The Tragedy of a Reluctant Cuckold Ch. 02

So, where'd I leave it off?

Yeah, Theriot, Louisiana. That Godforsaken place. My brother, Mark, daughters Alexis, Ashley and Vivica. And Mark's mojo.

I don't know exactly what the powder was that Mark sprinkled on my face. I, however, do know that if I were a drug junkie, that stuff would be better than anything I know of – think LSD, shrooms, ganja and ecstasy mixed together with an abundance of pure testosterone.

Whatever the concoction, it puts you in a conscious, dreamlike state. Meaning, you're asleep, and you're dreaming. But you're completely conscious of your dream and in your dream. You control every part of your dream. You even know that you're asleep and that you're dreaming. You can wake up whenever you get ready and still have vivid memories of everything that happened in the dream.

It's like tapping into your subconscious, visiting that vestigial state from which we all evolved.

That part is scary. Sometimes you don't really want to know yourself. We all think our souls are good and wholesome. That's not always the case.

And mine obviously wasn't, and I've known it for many years. But I also know finding that part of me required a trigger.

I'll take you back a bit. Like I told my lawyers and the judges, both of them, "You have know where I've been to understand what I am now.

----

Mark, older than me by 23 seconds, and I were a week shy of our 17th birthday when he introduced me to a part of me I never thought existed.

It was a tough time for our family. Mom and dad had died four months earlier in a supposed boating accident near Lost Lake over in Mandalay, the national wildlife reserve that surrounds Theriot. JB had custody of us. JB, short for Junebug, which was a nickname for Joseph, was kid himself. He was 24 years old and doing everything he could to keep together a family of him, twin 16-year-old boys and a sister who just turned 15.

Thinking back, JB sacrificed a lot for the three of us. He wasn't exactly putting his architecture degree to work in the middle of the bayou.

"Bruh," he would always say with a smile. "You family. When it's family, it's not sacrifice. It's love."

For us, nothing was more important than family.

So, when the state trooper unzipped that body bag, asking us to identify our sister – my oldest daughter's namesake – we all lost it. But you wouldn't have been able to tell from our outward appearance.

Inside we were exploding. Mom, dad, now Alexis.

"Yessir," JB told the trooper. "That's our baby sister."

We were standing on the side of state highway 56 a few miles north of Cocodrie. JB looked around and mumbled something about, "why was a Alexis so far from home." JB then fell to his knees, grabbed clumps of dirt and started apologizing to mom and dad.

Mark put his right hand on JB's shoulder and then grasped my right hand – for some reason I remember crazy little details such as that. They were both crying, tears generously streaming over their cheeks. I wanted to cry, too. I felt I needed to cry. But I couldn't. The tears wouldn't come.

I reached out to Alexis. She had been raped, beaten and strangled to death. I unzipped the bag some more. Then I reached for her neck.

"I'm sorry sir, but you can't ..." the trooper began. "Do that."

I didn't know at the time what came over me, but I stared at the trooper and he immediately began to stumble back. Mark yanked his hand out of mine and began rubbing it as if it were burned.

I unclasped the necklace mom and dad gave Alexis when she turned 10.

"Let's go," I told my brothers. "We have work to do."

"Sir, don't," the trooper started again.

"No! You don't! You don't say another fuckin' word. Don't you tell me what not to do. Don't you tell me a fuckin' thing. Look at this. No! Look at her! Look! She was 15 trooper! Fuckin' 15! She even wanted to be one of you guys. She wanted to be a cop, a fuckin' trooper, a fuckin' detective so she could find out who killed our parents. We all know that wasn't a damn accident! Don't we! You fuckin' racist bastards! She's gone. Look at her! She's number three trooper. Number three! Nobody else in my family dies. Nobody! I'll protect my family now trooper. You and your badge and your gun – you're worthless. You're all fuckin' worthless!"

My yelling brought several other troopers near. I stared at each of them. Then back to Alexis.

Leaning over, I kissed Alexis on her forehead.

"Bye bye baby sister," I told her. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for. And I know you wouldn't want me to do it. But baby sis, I'm apologizing now for what I have to do. I'll only apologize because I won't be sorry for any of. Please understand baby sis. This isn't a sacrifice. You're family baby sis. Every minute of it will be love."

