The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Save The Answers
06:00 Apr 15 2006
Times Read: 642


Chapter1: The Move



I remember a long time ago when the sky was beautiful. The clouds that dressed it in a complimentary fashion. I remember that anger could get you through just one day and wake up the next like it wasn't enough to have gotten out of bed before. The childhood can carry too far into the life of adulthood before it gets put in its place; it all depends on what kind of childhood you had. My child, when you reach for the heavens with your heart when it breaks, it reaches back for you to hold you dearly. It you look up and shake your fist, it shakes it's finger. Don't you know these things? Ah, but you will in time, you will. In the dire heat of near end, the will to thrive in one way or another, the sky will open up to you for the sake of catching each tear you do and do not cry to show you it will love you or punish you.



"When will I fly?"



Fly? Oh, hush.



Do you see the crest of the hill over there where the world ends? That is where everything comes from. Way over there is where the foreign things came from. The ones with light seeing objects and ice or wheate fur. It was said that long ago, they road on the water with many things and spied the land below for things. They stayed. Adapted to the land. Made fire. Made life. Thrived and florished below us like tiny gods.



My child, you will see.



"Is this a tale of woe? Like Ophelia?"



No. It is a tale of life. Of hope. A little bit of destiny. Of all the things that repeats itself until it can become perfected like a dance.





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Many time's we've told ourselves that it would be the last time that it would ever happen. That this time would be it. No more changes. Those were not to be allowed any longer. Moving was for enlightenment! To find things we lost as we pack our life in three by nines and shove them into a storage unit or some sort of carrying truck that will fallow a vehicle to the new place where they will unload it all into stacks all over. In each room. Politely organized for our better purposes.



We would ride with the windows down to let the cool wind sweep all over us in the desert heatwave to calm our bodily temperature. The dust would pick up on the highly windy motions that the wheels would pick up and slaughter our cleanliness. Our agrivation would flare to remind us how much we hated moving and dwell on the past experiances just to give us an excuse to retreat with a pissed off glare out of the corner of the eye.



Fuck the air conditioning, it wouldn't be much of use when you can't smell the outside.



Teenagers don't want to discuss the future with thier mother or father in the driver seat. They want the exhaustion to sink in so they could sleep as much of the trip as possable. The arrogance of having a younger brother bouncing a rubber against the back window of a tan station wagon with a brown bottem like a minor boat creates a pound in the head that feels like someone's hitting you on the back of the head with every thunk it creates before it goes back to the reciever. Even the loud head phones screaming into the crainium couldn't possably help.



"Cut it the fuck out!" Penny Doe screamed at the top of her lungs, throwing her book at the far window.



Everyone in the car jumps, including the parents deep in thier own worlds slilp back into reality by the harsh noise. "My word, Penny, what is it with you?" Her step-father said in an annoying accent. "He's not hurting anyone."



"Yes. He's giving me a headache." If you want me sedated so I wouldn't be a problem, give me something. He could bounce his stupid ball and I could have some peace and quiet. "Make him stop." She reached over the back of the long seat to slap him upside the head a few times, only his feet pushed him across the cardboard box to the window blowing a raspberry loaded with purposeful spit.



Infuraiated in each moment of sight within her collided with suspense to gather. She could not take it any longer. The anger built in pounds like butter each second she didn't have her fists upon him. In a moments heart beat, she tried to jump the back of the seat to pound on the boy with all she could only to have the hope of the satisfaction deteriate when her mother grabbed a hold of her belt loop, yanking her down so that she smacked her head on the window, falling to the floor behind the drivers seat.



"Calm it down, Pen." Her mother warned with a finger in her face. "We're almost there. Do not speak to eachother, no matter what. I want utter silence. We've got two more hours. Try to get some sleep!"



It was apparent to the rest of them that they were not going to settle this matter until someone got hurt; then the flames would be fed with revenge on the deck with a high ace. No justice. Only space with a void as large as the spread of buck shot. Mumbles and groans of loathing whispers in the head spread like wild fire. How genuine that must have felt so right to barge through the torrent in blasphemy.



For the remainder of the ride, they refused to look at anyone-let alone the adults in the front for not lavishing the battle. This was to be continued, though the thought of food during a rubmle from the pit of the stumach. A few sandwiches found thier lips. The hunger was surpressed for a short while to be accompanied by bottles of water. White bread with honey and buttersquished together and cut into triangles. Yep, mom was living in a world where Peter Pan was real and the boogyman was not. Fairies came when you slept with thier fairy dust for dreams, but sidekicks were for boys.



Harold beeped his horn to get everyones attention signaling that they were there.



Dian clapped her hand while Charlie climbed over to lean between the two front seats until Penny wanted her own veiw by shoving him over. Forcing him to grab the head of his mothers seat to look over her head. Their smiles faded to read the sign relaying the milage of twelve miles. "Oh, kids, isn't this just exciting?"



"Yeah.... Thrilling. You waited to tell us all this time that we were twelve mines away and there's nothing but sand and patches of grass. "How long until we actually get there?" Penny sarcasted back.



Harold smiled. "Oh, I'd say about another half hour or so."



A delightful humph flared in malcontent as they both sat back hard against thier seat.



The daughter pulled her backpack from between them into her lap with discontent. When they did arrive to the town it was nothing of what they had expected. Worn down houses with faded colors they used in the sixties. Each house had some sort of a porch with a few flaking collumns, screen doors with pretty decorations that were probably more of a distateful distraction than for prettying up the entryway. As they drove through the streets, some would come off thier steps and fallow the truck where ever it may go. At one of the second stop signs Harold called to a few teenagers as to where their new address was.



"Oh," one dragged out as he stepped back. "You're moving here. You're moving into Paige's old place, eh? Down three blocks, take a left on Whitmen. You'll see it." The kids moved away from the wagon, continued on their way.



As soon as they were in the driveway, they just sat there looking at it. It was ugly and almost run down like the rest of the town with a fence with a gate swing door in the front. Harold had to pull back out and park in front. The moving van pulled up behind them. The children looked behind them before they exited the vehicle like scared animals.



"What a nice ...place." Their mothers smile faded. "Come on kids, let see the inside." The sunglasses came off her nose up to rest on top of her head, pushing her whispy ends off her sweating face. She saw the neighbors come to thier windows to pear at them like spies in thier cages. Silently welcoming them to the kennel. If they wanted to stare, let them. She was just as human as them. The thought of them being the only white family in this neighborhood could make things a little lonely though.



Lonely wasn't the word for it. They were a pin against the bubble. They would be secluded to thier own company or welcomed with open arms. If it were any consolation to the community at all, the better they were accepting, the sooner they could leave.

She had no other choice to bring her family into her work; if she could have left them out of it, she would have done so. The kids could be just what the job needed to fallow through to success. They'll never even know when it was over. Her son zooted up through the fence to the front door, only to have found it locked. His voice called out to his elders for thier need of haste.



Deer god; they were in the middle of nowhere. No mans land. Tragicly stuck in an oven without a timer. Penny grabbed her backpack onto her shoulders and filled her other hand with a small camcorder while the other one carried two duffel bags. The camera was the idea of her shrink back in Bennington. She was to record everyday for one week what she wanted; whether it was just a head shot blabbing or things she thought were beautiful. Or just a random shot of her crying. At the end of the week, the tape was placed into a bubble wrap lined menilla envelope. His office was addressed in the center with hers in the upper left along with her peitients number below her name. He would call back on the phone land line where they'd be listed to do a verbal review.



The view through the lens was a little tilted due to the heavey baggage in the other hand. Her headphones blared the song Toy Box from a very odd rap group her brother classified as "stupid grunge". To her, it was just as good as the opera-like music her mother played when she painted scenery from the backyard.



When she was little, she would sit for hours watching the brush go from the pallet to the canvas. One day she promised while playing with her puzzle pieces in a dress up ballroom and her grandmothers pearls to paint her mothers portrait. Ten years went by with no fulfillment to that promise just yet.



On her way up the stairs, the smell of fire lingered in the air. She looked around over her shoulder with no certain knowledge of whether she expected a smoke trail or not.



Her mother dirrected her to the room on the second floor. She was to have the largest room in the house from the facts of her large bed. Large? It was humungous! It was the entire upstairs with the walls knocked down! The only thing she had with a wall was the bathroom; even that was only a fourth of her room. Her bed would be brought in as soon as the moving men could get it unloaded. Until then, she would have to get everything she had into the center of the room that she could carry up the seventeen steps. Each time she brought a box in, she would pear around the room into the shadows for things she wondered what could be hidden within them from her mother and step-fathers eyes. Unfortunately, that would be a little more difficultthan she thought considering there was a lot more space where the light could come through except for the section where her bathroom and bed was.



Perhaps the wall behind the shower wall near the far wall with the window. She could put her shrine there with a beaded curtain of the moon and stars. Her step-father gave it to her when he first moved into her mothers place three years ago when he baught it at a garage sale. He thought she might have liked it a lot more than her old one that was falling apart every time someone brushed up against it.



It was a lovely touch, though she hated that it was from him. "I think your mother picked out just the right one." he'd told her when she opened it up on the couch in her late pajamas.



While her own boxes were being brought in, she accompanied her mother with the livingroom and kitchen boxes. The heavey things were brought in mostly from the moving men.



It was almost an hour into unloading when she had to bring the men up the steep stairs to show them where to put her bed and table. Her mind was going mad with ideas for the first night. She had to construct her bed first thing or she'll have a fit with no bed to make in the morning. Lucky for her a few of the towns people had come to help bring the boxes that were left outside into the house so that they could all get to know eachother more than just knowing what the white people looked like.



"That's my daughter Penny." Dian pointed to the girl in black, searching the boxses for some of her own.



"Oh she's tall." Tachael, her neighbor across the street commented, nodding her head with a half smile. "Teenaged girls can be almost as hard to raise as teenaged boys." The girl wasn't talking to anyone really, except when she dirrected them where to put what they had in thier hands.



Of course, they had her pinned already as a wild child and the awful mother who could not control her. "She's quiet and deffensive since I started dating her step-father. Kinda like he was the evil thing to take me away from her."



"You will have that. There will be some day when they will get along. You just have to wait for that to come. Ice will melt some day, Dian." She was blunt, though a little bit of help and concern from a fellow mother always helped in the long run. "I have a son who's almost around her age. We could always stop over if you'd like. He could help your daughter put her bed together and some of the other things. I could send him over when the moving men are gone."



That was a swell idea. It would give Penny a chance to make a friend. Dian quickly accepted the offer without second thoughts.







Chapter 2: Neighbors



A knock on the open door frame made Penny nearly jump out of her skin. She looked over her shoulder with a glare. It certainly wasn't Harold who came in.



"My mother's the one your looking for if you want money."



"She told me you needed help putting some of your things together."



"I don't need help. I've done this before, I know what I'm doing." She went back to putting her bed together, only to have the sideboard fall back off and she growled.



"Well, in that case, I can just help you unpack." He walked in, stopping a foot from the boards by the window.



"Don't need any help, man. She may though."



What an arrogant child. It wasn't like he wanted to help anyway. He was doing it for the money he needed to pay back his grandfather. "Look, from what your mother and my mother agreed, I'm supposed to help you put shit together. Now I need the money and you're obviously having trouble. What else needs to be put together?"



That's good. She was now a bargain tool for her mother now. "Fine." Penny sighed. The sooner things got put together, the sooner she can shut herself up and the world outside downstairs. "The bookshelf by the window." She gave in. "Then there's the table over there by the bathroom." She walked over to a box that was marked semi-fragile in her own handwriting and unpacked an F/M radio cassette cd player and plugged it in by the beam near the stiarwell. The song Bleeding Heart Theory blew through the speakers at them. The sound of Alexis Brown's sweet voice in the beginning brought a serene smile for the remainder of workshop period.



Alex frowned at first, then began to ponder while the screaming and high deffinition of her voice become growling came through. It cetainly wasn't like his ex-girlfriend Joan to listen to this music; whatever it may be. He didn't know any girl that liked it. Some liked the pop culture and others liked the old Sand Man sounds.



They put the rest of the few hours in silence until he asked if she smoked. She looked over her right shoulder with a smile. He took it as a yes so he motioned for them to go outside and have one. For the first time since they met, they were actually in agreement. They went down the stairs, where she shut the door to the next level adn through the back door where they watched her step father lay out in a hammock. Lazy fool, she thought. They smoked thier tobacco finnaly discussing the music.



He wanted to know if a girl really sang or if she was part of the vocal line.



It made her smile to speak about the band, though he went quiet after she'd explained that it was a band out of Knoxville, Tennasee and shared the stages with lots of great heavey bands. The rest was a completely uncomfortable error she wished would disipate her.



They went back upstairs when they were done, putting their butts into a can she found in the corner by the steps. She led the way back up to the top floor, which was just about as usefull as an attic and three times as big as the basement. It was living in a studio apartment with her parents living below her. A little peice of an island just for herself. She could shut the world out any time she wanted.



The bed was put together. Table made up and boxes around it. Bookshelf up and waiting to be filled. The small table by her bed was topped with a small blue lamp, alarm clock, and pack of cigarettes as cheep as beastly beer and a night with a two dollar hooker she guessed. The only thing she needed help with now was the curtains that were for the one floor to ceiling window and the high window that went half way on one side and the other by the bathroom she could handle alone. She hated to admit it, but she did like being helped by him. He was quiet and he had a pissed off look to himself just as bad as herself.



Alex pulled the cutain rod down with a step on the chair and brought it over to her where she sat on the bed pulling the fishnet canopy layer onto it and then the next one they rigged with long black curtains that shined in the light from the far end. It was soft and half thicker than any normal curtain would be. It was good for the winter he guessed. Each window was done the same way. It took half an hour to untangle the christmas lights and hang them all over, though she wanted them stretegiclly pinned up with the staple gun, which drove him nuts. She wanted it done right and he just wanted it done.



They were to line the whole perimiter and then criss cross the room and wrap around a beam on the way down to the plug near the little sterio. At one point he stapled his thumb; nearly dropping the heavy gun on Penny's head.



"Damnit, watch out!" She hollared.



He stepped off the chair to retrieve it with a glare. "Look, you wanna do this yourself? I don't think you can reach considering how damn short you are. I ain't doing this shit for you. I'm doing it for the money. Remember?"



"Fine. After this, you can just go get paid."



"Good."



"Good!" She threw her hands up.



"Are you always this difficult?" Alex stapled the line up.



"I didn't ask for your help, remember?" She reminded him.



"And I didn't ask to help you. My mother volentiered me." He dragged part of the lights closer to the chair where he could make a dip into the corner by her bookshelf and reroute it along the windows before heading it around the beds wall. "Now if you don't want me here, that's fine. I didn't want to be here to begin with. After this, I'm out of here."



She pulled another set of lights out that mimiced the rest of them in all thier purple glory. Her long fingers plugged them into the end of the previous and then plugged them into the plug. She watched as he pulled on them and stapled each one deeply into the inner wood lining. When the colors lit up, he blinked and looked at her with a look that she aught to be taken over his knee and spanked for being a bit rude.



The look said it all and she pulled the cord hard to turn them off with a loud sigh.



A noise came from the stairs to tell her that her parents were coming up to inspect. Dian and Tachael peeked over the floor boards like crocodiles in an amazon before they fully came in. "Just us." Her mother said looking around. "Almost done?" The look on the young mans face said it was over an hour ago.



"When you are done, come over to the house. We are having a cook out." Laura informed her.



Alex was not a happy camper, though only his mother could tell the idea of them at his own place was rather uncalled for. Eating thier food, using thier bathroom, making a ruckus and being nosey. Looking at the pictures on the wall and asking for the story behind it. Explaining how they've never really lived anywhere else and who's the big trouble around town.



The two of them nodded simotaniously as they continued with thier work. After the two women were done looking around chit chatting, they disappeared back down the stairs. What else now? They were apparently stuck together for the rest of the night. What a bad way to get things started around here. They already didn't like eachother very much as it was. The only time they got along was when neither of them were speaking and the music was playing.



After the lights were put up, he started down the stairs. He was just about gone when she took her shirt off, heading off in the dirrection of the bathroom. "Hey, where are you going? Come on." She walked back over to where she could see his face fully and purposely that he could see her. Both fists rested on her hips like an angry step-mother or evil aunt. "We don't have time for this."



"We? You mean I. I want to shower before I go anywhere."



He walked back up the stairs with feet dropping heavely on purpose to show his slight aggrivation. He picked her shirt up off the floor and walked over to her. Penny's eyes rolled one more time before the day was over and he'd slap them eyeballs out of her head. It was getting annoying and over rated. "Put it on. My mother invited you over. If you go later, there wont be anything and she'd be offended. I'm not about to let you offend my mother."



