The Perversion Trilogy: Perversion, Possession & Permission

by T. M. Frazier

  Her voice trails off as she walks away, her heels clacking against the linoleum until the chime above the station door rings and any sound of her presence is gone.

  The cell door is about to close again when Agent Lemming appears and pushes it back open, stepping inside with the same file from earlier. “Reach any conclusions with your lawyer?”

  “Yeah, that you’re a fucking prick,” I say.

  “Nothing I already don’t know.” He takes out a handkerchief from his pocket and tosses it on my lap. “For your head.”

  At first, I’m confused until Lemming points to my forehead, and I remember the blood from banging my head against the glass. I’m not surprised that Bethany didn’t ask about it. Concern isn’t her style.

  I hold the cloth against my wound, looking up at Lemming from under the fabric. “You here to play nurse, or you got something to actually say?”

  He opens the file and pulls out a series of blown-up black and white pictures from a surveillance camera with last night’s date stamped on the upper right corner. “Could she be the reason you think you were set up? If you were set up?” he amends.

  I look down at the first photo. It’s of the marine amphitheater, and it’s empty. I look up to Agent Lemming, and he nods for me to continue. I flip to the next one. It’s of Tricks, looking out over the water. The next one is me. I go from one picture to the next. It’s like one of those old-school, animated flip books, retelling the events of exactly what happened between me and Tricks right up until we kiss and disappear into the shadows, only to emerge again twenty minutes later and leave separately.

  “I assume by the curly hair that this is Marco’s rep. The one you were so quick to dismiss as a likely suspect?”

  “Didn’t want some girl being blamed for shit I know she didn’t do just because I wanted to get my dick wet.”

  “But she’s the only one who can give you an alibi, and yet you decided not to name her as the person you were with?”

  I shrug.

  “Why do you care about what happens to some Los Muertos whore?”

  My eye twitches with the repressed need to correct him by way strangulation.

  He takes the pictures from my hand and holds one out for me to look at again. It’s me and Tricks wrapped up in a kiss I can still feel on my lips, still taste on my tongue.

  “Not to be racist about it, but she doesn’t look like she belongs to Los Muertos. Unless they’ve started recruiting white chicks? I haven’t seen a single girl working the streets for them who looks like this, and believe me, at some point, I’ve seen and questioned them all.” He flips the picture back to me and takes another look at it. “This doesn’t look like some casual fucking encounter, either. This looks like…more.”

  Because it is more.

  “You’re just seeing what you want to see,” I say.

  Lemming glances at the photo. “You know, I’ve had my fair share of one-nighters. Some I even paid for, way back before I got into law enforcement. And I can honestly tell you that sticking your dick in a club whore and kissing them like are two very very different things.”

  I say nothing.

  He tucks the pictures back in the file. “Who is she?” he asks.

  Still, I say nothing.

  “Well, if you want to play that game, maybe you’ll be more interested in this one,” Lemming says, placing another sheet of paper in front of me. It’s a toxicology report. Belly’s toxicology report.

  “What the fuck is this?” I ask.

  “It’s a love note,” Agent Lemming deadpans.

  “Fuck you,” I say, slinging the paper back to him. He catches it and holds it up, pointing at a column that reads 220% after some scientific jargon. “And that’s supposed to mean?”

  “It isn’t supposed to mean anything. It means that Belly’s heart was recovering quite well after his surgery and that he was expected to make a full recovery.”

  “What are you getting at Lemming,” I demand. “Spit it the fuck out.”

  “Belly didn’t die of a heart condition. He was murdered.”

  Ten

  Dear God,

  I don’t know how to pray. I don’t even know if you are real or some over-the-top fairytale created to tell children so they wouldn’t stay up late at night worrying about what happens to us after we die. Which is what I’m contemplating now. Or rather, not what happens after I die but how to prevent my death. You see, it’s not the survival of my own body that I’m thinking about, but the lives and bodies of those I love. And I have to be alive in order to save them.

  My desperation has led me to this prayer, but since I have no clue how to get this message to you or what hand signals I’m supposed to use to get it started, I’m composing my prayer in letter format in my head.

  Forgive me for lacking formality as I’m currently tied and bound and do not have access to the use of my extremities, never mind pen or paper. Even if I was able to write it down and address it to you, I imagine that the post office won’t send me a letter back signed by God as they do with Santa Claus come Christmastime.

  This may only be a thought of a letter, but I hope it reaches you nonetheless.

  Wherever you are.

  If you are.

  I’ve heard that we are all your children, probably on TV somewhere or in a book. But if that’s true, then it’s a good thing. Because in this moment I’ve never felt more like a child, not even when I was one did I ever feel this helpless.

  Useless.

  Hope has poisoned me. I’m both tainted and cleansed by love. I’ve never hated clarity more because with clarity comes the reality that this will all end with suffering. My body isn’t my worry. I can take the pain. It’s the suffering of my heart I can’t bear. Because if anything happens to Grim or Gabby, it will be that very kind of suffering that will stop my heart from beating. It will be my true end. I can’t survive their loss. I can’t live in this world, knowing that the only two people I’ve ever loved are no longer in it.

