Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

  I walk up to the door, making myself heard so she has a moment to prepare, and pull up the latches. When I open up, she's sitting on the bed, her dim lamp shining a light on her. The one record she has plays faintly in the background. She's holding the book I left behind—clutching it. Like she's been waiting all evening for me to come to her.

  It feels good to know she waits for me like that.

  Her golden brown eyes gaze at me expectantly. She glows right now. My own little angel in a white box. My seed growing in her. She's pure, fertile ground on which we could grow a life. She's everything. Vesper stands up, hugging the book to her chest and walks up to me.

  “Sam?” she coos.

  My name, rolling off her lips, like a blessing, sends shivers through my stomach.

  I nod.

  “Is this yours?” she asks, tilting the book in my direction.

  I nod.

  “From childhood?”

  I nod.

  “I wish I had a book with my name in it when I was a kid. There aren't many Vespers out there,” she chides.

  You are the only thing, Vesp.

  “Do you want it back?” she offers.

  I shake my head, reaching into my pocket. Sometimes writing shit down is as exhausting as stumbling over the words, so I am conservative with what I say. It encourages me choose my words wisely.

  For the baby, I jot down.

  Her eyes brighten at the words.

  “Thank you, Sam,” she says with a soft smile.

  I remember the records in my hand and hand them to her.

  “Oh this is great stuff,” she says, flipping through the sleeves. “Will you stay and listen with me?”

  Of course, but I only shrug so as not to show her how much the invitation means to me. I make my way over to the chair as she pulls out a Pink Floyd album, one of my favorites.

  “Come sit on the bed with me,” she insists. I've become so used to watching her. From windows, and peepholes, and chairs in the corner of the room. Never a participant in her daily rituals, always a spectator, only breaking through that barrier to take the one thing I wasn't satisfied to only watch. I always thought the world was different when I wasn't in it. That there was a secret everyone was hiding from me and that once my presence was known, people acted differently. But I know Vesper so well, and she's not much different when she knows I'm watching or when she doesn't.

  Her perfect fiancé, Carter, he didn't know her like I do. He only knew the pretty parts she wanted to show. I know all of her: her beauty, her cracks, her strength and weakness, her filth.

  So I ease myself up from the chair and sit up against the wall, on her bed. She starts the album, bobbing side to side along to the first song.

  She sits on the opposite side of the bed, facing me. She lies on her back with her knees bent, listening to the music. Of course I don't say anything to her. She doesn't say anything either. I wonder why she wants me here. Why would she want someone who has done the things I have done to stick around? I used to think for her it was just about sexual desires, things that were too depraved to be fulfilled elsewhere. But right now, there's none of that. It's just the most innocent version of us.

  It doesn't mean I don't want her. Her dress has slid up her thigh, revealing her smooth curvy leg. There's always something deep inside of me, churning. A craving that never ends. A dragon I'm always chasing. When I first discovered the thrill of coming, it became an obsession. Locked up in my house, not allowed to have friends or leave the ranch, I'd jack off until my dick was raw. And it grew with my other proclivities. It's a beast I can't feed enough. It's why I need her here. She's the one who can keep me sated. Stop me from the inevitable disaster I've been working towards.

  But for the first time, I control the urge. I'm not sure I can explain why, but I think it's because for the first time, just being around someone feels good too.

  This could be the life I stared at on photographs on stranger's shelves. That I watched through windows. Every week, we'd lie here and her stomach would grow a little more. And she'd have a baby, with my physical gifts and her gift of gab and unassuming beauty. And I'd be able to start everything over, retire my mask and not be so fucking angry all the time.

  “I think I have a fever,” she starts, sitting up fast.

  Before I can think of how to address her sickness, she runs over to the record player and pulls out the album. Oh, she means that type of fever.

  She starts Night Fever.

  “I think I remember the dance my friend taught me,” she says, preparing herself for the chorus to kick in.