Her hands grabbed her shirt out of his hand and put it back on. She pulled her hair tie off her wrist and put it up in a pony tail as she walked around him and down the stiars. She waited up for him on the front porch. How could she know which one was his. Thier house sat between two of them and stared straight into the alleyway they created.



He on the other hand did not stop after he closed the door behind him and let the screen door slam shut. This was her cue to fallow him in her head. It was his house, let him show her which one it really was. Was it the one on the left with the blue door and white chipped painted house with a broken window? Or was it the ugly white doored house with a green house and dark green finish line to it and an old white station wagon much older than her mothers parked in the driveway on the right?



They headed straight to the ugly green house with the wagon to her dismay. Let's get this over with, she thought to herself. The stone faced youngly went between the two houses to the back yard of the right house which was filled with people for the first time since Alex could remember. Penny looked from his stone face to her own family which was sitting outside a table just chattering away.



"Grandfather," he greeted the old man with the curious look in the rocking chair under the shade of the tree. The old man looked at him with his ice gray eyes and smiled at the new company. In thier forgein language, he spoke to his grandson who in return spoke back the same way. Then turned to her, motioining her to come over from her mothers side. "Penny, ...this is my grandfather." And in thier own language introduced her to him. She reached out to shake his hand, which he looked at for a moment before he finaly took it slowly, shaking it with two slow motions. He was the one who let go first.



Tachael's voice from afar called out to her for help with setting the table while her son helped the old man to the head of the table in a wire framed chair with wood arm rests and backing and faded blue seat cushion tied to it. To his left sat his daughter, Harold, and Mickey. To his right sat his grandson, Penny, and her mother. What kind of rediculous seating was this? He didn't want to be seated next to her, but that's how it came out.



They ate laughing and frowning about thier pasts. Commenting on the food, hoping to get the resipie in trade for another. Penny couldn't help but kick her step-father beniethe the table to get him to cease and desist the story about how they walked in on her as a child dressing in her mothers clothes and putting makeup on in the most child-like fashion when she was eleven and still so small. He reached down to rub his ankle with his hand and finished up the story with a wave of his hand and small comment. Tachael looked at her with pure delight in the story while her mother explained how adorable she was walking around with pearls around her neck and lipstick all over her lips and chin.



Grandfather spoke slowly when it was through and things were getting picked up. Tachael listened while wiping the white plastic table down from crumbs and dropplings. She paused, looking up at him with a half smile. She pulled the last bit to herself when she spoke back that it was a wild idea, even when he was hardly wrong when he said the things he did for the future.



They said thier good-nights to promise to do it again real soon.



Dian laughed with her husband as he slid his arm around her waist heading back to thier new place. Mickey was already inside and sitting on the floor of his room playing with a puzzle Tachael gave him for the sake of it being used again. Penny walked behind her mother and step-father with sluggish steps. They headed to thier room and she headed to hers.



The bed looked great in the christmas lights that shone , leaving the world they had just entered out with the wind and hot air. When her head hit the pillow, she was out into the dream world.









Chapter 3: Ambassadors Of Havest



It would be quarter after ten when she woke in sweaty sheets. She listened for life downstairs to find that none exsisted. She took her shower. Each limb on her body ached from yesterdays work. She did find a few boxes with clothes in them to jump into before she went below for breakfast. Still quiet she found it to be. From the side window in the livingroom she could see that the car was gone, which meant that they had taken her brother to the school to register. She would have almost an hour or two with the house completely under her control until then. She ate her morning meal and high tailed it back to her room to blast some music before they came home.



An hour to get all of her clothes together and organized all over her bed. Half an hour to about an hour organizing her books on the bookshelf. Five minutes picking out music between boxes. Twenty minutes to sweep the floor and air the room out sneezing.



When she was decently satisfied, the cigarettes on her nightstand began to call her name.



The sun was just getting warm before it would hit to the eighties. By tweve-thirty she was sweaty again, fanning herself with her hands and wishing she had not taken a shower before she had done all that work. it was useless.



Her stumach was calling for another dip in the refridgerator when she was done. Obviously her mother had stocked the refridgerator and some of the shelves before the three of them had taken the ride out to the new schooling system. Eggs and milk on one shelf and milk, soda, and a few other misculanious types of fruit and vegitables with bread on another. Thankfully there was some butter in the lift-drawer for her to make a grilled cheese sandwich to make before she went to unpack some more of her things. She had almost burnt the lunch and spilled her drink across the counter looking for a spatula that was in the second wide drawer along with the long knives that didn't match the set that hung in the ones on the counter. There weren't any pickles in the house, so the sandwich was a drag after that.



The television was put up and the shelf was lined with tapes and DVD's across the room from the bookshelf. How wonderful it was to be so luxurious! She chose one of the scariest movies to eat her lunch with. Within minutes of eating, she was passed out on the couch before she realized it.



What an embarrassing feat that was, considering how Mickey had just gotten back and bashed her head repeatedly with a pillow from the other end of the couch. Penny grabed the pillow with him and threw it at his feet when he turned to run. He tripped and screamed at the top of his lungs as he held his nose on his knees. "Mo-o-om!" he hollared through tears. He ran right into Tachael on his way into the kitchen with Dian right on her heals.



She was in for it now.



"What the hell did you do that for?" Her mother picked Mickey up onto her hip. "What happened Mic?" He was sobbing too hard in the machine gun rythem to do anything but point. The blood drizzled down his lips and chin; all over his Godzilla t-shirt and mothers hands and shirt. "Damn you two. Can't we have some peace for once in our house?"



"Hey, I'm not the one who woke someone up in a sufficating manner." Penny called after them. She put the pillow back on the couch and leaned her head back with her eyes clsed. The distant sound of heavey footsteps disturbed her thoughts. "Don't worry, I clean up." She mumbled between her fingers yawning. What a perfect way to ruin the day.



It's not like she meant for him to get hurt. He brought it on himself to begin with. All she was doing was laying unconscious when the little monster started bashing her with the blasted pillow.



Obviously the person ignored her by the sound of the paper towels being torn off the roll and smeared the blood around the polished wooden floor a few times. Then came behind the couch and opened the two glass doors. They let in a cool breeze tainted with the distinct stench her mother hated. At first Penny just about gagged. Oh, she could use one right now.



It couldn't be Harold; he doesn't smoke.



For someone who smokes, a cigarette was like a confession of sin or something to no one in particular. "That was mean." Alex smiled at her. Between his fingers was a light cigarette with the filter half cut off to make it a full flavored.



She shrugged, looking at the hammock in the distance. Her hair was a wreck with a piece that stuck out over her ear. He handed her the cigarette which she saluted to him with when it was about to touch her lips. How could the day go any worse, she wondered to herself? He lit one for herself and sped through the air to pull the funky part of hair out from over her ear and away from her face. She froze with the smoke rising from her parted lips slowly. When he looked back at her, she had finished blowing the smoke through her nose and looked away.



That wasn't right. She didn't like people touching her without being allowed to. She took a step away from him and leaned against the wall of the house. "It was bugging me," He said into the wind. "sticking out like that. So don't take it like I wanted to touch you or anything." They went in silence with thier smoking. When she was done, she walked back into the house to see if Mickey was any better.



He was still crying and carrying on sitting on his mothers lap with Tachael pouring him a second glass of water to drink. Harold stood at the kitchen sink, rinsing out the washcloth his mother used to wipe themselves off with. "Di, she's never going to change. She hasn't been the same since I've come into the picture. She needs to get over this. I'm your husband." Her mothers voice was too low for her to catch what she was saying.



The doors in the livingroom closed. Alex's footsteps came close to comeing up behind her. Her feet took her hastely to her room and up the stairs. For being so steep, it was a wonder that she had not tripped up them taking each by two's. Her radio had already had some music in it, all she had to do was push play. When the beats of screaming hit the speakers she walked over to her bed and flopped down. The springs on the mattress bounced her softly. The beats of the music went with the beat of her heart. Irregular and complicated.



Each window had thier thick curtains blocking out the light which begged to come in. The wind came in the far side so that it was a very light breeze by the time it came to her bed side. A welcomed old friend that was always forgiven for no reason at all.



Alex closed the door behind him as quiet as he could, even though the music was pretty loud. He peeked over the edge of the steps. Penny's arm dangling over the edge of the bed could be seen and her feet apart as if she were dead. His brows Knitted together as he decided to continue the rest of the way up. Her feet stopped moving when his came short of the bed. The words his mother asked him to have with her came softly, though they didn't match his facal expression.



The toes went back to bouncing off eachother with the music. How rude to be ignoring someone like that. He repeated it again with the same results back. His patience wearing thin, he grabbed her by the calves and jerked her body down the comforter. "Alright! I fucking heard you." she snapped, sitting up.



His hair was in his eyes. She could barely see them through his dark hair. It was as if they had gone into a void if not for the whites of his eyes outlining his. She was speachless. Though he was carrying that pissed off look like herself so often, she could see the beauty behind his features. Alex was a very good looking young man though he chose to be so quiet and dictating about things. Penny searched his eyes. Before she could stop her hands, they were pulling his hair off to the sides like a set of curtains for the rays of sun to come through.



"What?" he groweled when she didn't say anything more. The way she stared at him with more than one look without moving a muscle was aggrivating "You want me to kiss you, white girl?" He cocked his head to the side, then brought his body closer to hers so that she was leaning back on her elbows. His eyes never leaving hers in a dead stare-off. "To get so close I could smell your aura?" She moved her body back some more, but he kept getting close to her with her legs spread on either side of his body. "Is that what you want?" Alex sneered. He moved his face close to hers. Then put his lips close her neck, breathing heavily on it He put his mouth so close to her ear that she swore that if he wanted to he could bit it off she would have no chance in moving away in time. "Or would you rather do something to me? ...Huh? Is that it?" She backed away only to find him keeping in step.



She could hardly breathe. She feared that if he did, he would back off. It'd been so long since she had anyone near her this close. Last time she layed down with someone, it wasn't a beautiful face like the one breathing fire at her. Ever so slowly, she moved her head away to look at his face. There was nothing she could do to stop herself. Her lips went to his.



At first, he did not respond to it. It had been a long time since he had had any contact with someone else. If he wanted any more, he better get to it and start something. What kind of lie could hurt for now. She was scared and couldn't possably know what she was doing. So Alex accepted the kiss from his white neighbor taking charge. He pushed her back to the mattress, half sinking onto her, pushing his tongue into her mouth.



The leggings of his pants rode up the back of his calves while her legs trailed up his, resting on the back of his thighs and layed down on them as if to pin him to herself. Her arms with through his hair. It was a sudden surprise on how soft it was. She knew she should not be doing this, though she could not help herself from encouraging the act. She was only seventeen herself. If her mother or Harold caught them, they cold press charges on him and he would be labeled as a sex offender for life. They should stop when she couldn't bring herself to break away.



This was so wrong! He shouldn't be doing this. But what could it hurt? She obviously wanted something out of it. He took the one hand to prop himself up with without breaking the kiss and used the other to bring her thigh around his waist while massaging it before he moved his large hand to her waist, then up her side to cup her. That he held off on and went back to her thigh and squeezed it slightly. The result was a little quiver and tension in her lower body. He could feel her hands grip some of his hair. The kiss trailed down her chin and around her neck to her collarbones. She felt him tighten up when she leaned in and kissed his neck.



So there was a weak spot on him after all! Obviously he liked it.



He went back to her lips to get her off the neck or he'll have to talk himself down before they joined everyone downstairs again. The teen groaned during the kiss into her mouth. That was when he felt her other leg wrap around him; and the pressure of his midsection came to hers. In response, she had pushed right back, only making it worse.



Then the music stopped.



Both froze. He saw her turn paler than she already was when she looked over his shoulder. He couldn't look. He did not want to see her step-father standing in the with the most heated look he probably ever had in his entire life. He could feel her with no doubt about it that as stiff as rigor mortus on a dead body. Her legs slowly moved off of him and flattened out so he could remove himself from her to sit on the bed next to her. He cleared his throat and looked up.



A sigh of relief came from his lips when he saw that it was his mother. "Lord knows how you can hear anything after listening to something that loud." Tacheal moved a little closer to the bed. "I think you better come on downstairs. We have a lot of people to entertain." She looked from one teen to the other, noting on how guilty the two looked. Like two children each with thier hand caught in the cookie jar. She turned slowly and went back down the stairs without closing the door.



Her hair fell on her face when she flopped back down in her embarrassment. The urge to roll up into a ball was strong while another urge was fierce in them both.



He started to walk to the stairwell when she called after him. He didn't turn but stopped.



"You should wait." she cleared her throat more. "Your friend will embarrass you a lot more than your mom catching us making out, don't you think?"



She was right. But what could he do? He had to do it. Had to stay until he could talk himself down. "You started it." He sat back on the bed. Man he had to piss.



"What? No way, buddy." Penny sat up. "You were the one that wouldn't lay off. I tried to get away from you, but you just had to climb up on the bed and make me kiss you. It's your fault!"



"Oh so it's my fault now? You presented yourself quite well if I don't say so myself. Could have fooled me. What did you kiss me for anyway? If you'd slapped me, we wouldn't have been in this situation." She got up in a huff stumbling over to him and slapped him hard across the face.



"Well, I'm slapping you now." She lowered her stinging hand.



He just sat there with his head turned from the slap. It was so hard ad he could see a few drops of blood on the back of his hand. Then rose to his feet slowly. A piece of his pride had been forfitted for a piece of the rose, but he wanted to taste the honey in the pot and got stung by the queen bee for trespassing. He deserved it just as much as she deserved to be taunted.



What he didn't like is that she was just like himself. It wasn't fair.



"Come on, Wonder Woman" The cuff of his sleeve swiped across the little trail. "we have things to do." The grip on her upper arm was fierce and he squeezed it harshly. She shook him off and straightened her hairself up as she desended to the first floor with his eyes rolling and hands through his hair.





Chapter 4: Simple Deception





Okay, so the block party wasn't as large or as small as she had hoped, but it was a good way to get the ball moving for others to meet these white folks. Her grandfather sat in his rocking chair with children all around him including Mickey with a bowl of chips and cheese doodles. Harold was standing with a few of the older gentlemen and Tacheal was bringing out extra orderves to the guests with Dian who was being introduced every time she turned around. Alex left her standing around the corner as she looked on to greet his grandfather with a plastic cup of punch filled half way so he wouldn't spill it with his hand gestures.



A few giggles from behind her of young native girls and two older women carrying a dish each of what looked like lasagna and a piece of large roast. Both were so beautiful and kind looking that they could be mistaken for geisha's if they painted thier faces and dorn the robes and danced with fans or daggers in luxurious gestures that taunts the souls they bore without tears in their performance. The children with thier long hair flowed in the breeze they created as they ran by. One little girl held onto her mothers skirt, carrying a large plastic bag on her shoulder like a purse with candy in it. They passed her and she looked into the childs eyes that still held on right to the end she could muster.



Again, Pen looked around the corner at everyone laughing or smiling and having a good time or hurumphing at thier presance. Some men and women wore thier hair long and flowing or in braids or cut short and styled in desire. Some had nice attire. Some were as they chose to be themselves. And though it was a rough grounded area, most wore their mocisons and sandles. She thought them so lucky to never take for granted the value of family and companionship. It was always thier duty to move every now and then when her mother had taken different jobs or thier father had decided it was thier time for change.



She took a deep breath and fallowed slowly behind them to the table where they had the upside down pile of cups and large bowel of punch. The ladel gave her almost a full dose. Her brothers laughter rang out over the crowd.



As she neared, she could tell that he was not speaking english. He must have been laughing at the gestures the old man was making and the way he was talking; putting a great exaduration on things. The children did not seem to mind him being there. One had thrown an arm around his shoulders and they swayed together. If her little brother could make friends with those that didn't even understand him, how come she had trouble making friends with those that did? How unfair!



Someone jerked her shoulder with thier body, causing her to drop her cup. The drink spilled all over her pant legs and the other persons drink went down her left arm and the front of her shirt. "Hey, watch it." she heard a feminine voice sneer. Her eyes rose from her body to the enhabitant of her assailant. The girl looked about her own age fi not a year younger or two with her hair freely down her back. The tank top hugged her body to show herself off like her shorts to show her hairlessly lovely long legs and feet that were wrapped in Roman like styled sandles. Though the face did not match her appearance, she betted herself that she really could be a nice girl if she chose to be.



Some looked and some chose to look away from the situation.



She was wrong by a few degrees she guessed when the girl walked up to her. "You're supposed to appologize when you bump into someone. Who invited you anyway? This block party's for us, not you." Her hands went to her hips and got close. "Now, ...say it." Great. Now she would be influanced to be a bitch back. God, she hated this. It always got her into trouble. The girl next to her clared her throat, mumbling something to her; which changed her expression to light and cheery. "Alex!" her voice sweetened like sugar and she smiled brightly. "How come you didn't tell me we had such a lovely new person to hang out with? Clumbsy, but she's forgiven."



