by Laikyn Meng
MUFFLE
A Love like Luna’s
LAIKYN MENG
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product(s) of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or meant to lend credibility and authenticity to the story. The use of brand names and locations should not be read as an endorsement of this author’s work. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
18+ Mature content, explicit language and sexual content. Sensitivity warnings.
COPYRIGHT © 2020 LAIKYN MENG
THE ORANGE 9 PUBLISHING COMPANY LLC
COVER PHOTO
Photographer: Tanja Heffner
Model: Antonella Kinder
ISBN:
PROLOGUE
by Olallie Lovett-Krauss
I don’t speak any language except silence.
This is my mother's story. When I could not speak, she was my voice. Every time I turned to hear someone, she listened for me. In these chapters, I hope to do the same as she did for me. She let me be heard. So, if you can, open your heart to listen.
My name is Olallie Lovett, Luna Lovett was my young mother, within her, the universe existed and I was born. These are the pages she lived. Here she thrived, here she survived, ultimately where her demise was cataloged.
This is dedicated to my true mother, one who saw past my silence. Let the perseverance be real, that you were always the angel, and I was the mere mortal.
MUFFLE: verb. To wrap with something to deaden or prevent sound:
Chapter 1
LUNA
14 years old.
It was a number everybody thought as in-between child and adult. I tried to find myself at an age so young. My ears bled sound, the music rocked the powerful eardrums I wished to destroy.
14 was when I realized being different from my sisters, from my deaf parents, wasn’t a blessing.
That’s how I met Lennox Krause. He had elusive blonde hair that tempted even me. Not that I was a prize, but sometimes the unattainable become wanted in the worst kinds of ways.
I wasn’t shy about speaking up. In fact, I swore at a teacher the first time she threatened detention. I was a punk to be classified. To my mother, I was a shake of the head. To my father, I was a short standard to look over. My 3 sisters were in college, and by that time, they didn’t care to disciple me. They avoided trying to handle me, both sets of grandparents were hearing. The closer one becomes the default warden of a girl striking puberty.
Maybe they didn’t want to deal with the chaos I bathed myself in, the tantrums and loud melody. The older sisters thought I was bratty and immature. They signed to me horrible things, and I cussed back at them like slaps in their smooth Ivy League faces.
My grandmother was a rebel, and her husband was 20 years older. I saw what beautiful connection they shared, and I wanted it. Not fall in love with an elderly man, but to bridge the gap to have a companion, a loyal friend.
Knox knew two things about me. I was a radioactive spitfire, and I couldn’t be tamed. It wasn’t the challenge of killing the flame I forever would burn inside me. It was a similar spirit where he ingested as much excitement in me as I found in the vacant space. He distracted my anger toward the world with the scent of marijuana.
My first sexual experience with a boy wasn’t with him, but he introduced me to the temptation of touching girls. I got bored early on in life and lost some sort of holy virginity. Though many would complain and point the finger he did this, and I was young, he pressured me. If you knew me, I was the one who pushed people into doing things.
Desperate, not even close. Curious, there wasn’t a time I wasn’t. So, I slept with a king, and together we conceived a princess. Knox was 18 on the verge of 19. Something we didn’t tell people, to this day, my parent's sour mouthed scowl at my declaration had them rolling their eyes.
Look what Luna has done. First, my father signed it, flicking his hands, not meeting my direction. My sisters’ careers were the highlights in my mother’s and father’s achievements.
Eloise is a lawyer, Kaydree, the entrepreneur, and Alita, a professor. They were made of wisdom and substantial appeal. Their common bond was having the world on mute.
You could hear them exhale, I know they couldn’t acknowledge how it would affect me. Still, I heard it, when everything else was a shuffle of silverware, I remembered the deep sigh of disappointment—the name they took and transformed into a proper channel. There was me, a teenager who got knocked up because she spread her legs. Maybe it was the point of having another daughter that made it uncomfortable or the fact that she would not bring them much praise, being able to listen in a community where silence was a community pleasure.
There we sat at a dining room table with glass that sang and sparkled.
I wonder if only after the baby was born, they would realize another daughter had entered the world. One that was gifted their dilemma. It seems they saw a daughter who had been given to the wrong person. In the adolescent years, I gave up Olallie to Leslie and Ruben Lovett.
I sometimes look down at my hands and remember the weight of my newborn infant, foreign in my palms, as I passed her from my personal space into theirs, I plea with her to forgive me.
Random. Sporadic.
Knox didn’t come to the hospital, at this point in his life, he already fathered 3 children before Olallie. Kalonie and Calhoun; twins a year before her day of birth. Leonie, four years before that, and a toddler with beautiful strands of innocence. Rebecca, her mother, may have been the only woman to ever be kind to me and smile at me with sincerity. She was right when all I saw around me was wicked, she let Knox run wild. Even if she loved him, she always was thankful he gave her their daughter.
