Muses Ch. 10

I should have known that I was dreaming when my day started at around five in the afternoon with me playing video games in my dining room. I haven't had a dining room, least not with tiles and a television since I was twelve and still living in LA. That wasn't enough to tip me off, part of me is sure I'd still be stuck in that nightmare if Karen hadn't decided to rescue me.

I was playing video games with my little brother, I'm not really sure what I was playing the only part that was important was that my mother slammed the door as she walked into room. "What the fuck!" She screamed yanking the controller from my hand and glaring at me from between myself and the television. "Didn't I fucking tell you to get this shit cleaned up?" There was a mop sitting in a steal bucket in the corner of the room. Maybe I was supposed to be mopping. I don't think so. I really hate mopping floors and usually people just respect that and let me handle the rest of the cleaning. "Didn't I just fucking say that?" She slapped me so hard my back cracked as I spun part of the way around.

"What the fuck, you don't need to fucking slap me?" It hurt. It wasn't the kind of slap that stung or shocked more than it hurt, it hurt and had it been anybody other than my own mother they'd already be spitting up their own teeth but I wasn't going to hit my own mother.

"You're a lazy piece of shit. I told you to get this shit do-"

"I'll get on it right now."

I didn't even have a chance to get up before she shoved me back down into my seat. "You know what it doesn't fucking matter. Just sit the fuck down and stay here. I'll fucking do it you piece of shit." She snarled and stalked out of the room slamming the door when she left. I'm not really sure how long I sat there completely stunned. The next thing that I can remember is that I put the game on pause and started to pick up some of the things from the floor. That's when my mother walked back into the room and saw me holding. . .actually I can't remember what I was holding but I know she knocked it out of me hand. "I told you I'd fucking take care of this. You sit the fuck down and keep playing your goddamn video games." She shouted in face. She was so close that she got spittle on my face as she roared.

That as more than I could deal with right then. "You know what? Fuck you, I'm out." Dreams are funny, I didn't realize I was playing video games in just a tee shirt and boxers but I know I had to go upstairs to get dressed. Upstairs didn't really make sense, it was built like a barracks room with two rows of bunk beds, each with a pair of wooden crates at the end to store our belongings. Must have been a boot camp memory that dredged that up. In hindsight I'm pretty sure that the second story was at least twice as big as the first story was but who cares about little things like physics when you're dreaming right? I pulled out a pair of my camouflage utility trousers, the new kind. They kinda look like something that was spit out of an old space invaders game, a lot of people call them digi-camies.

I was about halfway into pulling them on when my mother appeared at the end of the room, there wasn't even a door at that end. She had an M204 grenade launcher in one hand and an M16 in the other, which was actually kind of redundant since an M204 is a modification of the M16. I ducked down behind my bed and pulled the mattress down just in time to avoid a hail of bullets that would definitely have taken me straight to hell. Before I could get up though I felt the hot steel searing at my flesh. The large barrel of the grenade launcher was pressed against my skull and the smaller opening to the M16 was at my throat. "Which one do you want?" I closed my eyes as tight as I could manage. This was how I was going to die, not of old age or cancer or in a drunk driving incident. I wasn't going to die in Iraq on a mission, I was going to be killed by my own mother, because I forgot to mop or dust or something.

It was around that point that I started realizing I was probably dreaming. There were things that didn't make sense like why wasn't I in my room, and why wasn't I in my house. I could just open my eyes and the gun would disappear. That's when my mother chambered the rounds on both weapons and my mind focused on something else, useless trivia that wouldn't be useless in a few seconds.

The M204 grenade launcher is designed with a fail safe, the grenades won't (or wouldn't in my dream) go off if they hadn't traveled a certain distance. I think its fifty yards, but it was definitely farther than the distance from the chamber to my skull. The problem with that was of course that there was always the possibility that something that close pressed directly against my temple would kill me anyway. Actually it was kind of likely.

The M16 really isn't designed to kill. Don't get me wrong it can kill you just like any gun, but ideally it wounds you so that one of the healthy soldiers from your side has to leave the field to get you to safety. Two guys, one bullet. This one was against my throat though and it would tear through my flesh like a hot knife through butter. Actually the visual in my head was a high school football team and a paper banner. If I was lucky though I could use the sheets to slow the bleeding long enough for someone to come save me.

None of this would make any difference though if she really wanted me dead. She had me cold and there was nothing I could do but keep my eyes shut. You know it's true what they say about there being no such thing as atheists in a foxhole, or in this case when there is a gun to your head. I prayed to every single deity I've ever heard of. It was like that Ricky Bobby movie. Save me white baby Jesus, black baby Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, Zeus, Ra, Buddha, Flying Spagetti monster and Invisible Pink Unicorn! Everything you could imagine promising I did during those few seconds that she was poised to kill me. I was completely sure that she was going to kill me too. This was it and I was going to die. You want to believe when you're about to die, you just don't want to die. Of course that's because you know there is nothing after you die. If you really believed those fairy tales you wouldn't fear death at all, you'd welcome it.

