Love in the time of sociopaths.
She hoped she could have this. She certainly wanted it. And, like Adam, she wanted children. She wanted a brood of hungry, whining, crying, loving children to fill up their lives, leaving no corners unfilled. Their children, she hoped, would bring them the intimate joy and happiness of family, normalcy and belonging that had so often eluded them both as children growing up. Perhaps she more than he, anyway.
Edward saw so much more of this reality than did she, Misti thought, especially about Adam. But Misti would now have to reassess even old relationships considering a new reality. Adam was her “now and future” world. Edward had done only as he promised but even he had never attempted to speculate beyond the day of their most recent reunion what might eventually come to pass in their lives.
What would happen now if Edward asked something of her that she knew would find no place in Adam’s newly and carefully constructed world? Misti would have to carefully consider that; on the ways of showing Adam a world he might not always care to see or wish to experience.
There had always been for Adam, as he had carefully explained to her one night, a simple approach to the world and its voluminous issues. Did it concern him, yes or no? If yes, then he paid attention in minute detail and with strict attention to implication, if he saw one. If no, then why the hell did he care? Sometimes Adam had to be dragged into category “yes” when he preferred remaining in category “no” but that was just the nature of Adam being Adam.
Edward and Maria had some influence as did both Cindy and Rod. None had much, though, and Adam was at his most difficult when he sensed he was being asked to leave the safety and security of his somewhat narrowly circumscribed comfort zone. Leading Adam from no to yes, or in any direction, would now become a “Misti” job and she had no practical work experience on her resume to suggest she knew how to manage the task.
She would do what she could but Adam’s stubbornness, even involving things he regularly enjoyed, was legendary. Of his many nicknames and descriptors provided by colleagues and associates over the years, few were complimentary, and few ever spoken in his presence. He took no offense at a colleague or employee who might, in anger and frustration, shout verbal insults or threats or call him the foulest, vilest or cruelest things. It’s not that he had such thick skin. It was simply that whatever they said, not attached to solving a problem, simply did not matter. It was white noise at worst and he sometimes enjoyed a little white noise distraction. Adam, she thought, in that regard was simply … odd.
He was now hers, this newly reconstructed Adam but what would that be like? Long term? She did not know and could not even envision their next day together, let alone a life filled with unexpected and unimaginable uncertainty. But Misti was prepared for the chaos they would create and the chaos they would endure.
They were outliers, she thought, in a world filled with great sameness, unrealized spiritual and material fulfilment and the many "lives of quiet desperation" Henry David Thoreau had once written about so profoundly and so sadly. It was that commonplace world they had each separately fantasized about growing up. The world of “them”. As children, it was appealing to each to want to melt into the great mass of the humanity seeking the anonymity they once believed could be used to protect themselves from themselves. And, occasionally, from the "others".
“Adam, I’ve been thinking about our new life together and some new experiences we may wish to explore. Together that is. I can help you explore new worlds, if you want to … and help with the arrangements, too.”
“What worlds and what arrangements? What disturbing thoughts have been seeping out of that truly disturbed yet nimble mind?”
“I was just thinking that I may want to get you a sparring partner. Maybe a couple of sparring partners, not sure just yet.” She smiled at Adam, her lips brushing his, the promise of more always present.
Adam was in this conversation but not reading the same script. “Sparring for what?” he said. “You seriously think I can’t defend myself? Even against you? You must be joking, kiddo.”
“Don’t be silly, Adam. That I already knew but there are other things too, other things we can explore. When we’re ready, of course. Together, just like you promised.”
“Like what?”
Misti’s voice and demeanor suddenly changed. Old Misti was talking now, in the low sweet tones she once only practiced for others but no longer found useful, save for the one man she would ever show that side to again.
“Adam, sweetest, there is so much I have always repressed and left unexplored for another time when it might be let out. When it was safe, and I wasn’t alone. I need to jettison my old Kabuki life and sort through the flotsam and jetsam of old thoughts, old ways and even old fantasies. The old life needs to be finally over, and our new life together finally begun. I have always wanted it so badly and now my perfect partner is here.”
Misti continued still cutting off Adam from talking. It was her turn to talk, to explain.
“Sweetie, I have my dark side, my demons for which there has been no outlet but my mind until now. I need to let them out on our playground and see what happens. Not all of them and not all at once but in time. You said last night that you would let me, in the fullness of time, if I was willing to follow your rules. Everything out in the open. But no more secrets, not like before. Never again, never.”
Adam said, “And you promised that you would always share whatever pops into your mind, from your deepest fears to your darkest thoughts, from your worst desires to your best instincts.”
“I did.”
“And one more thing,” said Adam smiling. “I know now that somehow I have always loved you, even before I knew it. Being together is essential for the life we must lead from now on.”
Misti was still not clear what exactly this meant. In the real world, that is.
