Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, except for my own. The rest
belong to Tribune Entertainment.
Don't forget, please R & R to keep me going. I just found out I have great difficulty in writing sex scenes :) it's almost like a mental block. But when it comes to the rest, the narrative just runs. It's not going to stop me from trying though. To Ace: Brennan is hot, isn't he? I have no problems when it comes to writing Brennan g. To all B/S shippers: I'm a B/S shipper myself, but it doesn't mean I want them to be together in this story. I can much more identify with Emma as a character. But keep reading please. There are some curveballs ahead.
And to Amanda, my beta-reader. Thanks so much for commenting on my structure so that I can improve. And what a great job you did beta- reading.....the dissection details were incredible.
Rated PG-13. R at the end for adult themes.
Chapter 5
Emma's heart began to pound. Shalimar's voice repeated itself, 'Emma?'
There was a dreadful silence. If she wasn't awake before, she was very, very wide awake now. Damn, she didn't count on this happening, but she had overslept and so had he. She also had not the foresight to ask for a morning call, the events of the night were too overwhelming; nor did she carry one of those cellphones which had those musical alarms programmed in. She supposed Brennan had a cellphone - it was like his little black book, he needed one to keep all his dates in check - but of course he would never program it to wake him. Brennan needed his beauty sleep like no other, to mobilize his growth hormones for bodybuilding, or so he said.
` Worse yet, she hadn't prepared a story. It was like being caught at the Oscars without a two-paged speech. You thought someone like Nicole Kidman or Meryl Streep was going to win, and when they called your name instead, you choked yourself by swallowing your sweet down the wrong hole. She felt like that now.
'Shalimar?' Her pulse was racing. She had to say something. Letting the silence run too long was as sure as an admission of guilt.
'Emma? Are you okay?'
'Um...yeah.' Emma rubbed her eyes and shook herself. Oh think, she pleaded. 'I'm just having a hangover, that's all. I..um...had a little bit too much to drink last night....and I, er...'
'Too much to drink?' Shalimar's voice registered incredulity. 'You?'
'Yeah.' Emma allowed just a hint of irritation to creep through. 'I can drink just like anyone else. And get drunk too. I'm not some..teetotaler.' She said this last bit indignantly.
'Sorry.' Shalimar sounded sheepish. And then, in a more tentative tone, as though she dreaded to hear the answer. 'Did anything....uh, well you know...like' Emma heard a low laugh, very flustered (which was really unlike Shalimar because normally her blonde friend was so confident of herself), '.......happen?'
'Happen?' Emma repeated. She was beginning to sound like a broken record. 'Oh no....I uh, fell asleep and now I have this dreadful splitting headache that's hurting me real bad (Great, she thought, now she was having verbal diarrhoea, the words were gushing out and she hoped they made sense because she had no idea what she was saying) and I....uh......well, you see we were both smashed last night and we thought it wouldn't be a good idea to drive home in our....well, condition. So we just stayed over at a motel.....'
'A motel?' She could swear Shalimar's ears pricked up at that.
'Well, yeah....and....' Perhaps it would be best to go on the offensive. Now her head was really hurting. '....nobody picked me up, if that's what you're asking.'
That is so bad, bad, Emma, she quietly scolded herself. Why do you always want to protect her? Always the doormat, always the faded water lily, doomed to remain in the background.
Or maybe you want to protect her because she's always protected you, and you love her. Just like she loves you. And it was incredible to think about it, but as beautiful and fiercely independent as Shalimar was, she was just a little girl standing naked in the rain, hurt and forlorn, when it comes to feelings. Needing to be protected all the same. And besides, he's not yours either, Emma. You both made it clear about that. This new thing, this big Plan of his, threw nothing out of the fray. When it was over, he was going to go back to being antsy around Shalimar again, and she around him.
Now why did that make her so sad?
'Oh I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to imply anything.' Now Shalimar was sounding embarrassed. 'But you know, if you met someone, I'd always love to hear details....' Shalimar paused. Usually, as far as Emma knew, she craved details and would adopt a gushing, almost girlish 'Ooooo, tell me more about him' demeanor to tell you she's really interested and all ears. But not now. There was something else bothering Shal, and she had to get it out of the way. '......so where's Brennan?'
Emma looked at Brennan sleeping next to her, his left arm flung over his face exposing his cute dragon tattoo on his underarm, the one that he said he got after achieving some street-fighting milestone , still dead to the world .
'He's...um....downstairs, I think, in another room. He was pretty smashed as well. I don't know. I'll have to go check.'
Damn, she was convincing. Never give too many details. People got suspicious when you gave too many details. She should have been an espionage agent.
'That's okay, Emma.' Shalimar sounded relieved. 'Is he...uh....with someone?'
What should she say? To say that he wasn't might be stretching it a little thin, given his recent track record. 'I don't know, but I can go check all the same.'
'No, there's no need to.' Shalimar gave a nervous laugh. 'Knowing Brennan, it would probably be some floozy he picked up last night. It's all right, just come back when you're feeling better okay?'
Emma felt a stab of annoyance at her friend. Oh, you can handle him being with faceless floozies that would be all sex and thighs and heat, purely physical with no emotions attached. But you can't handle him being with me, right? Why? Because I'm real? Did you know that every single one of them floozies have been blondes the past few months? He's so into you, you know it and you don't even want to do something about it. Damn you.
Aloud, she said, 'Okay. Thanks for caring.' And switched off, feeling angry and frustrated. Damn everyone. It was not their fault though. It was hers. All her life....what a doormat. Please wipe your feet on my feelings, thank you, you don't even have to scrape the mud off. And all this was compounded by the fact that she needed to urgently visit the bathroom.
She shook Brennan, feeling far from romantic. 'Come on, sleepyhead. Wake up. Blondie's asking for you.'
*
*
*
*
Several days went on, and so did the usual stuff. Practicing at the dojo, surfing the net, cleaning up her room (Shalimar always said she was a neat freak), reading the latest John Grisham novel, cooking up a new teriyaki chicken recipe for the Japanese meals they always ate. Shalimar did not ask her more about her night other than a teasing 'So, what was it like getting drunk?' 'Painful,' she replied. And they had laughed about it and gone to Shalimar's room to try out Shal's new halter top, which she claimed came from Paris and was a steal at 50% off. Shalimar was always a sucker for discounts.
Brennan and Shalimar were still circling each other like flies. It would have been amusing to watch them, had it not been a little painful.
'Going out tonight, Brennan?' Shal would say when they were practicing a new move at the dojo. She flung a targeted forearm aimed at his face, which he easily deflected.
Their eyes clashed. 'No,' Brennan said, returning a counterstrike by swooping low with his leg, hoping to unbalance Shalimar.
The feral leaped before he could make contact, a marvelous pirouette high up in the air. She somersaulted once and landed behind him. Again, the extended fist to the kidney area, which Brennan averted by flinging himself sideways and rolling away. He picked himself up quickly with Brennan, it was always the composure, he always had to appear graceful and adopted a fighting stance.
'But I might go out later this afternoon,' he grinned.
Shal grinned back. 'Really? Some hot date?'
Brennan went on the offensive this time, executing a series of high kicks, one of them catching Shalimar on the jaw. 'Ouch,' she said.
