Tenebrosity

Chapter Two: “Hostile Lucidity”

 

When someone is gone, they're gone forever, and all you have left is memories to try to recreate a person that used to live and breathe right in front of you ~ Unknown

*****

Friday, September 16, 2016

My leg is killing me and my ass feels numb. I don’t have any idea how long I’ve been sitting here. I haven’t worn a watch or paid close attention to time for almost three years, so conceptualizing it won’t happen. My body moved through the span, but I barely remember it now. I don’t know how or why I’ve suddenly become aware of the world around me. Whatever it is, it’s coming on strong and it’s terrifying.

I don’t hear Brian crying anymore. How long since his whimpering has stopped, I’m not sure. I’m so damn tired. I’m always tired, but I feel exhausted today. I half consider curling up right where I am and passing out, but hopefully I can make it at least into the master bedroom.

All of my shuffling to the bedroom door is angering my injury and in turn, me. By the time I push the door open, my leg is throbbing so much that if I could walk downstairs, I would actually pop one of the pain pills.

Brian doesn’t notice me, or rather he doesn’t acknowledge me when I first scoot my way in. I’ve flipped over onto my stomach to crawl and slide into the room using my good arm. If I weren’t in so much pain I probably wouldn’t be doing it this way, but I have no other choice.

Fuck! The bed looks so damn high from down here. When we first bought it, I was impressed with the contrast between the low-lying one we had at the loft and the massive height of this one. Now, it’s only an obstacle. I could have actually crawled to the other….

What the fuck is that under Brian’s side of the bed? I shimmy closer until I clearly see that there are two huge thick sketchpads. They’re the ones I filled during my first visit to Paris. I know it’s those specific ones because I painted the outsides with light blue and black stripes, the same stripes that decorated the walls of the spare bedroom I used there so that I would always know at a glance what images filled it. Why in the fuck are they in the bedroom? All of my art supplies are supposed to be in my studio!

“Do you need me to help you downstairs?” Brian asks me. He’s suddenly on his knees on my side of the bed, staring down at me. His eyes look bloodshot and his cheeks have tinges of pink, but his expression doesn’t bear the sadness that caused the marks. He’s clearly amused at my predicament.

I flip onto my ass again and back up against the door jam and stare at him. I don’t like how he towers over me, so close I could feel his breath move the hairs on my head as he spoke. “No,” I bark at him. The eye rolling he does at my statement only irritates me more.

“What did you come up here for in the first place?” he wonders.

Truthfully, I have no fucking clue. “It’s none of your fucking business. This is still my house,” I remind him, “and I can go anywhere I please.”

He huffs a laugh and narrows his eyes at me while swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Really? You can go anywhere? It’s been what, two hours and you’ve gone a total of fifteen feet?”

“Fuck you!” I’d like to see him try to get around the house the way I have. He was a whiney baby when he broke his collarbone and, knowing I’d be in L.A. for the majority of his healing, helped me deal with his bad, demanding and whiney attitude.

“I bet you gotta piss by now,” he snickers, walking around the bed and heading toward the master bathroom.

Son of a bitch! The last thing I want to do is crawl along our bathroom floor and you know if he hadn’t mentioned it, I probably wouldn’t have to piss like a racehorse right now. He relieves himself as I make my way over toward the bathroom door anyway. It’ll be gross, but I know that our housekeeper, Vivian, cleaned the house yesterday. We have an overpriced waterfall wall urinal so it won’t be too hard to pee, but still… sliding along the bathroom floor is disgusting.

Brian walks out of the bathroom just as I’ve scooted halfway there. “Come on,” he growls, and before I have time to protest he picks me up in his arms and is carrying me into the bathroom. I don’t struggle, because frankly I don’t want him to drop me from six feet in the air and risk breaking something else. He stands me up, balancing me against his chest and orders, “Take your pants off and piss.”

I manage to pull my dick over the elastic waistband of my sweatpants and pee. I mentally distance myself from him; he’s only a support beam holding me up. I tuck myself back in when I’m finished.

“No thank you?” he asks hotly.

I chance a look up at him, tilting my head toward his, and see the smug expression on his face. “Not in this lifetime,” I reply.