It was tragic, her slipping from life so quickly without effort. Soon the twin’s mother tried to stand next to Knox, gaining a throne in the wake of a fallen Queen. Rebecca removed herself from the world, and I think we were all in shock of not witnessing a shred of sadness on her face. She always smiled, her light shined like an unwavering lantern in the open wind.
How could I control that tragedy? This woman I had been hanging out with since middle school, removed herself from this world. I wondered if that was how easily pain came and went. Finding myself with the older the crowd, the closer I felt to freedom.
Chapter 2
ASHER
In a cold sweat, panic jolts me awake. I blink slowly, trying to make the images and memories fade. A hand raises to cover my busted ear, I turn my head away, feeling the warmth of another’s blood dripping down my arms.
“Where are the others?” Shouting, shouting, and the numb circles of a headache. As I let the terror control me and I sit in the middle staring at the ceiling, not knowing if danger is outside the door or not.
“Ash? Asher?” Denver calls from the living room. But I don’t move, hold a breath that is trying to run away from my fear.
“Give me a minute.” He does, not even knocking, and I turn to my side and place my hand to the wall. Remembering that my silence is a gift after a rogue explosive misfired.
“We got to head back to the base.” I nod and get up. I get dressed and stare at myself, and I want to punch the image. Br
eaking the glass, shattering the hopes of women who think they can fix me, heal my broken spirit by riding my dick or sucking the cum out of it.
For good measure, I smack a massive grin on my face and flip myself the bird.
“Well, what’s taking so long? Let’s go, asshole! I think you forgot to put on your eyeliner today, Denny.” I smack his shoulders, and he flexes in his suit.
“Still got those dildos shoved up your ass, Rainer? Don’t you know you need to take those out and sanitize? Damn, I still do not know how you do it.” He locks the apartment door, and our neighbors who are in lingerie lowkey check us out.
“We’re gay, no, thank you.” Smacking his butt as I flip my shades down over my eyes.
“Asher, are you ready for this meeting?” The doctor has his professional voice on, and I try not to throw a fit.
“We both know it was going to happen. Denny.” I flex my fingers out and let the tatted ink on my hands stretch to full-lengths.
“Be prepared, we will have to decide how to move forward.”
“You mean how I need to move forward. All you need to worry about is renting out the apartment. Got yourself set up somewhere in Texas, huh? Tell the old man I say hello.” His jaw locks, not permitting another word.
Flat roads laid out before us, the numbing buzzing in my ear grows louder the longer we spend in the car. I tap my ear a couple times, annoyed with the adjustment.
“Pull over.”
All he does is dart his eyes over to me as he leans to flick the blinker to the edge of the road.
Out of the car before the car entirely stopped. I’m jamming my wrist into my left ear, trying to beat the noise out and typical sound in.
“Fucking worthless piece of goddamn shit!”
“Doc told you not to mess with your ear, going to cause more damage.” Denver covers a flame to light a blunt. His cloud comes out, and I want to dissipate as efficiently.
“Den, I’m not pouring bleach in my ear. I’m nearly deaf as it is, why not just accept the inevitable and finish off the job.” I turn away, even though I know his lips are moving.
But I move further away, and his voice finally fades. There it is, the peace that erases the panic. It washes away the frustration, the anger. My knees dig into the dirt, fists plunge into the mud. Close my eyes, because fuck you world.
“Done with your temper tantrum?”
“Fuck you, Denver. Let’s get this shit handled, got beers at the local bar with my name on it, buddy.”
Chapter 3
LUNA
My grandmother at first thought that I was the miracle she spent years praying. She meditated to the bang of drums and strum of rock guitars, while her own daughter was born with immense hearing loss. Yet, she couldn’t keep up with the energy I possessed.
The parents I was born to couldn’t seem to control the sound I made. One they couldn’t hear. There were years where I spent the night in a bed that didn’t belong to me. It would be like playing kid sister to my boyfriend. It’s not that they were bad company. But just that they weren’t reflected as the best crowd.
An invisible field was created the day I was born. I stood on one side of the fence while my sisters and guardians held a length between us that couldn’t be penetrated. They smiled surrounded by their silence, I stared at them even at a young age and gulped down the fact that I wasn’t invited to the party. I think she resented it even more than I did, my own mother with annoyance in her eyes.
It wasn’t my choice to be born with echoes of noise. Yet, my mother put the punishment on me, I was to be blamed for the misfortune of a standard degree.
They would go on about their ordinary day, the successes, and my sisters were smiling at the list of achievements.
While I stared at my food, rapping along to a 90’s playlist, I found on an old mp3 in Knox’s garage.
Another mistake, there was a smack at the end of the table. I only lifted my head to notice that fingers had stopped moving and were shuffled into laps.
“What?” I asked out loud, vocally. But she pitched an eyebrow so high, I was surprised the ceiling didn’t crack. That’s when I raised both hands and brought them towards each other and asked what again. Only in a language she could read and understand.
