by Nicole Fox
I was going to tell my mother.
We agreed to meet at a restaurant. I figured a public space would diminish the chances of her creating a scene. I also didn’t want her at my house. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I would swear I could still smell cigarettes and gasoline and leather, buried in the very fabric of my sheets and towels. Fortunately, my father was away on business, so I would only have to deal with her.
I got there early, wanting to feel settled and in control by the time she arrived. Even though it was barely midday, I ordered a cocktail––a nice mango mai tai––to further soothe my nerves. It was funny. I would have been less jittery if Dominic had shown up at my door with yet another bleeding friend. The prospect of telling my mother what had been going on unsettled me terribly.
Don’t get me wrong. My mother was a kind, generous woman. She just tended to have very high expectations. And she had supported Brian and me from the get-go.
Bursting through the door like a ray of sunshine to a cantankerous sleeper, she arrived.
“Erica, darling!” She exclaimed, waving at me as if she was not obvious to spot and rushing over. She sat, snapped her fingers impatiently for a menu, then looked at me with avid glee.
“So, darling¸ tell me––how’s the wedding prep going? You know, Mrs. Appleton is supremely jealous––her daughter’s twenty-eight and single! Now, are the flowers ordered already? You want to make sure you get the best, dear. It really shapes the whole wedding––”
She continued, unperturbed or even oblivious to my lack of response. The coward in me wanted to let her keep talking. Hell, I could smile, nod occasionally, allow her to pay the bill, and manage to escape the whole affair without saying a word.
But if my adventures with Dominic had taught me anything, it was that I did not have to be a coward if I did not want to.
“Hey, Mom, listen. I have to tell you something” I said, trying to get her attention. I had to repeat it twice before she finally registered that I was speaking.
“What is it, dear?” She asked at last.
I took a deep breath. “Look, Mom. The wedding’s off. Brian and I broke up.”
She stared at me for several seconds, her mouth hanging open and her face on freeze-frame, like a program on a computer that’s crashed because too many demands have been put on it.
Finally, her processing caught up with my news, and she managed to gasp, “What? Why?”
I shrugged. “I caught him cheating on me.”
My mother was aghast. “Oh, honey, are you sure?” She demanded. “These sorts of things can be complicated. Are you sure he was cheating on you?”
“Yes, Mom,” I stated. “I caught him balls deep in his slut-of-a-secretary.”
She gasped––and not at the content of my statement. “Oh, Erica, don’t be vulgar!” She whined. “Still, boys will be boys. Are you sure it’s not better to forgive him and move on? He’s still a good man, you know. Good job. Good prospects. Good genes.”
I stared at her in horror. She had just found out that a man had betrayed her daughter in one of the most fundamental ways possible, and now she was defending that man.
The old Erica––the one who had fallen in love with Brian, and who had let others cow her all her life––would have withered against these profound manipulations. She would have cried and apologized and at long last allowed herself to be convinced.
But I wasn’t that Erica anymore.
“No Mom,” I interrupted. “He was a douchebag. He was cowardly, and he lied and tricked me.”
“Well,” she simpered, patronizing, condescending. “Is there something you did to drive him away? Perhaps…not satisfying him, in the way a man needs?”
Yikes. There was a question no one ever in the history of the world wanted to be asked by her parents. I scowled.
“No, Mom,” I repeated. “I am perfectly capable of satisfying a man.”
This was also a statement which the old Erica would not have been sure about. But now, after Dominic, I knew.
Our meals arrived. I found I was not hungry at all, and yet I still defiantly stabbed a piece of it with my fork, chewed, and swallowed.
My mother’s meal remained untouched.
“I’m just afraid that you might be acting too hastily,” she commented. “I mean, to call off a whole wedding, just for one minor transgression?”
“It was not minor,” I said. “Besides, when I told him I wouldn’t take him back, he tried to rape me. Is that really the kind of man you want married to your daughter? The future father of your grandchildren?”
“He offered to take you back, and you still refused?” She gaped. “Erica, how could you?”
“Are you listening to me?” I demanded. I was starting to get angry now. “Brian was not a good person! If I’d married him, I would have spent the rest of my life hating myself!”
“Oh, Erica,” sighed my mother, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. “No man is a good person. They’re all horrible, really. The point, then, isn’t to look for a ‘good’ one, but to find the one that can give you the best life possible. Brian could have done that. Don’t you see? You’re not getting any younger, dear.”
As I stared at her, I felt, for a moment, pure hatred for this woman. I opened my mouth, ready to rip her to shreds, to tear down her stupid little world-view and reveal it for the hypocrisy it was.