His expression doesn’t change but the way he’s holding me does and suddenly I’m sliding down onto the floor. “Brian!”

“Fuck off and do it yourself, Sunshine.”

I can’t believe he would just fucking leave me in here. Now my leg hurts worse than it did before! I guess I can actually believe he’d leave me here like this. He hasn’t given a fuck about me in years, why should he start now?

I hear him laughing at me as I scoot out of the bathroom. Laughter? Oh, how nice it must be to giggle at my expense. I haven’t heard this sound from his mouth in so long, it’s almost foreign to my ears. I would like to revel in it, as I’m sure I once did, but it only annoys me right now.

Once I reach my side of the bed, I use my good leg to propel me up and reach for the bedpost. I’m sweating from the exertion, and on my fourth try, I don’t seem to be getting my hand any closer to grabbing onto the wood. I’ve kept my eyes away from Brian because I think I might go crazy if I see that his own are filled with light and laughter.

Five, six, seven, eight leaps and I plop back onto the floor. My ass isn’t as round as it used to be and the smack of the wood vibrates painfully to my tailbone. “Shit!” I bite my lip, holding off more expletives that will show my frustrations and pain.

“Stop being an idiot and tell me that you need help and I’ll gladly give it to you.”

I finally turn my eyes to glare in his direction but thankfully he's not smiling or looking the least bit amused. I think his expression is more of annoyance. He’s annoyed! What in the hell right does he have to be annoyed? “Am I bothering you?” I ask him. The second I do, I wish I hadn’t because my words came out as strangled, out of breath pants.

“Yes, you are. I was trying to fucking sleep before you came in here, Justin.”

Has anyone ever said your name in a way that makes you forget just how it passes their lips, each and every time? Brian’s probably called me by name a million times. More often he uses a nickname; Sunshine, Blondie, Twat, Fucker. I could go on and on. However, when he used to say my name, I’d get this spark inside my chest. It wasn’t painful, just there and unexpectedly present each time he’d speak it. I don’t get that anymore. I’m dead to that, but I still remember it and it makes me hate him a little bit, each time he says my name and I don’t feel the spark.

“What’s with you?” Brian barks. “Either ask for my help or get the fuck out so I can go to sleep.”

What right does he think he has to talk to me like this? “I just need a minute,” I grit out through clenched teeth. His attitude isn’t making the situation any better.

“You’re out of shape and you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. I’m sure your muscles are aching as bad as your injuries are after that little show of effort you put on. Do you really think that a minute,” he looks over at the clock and then back at me, “which has passed, is going to make any difference? You’re too fucking tired to do it on your own.”

“Fuck off, Brian! You’re not my daddy and I don’t need a fucking lecture from you! As if you’re one to talk. You smoke just as many cigarettes as I do and I’m sure you drink and dope yourself up just as much as you used to, so don’t fucking get pissy with me because you can’t sleep. Put a pillow over your head if I’m bothering you.” I feel my blood pressure rising as I yell at him and it surges me on, making me mindless in my rambling. “Actually, I think you should just put a pillow over your head and smother yourself!”

“You’re the one that’s dead! You’re the one that wants to be dead!” he wails and throws my pillow at my face so hard it knocks the breath from me for a moment. “So you do it! Have some fucking balls and kill yourself! Put the pillow over you and smother yourself! Stop acting like a pussy and just get it over with. That way I might be able to find some peace. I won’t have to listen to your bullshit whining ever again!”

At this point, my leg feels like it’s about to fall off my hip. My body keeps getting hot and cold flashes and I don’t have it in me to fight with him. He’s wrong. I don’t want to be dead. I’m not dead. I’m just somewhere in between life and death and I have no clue where that is, so I can’t get myself to reach either end.

He thinks I haven’t tried to do it? I saw a fucking grief counselor and his words and my own never meant a thing to me. Every single person in our lives tries to be so damn understanding of me, which is fucking horseshit because there’s no way that they could understand anything about me or about my half-life. They don’t push, but it wouldn’t matter if they did. I’ve already fallen off the cliff. I think I’m lost in a ravine, waiting to die as the bugs eat my broken body alive. It’s fucked up that I realize this and can’t change it.

