The Mark of Chaos

by Susan D. Kalior

  I said, “Assuming he’s alive—”

  “He’s alive,” he said with a twisted smile.

  He had never doubted Red Hair’s state of life. And that wasn’t very nice. I sighed. What could I do? Besides, at the moment, my fear of Red Hair took temporary precedence. He was alive!

  I said, “What are we going to do about him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But what if he rises—again?”

  “I’ll knock him down—again.”

  I brushed my bangs off my forehead even though they fell right back. I didn’t like putting my fate in johnny’s hands. It felt sinful, and I wouldn’t sin if I could help it. And I thought I could.

  I gathered my strength and stepped forward, clutching my fanny pack. When I passed johnny, I drilled a courageous stare into him. “I’m going home.”

  His eyes seemed to whirl again, calmly exciting me. I stopped dead in my tracks. I loved this feeling. I didn’t want to go home. I went into the flame of his eyes once more. This time, I noticed the fire was surrounded by pure velvet black, a void of sorts that held the flames. Oh, what lovely darkness this man possessed. I cleared my throat and looked at him as shallowly as I could. “I—I mean how will I get home later if he’s lurking in these halls?”

  “The same way you came.”

  “But what if he tries to follow me back to Randa’s?”

  “Call for me.”

  I rolled my eyes sideways to break the spell. “My allegiance is to God.”

  There came that quiet again. johnny didn’t move or speak, and I couldn’t seem to either. Beneath the weight of his silence, I felt his rage once more. I was suddenly ashamed that I’d lingered so long with a man who was trying to convince me that he could protect me more successfully than God, a man who would let my attacker run free just to prove that point.

  I straightened my shoulders with a huff. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t have to do things your way.”

  He half-laughed, as if conveying that he knew, I knew, I’d be forced to do things his way.

  But I didn’t buy it, and I held my confident stubborn stare. Maybe I wanted to call the police. Maybe I would . . . for once. I never had pressed charges against those who’d touched me with violence. Usually, I prayed for the victimizer to be saved by spiritual love, because I’d rather forgive than hate. I was a great forgiver. However, in this case, pressing charges seemed appropriate. Why I’d suddenly changed my tune was beyond me.

  He said, “And your way is?”

  “I don’t think we should just set him free.”

  He leaned his back casually against the yellow paint-chipped wall. His sharp expression burned into me like dry ice, arousing some hidden monster in my own being, coursing vengeance in my blood. I wanted my attacker to suffer. And that wasn’t like me.

  “You want him taken out then?” he said coolly.

  My eyes popped open; my head jerked back. My heart pounded so hard, I felt it in my tongue. Calm down, calm down, calm down, Surely, I’d not heard him right. “You mean, take him outside?”

  He raised a brow. “You know what I mean.”

  I did know what he meant. My mouth dropped open like a ventriloquist’s dummy, and I stopped breathing once more. Taken out? And I had been distressed about painting horror. The good old days. Now I was living it. I wanted justice, yes, but not to that extent. Hoping Red Hair was dead, was one thing. Deliberately killing him was another. Perhaps johnny was teasing, or testing. That thought started me breathing again. I inhaled deeply, not just for air, but for some plausible rationale to dismiss his words.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “You kid yourself.”

  “Just tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You can’t mean it.”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t”

  “I do.”

  I just stared at him. There was no explanation but the truth. I had to face it. He was capable of murder. Why did that interest me? Maybe by understanding johnny, I could understand my parents’ murderer. Or, was that just an excuse to cover a sinful truth in me? I, of course, would never condone such an act—ever. However, I didn’t care that johnny did, for I, like Eve, was about to taste the apple. Oh, not of murder, but of someone who was capable of it—to know him, to really know him, to understand how one could murder. That was close enough for me. I didn’t want Red Hair killed.

  “I meant that we should call the police.”

  I felt his rage once more, covered by his cool countenance. His forehead dipped toward me with an icy stare. “Fuck the police.”

  “Please don’t say that word around me.”

