by Rune Skelley
She was so horny!
Finally two-faced Janus was done. Rook added the circular border, noticing for the first time how it made the god resemble a coin.
“Come here,” Fin said. Only it didn’t quite sound like Fin. Rook climbed around and straddled him, bobbing on his cock. It felt so damn good!
When they kissed she realized it wasn’t Fin at all, but Kyle.
Relishing the thrill of him inside her again, Rook picked up her tattoo gun and started working on his left arm. While she puzzled out the interlocking outlines of the Escher horsemen, Kyle distracted her by sucking on her nipples and scrawling the Divided Man Prophecy across her tits in a brilliant green stain. She wished he would stop, and wished he would never stop.
A dazzling viridescent light shone from all the tattoos, chasing away Vesuvius’s dim illumination, reflecting in Kyle’s ethereal eyes as he watched her finish the cuff around his biceps.
Almost done.
His right hand still held the vibrating needle, adding further reverberations of the prophecy to the tender skin around her bellybutton. It was his left she wanted anyway. He needed one more tattoo.
When she married him in the cathedral he did not take a wedding band, but he would now. And it would match her own.
Rook leaned back, deliciously shifting Kyle’s angle of penetration and granting him easier access to her abdomen. At the same time she pulled his left hand between them where she could see better in the eerie green light. With her own wedding ring as a guide she set needle to flesh, etching their bond permanently in place.
If she did a good job on the ring, Kyle would be Complete.
Rook raced to finish the tattoo before she came.
A shadow fell over their gyrations as soon as she added the last line. Rook traced the darkness back to Bramble, who stood naked beside the bed, watching them hungrily. Kyle handed Bramble his tattoo gun and grabbed Rook’s ass, taking over the rhythm of their fucking. Rook handed her tattoo gun to Brook.
Sandy ash covered the mattress. The grit got everywhere and added texture to their coupling. It felt fantastic.
Bramble and Brook climbed onto the bed of volcanic ash, coaxing Kyle to sit up and hold Rook tighter. The twins dipped their needles into deep green ink and, working together, tattooed another of Reverend Shaw’s prophecies around Rook and Kyle’s torsos, the words flowing from one to the other and back again, binding them.
A Completer, an Unknowing angel with Shadowed Wings, Shall heal the Divided Man and restore Light upon the Earth.
Where the words passed from Rook to Kyle their flesh melded, providing an unbroken canvas. Rook could feel the needles biting into Kyle’s smooth skin as well as her own. It drove her wild. She threw her head back and groaned out her impending orgasm.
Rook woke drenched in sweat, in bed with Fin, shaking and swampy with desire for his brother.
*** *** ***
The spiders celebrated their success in manipulating Rook’s dream. They had refined their technique considerably from the crude initial gambit of literally graffitiing her dreamworld with the Divided Man Prophecy. Tiny edits now sufficed to steer her toward the basic message of Completing Kyle. All they did was erase Fin’s tattoos, and Rook’s mind swapped Kyle in. The prophecy appeared spontaneously this time, filling the spiders with joyous pride in their accomplishment.
They had trained her subconscious to invoke Kyle and the prophecy in response to stress.
The entries in her journal indicated this conditioning had not yet shown up in her conscious decisions, but that was only a matter of time. Each session with her dreaming mind moved her closer to heeding their call.
There was a 63% probability she would lapse back into sleep tonight. And dream.
*** *** ***
Floating.
Bubbles of light drift around him as he drifts among them.
Kyle is slowly, so slowly, diffusing in the gelatinous atmosphere. His gritty essence is caught in ancient, torpid currents. If this dispersion continues, will he be diluted to the point of nothingness, or will he become omniscient?
The bubbles yammer incessantly. Their tinking, plinking voices overlap, creating a mass of carbonated static as they try to tell him important things. Vital things.
He gathers that the bubbles are lonely. The luminous green ones congregating near him say they want him to stay. They say he is Family.
The notion of family means little to Kyle. He desires only one other, his deceitful wife. With her he tasted Completeness, and he hungers for it again.