Five minutes, maybe more, passed by as I lay there with two guns pressed to my flesh. It was long enough that the metal cooled and was just a dull pressure against me. I could have opened my eyes at any time but I didn't because opening my eyes would do one of two things. It would wake me up and the whole thing would be over, or it would lock everything into reality and I'd be dead. It was Karen who saved me.

"How does it feel to kill your own son? To damn him to hell and yourself as well?" I couldn't see you, my eyes were still shut when you started to speak.

"On your fucking feet." My mother shouted. I should have stayed where I was. If I stayed down you would have had an easy shot, but standing with me in the way. . .well that made me a fucking meat shield and I don't really like the idea of being a meat shield. "If you shoot me you'll have to shoot him to."

I opened my eyes just enough to see a creepy smile split your face in two. If you'd just unlatched your head like a snake's jaws it wouldn't have surprised me at that moment. "Ticky tailor soldier sailor. My bullet punishes all without distinction!" You shouted and raised that ridiculous musket up point it at me. In real life bullets are too fast to see and they don't leave a light trail behind them. This bullet was slow, slow enough to see but not really slow enough to dodge, like a paintball or a fast pitch. You could see it but you couldn't do much about it and this one was aimed directly at my chest. I saw it race towards me and readied myself for the worst but at the last possible second it changed its trajectory and went straight up burning the tip of my nose as it went over my head then went through my mother's skull.

A shot to head should have been fatal but when I turned around she was bloody but alive. The left side of her skull was missing right up to her eye socket so I could see her complete eyeball still resting in what had been it's socket and grey brain matter smattered with blood. "Again!" You shouted and the bullet reversed its course and shot through her back and out through her chest spraying me with blood and bone chips. "AGAIN!" You roared and again the bullet turned this time piercing through her stomach. I don't think my mother could see any more, she raised both weapons and started firing but it wasn't even in the direction of either of us. She was just shooting. "Again, AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN!" You kept shouting and every time the bullet turned back and tore through her from another angle until she finally fell to the floor. She was still twitching when you let the bullet fall the floor. I don't know if she was dead or if you'd just decided that if she was in a dozen pieces she wasn't a threat to anybody even if she was alive. "Sean, wake up." You told me as you leaned over and retrieved your bullet, that round iron ball and put it in my hand.

"That's when I woke up Karen and the first thing I did when I woke up was come to my computer to find you. It's not like I was going to get any more sleep last night or this morning rather." I said finishing up my personal flashback.

"Wow, I saved your life. You must think highly of me, and you really need to pick a new cartoon to watch. I'm tired of being that Hellsing girl. Go watch some more Sailor Moon. Besides isn't this a better look for me than a suit?" Karen reached behind her and pulled out a small rod with the sign of a cross on it. "Mars transformation!" She shouted at the top of her lungs. I'm not sure where she had been a moment before but it didn't matter, now the world around her was completely on fire and her clothing burnt away leaving her nude for a few seconds. She turned away from me pushing her ass out and suddenly a red skirt appeared, it was just long enough to be modest. Then my attention shot down to her feet where a pair of red heels appeared. Her top was a plain white swimsuit top with a red handkerchief tied around over her shoulders. "In the name of Mars I punish you!" She teased striking a pose and pointing to me.

"That is a much better look." I always did have a thing for the Sailor Scouts. "But it's also kinda distracting. I just had a dream about my mom trying to kill me." I was still sweating lightly and I could feel the barrels of those guns pressed against me.

"Well what do you want me to do about it? Honestly Sean I love you to death but sometimes you forget, I'm a figment of your imagination. I don't have any answers that you don't. I can't tell you things you don't know and since you can't interpret dreams neither can I. I can tell you that's really twisted that you're dreaming of your mom killing you. Do you feel worthless? Has it finally caught up to you that you're twenty five and living with your parents? I got married, I live on my own. I'm a woman and you're just a little boy."

"Fuck you. You live on your own because me and your parents and your maybe new father in law pay your bills. If nobody helped you you'd be either at home or homeless and you know it. It's like one day you woke up and decided you wanted to be a typical black stereotype and prove that you could drop out of college have kids and get married young!" I think right then was the first time I'd been really honest with myself about why I was upset. Karen was better than that. She wasn't perfect but she was damn good and she wasn't living up to her potential, neither was I truth be told but I wasn't just intentionally screwing it up either.

"It's my life, you made the mistake of giving it to me. What does this have to do with your mom?"

"I'm not really sure. My mom's been crazy lately and she never did like you very much." That was probably an understatement but I didn't really care. I loved her and nobody else's opinion really mattered.

