by V. L. Brock
“She was diagnosed with cervical cancer when Walker was small. She had treatment and it went into remission. When he was sixteen she was diagnosed with breast cancer, but it had already spread. He was devastated. The whole family was. But it was harder for Walker because he refused to let go. He couldn’t cry no matter how hard he tried. He turned it to anger and hate. It was the physical pain inflicted, that helped him embrace the emotional pain of losing her. That was the only way he could grieve.”
I was sitting on the kitchen counter with my head down, my tears falling from over my lids to land on my knees. I can’t imagine the pain he must have gone through. If it was possible, I had just fallen deeper for him. Walker, just like me, was damaged. So deeply damaged yet had a plethora of strength that I only just came to fully appreciate.
“You there, Kady?”
“Yeah,” I sniffled. “Actually, I better go to the store. Shepherd’s pie and mashed up peas, you say? Let’s hope I can do it justice.”
“Worcestershire Sauce––”
“Huh?”
She snorted. “It was her secret ingredient, but don’t tell him. Even he doesn’t know.” I could hear her words being passed through her smile.
“Great. Wish me luck.”
If I thought I was looking over my shoulder before, I was very much mistaken. The entire journey to the store I might as well have been walking backwards.
Hundreds of eyes, everywhere, just burrowing into me, and the constant jittery feeling that sent my internal organs into a flying circus, were two of many feelings I was dealing with. Still, I focused on procuring my ingredients and a six pack of Bud for Walker for his return.
The empowerment I felt earlier that morning when I took control was fleeting. It was only when I returned to the apartment, did I feel as though I could finally breathe once again.
I ransacked Walker’s kitchen, pulling open drawers and cupboards in a wild search for the chopping board and two heavy based saucepans. After washing my hands, I made quick work of peeling and slicing the carrots, onions, and potatoes then fried the meat before starting on the filling.
It was 4:10 p.m., and Walker had been out practically all day. I would have usually called him just to make sure everything was okay, however, I needed as much time as possible to get things ready for him. With the potatoes still boiling, I headed into the bedroom to make myself presentable.
A green and black plaid, wraparound skirt sitting above the knee was secured by a silver pin, and the sheer, black blouse masked a black camisole. I finished off the outfit with a pair of black pantyhose before reapplying a little more makeup.
Hearing the water boiling in the pot, I walked down the hallway, heading straight for the living room. Magazines and coasters were being cleared off the coffee table when I stumbled upon some mail on the lower tier, which was hanging out ready to fall and possibly take with it the remainder of the pile. The name, Mr. G Walker, was peeking out at me through the transparent window of the envelope.
G Walker? He told me that Walker was his given name. For a blinding moment, I felt a little off-keel, as though the Walker I came to know and have deep attachment to, wasn’t the real Walker. Damn, Walker wasn’t even his name. He had saved me in more ways than one over the eighteen months we had known each other, yet I didn’t even know his proper name.
I shook off the thought, eventually deciding to extract it from him soon enough, and concentrated on fulfilling my duties. Shuffling the mail, I set it into a neat pile on the bottom tier of the coffee table then set about draping a tablecloth over the age-worn wood, when I was startled by a knock on the door.
I was standing motionless, watching the door like a hawk eyeing its next meal. When the name, ‘Katy’ sounded from the other side, the relieved drop of my shoulders was followed by my well-measured strides.
“Of all things, you forgot your keys?” I teased, grasping my hand around the cool metal of the doorknob, and pulled it open. The smile was ridded from my face as I came face to face with familiar, blue and green hard eyes. I tried to slam the door, but his hand pressing against the wood rendered it an impossible task.
With one last shove, Liam pushed the door wide open sending me staggering further into the apartment. “Now that is not a pleasant welcome is it, Kady baby?”
My heart was in my throat, lodging the words which I needed to say in my windpipe. My breathing was so erratic, I was already feeling lightheaded. Caution and fear had me backing away to the coffee table as though backing away from a ticking bomb. “How did you get in here?”
