The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes
-James Agee
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Chapter Nineteen
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{o}-{o}-{o}
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Even though she felt guilty, part of Alex really wished Roman wasn't doing so well. It wasn't that she hated the guy, well, she was still a little pissed that he kept insisting on calling May, Baby Girl, but she had accepted that if May was too stupid to feel degraded by it, it was none of Alexa's business.
She was grateful to Roman for telling Mox he could stay on until he felt Roman was well enough, but Alexa started feeling like a clock was ticking. She knew Mox had a one year leave of absence, and she really didn't like discovering that she had assumed Roman would be sicker for a whole lot longer. Hardly aware she'd been doing it, Alexa had made too many conclusions. Mox wouldn't be ready to go back to FCW in time, he would lose his contract and have to go back to the indies. By then, she would be ready and the two of them could go out. Mox was already known, so he could put in a good word for her. Like Jessica had been her "sponsor" getting her into underground fighting, Mox could be her "sponsor" to get her into professional wrestling, at least until she was started, building up her own rep, and ready to go off on her own.
While they had been sitting in that restaurant, her wearing a borrowed skirt and blouse, so she already felt that discomfort one could only get by wearing someone else's clothing, while that someone else was present, she felt like choices were being made around her, choices that would affect her, but nobody was including her. Then Mox dropped the bombshell, he had friends in the FBI.
She knew he had worked with the FBI when his captor was brought to justice. He'd been the star witness, after all. The one that assured the world that Dennis would not be allowed to see the light of day, considering the length of his sentence and his age. But he'd never told her he was still working with the FBI. That he had friends in the FBI, or at least one person he knew well enough to know his name, that he was brilliant, and had a variety of social idiosyncrasies. That seemed like an awful lot of information to know about someone.
She tried to keep all of this to herself. When they returned home from dinner, she washed up and got ready for bed. When she came out of the bathroom, Mox was watching reruns of The Twilight Zone. She sat down beside him. "Is this really that important?" She motioned to the TV set.
Mox clicked off the TV and put the remote on the coffee table. "No, it's just the TV. Is something wrong?"
"If you tell your friends at the FBI about me, won't they want to talk to me?" She knew she was biting her lower lip, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to be calm about this, but it wasn't easy.
"There's a big 'if' there," Mox said, turning to look at her. "Do you want to talk to them?"
"No," she said, shaking her head as well. "But, aren't you obligated? You know who I am, well, who I was, I'd imagine the FBI might be looking for me."
"Why?" Mox asked. "You did nothing wrong. You were a victim."
Not exactly, she thought. Sexual abuse? Yes, but unlike you, I murdered my captives.
"You escaped," Mox continued. "Sure, if we want to go on technical lines, you should report it so they could catch the guys who held you captive, but-"
"There's no one to catch," Alexa interrupted.
"Well in that case," Mox began, then stopped and looked at her. "Wait, what do you mean?"
She drew in a deep breath. "I got away from that life. I didn't exactly escape from my captors. And I'm not at all worried that they're looking for me, well, because they're dead."
"Was it an accident?" Mox asked, never taking those blue eyes off of her.
She didn't hesitate. "No."
He nodded. "Good, they deserved it."
She knew he got it. He might not have a clue how she did it, but he knew she had murdered "Daddy Ken" and "Uncle Sean" and he wasn't going to ask her for details. "So, I really don't want to talk to the FBI."
"You don't have to," Mox said. "I barely talk to them anymore anyway. I mean, if you wanted to give them your insight, they'd probably love it, but I do it voluntarily. Just like I go to elementary schools voluntarily to talk to kids about how to stay safe. I had to do it at first, as a favor, but I don't anymore. Now I go because I want to. If you don't want to, you don't have to."
"I really don't want to discuss it with strangers," she said. "I-I wish I could forget it all, but I can't. Like it or not, it's a part of me. Even if I could forget, it would still be part of me."
He nodded. "I get it. But I'm not going to tell the FBI about you, I promise. It's none of their business. Maybe you used to be Suzie, but you aren't any more. You're Alexa Bliss. That's all that matters."
