Damon (14 page)

***

We’d agreed to take Mama and Aunt Cynthia out to dinner that evening. At the apartment, we went right in, since the door was unlocked, and found them in the kitchen. When we stepped into the doorway they both stared at Damon and me like we’d burst in with guns.

Mama was the first to respond. “What’s happening?” Her eyes widened in terror. “Who’s coming?”

“Nothing and nobody, Mama,” I told her with my most sincere voice. “I’m just on vacation and having a good time. Everything’s fine.”

She didn’t really believe me, but Aunt Cynthia relaxed and gave Mama a knowing smile, fully believing mine and Damon’s sinister glow was the result of an afternoon of ordinary sex.

“What happened to you two?” Aunt Cynthia asked, nodding to the large flesh-colored bandage on my neck, and the one on Damon’s wrist. I’d kept my hair pulled forward over my shoulders, but apparently that hadn’t been enough.

“Some guy tried to mug us in the park,” Damon said. “He didn’t get anything except a black eye.”

“My god!” Aunt Cynthia said. “Are you all right? Did you call the police?”

I stared at Damon, alarmed by his ability to tell such outrageous lies and make them seem real. In his messed up mind, he probably did remember such an ordeal taking place.

“Yeah,” he said. “They took a description but he was long gone by then.”

“Well, my god,” Aunt Cynthia breathed. “Did he cut y’all or something? Which park was it?”

Damon held up his wrist. “Naw, they’re just scratches. No big deal.”

“Well, no wonder you both look excited. Sit down.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Mama whispered, staring at me hard with interest.

“I’m starving to death!” I said. “Let’s go!”

The evening went reasonably well. Mama was unhappy all through the meal because they served rolls instead of biscuits, but she didn’t cause a scene. And Damon and I managed to draw curious stares from less than half the patronage.

I knew we looked odd. I’d stopped into the bathroom to see why people seemed to be staring, and the two women at the sinks also stared and hurried out. Physically, I looked normal, but there was something different about my eyes. They were too rounded and I couldn’t make them narrow enough to appear normal. And I felt as if I were emitting laser beams. I could feel my energy bouncing off the walls back at myself.

I was high as a kite on a windy spring day.

Damon was equally euphoric, except he was proud of his intoxication and had no interest in trying to appear normal. Not that he ever did. Tonight he was everybody’s best friend, buying drinks for those who kept glancing at us, and calling to our waiter by name in a loud voice.

My voice was also too loud and after Cynthia frowned at me and said, “You don’t have to yell, Maggie, I can hear you just fine,” I tried to keep a low profile by holding my gaze downward and keeping my mouth shut.

But Aunt Cynthia was sitting too close to be fooled.

As we were leaving the restaurant, she grabbed hold of my arm and we fell in behind Mama and Damon. “Are you doing drugs?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I answered.

She wouldn’t let go of my arm. “Are you sure he’s treating you right?”

I nodded, a little angered by her presumption. Who was she to tell me what to do or who to see? She ran off and abandoned me when I needed her most. When Mama needed her the most. I gave her a painfully fake smile. “Everything’s fine. Just like it’s always been.”

Pulling away, I trotted up to walk beside Damon. He put his arm around my shoulders and glanced back at Aunt Cynthia, then gave me a warm kiss on the temple. “We’re not like them,” he whispered in my ear.

***

Mama was exhausted after supper, so no one bothered with talk about checking out the nightlife. Damon and I dropped off the two party-poopers and went to have our own brand of fun.

After stopping in at a drugstore for disinfectant, bandages and razorblades, we went back to the hotel and indulged our madness. Using a clean new razorblade, we mixed our blood together with the homemade red wine Damon had brought. We took turns sipping from a plastic hotel cup. It seemed like a good time to discuss our future.

I wanted to discuss our relationship, because I wondered how many years we might have before we completely went insane. I wanted to make some plans. But he wanted to talk about the old folks and the mystery he’d stirred up about them.

I was a little more open to the idea of uncovering Gram’s secrets now that my own life had turned so unexpectedly bizarre. I knew it would make me feel better if I knew that Gram had once been like Mama, Damon and me. If she had been, then she was proof that we could get well. She’d been normal as long as I’d known her. Chester, Bella and Verna Jarvis were normal, too.