As for killing myself, yes, I’ve tried. I downed a bottle of Tylenol, hoping that I’d have an allergic reaction so bad that my throat would close up on me and I’d just choke to death. Vivian, our housekeeper thought it was an accident and gave me a shot of the EpiPen, bringing me back to consciousness.

I won’t sugarcoat it. I don’t leave the house, not unless there is some big important event that someone from ‘the family’ is having that Brian and I are required to attend to keep up appearances. It takes me days to prepare to leave Britin. I’ve designed a plan, a routine that I go through beforehand, one that I use when we leave, and end up wherever we’re going. The act is a silent script between Brian and me. He doesn’t deviate from it, I don’t fuck up, and we get through the event and go home.

I’ve left the house twice on my own accord for my own reasons. Brian knows of neither trip. The first time it was to apply for a firearms license and buy a gun. The second was to pick it up, drive out to…to the place, put the handgun in my mouth and pull the trigger. The sad thing there was, that I was in such a fog it didn’t occur to me that I needed bullets.

Three times I pulled back the safety and then the trigger, before realizing my mistake. That gun sits in my underwear drawer, waiting for me to buy the bullets. I suppose I haven’t had the balls to do so. Maybe Brian is right. I am a pussy. I can’t even kill myself the right way. I can’t do something as simple as leaving the house and buying a box of bullets to aid in my ending. Alternatively, perhaps I’m just a masochist and want to die slowly?

I can hardly lay myself down on the floor but I manage to with my upper body halfway resting on the rug beside the bed. I push the pillow under my head and sheer exhaustion causes me to start to drift off to sleep.

 

фффффф

“Get up!”

I jerk awake and see Brian standing above me. The room is pitch black and I’m not sure what I’m doing on the floor at first, but it all comes back to me the second I try to move and my leg and arm scream in agony. “Damn it!”

“You’ve been sitting there for three hours whimpering and whining about your fucking leg and arm. You need to get the fuck in bed and go to sleep!” Brian growls, moving his hands to his hips while looming over me.

“I can hardly move,” I tell him, trying to sit up and slide away from him.

“So you need my help.”

“I need to get in the bed,” I correct him.

Brian walks back over to his side of the bed and sneers, “We already went through this, so good luck with that!”

“I’m not sleeping on the fucking floor! I can’t!”

“Well, you don’t want my help.” Brian pulls the covers over him and turns his back to me.

No. I don’t want his help, he’s right about that. I don’t care if it’s past midnight, I’ll call my mother. She’ll think that Brian is crazy for doing this to me. I use all the energy I have to get to his nightstand. I know that’s where he keeps his cell phone and just as my fingertips grasp the phone, his hand shoots out from under the covers and he sits up, grabbing it and holding it to his chest.

“That’s my phone,” he says yawning.

“Just let me fucking use it!”

“So you need my phone?”

“You royal piece of shit! I need to get downstairs in my own fucking bed and you’re not going help me so I’m going to call my mother!”

Brian laughs at me, waving the phone just out of my reach. “Oh, too bad you forgot Mommy’s on vacation with her hubby.”

“You’re acting like a fucking baby!” I tell him and slide back around to my pillow to lay down, as I round the bed, my leg hits the stand and I can’t hold in my scream.

“Would you shut up? I’m trying to sleep.”

“Then help me get downstairs,” I cry. “I’ll leave you alone if you bring me down there!”

Brian crawls to my side of the bed and slides off, crouching next to me. “So you need me?”

“I need to go to bed.”

“So do I,” he grumbles and walks over to the door and opens it.

I’m momentarily relieved when he walks back to me and grabs my hands. “I can’t stand up,” I tell him.

“I know,” he answers slyly and begins to pull me along the floor.

I can’t fight him off. I’d like to, I try to, but I only hurt myself in the process. He pulls me forward and then back, jostling me around, not giving a fuck about the pain he’s causing me. It isn’t my injuries. It’s his touch, his fucking skin against mine that burns me like acid, eating away at me and driving me insane.

