Nadia Nightside's Best of 2015

by Nadia Nightside

  When he was very young, he had gone to see a stage hypnotist. The Great Santini. He watched Santini every day for two weeks, going back again and again to the show. Watching it work. A funny looking balding man with a large paunch and a penchant for red suits. His suit had frills down the front, like some pirate’s wear. He held a wand, the end of it shiny, and would wave it from one end of a volunteer’s face to another. By the end of the show, he’d have them jumping like rabbits and barking like dogs and bokking like chickens, all the favorites. Hopping on one leg, jumping jacks for the duration, drinking warm butter like it was water. Any old strange thing you could think of, Santini did.

  Right away, Warren glommed on to the act.

  All that power—the ability to shape and change a person’s perspective just from swinging a watch or a pendant...it was pure magic.

  Of course, later on he learned that was pure charlatanism. There really wasn’t hypnotism that worked on a stage. Real hypnosis—the true power of it—took time and care in an intimate setting over a series of hours-long sessions. And, some years before his stage career started, Warren had worked as a hypnotherapist and helped a number of patients with all kinds of issues. Hypnosis could help with bringing subconscious desires and fears to the light, relieving them of their power. It could help with relief for chronic pain sufferers—particularly those with nerve damage or burns.

  But Warren’s heart was on the stage.

  What happened with stage hypnosis was a curious addition of some actual suggestibility and the power of peer pressure. Not true hypnosis, but the crowd bought it, most of the time, and Warren was able to believe it as well.

  He could pretend his way through the rough parts—enough for the crowd to buy that, at the very least, Warren bought it.

  Maybe that was his problem, he thought, stopping at the light just beyond his house. Too good at putting a happy face on shit. How long had it been since a good show? Months? A year?

  He had met his wife, Melinda, at his first show. He “hypnotized” her into going out on a date with him. By some twist of fate, she’d actually agreed to see him in the bar after the show, and they hit it off. In less than forty-eight hours, she was his new assistant. In less than six months, they’d gotten married.

  She was gorgeous. Dark-haired. Green eyes. A true beauty for the ages, and a natural show-off. She could draw the eye of the crowd like no one else he had seen before or since. She had a background in gymnastics, having trained for the Olympics at one point before running out of money and interest. She somersaulted and flipped around the stage like it was nothing at all, and in her tight little outfits, the crowd loved it.

  But she tired of the work, always being on the road and being on display. She wanted to go back to school to pursue her engineering degree, and Warren certainly didn’t want to stand in the way of the woman of his dreams following her dreams.

  Finally, he drove up into the parking lot outside their small apartment complex.

  Once inside the apartment, he set his bag down on the small side table next to the front door, shaking his head. Melinda was sitting down on the couch, long legs crossed. Her outfit was tight and black, like she was ready for a funeral. She looked, of course, beautiful.

  “Hell of a day today.”

  “Warren, we need to talk.”

  He didn’t hear her. “God, you won’t believe Belle. Katie. The stones on those girls. You know what they’re asking?”

  “We need to talk, Warren.”

  For the first time, he noticed how his wife sat. Upright, at attention. A conservatively skirted power suit covering her luscious young frame.

  They had been married five years and had been madly in love for about one and a half. Since then, it had been a long, slow decline. Warren had tried to jump start affection here and there—gifts, vacations. But it was all on the downward bend. Before another word came out of her lusciously formed mouth, lips so effortlessly sweet and soft, every inch of her made for furiously passionate lovemaking and breeding—he already knew what was going to happen.

  This was going to end, and very soon.

  The only thing keeping her with him, this woman he loved, was his stubborn insistence on optimism.

  “Certainly,” he said brightly. “Let’s talk. I’d love to talk. Can we talk about how pretty you are? Because man, you are looking great today.”

  He saw her struggle not to roll her eyes.

  “We need to talk about us. Our future.”