'Sorry. But not everything I do has to be a hot date, Shal.'
Spinning, she caught him in a sensitive area with a low kick. Now he bent over double, nursing himself. His expression was one of agony. 'Ow ow ow, that was dirty, Shal.'
She smirked. 'Since you're not going out on a hot date, I figured you won't be needing those.'
Emma, who was watching them spar while waiting for her turn with Jesse, had to cover her mouth to keep the laughter from spilling out. Shalimar did look penitent as she bent down to offer her hand to Brennan. 'I'm sorry, Bren. I didn't mean it.'
'You don't fool me,' he growled, taking her hand anyway.
Things were so normal that Emma was beginning to wonder if the other night was all a dream, or if he had completely forgotten about The Plan. Not that he confided in her about what The Plan was. She had to confess there was a budding excitement churning within her, an expectation that something.. well, different....was going to happen. Brennan was exciting that way. And being around him made life exciting. In a mundane, best friend sort of way, of course, she checked herself hastily.
That night, she took a shower. A long, hot one, washing her hair with the new improved Pantene shampoo, the one they said was guaranteed to make all hair strong and silky. When she came out, one towel wrapped around her and using another to vigorously rub her hair dry, he materialized in front of her like some big sudden shadow, startling her.
'Oh god, Brennan.' She took a step back, palpitations rising. 'You scared me.' She looked at him crossly. 'How did you get into my room anyway? I locked the door.'
He smirked. 'I'm an ex-thief, remember.' He sat down on her bed. 'I got you a present.'
She wondered if she should have been mortified, him being in her room while she was naked and wrapped up only in a wooly towel (and looking like a dripping wet rat with no make-up on). And decided he had seen it all anyway, just like she had seen everything he had to offer. So she sat down beside him.
'Thanks, but it's not my birthday yet.'
'I know. Let's call it a little pre-birthday present.' He handed her a gift-wrapped package. He smiled at her in encouragement, and she was pleased to note the pleasure on his face. He likes doing this stuff, it occurred to her, and that thought was very pleasant.
She opened it, taking care not to tear the wrapping ( 'Oh Emma', Shalimar would have said. 'Just yank it off already.' ) Inside was a lovely hardcover edition of 'A Thousand and One Nights.' The Arabian fairytale.
'Oh, it's lovely!' she exclaimed. 'I love these stories.' She looked at him questioningly. 'Does it have any special meaning?'
He took the book away from her gently, smiling. 'Well, let's just say it's all part of The Plan.' He leaned over and kissed her lips. So softly. She closed her eyes, imbibing him. He tugged at her towel, loosening it and making it fall onto the bed in a crumpled sigh.
'And The Plan is......?' She opened her eyes again to watch him take his clothes off. No matter how many times she would see him do this, she was sure she would never tire of it.
He laid her down on the bed, kissing her intermittently. On her lips, on her neck, on her wet hair. 'Well, The Plan is I loosen you up....' he tapped her head. 'Inside here. That's where the problem mostly is, isn't it? And then the rest will come naturally.'
'And how would you loosen me up?' She kissed him back. Oh, he was so nice and warm. 'And how would you know when I've loosened up?'
He grinned at her, a cocky grin that was so Brennan. 'I'll know. I'll know when you are ready.'
'And how would you claim to know me so well?' Stupid question. She might as well take it back. He knew all women well. He knew their anatomies in and out.
He chose to ignore it. 'Let's put it this way. I'm going to play Scheherezade, just like in the book. And I'm going to tell you bedtime stories. As long as it takes. Some of these stories are going to have sex in them, and when I tell you about the sex bits, I want you to connect with me. In my head.'
She looked at him in astonishment. He was giving her permission to enter his mind.
'You're an empath, aren't you?' He went on. 'Well, I'm going to let you see, and feel, how pleasurable sexual intercourse can be. Remember, it's all in your mind.'
Whatever words she had planned to say froze right in her throat.
'But...but....' she stammered. 'It's different for a man. I mean.....sex feels different if you are a man.'
'And no more or less pleasurable. In your case, it's better you have my memories than your own, then maybe you'll open up to the possibility that sex can be very, very exciting and sensual. And besides,' he grinned, 'don't you want to know how it feels like on the other side?'
I already know, she thought, a little bit of it. Though she would never tell him. It was when he was with Lorna Templeton, the scorpion feral who seduced him against his will with her toxic pheromones. Emma had tried to get a hit off him when he didn't report back, and had entered his mind when he was in the throes of an orgasm. It was ....indescribable and so personal, and she had blushed and exited right away, her senses all tingling and glowing, leaving an indelible memory.
It was best not to bring it up. He was touchy when it came to the subject of Lorna. He never wanted to talk about it, and when Adam tried to skirt the subject, he always came up with a sarcastic quip. It was because, she surmised, it was actually a rape. And Brennan was a man who never wanted to admit he could be raped. The funny thing was, Emma thought, Lorna cared for him (was 'love' too strong a word to use? Emma doubted Lorna had any capacity for 'loving') in her own peculiar kind of way. Even after she tried to kill him.
Aloud she said, 'Okay, I'm game.' And smiled at him. She truly was enjoying this nearness, being with him and everything. And his proposal was....well, intoxicating to say the least.
'Okay.' He was as eager as a schoolboy. She had to laugh at that. 'First story. What would you like to hear about?'
'Well,' she was sure he had hundreds of experiences he could draw from. 'I had always been curious about your past. You talk about it now and then, but they're just hints. We've been friends for pretty long. I guess I'm just curious, that's all.'
They were tucked snugly under the covers, and their bare legs were intertwining beneath the sheets. He took her hand, looking into her eyes deeply, and drew a deep breath. 'Okay, let me tell you my story.'
*
*
*
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Unlike Emma, Brennan Mulwray's problems began way before puberty. He lived with his mother in a run-down trailer park, and if anyone had told him he was a poverty-stricken white trash case study, he would have been surprised. Because it never occurred to him life could be any different. After all, he figured at the age of 4, life was what you made it, and it didn't matter if you were poor or middle-classed or demi-semi upper classed, it was how much fun you got out of it.
That was his recurring credo in life and he certainly chalked up a lot of mileage on it.
'I think it was around 5 that I began making sparks.' He told Emma. Little coils around his fingers that were too tiny to be called tesla. At first his mom thought he had rubbed on too much carpet or something, and went about a big spree of vacuuming and upholstering (with second hand garage sale furniture, mind you, they were after all very poor).
But as the coils grew bigger and he started to set some things on fire - including her rug, his bed and the flea-bitten cat that prowled around the trailer yard looking for scraps - she made the connection ('Oh...') to the rehabilitation treatments she had when she was pregnant with him. What was that facility called again? Yes, Genomex.
Gad. No wonder they were so eager to offer free treatment.
'We shouldn't tell anyone about it, Brennie,' she made up her mind early on. 'Wouldn't want them to take you away and do, like, experiments on you. And then I'll never see you again.' She was smart that way, his mom.
He loved his mom. She worked a series of jobs to keep them afloat, with double and sometimes triple shifts. She did waitressing and factory shifts, and she was pretty in a tired, ravaged-by-life Linda Hamilton sort of way. His dad had died in the war (never having returned from the POW camps), Brennan had never met him, and his mum had never been educated.