  She starts to dance. From what I recall, it looks just like the movie. I bite my lip. I don't want her to see me smile. I don't like drawing attention to my face and the ropey scar that extends from the corner of my mouth, so thick, I can feel it tug on its corner when I curve my lips. And Vesp she has to understand I'm still a threat, but god, is it hard to keep in the urge to laugh around her sometimes. Most people are insufferable, so usually it's easy to keep a straight face.

  After getting through the routine once, Vesp dances over to me.

  “Come on! Loosen up!” she says, grabbing my hands.

  No way. No fucking way in hell.

  I shake my head and give her a sour look, like I'd rather eat shit, but she keeps pulling. Finally, I yank back in protest, so she falls onto me, landing between my legs, so that we're face to face.

  It's uneasy, the feeling I have. Normally, I'd turn her on her stomach to make it stop, but this time, I just stew in it. I want to see how she plays this hand.

  She keeps her eyes locked on mine at first, but then they travel along my face. I tilt my head so she won't look at the scars. Usually, she makes me forget they're there.

  “I wish I didn't think you were so beautiful,” she mutters. “It makes me think I'm crazy.”

  I know exactly what you mean.

  But the tenderness wears off when the voices, which have been quieter as of late, begin their reminders.

  She's playing you.

  You're a freak.

  She's just saying that to get what she wants.

  I grab her hand firmly and pull it away from my face, shaking my head no.

  “Sam.” It throws me off for a second, my name coming out of her lips. “It's true.”

  I come to my feet, frustrated by her insistence at trying to get to me. She's making me weak. So I do the only thing I know to get my strength back. I listen to the urges. I cut the bullshit with the higher functioning and listen to my body.

  I slam her up against the wall. The record skips and gets stuck on the same verse. It's jarring and unsettling.

  “There is no beauty here,” I whisper through tight lips, pushing her down to her knees. “Suck my cock,” I growl.

  But it's her eagerness to do it that confounds me. The way she pulls her dress down to expose her swollen tits, the nipples puffed and alert. They way her doll eyes turn lidded with lust. The way she locks them on mine as she runs a soft tongue on the tip of my dick before covering the shaft with her mouth.

  There used to be a fight, one where she would finally allow herself to answer to her dark secrets. But now, she doesn't shy away at all. I may have actually done it. Gotten her to be truly free of the bullshit out there. Maybe this isn't a ploy on her part. Right now, as her warm mouth draws pleasure from my cock, I don't even give a shit.

  I come in her mouth, and like I've trained her, she sucks and swallows every last bit of my cum. She stands up and meets my eyes again, undeterred by my attempts to regain control. She runs her fingers through my hair, just like girlfriends do to their boyfriends.

  “It's true,” she says. “Come to bed with me, Sam.”

  My stomach twists at the way her pout massages my name. Is this what it feels like? To be one of them?

  She takes my hand and pulls me to the bed. I pull off my shirt and jeans, but not before going to the door, and slapping on a padlock to keep us in. I'm not that big of a fool. />
  During the day, especially when it's sunny, being out on the water feels so different. It looks like its own little paradise, not a place that makes my heart race at the sight of it, knowing I'll be trapped in it until my muscles cramp and water seeps into my lungs. I rest on the shore, letting the sun heat my skin, until I grow restless, picking up a stone and skipping it on the water. Counting the skips. The most I've gotten was ten.

  Suddenly, the urge strikes me. It happens all the fucking time. All I think about is fucking and coming. Scoot's in college now, I bet he gets to fuck girls all the time. But I'm stuck here. Never allowed to leave for more than a specific errand. My mother adamant that this is my world here. That I have everything I need on this property.

  I pull myself out, trying to silence the ever present need. I close my eyes and visions of tits and pussy intersperse with scowls. They don't want me back. So I have to imagine myself holding them down and taking it. It doesn't take long for me to come. I wash off in the lake and head back to the house, the horses and goats need tending.

