Librium

by PJ Bayliss

  ‘Psst! Hey!’ Peyton whispered from the doorway. He looked up to see her beckoning him to join her in the hallway.

  They tip-toed up the hall to the kitchen. ‘What were you doing?’ asked Peyton.

  ‘I couldn't sleep.’

  ‘So… you decided to… practice your ninja moves?’

  ‘Huh? No!

  I was… never mind,’ Chaise wasn’t sure if she would appreciate his intentions. She was more of a meditation followed by herbal tea kind of girl when it came to relaxation. Karma before pharma, as Peyton often reminded him.

  ‘What are you doing up at this hour anyway?’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘So, were you looking for it in my room, huh?’

  Peyton thought about her predicament for a moment. There was no explanation other than the obvious for poking her head into his bedroom at this hour of night, ‘Truce?’

  ‘Truce.’

  Chaise looked around and spotted some hot chocolate in a jar. He offered her a drink and Peyton readily accepted it. She was seeking something else that was hot, but this would suffice in the meantime. They walked outside to the balcony and Chaise to drink their cocoa in the moonlight.

  ‘Did you get hold of Julie?’

  ‘Not yet. I tried a few more times before, but there's no reception anywhere. Now my phone has died and I haven’t unpacked my charger.’

  ‘She’ll be asleep anyway, not like the rest of us.’

  Chaise laughed, ‘That's true. To be honest, I couldn’t stop thinking about downstairs. That’s what has kept me up.’

  ‘Same here,’ Peyton lied. ‘I don’t understand it myself. Nor your father.’

  ‘He knows about it?’

  ‘Of course! How could he not know? He spent weeks with Federico before he passed away. Caring for him. He said he asked Federico a couple of times but he never got an answer.’

  ‘I thought there was a nurse?’

  ‘There was, but it didn't work out. They tried four caretakers before Gianni eventually turned up.’

  ‘Hmm, maybe the nurse saw the..., what would you call them? Electrodes?’

  ‘It’s more likely a demand thing with this island being so isolated, but you might have something there. It would freak me out too. It’s like he’s wired for power or something…’ replied Peyton.

  ‘I’ve no idea what he was up to. Federico always experimented with things, but chemical things. Not electrical,’ Chaise noticed the goose bumps on Peyton’s arms and thighs as he spoke. She was only wearing a long tee-shirt nightie so he dashed inside to grab a woollen blanket from the couch inside and wrapped it over her shoulders.

  ‘Here, warm yourself up, girl.’

  She thanked him and sat down on a cane lounger, inviting him to her side. Chaise sat down behind her so that she could prop herself up between his thighs.

  Together they watched the stars and ocean glimmering in the moonlight beyond the balcony. Chaise felt he could comfortably fall asleep like this, the hot cocoa making its effect known in his stomach and her body against his more so. He closed his eyes and started to drift away upon the scent of her hair beneath his chin.

  ‘This is lovely Chaise, just like old times.’

  Chaise sighed. ‘Old times, indeed. Only no lounger to share back then, just a blanket.’

  Peyton sighed, ‘And no ocean to look at back then, just the tree.’

  ‘Things have changed, haven’t they?’ said Chaise.

  Peyton hummed, then twisted her arm behind her back and felt him, ‘Not everything has changed though, has it?’

  ‘Leave him alone, will ya? You don't expect him to behave when you’re all sprawled out on me like this?’

  Peyton giggled at his response, ‘No, I guess you’re right. It is good to know I still have that effect on you.’

  Chaise and Peyton were true best of friends. She was the only one who could ever get away with that having grown up so close to each other. He was like a brother to her, the only difference being that their friendship came with certain benefits.

  As a child, Peyton lived next door to Chaise in New York. They went to the same school for several years together and would walk with each other to and from school. During Summer that would play in the backyard with whatever they could find to keep cool, sometimes naked with hoses and paddling pools, right up to the time her body started to change. But even that didn’t stop her from hiding her shame and they simply grew up living like that. Carefree in every possible way.