  “So, kids? I’ve been telling you—I’m desperate to have them. I think you’d be a great mom. Heck, I’d even be an okay dad. But—”

  This was a horrible sticking point between them. She refused to have children. She said she could never sacrifice her body like that.

  “No, Warren. Not that. I want to talk about your future. Yours and mine. And how it’s separate.”

  “Well, each person has their own path. It’s true. But I take a special comfort in knowing that we’ll always be at each other’s side, comforting the other.”

  She frowned now. She could see what he was doing. She could see that somehow, inconceivable to her, he knew what was on her mind. He knew that the very idea was an affront to her—that anyone could think of what she thought. Melinda had long thought herself above such trivial things like the notions of other people. To find herself contained by them, and accurately, was remarkable indeed.

  Her beautiful head tilted now. “You and I are through. Can I be clearer than that? We are done. Over.”

  Slowly, he started to cough. Buying some time for a response. Trying to think of anything.

  Elaborately, he looked at the coffee table between them. “I don’t see any divorce papers.”

  “They’re coming. Believe me.”

  “I believe you. I also believe I’d love to fix this, if I could.”

  “There’s no fixing it, Warren. I’ve got no desire to stay with you. I was angry about it before.” A lie, clearly. She was angry about it now. “But I’m not anymore. I just want to be done with you. You’ve worn me down all the way. I’ve got no patience for you anymore. Your schemes. Your shows. Your ‘next show’ mentality. It has to end. For me, at least. I can’t be part of it.”

  He didn’t know what to say, what to do. His head held down. He couldn’t even meet her eyes.

  “Don’t do this. Not now. Please.”

  “It has to be now, Warren. It’s all very clear to me what’s happened. You’re a professional liar, and you’ve wrapped me up in your lies. Lies that you’d be successful, that it would turn around. But you’re a farce, Warren. Your whole career. And you’re drowning us in debt. I can’t keep supporting you.”

  “We’re right at the turn, Melinda! We’re right there. If you’ll only give me some time—”

  “You’re out of time. And I’m out of patience with you.”

  He thought for a moment. “Who’s the guy?”

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t be so sure about this unless you had some other honeysuckle dripping down your throat. Who’s the guy?

  She straightened and then stood up. “That’s none of your business.”

  “You are my wife! How is that none of my business?”

  Already, she had bags for him next to the door. Just now, he noticed them. He’d have to get more attentive somehow. She pointed at them, her gorgeous body a collection of beautiful curves.

  “Here are your things. You have more, I know. But this should get you through in the meantime. I don't want any of your stupid crap, don't worry. Soon, you’ll be receiving some papers. I’ll arrange an appointment with a lawyer. Then I won’t be your wife anymore, and it really won’t be any of your business.”

  * * * * *

  Warren didn't drink all that often, but he felt as if he needed one. A nice stiff one to knock his thoughts back. But he would feel odd going into a bar when it was still light out, and so, in his daze, driving around the city with all his clothes in his trunk, he wandered to a co
ffee shop named City Grounds.

  It was a small place with a strange layout, like it had used to be the home for a much larger shop. There were multiple rooms, but all connected to a central serving area, and the register where he ordered only looked like one of many possible places to catch a barista's attention.

  There was only one barista on duty. Alder City did not have a lot of downtown traffic these days.

  The barista was petite, busty, and redheaded. Her scowl looked permanent.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He wished he could answer that question in any real satisfactory way.

  “Coffee, please.”

  She sighed for five full seconds. “You want cream?”

  “Uh, I'm not—“

  He was going to say “not sure,” but the barista was already gone.

  “Whatever. Here you go.”

  The barista slammed the coffee down. Some spilled over the top. Warren frowned, tugging out his wallet. It was possible, he thought, that she was having as bad a day as him, but her expression seemed far too sullen for it to be a transitional occurrence.

  Suddenly, he felt a dark presence behind himself.

  “Hey.”

