that dinner.”
Jonathan shrugged. “It’s up to you if you want to go or not, I’ll be there for support if you need me.”
Josef thought for a second, before answering the phone. “Hey mum.”
Vivienne Mongola spoke with the fakest posh accent she could muster, grating Josef’s ears when she spoke, and she spoke loudly. “Josef, my sweet boy, congratulations on your achievement today.”
“Thanks mum, I just wish you and dad could’ve been there.”
“Oh and so do we darling but there was a problem with the pool and we had to stay in for the custodian to arrive.”
Amongst her posh accent, Josef could hear the slurred words of his wine-drunk mother, but he didn’t want to push anything. “It’s ok mum, I understand. Jonathan called me after the ceremony, gave his congrats.”
“Did he now? We haven’t heard from your brother in quite some time, frankly we’ve been waiting for his death certificate through the door.”
Vivienne gave a hearty chuckle but Josef knew there was a little too much truth to that joke to be funny.
She continued. “Anyway darling, your father and I simply MUST have you round for dinner to celebrate, we’ll even try to get Jonatan to come round and we’ll have a nice family gathering once more.”
As much as Josef didn’t want to push her mother’s buttons, he couldn’t resist the opportunity for a subtle jab at her fake hospitality. “Can Katherine come too?”
The silence over the phone was deafening, Josef imagined Vivienne’s face dropping upon hearing Katherine’s name. “Oh, you’re still with that… woman?”
“Yes mum, I have been for the last four years, I’ve mentioned her in every Christmas card I sent you.”
“But Josef, don’t you think this dinner should be for relatives only, it’s a Mongola achievement, having a doctor in the family, we should celebrate as a family.”
Josef felt his blood chill as his went in for a kill-strike.
“Would you want Martha to be there?”
Behind him, Jonathan smiled at his brother’s mention of his ex-wife, Vivienne HATED Martha, blamed her for taking away her first-born son from his heritage, but Martha was technically family so Vivienne had no excuse to leave her out of family events. Jonathan knew that Josef was hinting that he planned to propose, turning Katherine into the next Martha.
He probably didn’t plan to propose at all, but Vivienne didn’t know that.
“Josef, your brother’s… wife, was different, she was family regardless of what the rest of us believed. Katherine on the other hand…”
“Katherine is coming with me and that’s final, I’d like her to meet the parents, figured it’s about time, don’t you?”
Vivienne’s drunken mind wanted to protest further, but she was getting tired, and sober. “Ok Josef, bring your little ‘girlfriend’ along if you want, text me if she has any dietary requirements later, I’ve got to go lay down for a bit.”
Josef knew it was a lie, she didn’t need to lie down and she certainly wasn’t going to give a shit about Katherine’s dietary needs. “Ok mum, give my best to dad.”
“Of course dear, I’ll let you know a date once I get word from your bother. Ta-ta darling.”
She hung up the phone to guarantee the last word, Josef put his phone away, a little disgusted at himself for stooping to her level.
Jonathan smirked. “Handled that well, didn’t you?”
“Shut up, she pisses me off just as much as you do, maybe more.”
Katherine gently stroked his arm. “Thanks for sticking up for me babe.”
“No worries, but now I gotta subject you to the parents, fair warning, mum will be passive-aggressive and dad will definitely say something racist and blame the P.C. brigade if you call him out.”
“I’ve dealt with parents before Joe, I’ll handle them.”
Josef smiled, knowing that Katherine probably could handle his parents if she wanted to.
Better than he could, certainly.
It was a few days later when Josef got the message from his mother than dinner had been set for that coming Sunday, Jonathan had tried to push it back further but Vivienne wasn’t having it. That still gave Josef and Katherine some time to prepare, and a little extra time with their experiments.
Katherine’s torment of Stud had all but broken him, he had impregnated enough mares to fill a breeding a mill but still none of them were allowed to be his special-friend, Katherine stil gave him the whole spiel but she doubt he even listened anymore, as soon as she came back into the room alone after the ‘enfing’, he knew what she was going to say.