"Hey, Julia." He smiled back. She gestured to Penny with one hand and looking a bit forgiving at the same time, while snaping her wet t-shirt like a bra strap. The tension in the elasticiness and wetness made a bit of a sting as it recoiled back to her pale flesh. The sting made her flinch with gritted teeth as she forced a smile upon her lips and looked up at him. His arched brows and half smile only made her more aggrivated. "What happened?"



Punch began to dry on her hair, skin, and clothes, creating a sticky mess. Again she looked at herself with a little more exasperation than she could hide and back to the girls. It really wasn't the time or place to tattle on someone she didn't know. She'd rather dwell on it.



"We just sort of... of bumped into eachother." she picked at Penny's hair with two fingers and dropped it. Another sweet fake smile flashed. Might as well be bareing your fangs, little biotch, Penny looked away quickly. The sun was drying the punch and began to stink a little. She could use this to get away and do something by herself. With a polite excusing herself, she left in a fast pace. It wasn't when she reached the edge of the lawn when she was greeted by some more teenaged girls.



"Damn, what happened to you?" They fallowed her look and made the O shape with thier mouth. "You better watch it, white girl. Julia don't like it when someone messes with her property. The others laughed with her. Oh to hell! She ran across the street and slammed the front door behinder, leaving the fence gate wide open.



There was barely any hope of making friends. Everyone seemed to be making a great break in doing fine with adjusting and being welcomed. Here she was getting spilt on and laughed at and warned.



She groweled with frustration on how hard it was to tear the t-shirt off with her long hair getting tangled and sticking skin that felt like a jelly sandwich being tore from the carpet after congealing itself into place. Damn them all. All she wanted to do was look around and have no one bothering her with thier taunting. Alex had done that enough earlier and then again when his girlfriend dumped that stuff all over her. The bra was biting into her flesh as she twisted her arms behind her to pop the clasp and pull it from her body. It was a releif to find that the rest of her clothing was not as bad to get off as her shirt.



The water ran hotter than usual for her shower, but she was in a hurry. Another shower before the day was over? What a crock! Oh well. She would do something else with her time. The more she thought about the two of them standing there laughing and smiling at eachother when she left, the harder and faster she scrubbed the shampoo into her hair. She damned herself and the two of them. She pulled the bottle of shampoo off the shelf again, thinking that it was contidioner in her hastey reach that she screamed a foul word and rinse it out as quickly as she could. The second reach pulled the right bottle down and then concluded the shower with her body wash filling a dark green poof scrub. The pressure of her angry hands made her skin red and burn with the soapy suds.



She didn't bother drying her hair or body, just pulled a comb through it and put a tie at the end of the long braid. A dark colored tank top and stretch pants were of her choice with a collar with a gold coin from Vegas that her father mailed home to her on a business trip dangleing from it on a silver hoop. She went into her closet to grab her skateboard, wrist guards and helmet with stickers on it from her first boyfriend, Andrew when they were young. One being of an evil Alice and two sets of feet glittering together. One set facing ahead spread wide while the other set between the others facing towards the first sets heals.



Invisible people having sex, Andrew had explaned it.



And she in return had smiled and smacked him playfully. It was better of a memory now than it was before.



The pace was neck breaking down the stairs. Screw them. Screw the house. Screw the party. Screw Alex. Actually, let the bitch screw Alex. She didn't want him anyway. It was better if she didn't have anyone close. It would save her moments like this. The glass in the front door almost shattered as she slammed it with all her strength. No point on latching the screen door; everyone was across the street. She closed the gate latch so hard that it hurt her hand. Then stormed off, jumpping onto her board away into town. She was an aggressive skater when it came to venting. She hated it all.



If it could be used for a trick, she would do it. She did it all. Board slide, ollie, grind, fakie, nose grind, tail slide, tail flips or what ever she could muster until she was on the ground and out of breath. She wanted to be absolutely useless by the time she was done. Nothing went untouched. ...Well, almost nothing. In her scermish, a refreshment was persued when she came through an alley way with a conveniant store across the street.



She had no money tucked into her socks. There were no pockets on her stretchy pants. So what she did was go into the bathroom and drink from the fauset the ice cold water that ran down the side of her face. It felt so good that she just turned her cheek into it some more. Then the other side. Then put a handful on the back of her neck. As she tood slowly, stretching herself out, trickles went down her back like an itch and through the valley of her breasts from the ramp of her collar bones. The paper towel dispencer was empty. What a coincidence.



Upon opening the door to exit, there was a large map of the town. Apparently she had no excuse for getting lost now. Turns out, in the whole getting herself lost had not been successful. Her board had taken her in through a loop and zig zagged her way to the other side of town. All she had to do was go back the way she came, if she could remember. The travel had come to a total of eighteen blocks. God that was an awful lot of distance. Might as well head back that way she decided since it was starting to turn dusk. It would take a good minute before she would have to start walking with her wheels in her hand. Within the few feet from the counter and doorway with a bell that jingled every time someone came through it, the cashier asked if she were lost. She shook her head and went back out the door.



This time things were noticed about her surroundings. The trees that were few and the houses that looked as good or as rundown as hers. The driveways were either cluttered or cleared. Each had a black oil spot staining the sloped pavement. It was nice to see the the gardens with statues and balls that were big and multi colored like oil in puddles. Hardly anyone on the streets or in their yards. Riding on the air was the smell of Tacheal's block party. She might go back.



How could she have been so stupid, she remembered upon seeing a young man with his hair pulled back watching her from his truck while he worked on the engine. Having to focus on the things ahead of herself, she hadn't had a chance to kick herself for the kiss they shared though it wasn't the greatest way to shut someone up. She admited that.



How on earth was she to know that he would taunt her the way he did. He used her sex to grind herself down on the stone and break off the bond of neighborhoodness. She was not going to let that happen again. All she had to do now was get back and remind him to never touch her again. Perhaps that would go a lot easier than she wished it would, but it had to eventually be done. All she wanted was to wrap the world into a tiny box and mail it off to Abudaubbie and never get back into it again. Never in her whole life did she feel as though she belonged.



A child dropped her dolly on the ground next to the yellow center lines to chace a kitten that had freed itself from her grip. The child's eyes got big with worry as she chased after it, calling its name. Penny jumped her board, flipping it over as fast as she could and landed it. She was about out of breath when she reached home. The party at Tacheal's was still going on and most likely would be, she figured, well into the night. It would be rude of her to at least not return. Penny took her board in hand, carrying it by a truck into the alley between the two houses like she had before.



Yes, she was down on her luck of heart and soul.



Tacheal saw her looking around at the crowd. Her brother was playing tag and looking at the grownups around them. Their mother was sitting with a few of the older women, chatting aout this and that with a large smile. Harold was somewhere she was sure, though she did not seem to find his blonde head amonsts the dark ones. People were still dancing to music, chattering, and smileing and having a good time. Then she saw Alex and Julia standing off to the side leaning against the fence. His mother watched the girls angry expression soften a bit. She had to do something quick, so she walked over to her with a hestitated greeting.



"You changed." she noted, gesturing to her gear. "why?"



She took the helmet off and put the skateboard behind her, dangling it like an upsidedown wine glass. "Bumped into someone with a full glass." She played with the wheel so that it would spin. "I just ..."



Tachael waved her words away like smoke in the face. "Forget it. You're here. Come on." She led her into the house to put her stuff in her room where it would be safe from being abducted. Then went back through the patio doors to introduce her around to some of the other teens. One was very large in the waist with skinny wrists and large breasts and fancy hair. Another had tattoos up and down his arms with short hair and braces on his teeth. And one had long hair like Alex, though he kept it pulled back in a pony tail at the nape of his neck that poured down a t-shirt with an obnoxious phrase written across the chest and lugs. Another young lady looked younger than Penny was told and wrote stories upon stories for the local newspaper in the last page and volentiered to go down and help build houses for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. She could tell that she was very friendly and smooth with her words and body language.



This one she liked and hoped to see more often.



Alex saw her talking to the multipule women of young and old while Julia chatted his ear off. Her sweet voice and touch of her hand lightly on his arm and chest was that of a desperate seductress, which she could do without a problem if he had not been the victim before of her starry eyed lust. She was alright, though he felt she was a bit clingy since then even when she had boyfriends and lovers in between trying to catch him again. And thus became the spider with a juicey web instead of sticky. A failed attempt, though she was good with her lines and better at her choriography.



He could always sleep with her on one side and butter the other tulip up for another chance at what they started. It would take a monster of effort, though she probably would spit in his face.







Chapter Chapter 5: Harsh Reality

With her hand on his chest, she looked up at him from benieth her dark lashes. "So when can we be more than friends?" She cooed.



Just as she stare up at him, he smiled large and put his hand over hers. Looked into her eyes and smiled wider when she looked as though she were going to jump out of her skin with excitement. "Julia," he said her name as though he were going to pull her closer. "Get the fuck away from me." His hand brushed hers away and he walked into a conversation with his grandfather, knowing full well how angry she was.



No was not in her vocabulary unless she was saying it in a harsh rejection. She stood there with her mouth a thin line and eyes filled with daggers at his back.



"Grandfather," He said, sitting next to the old man who brought himself to the table where it would be easier to get to the food. "You should live forever. There isn't enough of us to be like you just yet."



The old man sipped his new punch slowly while looking around. His fingers gestured to everyone before them. He spoke of old things and new things. The way they were and how things are now. Alex frownded, knowing how true he was speaking. The old mans detures just about fell as he watched his grandson ponder his words with a wonderous expression then go coldly. The old man smiled to himself.



Tacheal brought her a bowel of little light blue containers with little angels on top of each one. The children were offered first, which they opened right away to create thier mass of bubbles with eager breathes. They began popping them with thier fingers and feet. Each of them creating a heavey blanket to the grass with soapy creations. She above all avoided Julia when they were being passed along the adults. Lastly, the bowl was placed upon the table in front of Alex and his grandfather. He smiled when she picket up an angel each to hand to them, getting a wink from the ancient man and frown bewteen two fingers, he plucked it from her hand. His youngling on the other hand did not reach for it. He just sat there with his arms crossed.



With a glare and a twinkly in her eye, the bottle landed in his lap after hitting his chest.



"Why are you such trouble?" she asked.



His fingers picked up the tiny bottle to look at it in the sun. Why angels? Couldn't his mother have gotten something less decorative?



She opened hers with a light pull to produce a little piece of heaven she needed for just a few seconds. There could be a million things in the world she could do with herself and blowing bubbles did not seem to be one of the things he wanted in front of his eyes. The kiss was one reason why he didn't appreciate the visual. It was too soon and too close to memory. Blowing bubbles would only make the day drag on a lot slower. She wasn't being funny if it were to only taunt him.



He got up to walk into the house for a beer, but the searching eyes she gave him changed his mind. Besides, his grandfather's words seemed to be dragging him down mentally.



Instead, he grabbed the bottle from her hand and dragged her to the lawn and began to slow dance to some of the music that played out on them from the stereo hooked up to subwolfers that sat on his bedroom window sill. A little squeek came from her as he pulled her body to his. What a mystery he was. It had been the last thing she expected him to do.



He just smiled at her while she asked with her eyes what was going on. A few of the other couples began to take thier lead to join them. The bodies formed an outdoor ballroom. They swayed and laughed. His mother plugged in the electrical lanterns they had strung the night before to create a soft glow around the property. It was a little touch of her own ways to say the evening was coming to a close.



The light casted a slightly golden touch to Penny as if she were made of gold while his own skin seemed to appear almost bronze. The highlights of his hair doused in faint tints of gold and white when it shone and hers did a slightly simaler thing with the addition of reds and blondes upon her dark hair.



"What is it with you?" She frowned at his smile. "Are you trying to get your girlfriend to make me a sworn enemy?"



Oh please. "She's not mine." he chuckled. But he could tell that his little light play with word inspired a piece of mistrust. "Try telling her that. Maybe I could have avoided her dumping juice all over me."



Okay so he would have to spill some beans to eat some. "We shared a bed once. That's it."



Yeah right. Once was never enough for someone unless they were the worse lay of thier life or desperate. "What you think is up to you. But you ask my mother and you can garentee she'll tell you the same."



"So your mom'll lie for you?" It was sarcastic, but hey, he shouldn't be lieing to her in the first place. Her frown deepened.



"No. She doesn't believe in lieing. Trust me. She'd rather say nothing if she had the choice to lie."



When his grip brought her closer, the feeling that Miss Julia was watching made it more annoying. It wasn't funny and it hurt her feelings to be played with. If she didn't look over her shoulder soon, the feeling would drive her into insanity and she'd do something she didn't want to do. Look Penny did to find her with a hard deadening stare at her to match the curling of the upper pursed lip. "She bites me an I'm going to have her put down for rabies, Alex. Then I'm going to kick your ass."



The idea of froth and blood made him smile. But he didn't want to be hit again. That stung like hell. If he wasn't as tan as he already was, the impression of her hand might still be upon his face just as bright and swollen as she had made it in the bedroom. Swelling up the one side of his face. "That would be interesting. I'd help you put her down myself. She's not the most liked critter around."



"Critter?" Astonishment checked her voice. That was a mean jesture to being called such a low thing. The bugs were called critters. That would make her an insult on their communities. The little guys needed more respect than downgrading in her thoughts.



Oh come on. It's not like it was the first time she had heard someone being called that was it? "You wanna get out of here?"



That would be rude. But the holes in her back were getting deeper with every second. Sure. The nodding made them both smile. He took her hand and they crossed the street to her place.



The moment Tachael watched them leave over her dancing partners shoulder, she wasn't offended, though she thought it sort of rude. She knew that her son was not for the crowd scene. She knew her son was not out to make anyone angry either. At least the words of her father were of some sort of ease. Tachael would let it slide, but expected answers when he returned.



They crossed the street and entered in the back door. She'd left it unlocked while the front she had done up when she left to go through her anger spurt. It was locked also. She had crashed against it, expecting to swing it wide and go through the hallway to eat something in the kitchen.



Alex stiffled a laugh at her misfortune, but had it been on better terms, he would have let it out anyway. Since they had started out a time where the world was not what he wanted to wake up to, and they had gotten on the wrong foot, he thought better of it.



She looked at him with a confused look as she tried again.



"It's locked."



"I know it's locked!" she gritted her teeth at him. "I locked the font door. Not this one."



He rolled his eyes. "Do you guys always lock your doors?"



"Yes. We do. Haven't you looked around when you walked into the living room? There's a lot of expensive shit in there."



Okay, so she had a point. They did look like they were loaded and her mother had put a bunch of boxes in her room that did not seem right. He hadn't thought much of it and they did seem wary of others handling thier things without knowing them. They were a bit touchy about things and who was in thier house to being with. Even though her mother had tried to be kind without hurting about anyones feelings. The smile was fake, he knew and so did her mother. Perhaps her mother had meant some, but it was known that a lot of white people were greedy without cause. "Come on, let's just go over there."



He turned around, pointing to the hammock, but she wasn't in the mood for that. He just about fell backwards when she walked to the edge of the grass on one side of the fence to look up. There was a ledge that she could get a boosted heave onto if he could lift her up. Her window was cracked with a bottle of lotion and she would have to wiggle the screen out of its place; possably wrecking it in the proccess.



"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" It was almost a serious look. She looked about as if she needed to like a professional thief knowing how to get in and out of a situation just by looking around things.



"I'm going to need a boost."



"...For?" Alex pulled his hands out of his pockets.



Instead of answering, she grabbed his hand and possitioned him facing out towards the back yard with his hands cupped at his arms length like a horse sturrup. Penny put her hands lightly on his shoulders for support and her left foot in his hands. By then, he knew what was going on. She was going to scale the place! "You better not fall." he warned her. "I don't want to explain this to your mother on the way to a fourty mile away hospital." Her eyes rolled one more time again. She prepared to be launched with her eyes set on the ledge of the roof. After two small prejumps, he hoisted her up and disappear. He watched the neighbor children running around playing tag when she called out to him, asking if he had a knife on him.



He tossed it up, landing two inches from her bare left foot. He counted to twenty-seven when she opned the back door after thudding onto her bedrrom floor just at the head of the stairs. "I have to repace that now." he looked at it closely.



"Don't worry. I have some glue that dries clear. All you have to do is pour it on thick so it goes on both sides of the screen bar."



She's done it before.



Her cuts were as close to the aluminumn sideing as possable. If it were a stretched out piece that wobbled in the wind, it would be easy to look as though it were new if she'd cut it like a door at the edges. But she had cut it open at the corner and went in at the edge with the most space. She looked back at him with a smile. His brows had gone up and then down in a deep frown. "Have you... done this before?"



