“Well, the important thing is you didn’t tell him more than he needed to know to get him to the warehouse and—”
“Only because he told me to shut up. Only because he shushed me with his finger...” Juno kept her stare fixed, reconsidering her full confession.
“Well...” David looked at the top of her head and stroked her hair. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I know you didn’t do what he said and I’m sure he intimidated you. He’s real brave around women and children. But he doesn’t scare me. If it comes down to it, and I see the opportunity, I’ll remove him from the equation.”
“Sure.” She patted him on the chest and gave him a condescending smile. “My after-the-fact hero.”
“Listen. Whatever you think about him. Or me and him. It doesn’t matter anymore. And you have nothing to feel bad about. Like I said. It wasn’t easy for me, either.”
“But I was wrong about you,” she whispered as she kissed at his shoulder, tasting it. “You can be more than you are. You will be. Soon. When we get wherever we’re going. But I’m—”
“You’ll be doing better, too, Junie. I see that in you. You’ll see it in yourself too. Once we’re out of here. Once we get where we’re going.”
She chewed on his shirt harder, starting to leave marks on the skin underneath. “I’m not who you think I am. Not that good. Not really. How can you have any faith in me? I can’t even trust myself.”
“Look.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks and stroked her. “Neither of us made it without backsliding. There’s no shame in it. There’s no point in remembering the times we fucked up. There’s just now. Whatever happened before... We made it. We’re clean. We’re going to start new lives. Lives where we won’t have to worry. Not like we do now. Lives where we can be the people we are. No more hiding. No more secrets. No more wondering what bad thing’s going to happen next. Just us.”
She pulled at his shirt as she continued to grind her teeth. Her eyes getting puffier as she looked down and away. “There is no more us. You got that, right?”
David’s face tightened. “I didn’t mean it in that sense. I just meant things will get better. For each of us.”
“But I’m not just going to change, Davey. I’m a prostitute. I’m an addict. That won’t just wash away.”
“Look.” He patted her upper back with his hand. “You did what you did. You weren’t born a prostitute. Or a junkie. It has washed away. Maybe this freedom won’t last forever. But if it all falls apart, it won’t be because of those things. Even if we mess up again, there’s always another chance. No one will treat you, or talk to you, like they do now. I won’t tolerate it. And, in time, neither will you.”
“I guess.” Her lips trembled. “I want to be with you, I think. I just need room. I’m not ready to be locked down. Not like I thought I was, when I was dope-sick all the time.”
“It’s okay,” he said, as she sobbed on his shoulder. “Don’t feel guilty. We’re finished. Like you said. Once we get to where we’re going, we can split up. As soon as we’re able, if you want.”
She wiped the mess from her face with the arm of her once-white dress and chuckled. “As if you’re over me already.” Her expression turned dour. “Fuck. I don’t know what I want. How can you?” She looked down. “Can I...? Do you have any left?”
“What?”
“I just thought... One more time, before I go. Use just one more time. To forget. Not knowing how to feel. To make it go away.”
He snapped her head around, as it began to turn away. Looking her straight in the eyes. “No. One taste is as good as a hundred. If we ever touch that stuff again, we’ll be right back where we finally got free from. Use me to make yourself feel better. Hit me, kick me, yell at me. Whenever you think you can’t take it anymore. Whenever you want to fix. Use me until the craving goes away.”
“You won’t get attached if we...?” she asked, rubbing at his crotch. “I don’t want to confuse you. But I’d be lying if I told you a good fuck wouldn’t help me forget for a while.”
“I’m not confused. And I promise I won’t cry myself to sleep after.”
Juno continued to massage him through his pants, looking disappointed at the lack of results. “Just pretend I’m that pudgy little bitch you never got all the way with back in pre-school.” She felt him getting hard immediately and she scowled. “I’m sorry. Just... Forget I said that. Forget her. She forgot you.”
“Now I’m definitely pretending you’re her.”
“Well, do it soon.” She began stripping down. “Fuck me now, while I’m still hurting and don’t care.”