Thankfully the enfie-toys from Samuel had arrived so she could still get his sperm should she need to, but she still tried to push him towards the natural way.
Today’s client was Clyde; another breeder like Samuel, but a little more uptight, his mare was Diana; a glossy pink unicorn – Katherine would describe her as ‘rose gold’ – with a white mane and an stuck up attitude rivalling her owners.
Katherine couldn’t help but refer to the mare as Vivienne in her mind.
Clyde handed Diana over to Katherine, not hiding his disdain for the shabby apartment. “I must admit, this wasn’t what I expected when I saw your ad Mrs Townsend.”
“It’s Miss actually, and we’ve had to downgrade slightly after our last location was doxxed by Hugboxers, we’re rebuilding slowly but surely.”
“Sure you are.” Clyde eyed the flat like he was scared to touch the walls.
Katherine ignore the uppity prick and took Diana threw to the bedroom, Stud once again lay on the towels on the bed, only this time he never looked up when Katherine entered the room.
“Stud, look who I have to meet you.”
“Stud nu cawe, pwetty mawe nu wan be speciaw-fwiend.”
“Oh come on now Stud, you don’t know that, why don’t you talk to her?”
Stud looked up finally, she was a VERY pretty mare, maybe he could get lucky with this one.
“Hewwo pwetty mawe, am Stud, wan be speciaw-fwiends?”
“Hmmph, Di-Anna nu wookin fow speciaw-fwiend, onwy wan pwettiesh babbehs fow daddeh. Dummeh stawwion gun gib enfies ow nu?”
Stud immediately started crying. “Huu, huu, Stud onwy wan famiwy, nu wan gib enfies to meanie mawe.”
Diana rolled her eyes at the pathetic sight. “Stawwion am pwetty bu tuu cwingy, Di-Anna nu wan enfies fwom yu, hab sowwy-poopies.”
And before Katherine could stop her, Diana turned and fired a stream of shit into Stud’s face. The poor Alicorn couldn’t move in time, nor did he try to, the shit couldn’t make him feel any worse than he already did.
Diana smugly looked up at Katherine. “Dummah stawwion am poopie nyo, Di-Anna gu bak tu daddeh.”
The pink bitch put her arms out in the upsie pose, but Katherine wasn’t having it, she grabbed Diana by the back of her neck and pushed her down onto the bed.
“I don’t think you understand what’s happening here PRINCESS! Your daddy paid a lot of money for you to get pregnant, and you’re not leaving here until you are.”
“Bu… bu, dat poopie stawwion.”
“And who’s fucking fault is that then?”
Stud saw what Katherine was doing and hid away, well… he covered his eyes in an attempt to hide. “Stud nu wan gib bad-enfies, am nu bad Fwuffy.”
Katherine grabbed Stud around his waist and pushed him into position behind Diana, neither Fluffy wanted to go any further. Katherine forced Stud to look at her.
“Look here, either you fuck this uppity cunt right now, or I’ll rip your cock off and I’ll fuck her for you.”
“Huu, Stud no wike mummah.”
“I’m not asking you to like me, I’m telling you to do your fucking job you manwhore.”
Reluctantly, Stud summoned what he could to push his mostly flaccid member into Diana’s special-place, she wailed as he pushed into her.
“NU WIKE BAD ENFIES, NU WAN BAD BABBEHS!”
“Stud su sowwy, nu wan gib bad enfies, nu wan, nu wan.”
Katherine stayed through the whole act, occasionally flicking Stud’s back to make him go faster if he started to slow down. She had to make sure that they finished the job.
Eventually Stud shivered as he forced himself to finish inside Diana, he never even yelled ‘good feels’, because in short they weren’t. He pulled himself out of her and curled up into a ball and cried, hating himself for what he’d done, Diana herself hadn’t stopped sobbing, she’d wanted babies sure, but not like this.
