by Lucian Bane
“Friend, shmind, you’d better keep your dog on a leash or I’ll call the pound.” She returned to rummaging through lower cabinets and Ruin spotted family photos on the wall leading upstairs.
“Dammit,” her mother muttered, “where’s my social dishes, been so long since I used them.”
“You don’t need your social dishes. I just stopped by to say hi.”
“Well you may as well spend the night now that you’re here. I never see you as it is.”
Ruin noted the change in her mother’s words as he slowly climbed the stairs, studying the photos. Her foul attitude remained intact however, and he added it to his careful collection of data that might reveal the source of Isadore’s wall. So far, nothing presented itself aside from the artwork he’d seen so far. If it belonged to her mother, the grace eluded in the colors and strokes was a stark contradiction to the psycho-abstractions happening in her brain. Something had happened to her along the way. Something had walked into her head and taken a sledgehammer to her little painter’s pallet and jumbled all the colors.
Ruin once again felt the urge to finalize that job with fire and reminded himself why he was there. He paused and leaned into a picture. It was Isadore. When she was obese and younger. All of her younger days, starting at about fourteen, maybe, seemed that way.
He continued on through the years lined up on the wall. It was like going back in time with every step up the stairs until he paused again. Isadore wasn’t always obese. He compared the images, discerning that she seemed to put on the pounds over night. At around seven years old maybe? He’d have to ask.
Ruin heard Isadore’s steps on the stairs. “Oh my God stop looking at those!” she hissed, hurrying up to meet him.
“What happened here?” Ruin pointed to the pic where she went from thin to obese seemingly overnight.
She looked and moaned. “How embarrassing, what do you mean what happened, I got fat!”
“Why?”
She made several noises of exasperation. “I have thyroid problems. Had. I got it under control as you can see.”
Ruin studied the pics of her overweight, studied the look on her face. There was a change not just in her weight but in her eyes. He pointed from one picture to another. “Do you see the difference in your eyes?”
“What?” Isadore looked at both. “Yes, I’m happy here because I’m thin, and sad here because I’m fat.”
“Yes,” Ruin said. And something else.
“What do you see?” she asked, sounding curious.
“I see a very happy little girl here, and then a very troubled little girl here.”
“Didn’t I say that?”
“No, you said sad because you were fat.”
“What are you saying?”
“That something happened to cause your weight gain. Any traumas that happened at that time?”
Isadore thought a moment. “Not that I can remember, we were so happy then. I just started to be hungry a lot and they found I had a thyroid problem after taking me to the doctor.”
“They took you to the doctor because you ate a lot?”
“Well . . . yes, I mean it was obviously a problem if they did. My dad loved me a lot,” she leaned in, “I think honestly that that is her huge issue, she’s jealous of me.”
Hmm. Very possible. But only one way to be sure.
“Where are you going?” Isadore asked as he headed downstairs.
“To speak to your mother.”
“What!? Wait, what are you going to say?” She caught up to him and yanked on his arm, stopping him.
At seeing her panic, he took her face in his hands and kissed her lips softly until her pulse raced for the right reasons. “Trust me,” he said.
The words seem to throw her briefly, at which point he took the opportunity to escape her clutches. She followed his determined steps back to the racket coming from the kitchen. “Susan?”
The woman screamed and dropped a metal bowl and it clanged loudly onto the tile floor. “Jesus fucking Christ, are you fucking nuts? You fucking scared the fucking shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But, I was wondering, I’m actually here with Isadore to try and discover what’s wrong with her.”
Her mother straightened and her face became a mask of rigidity just as Isadore gasped, “Nothing is wrong with me!”
The mother aimed a shaking crooked finger at her. “Denial, would be the first thing wrong with her.” She bent to pick up the bowl.
