Secret Sins Ch. 14

I wanted to get out of that awful tub, to run from the room and that house, but I very much didn't want to see what was on the other side of that door again. So there I was, trapped with the monster whom I was in love with, the one special person who could ever put me through the agony of choosing over my career, the one I could barely look at just then, but with whom I was forced to converse just the same.

"I- I just...!" I tried, shaking my head at the enormity of it as tears began to squeeze from the corners of my eyes. "I'm sorry, but I just can't take this as easily as you can! I guess somebody who's still part dog gets a little upset when they see one put down with so little regard, Donna!"

"Tara," she tried, her tone taking even more care with me now, "you know I'd never hurt you. You know you're safe with me and there's something more important that we need-"

"Stop it! Just... stop it! Don't even talk to me right now! My God, you even made Donna believe that she'd done it! Killed her own fucking husband! Then you laughed! Laughed! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

She only sat there, looking glumly at the water while listening to me rant, and I wanted to go on, to continue ranting at her, but found that I had no more words. Her heinous crime and the cold blooded way in which she'd carried it out was such that, beyond what I'd said, there simply were no more words to address it. And what would be the point anyway? As I stood there, staring at her in aghast disbelief, I knew it was pointless to say anything at all, as pointless as it would have been to berate the shark for eating a seal. In a sense, she didn't understand and, from this subtle change within me, I knew this of her. Whatever she was, she didn't carry quite the same empathetic behavioural reasoning as the humans she'd become so adept at mimicking do.

But my nausea had grown worse, and I suddenly found it necessary to climb out of the tub, quickly moving to the wooden door of what I'd correctly assumed to be a sauna, stepping inside to spew the contents of my stomach all over the floor. Once I was finished, I sat down on the bench, my body weak, dropping as though I'd been defeated as I wiped my mouth with the back of my trembling hand. With gut wrenching sobs, I stared at the mess I'd made while listening to the churning hot tub in the outer tub room. Though the heat wasn't on, the smell of my vomit was horrible, but somehow became bracing, an ongoing sensory slap in the face that helped me to deal with the surreal madness that surrounded me.

Donna was still there when I emerged, vacantly inspecting her empty wineglass, slowly spinning it by its stem, watching as though she might read her future in the crystal. I stared at her for some moments before I spoke in a low, shaky voice.

"I need away from you for a little while."

"That might not be a good idea," she replied. "I was trying to tell you earlier that-"

"I don't want to be in the same room with you. I don't even want to be in the same fucking house with you."

Now she looked up at me, some alarm in her eyes, and said, "You're not leaving me?"

I began to see more the change in her attitude towards me. I studied her thoughtfully for a moment before replying, my tone edged with curiosity.

"No. I'm not leaving you. I just... I need some space."

"I love you," she told me with a sincere expression, a statement that was meant to assure me of her feelings, "but before you go-"

But I was already on my way out.

Mercifully, real Donna had apparently 'cleaned up' her husband, though what she'd done with him, I had no idea. And I really didn't want to know. Even the door to their home gym had been removed from the floor and, had I not known better, I'd have thought the whole event was some twisted nightmare from the basement of the Rae Street Mission. A part of me even insisted that it had to be.

About ten minutes later, I was travelling up the Lewvan, crying. I wasn't bawling, just crying, and this emotional display wasn't for Roman or Donna, rather I think a symptom of personal shock at witnessing what I had.

I thought nothing of the Mission, its basement or what might be down there as I walked in the front door, closing it behind me. Rather than a place of creepy horror, the old house was now a place of relative sanity, a retreat from the horrific events in Harbour Landing.

I suddenly found myself remembering how I'd felt when I first arrived at the old house, the doubts, fears and excitement I'd experienced. How could I have gone from being the innocent, (mostly innocent) idealistic young woman who came through that door only a few short weeks ago, to being the slutty, perverted little bitch I'd become? How?

Leaving the small suitcase I'd brought with me in the front entry, I listened to the sound of my four inch heels as I crossed the old wooden floor of the front room on my way to the kitchen. The answer to my question came to me from deep within, from that place down inside of myself that had been so subtly altered in the hot tub.