I collapse against the hallway’s wall and try to catch my breath as he walks off, shuts and locks the bedroom door. This pain, the aches inside me from him, cause my rush of tears. I want so badly to stop crying, but I can’t. The places his hands touched me hurt so intensely that it numbs my injuries.

 

♂♂♂♂♂♂

I want to ignore his pain and anguish, but I can’t. It’s the first time I’ve heard him cry in nearly three years.

I wipe away the start of my own tears. I can’t let him get to me. Justin is showing emotion; real, unrestrained emotion, but that doesn’t make anything better. I can’t forgive him for all that he’s done, all that he’s said and the way he’s abandoned me. A few tears won’t wipe it away.

However, there’s no fucking way that I can sleep with him out there wailing. Maybe he won’t be such a hard ass. I will try, one last time. If this doesn’t work, then something has to change. I can’t keep supporting the both of us, living for the both of us, when he makes no effort and when I don’t see any signs that he wants to. I’ve held onto him, onto hope, because of Arella’s memory. But I’m tired. I’m so damn tired of doing it for the both of us. He’s suffocating me and I wonder if he really does want me to be as dead as he is…or was, because apparently, he might just be coming back to the land of the living. I’m not going to hold my breath though.

I walk over to the door and rest my head on it for a moment. My body shakes with unwanted apprehension as I ask him, “Do you need me?”

His crying stops for just a second and I hear him gasping and gulping. “I’m not talking to you through a door!” he screams.

“You just did.” I know. I know it isn’t right for me to poke fun at him or act like a dick. Nevertheless, it’s the only thing that is stopping me from opening the door and giving in to him.

“Fucking, fucking,” he hiccups, “just leave me alone.”

“Fine!” I won’t feel sorry for him and if he can’t act like a human being for two seconds, then it’s his own fault.

He’s crying again, wailing hard and I know that I’m not going to be able to sleep through it. Even if I don’t want it to, it’s beating inside my heart, making it ache for him. But I won’t be the only one fighting for us anymore. I won’t let him kill me too. I don’t think he has it in him to do it, but he’s already come damn close. I will leave him.

I walk over to the radio and blast it on the first station. It’s some heavy 80’s shit but it does the trick. I don’t hear him anymore, even if his cries still echo in my head, in a few minutes the music, no matter how loud, should drown it out and lull me into sleep.

I’m wrong; I guess he does have a little fight in him. He starts screaming louder, throwing out every insult he can think of as he pounds on the door. I must settle it now. I can’t take anymore. If he’s going to behave like this, then I’m going to have to get my shit and leave him. He has one fucking chance to show me that he still has a tiny piece of the man I married inside him, or we’re done.

I shut off the radio and he immediately stops his yelling and pounding. I jerk open the door, surprising him and making him fall back a little. “Brian you’re a fucking…”

“Shut up!” I scream. “Just tell me you need me! That’s all you have to do. Tell me!”

“I don’t have to tell you that!”

“Tell me! Tell me, you son of a bitch! Just look at me and fucking tell me that you need me!” I beg him to give me the reason to stay.

“I don’t need to tell you that!” He doesn’t give it to me but I can’t let it go, not yet.

“I need to fucking hear it! I need it; you taught me that I needed to hear it! Justin, you can’t take that away now just because you think you don’t need to say it! Tell me you need me.”

“No,” he cries, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand.

“Admit at the very least that you need me to help you to bed.”

“I can’t.” He shakes his head at me and I swear that he’s horrified to give me this one tiny little thing. It scares the shit out of me to see that this is who he is now.

I kneel down in front of him, look him right in the eyes, and do my best to speak confidently, “You can.”

“No.”

Is his pain what is making him this stubborn or is this just the fucking truth? “Say it,” I try again. “Tell me you need me.”

“I don’t need you,” he speaks so softly that I know it’s a fucking lie.

“You do.”

“I don’t need you!” Even if he yells it, I still hear the deceit in his words. “I hate you!”

“Maybe you do!” I yell back, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “But you still need me, so fucking tell me!”

“You’re hurting me,” he whimpers, forcing me to let go of him.

