Mania and the Executioner

by A. L. Bridges

  “Bye Kate, I’ll talk to you soon!” Cheza says and hangs up.

  I dress in a new pair of shorts and a white t-shirt before I exit my room. As I turn towards the kitchen, I’m ambushed from behind with skinny white arms being wrapped around my neck.

  “Welcome home Dear. I’m going to get dressed and then I’ll be out for dinner.” Cheza whispers into my ear and gives me a peck on the cheek before she scampers off to her room. I’ve never really noticed this before, but Cheza has really nice legs for being such a short girl.

  I walk out into the kitchen and I see Natasha sitting at the table, rubbing her temples.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” I ask.

  “Hungry, tired, headache.” Natasha says.

  “Is it your concussion?” I ask, concerned.

  “No, it’s the shit storm your little ‘blood-covered guy with a sword in each hand and a girl over each shoulder, walking around with three swords through his chest’ move has caused.” Natasha says while glaring at me slightly.

  “Sorry…” I say quietly.

  “*Sigh*…I’m not mad at you Cole; I know that you really had no other choice while hauling me and the fairy princess…how is she by the way?” Natasha asks.

  “I don’t what she was like before this whole mess, but I imagine that she was an energetic, mischievous, happy little girl. She seems to be back to that girl, but I think she is just acting. There’s something there that is still broken and it comes through in a timid sort of form…” I say.

  “Do you think the Daeva…did anything to her?” Natasha asks.

  “I don’t know; I haven’t asked and I don’t plan to press her into telling me…but I do know that I want to protect her. Earlier today, I actually found myself wondering if that was what a normal brother-sister relationship would feel like: I want to protect her but I’m not possessive of her like I was with Cheza.” I tell her.

  “Hmm…Well do you feel like she is your sister?” Natasha asks.

  “Not really. She is too young for me to consider categorizing her in my ‘friends’ category so I considered making a ‘tiny associates’ category but I didn’t really like the feel of that so I put her in the ‘cute little girls with wings’ category but the title was too long to put on the file so I put her in the recently vacant ‘little sister’ category.” I explain.

  “What!?” Natasha exclaims looking concerned.

  “Oh, ‘basketful of kittens’ cute.” I say.

  “Oh okay…whew, I thought we were going to have to stage an intervention haha!” Natasha exclaims as Cheza and Tia come out and Sara serves dinner.

  “So how did the experiment go?” I ask in between bites.

  “It went well. We were able to spar until Cheza froze my sword enough for the ice to reach my hand, but the swords definitely stood up to the temperature; not so much as a crack on them.” Tia says.

  “Alright, well that’s interesting.” I reply.

  Good, that means pure silicon carbide should work for Cheza’s blades. I finish dinner, grab five 32 oz. Gatorade bottles, and head to my room. If I drain half of a liter into the cooler every five minutes, my blood supply won’t go down as long as I stay hydrated and I should have enough for the blades in roughly three and a half hours. I grab my laptop, pull the cooler out of the shower, and sit on the lid of my toilet as I slice my arm open and hold it over the cooler.

  “Airi, please deposit .5 liters of blood into the cooler every five minutes as needed until there is 20.5 liters in the cooler.”

  (As you wish it, so it shall be, Master)

  I start researching different components of blood and possible ways I can use it to make explosives. With my Drive no longer around, the exploding vampire head is one mystery I’ll have to solve alone. About an hour and five bottles of Gatorade later, I hear someone enter my room.

  “Hey Cole? Are you alright?” Cheza asks through the bathroom door.

  “Huh? Yeah I’m fine Cheza, I’m just reading.” I say.

  “Wha—? Why are you reading in the bathroom?” Cheza asks incredulously.

  “Don’t question why men do the things that they do, Cheza. Do I question why you do some of the things you do? No, I don’t…at least not vocally. I will exit the bathroom when I exit the bathroom.” I say as if I were stating some sort of declaration for all man-kind.

  “I…fine.” She replies and leaves.

