by Marata Eros
Because it was soooo righteous.
Yeah.
Couch time is a free service offered to detectives who “they” determine have dubious backgrounds.
That’s the polite term for shit families. Or as “they” like to coin the phrase: familial hardship.
The good doc breaks into my thoughts. “Mr. Simon... this regression therapy has been proven to be successful at reintegration.”
Maybe I like what I don't remember just fine.
I give a slow blink. “Yeah.”
“Will you try?”
I exhale forcefully. I think of Mick and all he's done for me. I think of my anger, a vast well of bottomless rage. It makes me tired. Chasing me like it does. I can't have a relationship without rage.
I can't have a relationship with trust.
Every time a woman wants more than my dick in her, I run.
I don't want to love a woman.
It's dangerous.
I can't nail down why, but I believe that down to my marrow.
“Relax in pieces, Mr. Simon—as we discussed in prior sessions.”
“Ty,” I correct.
“If you prefer.”
I open one eye, pegging Doctor Dillinger.
“I do.”
I ignore the compassion I see.
Thorn doesn't need pity.
I only need myself.
I go through the relaxation technique as Dillinger's boring voice drones on.
It's bullshit.
This regression crap never works.
*
It's dark, and I hear crying. Soft and relentless, it has a familiar quality. I pad through the dark house. Discarded needles glint as the city streetlights spear the dirty glass inside forgotten windows.
I didn’t listen to Mama about wearing my slippers. They make me look like a baby.
I avoid the eyes that follow me. That shows disinterest, Mama says.
And I don't want the attention they'll give me.
I ignore the men and woman wrestling naked on the floor.
I pass young, greasy people smoking pipes. The disgusting rotten-egg smell is a constant vapor inside my nose.
I stand outside the door of Mama's room. Mine is behind me and locked. The key is hot in my sweaty palm, my finger restlessly stroking the ridged metal.
My heartbeat shifts from fear to one of expectant terror. If this goes like always, my mama won't be alone.
Mama’s door swings in. Grime is piled in corners like dirty snowdrifts. The filth bleeds to the center, where a man stands above Mama.
He's the one who comes only at night.
He doesn't look like us.
His skin is like pale cream.
He's big... and in my mind, I know he's an Important Man. It's pure instinct that I understand he feels big for reminding us that we're small.
His lips curl in satisfaction when he sees me. I fight the urge to pop my thumb inside my mouth. I bite the inside of my lip to keep from doing it.
“He's mine?” the man asks as his hand fists in Mama's hair.
I walk closer. My eyes skip nervously to his hand in her hair, the size of his fist, that coiled rage.
“No!” she answers in a hoarse shout. Her eyes meet mine, round with fear.
Tight with her lies.
I look at the man.
“Then he can take the beating I meant for you.” He jerks her up by her hair.
I run to him, punching him with fists too small to inflict damage.
He tosses Mama like garbage, and her beauty falls to the floor, long hair spilling around her like a dark fan. Luminous eyes catch mine in belated warning.
He shoves me on my bottom.
A pot full of rage that has nowhere to go simmers close to boiling. I feel it swell inside me. Ready.
“Don't you hurt my baby!” she screams.
An ember appears in his free hand. It glows like a lost firefly in the darkness, and the air fills with cloying sweetness. “Sorry, Tasha. If you don't pay, someone will.”
“No, Rex...”
His hand slams into her face. “Don't say my name.”
Mama falls back. She doesn't move.
I do what she's told me to do.
I grab the bulge between his legs and twist it.
I use both hands.
*
An elephant is sitting on my chest.
I gulp oxygen and it tastes like water.
I'm drowning.
“Ty—hear me.”
I gasp as I swim to the surface.
Gotta. Break. Through.
“Tyson Marius Simon, hear me and awake.”
I sit up straight, my eyes bulging so hard they feel as if they'll burst the pockets of my face.
I take in where I am.
I can still smell the cigar smoke, and my hands tremble as they search my arms for fresh wounds that are no longer there.
My mind's eye sees my mother and how beautiful she looked in the middle of violence and dirt.
I turn my forearms over and see what my tats cover.
I was her shield.
Doctor Dillinger says nothing during my silent scrutiny. He just watches me.
“How do you feel, Ty?”
Like someone kicked me in the nutsack, but thanks for asking.
I ask, “Did you...? Did I?” God, this sucks ass. I don't know what bonehead things I did while I was lying there, helpless in my sleep. I don't know what I said.
The secrets I revealed.
“Yes, you were under for quite a while. But”—Doctor Dillinger's clear amber eyes look into mine—“I thought it was best we get you out of there.”
“What did I say?” I hate not knowing.
Hate knowing.
“Your mother's name? Tasha...?” Dillinger's eyebrows rose.
It feels weird as hell to hear someone say her name.
Tasha Simon isn't beautiful anymore. She’s dead. Her funeral is this week.
The drugs she loved more than anything have taken her. I swipe a trembling hand over my face.
“What do you remember?” he asks.
My eyes burn. I've never cried in my life, and I won't start now. My hands clench into fists. I shove that shit down where it belongs: deep and unowned.