Katherine roughly picked her off the bed and took her back through to Clyde.
“Here you are, one pregnant Fluffy.”
“Huu, meanie stawwion gib bad enfies, nu wike bad tummeh-babbehs.”
Clyde looked horrified at his sobbing mare. “What the hell have you done to her? I want my money back you fucking cheat.”
Katherine didn’t take kindly to the accusation. “Listen her fuck-stick, you paid for your bitch to get pregnant, you didn’t pay for her to enjoy it. Now get the fuck outta here before I throw you out.”
Clyde glared at Katherine, but he knew he had no grounds to fight her so he left, cooing softly to the still weeping Diana as he left. Once he was gone, Katherine stormed back to her room and to Stud.
“I don’t know what your fucking problem is you little cunt but let me make one thing clear, you fuck who I tell you to fuck, I don’t care about your feelings, I don’t care about your family, you’re a fuck-machine and nothing else.”
As memories of his old breeding mill and his special-friend Ruby being taken from him filled Stud’s mind again, Katherine took the enfie-toys from Samuel and threw them at Stud.
“I want you to fill these toys with as much no-no juice as you can or else I will personally make sure you never see another mare for the rest of your pathetic little life.”
She turned and left the room, fed up of hearing Stud’s wails, she closed the door behind her, just missing out on Stud’s pained voice whimpering ‘Wan die’ in the darkness.
Katherine was still in a foul mood when she told Josef about what happened, thankfully he was still fucking with Teal and had just the thing to cheer her up.
Earlier in the day, Josef had sprinkled some Fluffy sleeping powder over the Fluffies breakfast, it sent them right back to sleep, allowing Josef to take Lapis away and perform some… adjustments on him. He was able to set everything back before Tea woke up again.
She did so slowly at first, her tiny brain wondering why she fell back asleep so soon after waking up, as her senses returned she looked around, she couldn’t see Lapis, nor could she feel him next to her, her pregnancy made it too difficult to turn to see behind her.
“Wapis? Wapis? Whewe am bestesh babbeh?”
At that point Josef arrived, under the guise of refilling the water bottle. “Hey Teal, you must’ve been really tired to fall back to sleep that soon.”
“Daddeh, Teaw nu find Wapis, bestesh babbeh am missin.”
“What are you talking about Teal, he’s right behind you.”
Josef carefully picked Teal up and turned her so she could see what was behind her, and something inside her broke at the sight.
There was only her poopie-babbeh in the corner, and she could smell he was the poopie-babbeh, but he was wearing the fur of Lapis like a coat.
Decaf was still groggy and didn’t understand why his head felt so heavy, he could feel something different about him but he couldn’t tell what, he looked up and saw his mother looking at him with horror. That wasn’t new, but likewise something was off about it and he couldn’t tell what it was.
“Am ok mummah?”
“Dat… dat… dat am no bestesh babbeh.”
“Sure it is Teal, look, he has Lapis’s colours, he has to be Lapis right?”
Teal couldn’t argue with Josef’s logic, but it wasn’t right, she knew this wasn’t Lapis, but she couldn’t tell how she didn’t know, it was his pretty blue fur of course but he smelled like the poopie-babbeh.
Josef picked Decaf up and carried him over to Teal. “There we go little guy, why don’t we let bestesh babbeh feed from his mummah, ok?”
Decaf was confused, why was he being referred to as the bestesh. Unless, his siblings weren’t around, he was the only babbeh left, he must be the bestesh just because there was no-one left to take his title. Decaf happily took one of Teal’s teats into his mouth and for the first time in his life, he tasted the sweetness of his mother’s milk, his skinny little belly could be seen growing from the nurturing liquid.
Teal was still frozen in terror, trying to make sense of everything, if this wasn’t her bestesh then where was he? If he was, then where was the poopie? Or Tangerine? Or Royal? Nothing about this made any sense to her, she’d been losing her mind since she got here…
And it was all the poopie’s fault.