Then, I noticed, the smallest, most insignificant of things: her lipstick was smeared. The expensive paint on her fingernails was cracked, revealing dull, yellowing, aged nails. At the base of her hair, dyed a strong blonde to indicate youth, was a nest of gray, just peeping through. Next to her chair rested a three-hundred dollar handbag, in which an expensive designer wallet waited, containing cash, a half dozen credit cards, and a bent and wrinkled picture of her, my father, and I at the beach––from about twenty years ago.
She prizes that moment––a space in time when she was happy. When we all were happy.
Twenty fucking years ago.
So instead of swearing at her, or even hitting her––as I had been close to doing––I reached out and took her hand.
“There are good men out there,” I told her. “And I––each of us––deserve one. I’m not going to give in and settle, just for a comfortable life. Is it dangerous? Yes. But, Mama, it’s worth the risk.”
She looked at me, blinking slowly under the fluorescent lights of the restaurant. Her eyes seemed to be filling with tears.
“Oh, Erica.” She said, then my phone rang.
I considered not answering it––this moment with my mother and I was special––but then it occurred to me that it might be Dominic. Feeling excited, I retrieved my phone and clicked to answer.
“Hello?”
“Erica!” The old and extremely unpleasant voice of Mr. Blade said into my ear. I wrinkled my nose, and held up my finger to my mother, asking her to wait.
“Hello, Mr. Blade. How are you?”
“Fine…fine. Well, actually, I’m not. There’s an emergency at work, and I need you to come. Dawson didn’t file those reports, and now the whole company is behind!”
“But, sir!” I protested. “It’s Saturday! Surely you could ask Patricia, or Barry––anyone, really.”
“Busy!” He lamented. “All busy!” Then, his voice changed, becoming somehow sinister. “I just thought that, given your spotty performance this past week, you might appreciate an opportunity to, you know, make some of it up. Take one for the team, so to speak.”
I winced. Mr. Blade was a right old prick, but he was still my boss, and even if I didn’t like my job, I wanted to be a good employee. It was not like he didn’t really have a point.
I sighed.
“Alright, sir. When would you like me to come in?”
“Oh, quick as you can! Quick as you can!” He said. Then: “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Click.
Rolling my eyes, I put my phone away and glanced apologetically at my mother.
<
br /> “I’m so sorry, Mom,” I said. “I know I invited you all the way up here, but I have to go. There’s been an emergency at work.”
She sighed, and clutched at her handbag. “See,” she said quietly. “This is what I’m worried about. It’s not that you don’t deserve a wonderful man, or can’t get one. Of course you do, and of course you can! It’s just that life has a way of eating up all of your time. If you’re always at work or something, you’ll never have the opportunity to meet the right man!”
I looked into her eyes. She was not trying to be condescending or manipulative. She was genuinely concerned.
I smiled and took her hand. “Don’t worry, mom. I’m better at finding guys than you think.”
Reaching into my wallet to fish out a few twenties, I paid the bill, kissed my mom goodbye, and left.
“This better be pretty fucking important,” I growled as I entered my car, and beginning to drive to work. “That conversation was actually starting to sound nice.”
Muttering and swearing the whole time, I made my way steadily to the firm.
# # #
When I pulled up to the parking lot I was slightly disconcerted to find that my car was the only car in sight. No one’s––not even Mr. Belton, who usually arrived before everybody and left after everyone. Mr. Blade’s car was not present, either, but this was typical. He was able to afford to live in the same area as his office, so he often walked to work.
Still, this thought made me rather nervous: The two of us will be alone in the building. It sent chills down my spine, but I quickly brushed it aside. “You’re a strong, independent woman now,” I thought. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
Right.
I pulled out my card key, swiped, and entered.
Blade was on the first floor, busily ruffling through his office and looking agitated.
“Thank you for coming, Erica! Thank you! Now here––” He plopped a massive pile of folders into my arms––“Is what you need to work on today. Thanks again!”
And with that, he swept away.
Slightly surprised, I made my way to my desk and began hacking away at the papers. I had expected him to talk want to talk to me longer––perhaps to leer, or mock me again for my mistakes this week. But no. He seemed genuinely engrossed in his work––leaving me with few options but to do the same.
After an hour or so of this, my worry began to melt away. If Blade planned on anything sketchy, his actions weren’t indicating so, and everything genuinely seemed normal. Wanting a little bit of a refresher, I walked over to the water cooler, poured myself a drink, and took a long, relaxed sip. With my cup in hand, I returned to my desk, alternatively drinking and sipping.
Half an hour later I began feeling very strange.
My pen wouldn’t stay straight. Time and time again it would glide off the paper, leaving long black lines across my work and even my desk. Meanwhile, my eyelids grew heavy, as if I had not slept in days, and I felt my chin dipping down against my chest as my eyelids flickered.
