by C. V. Hunt
Home Is Where the Horror Is
By C.V. Hunt
Copyright 2017 C.V. Hunt
Smashwords Edition
Home Is Where the Horror Is copyright © 2017 by C.V. Hunt. All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved.
Published by Grindhouse Press
PO BOX 293161
Dayton, Ohio 45429
Grindhouse Press logo and all related artwork copyright © 2017 by Brandon Duncan. All rights reserved.
Home Is Where the Horror Is
Grindhouse Press # 033
ISBN-10: 1-941918-20-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-941918-20-3
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author’s use of the names of actual persons (living or dead), places, and characters is incidental to the purposes of the plot, and is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Other Titles by C.V. Hunt
The Endlessly trilogy
Endlessly (Book 1)
Legacy (Book 2)
Phantom (Book 3)
How To Kill Yourself
Zombieville
Thanks For Ruining My Life
Other People’s Shit
Baby Hater
Hell’s Waiting Room
Misery and Death and Everything Depressing
Ritualistic Human Sacrifice
Poor Decisions
We Did Everything Wrong
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
-Echo & The Bunnymen, “The Killing Moon”
For Andy
Do you think the last five years would’ve been any different if I would’ve picked Texas Roadhouse instead?
1
The edge of the woman’s buttock was blurred. I ran my finger over the touchpad of the laptop and zoomed in on the photograph. I inspected the sharpness of the large diagonal scar starting on the woman’s back a few inches from her spine and slightly above her waistline. The scar snaked across her back, crossed around her waist, and plummeted into the dip where her hip and lower stomach met before tapering to an end. The scar was crisp in the photo but I’d forced the focus of the camera on the imperfection and it caused the other areas around the tissue to blur. It made the viewer focus on the scar alone and it would lead one to believe the scar was the main focal point and the only reason for the photograph. But I wanted people to see the picture as a whole. I wanted them to see the contrast of the surrounding flawless skin severed by the enormous scar. The model’s small breasts were in shadow, as was her face, to keep the subject a non-sexual distraction. But the unfocused part of her buttock bothered me the most. I flipped to the next photo I’d taken in the set.
The model’s pose and the lighting were exactly the same as the previous photo. I hadn’t forced the focus in the shot. I’d managed to capture the scar and the unmarred skin in complete clarity in this photograph. I scrolled over the photo slowly, looking for imperfections needing touched up. I couldn’t find any. Her pose was perfect. The lighting was perfect. The contrast of the ugly scar against the flawless skin was perfect. There were no distortions in the photo. Her face and breasts fell neatly into the shadows of the picture. I fought the urge to screw with the lighting and contrast in the program because I knew I would spend hours and hours making minuscule adjustments only to become frustrated and revert to the original photograph and realize it looked better than anything I’d done to it.
I moved the edge of the photo to crop a large portion of the woman’s head and legs out of the frame. The picture became a disembodied torso. Some viewers would wonder what the woman’s face looked like. They would want to know what her expression was. Did she feel sad about her disfigurement? Was it an accident? Was it a lifesaving procedure and was she proud to have survived it? Some of those answers could be read in the person’s face but I always choose to leave that aspect of the photograph out unless the scar or malformation was on the person’s head or the model’s expression brought something unique to the subject. Then the harrowed or happy expression was left in the photograph and played with the mood of the person viewing it. Most people would focus on the contrast of the scar when there was no face to determine how they should feel about the particular piece. And there were a handful that would see what I saw.
I repositioned the photo slightly within the cropped section. This would become the final photo.
No one would know her face. But I knew. And the model knew. It would be up to her whether she wanted to reveal her identity and how she felt about the scar when and if I chose to exhibit or sell the photograph. I labeled the photograph appropriately and saved it to my computer. I would order a physical print and frame once I was done with the set. I scrolled to another photo from the shoot.
A light rap on the door behind me gave me a start and broke my concentration. The clock on the bottom corner of my computer displayed 10:03 P.M. I assumed it would’ve been closer to eleven. Eleven was Naomi’s bedtime and she always informed me when she was turning in for the night. I had gotten up early to take the photographs I was currently looking at and was excited to edit them. I didn’t know why she was knocking on my door an hour early other than to have a conversation with me or inform me she was turning in an hour early. And we’d had the conversation numerous times before about bothering me while I was editing photos. Unless it was urgent I didn’t want to be interrupted once I was in a certain mindset. I assumed she was informing me she was turning in early then and didn’t bother to stop what I was doing.
