Blank Canvas

by Coopmans, Kathy

  His words fall from his lips when he makes eye contact with me from behind. I don’t turn to face him. He’s standing behind me going pale as a ghost. I’ll give it to the man; he recovers swiftly on his feet.

  “Let’s have our session in here instead of in my office.” He calmly pulls out the only plastic chair in my room and takes a seat near the table next to my bed. There isn’t even a damn lamp in this place. No light sockets, either. It’s a pity. Peaceful, my fucked-up ass. It’s hell.

  I don’t move a muscle, enjoying the feeling of the last bits of blood dribbling down my face. Amelia turning ugly. It’s a beautiful sight.

  “Do you feel better?” Ronan asks, crossing one leg over the other, relaxing his elbow on top of his thighs, his hand under his chin in a mocking way. I don’t like it.

  His Henley hugs his muscular chest and his khaki pants bunch quite nicely around his crotch. My eyes narrow in on where I imagine his dick would be lying. My clit throbs wondering how big Ronan is and if he’d stretch me out. Would he be a rough fuck or take his time with me?

  I guess I’ve learned one thing over the days in here. I’m addicted to sex. Once, I thought it was just a means to get my next high, but it wasn’t. It was just as big of an addiction as the drugs. I need it, crave it. My face pressed down into a mattress with his hand cupping the back of my neck. Strangers’ fingers digging into my flesh as they run their throbbing cock down the seam of my ass cheeks.

  I’m out of control, and I know it. The humming energy in my pants is overwhelming. I need a fucking high no matter the form. The release to numb my crawling skin and racing mind. Slowly, I turn around to face him.

  “I do feel better. I don’t like seeing her.”

  He nods, seeming happy I actually responded to one of his questions. “Why, Amelia? What has happened to make you hate yourself? There has to be a reason why you don’t want to be healthy?”

  “Let me show you,” I whisper then dart my tongue out to lap up a droplet of blood falling from my face.

  I move slowly with deliberate motions. My hand pressing against my abdomen roaming slowly lower, lower, lower, and lower. Ronan swallows but remains silent. My fingertips sink under the elastic waistband of the sweats I’m wearing then lower, lower, and lower some more.

  Ronan clears his throat. “Amelia.” It’s a warning.

  The pad of my finger connects with my clit, making me instantly wet.

  “Ronan,” I moan his name pushing two fingers inside me while rolling my hips. The pad of my hand deliciously rubbing on my clit.

  “Amelia!” Ronan is up on his feet.

  “Fuck me, Ronan. Come fuck me. Use my body.”

  “Amelia, you’re going to be restrained if you don’t stop.”

  I sink another finger inside me. “Three fingers deep. Bet your cock would feel better.”

  He steps toward the doorway, but I’m too fucking close to a release. I ignore his warning, fucking myself harder and faster. The moans from my lips grow louder and louder until I hear myself growling.

  My fingers aggressively tear my flesh down there, making the impending orgasm to be a powerful one.

  “Last warning, Amelia.”

  I hear Ronan’s voice but ignore him. My fingers go deeper and faster, working with a need so out of control I forget everything for a moment. I’m numb, and blank lost in the sensation. It’s as close to a high to Meth as I can get.

  The lights go bright behind my closed eyelids, the screams leave my lips, and right before the finale, I’m restrained. Hand ripped out of my pants, held down by one of the orderlies, and then the stinging sensation of a needle piercing my skin. Everything is fuzzy then black with no high in sight. Invisibly numb.

  “You feel better now?” Ronan stands next to my bed. His eyes are always soft, understanding in a way that infiltrates my mind.

  “Not really. I hate you, I hate it here, and I don’t give a shit what kind of psycho bullshit you try to pull on me. It’s not going to work. How long was I out this time?” I jerk at the cuffs around my wrists. This is the second time they’ve had to restrain me. The first time I tried to knock a girl out who tried to talk to me. I don’t do friendly.

  “Just overnight.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a key, and uncuffs one side and then the other. I rub the tender spots, push myself up, and stare straight ahead in defeat.