“Sure. Just remember, I’ve always loved you—”
Juno slapped him across the face with her free hand as she unzipped his pants. “You don’t get to say her name. Ever.”
They used each other to make the pain go away. For as long as they could before they dropped from exhaustion.
And they waited.
“...This is not a fairy tale... And I’m never giving up on you.”
It’s angry I’ve come back so soon. Thinking I might be gone for years again. But, even before I announced my return from the overwatch my favourite monkey didn’t end up requiring, I’d been keeping an eye on It for a good while. I’m sure It knew I was there, despite the lack of my incessant reminder, but I could be wrong. It’s spent so much time in Its monkey form on this monkey planet I’m positive It forgets It isn’t one from time to time. That, coupled with Its loss of the way, is a truly sad thing to witness. Especially if this is the end It’s hoping for.
It spends most of Its daylight hours, and increasingly more of Its nights, in Its monkey form. For seven years now, if I’m doing the math correctly. All to please an even more disgusting monkey. A foul and ludicrous simian that barely tolerates the grotesque form It presents to him. Deluding Itself that Its outward appearance is something the disgusting monkey will eventually find desirable. Still so confused over why the disgusting monkey hasn’t gotten down on one knee and performed the ridiculous ritual It believes is a necessary precursor to their sharing of a bed. Refusing to listen to the disgusting monkey’s thoughts. Believing that will change the disgusting monkey’s mind and alter the disgusting monkey’s perception of It. Contemplating, over the next three years, whether sharing a bed with the disgusting monkey first might be an acceptable way to fix the problem and instigate a proposal of marriage. Asking Its Father’s advice, though He isn’t inclined to help It any more than He already has by making it my mission to help It find Its way back.
Then deciding Its plan is most probably acceptable or, at least, worth a shot.
And, from that point until the present, doing whatever It can to try to coax the disgusting monkey into Its arms. Into Its bed. Into Its monkey vagina and into Its monkey heart.
Doing everything It can to win the love of a disgusting monkey that only values It for the services It provides outside of the bedroom. A disgusting monkey that never returns any of Its terms of endearment. A disgusting monkey that It knows has no current interest in exploring any vestige of Its feminine monkey form. A disgusting monkey that would rather masturbate itself to pitiful orgasm while thinking of any other female monkey than It. A disgusting monkey that lies to It, tells It It’s not ugly and won’t entertain the slightest notion of copulating with It for the entirety of their platonic monkey union.
It knows this, and It fights to shut my voice out as Its insides shake and Its disgusting monkey companion wonders aloud if supper is ready.
Seeing It so confused, so lost and so defeated should make me want to cry. But, even as It attempts to frighten me with empty threats against my being, I can’t help but laugh.
It’s pathetic. It’s wearing on my nerves. And It knows something’s coming, even if It doesn’t want to believe Its own heightened senses. And I won’t let It forget:
“...This is not a fairy tale... And you can’t escape a prison of your own creation.”
Franklin pull
ed up in his personal car at just past seven in the evening. In the alley by the back entrance to David and Juno’s apartment. He had his gun on him, and his badge. Though everyone knew he was the law, he still didn’t trust any of the filth that lived in the tenements not to stab him in the neck for his pocket change.
He blasted the horn three times and waited. After three minutes he got out and popped the trunk. Wondering if he was going to have to call the thief and the whore out by name. As he was preparing to scream for them to, please, get the fuck down here, they came tumbling out their apartment’s alley door. They almost looked human. At least they’d cleaned up a little and could pass for regular folk.
“That all you got?” Franklin pointed to the suitcase David carried out. David nodded and Franklin motioned for him to throw it in the trunk. Once he managed to jam the rusty trunk closed, they got in the car, David in the passenger seat and Juno in back.
“Where we headed?” David asked as Juno buckled up.