Though, I didn’t have much hope that we would uncover any hidden secrets. Too many years had gone by and we didn’t have enough clues.

“How long do you think we have before you turn into your dad and I turn into my mom?” I asked.

“We’ll never be like them,” he said.

“I figure we’ve got a good ten years before we have to be committed. We won’t have anyone to take care of us.”

“We’ll run off and hide in the mountains,” he said, letting me have the last sip. “I won’t let them take you away from me and lock us up. I’ll kill us both first.”

I turned and lay back, wanting to rest my head on his lap until the room stopped its slow spinning. My mind still worked efficiently, though, and I was intrigued by the idea. “We could do that, I guess. Run to the mountains.” I added with a laugh, “not kill ourselves. If we aren’t around people, no one will know how bad we are. We could go to Alaska or somewhere and live like the Vietnam vets who went insane. I saw a documentary once.”

Damon stared down at me with wide upside down eyes. “Let’s go home and corner Verna Jarvis and force her to tell us the truth.”

“What?” I sat up, and then had to wait a moment for the room to settle. “We just got here. I thought we were on vacation.”

“She’s an old lady living alone, she won’t fuck with me. She’ll tell me the truth and then keep her mouth shut.”

“I don’t want to threaten her, Damon,” I pleaded. “She used to babysit me. She’ll think I’ve lost control. She’s my next door neighbor. She’s Gram’s best friend. She might have a heart attack.”

His face turned red and he chewed on the insides of his cheeks for a little while. “I’m running out of time, Maggie,” he finally said. “Can’t you see?”

I could see, and was upset to see he was able to recognize the seriousness of his condition. Mama had never been able to admit her problems. It was always everyone else who was strange and dangerous.

“But how will learning the truth help anything? Let’s enjoy life while we can. We only have ten good years left.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and stared at me wide-eyed. “Let’s go back in time,” he said.

“Huh?”

He frowned, blinking rapidly. “No, never mind. That didn’t work.”

“Let’s go downstairs and sit in the lobby,” I suggested. I thought it might be best if we got out of the room and stopped brooding and bleeding. My high was kicking in and I didn’t want to waste the evening bored silly in our room. “It’s like being in a mansion. It feels really cool and exciting.”

“That sounds good,” he said.

But once we were downstairs, I realized the idea was a mistake. Damon became too affectionate for the good tastes of the hotel, and I noticed an employee giving us dirty looks. I tore his hand from my inner thigh and his lips from my neck and suggested we go upstairs.

“I own this hotel,” he declared, driving his hand between my legs again.

When my shirt went up around my neck, I looked up to see to men standing there, glaring at us. I kicked and pushed and finally freed myself enough to get my shirt pulled down.

Damon stood when he saw the men. “
Who said you could look at her?
” he demanded, sauntering arrogantly toward a man who appeared to be the hotel manager. I couldn’t quite tell. My vision was blurred from humiliation and adrenaline. Hotel guests were standing around gawking.

I pulled on Damon’s hand just as he gave the man a threatening push on the shoulder, hard enough to send the man stumbling backward. Damon must have seen the urgent plea in my eyes because he backed off and declared, loud enough that his rich voice reverberated off the expansive lobby walls, that the hotel was run by a bunch of fascist fucks.

They were nice enough to let us pack our bags without a fuss, and my little excursion through first-class was over. I hadn’t even had the chance to sleep in that nice big bed.

We arrived at Aunt Cynthia’s just as they were getting ready for bed. Arrangements were altered and Mama slept with Aunt Cynthia. Damon and I spent the night on a sofa bed with a bar in our backs.

***

Sometime in the middle of the night I woke from my light, uncomfortable sleep to find Damon sitting up, staring down at me.

He turned on a blinding lamp and said, “Look at me.”

I sat up, trying to focus and figure out what was happening.

“I’m really sorry,” he said.

I rested against the cushions and rubbed my eyes. “It’s all right. I’m used to public humiliation. Mama, remember. She had a horrible fit in the bank one time and had to be arrested. That was much worse. At least no one knows us here.”