I really don’t think I was shaking him very hard. I think he’s not meaning to, but he’s showing me that he’s hurting inside. So am I, he has to know that. He thinks he’s alone, so I have to fucking tell him, even if I hate anything that leaves me vulnerable. I’ve dealt with enough pain at this point that it isn’t that hard to for me to feel that way. “You’re hurting me. You hurt me every fucking second of every fucking day,” I divulge. “Just tell me, Justin!”

“I can’t, please, I just can’t!”

I can’t listen to this; I can’t give him so much when he gives me nothing. “Then we’re done,” I spit the words out as I rise to my feet and walk into the bedroom, ready to pack my things and end this the way I should have months ago.

“I need you, Brian!”

His words spin around in my head and force my body to turn back toward him. “You what?”

“I need you, every fucking second of every fucking day!”

It isn’t all I need, but it’ll do for now. I walk over to him and gently pick him up into my arms and walk toward the stairs.

“Where are you taking me?” he mumbles against my neck, rocking his face back and forth while his tears stain my skin.

“Downstairs,” I reply.

“I want to stay in our bedroom.”

I wish the words ‘with you’, ended that sentence. Just because I wore him down, tired him out to the point of him having a spur of the moment melt-down, it doesn’t mean that he’s going to change. He wants sleep and so do I. Keeping him up here means I don’t have to struggle down the stairs with him and most likely drop him.

“Brian?” he calls my attention to him, running his hands down my head and playing with the hairs on the back of my neck.

I’ve never felt his hand so unsure, not even that first night. That’s probably why I needed to fuck him a second night. Now, his fingers move like a stranger’s and feel like a stranger’s hands intimately touching me.

How is it that when he was a stranger to my body, he never felt like it. It couldn’t have only been because I was high. That second time, I was barely buzzed and his tongue in my mouth almost made me come right there on the dance floor. How did that fucking twat turn into my husband and get me to have a real life? How can he be the same man who now seems like a ghost in my arms? I hate that he gave me what I have failed to give him.

“Brian, please take me into our room.”

“Just for tonight,” I relent and turn to walk into our bedroom.

“Just for tonight,” he whispers as I lay him down.

I get his pillow off the floor, place it under his head, and then pad in some throw pillows around his leg and arm. He keeps his eyes on me, following my every move, making my chest tighten as I pull the cover up to his shoulders and hear him take in a sharp breath.

I want to get to kiss his forehead, place my lips on his and taste his mouth, but I can’t. I won’t open myself up to that rejection and I’m too fucking angry with him to do it. I practically run to my side of the bed and climb in beside him.

“Th…thank you, Brian,” he forces out.

“You’re welcome.” I close my eyes and pretend that I don’t feel his hand patting the mattress beside me. I’m too fatigued from everything to reach out and grasp his.

 

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August 2010

“We put some of the blue in this cup and a little yellow in it too,” Justin teaches Arella. He squirts drops of the acrylic paint into cups sitting on the bottom of his easel.

“Wand!” Arella yells. “Get the wand!”

“You hear her,” I tell Justin, zooming the camera in on him. “Get your magic wand, Daddy.”

Justin doesn’t acknowledge me as he jostles Arella on his hip and grabs his paintbrush. “Okay. Here we go! One,” he speaks excitedly as he begins to mix the colors together, “two, three!”

“Magic!” Arella giggles.

“Daddy’s a magician,” I tell our daughter.

Arella nods at me and smiles up at Justin while grabbing his hand. “Wanna help you.”

“Okay,” Justin relents. He places the brush in our two-year-old’s hand and steadies her wrist. “Now paint a big stripe arch on the canvas right under the yellow one.”

I watch on the LCD screen as my two blonds mirror one another’s expressions as together they paint the next arch that would add to the rainbow.

“Ta-da!” Arella exclaims as they finished the arch.

I notice Justin’s hand holding the brush is starting to cramp and shake. He nervously turns away from me and the camera. A second later, the brush drops to the studio’s cement floor. “Turn that off, Brian.” Justin tells me. I can tell he’s trying not to sound angry.

