Hey Guys:
I am posting this almost on the heels of Chapter 47. This tale seems to be writing itself.
Chapter 48
Loved by a Mermaid
Ryn has been silent since the brief and at times telling conversation with Tia. She remains in her bedroom holding Little Ted.
Downstairs, Ben and his parents leave to pick up Hope from the hospital.
As they enter the car, Elaine is the first to speak. She leans forward to the back of the driver's seat.
"Ben, now that our Hope is back, we can talk."
Turning the steering wheel, he enters traffic.
"Mom. I wasn't aware we couldn't talk."
Ted sits silent in the passenger seat. He remains focused on the road.
"What I mean, and I know she is a maniac." Elaine sits back. Her eyes occasionally glancing at her silent husband. "But sometimes if you want to hear the truth…"
Ted interrupts her.
"Only an enemy will tell you the truth about yourself."
"What?" He asks, adding a mild shake of his head to show his annoyance at their words.
"If you think you got bad breath?" His father states.
"Or if you look fat in a dress." Elaine lets out a soft chuckle after the words.
"Don't ask a friend." He tells his son.
His mother moves up behind his seat. "Ask an enemy."
"What? I don't know what you are talking about."
Ted resumes his position.
Elaine is not as unruffled.
"An enemy will tell you the truth. Just like Tia did." The pause is filled with several breaths and a faint grunt from his mother.
"Ryn has turned you into a," Elaine shakes her head and lets out a disgusted snort of air.
"Son, I know what it is to live with a strong woman, physically and mentally." Said his father,
"I don't hear any complaints." Elaine snickers as Ted cracks a smile.
"Your mother is the, what can I call you?" He asks Elaine.
"You can call me what you whisper to me when we make up for lost time." She rolls her shoulders. "Now that I have feeling below my waste." She winks at Ted.
"I still don't understand." Ben sighs with tight lips. "I'm about five seconds from telling you to mind your own business."
"Ben," Ted's voice possesses a relaxed tone.
"Whatever your mother does or whatever she says is…" He needs a breath to finish. "It's behind closed doors. Ryn," he waves off Ben's attempt to speak. "She will say anything or do anything in front of anybody. Remember the first time we met her over dinner? She tells us you three are screwing each other."
"My life is none of your business." He barks back.
"Really?" She emits a low grunt. "Last night we had to worry about a homicidal maniac killing us, but it's not our business." Elaine bellows from the backseat. "You want us to mind our business even though our son is going to make Maddie pregnant cause his wife wants to expand her family empire."
Ted turns his head and stares at his wife. His hand is raised to stop her from saying more.
"Ted, people are talking now." She turns to aim her words at Ben.
"I'm not talking about the people of Bristol Cove. I mean those that are privileged to know about this triumvirate of sex."
Elaine, please." Ted's raised voice cannot stop her.
"Talk to your friends. They are laughing at you." She throws herself onto the backseat.
"They hear little things when she talks to you. Ask Xander." She blows a disgusted burst of air from tense lips. "She orders you around like some…" She bites a tense lower lip to prevent any further comment.
"Do me a favor," he speaks in a controlled tone. Though his hands become flushed from his grip on the steering wheel. "Keep your idiotic notions to yourself when Hope is here."
"Ben, we know that Little Ted is growing so fast that name will not suit him." Elaine states.
"So!" Her son's remark saturates the air in the vehicle.
"What does she intend to do with him when Hope and him are basically the same age? Or whatever ridiculous tradition this sex-crazed inter-breeding species demands."
"You're walking cause of this so called sex-crazed inter-breeding species." Bens fires back, as he pulls into a parking spot.
As mother and son leave the vehicle their expressions mirror the other. Both possess tense facial muscles causing their eyelids to spasm.
Ted alone remains calm.
The Beach Front Inn
"Angel," Joe whispers as he unlocks the door. He asked the desk clerk if Mrs. Torello had returned. She had not. However, there still is the back entrance to consider.
"Baby, you home. I want to talk to you." His words leave a soft grin.
A squeak behind him causes him to turn.