  Their childhood innocence eventually disappeared when their innocent playing together suddenly turned into a new and much more gratifying activity. Doctors and Nurses was one memorable game and she quickly brought Chaise up to speed with sex education as a teenager.

  ‘Are you kidding me? Why wouldn't you have this effect on me?’ he asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. Peyton knew what was coming, at least she hoped she knew, and with a squirm she listened to what he had to say.

  ‘You are gorgeous, Peyton. I mean, uber-sexy. You could be a supermodel with your looks. Easily. And one of the best, not just some average-looking cover girl.’

  ‘Average looking?’

  ‘No! That’s what I mean. You’re not. Not by any means. In any world. In any galaxy.’

  Peyton squirmed once again. It wasn’t the hot cocoa warming her up this evening. However, Chaise wasn’t finished complementing her quite yet.

  ‘But it’s not your looks that I love the most about you eh? It’s you. Just you.

  You’re intelligent, sweet, truthful, patient and understanding. You are just goddamn perfect, to be honest.’

  Peyton shuddered. This was the first time he had ever confessed his feelings to her like this. She didn’t know why he’d done so, or what he’d taken to get him to open up, but it was certainly doing the trick.

  ‘You’re too goddamn perfect, Peyton,’ Chaise continued and kissed her on the top of her head.

  Christ! Peyton though to herself, I’m still in the friggin’ friend zone!

  You’re too sweet, Chaise,’ she purred, but she wasn’t too sure about what to say next. Her mind flip-flopped between assertion or submission. To take another step in their relationship, and possibly destroy it, or remain safe in the friend-zone. She searched the sky hoping for a streak of luck, then made her move.

  ‘Whaddaya think? Time for bed?’

  He nodded and they quietly crept back down the hall to their bedrooms'.

  They stopped when they reached the end of the hallway where they heard muffled moaning in her bedroom.

  ‘Wait up, is that?’ Chaise asked.

  Peyton peeked into her bedroom and looked back at him. ‘Yup! Your brother’s in here.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake. He’s a perpetual sex machine, I swear,’ he buried his head into the palm of his hand.

  Left with little choice, he opened the door and invited her into his room.

  Peyton smiled and her heart skipped a beat. Adrienne had kicked her out of the room earlier. It wasn’t quite her plan to end up out of her bed, but being in the same room with Chaise was a more than decent alternative.

  Chaise hopped back into his own bed and fluffed his pillow up. From the corner of his eye he noticed Peyton standing by his side.

  ‘What, pray tell, are you up to?’

  ‘Nightmare,’ she replied coyly.

  Chaise tried in vain to brush her off, ‘I know you are, but what’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘C’mon, Chaise. Let me in there. Just like old times huh?’ Her pout was incriminating, and something Chaise could never give into.

  ‘Ok, but just like old times, right? No hanky-panky! Promise?’

  Peyton held her hand up to her heart, ‘I promise.’

  Chaise couldn’t ignore the thud of lust rolling down into his crotch. ‘And I’m not top ‘n’ tailing either!’

  ‘Work’s for me,’ she knew it wasn’t the only position on the face of the planet.

  ‘
Alright then, come on in,’ he rolled the blanket over to let her in.

  Peyton slowly slid her tee-shirt nightie up and over her head, revealing her naked body. She gently squeezed her thighs together in a teasing manner before him.

  ‘What the fuck? I said no hanky-panky, Peyton.’

  ‘And I promised none, Chaise. I just get too hot in that thing,’ she quickly tucked her knee up and jumped into the bed beside him and pulled the bedding back over her shoulders.

  Peyton wasn’t going to have any overheating issues on this night, but Chaise was quite likely to.

  28

  I see some things haven’t changed between you two,’ said Josephine as Chaise opened his eyes.

  ‘How long have you been there, Mama?’

  ‘I’ve just walked in. Come join us for breakfast,’ she said with a smile.

  Chaise sat up and looked at Peyton beside him. He was locked in, caught between her on one side and the wall on the other. He carefully lifted his leg up and straddled her to get out of bed without waking her.