  “It offends you because you’ve never done it.”

  My jaw dropped—again. I just couldn’t seem to keep it closed. “What do you mean?”

  He said, “You’ve not participated, you know . . . given yourself over sexually, let yourself go.”

  That subject brought only one thing to mind. Rape. Mortally shamed, my face burned hot. Rape was all I had known of sex. I never wanted anything to do with the sex act ever again, not even if lust consumed me to oblivion.

  “You need it.”

  Was he insinuating I should have sex with him? I would never let my newfound yearnings win . . . ever! Now I hated him. I hated him for talking to me this way. My chest caved. I held my stomach. “I feel sick, very sick.” I had to shut down, seal myself in my own little world, never to speak or move again.

  He cocked his head analytically. “You are so delicate.” I felt him move into me, uninvited, walking through my sealed self like the Invisible Man. “So refined.” He shrouded me in a cool, calming black energy, and my agony disappeared. “So pure.”

  I couldn’t decide if he was evil or good. He ripped me open, extracted poison, sewed me back up, and made me feel better. Was he monster, or healer?

  His eyes softened, almost inky, dripping an odd affection. “I bet you fancy unicorns, fairies, cotton candy, and such.”

  I nodded.

  “You are drawn to the fifth realm. You should be focused on the seventh.”

  “Huh?”

  He just kept staring into me with sort of a lovelorn look.

  I shook my head. “Who are you? You talk strangely. You act strangely. And your strangeness frightens me.”

  “I don’t want you to fear me, not you. I’ve toned myself down as far as I can, without pretending.”

  “Toned down. You’re toned down?”

  “For you. Only you.”

  My mind flashed profound pictures: a star constellation, an explosion, a baby inside the womb. Whatever I’d deemed real, now felt like a pie sliver being devoured by what flowed through veins that could not be seen, in a heart that pumped throughout time and space. I was slipping away from all sense of corporeal existence, or going insane. One of the two. I needed to surface again before I lost myself in this unfamiliar and dangerous depth.

  My eyes closed. Breaking contact with johnny had so far been the best way to regain my composure. Then, in my mind, I jumped real high, and I jumped real hard, grabbing at convention with bull headed gusto. Art, religion, museums, doctors, firefighters, the police! I caught hold. Hah! Fathomless space shrank back and I felt finite again. Finite and shallow and normal. I sighed, in focus, sharp as a tack. I said calmly, “I want the police to arrest that man. I don’t want to fear him coming after me when I return to Randa’s.”

  “You won’t, if you call for me.”

  I was getting tired of the maze he’d created. I felt like a mouse unable to escape his masterpiece. Every direction I took led me to the dastardly dead end of him saying, Call for me. I suddenly became repulsed by his obvious attempt to make me, make him, my God. I decided that I wasn’t in love with him anymore, and I’d no longer play his game. Finally, I’d come to my senses, relieved that I’d taste no apple that day. I had morals. Lots of them. I’d not let them escape me again!

  “Look,
” I said, chin high, chest out, “you obviously don’t care about my peace of mind or the trials ahead of me in getting home, so I’d best leave now while that man is down, and while I have one ounce of courage to brave this area.” I steered myself between johnny and Red Hair. I was getting away! Oh thank you, dear God.

  My wrist was snatched. johnny dragged me the opposite way down the hall.

  I couldn’t believe it. “What are you doing? I told you I was leaving.”

  “It’s not time for you to leave.”

  I kept trying to jerk my hand free. That didn’t work. I tried to pry open his fingers curled around my wrist. That didn’t work either. I went back to yanking. One monster yank was all I needed, and I put everything into it. I heaved my hand while shouting, “You can’t make that decision for me!” O. . u . . c . . h. My hand didn’t budge. It hurt though—a lot. I shouted, “Let me go or I’ll scream.”

  “That will do you no good. Haven’t you noticed how empty I’ve kept these unhallowed halls? No one can liberate you from me,” he said dryly, opening the door to his apartment.