"Ahh!" He groans as his hands go straight outward. The mist rolls over his face as he sees the bloated gas gun seconds before falling to the floor.
"Baby!" Tia's voice is high and strained from her ire. "Did you call that bitch, baby too?"
She grabs him from the back of the suit jacket's collar.
"Oh, you wanna talk, my precious. We'll talk." Her words are forced out through clinched teeth.
Tia rips his jacket off, then the pants, she intends to strip him naked.
"You freed the little tramp. You and that whore, Maddie. I smelled her."
Throwing him on the bed face down, she leans over the still torso and begins to tie his wrists to the corners of the headboard. Then, binding his ankles to the rear legs. She pulls the newly purchased manilla rope down to the floor, spreading his legs as wide as humanly possible.
Tia leaves for the kitchen and upon her return sneers at her semi-conscious lover starting to struggle.
"Oh, let me cool you down." Joe's eyes turn from fluttering to a wild-eyes stare as she pours water over his bound wrists.
"Angel, please. This is manilla rope." Joe knows the fibers of the bonds shrink when wet.
"As they tighten, you will be able to think of me. Think about how this pain will be nothing compared to what I do to your pretty back." She walks to a chair near the window. Her hand pulls a handgun from the hobo style bag.
"Angel, it doesn't matter what you do to me." Joe grimaces as he begins to feel the rope cutting into his skin. "I'll help you kill Ryn. Please don't hurt Maddie."
"Maddie?" Her voice rises as if posing a question. "Your precious Maddie." She walks to the night table. Picking up the leather belt. "You say it doesn't matter what I do to you." She dangles the belt along Joe's spine. "It doesn't matter that I am going to strip the skin off your back. I will make it so you can't wear clothes or even," she begins to chuckle, "sit down for months." A hideous laugh floats about the bound man.
"That little biologist will be dead before Ryn is." Another bout of maniacal laughter circle the room. "I may cut her head off and lay it here next to you while I redecorate that beautiful backside of yours." She kneels next to the bed. "Do you love her?"
"No! No, I don't" Joe replies quickly. He knows that if Tia thinks so, it would be Maddie's death warrant.
"Really? Really? You answered very fast my dear." She stands up.
"She means nothing to me. Nothing!" His voice is strong and not one of a man in such a position.
"Nothing?" Tia speaks with the tone of someone that has been hurt. "You betrayed me over nothing?" Her eyes close over an expression of sadness.
"Yes, I'm sorry. You can kill Ryn. I'll help you."
"But?" Her lips raise as a sinister smile crawls up her face
"I know you. I am not those stupid humans you fooled in Europe or Asia or wherever you were." Her laugh is deep. "Now I see why you survived so many of those missions. You are such a good liar."
"No, Angel, please. I mean it, I swear."
"My little Joseph, remember when your mother would call you that?"
She drags the metal buckle across his bare skin.
"Yeah! But my mother never used a belt. She'd bop me in the head with her hand cause I did something really bad." He snorts a laugh. "When I got older she stopped. I guess my head was too hard." His chuckle causes the mattress to shake.
"Always humor in the face of disaster. However, you will be punished for your betrayal and disobedience. You will cry out for mercy." She exhales through a sneer. "It is because I love you so very much."
"Oh, thank goodness for a minute I thought you were mad at me." His words are sarcastic, though the expression has turned serious.
She smiles as a gust of air shoots from her nose.
"You are as a sweet talker." He
The grinning woman opens the night table. Picking up the duct tape purchased for this precise moment. She rips a piece and reaches around his head. With a knee driven onto his back, she puts the tape over Joe's mouth.
She bends down and places a kiss on his left cheek.
"I know you are too good a man to have sex with a woman you do not have feelings for." She places a kiss on his temple. "I know in some small way you love her."
He shakes his head to disagree.
"Don't worry, my darling. After she is dead, I will beat the love out of you. I love you that much." She gets up and gazes on the struggling form before her.
"My sweet Joe, this is what happens when you are…loved by a mermaid."
From the writer:
The next chapter is on its way. I know how this is going to end. Buckle your seat belts and have plenty of Kleenex.