Amid the bubbles and their knowledge he floats and waits.
*** *** ***
Marsh took the stairs two at a time all the way to the third floor where he found Rainbow in their shared room.
She saw Marsh’s expression, and concern drew a frown on her lovely face.
Marsh shut the door. “The jewelry is gone. All of it.”
Rainbow gasped.
The two of them were using the jewelry, or more specifically the nanotechnology concealed within it, to perfect the dream visualizer. Its official name was ‘neural-net modulator’ but neither of them called it that anymore. Marsh refined the hardware while Rainbow wrote enhanced software. Without the jewelry as a resource, their progress would be torpedoed.
Rainbow accompanied Marsh back to the lab. The metal briefcase used to store the jewelry was missing, along with its keys. Nothing else had been disturbed. Experiments and prototypes covered the benchtops with the customary bazaar of electromechanical esoterica. The door and trapdoor showed no signs of damage.
“Inside job,” Rainbow muttered. “We’ll have to search all the rooms.”
“Don’t you already know who it was?” Marsh asked. Leaf and his little wad of alien fetishists were the only other people at the House who still showed much interest in the jewelry.
“Of course. We can start with his room. But he’s clever, and so are his comrades, so I don’t expect it to be that easy.”
Marsh saw her point. “We should change all the locks out here, and the access codes.”
“Good idea.”
Rainbow reached up to squeeze his shoulder before they climbed the ladder into the garage and walked back to the House.
When they got to Leaf’s room and found it deserted, they exchanged a glance and went to Flint’s door without saying a word. No one answered their knock, so Rainbow opened the door. This room also was empty of personal items.
“She’s gone, too.”
Marsh rubbed his temples. “Who are the others in their group?”
“Sand, Worth, and Reed.”
The story repeated. Five members gone without a word.
“Maybe the aliens finally checked their answering machine,” Rainbow suggested.
Marsh smiled thinly. They were back in their own room, sitting on the bed. “Are we jumping to conclusions?”
“I don’t really think the alien theory is all that likely,” Rainbow clarified.
Marsh smiled more warmly. “No, I mean by blaming them for taking the jewelry. Maybe there was foul play.”
“You want to think the best about everyone.”
“Even Severin,” Marsh said sheepishly.
“Wow,” Rainbow scolded. “That wasn’t what I meant at all.”
For months, Severin’s leadership had been erratic or outright negligent. Plus, his hand disappeared one day, along with Gale. Gale had been replaced. The hand had not. Now even Marsh doubted the eccentric recluse’s wisdom.
“Nobody knows what they’re supposed to be doing anymore,” Marsh muttered. “They look to me, and I say, ‘Keep your eyes on the horizon,’ or some other Severinish bullshit. They think he still tells me things, so they think I know what I’m saying.”
Rainbow rubbed his shoulders.
He continued, “I love the fact that I can focus on my work, that no one is going to arbitrarily rearrange my priorities. But now all the pressure is on me to have answers like his. And people are starting to l
eave. It’s all falling apart.”
“Hey, it’s good those people left. They were bad news.”
“Thieves,” Marsh added.
“Exactly.”
“I let them make off with the jewelry.”
Rainbow gave his shoulders a hard squeeze. “You didn’t ‘let’ anybody do anything. Look at me.” She leaned around so she could see his face. “This isn’t your fault. And it’s not your fault the lunatic in the attic is off his game.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You need an action plan to keep your mind focused.”
Marsh sighed and nodded, feeling crappy for putting his responsibilities onto her. But his mind still wasn’t focusing.
Rainbow saved him. “We definitely need to change the locks out at the garage. And I’ll reconfigure the firewall personally.”
Marsh nodded with a grim smile. “I’ll take care of the hardware side and cut new keys.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
NO MORE SECRETS
Setting: arcade — loud, dim, smoky
Fin is using the claw machine, trying to get a job. I want to play the New Revelations pinball machine, but I drop my quarter. It’s spinning and I can’t catch it. The floor is a green checkerboard except underneath the air hockey table where someone knocked over the ashtray. My coin gets stuck upright in the ashy sand. I crawl under to get it but Kyle won’t give it back unless I fuck him, so I do, standing up while we play pinball. He has his own set of flipper buttons.