“I ruined your vacation.”

“No, you didn’t. I thought you handled the whole thing really well. We’ll be better off here, anyway. It feels safer.”

His eyes darkened suddenly, and glazed, and he groaned, “
Please
, kill me.”

I stared at him for a long moment, because the grim voice I’d just heard wasn’t Damon’s. It was his voice, but darker somehow, hollow and distant.

“Damon?”

“I love you,” he said with his own voice, and fearful eyes.

I held out my arms to him. “I love you, too. Everything’s all right.”

He came to me and rested his head against my chest. His arms closed tightly around my waist. His heart was racing. I could feel the pounding against my chest. He was burning hot again.

I stroked his hair from his sweaty forehead and tried to calm him by humming a soothing tune. Soon, the tension in his body eased and he rubbed my arm imploringly.

“I’m hearing them already,” he said with a soft voice.

“The voices?”

He let out a long, miserable groan.

I held him tighter, wondering what to do. He wasn’t like Mama in every way. He let me touch him, for one, and that confused me in terms of dealing with his illness. Mama was extremely protective of her personal space and didn’t want anyone touching her – ever. With her, everything was handled from a distance. And Damon seemed to be aware of the changes taking place in him. To this day, Mama wouldn’t admit anything was wrong with her.

Damon seemed to be asking for help. Then a thought occurred to me. “Are you supposed to drink with your medication? Maybe the wine caused some kind of reaction.”

He looked up, squinting as if some deep, pressing thought had come to mind.

“Damon, didn’t they put you on any medication?”

“I don’t need anything,” he said, settling down again. “I’m perfect.”

“Do you hear the voices often?” I asked gently.

“Some. More than before. Just don’t leave me. Everyone leaves once they see me. Once they see the truth.”

I rested my cheek against his head. “I won’t leave. I promise. What do the voices say?”

“I just felt really good,” he said. He squeezed me tighter, until my ribs hurt.

“Too tight,” I grunted.

He loosened his grip.

“Real clear,” he continued. “It wasn’t anything, just me feeling good. Powerful and real. That happens to normal people. It does.”

“You’re right. It does.” I stroked his hair lazily, hoping he would grow sleepy. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“It was your blood.” He sat up suddenly and wrapped his hand around my throat, very lightly, and stared past my shoulder with fierce eyes. “That’s what it is,” he whispered. He looked at me and released my neck. He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “How do you feel?”

“A little tired, but not bad.”

“I mean earlier. How did you feel after we drank?”

“Oh, sort of… strange, kind of… bright and really alive.”

“Me, too,” he said, holding me with a steady gaze. “I felt totally sane. Didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but I do most of the time. Until I do something unbelievably shocking. This afternoon I just felt more alert… more aware. More energetic but not nervous.”

“You don’t have voices?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Mine went away until my high started wearing off.” He picked lazily at the corners of my bandage, and I knew what he was thinking. He wanted to drink again. Still, I waited to see what he would do.

He picked and folded an edge of the bandage then let his hand fall gently down my chest. He leaned in and breathed on my neck, then sat back and traced the flower pattern on my nightshirt with his finger.

“What do the voices say to you?” I asked.

He shrugged, still working on a large rose. “Different things, different times. Sometimes just a couple of words, sometimes he talks till I want to put a bullet through my brain to shut him up.”

“And it sounds like a different person? Not just thoughts?”

“Yeah, he’s older… and from a different… place. He keeps telling me to hurry. He says there is a problem with the portal, or… me. With me. He says there’s a problem with me. He says I have to come back, soon. He keeps yelling at me.”

“Like a ghost in your mind?”

“No, like a vampire.”

So that was where the idea came from. “He’s sending you messages through radio waves or telepathy?”

“The other one, though, he’s… suffering. He’s… insane.”

“There are two voices?”

“Listen to me,” he said. “If I say something really weird, it’s him. It’s not me. Don’t think it’s me.”

“Like when you asked me to kill you?”

“Like that. That wasn’t me. That was the suffering man. I want to live. I’m a fighter.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Boy, was I glad to hear that. “And there are just two voices?”