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“Uh
. . . Benny?”
He
was lightheaded, on the verge of blackening out, but felt like iron. He
snatched the phone away from his head and gawked at it.
“Oh-my-God.”
Benny tried to breathe and couldn’t. “It’s my angel.” He fell into a
chair and just stared at the black phone. Grampa was snarling a lot of uncouth
language and not for the first Benny wished the old coot would shut it.
“It’s
me. Angie O’Brian.”
The
girl said it carefully, slowly, as though speaking to someone mentally
impaired. After all, she was speaking to a boy,
and on top of all that it was Motor-Head Grey.
She
scowled at her nails and was for a moment tempted to flick on her phone
screen. The white dot in the vanity’s left mirror winked at her. The center
one held a shadowy image that was Benny. Their viewer must be going out. Well,
you couldn’t expect much from poor people, especially that
kind.
Angie
smiled. Let the jerk sweat.
“I’m
in my,” she breathed softly into the phone, “bedroom,” and immediately
was gratified to hear a faint, hot gasp.
Sawing
at her cuticles with a nail file, she grinned and moaned. Angie blew a bubble
with her gum and let it pop. Watching her mother operate on her father, and on
the various men her father thought important to his career, gave Angie plenty
of expertise in the area of men. And boys were men, sort of. Just not quite
human yet.
Glancing
into her reflection in the vanity mirror, Angie winked, blew a kiss, and
sighed unhappily.
Eyes
wide, Benny stared dazed and sightless at a time-warped illegal Warm Morning
coal stove in his mother’s kitchen. Benny felt a warm, shuddering heat fill
his body.
Angie???
Only the finest, foxiest babe in all of Luzerne County, if not the world. And
she was calling - of all men - him?!?
Man.
But he had been in love with her since they were what? Four? Five? He closed
his eyes and mused on the first time he saw Angie. She was in the store up in
Freeland. Easter Day, and she wore a lacy, frilly dress, her hair a golden,
silk-spun cloud curly, her eyes big and sad because she couldn’t find her
mom in the crowded store. He rescued her, took her to the checkout, and she
kissed him. His cheek still felt the warm press of lips.
Darker
times invaded his thoughts. Old man Ryan and his orgies. And Angie.
Quivering
like some excited puppy, Benny tried to calm himself.
“Yeah?”
He
muttered it with just the right amount of carelessness. No use letting Angie, - blood sang in his ears, pounded through his heart, and
fizzed elsewhere - of all people know how he felt.
Grinning
into the mirror, Angie touched up
her eye shadow. Waves of heat seemed to puff up from the receiver. He was not
one wit different from all the other boorish pigs her steady, Donald, had to
scare off almost daily.
Benny
would do it. He was so naive, such a chicken. He backed down from every
insult. Even snot-nosed grade-schoolers laughed at him. Still, if he got too
hot and grabby, help was only a phone call away. That ass Donald was at
Leda’s tonight.
Angie
lay back on her bed. She smiled up at a pink, frilly canopy. Had that
stepmother of hers sent off those pictures to the Miss America people yet? She
better of, or else. A shoe-in, her agent said. Angie popped up on the bed.
Glancing into the mirror, she had to agree.
Her
pink crystal receiver should be nearly red with all that heat coming off of
Benny’s ear. Young Stud? Angie tried not to laugh.
Angie
purred a chuckle. Sweat, you pig,
sweat. I’ll make you pay for what you did to me. She popped her gum
again. The mirror told her she was the perfect girl, the perfect daughter,
with perfect parents, perfect everything. Almost, anyway. She did have a
younger brother.
“Uh
. . . what’s up?”
Benny
started to perspire. Was she calling to make an ass of him? Her old man was
the DA for chrisake. O’Brian sworn to put Benny back in prison, an adult
prison like the Walnut Street Inn, too, if it was the last thing he did.
And
would be the DA’s final act on earth,
Grampa vowed.
Two
Swords muttered an agreement. If it was the last thing this side of Hell’s
blackened gates this Warrior:Guardian would do. For all the men and women
O’Brian tossed in prison in his eternal lust for votes, that slave nabbing
scuds deserved the Pit. A harsh grin stretched the battle-scarred face.
“Yo,
baby, yo. Fun and games.”
In
the jeweled wolf tail scabbard on his back, Heart-’a-Fire shrilled a war
cry.
Grampa
whooped. He spun through the back of Benny’s mind and did a
mountain-Cherokee stomp dance.
Picturing
bars all around him, Benny shuddered, smelling again the stench of Philly’s
reopened Walnut Street prison. He and Carl stayed there under the Witness
Protection Act.
Witless-No-Protection
Asses, was more like it. What the hell kind of thing were they running,
putting witnesses in prison?
‘Spider’
Ryan? Benny winced. The greedy old goat sent Anna a bill totaling over seventy
thousand dollars for, as Ryan put it, ‘services rendered.’ Ryan was
breathing heat and threatening lawsuit. A list of those services came in the
same envelope. Near the top of the list was sweet Angelica O’Brian.
