2 - 11-07-12 The King and Queen Danced

                                 

"Kennedy's head was full of bubbling, dizzying fun by the time she left the bar.  It wasn't her usual routine to go out with the girls for drinks.  She was more of a recluse than anything.  But some wild streak took hold of her when Monica had asked her, practically pleaded with her to go out for the night.  For once, Kennedy said 'yes' and she was presently very happy that she had.

The crowd of girls from her work all made their cheers and downed shots of Lemon Drops; a potent but sweet mixture of vodka, sugar, and lemon flavoring.  Kennedy hadn't drunk much alcohol in her 25 years of life on Earth, but she found this particular drink to be enjoyable.  She didn't feel as far away from her peers as she did in the office, that stuffy and cramped beige land of cubicles and whispers.  Out here, the other girls seemed to treat her differently.  Like she was one of the crowd.  

It hadn't occurred to her that, come Monday morning, when everyone was still managing to slough off the toxic reminders of the weekend that she would revert back to being just that one girl who filed paperwork for the manager.  Just that one unimportant girl with whom no one spoke, and whose life was as plain and simple as the manila folders she used to file away all the supposedly important documents for her supervisor.  

No, right now in this moment, Kennedy was the Queen of the World.  She was sharp, vibrant, and quick-witted.  At one point she had all the girls laughing hysterically at a dirty joke she heard once but never had the courage to tell in public until now.  The sensation was empowering.  As the discussion between the girls became increasingly sexual in nature, Kennedy began to feel a warm longing within her.  It was almost savage, this longing, and it took on a mind of its own.

She began scanning the bar, moving from face to face until she fell upon a handsome young man who seemed all at once as paradoxically out of place and the center of attention that she felt she had become.  They were both belonging and pariah at the same time.  His smiling eyes flickered once as he captured a glance upon her.  Then the glance became a stare.  It wasn't uncomfortable for Kennedy.  She wanted him to stare at her.  She wanted his focus.   And she got it.  

Kennedy could half-hear the perverse stories of sexual achievement being lauded by her cohorts, but she couldn't take her eyes off the young man.  He seemed to be having a similar issue; a taller man leaned against a wall and shouted into the young man's ear, trying to overcome the music.  But the young man's interest in the words being shouted at him was null.  It was clear to Kennedy that their locked eyes had become the beginning of a ritual of courtship.  

He said something to the taller man and stepped away from the wall.  He walked straight to where Kennedy stood, a half-drunken smile of confidence resting upon her lips.  'I'm Isaac,' he said as he thrust out his hand in an awkward attempt to introduce himself.  Shaking hands seemed so formal and business-like.  Kennedy just smiled broader, leaned in, and for some reason unknown to her, she kissed his cheek.  'Hello Isaac' she said in her best mock-seductive voice.  He smiled firmly and waved down a waitress to bring more alcohol.

In the first hour, Kennedy and Isaac had gone from discussing work to religion to politics to social status.  The final conversation teetered on the edge of sexual innuendo.  Would she take him home for the night if she knew he was a good person?  It was a question that crossed her mind.  His question was much simpler than that.  Would you take a stranger home if you felt like it was appropriate?  Of course, it was a baited question, and she thought they both knew where this was headed.  Finally, after someone had handed her another shot of something green and bitter, she grabbed Isaac by the hand and said 'Let's go'.

The cab ride home was a blur of kissing and fondling so passionate that Kennedy almost forgot to pay the driver.  She shoved a pair of what she thought were twenty-dollar bills into the hands of the driver and dragged Isaac toward her apartment door.  It was maddening trying to open the door while still keeping her lips pressed against his, but she managed to find the keyhole and unlock the door.  They fell into the doorway still locked in a passionate embrace.     

Kennedy was drunk and she knew it at this point.  The small part of her rational brain kept screaming at her to change the situation.  'You have not been with a man in a while' it said.  'You don't know him' it cried.  But the rational brain was a small voice and had no effect on her determination.  Pressing play on her stereo, she heard the sounds of The Cure reverberate around her.  She began to dance, removing bits of her clothing as she went, and Isaac watched with intense interest.  

In a faraway corner of her mind, Kennedy knew she would fuck Isaac tonight.  To her, it wasn't a matter of if so much as when.  As if on cue, Isaac stood eagerly and began to press his body against hers as clothing drifted off both of them to the point of complete nudity.  They stretched out onto her bed, feverishly entwined and writhing in intoxicated passion.  Then a small voice crept into Kennedy's mind.  Like an echo it grew.  She wanted more of him.  She wanted it all and no one was there to stop her.  He was her king and she knew what kings desired.  

She reached for the nightstand drawer.  Her hand darted quickly inside and withdrew a razor.  For a second, she could sense Isaac's nervous glance at the blade, but his animal instinct took over and he was quick to return to pressing his hardness against her thigh.  A few inches more and they were dancing wildly as he thrust into her again and again.  Kennedy held the razor in her hand, and as an experiment, she ran it across his cheek in a light and quick motion.  A small swell of red developed and he smiled at her playfulness.  

Their joint passion grew as the pounding became harder and more determined.  She took the blade and slashed lightly at his shoulders, his chest, and finally turning the cold surgical steel on her own body.  She drew a deep red 'X' across her chest, and Isaac lapped at the blood in a frenzy of uncontrolled lust.  The pain was sharp but it felt good.  She etched out more patterns in her skin for Isaac to suckle.  In a tantrum, she swung her hand across both their bodies, leaving red lines that flowed generously, the alcohol leaving the blood thin and easy to draw.

The thrusting was strong but then with a final few pushes it became weak with release.  Isaac slumped over onto her as he heaved in great breaths from the strain.  She felt numb but satisfied.  Yet warm, wet fluid still dripped around them, covering their bodies.  She hadn't noticed at first but now saw the bed soaked in crimson.  Part of her mind screamed that she should do something to stave the tides of red spilling forth.  But that was a small and insignificant part.  The rest of her mind made peace with what she had done.  

