Chapter 1 Part 3

December 2^nd, 2012

Morning

When I wake, I’m not drowsy. My mind is humming with thoughts and voices. My heart prickles in my chest like a well-used pincushion. There’s a buzz running through me. I’m anxious. Roused. Restless.

The sun warms me, I had forgotten to close the blind it would seem. When I roll to my side, the leg that had been bent at an angle purrs as feeling returns, it’s not a minute past six. The digital clock at my side ticks over as I watch it. Six-nought-one. I haven’t woken this early in a while. So, I find my feet. Seize the morning, if you will. Damon says it. Always awake at the crack of dawn. Bonkers, if you ask me. Positively bonkers.

The night was torturous. Chloe had refused to compromise on ordering tofu in our Thai. Said she hated the taste, it fused with the sauce, she was so sure. There was no taste. Even she had said tofu was too bland to eat. I’d had to pick the chicken out of my Pad Thai noodles, though parts of it looked so convincingly like peanuts I’m certain I had a bit. A git, that woman. A bit dim, but certainly a git.

Damon, only recently vegetarian and relapsing once a week, had no problem pretending to like chicken just fine. Though he did throw me a few guilty looks. Converting him had been a struggle. I had to watch some mug in an orange wig undo months of my hard work. I hadn’t the time nor mind to ask about the whole abrupt marriage thing.

I stand clumsily, hoping my poor excuse for pyjamas will sober me from my questionable dream. I had been buttering toast that erred on the well-done side, I remember feeling so chuffed with myself for its perfect golden colour. I dropped each slice delicately onto a plate. I had bent over the counter to slide it to my stool and Damon had come up behind me. My clothes dripped onto the floor like paint, wetting my toes and he slid up inside of me. I awoke to the rain on my feet, pouring through my cracked window. The sky was a foreboding black. My hand was in my underwear. It took a while to get back to sleep.

The thought of thumbing through my drawers for joggers is a bit too much now, so I grab yesterday’s pair from the wash basket. Tripping over the waistband sobers me a bit more than the cold. I’m feeling normal again. Clean. As clean as you could be. So, I emerge. Close the door behind me quietly. Hope Damon isn’t in the kitchen staring with an awkwardly disapproving look having heard me getting it on in the dead of the night. But he stands quietly in the corner, pressing down on the French press with the palm of his hand. I’ve come at a good time. Two magpies ruffle through their backs with their beaks on the fence. The sky looks cold through the kitchen window. Two for mirth. The fortunes favour me today. I’m feeling a bit more emboldened now.

“My! Good morning, Kiddo.” He fills a mug as he speaks, holds it under the faucet for just a moment. Straight, hot coffee. Black as my indecent soul. Incredibly enticing. The first sip sobers me even more. I’m feeling cleaner than fucking Mary. I watch over my coffee, blowing quietly. He heaps a spoonful of sugar into his. Mixes quietly. Takes a sip of his own. And ruffles my hair. I’m not feeling so clean anymore. “You’re up early.”

“I can hear the baby chickens screaming in my stomach.” I grumble into my mug. He laughs.

“They’re not babies.”

“May as well be. They kill the little boys because they can’t give them eggs. Grind them up and feed them to the little girls.”

“That’s not true.” He laughs again.

“The first bit is.” I’m eyeing him bitterly. He must know I don’t like her. Or does he? Is he that ignorant? They do say married bliss. And they say ignorant bliss. The two can’t be that estranged. Surely, they have met in passing. An old wise man would have wedded them at one stage. He would have sprouted a clever tale about staying somewhat secretive with your spouse. Else they go looking for mystery elsewhere.

“I did have nightmares about being chased by a flock of angry chickens.” He admits almost guiltily. Looks like he’s back on the wagon. He stares at me with a rather pointed look. His mouth is open for a time before he says anything. “You can ask.” Sometimes I forget how well he knows me. Rather, I try to make myself forget. I feel a great deal less guilt thinking he has no idea I’m plagued by intrusive thoughts all featuring him.

Sometimes, I fear my face gives away a bit much. He might pluck the vision of staring up with his cock in my mouth out of an especially widened glance. Might see the way I’m imagining him beneath his clothes, staring carefully through my lashes. Worst, I fear I might call his name in my sleep. Groan it like a complete animal as his fingers buck up inside of me in a dream. Now, staring at his opened mouth, it’s between my legs. His lips graze the insides of my thighs. Stubble coarse. I haven’t shaved in a week or two, but he doesn’t mind. In any case, there’s nothing particularly cleanly about his teeth tugging my labia. It’s primitive.

I toy with how I’ll ask a few times. I can’t decide which will give me the most direct answer. “How long have you been married?” A third magpie joins the conventical. Three for a funeral. Now, I don’t want the answer. Tidings. Bad tidings.

“Thirteen years.” I almost spit my coffee. How can he say such a thing so calmly?

“Thirteen years?” What a horrific number. A harbinger of bad fortune. Three crows. Thirteen years. I shouldn’t have spooked the raven.

“Sixteen years.”

“Blimey.” I take a large mouthful of my coffee. “That’s a long time.” I take another. “Why haven’t I met her?” He shrugs, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“We’ve been estranged.”

“And now you’re not?”

“We reconciled a month or two ago, things are looking good…” He smiles. A small, sheepish smile. “I think she’ll be good for us—you could do with a…” He breaks off, he doesn’t look too sure he should say it anymore.

“Mother?” I’m still staring over my mug. It ought to hide the colour I can feel in my cheeks. It’s the flush of fear. Mortal fear. Somehow, my fantasies seem a little more unobtainable. Like they had been any closer before the news. He is my father. At least, has been for eleven years. Some peculiar corner of my blackened soul thought he had never adopted me because he also wanted to bed me. That part still thinks it. Though its voice carries a little less weight in the discourse of all splinters whispering in my subconscious. The loudest is sure this is good for me. A mother who bears some resemblance to the one I watched have a pauper’s funeral. I can pretend it’s her, brushing my hair again like she had when I was a child. Humming the tune of my father’s song; one for sorrow, two for mirth. Three for a funeral, four for a birth. Mother sets down the brush in this memory, pulling my hair over my shoulders. It was blonde, at the age of five. She smiles a small smile back at me. “Go on.”

The memory of my face in the mirror has faded. I see only hers. The beaming, bright eyes. Cropped hair sat on her head like a carved pumpkin. But I hear my giggle. “Five for rich, six for poor, Seven for a witch…”

She joins in, we sing together. “I can tell you no more!”