Introducing Thomas Brown Ep. 3

There were no cracks in the ceiling of Thomas Brown's bedroom to conveniently draw her eye. So she simply stared up at the expanse of white emptiness, wondering at the strange turns life sometimes took. She sifted through her memories, trying to pinpoint a moment, an event where she could say "aha!" that was when the path to this place was irrevocably set; if she hadn't chosen that action at that time she would not be here, staring up at her ex-fiancé's ceiling, his heavy body smothering hers, his baby-fine hair tickling her neck. If there was an answer written on the ceiling, Christine didn't see it. She blew on the light hair experimentally but Thomas didn't stir.

Her skirt bunched up around her waist was starting to bother her. It was making the rest of her body feel extremely exposed. She was painfully aware of Thomas's organ, deflated now, inside of her, and she felt an acute embarrassment. She moved and it slipped out of her with mortifyingly slick ease. No longer caring if he woke up she simply shoved his heavy weight aside with a small grunt and disengaged herself from his limbs. He rolled and sprawled onto his back, but did not wake up, chest steadily rising and falling with each complacent breath. He looked so...innocent lying there. Not quite harmless, but his beautiful face was free of any guilt; his golden limbs loose with oblivious sleep, sculptor's hands curled slightly. He seemed a slumbering angel.

She was feeling a strange lightheadedness and it took her a moment to identify it as rage. She wanted to kill him. Christine let this thought settle and considered it for a brief satisfying moment before snatching it back. No, no. The next one flew out before she could catch it. She wanted to kill herself. Definitely not. She snatched that one back and squashed it. She drew calmness around herself and began clothing herself. In a way, this episode made it easier for her walk away. If only that had been what she came here for. She fished underneath the bed for her pumps. She'd lied to him earlier. Her love for him, at least, did resemble the movies. Unrequited.

Christine found her pumps, crafted from smooth Italian leather, and slipped them onto her feet. Then she drew herself up and for the last time, drank in the sight of the man she'd planned on growing old with. She tried to think of what she would say to him if he were awake but there was nothing. As a last thoughtful gesture, she turned off the harsh overhead light. Then she walked out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, and out of the building. She didn't look back.

When Elliot finally burst in the front door, he was surprised to see that Tommy's place was relatively tidy. Feeling sheepish, he pocketed the apartment key and closed the door. Being the nosy guy he was, he meandered around, opening a drawer here, lifting a newspaper there before he settled onto his favorite chair to wait for Tommy. He got up again. He went to the window and raised the blinds, letting the sun's gleeful light fill the room. It was ten in the morning. Maybe he was out. Elliot peered down at the street below but if Tommy was down there he was too far to identify. Hmm…there was a spot of red though, and Elliot could recognize a woman by her walk from a mile away. Especially that one. He'd seen her around Tommy's building a couple of times. She was never with anybody. She always wore red. Elliot tore himself away from the enticing sway with a regretful sigh. Then a strange sight caught his eye. The bar. The shelved wall behind it was completely empty. Elliot had a brief and terrifying/comical image of Tommy chugging the entire contents of those shelves. He shook his head. Nah. But just in case…Elliot glanced at the bedroom door. It was slightly ajar and he'd figured if Tommy was in he would have come out when Elliot had been pounding on the door earlier. Or maybe he was really hungover.

Elliot went to the door. He glimpsed what looked like Tommy's naked body and…Elliot moved the door open all the way.

Shit. Not again. Tommy wasn't drunk. He was worse.

Filled with dread, Elliot approached the bed and sat next to his friend. He hadn't seen the stupid bastard do this since college.

"Rise and shine, Tommy," Elliot peered into Thomas's open eyes. They remained fixated on the ceiling, although he did blink now and then. "Buddy," he tried smacking Tommy's face a couple of times. "It's time to get up, man; the ceiling ain't going nowhere." Was that disdainful mouth turned down in faint annoyance? "Shit, as much I'd love to dump you in an ice bath for old times' sake, I don't want another black eye like the last time." It had taken years before Elliot figured out the ice trick. He squinted at Tommy's face to see if there was a minute reaction. Finally, he got up from the bed.