"Do you know how much evidence they have about me?" she asked. "I mean, movies I did and such?"
"No," he admitted. "I know they have the movies we did together. And, since they monitor sites looking for that type of stuff, they probably have other movies you did. Or pictures, if they made you do that. But you're not a criminal."
"But I know you caught a lot of grief for the movies you made with me," she said. She hadn't taken her eyes off of him, this whole conversation, even though she wanted to.
"That was different. I was significantly older than you. I know they tried to hide it, but it was pretty obvious if I hadn't hit puberty I would be soon." His brows furrowed. "They didn't make you do any movies with-"
"Nobody significantly younger than me," she said. "I didn't do much with kids, but the stuff I did with them, they were right around my age. Most of the movies I made were with men. A few with women, but they were adults."
"I'm not surprised," he said. "You're so beautiful and you look young." He started to fidget and she waited, knowing he had something to say. "You are legal now, aren't you?"
She nodded. "I had wine tonight. My Alexa Waters ID says I'm older than I am, but even if I had ID with Alexa Bliss, it would say I'm over 21."
The sigh of relief he gave was so deep that despite her fears, she laughed. "Mox, we had sex when we were both kids, what difference would it make?"
"It would to me," Mox said. "When we made those movies, we really had no choice. But now? We're doing it of our own free will and your age matters to me."
"Well, don't worry, it's fine," she said, strangely touched that it mattered so much to him.
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They ended up having sex "his way" that night, which was the only way they had been doing it lately. If Alexa was to be honest with herself, she liked it, but it scared her too. Mox was so gentle, so tender with her and she wanted to trust him completely, but she couldn't help it, part of her felt as if she was no longer in control and thus, it took longer. Taking longer wasn't necessarily a problem either, it was nice to move slowly, it was nice to feel like Mox was worshiping her and her body, not just responding to the blows and kicks she reigned on him. But it also showed how messed up they were. If they were normal, this gentleness would be the key, wouldn't it? So, why was the fastest way and often the most intense way to get started was by her knocking Mox around for a bit.
Are we messed up forever? she found herself thinking, even while he was kissing down her body. Were we so fucked up as kids that I'll always want to be in control? That the only way we'll really have intense sex is if I'm beating on him and he's being beaten?
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"What did the Reigns do when they found out what you'd done as a kid?" Alexa asked the next morning, as they were drinking coffee. Mox didn't drink a lot of coffee, although he admitted when he was young, he had been a constant coffee drinker. But, he did like his morning coffee and it always had to be good coffee. Alexa had only drunk diner coffee and never got why folks praised the bitter drink so much, until Mox started making it for her. He had a burr grinder and bought his beans in small batches. Mox's coffee was wonderful and Alexa knew she was likely on her way to a coffee habit.
"I never made an official announcement," Mox said, putting a splash of half and half into his cup, then pushing it over to her. "They just figured it out. Pretty fast too." He shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee and then getting that contented half grin he got every morning with his first sip. "The second day I was with them, Sefa took me to the doctor. On the way, he told me that the rule in the house was that my body was mine and nobody could touch me if I didn't want them to."
That must have been nice, Alexa thought, Instead of having to sell your body to get enough to eat. She thought of her own life right after she left, what she had to do to survive and shuddered.
"Are you cold?" Mox asked.
She shook her head. "Was that it?"
Mox's cheeks flushed. "They told me that I had to respect that rule for others too. That I couldn't touch anyone else without their permission. I think they were worried about Lance."
Alexa felt her nostrils flare, but couldn't stop it. "Oh, so they believe into that bullshit that just because you were sexually abused, you'll grow up to be a child molester? That is such bullshit! Most of us-"
"I wasn't offended," Mox said, effectively cutting her off. "I understood. I was a stranger. They were allowing me in their house and they hardly knew me. Sefa didn't accuse me of anything, they never chained me to the bed to make sure. Never stopped Lance from talking to me, unless he was getting on my nerves. All Dad, well, he was Sefa to me then, did was to tell me that I needed to respect that everyone else had the same rights I did, to allow or not allow themselves to be touched. He could have just called child services and had me hauled off to foster care."