Rook Tanner’s dream journal
Behind the wheel of the Steel Shark, Bishop’s ancient, enormous station wagon, Fin waited for his wife to come out of the library. They were going over to Mom and Brad’s house to celebrate Solstice.
To his great surprise, Fin was looking forward to the gathering. Mom was back, and he had Rook. Having something to celebrate put Fin in a good mood. He even felt up to being around Brad and the baby. For whatever reason, Brad made Mom happy, and Fin wanted his mom to be happy.
Obviously all Bishop’s coaching was sinking in.
After the big trust fund blow-up, Fin took a dishwashing job at the Vagabond, a restaurant with a world-travel theme and an eclectic menu. It paid minimum wage, but he could take home dinner for Rook most nights. The two of them got along pretty well now that she didn’t feel like he was taking advantage of her by making her work while he sat on $108,520 and did nothing. She still had trouble sleeping, though, and in his more morbid moments Fin suspected she regretted marrying him. Often after sex when he was ready to spoon their way into slumber with their mental vibrations as entwined as their bodies, she would apologize and grab her laptop. In the middle of the night he’d wake to find her in the recliner, typing away.
The insomnia made Rook absentminded and distracted, and Fin missed her sharp-witted banter. With the library on restricted hours over term break, maybe she could catch up on her sleep.
The glass front doors swung open and Rook walked out, carrying her skateboard and talking with her friend Lara. They stopped at the bottom of the broad entry stairs, their breath gusting out in miniature fog banks. Rook stamped her patent-leather boots, the thick soles accentuating the lines of her legs.
The women hugged and Rook hurried to the Steel Shark waiting at the curb.
Once buckled in she laid her skateboard wheels-up between them on the bench seat, and gave Fin a perfunctory kiss. “Lara gave me a few of her shifts next week. I’ll be working open to close, but that’s only 9:00 to 5:00.”
So much for her catching up on her sleep.
“Great.”
Fin pulled out and pointed the Shark toward his mother’s house.
“Do you have the presents?” Rook asked.
“They’re in the back seat. Bishop wants us to stay out of the way-back. He wouldn’t let me borrow the Shark until I swore a solemn oath on Vesuvius.”
Rook laughed. “Okay.”
Once they arrived and Rook took her jacket off, Fin felt like he’d already gotten his present, but one he’d have to wait to unwrap. Her multi-buckled boots were just the start. A gunmetal suede miniskirt hugged her ass daringly. The combination of upswept hair and scoop-necked purple sweater exposed the tattoo on the back of her neck, the flaming tower from a tarot deck. Fin nuzzled her ear and whispered, “You look hot.”
She smiled.
The cottage was now fully stocked with furniture. After dinner Fin and Rook curled up together on a comfy love seat by the crackling fire. Rook sat between Fin’s legs and leaned against his chest until Brad walked over with Zen in her pink velour stretchy suit.
Fin was still unsure about his baby sister, but it looked like he was expected to hold her again. Rook moved, so he had little choice. He cuddled Zen the way he’d been taught, and she gurgled at him. He smiled. She waved her fist around until she found a grip on the shiny fabric of his shirt. She tried to put the pocket in her mouth.
Rook laughed.
“You want to hold her?” Fin asked.
“She’s good where she is.”
Willow came in bearing a tray laden with steaming cups of cocoa.
Zen began to fuss and suck on her fist.
“She’s hungry.” Willow retrieved the infant and settled onto the sofa. They were directly across from Fin. He didn’t avert his eyes quickly enough when she lifted her sweater, and caught a mortifying flash of boob flesh. After that he looked studiously everywhere but at his mother.
Brad added more logs to the fire, then it was time to open presents.