It had to be, he was a shit baby, he had to be behind this as a way to get back at her, she’d been the bestesh mummah ever and he was jealous, now he’d stolen his brother’s place to spite her.
While Decaf was distracted by the blissful taste of milk, Teal shuffled her fat body forward until she landed on top of Decaf, suffocating him under her Fluff.
“Dummeh poopie du meanie fings to bestesh, Teaw knyo yu bad Fwuffy, gib bak bestesh brudda ow gu foweba sweepies.”
Decaff couldn’t hear her, he wouldn’t have been able to help her even if he could, his little limbs flailed under his mother’s pregnant belly, desperate for air, until slowly but surely they dropped to the floor.
Decaf was smothered seconds after the only happy moment of his life.
Josef picked Teal up and took the dead foal out from beneath her. “Teal, that was a very bad thingt o do, you killed your bestest baby.”
“Dat nu Teaw’s bestesh, dat am poopie-babbeh, nu gib bak bestesh su gu foweba sweepies.”
Josef shook his head disapprovingly. “I’ll have to find some way to punish you missy, you’re a very bad Fluffy.”
He left Teal muttering about being a ‘gud nu poopie mummah’ and returned to Katherine in the kitchen, she’d been listening in to the whole thing through the door. Josef dropped the dead Decaf onto the table, Lapis’ skinned fur slipped off his body.
“I take it she took the news well.”
“She’s sharper than I gave her credit for, caught onto the lie faster than I expected. But not sharp enough, blamed poor little Decaf here rather than me, still she did kill him so now I have an excuse to punish her.”
“What do you want done with him?” Katherine asked, pointing to the skinned corpse of Lapis in the sink.
“Put him in a bag and freeze him with the other two, I’m still in on what you suggested. I’ll make sure Teal sees her babies again before we’re done with her."
It came all too soon, but Sunday arrived and the time was upon the sociopathic couple to face the parents, Josef put on his best suit – his only suit – with a soft silver tie completing the look. Katherine opted for a slimming, ruby red dress, just a few shades darker than her hair which she’d fashioned into a neat Up-do style, showing off her slender neck and facial structure.
Josef wolf-whistled when he saw her.
“Goddamn Kat, we need to do this more often if it gets you looking like that.”
“Absolutely not, I had to stop buying weed for a week to pay for this dress, I’m not doing that again.”
“But I saw you smoking just this morning.”
“Oh yeah, I stole some of your stash.”
“What?”
Katherine distracted Josef with a kiss and it was time for them to leave, Katherine took her car with Josef directing her since he was texting Jonathan who was already at the house. They drove for a good twenty minutes, getting further and further away from the city.
Josef hit send and put his phone down. “Jonathan says mum’s already hitting this wine but he’s doing his best to keep her conscious, don’t be surprised if she says something… controversial.”
Katherine chuckled as she looked out the window at the endless fields. “Man, your parents sure are isolated, aren’t they?”
“You don’t know the half of it babe, we’re about to enter their land in the next minute or two.”
“But I don’t see any houses, surely we can’t be that close.”
“I said their land, their house is still about five minutes away.”
It hit Katherine that she might have underestimated how rich the Mongola’s actually were if they owned as much land as she thought they did.
As the road turned left around a large hill and the Mongola propery came into view, she realised she VASTLY underestimated how rich they were.
The house was massive, three stories tall, with more windows than she could count, a rugged, old-fashioned stone finish, a semi-circle of pillar surrounding the front door, to one side was a conservatory bigger than Katherine’s first home, and to the other a clock tower that seemed to serve no purpose other than vanity. And behind that, miles upon miles of open field that even from here, Katherine could tell was meticulously kept neat and uniformed.
Josef laughed at her shocked expression. “Katherine, allow me to welcome you to Mongola Manor, still think you’re ready for this?”
Katherine said nothing as she pulled up to the front gates, suddenly this had gotten very real.
And very frightening.