"Only when my step-dad locked me out. I picked up an expertise just for that reason... I'm much more calm and I don't look strong enough to hold my own against him."



She dabbed the glue thickly on the screed and held it there. He took her place when she gestured to him so that she could go to the bathroom. A moment later, he could hear her swearing low under her breath and he turned to look at the bathroom hallway. He couldn't see her but could hear her clammering around in there to find something with urgncy.



Maybe she got her period, he thought to himself.



She had come back out with a band-aid wrapped around her pinky toe. She had taken off her skates at his mother's house and walked around in her socks and pair of loaned sandles from Tacheal. In the proccess of scaling the slanted roof, she had scraped her toes on the shingles to the window. The foot was beginning to swell and turn bright red. Before she came out, she had stuck her foot under the sink to run cold water on it, considering how clean it looked compared to the other.



He looked down to watch her feet as she walked over to the table and look at a few pieces of large paper. By the way they landed on the floor boards, it must be killing her to walk; even with the slight limp she thought she was hiding. Her heal was being used on one more than the other. He blew on the glue to help it dry faster than it already was. She leaned over the table to reach for another to hold underneith the her lamp light and magnified glass.



It moved, but stayed in better than he had hoped.



He got up and walked over to her, asking what she was looking at. She handed him one of the pages that she had looked at already while she did not take her eyes off of the one in her other hand. He saw a photograph of her jumpin over a sleeping dog dirrectly next to an old fashioned silver looking trash can grabbing her blade wheels.



He wondered who took the photo and how fast they got there. The were from today? He was curious so he asked.



"Nothing." she replied without looking up. He wouldn't buy that. Friends back home. We kept seeing some weird shit in them when I lived there so here we are, trying to figure them out. We were on the verge, but I moved."she shivered as if an invisible force dumped water over her. In reality, a hand slightly touched her between her shoulder blades. It sent the shiver down her spine and she wanted to throw up.



Her hair was short in the picture and it showed her skin more, revealing a tattoo on her stumach above the belly button. What was it? It looked like an ink blot to his eyes. What a waste of nice skin. It was hot to his touch earlier and it was probably still that way now. Her side glances as she focused on the photo in her hands made it easy to say something to him. He leaned over to see the one in her hand. She was upside down on a U-shaped slide with graphitie on it and the board she left at his place was being held at her feet by one hand while the other held her up. The tattoo was much more visable in that one. It looked like a heart. Black and small. Below it was a few small symbols with red ink underniethe her navel. That didn't look to bad to him. He wanted to see it for himself.



"So what... do you mean?"



"I don't know how to explain this. I hadn't even noticed it except for when she saw some of my old pictures from some of my earlier shit. She showed me a face in a wall. A tree. And one even in the pattern of my shirt going up a ramp."



Ugh. That was kind of creepy to hear. More insane to understand though really. She had no idea how messed up she was.



"Oh, look." she handed him the photo and magnifying glass over her hair. "There's the face in my hair. And there it is in a cloud above the winners of the event." She handed him another photo of the winners with a face over them and appeared to be screaming down at them. The face in her hair was looking out at the photographer with a glare. "Creepy or what?"



I'm into aggressive skating but I stopped getting photographed when the face started showing up. It ruined my chances of being in a magazine and sponcered for the X-Games. Now I'm just another Rodney Mullen."



He didn't know what that meant. Didn't know who that was either. "Who's Rodney Mullen?"



"Only the best skater in the world! The only reasoning difference between him and Mr. famous guy who sold out is that he does it because he loves to skate. He's not all about the fame and money. It's in his heart, not his bank account." How could he not know who that is? He was only the best.



"Okay," he grimaced. "You're being stalked by a freak face. Big deal." He looked her up and down with a smile.



Chapter 6: Father Knows



Where the hell did they think they were going? How completely rude of them to take off like that. Harold watched the local girl pretend to bump into Penny and pour her drink down her shoulder and become angry then changing immediately after the young man approched them. She smiled so sweet and touched her own shirt suggestivly followed by a grimace in Penny's dirrection. If it was not noticed by them, he wondered who had noticed outside the little circle of thiers. The way they had talked after she left was quite clear whyas well.



He excused himself when someone had mentioned that it was becoming dark and he had to get back to the office in a nearby city. They shook hands, as did the rest of gentlemen in the group and kissed his new wife good-bye. She gave him the things that her daughter had left behind to put in the stair well for her. He walked in a brisk pace across the street, through the gate and turned the knob only as far as it would go. In a strong dismay, it clicked as if it were locked. She was not locking him out now.



It was his house and she was not going to be putting him out on street so she may have a fling with some young hoodlumn. Who did she think she was?



Harold took the keys out of his pocket, put one into the hole and turned it free. When he had turned the knob and retrieved the key before he closed the door with his foot to adjust the bundle of plastic in his arms. He walked through the entryway and around the closet to open her bedroom door. He heard Penny's sarcastic tone as she laughed.



"Stop it, will you? Already told you why I don't skate, man." he heard.



"Than what were you doing earlier? Trampling around to be taller?"



There was a pause and then a small series of laughter.



"What?" Penny's voice called out as if she knew he was there.



So up the rest of the way he went with her bundle. He looked around as he came completely on the second floor. Her bed was not messed about in, and her and Alex were sitting at the table with the light on above it and a multipule of pictures all over the table and floor.The bathroom did not have any particular oder coming from it and nor did it smell as if they had been messing around. Her lips were not swollen and she still did not have any reason of doubt in anything they were doing as wrong.



"What's going on here?" he eyed them suspiciously.



For heaven sakes, Harold, please. "Nothing. Why did you leave the party?" The bundle in his arms started to slip so she started to take it from him. Her hands nearly missed the helmet, which Alex had caught just in time to save it from cracking on the floor. She took her skates to her dresser and Alex fallowed her to put the helmet on top of it just above them. Her guards had been still in her step-fathers arms when he pulled the strap loose, making a strong and loud noice with the velcro.



Both of them nearly jumped out of thier skin at the sound, causeing her to grit through her vulger displeasure.



"Watch it." Harold grinned. His little gesture pulled them to their nerves where he almost wanted them to be hating him, but she took in in stride after a moment and took them from him to place them with her helmet. It wasn't funny to them, though he thought otherwise.



She wanted to just die from embarrassment. "Relax, Harold. We're not doing anything." She knew he had an excuse to come up. Any excuse.



Alex grew uneasy and shifted on one foot, ready to leave if requested to, but she was right. They weren't really doing anything. He was teasing her and she was being sarcastic. Though he still wanted to know what it was like to wrap her legs around him one more time. They were warm through her pants and her back side was just the right amount to fill his hands while her pale fingers wrapped around his neck. Shit, anything would be nicer than just standing like a lump on a log waiting to freeze from the stare of an old crocodile.



What if they had been doing something? It would be on his head and she would probably be in just as much trouble.



Harold gave him a cold once over before he announced that he was going to work and her mother was going to be over soon with a sleepy Mickey in her arms.



When he had retreated down the stairs without closing the door and his footsteps could not be heard, Alex did what he had wanted to do when she came back to the party. With the hope that she would not slap him again, he came up behind her and wraped his arms around her, resting them just above her nether region and put his head on top of hers. They began to sway together as if dancing. She wrapped her arms around him from behind. Without realizing it, they had come to the edge of the bed. She did not know why they were there but he probably did.



She turned to look at him with sudden sadness that he did not understand. It seemed to have mirrored some of his own pain and sarrow that she could never understand. He wanted to make it go away, but where would it go to? How could it?



Warm to the touch as if she were fevered, her skin seemed to have melted his. She tensed when he pulled her small body close to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck standing on her tippy toes, burying her face in his neck. The softness of his thin hair tickled her nose and stung her eyes as it stuck to her lashes where the tears threatened to come out. Damn if she were shaking! What happened was confusing to him. He spoke her name. "Hmm?" The question could not come out, but he felt she knew it. As if to console him instead, she kissed his neck lightly.



Damn if she didn't know the sweet spot.



His body reacted and he retracted his hands to her waist as he pulled himself back to look at her. There was no makeup smeared, but there was also a slight redness to her eyes that he had seen one too many times in his mothers and his own. She was what he was not and he was also what she already was. He began to say something when her lips caught his to put a stop to it. It shocked him. Shocked her too. At first she wanted to pull away, though the idea went out the window when he leaned into it to enforce the kiss.



They found themselves upon where it all began. The bed. Not as before, but across it like eager lovers had in forgien movies of hookers and princables on thier vacations in the money-based cities where you may find the usual drug dealers, the prostitues, the pedifiles and the average childhood avalanches that began the tumbleing spiral downward. It was not planed out yet it was expected.



She smoothed her hands down his back to pull up his flannel and white tee to creep along his back, trailing her fingers up his spine and around his ribs. What hot blooded young man could act so cold? Beniethe her fingers, his flesh trembled, causing him to miss a beat while he kissed along her neck and down to her collar bones. Penny almost couldn't breathe while he lay upon her that she gasped finally.



A kiss-slurred apology was made Alex breathed into her mouth as he retreived her lips. He could not resist it for one more time to put his hand upon her thigh and cup her buttocks. She had changed her mind suddenly and tried to push him off. When it did not work, she squirmed from under him almost with his hands gripping her hips and be pulled back beniethe him. The look in his eyes of questioning made her angry without meaning to be. The door closed with her mother announcing her arrival. She looked at him with that womanly glare he knew well from his mother and cousins. Women. They were the same, no matter what they looked like and they don't even know it.



Her mother called out to her after a moment of silence within the house.



Penny walked to the banister where she draped her arms over the edge while she kneeled before it, asking what she wanted.



Alex watched her shadow on the ceiling from the light that they had bent as close to the table and outward from the bed, leaning back on his elbows, with his head lolling back as if it were a large mellon. There must be some sort of reason why they cannot have a moments peace. Obviously that was a problem when she lived with a house full of active bodies and a man who obviously didn't like what was going on.



His eyes closed with exhaustion of holding back what he wanted and couldn't bring himself to do it completely due to the fact that he could lose all rights to the figure they had first introduced eachother to. He was softening and yet he wanted to. It seemed embarrassing, but what harm could it do to be anything other than that? The only enemies he had were the ones who wanted him or wanted his head for turning thier sibling down. He even denied the openly homosexual advancements his ex-fling's cousin made when they finally quit eachother.



Julia was deffinately a problematic disease infested scratch from an alley cat who refused to chace the mice she was born for. She was sure that he would come back, even when he had made it abundantly clear it would not happen. Watching her cringe behind that smile when she showed she wanted him so bad she could already feel and taste it made him smile. Made his groin want to run and hide too.



It was different though when his light skinned companion came back to him with the same look. She had straddled him on the bed, though he didn't want to look at her. It was there. He saw it. He had not intended on any of this happening though. He'd wanted to get paid and that he did. The money went right where it had belonged to when he went home. The cash went right on his night stand at the base of his lamp.



His gut wanted the money back to take her out. What did he know about swooning without touching?



"Alex...?" She looked at his throat barely expanding on the sides when he inhaled. The long hair pooled like a furry waterfall below, exposing his face completely, though his thin hair tended to manage its way into his eyes from time to time. His upper body pressed the shirt to mold tighter to his chest and one side of his abbs. She'd already seen his forearms and felt his shoulders and back. She just wanted to eat him up mentally if she had the chance to do so. They were both ready with one hell of a mistake.



It was as if he had not heard her on purpose. She pulled his head up to look him in the face, which was a little flushed from having the blood rush to it with the angle it had been at for such time.



Well if she looked at him with those eyes of sad lust one more time, he's going to have to kick his own ass, because it was making him want her more. Don't do it, he reminded himself, you shouldn't be doing this. True it should not be happening. He should be out hanging out with his own friends. Talking about the things that made no scence whatsoever about anything. He should be drinking beers with them in thier back yard where they made bonfires and scrambled about getting rowdy since they were in the middle of nowhere to begin with.



"You have to go."



It was strange, but he had to respect her mother even though he didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay with his sweat dried interest. But he got up from his position as she rolled off him like she wanted to throw a fit yet resisted, growling low that he almost mistook it for a moan of anitispation. He tapped her knee that dangled over the edge, telling her good-bye. With her eyes closed and frowning, she waved back at him. The indian shook his head in aggrivation and took his leave, walking briskly down the stairs and out the front door.



He was met in the middle of the street by a truckload of guys he'd grown up with though didn't like very much, but they always had beer and invited him to get rough. Which he didn't mind one bit. It was a good way to say hello to a bit of anger release. They honked the horn and hollared at him to move his skrawny ass.



He knew who they were and what they usually said; which was hardly anything pleaseing to the ear. He jumped in the back of the truck that had a couch. There was no seperation from the bed to the cab that most had since it was Zeus's personalized touch that made it so. Next to him was Joey with his bald head, thanks to his girlfriend who cut his braid off while he was sleeping for getting so drunk that he puked all over her in the middle of an orgasm and Dan sitting on the bed's hardness feeling pretty good about himself due to a few new chemical additives his loyal friends gave him.



He was flopping back and forth as if he were a great fish out on a table trying to breathe with no knowledge that its head was going to be a delicacy for a cat down the road. "What did you guys give him?" Alex spoke outloud. The guys laughed with devilish grins, looking from one friend to the next, wondering who was going to say. Which ended up a unison answer of a natural hallucinegenetic plant root. If this kid died on his watch, it was not going to be on his head. He was going to run and hide from anyone and everyone.





Chapter 7: Stormy

It was twenty minutes into the desert on the other side of a cliff that they had driven out to where they created a might pile of wood they explained on bringing it forth two days prior to thier arrival on that very day from when they tore down the porch of Dan's grandmothers. It was so dry on the outside layer that she was talked into letting him have the inner ones as well and he could do what he wanted with it. They were waiting on the new wood works load to come through from the city with a call in two weeks or less.



Bradley pulled a trash can full of old newspapers he had been saving to do some recycling. Zeus walked over to the pile with a container Alex could only guess what would be the flamable liquid to feed the fire.Joey was too geeked out to do anything to help them. His gaze was more towards the dirt, stareing at all the fine crystals it held and the grains that made a loud crunch to his ears with a pop rocks sound on the tongue. Every now and then, Alex would run after him when he got too far from them, almost getting himself lost fallowing the crevises that formed a maze.



They had a well build fire which they began to stuff with multitudes of crushed up new pages and twigs collected here and there. Zeus backed the truck up to have the radio waves cover thier bodys invisably with thier tunes and hard serinades. He splashed the wood on two sides where there were openings so that it may sink in to the core before he lit a wad and tossed it into the center among the rest of it. The flames shot up and Joey hit the ground as if a gernade had just gone off in the nearby distance to where he stood. He cried out that a giant bird was above them swooping down to eat them. Zues and Dan laughed at him, asking if he was sure while Alex half smiled. He poured on another douce, and the tripper gasped loudly.



What ever they had given him, it was a lot. He heard everything. The radio was not the radio, but a beckan of power that the Great Man was trying to ask for help to get freed from. The guys were watery images. Every now and then, he had asked if they were really there and if they were alright. "Yeah. But you don't look like you. You're deformed, man!" His pupils were so large, there was no more brown around them. The sand close to the fire reflected the sparks from little fairy like embers rising to the sky. Thier reflections would go so far before they disappeared into the darkness behind them all, screaching. The flames came towards them with little hands of childs breathing in huffs and puffs, wondering if they were really there or not. He asked of them to really try to look at the fire and see if he was just seeing things.



"Yep," Zeus grinned wide. "there's always something alive in the fire. You just gotta be fucked up like you to see it, Joe."



He popped open a budweiser beer can tab towards him and back to lay it against the lid before he took a deep drink from it. The appreciation from the taste came with a half sigh of delight.



Dan rubbed his bald head, noting the nick in his ear his little sister made when she took the buzzers to give him a fresh start. He had a head ache for almost all day from the sound alone so close to his skull that it threatened to explode until he went to take a shower. The warm water was a brave friend he never feared and always knew how to cover him completely in its embrace to do its best at what needed to be done.



"How's your mom?" Zues asked Alex in the middle of a sip.



Fire light danced on his soul with the memories he knew should be banished like his hopes and fears. "She's good. She loves them block parties, you know." There was so many people and only one incident. Still, it wasn't what he wanted to think about. He just wanted to forget for a little bit about the past few days.



"What's up with that new family you got livin' nearby? I heard they were ...different."



As if he couldn't avoid it, the heavey sigh came forth as he took a drink.



"Oh, they're different all right." He tugged on Joey to sit down, only to be brushed off with a start and curse word. "They're neat freaks in the middle of a dust ball. They're mean to one another -the kids, I watched the boy beat the shit out of his sisters head with a pillow on the couch while she was sleepin like he wanted to brutalize her."



