Page 15 of Judas (The Lito Duet #2)

So, here I sit. My shrink’s about to waltz out of her cute little overly pink, ‘it soothes you,’ office to beckon me in.

The place looks like someone sprayed the whole office with Pepto.

The obnoxious hue isn’t even part of the color wheel, it’s a tint.

Though it is a shade of red, red is known for passion and love, yet it’s also directly tied to anger, danger, and warning.

Why does that matter? Cause I’m angry as fuck, and being in her little pink hidey-hole makes it worse.

Makes me want to see how close the color of her office matches her entrails.

“Let’s go, Bardot. Mavis is ready for you.”

Mavis… Mavis, Mavis, Mavis. Fucking die.

Grunting, the officer yanks me up and I’m led into her office then strapped down to a green chaise. That’s more like it; maybe if I’m a good boy she will let me roll over and suffocate myself in the cooler tone. It’s difficult to breathe through velvet, and I’m ready to test that theory.

“Lucien,” her overly sweet voice croons. Wearing her creams and pastels, gold hexagon-shaped wire glasses sitting at the bridge of her sniffer.

“Yes, overlord? What do you command of your humble servant?”

She groans. I bet she’d sound better choking on blood.

“Can we have a peaceful visit today, Lucien? I’m not really feeling your vibe, and that’s saying quite a bit for a psychologist.” Mavis lifts her right hand, pushing the golden spectacles up her button-shaped nose and stares passively at me through them.

You know, for all her stifling and airy presence, her dark-colored eyes just don’t fit.

They’re like pools of obsidian surrounded by something that yearns to be ethereal, godlike, angelic.

Consuming the light that pours into them rather than reflecting it like blue or gray eyes do.

Hers… they scream turmoil, torture, and treachery.

Just my type—except the rest. She’s not damaged enough.

“Aren’t I always peaceful, Mavis?” I ask, shifting on the lounge.

Just a little further and I can, you know, shove my face in the green velvet wrapped around the chaise cushion, and just stop breathing.

“Hardly. You’re about as peaceful as the Taliban. Now, get settled and be still. We have a long hour ahead of us and I want to get this done as soon as possible.”

Awe, she’s ready to be rid of me. Breaks my non-existent heart.

“You of all people know I don’t conform to much of anything, let alone timelines.”

“Pretend you do. I have a new client in two hours and don’t have time to waste on a shit like you.”

It takes all of my strength to resist the urge to roll my eyes at her, and to be honest, laugh. It is my mission to make this little bubble gum-popsicle girl—because that’s exactly what she is, a girl—as annoyed and pissed off as I can.

“Professional as always, Mavis. Tell me about your client,” I coax.

I know she won’t, I just like poking and prodding. Sometimes she gets so flustered, you can see the freckles across the bridge of her nose darken before the skin flushes pink. Like tiny mood rings embedded into her fair complexion.

She’s on a very long list of women who are conventionally attractive; women who stoke sexual arousal from the male species.

They’re weak, Neanderthal-like creatures who need validation of their animalistic needs to provide and procreate.

While a piece of me doesn’t believe that Miss Mavis is a pushover in any sense of the word, the only thing I’d ever be interested in doing to her is squeezing her throat until the freckles fade in color and she ceases to breathe.

“Lucien—“ Mavis prompts, pulling me from my reverie of picturing her socially plastic face turning cold and lifeless under me. Her dark pupils swell until they swallow the white sclera of her eyes and she resembles the demons rummaging around in my head.

“My apologies, Mavis. Where were we?”

“We’re talking about your father today,” she answers.

“Like hell we are.” My voice is clipped, a full body rage taking root in the depths of my body and psyche.

I may be fucked up, but outside of mother’s alcohol and drug addiction, the good Preacher is where this all came from.

Too many times I’ve attempted to expunge his thoughts from my head—evident in the way my body now houses new marks of self-punishment.

He built the demons, he fed them. His influence in my life has been nothing but absolute torment, and I have no desire to give that man another second of my precious wind.

Attempting to bleed him out of my veins, he still lingers however.

Of the years I have been seeing Mavis, she’s planted too many seeds of acknowledgement into my head. Maybe I knew, all this time, he was the cause. But having a person to blame? It’s not the liberation people like to think it is. Bringing him up stalls our progress and she knows this.

Not only does she want to piss me off today, she wants to sit in silence.

“I know this is a sensitive topic for you, Lucien, but we need to talk about it. You did well in the past, and have managed to tone down some of your violent tendencies, but we are not quite where you need to be.”

Her voice is agitating.

Silence.

“Lucien, can we please not go down this prickly road today?”

Prickly… prickly. I’ll show her fucking prickly.

“Release the cuffs, Mavis.” I drawl.

“Huh?”