It was who I was.

It was who I was always supposed to be.

Perhaps the real question was how I could have ever been the (mostly) innocent young woman I'd been for so long. Donna was right about me, especially right in how my porn addiction and lingerie fetish only proved it, two symptoms of the slut inside, waiting to get out and go wild. Disturbingly, Donna was right about a lot of things, and this was something else I could then see from the fresh perspective of that subtle change.

Meanwhile, I was beginning to feel as though somebody else had taken over my mind and my body. It was almost like another personality that I'd only been keeping myself warm for.

From the fridge, I took the pitcher of orange juice and, from the freezer, the pint of vodka that I'd hidden behind a few bags of frozen vegetables. Once I'd mixed a respectably strong screwdriver, I opened the inside kitchen door and then sat down at the table, looking out the screen door at what I could see of the rear lot from that angle. As I sipped from my glass, I began to explore the change I felt within, mentally feeling it, searching out its edges and planes, its curves and corners.

I felt older somehow, yet more childish, a kind of playfulness that easier excused Donna's use of our neighbours. I felt light, yet also weighed down by the horror of Roman's murder, though I could then better understand that Roman's death, however horrific, had been a necessity.

As I sat there, pondering these things while I sipped from my glass, I remembered Donna's mannerism towards me and my reaction to her crime, the way she'd practically treated me with kid gloves afterward. But, why? She'd made it abundantly clear that she had little to fear from anyone. I'd estimate that, locked in a cage with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, she'd quite easily and quickly tear Arnold a new one, then fuck it with her strap-on, so why would she be so suddenly cautious of me?

Donna had said that she'd given me something. In the commotion of Roman's death, I wasn't really paying attention to that, but... what did she call it...?

My 'inheritance'. Yes, that was what she'd said, that she'd 'given me my inheritance'. But, what did she mean by that? What inheritance?

And when the answer came to me, the only answer there could be, I slowly sat up straight, my lips parting in dazed wonder and partial disbelief. Of course. This was why she and my long lost relatives could influence people's minds while I couldn't. I'd had it in me, but it had to be 'activated' so to speak. She'd somehow done that in the hot tub when we were staring into one another's eyes, orgasming. She'd given me my inheritance and the subtle difference I felt about myself was the emergence of that (abomination) something of her that I carried.

"Shhhit." I breathed. "No way. No... way..."

Was that why she'd said it mightn't be a good idea for me to be away from her?

Leaving my drink on the table, I left the kitchen, hurrying through my office with barely a glance at the hastily secured basement door, and up the stairs to my quarters. In the bathroom mirror, I carefully checked my eyes, staring and searching for any change.

There didn't seem to be any. They were still bright blue and without any imperceptible darkness that was there, yet wasn't. There were no sparks of colour darting about in them and they seemed, at least to me, to be the same eyes that had always stared back at me from the mirror.

Wandering into my bedroom with a thoughtful frown, I regarded my bed for a moment before moving to the footboard. Placing one hand at the bottom of it, I was a little disappointed to find that I couldn't lift it as I knew Donna easily could have.

I left my room, making my slow, still thoughtful way back downstairs, rejoining my drink at the kitchen table.

There was only one more test I could perform.

It was still light out, but it wouldn't be for much longer, making a walk through the streets of North Central an ill-advised action. Besides, as I'd seen on different occasions with Donna, a person would have to be actually looking me straight in the eyes in order for me to be able to influence them, assuming that I now could do such a thing. But if it was dark out, they wouldn't be able to do that, would they?

"Dammit..."

I thought of calling Donna. Though some of the shock of watching her murder Roman had disturbingly worn off with a new understanding of why it was necessary, I still didn't want to do that. I didn't want her in my space just then, not even on the other end of the phone, at least not until I'd had a little time to process things for myself.

Taking another sip, I thought about the situation, knowing that the malls, along with most other public places where there existed the lighting I needed for the incredible experiment I had in mind, would soon be closed. Then, looking into my glass, I found the obvious answer there.