  Hopefully it will buy me at least three more hours. In the following two and a half hours, I find interesting information about extremely unstable chemical compounds that I may be able to make. I also refill the Gatorade bottles with water from the sink three times when Airi reminds me that I’m getting dehydrated.

  (20.4 liters is presently in the cooler. This is the amount necessary for Cheza’s blades)

  “Thank you Airi. How long will it take to form the blades and sheath?”

  (ETA: 2 hours 15 minutes. Reminder: if you lose sight of the object you are trying to create, the structure will collapse. Meditation is recommended)

  “Damn! Wow that is a really long time…meditating while creating this sounds like a good idea, thanks Airi.”

  I drag the cooler over to my bed, sit crisscross on top of it, and stick my right hand into my blood. I picture Cheza’s weapon in my mind. I take several deep breaths and I start the construction.

  In the back of my mind, I hear my door open before it closes quietly; probably Tia.

  I picture the Kukri-like blade that curves inward. I picture a split in the center that follows the curve of the blade, stopping halfway down its length to act like the disarm-bar on my gun; and I sharpen the inside of the split. I imagine the back half of the blade being three inches longer than the front so it is more effective at blocking and disarming. I sharpen the back edge of the blade too because I know it will never hurt her.

  I’m about to start the handle when I hear Cheza’s voice from a far off place.

  “COLE! WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOI—” Cheza says as her voice trails off. I think I heard Tia run up before Cheza stopped talking. Tia probably shushed her…or Tia used a chloroform rag on Cheza and she is currently unconscious on my floor; both are equally possible.

  I picture the cross guard being the five-pointed flower-esque cross guard that the Diamond swords had. I see the hilt that fits her small hands perfectly. I imagine a pentagonal diamond with the point facing outward for the pommel. With the blade finally complete, I split the whole thing in half so that the left half is a mirror image of the right half; when separated, the hilt is a semicircle for each half.

  “COLE WHAT IS ALL THIS!? WHY IS CHEZA ON THE FLO—” I hear Sara say, sounding like she is shouting from across a football field. I’m thinking the Tia/chloroform scenario is much more likely now and Sara has joined Cheza on my floor.

  I picture the scabbard that is curved to fit the blade.

  I hear the door open again and I wait for the screaming followed by the chloroforming, but it doesn’t come. I imagine some sort of conversation consisting of pantomiming and mouthing of words followed by silent laughter is going on between Tia and Natasha at the moment.

  As a final touch, I etch a message into the inside of the left and right halves of the hilt:

  To Cheza, the Diamond in my Heart

  May these protect you if I am unable

  I open my eyes and see the sheathed blades standing straight up in the center of the cooler while a whirlpool of blood circulates around them. Strangely enough, the clear blades and sheath are completely devoid of blood. When I pull them out, the blood fills in the hole and stops spinning; okay, that was pretty cool.

  I take stock of my surroundings and find: Sara and Cheza asleep on my floor, a white rag that looks slightly wet, and a silent game of strip poker between Natasha and Tia…you know, just to make things weird. They are both down to just their bras and panties and it appears that Natasha just lost that hand because she starts to reach behind her to unhook her bra.

  “That’s far
enough Natasha.” I say as she jumps a little.

  “Are you sure Cole?” Natasha asks while thrusting out her chest, cocking her head slightly to the side, and batting her eyes at me. As such, it takes me a few moments consideration; in which time, I’ve already failed the test so I go with the backup excuse.

  “Yes I’m sure! I wasn’t actually thinking that over; I was just having a mild stroke and my mouth was refusing to work.” I reply.

  (That’s the best you could come up with?)

  “Please don’t say anything to Cheza…” I quietly beg.

  “I won’t on one condition.” Natasha says.

  “Name it.” I say.

  “Have sex with me on your bed while Cheza sleeps right there.” Natasha says with a surreptitious smile.

  Okay, I have a few things to consider. One: if Natasha tells Cheza there is a 100 percent chance that she is going to be at least slightly angry. Two: if Cheza wakes up while I’m having sex with Natasha, then she is going to be far from angry…the phrase suicidal double homicide fits. Three: chloroform only lasts for about three hours. So really it boils down to two questions: How long has Cheza been out and how fast can I have sex?

