My Other Mother Ch. 07

"Did your... I mean, did it make your, ah, condition worse?"

"My condition?"

"Your schizophrenia."

My immediate answer to this question was hysterical laughter. When she was finished, her childlike voice barked, "Maureen!"

Maureen opened the door right away, then an expression of alarm came across her face as she realized she'd allowed herself to be caught eavesdropping. Both of us stared at Marie over this.

"Please introduce my beautiful grandson to Nicole," Marie tersely instructed her caregiver, looking her directly in the eye before putting them back on me. "Nicole is schizophrenic. You take a good look into that insect's eyes and familiarize yourself, sweetie pie. Then you come back here and learn something, hm?"

Unbelievably, Maureen did take me to meet this Nicole, a hunched, middle aged woman with short, unkempt dark hair and a slight weight problem. Grammie Marie wasn't off in her description. Her tongue hung out of her mouth as she stood there shaking my hand, drool running freely down the front of her shirt while I watched the dull, slowly shifting eyes.

Maureen was outright nervous as she escorted me back to Marie's room, explaining that it was the heavy meds Nicole was on that created the dull-wittedness that I saw.

"But if that's the case, why isn't Marie like that?"

There was no time for an answer before we reached Marie's door, but I got the feeling she wouldn't have wanted to comment on that anyway. I wanted to communicate something, but what? I was almost sure the woman was actually afraid of Marie.

"This time, actually leave us, Maureen," Marie advised.

The caregiver nodded, backing out the door in embarrassment and masked fear. This was pretty trippy and my feeling that something was very wrong grew, as did my apprehension at being left alone with Marie.

"Come close again."

I silently obeyed, forcing myself to the same spot on the floor in front of her, looking down at her and no longer knowing what in hell to think.

"Closer. Don't be frightened, sweetie pie."

I moved to within three feet of her, also squatting down to be at her eye level.

"Yes, that's better. Now, look me in the eyes. Like you were when you first came in."

I didn't want to do this, but I was there for answers. I focused on her striking blue eyes, watched the infinite blackness of the shark and found myself becoming... close with her.

"Aren't I beautiful, Sweetie pie?" she asked.

"Yes, Grammie Marie."

" ... Look closer..."

I did. When she slowly wheeled herself across the short distance between us, I felt no alarm because this was my Grammie Marie. She loved me and, even if she didn't, what could she really do anyway? She was just a sweet, incredibly gorgeous and totally fuckable old woman who-"

(SLAP!!)

It was such a shock compared to the warm, fuzzy place my mind had been, I had trouble remembering where I was and what I was doing for a moment as I sat on my posterior a few feet away from her on the floor. I looked up and realized she was laughing hysterically again.

I slowly got to my feet as I began trembling all over, understanding that this woman had somehow literally bewitched me, also suddenly remembering that this person had also tried to stab her own daughter to death with a paring knife.

Continuing to tremble and stare, I moved back to a distance that felt no safer as she finally managed, "Oh, how I used to love doing that to Ashleigh! Ahhh, but she figured out how to muddle through my stare by the time she was sixteen. It was a mixed blessing and I suppose that's one of the reasons she left, but I always did love her so."

"Wh... What the fuck are you?" I breathed, still carefully avoiding those god awful eyes.

This produced more hysteric laughter that seemed to cut to my very genes.

"Heh heeeeeh! I'm your Grammie Marie, just like you call me. And I hope I've cleared up any embarrassing misunderstandings about Schizophrenia."

I nodded, silently trying to calm my tremors and regain some control in this utterly impossible situation.

"Oh, there's no need to be afraid of me. Despite who your mother is, you and I could be good friends. It would be nice to have someone who can... range for me and do my bidding, especially one of my own. And, in return, I'll tell you all the things about yourself you never could have dreamed. The only thing I ask is that you don't tell your mother. I don't think she's old enough to understand, not practiced enough. She can't help you like I can, sweetie pie."

Another very sudden conversation with herself, this one a somewhat prolonged argument, began while I tried to sort myself. She finally stopped and looked at me suspiciously again.

"My friend still doesn't trust you."

"I- I don't trust either one of you." I told her, nervously watching her every move now.

"It's your mother that's the problem. If we knew she was gone..."

"Why do you hate her so much?"