She couldn't tell if Isaac was still breathing.  His heavy frame had been resting on her for a while now but had not moved.  If he was breathing, it was shallow.  She didn't mind.  Come Monday morning, she decided she would not be that meaningless girl with whom no one spoke.  She was not the manila folder.  As she cradled Isaac's limp body in her arms, she knew that somehow this night she would be better than all of them."

1 - 11-06-12 The Laying of the Hands

Excerpt of Madness 1:  The Laying of the Hands

"Isaac stared at his hands.  His fingers were rough and thick, like ragged stones jutting from his massive palms, equally as hardened from years of labor.  He was a woodworker.  He made desks mostly, but there were times where his craft would be used to create any manner of object.  A shelf here, a table there, even a house once although he was only marginally involved in its creation.  It was August and the air was hot, dry, and unforgiving.  Isaac wasn't sure how long the air conditioner had been out.  Had it been hours, days, perhaps weeks?  The power was out, too.  Isaac was reminded of this fact by the motionless ceiling fan that hung apologetically above his head.

The fan was only a minor part of Isaac's attention.  It was his hands he was most interested in; particularly the object they held.  It had been a slow build to this point, and Isaac couldn't recall the exact details as to how everything managed.  In his mind, a series of flashing images, faceless voices repeating the same useless mantra "stay calm, stay indoors" over and over again.  In hindsight, the words seemed feeble; a desperate attempt to make sense of an increasingly maddening world.  He rolled the object in his hands over and again, marveling at its smooth surfaces, the curves and mechanisms.    

The wind outside blew dust and debris like an inland hurricane coursing through a dry prairie.  The wooden shutters Isaac had made slapped against their frames in rhythmic cacophony against the hard wind.  But it still didn't quite muffle the sounds from across the room.  Briefly, he remembered how Layla, his daughter of 10 years, had asked him to carve something special in the shutters.  Flowers.  He had meticulously carved out dozens of roses in the shutters, and in a special place near the bottom of each wooden slate, he carved her name.  Layla.  He must have carved it 100 times, but he never grew tired of it.

Layla's mother had passed on years ago, and Isaac had spent almost a decade caring for his child the best his brutish ways allowed.  But he was always gentle with her no matter how hard he worked at anything else; no matter how hard he leaned into the wood to force it to his will.  Layla was his rose and he cherished her so deeply.  The object in his hands felt heavier than it should.  Almost like lead weighing him down.  But Isaac knew the object's purpose, and what it had meant for him to use it.    

As the sirens off in the far distance eventually died down, so did the rest of the world.  The food from the land was still good with corn being shucked, and a pig or two slaughtered.  Isaac and his carefree little flower had found a way to keep out of harm's way.  But something carried on the wind.  At first they said that it was only the bites that infected others.  Some well-to-do panel of scientists came on the T.V. and said that the blood was infectious.  Water should be boiled before drinking, avoid contact with others who appear to be listless or somehow infected.  It was all well and fine to Isaac.  His house was miles away from any major city, and even the neighbors were just a speck on the horizon.  But something carried in the air.  That was the only explanation.

The night sweats had kept her awake, and him.  At first he thought perhaps it was a terrible cold, or perhaps one of the pigs had sickly flesh.  Yet he had eaten the same meat and he was fine or so it appeared.  Her soft, summer skin became pallid and slick with moisture.  He tried a broth his mother used when he was sick, but Layla fell deeper into illness.  It wasn't but four days before her frail body passed on leaving the great beast of a man kneeling at her bedpost, weeping like a forlorn child.  On the fifth day, she came back.

It is a nearly indescribable feeling for a father to tie his own daughter down to a bed, but he had done it.  Layla was a shell of her former self; not responding to her name or food offered to her.  Isaac tried to ignore the obvious but he couldn't shake that it was the plague on the T.V. that had somehow found a way into their home.  Small sores began to develop on her once sweet face, and saliva dripped from her mouth incessantly.  Once when he tried to feed her a spoonful of broth, she nipped at his arm, seeming to long for a taste of his own flesh.  This was exactly how they described the symptoms on the television.

Isaac sat at the kitchen table, across from the open door that led into the room where Layla was strapped.  He wasn't sure how many days it had been but he could smell the odors of her body become more inhuman. Digging out his closet, he found the object.  It was his one final course of action to ensure that his daughter could find peace.  He wiped the cold sweat forming on his brow across his forearm.  Isaac could tell that something was inside him too.  Just like Layla.

Sitting up from the table, Isaac turned and slowly pushed his way into the darkness of the bedroom where Layla had been tied.  He heard her constant moaning, a sound that had been perpetual since she had come back from what should have been her eternal sleep.  It was a terrible, rasping moan that spoke of an animal desperation.  He would be there soon if he didn't do something.  As he leaned over the sunken frame of his daughter, lashed onto the bedposts, writhing with a slow, serpentine manner, he took the object in his hands, aimed it at the girl's forehead and mercilessly pulled the trigger.  A sharp blast from the handgun issued forth, and a blinding light in the dark of the room showed a deep red splatter before falling quickly to black.

Isaac stumbled out of the bedroom, coughing and in a state of surreal disbelief.  His rose had wilted away and by all accounts he was next.  His chest hurt, his skin was cold and wet, his muscles felt achy and tired.  He remembered one of the faceless voices from the T.V. say something that seemed important; vital even.  They said, aim for the head.  That was the only way.  And so Isaac pulled the object in his hands up to his temple, pressed the hot barrel against his skull, closed his eyes and thought about the roses once more before pulling the trigger."