A
delicious thrill shivered up Angie’s sweetly curved spine. Benny Wya Grey.
Oh, but the months in drug re-hab, all that wonderful money blown in the
winds. Daddy, erroneously of course, blamed her demise all on poor, poor
Benny. And she managed to keep the blame on him, drawing on just enough
paternal guilt to make Daddy believe it could never be darling Angie’s
fault. No O’Brian would ever stoop to such things as Angie had done. Would
they?
She
smirked Benny’s image in the mirror. Daddy was so sweet. He was making it
his life’s work to destroy that whole mongrel ‘breed family.
Carl,
too, more was the pity. Angie didn’t recall much about her days as a working
girl, but she could remember Carl, and still dreamed hotly of the huge man and
what he was capable. Her face twisted. For some reason, Benny was a part of
those memories, and she didn’t care for that.
But
for Leda, Angie would have named names and let them all fry. Since the early
days of the Twenty-First Century child prostitution was now under law a form
of slavery. Slavery, the kind not sanctioned by the State, was punishable by
death. And wasn’t that what Carl and Benny had tried to force her into? . .
. According to her father.
Well
. . . not really Carl . . . more
like Leda and the Spider.
Angie’s
mockery turned to chills. If Leda lost Benny to prison, she would use Angie on
the ‘Stone for far more than a sexual sacrifice. Donald would never have to
know. But he would, the cocky needle-dick, and Benny would suffer for it.
Angie
covered the mouthpiece and laughed. The mirror showed Motor-Head shoving his
free hand under a now sweaty armpit to stop from drumming his fingers on the
wall. Asshole.
Sighing
over having to sink so low, Angie whispered seductively, “Hang on to it,
Benny. I have to do something. For Daddy, y’know?” She winked at the
mirror.
Angie
tossed the receiver on the lovingly polished finish of the vanity. Almost
laughing, she skipped down the back stairs to the kitchen and paused. That
idiot Mara Wya was there. Benny’s aunt seemed to hate her, and for no reason
Angie could ken. Still, she was only a maid. Angie hiked her nose in the air
and ignored a blast of chilling contempt from the tall, heavyset Mara.
Yanking
open the door of the refrigerator, Angie mulled over its packed contents.
“Damn.”
Angie’s eyes spiked at the ponderous woman. “Don’t you ever cook
anything decent around here?”
Hands
were stained orange with the carrots she was scraping Mara looked up from the
sink. A slow grin spread over the plump face. She snorted and spat in the
sink.
Angie
sniffed delicately. “You had better start behaving, you old bitch, or I’ll
have Daddy put you in the slammer where you belong.”
The
woman shrugged. Somewhere along the lines of a wolf, she smiled cold humor
right back to well-brushed molars. She raised the paring knife to her throat
and nicked herself. A fine trickle of scarlet slid down the dark skin. Mara
wiped it off with a fingertip and made a show of licking it away. She held out
the finger to Angie.
“Want
a little of the living stuff?” Mara said, her voice cool, a husky gravel
that snarled in Angie’s ears. “Bet it tastes sweeter than that weak puke
Leda feeds you punks at the ‘Stone. Maybe you shouldn’t stay where you
ain’t wanted. Maybe you should find a life, kid. Before somebody gets mad,
and at you.” Laughter rumbled from Mara and shook the pendulous breasts.
Face
blanched, Angie hunched in fear. Dammed Indians.
Benny
scowled at the homely little Warm Morning. He was supposed to clean out last
night’s ashes, and forgot again. If Carl found out he wasn’t taking care
of Mom, he was hamburger. The dark brown enamel was dusty with ashes, too, and
he’d hear about that. If Carl heard.
Making
a mental note to take care of the stove, then lay in some kindling for his
mother, Benny promptly forgot all about it.
“Huh?”
He
jerked the phone away from one hot, sweating ear.
In
awe and trepidation, Benny gawked into the receiver.
Angie?
Panting? Geezis-
A
hiccup of enormous proportions cracked out of his stomach.
Out
of the phone whispered a faint giggle.
“Spike?”
he roared. “You little creep. Get off the freekin phone.”
Angie’s
nine-year-old brother giggled.
“Betcha
wish it really was her, don’t ya, Benny?”
“Benny?”
Angie picked up her end, cutting Benny off from a verbal clash with Spike. She
fished a tranquilizer out of the mess her agent had supplied and dropped the
capsule in the bubbling, frothy orange soda. Spitting her gum in a
lace-covered gold and ivory trashcan made exclusively for Trevor-Donya
Imports, she sipped delicately, as should a lady of her social position.
With
horrible groans of ecstasy, the heavy panting resumed. They both shouted, “Spike.”
The
extension cut off on shrieks of pre-teen laughter.