  “You should be thankful I don’t leave you cuffed up longer. You’ve been in here forty-five days, Amelia. Forty-five days you’ve hidden behind the shit you think you need. I’m done wasting my time on you. You don’t want my help, then leave.” Anger burns through me. I want to argue with him, tell him how lonely I feel. How every night I want to take my pillow and suffocate myself.

  “Really? I can walk out the door, and no one will stop me?” My voice is so calm it frightens me.

  “Yes. You’ll be walking out of here naked, no shoes, no clothes. Not a damn thing to protect you from the cops who will toss your ass in jail. If you think this place is hell, well, let me educate you. Jail is a hundred times worse. You’ll be a number without a name. A woman without a past. A nobody. Is that what you really want for yourself? To let the demons inside of you win? To allow your past to dictate your future? You aren’t any different from anyone else in here, Amelia. Including me. You're free to go.” He sidesteps out of my way. The opportunity for me is left wide open, the dirty alleys screaming my name.

  “Are you trying to scare me?” I say, my gaze lifting from the open doorway, while my body wants to sink further into my bed. I’m hopeless. Doesn’t he see that?

  “No. I’m telling you the truth. You really think you can fool me? Think again. I’ve walked in your shoes. I’ve lived on those streets, and the things I’ve done will put the little stunt you tried to pull yesterday to shame. You want to go, then get the hell out of my facility.” Ronan gets inches from my face with the muscles in his jaw ticking and eyes raging with angry fire. “You will be lucky if you end up in jail, Amelia. Damn lucky. Next time, you won’t be saved. You mean absolutely nothing to those men. They will finish the job and enjoy each second of doing it.”

  He turns without looking at me. I feel his disgrace with every fallen footstep I hear him taking.

  The urge to run. To find the release I need so bad tempts me. Except, my legs don’t move. They don’t take advantage of the freedom he’s giving to me. The stay cemented to the end of my bed.

  Was he a drug addict, too? A runaway. Did something drive him the way he’s driving me to steer my life in the right direction? Or is this a ploy of his to get me to open up to him. To share things I don’t want to? I don’t know what to think.

  “You’ve made a mess of your life, Amelia. Go clean it up,” I say.

  Right. If it were that easy, I would. How do I sit here and tell him I was raped, abused as a child in a degrading way?

  My God, I need help. His words about being naked, going to jail, slap me upside my head but are of little consequence. Those words mean absolutely nothing to me when death is rolling around in my head. Do I really want to die? Live the rest of my life peering over my shoulder? Doesn’t he see I’m naked already? That there is nothing left of me to bend. What I need to do is put one foot in front of the other one minute at a time.

  * * *

  “Good morning, Amelia.” I smile tight at the young woman entering my room. Hiding all my conflicted feelings behind my mask of a face.

  “Good morning, Zoe.” This is the first time I’ve spoken to her. The only one I’ve said words to is my therapist, and none of them have been kind. Her dark ponytail whips around her neck as she turns to face me with wide, startled eyes.

  “Jesus, you scared me,” she says.

  “I think I scared myself. Are you here for my shower?” My shaky hands lift to my face. When the pads of my fingers hit my tattered skin, I want to cry. The dried blood, the scabs over the work, the time, the money that Doctor Hartley paid for. I cringe.

  He hasn’t c
ome to see me. All the thoughts, the anger I had toward stealing him blind when I first got here diminished the second I woke up with my arms and legs strapped down. Gauze covering my head and new teeth in my mouth.

  Reality sunk me further into my despair of hell. The flames inside my veins went right through and hit my bones, turning them to ash. I hated myself more for thinking I could use him when he honestly wanted nothing in return from me. Not even to be my friend. That’s okay. I wouldn’t know what to do with a friend. Not really.

  “Yes, and to clip your nails. You can’t keep hurting yourself, Amelia. If you could… well, it’s not my place to say. Come on.”

  “No. What did you mean? If I could what?” I find myself swinging my legs off the bed. Wobbly. Dizzy. I grip the edge to contain myself before I fall. “Wait, please. Give me a minute,” I ask kindly. I have no idea why I’m curious to know what she meant, other than there’s something about her that I like. Not many people risk coming in here to talk to me. Let alone say something other than what I can or can’t do.