"All right, man, I'm going to get the ice." He waited. Thomas didn't move or acknowledge him. "You know, Tommy, carrying your heavy ass into the tub is about as much fun for me as it is for you. But hey," he poked two fingers into Tommy's ribs, "I like listening to you scream like a girl when you hit the water." Elliot looked up. There was nothing interesting there that he could see. Who knew what Rainman Tommy was seeing. Elliot went out of the room.

Ten minutes later Elliot strode into Thomas's bedroom again, with a bag of ice. "I got all the way the store before I realized I left my wallet here, man. I bought this with the change in my pocket." Elliot shook the bag. "There's not enough in here for the tub, can you believe this shit?" Elliot set the bag down on the bed next to Thomas and started untwisting the plastic tab that held it closed. "So I figure we can skip filling the tub, and that way I don't have to go through the trouble of carrying you into the bathroom. And hey, look: you're buck naked, conveniently enough!" The bag opened, and Elliot took the bottom two corners of it and upended it right over Thomas's crotch. The cubes of ice came spilling out in a glorious hail of white silver and settled into a little mountain. Elliot winced and could feel his own dick shriveling just from the sight. He moved rapidly away from the bed before the bag had emptied itself.

It seemed Thomas didn't move for a full second. Then a shudder blossomed through him and his eyes shot wide open, his mouth followed, and a long bellow was booming out of it. He leaped from the bed, his vocal emissions still shaking the room and ice went flying everywhere. Tommy's wild eyes darted about the room before settling on Elliot and he took a menacing step toward him before a cross-eyed look of pain froze on his face and he snatched up dry sections of his bed sheets and wrapped that around him instead. Elliot watched as he just sort of collapsed on the floor and moaned piteously.

"Well," Elliot walked over to the door, giving Thomas a wide berth. "I'll be going then," he said politely, "hope you have me over again soon."

Thomas listened as he heard Elliot go into the living room--the little shit was actually snickering--and then the front door open and close. How the fuck had that asshole gotten in anyway? He tried to go back to his calm state but his damp crotch kept making his eyes slide away from the ceiling. He looked at the clock. It was after ten. He'd been staring at the ceiling all night. What now? Christ, he hated this restlessness. He hated the white noise in his head that was starting to sound more and more like alarm bells only what they were warning him of he had no idea. He'd been doing a fine job of ignoring it until Elliot showed up. Already his body was up and moving, practically by itself. He stood up and his breath caught as he saw the mirror.

Where his reflection was supposed to be was a lanky, practically gaunt woman with yellow hair and hollow eyes. She was completely naked, her breasts sagging slightly. There was that scar over her lower stomach, right over her womb and she stared at him as she brought a finger to trace it. Blood sprang along the line she drew, and then began to gush out in crimson streams…Thomas fell to his knees and elbows and covered his head with shaking arms. Oh shit, oh shit. He drew in harsh shuddering breaths that sped up his pounding heart until he could hear each beat bleeding into the other and he wondered if he could kill himself with that pounding. No, he would just faint. He slowly whistled in air, almost passing out from the effort, until his breathing was something near human and he gingerly got up. He studiously did not look in the mirror as he made his way to the bathroom but he was relieved to see his familiar male form out of the corner of his eye.

He closed the bathroom door shut behind him and leaned on it as if to keep ghosts out. And his eyes met another woman's, a prettier blonde this time: Christine, his ex-fiancée, staring out at him from the mirror over the sink. He gazed back at her in horror. She cocked her head to the side and gave him a sly smile. Then her blonde hair darkened until it gleamed a dark lustrous brown, her blue eyes tilted a bit as they turned grey, and her mouth thinned, until they were a sensuously cruel slash of red. It was the woman that he always saw around the building, always alone, always clad in red. He forced his head down and stared at his feet and counted to ten. Since that wasn't enough he counted to one hundred, and when he lost track he started over and counted to one hundred again. He looked up. There he was, Thomas Brown, staring at himself with wide blue eyes.