Wearing a pair of tight blue jeans, I took a seat at the bar on one of the high stools there. I was also wearing a shiny, teal coloured, short sleeved PVC top that belonged to the real Donna. It snapped up the back and fit me tighter than it did her, practically flowing over my mounds like water and showing off the outlines of my pink, polka dot bra underneath. I'd done my hair and makeup, paying special attention to my eyes before leaving the Mission and driving to the King's Crown Tavern. I'd located the place online, an establishment that was outside the immediate neighborhood of the Mission, but not too far away. While it was located in a mall, it also had its own outside entrance, and this was the one I used.

The place had a comfortable, low lit, easygoing feel supported by the soft R n B music that was playing. Aside from the expected neon beer signs, there were a few large screen televisions mounted on the white walls, wooden accents here and there to go with the tables and the dark, exposed wooden beams on the ceiling. From its web page, I knew it would be open until twelve-thirty and the patronage of only five other people besides myself and the bartender was perfect for my needs.

There was a man with dark beard and mustache sitting several stools down the bar to my right, and I guessed him to be about the same age as the thirty-something bartender he'd been speaking with when I came in. Behind me and at the opposite end of the room, a busty, middle aged woman played billiards with a guy who was of the same general age. Between me and the billiards table, there was an attractive couple in their mid-twenties at one of the many small, wooden tables. Sitting across from one another, each with a glass of beer, they were smiling as they spoke.

"Can I see some I.D.?" asked the bartender.

He had short, dark hair and average build in black jeans and T-shirt. Along with the bearded man, he'd given me quite the once-over when I'd entered, but his tone was professional.

With the vodka I'd consumed before leaving home, and not having had any previous experience in bars other than at the Funraiser, I hadn't anticipated his demand for identification that would prove my legal age to drink. So, before I could stop myself, my natural reaction to this surprise had me looking him squarely in the eyes as he fixed his gaze right back at mine. Obviously, I hadn't meant for this, had intended that this experiment be a much more controlled affair so, when I saw his eyes glaze over, I panicked. All I could do was sit and stare back at him, frantically running from pillar to post in my head in an effort to decide whether to show him some I.D., or deal with the shocking reality that I seemed to have him mesmerized.

So we stayed like that for a few seconds, this time interval feeling like minutes as I came to realize that I could feel his mind. It was something like touching only the very surface of calm water, feeling the temperature, the sensation of wetness on my palm and the implied depth below. Then, from that place of subtle change deep within myself, I pushed. It was almost like I'd done it before, an instinct that was somehow strangely natural to me. I could feel his confusion and, with a slightly harder push, I was in. To be more precise, I'd shoved his will aside and assumed control.

It was a sensation that I won't even try to describe, the sudden knowledge that I owned this person's mind, his body, his very life, and it was only with great effort that I was able to manage the situation before his bearded friend could realize that there was something wrong.

"I-(ahem!) I was in a few nights ago," I was finally able to tell him, my voice a little high and shaky with nerves. "You asked me for I.D. then, and I showed you. I'm legal. You remember that."

He blinked and, from within his mind, I actually felt this fictitious experience create itself, his eyes clearing somewhat with recognition before he complied with this new reality I'd planted in his memory.

"Y-yeah... Yeah, you were in a few nights ago," he told me with a slow grin as he 'remembered'. "I asked you for your I.D. then, and you showed me. You're legal. I remember that."

I was so shocked at this success that I backed right out of his mind without intending to. That's when I remembered Donna's words about how she couldn't re-acquire a person's mind once they escape her but, after a sudden jolt of panic, I was reassured when he asked me what I wanted, that funny, glazed look still in his eyes.

"Uh-h, I'll have a screwdriver. A double screwdriver, please."

"Double screwdriver, comin' right up," he responded.

Needless to say, I was freaked. I mean, it was so hard to believe when I merely suspected that Donna could control minds, still hard to believe when I was sure she could, and so totally unreal when she'd admitted to it, but actually doing it myself... It was purely out of this world. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have ever expected such a development in my life, and I was so hyped up that I could barely think, let alone respond to the bearded man when he spoke. It took me a couple of seconds to even realize that it was me that he was speaking to.