I turned to JB and Mark. I reached out my hand for them. Mark looked at my hand, and I sensed fear in him. It was strange. He was my twin brother, and that moment, I never felt so far away from him.

The three of us walked back to JB's pickup. They climbed in the cab. I lay my body in the bed and stared at the burnt orange sky.

"Calvin, what happen to you out there?" Mark said later, while we sat in our living room. "What in the world was that man?"

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"You know what I'm talking about. That cop was effing scared of you. They were all effing scared of you. And me. Calvin, I couldn't effing touch you. Your hand was so hot. Look at this. My palm is red. Look at this. Look at it Calvin. What the eff happened?"

"It's FUCK Mark, not eff, not effing. It's FUCK. And I still don't know what you're talking about."

Actually, I did know what he was talking about. I noticed his fear, too. I knew what happened, but I didn't know how it happened. And that scared me.

I hated not being in control, and after looking at Alexis, I wasn't in control. Rage was. Rage is what yelled at those troopers. Rage is what made me order around my brothers. It had to be. That was the only explanation.

"Bruh, look at me," JB said. "I was scared, too. Bruh, you're my little bruh, and I was scared of you dawg. Calvin, bruh, what's up?"

"Look, you guys," I said. "It's me. It was me then. I just don't know what happened. I'm sorry. But I don't know."

I saw Mark come out of mom and dad's room. He walked straight toward me, held his fist to his mouth and blew white dust in my face.

As I fell to our sofa, I heard JB, "Mark, this stuff better work."

"It will," Mark said. "He needs to find out."

Next thing I knew, I was dreaming.

I was behind our house, about 300 yards out, near the swamp, teaching Alexis how to tie knots. Then I was showing her how to throw a football. We climbed the trees in our back yard and hunted for water moccasins in the swamp. We'd catch them and sell them to the biology department up at Nicholls State for spending money. The biology department used them for making anti-venom.

The folks at Nicholls always wondered how we caught so many cottonmouths. We told them our dad invented a trap. They bought it and Alexis and I always laughed about it.

The dream was just Alexis and me. It was our lives together. Everything we did from the time she was born flashed through my head. We just had a connection like that. I took her everywhere with me and she willingly came.

Alexis was a tomboy in the truest sense. She threw a baseball better than most boys. She was the best tree climber – male or female – in Terreboone Parish, the best swimmer, too.

Mark wasn't that much into athletics and outdoors stuff, and JB was off at a LSU, getting a degree in architecture. My pops went to junior college. He got into building boats and made a good living from that. So JB was the first in the family to attend a big four-year school. With him never being home, and Mark always reading his religion books, it was always Alexis and I.

The dream showed all of our highs, lows, funs and mishaps. The weird part about the dream is it was traveling through my head like an old 8mm film on fast forward.

The "film" slowed to a stop when it got to Alexis' 15th birthday party. It was as if Alexis walked off the frame, grabbed my hand brought me into the scene. She introduced me to a boy named Bryan. I already didn't like him. Alexis had talked about him before. I knew she liked the kid, had a crush on him.

I guess it was jealously. I was the boy in Alexis' life. We were partners, not remotely in a sexual sense though, so get that shit out of your head. We were just inseparable. And here was some person who was going to make me share her.

Alexis introduced me to all the people at party. Many she said she barely knew, they were just kids from school. Then she looked at a two boys who I knew as being seniors when I was in seventh grade. They were the Thibodeaux cousins. I knew they were not in school. They had to be 22 or 23, but they were at a party for a 15-year-old.

"I don't like them," Alexis told me. "They're mean."

Alexis said that, and everything around me went dark. Alexis disappeared. Her schoolmates did, too. There was no music. The food was gone. Our backyard had vanished. All that was left were the Thibodeaux cousins and me.

Something was happening. I didn't know what it was, but I was controlling the dream. I stuck out my hands, and all I had to do think about it and I had the necks of the Thibodeaux cousins in either of my hands. I started banging their heads together.

I banged. I banged. And I banged.

I banged until their heads were bloody masses of pulp in my hands. Their blood was all over my body.

Then I blinked, and they were standing there again, whole and healthy. And again, I thought about their necks in my hands, and it happened. Again I banged their heads to a bloody mess.