“No,” Isadore said, “this is where you’re wrong, mom. Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact and acting as if a painful event, thought or feeling, did not exist and it is considered one of the most primitive of the defense mechanisms because it is characteristic of early childhood, which,” Isadore raised an emphatic finger, “is not the case for me, because I know what my problem is and it is not an unconscious negating of a disease or other stress-producing reality in my environment, and I do not disavow thoughts, feelings, wishes, needs, or other external reality factors.”
Susan gestured toward Isadore with a wooden spoon while looking at Ruin. “See what I mean? Denial at its fanciest.”
“Mom!” Isadore cried. “I’m not in denial, if anything, I’m in a form of repression.”
The mother widened her eyes a bit. “Well that’s a step up.”
“It actually is a step up from denial in the generic classification scheme. I’m not ashamed or afraid to say so,” Isadore said to Ruin now, before looking at her mother again. “Repression involves forgetting something bad, such as a car accident or an abuse, at which you were found to be at fault!” Isadore boomed the last word and the mother jerked to her.
“Don’t you yell at me,” she pointed at Isadore, “don’t you yell in my house, at me.” Now she pointed to herself.
“If you would ever listen to me,” Isadore said, “I might not feel the need to yell!”
“You brought it on yourself, all of it, blaming others is never going to change that.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Isadore yelled again.
The mother opened the fridge, nodding like they’d had the exact conversation countless times. “Sure, sure. Like it wasn’t your fault your father stopped loving me,” she muttered.
“Oh my God,” Isadore threw her hands up. “That again? Mom, dad did love you, you are the one who read more into it. I mean how can you be jealous of your own daughter?” Isadore gasped.
“And then you came back home and finished me off with all your lies, lies, lies. Always about you Isadore, everything always has to be about you.”
Isadore choked out a gasp. “Me,” her voice broke as she stormed up to her mother with her finger out. “You! It’s always been about you! You used to love me! What happened to that, huh mom, what happened to you loving your own daughter? I loved you and you hated me!”
Isadore sobbed and ran out of the room, leaving Ruin rooted to the floor with the violent urge to stretch forth his hand and strike down the woman for hurting Isadore so badly. “You are wrong about her,” Ruin said, going after Isadore.
“You’re wrong!” she yelled after him. “Ask her about that abuse that happened! Ask her! She’s a liar! And a tramp!”
Ruin found Isadore outside sobbing in the truck even as he felt the tattoo burning new coordinates into his mind. They were done there, thank her God. He climbed in the truck and tore out of the driveway.
“Where are you going,” she sniffed, getting hold of herself.
“Next coordinates.”
“You got them?” she asked softly, making him want to stop the truck and cause her to forget her pain.
“I did, yes.”
Five seconds of silence ensued then Isadore said, “I’m not in denial,” she whispered.
“I know, Isadore.”
More silence and then a tiny, “And repression can be temporarily beneficial, you know? And I’m a rational person, why can’t she see that? Why can’t she see how hard I’m trying to
be normal and good? All my life that’s all I’ve done is tried to be normal and good and all she does is hates me. Why does she hate me, Ruin?” she finished with a sob.
Ruin pulled off the road and undid his seat belt, sliding to her and pulling her in his arms. “Shhhh, I have you, angel. You’re safe. And you’re so very good.” That much he knew. Foolish maybe, confused about right and wrong maybe, but good. Very good. All of her acidic little tirades at him were so very sweet in light of the good inside her. She was too good in fact, it was one of her problems. She only ever saw hope, even when there was none, nor should be. Her bent ideals of hope, love, and mercy, tainted the real truth and was likely what got her into any and all sorts of trouble.
“What good did all of this do? I don’t get it,” she wailed in his neck, holding on to him, again making him need to cause her to forget the bad.
“Look at me,” he said. She did and Ruin wasn’t prepared for what that would do to him. He officially forgot what his intention was as he stroked the tears on her cheeks with his thumb. He leaned in and kissed them, wanting, maybe needing, to taste them. “So beautiful, angel,” he whispered. “That’s what I know. So beautiful.” He found her lips and kissed them with careful tenderness, his fingers on her neck and cheek careful as well. She was suddenly fragile and priceless in his hands.
