I nod. That’s always the best place.
“I knew the first minute I saw my Bonita that I had have to have her…”
He lets me talk, and my mouth runs away from me. It feels good to have someone to talk to about her. If I can’t have her here in spirit, it helps just to talk about our meet-cute. I talk until my mouth is dry, and I’m sure my time is up, but he only encourages me to continue by getting me water and urging me on.
“So, Sasha did the actual luring?” he asks, and my brow furrows.
“When you say it like that, you make it sound sordid,” I say, finally pausing long enough for my wits to catch up with my mouth. “There was no luring, only loving.”
I still can’t see his eyes, and it bugs the shit out of me. My skin itches, feels like its shrunk two sizes, and I want out of this room. I go to stand, purposely setting the water glass on the expensive wood desk, just next to his desk blotter.
He notices. His eyes shoot to the placement, but he doesn’t say a word about it.
“Are you finished for today?” he asks, still staring at the glass sweating a ring on his desk.
“Yes, there’s nothing left to tell. I’m tired.” And I do sound like a petulant child that needs a nap, but I want out of here.
“Maybe it’s your meds that are making you tired. We could adjust?” He tears his eyes from the glass, and when I finally see the whites of them, I know for a fact that this man has no soul. He’s a witch doctor living off the misery and despair of others.
I turn and stride to the door, refusing to make any more eye contact with this mercenary.
“Thank you for your time,” I say, almost tripping over my own slippered feet on the way out.
As the door swings shut, I hear his unmistakable response of, “No. Thank you.” And my stomach clenches in a knot. What have I done?
Blue
I wake from my nap to a dark room. For a moment, I try to grasp the good feeling the dream I was having about Javi had given me. But those feelings flee as the ones of regret chase them out. My stomach growls, and I know I’ve missed dinner as I look at the clock. 9:30. The feeders must have given up on me, but my green lights are on. Hell, if they wanna watch my lazy ass sleep, more power to them.
I lie in the dark, thinking about tomorrow. I’m going to see him. I know I can’t live without feeling his hands on me. When you’ve lived this long without a kind touch, a loving caress, you yearn for the one that gave you you’re first feeling of worth. The Favor was an unexpected treat, but my body is humming for the real deal. If I could only talk to him, let him know I don’t care anything about his fucked up childhood, it would surely make a difference.
I know, Javi. I talked to your mother, and she told me what heinous crimes she committed against you! And guess what? I don’t friggin’ care! Just come home, Javi. We can work this out.
The scene that plays in my mind has Javi falling into my arms, relief washing over his face. No more fear, no more feeling the need to hide himself away from me. I can be strong enough for the both of us. And I intend to prove it to him tomorrow when I see him.
I’m so excited at the thought of him checking himself out and coming home, I don’t know if sleep will find me again. When he comes home, first things first, we are not leaving his pool house. Period. We’ll hole up in there and we’ll have mad kissing sessions until I can coax him into taking my virginity. I’ll explain that in this day and age, you don’t need a piece of paper to prove your love for one another.
Love? Do I love him? I wonder, and my heart revolts, clenching in my chest at the question. Yes. I nod to myself. I think I do, and I grin into the darkness. I love that nutty bastard and intend to spend the rest of our time on this earth together, giving him the care and nurturing he missed out on by being dealt the unlucky hand of having Maria the Bitch Beast as his mother.
A little worried voice squeaks from the bottom of my soul. What if it’s not enough, all this love and caring? What if you still end up tied to a bed, growing by the minute from his calorie-laden lovefest?
“No,” I say to the darkened room. “I love Javi, and that love will see us through.” I nod my head and snuggle down into the covers, chasing sleep. I don’t want to have bags under my eyes when I see him tomorrow. Excitement pulses through me. I’m really doing this! I’m going to surprise the shit out of him!
Javi
I’m unsettled after the meeting with the shrink today as I make my way to the dining room for dinner with all the other nut-sacks. I’m quiet as I load my tray down with all the greasy carbs I deny myself on the outside. It’s stress eating. There is really such a thing as doctor-patient privilege, right? Then why does it feel so wrong to have spilled my guts to this stranger? And what is this tightness in my chest? I rub at the knot just over my heart. Why can’t I get rid of this squeezing pain?