“It’s amazing what these low lives will do for twenty dollars.” And I instantly knew the bald guy on the ground floor, who opened the door for me, was the one responsible for Liam’s entry. “Looks like you’re in the right place after all.”
“What are you doing here? What do you want?”
He acted nonchalant, with his hands hanging in his gray suit pants pockets, his head cocked to the side. The scuffing of his Italian leather heels over the floorboards with each well-measured step was enough to make the inner me cower away.
“What’s the matter, Kady? Am I making you nervous?” he purred.
“No,” I shook my head, barefaced lying and with everything I had, I pleaded he would believe me.
Halting mid-step, the corners of his eyes creased as he narrowed them, and leaned in menacingly. “You’re lying. You’re scratching your hand.”
Was I? I peered down and saw the finger nails of my right hand scouring over the knuckles of my left. I hadn’t even noticed. When I lifted my gaze back to him, he was already a mere three steps away from me.
“You don’t seem as confident as you did on the phone, earlier. I wonder why that is?”
“Liam…” I drew out his name with the deepest caution as I usually did.
“What was said, Kady baby?”
“Said?”
“Don’t play coy,” he warned, his lips quirking into a domineering sneer. “Laurie,” he whispered. “Did she come here tattle-tailing? Did she put on the tears? What did she say to you?” His tone was velvet soft, a complete contradiction to his stance and demeanor. “And I want the truth,” he added, his eyes flared.
It took two consecutive swallows to find my voice, which oddly enough, was hiding behind the cowering inner me. “She didn’t say anything.”
“She didn’t say anything?” he repeated my statement yet posed it as a question. “THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU CALL ME THIS MORNING?!” he shouted in my face. I recoiled, waiting for his striking hand. Although it didn’t come, I saw his fingers stirring at his side, itching to attack.
“I…I just want you to leave us alone.”
“You don’t seem to understand, you stupid whore. If you didn’t go off crying to them all the fucking time, then they wouldn’t interfere. Without them interfering, I wouldn’t have to stand my ground. Do you understand?”
I nodded brusquely, whereas Liam shook his head. His hands fisted into his dark, lengthened hair and his threatening eyes twinkled in delight. “No, no, no. I don’t think you do.”
When his demanding hands grasped me at my upper arms, a shriek was torn from my throat. The force behind his shove sent me stumbling over the coffee table, the cover being dragged down as I grabbed at the first thing I could, to save me from tumbling. Before I could even register what was happening, I was restrained, and try as I might, fighting off the heavy body crushing me as he forced his way between my legs, was impossible. With an aggravated growl and the look of impatience in his eyes, his fingers pierced through the material of my pantyhose, before tearing them apart.
“Get off me, NO!” I cried out, thrashing around on the floorboards. I tried kicking him off and closing my legs, but he was far too heavy. Even the bucking of my hips was feeble. Recognizing that getting him off me wasn’t an option, I clawed at the footboard of the couch and the planks of the flooring with my nails in a struggle to pull myself from beneath him. Still, I was pinned.
&nb
sp; “You are the one who brings this on yourself, Kady. You need to learn,” he hissed, his jaw ticking under his flesh.
I was losing the fight against him as two fingers slipped under my panties. I screamed out in pain, as, without warning, he thrust his fingers ruthlessly inside of me. “You feel this, Kady? This is nothing. I warned you countless times before that you had seen nothing. Bruises fade, but this…”
I don’t know why, considering he was nowhere near, but I screamed Walker’s name as loud as I could, and tears spilled from my eyes down my temples, when two sharp nails were pressed into my front wall and raked downwards. All I could concentrate on was the burning, the penetrating sting…it felt as though a shard of glass had just been inserted into me as I continued my worthless effort of writhing to freedom.
“This is something you will not forget,” he spat, my face sprayed with his saliva. Although his fingers were pulled free, the burning remained. I sobbed as my jaw was grasped with his left hand, his assaulting fingers forced into my mouth before he eventually pulled away and straightening his posture. He looked unperturbed as he sickeningly glided his fingers beneath his nose, inhaling their scent. “You’re a dirty fucking whore, but I own you. I own that,” sneering, he motioned between my legs. “Each time you move, each time that Irish prick touches you,” he lowered himself into a squat, his hands knitted and hanging between parted thighs while he leaned into my personal space, “you will remember me, you will remember this, and maybe you might just learn.”
