by J. Levy
‘Fucking therapists,’ whispered Jezzy, ‘all they do is fucking rape your minds. That’s why they’re called therapists, because that’s what they are and that’s what they do. The Rapists.’
And the horizon gobbled up the sun in one swift gulp.
*
Devon in Space
Looking down, she could see globules of clouds, creating a pearlescent blanket beneath the Virgin jumbo. She wondered if that was how her mind looked, from the inside. Frothy, grey, opaque. There was a chink of light though. Something was beginning to fight its way through. A tenacious, minute ray of hope. It might take a while, but it was there, finding its way through the clouds in the sky and through the rubbish tip that had become her mind, to bring light into her life.
‘Care for a glass of champagne Ms. Cage?’ The flight attendant looked pristine in her red skirt and white shirt, make-up perfectly caked on. She could just as easily have been on the cover of Good Housekeeping.
Devon nodded, smiling a charming smile, accepting the glass. She drank it in one, needing to feel the calming effect of the bubbles. It wasn’t vintage, it was barely out of diapers, but it was palatable. She settled down in her seat and decided to watch a movie. She chose something light and romantic, something with a Meg or Diane above the title. Why not?! She giggled, suddenly feeling like a teenager. She was comfortable in her seat and her mind felt as though it was beginning to rest too. How wonderful. She had waited so long for this moment. She suddenly remembered when she had been on a flight across America many years ago. A woman sitting across the aisle in front of her had pulled a worn Danielle Steele novel out of her bag. She had looked so carefree, just sitting there, reading a book of her choice, not something she was obliged to read, but rather something light, flippant, easy without her mind weighing her down. Devon had envied her, she had seemed so free. She wanted to be able to still her mind long enough to be able to read a light- hearted book. And now she could, because she was almost free, her liberty within reach.
There was just one more thing she needed to do.
*
Adrian
The door closed softly with no more than a whisper and from where he was lying, Adrian caught his last glimpse of the young man with the peroxide blonde hair and hairless golden limbs. He must have thought that Adrian was asleep. He wasn’t though. How could he sleep in the middle of the afternoon with a complete stranger in the room? Fucking, yes. Sleeping, no way. Besides, his butt really ached. The boy had been a bit too rough, but that was what Adrian had wanted. After all, he had screamed out for more as the stranger repeatedly plunged his uncircumsized cock into his ass. Adrian hated foreskins. Probably because Fred the farmer had had one that had been loose and a bit flappy. Thinking about Fred made him realize that he hadn’t seen a collared cock for years, perhaps decades. At least this guy he had just fucked had worn a condom. Who knows what a person could catch otherwise. Thankfully, he had never caught anything from Fred the farmer, not unless you counted that horrible skin rash across his back, but that had been from the pigs in the stable. Pork zits, Fred had called them, as he carefully squeezed out the pus for Adrian at the top of the hay barn.
Adrian managed to jolt his thoughts back to the present and he gazed down at his pale body and skinny legs, thinking, promising himself, that this would be the last time he ever had to have sex with a man. He longed to be back with Jezzy. He needed to be in her warm, fragrant arms again, where he could escape from himself. She was his savior. She had to be. There was nowhere else for him to go. He lifted himself gently off the crumpled bed, naked except for a grey, sleeveless T-shirt, and stood in the middle of the small, damp West Hollywood hotel room. The carpet was orange and the bed was hard. Probably reinforced, because the manager knew what kind of damage it needed to withstand. Maybe minds should be reinforced too? Maybe scaffolding should be erected inside a person’s head to stop their thoughts crashing down around them.
He looked out of the window directly at the small apartment building across the street. There were vivid pink bougainvillea aimlessly clambering across the walls, their blossom lingering languidly in the sun and Adrian wished he were as free as a flower. The sun glinted into his eyes, causing him to squint and he knew he was facing west. He turned the other way so that he was facing east, to where Jezzy was waiting six thousand miles away, even if right now he was only looking at the white, painted wall, at least he was facing the right direction. That was the last time that he would ever do anything destructive again, because now he could fly home to Jezzy and they could get married and have children.