  “How long has Cheza been unconscious?” I ask.

  “About two hours.” Tia responds as Natasha’s smile widens.

  Okay two hours is most likely within the standard deviation of chloroform’s duration and I can most likely finish with Natasha in less than 15 minutes if I really focus and worst case scenario I can fake an orgasm thanks to my control over my blood. Wait a second, I am missing the most important thing!

  “Does your condition include foreplay?” I ask. Natasha’s smile widens more.

  “Not this time.” Natasha replies as Tia starts smiling too.

  Okay so no foreplay so I can definitely get it done in less than 15 minutes, but Cheza has already been unconscious for two hours and—Oh, shit…

  (You know you done fucked up, right?)

  “You aren’t even using that quote in the right context!”

  (I know, but you know it, don’t you? You know you done fucked up) 11

  See, here’s the thing about being an insensibly logical person: you will spend three minutes trying to figure out the probabilities of two things versus the varying degrees of severity in consequences and you will ask stupid questions that dig you deeper and deeper into a trap while trying to figure out the answer that has been obvious the entire time to a sensible person.

  I look over and see Tia holding her cellphone, recording my failure as Tia and Natasha reach the breaking point and just start dying; the rolling around, pounding on the floor with laughter kind. However, all this pounding and rolling around also causes Natasha’s partially unhooked bra to slip all of the way off.

  This time, I do the sensible thing: I look for the second that it takes me to save that file in the hard drive of my mind, and then I look away.

  (You know you done fucked up again right?)

  “Wait, what did I do this time? I LOOKED AWAY!”

  (Hard drive of your mind. Unintentional sharing of images)

  “FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!”

  Please, oh pleeeeeeeeease let Cheza’s subconscious process that image into some sort of lesbian sex dream of her and Natasha or a dream threesome of her, Natasha, and I!

  (Impossible)

  “WHY!?”

  (Because the conscious mind received it first)

  “…”

  I look at the scene around me and notice that this can be easily misconstrued as me kicking ass at strip poker while Cheza and Sara lay unconscious a few feet away.

  “Cole…you have ten seconds to explain why an image of Boobzilla’s naked breasts just popped into my head, and why she is topless right now, before I go to the kitchen, grab a knife, come back here, and stab you with it.” Cheza says in a furious monotone as she sits down on the bed next to me.

  “Cheza, this isn’t what it looks like.” I say calmly.

  (Why do you never learn? How many of the last three times has that line worked?)

  “Okay.” Cheza says as she shrugs. Seriously?

  WOOHOO! 25% SUCCESS RATE!

  Then Cheza snatches the blades from my hand, whips them out of the sheath, and tackles me onto my back. She straddles me as she raises the blades above her head while wearing a blank expression…why are women always doing this to me?

  “WAITWAITWAIT! SEPARATE THE BLADES AND READ THE HANDLES; ONLY YOU CAN!” I shout as the Synergistic Blade (just trying the name out) starts to plunge down toward my chest.

  Cheza stops, looks at the blades, and pulls them apart with ease. She reads the inscription on the handles and looks at me. Two tears roll down Cheza’s cheeks, she drops the Synergistic blades and tries to smother me to death…Well, at least this way smells better and it doesn’t hurt as much.

  “Idiot; I’m not trying to kill you, I’m touched.” Cheza says after reading my mind through the connection, which I don’t remember having opened. Well, at least she likes the inscription…I was a little afraid that it was too cheesy.

  “No, it’s not. I love it. Thank you Cole.” Cheza says and then kisses me.

  “This is some nice work Cole!” Tia exclaims as she inspects one of the Synergistic blades that had rolled to the floor. “Where did you get the idea for the design?”

  “A combination of media, and application of combat experiences.” I reply.

  “What about the cross guard?” Tia asks.

  “I modeled that after the cross guards on the Diamond swords.” I say as Cheza gets off of me.

  “But the cross guards on the Diamond swords look like diamonds.” Tia points out.