I hate what the child I was had to suffer, but I don't regret it. He'd have killed her.
Rex.
I turn over my arms and bring my forearms together. The tribal sleeves do a bang-up job of hiding the worst of it, but if you know what you're looking for, they stand out like measles.
Dillinger leans forward until his knees press into the side of the couch as I wordlessly show him I know the why of the damage I camouflage.
He knows what he's looking for.
Dillinger's hands dangle between his knees as he loses count of the circular burn marks dotting my flesh.
Cigar-sized.
I shrug his hand off my shoulder when he tries to give me comfort.
I can't accept it.
I have one goal.
Vengeance has a name.
*
three days later
I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. The chair creaks under my weight as I lean back and put my laced fingers behind my head. I close my eyes.
I'm so fucking tired of using Google I could die.
There is no Rex.
I know what I have to do. I need more information. I need to visit Dillinger again to find out what I can. I can't break the lock of my memories, but there's more; I know it.
Dillinger says memory repression is a deep-seeded measure the mind uses to protect itself.
The thought of recounting any more snippets of my miserable childhood brings on an instant, physical reaction.
My palms sweat and my breathing comes short and hard. I sit up, my hands gripping the armrests of my chair in my office at the Black Rose exotic dance club.
I'm having one of those candy-ass panic attacks, so I plow through it as my eyes burn, my ar
mpits tingling with insta-sweat.
Kiki bursts in without knocking. Pushy broad.
She takes one look at my face and walks closer, cautiously. “What the hell is it?”
I shake my head, dropping my chin to my chest and not looking at her.
Kandace “Kiki” King is a pole dancer, one of my best. I don't supervise much anymore though. I leave that to the floor manager. Even private lap auditions, once a mainstay of my job and a sick thrill I enjoyed, are growing stale as fuck.
I'm unraveling.
Good old Thorn is hanging on by a thread. I know it. Dillinger sure as fuck does, and he's got the ear of the precinct.
They have a dumb name for it.
Trigger.
A current event triggers memories of a traumatic one.
When my boy McKenna's girl almost got done in by that whack job, Bunce Junior, it had enough parallels that now I'm on vacation from undercover.
Mandatory, with pay.
Standard with a kill in the line of duty.
I guess I took a little too much pleasure in offing that fuck.
I close my eyes. The image of Faren on the floor, covered in Butch's blood.... it echoes too many long-buried memories.
Now, like an exhumation, the ghosts have escaped their graves.
I open my eyes, and Kiki is standing there. She knows I won't give an inch. No one knows Thorn, and that's how I like it—safe. Anonymity by choice.
Her face hardens, but inside that bravado is a soft center. Kiki doesn't fool me; she never has. But she lets it go for now.
“Ready?”
I nod, standing abruptly.
I tower over her. A sudden memory comes over me.
Rex was tall. Like father, like son.
But that's where the likeness ends. His fair skin is milk to my chocolate.
Who says dark is evil?
I say it hides in the light.
Kiki and I leave for Tasha Simon's funeral.
ONE
Shane's chubby baby fist bats around as the drizzle falls. No matter how many times Faren tries to cover his little head, he jerks the hood off to reveal carrot-colored hair.
Mick moves closer to his family, securing the umbrella over his wife and son's heads.
I watch the three of them dispassionately. It's not as if I don't dig Mick.
He's always had my back; he has it now.
Their kid's cute. Faren is perfect for McKenna, like I knew she'd be.
I hold on to my indifference like a restless life raft. I’m afraid of capsizing into the ocean of my emotions, memories.
Mick meets my eyes from across my mom's coffin. He gives a miniscule lift of his chin, and I mirror him. Faren's eyes, so light a gray they almost blend with the stormy sky, look at me with empathy. I look away from her knowing gaze.
That girl has seen some rough shit in her time. Her fucked up stepdad nearly killed her mom, putting her in a four-year coma. He had some twisted agenda to go after Faren, but she took care of him. In the end, it was Bunce's demented spawn who placed blame on Faren she didn't own.
We'd barely made it in time to save her.
I repress a shudder thinking about where Mick would be now without Faren. She balances out his crap.
Or without Shane. Almost on cue, the baby begins to cry as they lower my mom's body into an unforgiving earth.
As if Mick shares some telepathic bond with my morbid thoughts, his long arm curls around Faren's shoulders, pressing her into his side as she tries to quiet Shane.
I jam my hands in my pockets, checking out the fake astro turf used to hide the raw earth that, like discarded coffee grounds, will cover the expensive coffin.
I feel Kiki behind me. She tries hard to reach out. I think I'm her project.
But Thorn doesn't want to be fixed.
I push her away, but she's a gnat on my ass. The scary thing is, I don't think she's into me. I think Kiki senses something is wrong, and she wants to help. That's way more of a sphincter-pucker than if she just wanted to bang.
I can't accept pity or charity, or any of that happy crap. I have to figure my shit out for myself.
The preacher drones on to the few of us who are here. I raise my head and see a thick knot of cops, and it puts that lump in my throat front and center.
I can't swallow past it.
I don't try.