'But it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be either,' she said. And she made sure he went to kindergarten early. And then to grade school. And made him promise never ever to use his powers in front of anyone.
He was tempted to, many times. They were just so cool. And when someone in class was particularly annoying, it made perfect sense to just, well....zap her with a joy buzzer that didn't even have to come in a box. Ditto for the teachers. But he had made a promise to his mom, and the very real threat ('They'll take you away from me') unnerved him more than any possible experiment would.
Besides, he wasn't sure what the word 'experiments' meant. He just hoped it had nothing to with the ones he'd done on the frogs in school. And the roaches.
He was happy, because he was really a simple kid and his needs weren't very complex. They had enough to eat and a place to sleep. And it was always fun to go to the dump site behind the trailer park and set the garbage on fire. And if the roaches got in the way.....oh well.
'Sometimes, that's all we need in life,' his mom said, hugging him. Of course she didn't know about the garbage. And the roaches.
'Boy, you started mischief-making early,' Emma said. 'And you haven't changed a bit.'
Brennan grinned back. 'That's not the only thing I started early.'
He liked to think that his mom was happy too, with just him for company. Oh course, in those days, he knew nothing about what women needed. When he picked up his mother's magazines like Cosmo and Redbook, they seemed to imply that women needed men. A lot, but they didn't want to admit it. Whole articles were written around this subject; about how to attract men, retain men and mould them into what you wanted. The idea was, he gathered, to get the men you desired without ever letting them know you desired them in the first place.
This concept was very puzzling to him, and he spent whole days poring over it, trying to find the answer. He found it more fascinating than schoolwork, and sometimes (on a slow day), even more fascinating than zapping the roaches.
He made up his mind that even if it killed him, he would unravel the mystery of women before he grew up. And before they could experiment on him.
'I don't believe it,' Emma exclaimed. 'You got to be a woman expert by reading Cosmo since you were seven?'
'You mean you don't read Cosmo?' he challenged.
Anyhow, apparently his mother had needs too because she started going out with this guy she met at the diner where she worked. She would return all glowing and radiant like he had never seen her before. She started to neglect him a little, leaving TV dinners for him instead of home-cooked stuff. Forgetting to take in his laundry from the clothes-line. He had always been a latch-key kid, making his own sandwiches for lunch before school and coming home by himself to an empty trailer to watch the black- and-white TV they had and (not) do his homework. But now it seemed he was required to be even more latch-key than usual.
He began to resent this intrusion in their lives. There were even times she returned at one or two in the morning.
'Who is he?' he wanted to know. 'Why haven't you brought him to see me?'
His mother seemed fidgety whenever he asked her this. 'Soon, Brennie. You'll meet him soon.'
He was to find out she hadn't even told the guy she had an eight year old son. Much later, when he was all grown up and dissecting this, he understood that his mother was at a stage where she needed a man so badly that it had almost suffocated her.
'It's like, you know....nothing else mattered. My mom was only 26, single and she hadn't had a man for 8 years. She loved me, there was no doubt about that..... but it's one of those...' Brennan shook his head '...you know, guy things.'
Emma nodded. She could identify. Oh yup, she could really identify with Brennan's mom.
Finally, she set the date for them to meet. She held Brennan's hand. Her face was pinched and tight. He had never been truly perceptive (nor would he be in adult life), but it was obvious even to him that she had told the guy.
Morosely, he wondered if it had gone well.
She led him to the diner where she worked, and sat him down at the table. 'Wait here. I'll go to the kitchen and see if they can whip you up some burgers and fries.' She left, a nervous quickness to her steps and the way she held her hands.
As he waited for her, he noticed a shadow detach itself from a corner in the diner and walk over. It was a tall man. He wore a tan colored coat and loafers. His face was ruddy and he was smiling, but that was not what bothered Brennan. He couldn't put his finger to it, but somehow, the whole scene seemed wrong. Like, no one's face could be that red. And the smile, the smile was all wrong too. So was the angulation of the man's shadow against the table, and the tilt of his head.
He had to grasp the edge of the table to keep himself from falling. Stark paranoia was menacing him from all angles, and he suddenly felt breathless.
Then the man spoke:
'You must be Brennan.'
And the spell dissipated.
When he didn't reply, the man spoke again. 'I'm Paul. I've heard so much about you from your mom.'
With a shock, Brennan realized that this was his mom's boyfriend. And there was something funny about the way he materialized like that, out of the shadows...he must have seen them come in. And yet he had made no move to greet them....
Looking back at the incident now, Brennan wondered if he had a bit of pre-cog. Or was it because he was an electrical mutant, and it was like the way he always seemed to sense a thunderstorm before it approached?
He saw Paul looking at him, head half-cocked and interestedly. Still smiling.
'I see you two have met,' a voice suddenly said. His mom was standing at the side, a plate of double burgers and a salad in her hand. Her face was strained and she was licking her lower lip in a gesture Brennan knew to be unconscious.
'Of course, of course,' Paul said, getting up and giving his mom a kiss. Brennan observed this, Paul was holding his mom's arm just a little too tightly, and his other hand reached down to pat her behind.
Brennan suddenly felt enraged.
Still smiling, Paul sat down as though nothing had happened. And Brennan still wasn't sure if anything did indeed happen. They spent the rest of dinner talking inconsequentially about things. Paul asked him about school and games and what he liked to do in his spare time. Normal stuff. Taking a real interest in him.
But he couldn't shake off the feeling of disquiet earlier. Maybe he was just jealous. That's it, he thought, I'm just jealous.
Three months later, Paul married his mom. They did it at the town hall. Signed the papers and everything while Brennan waited outside on a bench. He didn't try to stop his mom, he was powerless to do so anyway. It was her windfall and he didn't want to rain on her parade. Besides, throughout the nesting period, Paul had been as nice as any future stepfather could be, taking him out to the community center to play basketball, then going for rootbeer and tacos.
But he smiled too much, Brennan thought. Way too much, in that funny little twitch his mouth made. All curling up the sides like that.
'It would be good for you to have a father figure in your life,' his mom said. Not that he would know what it was like, since he never knew his own father.
Paul moved in to live with them in the trailer. He had no permanent abode, renting a room here and there. He was a salesman. To this day, Brennan had no idea what he sold., but he gathered it was a collection of things that varied from month to month.
And like most nightmares, this one even had a date to its origins.
Beneath the sheets, Emma was holding his hand a little too tightly. 'Oh no, Brennan...'
He squeezed it back. 'It's okay. I can talk about it now.'
One night, his mother was away working a night shift at the diner. She had called to say she left a casserole in the fridge. He was to finish it, clean up, do his homework and go to bed on his own. Paul was supposed to be away on a business trip.
So Brennan read comic books until eleven since he was never keen on homework, and turned himself in. Since Paul came to live with them, he had been moved to a little cubicle by the kitchenette which used to be a storage area. There was enough space to put one mattress, and he also had a reading lamp that dangled from the ceiling. His mom had put up a cloth screen to give him privacy (though he figured it was more to give them privacy from him). Not that it mattered. The trailer was so small he couldn't help hearing them at night anyway.
He must have fallen asleep, dreaming some senseless dream about how happy he had been when it had only been him and his mom. Because when he suddenly awoke, he felt cold hands groping him.