She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "What else did they do to help you?"
Mox tipped his head to one side, figuring out what she meant. "They loved me, mostly. They got me into the system as a John Doe kid to get me medical insurance from the state. They wanted to adopt me, but a bunch of crap went down so they weren't able to do that until I was just about eighteen." He thought for a moment. "Oh yeah, I had to see a talk therapist for awhile."
"Did it help?"
"Not at first," Mox admitted. "I felt like it was some type of trick they were playing on me. Because all the therapist wanted to do was get me to open up about my past, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt like it was a game too. The harder they tried to get me to talk about my past, the harder I worked to avoid that."
"So, it was a waste of time?"
"No," Mox said, and his voice became quiet and serious. "Eventually, I realized I was messed up and instead of fighting, I played it their way. I talked, they listened, they talked, I listened. It took me awhile, but I think it did help me. It wasn't perfect, nothing is, but at least I have a better understanding of myself. Which, I think helps me when I work with other sexually abused children." His face took on that pinkish glow again. "I have my talk therapist's business card in my wallet. I've called him since and he's helped me. I even went a couple times when Roman got sick and we moved up here."
"Why?"
"Because I was confused and I needed someone to talk to. Someone who wouldn't care about my mood." He took a sip of coffee. "Yeah, I could talk to Lance, Sefa, Marc, you, Jen, and I did, but all those folks, including you, have an emotional investment in the situation. Charles doesn't. He cares, but he's also got dozens of other patients he cares about too. He can't let every personal situation with his clients upset him, or he can't do his job. It's nice sometimes to talk to someone who isn't going to get upset, the two of you aren't going to end up crying, and when I leave his office he'll make a few notes and go on to the next person."
"Do you think I should go to Talk Therapy?"
Mox shrugged. "It's a personal thing."
"That isn't what I asked," Alexa said. "I asked if you thought I should go. Not how I felt about it."
Mox squirmed looking uncomfortable. "Do I think it could help you? Yeah. But only if you're open to it. Unless you're open to therapy, it won't do you any good."
"Do you want me to be open to it?"
"I said, I think it could help," Mox said and his voice was firm. "But again, it's a personal choice."
She knew by the set of his jaw he wouldn't discuss it any further. And she wondered if it was because he really didn't want to discuss it, or he was afraid she'd start an argument about it.
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"Do you ever get mad at Roman?" Alexa asked May. It was nearing dinner time and the two of them were doing mock matches in one of the empty outdoor rings, Mox's favorite as it turned out. May was turning out to be a pretty good teacher, Alexa had to admit. She was teaching Alexa some high flying moves, while others were teaching her ground moves.
May had been about to climb the ropes to show her something but stopped and turned to Alexa. "Of course I do. Doesn't everyone get mad at each other?"
"I've never seen you mad at him," Alexa said. "Is that just because he's sick?"
May shrugged. "That's part of it. It's hard to get mad at someone who is fighting for his life, but that didn't make him bulletproof. Remember when he was nauseous all the time, no matter what meds he was given?"
Alexa nodded. Mox had been scared and so had the rest of the family, even though they tried to pretend otherwise. Roman himself looked awful, having gone from being able to hold down turkey most of the time, to only being able to hold down turkey broth part of the time. That was when chemotherapy took away his lashes and brows finally, which made him look even more pathetic. She didn't know why, but she remembered being vaguely angry at Roman herself and she'd had no good reason. Maybe it was because it seemed like he was giving up and to me, he had so much to live for?
"Well," May said, looking around. "Remember they changed his meds again and that seemed to work?"
She did remember that. The whole family had been overcome with joy that Roman was able to hold food down, not just turkey or turkey broth, but light meals at first, then normal ones.
"The new med didn't work a damn," May said, almost scornfully, as if she'd known before he'd tried it that it would fail.