I quickly put the camera down on the table I’m sitting on and run over to Justin and Arella. “Let me take her,” I say softly. “Come here, Rel.” I have to control my own emotions when this happens to Justin or he’ll retreat into the studio and make his hand worse trying to paint away his anger.

“Daddy’s hurting,” Rel whispers, climbing into my arms.

“I’m okay, Arella,” Justin says. He does his best to mask the pain I know he’s feeling by giving her a reassuring smile.

“Rel, how about you sit in your chair and paint?” I offer, walking her toward the highchair that was placed in front of a smaller easel and canvas.

“Okay!” Rel says, her attention immediately back on the project.

“All the colors are already in each one of the cups at the bottom of the tray on the easel,” Justin directs me. “The paintbrushes she can use are in the blue can.” He walks over to the sink and starts massaging his hand under warm water.

“Okay, Picasso.” He has specific paintbrushes he’ll allow Arella to use. I made Justin’s father’s day card this year with Arella and allowed her to paint her own hands because we were placing them on the outside of the card. Justin was pissed when he found out, apparently the brush I let her use suffered damaged bristles. The thing cost fifty bucks and the brand could only be bought online from a store located in Paris. I won’t ever be making that mistake again. I couldn’t even tell Justin why I’d let her use it until he saw the card a few days later but even though he thought it was the sweetest thing I’d ever done, I think he was pissed at me for a while over it.

I make sure to grab the brushes he directed me to, put a hideous pink, paint-splattered apron on Arella, and hand her one of the paintbrushes. “Now it’s your turn to be a magician,” I tell my daughter. “Here’s your magic wand.”

“Remember Rel, you start by making a red arch, just like on mine,” Justin says, collapsing into a chair beside his easel. I see that he’s still rubbing his hand and now that Rel’s attention isn’t focused on him, he’s allowing tears to brim in his eyes.

I walk over to Justin and grab his hand in my own. “The warm water didn’t help?” I ask, needing to gauge what level of pain he’s in.

Justin shakes his head at me. “No. She’s getting so heavy and the claw just doesn’t like it. But I can’t bear to stop carrying her around when she wants me to. She’s going to be three soon; then she won’t be a baby anymore and probably won’t like me to hold her.”

I massage Justin’s hand and kiss his neck while whispering, “You have to take it easy, Daddy.”

“I will be fine,” Justin replies, “as long as you keep being my personal magician.”

“I suppose that can be arranged,” I joke, kissing his nose. The only reason I won’t ream him out for being such a sentimental twat is because he’s in pain.

“Daddy?” Rel asks, bringing our attention to her.

“Yeah, Rel?” Justin answers in a sigh. I can tell his pain is lessoning the longer I massage him.

“I wanna make black!”

I burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s my girl!”

“Black’s not part of the rainbow,” Justin says simply.

Rel pouts and glares at him. “I wanna make a dark rainbow,” she whines.

“A dark rainbow?” I ask in amusement and look at Justin to see him sharing in my laughter. “She looks like she’s made of sunshine and sweetness but she’s definitely made like me. She’s a little shit made of…”

“What are you made of?” Justin asks, interrupting me and staring me down.

“We’ll definitely have to give a dark rainbow picture to Grandma Debbie,” I say wearily, changing the subject. Justin has been figuring out sneaky ways to get back at me when I cuss in front of Rel.

“Dark rainbow for Grandma! Good idea, Dada!” Rel rightfully praises me.

“After you make a real colorful rainbow you can make a dark one,” Justin relents.

“I wanna do it now!” Rel yells and throws her yellow covered paintbrush.

“So, since she’s made of whatever you’re made of, Brian, then you can clean her up and give her a nap.”

Oh fuck that shit! “I thought I was your magician.”

“Exactly. She goes to bed in seconds for you, and poof, you can find me in here after I’ve cleaned up and show me some special magic with your wand.”

“You had better be filled with magic too,” I warn, standing up and walking over to my whining, red-faced daughter.

Justin smiles seductively at me. “Oh, I was hoping you’d fill me with it, Brian.”

Arella starts yelling that she doesn’t want to take a nap and I notice that the camera has been on this whole time. I quickly shut it off; we definitely don’t need to remember what her high-pitched wailing sounded like. Though, it might be a good tool to use when she brings home her first date and Justin and I predictably don’t like him or her.

