by SE Reynolds
Not today. I just can't stomach another repeat episode. Instead, I reach for the bottle of Benadryl and open the child-proof lid. Before the pills land in my palm and as if Misty, my fairy god-friend, is watching over me, she buzzes through my phone, saving me from myself.
I need you, come to the studio, it's the grand opening, don't let me down, V.
Okay, put me to work. Be there in a few, M.
Chapter 6 – Joshua
The Old Town of Fairview has always been my little mistress since I moved into the city, especially after becoming mayor. It's a town that never caught up to the Northern Virginia metropolitan way of life of big chain stores and restaurants and houses that all look the same except for the color. Old Town is two miles long with two streets that intersect with Main Street and Dominion Street. Main Street is aligned with small businesses, boutique shops, and pub-style restaurants. I like how the buildings are connected, but each has a different shape like Ryan's Pub has a flat roof, and its attached neighbor, Delia's Book Store, is pitched. In the warmer months, each building is decorated with brightly colored canopies. They aren't color-coordinated, but they all go together. Main Street has old fashion street lamps that guide you through the town in the evening. Dominion Street has row houses that belong to the older generation and are passed down to their children. They rarely are for sale. The houses are the same shape but are still unique. Each has a slight difference, like an ornate door frame that zigs and zags and curves around in black iron or perfectly white slatted shutters, real shutters, not just for show like the ones on my street. Some have a big bay window that protrudes out towards the sidewalk. In the evening, I like to walk down Dominion to peek inside and see what each family is up to. They always look so functional doing simple things like cooking dinner or watching the local news on a little mini television that sits on their kitchen counter. The windows are never covered; it's like the families want you to be a voyeur into their daily lives. Come look inside our happy home; it's not sterile or dysfunctional like yours. I always wanted to live in one of those houses, but Melissa wanted a single-family home with a yard, a typical piece of suburbia.
My meeting with the council members ended earlier than I expected. We were preparing for a pro-gun rally that was happening by the courthouse on Friday. There have been so many shootings in schools and on campuses. It was going to be intense. We needed the right amount of police to keep the peace, but emotions were running high these days. I didn't want a senseless shooting in my city; although, it would put me and this town on the map. If I handle the aftermath well and people see me as a father guiding them through grief and back to normalcy, I could get the right kind of notoriety that would put me back on a fast track to the United States Senate.
Hoping for clarity and some inspiration, I immerse myself in my little old town. I have to publish a statement about the gun rally tomorrow. Kids getting murdered in their schools is something you can't dismiss with Guns don't kill people; people kill people bullshit. I need to think this through. My city is primarily conservative, and they expect me to support them and their guns. If I give off the slightest impression that I’ve changed my stance on gun control, then I might as well turn in my keys to the city. I need to create the perception that I acknowledge the mass shootings, I grieve for the victims and their families, and I’m willing to take action. I could pressure the NRA to donate to schools, so each district can install metal detectors and beef up security on the school premises; that may be a good compromise. I know the NRA will ignore me, but at least I’m attempting to do the right thing.
I leave Dominion Street and continue my journey down Main. I stop at the town square where General Lee stands high upon a white pedestal overlooking the center of Old Town. I stare at him, hoping he will inspire me with just the right words to keep my supporters happy without alienating those on the fence, but nothing comes to mind. Maybe a cold beer will get my creative juices flowing, so I head to Ryan's pub, hoping ole Johnny will be there to give me some words of wisdom. As I make the short walk to Ryan's, I'm distracted by long black hair flowing towards me. My eyes try to zoom in more, and yes, yes, her skin is ghostly; yes, she has very red lips. She stops. Something has caught her eye in Delia’s Bookstore. She peers through the window; she doesn't see me coming towards her. My legs are heavy, like I have lead weights strapped to my ankles. Please don't move, Rose, please don't move. I try to walk faster without running. What would Rose be doing in the Old Town of Fairview? Maybe she's searching for a first edition of some sexually confused writer. I approach her; she doesn't see me. She is too occupied to notice.