And he would be normal.
He sat down on the bed. It was still hot. Damp. He put his head in his hands and cried. He couldn’t live like this any longer. His life had been filled with turmoil since he had been a child, but spending years in therapy had made it worse, he was convinced of that. Couldn’t he have just left it all in the past, just pushed it aside and got on with his life? He never had to see his mother or Fred or the school again. At least when he was fostered he had made a friend for life. But the therapists, the fucking therapists, had dragged it out of him time and time again. Causing him to have spent the last twenty odd years reliving those vile happenings, forced to dredge them up and out, needing to find solace of some sort and thinking that maybe that was what he wanted. They had made him ask himself all these searching questions. Maybe that was what he needed? They suggested he should experiment again to see if that’s where the answer lie? So he tried and he looked and he lived amongst the ghosts of his past. The therapists would not let him let them go and held his mind in a vice. They said he could only have closure after he had dug to the bottom and worked his way up. A rebirth. Only then would he heal. Thankfully, Devon had always been there, well almost all of the time. And now he had Jezzy. His own true woman and one he must never hurt.
Adrian lifted his head from his hands, flinching at his reflection in the mirror. He had dug his fingers so hard into his temples that he had left two trails of blood. *
Jezzy
Jezzy needed a car for the weekend. She thought it would be nice to go to the country with Adrian, Wiltshire or The Cotswolds perhaps, maybe give them some breathing space away from the confines of the city. She had noticed a small place called Premier Vehicle People located in a rundown garage, next to the railway tracks, having passed by many times on the bus. She walked up four steel steps, past a metal name plate on the wall with the letters PVP in orange stamped onto it and into an office filled with plastic fans, which moved the hot, stale air around the room. Two boys stood behind the high counter. One was white and skinny, in his twenties, with a name tag that read, Eddie. His colleague, Rash, was short and muscular with black hair and pale brown skin and his teeth gleamed as he smiled, ‘Can I help you?’ to Jezzy. Eddie smiled too, only his teeth were yellow and crooked. Typical, thought Jezzy, so English.
‘I need a car for two days please. Small, non-smoking, automatic.’
‘You could be talking about me,’ grinned Rash as he slid a laminated A4 card across the counter, poking his pen at a picture of a blue hatchback. ‘Toyota, Honda or Hyundai, take your pick, I’ve got them all.’
‘I’ll take the newest one,’ said Jezzy.
‘They’re all new,’ gleamed Rash.
‘Then I don’t mind,’ she smiled, ‘you pick.’
‘Good choice!’ Rash grinned and scratched his right cheek. He had two big gold sovereign rings on two fingers. ‘Drivers licence, credit card, I’d advise insurance coverage, it’s only eight pounds odd a day and you’ll have peace of mind.’
Jezzy looked up from her bag, pulled out her license and credit card. ‘Really? I didn’t realize you could buy peace of mind.’
Rash laughed aloud and dug Eddie in the ribs, who conveniently joined in with the appropriate amount of mirth.
‘Do you want to sign now or when you’ve seen it?’ Rash asked. Eddie stifled a laugh, stuffed somewhere down the back of his throat. So obviousl
y part of their routine. Jezzy looked quizzically at Rash and said, ‘later.’
Rash came around to the front of the counter. The floor behind the counter must have been raised, because he had suddenly dropped a few precious measures of height as he came towards her, looked up and said, ‘you want to come with me or wait here?’
Jezzy hesitated momentarily and said, ‘I’ll come with you.’
He suddenly thrust his right fist toward her. She jerked out of the way, apparently unnecessarily as he lunged a key, hidden in his hand, past her left ear and unlocked a narrow door.
Rash grinned, ‘let’s go. Fourth floor.’
