Side Effects

by VK Powell

  As she walked back to the house, Neela placed a call. “Hi, Bex, sorry to bother you, but do you know where Jordan is? She left my house about half an hour ago in pretty bad shape. Any idea at all where I’d find her?”

  “Stay where you are. Liz and I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Neela propped her leg up on the sofa while she waited for Bex and Liz, trying to ease the occasional pain shooting up her calf. For a hairline fracture, it sure was throbbing like a full-blown break. When Bex pulled into the driveway, she hobbled as quickly as possible to the car. “Let’s go.”

  Liz’s face had a fresh glow, and her lips were swollen and red. She was happy for her friend. Liz deserved someone who mattered, and from Bex’s smile, the feeling was mutual. “Sorry if I disturbed something. I’m just really worried.”

  As they pulled out of the driveway, Neela told them she and Jordan had talked and she’d left upset. She knew Jordan well enough to know that discussing their sex life would violate their fragile trust and privacy.

  Liz turned in the seat, and Neela sensed what was coming next. “What are we doing, Neela? Are you sure about this?”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  “You know what I mean. This woman,” she patted Bex’s arm, “no disrespect to your friend, honey, but she’s messed up. Anger is her default. I experienced that firsthand. Every time I’ve been around her, she’s been on the edge of another explosion. You’re not like that. And do I need to address the age difference? She’s twenty-five going on sixteen, at least emotionally. I’m sorry, Neela, but I want more for you.”

  Neela stared out the window, unable to meet Liz’s gaze. “I can’t help it.” Her voice was barely audible.

  “What?”

  “I said, I can’t help it.”

  “What is it? The sex? Is it that good?” Liz shook her head. “I’m not buying it. If she’s so closed down emotionally, the sex can’t be all—”

  “Stop it, Liz.” Her voice filled the vehicle and Liz’s face paled. They stared at each other and neither spoke for several seconds. “I’m sorry I yelled. I don’t know what’s going on with Jordan, but I can’t just walk away from her. I…care.”

  Liz nodded. “So, it’s your savior complex—like with your subordinates at work, Bina, our stem-cell research?”

  “No. It’s more than that.”

  Liz appealed to Bex, who’d been quiet since Neela got in the car. “Can you tell her anything that might help? What’s going on with Jordan?”

  Bex looked at Neela in the rearview mirror. “I can’t betray her confidence. All I can say is she’s changed lately. Something is really upsetting her.”

  “That doesn’t give her the right to treat my friend like shit.” Liz raked her hand through her red hair and sat back, staring out the front window. “Where are we going anyway?”

  “The bar,” Bex said.

  “Fucking perfect. The great combination, anger and alcohol.” Liz’s sigh echoed in the vehicle like an exclamation point at the end of an expletive.

  When they pulled in front of the Q Lounge, Neela opened the door and started to get out.

  “Why don’t you let me check inside? Won’t take a minute,” Bex said.

  “What’s the matter, Bex? Afraid we’ll find her between some woman’s legs?” Neela cringed at the thought. After what they’d shared, as casual and temporary as it was, she still had trouble imagining Jordan with anyone else. “I’m going in.” Neela placed her left foot on the pavement and then lowered the cumbersome cast to the ground. “Just help me shield this thing.”

  Liz stepped into the bar first, with Neela behind and Bex bringing up the rear. She stopped in the doorway to let her eyes adjust and then scanned the room for Jordan’s conspicuous white hair. Nothing. As they made their way to the counter, a petite woman with long brown hair and huge green eyes came alongside Bex.

  “Hey, where’ve you been, and where’s your friend, Jordan? I’m Lilly. Remember? I’ve been looking for her.” Bex took the woman’s elbow and led her toward the other end of the bar.

  “That’s Lilly?” Liz asked Bex before herding Neela in the opposite direction.

  “Stop pushing, Liz. I know about Lilly.”

  “Seriously? You know your girlfriend fucked her, and God knows how many others, while she was putting the moves on you?”