Angie
gave a dainty shudder. “Oh, how I wish Mother and Daddy hadn’t adopted
that nasty little creep.”
She
opened a fresh stick of gum, then snatched up her nail file, sawing furiously.
Scowling
over the scant knowledge of local happening he had, Benny tried to recall
something about an adoption in Angie’s family. Man, but like he hadn’t
even been in the county at the time ol’ Spike-the-nerd was born. Benny
shrugged. Nine years back survival, not girls, were the main aim of life.
“Yeah.
Tell me about it.”
The
non-committal grunt made Angie pause. The shadow in the screen was still.
Was
she losing him? She scowled, again attacking a nick in her ring finger. What a
creep Donald was, making her slap him like that. God, she could have broken
the nail.
Not
really concerned, Angie tossed a coal on Benny’s already blazing hormones.
“Want
to come see me? I- I got rid of Donny. And Daddy isn’t home from
Wilkes-Barre yet.”
No
sound came from the receiver. The cloudy image on the screen was unmoving.
“Pleeeee-ease,
Benny?”
Ain’t
no way not ever huh-uh. Mom would kill him. Then really get nasty. He forgot
to breathe, but at least his hiccups stopped. Angie-the-fox
wanted him? Motor-head Grey? Wow. Benny wiped sweating palms off on worn,
grease-stained jeans.
No.
She was messing with his head.
Voice
a husky low, Angie let her breath tremble into the phone and prayed furiously
for pheromone-receivers some day soon.
“Please?
Benny,” she whispered, “ . . . I . . . I need someone strong to hold
me.” Cold eyes rolled at the gold flecked plaster of her ceiling. A quaver
entered her voice, a whimper not unlike pain.
And
still that asshole dared to defy her.
After
she won the Miss Pennsylvania pageant next year she really ought to look into
taking up a career in acting. Mmmm, politics, maybe? This was really too, too
easy. But then, no one ever accused men of being anything more than
hormone-driven apes, had they?
The
receiver shook in Benny’s hand. The cheap plastic grew slick with
perspiration. Voice cracked and strained, Benny muttered, “Er, I . . .
ah.” Clearing his throat, he winced at the pain shoving against the buttons
of his fly.
A
heady, sensual anger deepened his voice. “Angie, I-”
Only
this one time. Man, like maybe she really did need someone to talk to, and
bad. If he got in good with her, maybe her father would quit breathing fire at
him every time some teenager ran away from home.
Benny
was passed tired of being snatched by the cops for nothing he had anything to
do with. His MO, the DA smugly claimed. He never used dope, and never broke
the law. A bloody, mutilated corpse flashed through his mind. Well, sometimes
. . . But only when it was really got-to-be. And he was innocent of every
charge O’Brian threw at him. But a lot of the dudes in prison were innocent.
Mom called it wrongful incarceration-something. Election year politics. And
this was an election year.
Benny’s
stomach cramped.
Angie
knew. She could prove he was innocent, too. If only there was a way to force
her old man to make her testify. Shoot, he even had people like Trinity
Johanson, a Fed agent no less, line-up behind him. God, but Trinity hurt him
bad.
Still,
she cleared him all around, but a few vote suckers still hated him. Like the
DA and Judge Wilson.
Seriously
du’e. Benny realized it the moment the judge threw the pieces of his gavel
at him, and Angie’s old man had tried to sucker punch him, that the manuna
was deep on this end of the stick.
Belatedly,
he realized he shouldn’t have ducked the clumsy blow, and shouldn’t have
plowed Angie’s father in the guts.
But
the DA had it coming, for a fact, man. And it felt good. Real good.
Blistering-hot
and chilled to the bone all at the same time, Benny shivered.
Angie
sounded desperate. His heart, and another aching body part, wept at the sound
of quiet whimpering.
He
would be stupid to put himself within reach of O’Brian.
“Sure,”
he said and groaned softly. Where the heck did that come from? He couldn’t.
“I’ll be right up.” Mom was going to kill him.
Angie
smiled into her mirror. Beautiful. She blew a kiss at her reflection and
resumed sawing.
“Benny?
Come in your mom’s car, OK?”
Benny
squirmed. He shrank a little and the pain under his fly did a lead-balloon
collapse.
“Well
. . . .”
A
muted roar split the air. It echoed off the mountain to mock her. Leda dashed
to the crossroads in time to see a black and silver Uohali Night Sun bellow off into the foggy autumn night. Bitter,
helpless to stop him, Leda ran back to the Witch Stone. One hand covered the
spot on her head where the raven:protector had gleefully plucked a few hairs,
the other held a bouquet of bottles.
A
little out of breath, she pushed through the packed glen to the ‘Stone and
the Cu’alani boy. Leda forced a smile. No one was riding him, but those
narrow hips bucked in a steady, mindless cadence, a helpless attempt to find
release. The drugs would not wear off for hours.
By
then it would be too late.
Leda
smiled and he whimpered.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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