She could not see what Adam saw, a complete, unique and fulfilling “other” life that somehow folded into and co-existed with an ordinary life she believed neither could bear. Misti saw only their deep and powerful roots, intertwined but constantly choked by the weeds of lesser minds, lesser lives and rules they could not possibly follow. Parts of their past would have to be left behind, she believed, even when it created the very pain they so often sought to avoid. She did not yet understand how Adam could ever believe that living among them could ever be the benefit he imagined.
Then, she recalled her most recent single night of terror and despair and she never wanted to experience those feelings again. Misti turned her attention to a luscious Adam, knowing he was always ready for playtime with her. A distraction for them both and a welcome relief from their recent tension.
“Do I need a shower, baby? I can be fresh as a daisy if you want? I can just be a minute.” She popped up quickly hesitating for only an instant.
Adam smiled appreciatively at Misti, then said evenly and almost quietly, as if he were thinking his thoughts and she could hear them in her mind.
“You know what Napoleon always said to Josephine as he marched home to Paris, do you not?”
“I do.”
“Then you have my reply. Now come closer, darling, we have much to discuss.”
Misti cuddled up next to Adam, feeling his heat, his passion and that something other she had yet to name. That Adam was damaged inside and not a wholly functional and normal human being did not trouble her in the least. That he could be psychotically violent was of zero import. She felt no fear of this new Adam or anything even remotely like it.
But she did feel the blood beginning to mobilize within her, giving quiet direction and suggestive hints in her own depraved mind. Later, when her own body fully re-awoke, she would connect her body with her lascivious mind, preparing to explore. Then she would release her mind, her inner self, her ‘evil twin sister’ as Adam liked to call that side of her. Together they would teach Adam a new game – one she doubted he had ever played before with any of
his previous props.
Even the one who loved him; maybe even the one who loved him still.
Chapter 56
Misti put her fringe thoughts of ‘the Hannah issue’ off to one side as she began focusing intently on the substance of what Adam had discussed with her. Hannah, a tiny and mostly irrelevant issue she would only have to consider sometime later, was, Misti thought, of no more consequence than a minor historical footnote. She consigned Hannah to "the world before Adam and Misti” and their consequential discovery of themselves. She wanted to believe that what she thought was true.
Edward had shared the necessity of involving Hannah in the project, an item that might have negative consequences for Adam, but one that also made Misti slightly uneasy. She was still stinging from the episode with the FBI guy and her emotions about losing Adam were raw. She did not want Adam to cross paths with Hannah, at least not without her in the immediate vicinity, watching carefully.
Misti would have to decide for herself what to do with Adam’s ex. Maybe she would just disappear. After all, it’s a dangerous world out there. Anything could go wrong and one day oops, no Hannah.
According to Edward, Hannah had only just begun her new role in the project and it was not without a modicum of danger. If she survived those tasks, which Misti had good reason to doubt, it was unlikely that their paths would ever physically cross anyway. Why would they?
Adam and Misti had been conscripted for other purposes, related and central to Edward’s plan of research, discovery, probe and resolution. Theirs was a wholly different path and Hannah was not on it. But why was Misti even thinking of Hannah and why did this woman trouble her so?
Edward had never promised any future for Misti save one – the one he had just made good on. She trusted Edward and had always believed, with almost religious fervor, that what he had promised her as a child, again as a young lady and finally as a grown woman would finally come true. And it had.
When Misti was eight years old, the old man had made promises she now knew he should not possibly have been able to keep. And yet, through some miracle or unknown artifice, he had. The rational side of her said it was dumb luck and even luckier circumstances. The emotional side of her wanted to go to Mass on Sunday and thank God. She settled on the former.
While there was no one in her life about whom Misti should have felt any lasting concern, she nonetheless had grown increasingly uneasy. Misti felt no physical danger and was exceedingly confident that she was infinitely more capable of harming others than they could ever be of harming her. There was only one exception which had always been, and still was, Edward St. James. He was an angel to her but then she had never personally witnessed his very real dark side.
There were stories floating around but the tias weren’t talking. Even her Mom, God rest her soul, would not say a word. And Misti’s mama viscerally hated Edward and would never cease her diatribes against him “and the rest of those vipers in Barrows Bay”.
Misti did not exactly fear him but his known propensity to win at all costs had to constantly be borne in mind. She believed Aurelia who once told her to be careful: Edward used people like tools and tools can be used and then discarded.
There had been a time when she entertained no thoughts of what evil this man could do. But that train had long since left the station. Misti had only begun to see the broad parameters of Edward’s handiwork but those parameters she eventually come to see. This realization was as much a cause of her disquiet as were the many revelations he had quietly and secretly shared with her over the years. And like so many other times when a first realization forms, it can be quite unsettling, especially when there is no turning back.