Jezzy wiped a bead of perspiration that had appeared on her top lip and followed him. They were suddenly in the middle of an empty indoor parking garage with drips coming down the walls and greasy puddles on the floor. There was a strange, almost anachronistic shop to one side, filled with the kind of rusty spotlights you get in old Hollywood movies, a Victorian looking birdcage with a stiff bird hanging from the perch and a few pieces of furniture, all covered in silver leather and lurex. Rash noticed her gaze. ‘Been closed for months, the owner just locked up one day and never came back, didn’t take long for the bird to die.’
‘Don’t tell me that bird is real?’ Jezzy asked slowly.
‘Well, it was once,’ grinned Rash, never missing an opportunity, insensitive or otherwise, to show off his teeth.
He pressed a grimy button, a lift door creaked open and he held the door to let Jezzy in first. The lift smelt as they always do in parking garages. Stale piss and B.O. Jezzy tried to hold her breath until they reached the fourth floor, gratefully sucking in the air when the door opened. It wasn’t fresh but it was less sour.
The fourth floor was empty, except for five cars, parked in various spaces. It was dark and as damp as the ground floor. She could hear a constant drip from a rusty pipe that ran down one of the walls, creating a puddle that was confined to a dip in the floor.
‘There’s your little beauty,’ Rash pointed to a small blue Honda clamped to the edge of the wall. ‘Get in and I’ll drive us down. You can’t drive it until you’ve signed for it, but I’ll show you what a great little number it is.’
Jezzy slipped into the passenger’s side and reached for her seatbelt as Rash started the engine and lurched forwards.
What happened next left Jezzy feeling as if she were on a rollercoaster.
‘You want to go out with me sometime?’ asked Rash with another of his smiles.
Jezzy looked at him, startled. ‘No thanks, I’m only here for a car.’
‘Could have fooled me,’ Rash’s smile was turning into a snarl and he lurched the car forwards again, hitting the accelerator as hard as he could and zooming around the bend to take them to the next floor. He approached fifty as he tore around the next corner.
‘Stop!’ screamed Jezzy.
But Rash didn’t stop, tearing down the slope and around the next corner just as fast. Jezzy was sure he would lose control. He didn’t. But she did when they reached the ground floor and he skidded to a halt.
*
Mary & Edie
Edie eased her creased neck forward to look down at the fluffy blonde head resting on her lap. Her skin was damp with fresh, warm tears that had caused iridescent casts against the furrows in her cheeks, her eyes, the color of faded cornflowers, were tinged with red, and soft, forgotten lights were beginning to show in her irises. Edie’s right hand, blue-veined and slightly trembling, was stroking the soft blonde hair. A perfectly manicured hand reached up, covering Edie’s hand. Edie looked down at the hand. Smooth white skin and long cherry red nails. Their hands held on tightly to each other. Mary lifted her head from the warmth of her mother’s lap and kissed her hand. ‘I must do your nails today Mama,’ she whispered.
‘Before you go?’ said Edie gently.
Mary gazed up at her mother, so old and so sweetly worn. Flickers of recognition moved swiftly across Edie’s eyes, delicate memories that she held onto with all her might.
Mary trembled with lost love as she sat on the floor at her mother’s knee. ‘I’m not going Mama. Not without you.’
They looked at each other tenderly. Mother and child, trying to recapture the lost years. It was as if there was nobody there but them as they drifted away together to another time.
Back to a meadow, where flowers grew wild. Where cowslips and primroses curled over the edges of a pale green gingham blanket and the sun shone through the apple trees and windfalls lay in crisp green abundance, leaves still attached to their stalks. A young beautiful mother and her angelic child, hair as blonde as fresh cream, chasing butterflies with a small yellow net, laughing at the joyous day, then sinking onto the blanket to eat chunks of homemade soft, buttermilk cakes and drink cups of sweet apple juice. The afternoon had been one of perfection. A series of moments so pure, that even if lost for a while, they are carried inside minds for eternity.