I grunted and shook my head, willing myself to focus on the work before me, even as the words themselves slipped back and forth from perfect clarity to an unreasonable fuzziness.
I rose from the chair, with the intent of getting something caffeinated to drink––a coffee, perhaps––and was surprised when my hip collided right with the edge of my desk, knocking me so off-balance that I nearly fell over.
“You alright, Erica my sweet?” Blade’s voice asked, drifting in from his office like poisonous gas.
“I…I dunno…” My words came out slurred, and as I tried to focus on my gaze on Blade as he emerged from his office, I felt it slipping away from him again and again like water off an oiled pan. Suddenly, a massive wave of dizziness overcame me, and I staggered, catching myself only just in time on the edge of my desk.
“Oh, no, have you been drinking on the job again?”
“No!” I blurted, throwing a finger in the air and sounding like a petulant two-year-old––or worse, a very drunk adult.
Drinking on the job…
Suddenly, something terrible occurred to me.
“You!” I cried. “That water! You drugged!”
He smiled. “Well, we needed to make sure you were cooperative.”
We? Part of my brain thought, but I was too disoriented to listen. Instead, I pushed away from my desk, away from him, and tried to run, but my legs seemed to be made of rubber. I stumbled, colliding with a lamp and sending us both crashing to the floor.
“You coward!” I screamed at him, backing away even as the broken glass of a bulb bit into my skin. “Not even brave enough to rape me conscious!”
As I hollered, I noticed the stem of the lamp, several feet long and barbed with the rest of the bulb, looking exactly like a spear. I scooped it up and aimed it at him, but it was like slipping a thread through a needle while very, very drunk.
“Oh, no, don’t get the wrong idea,” Blade crowed, approaching. “This isn’t about fucking you––though I’m sure they’ll be a lot of that later––it’s about who you’ve been fucking. Dominic Molina? Leader of the fucking Broken Spires. Girl, you gave me and the Crooked Jaws such a gift, looking up those pictures. A perfect present, falling right into my lap!”
My heart stopped, and for the briefest of moments, I felt everything snap into focus.
Dominic… No! I had put him in danger!
With a roar of rage, I hurled the lamp at Blade, scrambled to my feet, and began winding my way towards the exit. As I stumbled, I fished for my cellphone in my pocket, yanked it out, and dialed Dominic’s number.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Time after time again I heard it buzzing, and yet Dominic did not pick it. Please, don’t let something have happened to him!
“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”
I staggered, tumbling to my knees. The phone continued ringing in my hand, but for the moment, this was not what I cared about. What I cared about was that that was not Blade’s voice.
A shadow loomed in the doorway, blocking my only exit.
“Who-who are you?” I demanded, acting braver than I felt.
The man chuckled, and stepped into the light.
“My God!” I gasped. A monster stood before me. Flinty, hate-filled eyes. Teeth bared in a snarl, and a gun raised in one hand. But this was not what made him monstrous. It was his other hand, hanging uselessly by his side. Mangled, twisted, useless, deformed. So mutilated beyond belief that it no longer looked like a human hand, but a claw.
“Hey. This is Dominic––” The voice cut through my muddled terror like a ray of light through a fog.
“Dominic! Thank God!”
“––Molina. Please leave a message after the beep.”
“No!”
The clawed man approached in front of me. Blade approached from behind. I lacked even the strength to stand, and could only barely bring the phone to my ear. “Dominic?” I cried. “Dominic! Please, I need your help! They’re after me, and––”
The clawed man reached down and ripped my phone from me. My drugged fingers offered no resistance, and I tumbled to the floor, gaping up at the pair of them in horror.
“Better hurry, Jasy-Baby,” he sneered, “Or your little piece of ass is gonna have a new cock to suck.”
He hung up.
My last image, before fading to black, was him and Blade, leaning over me, and laughing in triumph.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Erica
I veered in and out of consciousness. Strange shapes. Strange faces. Familiar faces, warped and stretched in unfamiliar ways. The face of my mother, one second tender and loving as I told her how I felt, and the next second twisted and crooked with judgment, resentment. My father, distant and cold, and then immediate and pleading. Even Dominic, savage and cruel when he fired his gun in that bar fight, and then gentle and vulnerable, moments after climax, lying atop me as our bodies panted in unison.
I smiled. That was a nice pendulum to
ride. In fact, it was so comforting and soothing that, when I felt consciousness returning to me like a cold hand sneaking under warm clothing, I fought it.
“No…Noooo…” I groaned, and I heard a cackle.
The cold hand became a douse of icy water, and I remembered the danger–not only to me, but to Dominic as well.
I was aware of cool air upon my skin, and that roused me further. I fought and I fought, and, finally, I was able to open my eyes.
“Good girl,” A voice crowed. “Tough girl. That’s good. I want you awake.”
