Chapter 4: Poison Was the Cure

(MEGADETH)

Blaire knows she has a terrible weakness. She doesn’t know when to stay or run. Any woman, or man, with a bit of self-respect, would have walked out of the bar after hearing those words. Yet, here she is, still swirling the whiskey and ice in her glass. Round and round the ice blocks go, where the whiskey will end up, she already knows.

She lifts her face and flashes a wry smile to the nameless faces on the dance floor. She tosses head back, and lets the good times roll into her mouth, and down her throat. It used to be that the alcohol would warm her, but no more. But then again, she’s not felt warmth since Gavin died. Or maybe, due to overuse, she’s become accustomed to the effects of drugs and alcohol. It’s a human trait, learning to adapt to your habitat in order to survive.

The weak die young, but she’s still here, even if it is reeling on the brink of sanity.

Suddenly, she misses Luka, her husband. Misses most of all the intimacy they had in the beginning, before everything became toxic. He was like a drug to her. Knew how to make her body beg for more. Knew the words that would reach her heart and open her like a flower, exposing her sacred territories. He was the first man that saw her. Really saw her, the person, not Red King’s protégé. He saw the real Blaire, the woman, the wife, the entity she was when none of the glamour of her titles and heritage were present.

Only later she’ll learn that he also knew how to attack using these exact tools. He slipped the knife into her most tender places, wiggled it around until she bled, and then stepped away to look at the wound. She wished, with all her heart, that he had never seen her. Because he poisoned their well and then withheld the intimacy which she craved to heal.

In the war, Luka played a long game. He didn’t come to her openly, but used guerrilla tactics. A thousand hit-and-run skirmishes over the course of months to slow her down. These she could have handled if it hadn’t been for the loss of her most trusted medicine: the safety of his arms, the healing of their sexual connection. His touch quenched her thirst for battle. Calmed her right the fuck down. Addictive, it was, too. Sex between them was a holy rite that purged her demons.

Luka won her over early, bit her like a snake. The venom still resided within her heart and mind more than a decade later. Oh, the man was a monster dressed innocently as a bird. She should have looked for the signs of deceit earlier. If they were there before they got married, she didn’t notice.

“You noticed,” grandfather’s voice whispers in her mind. “But chose to ignore the red lights.”

She opens her mouth to answer, but the barman’s fist thumping the counter in front of her, drags her back to reality. Blaire pushes the glass of ice back towards him.

“Hit me again,” she says loudly over Chicago singing If you leave me now.

A stiff nod as he steps to the left to refill her glass. Triple shot of amber on ice. Liquid gold to brighten her dark mood. She needs to see a therapist, but this town has none and she’s been too stuck in her own mind to move on to a larger city. The bigger the place, the more people. More people mean more eyes to notice strangers. Also, there are more people in cities that can be paid to be her in-law’s spies. Maybe some of their people are already there, waiting for her arrival.

The barman slips the glass over the counter as if it was a toy train on a play rail. She catches it in the palm of her hand and takes a large sip. She is on the fence between present and past, being flung from one to the other.

“Not flung,” granddad interrupts the thought. “You are no victim here. You decide where your mind goes.”

Every word of every sentence Luka told her in those months of attack stung deeply. At first, she held back, but as surely as his touch could calm her, the attacks ignited a spark that she could not resist. Dragons that were sleeping in her veins for years awoke with vehemence. She matched Luka’s energy with her own. Their life became a game of tit-for-tat. Whatever he said, Blaire returned two-fold. Their bed went from lava hot to arctic ice. The rest of the house was a battlefield of two volcanoes spewing at each other.

“You are a fucking cancer in my brain,” Luka said on her twenty-eight birthday after the guests left.

“What brain?” she retorted with a sneer.

He threw the tray of left-over sandwiches at her. She ducked like the warrior she was born to be and it flew over her back, hitting the ugly painting he clung to because some lunatic once told him the artist will become famous. At that time, the piece had already hung in the dining room for four years and she still gagged when it came into view.

“No!” Luka screamed, storming to wipe wilted lettuce and egg salad sandwiches off of his pride and joy. This art, he insisted, was the elixir that would boost his pension fund so that he could retire as a rich man at forty.