"Rose! I can't believe…."
Rose turns towards me. "That's a pretty name," she says.
"I'm sorry, I thought you were˗"
"You thought I was Rose? Sorry to disappoint you."
She did disappoint me. I don't respond and continue my walk towards Ryan's. It's been at least twenty-five years since I saw Rose. She wouldn't look the same. She would have aged. This girl must have been the same age as Rose when she left me that day. She wasn't my Rose. My Rose is somewhere out in the universe, or she's dust. Lately, I've had various Rose spotting's or what I perceive them to be. It could be a flash of black hair lagging behind a creamy white face as it rounds a street corner on a windy day or the scent of grapefruit that drifts in the air when a woman enters an elevator. I immediately search, scan the area, make sure it's not Rose, and become a wreck when it's not. The other day, I grabbed a sandwich at the City Hall deli, and at the condiment station, I saw a napkin with a red lip imprint on it. It was just lying there by the mayonnaise. For a second, I thought it was a sign from Rose. I quickly scoured the deli searching for black hair and strawberry lips, but nothing.
Rose Umbra was not your typical young man's fantasy, and that's why she was so special to me. She was the first and only woman I thought about when she wasn't near me. She was a different kind of beauty. Not the fake tanned, blonde hair, blue-eyed, voluptuous Barbie doll I usually masturbated to, just the opposite. Rose had jet black hair, dark brown eyes, ghostly white skin, and was tall and skinny with just the right amount of ass. The only color on her face was her red strawberry lips. They were perfectly plump; they had to be so they could support the little black mole that resided above the left side of her top lip. I wanted to suck on her mole the moment I saw it. I would relive my moments with Rose as soon as I left her, trying to smell her on my clothes and on my fingers hours after she'd leave me, wondering if I turned her off that night. Did she still want me?
Rose was an enigma I could never figure out. I met her in an English Literature class, which I thought would be a great place to have a little snooze after an early morning of ROTC PT. But all that changed when the professor put Rose and me in the same small discussion group. We were discussing Edgar Allan Poe's, Annabelle Lee. The way she spoke about Poe's eternal love for Annabelle aroused me. It wasn't what she said but the way she said it. It was hypnotic watching her speak as her eyes rolled up into her head while her enunciations caused the little mole above her lip to dance. I hated literature, I hated Poe, but I fell in love with the way she spoke about literature and about Poe. All her little theories about the writings of a creepy dead guy hallucinating on bad drugs fascinated me only because they came from her mouth.
"It's in life that the woman in Poe's writings is seen as the weaker sex physically but morally is better than the man. And, she is only there to complete him. That's it. But in death, the woman is a vampiresque creature that titillates the man physically, and at the same time, wreaks havoc on his soul. I find it a bit ironic when she is dead, he desires her the most. She is more unattainable. What do you think, Joshua?"
"I think…um…what you said. That makes sense. Yea, I agree."
Rose would roll her eyes at my illiterate comments, knowing I hadn't given it much thought. But what she didn't know, or maybe she did. After the first few minutes of meeting her, I gave her more thought than I had ever given anythi
ng or anyone in my life up to that point. And just like the dead vampire women she talked so intently about; somehow, I knew she was made to haunt me for a very long time. She seemed so unattainable to me, and yet she was alive. Then, one night, as if the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe was shining down on me, I ran into Rose at the Ratskeller. She was sitting alone at a table with a pitcher of beer all to herself. She was watching the Madonna video, Like a Prayer, on the TV. Madonna's hair was dark in the video, like Rose's hair. I liked it. Finally, Rose was alone and outside of the confines of the classroom and getting buzzed off a pitcher of beer. What more could one horny asshole ask for?
"Are you going to drink that entire pitcher all by yourself?" I asked as I plopped myself in the chair next to her.
"I guess not," she said as she waved to the waitress. "Can you bring this frat boy a glass, please?".
"I'm not a frat boy. I'm in ROTC."
"And?"
"There's a difference."
"And?"
"I just wanted to point it out. I'm not a frat boy. I'm an ROTC cadet, trained to kill."
