Truth be told the moment Orel started to show signs of making conscious decisions, Bloberta repressed her affections further and further. She began to see the baby more and more just an extension of Clay. Of course she would always love Orel, but as time went on she viewed the boy less and less of her own, as she always knew. And yet Clay was reluctant to be who he was supposed to be, which made her feelings towards Orel harder to deal with. If Clay didn't care for Orel's well being beyond if he was okay, then who would?

Orel was now a fully fledged toddler at age 2 and a half. Bloberta had fully weened Orel and started to bottle feed him. It was with this change of pace Clay finally deemed it appropriate to teach him to distrust people, no matter how close.

Clay felt it was time, Orel was ready to learn about liars. What better way to mess with a child by promising them candy for doing something good, only to deny them was Clay's first approach. Sadly to Clay, Orel didn't really know what candy was due to Clay never giving it to him in the first place.

Getting Orel to full on distrust Clay was pretty much impossible. Orel was far to pure to indoctrinate to distrust. Clay and Bloberta were Orel's heroes. It would take years to destroy that belief...

The young ones mind believes in anyone, and most of all their parents. Even if the parent deceives them.

At first Clay was confident if teaching Orel the ways to distrust people...But Orel's innate trust continued to scare Clay. The very idea to try and teach this boy further felt as if force feeding the forbidden fruit to him.

Orel...he felt too pure to teach the simple human concept of deceit. Clay hung the fruit of knowledge in the face of his son. However in Clay's case, his son didn't care to challenge his authority and merely did his own thing. Orel was withheld the lesson of betrayal because he never conceived anything like it, let alone coming from his own care taker.

After another day of failure in teaching Orel deception, Clay retired to his study. As he sipped from his glass he leaned back in his chair.

"What am I doing wrong...?" Clay shut his eyes tightly as he whispered to himself. Visions of his father slapping him across the face and of his mother hugging him flashed to him rapidly. A cold sweat ran down his skin as his eyes opened. Clay briefly pondered the thought of hitting his son to get him to learn, recalling his father's methods.

Clay rubbed his cheek and shook his head in disgust. "I can't do that..." He whispered to himself. The very idea crossing his mind made Clay want to throw up. Clay looked over to a mirror and noted he was starting to resemble his father. If there was anything he could do about it he would only look like him in appearance. Clay would try his hardest to never actually harm the boy...At least for now. Orel never did anything wrong enough to warrant a beating anyway Clay surmised. Clay grabbed the mirror and threw it into the fireplace. He wondered why he'd put a mirror in a place where he wanted to forget everything around him.

-

Bloberta had been downstairs in the living room feeding Orel her milk from a bottle as he heard a loud shatter of glass coming from Clay's study. Bloberta sighed and decided to check if anything was amiss besides Clay's usual problems. Plus she was slightly curious as to what Clay was hoping to accomplish over the past few weeks with Orel. She observed his somewhat off behavior in teasing Orel with food and toys and decided it was as good time as any to see what that was all about.

Bloberta knocked at Clay's door while Orel was drifting off to sleep in her arm. Clay answered his door with a gloomy expression on his face, only grumbling at Bloberta and his toddler son. Bloberta stepped into the study for the first time in what seemed like a year. Clay's gloom went to shock as his eyes widened following Bloberta walking so flagrantly into his study. Clay spoke out in protest: "Wha... what are you doing here? Can't you see I'm praying in here?!"

"You mean: drinking down a highball and breaking glass while Orel is trying to sleep?." Bloberta snarkily spits back. Clay looks down at the peaceful Orel eyes closed closed, smiling.

"Looks like he accomplished his goal today...Unlike me..." Clay squinted looking back to Bloberta.

"Look I told you teach Orel about stuff like numbers and the alphabet and these past few weeks all I've been seeing you do with Orel is baiting him with treats and toys." Bloberta at first jeered at Clay but looked down at their sleeping son and her eyes softened. Clay tilted his head sort of confused at Bloberta's statement.

"And...?" Clay asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Why are you toying around with Orel like that?" Bloberta asked. Clay thought it had been obvious, especially to a person like Bloberta. Clay sighed turning away from Bloberta looking into the fireplace he'd thrown the mirror into, looking into parts of his reflection in the broken mirror, Clay glared into his own reflection. He hated he could both see his father in his face of the reflection and the failures his father committed. None of the sweet times, none of the love his parents gave to him. It was all coming back to him with this one failure in teaching Orel the cruel lesson that humans can deceive.

"It was...nothing...I was just messing with him..." Clay hung his head in defeat and now he was looking into his reflection into his shot glass. "I guess there's some lessons you can't teach...Some lessons I can't teach..." Clay said under his breath making sure Bloberta couldn't hear his lament.

Bloberta glared at the back of Clay's head. "You aren't telling me something...again. You keep, keeping me in the dark to your weird games...Just like everyone else." Bloberta sneered as she stomped out of the study. Clay sat on the floor looking back to the fire.

-

After setting Orel to bed, Bloberta tapped at Clay's study again and just called out for him to be quiet, with no response. She walked out to the town alone in what seemed like ages. Bloberta walked down the block hardly thinking while she mindlessly looked over to the sunset. The light in her eyes had mostly vanished, the sunset was nothing more than a cruel reminder of how far she had compromised in the face of desperation. The sunset was no longer a beautiful sight...It was just there to let her know that the darkness was always there looming and ready to destroy any bit of light she ever saw on this God forsaken Earth...

Before she could walk across the street, a gleaming light reflected off a car in front of her, practically blinding her, almost running her over, it made Bloberta stop in her tracks and fall back as she shielded her eyes.

A coy and cool smile came from the driver looking to Bloberta from his car. Bloberta coughed from the exhaust from the man's car and looked up to see Mr. Stopframe from before. Bloberta stared for a moment as Stopframe spoke out to her: "It seems I missed you..." Stopframe said cryptically.

Bloberta coughed "Ahem...You missed me..?"

"I both missed hitting you with my car and missed seeing you and your husband." Stopframe said nonchalantly. Bloberta got up to her feet and dusted herself off.

"You'd probably miss us less if you came to church. I don't see you go to church..." Bloberta eyed him with a bit of suspicion.

"Oh I have too much work to do on Sundays...I'll stop by when work isn't such a hassle." Stopframe lied through his grin.

"You kind of sound like my husband when he wants to get out of things..." Bloberta smirked and put her hands to her hips.

"Is that right?" Stopframe shot back a smirk far more devilish than Bloberta's. Bloberta gulped at the man's overconfidence.

"Hey I wanted some help with something I was going to ask your husband but since you're here, I'll ask you instead." Stopframe warmed his smirk into a smile and softened his gaze. Bloberta hardly registered his sentence and was giddy with excitement at the mere word of 'help'

"What is it?" Bloberta smiled and asked cheerfully.

"I'm applying for coach at the elementary school and need to show off at a practice how much better I am than other applicants. Your form looks 'weak'- I mean 'pretty' enough for me to wow the school. Care to help out?"

"Of course I'll help! When is the practice?" Bloberta grinned like a school girl and clasped her hands.

"Next Friday around noon. At the tennis court by the school. Don't be late." Stopframe blew a kiss and sped off in his car before Bloberta could say goodbye. Bloberta fluttered her eyes as more exhaust blew into her face.

She bit her lips and looked back up at the sunset seeing the car speed off. She could swear she saw the light she once saw with Clay. She blushed and couldn't help but feel a sharp sting of guilt in her heart for how she was starting to feel.

The need to deceive both her husband...and the light of her life, Orel Puppington.