  I get back to the stalls, seeing my house a hundred or so feet away. Mom's pacing back and forth working in the kitchen. She's been a bit calmer this past year, maybe because I'm 16 and taller and stronger than her. But whenever I talk about visiting Scoot in school, she gets sick so I let it go.

  I lead the horse I used to ride to the lake and back to a trough and secure it while I go to get the others.

  Off in the distance, I see a puff of dust, a car driving up or long driveway towards us. My heart races. We don't get visitors other than dad or Scoot. I've come to think my mother's thoughts that people want me dead are just delusions, but when I see the visitor coming towards us, I am overcome with a sense of dread and mistrust.

  “Mom!” I shout, running towards the house. “Someone's coming!” I'm on the porch in seconds, meeting her at the door.

  “Come on, get inside!” She motions me in. “Go upstairs. Hide in my sewing room. Let me handle whoever this is. No matter what you hear, don't come out.”

  “Mom, I can protect us,” I say.

  “Just do what I say!” she scolds. I run up the stairs, and into the sewing room. But instead of securing the door, I keep it cracked open to listen.

  A minute or so later, there are male voices. I can't make out what they are saying. But only seconds later, my mother is screaming “No!”

  All of her instructions become irrelevant as I race to my room and grab a bat, running down the stairs to help her. But I stop in my tracks when I see her sitting at the kitchen table, sobbing, two uniformed officers standing above her, one with his hand placed gently on her shoulder.

  I open my mouth to ask, but the words gets stuck all the way. Not even a syllable can make it out.

  “Ma'am,” one of the officers says to get mom's attention. She looks up, her eyes red and swollen. He points to me. Her eyes widen, her instinct to keep me hidden overriding whatever other emotions she's feeling.

  “You both can go. Thank you,” she says.

  After a few assurances, they leave, each tilting their hat to me on the way out, their somber faces affirming what I already know.

  “Sam…your father.”

  “He's d-dead?” I ask.

  “He made a routine stop and a car hit him. Oh god,” she says, collapsing so that I have to catch her.

  I feel nothing.

  “Scooter…he doesn't know yet. They're so close…” she weeps.

  “I'll c-call him,” I say, leading her to a chair.

  “The police just came. Dad was hit by a car. He’s dead.” That’s how I tell Scoot. It comes out so clear and crisp. I’m not sure if it’s numbness or peace I feel, but this trance I’m in lets the words come out smooth. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a twinge of satisfaction in being the one to deliver the news to Scoot. It’s the first taste of the thrill I have in delivering misery to people like him. Scoot chuckles at first. But I don’t protest, I just hold the receiver in silence as he keeps asking me if this is a joke. Until he stops asking. Until his distraught cries burn my ear. I listen to his wailing. Feeling like a stranger in this family, full of people who cared for a man who wished I was never born. Who dragged me out of bed for years to torture me and make me run until I puked, or carry unfinished logs so that my back was ripe with dozens of cuts and splinters. The man who screamed at me for not being like Scooter. Who looked at me with such disappointment. Who I knew gladly let me live at this farm because he was ashamed. In a family full of generations of success, I was a failure.

  I can't muster up a single tear.

  Scoot takes it upon himself to call the extended family. People who I haven't seen since I was little, my mother and I tucked away and forgotten, her sickness something to be hidden behind closed doors. Her own brother, a prominent Senator, hasn’t visited her since before we moved out here. Scoot would be on the next bus up, getting to us early tomorrow morning.

  After so many tears, my mother goes to bed with a handful of pills. Our family is strange, but they found a way to stick together despite the obstacles, and maybe when they shouldn't have.

  I tend to the animals and sit on the porch as the sun sets. I wouldn't have to worry about his bullying, or the sick feeling in my stomach when he'd walk into a room. Even when he wasn't mad, I could feel him judging me.

  And that's when I realized the gift he had left me with. He introduced me to the night. When the world is quiet and calm and I don't have to worry about people hearing me speak. When mom is tucked in bed on her sleeping pills, so I don't have to worry about making her sick with worry. I used to dread the night when he was here, but now I don't have to share it with him. It's all mine.

