Vicious (9 page)

“And you led me to a bedroom to...what?”

I nearly laughe
d at the confusion on his face. “It’s pretty fucked up, I know. I just wanted you to…want me more than you want her.” I muttered that last part. It was hard getting those words out; I had to drag them kicking and screaming out of me.  They danced around the room covered in my blood and gore, mocking me.

The confusion melted of
f his face, a cute half smile replacing it. “I do. I don’t want her. She doesn’t mean anything; she’s just someone to fu—“

“Don’t say that!”
I clamped my hand over his mouth. “Every time you say something like that it makes me think badly of you and resent you, so please, don’t speak about her like that. Don’t talk about anyone like that.” Slowly, I removed my hand from his mouth. He gazed at me with wide eyes and nodded his head.

“I only want you. That’s all you need to know, Violet.”

His hand slid over my cheek, and he bent forward to kiss my mouth but I stopped him. “No offence. But I just saw what you were doing with Julia and I don’t want you kissing me with that mouth until it’s been disinfected.”

His grin in response was infecti
ous, and we both laughed hard together.

Ewan leered at me as I set the table. “Find anything you liked at the party? Or
didn’t
like?” The twisted smirk he wore on his marked face made him look deranged, which may not have been too far from the truth. I caught his gaze, lifting my chin to show him that I would not be bowed.

“I know your type, Ewan,” I told him softly as I placed the silverware down. “You try to follow all the big boys doing all the naughty stuff. It makes you feel like a man, but all you are is a little boy. You will always end up being the fall guy, going to prison or dying young. You’ll never achieve anything and the world will go on like you never existed. You are absolutely
nothing
.”

The smirk had dropped off his face for a second, only a second. But then he grinned, showing his large gums. “You’re going crazy like your Mom, Violet. It’s only a matter of time.”

Ouch.
“Maybe,” I continued in the same soft tone. “And who knows what I’ll do when that time comes? I’d like to have your head on my wall. Your dead eyes would be just as vacant as they always are, your mouth slack…You would be as disgusting in death as you are in life.” I allowed myself a smile.

“Mental bitch—“

The front door slammed open as Diana stormed through it. Her eyes were red and swollen, she shook as she turned to watch Glynn come through the door after her. Something had lifted her out of the normal lethargy she displayed about everything except Jesus.

And that something was the vile scent of alcohol that permeated my sen
ses as Glynn unsteadily entered the living room. So much for sobriety.

“You don’t need to be such a bitch,” he slurred at her, eyes narrowed and nasty.
As he held onto the wall for support, his hand brushed against a picture and it fell to the ground, the glass smashing.

Diana’s eyes were glued to it, her mouth down turned.
“
Oh no.”
I didn’t know why she was upset, it was just a tacky flower painting, it wasn’t like it was part of her Jesus collection. “You horrible, horrible man.” Fresh tears began to run down her face and she brushed at them angrily.

Then she realized that Ewan and I were in the room.
“Out! There’s no dinner tonight. I want you two gone. I need privacy. I never get any privacy with you damned kids around here all the time.” The word
time
whined out of her in a wail, like everything was falling down. Glynn managed to make it to his chair and started pointing the remote at the TV but couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t turning on. He had it the wrong way around, but I wasn’t about to point that out to him.

Ewan was already heading out the door
and I followed suit. I gave Diana one last look before I left, she was down on the floor picking up the glass. She must have cut herself because blood was seeping from her palm as she gently wept. I hesitated, contemplating helping her, but then I thought better of it. As I walked down the porch step I dug my phone out of my jeans.

I quickly flicked Damon
a text, and he responded promptly that he’d be there soon. I walked to the corner of the street to wait. I didn’t know where Ewan had disappeared too. He didn’t seem to have many friends and was always on the outskirts of Damon’s group. But I didn’t have the time, or inclination, to feel sorry for him.

“I got us some food,” Damon greeted me as I got into the passenger seat. The aroma of hot burgers filled the car. “And,” he waved his hip flask at me, “a little something else to make us happy.”

“Nice.” I took the hip flask from him and drank deeply. “Where are we going?”

He looked over at me and grinned.
“The lookout. Tonight’s a full moon and I want to screw you in the moonlight again. It’s the only time you really let me see you naked.” That was true. I still wasn’t completely comfortable with being as naked around him as he would like. I preferred the coverage of the dark and thick blankets woven around me like armour.

The lookout was deserted and we sat in the car to eat, overlooking the lights of the city. After we finished, Damon opened th
e truck and took out some blankets. “So we’ll be more comfortable.
Especially
if I have to be on the bottom again.” He spread them out on the rock with largest surface that was flat and smooth. While his back was turned to me, I disrobed as I watched the moon that was large and full.

When Damon turned ba
ck to me he gave a low whistle. “You look…otherworldly.” He reached out a hand to trace down from my neck to my breast. “So pale in the dark, it’s like you’re made of marble,” he said softly. “Perfect. You’re perfect.”

Pleasure invaded me and I pushed him back gently onto the rock. My kisses were urgent, nearly desperate as I took off his clothes. “You are perfect,” I told him when I took a moment to inspect his own form, lying there waiting to fulfil my every want.

I mounted him with the moon above me. I rocked against him until we both moaned and panted together. After, we cuddled together with the blanket over us.

“I love moonlight,” I told him. “When I younger, my Mom used to love mythology and she would tell me stories about the moon goddess and her lost love. I’ve always be obsessed with it ever since.” I giggled. “I used to want to grow up to be the moon goddess.
So ambitious.”

“What was your mom like when you were little?” His breath was hot on the back of my neck.