  It didn't work and Peyton woke abruptly when he was on top of her. With a smirk, she nodded her head. ‘Tch tch tch. You could at least wait ‘till I’m awake to start any of that.’

  Chaise laughed. He was caught, well and truly. ‘Yeah, sure, smarty pants! Whatever…’

  ‘Whatever?’ laughed Peyton, ‘Whatever happened to warming me up anyway?’

  Chaise rolled his eyes, ‘So you caught me red-handed…’

  She lifted the cover wrapped around his waist, ‘I dunno about red hands, but there’s something red and handy right here…’ she flicked the tip of his early morning erection playfully.

  Chaise burst out with laughter and rolled off the bed onto the floor. ‘Good God, Peyton, I never…’

  ‘Never what?’ she sat up on the bed above him, her breasts and elegant curves in full view.

  ‘Humph! You’ll keep,’ Chaise knew he was beat, besides, the next thing he wanted to do to her would only result in a cold cooked breakfast.

  He got dressed as Peyton dashed back to her room. Within seconds his brother came crawling back into the bedroom.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ said Carlos sheepishly.

  Chaise looked at his brother. ‘No, you’re not! And I know it,’ Carlos grinned. They bumped fists together and got dressed for breakfast.

  As the twins walked down the hallway to the kitchen, they overheard their mother speaking. Josephine was spilling the beans about the boys when they were younger to Adrienne and Peyton, who were sitting at the breakfast counter. They were hugging hot cups of cocoa with both hands and grinning from ear to ear as their mother continued.

  Both girls were wearing oversized tee shirts. Chaise couldn’t but help notice how perfectly serene they appeared next to his mother. The morning sun hovered above the wooden floorboards and captured the girls like celestial beings with perfectly tanned thighs and curvaceous bodies.

  Chaise smiled to himself. Everything seemed to fit.

  Everything was perfect.

  Everything except for the embarrassing confessional spilling out from his mother about Chaise’s first kiss and tell experience with her.

  ‘Christ, Mama! You don’t need to be telling them that story!’ He cried out.

  ‘Ahhh, il mio piccolo bambino!’ Josephine rushed out and kissed him upon both cheeks.

  Chaise apologised for his mother’s behaviour to the girls and they sat down to enjoy the breakfast Josephine had cooked for them. Josephine then explained the order of the day with Federico’s funeral proceeding.

  It was to be a small affair with a few local friends of Federico’s along with the family in the downstairs garden entrance room. The service would start on the lawn outside with the local priest saying a prayer and welcoming the guests before inviting others to speak. Then there would be an invite for the guests to enter the room. Each guest would lay a single yellow rose upon his casket as they said farewell before continuing upstairs to where they would eat. Federico would be discretely taken to the crematorium at that point while the guests were upstairs.

  Chaise sensed everything needed to be perfect in execution during the ceremony. His father, Gianni, was not someone who tolerated mistakes very easily. This was going to be one long day.

  He needed a lifeline - a break from the house to process his thoughts about Federico, the funeral, Peyton and of course Julie.

  ‘I need to make a call but can’t get any reception on my phone, Mama.’

  ‘It’s been like this all week, Chaise. They have been doing some service on the network and half the island has been experiencing problems,’ she informed her son. ‘But if you walk up to the top of the road, you might get a signal there.’

  ‘I’ll come with you Chaise,’ said Peyton, ‘I know the spot.’

  ◆◆◆

  Together they walked up the road. It was an opportunity to continue their conversation from the previous day about the electrodes on Federico’s body. They speculated about how they might work and what it could possibly do to the old man.

  ‘We need to take another look at it, Peyton. Photographs perhaps.’

  ‘What! How the heck do you think we’re going to do that? All the guests will be arriving, your father will be watching over him like a hawk…’

  ‘I realise that, but we need to learn more about how it’s connected and what those electrodes do.’

  ‘So… how precisely do you think you’re going to do that?’