"Come on, man. You know what I meant besides that."



The two of them exchanged a stare which Dan interupted. "Julia. ...She's a banchie"



Alex groweled at the name. "What the hell is this? I'm not discussing us. We haven't done anything in forever."



The two of them exchanged looks that said otherwise.



"She got jelous over the white chick. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what we're doing out here? Asking me twenty questions to I'd encriminate myself for no reason?" He went to help Joey back up after he tripped over a root looping above the ground and brought him back to the fire, telling him to sit, knowing full well that was not going to fly with someone who'd just received a new pair of eyeballs through deception.



"What's going on about the other girl, though?" Dan rubbed his head and flexing his tattooed arm at the same time as if to make a domninant point.



He dated her once upon a fifth grade to eight grade time before she had boobs, but still breaking the surface on her sexual antics. He was her first on everything except love and the first one she cheeted on with the boy who cut wood for his neighbors father at five dollars an hour. He loved her. It was only a matter of time before she told him flat out in front of the entire cafiteria that he could drop dead and nothing would bring her back. He'd become 'boring' and 'old' like a dolly who's lost it's limbs from too much wear and tear of traveling from bed, to dinner, to lunch, and being dragged in the dirt so that it was completely useless now. It was so hard to let her go that he gave up on a lot of chances to want the next thing that tried to play footsies with him under the table at lunch.



He kicked the girls shin hard enough to make her bow her head and hold her shin where the eyes could not see. He saw tears fall onto her cheese burger bun and roll off the little brim edge. Guilt caught him off guard that he left lunch and sat alone at the other side of the room, staring out at the world, ignoring the lot of them.



Julia wanted him, and he couldn't blame her. He was obviously better looking than most of the guys in the neighborhood, and since they slept together once, she's been trying to dip her brad back into the honey bowl for another sweet taste. So he could prehaps try to help her out.



"She said you've been all about this new chick since the day you moved in."



"Yeah? What's up," the other one piped in quickly with a grin. "you guys a thing?"



"No."



A small silence as the trio heard Joey giggle near the flame. Just as he thought, he wouldn't stay put; the maze of crevises in the dirt had him wraped back into the puzzle of finding the treasure at the center.



"Than you wouldn't mind if I stopped by to say hello." He made it sound so matter-of-factly that a tick in Alex's jaw began. "I don't wanna step on any toes, but since you just said it, there shouldn't be any harm, right?" The words quickly flowed from his lips as though he couldn't hide the excitement of opening a long awaited present Santa left for him beniethe the tree.



"Be my guest." Alex gritted his teeth, looking away from them, shaking his head.



"Is she yours?"



Is she yours? Is she yours? Is she yours? The words echoed in the back of his head like a taunting hiss a snake outed at him. If they touched her, he was going to break their hands. If she let either of them touch her, he was done.



"What is that?"



He rushed to his feet to see Joey getting into the pile of wood, repeating the words over and over again. Alex took long strides over to him and dragged him back towards the truck and made him sit inside it. The words of being quiet forced thier way lividly through his teeth. The boy didn't understand or care what was going on, but he remembered the words and spoke them over and over so that it began to get beniethe Alex's skin deeper and deeper until he was sure he was going to bounce someones head off the ground for some silence.



"Answer the fucking question, Alex?" Zeus popped open another can and began to drink as if it were a funnel attatchment until Alex's large hand smacked it into the fire to sizzle all over the wood.



The two of them went toe to toe over it with the other sober one announceing how fowel it was and the act was designated as alcohol abuse. "Yeah! ...She's fucking mine." Alex finally admited to him alloud, which made it final in his head at last. He would have to go through with it now and admit it to the rest of them as well that she was his property and they would not touch her in any undeemable way. "And if you touch her -"



His apponent cut him off. "You'll what?"



"Shut the fuck up. Don't do this to him. It ain't like you can't get her back one way or another." His friend tried to pull him back, but Zeus had already taken it too far and slugged the traitor in his eyes across the face, bouncing him off the edge of the tail light and onto the ground where he demanded Joey to stay put in the first place.



Alex wasn't expecting it like that, but it happened and now he was pissed. They took him out to the distant part of town to do this on purpose. Threaten to take her away when he was battling the idea himself. When he tried to get up, it was faltered with Zeus' foot hard in his ribs, kicking him onto his back. The third company tried again to pull him off, giving Alex another chance to get to his knees or feet. The half drunk youngling charged again went after him with his fists drawn and ready to hit again.



It was hard to focus with a blow like that which watered his eye, causing him to not see him come at him again almost. If it werent for the fire before him now, he wouldn't have seen the driver try to stomp on him after being pulled back from kicking him.



He did however miss the chance to move away from the fist as it crashed down to his head, flatening him to the earthen floor; knowing that a few pepples had managed to embed them into the side of his face. There would be an imprint for sure. He knew it would be. But he got to his knees again and side kicked at the one who had now betrayed him for Julia's games.



Six, three stumbled backwards into his friends arms and the one in the truck watched with a wild interest and big eyes.



To him, the battle was a sideways waterfall of colors and heat. There was no satisfaction in any of this to them as it was for him. Punches looked like comets of colors blurring together and smashing into one another into a pallet of other colors. The kicks were the same, only wider and more explosive. The grunts did not sound as human as they were; only like beasts and excuses for the fire behind them to be the judge of what the painting would look like. A devisation to them while he clapped his hands and hoping there would be an oncore to all of this before he began to follow another pattern and forget all about it,



This time, he could taste blood in his mouth that dripped on his shirt when he speared Zues; colliding both of themselves into Dan's lower half, hitting him with his shoulder in the lower right side of his hip, causing him to curl up to a ball form in the spot where he landed, swearing at both of them and cursing on them ever coming out with him. "Stupid drunk!" and "You prick!" were in the background of Alex and Zeus' hearing while one repeatedly punched the other in the face and the other couldn't react with any chance to stop each punch.



When the pain wouldn't go away, he forced himself to limp over to them and try to pull one off the other. An only reward was an elbow in the stumach and more straining pain that began to spread to his groin area every time he moved his legs. He cursed Alex this time. A thought behind his soul hoped to god that he would some day have children, knowing he would have slim to no chances now.



The tall fellow just about lost consciousness when Joey came off the truck in such a liquid movement throwing his body onto Alex. The fall almsot broke his pletella's off thier spots when he twisted backwards with a tripped out boy of sixteen before him. He screamed a mighty howel of victory like his friend was a beast he just happened to master over.



"Idiot!" Alex grumbled "What are you doing? Get off me."



Alex pushed him off of him by grabbing him by his collar with both hands and shoved him backwards.



He rolled himself over to one side, the dust in his knuckles burned at his torn flesh. Oh this was going to be one hell of a thing to explain to his mother. She was going to be very angry with him. They did not plan on having to doctor him up since the tenth grade when he beat up a kid who spat orange juice into one of his friends face because she wore glasses. It was funny for them to see if they really protected her eyes, but it pissed him off and he smacked him across the face with his lunch tray. He coughed into the dirt, closing his eyes because it hurt to breathe now that he became conscious of new worry.



Zeus was on one of his sides with his back to the fire from Alex's leg dragging him by his hip when Joey launched himself. There was a flung patterned blood pool towards the fire from his fist crashing into his nose. Punching him really didn't make him feel better, but it got some of his point across. He had to get away. Dan's groaning through his teeth caught his attention and he looked beyond his old friend.



"Unbelievable! You goddamn..." he looked over at his childhood aquaintance that he's envied all his life with hate. "You dick! Look what you did. He better not wake up, because I'm having trouble moving here."



Alex noted a hint of sarcasm. Rising to his feet was painful as well as helping his friend into the driver seat of the truck where he started the truck completely and waited for him to put Joey buckled in the front seat and to drag the unconscious bastard into the bed of the truck. They left the beer. The wood. The container. And the whole fight scene burning the tires as he was in a hurry to get him home. First, he dropped the teenager off at his mothers, who didn't care much about his condition, but wasn't pleased. Then he parked the beastly contraption in Zeus' driveway while he helped walk Dan back across the street and down two blocks to his parents house, with his live-in girlfriend looking less than pleased to see either one of them in general.



They said nothing to eachother the whole way and he still said nothing the whole way by himself though he did so when he was usually angry as hell. Dan understood. When Barbera asked what the hell Alex got her son into, both of them had given her the same glare. She waved her hands in the air.



Chapter 8: Tenderized



The whole walk home was a disastering trip. He ignored honking vehicles and those who walked on the grass when they crossed paths. A lady asked if he was alright, but he just ignored her completely.



They left Zeus in the bed of his truck, bleeding as he deserved it and neither of them were quite sure if Joey would even remember the night past getting used to the root.



He walked as calmly in the door, still recapping what had happened, ignoring his mother and grandfather's angry looks. It was a B-line straight for the bathroom and then his bedroom where he looked out the window for a while before a soft knock came to his bedroom door. It was in his best interest to open it, though he chose not to. He didn't want to talk. There was nothing to say and he didn't really have the words to say to untie his tongue.



His ribs hurt. His shoulder was killing him. And his face was surely going to be swollen in the morning. It would not be a pretty sight, but that's what happens when things like this happen. You get banged up and you work on the rest of yourself as time goes by, hoping it wont drive you crazy in the mean time. He touched the spot where the bastards foot struck him and instantly whinced.



"Boy?" it was almost never when the old man used english.



He sighed, not wanting to put his grandfather through upset.



The brass knob turned slowly and the white door jarred open a peak for an eyeball. It was swollen an there was a small bloody smear across his chin he had missed in his hurry. His brown eyes were bloodshot and reflective. He did not invite him in, but waited with an emotionless face as to what the honor of the address was.



"I'm tired."



Just as he was going to put the door back in its place, he had motioned with a small gesture. He was certain that it was a box of cigars to keep himself company, but he didn't smoke them. It wasn't in him to. They were nasty and disgusting. Cigarettes were bad enough as it was. The old man made a gesture for him to take the box. How could he refuse the kindness, when they didn't understand. He wasn't in the mood for anyones company. He hurt and was tired.



But he took the box asking what it was for.



"It's your birthday, Alex." His mother came to the door. He looked at her as she came around to stand next to the white haired old man. "Have you forgotten?"



She had cut her hair up to her shoulders. He had not wanted it to happen, but she donated it again to the Childrens Cancer Fund for children who were bald from the keemo they took. He hated when she did that. It wasn't right to be cutting her hair for anyone.



Tacheal's smile was the same though. Same charactor about herself. "Oh, my son," she began. She licked her thumb and wiped the smear from his chin. Eventually, she would most likely be told about it or figure it out through the grapevine. Someone would come up to her with an eager tongue.



He opened the cigar box to find a lot of money tied down together to fit better and neater. There were two stacks of ones and tens, along with a few fives. He put the lid back on the box to look again. There was too much. He couldn't take thier money just because it was his birthday.



He already got into a fight.



"I don't want your money, mom." He put the box into her hands.



"No." She pushed the box back into his. "It's for you." She did not want to tell him that it took all year to save all that up for him. In her bank account Tacheal had given him access to it, but she told him it was closed down years ago. It was infact still open and she put fifteen dollars and change over the past fifteen years. Every week she would go down into the cirty when she went grocery shopping and make an addition. "You must keep it, Alex." she urged him on.



It would sit beniethe his bed for five days before he looked underneithe to see if it would still be there. Sure enough, it was. No one had touched it. No one had been in his room. It could still be there and empty though. Just to make sure, he pulled it open. Yes, the money is still there. Piled in two stacks. He didn't want to count it, so he wouldn't have to make certain every day if someone had gotten into it. Not that his mother would, nor his grandfather. He would worry about the ones that might know about it, but who could?



Surely no one.



How much would there be? He refused to count it. A waste of time and effort to cause insecurity. The only insecurities he had at the moment were Zeus and Penny. Zeus because he could come back after him, but he wasn't afraid of that. Penny because she made him feel what none of the others could and that she made him feel human and lonley whenever he could not be with him. It was his only hope that she could forgive him for being who he was.



But she didn't forgive him. And she never would. She did not see past the looks or the clothes. She saw his charactor. Though he couldn't wait to see her again, he must push her away and forget anything about the two of them being anything. She did not know just yet how he completely felt. Yet he knew now exactly what to do. Just couldn't get himself to do it. Penny got him. Why couldn't the rest of the world?



The box of money was shoved back into its place without a second glance. Then the door opened up. He stood in the doorway to his mothers room which happened to be empty. Her closet door was missing. It had been replaced a long time ago by a cloth of wolves in the mountains and a great waterfall spilling behind them with a beautiful pair of female eyes looking out in the star studded sky. Where it had come from, he'd no idea. She might still have what he was looking for though. He wasn't one hunder percent sure to be honest.



He was sure how to talk to his mother about it or the old man either. Not like he was a garrulous person to begin with.



He remembered the day the different ones moved in. They looked like a wallet-bloated family when thier boxes were finished being unpacked. When they had started bringing out the boxes to the house, they had appeared squirel aways. She didn't want help and he didn't much offer it. They just happened to be too much alike.



A slow, smooth motion with his hand pushed the drape to the side. Inside was a bunch of her clothing and a box wrapped in a huge flannel in the far corner. He knelt down with the drape falling over him as he picked the box up. He almost sneezed. The hands that had packed this away and just left it to collect dust seemed a very careful and sad set to have not touched it in so long.



He pushed took it to her bed to unwrap it and take the lid off, which was like opening a large box of donuts. Within the box laid a white dress he read about long ago and little beads tied into it in a strategic manner of pattern. His mothers wedding dress! Never did he ever think she had one like it or did she mention it.



What would she do with discoursing of it?



"That was too long ago."



Alex looked over his shoulder. She came to sit next to him, watching his flushed expression of embarrassment poured through his pores.



He did not know how to explain it.



Watching him search for words was just as painful as seeing the dress in general. What good would it do to explain the hiding it. After her husband parished, she put it in the deepest spot where no eyes would surely see it. How wrong.



"I don't-" he began but stopped.



The fact that she had marauded her privacy was enough to cause her pain of seeing the past.



He could not manage to say anything without saying it in tears. "Mom." he began, but could not. So he did not finish. She touched his hand with her own and he left her with no more words. Neither could explain to eachother what they were doing or had done. It was enough to drive them both insane.



He walked out, leaving her to her own tears, folding the dress back up and covering it, closing the box to wrap it in seal and return it back in it's blackest shadow in the corner of her closet. She sighed a heavey one with many shades of guilt that made her unsure now of a lot of things. A deep guilt started up her spine when she walked into the livingroom to sit beside the old man. Tacheal put her head on his shoulder and began to silently cry. It'd been so long ago that that happened.





Chapter 9: Abandonment



It would be a week in the house before Mickey's teacher called to request an audiance with Harold and Dian about an issue of fighting in school. Apparently he had told a joke in the middle of reccess and the other group members took it the wrong way. They had gotten into a tussel and being the stuborn one like his birth father, Dian's son had tried to take all four of them on when his confusion could not be taken for an appology.



"They didn't tell me it was that bad between fine lines." her husband muttered. He too thought it was not that serious of an issue.



"Mr. Villosedon," the princable frowned at him as though he were another student in her office for a very cross reason. "I don't think you understand the position you have put your family here in. You do realize the repercusion of what happened. It is not how he said it as a joke, it is the fact that the society here are very sensative." She looked at him as she pulled a file from her desk drawer of young Mickey's school records sent in from other schools.



Each time she flipped a page, Dian wanted to find an excuse for her to eliminate the whole affair.



With his nose bloody and still crusting around the nostrals. "I didn't think it was going to offend them!" he cried out. Then more softly of a muttering tone, "It was just a joke."



"What did the other children get out of this?" Harold imposed.



She removed her glasses. "They were sent home for the rest of the day; and he is as well suspended to answer your other question." She could hardly wait to get these imbiciles out of her office.



Dian gave her husband a glare that meant he was in the dog house if he made another fool of her again. "We hardly think that a joke is a bad idea to use, but it is Mickey's best interest to not tell anymore until they are clean and well thought out. ...I would hope that things may be able to be fixed. I assure you that over time, he will be paying attention to what he has to say before he says it.



"Mrs. Villosedon," Alice the princible silenced her with a hand. "May I ask where the father is? I understand that you are devorced and now remarried, but where is the paternal side?"



As if it were irrelivent, but she answered. "Dead in a scence.." There was no more she was going to discuss and the two women seemed to have discussed this with thier eyes. "Mickey is not going to be making any more jokes. Will you, dear?" Dian warned him, though it was not dirrectly said to him. In return, knowing her temper on sensative subjects, he shook his head hurriedly. "Is there anything else?"