"Why? Look at her. She looks just like me, doesn't she? She wasn't that whore's daughter, she was mine. I hate her because she went over to the other side!" Didn't she!?" Marie demanded, suddenly agitated again.

"They're sisters, it- it's natural that they would have-"

"Shut up! That... god damned Sheila! She's not even a Jedi, let alone Sith! Not a real one! Boy, I'm offering you what neither of them can ever even hold! Do you have enough sense to take it!?"

She was raving and I was becoming more and more frightened, moving slowly for the door.

"What lives with you came from me!" she went on, suddenly wheeling her chair to follow me to the door quicker than I would've thought she might be capable of. "And my mother before me and her mother before her, as I passed it to Ashleigh and your little bitch of a mother and she to you! It lives with us, it's a part of us like our blood type, a part of who we are and it grows, sweetie pie!" You think you can handle it without me!? You wanna know what it did to my grandmotheeer!?"

She didn't say what 'it' did to her grandmother, rather lunged from her chair, somehow grabbing me around the knees and knocking me to the floor with a thud. I looked down to see her crawling up my body, her jaws working back and forth as her nails gripped my pants. She laughed maniacally and, to my horror, bit my thigh with what I think was supposed to be an erotic grin, her hand wandering closer to my crotch as I began to get drawn in by those eyes I mistakenly looked at, the cold, empty eyes of the dark, Sith Empress.

Panic kicked in, remembering my imaginings of how it must have been for Mum to deal with this crazy (but maybe not) person wielding a paring knife. I screamed wordlessly and began to struggle for freedom from her grip as her hand grabbed my cock, all of my Jujutsu training out the window in my primal struggle to get away from this... thing.

Managing to tear a leg free, I kneed her face and drove the sole of my boot into her shoulder, partially dislodging her. I kept kicking at her, she screaming something that I was too panicked to make out until I was free of her. I regained my feet just as Maureen burst into the room, the edge of the solid old wooden door narrowly missing my rapidly oncoming body.

"Just go! Get right out!" Maureen shrilled, no longer even trying to hide her fear.

"How dare youuuu!! You come back here right now, sweetie pieee!! You won't make it without meeeee!!"

"Audrey, help!"

I knocked another resident flat on her ass when I bolted into the hall. It may have been Nicole, but it was hard to notice much while my mind and body devoted one hundred percent attention to the overwhelming need to get the hell out of that house at all costs.

"I'LL RIP THAT COCK OFF IN MY TEETH AND SPIT IT IN YOUR SLUT MOTHER'S FUCKING FAAAAACE! YOU MOTHER SLUT LOVIN', TRAITOROUS BASTAAAAAARD!!!"

Audrey and I passed at the same speed in opposite directions. I'll never forget the expression on her face, nor will I ever really be able to properly describe it, but it was something like the kind of expression a soldier might have while rushing to the deepest pits of hell because that's where he'd been ordered.

I bolted out of the house and into the sunny backyard like a prisoner escaping jail who expects a bullet in the back at any second. I ran around the corner of the building, into the narrow driveway between Shoreline Residential facility and the next large old building. I threw myself up against the outer wall, trying to slow my heart down and telling myself that everything I just experienced didn't really happen, couldn't possibly have, but I could still hear her screaming in there, wordlessly now. One of the caregivers shouted in pain while the other, Maureen I presumed, shouted instructions concerning Marie's "Quick, for god's sake!!" sedation.

I was shaking like a leaf and I wasn't sure I'd ever stop. Sliding down the wall, I allowed myself to sit up against it at the edge of the shaded driveway. Putting my hands over my ears, I closed my eyes and tried to practice the relaxation technique Mum had taught me.

It worked, but I can't say how long it took. When I removed my hands, the shouting was over and the voices of Maureen and Audrey carried from the open window of what must have been the kitchen right above me.

"-hate it, I wake up every day hoping I'll come to work and find the thing has died the night before!" one of them sobbed.

"Audrey, come on," Maureen's wavering voice tried to assure, "We've both had difficult residents before, and-"

"She's not a difficult resident, Maureen!" the junior woman whined tearfully. "I've been in this field, not as long as you, but I've been around to different homes! I've done level four care and I've seen schitzo's, I've seen psycho's, I've seen it all, but I have never, ever seen anything like that and neither have you! I hate this job because of that thing!"