  He pulled me into his cool black domain and closed the door. With his hand on my back, he guided me through the kitchen, then into a main room. My head felt cold and empty. Numbness crept down my body. The décor was not of a poor person who lived in the projects, or a normal person, or even a sane person. The furnishings mirrored my own private horror, my secret hell, my triple locked room of evil in Spruce, Arizona.

  Chapter Four

  Time stood still. I stood still. Faintness overcame me. With head flopped forward, I plastered my face into my hands so tightly, mere trickles of air passed through the cracks of my fingers. A weak sick energy crept up my limbs and settled in the pit of my stomach. I shrieked through my hands, pleading from a place fathoms deep inside me. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Doing what to you?”

  “Why did you bring me to this place?”

  “I live here.”

  “You—don’t live here,” I cried through my hands.

  “I do.”

  “You—can’t live here.”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t! You don’t! You don’t!”

  “What did you say?” he teased.

  “You heard me!” I said through my hands, even though my breath was making my face hot and kind of wet. “I must get out of here.”

  “You will remain and face your demon.”

  “My demon is you!”

  “No, Jenséa, your demon is you.”

  He was right. I was bad. But so was he. “You are mean.”

  “I am,” he affirmed.

  Talking with him led only to monotonous circles. He wielded power like an evil wizard, a puppet master, a master game player.

  But this game was getting old, and this player would play no more, even if my hands did cover my face. It somehow made it easier to stand up to him. I didn’t care if it looked stupid; I felt braver.

  He grasped my upper arm and dragged me in my cloistered position across his apartment. Well, I’d try not to play. My indigo pumps padded on carpet. Oh, what fate awaited me? My dizziness had waned, but using my eyes meant I’d have to view his evil dwelling again, and worse—him. I wasn’t prepared for that. Or, for whatever he had in mind. Somehow, I’d not let it happen. Nothing I'd ever done in the past had helped me escape ill-intended men. Perhaps it was time to try something new.

  Through my hands, in a blind walk, I said, “I also can be mean.” I summoned the vengeful feeling that I’d had toward Red Hair when I’d wanted him arrested.

  He said, “You look vicious.”

  “There is evil inside me,” I huffed through my palms, thinking of my weapons collection and my horror paintings.

  “Lay it on me,” he said.

  I mumbled through my hands, “You’ll be sorry if I have to hurt your feelings and maybe even more of you than that!”

  He stopped and released me. Maybe I’d scared him. Maybe a little aggression would have protected me all these years. My heart raced with anticipation. I dropped my hands and looked up with budding confidence.

  His eyes were hooded, cobra-like, ready to strike.

  My hands flew back over my face. I shriveled up inside myself, polka dot small. My aggression was not enough. It didn’t work! I was trapped forevermore, chained by submission, and beaten by shame. Maybe if I went inward deep enough, I would disappear.

  He said satirically, “I am waiting for you to hurt my feelings, or more of me than that.”

  He had hurt my feelings, and so much more of me than that. He had crushed my spirit and played me for the fool. No, I had played me for the fool. His aggression, I could never have matched. Oh, why did I try?

  I felt that thick, warm, inviting energy of his wash over me once more, dissolving my disgrace, but not my sorrow, not my frustration, and not my passivity. My hands slipped down curling over my heart. I rolled my eyes up timidly. “You toy with me.”

  “Yes. However, that is not my intention.”

  I shook my head in vigorous denial, desperate to escape this . . . thousand wasps swarming in a glass—man. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “You will defend yourself then?”

  “I can learn,” I said, staring at my shoulder.

  “You must be willing to injure the predator. You must know how to injure the predator. And then you must actually injure the predator. And this leaning over, dizzy thing, you’ll have to work on that. You have much to learn about self-defense, and none of it will do you any good—not the normal methods, not for you.”

  I turned my eyes to him, protesting falsely, “I could do those things.” My urge to buck him rivaled my urge to submit.