  “If you could see yourself the way the rest of us do. Looks aren’t everything, Amelia. But you, you truly are beautiful. It’s the inside that makes you ugly.”

  I halt.

  It’s the outside beauty that was my inevitable demise in life. It attracted them to my bedroom late at night.

  This girl’s words strike me down. On any given day, I would jump at her. Claw her eyes out for speaking to me. Not today.

  Her bright, shiny eyes, her clean scent, and her truth strike me down. I need to get better. For me.

  “There. Now, take a look.” Zoe leads me out of the bathroom to stand in front of the mirror. Her eyes are beaming brightly at me after I stood vulnerably naked in the shower. I’ve showered in front of her and others plenty of times before, but this is the first time I honestly felt stripped down. I’m scared. Alone. And my heart is telling me to heal, while my mind is wanting to get high. It’s the same as the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other.

  I peer up at Zoe. Her eyes are so damn clear, so caring that it frightens me. I’ve done everything she’s asked me to this time. Without protesting or throwing a fit like a child. I’ve scrubbed my skin, trying, wishing to will all the old Amelia away. I crave to start over. I need it in order to breathe.

  “I’m scared,” I mumble quietly. My fingers tremble as I bring them up to my lips coated in a sheer gloss, reminding me of a young girl wanting to experience with makeup; it’s a brief flashback to my youth. Before it all started to happen.

  “Zoe.” I’m surprised she even recognizes her name the way my voice quakes.

  “What’s wrong?” She peers down at me with a caring look.

  Her words are foreign. But they do something to my insides. No one has ever asked me what’s wrong before. They’ve always taken. Controlled.

  “Do…do you think it’s too late for me?”

  She places her hands on my shoulders, slowly and carefully. Each movement happens in tenths of a second. This young woman is so graceful, kind, and caring. She has no idea the monster I’ve become, and even more important, she doesn’t seem to care.

  “Sweetie.” She squeezes me gently. “It’s never too late to find yourself. This world has an evil way of shaping us, but as long as you are here and breathing the sweet oxygen God has graced our lives with, then you have a choice. You always have a choice, Amelia. What you do with it is on you.”

  “Now, take a look again, Amelia.” She guides my chin upward toward the mirror. I close my eyes while I bring my face slowly closer. When I open them, they go wide.

  “Oh. My. God.” My skin tingles. I don’t know this woman gazing back at me this time. She’s stunning, except the scratches, the deep dark circles under her eyes, and the pout on her lips. Everything else about her is a vision I haven’t seen in a long time. Her words have made me see hope,

  “Thank you, Zoe.” I turn away from the mirror. Suck in a breath and hug her. This, too, is as equally strange to me as her being nice.

  When her arms circle around me, my insides flutter. I can’t remember the last time I felt this good about myself. It’s the beginning of a long road.

  “You’re welcome. I hope it’s the beginning to all the possibilities life can bring you.”

  My glossy lips crack into a smile.

  “Me, too.”

  6

  Zeke

  “It’s about Goddamn time you answer your fucking door. What the hell is going on with you?” Saxon barks out, brushes his way past me, and heads right to my kitchen.

  Damn, I’ve missed him. When I called him, needing to talk about all of this with my brother after all the shit went down with Amelia, he was out of town for business. Hasn’t been back since, and even though his reasoning behind what he’s really doing here tonight is the last thing I want to talk about, it’s good to see him.

  “It’s good to see you, too, little brother.” I close the door to my house, turn to greet him, and duck. “You missed, fuckface.” His aim was never worth a shit.

  I laugh, bend, and pick up the beer cap he flung at me. We’ve been flinging these at each other ever since the first time he came to visit me in medical school. Hell, he never left. Ended up moving in with me. We kept one another in line. That is, until one night we both stumbled out of a bar to find two men on the ground. One of them beating the life out of the other. I sobered up quickly. Saxon grabbed the assailant by his throat, shoved him up against a brick wall, and held him there, while I surveyed the damages to the guy who had half his face caved in. Pieces of his flesh splattered all over the cemented sidewalk. It was gruesome and I loved being able to slow down his bleeding until the paramedics came and took over.

