by John Everson
“Yeah, probably,” he said. “She’ll go four or five hours sometimes.”
“If you want, I can get up with her later,” Regina offered, and then tilted her head quizzically. “That is, if you don’t mind me sleeping over?”
Austin’s eyes opened in shock. “Well, you’re not going home after that!”
“Good,” she smiled. “Because I really don’t want to.”
She sat up in the bed, and the sheets fell away from her. Austin admired her in the moonlight as she slipped her legs onto the floor.
“Let me just take care of one thing and I’ll be right back,” she promised, and then grabbed her handbag and disappeared into the bathroom. Austin heard the faucet run a moment later. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, flashes of their lovemaking playing back in his head.
* * *
In the bathroom, Regina sat down on the toilet and opened her bag. She withdrew a tiny plastic jar and a thin wooden spoon. She set the jar on the countertop next to her and then pressed the wooden spoon between her legs. She closed her eyes and wiggled it deeper between the folds before withdrawing and holding it up to the light.The spoon glimmered with a pale milky white payload. She smiled and fingered the slippery substance into the jar.
Regina repeated the process three more times until she was satisfied, and then she put a lid on the small jar and returned it to her purse before finally urinating and washing off her hands and the small spoon.
She took a long drink of water, and stared into the eyes that looked back at her from the mirror. They were filled with a golden fire, and a thin smile woke the corners of her mouth. Then she nodded with satisfaction at her reflection and turned out the light.
Austin was already almost asleep when she slid back beside him in the bed. She touched his cheek and he moaned softly in appreciation.
“Sweet dreams, my prince,” she whispered.
Chapter Ten
Austin woke on Sunday morning to the smell of bacon. His stomach instantly rumbled in anticipation. He pulled on his navy-blue University of Illinois shorts and a gray T-shirt and after brushing his teeth, walked down the hallway to check on Ceili.
Her crib was empty, so he continued downstairs to the kitchen.
Ceili was sitting bright-eyed in her high chair. Her hands waved anxiously in the air when he entered the room.
“Hey there, baby girl,” he said with a smile.
“I haven’t been called that in a while,” Regina said from the stove behind him.
He turned and laughed. “I meant Ceili, silly.”
She faked a hurt look with downturned lips and eyes, and he shook his head. “But you’re a beautiful big girl,” he said.
She put a hand on her hip. She’d clearly been in his closet this morning – she wore one of his Chicago Cubs World Series T-shirts and from the way it draped her body, she apparently wore nothing else. It hung halfway down her thighs, but somehow looked as sexy as lingerie on her.
“Big? Are you calling me fat?” she asked.
“Not in a million years,” he said, and slipped one arm behind her to draw her close for a kiss. She allowed him one quick peck but then pushed him back. “You’ll burn the bacon,” she complained. “Go sit down.”
She had already set the table with plates and glasses of orange juice. After she stirred the frying pan, she walked over to the table with a pot of coffee and poured him some in the black mug near his plate.
“Damn, full service,” he said.
“You shouldn’t swear in front of the baby,” she said.
Next to him, Ceili cooed and slapped her hands against the high-chair tray, sending a cascade of Cheerios to the floor. It was as if she knew that Regina was talking about her.
“I’ll try to behave better,” he said, stroking the soft blond curls on Ceili’s head. The baby’s eyes lit up and she grabbed with tiny fingers at his arm.
A moment later, Regina carried a frying pan to the table and spooned out a pile of scrambled eggs onto both his plate and an empty one next to his. Then she put the pan in the sink and returned with a plate of perfectly crisped bacon strips. He reached out and took two with just a little bit of pink tenderness still left in them and a white ruffle of fat on the ends.
“I could get used to this,” he said, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth and then moaning in appreciation. “I love onions and cheese in my eggs,” he said a moment later. “I didn’t even know we had any cheese left!”
Regina smiled and crunched a strip of bacon.
“So, you didn’t mind me sleeping over?” she said finally.
He shook his head. “You can sleep at my house anytime you like.”
“I might just take you up on that,” she said. “I am going to have to leave you after breakfast though. I’ve got some things I need to do today.”
Austin finished chewing a mouthful of eggs and asked, “Will I see you later?”
“Do you want to see me later?”
He nodded eagerly.
Regina smiled, and took a sip of orange juice. Then she suggested, “Since I made breakfast, maybe you can burn us some meat on the grill tonight.”
“It’s a deal,” he said.
After breakfast, Regina disappeared upstairs and returned a few minutes later wearing the dress she’d had on the night before and carrying her thin leather sandals. She kissed the top of Ceili’s head and then did the same to Austin’s. She pulled away before he could draw her into a real kiss.
“I’ll be back to check on my babies later,” she said. “Be good.”
Austin walked her to the door. He was still standing there when she reached the porch of the house next door. She waved, and then disappeared inside.