"Wow, okay, Frat Boy, whatever you say."
After killing two pitchers of beer and listening to her melodically pontificate about an author named Faulkner and a book about sex, jasmine, and incest, I knew I had to fuck her. I never thought I could get hard listening to her speak about incest, but her strawberry pucker needed to be kissed and bit. I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath. We left the Ratskeller and walked back to my dorm. We didn't speak; we just walked. She didn't ask where we were going; she just followed. It was the only time I led her anywhere. I made Rose wait in the hallway until I picked up my dirty underwear off the floor and made sure my roommate Teddy was nowhere to be seen. The coast was clear, so I let Rose inside and discreetly slid my ROTC bandana on the doorknob. Teddy knew not to come in. I didn't waste any time for fear of a ROTC rat banging on my door. I kissed her hard and cupped her bare breast.
No bra, I thought. Of course not; she was the type of girl that wouldn't let anything bind her, not even a bra. She fell on my bed and laid there staring at me with her deep, empty black eyes, expecting the obvious from me. I laid next to her and unbuttoned her silk blue blouse. I was impressed at the coordination of my fingers opening one button at a time as she lay still. I kissed her breasts, and she let me. Her nipples reminded me of pink pencil erasers I used to chew on in second grade. I gently nibbled on them, just like the erasures, and she let me. I didn't know what I should touch or lick or kiss next. I was overwhelmed by strawberry lips and erasure nipples. So, I stayed focused on the upper half of her body. Finally, Rose came to life. She squirmed as her hips raised, pressing and grinding into my pelvis. She pushed me down, directing me towards her waist; she took my hands and slid them down towards the inside of her jeans. She wasn't wearing underwear either. I could feel her fur, soft, so soft. My finger eased into her wetness, and then she moaned.
"Oh, oh, use your tongue down there," she whispered.
I wasn't sure; I never had. She pulled her jeans off and forced my head between her legs. I licked the outside of her lips; they were just as inviting as the ones on her mouth. Then she spread her legs. I felt wet silk and the taste of grapefruit on my tongue. I lapped up her juice forming inside, flowing down like drizzles of rain on a windshield. She groaned like an animal dying a slow and painful death. I couldn't breathe as she pressed my face against her. I was trapped happily suffocating between her legs. Finally, she released me. She laid silent. I wanted to kiss her, but she turned her head.
"Gross!" she said.
"Oh, sorry," I said as I caught my breath.
I would have drowned in her grapefruit juice if she let me. I went to the bathroom and noticed my cum in my underwear. I tried to clean up as best I could before walking Rose back to her dorm room. I didn't wash my face or my hands that night. I didn't want to lose the scent of Rose on my fingers and in my pores. I wanted her to linger with me as long as possible.
Rose and I never really became a proper couple. We didn't hold hands on campus; I never bought her dinner or another beer. We were fucking. I would come to her dorm room on Friday nights after I partied with my ROTC boys. A night of hazing, a night of beer bongs, then a night of nibbling on Rose's nipples. Sometimes she'd call me on a Sunday afternoon when Melissa was at the library. She wanted me to pleasure her, and I would. Eventually, I was allowed to fuck her. It wasn't that she prohibited me from fucking her, but she never really invited me to. After she came back to life from her slow, painful orgasmic death, she simply said, "fuck me, Joshua." I obeyed and slid my dick inside of her. She was tight, so tight; I came within seconds.
I fell in love with Rose that night, or maybe I realized that I couldn't live without her. But I was cut off. I became addicted and then immediately cut off. Rose didn't show up for English Lit the following week. I assumed she was sick. I tried to call her, but she didn't answer. I changed my daily routes on campus so every destination I had would pass by Rose's dorm, but no Rose sightings anywhere. I was getting desperate. I was pissed off. It was Friday night, and I needed to forget Rose. I crashed a Kappa Alpha frat party and hooked up with nameless, faceless sorority Barbie. She got me half hard. I wanted to forget about my longing for Rose, but Barbie's kisses only made me miss Rose more. I ran clumsily drunk to Rose's dorm, banging on her door. Melissa opened the door. Before I could get a word out, Melissa said abruptly, "Rose isn't here."