"Let's recap so that we all understand eachother, shall we." Harold began to object, but she refused to be interupted. "No jokes of any racial, cultural, or religious theme-slahs-bashing. When you return, there will be no more fights. I expect a written essay about why these things are not acceptable in our school; which I think your parents will help you with. No trouble or the next one will be a day spent here until I am done grading papers and after that, it's suspention. If there will be any more insidents beyond that, you will be removed from the school and you are on your own to put him through his education, Mr. and Mrs. Villosedon. You are dismissed. There will be no more meetings I hope. Next time I will not be so curtious."



Alice opened the door to assist them to leave.



When they were out of sight and earshot, she let out a little laugh about the joke. It would be wrong to tell a child who is sensative on the matter of who they are and the history of thier world being hyped and blotted away. It was telling a black kid a watermellon joke. Offensive and down right rude and uncalled for.



A sigh escapred her half chapped lips as she ran a hand through her short hair.



* * *



In her abandonment of the house while everyone was sleeping, Penny made her way to the store on foot. It had been about two weeks since she had anything to do with Alex. She had been ignored and sadened and creative among that time. His mother had managed to slip into her that it was his birthday a few days afterwards, but she had worked on a project just for him. Something she knew he could be appreciative of. What she did was make him a rather large feather out of many popsicle sticks and glued them together and painted it black, brown, and white. She tried to give it to him, but he was not home.



Lately, he wasn't home much at all and always busy or out doing something. His mother had not lied to him, but told him she knew it was part of her that was the cause of it. At a distance, it was a guilt that shrouded her through the heart like a dagger with the handle broken off. It was uncertain when he would be available. They did not have a phone due to the fact that he had torn it off the wall in a brief outburst.



So she stayed away, allowing him the time he needed.



At the entrance of the store she had not set foot in since the first week they arrived. The clerk looked at her with a quizical glance and said hello as low as possable, but friendly. Other than that, the shop was deadly silent



She itched to change that with the loudest scream boiling inside.



It was a bright within due to the fact that there were large floor to ceiling windows lining the mid day angle. It hurt to know that she was so wealthy, but her family didn't act it. Showed it, but tried to blend in. It made her ashamed. Here they were with the best that life can offer because her mother has a great job that makes them travel the country and her step-father makes bookoo buckes doing who cares what in an office who cares where and here they goes through life eating out of plates they've had for a few generations or her whole life.



A community that she wanted to belong to, because she felt wrong in all the others with just a few friends. Pity upon herself wouldn't get her anwhere except the same place it got her brother only worse.



She walked around to the back to coolers with plexiglass doors filled with beers, waters, sodas, juices, and the sources of other refreshments. A water would do her just fine on a day like this; for a sugar attatived beverage would just make her wish she had gotten just what she had in her hand before with a big regret. The coffee smelled nice that floated in the air without form to her nostrals.



Twinkies, and candies in the center front pulled at her with a begging glance, but those too would be passed up. She would find something healthy like crackers in a box with four sleeves to match the need for water, which didn't do any good. It was like walking in a desert for miles on end with a forever noon days sun ahead of her and no money for miles to come in either dirrection.



She paid for her drink and walked away silently.



"Hey, wait." the cashier called out. "Your change?"



Penny told her she could keep it, but the lady encouraged her to take it, only to be refused one last time. "I don't need it anymore."



"Whatever." the cashier shrugged her shoulder, sighing.



On the way back, she looked at everything she could while avoiding the children playing on thier front yards. The grasses were flush with the exception to the ones making thier way into perishing. Some of the children avoided looking at her all the same and the others ignored her just as though she belonged. A few guys made advancements for nothing more than a good time as a joke and the women called her names or waved or just watched her walk by. One old man made it a point that it would be an accident when he sprayed her with the hose while washing his mustang. She dropped her contents and wiped her face off. It was a disaster. There was no accident, just someone expressing thier dislike, though she hated the way she had to hear it.



A girl nocked her over two blocks from her house without stopping her path to a car in a rush.



The box of crackers had bounced off the grass and rolled beniethe a car at the curb. She reached for it laying on the ground and her bottle of water in the other hand. Just her luck that it was on the far side when she looked. Some feet appeared to come around the back tire and then knees. A large hand took the box in its grip and then straightened. On her way to join who ever it happened to be, quickly looking through the car windows on her way up to see an open flannel and a nice set of abbs leading to a well manicured and chizzled chest.



Oh buddy!



The watering of the mouth dried when the well kept body belonged to someone she knew. And his features weren't all that pleased to see her on the appearance of his frown.



"Get in." Alex opened the door to the driver side of the car. He reached over to unlock the passenger side door with her crackers still in hand. It was a small debate to take the ride or listen to the demand. It would be stupid to miss out on the oppertunity to open the flood gates just a little between them.



With the crackers held out to her, he smiled only to have her green eyes just wide and curious. It almost felt there was fear behind them.



She accepted the bulking box with a quick smile of her own before she reached to buckle herself in. What good would it do if he could throw her out any time. There was little speaking either. He asked how she was and in return she shrugged her shoulders, asking what he's been up to.



"Look, don't take this the wrong way, but what do you think you're getting at here?" They stopped at the stop sign. His look was pleading and pissed off. "I ain't looking for some one to rip my heart out any more than it is. When I'm around you, it dangles there; hopeing you'll put it back in my chest."



His confession blew her away. It was inbelieveable to see that such a rude looking man could have such word behind his features with hopeful woe built into them.



The sun beat into her eyes. Penny could not stop herself. With one smooth yet slow action, she leaned over the console and kissed him on the mouth. The kiss was responded to slow and accepting. If he didn't kiss her any further, she was going to explode. There were tears in her eyes when it broke. And his were bloodshot. "If you want me, you gotta watch that temper of yours." He made a noise, sitting back in the seat, accelerating the vehicle.



"Shit." he chuckled.



"I don't want to get into something that's doomed from the beginning. Are we doomed?"



Everyone was doomed. It wasn't just them.



"Nah."



"Do me a favore, Alex." Penny pleaded quietly. He looked at her as she laid her head in his lap, opening the console so she could have some comfort upon her ribs. She saw that his tank of gas had been filled. "Don't take me home just yet. Keep going."



He pulled his hand out of the way so that her head would rest more comfortable upon his lap. A light pressure on his knee came through his jeaned leg when he came to the final stop sign where he would mush the vehicle to the right and pull into his driveway. He abided to her request, going straight, beyond her mother and step-fathers angry glares at thier son who fallowed in tow behind them with his head bent a smidge.



He laid his hand upon her hip with his fingers eventually rubbing the stitches on the side of her pants. When he realized it was making her smile, he would go slower, lighter. And she looked up at him with her smile, saying nothing and closed her eyes. They drove around for two hours with nothing but silence until it became dusk.



He looked down at her every now and then between watching the road. Each quick glance was to take in the image of her body. The way she slipped off her footwear and curled her toes around the window gear. The small half clenches of her hands and growing fingernails with barely any whites to them. Smallness of her wrists, charmed with hemp and silver chained bracellets. A few rings on a couple of fingers. A necklace that threatened to come out from her shirt, dribbling between her small uper exposed breasts. Her neck that was just the right higth and width to be held by his hands.



Her dark hair pouring behind her, almost between the seat and the back of it. It piled on top of the design that screamed sunset bullevard. She didn't know how almost Mexican her locks looked against it. Some spots were still damp when she got in, now dry from the windows being down and lowing on her.



Some smile she had when she appeared to have good thoughts or good dreams. And a disasterous frown when doing anything other than so.



They pulled into the cemetary. He jiggled her with his leg so she'd open her eyes. They were glossed over and focusing on the stearing wheel to get her eyes back in line with the distant feeling of no emotions for a momentarily quick slouch. There wasn't enough room to stretch across the way, so she tumbled out to do so on the passenger side.



Pale skin worked its way into visualization from the top of her waist to the middle of her ribs below the bust as she stretched with her arms above her head and bent backwards as far as she could get herself to go, groaning. A light cracking sounded its way up her spine and then between her shoulder blades as she walked to the front of the car, looking out at the land. Straw went through her socks but she wouldn't pay attention to it even though her feet were calloused by the lack of footwear over the years.



The moon came from the clouds to sprinkle the land with it's light in a slow revealing way giving her a vision of a battlefeild staked with poles or crosses and tombe stones. By the front line was a tomb with a chain across the bars to it's glass doors and a sword within it. The sight stole her air.





Chapter 10: Inner Grotesque



Alex watched her through the windshield. Her frown faded to a gasp he wasn't sure had a sound or not. Her hands moved from the car hoods edge to relax at her side. A frown went though her as sharp and lovely as she was and a portrait of solitude came forth. The light painted her a fairy of night shade; thickening with every breath. It was uncertain if she were breatheing or not at the angle she stood at. The moon made her a porceline, watching the rays come through her, making the scenery around her almost empty or false.



She couldn't believe how beautiful a cemetary could be. It was full of dead people. Possably ghosts. After the pictures, the belief in them squandered its way into her fears. The thought of one brushing up against her as it slid from the invisible cradle of sight was enough to give her goose bumps. The moons light irridesant glow of blues, grays and greens sloped around every twist and turn of the blades of grass. Onto every stone of great and small mass. Breathed in through her nose and down into her lungs. Would she feel it if one slipped its limbs into hers? It might happen in her mind - but how that could happen would be up to her.



Ovals of irridesance floated in the light of night around the stones that protruded from the ground like realm-bound accomplaces to the will of the living.



It was though they could be mistaken for the orbs they looked or the dandelion whites of a seeding weed floating on the wind. A shiver spilt down her spine twice, feeling like a convulsion. Alex took his time getting out of the car, pulling his open flannel off, bareing himself from the waist up to put it arouond her shoulders. He'd freeze for her, yes. Speachless, there was only a breif eye contanct before she looked back about the land.



"Why are we here?"



He shrugged. Not even he knew why he'd brought her here. It was a sacred place and that's where he'd been going since he found it a few years ago. No one knew about it but him he thought. It was in a dream that brought him to it in the first place. It was too beautiful to him to discourage with those that wouldn't appreciate it. He walked onward, leaving her behind.



That wasn't going to fly with her. There was no way in hell she was going to stand by herself, hoping he'd come back for her. It wasn't in her nature to show fear, though. So she fallowed him slowly. Avoiding each and every grave with her feet as best could be managed possible.



His lack of fear made her afraid less. Still there; only scanted around with his precence for comfort. Perhaps it was his strength that showed physically or perhaps it was the way he held himself. But the tone he showed her with his eyes and move of limbs read her to say things in a beconing manner. There was no wanting to create fear in her, but to show her what he knew.



Some of the graves that she saw were little and some were of normal length with old strange designs on their heads. In a row by a growing apple blossom tree were four headstones next to eachother. Here they knelt one after the other.



The ones on the edge were the same size while the inner left one was smallest of them all. The far left was white like the rest peering back at them with a human face on the body of an owl with its wings spread, claws ready to claw something up from the dirt or water. Above the bird was a ribbon chissled in with a name she could not pernounce. Two lines below the bird bore a heart between them under the birds feet to seperate all the words of birth, death, age, and parenthood. The smallest one had the same look to it weathered down so bad that the only thing visable to the eye to understand was the bird with human a head.



The next one that could have been the second child was different to show a boyish face with reversed V-shaped wings. Below it was the same seperation with the same border as the other two. Maybe the little one had the same thing but it wasn't able to be seen. and cracked on the bottem left hand side that disappeared into the grass. Another two cracks started from the right edge where the rounding top moves out an inch. The first one half way straight across while the other fell downward and curving like a short J.



The final one had begun to warp off from the four seasons weather, bleeding black chromed moss scraped down the left side edges. The top round section was not a crest or coat of arms as she had thought it was at first glance, but the same face with more curls and kingly fashioned face. The same lines without the heart in the center. Words of parenthood, age, and death but no birth year. Benieth the flatened right side, it began to break off, missing what could hold it up if the other side fell apart. It was clear that this one must have been the eldest of the bunch, considering how old the person had been when died and creativity around the face. A slight inscription on top of it was appearing to have been purposely grinded down.



Someone had tried to erase this person one time or another.



The grass was moist with dew soaking into her socks, making her toes curl into the blades as if they could offer warmth. It was not happening, for they had just began to cramp even more.



Beyond the tree were more stones with the same fashion. A few were elaborate. Two were in the shape of petrified trees. When asked about the purpose of it the answer had been that it was believed that some of the white took it upon themselves to decide who died still while the gold rush in California was afoot. A few were tied with ropes around thier necks and dragged through the land at a bloody pace until they died. Witches. Templers of the Devil, his eyes rolled.



"You don't believe in that shit do you?"



He looked over her shoulder as he proceeded deeper into the sea of the dead with a smile. "I'm not the one with faces in my hair."



What a low blow, she grimaced at the thought of it. That was uncalled for really.



A lot of the headstones had some flower pots of the same material with dirt within thier holding space. Further in the distance was a foot high fenced in area around more with iron piping. One of the edges had fallen loose to form a slope. More of the flat, uprights had little points on them, curving nicely. The lining of the back had more trees of the same root as the one they had come to where he knelt down.



If it had gotten any darker, they would not be the same dark field they created around the property. His jeans had a slight wet spot on the one knee. All the shadows upon him almost made him god-like with his shoulders suddenly squared and head almost tilted to a noticable state.



Penny looked frowned scanning the area. She asked what was wrong. His face softened some, pulling his own property towards himself. The embrace startled her to an extent. It was all over her face that she was afraid, and embarrassed by the action. Her hands were ice cold against his warm flesh. Pen felt his flesh grow goosebumps at her touch. She put the other one over his right nipple enjoying the twinge in his eyes. That was a look she had to smile about. An apple fell from a tree in the distance behind her and she turned to look.



While she search silently for the cause of the noise, the tall indian took this oppertunity to kiss her neck and run his hand from her stumach up to cup her breast. When she felt as though her eyes were goig to to end up folding inside out from the stir it was causing her body to uproar, his hands returned back to the hem of her shirt to work its way back to cup her breast slowly over the bra. Leathery to the feel, without sound in shifting. She jumped when at the flames that rushed through her when his index finger repeatedly rubbed over the nipple, making it harder to the touch.



The other hand wraped around the front of her neck, loosely holding her in place. He used his cheek and nose to push his flannel off her shoulder to dangle at her elbow as her arm began to wrap around him, holding the back of his thigh with a loose grip, enough to keep herself from falling to the ground in a sort of extacy. Her eyes closed and she sighed, putting her hand over his other one as it wrapped around her midsection. Then a faint pleased souond came from her behind her closed lips.



He wanted her here and now. His body was more than ready to do so too. More than ready.



There'd been no plan as to what brought them there, but he couldn't hold it back from what he wanted to do. And apparently, she wanted it just as bad as he did, if not more. Her fingers creeped between them to work at the button on his jeans. Then his zipper made skipping deep sounds on its way down as he began to kiss closer to her collarbones and back up to the nape of her neck, nibbling here and there.



The heat beniethe her tips noted that he was not wearing anything beniethe. Penny's smile broaded instantly. "Easy access," she heard him whimper. Guessing it wasn't important to ask why, she slipped her hand through the material to cup him. The kisses stopped when he leaned his pelvis into her groping fingers and picked his head up a little shuddering out loud with pleasure. Her pinky and thumb pushed at his pants to keep his zipper from interfereing. Alex's fingers worked too quick for his mind to think causing him to fumble to open and push at hers.



Due to the clumbsiness of his actions, she moved her hips a little to help him find the treasure those large fingers faught to seek. She grabbed him again. In short slow strokes, he began to harden more. With each stroke, they began to grow the length of his shaft. His fingers spread her camel to rub her clitorous while sinking another finger half way into her before plunging. Her body jerked twice and she sank herself deeper onto his finger. He pulled it out and sank it back in.



He rubbed harder on her clitorous so that her knees buckled from the pleasure. Eventually she'd let go and they sank to the ground together. She had no footwear, so it was only a matter of momments before her pants were slithered off her body. His were however stuck by boots that were tied. She hurried to work at one of his boots while he fumbled to untie the other. Soon after they were flung off his feet and she was laid out before him. But that was just part of it. She was only showing him her sweet spot. The tree always bares its bark once a year in the winter. That's how he wanted to see his lover. Completely naked and unashamed.



Those fingers of his worked her shirt over her head and off the small wrists they had to pass before they wrapped around his neck. Her body was so warm against his except for her hands and feet. That had better change when things get going. He layed over top of her again, kissing her on the mouth while he stuck another finger inside her before he entered her. He watched as she tried not to close her eyes, smiling as she threw her head towards her spine and arched her back. Together they moved in motion, speeding up until she squirmed beniethe him ready to orgasm, whimpering his name in his ear while he buried his head in her hair in the grass.