* * *
Regina crossed the dusty family room of the house next door and walked straight to the kitchen. The room was bare; the counter tops were empty of dishes or clutter, and there was a breakfast nook that was meant to hold a small table, with a bay window facing the back yard. However, the nook was empty of anything but dust.
She opened the white-painted cabinet doors above the sink. That space was not empty. Regina shuffled some things around until she found the bottle she wanted. She set it to one side and then brought down a small satchel and another jar filled with brown leaves. She jammed it all in her handbag and walked through the kitchen to another room down the hall. When the house had been built, the room had been intended to serve as a bedroom.
But now….
The room was empty but for one thing on the far wall. An altar. The one window to the outside was shuttered, and so the altar hid in gray twilight. Regina quickly resolved that. She picked up a pack of matches and walked about the room lighting the three candles in each corner – black tapered stalks that rose from candelabras set on the bare wooden floor.
At last, she lit the thick blood-red candle in the center of the small wooden altar. The guttering flame reflected on the golden crucifix suspended upside down from a wire tacked in the ceiling.
Regina reached into her bag and retrieved three bottles, the satchel and the jar with the semen she’d rescued the night before. Then she walked back to the kitchen. In the bay window, there was a small terrarium with several plants growing inside. She reached in and pinched off a leaf of Atropa belladonna, better known as deadly nightshade. Then she picked up a small pot that held a Venus flytrap and returned to her special room. She set the plant on the altar and withdrew the wooden spoon from her handbag. Carefully, she unscrewed the top of the jar, and withdrew a small string of semen. She held it over the open mouth of the flytrap plant, and the mucous-y strand soon elongated until a large drop released from the spoon and fell into the mouth of the plant.
The flytrap snapped shut, its green ‘fingers’ gripping and hiding the residue of Austin’s lovemaking like a prisoner.
“Only in the darknes
s can we see the light,” she whispered. With her fingernails, she severed the closed leaves of the trap. She placed the severed pod in the small brown satchel, and then dropped in the nightshade leaves along with a pinch from a jar of white bone powder. The label on the jar read Carolyn. She crumbled a brown stem and leaf on top of that, and then walked to the side of the altar where she retrieved a tall thin plastic cup, the kind joggers and bicyclists carry to stay hydrated. Only this one wasn’t filled with water. The plastic inside was beaded with moisture at the top from condensation and a long thin red thing smeared against the plastic. Regina didn’t hesitate, but retrieved the used tampon, and held it over the satchel, squeezing at the bottom of the tube until two crimson drops from her last period fell into the bag to coat the leaves.
She wrinkled her nose at the odor, and then returned the tampon to the jar, screwing the lid back on tight.
“Only mine,” she spoke softly, and then said several words that sounded ancient and filled with arcane meaning. Then she held the satchel up to the feet of the figure on the upside-down cross above the altar.
“Mine for eternity,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
“How would you like to go out to a real club tonight?” Regina asked.
It was Friday night, just three weeks since Angie’s death, but his past life already seemed like another life.
“I guess I would,” Austin said, unbuttoning the first and second buttons of his blue dress shirt. He had just walked in from the garage and couldn’t wait to get out of his work clothes and start the weekend. “But I didn’t think Parkville had a real club. And…I didn’t set up a babysitter.”
“It does, and I did.” Regina smiled. “I plan ahead, you know?”
Austin laughed. “You’re amazing. Let’s do it. I am so glad this week is over. I want to celebrate.”
“Perfect. I already asked Brandy if she could come by around seven. She loves Ceili. We could grab something for dinner and then head out from there.”
“I’m in,” Austin said. “Out on the town twice in one week? That’s crazy talk!”
“Let me go home and change,” Regina said. “I’ll be back in a few.”
* * *
The doorbell rang a half-hour later, and Austin answered the door with Ceili in ‘burp position’ on his shoulder. Brandy stood outside, wearing black lounge pants and a Taylor Swift concert T-shirt.
“Hey,” she said. “Regina said you needed me.”
He nodded. “Yes. Come on in. I guess we’re going out.”
“You guess?” a voice came from just beyond the hedge. “I thought you wanted to go out. Cuz, if not, I suppose….”
Austin shook his head anxiously as Regina stepped into view. “I do, I do,” he insisted. “And, by the way, you look amazing.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said, stepping onto the stoop.
Regina wore one of her trademark blue and purple paisley dresses with intricately strapped brown sandals and silver earrings in the shape of the moon. Her hair was pulled back and twisted into a bun, making her cheeks look thinner than usual. There was a hint of rouge on her face too, and maybe mascara; her eyes looked sleeker than he was used to seeing when he walked in after a long day at work.
“You clean up good,” he pronounced.
Regina stepped past him and into the house. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special,” she said.
Austin followed her back into the family room, where, when he entered, Regina was already giving Brandy instructions for the night. He suddenly felt like the ‘extra’ instead of the ‘head’ of this house. And yet…it was comfortable to have Regina taking control. It took some of the pressure off.
She turned and took the baby from him, kissing Ceili on the head as she did.