He fluttered his eyelids open in fright. His first thought was that he hadn't bolted the door and his mom was going to be so mad at him. 'We don't exactly live in a good neighborhood, you know', she was always saying, 'so we have to take extra precautions.'. Now there was an intruder and he was going to take whatever little they had. And possibly kill him when he found out they had so little.
Not if I can help it, Brennan thought. He wasn't exactly defenseless.
But the hands were roaming down his body instead of strangling him outright, or even snuffing him. Touching him down there, squeezing....And a hungry mouth was forcing down on his own, a rough body mounting him, compressing his lungs out with its weight.....
Brennan struggled in panic, and his fervor gave him strength. Clutching at the bedclothes, he tried to pull himself out from under the weight. He almost succeeded when a hand grabbed his leg, and another his neck. He kicked out blindly, felt gratified as it made contact and was about to charge up his energy to release a bolt when he heard his assailant curse.
He froze. He had recognized the voice. Cluttered images jigsawed through his head, a touch of a hand here, a whirling scene of the diner turning topsy-turvy there.......he could almost not believe what he was hearing.
Paul?
The charge died in his hands.
For one shocked moment, he couldn't move or even breathe. Then as his attacker grabbed him again, he came to his senses and clambered to clutch at the dangling lamp (he almost toppled over) and turn on the light switch.
Light flooded the little cubicle. With a hand still holding his thigh, Paul's ruddy features grinned back at him. The other hand reached out to stroke his face.
'Come on now, Brennie..Just lie down there. You'll like it, you'll see.'
Brennan wasn't exactly sure what it was he was supposed to like, but he was certain it couldn't have been healthy. And that it was wrong. Seriously seriously wrong.
'You stay away from me,' he said in a low voice. Inside, his synapses were connecting again, another electrical charge was building. Some self- preservation instinct had made him not want to tell Paul about his powers and his mother had respected that , and he wasn't so sure he wanted to use them now. But if he had to....
Paul was still smiling. 'Pretty,' he said, still stroking Brennan's cheek. 'Pretty pretty boy.'
'Touch me again and I will kill you.'
Something in Brennan's voice made Paul pause. Or maybe it was something in his eyes. Whatever he was projecting, he wasn't conscious about it. But he noticed that the hair on Paul's forearms was standing on end. The air around them was so crisp it almost crackled.
Paul withdrew. 'I'll get you next time. And if you tell your mom, I'll kill her.'
He left, slamming the trailer door.
Brennan spent the next few days in shivers and in shakes. Paul had no worries on that account. He was never going to tell his mom. It would hurt her in a way he couldn't even possibly imagine, but he knew it would be a hurt that wouldn't go away. Besides, the whole episode was too traumatizing to be experienced in his mind again. It was too intimate. Too degradingly humiliating.
He begged his mom to leave Paul.
'But why Brennie? He's so good to you. What is it? Did he hit you?'
Brennan shook his head. He couldn't tell her.
He spent the next few months in torture. Paul silently smirking, the three of them in the trailer at night. Looking at him with that look ('I'll get you yet.') Purposely rubbing by him in the cramped confines, stealing a touch here, a pat there. Always that smile. That extra ruddiness. He began to find excuses to stay away when Paul was there.
'I'll be out with a friend.' He told his mom. Or 'I have to take a walk. A long one.'
It got to the extent he was out almost every night.
He begged his mom to send him to self-defense classes. 'Everyone's doing it,' he pleaded. And although she couldn't spare the extra money, he begged so hard that she gave in. Something told him not to rely on just his powers (maybe it was more of that precognition), that he had to be prepared for the day they failed him. And besides, there was no way he was letting Paul know about them. It would have kept the creep at bay, but Brennan knew he would have been sold to the labs soon after.
His happy, sunny disposition had been reduced into a raw, frightened edginess.
He had been so wrapped up in his own problems that he failed to notice the changes in his mother until it was too late. She would appear with a bruise on her lip. Maybe a cut above the eye. Scratches on her arms, or maybe more where he couldn't see them. She would attribute it to falling or snagging her lip on the clothes wire. No one believed her, it was quite a common thing where they stayed, and the families believed in 'letting domestic problems be'.
Just like he wouldn't tell her, she wouldn't tell him either.
She just shook her head when he asked her about it. 'No Brennie. It's nothing for you to be concerned about.'
He believed however there was something else. Something that went beyond the normal patterns of abuse. Now and then, when he hugged her, she would wince. There was once when she was reaching for something, when he caught sight of her thigh....there was something that looked like a cigarette burn on it. He was horrified, and when he was about to call out, her skirt came down and obscured the apparition. And he was left wondering if it had been there in the first place.
There were other things of course. Subtle things. Like her hollowed eyes. And the glazed look in them. Or the fact she seemed to bleed so much during her monthly cycles, he was counting the empty sanitary boxes she threw away.
His mother was turning into something ghastly. He no longer recognized her. This realization filled him with a horror more abysmal than anything he had ever known. Especially when he realized that everything probably happened to her while he was out at night, staying away.
Oh God, if he was the one responsible for killing her......
He made a decision. If he had to be the strong one for both of them, then he had to do it. He had read about places that helped women like her. He just had to get her to one of them, and get them to come to her.
Now.....if only she would back him up.
He never had the chance to. One particular night, when he came home from defense class, the lights were blazing in the trailer and he heard whimpering, and raised voices, and then sobs. There was the sound of a blow, and then a thud. And silence.
His heart was racing wildly in his chest. Oh God, he thought, I will kill him...I will kill him....If he has hurt her......
His legs felt like jelly, but he made them run anyway. Somehow, he knew this night would be pivotal.
'Mom?' His voice came out wobbly, and it dawned upon him how scared he was. Flinging open the door of the trailer, he caught a glimpse of her. She was lying on the floor, wearing a nightgown. Her arm was at an unnatural angle, and there was a stain spreading on the lower front of her dress, just above where her legs started.
He did not know what that meant, but it couldn't have been good. His heart was pounding... mom mom mom....
Then the scene shifted and he found the floor slamming up to meet him. It hit him on the head, and for a moment he was dazed. His ears were ringing.
Somewhere, dimly, someone was saying, 'Well if it isn't the pansy boy. Told you I would kill her, didn't I?'
But I didn't rat on you, he wanted to say weakly.
He felt, rather than saw, a shadow over him. And another blow slamming into his face. Oh gosh...that hurt. Something metallic was trickling through his mouth. He ran his tongue around it. The taste of blood. His back tooth felt loose. In his ear, there was a moistness.
Something within him between his mother's arm, the taste of his own blood in his mouth and the moistness cracked.
He felt the power surge within him, his synapses overflowing. Every electron in his body rotating to form a single circuitry, even his blood was a conduit. Everything connecting to unleash something terrifying. He raised one limpid hand through his hazy veiled vision. And shot.
To this day, he didn't know how much he had put into it. But when he was lucid again, the contorted body of Paul was lying against the counter of the kitchenette. He was immobile. His jaw hung slightly slack, and his chest was not moving. There was a burn mark on his neck....just one little burn mark where the current had entered and fried itself a path down to the ground.
One little burn mark....and so fatal.
Oh my God, he thought. I've killed my stepfather.