  “Please, Liz, don’t start again.”

  “Can’t you see it? Jordan gets all worked up over you and then comes here and fucks a stranger who looks like you. How juvenile is that?”

  Neela’s stomach churned. She looked at Lilly and wondered if Jordan had been able to relax with her. Had Lilly seen Jordan nude, sucked her breasts, touched her sex, or made her come? Was Lilly the woman Jordan had fucked until she injured her shoulder? Her stomach lurched again and she headed toward the door. The cool air helped, but it didn’t stop the images rolling through her mind. She clung to the side of the building and dry-heaved until her throat was raw.

  Liz spoke softly from behind her. “I’ve got you, hon.” She placed her hand in the small of Neela’s back and guided her back to the car.

  Bex joined them a few minutes later. “She hasn’t seen Jordan and neither have the bartender or the regulars. What now?”

  “Anywhere else you can think of to look?”

  Bex shook her head. “I’ve checked her apartment. Left a note on her bike earlier, but it’s gone now. She usually rides when she’s stressed. She’ll turn up when she’s ready.”

  “Then take me home. If Jordan doesn’t want to talk, I can’t make her.”

  “Sensible.” Liz nodded and crossed her arms like she’d won a victory of some sort.

  “Shut up, Liz,” Neela said.

  Bex laughed, and Neela and Liz stared at her. “She sounded just like Jordan. That’s what she always says to me when I’m right.”

  “Shut up, Bex,” she and Liz said together.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jordan had hidden out in her apartment after her intimacy with Neela, pacing like a caged animal. How could she explain her desperate need for Neela followed by her abrupt, unexplained departure? She’d tried to sleep, but the nightmares returned fueled by the fresh emotional upheaval.

  She’d told Neela about Amy. Those two worlds should never have intersected. And she’d been sexually vulnerable with Neela—a first with any woman. The feelings consuming her now were the exact opposite yet they were powerfully familiar—rejection, abandonment, and the sense of not belonging. Neela wouldn’t be satisfied with just-so. She’d expect Jordan’s heart and soul, and she’d deserve it. After they’d had sex, she’d tried to remain engaged but she’d failed.

  So for two days, she’d ignored everyone, even Sergeant Milton. She’d turned off her cell and put it in a drawer in the kitchen. The only thing waiting for her was a desk. She still wanted to compare notes with Bex about the legislative initiatives they’d reviewed, but that could wait. Their efforts weren’t likely to lead anywhere useful anyway. She’d never given up on a case, and since her job was the only semi-stable thing in her life, it felt odd. But right now, everything felt odd and she needed answers.

  By mid-afternoon cabin fever had gotten the best of her and she crept to the garage half expecting someone to jump out of the shadows. Bex had been by the day before and knocked on the door but thankfully didn’t use her key. She’d also left a note taped to the gas tank of her Ducati. Call me. Call Neela. Just let us know you’re okay. She threw the paper on the ground, cranked the bike, and headed west.

  She knew exactly where she was going but didn’t have a clue why. She’d never found answers at New Beginning. Maybe it was time to stop hovering in emotional corners like a coward and face what had happened at the orphanage. Neela believed in her, gave her courage and hope, but she’d have to do it on her own. Was she strong enough? Today maybe she’d just go for a ride and think about it all, make a plan. She craved the feel of the bike between her thighs, the wind in her face, the
challenge of speed, and the relief of something habitual.

  When Jordan reconnected with her thoughts again, she was in front of the old orphanage. In daylight, the sprawling building lost some of its daunting character. The gate was still rusted and overgrown with weeds. Gaping holes where windows once were still looked like soulless eyes, and the crumbling façade still refused to let go completely. But the faces occupying every darkened corner at night were absent or at least obscured during the day.

  Jordan inhaled through her mouth to calm the feeling of dread and apprehension seizing her insides. Her nerves fired relentlessly, fanning the anger that had been a constant here. She pulled the creaky gate open, rolled her bike through, and lowered the kickstand.