  “Well, yeah they do now. However, while I was fighting the Daeva, the cross guard and pommel both looked like that kind of flowery looking pattern I put on the Synergistic blades. What do you think of the name by the way?” I ask.

  “The name fits. Why didn’t you tell Sara and me about this earlier today?” Tia inquires.

  “I guess it just slipped my mind.” I reply.

  “I see. So what happened to the week?” Tia asks.

  “Well my original plan was to drain myself of three liters each night before I went to bed, but I realized that I could just drain myself of half a liter every five minutes and I’d have enough blood in three hours instead of a week.” I answer.

  “Alright, well we should all get to bed! I’ll just carry Sara to her room; oh and if she asks, say that there was no chloroform and she never went into Cole’s room.” Tia says while picking up Sara and exiting my room. Natasha follows suit, but Cheza just stands, shuts the door behind them, and takes her pants off.

  “Come on; let’s go to bed.” Cheza says while she takes my shirt off.

  I slide my shorts off as she unhooks her bra from underneath her t-shirt, slides the straps off her shoulders, and pulls the whole thing out through her sleeve before crawling into my bed.

  “Thanks Cole,” Cheza says before kissing me. “I love my present.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say as I kiss her back.

  Then we drift off to sleep.

  …

  Chapter 21: I Love the Way You Say…Goodmorning?

  I wake up to Cheza’s face once again. This time I decide to wake her up as well so I kiss her deeply, despite the morning breath. Cheza wakes up mid-kiss and returns it in kind.

  “Well, that is not a bad way to wake up!” Cheza says with a surreptitious smile.

  “Good morning to you too!” I say in response.

  I get out of bed, grab some clothes, and head into my shower. I turn the water on, squirt some body wash into my hand, and start scrubbing up, only to hear the door to my walk-in shower open as Cheza steps in.

  “I can help you with your back.” she says as she stands on her tiptoes to kiss me, but she can’t quite reach so I meet her half way.

  “Hehe reeeeeally? No other reason that you’re here? My arms happen to be rather flexible so I think I’ve got washi
ng my back covered…” I say teasingly. Cheza responds by punching my chest.

  “Okay, so maybe it’s not the only reason I’m here…” she says, getting a little sudsy as she presses herself up against me. Then something of mine decides to press up against her.

  Cheza and I start to make out a little. I massage her breasts and she moans slightly in response before I break away for a moment.

  “Jeez, what has gotten into you today!?” I ask, even though I have a hunch that it has something to do with what Katie said.

  “Not what I would like to get into me.” Cheza replies as she grabs my groin while moving in to kiss me. We continue making out for a few seconds before I remember one very important detail.

  “Hold up; we can’t do this now, not here where Tia is probably listening in on us.” I say and then my hearing picks up Tia.

  “It’s only fair! I mean, you listened in on me when I was in the shower!” Tia says.

  “I don’t care.” Cheza says in a sultry tone as she reinitiates our session.

  Damn she is frisky this morning! However, I really don’t want our first time to be in a shower, or anywhere that Tia can hear us…Maybe if I get her off, she’ll be satisfied for today. I break off our kissing to move my head towards her breasts. I probably should have made sure all the suds were off because it tastes like I’m washing my mouth out with soap, and nothing like chocolate despite the claims of the Axe corporation; although, I am hooking up with a really attractive girl so that means that their product is working, right? After a few minutes, her moaning increases and I feel her tense up as she finishes.

  Well now that that’s over, I reach out to turn off the shower, but Cheza smacks my hand away.

  “No…don’t…stop.” Cheza says, breathing heavily as she pushes my bottles over to the side before she hops up and sits on the ledge.

  I guess I should explain: in my shower there is a ledge that is about a foot wide and about three feet high, which is where I set my shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. All of those are now off to the side and in their place is Cheza’s bare ass with her legs spread open.

  “Please Cole?” Cheza asks while giving me this pouty look that she knows I can’t say no to. This is the kind of thing that I can’t let Lila know about; if she realizes the affect this kind of look has on me, I’ll be putty in her hands. I melt like putty and get on my knees.