“Dumped you this morning, confirmed it at the warehouse and, not seven hours later, Junie’s alone in the back seat of a strange car. Old habits...” Franklin chuckled and looked David in the eyes. “Nothing?” Looking disappointed, Franklin glanced into the rearview mirror, angling it so he could, maybe, see up Juno’s dress. No such luck on that front, but he did get to see her middle finger. “So terribly worried, but still too good for me, yeah, Junie? You want security, you can’t do better than a cop.” He grinned as he slammed the car into drive, faking a pout as he looked over at the exasperated expression on David’s face. “As if I’d stick my dick in that sewage hole.” Juno looked into his eyes through the mirror, no snappy comeback at the ready. Looking angry and a little hurt as she mouthed a ‘fuck you’ and tried to lick her lips suggestively.
“Cheer up, muffin.” Franklin encouraged her as he caught the end of her weak, silent retort. “I’m just fucking around with you. ...figuratively, of course. Not a big fan of gonorrhoea. You understand.” She looked out the window as her cheeks flushed red with added humiliation.
“So funny man,” David asked, “where are we—?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” Franklin answered. Interrupting him and not taking his eyes off the road.
They drove in silence for hours. Out of the city. On highways leading to God knows where. No houses, no livestock, just cornfields and open land. When David and Juno had long since lost track of how far they’d gone, Franklin pulled off onto a side road. All dirt. A highway exit, but to somewhere that probably wasn’t on any map you could buy in the boroughs.
Franklin pulled the car over onto the shoulder, in case a cow might come sauntering by in the next century. “We’re just about there. Almost home.”
“Where in the hell are we?” David asked. There was still nothing around for miles. Off in the distance—South, maybe?—he saw what looked like it might be a quaint suburb or small town. Of course, it could also merely have been a rough patch of forest on the horizon.
“I told you this wasn’t going to be by the book, didn’t I?” Franklin looked over at David and back at Juno.
As Franklin turned to look into the back seat, still trying to peek between Juno’s legs, David saw his gun, hanging from its holster inside his jacket. “Meaning what? This is the end of the line? You got a ditch already dug for us, Franky?”
Franklin chuckled as he looked in the rearview and saw Juno beginning to squirm, still keeping those thighs clamped shut. “Don’t worry, Davey. A couple of fuckin’ losers like you two, I wouldn’t waste the gas money. I hate to break it to you both, but if they were to find you two dead in that shit-hole apartment of yours. I mean, after a week or three, when your upstanding neighbours bothered to complain about the smell. If they were to find you dead. Even if you had bullet holes in you. No one would ask questions. A junkie thief and a junkie whore? Maybe there’d be paperwork. Maybe. But that’s all. Then you’d be a file in some cabinet. So, no, I ain’t going to kill you.”
Juno glared at Franklin through the mirror. “Then what am I doing, Detective Bowe? Franky. What am I doing sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?”
“Well, you’re being stingy with the merchandise, for one. But we’re all taking a break, cupcake,” Franklin said. “I don’t want to have this talk sitting in your new driveway. Why don’t you give that mouth a rest. You never know when you’re going to have to start earning again.” David threw him a disapproving glance. Franklin feigned shock. “The way this happens is this: I place you, then, unless I need either of you two idiots in court, we never see each other again.”
David scoffed. “Seriously? You’re going to be the only guy who knows where we are?” Franklin nodded, shrugging his shoulders. “Of course, you’re not going to say anything to anyone getting out of lock-up any time soon about our whereabouts, right?”
Franklin nodded again. “Why would I?”
“You said this was going to be hinky,” David said. “You’re going to plop us in some rental home and that’s it?”
“No rent. It’s owned. I wouldn’t turn down a good old fashioned ‘thank you’ though.” He looked back at Juno, bobbing his eyebrows. “What do you say, Junie? A little taste for the road? Support your local policeman?”
Juno talked to Franklin as she stared at him through the rearview and licked her lips in a way that got his attention. “Too bad you’re not local anymore, Franky.” She gave him the finger again as she looked away and dropped her hand between her knees. “So you put me in this house, okay. What do I do about a job? Money? Identity? All the things a legitimate programme would take into consideration.”