TBC
Don't forget, please R & R to keep me going. I just found out I have great difficulty in writing sex scenes :) it's almost like a mental block. But when it comes to the rest, the narrative just runs. It's not going to stop me from trying though. To Ace: Brennan is hot, isn't he? I have no problems when it comes to writing Brennan g. To all B/S shippers: I'm a B/S shipper myself, but it doesn't mean I want them to be together in this story. I can much more identify with Emma as a character. But keep reading please. There are some curveballs ahead.
And to Amanda, my beta-reader. Thanks so much for commenting on my structure so that I can improve. And what a great job you did beta- reading.....the dissection details were incredible.
Rated PG-13. R at the end for adult themes.
Chapter 5
Emma's heart began to pound. Shalimar's voice repeated itself, 'Emma?'
There was a dreadful silence. If she wasn't awake before, she was very, very wide awake now. Damn, she didn't count on this happening, but she had overslept and so had he. She also had not the foresight to ask for a morning call, the events of the night were too overwhelming; nor did she carry one of those cellphones which had those musical alarms programmed in. She supposed Brennan had a cellphone - it was like his little black book, he needed one to keep all his dates in check - but of course he would never program it to wake him. Brennan needed his beauty sleep like no other, to mobilize his growth hormones for bodybuilding, or so he said.
` Worse yet, she hadn't prepared a story. It was like being caught at the Oscars without a two-paged speech. You thought someone like Nicole Kidman or Meryl Streep was going to win, and when they called your name instead, you choked yourself by swallowing your sweet down the wrong hole. She felt like that now.
'Shalimar?' Her pulse was racing. She had to say something. Letting the silence run too long was as sure as an admission of guilt.
'Emma? Are you okay?'
'Um...yeah.' Emma rubbed her eyes and shook herself. Oh think, she pleaded. 'I'm just having a hangover, that's all. I..um...had a little bit too much to drink last night....and I, er...'
'Too much to drink?' Shalimar's voice registered incredulity. 'You?'
'Yeah.' Emma allowed just a hint of irritation to creep through. 'I can drink just like anyone else. And get drunk too. I'm not some..teetotaler.' She said this last bit indignantly.
'Sorry.' Shalimar sounded sheepish. And then, in a more tentative tone, as though she dreaded to hear the answer. 'Did anything....uh, well you know...like' Emma heard a low laugh, very flustered (which was really unlike Shalimar because normally her blonde friend was so confident of herself), '.......happen?'
'Happen?' Emma repeated. She was beginning to sound like a broken record. 'Oh no....I uh, fell asleep and now I have this dreadful splitting headache that's hurting me real bad (Great, she thought, now she was having verbal diarrhoea, the words were gushing out and she hoped they made sense because she had no idea what she was saying) and I....uh......well, you see we were both smashed last night and we thought it wouldn't be a good idea to drive home in our....well, condition. So we just stayed over at a motel.....'
'A motel?' She could swear Shalimar's ears pricked up at that.
'Well, yeah....and....' Perhaps it would be best to go on the offensive. Now her head was really hurting. '....nobody picked me up, if that's what you're asking.'
That is so bad, bad, Emma, she quietly scolded herself. Why do you always want to protect her? Always the doormat, always the faded water lily, doomed to remain in the background.
Or maybe you want to protect her because she's always protected you, and you love her. Just like she loves you. And it was incredible to think about it, but as beautiful and fiercely independent as Shalimar was, she was just a little girl standing naked in the rain, hurt and forlorn, when it comes to feelings. Needing to be protected all the same. And besides, he's not yours either, Emma. You both made it clear about that. This new thing, this big Plan of his, threw nothing out of the fray. When it was over, he was going to go back to being antsy around Shalimar again, and she around him.
Now why did that make her so sad?
'Oh I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to imply anything.' Now Shalimar was sounding embarrassed. 'But you know, if you met someone, I'd always love to hear details....' Shalimar paused. Usually, as far as Emma knew, she craved details and would adopt a gushing, almost girlish 'Ooooo, tell me more about him' demeanor to tell you she's really interested and all ears. But not now. There was something else bothering Shal, and she had to get it out of the way. '......so where's Brennan?'
Emma looked at Brennan sleeping next to her, his left arm flung over his face exposing his cute dragon tattoo on his underarm, the one that he said he got after achieving some street-fighting milestone , still dead to the world .
'He's...um....downstairs, I think, in another room. He was pretty smashed as well. I don't know. I'll have to go check.'
Damn, she was convincing. Never give too many details. People got suspicious when you gave too many details. She should have been an espionage agent.
'That's okay, Emma.' Shalimar sounded relieved. 'Is he...uh....with someone?'
What should she say? To say that he wasn't might be stretching it a little thin, given his recent track record. 'I don't know, but I can go check all the same.'
'No, there's no need to.' Shalimar gave a nervous laugh. 'Knowing Brennan, it would probably be some floozy he picked up last night. It's all right, just come back when you're feeling better okay?'
Emma felt a stab of annoyance at her friend. Oh, you can handle him being with faceless floozies that would be all sex and thighs and heat, purely physical with no emotions attached. But you can't handle him being with me, right? Why? Because I'm real? Did you know that every single one of them floozies have been blondes the past few months? He's so into you, you know it and you don't even want to do something about it. Damn you.
Aloud, she said, 'Okay. Thanks for caring.' And switched off, feeling angry and frustrated. Damn everyone. It was not their fault though. It was hers. All her life....what a doormat. Please wipe your feet on my feelings, thank you, you don't even have to scrape the mud off. And all this was compounded by the fact that she needed to urgently visit the bathroom.
She shook Brennan, feeling far from romantic. 'Come on, sleepyhead. Wake up. Blondie's asking for you.'
*
*
*
*
Several days went on, and so did the usual stuff. Practicing at the dojo, surfing the net, cleaning up her room (Shalimar always said she was a neat freak), reading the latest John Grisham novel, cooking up a new teriyaki chicken recipe for the Japanese meals they always ate. Shalimar did not ask her more about her night other than a teasing 'So, what was it like getting drunk?' 'Painful,' she replied. And they had laughed about it and gone to Shalimar's room to try out Shal's new halter top, which she claimed came from Paris and was a steal at 50% off. Shalimar was always a sucker for discounts.
Brennan and Shalimar were still circling each other like flies. It would have been amusing to watch them, had it not been a little painful.
'Going out tonight, Brennan?' Shal would say when they were practicing a new move at the dojo. She flung a targeted forearm aimed at his face, which he easily deflected.
Their eyes clashed. 'No,' Brennan said, returning a counterstrike by swooping low with his leg, hoping to unbalance Shalimar.
The feral leaped before he could make contact, a marvelous pirouette high up in the air. She somersaulted once and landed behind him. Again, the extended fist to the kidney area, which Brennan averted by flinging himself sideways and rolling away. He picked himself up quickly with Brennan, it was always the composure, he always had to appear graceful and adopted a fighting stance.
'But I might go out later this afternoon,' he grinned.
Shal grinned back. 'Really? Some hot date?'
Brennan went on the offensive this time, executing a series of high kicks, one of them catching Shalimar on the jaw. 'Ouch,' she said.
'Sorry. But not everything I do has to be a hot date, Shal.'