  I don’t know how negotiations work with you, but I’d like to propose a deal if you’re up for it.

  Protect them. Please. Just until I can figure a way out of here. And I promise that I will handle it from there. In return, I can’t promise much. I can’t tell you that I will live a life devoted to you or that I will read The Bible beginning to end every day.

  False promises are lies, even if you mean them, and although it’s my specialty, lying right now wouldn’t be beneficial to you accepting this deal. Besides, I’ll need every single one in my power to get me past the Los Muertos gates.

  What I can promise is that if you protect them, I will love them with all that I am. I will not grow bitter with hatred or revenge. I will love harder. Stronger. Until my very last breath. It’s this love, the overwhelming, consuming, erratic kind I have for Grim and Gabby, that will lead me to do some things I’m sure will disappoint you. But it is love. It is more powerful than hate.

  Right now, it’s all I have.

  Protect them until I can.

  Please.

  Sincerely Yours,

  Emma Jean Parish

  I’m brought out of my mental prayer by a tugging at my arms.

  I glance up. My vision focus’s on an unwelcome face.

  Mona.

  She unties my wrists, and I instinctually rub at my aching limbs. She throws me some clothes. My own clothes. She must have sent someone to the apartment. I push through the pain and toss my favorite anarchy tank over my head and pull on my denim cutoffs. It feels amazing to be dressed again although the soft fabric feels like sandpaper against my bruises. I find a hair tie in the pocket of my shorts, and its sweet relief to pull my curls off my face and into a quick bun at the nape of my neck.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask.

  “What?” she asks as if she has no clue what I’m talking about.

  “Helping me. Hurting me. Both. Why are you letting him do this to me?”

  “Me? Allowing this?” Mona
shakes her head and wags her index finger at me. “This is on you. This is what spies get when they’re caught. Marco thinks of himself as a king, and you’ve committed the worst crime of all. Treason.”

  I shake my head. “No. I was doing what Marco asked me to do. I was getting close to Bedlam. Getting information on his behalf. To accomplish that I had to gain trust. Get close. I was a spy but not for Bedlam. For Los Muertos. For Marco.” The lie flows easily. I’ve had a few days to think about it and not much else.

  “Bullshit! What about the bus tickets you were caught with? You were trying to leave. To escape. Was that for the good of Los Muertos? For Marco?”

  “Did you see the bus tickets?” I ask.

  Mona pauses. “No. But...”

  “Then, you didn’t see the destination,” I say. “You don’t know where we were going.”

  “Why would I need to see where you were running?” Mona asks with a roll of her eyes.

  “Because, then you would know that we weren’t running away. Marco wouldn’t let Gabby come see you, but she missed you. She didn’t want you to come here and see what we were subjected to because she didn’t want you to worry or get involved and wind up here yourself. We weren’t escaping. We were coming to visit you.”

  It was sort of true. When I bought the tickets, I chose Coral Pines where Mona went to school. I knew how much Gabby missed Mona, and I knew Gabby would want to warn her away from Marco in person. That plus, it was literally the only other city where we knew someone.

  Mona looks at me silently, and for a brief moment, her features soften. The lines on her forehead smooth out. The purse of her pale pink lips straightens. It’s only a second, but it’s all I need to know that I’ve gotten to her before her scowl again takes hold and the lines are locked back in place.

  “You expect me to believe all of this?” she asks, waving her arms around in the air like she’s swatting at my words as they float around her head.

  “I don’t expect you to believe anything, but it’s the truth. What you do with that is up to you,” I reply confidently. “Let me ask you. Does Gabby know you’re here?”

  “No, not yet. I’ve been keeping a low profile. She’ll find out soon enough. When this is all over, that is.”

  “When what is all over?” I ask.

  “You’ll see,” she says. “Just be grateful I’ve kept you sedated for the last couple days.

  “Why?”

  “To allow you time to heal of course,” she says.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I say.

  “Oh, but it will.”

  “So, you keep saying,” I mutter at her vagueness.

  Mona thinks for a moment before tapping her finger on her chin. She smiles and heads for the corner of the room where she digs out a box from under a crate.

  “Do you know what I studied while I was in school?” she asks. She reaches into the box and pulls out a small black machine with wires and straps attached to it.

  My blood runs cold. The bitch is going to electrocute me!

  “No, I didn’t go to high school. I wouldn’t know.”

  “I was in high school, but I was also taking college courses. My field of study?” She chuckles. “Psychology.”

  Is that where you learned to be a psychotic bitch?

  Mona attaches a strap around my waist and pushes me down into a chair. I land with a hard thud, and my tailbone vibrates all the way up my spine. “This is a polygraph machine, otherwise known as a lie detector.” She places more straps around my wrists and sticks two round, plastic things with wires hanging from them to my temples.

  Oh shit.

  “It scans the subject and reports on changes in blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. All the telltale physical signs of lies.” She smirks and leans over me. “I’m going to learn the real truth, EJ. Not some bullshit you decide is the truth when it suits you. Right here. Right now. You were always a good liar, but you’re not that good. And you’re about to be found out for the traitor you are, once and for all.”