  She hadn’t been inside the building since leaving seven years ago, but the ghosts had followed her out into the world. The only place to confront them was where they’d been born and where they still lived in her mind. She navigated the broken steps and pushed the partially rotten front door open. Recalling Amy’s face, she found the courage to enter.

  The old historic building had been a showpiece for the public and the press whenever questions arose about the care of children at New Beginning. The grand staircase that led to two floors of bedrooms was always immaculately clean and the banisters polished. Certain rooms were kept presentable as examples of good housekeeping and the appropriate use of community funds. Behind the scenes, life was more dismal, but no one ever checked behind closed doors or talked to the kids. Misappropriation of funds was obviously more important than mistreatment of children.

  She walked through the communal areas, recalling the few good times but mostly bad that had occurred there. Vagrants had discarded empty beer cans, trash, used condoms, and excrement throughout the building until it no longer suited their purposes. How was the place still standing? Why hadn’t it been torn down years ago?

  She climbed the staircase to the second floor where she and Amy had shared room number thirteen. They’d laughed about getting the cursed room initially, until their nightmares started coming true. The door hung half off its hinges and Jordan kicked it down. Dust so thick she could taste it rose in gray plumes and settled back on the surfaces, clinging as effectively as her memories. She’d met Amy for the first time in this room, and they’d become immediate friends.

  For a second she remembered huddling in the middle of her single bed with Amy, whispering about their latest plan to escape. As their hopes had soared, so did their voices until they were laughing uncontrollably. She could almost hear Amy’s staccato chuckles filling the room as she turned in a circle with her eyes closed. But they hadn’t laughed often.

  This was also the last place she’d seen Amy before she was taken to the butcher. She fell to her knees as the sadness returned and wailed until her throat was sore. Why did she have to be sick when those boys attacked and raped Amy? She wanted to believe she could’ve stopped them, but even now she doubted she could’ve fought them all.

  Her tears finally stopped and she rose, walking tentatively toward the basement annex in back of the huge complex. The closer she got, the more vivid her recollections became. When she opened the huge metal door, it was like falling back in time.

  “I don’t need to see a shrink, but if I did, I’d want a real one. Brownworth is a quack.”

  “Jordan Bishop, come here this instant.” Sister Mary stood before her like a stone penguin, glaring and daring Jordan to defy her again. “He’s trying to help with these…feelings.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with how I feel. It’s normal for girls to—”

  “Stop right there, young lady. I don’t need to hear this. Get in there and listen to Doctor Brownworth.” She shoved Jordan into the room and the lock clanked behind her.

  She almost retched as the stench of pipe smoke wafted up her nose. The room was dark, the useless windows covered in heavy light-blocking curtains. Books stacked on the floor like Legos appeared ready to topple. She wondered if he ever read any of them but decided she didn’t care. This room was full of bad memories, pain, and the constant reminder that her life meant nothing.

  Benjamin Brownworth moved his pudgy hand from the lock and placed it on her shoulder. He looked like an evil version of Santa Claus—fat, wrinkled, and red-faced in a really bad way. His full white beard was stained yellow around the mouth and nose from too many hours puffing his rancid pipe, and his breath always smelled foul.

  To a thirteen-year-old girl he was too big to fight and too powerful to complain about. No one would listen. She and Amy had tried to tell the sisters about the so-called therapy Brownworth conducted in his secluded basement on the metal table behind the curtain. They wrote it off as young girls rebelling against authority.

  “Get off me.” Jordan shook free of Brownworth’s grip and ran to the tiny sliver of a window just above ground. There were bars across the opening, but she needed to be near an exit, regardless of the likelihood she could actually use it.

  “Come sit down, Jordan. We need to talk.”

  She kept her back to him. “You never want to talk. I know what you want, and I’m not doing it again.” He stabbed the needle in her arm, and a few seconds later she passed out.

