I’d suspected before…but now I know. This is Ishtar Anshar.
My mother.
I don’t comment on the fact that I know. I don’t want to dissect the mess in my mind, and I don’t want her to transform into her humanoid form because that may be too much for my crazy—crazier—self to handle just now.
So I pretend she’s just a normal kitty, and I’m just a normal boy.
Well, man.
Whatever.
I just want to enjoy the moment with my kitty and my son.
“You don’t look that great,” Benjamin says bluntly, disturbingly honest.
“You don’t smell so great either.” He wrinkles his nose and scrunches his brow.
“Maybe you should take a shower and change your clothes. I brought a wagon of food with me. We can have it together. It’s dinner time. Mom and Dad said I can eat with you.”
Mom and Dad…
Inanna and Gabriel. My sister and her Mate.
None of them knows about my relationship with Benjamin. Gabriel used to be married to Olivia, Benjamin’s birth mother. A human woman I somehow miraculously impregnated during a night I’d rather not remember. Yet another blue ribbon to add to my wall of shame.
Olivia died of cancer, leaving Benjamin in Gabriel and Inanna’s care. Strangers meeting the family for the first time would never know that the boy with buttery golden curls isn’t their biological son. Olivia was blonde too, with sparkling blue eyes before they dimmed from her inner sickness. Because Inanna also has blonde hair and blue eyes, people automatically assume Benjamin is hers.
He’s not.
He’s mine.
Not that I plan to claim him. Even a monster like me draws the line at taking an innocent child from loving parents. Adding unnecessary chaos and confusion into his life.
But in my heart, in my blackened, shriveled soul, he’ll always be mine.
The other things I learned yesterday…I don’t know what to do with that knowledge yet. I don’t know if I believe it. But I know without a doubt who Benjamin is to me. I’ve known from the moment I laid eyes on him.
“We’ll wait for you in the living room,” Benjamin offers, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “Do you mind if I turn on the TV? There’s a special edition of National Geographic at seven o’clock about the Pallid Cuckoo of Australia.”
There he goes with his obsession with cuckoos again. I suppose I aided and abetted this unhealthy fixation with the grim fairytales I’ve been telling him. He’s determined to prove to me how cuckoos are actually beautiful and love-worthy, how the ugliest of them all is destined to mate with a magical golden phoenix of all things.
One can never account for a boy’s wayward imagination.
I shoo Benjamin and the kitten out of my bathroom and shut the door. Wiping my mind as best I can, I go through the motions of cleaning and dressing myself.
Sometime later, I exit the bathroom in my borrowed silk pajamas, leaving my hair to dry by air, a long, tangled mess sticking damply to my back and shoulders through the thin fabric.
“What’s for dinn—”
Benjamin’s loud hoot, accompanied by rounded eyes and an enthusiastic bounce on the living room couch, cuts me off.
“You’re finally you! No more mirages overlaid on top! I can finally see you! This is so cool!”
What? What does he—
Before I can complete my thought, the kitten launches her furry body like a cannon ball at my chest, and I reflexively throw out my arms to catch her. Immediately, she laps my face with that raspy tongue, so enthusiastically you’d think I’m made out of catnip.
When my brain finally catches up, I pluck her off of me and hastily run back into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
I stare at the reflection in the mirror open-mouthed.
Is that…Is that what I really look like? Is that the real me?
I’ve always known I’m tall. Six and a half feet to be precise. But my height makes me feel ungainly, like a beanstalk, given how bone-thin I am. So my disguises are always shorter, unless there’s a specific person I have to pretend to be for one of Medusa’s jobs.
Over the past few weeks at the Shield, I’ve been eating better. Occasionally, I even have an appetite, instead of perfunctorily chewing and swallowing the food. Perhaps the Pure blood—Tal’s blood—that I’m infused with makes me stronger as well.
I’m still extremely lean, to the point that my stomach is concave beneath my shirt, every rib delineated, and my pajama pants would have fallen to my ankles if not for the jutting bones of my hips holding them up like hangers. But I no longer look and feel like a cadaver.
I turn around and check out my ass.
Huh. I guess I’m genetically blessed with a big, fat ass. Despite the beef jerky imitation that describes the rest of me (except the obscenely plump meat hanging between my legs), my backside doesn’t appear to have gone on the same diet.
What I focus most on is my face. It’s…It’s not that ugly, actually. I mean, maybe I’m euphemizing things in my mind to make myself feel better, or maybe it’s the whispering knowledge of who my parents are supposed to be, but…
I can honestly, objectively say I’m not quite the ogre I always feared I am. In terms of looks, anyway.
My long, almost blue-black hair, tangles in knots halfway down my back, unruly waves already forming as they dry. Out of habit, I think—it’s been too long since I’ve chopped it off. And then immediately, that thought is followed by—but it’s Ishtar’s hair.
That is, not her hair exactly, since it’s on my head, but I guess I get my hair from her. That’s what Benjamin said. And if I get my hair from her, then it seems too precious to hack haphazardly off.
My eyes dart around the long marble counter that runs along the length of the mirror. Maybe I can find a comb or a brush. I don’t think I’ve ever brushed my hair in my entire life. I’ve never had to. But if this is really my mother’s gift to me, these riotous black waves, maybe I should start taking better care of it.
I continue to critically consider my face in the mirror.
It’s all sharpness and angles, devoid of any stubble. I’m hairless all over (except the top of my head, of course, and the short curls around my groin), and my jaw is no different. My skeletal thinness doesn’t help, making my cheekbones jab out like jagged glass, the sides of my face hollowed out to reveal the bones of my jawline.
Shit. I really should eat more. And now that I’m slowly starting to get into the habit of eating regular meals, small bites at a time, my belly rumbles in hunger, loudly agreeing with my assessment.
My nose is a thin, long blade in the middle of my face, incredibly straight despite the number of times it’s been broken. I guess I have my immortal healing abilities to thank. It’s not perfect, if I’m honest. The tip is just a tad too long, drawing one’s attention to the full, wide mouth below.
Huh. I have pretty lips. There’s no other word for it. Who woulda thought?
The lower lip is rather pillowy-looking, slightly fuller than the upper lip. But only slightly. Both are downright carnal. Sinful. If the man in the mirror wasn’t me, I’d be tempted to kiss him.
I mean, dayaam! That fucking mouth is divine!
My tongue darts out to lick across them, making them shine with saliva, plumped with blood flow. They’re the softest looking part of my body. Such a shame that they’ve never been kissed…