My skin continues to itch as I scan the dining room for a seat. I smirk. It looks like high tea with the queen in here. Linen tablecloths, chandeliers, a guy in a tux playing a baby grand in the corner. This is where all my money goes. They might as well just have us eat in the dirt, from a trough, like the pigs we are, instead of trying to class us up via osmosis.
I see skinny crackhead nursing a fat lip and black eye, and avoid him like the plague. I know on the outside he’s some hot shit emo rock star, but in here, none of that matters. Big fists can kill, and I hope he remembers that the next time he’s feeling froggy and decides to jump.
Creating a wide berth around him, I end up sitting at a table with the catatonics. At least it will be quiet, I think, digging into my mashed potatoes. And there will plenty to go around, since I’m the only one at this table actually eating and not drooling down my own chin.
I don’t finish much of my food, though, because I can’t shake this feeling of urgency that wears me like a cloak. Time is slipping away. My legs jitter under the table, and my eyes dart around the room. I feel eyes on me, but I can’t place the source. Maybe it’s just all the cameras. Must be how the girls feel back at the house, I think, attempting a smirk, but the best I can do is a lift of the corner of my mouth. I try another bite but… “Fuck it,” I mutter and leave the table of the undead.
It’s my sixth sense trying to tell me to step the fuck on. I had to develop it with the Master of Schemes as my mother. Always had to remain one step ahead of her so she didn’t chew me up and spit me out. I can handle being around Blue, I think. I won’t hurt her.
I continue these promises to myself on the way to my room.
I’ll leave, go far away and never come back if I start feeling the itch. The incessant need to own, feed, and love her to death. Yeah, get the fuck on, Gustavez, I think to myself. Something’s going down.
I just need my cell. I’ll call Sasha for a ride. They can have everything else. I won’t even grab my boots. Just boogie in these comfy slips, blowing a kiss to the emaciated nurse on the way out as she watches my pajama-clad ass strut out the door.
I’m decided, set on a course, and already I’m feeling better. Less anxious. I’m so gone, I think as I round the corner. Thoughts of Blue, long rides on my bike, and freedom flee from my mind. My door’s wide open. The good doctor and his minions are tossing my fucking cell!
“Hey! What the fuck is this?” I demand, busting into the room. Fuck, he’s got my phone in his hand. I’ll hitchhike. Who gives a fuck?
He turns to me with his loathsome glass-covered eyes, holding up my phone. “Contraband.” He says it like a dirty word.
“No one told me I can’t have a phone in here.” But they did. Many times. No pictures, no flash photography, and no cellphones. Not hard to miss, since it’s written like a motto right over the nurse’s station at the entrance.
He just stares at me, willing me to dig myself in deeper. I won’t participate. I walk around him and grab my boots and my trucker hat. “Doesn’t matter anyway, I’ll buy five of them. I’m really glad you’re here so I don’t have to walk down to your office and tell y
ou I’m gone. Like the breeze. I’ve had enough of this place, learned my lesson.” I turn to him, boots untied on my feet over paper slippers, throw my hands out, and yell, “Good job, superhero. I’m cured! Peace.”
I want that to be it, the last talk we’ll ever have, my parting gift as I try to make my way around him and out the door. It would have been a cool exit.
“Not so fast, Javier. If I’m the superhero, what does that make you? A villain?”
My step falters. Something’s definitely afoot here. But I’m not waiting to find out.
Before I can even make it to my door and freedom, he signals to the orderlies who lock me in with him.
“What the fuck?” I say, clearly mystified. “You can’t do this! I’m voluntary, you dick!”
He takes his glasses off, rubbing my spit from the lenses. I look into his eyes and see absolute malice there. This fucker thinks he can contain me!
He looks down his nose at me. “You might wanna step back. Assault will land you in a less cushy room than this, and I’ll have no problem putting a kidnapper behind bars.”
The puff leaves my chest. I stare at him, not understanding where this hostility is coming from.