I did that three more times before stopping.

I was about to do it a sixth time. Instead, I grabbed their necks pulled them close and told them, "You're dead. You're both dead, and you don't even know it."

A moment later, I woke up.

I ran passed JB and Mark out the door. They yelled after me, but I was too fast, too far gone, seemingly too possessed.

For 13 miles I ran, never once feeling tired. I made it to Bryan's house, and he was sitting on porch, tears streaming over his swollen face. Somebody had paid him a visit. Either that or his deranged dad was back in town.

"Where do they hang out," I said.

"Who," Bryan said not raising his head and speaking through a swollen lips.

"Don't screw with me. Where are the fuckin' cousins?"

"I've heard them talk about their special spot over by Lost Lake."

"I'm taking your bike. It'll get back to you."

I jumped on Bryan's dirt bike and flew off to Lost Lake. I rode to a road that leads to a little spot where Lost Lake meets Four League Bay.

Off the bike, I ran off the trail, about a mile through parts of marsh. I caught two cottonmouths along the way. And held their hissing heads as a ran until I saw the signal, a black towel hanging from a small tree.

It meant somebody had already "claimed" that spot. For the local kids, that meant, a spot to smoke weed, drink or have sex. Sometimes it was all three.

As I walked closer, I saw the top of the airboat first. Then, I heard some giggling and a couple of moans back to more giggling.

I got to the clearing and saw the entire scene.

One cousin had a girl spread eagle on the floor of the boat. He was on top of her going to town missionary style. The other cousin was standing on the driver's platform, behind a girl who had her knees in the driver's seat and was balancing herself by holding on to the bars that caged the fan.

I continued walking. They were about 50 yards away. The only one facing me was the girl in the floor of the boat, but the guy fucking her blocked her view.

"Damn Rob," I heard one say. "Where'd you find these two?"

"You like 'em?" the other guy said. "Pretty good little fuckers aren't they. You roll that one over she'll let you put it in 'er shitter, too."

"Maybe later, I'ma shoot in her mouth, now. I want her to swallow it."

"She sucks it good, too. You oughta see the ass jiggle on this one. There you go girl! Take that! Damn, this girl's pussy is tighter than a snakes asshole dipped in alum."

"Good for ya Rob. You needle-dicked fellas need a tight pussy to enjoy it."

"Fuck you. I don't care how big my dick is, as long as it stays wet. And this bitch is keeping it wet."

"Hey, I got and idea. Let's switch. I love 'em when they first get my pipe in 'em. If it's so tight, let me try a little, too.

"OK. I need my dick sucked something good anyway."

The one standing up turned and was the first to see me standing in the clearing next to the water. He gasped.

His cousin got up and quickly turned around, and he yelled.

I must have been a freaky sight standing there, two squirming snakes dangling from my hands.

"Get out!" I told the girls. "You and you. Get your fuckin clothes and get out of her. No dude! You stay. We've got business."

The girls grabbed their clothes got off the boat and took off opposite the clearing.

"What the hell are you doin' man!" one said.

"If you wanted the girls, hey their yours. Take them!" the other said.

"Leave us the fuck alone, man. We don't know you. What the fuck man?"

"You lousy fucks, you raped my sister," I told them. "You beat my sister. You raped her. Then you killed her and left her for the gators. You bitches are going to pay."

"Man! We don't know you. We don't know your sister."

"Five feet eight inches. Dark curly hair. Strong body. Beautiful face. A birthmark on her right thigh that looks like a heart."

I said the last part and their eyes grew wider.

"Fuck! Rob! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Dude that's her! It's fucking her!"

"Shut up stupid. We didn't fuck no girl like that."

"Mocha colored skin. Just like mine. She had eyes like mine, one green and one brown. Hands like mine. She was my baby sister and you fuckin' raped her. You killed her!"

I was killing the snakes, so I relaxed my grip. I tried to regain control, but I couldn't. This rage, this alter ego controlled me.

"What the snakes don't do, I will!" I said to them and threw both cottonmouths into the boat. Then I took the anchor weight threw it on the boat and pushed it from the shore.

The cousins hopped around desperately trying to avoid two mad cottonmouths. They climbed to the top of the boat, only to jump to the boat's floor. The snakes followed. Cornered, the two cousins jumped from the boat and started swimming to the shore. Both still yelling and pleading to me.