“First things first, pop tart,” Franklin said. “You don’t know what you think you know about witness relocation. If we did it the real way, you’d be stuck in a secure facility for a long time, learning who the fuck you are now, and forgetting who you used to be. You wouldn’t even know where you were going to end up until at least two or three weeks in. You’d be required to lie to everyone about your identity. You’d be dealing with U.S. Marshalls and a whole bunch of other bullshit just to get your petty stipend every month. And that, only until you stopped dragging ass and got yourself a real job. Which they’d lean hard on you to get. Even then, they’d cut your funding after six months if your lazy asses didn’t get on their fuckin’ track. Eyes would always be on you. They’d cut your cord the second you broke one of their precious rules. And, quite frankly, Ricky and Paulie aren’t big enough fish to warrant first class treatment. My way’s better.”
“How so?” Juno asked. “It feels like you’re just dropping me off to die.”
“We all die one day, pumpkin,” Franklin said. “The manner, I assume, is what you’re actually concerned about.” He turned around, his eyes still unable to fix anywhere but the hem of Juno’s dress. “You and Davey are going to have to trust me. This is the best can be done. Better than either of you deserve, that’s for sure.”
“What’s the deal then?” David asked.
“Down the road a bit is a nice little community.” Franklin pointed to what David had thought might be a small town. “Filled with average folk. Decent people. You won’t fit in at all, but it’s the best I can do. When I drop you at your new home, you’ll be responsible for the bills. Phone, electric, gas, water. The utilities are already taken care of. By which I mean they’re running. If you don’t pay your bills, they shut the services off. Just like in the city. Nothing’s different. And, on top of that, you get a whole shit-load of money. A lot more than you’d ever squeeze out of the government. On me.”
“On you?” David looked at Franklin sideways.
“Okay, on the two bad men you just fucked over. Don’t worry. The official count is short, so the money won’t be missed.”
“Not by the cops,” Juno said. “What about Ricky and Paulie? You don’t think they’ll notice?”
Franklin shrugged. “Depends. Did they count it all before we busted down the doors? Maybe they did, mayb
e they didn’t. Not my fuckin’ problem. Besides, they don’t know where you are.”
“But,” David said, “we’re still us, right? No new names. No new nothing. David Fitz and Juno Conjay.”
“Well, yeah...” Franklin looked out the window. “I told you, this is the best I can do.”
Juno crossed her legs quickly and smoothed her dress down, drawing Franklin’s attention back to that place between her thighs she’d never let him see.
“So we just stay where you put us,” David said. “Same names. Pay for everything in cash. No one knows where we are, right?” Franklin looked at David with exasperation. “Until we have to get real jobs. Assuming we live that long and you’re not just putting us on a shelf and waiting to send Paulie, Ricky or any of their goons to get rid of us. But when we have to get real jobs, we’re right back on the map. Anyone can find us. Not protected at all. Am I reading this situation correctly?”
“Yeah,” Franklin said. “You about got it. But you’re getting a lot of money. And I mean a lot of money. Let’s give me the benefit of the doubt and say, for giggles, I’m not hanging you on a line for Paulie. You want to stay anonymous? Don’t get a library card. Given that, you’re going to have at least a year to figure out how to make money under the table. Go to any locally owned business. They don’t want to pay the insurance, so you won’t have to fill out any papers that’ll get checked. You can get by without being on the books. It’s not difficult. Fuck the I.R.S. Who cares if you get in trouble with them? What are they going to do, fine you? One thing I’m positive they won’t do is kill you. If you do everything right, they’ll forget you exist.” Franklin fired up the engine and started driving again. “This place I’m putting you, it’s a neighbourhood watch community. No cops. How could I do you more solid?”
“Uncle Franky’s protection plan. Easy as seven two six,” David said, as they pulled back out onto the road. “Something’s not right.”
“Yeah, wise guy. It’s one two three.”
fiX - A ParaBnormal Fairy Tale Page 8