“That’s right, Javier, a kidnapper. Your status with us has been changed. I’ve already talked to a judge. Your stay has been extended, thirty days mandatory.”
I sag onto the bed, defeated. I friggin’ knew it! I felt it in my bones. Get the fuck out of Dodge! my body had screamed at me. But instead, I’d sat around eating soggy-ass mashed potatoes, listening to some boring piano shit, and bought myself an extended stay. I’m the little boy who cried wolf, but everyone listened to this little boy.
He towers over me. “This fine establishment will not be an accessory to kidnapping, Javier.” He spits my name at my bowed head. “Until I’m absolutely sure you don’t have this Blue person held against her will, or even worse, twisted her mind into believing that she actually cares for you, you are to have no phone calls, no visitation. Absolutely no contact with the outside world. Capisce?”
“Dick! Motherfucking back-stabbing rotten piece of shit!” I scream and lunge at him. But he’s fast. Been around much crazier than the likes of me and lived to tell about it. He’s out the now-opened door before I can get myself off the bed. The murder I envision is thwarted by the motherfucking untied shoelaces on my feet. I fall over and hit the floor.
“Nurse!” he yells from the safety of the hallway. “Sedate him, 20 mg of Haldol should do nicely.” I feel a knee push me further into the carpet, stealing my air and keeping me down with what feels like the weight of a thousand bricks. Foul breath whispers death in my ear. “Don’t move, muthafucka, play dead!” Shit, Bubba. The orderly that everyone is talking about. Broke some sorry SOB’s spine last month.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Bubba.” I force my body to relax so he’ll let up and maybe let me walk out of here alive. All the while the same nurse I’d been about to blow a kiss to on the way out shoots my skinny ass full of drugs.
He was planning this, I think. A big hurrah. She didn’t even have to go into the nurse’s station to get the drugs. Was probably giggling out in the hallway with a full syringe, waiting for her crack at me. This fucking blows, I think, as the clouds roll in and I think no more.
Blue
This isn’t gonna work. It’s been a whole friggin’ week! No word, no more surprise Favors. No contact at all. It’s like he fell off the face of the earth. Nothing I do works. There is no distracting myself from thoughts of Javi and his dirty deeds. As soon as I told him I was coming to visit, too! If that’s not a personal fuck-you, I don’t know what is. So I figured, fuck it, and ordered flan to-go at a restaurant when I left the mental facility last week, after being refused access to Javi. I brought it home and fingered it in the bathroom. Anything to get myself off, like a personal eff you to the soul mate who was avoiding my soul! I’ll show him! I thought. If he can turn it on and off like a faucet, so can I, motherfucker! I’m sick of his, “Bonita! You’re so beautiful,” and, “Bonita, I love you,” bullshit. I make a whiny crybaby face as I make fun of his words of love. I’ve had it!
So I fingered away, scooping that shit like my life depended on. It was really good!
I ended up eating it on the toilet, the one place in my room I can have a modicum of privacy. How sick is that? With no orgasm to be had, and only left to feel worse about this whole situation as I was, yet again, stuffing my feelings down with food.
He won’t even see me. It’s his shrink, I’m sure of it. Javi would never turn me away, would he? Maybe he’s over his fat-girl fetish and sticking it to the skinny bitch who liked my shoes. Who knows? At this point, I’ve got all kinds of scenarios running through my head, and none of them are good.
I tried again earlier today and didn’t even make it in the front doors. I was met outside by two burly security guards who blocked the entrance. Moe, the beefy black guy with an earpiece, didn’t even wait for me to make it all the way up the walk. “Excuse me, ma’am.” I continued to walk, like I didn’t have my hearing aid turned on, just admiring the flowerbeds along the walkway as I made my way to the door, looking anywhere but into his dark glasses.
Curly, the white guy who was all neck, put his slab of a hand out to stop me. Never touched me, just used the intimidation that comes from hours in the gym to do that. “Ma’am, I have to ask you to turn around and get back in your vehicle. No visiting today.”
I stopped, teetering on my black pumps and made a show of looking around at all the people milling on the grounds of this “no visiting day” before glaring back into his mirrored glasses.