He died before the artist reached fame. She wasn’t sure if he ever got famous, or what happened to the bloody painting after she fled The Farm. Maybe someone kept it, knowing how much it meant to Luka. Maybe they sold it. Maybe some kind soul sent it, with his other possessions, to his ancestral home.

She didn’t really care about the things she left behind. Not then. Not now. She can barely remember what their home looked like. Only the memories of their shared life stayed. Some were good, because there were wonderful days. Of late, the bad ones have been popping up, though. Mostly at night.

The last two years of their marriage were horrible. The last year sprung directly from the pits of hell itself. It felt, at times, as if a million little ants were running over her skin while some dirty insect laid eggs in her brain. In the end, the hatched babies ate her from the inside out until only a shell remained. It spoke with a sharp mouth and no conscience. It spat words as piercing as swords, fast as ninja stars, devastating as nuclear bombs.

Together, they marched their marriage to the gallows. Afterward, when she glanced back at this miserable time in their history, she could see where her brain stepped aside and allowed her injured heart to take over operations of all faculties. She sleepwalked onwards, day in and day out, until she came home from town one day and saw her husband’s car in a place it wasn’t supposed to be. Out in the desert, parked behind a line of trees on the way to town.

Stolen novel; please report.

The area had scattered corpses of trees, which Red King planted. This was a project they started when she was just a child, not even in school yet. Every month, he’d grab a handful of mixed tree seeds and plant it together in a newly dug row in the backyard. It was her responsibility to water the patch of future trees until they were strong enough to be planted somewhere on the desert road leading to town. Red King wanted to see which trees would survive the scarce water supply and the sweltering heat. This batch did well enough to hide one car, but not enough to hide Luka’s and the red Porsche her sister, Catriona, drove.

She slowed down for a moment, but then decided not to stop. Then accelerated to top speed, hoping they didn’t notice her passing by. Once she reached The Farm, she parked in front of an acquaintance’s home. She didn’t go to the front door, but power walked herself down the block, turning right at the intersection. Two houses down, she crossed the neat lawn and knocked on a nephew’s door. Arthur looked surprised to see her, but hid it quickly. He had a reputation as someone that could find shit out, and be discreet enough to never reveal it to the wrong ears. As an ex-police officer, people trusted him completely.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, gesturing to the couch. She fell down onto the leather with a heavy sigh.

“That sigh can sink ships,” he said, eyes carefully searching her face. “Are you okay, B?”

The younger nephews and nieces all called her B. She never asked why, but deep down she knew it stood for another word that fit her about as well as the name her momma blessed her with.

“I just saw Luka’s car not so discreetly parked where it doesn’t belong this time of day. And Catriona’s was right next to it.”

He shrugged. “And? Maybe they ran into each other?”

“Behind a copse of trees?”

“Well, maybe not. You got any bees buzzing under the bonnet?” he asked, tapping an index finger against his temple.

“Plenty of them.”

“Want me to look into it for you?”

She sighed again, pondering. “Maybe it’s nothing,” she answered with a shrug. “You know how hormones can just get into a woman’s brain and shake everything up.”

“Are you having your period?”

“No.”

“Is it coming up soon?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not hormones. I’ll pop my head in for you. Come around over the weekend. I’ll buzz you on the phone if I have something sooner.”

At home she soaked in a tub of water with bathing salts, but nothing could wash away the layer of guilt she picked up inside Arthur’s house. Maybe she really was the worst wife in the world, as Luka often declared during warfare. A good wife would trust her husband completely, not assume the worst just because of one minor mistake.

The darkness stayed with her for the rest of the week. No matter how many times she bathed, or told herself it was nothing, whenever she saw Luka, the first thing that jumped to mind was the image of his car next to Catriona’s. An immediate chastening of self and more guilt followed this, piling up on the growing mountain between them.

Late Saturday afternoon, she clung to a bottle of beer at Arthur’s place and cried at the sight of Luka and Catriona’s infidelity displayed in a succession of photos on the dining table. The evidence cured whatever the fuck she believed about his innocence.

