The jukebox was playing an old rock ballad from the eighties, though he could not remember the name of it, just that it had something to do with roses and how they all had thorns. He would probably remember the name of it later, then stop what he was doing to figure out why the name of the song had just popped into his head. It would take longer than necessary to realize that it really did not matter, but by then it would be too late.
A more recent song replaced the old ballad, and he realized that he was not the only one in the bar drowning his pain in alcohol. Well, as close as he could get to drowning it with the one bottle he kept sipping from.
“You okay, pal?”
Benito Minorez looked up at the bartender, his hands were firmly pressed against the counter across from him, shoulder width apart to support himself as he leaned forward to get a better look at the wreck who looked as if he had just slept in his clothes. His name was Al, whether it was short for something like Albert or Alvin – Benny did not know – that was just what he introduced himself as when he brought Benny the beer. Al looked the part he played with a white dish towel tucked into the brown belt that was probably there for just that reason – since his jeans did not look like they were at risk of falling.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he lied, but he was not in the mood to share his issues with someone he did not know. He doubted he would talk to someone he did know.
“Well, you let me know if you need something, okay.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
He could tell the bartender was trying to figure out whether he was going to run out on the bill. The six days worth of stubble on his face – along with the Cowboys cap that had seen better days – had probably put him on alert. Benny winced as he downed another sip of the golden liquid he swore tasted like piss. It was a theory he did not care to test, one he hoped no one would ever challenge.
It surprised him when a new bottle clunked against the wooden bar in front of him, the sweat build up on the glass a signal that this one had just been taken out of the cooler. He looked up and to his left to find a man he did not recognize slowly ease himself onto the stool next to him. The man had a smile on his face, but Benny was unsure what his intentions were.
“You looked like you could use another beer, friend,” the man said as he extended his hand toward him. “Name’s James, but I go by Jim for the most part.”
Benny did not shake the man’s hand. He grabbed the fresh bottle of beer and placed it closer to the one Jim had just placed on the bar.
“I’m good,” he told the man that introduced himself as Jim. “Thanks, though.”
Jim withdrew his own hand, using it to push the bottle back in front of Benny. “Please, I insist.”
“I appreciate your generosity, but I’m not looking for any handouts.” That much was true. “I could buy my own beer if I really wanted to.” It was his second statement that was riddled with more holes than a slice of swiss.
“Not saying you couldn’t, friend, just being friendly is all.”
“And you expect what in return?”
“A bit of friendly conversation,” he replied with a smile. “Drinking alone isn’t much fun.”
“I was handling it just fine.”
“Looked like you were sulking.”
Benny’s eyes narrowed and he could feel the heat build in his cheeks.
“Now I could be wrong, friend,” Jim continued. “But it looked like you could use someone to help you get your mind off of your troubles.”
“First of all,” Benny raised his voice slightly, enough to catch the attention of the bartender at the other end of the bar. “I’m not your friend. Let’s get that straight, because you don’t know me enough to tell me what I need. So how about you take your beer and go find somewhere else to sit.”
“Wasn’t trying to bother you friend,” he said the word deliberately that time. “Just thought we had something in common, is all.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
Jim stood up, his arms up and palms out as he backs away from the bar. “Sorry to have bothered you. Please, keep the beer.”
Benny watched him walk over to an empty table a few yards away. He also saw the eyes of the other patrons on him, the altercation just happened to occur in between songs. He ignored them, grabbed his original bottle of beer, and downed its remaining contents before he planted it on the counter with a thud.
It was time to go.
The tawny brown hair that she twists around her index finger is actually hers for a change. She is not sure how Desade had been able to juggle so many personalities for so long, it was hard enough to remember who she was half the time. It is part of the job, she reminds herself when thoughts of why she does this begin to flood her mind with questions she may never know the real answers to.
She yanks at the collar of her red button down blouse, wondering how much longer she’ll have to stand there in the heat like that. That fact that the blouse is sleeveless, and her black skirt barely reaches the middle of her thighs, does nothing to help her forget that she feels like a dog with a collar around her neck. Though ‘dog’ is not the word she would use if she were given the opportunity to voice her displeasure.
“You okay?”
She turns toward Jadian Bridden with eyes the size of saucers, biting down on her tongue to keep from causing a scene. She was out of her element here in this restaurant, where everyone looks as if they wipe themselves with hundred dollar bills. A handful probably did just to have something to bring up during conversation. She wanted desperately to be someone else, anyone else, but it would not be fair to Jay if she hid herself behind the persona of one of the many lives she had created over the last few years.
“Just not used to wearing this blouse,” she answers casually, her lips curled into an uneasy smile.