“Who are all these people then?” My hand sweeps over the grassy lawn where patients visit with their families.
Curly shrugs, but it’s Moe who answers. “Not sure, ma’am. We were just told visiting hours are over. We’re at capacity.”
My eyes roll. I can do that here; no Gretchen to chastise me.
My hands go to my hips. “Who said no visitors? Was it the doctors? The nurses? Who? And how do I know you’re not holding my boyfriend against his will?” My voice is shrill and loud. I’m near to panicking now. This is the third time this week I’ve tried to traipse in and see him, only to be turned away. Not this time, mister.
Before they can answer, I plop my big ass down, right in the middle of the walkway. Sitting cross-legged, I glare up at them. “I’m not leaving, so whomever is giving the orders around here better get their asses out here pronto! And give me some GD answers!”
Curly looks hot around the collar, sizes me up and down, probably wondering if I’m too big to bench press, as Moe says something into an earpiece before gesturing Curly back to the door.
“Someone will be out shortly, ma’am.”
I continue my Zen yoga poise for twenty minutes, feeling the ache of the hard stone against my ass. But I won’t be deterred. Not by these two meatheads, or even the stream of other visitors who come and go, parting around me like I’m a stone in the middle of a stream. I don’t even catalog their many dirty looks. This is, after all, a nuthouse. I fit right in.
When the doors finally do open, I’ve had it. I’m pissed at being ignored, made to feel as if I don’t matter. This must be Larry, I think to myself as a tall, balding doctor with soft brown eyes stops to speak to the other stooges before heading my way.
I make to stand, but he stops me, a palm held out. “No, don’t get up on my account.” He smiles and bends down to my level. I’m astonished. His knees crack as he sits before me. I don’t say a word. He’s not the guy I came to see.
“May I call you Blue?” he asks, like we met on the street instead of my sit-in protest. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps sitting there, looking at me expectantly. So I do the only thing I can, roll my eyes and give a curt nod.
“What should I call you? Dr. Frankenstein?” He laughs too loudly at the name. I don’t know why, it’s not a joke.
“Whatever you would like. Can you tell me
why you’re here?” The laughter has died, but his eyes twinkle with mirth. Which pisses me right the hell off.
“Obviously, you know why I’m here.” I wave at the goons guarding the door. “The welcome committee that headed me off at the pass surely told you.”
The good doctor nods his head, indulging me by looking towards the men I wave at. “Who is it you’d like to see?” He’s playing with me now.
“I think you know very well who’ve I’ve come to see. Javier Gustavez.”
He nods, and rubs at his chin. “And what are you hoping to accomplish by your visit with Mr. Gustavez.”
Is he freaking kidding me? “I don’t see you giving the third degree to any of the other visitors, Doctor.” The doctor comes out, drawn out and cranky, but I’m sick of the psych games. I’ve had enough of this meet and greet.
“No, I only give visitors the third degree when the person they want to visit asks me to.”
My eyebrows go up at this. “Javi asked you to stop me? You’re telling me my Javi doesn’t want to see me?” I fight back tears at his nod. It’s all just too much. I puddle on the pavement, all piss and vinegar abandoning me.
“I’m sorry, Blue, but yes, it’s Javi’s wish that you leave and don’t come back.” The sympathy dripping from his voice is my undoing.
I’m floored. “Javi really said that?” I whisper, feeling the first tear drop to my cheek. I lower my chin, suddenly feeling childish and unwanted.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. And Blue, no more phone calls either.”
I try to stand, but my foot is asleep. The doctor gestures towards the gorillas at the door to come help, but I hold a hand up, halting their progress. I need to get back on my own two feet, I think, while limping back to the car.
* * *
“What do you mean he doesn’t want to see you?” Sasha, volume set on high, is incredulous. I’m a blubbery wet mess. Mascara tracks down my cheeks, and dots my pink dress with the saddest polka-dot mess I’ve ever seen as I sit and cry in the garage. “No phone calls, either.” My voice hitches as fresh tears begin to flow.
Blue, Light and Dark (Chubby Chasers, Inc. Series Book 2) Page 9