"But he stopped being nauseous and throwing up all the time." Alex's brow furrowed, feeling confused.
"Yeah," May nodded. "Because Lance bought a bag of pot."
Alexa was no stranger to drugs, there were plenty of them in the underground fighting scene. Although, marijuana was usually something the watchers did, not the fighters. But she'd been offered steroids enough times. She had always refused them, because Jessica told her if she started using steroids, she'd have to leave the apartment they shared, and that steroids were just stupid. Alexa didn't think about drugs much, but she knew they were a big thing at SPWA and in the Reign's family. Every camper had to take a test before they could enroll, and they signed a waiver that said they could be retested at any time. The WWE tested people for drugs, the little promotion Lance fought in ESW made him take tests and sign the same type of waiver. Mox told her Roman was subject to tests back in High school in order to play football. "And did Roman smoke it?"
"Not at first," May admitted. "He hardly had the strength to go to the bathroom, but he fought against it tooth and nail. And I was furious. I finally told him if he didn't at least try it, I'd leave. I couldn't stand watching him slowly waste away, unwilling to try anything that might help him. Mad at him? I could barely speak to him until he gave in. I was still helping to take care of him, but I made it clear he had 48 hours, two days, to either try it, or I was gone."
"Wow, you strong-armed him big time," Alex said, not sure if it was right to think May bullying Roman while he was at his weakness was a good thing, but unable to stop herself. May was right, Roman being too weak to fight back didn't change that. Maybe smoking pot was illegal, but if you were dying and something came along that might help you with the worst of your symptoms, didn't you owe it to people who cared to try it?
May nodded. "And I felt terrible while I did it, but I kept it up. He finally broke down when I was packing my stuff to leave when the two days were almost up. Lance was in the room, trying to talk to Roman too, giving him information he'd learned. Roman was weak and looked like he might cry, but I kept packing. He finally agreed." She paused and smiled. "Lance got a box fan and put it in the bedroom window to vent out the smoke. Then, we realized he had no way to smoke it. Lance didn't get a pipe or papers, he let that go right over his head."
"So what did you do?"
May shrugged. "Lance got on the 'net and found out how to make a makeshift pipe with a soda can and a sewing needle. Poor Roman almost coughed a lung out, but he smoked it."
"It helped, obviously," Alexa said.
"Well, his lungs weren't too happy, but it settled down the nausea really fast. It was near lunch, so I got him some soup. He ate it all and took a nap. When he woke up, we had him smoke some more, and he came down to dinner and ate. Not a lot, but more than he had been. No throwing up, no nausea. He even said it was helping a bit with the bone aches and other symptoms."
"Yeah, but putting that stuff in your lungs when you're weak..." Alexa let her voice trail off, remembering how she felt sometimes when she fought in clubs that allowed smoking, which was a lot of them. She'd never smoked a cigarette, pot or otherwise, but she knew her lungs weren't keen on second hand smoke either.
"Yeah, that worried me," May admitted. "So, Lance and I got on the web after Roman had gone to sleep, looked up a few things, and went to the kitchen. We made pot brownies. We made them all wrong, we just sorta stirred in some pot with a batch of Betty Crocker, but they worked. A little crunchy though." She laughed and shook her head. "Eventually, I learned how to make cannabis butter. It's a long process, but when you're done, you can just use it like you'd use butter in any recipe. I got my mother's brownie recipe and used the cannibutter. Roman liked them. They worked perfectly, and had the extra bonus of being able to take along when he had treatments."
"Wasn't that dangerous?" Alexa inhaled sharply as if trying to suck the words back in. May wouldn't do anything to endanger Roman and she hoped the woman didn't get mad.
"At that point, we just wanted Roman to not be so sick," May admitted, not at all offended. "We did tell his doctor what we were doing."
"What did the doctor say?"
"He said that he couldn't legally tell Roman it was all right. But he also said that if Roman were his son or his brother, he would do whatever was necessary to help him. He never said he approved or authorized, but I think that was a legal matter."
"Did Sefa and Jen know what you were doing?"