“Too much material,” Jadian’s father, Jack Bridden, says with a chuckle before toasting to himself with what may be his fifth or sixth glass of wine. She doubts even he remembers anymore. Jack became a fan of Sin City within the last year, but he admitted to her – on many an occasion – that he was a fan of her since the first time she came home with Jay to study. Something about the way she looked in her white stockings and plaid skirt, he told her once after a fourth of scotch.
Even now, with all that she has learned and the things she has done, that memory still manages to creep her out just a little bit. Looking back, she had always felt uncomfortable with the way he looked at her, with the way he placed his hand on the small of her back, when he leaned in to hear her better.
“Jack,” Jadian’s mother, Diane, slaps her husband on the shoulder playfully as she scolds her husband of twenty eight years. Julissa always felt that she was the reason Jack never acted on his infatuation with her. The fact that she was a screamer had plagued her own sex life with Jay, since the mental image of his mom popped into his head whenever she got a little carried away in the moment. The moans were fine, but one high pitched squeal and it would be an hour before he got stiff again.
“I guess I deserve that,” Julissa forces herself to smile. It is all she can do to keep herself from springing across the table and driving an elbow into his temple. She did not like his parents. Neither did Jay, for that matter, but they both had become the people his parents thought they were. As much as Jay wanted them to be themselves, he didn’t.
They were far worse people than his parents realized. They thought the couple Jack saw on Temptation were characters they portrayed to entertain the fans. Truth was, these personas were created to entertain them.
“No you don’t, dear,” Diane shakes her head. “Jack here has just had one too many glasses of Chardonnay. Haven’t you, honey?”
“Oh yeah,” his eyes say otherwise as he nods his head, since he is sober enough that his eyes never lose sight of her breasts. “Probably two glasses, actually.”
“It’s getting late,” Jay wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin that was folded into a shape of a bird when they first sat down. “Juli and I have an early start tomorrow, so we should probably head out.”
“No, please, we haven’t seen you two in months,” his mother drops her napkin into her lap. “Surely you don’t have to be somewhere else on Christmas.”
“They’re not going anywhere, Diane,” Jack motions for the waiter to bring him a refill by lifting his glass in the air and nodding in his direction. “Your son is just being a wuss because I’m picking on his girlfriend. Probably scared I’d show her how a real man can handle someone like her.”
“Seriously, dad?” Jadian’s eyes narrow and his cheeks burn red as he turns his attention toward his father.
“Sorry,” Jack jiggles his empty glass in front of him. “Must be the alcohol talking again.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Julissa pushes her chair away from the table and stands. “I think I need to get a bit of air.”
“Jack, apologize to her.”
Apologies… Diane always thought everything could be fixed by saying you were sorry. Your dad’s sorry he hit you that hard, he had a little too much to drink. I’m sorry we missed your game, but your dad was feeling frisky. I’m sorry never really had the same meaning to Jay is it did to most other people, and that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.
“You’re a jerk sometimes, you know that.” They were the tamest words Jay could come up with, since it took everything he had to keep up the charade.
He wanted to reach over and slap the taste from his mouth, ask him if Diane had grown loose over time or if he had just grown tired of staring down into the same set of eyes as he coated her throat. He wanted to ask her how many times he had apologized and said that it was the last time he was going to stay out all night playing poker with the guys. It was actually pokehim with Larry, but his mother didn’t know any better.
“I was just playing around, Jay,” his dad chuckles heartily as the waiter pours him another glass. “You know your mom’s the only woman that can satisfy me.”
She blushes, ignoring the fact that he said woman.
“You ever think that there are some things I really don’t want to know?” Jay tosses his napkin on the table and pushes his chair away from the table, the legs scraping against the floor draws attention to their table. “Merry Christmas, indeed.”
“Hey…”
He couldn’t quite place the voice, but he was certain he had heard it before.
“Are you alright, friend?”
Friend… He knew where he had heard the voice, but the name escaped him. John? Jake? James? Yeah, James…No, Jim. He said people called him Jim.
“You with Us?”
The sudden sting against his cheek took him by surprise, but the bright white light shining in his face kept him from really opening his eyes to regain his bearings. It wasn’t until he tried to shield his eyes from the light that he realized his arms were tied to the arms of a chair with some sort of cloth.
“Glad you could join Us, Mr. Minorez.”
He pronounced his name My No Rays, a slight southern twang that was only noticeable because he was so focused on the man’s voice. He felt like a piece of chicken in a cafeteria, baking under the heat lamp that shined down on him from the right.
“We’ve been so lonely lately.”
The heat and light were suddenly gone; a result of the man that said his name was Jim moving between him and the light. His eyes fluttered open slowly as they adjusted, everything was still blurry though.
“What the hell is going on?” Benny shifted in his seat slightly, a test of his restraints.
“Shh!” the silhouette of the man twitched slightly. “We do not allow the use of profanity in Our home.”