“We should be home by two,” she promised. “Text me if you have any questions, okay?”
“Wow,” Austin said. “We’re staying out until two?”
Regina shrugged. “Keeping our options open!”
She started walking toward the door and Austin said, “Hang on, let me grab my keys.”
She shook her head. “I’ll drive this time,” she said. “Beats giving you directions.”
He raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t even realized that she had a car. Stupid, but he’d never seen her drive one.
“Just call me a kept man,” he laughed.
Regina only nodded. “I’ll take care of you.”
Regina drove them to a part of town that Austin had never explored, which was weird, because Parkville really wasn’t that big. But once they crossed over the freight train tracks and weaved through a few twists into an old brick-housed subdivision he’d never turned into, Austin found that he really didn’t quite know where he was.
“There’s a little Asian place here that is really amazing,” Regina said. And a moment later, they pulled into a strip-mall parking lot near a sign that promised a Joyful Plate.
“Sounds happy,” he observed.
“Joyful Plate is not a joking matter,” she warned. “This is seriously good food. And if you don’t think so…we might have to reevaluate our relationship.”
“Wait,” he said. “We have a relationship?”
She slapped him.
* * *
The food was as good as she had suggested. Austin ordered the Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles), which came beautifully colorful with yellow baby corns, white onions, red peppers and fresh green basil mixed throughout wide rice noodles. The flavor was intense and amazing, and he moaned in pleasure at the first bite.
Regina had a yellow curry with chicken, which he also tried. His eyes widened at the flavor, and he shook his head.
“How have I lived here for over a year and never found this place?”
“Look around,” Regina said quietly.
He did and grinned in acknowledgement.
There were six tables and an equal number of booths in the restaurant, and four of them were empty. The rest were filled with Asian customers. They were the only white people there.
“Point taken,” he said. “It’s apparently a family secret.”
“You can thank me later,” Regina said.
He drank the last sip of his Thai iced tea and said, “I’m ready to thank you now.”
She shook her head. “Our night is only just beginning. Are you ready for the main event?”
“After that meal, I’m probably ready for a nap,” he said.
She pursed her lips and gave him a bitter raspberry. “It’s the weekend,” she said. “Try to keep up.”
A quiet, thin Asian girl arrived at just that moment with the check and bowed slightly as she set it on the table in front of him. Austin nodded in answer without thinking and dropped his credit card on the black vinyl check holder. It disappeared a moment later, as he was busy tearing the wrapper off his fortune cookie.
“You will see things you have never thought to see,” he read. “Magic numbers 6, 13, 52, 15.”
Regina smiled. “Mine says, ‘There are those who would say stop. But you must always go.’”
“I like that,” he said.
“I suspect a guy wrote it,” she said. “What do you think, are you ready?”
He signed the receipt and nodded. “Take me to the party,” he said.
* * *
It had not quite been sunset when they’d walked into the Joyful Plate, but it was nearly dark when they walked out. They’d parked just around the block on the street, and Austin slipped into the passenger’s seat of her Civic and groaned as the meal shifted.
“Oh my God, I am full,” he complained.
“We need to get you a drink or two,” she said. “Ease the digestion.”
He smiled. “You just want to get me drunk.”
She shrugged. “Whatever works.” She reach
ed into her handbag and pulled out a long black silk scarf. “In the meantime, I need you to humor me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, there’s a reason that you’ve never heard of the club we’re about to go to,” she said. “It’s a private club, and if you don’t know about it, you don’t know where it is. And until you’re a member, you can’t know where it is. So….”
She held the scarf up in the air in front of his face. He got the drift quickly.
“You want to blindfold me?” he said, aghast.
“Do you mind?” she asked with a hint of pleading in her voice. “I promise it will be worth it. But…I can’t bring a neophyte there without having his eyes covered. It’s the rules.”
“Huh,” he said. “I seriously didn’t think there were places like that left in the world, let alone here in Parkville.”
He shrugged and bent forward, extending his face toward her. “Have at it,” he said. “I’m yours.”
Regina’s face was impassive. “I am glad you said that,” she said, and brought the silk close to his eyes. “It will make things a lot more enjoyable.”
“What things?” Austin asked. It seemed an odd turn of phrase.
“You’ll see,” she promised, and with that, the car jolted away from the curb. Austin settled back in the seat for the ride, not knowing how long he’d have to stay in the dark. As it turned out, it wasn’t long. He felt the car turn to the right twice and bounced in his seat a bit when one of the roads they drove down was clearly in need of repair. The potholes were palpable…against his ass. Then the car rolled over a stretch of bumps and gravel to a stop and Regina said, “We’re here.”
Austin reached to undo his seatbelt, and she put her hand on his arm. “Wait a minute,” she said. He sat still and heard her rustling in her bag. Then she pressed a wet finger to his forehead, drawing it down toward his nose, then crossing it horizontally.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Call it…the Mark of Cain,” she said.
“Um, okay….” he said. “But I didn’t kill anyone.”