On the barren floor, I curled up, sobbing at my violation while Liam reared up and headed for the door, slamming it closed behind him. I closed my legs and cupped myself in a bid to quell the aggravated, internal burning, as I wept uncontrollably.
It was only the night before I had said that the mere thought of Liam losing his control was terrifying. With the loss of control, his meaning and definition, is lacking. He has nothing to define himself. And I just caught a glimpse of how bad the situation could get, if control was removed from him completely.
We were all fucked.
Chapter Nine
Walker
He had hardly made it past the front door, kicking it behind him, before I dropped the controller onto the orange carpet, tearing myself away from the portable television set. “Uncle Les, Uncle Les,” I bounded toward him.
Dropping his bags in the tiny hallway, he caught me just in time. “Alright, buddy? How was school?”
I sulked. I hated school. I hated that the kids all found their circle of friends, and I was the one left on my own just because I was different. “I don’t like it, Uncle Les. They make fun of me.”
“They make fun of ya?”
I nodded.
“How do they make fun of ya?” I felt the floor under my feet as he put me down and crouched so I was taller than him. I liked being taller than Les. “What do they say, bud?”
“They say I talk funny.”
“Talk funny?” his dark blue eyes went real big. “How do ya talk funny?”
“They keep getting me to say, ‘Wed Wudolph wolls over wed wocks’.”
“Red Rudolph rolls over red rocks? What the Hell does that mean?”
I sulked again. My shoulders went super high, nearly touching my ears before they came back down. “––But they laugh at me, and I’m weally, weally trying, Uncle Les.”
The tears came as they always did, but he brushed them away. “Well, I’ll tell ya a secret, but you got to keep it to ya self, alrighty?” I nodded, sniffling. “You tell them that it doesn’t matter how you talk right now, because at the end of the day, you see that path out there,” he pointed out of the front window, and I nodded. “Well, you’ll be having ladies queuing up that path wanting you, boy. Do you know why?” Smiling, I shook my head. “Because all the ladies love an Irishman.”
“Ahmen,” Uncle Les’ eyes slowly looked up to my side. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t turn my seven-year-old son into a chauvinistic so and so, Les Brannon.”
“Ah, come on, sis,” his hands were on his knees and I tipped my head back, following him with my eyes when he pushed himself up so he was much bigger than me again. “He knows I’m kidding,” He ruffled my hair with a wink, “don’t ya, buddy?”
“’Aye.”
He looked back at Ma, and said, “See,” before looking back at me. “Now, you go back and kick some Donkey Kong arse on that game of yours. I need to talk to your Ma.”
When I went back into the room, Ma and Uncle Les were going into the kitchen with his bags.
I tried to finish the level I was playing, but there were only so many times I could keep restarting from that whirly checkpoint. I hated it. I growled and my grip on the controller tightened as I shook it in anger. “Come on you stupid thing,” I huffed, only for the stupid monkey to fall to its death down another hole. “For fu––”
“You watch your language, young man. See, you’re a bad influence. That’s why I don’t think this is a good idea, Les.”
“What’s not a good idea?” I dropped the controller and turned to face Ma with her long, thick brown hair braided and draping over her shoulder, and Uncle Les pushing his way past, taking a spot on the floor with me as he kneeled down.
“That’s bullshite, Roz.”
“Uh-oh,” I shook my head at my uncle, “Ma’s giving you the evil eye, Uncle Les. What do we say?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Be warned, Les, if my son ends up down the hippy-dippy trail because of this, I will kill ya. Understand?”
He lifted his hands up while I wondered what the Hell they were talking about. I didn’t like them talking about me like I wasn’t there, or hiding a huge secret. It made me feel like I was in school again. And I hated school. “Da taught me,” he shrugged his muscly shoulders.
“’Aye, and look how you turned out.”