It was not long after that he had exploded inside her with his milt, trying to be as quiet as she was - he did not succeed. He was loud enough to stir the possum in the far of the clearing. He froze instantly as he just realized something. Lucky for her, those pretty eyes were heavey lidded. Alex rolled off of her to stare up at the stars, though he did not see them. He saw panic in his future. They should have been more careful. Soon after he came, he remembered that it only took once to get pregnant. He'd make her get a pregnancy test in a couple of days. Dire to the beating of his heart, she better not.



Within his sheathed soul was she crying inside to have a place to bury herself. It wasn't fair that someone like him had to be alone. They would be gathered together in eachothers arms for however long they wished to spend it. Alone or apart; they were aching for one another. Penny moved her head to look at him better in the moons light. His muscles were well built and rippling as he tried to calm himself. The skin over his heart was thumping up and down as if the muscle wanted to break free. His abbs were amazing as they tempted her to lower her gaze further. She hadn't had a chance to look at how big it was, but it felt like he'd been made specially for her by the big man up stairs.



The base of it was glittering with thier juices from the desert they shared with eachothers souls. With a pale streak across her face in a curtains shadow, she too realized what may become of them in the near future. She wanted to curl in a ball, hoping to hell he was steril. What could be worse than being steril could be telling your mother that she was going to be the families youngest grandmother since the sixteen hundreds. Dian wouldn't let that fly and she'd be off in a hospital with a doctor telling her she would birth the child and get it to a better family or she would be sitting in some ditt apartment on a table with a guy scareing her to death with a machetee and Hoover vacume.



Creatures made no sounds after them. It was stone silent. No matter how hard she tried to keep her eyes open, they became heavier and sleep was about to lay her out with a strong fist. Alex looked at her, but didn't say anything. He used her underwear to wipe himself off then tucked it into his pocket before he slipped himself back into his pants.



The boots were being tied when he roused his lover. "Penny," he whispered. It wasn't like he'd planned to desicrate the area with thier first love makeing but he was not scared of the consiquences since he really did love her. He did. It was very scarey to him, but he thanked the Great Spirit for bringing her into his life. "Penny, don't fall asleep. We have to go."



She didn't want to leave!



Her shirt was under her head, but her panties seemed to have disappeared into thin air. She dressed as quickly as she could. As warm as she was, Penny gave back the flannel. He helped her find her way back to the car without tripping over anything. A pine cone with it's round bottem as the anvil for the pointy top met the bottem of her foot. She cursed under her breath. When it became difficult for her to step with that same foot, he took her in his arms the rest of the way.



During the drive home she fell asleep with her head dipping towards her chest. He moved her closer to himself so she could rest within his warmth. Her breath tickled his neck. He siped her water a bit while driving with his left knee when thirst became too great. A thousand reasons came to explain to her mother what they were doing so late and why they smelled so funny. So they drove home with the windows down the entire time to air eachother out.



Chapter 11: Dispite Due Terms





Tacheal noticed the smell of extacy upon her son as he walked by her in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a notebook she was writing in. He recognized it as her book of dreams that she wrote down each realm that crossed behind her closed eyes. Her brows were furrowed into a deep frown.



"What was it this time?" her son asked while getting out a carton of orange juice and a glass.



She put her pen down and took another sip off the mug. "You. With green eyes."



The juice just about went down the wrong way at the note of her words struck him hard. The memory of earlier that night plagued him the entire way home and when he watched his sleepy girlfriend slip through the front door. It was now a haunting to him, but she couldn't have known what they had done unless they still stunk.



He pushed his hair out of his eyes to take another drink to push the previous one down with force of a giant gulp. He looked his mother in the eye, which he always did when seroiusly up to something. She knew - he knew she knew.



"You were with Penny?" she stood to her feet with her writings in hand, leaving the pen on the counter by the coffee pot."I need to know what is going on, Alex." She out her finger under his chin to look him up in the eye when he casted his to the notebook in her hand. "I can't do anything for you if you do not tell me. You know this. Speak to me." she pleaded. Without warning, he gathered his mother in his arms into a tight embrace. It was seconds before she wrapped her arms around him wholey. It had been many years since he had hugged her. There must have been some reason behind the nessicary need for a mothers care.



"Hey, what's this? What's this?"



They sat at the table with silence before he had confided into her confidence. He told her about the fight where he had decided to claim Penny from Zeus and his old friend. The confrontation with heavey hearts to her face and lastly being intimate with her, but not where. His mothers dream was already in effect with his child growing in her belly. It would be months before it would be noticable, but when a lady becomes pregnant, she will show before she had a chance to hide it.



"There would be a link now with the girl and her family." Tacheal nodded. The memory of watching Alex look at her cerimonial wedding dress made a click to what was going on. "Her soul is now yours. Your soul is now hers." She did not mean by owning. Each soul was now a part of one another. The way he had described things between them, it was more of a mutual sharing like thier bodies when they made love.



Alex wanted to cry from how calm she was through it all and how scared he was that he did not know what to do. But he would eventually.



For the past month or so, she had no idea what was going on between them, but from the first time she caught them making out in that girls room, she asked nothing. When he went after her when she left the block party, she asked nothing. When he came back and she had not been by for a while, she asked nothing. And now she was sitting at the kitchen table with her son as he poured out his heart that suddenly belonged to the interuption in thier society. After the fight, he did not speak of it. Now she wanted to be let in, to ease any breaking hearts of whose ever that may be.



The children around town had been giving her the evil eyes since that night. She wanted to help.



"Go to bed, Alex." she said finaly.



* * *



Harold was sitting in the livingroom with her mother watching a romance movie wheile her brother laid in his room with headphones in his ears with loud music blowing into his brainwaves like a hypnotic crash. Middle aged and still rough around the edges, it was probably what made her mother like him so much. He was a man with a mighty paycheck. She was doing what she wanted for work, which she never confided into them. At random times, she would leave them to do something whenever her cell phone went off or the telephone cord disappeared around the edge of a room or behind a door with a muffled tone to her voice.



Obviously he didn't mind the excitment, because they ended up being life partners soon after.



Her lids were still forcing thier way down over her eyes when he frowned at her. Dian must have been oblivious to his tense feeling when she looked up finally when a scene ended with a bloody gurgle and death on screen. She stood up to greet her, only to move back a little.



"Where did go?"



"Just a walk. ...Ran into Alex and we hung out for a bit." Penny was too tired to lie.



"I haven't seen or heard from you in this house all day. Where on earth have you been?" Something was up. She could smell it in the air and on her breath. Oh yeah, she was just lucky she didn't have to be here to hear or witness anything accidentally. Good thing for her would be that her mothers sence of smell wouldn't be as accute as her own. "I have great news for you, my drastic daughter."



Drastic.



She was just all too happy for this to be going on.



What could be better than what happened to me tonight? "You two are going on vacation." she guessed.



Dian rolled her eyes and pulled her into the kitchen full of giddiness in her step. "Better."



This had better be good.



"We're moving." She looked for the excitement in her daughters eyes, only to have hers fade away. "What's the matter? I thought you wanted to never live here to begin with. Shit, kiddo, you can go back to your grandmothers or Heidii's or Linda's. We're going back to Troy, sweety." This kid was either in shock of unbelievable thanks of hope or embraced with dread. It could be that she had actually made some friends. "Say something." she pleaded.



Saliva chocked her. "...What do you want me to say to you? I'm almost eighteen. I can leave your house when I choose. I don't want to leave, mom. Please don't do this." It was only a question that didn't need to be answered; she already knew the answer. Harold got transfered already.



"I thought this is what you wanted."



No, you wanted this because of what happened with me and Alex. "No. I mean, yes. Not now! This isn't fair! I've just started to make friends and now you're whipping me all over the country again. Can't you just stay put for once in your life? Who did the arrangements? You? Harold? Whatever company you work for?" Her words came to an instant halt with the back of Harolds hand across her face.



"Harold!"



"Shut up," he sneered. To Penny, "You're packing your shit and that's it."



Her mother sighed. "I need more time, but there's no way that's going to happen since I'm at the bottem of the case with missing wrungs in the ladder." She caught herself just as she was going to say something else, so she walked out of the room. That one slip had done enough.



"We're leaving. End of story." Harold called after his step-daughter up the stairs. His voice traced through the door as she slammed it in his face, chacing after her like smoke on a breeze.



Penny through herself on the bed with dispair fury. The blanket were of little comfort, subsituting as a klenex for her eyes as she cried her grief into it, falling asleep as doing so.



Her dream world puckered with pennies falling at her feet with little feathers on them. Each time she kicked one off her shoe it would turn into a rock and then a boulder when it hit the ground. Suddenly she was in four-walled house with no windows and sticky water dripping from te crevises of the ceiling. When she turned, looking for a secret compartment, it all changed colors to a flesh-like tone. A floating eyeball reached its retna around her from across the distance in a corner. Slime filtered through the blue of her sleeves. It began to drag her by force into the shadow towards a window that had not been there before. When its grip grew stronger, she began to fight to kick her body back using the window edges. It was no good. She flopped through the glass, cutting her as she went out it, landing on her back, destroying her spine as she hit.



The hit shook her body like she was having a seisure. The dawn was coming through the blinds sifting its rays across the room like lasers of truth. It was Sunday. Some of the rays blinded her at first. Only her hands could wring out the sleep that began to lodge itself into crust at the corners of her eyes. Sunday, she though with hope and dread. She wondered what the dream meant, getting into the shower.



The rays disappeared with the noon coming through now. In a hurry, she dressed, hoping to find at least her brother home if not her mother. Why, she did not know, nor did she understand the cause behind wanting anyones company for that matter. But the need to be close to someone was brutal like the kiss she shared with Alex the night before.



No one was home. The television was turned off, but the stareo light was still blinking, pausing something still spining something inside. With the thumb of her left hand it revealed a slow song of good-byes in the jazz class that she knew only could be from Harold's collection no doubt. In a growel, she turned it off. The kitchen was just as dead as before the other rooms. Nothing in the sink. Nothing on the counters to say anyone was even awake yet. She walked outside, but there only seemed to be a vacant spot where thier station wagon used to be.



She opened the phone book, looking for something to do, hoping to find something at least close, but nothing seemed as is. Everything was thirty to fourty miles away and even then, it wasn't worth the effort like it was walking to the store on the other side of town to buy an ice cream cone with nuts on the top and hard chocolate fudge in the bottem to prevent a leak occuring.



There was no way in hell she wanted to go back to the East. It was not fair to her after she finally found someone to share herself with in equal paradox.



She would have nothing to do for the day, so back into the slumbering realm she returned.







Chapter 12: Sulfer Heart



It would be hours before she woke up again. Muffled voices behind a few closed doors sounded an argument through the house. It was a possibility that it would be heard throughout the outdoors as well. God, it had to be the talk of the town wondering what the hell was going on in the big nice house. One voice sounded pleadingly while the other was just angry and violent.



Penny slipped off the bed as quietly as she could, though it probably didn't do her any good. They would hear the door opening to the world she crawled to. It was worth it, since the voices were annoying her because she couldn't stand when they faught. One way or another someone was going to get bit if they didn't be quiet. All she wanted was peace today. And maybe a little bit of Alex.



Okay, so the moment wasn't dead. It was still inside here skull on instant replay and her body kept wallowing in the moment. It never occured to her that there wasn't much romance involved. There was moonlight, the cemetary, the one thing that made her forget she had problems, and the cute ride where no one said anything on the way back. If he'd planned it, fine. But that didn't mean she was going to jump in his arms every time they got together. They still had to worry about the fact that they could be held apart due to the fact of her step-father. It was still a good fantasy.



The voices stopped when the door opened. Harold appeared in the doorway with scurrying feet. "Please, " she sarcasticly remarked, putting her hands up in a surrendering motion. "don't stop on my account." Her parents door slammed shut, causing the statue of a woman falling she made in her last school to teeter-totter on its edges. It would be a shame to watch it fall, but it wasn't her fault. Still the urge to rescue it was feirce.



After saving the statue from its deadly fall, the television made some flickering lights in the hallway that sprayed an array of colors in a blurry stained glass formation. The remote on the coffee table was just an inch away from a cup of coffee that stunk of alcohol. Gross, she thought, twisting her nose up. One reason she wanted to forget it was around. Needless to say, the cup was dumped into the kitchen sink.



Little grounds at the bottem of the mug spilled into the steal bottem flowing down the sink with the last bit of coffee. Looking closer, she watched them reflect back at her with the shine of diamonds on an expensive necklace. That was not a skattered clump of grounds at all! They were the flakes of Goldshlugger. Nasty, she grimaced again. The cold coffee and alcohol fermenting together made her stumach want to upheave what little she had in her stumach.



Twenty minutes of just standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window made her forget for a moment all about the things that went wrong the day before.



Penny looked down at her fingers. Beniethe the white areas there was the dirt from the cemetary. She felt awful about having done what they did in such a sacred place. What kind of idiot would desicrate a place as holy as that? The urge to call Alex and yell at him came for almost a moment. She didn't want to ever step foot in that cemetary again for a long time.



The phone rang, causing what thoughts to be had to skip out.



The lime light of the telephone made her want to shatter into a milllion pieces. On the other hand, she could always answer it with the retort. Her fingers were shaking when she answered.



Upon the other line was Alex's husky voice. "Hey. Come over here."



"What's up?" She questioned.



"Just come over." then the line went dead.



What ever question she was going to put on her tongue to him, were now in the wind. She would just have to go over to see what was so damn important that he had to make her go outside in her warped wake-up look and cross the street. Penny quickly ran to the bathroom as softly as she could to splash her face and finger comb her hair; which was disasterous as a task. It was a wonder she didn't still have any impressions from the bedding she was curled up on. She slipped an open hoody over her shoulders before she went out the door.



Frustrated as hell and knowing exactly what had to be done, Alex threw down his half empty soda bottle on the floor. The sound of the shattering clear glass and splash of liquid helped what he tried to forget clear up in the haze he had to realize. A project on the counter that Penny had made him for his birthday was sent crashing to the floor with one heavey sweep. He didn't even want it, but could not seem to bring himself to trash it. Every day he promised he'd do it in the morning. The morning came and it would still be sitting there. Tacheal would look at it as soon as she realized it was there when she came into the house. "I thought you were going to throw it away." She would say with every morning or at least it would feel like she would be saying something with her eyes. He would discontently look at it, trying to make it invisible.



His large fists pounded on the table as he swore. If he was to regret this, it would be worth the punishment. She ate a lot of ice pops to make this. She had told him so when she gave it to him. Its large shape of a feather painted brown, black and white made it almost pass as a childs project to thier mother or father to show they cared about who they were.



Three half hard knocks went sounding through the house. In a matter of moments, her discontented eyes were looking back at a semi sad face belonging to Tacheal. By the time she could get her mouth to work right Alex's mother stepped back to widen the door. She pointed towards the kitchen where the sound of broken glass mounting from around the corner. Tacheal tugged at her arm to bring her closer into the house where Alex could be seen with a broom in his left hand and the dust pan in his right, emptying it out into a paper bag with whatever dust there was within it from dragging the bristles across the plenolium.



"Alex." Tacheal tapped the counter with a knuckle of her left hand.



He dumped the rest of the remains of the green glass into the bag. He nodded as he had the rest of it cleaned up, he took her by the bisep and dragged her to his room practically. He did not speak. Did not look at her. Just pulled her away from everyone, leaving her to get a half smile from his mother with sadness still occupying her eyes. What the hell was going on here? There was obviously something strange going on.



Once inside his bedroom, he sat her on the bed and stood in front of her with no words to dally with about what he was doing. She was about to speak when he crouched before her. He said her name, shaking at the hands and tongue. His words documented a part of his life that she did understand, but not why they were being spoken to her exactly.



"Look, Penny." He frowned, pulling her closer to the edge of the bed. Great, she thought, he's already telling me that he doesn't want me anymore. Her mind was swearing and cursing herself for dropping her guard, but her hands shook. She started to shake her head and put her hands up for him to stop speaking so she can save him the duty of breaking her heart. He wouldn't listen. "I, umm, want to tell you right now that I have gone to see an old lady. She's seen you before and told me about you long before I knew you were coming to this town."



"I beg your pardon-" Penny cocked her head to the side in disbelief. "Are you telling me that you knew me before-"



"I just said," he interjected. "that I didn't know you until you came to town. It took a while before this world mingled with the one I was told about. I didn't realize it at the time but the old lady told me all about you. She told me about the mare that would tame the stallion and the spirits that burned her soul to deteriate. My mother brought me to her where I could be told about some things and then you popped out from no where with your strange ways that matched my solitude and the temper that could only make mine singe one hair."



This was a joke. No way could she possably believe this. But she had to. Otherwise, she might just lose her mind trying to deny it. "I want to meet her."



