As time progressed, my relationship with Lia, Jada and Taji became even closer-the mother still seemed to hate me for merely being me, though, so I learned to ignore her. Lia continued in her nightly visits, always eager to learn about the world that lived beyond steel giants in the sky. She was attentive and continuously happy-a fact that I admired about her, since my own childhood was just one big mass of tears and blood. Never before I had met a child-or anyone else, for that matter-who could be so utterly cheerful without being drunk on something.
Jada occasionally stopped by as well, although she apparently failed to remember our conversation in the rain. Since George had abandoned them for nearly a month, she remained optimistic that he wouldn't come at all and Taji would continue to be safe. I, though, couldn't understand Taji's esteemed position in their screwed up family circle, and why he was so utterly important, besides the fact that he was male.
Then again, curiosity killed the cat-didn't it?
One particular night, Lia was in my room babbling away as I sat on the windowsill, more depressed than I should have been over the loss of yet another recruit. It was being to seem as if someone was purposely killing my people, but I was able to dismiss that thought under the logic that nobody knew where I was, so how could they be killing off my people with reason? Yet, I was beginning to figure that if I believed a person showed even the slightest bit of potential for the Blue Lady, I should just immediately bring them to the apartment and keep them safe.
Unfortunately, with my depression from all the deaths and failures came irrational mood swings of pain and anger, confusion and lust. I didn't even know who I was anymore. Ben? X5-493? Just another damn fool in the world? In truth, I was starting to consider investing into some rather harsh drugs just to ward off the feelings until I could calm down.
"What you think?" Lia suddenly question, bursting through my thoughts with her cute little voice that a person just wanted to grab like a fat aunt at Christmas and pinch by the cheek. Since I hadn't been listening to her, I had to ask, "Think about what?"
"Think 'bout a pet for me and Taji. Jada no want pet. She say they make much noise."
"I think a pet is a big responsibility."
"A puppy too? I know I can no get pony...but puppy?"
"Even a puppy. I mean, somebody has to walk it, feed it, play with it, water it...Somebody's got to take care of it."
"I would."
"You think you can?" I asked, giving a sidelined glance to her. "It'd take a lot of time and energy."
"Yup." She slid off my bed, walked over to me, and looked up where I rested on the ledge, swinging my leg loosely. "Here. I show you. You be puppy."
"Me?"
"Yes. I show you I take care of puppy."
"But, I-"
"It not hard be puppy."
"What if-"
"Why not?"
"It'd be...No, I'm not going to act like a dog."
"You afraid."
"No," I responded unsteadily even though, in truth, I may have been afraid of what happiness could do to me if I let it linger close enough.
"Please?" she pleaded with an irresistible look that even made me soften. "Please, Benny?"
Sighing that I was actually taking orders from a six year old, I hopped off the windowsill, and stared down at her. "All right, what do I do now?"
"Get on hands and knees."
I lowered myself to the dirty floor, ignoring the dust and bugs gathered in the corners. My good jeans would definitely be getting filthy from this, but I figured that some late night cat-burglaring could get me a nice pair of pants later on. In my baby position, I looked up at Lia and cocked my head. "Like this?"
"Yep. Now, come puppy," Lia said and began to walk away from me.
"I actually have to walk?"
"Uh-huh."
"I can't believe..." I muttered, but shook my head in disbelief nonetheless and followed her around on my hands and knees. I shuffled towards her, nearly catching the toe of my boot in some loose floorboards and falling flat on my face. But, even after my stumbling around, Lia still "tsk, tsk"-ed me like she couldn't believe what a terrible puppy I was making out to be.
"No, no, no," Lia giggled. "You got to sound like puppy."
"Sound?" I asked incredulously, wondering what she wanted me to do now. Getting down on my hands and knees was one thing, but actually making puppy dog noises? Unexpectedly, I remembered the fierce German Shepherds back at Manticore that had literally ripped up soldiers for running away. It surprised me that they hadn't killed our unit when we had escaped. A little shiver trickled down my spine as it did time to time when past memories came back to me; as strong as I was now, my child counterpart had been equally weak. And the childish fears still remained with me and enjoyed stabbing me in the brain every once in awhile.
