“Mom doesn’t even know who I am, and you’re drunk, Em,” I say the words with distaste at the back of my tongue.
Alzheimer’s is a shitty disease. I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. Mom was diagnosed at fifty-four with early onset symptoms. Our parents didn’t have kids until later in life, so the possibility of something like this happening was increased for us.
By the time we were twenty she needed to be in a facility, so to afford the medical bills Emerson dropped out of college and joined the draft. When he signed his contract with the Chicago Fury, he moved himself and mom here. Emerson was different. It didn’t help that right before leaving Michigan he lost his best friend in a car accident. There was something inside of him that snapped; a piece of darkness he wouldn’t let anyone try to heal.
I saw her every day for a year, an entire year. Every day. Emerson was partying and playing hockey, too consumed with covering up his pain to be bothered with us.
“You can’t still be angry with me over something I can’t control! She doesn’t remember me anymore either.”
“You know what you can control? Your sobriety. Probably haven’t been sober in months, I know for a fact you weren’t when I was visiting her every day.”
“I was busy, Charlie.” He sighs, running two hands down his face.
“Yeah, I got that.” My voice cracks a little, just enough to show that my emotions are getting the best of me.
Em’s face sinks, his eyebrows furrowing with sorrow.
“Charlie—”
“Don’t Em— just don’t, I’m not ready. I don’t want to see you. I need more time.” I start to walk backward, needing to get to class, but he grabs my wrist.
We make eye contact and for a second I see the old Emerson. My wild brother, my healthy brother, my happy brother.
“If I could switch with you, I would, you have to know that Char, I would switch.”
I can smell the booze on his breath, his wrinkled t-shirt, and shaky hands. My stomach churns, it makes me sick looking at him like this. This isn’t him.
“I know, but looking at you.” I shake my head. “I can’t look at you like this. Drunk and high, you changed after—”
“I didn’t change,” he snaps. “I’ve always been this way.”
“You did change! You’re different. Yeah, you were wild in the past, partied, but you were smart. You weren’t on drugs. You didn’t need to be high to get through the day, then Ian died and you changed. He wouldn’t want this for you, Em.”
Fury burns in his gaze, unspoken rage that haunts his soul. He’s a slave to the ghost of his best friend.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident, Em. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself.”
“Don’t talk about shit you don’t understand, Charlotte.”
I purse my lips, shaking my head with a scoff, “Fine. Shut me out, bottle it up. Keep killing yourself. Real nice seeing you, Emerson. Glad to see some things don’t change.”
I walk away because I can’t stand arguing with him. I hate that there is a piece inside of me that hates the other half of me. We’d been close our entire lives and now we couldn’t be further apart.
You can only take so much. So many drunken nights of hearing him break shit. Only so many times you have to open your door to him high. He’s my brother and I love him, but love isn’t enough right now.
Four
Fury Family
Kai
“Is there a reason he’s getting married in the middle of a mountain? It’s cold as fuck outside.”
Emerson rubs his left hand on his dress pants, holding a beer in the other. I have a feeling that very soon he will switch to something harder even though he declares he's cutting liquor.
I lean on the banister, retying my bun at the back of my head, even though a few pieces still fall out of the front. I’d needed some air. The inside of the cabin where Bishop was getting dressed was muggy. The powerful smell of commitment and love in the atmosphere made me suffocate.
“We play hockey, Frenchie. You’re from fucking Canada, you’d think you’d be used to the cold,” Nico chimes in, joining me leaning on the wooden railing, overlooking the side of the lake.
I’d felt it was better to distance myself from all the festivities until the wedding started. I wasn’t the person you wanted around when you were getting married, because I didn’t believe in it. I also didn't have a filter, so I didn't talk much. Not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. So when Bishop asked me to be his best man, I tried to persuade him that Nico was the better alternative.
He's been seeing doves and sunshine since he got with Riggs, he’d be Bishop's best bet. However, he insisted it was me that needed to stand next to him on his big day.
The life I lead is without strings, it's lonelier, but it's better that way. I keep my life private. I spend time with the boys, but only on the surface.
No one knows me. Not really. I could be killing people and I doubt anyone would know.
Who I am, what I am, that's private. I release my inner self through art, through hockey, and through sexual acts.
See, I’d lost my control, my choice to choose when I was a kid. My choice to have sex was taken from me, and I wouldn’t let that happen to me as an adult.
And now I couldn’t have sex without seeing her face. Without seeing the filth she’d left on my skin. I couldn't touch anyone with my hands without hearing her voice telling me what to do. I'd tried in my twenties, but every time I got close, every time there was a willing girl on her back for me, the urge to vomit hit me so fucking hard, I had to leave.
Fully consenting and I still saw the girl’s face underneath me.
I tried to not let anything Yvonne had done to me affect my adult life. However, sex was not one of them.
Because of her I don’t trust women. So when it comes to sex, I don’t do it. Not entirely anyway or in the normal aspect a husband and wife would. I'm not Hannibal Lecter, I don't eat them.
I haven't had penetrative sex with anyone since I left Russia.
I hadn't been inside anyone, hadn't let anyone touch me down there. I finished myself off, made myself come on my terms.
My sexual need was fed by a physiological aspect. I didn’t need physical touch. All I needed was a woman willing to be tied up.
Shibari, the Japanese art of bondage. The perfect combination of control and art.
From an artist's point of view, there is no sight more moving. The ropes squeeze their flesh exactly where I intended, and after when I let them down, they will have bruises in certain areas. Across their breasts, their thighs, their ass.
They’re the canvas, the ropes are my paint, and I’m the artist. There is nothing on earth more creatively inspiring than the body of a woman. From it come the most tragic pieces of art.
From the point of view of someone who doesn’t like to be touched, the ropes ensured that.
I get off on watching them break. After I have tied them up, I break them. There is a point after the third or fourth orgasm, while they are suspended in the air, the ropes I have methodically placed are applying pressure in all the correct places, the toy between their thighs is still fucking them. Their skin is red, a thin coat of sweat lines their bodies, and it’s then when I watch them break.