“Where . . . are we going? Now?” Desire softened her words and filled her sweet breath, burning him straight to his cock.
“We’re not going to a hotel where I bring you to several orgasms with my fingers and tongue and lips because we have to go to the next destination. That tattoo is burning the . . . fuck out of me?”
He felt her smile on his lips.
“Did I get the fuck word right?”
“Yes, you did.”
She captured his face with a gasp and kissed him with a desperate hunger, her tongue all over his as she climbed in his lap, making him groan. It was dark out now and Ruin was about to hide them from human sight when the tattoo jolted him with a vicious jab of pain.
“What?” she gasped, pulling back.
“We have to go. It’s time, whatever we’re supposed to do, our time is up.”
Isadore climbed off him. “Okay,” she said, her tone still sweet.
“You will do that to me again? Please?” Ruin put the truck in gear and tore out, eager to get her someplace comfortable. Any bed would do.
“Well since you said please for the first time ever, I guess I will.”
“First time ever?” He eyed her a few times, skeptical. “Pretty sure I said it a few hours ago.”
“Maybe second.” She bit her lower lip, smiling and Ruin had to smile back. Seeing her smile after that ordeal was better than any heaven he could ever imagine.
Chapter Sixteen
The next destination arrived just an hour later. “You recognize this place?” Ruin parked and looked around at all the rectangular shaped boxes with wheels on them. The term mobile home came to his mind when searching his word bank for a name.
“Scary little trailer park?” she offered, looking around.
Trailer park? “That one,” Ruin pointed to the green and white one on their right.
“That one what?”
“Is where we’re going.”
“Gee,” she said, her fear coming through.
“I’m right with you.”
“I know, I know.” Her words were light as she chewed her nub of a thumbnail.
Ruin did the honor of knocking on the door and almost like they were expected, the flimsy panel opened to reveal a shirtless man.
“Oh God,” Isadore gasped, spinning around and running back to the truck where she rolled up the window and locked the doors.
Rage had hold of Ruin. The amount of trauma that had erupted from Isadore the second she laid eyes on the man was pure evil.
Ruin nailed the dude with a hard gaze before issuing the command, “Don’t move.”
He headed to the truck and found Isadore crouched on the floorboard with her hands over her ears. Ruin stormed back over and entered the trailer, pulling the door shut behind him and staring down into the man's face, now twisted with confusion. “How does Isadore know you?”
“Isadore? Isadore Taylor? I thought I recognized that crazy bitch.”
Ruin held up a finger and clenched his eyes shut, strangling the man with his thoughts until he clutched at his neck for air. “Do not . . . speak her name. Do not speak unless I ask you a question. Do you understand? Nod or shake your head,” Ruin said through the insta-murder racing through his body.
The man nodded, his face red and his eyes bugging while Ruin continued to silently strangle him.
“Are you alone?” Ruin glanced around at the dump seeing the man’s frantic nod in his peripheral vision as he walked in a small circle, taking in the disgust around him. Ruin finally regarded him and sneered at how his tongue hung out like the animal he was. The urge to rip it out had his fingers twitching at his side, even as the man’s face darkened to near purple from lack of air. Wonder what the next color was in a human asphyxiation? Ruin thought blue. He released his throat to give him enough air to retain his response faculties.
Ruin finally managed to speak the abominable words. “Did you hurt Isadore?”
The man nodded and Ruin pursed his lips, fighting his rage.
“Did you rape her?” His voice strained.
He nodded again.
Ruin slowly tightened the noose of power on his throat again as he moved to stand exactly before him, hate and loathe turning his blood acidic. A little voice in his head reminded him that he wasn’t there to judge him. “You’ll wish I had judged you.” Ruin angled his head, gathering the bile that had filled his mouth. Then spit in the terrified face.