"Yes," May said. "They pretended they didn't, but they knew. I kept the cannibutter labeled in the refrigerator, 'May's cooking butter.' Nobody said anything. I kept the brownies in a tin labeled "Roman's brownies." We kept them out of sight so nobody like Sheriff Aaron would accidentally help themselves. It was one of those things where nobody talked about it openly, but everyone knew it was happening."
"Mox never mentioned it," Alexa said.
May looked slightly embarrassed, but only slightly. "Unless Roman or Lance told him straight out, he might not have even realized. The whole thing was treated like the elephant in the room. We all knew what was happening, we all loved that it was working, but we didn't talk about it. Sefa was out there lecturing his students about drug tests, making them get tested. It would have looked really bad if he'd said his son was using it, even if it was medicinal. Mox might have never been told, but just figured it out like everyone but Lance, myself, and Roman did. And if you're pretending something is not happening, part of pretending is not telling someone else."
"I guess," Alexa shrugged and tried to look casual, but part of her wondered, wasn't something like that something you did share with someone you were sleeping with?
"But yeah, I was really angry with him when he wouldn't give pot a try," May said, coming back around to Alexa's original question. "And I've been angry other times too. He's been angry at me. Maybe not as much as some couples because until he got sick, we didn't spend a lot of time together. But it's natural to sometimes get angry with someone, even if, and in some cases _especially_ if you love them."
Alexa found the whole "Roman uses pot" story to be interesting, but she was pretty sure May never got angry at Roman like Alexa got angry at Mox.
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"Did you know Roman was using pot for his chemo symptoms?" Alexa asked Mox. They were lying in bed together, both in the calm, afterglow of good sex. They'd done it "his way" and Alexa was starting to admit to herself that in some ways, it really was better than "her way," she just wished she could get rid of some of the anger she still felt about enjoying what she was doing.
She had her head on his chest and she could feel him shrugging his shoulders in the dark. "Maybe. I don't know. I've been around enough stoned people that there were a few times when I thought he looked stoned, but I wasn't sure if they were giving him some heavy duty stuff for pain."
"So you didn't know?" she asked him.
"No, not really," Mox said. "I might have sensed it, but to be honest, when he was really suffering, I wouldn't have cared what he used as long as it helped him." He shifted a little, being careful not to jostle her. "If heroin could have helped, we would have found a way to score for him and if he'd become addicted, sent him to rehab. Pot? I just can't think it was a big deal. How did you find out?"
"May told me," Alexa admitted. "We were talking about stuff, and it came out." She didn't want to tell him she was asking her about getting angry at Roman. "I guess Lance looked into it and bought it for him to try."
"That sounds like Lance," Mox said and she could hear the fondness in his voice. Alexa didn't share the same feelings for Lance that Mox and the rest of the Reigns did. She didn't dislike him, he was a good enough teacher at the high flying stuff, but sometimes she found his intelligence and the way his family gathered around him to protect him almost insufferable. "He would be the one to find out what the benefits were," Mox continued. "And he'd weigh the risks. Not that I think pot has a lot of risks, except that you might eat too many brownies." He gave a low chuckle.
"Well, actually that's how they gave it to Roman," Alexa said. "May learned how to make brownies with it. Well, she actually learned how to make butter with it, that she could use in the brownies. She didn't go into detail but it sounded like a complicated process."
"That sounds like May," Mox said, his voice telling Alexa he was smiling as he spoke. "She might pretend that she and Roman have an open relationship, but she'd crawl across broken glass for him. You don't do that if you're not seriously committed to a relationship."
"Do you think Roman is as committed?"
"Yeah, I do," Mox said. "He might not be aware of it, but he is."
She noted that he didn't make any comparisons in their relationship. He didn't suggest that he would hope she would go to all that bother if he were sick. Or that he would if she was sick. But part of her was convinced he would go to all that bother or more if she was sick. He'd learn how to make cannabis butter and make brownies for her. Or, at the very least he'd find a way to get it and make sure she could use it.
She just wasn't sure if she would have done the same thing for him.