  He paused as if gestating a goading, gloating comment, void of tenderness. Then, it came. “Dig the blade in deep then.” He pulled Red Hair’s long knife from his belt, holding it horizontally in front of my face, then twisted it abruptly. “Twist it hard. Cause pain. Create destruction. Vanquish your enemy. Taste blood. Taste—”

  My eyes snapped shut; my hands flew over my ears. “You’re hurting me!”

  “You are easily hurt.”

  I heard him toss the knife onto something, landing with a bit of clamor.

  Without touching or speaking, I felt him reach inside me to my deepest wound at its beginning. I wanted to fight it, but the deed was done before I could resist. To my surprise, the wound’s initial thrust involved my parents’ murder. I’d been helpless to protect my parents from their ruthless killer. I was only three, but still, all these years, I felt like I’d failed them. With each succeeding time that I could not defend myself, the helpless feeling mounted. But no matter what horrible things happened to me, it all came back to the agony of believing that my parents’ deaths were somehow my fault. My tears fell.

  He lowered my hands gently from my ears. “You can’t fight back, can you, Jenséa? You absorb your enemy, and hurting him is as hurting yourself. That is why you did not want the fly to die. You are an empath, Jenséa. That is not bad. It is different. Your path is different. You can never live the same as others, for you are not the same.”

  His words congealed within me. I’d often thought such things, but hearing another say it somehow made it more valid. Maybe I wasn’t weak. Maybe I just needed to find a way to separate myself from the enemy. Maybe then, I could fight back. I could do this. I had to do this. I would prove johnny wrong in his assumption that I could never defend myself like normal people.

  I imagined a wall between johnny and me. I glared at him, a glare that supported the weight of my frustration and rage at his overbearing way. I thought about cursing at him, slapping his face, or kicking his shin. I tried to ignite anger, but it was like trying to light a candle with a lighter that had no butane. I wasn’t angry. I was sad.

  No, I would not be sad! Sadness didn’t fire me to defend myself. I needed rage. I intensified my glare. I ordered the earlier anger I’d felt toward johnny to surface. An
ger come! Rise. Show yourself to this man! Nothing. I held my fake glare and tried again. Anger come, rise, show yourself to this man! Nothing. I sighed hard and long. Deep down, I wanted only communion. I hated dissension, competition, winning and losing. I wanted to love, only love. What was wrong with me? Why wouldn’t aggression actualize beyond a fleeting thought or emotion? I was deeply tired of being trampled in the rat race. Sometimes just by rats—the human kind. My glare died. Defeated again.

  His eyes softened. “See, you do need me.”

  I rubbed my forehead with my free hand, trying to soothe a budding headache, then said wearily, “I know that it’s in me to defend myself, somewhere, locked up inside. It has to be.”

  “Four planets in Pisces including the Moon, Mars sextile Neptune, and no planets in your fire houses.”

  “What?”

  “The world’s pain is yours. You sacrifice to spare others. Survival means pleading innocence, passive eyes, like a bitch, belly up to the dominant. Passivity can’t protect you. I can, for now. In time, I will educate you in the fundamentals of self-protection for ‘your kind.’ ”

  My hand slid down to my throat as if searching for words. I didn’t know what to say. He gave hope as fast as he could take it away. He could help as fast as he could destroy. He’d read me well, but frightened me much. I stared at him in the same pleading way he had earlier described. I just wanted to go back to Randa’s. That is all I cared about. I just wanted to get away from johnny. He was freaking me out more than I had freaked myself out, ever. My Dark Room and dark secret and weapons collections were comfortingly quiet compared to this loud commotion that johnny incited in me.

  “Poor Jenséa,” he said almost sincerely.

  He took my forearm and guided me past a black leather armchair to three square velvet black cushions arranged like a bed on the floor. He eased me down upon them, flat on my back, the bitch belly up. I couldn’t shake the vulnerable feeling, nor the pleading in my head, Please don’t hurt me. Where was my dignity? Lost in submission, I suppose.

  I curled onto my side, hands over face, as if that was less submissive, but somehow I felt it was.