It was his turn to flash the evil eye at my Ma, which only had her giggling as she waved her hand for him to continue.
“I got a surprise for you, bud. Do you want it?”
A surprise? Ma and Da said I wasn’t to have any more surprises until my birthday in three weeks. My eyes widened and I nodded my head quickly before anyone changed their mind. He dragged a long black bag with a zipper over the carpet. The smell of leather came out of the bag as soon as I unzipped it.
“Oh, wow.” I took out one dark red leather glove with a white bootlace wrapped around it. Then took out the matching glove, while Uncle Les took out two red pads with what looked like a black bull’s-eye in the middle. With a scratching sound as they rubbed against one another, I took the gloves to my nose and breathed in the strong smell of leather.
“Your Uncle Les has asked if it’s okay to teach you a few things.” I looked up at Ma, resting her shoulder on the doorframe, an apron tied around her waist splattered with tomato juice. “I said okay, but on one condition. You never use it as a first resort. Just because you can fight, doesn’t mean you should. I don’t want my son being no thug. You understand me, son?”
With a huge smile, I dropped the gloves to the floor and ran over to her, wrapping my arms tightly around her waist, burying my cheek into her belly, as her hand brushed through my hair. “I promise, Ma. I’d take the pain before anyone else. I love you, Ma.”
I could hear her smile around her motherly words, “I love you too, Gerry, my son.”
Since that day, I’d always found the smell of leather comforting. So when I stepped into the raggedy, single floor, cream building of Brannon’s Boxing Gym, I found an instant comfort. The sound of rawhide colliding and the vibrations from the speed bag echoed around the old gym, while the telling sound of air being force out between teeth with each jab of the sparring pair in the ring, made me smile.
“Unless you’re looking for a black eye, stop dropping your guard, boy.” From the ringside, the familiar body was standing, a white towel draped over his shoulder while his voice echoed throughout the structure. He could be heard over the sounds of the speed ba
g and fighters freeing themselves of pent-up anger on the heavy sacks hanging from the brackets of the ceiling. A forceful slamming of his hand on the floor of the ring, he shouted, “Keep your fucking guard up,” again.
“Bad time?” I called, making my way towards the ring before dropping my gym bag to the ground.
Distracted by my words, Les tore his focus from the two sparring and looked towards me. Arms opening, he swallowed me in a man hug, muttering, “It’s never a bad time for you,” and slapped my back twice before pulling away. “You two lads carry on while I talk to my nephew. Jax, if you drop your guard one more time, I swear to fuckin’ God––”
“’Aye, coach,” the distorted and panting voice came from inside the blue headgear before his partner jabbed him in the stomach on a sharp hiss.
“Newbie?”
Walking away from the ring toward the building’s front window, the pockets of my uncle’s Lonsdale shorts were dug into by his hands. “It would have been easier,” he chuckled. “I had a call from your Da last night. Said to be expecting ya. So what’s up?”
“I…” Peeking down, I grazed the middle of my upper-lip with my thumb. “I need some help.”
“Oh?” Les’ hands were taken from his pockets and folded across his chest. “You in some sort of trouble?” he asked, rocking back on his heels.
“Depends how you look at it. I need cash, big time.”
“I thought you had a job.”
My eyes rolled. “I did, but…”
Glassy, love-struck eyes twinkled in wry amusement as he mocked, “He fell in love with the boss’ girlfriend. That’s a sure way to get fired.”
“For fuck sake, Les. Come on, cut me some slack. I need the cash and by the looks of things with the human punching bag over there, you need a fighter. A damn fucking good one.”
Someone may have just walked over my bloody grave with the shudder that rocked through my body. The lone look in his eyes as he lifted his gaze, but hung his head was chilling. Les Brannon may have been average height for a woman, but he was built like a brick shit house. The buzz cut displayed the rolls of his neck, but they were far from fat. Yet his eyes and cheekbones, even the creases over his forehead were just like hers. You didn’t have to be a genius to know that he was my Ma’s older brother. Although there was six years between them, they looked like twins.