"She's dead." His husky voice shuddered as though it was his own grandmother.



"How do I know you're lieing than?" Penny crossed her arms. The moment those words were out of her mouth, they were hoped to be erased. Obviously this guy isn't all that bad of a dude, but this was getting out of hand. Perhaps some Native American lore still lived in this soul before her. "Nevermind." she waved her own words away. "Alex, what are you getting at is what I want to know?"



Alex stood up to full higth and told her all about the old lady; what she looked like, how old she was, and how much her eyes scrunched up when Penny Doe was mentioned. He told her all about the way it made him feel until he remembered her words a few times after running into her. He even told her about the fight he'd gotten in to protect her from Zeus and Dan-mainly Zeus because of what had happened between himself and Julia and him always denying her access after one certain night.



The shirt he left unbuttoned pulled her to his body so that she could embrace his pain and his hunger for her. She didn't know which one was worse off than she was. The guys that he faught or the fact that Julia would always be at the back of his mind in a burning fire.



"The thing is, Penny, that I've never been in a relationship where we complement eachother. Some times it was just for the sake of keeping the girl from sleeping around, but that didn't always work." That was a wrong thing to say, but he was nervous and he hoped that she could tell. Hopefully that would explain the problems he was having talking to her without it going into circles. "What I'm trying to say is that I really do care about you. I don't know what kind of crap you did to me, but you got me wrapped around your damn finger and I don't mind it. Don't know what you did to me, but I don't mind. I'm still the same asshole-"



"Oh, good. I was hoping we could schedule arguments to keep eachother sharp." She smiled at him.



It was a momentary pause before he pushed her onto the bed ina playful manner and stood by the window. The caucaisan teen squeeked. When he didn't say anything, she stood up to stand by him, leaning her head on his back. She windered why he'd gone stiff. Beniethe her cheek his body was shaking. It wasn't visble, only something she could feel if she touched him. Why she was scared to ask was beyond her, but she did in a mumbling fashion.



Alex didn't know how to say it. Or when. But she had to know how he felt, like his mother was waiting for the tally to make a mark on his flesh by the mark shaped of Penny's hand. Before he knew what he was doing, the indian was on his left knee, holding her hands in his own, looking up at her with liquid eyes. Oh no, she thought, growning immediately stiff and pale. This couldn't be happening.



But it was and he was going to risk his heart for the last time to do it before someone else greater than he came along to sweep her off her feet. Sure they argued and drove eachother bonkers. At least her arguments were those of rational ideas where as Julia's were just to make him crazy. He popped the question in his language. They must have made some sence to her because she looked like she was about to die.



They'd only known eachother for a short while and he's looking like he wants to marry her. This wasn't fair, nore was it right. Should she accept; none of her other boyfriends even thought about it! She would have to consider the consequences.



"Yes." she didn't know what else to say or just how to say it. This seemed logical enough. Might as well marry someone while they're willing to ask. That's how Harold and her mother got married. He was drunk and on the way home from the bar, he popped the question. She took it as a good idea at the time, though some momments it looked like she'd regret it. It would almost be the same fate to fallow in going through with it. "Yes." She hugged him.



It just about knocked the wiind out of him, but he didn't mind. One of the things he had antisipated among all the other things. If she were sensable, she would have kicked him in the chest and stormed out.

The Wrath of Me {{{{{PART 1}}}}}
07:15 Apr 07 2006
Times Read: 653

Masses of snow drifts felt drivers to be driving blindly practically Caroline and her youong co-worker, Anna, kept a strenuous wide ranged eye on the road and woods for icey patches and deer zooting across. Both were slightly quiet, but for the most part, the radeo would strike a conversation up for them with an interesting fact. When the wipers would push the sheet of snow on the windsheild off, there would be a brand new one to replace it before it went to take another swipe. Her engine was loud, threatinging to blow at any given moment.



"Sounds like the transmition is going." Anna commented. There was no way she wanted to be stranded in a place where Caroline could not walk too far in the cold. It already seemed too much to get to her car at these temperatures as it was.



Unlike most parents, Caroline realized that times changed and so must the process of thought. Her dark waved hair with raven shadows and blue glistens made it almost look like a wig. Her age was no different, but her heart was that of a teenaged girl. Sure she was gawked at by the male eyes; where she would get time to date one other than flirting behind the counter would seem to be useless with the hours she pulled along with her chain of commands. Her children came first and her job was right below them as a parent. If they were down and out, her kids got the most of what was needed. The mistake of putting her man first only happened once-causeing a gap to break in the bond between herself and her son. Since then, Caroline swore up and down to never allow it to happen again.



They didn't know eachother long enough to find faults worth fighting over, but then again, that's what happens when you get closer. Anna didn't mind, really. As long as they were reasonable to bring up.



Caroline parked the car in the driveway of the three apartments in one house and shut the car off. She thanked the car as she got out that they had made it home in one piece and alive. Answering Anna's questing to which door was hers, her cold finger pointed to the top of the stairs with a small portch. "Second floor, hon." I'll have Gavin put some coffee or something on for us while we warm up and i can show you where you can sleep."



"Sounds good to me." There was absolutley no protesting there. Who would resist the service of a gentleman!



As they began the climb, the older woman commented her caution on the steps as they appeared to be a bit icey. Damn you, kid, she thought of her son, you didn't put the salt down again. Once inside, warm air hit them like a brick wall. It was relieving and pestering at the same time. She called for her child, which turned out to be a teenaged son of five foot eight; almost a giant to Anna's mear five foot five hight. Doing as he was told, he offered them pizza that him and his friends ordered a few hours ago and now sat in the fridge. Both declined the offer. The introduction was made between the two of them where they shook hands with smiles plastered.



The jackets were hung up and feet seperated from the sneakers and the couch was accessorized by two more bodies.



"Girls," Caroline began the second introductions. "this is Anna. Anna, that's Paula, Gina, Deb, and Jackie-Marie. And the guys are Phil, Dan, and John, but we all call him Harvord, after the dog he named because it's his dream college."



It was fearful to see so many women who were so beautiful. Paula's georgous long bonde hair and multipule fiarie tattoos and skater apparell made her look like she could rip off anyone's head if she wanted to. Gina was like her in casual flair jeans with a tight pink top that accented the platnumn blonde hair with hot pink tips and "Angel" gold necklace to match the angelic face with an eyebrow piercing. Deb was in her pajammas of cartoon devils and angels having intercourse on a cloud in a midnight stary sky to match her black dyed hair and hemp necklace with a glass bead that held a blue mushroom inside it. Jackie-Marie was very sweet looking, but very georgous in Anna's opinion. Green eyes, brown hair, purfect complextion, and very sexy. That girl looked as though she could make nose-picking a hot new look for public eyes; that's how sexy she appeared to her.



The guys were almost ablivious to them all on the floor while playing the playstation 2 game of bloody fighting. How manly, she thought to herself.



Ten minutes later, Gavin answered the phone in the kitchen to return later with news that Gina's grandmother was upset about her staying out so late again on a school night. So the house cleared out to leave the other couch across from his mother vacant. By then, the kettle began to blow it's whistle. Gavin shut it off, but did not pour it just yet. He'd disappeared through an entryway that could only have been meant as his bedroom. After a crash and a few cuss words he emerged with a couple of cd's in his hand that he tossed on his mother's side of the couch.



"What are they?" she asked.



"Some bands I heard in Gina's car today. Found them at the mall, so I picked them up. One's kind of technoish and the other one's mostly screamo. You might like a song on there. We were listening to them earlier. So check out track fourteen. Might fit your personality." He turned to the new person in his house with a smile. "You like any of that stuff?"



"Haven't heard much music other than work, really. So I can't say yes or no." She sheepishly replied.



"...Alright. Well, they're done with the playstation, ma. Mind if I throw one in?"



His mother got up, yawning, shaking her head. "Yeah, I'll make the coffee. You want some Cocoa, sweety?" She took his hat off and kissed the side of his head as she passed him by. He waited until his mother was out in the kitchen before he told Anna that he'd waited to ask what she liked music-wise. Her quiet voice shocked him when she mentioned a lot of jazz and whatever she heard from passing cars or stores.



Eyes practicully buldging out of his head, "damn. You need to get out. For real. But you might find this stuff a little different. We're a lively bunch here." How could she not know what good music would be? She deffinately needed to get out more. If she stuck around long enough, there's going to be some evolving going on to sit back and watch.



That's if she sticks around.



His mother came back with the hot mugs for each of the kids that she set down on the coffee table. She scruffed up her sons hair on her way back out to the kitchen to retrieve one of her own to join them. "Will you stop." He lightly pushed her hand away. When she returned to lounge on the one couch, the question arose to her as why he was testy. "Gina and Beth tried to put my hair in ponytails today when I was playing video games with her brother." The air changed for a few minutes to a hostile rank system that settled quickly.



"You better watch out with her. She's been eyeballing you; and you know she ain't no good, Gavin. I'm serious. I don't want you dating a girl who's looking for someone to pay for her child to live because she won't get a job. She's got her sugar daddy, so I wouldn't go any further than being an aquaintance with her. I'm serious. She's got a lot of issues that are her own fault."



Anna began to suddenly wonder what kind of world she was entering and if she should put any more of a step further. It was just a matter of baby steps on breaking ice for now before she'd make her way to the snowy shore she started out from before she'd try to reach the lively other side.



The first song on the cd was I Shall Believe. Caroline's head leaned back with closed eyes as she drank in the mellow song. It was as if she was being spoken for already; the music owned her with its captive lyrics with a haunting feeling. Her guest watched very curious as the hope for sanctuary glowed from her very core. She looked back at Gavin, who was watching her too, to have seemed to be soaking in his mother's little peice of heaven for a split second. His eyes caught her looking and he smiled slightly before he broke the silence to show her around.



The bathroom was just around the corner from the entrance. Small and quaint with the large white cabonate that kiddi cornered behind the door, small porciline white sink with the generic medicine cabinet mirror and high ceiling. The perfetion of white walls and towels of intelegant patterns that stood out against the high colorless tones. Her eyes curiously looked at him from the corners of the eyes. It was colorless, exposing the inside of the shower a little blurry. There was another odd item that she did not understand either; a strobelight with blue sleeve stareing back at her in a taunting fashion, dangling from a long thread of fishing line through an eye screwed into the ceiling by the shower.



"What's that for?"



"Ummm...It makes a shower fun." She didn't know?



She felt like a dead angel in the arms of a human crashing to reality on the other side. These people had some intersting toys for sure. How on earth was she going to make this? "I'm fraid to ask how?"



It seemed a lot easier to show her. He had her stand at the tub while the shower ran freely with the curtain pulled back. The lights went out and the strobe light came on. It was intense. Too intense for her to hold in one place. "Don't worry, I gotcha." he said, holding onto her arm. "Can you see all them droplets? That's the way water comes out. It's just a bunch of tiny splatters of water coming out very fast. Kinda cool, huh?"



The urge to touch it was unbearable. Her hand lifted into the speckled stream as they crashed against it. Each one hitting just as hard as the last with the power of thrust in each dimple they dribbled on for each crevise of her palm's wrinkles.



This was amazing and fun. After a moment, she pulled her hand out as if she'd been struck by something and became dizzy. Her arm pulled back with her step in Gavin's grip. He made sure he steadied her before he turned the light on. "Nice, huh?" She blinked at him as if she were being woken from a dream. There was no way she could be for real. "Breathe," She did. "Don't forget to."



Embarrassed, she felt the pink blush in her cheeks. She smiled as he gestured to move on. The next room was his mothers from the doorway, which amazed her. She had no appearance of slight poverty. A mirror that was on a desk-like placement and makeup with perfumes all around it and in the little portable dresser beside it on the floor. Freshly vacumed rug; the same in the hallway, kitchen, and the same in the livingroom. A bed with wraut iron posts and great design of an open sea shell with golden appearanced knobs on the tops of each post. The closet with the same kind of door close to the large dresser and headboard mirror of the same styled wood. A few of the faces by the windows, like the ones that appeared in the livingroom.



"Hey, guys," Caroline called. "You're stuff's getting cold. Take them with you while you give her the little tour."



Gavin went back into the livingroom to pick them up with his finger tips to return hers back to her own cold hands from the shower water. It was a blessing when she thanked him.



Anna looked back one more time to see the covers neatly pulled under the pillows and immitation foliage over the curtain rods, dangling on each side. Very feminine whith a male deeply under toned. She envied it as if she were a child with only dolls and nothing to dress up in.



He paused at the entrance to his room. She was waiting for him to open the door, but he reached over and opened a small door half her highth and just as tall. "Brooms, mop, silent vacume, regular vacume. Garbage bags, small bags in the bag hanging on the hook, and a few cleaners." It was after that that he opened the door to his room, which he pulled a knife from his back pocket to push up on the hook lock through the crack of the door first. "It's for precautions."



She frowned at first.



He pushed it open with a slow movement. The bed was in the center pushed up against the wall beniethe the window. A dresser half a foot from the foot of the bed itself of a pastel blue finish to it. Three small stars and a moon drawn in felt tip perminent marker were drawn on the right top corner. A little shelf with a lamp, ash tray, and two lighters and multipule papers that seemed to drip over the edge with its small space. Lots of posters of women and bands, and gear. A dart stuck in the wall holding up a few pieces of jewelery. This carpet seemed a bit darker, as if it were hardly vacumed at all; only swept or silent vacumed.



Along the far wall was a few paintings with steal boots dangling by its strings and ballet slippers dangling from another by its ribbons in the shadows of darkness. The boots gave a glimmer of light in the dark in the far distance. What a sad reason to have that sort of portriat. It could not be feminine or masuline. It could be for either of sexes for either sexuality in any type of decor. It was though it held a sort of trinity to itself. A dreadfully doom looked back at her from the very glimmer of the boots down to her soul, unfortunately.



Her heart wanted to burst out of her chest like a creature with clawed fingers in a babbling brooke reaching for air to pull him from drownding. The ageless uneasiness from the core of solitude began to wrap around her like shrapnel in the core of her membrain of a soul. She should not be in this room and she should not be in this apartment. What was she doing here? Why had she made herself out to be the sorry one for herself in front of the co-worker she admired. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.



She wanted to leave very quickly. Immediately, she wanted to sit down from the dizziness of unsanctified emtions. Was she being smothered by the outcome of looking upon the painting? Anna cleared her throat and took a sip of her hot drink. She took a seat upon the mattress on the floor. It wasn't the best thing to do, but then again, she did not want to put the rug at a discomfort by staining it with a rich drink. What kind of guest would she be? Certainly not one that would be welcome back again any time soon.



Gavin saw the way she'd looked at the painting. It were as though she could have seen the ghost she knew from another life standing there or had seen it before in a different time or some sorts. He tried to steady her, but she was already on the bed. The way she cleared her throat and drank. The nervous tick in her jaw as she looked about with no pupil in her very eye. "Umm, what was that?" he asked, crouching before her.



"What was what?" she cocked her head to one side in answer.



He watched her eyes very carefully, but she was not looking back at him at all. She was looking through him, at something else. He waved a hand before her eyes. There was no following it and no blinking. She did not see the movement or feel the wind. She was pale and scared looking. He had never seen such eyes except on blind people. "You know, I could swear that you've got the most biggest eyes I've ever seen." he lied to her. They did not shift. They did not organize. They did nothing. There was no one there. Hallow. "Are you alright? You look a bit pale."



"No. I'm fine. Just a bit - from the little light show in there. It was weird." She saw nothing. Only whiteness. There was no texture. No images. Nothing there to sterilize herself to the surroundings.



He sat before her now, watching her eyes. The eyed nothing in front of her, but beyond him. She must know that he was right in front of her by the climax of his soft voice. Very sweet as to not scare her and almost the same as it once was before. Did she know the difference. His brows matched hers while he watched her brows knit together and tilt her head a little to the left. Where was her mind right now? Obviously it was trying to be with him in the same room.



The pigment returned to her skin across her face finally and her head righted. The look in her eyes changed suddenly. The pupils were growing larger. Slowly, but surely she was returning back to him. How strange. She was odd. Perhaps there was too much light and her eyes were not adjusting quickly enough. Still, she was pretty frightened looking for the time being. Stranger that she is. How could it not be hard to adjust. And as she slowly came back, her lids closed twice each time she blinked.



Some sort of trickery must be over. Reality perhaps. Though it was never far from them all, just a little delayed.



"Where did you go?" Gavin smiled when he saw that she was really seeing him.



She turned her head to the side as though she did not know what he meant, knowing fully well that she'd witnessed a misadventure. "I was just a litle dizzy is all. Had to get my barings straightened out. Had to stop feeling as though the room was moving." That was part of the truth. She wasn't lieing and not telling him everything either.