Spinning, she caught him in a sensitive area with a low kick. Now he bent over double, nursing himself. His expression was one of agony. 'Ow ow ow, that was dirty, Shal.'
She smirked. 'Since you're not going out on a hot date, I figured you won't be needing those.'
Emma, who was watching them spar while waiting for her turn with Jesse, had to cover her mouth to keep the laughter from spilling out. Shalimar did look penitent as she bent down to offer her hand to Brennan. 'I'm sorry, Bren. I didn't mean it.'
'You don't fool me,' he growled, taking her hand anyway.
Things were so normal that Emma was beginning to wonder if the other night was all a dream, or if he had completely forgotten about The Plan. Not that he confided in her about what The Plan was. She had to confess there was a budding excitement churning within her, an expectation that something.. well, different....was going to happen. Brennan was exciting that way. And being around him made life exciting. In a mundane, best friend sort of way, of course, she checked herself hastily.
That night, she took a shower. A long, hot one, washing her hair with the new improved Pantene shampoo, the one they said was guaranteed to make all hair strong and silky. When she came out, one towel wrapped around her and using another to vigorously rub her hair dry, he materialized in front of her like some big sudden shadow, startling her.
'Oh god, Brennan.' She took a step back, palpitations rising. 'You scared me.' She looked at him crossly. 'How did you get into my room anyway? I locked the door.'
He smirked. 'I'm an ex-thief, remember.' He sat down on her bed. 'I got you a present.'
She wondered if she should have been mortified, him being in her room while she was naked and wrapped up only in a wooly towel (and looking like a dripping wet rat with no make-up on). And decided he had seen it all anyway, just like she had seen everything he had to offer. So she sat down beside him.
'Thanks, but it's not my birthday yet.'
'I know. Let's call it a little pre-birthday present.' He handed her a gift-wrapped package. He smiled at her in encouragement, and she was pleased to note the pleasure on his face. He likes doing this stuff, it occurred to her, and that thought was very pleasant.
She opened it, taking care not to tear the wrapping ( 'Oh Emma', Shalimar would have said. 'Just yank it off already.' ) Inside was a lovely hardcover edition of 'A Thousand and One Nights.' The Arabian fairytale.
'Oh, it's lovely!' she exclaimed. 'I love these stories.' She looked at him questioningly. 'Does it have any special meaning?'
He took the book away from her gently, smiling. 'Well, let's just say it's all part of The Plan.' He leaned over and kissed her lips. So softly. She closed her eyes, imbibing him. He tugged at her towel, loosening it and making it fall onto the bed in a crumpled sigh.
'And The Plan is......?' She opened her eyes again to watch him take his clothes off. No matter how many times she would see him do this, she was sure she would never tire of it.
He laid her down on the bed, kissing her intermittently. On her lips, on her neck, on her wet hair. 'Well, The Plan is I loosen you up....' he tapped her head. 'Inside here. That's where the problem mostly is, isn't it? And then the rest will come naturally.'
'And how would you loosen me up?' She kissed him back. Oh, he was so nice and warm. 'And how would you know when I've loosened up?'
He grinned at her, a cocky grin that was so Brennan. 'I'll know. I'll know when you are ready.'
'And how would you claim to know me so well?' Stupid question. She might as well take it back. He knew all women well. He knew their anatomies in and out.
He chose to ignore it. 'Let's put it this way. I'm going to play Scheherezade, just like in the book. And I'm going to tell you bedtime stories. As long as it takes. Some of these stories are going to have sex in them, and when I tell you about the sex bits, I want you to connect with me. In my head.'
She looked at him in astonishment. He was giving her permission to enter his mind.
'You're an empath, aren't you?' He went on. 'Well, I'm going to let you see, and feel, how pleasurable sexual intercourse can be. Remember, it's all in your mind.'
Whatever words she had planned to say froze right in her throat.
'But...but....' she stammered. 'It's different for a man. I mean.....sex feels different if you are a man.'
'And no more or less pleasurable. In your case, it's better you have my memories than your own, then maybe you'll open up to the possibility that sex can be very, very exciting and sensual. And besides,' he grinned, 'don't you want to know how it feels like on the other side?'
I already know, she thought, a little bit of it. Though she would never tell him. It was when he was with Lorna Templeton, the scorpion feral who seduced him against his will with her toxic pheromones. Emma had tried to get a hit off him when he didn't report back, and had entered his mind when he was in the throes of an orgasm. It was ....indescribable and so personal, and she had blushed and exited right away, her senses all tingling and glowing, leaving an indelible memory.
It was best not to bring it up. He was touchy when it came to the subject of Lorna. He never wanted to talk about it, and when Adam tried to skirt the subject, he always came up with a sarcastic quip. It was because, she surmised, it was actually a rape. And Brennan was a man who never wanted to admit he could be raped. The funny thing was, Emma thought, Lorna cared for him (was 'love' too strong a word to use? Emma doubted Lorna had any capacity for 'loving') in her own peculiar kind of way. Even after she tried to kill him.
Aloud she said, 'Okay, I'm game.' And smiled at him. She truly was enjoying this nearness, being with him and everything. And his proposal was....well, intoxicating to say the least.
'Okay.' He was as eager as a schoolboy. She had to laugh at that. 'First story. What would you like to hear about?'
'Well,' she was sure he had hundreds of experiences he could draw from. 'I had always been curious about your past. You talk about it now and then, but they're just hints. We've been friends for pretty long. I guess I'm just curious, that's all.'
They were tucked snugly under the covers, and their bare legs were intertwining beneath the sheets. He took her hand, looking into her eyes deeply, and drew a deep breath. 'Okay, let me tell you my story.'
*
*
*
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Unlike Emma, Brennan Mulwray's problems began way before puberty. He lived with his mother in a run-down trailer park, and if anyone had told him he was a poverty-stricken white trash case study, he would have been surprised. Because it never occurred to him life could be any different. After all, he figured at the age of 4, life was what you made it, and it didn't matter if you were poor or middle-classed or demi-semi upper classed, it was how much fun you got out of it.
That was his recurring credo in life and he certainly chalked up a lot of mileage on it.
'I think it was around 5 that I began making sparks.' He told Emma. Little coils around his fingers that were too tiny to be called tesla. At first his mom thought he had rubbed on too much carpet or something, and went about a big spree of vacuuming and upholstering (with second hand garage sale furniture, mind you, they were after all very poor).
But as the coils grew bigger and he started to set some things on fire - including her rug, his bed and the flea-bitten cat that prowled around the trailer yard looking for scraps - she made the connection ('Oh...') to the rehabilitation treatments she had when she was pregnant with him. What was that facility called again? Yes, Genomex.
Gad. No wonder they were so eager to offer free treatment.
'We shouldn't tell anyone about it, Brennie,' she made up her mind early on. 'Wouldn't want them to take you away and do, like, experiments on you. And then I'll never see you again.' She was smart that way, his mom.
He loved his mom. She worked a series of jobs to keep them afloat, with double and sometimes triple shifts. She did waitressing and factory shifts, and she was pretty in a tired, ravaged-by-life Linda Hamilton sort of way. His dad had died in the war (never having returned from the POW camps), Brennan had never met him, and his mum had never been educated.