  We met Curtis that night. The leader of the MC group Saxon works for. Curtis didn’t stay on that wall for long. My brother ended up being on the wall quicker than flies on shit. Roles reversed in an instant. I looked up from the dude on the ground to my brother having a gun to his head. A snarly motherfucker up in his face. Both of our lives changed that shitty night. Curtis laughed. Told us no one has ever interfered in his business. Long story short, the guy on the ground lived, and Curtis brought life back to my brother by offering him a job. He moved out shortly after and found a whole other family. That night saved his life.

  Saxon is four years younger than me. I missed the little shit like crazy when I enlisted in the Army. I had to do it for myself. I thought my parents would sober up and take care of the only kid they had left. No such luck. He got in more trouble than even I can comprehend.

  “I didn’t want to be alone tonight. Thought maybe you didn’t either.” Saxon’s eyes look as sad as the words coming out of his mouth. He opens my fridge, digs out a beer, and heads into the living room.

  I shake my head and heave out a sigh. I make my way to the bar that divides my kitchen and living room. Grab my half drunken beer off the counter and join him on the couch.

  “I’ve been keeping myself busy at the hospital. I should have called you. How you been?” I ask, knowing damn well how’s he’s been.

  He’s out doing shit I don’t want to know about. But he’s my blood. I love him, and I’ll do anything it takes to keep his ass out of trouble. He’d do the same for me. The problem is, the club is trouble. They are always on the wrong side of the law, but they take care of him and their own like no other.

  “Club business is hopping. Nothing new to tell there. I called Mrs.’ O’Grady; she said you already had her deliver flowers. Did you add the pink ones for me?” He takes a healthy pull from his beer, draining all of it in less than a minute.

  Christ, I don’t want to talk about this. I never do. Not with him. We end up choking back tears, getting drunk, and beating ourselves up every damn time. The wound will always be fresh in both of our hearts.

  “Yes. I always have your back,” I admit.

  The pain in his eyes resembles my own. It’s the anniversary of our sister’s death. The woman neither one o
f us could save. He was so young when it all went down. There wouldn’t have been a thing he could have done, and he knows it. I know damn well he does. He suffers in the same air as I do, because he loved her. But me, I was old enough. I would have killed whoever took her away from us. The dirty, rotten motherfuckers who haunt my wicked, fucked-up dreams.

  “Thanks. What’s up with the bald head? Nobody believes we’re brothers now; they sure as hell ain’t going to believe it when they get a good look at you now.” He tips the neck of his bottle in my direction.

  His brows quirk up as he lifts the bottle asking silently for a new one. His heavy beard is covering his thick neck. Hair as long as I’ve ever seen it. He’s a scary looking motherfucker.

  I chuckle. Saxon and I look as much alike as black and white, and that is the straight-up truth. Christ, do I love him. “Man, some shit went down a while ago. Scared the piss out of me. Took me back years while taking just as many off my life,” I respond.

  I grab the remote to the television and shut it off. Not in the mood to travel down this road, either. Hell, to be honest, I can’t seem to veer myself off it. There’s something about this woman that gets to me.

  “What the hell happened?” He looks perplexed. Frightened.

  “You're going to need something stronger than a beer if you really want me to tell you. It isn’t pretty, bro. In fact, it’s downright ugly.”

  “Well grab something, then. I ain’t going anywhere. Besides, this fancy-ass shit tastes like piss,” he jokes. He sure as shit won’t be joking when I tell him the entire story. I’ll be surprised if he makes it to the bathroom without vomiting all over my hardwood floor.

  I finish my beer. Take the empties and toss them in the trash. I reach into the liquor cabinet. Grab the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and inhale the rushing scent of hazelnuts and honey from one of the world's most famous whiskeys. No need for glasses. Not with him and definitely not tonight.

  I make my way to him, hand him the bottle, and let him have the first swig. He takes a good swallow, hands it back to me, and I chug, wiping the excess off my chin, feeling the burning tear apart my throat and eat away at my gut. No etiquette bullshit here tonight. No prim and proper doctor jargon; just me and the only person in this world I give a shit about. Until her.