The First Stain

by Dakota Rayne et al.

  “Look, lady, I don’t know you. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His voice shook, and I knew he was lying. How dare he deny his feelings for me, after I had finally accepted them.

  “Don’t play that game with me, I know you love me,” I insisted. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a crowd forming around us. I didn’t want to be ogled at.

  “You know where to find me when you come to your senses!” I hurried away, noticing a few people had their phones out, ready to call, or perhaps already calling, the police.

  When I got home, I was shaking. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. What was happening to me? I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself but I only gagged.

  There was a sickly sweet smell of something rotting. I walked into the kitchen to make sure I hadn’t left any food out or forgotten to wash the dishes. Nothing. Maybe some unfortunate mouse had died in my walls. Great. I shuddered as I thought of the poor thing, dead, all alone, behind a wall.

  I tossed and turned all night, waiting for him to call me, to show up at the house. But nothing happened, and it made me upset that he hadn’t even had the decency to call me, to let me know he wasn’t coming. By that night, I decided to go out looking for him again. This time I really would only look.

  It didn’t take me long to find him. I just went to the bar he frequented and there he was, with another woman. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, after everything he’d gone through to be with me and now here he was, just turning his back on us.

  I waited for them to leave and followed. I almost lost them on the road, trying to avoid being seen. When their car turned into an apartment parking lot, I thought for sure I’d lost them. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles cracked and the dull ache turned into numbness. I should have known he’d go running to the first warm body for comfort. Uncontrollable anger began to take over my senses and I was able to hold it back enough to park and walk back to the parking lot they’d driven into. I needed to concentrate and make sure this was what I thought it was.

  I could see his car from the safety of the darkness. The windows were fogged up and I had to cover my mouth with my hand as I could imagine what was going on in there. I was glad it was dark. I could watch from the shadows without being found out. I caught a glimpse of his profile and for a moment it didn’t look like him, but I knew it was him. It had to be. I rushed back to my car, anger and jealousy eating away at me. All I could think about was how he had betrayed his love for me.

  He had said it would be for always, that there was no one else for him. The numerous voice mails, e-mails, and love letters only served to confirm what he shouted at me outside my window. I had rejected him, after letting him in and allowing him to share my life for a few months, I had just hung him out to dry. I could see that now. I could see how much he loved me, and I had begun to believe him until now.

  I drove home in a daze, not quite sure what I was supposed to be feeling.

  As soon as I walked through the front door of my house, the smell hit me hard. It hadn’t been this bad just last night. I knew it had to be a rat not a mouse, not with the smell as bad as it was. Great, I was going to have to call someone out to check. The thought of having a little dead body entombed in my house gave me the creeps.

  I walked through the house to the kitchen where the smell was worse than anywhere else in the house. I could see that. I mean the dishes hadn’t been done and there were numerous take-out containers strewn about. The sink had been empty last night. Hadn’t it? I wondered as I stood frozen.

  A seedling of a thought tried to push into my consciousness and I plucked it away before it had time to flower. I looked down at the sink and sighed, wondering if I’d ever have the energy or time to actually wash the dishes. Maybe I should just throw them out.

  It was barely light out and I was standing outside the apartment building where I’d followed Sam and his whore. How had I gotten here? I looked around, hoping to find some clue as to how I’d arrived there. I didn’t see my car. The wind cut through me and I glanced down at myself to see that I was in my pajamas. Not even my flannel ones. I looked up in time to see Sam staring out the window. I smiled and waved. He tentatively waved back, a confused look on his face. It threw me off. I wondered if it really was him. It had to be.

  “Hey! You thought you could just find someone else and I wouldn’t find out?” I yelled at him, rage suddenly coursing through my veins. That got a reaction out of him. He disappeared from the window. A few minutes later he was standing a few feet away from me. He didn’t look like Sam.

  “I think you have me confused with someone else.” He seemed concerned.

  “You’re trying to pretend you don’t know me now?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “I’m not pretending. Please leave. I saw you here last night. If you don’t leave I’ll have to call the police.” His face shimmered and it wasn’t Sam.

  It. Wasn’t. Sam.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I swallowed my embarrassment and slowly shook my head. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” I took a couple of steps back before turning around and running away.

  I ran all the way home, trying to ignore the looks from the people that I ran past. I hadn’t run that fast or that far in years, I was out of shape and out of breath. I didn’t even have to open the door, I had just left it open when I’d left. When had I done that? I felt my grip on reality slipping. I closed my eyes and the door, taking a deep breath and instantly wishing I hadn’t. The smell was way worse than before. I gagged as I scrambled through the house. I was determined to find the cause of the smell. As I was walking past my phone, I glanced at my answering machine and noticed the little red light blinking up at me. A message. My heart nearly stopped as I wondered if it was from Sam. I reached out, my hand shaking, and pressed the button.

  “Hey Ash, this is me. Your sister? I was just checking in on you. It’s been almost a week. Last time we talked you were worried about Sam, that he’d turned into a crazy stalker guy. You haven’t called me back since, now I’m worried. If I don’t hear back from you, I’m coming over.”