  She doesn’t say that she hopes I’m telling the truth. Not even for my sake. Her choice of words tells me that she wants me to lie. She wants me to be a traitor.

  She wants to hate me.

  “I’m not lying,” I grate, wishing an arsenal of men with guns wasn’t on the other side of the door, because if they weren’t, there would be a strong possibility of me pushing her out of the fucking window and making a run for it.

  Mona shrugs. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  She’s less than two years older than me and less than a year older than Gabby, but it’s her intelligence and bitterness that always made her seem much older. It’s the only thing that hasn’t changed about her. She looks years older than her nineteen years as she sets up the lie detector on a nearby table and gently adjusts the delicate needle like fingers atop thin graph paper. The needles leave a line of marks on the paper as it scrolls. She clicks a dial to the right. A small, red light blinks on the corner of the machine.

  “Last chance to come clean,” Mona states with her finger paused over a button.

  Blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. That’s what the machine measures. I take a deep breath and summon every skill I’ve ever had. This is a magic trick more daring than any underwater escape. I spy the gun on the table next to the polygraph machine.

  And even more deadly.

  I can’t just lie. I have to put myself in a place where I believe my own lie. Where it becomes my truth. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, I can feel my racing pulse slow from a gallop to a trot. I straighten my shoulders and stare right at Mona.

  “Go right ahead.” I dare.

  “This is going to be fun,” she says with a cluck of her tongue. She presses a button. “We need to start with some questions I know the answers to so I can set a guideline for your reactions. Answer yes or no.” She stands behind me, out of sight. I imagine she’s sharpening her knife on her tongue. “Is your name Emma Jean Parish?”

  “Yes.” The needles make a lazy swipe on the page, creating a wide U-shape.

  “Is Gabby your best friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Lacking the name of this town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you attracted to Marco?”

  “No,” I say flatly. The needles again makes a lazy U-shape.

  She snickers. “I can’t say I blame you for that one. He can be quite an ass. And his sense of fashion could use some work. Those baggy pants. Blech.”

  She’s trying to gain my trust by acting like we’re just two school friends having a little gossip. Mona might be a psychopath, but she’s a fucking smart one. Smarter than I’ve given her credit for.

  “It could be his pants,” I say. Then, I pause and snap my fingers. “Oh, I know, maybe it’s all of the threatening to kill me or whore me and Gabby out since we were tweens. Oh, and then there’s that whole tied-me-up-and-raped-me-thing.”

  Mona makes some sort of satisfied hmmm sound, disregarding the horrible truth of her brother’s actions like I just told her it was going to rain today. She wasn’t going to let it stop her. She was just going to get a fucking umbrella.

  “Okay, time for the good stuff.”

  She rounds my chair and takes a seat beside me like she’s moving from the nosebleeds to the front row. She doesn’t just want to see me sweat. She wants to fucking taste it.

  “Do you find Grim attractive?”

  I’m her friend. I’m on her side. I’m one of them. Magic is distraction. Illusion. Trickery of the mind.

  A mind fuck.

  Which is what I’m about to give Mona.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought for sure you’d lie about that one,” Mona says while leaning over the machine and marking the graph paper with a pen.

  “I thought the goal here was to be honest. You’d have to be dead not to think Grim is attractive,” I argue.

  Mona looks up and he
r eyes darken. “I agree. But, one thing at a time.”

  I chuckle because even though she’s threatening me, she’s not. I’m not Emma Jean Parish right now. I’m someone who would think that remark is funny. I’m someone who does all the terrible things Mona and Marco do and would follow them over a cliff to help them do it.

  She raises an eyebrow at me curiously, then checks the machine again before continuing. “Did you fuck Grim on the night of Belly’s funeral?”

  “Yes,” I answer.

  She claps her hand against her thigh. “Wow, this is getting juicy. Not even going to try and deny that one, huh?”

  “You want the truth. You got it,” I say. I don’t recognize my own voice. I’m outside of my body, listening to this other person speak, and it’s eerie but even more calming because whatever I’m doing might just work. “Marco ordered me to get close. I got close. Very close.”

  “It’s yes or no,” she reminds me. “Did you fuck Grim because you’re in love with him?”

  She’s breaking out the big guns.

  “No,” I hear myself answer, I even sound a little disgusted at the idea. The real me’s heart starts to split like a tiny break in a lake of ice at the sound of my own words, but I seal it back up before it can do any damage. My heart might be breaking, but it’s still beating steady. I’m not in love with Grim. I’m his enemy.

  The needles, thankfully, make another lazy U.

  I fucking got this.

  “Did you fuck Grim because you wanted to get close to Bedlam in order to extract information for Los Muertos?”

  “Yes. Well, and no. That reason and because he’s really hot,” I say.

  “It’s yes or no,” Mona chastises.

  “I thought you might want clarification,” I offer.

  “I don’t. Did you fuck Grim to gain his trust?” she asks, raising her voice. Her jaw tightens.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you at any time act as a spy for Bedlam?”