'But it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be either,' she said. And she made sure he went to kindergarten early. And then to grade school. And made him promise never ever to use his powers in front of anyone.
He was tempted to, many times. They were just so cool. And when someone in class was particularly annoying, it made perfect sense to just, well....zap her with a joy buzzer that didn't even have to come in a box. Ditto for the teachers. But he had made a promise to his mom, and the very real threat ('They'll take you away from me') unnerved him more than any possible experiment would.
Besides, he wasn't sure what the word 'experiments' meant. He just hoped it had nothing to with the ones he'd done on the frogs in school. And the roaches.
He was happy, because he was really a simple kid and his needs weren't very complex. They had enough to eat and a place to sleep. And it was always fun to go to the dump site behind the trailer park and set the garbage on fire. And if the roaches got in the way.....oh well.
'Sometimes, that's all we need in life,' his mom said, hugging him. Of course she didn't know about the garbage. And the roaches.
'Boy, you started mischief-making early,' Emma said. 'And you haven't changed a bit.'
Brennan grinned back. 'That's not the only thing I started early.'
He liked to think that his mom was happy too, with just him for company. Oh course, in those days, he knew nothing about what women needed. When he picked up his mother's magazines like Cosmo and Redbook, they seemed to imply that women needed men. A lot, but they didn't want to admit it. Whole articles were written around this subject; about how to attract men, retain men and mould them into what you wanted. The idea was, he gathered, to get the men you desired without ever letting them know you desired them in the first place.
This concept was very puzzling to him, and he spent whole days poring over it, trying to find the answer. He found it more fascinating than schoolwork, and sometimes (on a slow day), even more fascinating than zapping the roaches.
He made up his mind that even if it killed him, he would unravel the mystery of women before he grew up. And before they could experiment on him.
'I don't believe it,' Emma exclaimed. 'You got to be a woman expert by reading Cosmo since you were seven?'
'You mean you don't read Cosmo?' he challenged.
Anyhow, apparently his mother had needs too because she started going out with this guy she met at the diner where she worked. She would return all glowing and radiant like he had never seen her before. She started to neglect him a little, leaving TV dinners for him instead of home-cooked stuff. Forgetting to take in his laundry from the clothes-line. He had always been a latch-key kid, making his own sandwiches for lunch before school and coming home by himself to an empty trailer to watch the black- and-white TV they had and (not) do his homework. But now it seemed he was required to be even more latch-key than usual.
He began to resent this intrusion in their lives. There were even times she returned at one or two in the morning.
'Who is he?' he wanted to know. 'Why haven't you brought him to see me?'
His mother seemed fidgety whenever he asked her this. 'Soon, Brennie. You'll meet him soon.'
He was to find out she hadn't even told the guy she had an eight year old son. Much later, when he was all grown up and dissecting this, he understood that his mother was at a stage where she needed a man so badly that it had almost suffocated her.
'It's like, you know....nothing else mattered. My mom was only 26, single and she hadn't had a man for 8 years. She loved me, there was no doubt about that..... but it's one of those...' Brennan shook his head '...you know, guy things.'
Emma nodded. She could identify. Oh yup, she could really identify with Brennan's mom.
Finally, she set the date for them to meet. She held Brennan's hand. Her face was pinched and tight. He had never been truly perceptive (nor would he be in adult life), but it was obvious even to him that she had told the guy.
Morosely, he wondered if it had gone well.
She led him to the diner where she worked, and sat him down at the table. 'Wait here. I'll go to the kitchen and see if they can whip you up some burgers and fries.' She left, a nervous quickness to her steps and the way she held her hands.
As he waited for her, he noticed a shadow detach itself from a corner in the diner and walk over. It was a tall man. He wore a tan colored coat and loafers. His face was ruddy and he was smiling, but that was not what bothered Brennan. He couldn't put his finger to it, but somehow, the whole scene seemed wrong. Like, no one's face could be that red. And the smile, the smile was all wrong too. So was the angulation of the man's shadow against the table, and the tilt of his head.
He had to grasp the edge of the table to keep himself from falling. Stark paranoia was menacing him from all angles, and he suddenly felt breathless.
Then the man spoke:
'You must be Brennan.'
And the spell dissipated.
When he didn't reply, the man spoke again. 'I'm Paul. I've heard so much about you from your mom.'
With a shock, Brennan realized that this was his mom's boyfriend. And there was something funny about the way he materialized like that, out of the shadows...he must have seen them come in. And yet he had made no move to greet them....
Looking back at the incident now, Brennan wondered if he had a bit of pre-cog. Or was it because he was an electrical mutant, and it was like the way he always seemed to sense a thunderstorm before it approached?
He saw Paul looking at him, head half-cocked and interestedly. Still smiling.
'I see you two have met,' a voice suddenly said. His mom was standing at the side, a plate of double burgers and a salad in her hand. Her face was strained and she was licking her lower lip in a gesture Brennan knew to be unconscious.
'Of course, of course,' Paul said, getting up and giving his mom a kiss. Brennan observed this, Paul was holding his mom's arm just a little too tightly, and his other hand reached down to pat her behind.
Brennan suddenly felt enraged.
Still smiling, Paul sat down as though nothing had happened. And Brennan still wasn't sure if anything did indeed happen. They spent the rest of dinner talking inconsequentially about things. Paul asked him about school and games and what he liked to do in his spare time. Normal stuff. Taking a real interest in him.
But he couldn't shake off the feeling of disquiet earlier. Maybe he was just jealous. That's it, he thought, I'm just jealous.
Three months later, Paul married his mom. They did it at the town hall. Signed the papers and everything while Brennan waited outside on a bench. He didn't try to stop his mom, he was powerless to do so anyway. It was her windfall and he didn't want to rain on her parade. Besides, throughout the nesting period, Paul had been as nice as any future stepfather could be, taking him out to the community center to play basketball, then going for rootbeer and tacos.
But he smiled too much, Brennan thought. Way too much, in that funny little twitch his mouth made. All curling up the sides like that.
'It would be good for you to have a father figure in your life,' his mom said. Not that he would know what it was like, since he never knew his own father.
Paul moved in to live with them in the trailer. He had no permanent abode, renting a room here and there. He was a salesman. To this day, Brennan had no idea what he sold., but he gathered it was a collection of things that varied from month to month.
And like most nightmares, this one even had a date to its origins.
Beneath the sheets, Emma was holding his hand a little too tightly. 'Oh no, Brennan...'
He squeezed it back. 'It's okay. I can talk about it now.'
One night, his mother was away working a night shift at the diner. She had called to say she left a casserole in the fridge. He was to finish it, clean up, do his homework and go to bed on his own. Paul was supposed to be away on a business trip.
So Brennan read comic books until eleven since he was never keen on homework, and turned himself in. Since Paul came to live with them, he had been moved to a little cubicle by the kitchenette which used to be a storage area. There was enough space to put one mattress, and he also had a reading lamp that dangled from the ceiling. His mom had put up a cloth screen to give him privacy (though he figured it was more to give them privacy from him). Not that it mattered. The trailer was so small he couldn't help hearing them at night anyway.
He must have fallen asleep, dreaming some senseless dream about how happy he had been when it had only been him and his mom. Because when he suddenly awoke, he felt cold hands groping him.