  I stared at the answering machine, not quite understanding her. Sam? A crazy stalker guy? I needed to call her back, find out what she was talking about.

  A hazy picture of an angry face popped into my mind, a screaming match and then darkness. I held my head in my hands as I dropped onto the floor. The putrid smell was stronger down here and brought up bile.

  Flashes of a night a week ago, of indescribable terror and then relief, swam to the forefront of my mind. The truth teetered on the edge of my sanity. I tried to stop it, but in the end, it was useless. The night came rushing back, all the fear I’d felt, the taste of terror lingering in my mouth.

  He had pushed his way into what had once been our home and tried to force me to acknowledge feelings I did not have for him.

  “I know you love me! I can see it in your eyes, I know it. Why can’t you just admit it?” His plea had fallen on deaf ears as I tried to put the kitchen table between us. I wasn’t sure what he was capable of anymore.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t love you. I told you that already! How many times do you want to hear it?” I had screamed at him, trying to break him out of his delusion. It only seemed to make it worse.

  “Ash, c’mon, you’re lying. I know you love me. I know I’m the only one that can make you moan the way you do. Really, who else is going to have you? Have you looked at yourself?” He smirked at me from across the table.

  I shook my head, not wanting to believe what he was saying. My self-esteem had been battered by his demeaning words all through our relationship. Who else was going to have me? That had been the one question I had asked myself repeatedly, the one question that had held me back from breaking up with him.

  “Oh, so you did find some sucker to leech off of. That’s why you kicked me out. Who is it? Why do you like him more than me?” The heartbre
ak in his voice almost made me relent, but I saw him sidling around the kitchen table with amazing quickness. “Let’s see how he likes you when I’m through with you,” he snarled as he lunged at me.

  I watched my hand act on its own as it reached for the carving knife on the counter. His fingers grabbed my arm and swung me around to face him, and that’s when it happened.

  The knife plunged into the softness of his belly.

  At first, he didn’t even seem to notice what had happened. He took a couple of steps towards me and wobbled. He looked down at himself, and seeing the knife embedded to the handle in his body, he took a step back. He stared at me, his eyes begging for an explanation, and I lost it. I yelled and lunged at him, tearing the knife from his body and ramming it back in, again and again until he fell on the floor with me on top of him.

  The sudden stillness of the kitchen was broken only by the ticking of the refrigerator. It was as if nothing had happened. And that’s what I believed until now. The lump by the door wasn’t dirty laundry or garbage.

  It was a man. Everything slowly went dark, like a dimming of the lights in a theatre, and I was swallowed up by a comforting silence.

  My sister was crying. I could hear her sniffling and I slowly opened my eyes. She was sitting on the floor next to me, holding my hand.

  “What happened?” she asked, pointedly staring at the smelly lump by the back door.

  I just shook my head. I couldn’t answer her, I still wasn’t sure. The memory of what I’d done to Sam was still fresh, but I didn’t want to believe it. If that was Sam, lying on the ground by the door, then who was the man I had followed? Who had I stalked? What else had I done?

  “Did he hurt you?” my sister asked.

  I could see the concern in her eyes, the corners of her eyes wrinkling in thought. I figured I should at least answer her, put her out of her misery. “Not physically anyway, although . . . I think he would have,” I said. I shuddered at the memory of the look in his eyes as he had rounded the kitchen table coming after me. He would have.

  “I’m glad it was him and not you,” my sister said as she stood up and headed toward my phone. I closed my eyes and let the quiet of the dark overtake me again.

  There were sirens. I opened my eyes and the first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t at home anymore. It looked like the apartment building I had followed Sam to the night before. My throat felt raw and there were people gathered around. I shook my head and tried to remember what I had done. There was a big black nothing. My sister was the last person I remembered seeing. Where was she?

  “Miss,” the officer addressed me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, spying Sam watching me from the window of one of the apartments. But wasn’t Sam dead on my kitchen floor? I closed my eyes as I fought to remember what was going on.

  “That’s what we want to know.” He seemed nice enough.

  “What am I doing here?” I asked, hoping someone would tell me.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I remember my sister at my house . . .” I drifted off because what could I really tell him?

  “Where is that?”

  I hesitated to tell him my address, I wasn’t sure why. I had a dim memory of my sister on the phone and then nothing. I could feel something wasn’t right, that I had done something.

  “Miss?” he asked, breaking me out of my shocked trance.

  I told him the address and watched his expression change from pity to concern. I knew I’d done something I would regret once I found out what it was.

  “Come with me,” he said as he led me back to his police car.

  “Is my sister dead?” I asked. I shuddered as I heard my voice. It was flat and emotionless. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Was I dreaming?

  “No.”

  “Good.” I meant it. Whatever I’d done, I was sorry. I glanced towards Sam’s apartment and saw him watching me. I wondered if I was going to be arrested and if he would come see me in jail. I felt a smile tug at my lips as I could see what he meant now, about loving me forever.