She nodded and then came out with pointing the scowl, the remarks on my potty mouth. My mother led us to the bathroom, where I knew I was headed for the rest of the evening.
The bar of soap shoved so far back in my mouth I feared I would swallow it whole. Those eyes so demeaning as she folded her arms and her spine straightened, finally sorting out my ways. Her cheeks pinched, and her head shook. Guess she was reading my lips after all.
It was then at twelve I knew I would always be a disappointment, not just an outcast. I wondered if anyone would ever look at me with anything other than disgust.
Grades started slipping, and by 14, I found more friends, and they introduced me to other elements.
Who spoke like I did. In similar syllables, with cuss words that acted as a warm blanket.
Someone might wonder how I found myself in front of Lennox Krause. He didn’t really have a name for himself back at 19. But now his name meant wealth, demanded respect, entrusting loyalty. Back then, he was still selling weed to buy chocolate milk for Leonie. The prosecution might address the situation as kidnapping. I was the one forcing him to come with him.
To see past the child, I desperately wanted to be divided. The young man was a good head and a half taller than me. His blue eyes were beautiful. Stable in the platform, of a home I never knew.
At first, we were friends, nothing romantic escalated. Until the nights, my bed shifted, and his weight found its place next to mine. Holding me close to his beating chest. While I fell asleep listening to a foreign heartbeat, it started to become familiar.
There wasn’t love between our lips. We were two individuals desperate to be heard, for very obtuse reasons.
As he hovered over my body for the first time. Each pump, making me feel younger. Every thrust toward the crash landing, took away my age, my name. Until the final one, where I hoped it would make me disappear altogether. Commencing the idea of me extinct.
The shame on my mother and father’s face as I told them I was pregnant. Signing it out. Trying not to drag their precious time. They were dressed in suits and ties. Dresses and scarves. They looked so beautiful. So balanced.
Nowhere in their reflections could I find where I belonged.
I wondered how someone like me could have been created from two people so put together. I wanted to cry then. I wanted to be comforted in my mother’s arms. But I bit my cheek, and I tried to define my life. I had failed them once again.
There should have been a slap vibrating in her hand. A dirty insult that put me in my place. The Lovett’s shook their heads, one final time. Shoulders slumped down, and my father comforted the tantrum that my mother was crumbling toward.
“I’m sorry, so sorry.” For what exactly, I couldn’t tell you. It made no difference, they didn’t acknowledge the words.
Maybe the apology came from someplace more profound, a dark hidden agenda. I might have been giving my condolences of marks on their respectable reputation. It might be for the sleepless nights and endless drives to save me. Eventually, they stopped reading my messages, forwarding my needs to another place. Somewhere else, where they didn’t have to be responsible for my actions.
I don’t think Knox knew that Rebecca’s death also marked my 14th birthday. I don’t believe that when my back laid on his bed and he hovered over me, thrusting inside me the same way I wondered he did with Rebecca. I don’t think Lennox knew that a month before her funeral, I got my first period. He probably knew I was a virgin, and he was stealing my first kiss and my last innocent act.
It was two months later that I confessed to him, with glossy eyes from overwhelming tears. Knox’s were glassed red from a high, I only recognized as powder.
Where did the moon go?
&nbs
p; My grandmother use to ask that before bedtime. Where is my moon, Luna? Where has she gone? It was before I lost my light, she knew it was fading, and I would nod, knowing it was going to become dark soon—both in reality and metaphors.
“Hey, Luna! How are you doing this afternoon?” Lea, who was fresh out of college with her Master’s degree, when we started therapy at 15.
I was her first client, now it seems we are more best friends than therapist and underling.
“Blasted, I feel blasted.”
“Are you high?”
“Not anymore.” Haven’t been since I was a 14-year-old teen trying to be older than my maturity allowed.
“What are you referring to as being blasted mean than?”
“Fresh energy for a change. It might be excitement.”
“What have you been doing for work?”
“I got that freelance job working with vets who lost their hearing. Teaching them to sign with language skills and patience. Thanks again for giving me a reference.”
“How do you like it?”
“It’s something.” Refrain from overthinking about a situation that happened at a class today.
“Bothering you?”
“At times. Though it’s nice to see others suffering, not in a literal, I wish pain on other's way of thinking. More of an, I’m not alone in the world feeling.”
“You aren’t alone in the world. We all have bad days. We all find ourselves at rock bottom.” She continues to dust as we speak. It helps her cope, or maybe it helps me understand myself, the more verbal we become.
“There’s this man that I teach there.” This stops her, and she spins in her polka dot pinup dress. Her hair perfectly curled, and I wonder if I’ll ever have the energy to straighten mine.
“A man?” I roll my eyes.
“Yes, a guy with male features, and I am pretty certain he has the penis to go along with his muscles that seem to vibrate from his pissed-off beautiful body.”