  Chaise’s eyes lit up when he saw a sign across the road. ‘There! We can get a battery from there,’ he pointed to a store across the road.

  Peyton’s mouth dropped open. ‘You are crazy, aren’t you?’

  Chaise shook his head. ‘It’s the only way.’

  Peyton paced to-and-fro contemplating the situation. ‘Okay, okay. So, you’re basically telling me that when we get back to the house, we are going to connect a set of batteries up to your dead grandfather and then take photos of him?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘You are fucking crazy…’

  Chaise’s gave her a cold gaze, ‘Determined for answers. Not crazy.’

  His phone buzzed. ‘I’ve got reception!’ He quietly tapped the screen of his phone and left Peyton to contemplate an alternative approach to understanding the electrodes of Federico’s body.

  Chaise was right, of course. The only way to figure out what the electrodes and circuitry did was to play about with them. She didn’t see it happening any other way, unless she cut them out of his body.

  She shook her head to remove the thought from her head. There’s no way she was going to attempt a medical exam of Chaises’ dead grandfather.

  Unless Gianni asked…

  ‘There’s no answer.’

  ‘What’s that Chaise?’

  ‘No answer. On Julie’s phone.’

  ‘Oh. Like, she didn’t answer? Or did it go straight to answerphone?'

  ‘Not straight through…’ His phone rang. ‘Hang on. This looks like it could be her.’

  Peyton looked on as he answered the call and put the phone up to his ear. He listened for a moment and then muttered something back to the caller. Chaise shook his head and buried his forehead into the palm of his other hand. Then he collapsed to his knees, dropping the phone down to the ground.

  Peyton picked the phone up and Julie’s father continued to ask if Chaise was still there. ‘Yes, but he’s not talking right now. Who is this?’

  ‘I am Julie Stewart’s father, Morgan. I wanted to know who keeps calling my daughter’s phone.’

  ‘My friend here is trying to get in touch with her. They went to University together.’

  ‘Well then, you can please tell him to give it a rest for a while. Julie was involved in a car accident the other day and is now in a coma.’

  29

  I don’t understand,’ said Josephine, ‘What else did he say?

  ‘That’s all. That Julie was in a coma, and then he hung
up. After that we walked back here,’ answered Peyton.

  ‘Poor baby,’ Josephine squeezed a soaking wet flannel into the sink. ‘Take this down to him for his head. He just needs to relax a while.’

  Peyton took the flannel and went down the hallway to where Chaise was resting on his bed. Carlos followed her down while Adrienne waited in the lounge.

  She placed the flannel on his forehead and asked if he needed anything else, like a headache pill, to comfort him. Chaise declined and closed his eyes.

  ‘You want one of these?’ asked Carlos. Chaise looked at his brother’s hand and shook his head. ‘I’d rather keep my head for the moment thanks dude.’

  Peyton was curious. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Amnesia,’ Carlos answered. ‘It takes an hour, maybe two...nothing permanent. We have managed to tone down the formulation, so it’s not a complete memory loss anymore.’

  ‘You’re kidding? Really?’ Peyton said with a raised eyebrow. ‘But, how…?’

  ‘Do we know it works?’ Carl interrupted.

  ‘Yeah. What lab-rat did you test it on?’

  ‘Julie,’ said Chaise.

  Peyton was startled. She looked at Chaise. ‘Julie? You gave this to Julie?’

  ‘The other night. In Edinburgh. At the club I told you about.’

  ‘Unbelievable… I can only but imagine what happened that night.’

  ‘Oh no you can’t.’ muttered Carlos.

  Peyton stood up and placed her hands on her hips. She glared at the twins. ‘Fess up you two. What went down the other night?’

  Chaise decided to tell her. He sat up and started to explain. ‘It was her idea. She asked for us to help her forget what happened.’

  ‘Why on earth would she do that?’

  ‘It was the sex, I guess. She wanted to forget it.’

  Peyton couldn't believe what she was hearing, but she didn't like it. She closed the door behind her so that no one else could hear.