  When she woke up, she was completely undressed and strapped to the cold metal table. Brownworth stood beside her, his yellow teeth exposed like a carnivore about to strike. “I asked nicely, but you always want to do things the hard way, Jordan. Your lessons won’t be easy.”

  She struggled against the leather straps, knowing from past experience they wouldn’t give. “Let me up. I don’t want to do this.”

  “It’s for your own good. Now try to relax and do as I say.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll help you control your unnatural urges. Little girls shouldn’t enjoy things like that. You’re meant for a man’s touch.”

  “That wouldn’t be you then.”

  He slapped her across the face but she refused to cry.

  Jordan closed her eyes and tried to squeeze her legs together, but the straps were too tight. Brownworth’s fat fingers poked and rubbed her, always rough and demanding, and the more he touched her, the angrier she got.

  But in spite of her resistance and protests, her body eventually betrayed her. She tried to prevent the tingling when it started, tried to keep the moisture from gathering between her legs, but the harder she fought, the more he touched her. And he enjoyed it more and more, until he finally stopped with a disgusting moan, leaving her with the pain, the throbbing, aching pain, and no way to relieve it. He did it over and over until the only things she associated with sex were anger, hurt, and the inability to find release.

  “You understand now, Jordan? These feelings only cause little girls pain.”

  “Bastard.”

  As the memory swept through her, Jordan’s anger surged. She grabbed an old metal floor lamp and smashed it against a three-legged chair. “You son of a bitch.” The wooden pieces flew through the air, and pain shot through her shoulder. She swung again and demolished a rickety bookcase. “You sick prick.” She stood in the center of the room and hit anything within reach. “Fuck you, Brownworth. Damn you for killing Amy and for touching us.” With each swing her anger ebbed and her shoulder ached more. She finally collapsed on the floor, panting, barely able to breathe. Her left arm and her chest were covered in blood. “Damn you to hell.”

  Brownworth had abused her for as long as she could remember. She’d run away so many times she’d been placed under lockdown and allowed out only under heavy supervision for her motocross activities. If the teachers asked about her bruises or defensive behavior, she’d make up a plausible excuse. The only thing that kept her going was anger and the knowledge that one day she would escape and make Benjamin Brownworth pay. Unfortunately, she’d been too late to save Amy. “Damn you.”

  Exhausted, she dragged herself toward the basement door. She refused to spend another second in the place that had made her life miserable and had shaped her
future in such a grotesque manner. Benjamin Brownworth and New Beginning Orphanage had done terrible things to her, but what had Neela said? “You can change how you deal with them.” Neela had touched her emotionally; that was surely a start. Maybe being here today, purging some of her rage, would be her real new beginning.

  Six months ago she’d started seeing a proper, qualified therapist to help with the memories and her sexual hang-ups. But how could she tell Neela what had happened to her and what her body craved when her mind railed against her desires? How did she explain that a monster had shaped her preferences as he’d scarred her soul? It made her sick to think about it, so how could Neela not be repulsed?

  She reached the top step and pushed against the heavy metal door, but it didn’t budge. She couldn’t stay here. She needed to get out—now. Putting her good shoulder against the door, she shoved over and over with no result. Sweat trickled into her eyes as she pressed her back into it and tried again. Pounding with both fists, she didn’t stop until her arms were exhausted and the blood from her shoulder was a slow trickle. She yelled for help, but her raspy voice echoed off the empty walls. As daylight caved to darkness, she was trapped as effectively as she’d been all those years ago and was just as terrified.

  *

  “What are you doing today, Beta?” Bina held her sippy cup between swollen fingers and stared at Neela.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have been moping for two days, and I have not seen our Jordan, not even to check on Blue. What has happened?”

  Neela had avoided bringing up the situation with Jordan or her feelings for her, but Bina was becoming suspicious. Her mother was hard to fool. “Nothing, really. Everything’s fine.”

  “Look at me, Neela.” She glanced up and quickly returned her attention to her cup of cold coffee. She couldn’t lie while looking into her mother’s shrewd eyes. “Tell me.”