"Where is she?"
"She left school. I thought she would tell you."
I was confused and sick. I turned away from Melissa and puked in the hall outside of her door. Melissa brought me inside and gave me a Coke from her mini-fridge. I laid down on Rose's bed, trying to smell her scent while Melissa cleaned up my vomit outside her door.
"I feel so cut off," I said as my voice was cracking.
"It's like being offered a glass of rare small-batch bourbon; you take a sip, and it is smooth and so warm flowing to your gut; you want another sip, but before you do, you drop the glass, and it smashes to the floor. You ask for more, but it's too late, the bottle is empty, and you realize you will never find a bottle like that again."
"What are you talking about, Joshua?"
"Bourbon, I'm talking about good bourbon."
"You drink bourbon?"
"Once at the ROTC Ball"
"So, it was good then?"
"It was the best. It made me feel so warm inside," I slurred as the room began to spin.
The last thing I remember, I was sobbing, and Melissa was rubbing my back. I ended up falling asleep on Rose's bed with her pillow over my face. The next morning, Melissa nursed me with Ibuprofen and ginger tea.
"Why did Rose leave?" I asked.
I was surprised when I looked up at Melissa; tears were forming in her eyes as she took a deep breath and spoke.
"I shouldn't say, Joshua. It's not my place."
I could tell Rose's departure weighed on her.
"If you tell me, Melissa, I'll never tell a soul."
Melissa took another deep breath and stared at the ceiling.
She was quiet for a minute and finally continued.
"I had just finished my shift at the local food bank. I volunteer there every Thursday afternoon. Volunteering makes me feel like I'm giving back. My family, well, we are so blessed. I was exhausted from stocking shelves with canned foods. I have to categorize them by the type of food, vegetable or sauce; it's very tedious."
I was becoming impatient with Melissa. I didn't give a fuck about her empathy for the poor who are probably living off taxpayers' dollars and welfare checks; I didn't care about how she categorized beans; I didn't care she was a fucking saint; I just wanted to know why Rose left me.
"Okay, okay, Melissa, so what happened when you got back here?"
Melissa's eyes refocused on me, and finally, toxic words came dribbling out of her mouth.
"Rose's dad was here when I walked in…they were hugging or embracing or something.
Rose's back was towards me. It was just a flash, but what freaked me out was his pants."
Melissa paused as her forehead creased and her eyes squinted.
"His pants?" I asked.
"They were around his ankles…they were down. I'm not sure what I saw, Joshua. I'm not sure what I saw. I just left and went next door to Charlotte's. I didn't know where to go. I sat and watched the Cosby Show in Charlotte's room. I slept there that night. I never…I never told Charlotte or anyone. I came back the next day, and Rose and her stuff were gone."
"Rose and her own dad?"
"Yes, I know it's disgusting. I didn't know what to do, Maybe I should have helped her," Melissa cried.
I put my arms around Melissa and pulled her head towards my shoulder. My stomach began to churn again. This time it wasn't from the alcohol; it was coming to terms with the fact that I touched Rose's body, the same body her own fucked-up, pervert father touched.
"It's not your place, Melissa. She's already gone. You can't help her. She is already damaged," I explained as I took Melissa in my arms and rocked her until her tears dried up.
I'm glad Rose left without me knowing. I loved her so much I might have tried to save her. It would have destroyed me. She was twenty-one and still letting it happen. My mom was still my dad's punching bag. A victim revels in their victimhood until they rot away. I can't stomach another victim like my mother. I thought Rose was a different breed, someone who is unaffected, untouchable. I never thought Rose could ever repulse me, but within minutes, I went from craving her scent to wanting to scrub her off me. Holding innocent Melissa was like an immediate cleanse of my body and mind. I needed Melissa; she sanitized me, and I made a promise to myself I'd never speak or think of Rose Umbra again, a promise I would eventually break.