"You have to keep your voice down, you don't want the other girls to hear-"

"I have nightmares about the thing! Yes! You don't understand, I paid... attention to it, tried to figure it out and she knew! She..."

"Audrey! We agreed you wouldn't talk like-"

"No! That thing is... wrong. It's filthy and it's gotten to know me! It's made me do things, Maureen! Dirty things! I know it was her and now she'll do it again!"

"Oh my god, Audrey, I don't need this!"

"I can't... (sob!) I can't do this anymore. I'm going h- home."

" ... You're quitting?"

"I can't do this anymore!"

"You can't afford to-"

"I can't do this anymore! I can't work with something like that, something that has no fucking right to exist on God's green earth!"

That was all I could bear. Audrey had very effectively summed up my own impression of Marie and I didn't find it one bit comforting to be backed up so vehemently. I got to my feet, a little shaky again after listening to Audrey, but not too bad. Hurrying down and out of the driveway, I suddenly remembered I was expected home and the tremor throughout my body intensified a little more.

Part 4

"Where were you?" Mum predictably asked.

She was wearing that nice short summer dress she had on the previous Friday, the beige one with the floral patterns. She looked hot as hell and I knew she'd dressed for me again, but it was hard to appreciate it at the moment. In fact, the sudden memory of how astoundingly like Marie Mum looked, along with my apparent likeness to the crazy lady's long dead husband, was suddenly giving me the creeps.

Wondering what that old guy on the street would've thought if Mum had been with me that evening, I closed the door and lied, "Out walking, working the knots out."

"For almost two hours?"

"I found a bench and kinda got stuck there for a little while. Sorry, I should've just come straight home."

" ... Is something wrong?" she asked, looking at me closely with concern.

"No, why?"

"You just don't seem... yourself."

"Got a bit freaked out by a rat today, is all."

"Oh, no."

"Don't worry, I killed it. Plus, I'm a bit tired. I'm sorry I didn't come home, though. Geez, you made this nice supper for us and everything. Pretty thoughtless of me."

" ... Don't feel bad. You have a right to your alone time, especially after a hard day's work, and we can reheat this easily. Go grab yourself a nice shower and forget all about disgusting rats and breaking your back all day."

It was a hot shower alright, meant to drive away the chill in my soul that Marie had put there, but it wasn't working. I hopped out, threw on a pair of clean jeans, grabbed my muddy clothes and went back to our room without having assessed what I'd learned, if anything. I didn't even want to think about it right then.

I listened to Mum talk about her day. She mentioned nothing about whatever it was she was up to, but told me of getting the band into that senior's residence and about the interesting people and places she'd seen as though we were only tourists. I avoided her eyes and mostly looked down at my ravioli until we were finished and reclining on the bed together, she propped up with her legs spread while I lay between them. She lazily played with my hair, caressing my bare chest and shoulders while we watched some TV, this finally making me feel better.

It didn't last.

"(sniff) ... (sniff!)"

"Hon, do you smell... something?"

" ... Like what?"

"(sniff!) It's... I don't know. (sniff!) I can't describe it. I don't remember smelling it before, but it seems familiar somehow."

(Oh my god)

"Is- is it a bad smell?"

"Not really. It's like... (sniff!) You know how an old song can sort of not only bring back memories, but almost put you right back where you were emotionally when you used to hear it a lot?"

"Um... no."

"You're not old enough. It's what I always called 'the musical time machine' and this smell is a lot like that. It makes me remember some time when I was... vulnerable. Maybe."

"They say smell stimulates memory," I offered, hoping to god she'd drop the subject.

"Yeah. Where'd you walk today after work?"

"Up around the Hospital."

"You go in?"

"No. It can't be me, I just took a shower."

" ... Hmm. (sigh) I love just lying here with you, sweetie pie."

"Me too. You always make me feel so good."

"I'm glad. You make me feel the same way."

"I could lay here with you like this forever."

"Same here."

"Mum, I love you."

"I love you too, hon," she said, lovingly squeezing my shoulder. "Would you like another full body massage tonight?"

"Sure. But... just you tonight, okay?"

"Uh huh."

"And I want you to sleep here tonight, too. With me."

" ... Are you sure? You should get a proper night's sleep."