  A hand came down hard on his shoulder, shoving him away from the counter. His coffee spilled everywhere. Warren tried to gain his bearings, limbs flailing wildly, but whoever held him knocked him into the side exit door and then tumbled him out into the alley outside.

  It was Larry, the loan shark.

  Warren’s coffee had spilled everywhere, all over his pants.

  “Fuck!”

  “Hello, Warren. Where's my money?”

  Larry was a large man. Wide. Not very tall, but made up for it with nearly two hundred and fifty pounds of bulk. He had on a leather jacket, his dark beard groomed neatly.

  Warren pushed out a smile. “Uh, well, Larry, that's interesting—“

  Larry shoved him again, pushing him against the alleyway dumpster.

  “I've been asking around town. And you know what I found out? You owe a lot of people. So, nice guy that I am, I bought up all your debt.”

  “Y-you did?” Warren cracked out a smile. “Hey, that's great, Larry. So...oh.”

  Now, he owed Larry all that money. Larry, who broke legs for a living. Larry, who Warren had met by distracting a cop while Larry hid a gun in a gutter some months before.

  “That's right. And it's come to my attention that you've got a show coming up. Right?”

  “Yeah. That's what the money is for. So it's just—”

  “I get the take.”

  “The take? What take?”

  “The house. I get all the take from the house.”

  The ticket money from the show that Warren depended on to start his life over. That take. And even if Larry was paid, that wouldn't save Warren from the banks. He wasn't sure which was worse.

  “A-all of it?”

  “All of it.”

  “Can’t I just pay you? I have...”

  He didn’t have anything, though.

  “Nothing?” guessed Larry. He laughed. “Thought so. Yeah, you got nothing. So you’re gonna give me the take. All of it. And if it don’t fill my coffers, guess what I’m gonna take?”

  “A nice walk?”

  Larry smiled. “Ah, you’re a funny guy. Funny guy. Guess what, Funny Guy? I’m gonna take your car. I’m gonna take your stupid little workshop. We’re gonna burn it down and collect the insurance if we have to. Then I’m gonna take your house. I’m gonna burn that down too. I’m gonna take your wife, and have her give up everything she’s got. And if I still don’t have my money, plus interest, I’m gonna kill you. How’s that?”

  Warren held up a shaky thumb. “You got it, boss.”

  Larry shoved him a final time, tossing him hard into the dumpster, leaving Warren bruised and aching on the ground.

  * * * * *

  Blind optimism, once the only way that Warren moved from one day to the next, had become strangely able to see. And in its clarity, slowly morphed into pessimism.

  His luck had seemingly devolved down into only two forms—bad and worse—and the one place he could think of to go to was not pleasant in the slightest. Even in his brightest, most optimistic form, all Warren could imagine was, “perhaps they won’t shit on me that much when they hear about the day I’ve had?”

  There were not many places Warren could think of to go. Any hotel would want to check his credit cards—all of which, of course, were maxed out. He had no real friends in the area. There were work friends, of course—the theater owners and suppliers who he wined and dined so regularly—but to be with them he’d have to tell them the truth about his situation. And he couldn’t bear to let his professional contacts know anything about that. If nothing else, he was scared that they might smell which way the fire was burning and abandon ship along with everyone else.

  And so, there was always Joan. It wasn’t a good resort, but it was the last one he had.

  Joan was his stepsister. They had grown up together from a very young age when his loveless mother and her loveless father somehow decided to enter into a loveless marriage and lovelessly raise two children.

  His sister—always, as far as he could remember—hated him. She blamed him for her own father’s issues with running a family well, and somehow even managed to take his mother’s side against Warren as well.

  Joan might say something like: Who could blame her for being a shell of a woman when you robbed her of everything good she once had?

  Or something to that effect, at any rate.