"Yeah," Lia replied, "like this." In demonstration, she gave a little bark and grinned back at me.
Pausing for a moment, I finally grunted, "Bark."
"No, no, Benny," she said, "you really got to bark."
"Uh...woof, woof, woof! Grrr...I'm a fierce dog...Grrr..."
She sighed and crossed her frail arms around her chest. "You not very good puppy. You got to sound like puppy. How I supposed to take care of puppy if you no act like one?"
That time I barked. I growled playfully, following her eagerly around the room with weak yips and yaps. Occasionally, she'd reach down with her grimy little hand and pat me on the head. "Good puppy," she said. "Now, sit puppy."
I plopped my butt down and sat as obediently as I could. If I had tail, it would have been frantically wiggling because I was so hyped up on being a puppy.
"All right?" Lia asked, holding her fingers above my head as if she contained a treat for "Puppy Benny" and I would really eat it. "If you can do a trick, then I'll give you treat."
I raised my paw up and held it out to her in mimicry of dog shaking hands.
"Good Benny!" she praised and pretended to hand the treat to me, which I accepted eagerly. Just as she was patting my head and praising me for being such a well behaved dog, somebody cleared their throat behind me. Embarrassed, I choked on my air, since I had pretended to be chewing, and whipped around, while Lia cried, "Jada!" and ran to her supposed sister happily.
"See Jada? I take care of Benny. Can I have puppy now? Please, Jada? Please?"
Jada gave a confused glance from Lia who had eagerly wrapped her arms around Jada's legs, to me who was still sitting on the floor. "Let's think 'bout it," she replied, speaking in that horridly deformed voice her mother required. "We ask Momma and we talk. Maybe she let us."
"Yay!"
"It bedtime now, though. Momma want you go to bed."
"Not yet, Jada..."
"Yeah, it time to sleep."
"Five minutes?"
"No."
"Two?"
Jada laughed. "By time you get to Momma, it will be two minutes. Maybe you can play with Ben later."
"Okay," Lia chirped, then came back over to me, patted me on the head and dashed out of the room, singing happily to herself.
I rose to my feet, brushing off my horribly dirty clothes and trying to determine if there was a hole in my jacket. While I was in the process of trying to straighten out my mussed hair, I gave a rather flustered smile to Jada, trying to convince her that I really wasn't as insane as I may have appeared.
"She just wanted to...you know, see what taking care of a puppy was like."
"I see."
"I mean, I don't always act like that."
"I know, Ben. Don't worry about it," Jada replied as she eased herself down on the bed. "You meant well."
"Not everybody would think so."
"No," she agreed, leaning back and crossing her legs, "not everybody would."
I sighed heavily to myself and went back over to the window, feeling drained of any happiness I had contained up to that point. Like usual, my brain was deciding to play ping pong with my emotions, sending me into wretched depression again. Resting my elbows on the ledge, I wondered how I could be so cheerful and now feel so utterly melancholy.
"Ben?" Jada asked, rising to her feet from behind me. The floorboards barely creaked under her delicate step instead of screaming like they did when I pounded over them.
I grunted in response.
"You seem really upset...More upset than I've seen somebody in a long time. Are you okay?"
I laughed hoarsely. "Mentally or physically?"
"Either."
"Then, no."
"What happened?"
"Call it a bad childhood," I replied sarcastically, wondering in the back of my mind how many shots of liquor it would take to put me into a coma.
"Did you want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
I turned to look at her standing there only a couple feet away from me. Her dark black was pulled behind her ears, cascading down her back, and her skin was perfectly clear and glowed underneath my dreary lamp from above. Her breasts hanged heavy with milk, and eyes were powerful in their humbleness. Above all, she was absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully intelligent, but I didn't want her to become part of my tumultuous mind.