Fin and Rook got his parents photo paper and an album to go with their new camera. It didn’t feel like enough, but Mom seemed pleased.
With minimal fanfare, Brad presented Fin and Rook with a gift certificate for Amadoro, an upscale restaurant downtown. Rook’s eyes lit up, so Fin was happy even if it meant he’d have to get dressed up.
Willow gave them a framed copy of the photo from Thanksgiving. In it Rook sat on his knee, both of them smiling. They made a damn handsome couple, if he did say so himself. The indigo of Rook’s dress brought out the sapphire mischief in her eyes. Fin looked to see if she liked the picture as much as he did, and noticed the deep circles under those blue eyes now. The month of insomnia had taken its toll. Fin pulled her in for a kiss, trying to put his worry away until they got home.
Handing over Zen’s present, Rook apologized, “Neither of us has any experience with babies. I hope this is okay.”
“I’m sure it will be,” said Brad as Willow opened the box.
On top was a tiny pink t-shirt with the message ‘If you think I’m cute you should see my big brother’ printed across it in primary colors.
Willow and Brad laughed and held the shirt up for Zen, who ignored it.
A layer of tissue paper hid Fin’s old stuffed monkey. This was the part Fin was unsure of. Maurice was pretty much his only memento from his childhood, but he lived in a cardboard box in the closet. Why not let Zen borrow him for a few years?
“Maurice!” said Willow with delight when she pulled the monkey out of the box.
Brad teared up. “I didn’t think you’d kept him.” He beamed at Fin and joked, “You probably wouldn’t have if you’d known I bought him for you.”
Fin felt an unaccustomed stir of emotion in his chest. When Brad turned away to dangle Maurice in front of Zen, Fin wiped his eyes surreptitiously and handed Rook her gift.
This was a risky move. She was humoring him about the trust fund, so money was tight, and this gift moderately extravagant.
When she saw the new Doc Martens, she froze, blinked, and looked up at him.
“I know how much you missed them,” he said. Her old pair was abandoned in Donner, in the penthouse she shared with Kyle. Gone forever.
Without a word she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. She was crying, hopefully the good kind of tears. Stroking her back Fin said, “I had to sell the chess set because I didn’t have quite enough. We’ll pick up another. It’s the same game whether the pieces are marble or plas
tic.” Fin felt a pang. He would miss that chess set, but not as much as he would miss Rook if she left him.
“They’re perfect,” she said into his chest, and he knew it was worth it. She kissed him, deep and hard and joyful.
“They’re even the greasy leather!” she enthused. “It’s just what I would have picked. Thank you.”
She stood. “I need the key to the Shark so I can get your present.”
“I brought them all in,” Fin said, handing over the key anyway.
“Yours is in the way-back,” she said with a wink. “Bishop was helping me hide it.”
She practically skipped outside. A minute later she stuck her head back in and told Fin to close his eyes.
When she told him he could look, he saw a long, beat-up, rectangular case with a festive bow stuck to it. His fingers tingling, he fumbled open the clasps, and was delighted to find, sure enough, a bass. And not just any bass: a sunburst Fender with a maple fretboard.
“I hope it’s okay,” Rook said. “It’s used, and I don’t know about the color…”
“I love it,” Fin said. The happy tingle rose along his arms and up into his face. He kissed her on the cheek, then lifted the instrument out of the case. It felt good in his hands. It was cold from sitting in the car and he was impatient for it to warm up so he could try it out.
Rook looked at him, searching for reassurance.
“It’s great,” he promised. “It just needs to warm up.”
“I sold my stuff to Kip, the piercer at InkWell,” Rook said. “He gave me a pretty good price. I hope it plays okay.”
Willow and Brad exchanged their gifts, things for around the house which Fin found dull, but they enjoyed. Seeing them, Mom in her goofy sweater with the moose parading around the chest, and Brad in a turtleneck, cuddling Zen, Fin was struck by how happy and normal they looked. He hoped he and Rook would be that happy together, if not quite so boring, and decided such thoughts must be signs of growth.
