The Birth of Bane (17 page)

Of her ancestry,
I never had the time to find out. She looked
Cubana,
only she
was of lighter persuasion, so it was difficult to pinpoint the
wellspring of her genetics.

I could see why
my father had a thing for her. Watching her that night it wasn’t
too difficult to see what kind of woman she was. She was what we
High-Schooler’s would call a “freak”, and that didn’t merely
translate to the bedroom. Although, it did imply she knew what she
was doing there too. No, a “freak” was also a party-animal, someone
hip to the latest scene, a mild drug-user, who chased the wilder
side of life. A “freak” only comes out at night…

I could tell as
much as I watched her long neck arch, her long nails rake down her
chest toward her big tits, while she laughed.

She was
“a freak… with long, long
hair…”

But what in hell
was she doing here? Why had my stupid-ass father brought her to my
mother’s house? Didn’t he know I hadn’t gone to Corona? I told the
idiot I’d stayed behind, because Myra and I had plans. I didn’t say
our plans included going to Planned Parenthood to arm ourselves
with a little knowledge about safe sex, but shit, I’d told him I’d
be around. Why was he bringing his fuck-slut to our
house?

To this day, I
really don’t know why this angered me as much as it did. Here I
was, newly eighteen, a young buck, and yet the idea he’d brought a
woman (in my mind) as low and debased as her into our house pissed
me off. This was my mom’s domain. This was Mrs. Gates sanctum. This
place was special. Why would he soil it with her
presence?

Because, lame-o,
he doesn’t see things the way the rest of the world sees things.
Don’t you remember, the sun revolves around him…?

Oh, yeah, stupid
me, there was no Copernicus in his universe.

I scurried back
to the edge of my bed, feet searching for my slippers. I walked
quickly, but quietly out of the room and down the hall once I’d
found them. I was wearing old sweats and t-shirt. I stood at the
top of the stairs and probably would’ve ventured no further, if I
hadn’t heard something fall and break. I heard all three of them
giggle, stumble some more. They were drunk, possibly wasted on
something else too.

The fuckers were
messing up my mother’s house!

Of their own
volition, my feet moved me down to the first floor, through the
back porch and the kitchen before I realized what I was doing. I
stood there, leaning around the hutch, my neck stretched to the
fullest, my eyes straining to see through the dark.

I heard them
closing the sliding glass doors, the unique clicks made when the
locks engaged were unmistakable. They were in the Master Suite.
They were in the same room where my mother slept at night,
sometimes with Eli. How freakin’ gross was that?

I edged my way
to the door leading to the small hallway. It was halfway opened
already, so I could use the crack at the end closest to the door
jamb to see through. It hampered a wide-angled view, but, to my
detriment, it turned out I didn’t need one.

My eyes focused
to the brightness of the room as they turned on the two bedside
lamps. It was obvious, my father had forgotten I was there. There
was absolutely no modesty in evidence.

The man with
them was black, about five-foot-eleven with close cropped hair and
chiseled features. He was built as if he visited the gym a on a
regular basis. Between his weight and his height he was at least
twice the size of my dad. He was clad in a navy-colored,
pin-striped suit without a shirt. Though I couldn’t see what sort
of shoes he wore, because the bed was blocking my view from the top
of his knees down, I could see he had on a thin, Louis Viton belt
about his waist, what looked like a Dunn Hill watch on his
wrist.

He had money. I
could tell by the way he held himself, they casual way with which
he wore his expensive clothing.

“
Strip, both of
you, now!”

Her voice
surprised me. It sounded so different than it had only moments
before. I knew my face betrayed bewilderment as I blinked, my
vision shifting toward Roxanna when they reopened. I hadn’t been
paying attention to her, and was shocked to see she’d shed her
leotard. She was standing on this side of the bed in nothing but a
G-string. Her feet were bare, her skin honey-hued. Her hair was
fixed in a bun as if she didn’t want it to get in the way. She held
some sort of riding crop in one hand, the kind with a two-inch
folded strip of leather at the end. I could just make out one of
her full breasts. She had areoles as dark as her hair, her nipples
constricted, rigid, as if she was cold. I knew she wasn’t though.
This was a reaction to a different sort of stimulus.

Repulsed, but
unable to look away, I watched as my father took off his clothing
alongside the hulking black man.

What the fuck is
this shit?
I asked the silence
in my brain. There was no reply. I was utterly
dumbfounded.

Within a minute
both men were naked. The black man was limp, but still long against
one of his legs. My dad was a whole other sort of
visual.

My mouth went
dry. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what I should
think. This was what he chose over my mom? My mother was gorgeous.
What the heck was this idiot thinking? Some sort of sick
ménage-a-trois was better, really? This was better? This is what
got him off? This was better than us? This was something to choose
at the chance he’d lose me and Valerie and Eli, because of
it?

Who was this
man? Who was this pitiful man, who bullied us every opportunity he
had only to…?

She
spoke.

My thought
scattered like so many fragments of broken glass.

“
Take him, Teej.” Her voice was silken, rich -
sultry
. “Bend him over right where he’s standing and make him
yours.”

I gaged, pulling
back from the door, covering my mouth with my hand, hoping I
wouldn’t have to corral a flood of puke.

“
You want me to
bareback him?” His voice was deep, musical but so low on the scale,
it seemed like it could carry for miles.

I heard Roxanna
breathe heavily, in and out, in and out, for nearly a quarter of a
minute. “Skin to skin, baby, that’s the only way to
fly.”