"And you want me to shoot her?"

"Of course not. I love my mother. I don't know what it means. It was just a nightmare. I had a nightmare after the last time I went to a haunted house that my mother was raped and eaten by cannibals. I escaped somehow but I don't really know how. I have crazy dreams all the time." I put my head down and reached for the oversized shot glass of vodka next to me.

I drink too much, it's a simple fact. It's a funny fact, the difference between an alcoholic and someone who drinks too much is very subtle, the difference is whether or not they can function. If Kobe Bryant drinks a gallon of rum every night then runs out there and scores a triple double, leads the Lakers to victory and collects another championship ring. If Bob drinks one glass of wine a week, but shows up to work drunk twice and gets fired he's an alcoholic. It's all about competence and I'm very competent so I just drink too much. I'm aware of it, and that's why I've got the glass set so far away today. I'm trying to cut back and it's working. . .slowly, but it's working. "You can finish drinking later when it's time to go to sleep." Karen smiled softly. "Why don't you come in here with me." Karen smiled and reached out of the monitor and pulled me into her room.

"See isn't this better?" She pushed me down onto the bed then sat down pulling my head into her lap. As soon as she started running her hands over my face I started to relax. She'd always had that effect on me. "Just relax. How's the Survivor Contest coming?"

"Pretty well actually. Some of the categories I expected to have trouble with have been very easy to handle. I think I'll over cap in a few now, I'm still having a bit of trouble with a few of them though. You'd think with all the ideas we've come up with for group that something would just flow from me but everything I've tried has gotten only a page or two before it fizzles." It was the truth, it wasn't the girls either, Karen, Nikki, Kelly, all of them had been more than willing to do a group scene. I just couldn't quite get it to work.

"Why don't try it with Brie? I bet she'd love it." Karen said leaning down and lightly kissing me on the forehead. "I mean she's such a little tart."

"What? That girl? She's completely innocent. We were going to use her for a first time story." I responded.

"Are any of us innocent in that twisted little brain of yours? All of are dirty little sluts." She smiled ad kissed me on the forehead. "You know what, I think Michelle might be a better choice. Come on, I'll walk you through it real quick, just with me instead of her." Karen stood up and pulled me to my feet dashing outside to a blue Civic and drove away. "See it's basic fantasy material. A girl goes on a drive, a long drive say to Vegas." It took a few minutes but were on a long stretch of road, just two lanes and nothing but sand for miles and the car started sputtering and finally Karen pulled over to the side of the road.

"Oh I see where this is going." On cue a van came up behind us and came to a stop.

Six young men leapt out of the van as soon as it came a complete stop and walked over to the car. "Hey there beautiful, can we help you with anything? Anything at all?"

Karen smiled and threw on her best slutty smile as she leaned out of the window. "It's just that my car broke down and I need some help getting to Vegas. I would do anything for a guy to ride, I mean to ride a guy, I mean for a ride." She cooed.

"Well we got plenty of room in the back." The man said opening the door and helping Karen out.

"I've got plenty of room in the back too." Karen responded making sure he got a glimpse of her thong panties as she skipped towards his van.

"Am I invisible or something?" I asked reaching for the handle to let myself out of the car and I promptly fell through the door. "I'll take that as a yes, I am invisible, and apparently inaudible, intangible and probably a couple other ins that I've never even heard of. Like I bet they can't smell me but I don't know the word for that. Later Karen, I'm not really in the mood to stick around and watch you fuck right now though so have fun."

"Wait up a second." Karen called as she started climbing into the back of the van. The men froze in place as she walked over to me and kissed me softly. "We did it, or rather you did it. It's after midnight and you haven't had a drop to drink and you're getting sleepy. You can go a night without drinking, you can fall asleep without drinking. Keep it up. I'll go see if I can work the kinks out of this whole group sex problem you've been having. You should really start posting this on Lit by the way, you're like a dozen chapters in and nothing is up and you've edited any everything."

"Yeah I know. I'm just frustrated with work and Robert and everything else in life." I smiled kissing her back softly. "I should go."

"I wish you'd stay, I'm sure I can work some room in for you. You can even be the first one in my ass." She grabbed my hand and placed it right on her ass smiling as I squeezed it. "I'll even pretend like it hurts so bad and call you daddy." She smiled.

"Not tonight. I'd like to get some sleep." I responded stepping away from her and then I was back where I belong. In front of a keyboard where Karen is just a vision in my head that I put to paper. "I love you Karen, go have fun." I didn't watch her, she was just about to wrap things up when I came back in the morning though, but that's what I'll tell you all about later. Right now it is time for me to retire. Cold turkey hasn't worked well for me, but a cut from seven days a week to five has been okay and from there I'm looking to cut it to three or four. Take the world on fucking step at a time.