Misti believed she now possessed Adam and was fully committed to a life with him. And to Edward and her future life among the Clan St. James in Barrows Bay. But once those tiny little seeds of discomfort and disquiet are planted in our psyches, they can never be fully removed.
Never.
Chapter 57
“You seem a little distant, sweetie. Is everything OK?” Adam asked, as Misti’s mind suddenly snapped back to the present. “Was I too … you know, too much too soon?”
“No, no, not at all. In fact, I want you to explore this bold new you in every possible way. I find it, and you, strangely exciting - and hot. But this new and improved ‘you’ might require a little adjustment on my part. It may be a bit challenging at first, but I adore what you have shown me, even things new and uncomfortable at first.”
Misti added, almost as an afterthought, “You know, I don’t normally defer to men, even your Dad, so this new territory is likely to be a little bumpy for both of us. You gonna be OK with that?”
Adam said, “Indeed I am. Just know that I will never tell you what to do as if your life has suddenly become a collection of my decisions. We are both the same kind of creature underneath, but we are not identical twins. Whatever you have to offer me, I want; and I will take what you offer as freely as you wish to give it. When that stops working for you, even if it’s just to catch your breath, you just say the word. And if you tell me to slow down, stop or back off, I will. What I desire most from you is your love and trust whenever one or the other is required and as often as it is required.”
Adam put his arms around Misti, drawing her close. “Whatever you decide I should have of you is all I can ask. I hope I will never cause you pain or sorrow, but I think we both know that I will. So, a bumpy ahead road for us. Sure, I get that.”
Adam paused, thinking to himself.
“I know I’m a hard guy to please, difficult to be around, harder to love and maddening in my cold indifference to others. This is how I keep myself safe and the world at a distance and it’s been the part of me I’ve struggled with the most. I hope you’re OK with all this. It’s a lot. Me, Dad and the Barrows Bay crowd. Man, you definitely got the short end of the stick this time, that’s for sure.”
Misti drew back, looking up to meet Adam’s gaze, “You’re completely mad, of course. And quite probably some sort of dangerous and deranged sociopath. But I fail to see how I can institutionalize you when I’m still this horny.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“See that you do. Now, what else have we?”
“First, I want you to consider everything I have to say, including what I think has just happened. And how we deal with the others, family I mean, who will soon have some role in our lives. That includes my father, your mentor. I don’t expect that part to be easy for you, but it needs to be done and I think you know why.
“But my part in the future of us is also going to depend upon what I have yet to learn about my past, or perhaps, my family’s past. A lot has been kept from me from the time I was growing up right until this very day. So, I’m going to first gather everything, and I mean everything, that I can learn from you. You cannot hold back anything no matter how difficult or painful that may be – for either of us. I must be told. And that means everything about you, too. Everything. Am I clear?”
“Of course, darling. And will you do the same?”
“Yes, of course. I will share everything. I finally can, and it is a great burden lifted.”
***
Adam began “I understand that what we learned in the past couple of days has a special significance only we can understand. This includes everyone: family, friends, colleagues and literally everyone else we have ever known, liked or loved in this world. Save him, Dad, of course. I am somewhat less sure about him even though you are not.”
Misti shrugged vaguely, saying nothing, so Adam did not press.
He continued, “As I thought, so we’ll put all that bother off to one side while I catch up on all the details that have been so assiduously kept from me my entire life. By him, my family, my friends and my lovers … including you. But that changes right now, right this minute and there will be no more secrets, guarded sources, half-truths or partial answers to an almost correct question. I w
ill have everything you know, where and when you learned it and what you think it means. And I will have that starting today. This is the absolute bedrock foundation of our relationship and I must know everything, and I mean every sordid and nasty detail, its source and implication. Can you be her, that woman, for me? Answer truthfully because it means everything to me. Plus, you know I will get to the truth eventually anyway.”
Misti stared at Adam as if she had already shared everything about her deepest most private self and he still did not understand.
She began, “I should think you already know the answer to your question. I should also think by now you know I would rather die than leave you with the impression that I would, that I could, ever mislead you ever again. Or want to. Or that I would ever hold back anything you ever asked of me. I promise to tell you the unvarnished truth, if I know it. Beginning today, everything I know is yours to know. I reserve nothing about myself or my relationship to your father. I only require your love.”
“Then would you prefer to continue now or later, my love,” Adam suddenly asked. An hour had passed, and he was not unmindful of the expectation of her promise of more recreation. Misti style.
“Let’s bathe, eat and then … I’ve asked my evil twin sister to join us. You know, the slut. Do you mind?”
“Anything for family. You know me.”
Chapter 58
Adam began, “First, we must decide the best way for us to appear to the world as what we are as well as what we aren’t. Before we get into my thoughts on the matter, I’d like to recount a few facts, at least the ones I know about myself, just so I’m clear on our starting point.” Misti nodded as she sampled some nice chilled seedless green grapes.
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