The photo on the screen in front of me was a slight variation of the previous photo I’d cropped and saved. I didn’t care for the angle and deleted it immediately. It was replaced with a photo of the woman from behind. The emphasis was on one half of her buttocks and the part of the scar on her back.
The knock sounded again, louder this time, and the door opened. I kept my focus on the photo on the screen. It was standard for her to knock, crack the door, give a quick good night, and retreat to the bedroom.
“Evan?” Naomi whispered.
“Yeah,” I responded. I actively suppressed my aggravation of the interruption.
I zoomed in on the photograph and the puckered part of the scar on the woman’s back filled the computer screen. I squinted at the image and added a filter to soften the lighting.
She cleared her throat. “Um . . . can we . . . ?” She trailed off before rephrasing. “We need to talk.”
The four most destructive words known to mankind flew from her mouth and drilled through my back to strike my heart like lightning. My hand froze on the keyboard. In a split second I knew this was it and I let the reality and inevitability of what was about to happen sink in. I stared at the scar on the screen, took a slow deep breath, and swallowed. Somehow the moisture in my mouth had managed to completely disappear in the couple of
seconds that had passed. My Adam’s apple caught when I swallowed and I suppressed the urge to cough.
I knew something like this was coming. I had mentally prepared myself for this even though I’d told myself it was all in my head. The longer it went on the more I’d convinced myself I was blowing things out of proportion and overthinking the situation. But I knew this was the finality of the tiny insect bite that happened to our relationship after Naomi’s birthday. It was like the smallest mosquito bite that itches and burns and you scratch and scratch until it’s raw and you choose to ignore the festering sore you’ve dug until it’s transformed into something more insidious and it’s too late to dab a little hydrocortisone cream on it and nip it in the bud. Now you have an abscess. Now you have gangrene. Sorry, sir, now we have to amputate for the greater good.
A part of me hoped she was going to bitch at me for not helping out around the house as much as she’d like. I could handle that. We’d had that argument off and on for years and I’d learned to tune out the persistent drone of her nagging when she decided it was time to beat that dead horse every six months. For once in our relationship I hoped she wanted to spend an hour complaining about how my photographs and the two days I worked at the coffee shop down the street weren’t making enough money and I should give up what I loved and find a full-time job to help out with expenses. I’d dealt with that scenario at least a dozen times and managed to convey what the photography meant to me and avoided having to find a mindless nine to five job, or God help me, resort to working in a fucking factory. Maybe she wanted to strike up a conversation and work in some passive aggressive jabs while informing me of how one of her friends was getting married, or having a baby, or buying a house in the country, like I gave a shit about any of her condescending friends. But I knew better. And my suspicions were completely fed and validated with the small phrase that always strikes the fear of life changing speedbumps into anyone’s heart that hears it: We need to talk. This had been a long time coming. It had been like sitting around waiting for a bomb to tick down to zero but having no idea how much time was left. There was no blazing and oversized clock. Just an overwhelming sense of doom. I could hear it in her voice when she’d uttered the sentence: We need to talk. She’d spoken the words with a resolution that punctuated the end to a frustrating and dissatisfying story where the protagonist’s world crashed down around him while his friends are handed everything they could ever ask for. And the silence between the two of us at this very second was like the animals growing quiet right before a major disaster strikes.
Naomi had infected our relationship with her unrest a few months prior. She began working longer hours. She hung out with her friends more frequently. She stayed out longer. She was hardly ever home other than to eat, sleep, or shower. And her sex drive plummeted drastically. I would’ve been an idiot not to know something was amiss. Sure, I had worried about what might have been happening. But I was at a loss as to what to do to fix it and if I had to be truthful with myself I wasn’t sure I wanted to fix it. My paranoia amped into high gear once our sex life slowed down to an unenthusiastic performance once every two weeks. I tried harder to please her in bed. I spent more time on foreplay. But all of my attempts were met with sighs of aggravation and a disinterest in anything other than for me to hurry up and finish, which made me feel like an inadequate asshole to the point where I grew disinterested in having sex with her. It made me question my ability to be a good and attentive lover. Jerking off made me feel less guilty and was more satisfying.
It started shortly before her thirty-fifth birthday. I had equated it to an early mid-life crisis. She’d always wanted things I didn’t want and voiced them off and on throughout our relationship. But the urgency in her arguments began to hit a level I could only describe as desperate. She attributed my inability to resign to her wishes to me being five years younger than her. I wasn’t ready for what she wanted and I didn’t know if I ever would be. Deep down I knew my stubbornness to change was stronger than my desire to stay with her. And I kept hoping she would bend to what I wanted eventually. I knew I had commitment issues and it had a lot to do with my upbringing. But there wasn’t anything I could do to fix that without thousands of dollars being poured into therapy I couldn’t afford, and in all honesty, didn’t want. I also didn’t want to work at a job I hated. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to have kids. And I didn’t want to buy a house. I was content with the way things were. Stability kept me content. Once I established a life I was comfortable with it was nearly impossible for me to flip it on its head. And Naomi wanted a different life.