I hear the pulleys but don't look. It's the only time I can't be brave, a reminder of what I can't fix. It's too final.
Lance Tagger keeps his eyes on mine. Such a good actor during the sting where we took down Dmitri Bunce. A good friend. He knows I'm hurting. Instead of doing the same solemn shit everyone else does, he scratches his nose with his middle finger, a little Mona Lisa smile ghosting his lips.
I smile. It's so goddamned inappropriate I can't help myself.
No one is gonna give me back my mama. I can't love her for leaving me, but I can love her... for loving me.
Kiki sees the interchange and frowns at Tag. It makes me grin wider.
At my mom's funeral I decide it's better to focus on my asshat partner than the sadness that threatens to engulf me.
I survive another day.
*
“Kiki—fuck me,” I say, wanting to slam my palm into the steering wheel.
“Okay.” She tightens her jaw, crossing her arms. Her hoops swing as she moves her head. “Don't accept any sympathy. Be da man.”
The wheel creaks under my stranglehold as I smoothly turn into the garage at the Millennium Tower. The new hood.
Can't take the old hood out of me though. Sometimes, no matter how much schooling I've been through, how many years as an undercover detective, I still feel like that small boy who feared the night. I don’t have to speculate as to why anymore. Dillinger dredged the shit up like a found shipwreck. That uneasy feeling now has an anchor in reality.
She catches me off guard, changing the subject to one I'm okay with: work.
“You seen that new girl?”
My eyebrow rises as we wait for the security arm to plow upward and allow our entrance into the dungeon of the Tower.
The car rolls underneath as it lifts and I peer into the murk of the underground parking, locate Kiki’s stall, and pass it by. Mick owns five; I'll park in one of his.
“No,” I say, only half-listening.
Still thinking about my mom. Has beens. Should've beens. I hated the nagging bullshit.
I hate that I couldn't save her. Jesus God, I hate that most.
I park and kill the engine.
The ticking as it cools is the only sound in the car.
“Thanks for the ride, Thorn.” Kiki’s hand lands on the door handle, popping it.
“Wait,” I say, remembering her comment I didn't respond to.
She turns, one stiletto dangling out the door.
“What girl?”
She shakes her head. All the black she's wearing blends with my interior, and all I can make out is one scarlet pump. A spot of blood against a sea of ebony.
I swallow hard at the uneasy visual. Maybe too many crime scenes. Or just dealing with my mom's death.
Fuck. I drag my hand over my skull.
“Never mind,” Kiki says, flapping her hand in dismissal. “The fill-in guy's going to get her for lap audition.” Her eyes meet mine. “I mean, I know you gotta do face time there to keep the undercover going. God knows it was hard to keep it under wraps with the media blitz following Bunce's murder.”
Yeah, the media hounds want to know which cop did in the perp. It's sensational news. Billionaire's pregnant fiancée almost killed by her stepfather's biological son.
Can't make that shit up.
I scrub my face and lean my forehead on the steering wheel, inhaling deeply. My chest tightens, hurting.
Normal.
I'll go to the gym and work it out. Work out that grief to right where it needs to be: nowhere.
Kiki's hand lands on my shoulder.
The pain in my chest
notches up.
“You okay?” she asks.
I turn toward her, ready to lash out. Her eyes stop me.
She fucking cares.
God damn.
“Yeah,” I answer. Gruff. I look away.
“Who's the girl?” I ask the steering wheel, diverting. Always diverting.
Kiki's quiet long enough that I roll my face against the rough texture of the steering cover and look at her.
“Simone.”
I lift a shoulder. Why are we talking about some chick the day I put my mom in the ground?
“Yeah?” So?
“I don't know. She—I don't know. I can't... I think she should audition with you.”
I jerk back my head. “What? No, I don't need to do that biz no more.”
Kiki nods, her hands knotting in her lap.
Not a typical Kiki reaction.
I stare at her profile, feeling the tick in my jaw. “What's going on? Tell Thorn.”
She gives me a small smile. “I think that guy's a creep.”
Grady, my floor manager? “Yeah,” I say slowly, “we're in the stripping business. Lots of dudes have to be creepy to manage it.”
Her face turns. The low light catches it, and a spider web of illumination cascades over her expression. She looks piercing and deep, impenetrable.
“Besides, you're about out, right?”
I don’t know why exactly—I don’t get this feeling much—but I don’t like Kiki doing the poles. I don't judge, but I've seen a lot of girls come through the club. Most are various degrees of broken.
Faren had been different.
Kiki is too, but I don't know why.
I'm a fan of listening to my gut. I'm one of the few men who still do. I'm plugged into my primal nature.
Maybe too much, but it's helped in the undercover work. Being a cop is one part logic and two parts instinct.
“Yeah,” she replies softly, “about out.”
I sit in silence for a few seconds, deciding. “ʼKay, I'll check her out.”
Kiki exhales.
It sounds like relief.
*
I check in at the precinct. All is on target. The media's beginning to back off. They don't have a clue, so I can continue my face time at the Black Rose. Bunce Junior’s murder is now only a blip on my undercover screen. I'll be back on the force in a month.