"You wouldn't understand," I responded, unable to look at her.
"What wouldn't I understand?"
"Everything."
"Try me," she whispered.
"What?" Her words were spoken so harshly that I wondered why she thought she couldn't actually even attempt to understand me.
"Ben, I've seen life, I've seen death, and I know the horrors that can come in between. God, Ben, I had a miscarriage at the age of nine, another at eleven, then gave birth to Lia at the age of thirteen, three more after that-only one lived long enough for me to name her-and then Taji was born when I was nineteen. I've been raped by my own father, forced to succumb to prostitution to get money for Lia to live, and I've attempted suicide on more than one occasion..." She sighed, her breath a ragged heave of pain. "You have no idea the kind of things I've seen. Nothing you can say will surprise me."
I shook my head, trying to push her away as my hands clasped the edge of the windowsill tightly, prepared to snap the wood right in half. "No..." I whispered. "No...I can't."
Gently, she laid her hand on my shoulder, causing me to face her in astonishment. Her eyes remained focused in their same high position, bearing straight down in my soul. I probably could have told her everything about my horrid life, and I doubt that she would have even blinked. Yet, her hand came up and stroked the side of my face that I had somehow managed to shave that morning. Inhaling sharply, I nearly backed away from her and ran, having never been touched so tenderly. Not daring to exhale, I felt her smooth thumb run over my eyelid, easing my eyes closed, and then both of her hands were on my face, stroking the curvature of my nose and the thick strands of hair. And even though my eyes were closed and I felt absolutely delirious, I knew that she was staring at me. Staring at me and wondering how a human could be made so perfectly. Then, she'd discover my barcode and it would all be over.
I opened my eyes to find her just looking at me with pity on her face. "You've been through a lot-haven't you?"
I swallowed, breathing for the first time in many extended seconds, and whispered, "Yes."
Then, she did something I hadn't expected: She kissed me so very softly on the cheek, that I wondered if I had just imagined it. But, when she backed away, almost embarrassed, muttering something about how Lia would need her if something happened, I knew that it wasn't a dream.
I caught her by the wrist underneath my thick fingers, and whispered her name, suddenly filled with sorrow and longing all at once. She knew what it was like to be hurt. She knew more than Zack knew. God, she knew, and she wasn't even from Manticore.
When she turned to face me, eyes full of questions and worry, my hand came up, and stroked the back of her head. "Ben..." she whispered, searching my face for answers that I would never give under normal conditions, and I could only smile painfully. Unknowingly, I began to kiss her. At first, her lips remained closed and body frozen, all rigid under my touch, and then, like clay, she began to soften. In the back of her throat, she sighed, letting hot air flow inside of me and warm my cold, unrelenting innards. Finally, when her lips opened underneath mine, her body went limp, and she threw her arms around my neck.
Slowly, with great carefulness, I eased her down on the bed, positioning my knee next to her hip, while I balanced myself with one foot still on the ground. Our kisses were slow and long, barely allowing us to come up for air, and I thanked my creators that I could go for nearly five minutes without breathing. She tasted of unnamed sweetness and her fingers were like silk ribbons trailing themselves around my neck, touching the area where my barcode lay undiscovered in the night. My hands were caressing the back of her head, afraid to go any farther and add to the injuries she had already been given.
In that horrid apartment, in that decrepit room and on that rickety bed, I kissed a person who, it seemed, knew exactly what my life was like. Kissed her fragile lips that opened for me and sucked away all of my resentment. Kissed away all my childhood pain because she herself knew what that was like. Knew what it was like to be slapped around in an environment where children should not have been born. Yet, we had been born nonetheless, unwanted and unloved, and somehow managed to survive.
And, at last, after falling asleep in each other's arms, heedless of the nightmares that ultimately lay ahead and would rip us apart, my depression finally disappeared, and I was powerful again.