"I'll be fine. Besides, I stiffened the bed up a little."

"I thought I noticed a difference last night when we were having that lovely sixty-nine. What'd you do?"

"I threw some cardboard and plastic under the mattress."

"Not just a big cock, are you?"

"It was nothing," I said with a little smile. "Anyway, we have to sleep our usual way to try it out and we haven't since I hopefully fixed it."

"Ah, you need me to help you test it."

"That's a fringe benefit. I want your company. I got used to sleeping with you pretty quick and I guess I got spoiled to it."

"So complimentive," she said, dreamily adding with a sigh, "I'd love to feel your cock inside me."

"You're making me horny."

"You're always horny for me, hon. I love it. You make me feel so young and attractive."

"You are young and attractive. And smart. Even smarter than a lot of people ever gave you credit for, I'll bet."

" ... Are you trying to butter me up for something?" she asked, taking a playfully loose fistful of my hair.

"It's true, Mum. You know it is."

"Well, coming from you, that is definitely a compliment," she replied, letting my hair go to return to her petting and caressing.

"I can see how you always got your way at PTA meetings now."

She laughed softly at this and answered, "I had no idea news got around like that."

"The rest of the parents and teachers hated you."

"I'll bet they did."

"You never cared, did you?"

"No, why should I? I was only there for your benefit. Oh, sweetie pie, you're cock's all big and hard again. Does Mummy get a nice creamy dessert soon?"

"Yeah. Suck on it, Mum."

"(giggle!)"

Part 5

I didn't know what time it was when I woke up. It was dark, save for the illumination from the streetlight, and we both lay on our backs side by side without the sheet. I thought this was odd because we'd found the bed still wasn't quite supportive enough, despite the improvement, and fell asleep pressed against one another in the less sunken middle as usual. If I thought that was odd, it didn't concern me nearly as much as two other factors.

I couldn't move. It was as though my body had been drugged, my mind left completely alert and focused, but there was also someone else in the room with us.

Initially, I thought it must have been Joe the pig spying on us, perhaps ripping us off, but when a dirty hand with long, filthy nails reached over the foot of the bed, I pretty much knew it wasn't Joe because it was holding a bloody paring knife. Another hand reached over the top, also with a paring knife and my quickly escalating fear went post nuclear when Grammie Marie's dirt stained, crazed face popped up between them.

I tried to scream, but nothing would come out. For all my effort, I could only sound like one of those old cassette players with just enough battery life to turn a tape for two seconds. I could only watch as she drove the knives into my shins, shocking pain tearing through my senses from just above my ankles as she used her improvised handholds to pull herself up on the bed with.

She opened her mouth and her sharp teeth were like the teeth of the rat I'd killed, her long tongue waving lewdly at me while she giggled like a schoolgirl. She ripped the blades free and plunged them in again, tearing skin and ligaments in her excruciating climb up my body while I almost lost my mind. I could actually feel the thin blades slicing down the side of my bones as they deflected them, my wounds tearing open in wide gashes every time she hauled herself.

"It grows, sweetie pie," she sleazed in a whisper. "And, ohhh, how it loves you sooo. Yesyesyesyesyes!"

She got to my crotch and drove her jaws between my legs, biting down hard and I was finally able to scream. I screamed and screamed until I really did wake up, sitting in bed still screaming.

Steven, Honey! It's okay, you're awake, it was just a dream!" Mum was shrilling, obviously quite alarmed.

I stopped screaming. Breathing hard, I looked wildly around the room to make sure Marie wasn't skulking about, even though my mind was mostly in agreement with Mum at that point. Mum threw her arms around me, comforting me with soft words, repeating that it was just a dream and to calm down. Pulling me back to the mattress, I began to shake all over, like I was when I bolted from Shoreline Residential Facility, except worse.

She pulled the sheet up and put her arms around me, but when I didn't stop, she hopped out of the bed and grabbed our blankets, coming back and covering us with them. She held me closer yet and as much as I appreciated her proximity, it wasn't for the soft warmth of her body, so much as having her there to hang on to.

"Honey, what's wrong?" she asked, still alarmed, but for a different reason now. "It's okay, it was only a bad dream; you're awake now and Mummy's here. It can't hurt you, baby, shhh-shhh-shhh."