He got out of the bathroom before his reflection could change and grabbed his clothes lying on the floor from the night before and dashed out of the bedroom without looking in the mirror. He pulled his clothes on, half crouching so he couldn't see the empty shelves lining the wall behind the bar which were mirrored. Thomas grabbed his keys and stumbled out the front door, slamming it shut behind him and then his hands shook as he locked it.

He took a deep breath and walked quickly to the elevator with his head down. His feet were his own, he noticed in the reflective elevator doors as he pushed the down button. He squinted at them. And bare, too. There was a ding and the elevator doors opened. Thomas stepped in. He saw the feet first and almost screamed at the sight of them encased in red leather pumps. His gaze traveled upward, helplessly drinking in the sight of her wrapped in a trench coat, red, of course, and topped with a hat dipping over one eye. She didn't move, didn't even look fazed as his finger slowly reached out to brush the rim of her hat. She was real and the light glinting in one grey eye cut straight through him, literally causing him physical pain. Then he was on her, a complete stranger, shoving her against the wall, flicking her hat off and tearing at her coat in a complete animal frenzy. The elevator doors closed behind them.

Downstairs the numbers arched over the elevator lit one by one from sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, and down in a stately descent to the bottom.

Three. Two. One. G. Ding.

Bob heard the elevator doors open inside the building, and suppressed a yawn as he stood up to greet whomever would come out the front door. Though it was chilly outside, the sun was shining in full force this midmorning and it was making him drowsy. He straightened his uniform and pasted a smile on his face. It wilted a bit around the edges when he saw a petite woman stumble out of the door and look wildly around. She belted her trench coat tightly.

"Ma'am?" He asked her uncertainly. She turned at his voice and looked at his chest. Frowning, she jerked her head up to his face. "Bob?" She asked in what sounded like disbelief. Her hand flew to her throat.

"Ah, yes, that's my name, ma'am—" Bob's head turned as another figure came out of the door. "Ah," he said in relief as he saw the man holding a red hat that matched the woman's coat. "Mr. Brown, this lady is a friend of yours?"

Mr. Brown and the lady stared at each other. "At last," he said softly. Bob shifted uncomfortably. Mr. Brown turned to look at him with cool blue eyes. "Bob, isn't it? No, the lady and I haven't been introduced." He smiled as if in private jest. The woman just stood there, frozen.

Bob frowned at Mr. Brown for the first time ever and put a gentle hand on the woman's arm. "Ma'am, are you all right? Do you need anything?"

Her grey eyes snapped to his hand on her arm and up to his face again. Mr. Brown still stood there looking at her. She did not look him. "No, no, I don't need anything, uh—thank you, just—the usual, you know, I'll be on my way then."

Bob removed his hand and stepped toward the street, waving an arm briskly. A cab drew up to the curb immediately. Bob opened the door for her.

She looked at the cab. "My car…"

"Oh," Bob looked at her askance. "You drove here today?"

"Ah, no," she said. She got into the cab. Their eyes met as Bob went to shut the door, both uncomfortably aware of the man standing behind Bob.

"Well," Bob said awkwardly, "have a nice day then." He was surprised when her hand reached out and gave his forearm a firm squeeze. That detail would jump out at him later, when he recited his story to the demanding policemen, over and over again, but that he would keep to himself.

"Thank you, Bob. You too." She gave his arm a last pat and then withdrew into the depths of the cab. He shut the door and stood there as the cab drew away and then vanished around a corner.

Bob turned to the man standing behind him, then noticed something strange. "Mr. Brown?" He was still staring thoughtfully into the distance where the cab had taken the woman. "Mr. Brown?" Bob said a bit louder.

"Hmm?"

"Mr. Brown, you have no shoes on."

Mr. Brown looked down. "So I don't," he said, sounding perplexed. Then he smiled at Bob; a dazzling smile. Then he started walking, in the opposite direction of where the cab had gone; dress shirt hanging out of rumpled khakis, disheveled hair gleaming from the sun's kiss and ruffling in the wind's caress. He swung the woman's red hat back and forth, bare feet slapping jauntily against the ground. And Bob would describe that too, when the police came to interrogate the disappearances.

The man turned and vanished around the corner.

Bob watched him disappear, bemusedly.

No one in that city ever saw Thomas Brown again.