He fluttered his eyelids open in fright. His first thought was that he hadn't bolted the door and his mom was going to be so mad at him. 'We don't exactly live in a good neighborhood, you know', she was always saying, 'so we have to take extra precautions.'. Now there was an intruder and he was going to take whatever little they had. And possibly kill him when he found out they had so little.
Not if I can help it, Brennan thought. He wasn't exactly defenseless.
But the hands were roaming down his body instead of strangling him outright, or even snuffing him. Touching him down there, squeezing....And a hungry mouth was forcing down on his own, a rough body mounting him, compressing his lungs out with its weight.....
Brennan struggled in panic, and his fervor gave him strength. Clutching at the bedclothes, he tried to pull himself out from under the weight. He almost succeeded when a hand grabbed his leg, and another his neck. He kicked out blindly, felt gratified as it made contact and was about to charge up his energy to release a bolt when he heard his assailant curse.
He froze. He had recognized the voice. Cluttered images jigsawed through his head, a touch of a hand here, a whirling scene of the diner turning topsy-turvy there.......he could almost not believe what he was hearing.
Paul?
The charge died in his hands.
For one shocked moment, he couldn't move or even breathe. Then as his attacker grabbed him again, he came to his senses and clambered to clutch at the dangling lamp (he almost toppled over) and turn on the light switch.
Light flooded the little cubicle. With a hand still holding his thigh, Paul's ruddy features grinned back at him. The other hand reached out to stroke his face.
'Come on now, Brennie..Just lie down there. You'll like it, you'll see.'
Brennan wasn't exactly sure what it was he was supposed to like, but he was certain it couldn't have been healthy. And that it was wrong. Seriously seriously wrong.
'You stay away from me,' he said in a low voice. Inside, his synapses were connecting again, another electrical charge was building. Some self- preservation instinct had made him not want to tell Paul about his powers and his mother had respected that , and he wasn't so sure he wanted to use them now. But if he had to....
Paul was still smiling. 'Pretty,' he said, still stroking Brennan's cheek. 'Pretty pretty boy.'
'Touch me again and I will kill you.'
Something in Brennan's voice made Paul pause. Or maybe it was something in his eyes. Whatever he was projecting, he wasn't conscious about it. But he noticed that the hair on Paul's forearms was standing on end. The air around them was so crisp it almost crackled.
Paul withdrew. 'I'll get you next time. And if you tell your mom, I'll kill her.'
He left, slamming the trailer door.
Brennan spent the next few days in shivers and in shakes. Paul had no worries on that account. He was never going to tell his mom. It would hurt her in a way he couldn't even possibly imagine, but he knew it would be a hurt that wouldn't go away. Besides, the whole episode was too traumatizing to be experienced in his mind again. It was too intimate. Too degradingly humiliating.
He begged his mom to leave Paul.
'But why Brennie? He's so good to you. What is it? Did he hit you?'
Brennan shook his head. He couldn't tell her.
He spent the next few months in torture. Paul silently smirking, the three of them in the trailer at night. Looking at him with that look ('I'll get you yet.') Purposely rubbing by him in the cramped confines, stealing a touch here, a pat there. Always that smile. That extra ruddiness. He began to find excuses to stay away when Paul was there.
'I'll be out with a friend.' He told his mom. Or 'I have to take a walk. A long one.'
It got to the extent he was out almost every night.
He begged his mom to send him to self-defense classes. 'Everyone's doing it,' he pleaded. And although she couldn't spare the extra money, he begged so hard that she gave in. Something told him not to rely on just his powers (maybe it was more of that precognition), that he had to be prepared for the day they failed him. And besides, there was no way he was letting Paul know about them. It would have kept the creep at bay, but Brennan knew he would have been sold to the labs soon after.
His happy, sunny disposition had been reduced into a raw, frightened edginess.
He had been so wrapped up in his own problems that he failed to notice the changes in his mother until it was too late. She would appear with a bruise on her lip. Maybe a cut above the eye. Scratches on her arms, or maybe more where he couldn't see them. She would attribute it to falling or snagging her lip on the clothes wire. No one believed her, it was quite a common thing where they stayed, and the families believed in 'letting domestic problems be'.
Just like he wouldn't tell her, she wouldn't tell him either.
She just shook her head when he asked her about it. 'No Brennie. It's nothing for you to be concerned about.'
He believed however there was something else. Something that went beyond the normal patterns of abuse. Now and then, when he hugged her, she would wince. There was once when she was reaching for something, when he caught sight of her thigh....there was something that looked like a cigarette burn on it. He was horrified, and when he was about to call out, her skirt came down and obscured the apparition. And he was left wondering if it had been there in the first place.
There were other things of course. Subtle things. Like her hollowed eyes. And the glazed look in them. Or the fact she seemed to bleed so much during her monthly cycles, he was counting the empty sanitary boxes she threw away.
His mother was turning into something ghastly. He no longer recognized her. This realization filled him with a horror more abysmal than anything he had ever known. Especially when he realized that everything probably happened to her while he was out at night, staying away.
Oh God, if he was the one responsible for killing her......
He made a decision. If he had to be the strong one for both of them, then he had to do it. He had read about places that helped women like her. He just had to get her to one of them, and get them to come to her.
Now.....if only she would back him up.
He never had the chance to. One particular night, when he came home from defense class, the lights were blazing in the trailer and he heard whimpering, and raised voices, and then sobs. There was the sound of a blow, and then a thud. And silence.
His heart was racing wildly in his chest. Oh God, he thought, I will kill him...I will kill him....If he has hurt her......
His legs felt like jelly, but he made them run anyway. Somehow, he knew this night would be pivotal.
'Mom?' His voice came out wobbly, and it dawned upon him how scared he was. Flinging open the door of the trailer, he caught a glimpse of her. She was lying on the floor, wearing a nightgown. Her arm was at an unnatural angle, and there was a stain spreading on the lower front of her dress, just above where her legs started.
He did not know what that meant, but it couldn't have been good. His heart was pounding... mom mom mom....
Then the scene shifted and he found the floor slamming up to meet him. It hit him on the head, and for a moment he was dazed. His ears were ringing.
Somewhere, dimly, someone was saying, 'Well if it isn't the pansy boy. Told you I would kill her, didn't I?'
But I didn't rat on you, he wanted to say weakly.
He felt, rather than saw, a shadow over him. And another blow slamming into his face. Oh gosh...that hurt. Something metallic was trickling through his mouth. He ran his tongue around it. The taste of blood. His back tooth felt loose. In his ear, there was a moistness.
Something within him between his mother's arm, the taste of his own blood in his mouth and the moistness cracked.
He felt the power surge within him, his synapses overflowing. Every electron in his body rotating to form a single circuitry, even his blood was a conduit. Everything connecting to unleash something terrifying. He raised one limpid hand through his hazy veiled vision. And shot.
To this day, he didn't know how much he had put into it. But when he was lucid again, the contorted body of Paul was lying against the counter of the kitchenette. He was immobile. His jaw hung slightly slack, and his chest was not moving. There was a burn mark on his neck....just one little burn mark where the current had entered and fried itself a path down to the ground.
One little burn mark....and so fatal.
Oh my God, he thought. I've killed my stepfather.
TBC