 

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Saturday September 17, 2016

The moment I open my eyes, I have to close them again. I have a horrible headache and the light flooding into the bedroom made my head immediately start to pound.

“Fuck,” I mumble and try to turn over. “Son of a bitch!”

“You need to go downstairs and take those pills.”

I turn to look at Brian, squinting and holding my hand up over my head to shield the sun. “What am I doing here?” The moment I ask this question, the horrible day and night pushes into my memory. “Never mind, I remember,” I say quickly, looking down at my leg.

“Are you going to go back to sleep or do you want me to bring you downstairs?” he asks, sitting beside me, his moves careful and awkward.

“Downstairs,” I answer, rubbing my temples. “Please?” I don’t want a repeat of yesterday.

Brian’s expression remains stoic as he picks me up and hauls me downstairs and places me in my wheel chair. “I’ll see you later,” he speaks softly walking over to the closet and grabbing his coat.

Uh… “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to get to work, Justin.”

Is it weird that I just realized he’s dressed in a suit? Fuck, I feel so damn sore and groggy. “But it’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

“I work every Saturday and most Sundays too.”

“What?” I try and wheel toward him, but my good arm feels like it’s about to fall off.

“Someone’s got to pick up the slack from the Art Department,” he says quickly, turning away from me as he wraps his scarf around his neck.

I thought he would’ve hired someone else by now. He’s waiting on me to go back. He’s working seven days a week because he’s waiting on me to come back. “How long have you done that?”

“I’m sure you can guess,” he quips, facing me for a moment and then pulling open the front door, letting the cold into the warm, safe house.

I shiver and my muscles cramp up from the exposure immediately. “Damn it,” I groan, rubbing the top of my thigh.

“Justin, go take that fucking prescription,” he orders me.

“I don’t want to.” I do want to. I do. The pain though, it has me feeling again.

He looks over his shoulder and his expression is remorseful. “Causing yourself physical pain isn’t penance.”

Brian has no idea about why I won’t take the medication. I still won’t tell him my reasons. “There is no penance or retribution, Brian.”

He turns away from me and moves so fast out the door, slamming it behind him, that I at first I don’t understand why he left in such a manner. Then, I replay my words and his own repeatedly inside my head and I realize that Brian was not speaking about me. He was projecting his own feelings into what he thinks my own are. He is the one searching for retribution.

 

фффффф

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

“Brian couldn’t make it today?” Timothy asks me as his wife, Lydia, leads me into his home office.

“Nice to see you too,” I joke.

Timothy Desmans laughs as he embraces me in a hug and then walks back to his chair. “Well, I was hoping you’d have him so that he could look over the contracts. Take a seat.”

“Well, he’s going to have Kinnetik’s lawyer look them over before I sign anything,” I say, feeling suddenly nervous. I know that I’m an adult and could hire a lawyer on my own but I want to make sure that my career, from the beginning, is handled professionally. Brian offered to have Kinnetik’s lawyer look at my contract. I know that if he trusts him with his business, then my contract with Timothy will be the best it can be. “When I spoke to you last week, I thought you were okay with me waiting to sign?” I really hope this isn’t going to cause any problems.

“Oh, I am fine with that,” Timothy replies. “I just was hoping he’d be here to give his point of view on it, but I can wait.” He slides a folder over to me. “Do you think you can have these back to me with any requests for revisions by next Monday?”

“I’m sure I can,” I say, taking the folder and slipping it into my messenger bag.

“Good, because I have until next Thursday to confirm your show.”

What? “What did you just say?” I gasp. Oh my God!

“I have until next Thursday to let the manager at The Bloom Gallery know if you’d like to participate in his Welcome Winter Wave showing.”

“Of course I want to participate in it,” I tell him, bouncing in my seat. I can’t wait to tell Brian! “How many pieces do I need? You’ve seen my latest work, what do you think I should hang there? What days are the show? How many other artists will there be? What do you…”

“Justin,” Mr. Desmans interrupts me, laughing. “Valerie said you talked a mile a minute but I didn’t believe her until now. If you’ll calm down a bit, I’ll answer your questions.”