I knew when she’d expressed her desire for those things it would only be a matter of time before we had this conversation. I didn’t have to see her face to reaffirm this was the end of the line. She was ready for the ‘we need to talk’ conversation. And honestly, I was surprised it had taken her this long to come to terms with her inner conflict. She was smart. She was strong. She didn’t need me. She knew what she wanted. And I would never provide her with what she wanted. Time was running out for her. Thirty-five was the halfway point between responsible adult and getting too old to keep dragging your feet. Each day that passed brought her closer and closer to the latter.
Dread seeped into my soul and I suppressed the urge to let it poison my attitude. This had to be done. Begging her to stay or dragging it out would only make it worse for the both of us. My throat was tight and I tried to swallow again but my throat was so parched. I shoved my emotions into the void deep within me, a place I’d learned at an early age was a great dumping ground for anything that made me appear weak, and I regained my composure. I tried to work my tongue on the roof of my mouth to produce some saliva.
“Evan? Did you hear me?”
I spun my chair around to face her. She’d removed her make-up for the night and her bobbed hair hung damp around her face. I couldn’t recall hearing the shower run but I had been too engrossed with the photographs to be aware of anything happening in the townhouse. The skin under her eyes was puffy and red as if she’d been crying. She looked exhausted and wore an expression of terror mixed with sadness. The word ‘haunted’ came to mind as I stared at her face. She stood in the doorway and appeared reluctant to enter my claustrophobic office overflowing with oversized framed photographs and shipping supplies. Her eyes darted to a three by four foot black frame holding a close up I’d taken of the cellulite on the back of an obese model’s thigh. She observed a couple of the other photos—a woman’s chest with double mastectomy scars and another of the residual limb of an amputee. She clenched her hands into fists and rubbed her thumbs together in what I’d grown accustomed to know as a nervous gesture.
“What is it?” I said.
“Um.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “Can we talk in the living room? The photos are . . . distracting.” She tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear.
“Okay.”
I could hear the fake inflection of my voice. It was a mixed falsehood of cheeriness and perplexity. I was neither happy nor confused but I didn’t want to make this any harder for either of us. I felt like I was about to deliver my greatest acting performance aside from the time when I was eleven and lied to Mom about who started a small trash fire in the alley behind our house, blaming it on some neighborhood kids.
I stood and motioned for her to lead the way. It was only a few steps from any one room in the downstairs of our townhouse to another. She led me to the sofa and sat on the edge as if she didn’t want to get too comfortable. My stomach sank and hurdled through space and time and defied the laws of gravity as it bounced and hurt and made me nauseated. It was the same feeling I got when I rode a rollercoaster. The sensation seemed appropriate for what I was about to go through. I was a born pessimist. Or maybe I was a made pessimist once my father was gone. But up to this moment I still had a miniscule amount of hope we weren’t going to have the talk. The talk of all talks. The talk that would put us both out of our misery. Well, it would
put her out of her misery. I was quite content with my life and my surroundings if I could only subtract Naomi’s growing iciness toward me and the lack of satisfying sex. I could tell by her body language the next few minutes were going to be the end of my current situation and I suppressed the anxiety of having to move and upend everything I’d grown accustomed to.
All of this was ending: the townhouse, the furniture, the dishes, the towels, the television, the food in the kitchen, the ugly green rug by the door. It was all hers now. She’d purchased all of it. She made everything the way she wanted it. Except me. I was the one plate with a chip on the edge from where it was dropped while washing or the towel that unraveled a little more each time it was washed. These things were still functioning and useable but they were a thorn in the side every time you looked at them and thought, I should throw that out and replace it. She was hell-bent on exchanging the comfort of the relationship. Excuse me, sir, this one didn’t live up to what it promised. Is it still under warranty? I’d like to exchange it. I was about to be dropped in the defective bin and inspected for a factory refurbish, if salvageable.
I took a seat beside her and mirrored her posture, sitting on the edge of the seat. I understood why she wanted to do this in the living room. We wouldn’t be facing one another. She didn’t have to look at me when she told me. She rubbed her thighs as if her palms were sweaty and stared at the coffee table with a million mile expression peppered with concern.