  Cristina Romero

  About the Author

  Cristina is a writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been spinning tales for as long as she can remember. At the moment she shares her life with a pack of dogs and the characters in her mind.

  Her previous works can be found on Amazon.

  Sirens

  By Mileva Anastasiadou

  I swear the day Dad died was the day I grew up, as if I ran out of youth, or better, as if my youth was violently stolen. Not because I miss Dad and all, I’d never been his princess or had the kind of relationship girls are supposed to have with dads; I know full well Dad wasn’t a person anyone would miss. I only miss him cuz he did the job instead of me.

  The job is legal, but like many unethical jobs, it’s still bad and everyone knew that Dad took advantage of people. Mom would roll her eyes, claiming that’s what everyone does. It isn’t unethical or anything, she'd say, since we pay people and they’re grateful. Those people would starve if it wasn’t for us, she’d claim.

  I’d say that, in a perfect world, our job would be useless, cuz there wouldn’t be starving people.

  Good thing we don’t live in a perfect world, cuz we would be the ones starving then, she’d reply.

  That makes sense if you’re my mom, yet it doesn’t make sense at all if you’re an even slightly logical person.

  Ever since Dad died, I’ve been stuck. Mom says I’ll get used to it, cuz it’s a good job which makes good money, yet it’s already been a year and I still feel trapped.

  Sure, I found Alex and love, but I’d pleasantly exchange Alex for my old life, should I have the chance, and Alex knows I would and that makes him sad, although he knows well that I’ll never have the chance, so his disappointment doesn’t make sense at all. There are so many things that don’t make sense lately and Mom says that’s part of growing up, yet I don’t understand; shouldn’t life make more sense with time?

  Mom doesn’t like Alex either. She says I should aim higher. He’s a good customer, I tell her, which is a good argument against him, she claims. He’s either starving or a burglar, and she’s not sure which is worse. That’s how I met him; I mean, if Dad hadn’t died and all, we’d never have met.

  He had brought some expensive jewelry two days after Dad’s funeral, when I took over the business and was still at a loss. He searched for Dad the moment he walked in, and I feigned confidence, like I knew what I was doing. Mom told me to swallow my doubt, until I don’t have to pretend anymore. That’s what your dad would do, she said. I’m not Dad and I don’t ever want to be him. I’m not good at pretending. Alex saw that and realized I didn’t have a clue.

  Mom took me to a therapist who said I suffer from depression, probably triggered by Dad’s passing.

  I mentioned that I didn’t like the business I inherited, but he didn’t pay attention in the beginning. He explained that not enjoying my work routine was a typical sign of my condition. I claimed it wasn’t a sign, but a cause, and he rolled his eyes, like Mom usually does. Like he knew better and my words were of no importance.

  Then Mom said she realized that it’s a tough job for a girl and I was offended and that’s why I tried harder to imitate Dad and prove to Mom I could do it. This doesn’t make sense either—trying hard to prove something I don’t want to prove sounds like a contradiction, like wishing I’d never met the person I claim I’m in love with.

  It’s always dark when customers arrive. We’re open all day long, yet most customers prefer darker hours, as if they feel awkward or ashamed stepping in and it’s my job to make them feel at home, like it took them too long to make up their mind and come to me for help.

  If they step in, they definitely need the money.

  So, my job isn’t that hard. Like the mythical Sirens, I lure with comforting words to give away whatever is dear and valuable to them, to surrender those items and feel at ease.

 
Some bring their own stuff, but some stuff is stolen. The burglars are the most confident customers, I’ve noticed. It’s not their stuff they’re saying goodbye to. They’re not sentimentally attached and so they have nothing to lose.

  I inspect the items, value them and suggest a price. They’ll be safe here, I tell the customers and I keep their items for a day. Maybe two.

  Then I sell them at a better price, for I know people are not in a position to come back and get their most precious possessions. They never do.

  Alex brought jewelry in from time to time, before we fell in love. In the beginning he said the items belonged to his folks and I believed him. He made up a story about his folks, about how sick they were and how they had no money; about how they needed medicines, which were expensive, and about how hard he worked to help, but he still couldn’t afford to meet their basic needs, so he came to me for cash to buy food and medicine.

  It wasn’t totally a lie, he later confessed. His parents weren’t sick, but that didn’t matter much, and they ran out of jewels at some point, and he had to do something.

  So, he started stealing stuff. Mom says he should have found a decent job, but I know well there aren’t many decent jobs available.

  Well, Mom says, stealing isn’t a solution, which is true of course, yet the way she says it, feels like she thinks Alex doesn’t deserve a life if he can’t afford it. That doesn’t make sense either, like many other things.

  Anyway, Alex says he wants to be a writer and I believe he must be good at storytelling, considering the lies he fed me about his supposedly sick parents.

  No really, he says, there are thousands of stories bursting inside of me, waiting to be unleashed.

  Like vomit? I ask.

  He nods and vomits another story about his undying love and how he’d do anything for me.