“But tying me up isn’t a problem for you.” Benny squinted slightly; the light on the man’s back made it seem as if he was glowing.
“Well, We couldn’t have you making a mess of the place trying to get away, now, could We?”
Benny could practically hear the smile on his face.
“What am I doing here?”
“Asking too many questions.”
“You know what I mean!” Benny allowed the frustration of not getting a direct answer get to him, and Jim was enjoying the scene.
“Do We?”
Benny struggled against his restraints for a moment, but to no avail. Jim seemed content to stand there and watch, a smile on his face as he watched Benny’s futile attempt to free himself.
“Son of a bitch!” Benito screamed at the top of his lungs, then let his chin fall against his chest.
“There there now,” Jim took a hold of Benny’s left hand, a comforting gesture Benito did not expect. “You will have your answers soon enough.”
Benito shook his head slightly. This whole situation had him puzzled, and he had no clue as to why this was happening to him. He still wasn’t sure what was happening. All he knew was that one of his captors was stroking the top of his hand, and he could barely move his hand at the wrist so subduing the man named Jim was not an option.
“We have been waiting for this for so long.”
Benny felt Jim grab a hold of his index finger. The sudden pain, as Jim folded it back toward his wrist, lasted for less than a second before he heard the snap and everything went white. The scream never made it past his lips, as he passed out almost instantly. He never heard Jim’s last few words.
“We’re going to have so much fun together, friend.”
No, for some reason, the song ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’ by Poison popped into his head instead.
“We should have just headed to Ottawa with Lane.”
Jadian unfastened the buttons on the cuffs of his pale yellow, long sleeve, dress shirt. Julissa turned in his direction for a brief moment, then returned her attention back to the road. It was an hour and a half drive back to San Antonio, but after the events that transpired over dinner; Julissa had decided there was no way she could spend the night at Jay’s parents as originally planned. Not that she felt she wouldn’t be able to control the situation if Jack decided to get brave and make a move, but because she felt that he would not survive the night if she had to put up with him staring at her breasts like she had a flat panel television attached to her chest.
“It’s Christmas,” she replied. “You’re supposed to spend time with your family.”
“But I knew it was a bad idea,” Jay folded his sleeves up a bit, then proceeded to unfasten the top two buttons of his shirt. “I should’ve listened to my own advice and bought them a new car instead.”
“I should’ve let you go alone.”
“Oh, I’m sure it would have been much worse without you there.”
“Yeah, right,” Julissa laughed. “What could have been worse than having your dad want to rest his chin in my cleavage all night?”
“Him rubbing my mom’s clit under the table.”
Julissa turned to him rather quickly, her lips slightly parted.
“I think I was ten the first time I noticed.”
“So that’s where you get it from,” she giggled.
“You don’t even want to know what my mom can do with her toes,” he shook his shoulders slightly, the result of a shiver that started at his neck and traveled down his spine. “I’m actually surprised I can have sex at all.”
## She likes to shake her ass ##
## She grinds it to the beat ##
A portion of the chorus from ‘Bad Girlfriend’ by Theory of a Deadman breaks up the conversation. Juli reaches over and presses the U-connect button on the radio, to activate the hands free option for her phone.
“Juli,” she says into thin air, the microphone of the device conveniently placed in the center of the dash.
“It’s been so long since We’ve seen you, dear.”
“Who’s this?” she asked, since she did not recognize the voice on the other end of the line.
“We barely missed you the last time, but this time will be different.”
There was something about the voice that was familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Our anniversary is coming soon, dear,” he continued, a little extra oomph in his voice. “Daddy‘s already here waiting to walk you down the aisle.”
“What are you talking about?” Julissa wasn’t sure what the guy with the raspy voice was talking about, and Jadian mouthed the question “Who is it?” to not attract any attention. She just shrugged her shoulders, since she didn’t know.
“We’re still unsure if we’re going to allow him to walk under his own accord,” a chuckle echoed out from the speaker. “But he will be here regardless.”
“Whatever asshole,” she reached over and pressed the button once more, and the call was ended as quick as it had begun.
“Did he just say he had your dad?”
“I’m pretty sure he had the wrong number,” she shrugged her shoulders. “Probably looking for Lance Marshall.”
Jim allowed a smile to dance on his face, as his heart began to beat rapidly. He placed the cellular phone he purchased at a gas station on the table in front of him, then glanced in the direction of the man that now had three of the fingers on one hand broken at the knuckle. Each time he had passed out from shock, and the sudden rush of adrenaline that coursed through Jim‘s veins excited him enough to give him an erection.
There was something about causing someone so much pain that excited him, it was only natural that he use the man’s mangled hand to relieve himself. His heart raced as he anticipated the breaking of yet another bone so much that he could feel himself stiffen inside his pants.
The game had certainly begun.