The others were beginning to wake from their naps. Dribbling mouths and crusty eyelids. Medication spooned, help to the bathroom or diapers changed. Fay trotted over, looking as if she were getting ready to spit at Mary. Edie reached out her bony arm and jabbed her in the stomach with a stiff finger. Fay squealed and backed away towards the fireplace. Everyone was looking at Edie and Mary, even those with only vacant gazes.
Edie stood up very slowly, uncurling her bent back as she clung on to Mary’s arm. Mary’s other arm was around her mother’s shriveled waist. An anachronistic hush fell across the room.
Edie looked up into Mary’s eyes, then towards the window.
‘This is my child,’ she whispered softly to the sky, ‘she is here to take me home.’
*
Jezzy
Jezzy again wiped at her top lip. This time, an entire row of perspiration beads had formed along it, like a regiment of soldiers. She thought, fleetingly, that she had never seen the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Born and raised in London and never even seen the sights. Her bottom lip curled into a slight grimace. The only sounds to be heard were the continual drip drip down the walls of the garage. Otherwise it remained desolate. Just like it had been when she had arrived. Good thing really. It was almost eleven. Elevenses. Time for tea. A cup of tea and a Custard Cream. Maybe even two. A well needed, much earned morning break. Mourning in the morning. Not for her, but for someone there. There must be somebody who would miss Rash, maybe Eddie? She wondered who would inherit his gold sovereign rings?
Pulling aside a big bolt with the edge her torn jumper, Jezzy slipped through a heavy, greasy back door, which led onto the side of the railway tracks. Perfect. Pulling the door silently behind her, leaving the grimy garage behind, black drips on the walls and red drips coming from the hole made by the ignition key that was sticking out of Rash’s neck. Sssh.
*
Adrian
Adrian squinted, opening his eyes just a sliver, as a vibrant light escaped from beneath the window blind, shining directly through his half-closed eyelids. He uncurled his stiff, thin legs, encased in very tight black Armani jeans, from their scrunched position up against the seat in front and grimaced. Somehow, he had convinced the person in front of him to allow him to dangle his feet over the edge of their armrest. It was one of those annoying things that ninety nine percent of people would not allow, but Adrian had an innate ability to seek out that rare one percent and charm them into doing anything. Isn’t that what he had done with Jezzy? He squinted at the small, square screen stuck into the back of the seat and gazed at the map, all blue except for a tiny, white airplane, hovering somewhere close to the Irish coast. He was only minutes away from England. He needed to pee but the toilets were packed and smelt terrible, despite open bags of coffee shoved into their crevices by thoughtful flight attendants, two of which glided down the aisle, dressed in blood red suits, grinning smugly at the passengers. They gleamed, not a hair out of place despite the ten hour flight, while their wards tried desperately to gain mere morsels of s
tylish appearance with combs, breath mints and lip salve.
Adrian thought back to the time when flight attendants were referred to as stewards and stewardesses, a time when sexism had yet to break out like a scabby head in full force, back to when he flew to Tenerife or Palma with his mother and father on a tinny BOAC plane.
He must have been very young, because his father was there. He recalled the shiny smiles of the stewards, his mother tipping the little plastic salt and pepper pots into her handbag for souvenirs and how scorchingly hot it felt when he emerged from the narrow plane and climbed down the steps to continental tarmac, never having felt heat like that before.
Lapsing further into nostalgia, Adrian remembered the first bullfight he ever saw, how he had clung onto his father’s sleeve as they sat in a giant, dusty stadium, watching with horror (and at moments with glee) as the fearless matador plunged sword after sword into the taut, hard, muscular neck of the bull, ribbons of bright red blood, running along the body of the bull. Eruptions of Spanish cheers, as the bull drew its dying breath, could be heard all over the world, he was sure of that. His mind gave a little jolt as he remembered one of the young matadors, resplendent in a stark white shirt, contrasting vividly against the golden skin of his chest and hair as black as that of the bull itself, curling over the back of his collar. He carried a blood red cape over his left forearm and glanced at Adrian as he strode proudly by, a look which made Adrian’s heart quiver, leaving a small, unidentifiable throb somewhere deep inside his Y-fronts.