  Joan ran a local feminist literary journal. Her partner, Edith, helped her run it. It was a small journal and Joan only made a living from it due to the generous donations she received from philanthropists across the region. Every year, she had to suck up her ego and go suck the dicks—figuratively, of course—of every rich high-hat in the quad-state area.

  Joan and Edith had met at college. They traded through a veritable of army of lovers in their lesbian circles, as college lesbians are oft to do, and eventually decided they liked one another best. Warren got the distinct impression that Joan loved Edith because it had been Edith who had laughed the loudest when Warren invited Joan and all her friends to one of his earlier shows.

  As far as he knew, Joan and Else had wanted to get married for years. The only reason they hadn’t was because of the state laws on the matter.

  She lived in the inside of Alder City, on the opposite side of his own small place. Her house was a tall two-story that she owned, a fact which she never failed to mention to him in all her visits to his workplace or home, which were few.

  Shoulders drawn up close to his chest in an unconscious pre-protective stance, he knocked the door.

  Joan’s gorgeous face was lit up with glee as she saw him, originally, and then slowly the glee faded into cool, joy-abandoned steel.

  “What are you doing here? I’m expecting guests.”

  This, the response from the sister whom he had not seen in more than two months.

  “It’s nice to see you too, Joan. May I come inside?”

  She made a face. “I guess? But you can’t...don’t eat anything. Or touch anything.”

  She walked inside. Warren struggled not to have his heart race as Joan's choice of wardrobe for the evening—a tight black cocktail dress that dipped deep into the well of her cleavage. She looked phenomenal. Sexy stockings led down into tall, red heels, and Warren was assaulted with oft-fought thoughts of holding his sister and kissing her thoroughly.

  Inside, the house smelled brilliantly of baked bread and fresh cheese. There were a great many wine bottles chilling in a great many ice buckets on different tables and at different stations throughout.

  God, thought Warren. And it’s only a Monday.

  “Is that Carlton?” Edith called. “I’ve been waiting to tell him that hilarious horse story. You know the one, where—” she stepped out into full view.

  Blonde and voluptuous, Ed
ith was a walking pin-up model if ever there was one. Warren had cum thinking about her more than once. About her and Joan, together. Watching them kiss was like witnessing a star explode. Impossible to turn away. Easy to burn up inside of. She wore tight white leggings and a trendy leather jacket, tall golden strappy heels on her feet.

  “What’s he doing here?” Edith asked, raising one lip in a long sneer.

  All day with this. Desperate for an end to the judgment, to the dislike, he turned back to Joan.

  “I need a place to stay, Joan.”

  “Of course you do. Do you need ten thousand dollars in the meantime?”

  “Sure,” said Edith, giggling. “Or maybe we could just buy a house for him. How about that?”

  Joan’s eyes lit up, clearly enjoying Edith’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, how about that, big bro? You want us to give you a house, too? I mean, we’ve just got all this charity sitting around. You might as well have some of it.”

  Venom. Pure venom, right away.

  “You two aren’t being fair. You’re not even...you won’t even hear me and I just got here.”

  “What’s to hear, Warren? You’re ruining my dinner party and it hasn’t even started yet.” She put her hands at her well-formed hips “Well? What is it? Tell me what you need, go on. Money? Time? You want me to tell my friend about your pathetic shows where you humiliate women and make those poor ex-models dress up like idiots in sequins and feathers?”

  “The feathers...they’re for the show. Why does everyone hate the feathers?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He swiped one hand down his face. “Melinda left me, all right? And the assistants quit. And I’m just...I’m in this sea of debt, and it’s all gone wrong. All of it. I’ve got nothing to show for myself. Not a damn thing. And you’re the only person in the world I know, okay? The only one. I came to you because I’m hurting. And you’re family. And I need you. I just need a place to stay until I sort all this out.”

  Joan and Edith exchanged a look. Edith gave a little shrug and then a look, as if to say, Gosh. Maybe he deserves a break?

  “If he stayed in the back during the party...” Edith began.