"Best tool in the box."

" ... Wh-excuse me?" I stammered, heart beating madly in my chest as I tried to avoid direct eye contact with him.

"Double screwdriver," he explained with a quick glance at my bust line.

"Oh... right."

"So, what are you trying to fix with that?" he asked, a grin on his face at this mildly clever play on words.

"Well, its um... an ongoing project." I replied.

Taking another look south of my face, this time at my entire body, he returned, "Yeah, well that would explain why a girl who looks like you would be in a place like this."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You're way above this place. I'd expect to see you at a way classier bar, so I figure the only reason you'd be here is 'cause it was convenient to your 'ongoing project'."

"That's a fair assumption," I told him, eying the bartender, half expecting him to suddenly snap out of it at any time, making the sign of the cross with his fingers to ward me off with.

"So, where do you usually go?" the bearded man asked.

"I usually don't," I replied. "I was just out and I thought I'd come in here for a little pick-me-up."

"Well, we're glad you came back," the bartender said, placing my drink in front of me. "Makes us look good."

"Try not to water her fuckin' drinks, and she might keep coming back," the bearded man joked as I dug into my pocket for payment.

"I only water your drinks," the bartender shot back, looking at me as he added, "Helps to keep him off the women."

"It's not me, it's them," the bearded man said, eliciting a short laugh from both the bartender and me. "You laugh, but it's true. I'm irresistible, just ask your mother, Tommy."

"You're cut off," the bartender decided with a grin, a finger pointed at his other patron as he took my money.

He was about to take it to the cash register when he did a double-take at the old bills in his hand, looking up at me afterward to declare, "Wow, I haven't seen these since... a long time."

"My grandmother gave it to me," I told him, a little surprised at how quickly and easily my mind had come up with that. "She saved a bunch of it, thinking it would be worth something someday, but..."

"Yeah, it'd have to be a lot older to be worth more than what it is. You sure you want to use this, though?"

"Yeah, it's fine," I said, taking a therapeutic gulp of double screwdriver, although the easy conversation that had started up had already gone a little way towards calming my excited nerves.

"Let's see that," the bearded man said, sitting straighter with an interest in something more than my body now.

As they looked at the bills, I began asking myself if I was through. Now that I'd proven my suspicions about what had happened in the hot tub by successfully influencing somebody's mind, should I finish my drink and leave, or continue my experiment? Was there any real need to continue? Maybe I'd just finish my drink first.

"Pretty soon, there'll be no hard currency at all," the bearded man predicted a minute later as the bartender stored the old bills in the register drawer. "Just debit cards and numbers. Not that any of its real anyway."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Don't get him started," Tommy cautioned me, rolling his eyes with a grin before again addressing his other patron. "We want her to keep coming back, Tyler, remember? Don't bore her with your political crap."

"You need to stop watching mainstream news," Tyler said.

"Yeah, I'll start informing myself with all the crackheads on YouTube, like you," Tommy scoffed.

"Ya just gotta know how to weed out the freaks from the real people," Tyler claimed. "You have to look at their personal politics. If they're trying to prove something they believe in, then they're probably full of shit and even they don't know it."

"You actually sound like my grandmother," I said.

"If she looked as good as you, I'd say introduce us," he flirted.

"Here we go..." Tommy groaned. "I told you, we want her to keep coming back."

"Oh, fuck off you little prick," Tyler scoffed with a grin, waving the bartender off with his hand.

"Actually," I imparted with a devious smile, still being careful about eye contact with Tyler, "you might be surprised at how good my grandmother looks."

"You should have brought her along," Tommy replied.

"You should probably be glad I didn't," I said, the fleeting image of Roman's upside down, splashing struggles flashing through my mind, dimming my smile.

"Why's that?" Tommy asked.

"She has a way of using men..."

"Perfect for you, Tommy," Tyler joked, taking a drink from his beer.