“She was fun. She was always full of the most amazing stories. Sometimes she’d pull me out of school and we’d go on these crazy random road trips.” My smile faltered at a memory.

“What?” Damon asked.

I bit my lip hard before continuing. “She always found men. Wherever she went, they would flock to her. She was
so
beautiful.”

“Like you,” Damon whispered.

“No, she was…extraordinary. But she always went for the men she couldn’t have; the married ones. It was like some kind of game to her, like if she could make them leave their wives for her, then she would be the winner. But they never did. I think that’s what drove her to despair.” I swallowed, my throat suddenly thick. “The doctors have given her so many diagnoses. Everything from schizophrenia to bipolar, but the drugs never work how they should. I think really, her heart got broken and that broke her mind too.” My voice had cracked a little.

“Hey.” Damon turned me to face him, kissing a tear that had appeared on my cheek. “Don’t be sad, Violet. Please don’t be sad.”

We made love again in the moonlight, oblivious to everything except our two warm bodies joining together in a heated lust and need. He fell asleep, but I lay there staring at the sky. If there really were a moon goddess, then she would have been staring down at us, secure in the knowledge that everything was about to go horribly wrong.

Every moment I had spare was spent with Damon. I felt completely at ease in his company. There was no shaking, no lying, no
games.
I even told my Mom about him as she sat rocking, lost in a world where whatever thoughts that were in her head gained no coherency when they exited her mouth.

“You’d like him, Mom. He’s really cute.”

“The president came but I wasn’t in a straight line.”

“His Dad’s really nice too. You’d like him too.”

“The lettuce fell.”

“My foster parents are okay. Diana’s a little
nuts, and Glynn’s an alcoholic. He drinks all the time because he got caught drunk driving and lost his licence, which means that he lost his job. So now he’s home all day drinking himself into oblivion.”

“Star lines are broken, so don’t tell them.”

I sighed, leaning over and giving her a hug. “I won’t, Mom.” She had been bathed so smelt fresh for once. I imagined that I smelled the expensive scents that she used to wear for her dates. She would spend all afternoon bathing and doing her hair in preparation for the next man that she anticipated would sweep her off her feet.

The nurse gave me a sad smile as I walked out of the day room. “She’s having a bad day.”

I matched her smile, feeling every bit of the sadness I displayed. “She’s having a bad life.”

The nurse patted me on the shoulder. “You’re a good daughter. She’s lucky to have you.”

I had been making more of an effort to go and see her recently. Damon had offered to come with me, but I wasn’t quite ready for that part of her to be laid bare yet. As always, everything felt better and lighter the moment I walked out of the hospital. Even the other people on the bus didn’t seem as dreary and depressed as they normally did. I figured that was the influence of Damon coloring my world.

Diana wasn’t home. She was spending more and more time at her church, praying for Glynn’s soul to be saved now that he had succumbed to the devil’s drink again. Glynn only seemed to move from his chair once a day. He would return with a bottle of cheap amber liquor and proceed to drink the whole thing.

I called out to him in greeting as I passed by his chair. There was a grunt in response. I figured that one day I wouldn’t hear that grunt and then I would know that he was dead. I carried onto my bedroom. Ewan’s bedroom door was shut but his music, the devil’s music according to Diana, was pulsing through the door. I imagined him sitting in there and making hate lists of everyone whoever wronged him, or maybe  he was playing with his little dick and fantasizing he was with an actual, real live girl.

I threw my coat on the bed and started getting ready to meet up with Damon
, who would be picking me up shortly. The creak was what I heard. How, I didn’t know over Ewan’s music which seemed to rattle the whole house. But I turned, and then wished I hadn’t.

Glynn stood in the doorway, his b
ulk taking up the entire space. His pants loose, he held his flaccid penis in his palm and started to stroke himself. My mouth twisted up in disgust while bile rose in my throat, burning and reminding me that this was real.

“What are you doing?” I rasped out, not being able to tear my eyes away from that obscene sight.

“Juss stay there,” he slurred. “Don move.”

His hand moved faster, but his penis remained soft. It reminded me of some oversized pink worm as he pumped harder at it. I found my voice.

“Get out. Get out, Glynn.”
I tried to make my voice firm and unwavering, but failed.

He shook his head. “This is my house.
My rules.” All the while, his hand moved back and forth in its futile task.

“Violet?”
I heard Damon’s voice faintly over the beat of the music. Glynn mustn’t have because he kept trying to get himself hard, his eyes glued to me. Damon appeared at his shoulder, and it only took a second for him to process the scene. In one swift movement, his hand grabbed the back of Glynn’s head and rammed it, full force, into the door frame. Blood appeared. I heard Ewan’s door open.

“What’s going on?”

Damon shoved Glynn’s head once more into the door frame, and I heard a sickening crack sound. I couldn’t close my mouth; I couldn’t speak or move. And Damon did it again, before letting Glynn drop. The older man fell as floppy, bloodied deadweight.

“Fuck,” Ewan
said, which was what I was thinking as well, only I couldn’t get my mouth to form any words. Damon was staring down at Glynn’s body, a look of shock on his face as if he couldn’t believe what he had just done. I saw Damon’s chest move as he took several shuddering breaths, and then his wide eyes moved to me. We stared at each other, and I desperately wanted to comfort him, but I still couldn’t move.

Suddenly, Damon moved. He ran up the hall, and a few seconds later we heard
his car start.

“If he dies, Damon’s gonna be in the shit,” Ewan commented.

Suddenly, I was moving. “Call an ambulance!” I grabbed a t-shirt and bundled it against the bloodiest part of Glynn’s head. My heart started to beat again when I saw his chest move up and down. The police arrived at the same time that the paramedics did.