“I’m sorry,” I laugh. “I just didn’t expect to get a show so soon, especially without being signed with you yet.”

“Well, this showing is not contingent on that. The owner, Sydney Bloom ran into a friend of yours while visiting in Toronto last week.”

“Lindsay Peterson.”

“Yes, she used to manage his gallery and sung your praises to him. She informed him that you have an amazing new collection and that you’d moved back from New York. She also mentioned that you and I were ‘negotiating’,” Timothy explains. “How is it that she knew that?”

“Lindsay is the mother of Brian’s son,” I tell him. “We were close friends while she lived in Pittsburgh. Brian must keep her updated.” I’m not exactly comfortable with that. I’m grateful that she’s somehow seemed to get me another showing, but I don’t exactly want her involved in my career.

“The dates of the show are Friday, November 3rd through the weekend. Anything that doesn’t immediately sell, upon Sydney’s consideration, will be shown until the New Year’s Eve show. There will be one other artist, a female.” Timothy’s lips turn up into a sly smile as he speaks, “Valerie.”

“You’re kidding me!” Holy shit! I’m going to share a show with Valerie Gavile!

“You’re pleased then?”

“Of course I am, but showing with Valerie is pretty intimidating.”

“She is confident about your work, Justin. You need to be too,” he gently chastises me.

“I am, I am,” I assure him. “So how many paintings do I need?” November is so close; I know that I have ten or maybe twelve pieces nearly ready. I hope they don’t need many more than that.

“Valerie will be hanging eight pieces and they’ve requested sixteen from you.”

Double? Double than what Val is hanging? “What?”

“I recall you showing me twelve pieces while in Paris. Is this going to be a problem, Justin?”

“No,” I tell him quickly. “I’ll go home tonight and get started.”

“So I should tell them yes?”

“Yes,” I grin. “Definitely, thank you Mr. Desmans.” I reach across the desk and shake his hand enthusiastically.

“You’re welcome, Justin. Thanks for coming to see me. Do you think you can let yourself out? I’m going to contact the manager now and I think my wife went to class.”

“Sure,” I say, rising from my chair, feeling floaty and so damn happy as I walk toward the office door.

“Justin?”

I turn back to look at him and he’s got an amused expression on his face. I’m sure it’s because I’m acting silly, but I can’t help it. “Yes?”

“Valerie told me to tell you to call her on your drive home, after calling Brian of course.”

“I will. Thanks so much, Timothy. I’ll call you and let you know as soon as I’ve gone over the contracts.”

“Okay, Justin. Drive safely,” he calls after me.

I do my absolute best not to run out of his house and to the Jeep, but the second I get into the car I can’t help but scream as I dial Brian’s cell phone number.

“You’re done already?” Brian asks answering his cell.

“Yes! He had the contracts ready for me to take back and he already saw most of what he needed to in Paris and we’ve been talking and emailing all week.”

“So it went well?” Brian asks rhetorically.

“I’ve got a show with Valerie, the Welcome Winter Wave at The Bloom Gallery!”

“With Valerie?” Brian asks sounding just as surprised as I feel. “Seriously?”

“Yes!” I tell him. “They want sixteen pieces from me and eight from her.”

“So you’re the headlining act,” he laughs.

“That’s not exactly how it works, Brian.” He really can be clueless sometimes. “It’s quality, not quantity,” I remind him.

“Well you do damn well in both aspects. Congratulations, Sunshine!”

“Thanks, Brian!”

“Just do me a favor and go to a park for a run before you get on the road and start driving like a bat out of hell. I can feel your excitement from here.”

“But I want to get home to you,” I protest, starting the engine.

“I want you to get home safely. So, get out that damn GPS and find the nearest park, go for a run and then get home.”

“Okay,” I grumble. “But when I get home, you owe me a blowjob.”

“I think we can celebrate better than that,” he snickers.

“I love you,” I say, click the phone closed and grab the GPS. The weather is beautiful today and I think Brian knows that not only will it be good to run out my energy, but also to clear my head so that I can get to work on the next pieces.
 

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