He released his throat and the animal fell to the floor, screaming in agony. Ruin opened the door and turned before walking out, allowing himself a small moment of joy as the man writhed on the floor, his right eye a bloody blob and his face a scatter of holes that slowly grew larger as the spit ate up his flesh. He’d live though. Ruin ripped the door off its hinges and tossed it aside. He’d live a nice, long, and painful life.
At the truck, Ruin commanded Isadore to unlock the doors and she did, her entire body shaking uncontrollably. “It’s him, it’s him, it’s him.”
Ruin couldn’t speak as he tore out of there. The tattoo burned him again with their final destination, and Ruin drove furiously toward it, while Isadore slept with her head propped on his leg. But when they finally made it to the location, Ruin looked around, dread filling him. “Isadore,” he whispered, shaking her softly. “Wake up, we’re at the last assignment.”
Isadore sat up and looked around. “What?” She stared at Ruin, confused. “Why are we home?”
Ruin stroked his fingers along her cheeks, the need to protect her burning hotter than ever. “I don’t know yet, angel. But I’m here with you.”
****
Ruin watched Isadore move around the kitchen like everything was done. But it wasn’t. And she knew it wasn’t. The question was, what happened here that he needed to help her see? And how was he supposed to do that when the only person here linking him to that information was an oblivious subject?
Ruin recalled something he’d read in the medical encyclopedia and stood. “Isadore.”
She kicked the fridge shut and looked at him, setting the arm full of items onto the table.
“I need to hypnotize you.”
“You think?” She hurried to get dishes out of the cabinet.
“Yes, I think.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Do you even know how?” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Dumb question, sorry. You probably know more than me about it.” She pushed hair behind her ear and counted something on the table. “I mean yeah, I’m game if you think that’s what we need to do. Can we eat first?”
He made his way to her and took hold of her hand, making her face him. “I need to do it now.”
“Oh,” she said, concerned. “Is the tattoo hurting?”
Ruin stroked her cheek, sensing that what he was about to attempt would change things in a way he wasn’t sure would be good or bad for her. Or him, even. “It is, yes.”
“Okay. Where do you want to do this?”
Ruin needed someplace she’d be comfortable. “You can sit in the recliner.”
She regarded it and nodded. “Yep, that works.” She headed over and sat, then took a deep breath. “I’m as ready as I can ever be.”
Ruin grabbed a kitchen chair and moved it just next to the recliner on her right and sat. “I’m going to do this my way. Do you trust me?”
Her eyes widened a bit. “Your way?” She seemed maybe a little impressed. “Sure I do.”
Ruin knew she was nervous, he could feel it pushing at his power. He finally allowed his power to push back in a soft wave of something conducive for what he needed to do. Which was distract her while he got around that wall.
“Close your eyes,” Ruin said, doing the same, using his supernatural sensors to guide him.
“Done,” she whispered.
“I’m going to talk to you and I want you to focus on figuring out what I’m saying. Don’t speak unless I ask you a question. I’m beginning now.”
Ruin began reciting what he was doing in his supernatural tongue. He wasn’t sure what it was called, only that he heard it alongside other languages when he learned words. Entering through her eyes, Ruin slowly made his way toward the wall he’d seen when staring long enough into her gaze. He kept his words low and soft, watching her study them as he stepped quietly past her awareness and continued on while she was distracted with unraveling the puzzle he’d given her. He’d laced the words with safe and happy emotions, like a drug.
When he finally made it to the wall in her mind, he looked back and saw himself at the end of a long dark hall, sitting in the chair with his eyes closed, speaking to her. He saw Isadore’s closed eyelids from the inside, like filtered light through two windows at the end of the tunnel.
He turned his attention to the wall before him and placed his hand on its surface to discern what it was made of. Immediately, he began to absorb its makeup into himself, bit by bit. Fear, agony, pain, shame, confusion—it all leaked into his palm until the surface weakened. He listened to himself speaking, discerning her vitals. Relaxed. At peace. Smiling even.