Halvah or Daniel Beloved of God

Part Seven

“What’s going on?” Marcia stood in the doorway of the bedroom dressed only a man’s white dress shirt, her strawberry blonde hair like a fine spider's web about her face, a flannel bathrobe over her shoulders like folded wings.   

“Bitchen,” The albino snorted, clapping his hands together, “Now you’re talking.”

Her mouth snapped open. “Martin, I told you...” 

“Hi Honey, you want ten thousand dollars?” The albino asked, taking a step towards her.

“What is this?”

“Marcia, Luv, I ran into this bloke at Ritchie’s.  He’s just cut a record for Capital records.  He just wants a good lay and he’ll pay...”

 “Sweet Jesus!” gasped the Catholic’s daughter.

The albino turned and hissed. “Shut up you fucking virgins.”

“I’m not a virgin!”   

“Well, of course you’re not.  Look at you sweetie.  You’re so horny you’d fuck a pole!”

“I think you’re disgusting!”

“Don’t worry, bitch.  I don’t ball stupid little girlies anyway!” He turned back towards Marcia. “So, what do you say, Blondie?  You look like someone who knows the score.”

Marcia’s face turned a vivid shade of white.  “Martin, get this guy out of here.”

“But Jamie has just signed a record contract, Luv.  He’s going be famous someday.”

“Get him out of here.”

 “Come on, Marcia, ten thousand dollars,” Martin urged. 

“Not for a million dollars!”

 “That does it,” the albino spun toward the door.  “There are plenty of bitches in this town who won’t give me this kind of shit!”

 "Wait, Jamie..." Martin tried to hold him but the albino twisted free and then stomped down the stairs.

Martin surveyed the group with distain, his dark mood circling the room like a flock of ravens. “What’s the matter with all of you?  A couple of minutes for ten thousand dollars…”

“Ten thousand dollars, Martin.  Don’t you think it’s a little ludicrous that someone would be carrying around that much cash?  Marcia asked.

“I told you, he just signed a record deal.  To those people in the record industry ten thousand is chum change.   All one of you silly, stupid birds had to do was pretend to like the little pervert, but oh no.  You didn’t need to fuck him.  I could have rolled him.”

“A record deal!  Bull - he’s probably a drug dealer.  My God, what were you thinking?”  Marcia was so angry she could hardly talk. “I can’t… I can’t believe you brought that guy...”

“Given the right circumstance anyone will do anything for money.  Believe me.  And you…” he focused his attention on the Catholic’s daughter, “...a few moments with him and then you wouldn’t have to return to Nevahda to live out the rest of your miserable life with the jackrabbits and sagebrush and that poor lad who got you preggers.  Oh yeah - preggers!  That’s right.  You heard me.  You couldn’t keep those long legs crossed, could you?  I’ll bet you even think you’re in love, that you’ve found your soul mate.  Ha!   No amount of Hail Mary’s are going to get you out of this mess, but a few thousand dollars would have.”  

There was a gasp from the other two girls.  “Oh, I see.  Your friends didn’t know did they? They trusted you, the silly twerps.  And what were you doing while they planned their escape from fucking Reno Nevahda?  You let them think you really wanted to go while all the time you were fornicating your friggin’ brains out with lover boy!  You and your Mr. Wonderful forn- i-cating wherever you fucking could, in your mother’s bed, in his car - probably even in the church basement!” he threw his head back and howled.   The sound was unlike anything Daniel had ever heard.  It made his stomach turn.  Then Martin put a finger to his mouth and feigned concern.  “Oh I forgot.  You’re in love so you weren’t forn-i-cating.  Or screwing.  Or  fucking.  Or even balling.  You were making love!” 

 He focused on the other two girls.   “I’ll bet she made your lives a bloody hell, didn’t she?  You know, she never really wanted to go on your silly, little romp across country.   But she’d promised.  She felt obligated.  The most pathetic of emotions. Obligation.   Now, see how she despises you.  Despises you because she wasn’t bloody strong enough to be honest and tell the truth. Despises you, the hypocritical little minx.”

“Martin!” Marcia pleaded “That’s enough!  Enough!”

“Obligation, love, guilt — bullocks!  You might as well all wrap yourselves in chains right now and jump in the river! You pathetic bunch of losers.” He swirled around, disappearing through the open door.

Outside the sun began to sparkle through the spires of St Marks like confetti on the New Years Eve.  Daniel put down the knife and for the first time since Martin’s arrival, took a deep breath.   Suddenly he pictured Marcia in a tract home in the suburbs, with Bill the Lawyer.   The poster of Che safely tucked in a trunk in the basement, perhaps looked at in twenty or thirty years with a sigh.  A nice suburban tract home with a lawn, fence and dog.  Maybe some children - if Marcia could convince Bill to adopt.  Daniel doubted that very much.  The lawyer looked like a man who would want his own children, not someone else’s.

Marcia slouched into the kitchen to fill the tea kettle.  She neither smiled nor spoke.  He moved close to her but didn’t try to interrupt her thoughts.  He put his hands flat down on the yellowed formica and tried to summon the words to say but they wouldn’t come. Not one word of scripture.  His brain had been scrubbed blank.  On the floor the girls whispered viciously to each other of betrayal and hurt as the Catholic’s Daughter admitted Martin had been right, right about everything which meant ... he was a devil!  Only a devil could know all those things.  It was useless, she said, to explain her feelings to them.  They did not know what love was and how love and sex are were so intricately entwined that you can’t have one without the other.  She was angry with them.  She’d sacrificed herself for them and now, instead of being grateful to her, they attacked her as if she’d done something wrong; as if she had ruined their dream.   How she hated them.  Really hated them.  Worse than she’d ever hated anyone.  

Marcia finally ended their squabble with camomile tea. Then turning her attention to the Catholic’s Daughter she said.  “You have options. You don’t have to have this baby.”

It was then that Daniel knew he had to leave.   

The conclusion coming soon...

Copyright 2014  JT Twissel