She looks at me in the most perplexed manner, head tilting to the side as she struggles to decipher what I’ve plainly ordered her to do. Why is it so difficult for people to listen and follow the simplest directives?

Shifting forward, I lean slightly, my wrists still bound behind my back.

The new position has my orange-clad legs spreading, making room for the way I angle further into the space between us.

Vastly uninterested in suffocating myself with the chaise cushions, as I was earlier.

Rather, what remains—her sense of bafflement.

“Release… the cuffs. I don’t recall stuttering, Mavis.”

“Not that I’d ever put myself in danger, but I can’t do something like that, Mr. Bardot.” Her voice lacks the normal lilt to it.

“Mr. Bardot now? What happened to prickly Lucien?” Challenging her, I move to the very edge of my seat, giving the indication that I plan to either stand or something more ominous.

“L—Lucien.”

“M—Mavis,” I mock.

“Let’s just do your session and then you can go back to your cell. I’ll be out of your hair then.”

“Now where’s the fun in that? You wanted to talk about my father, so we’re going to talk. First, though, you’ll release the cuffs so I can give you a full demonstration on the things he would do to me and my mother. Then we can sit here and go through it play-by-play.”

Watching her throat flex is more satisfying than it needs to be, but I’m an intense man and won’t be backing down.

Finally, she looks away. Down at her yellow legal pad, pen twirling around her thin fingers in the same way drummers spin a mallet around theirs with flare.

She’s focusing on the sheet of paper so thoroughly I can see the strain in her eyes.

The tension in her shoulders even when she amends her seating position, recognizing she doesn’t stand a fucking chance. Apprehension looks appetizing on her.

“Mavis…” I prompt, hungry for a fight.

“I’m not releasing the cuffs and if you move again, Lucien, I’ll call Officer Lawrence back in here so he can tie you to that chaise. Choose wisely.”

Now we’re talking.

“Nah, you won’t do that. You’re too caught up trying to establish control over a situation that is rapidly deteriorating. You wanted to talk about my father, and we will, scouts honor, but we will do it my way or no way at all.”

A hush befalls us for a moment before I choose to continue.

“This intimidation, don’t really like it, do you?

It puts you on edge. You don’t know whether you need to scream for help or run for safety.

Then there’s the little nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you no one will come to your aid and you’d be left defenseless with a monster.

Well, not entirely defenseless. You have your sharp fucking tongue and the pretty pens I’ve seen you obsess over in the past.”

Slanting to the side, I search her face until her prey-like orbs connect with mine.

“Your pens won’t save you, I promise you that, Mavis .”

Abruptly, which makes her jump, my body moves back into a comfortable position on the chaise, ready to get the remainder of my therapy session over.

“That’s what it was like being under my father’s control. Twenty-four seven. Of course, there was much more than that, but that’s all I’ll be discussing with you.”

Lawrence came to fetch me at the end of my session, punctual as ever—I believe Mavis and I got in a good ten or fifteen minutes before he started knocking.

He’s quite dependable in that manner, being punctual and all.

You know, I actually feel a bit lighter after Mavis’s therapy session.

We did end up choosing a different topic, once she got past her apprehension, of course.

Aka, I scared her half to death. People don’t appreciate what an intense shot of adrenaline can do for the body.

I’ve experienced it a few times, the calm it gave me at the end could be rehabilitating. Could.

Currently on the way back to my cell, I hum along to a beat that the chains dangling between my feet, down from my cuffed wrists, have created.

Some of the prisoners listen to music, but this tune is quite a bit older than them.

Even I can’t truly name the song but it’s ingrained in my head; something that may have played through the house we lived in when I was a child. But I just can’t place it, still I hum.

By the time I step into my cell, after the loud clanging of the metal bars sliding shut and latching, I sigh out a long and audible breath.

Maybe I’ll read a book today, now that my semi-terrible session with Mavis is out of the way.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve picked up a novel, and there’s nothing like getting lost between the lines.

Explaining what it’s like to picture a scene from a story in your head, then allow yourself to become immersed in the experience, is difficult to articulate.

How do you tell someone you can smell the scent of burning rubber or a tiramisu that you’ve only read about?

Or the cries of creatures that hide in the wood?

The feel of someone's thinning flesh as the main character holds the hand of a dying family member—without sounding like a lunatic?

I should probably embrace it.

Rubbing my scar-shredded wrists, my feet carry me further inside, which isn’t much due to the tiny size of this cell.

Yet, I can sense that my space has been disturbed.

There is a telling shift in the air; as if a person’s presence lingers awkwardly behind to spite me.

But, if that wasn’t all, the thick envelope sitting on my pillow is one hell of a giveaway.

Marching over, my hands snatch it up immediately and rip into the mockingly similar colored paper— orange. When I reach to pull out the contents, this tiny world I live in comes to a screeching halt.

“My my, what do we have here?”