Out of nowhere, a gator surfaced and in one bite devoured the snakes. The cousins saw that and panicked. They started swimming faster – just not fast enough. Before the cousin nearest the shore could yell, he was sucked under the water. Seconds later, the second cousin screamed, his hands went below the water. He punched and punched.

It seemed like he had gotten free and he swam even more vigorously toward the shore. Then two gators swimming in toward each other grabbed the cousin. One had a leg, the other had the upper torso. The two gators started twisting and lurching.

As you know, the human body can only take so much.

I sat there and watched the whole thing.

Blood stained the water. It was everywhere, looking like an oil slick. I heard that the human body was mostly water. That's a lie. It's mostly blood.

The water's edge was no more than 10 feet from me. Somehow, I knew it was coming. I knew a gator was about to shoot out after me. But I stayed still. I wasn't paralyzed with fright, as the saying goes. But I wasn't scared either.

The gator shot out. It still had something in its mouth, maybe an upper arm or a lower leg, I didn't know.

The gator stared at me. I stared back. And it started after me. I remained still.

THAWOP! THAWOP! THAWOP! THAWOP!

Four buckshots rang out, and I looked down. A foot away the gator lay, dying.

I never noticed the ranger's boat. But it was there. Two more boats came up, both trooper boats.

The girls who were getting fucked were on one boat. JB and Mark were on the other.

"That's him!" of the girls yelled. "He killed them! He killed them! He held two snakes and let the snakes kill them!"

The ranger spoke out. He said was patrolling for poachers nearby and heard the yelling. He said he saw the two gators get one person and that one almost got me because I was scared stiff.

The ranger's only wonder was why I was dry.

On the way back to Theriot, I told them ranger and troopers, "I was out riding and decided to go for a run. I came across two couples supposedly having sex. I thought somebody might be in trouble and told the girls to get out and they did. Now ranger, you've been around for a while, right? They said I was holding a snake in either hand? Have you ever grabbed a cottonmouth ranger? Can anybody do that?"

The ranger shook his head and continued driving.

JB and Mark knew better.

"I didn't kill them," I told them. "The gators did, and I watched."

I pulled Mark's face close to mine.

"What the fuck did you do to me Mark?" I grumbled at him. "What was that voodoo shit you blew in my face? What was it Mark? I fuckin' just watch two people die Mark. Two people Mark, and I feel no fuckin' remorse. None. In fact, I feel invigorated. Why? Why do I feel happy Mark? I stared down a gator and didn't flinch. Why? What was that shit Mark! What did you do to me? What am I?"

-----

Two weeks later the deaths were ruled an alligator attack. The parents of the two girls thanked me for saving their daughters. But they did so by letters, no return addresses. And each letter told me to never approach their daughters.

I left Theriot a week after the investigation ended and moved to San Diego. JB arranged for me to stay in a room in a house owned by one of his distant fraternity brothers.

Mark and I wrote each other everyday. Every now and then I talked with JB on the telephone. They were missed. But not enough for me to return to Theriot.

Until now – 25 years later.

Back in Theriot. There was nothing but death in Theriot. Well, Mark and then death.

-----

Mark had sprinkled the dust on my forehead. My body stopped shaking, and I started drifting off again.

Before closing my eyes, I glanced around. I knew I was in mom and dad's bedroom. And I knew because of the powder, I was about to dream a dream that I could control.

Mark never told me about the religion he practiced, and I never bothered to ask. I'd read enough books about Voodoo to know that Hollywood's depictions of it were overly sensationalized.

Still, it had always given me the creeps. I guess when you think about it, religion –any religion – can only give you the creeps if you somehow believe.

I guess I was a believer.

I weakly tried to hug my daughters, then closed my eyes and drifted off.

The dream immediately started with Myka standing behind me, spotting me while I did a third set of dumbbell shoulder presses.

"Honey," she said in a somewhat worried-sounding. "I've got something to tell you."

----

It's that time again folks. Gotta run. It's close to lights out and I have to get back to my cell. I'm pretty tired anyway.

Remember Myka, I know you're out there. And if somehow able to read these words, your time in this existence is almost over.

You're next.