  I wander towards the woods that lead to the pond, when I stop halfway. I've been in those woods countless times. I've swam in those waters, run through that brush, climbed those trees. I want to see something new. Something forbidden. I grab my bike and ride it down our long driveway that winds for over a quarter mile towards the mailbox that marks the end of our property. I bike hard, my lungs pumping air, my legs burning, just like the afternoon that car slammed into me. I ride as fast as I can, like a prisoner escaping a jail, but as I near the end of the driveway, my stomach contorts painfully. I ignore the feeling of nausea, pumping the pedals, the mailbox getting closer. I pass it. The road is just ten feet or so, but when I reach it, I slam on the brakes, the rubber burning against the chrome. I turn the bike skidding it on its side so I don't go flying over the handle, stopping right where the driveway meets the road.

  I stand there, gasping for air, trapped by an invisible barrier. I don't even know if I believe the reasons my mother has kept me here all these years, and yet, I'm frozen. Back there is where I'm safe. Where I don't worry about the way I sound or look. But every year, my thirst for what's out there grows stronger, and I imagine all the things I would be experiencing if I wasn’t stuck here.

  Once my breathing calms, it's silent. Of course there are crickets chirping, but that's just white noise to a kid who's been living here most of his life. Besides the new moon, there's no light. The road is black and uncharted. The night can cloak my scars. It can cloak me, so I can see what it's like out here, how people act before they see me and change.

  I let my bike fall to the ground. I need to be able to duck off the road if any cars come by. I choose to run right, just a slow jog. Dad used to make me run miles in the woods, through the trees and branches. They'd smack me in the face, cut me, and I'd fall. He'd make me get up and keep going. Mom would notice the marks sometimes, but she believed they were from my days alone in the woods.

  I run for a half an hour until I come upon a small house with one light on. I suppose these are some of my closest neighbors, though I've never met them before. My heart pumps faster, not because of the jog, but because of the thrill of becoming a part of someone else's life.

  I creep to the window on the first floor where a light flashes, dim and blue, like it's coming from a TV.
A man is sitting on the couch with a woman. They look a little older than my parents. I'm scared they'll see me, so I duck every few seconds, and when I do peek in, I only see their top halves.

  The woman stands up and leaves the living room. It looks like she says something to the man. After she leaves the room, another light switches on. I follow her to the kitchen, where she grabs two beers from the fridge. She switches off the light before coming back to the living room. I could watch the banality of their lives all day, the little moments of interaction I wish I had with other people. Just as the woman sits down, lights beam onto the road in front of the house as a car turns the corner. I crouch out of sight as a car pulls up to the house.

  “Thanks for the ride!” a girl says, slamming the car door behind her. She's got on a short dress and little boots with heels. Her hair is straight and long past her elbows. She jogs into the house. I peer just enough to see her enter the living room and kiss her mother and father, before disappearing from the room again. Seconds later, a light switches on upstairs. It’s like fresh meat being waved in front of a dog, I have to have my fill. I run back, hiding behind a tree so I can get a better view of what's up there. I see hints of her at the window, but I'm too low. Desperate to get a better look, I climb the massive tree, its mature branches extending close to the house. I choose one and park myself on it, hidden by the dense foliage.

  She's still in her dress, but she's kicked off her boots. She's giggling on the phone with someone, twirling the long cord around her finger as she lies on her bed. I wonder what she's saying and who's on the other line. Is it a girl? A boyfriend? I've never really had friends. Definitely not a girlfriend. I think I could be a good boyfriend if she gave me a chance. I pretend I'm on the other line, muttering things to her and pretending the reaction I see through the window is to my words.

  “Why don't I take you out to the movies tomorrow?”

  “We'll get dinner first. Wherever you want to go?”

  “Is that what you want to do to me? But your parents will be home.”