Blaire’s eyes get watery at the memory. Maybe it’s the smoke inside the bar. Maybe it’s this overwhelming sadness that wants to grab her by the throat and strangle her. And maybe it’s time for her to get going. To become unstuck. Because this is fucking toxic.

“Anything I can do to make your day even brighter?” Dominique asks, fluttering his eyelashes at her in a way that looks funny, not sexy.

“Well, if you have some 80s metal,” she says, nodding to a table behind her. “That would just about drown out the trash talk spilling my way.”

The smile that spreads across his face tells her that indeed Dominique has what she needs. That is a surprise to her. He doesn’t seem like someone with a dark heart, like herself. Sure, she knows he is running like her. And yes, there is a sadness hidden behind the crisp fashionable clothes and beautiful face. Yet, there is a light inside him that is clearly visible through the cracks. He fiddles with his phone, and Janet Jackson stops singing about the way love goes, while Black Sabbath’s intro to Master of Puppets begins.

“It’s the only good thing I inherited from my father,” he explains to her unasked question. “80’s metal is how we connected when I was a child, but it wasn’t enough for him to forgive… how did he put it… wasting a good sperm to create a useless homo like me.”

“Well,” she says with no pity or regret. “He is missing out on something awesome.”

“How do you know? Maybe I’m a horrible person.”

She snickers. “Sure, that’s why you have been so kind to a stranger all night.”

“You’re a paying customer,” he says with an eye roll. “Plus, there is this vibe between us. Feels as if I’ve known you for years.”

She nods in agreement to his words. He offers to fill her glass again, but she moves it away from the neck of the bottle.

“I’ll switch to sparkling water,” she says. “Still have to walk back to the hotel room. I need to be aware of shit while I do that. You know how vulnerable a woman walking alone is.”

He snorts. “More like a girl walking home alone at night. A dangerous beauty not to be meddled with.”

She closes her eyes, allowing the familiar music to crush into her head, erasing the darkness of a few moments before. Fuck love and romance. Fuck quickies with complete strangers. Music moves her. Always has. Why did she isolate herself from this luxury, this cure, this liberation of the mind?

Because you think you don’t deserve comfort or pleasure.

An icy shiver runs up her spine, and she bobs her head to the drum’s rhythm. For the first time in weeks, the death rattle of dry bones is quiet. She draws a deep breath of smoky air into her lungs, feeling the tightness in her chest dissolve into nothing.

“You know, this is the best metal album in the world, ever?” There is a lightness in her tone as she speaks.

Blaire opens her eyes slowly. Dominique has set up another round of beer mugs for the construction workers. In front of her stands a class with ice containing a slice of fresh lime and a bottle of unflavoured sparkling water. She opens it and pours the contents into the glass while he swipes the foam off the first beer.

“Why do you think I’m starting with it?” he says. “If you step off the beaten path, do it with all the pizzazz you have. Go out with a big bang.”

“Are you going out?”

He looks at her and nods. “I figure it’s time to go. Thanks to you, my feet are itching to leave.”

“Are you driving out of town?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “You want to hitch a ride?”

“I have been stuck here too long,” she says. “It’s time to go.”

“Go where, exactly?”

“Not sure yet, but I’ll ride along with you until I feel the call to a specific destination. If you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. I usually travel alone. It’ll be nice to have some company.”

“I’ll fill the tank and pay for rooms when we sleep somewhere.”

He shakes his head. “I’ll pay my way.”

“If you want to, but I really have enough to cover it. And you are doing me a favour already.”

“Let’s talk it out in the car tomorrow. I was thinking of heading to the nearest shore. My soul longs for the ocean and salt air.”

“I’ll let you know when my soul pings me,” she says with a smile. “But if I cramp your style, just tell me and I’m gone like a ghost in the night.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The hotel down the road,” she says. “What time are we leaving?”

“As soon as the sun is out. I want to get at least three good hours of sleep before we hit the road.”

“Sounds good. Join me for breakfast when you pick me up.”

“You know, I don’t even know your name.”

She holds out her right hand to him. “Bianca,” she lies.

“Well, Bianca, I’m so glad that you walked into this bar tonight.”

“Ditto,” she says.