Teej rumbled
with laughter. “How ‘bout you, lil’man, you ready for the black
snake to borrow?”

I guess a part
of me still felt this was all a sick joke. I guess I had lived a
sheltered life up to that point, because I really didn’t expect to
hear what I hear next. I‘d been waiting for the “big” denial, the
“are-you-fucking-serious?” sort of response. The yelling and the
outrage were soon to follow, right? Wasn’t my father a class-A
asshole?

It never
came.

“
Don’t just
stand there and talk about it, man. Do it!”

I was about to
run from my bedroom when a tremendous shriek rang out. It was so
loud. It froze me in my tracks, my hands clamped over my ears. Then
the potted plant atop a wooden stand, the one on the far side of
the fireplace toppled to the ground and crashed against the
hardwood floors of the living room with a thunderous
thud.

“
Lenny!
Someone’s here!” I heard Roxanna exclaim, but that was
all.

I bolted for my
room and for some semblance of rationality.

Never in a
million, million years would I have suspected my father was
bi-sexual. Never would I have guessed he was more than willing to
take another man’s penis up his ass. Never!

I tried to move
silently, but I know I wasn’t. I couldn’t, not with the perverse
thoughts I had coursing through my head. I felt my hip hit the side
of the kitchen counter as I passed it on my way to the back porch.
I hit my shoulder against the jamb marking the beginning of the
stairs leading to the second floor. I cringed at the amount of
noise my feet made against the stairs as I climbed, clawed, cried
my way away from the debauchery in the Master Suite. I had to get
away. I had to put distance between me and them. I had to make sure
my father didn’t suspect I’d seen.

But how was that
going to be possible genius? She had yelled. She’d been watching
alongside me. She’d been as disgusted as I’d been and she wailed
with loathing.

Oh my god, it
had been so loud! He’s going to think it was me! He’s going to
blame me.

I hurtled myself
right, then left down the hall. I came to my room, panting like a
dog. I swiftly closed the door and locked it. If he came in, I
wanted it to be on my terms. I searched for the wooden baseball bat
I always kept underneath where I slept and stuffed it under my
pillow. I wasn’t going to take any chances. Not after what I’d
seen. No way! His secret was out. The true Leonard Favor had been
revealed.

Because of it,
he would be furious with me, though it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t
the one taking up the behind. That was him.

But, it wouldn’t
matter. It would be my fault in his eyes. I’d been the one to
unearth what he and Roxanna had been doing all along. He would say
I was the one to blame for his unorthodox sexual appetites. He
would say if I’d minded my own business, none of this would’ve
happened. It didn’t matter he’d been the one who forgot I hadn’t
gone to Corona with the rest of the family. It was my problem he’d
brought his twisted friends over to the house, not his. He was
never the cause. He was never the issue. He was the perfect man
living in an imperfect world with an imperfect wife and imperfect
children. We were the ones with the problems. It was his job to
point them out to us as many times as he deemed necessary until we
learned just how much better he was than the rest of us.

He’s an asshole,
you know this.

Yeah, but he’s
going to take this out on me!

So.

What do you
mean, “so?”

Aren’t you
bigger than him?

But, he’s my
father.

And you’re his
son. When has that fact ever stopped him in the past?

It wasn’t the
first time I’d ever entertained thoughts of that nature. He had
made me furious before, and I had notions of standing up to him in
the past, especially physically. Yet, this was much more than
fanciful musings of an angry child. This was real. This was about
to happen. My father would come for me. I knew this, and it left me
trembling with fear and anticipation simultaneously. Maybe a part
of me wanted this. Maybe, after all this time… maybe, I wanted
something physical. Maybe I wanted to let go.

I heard the
front door slam, scrapes and clacks down the walk, and voices in
the front yard. They were leaving, Roxanna and Teej. They were
laughing and carrying-on like kids. They must’ve thought it
hilarious, I’d caught them in the middle of their sick, bi-sexual,
Dominatrix role-play.
Fucking
tools!

Then came the
inevitable stomping through the house, and I knew he was
coming.

I jumped on the
bed, ripping the covers off it, then back onto myself in two
fervent motions.
Pretend you’re
asleep! Pretend you’re asleep!

Less than half a
minute later, he was pounding in the door. “Open up, you nosey
little fuck! Open up!”

“
What do you
want?” I asked, feigning innocence.

There was a
demented chuckle through the door. “You know goddamned well what I
want. Now open this door before I break it down!”

Yeah right, you
don’t have the strength to do that, you shriveled
pencil-dick!

“
I’m sleeping,
dude. What’s wrong with you?”

The door
shuddered in its’ frame as he assaulted the door with hands and
feet. “
Open this door
now!
” It was a shriek,
high-pitched, almost effeminate, which immediately put a horrible
picture in my mind.

I was out of my
bed with a sweep of my arm and a push. Anything to get the thought
of his butt getting slammed by a guy named Teej out of my
head.

Ah god, Myra, I
could really use some thoughts of you and me right now…

“
Alright, alright!” I yelled back. “Come down before you
scratch my door all to hell!”
There was no way he was even going to crack the darned thing.
He’d only scratch the paint off like the nerd he
was.

I threw open the
door widely, hoping to catch him off balance.

It didn’t work,
he had already taken a few steps back as if he was about to rush
the door.

He stopped,
straightened. “What the fuck did you see?”

“
See? What’re
you talking about? I was asleep.” I was going to keep up the rouse
for as long as I possibly could. “Well…,” I continued, purposefully
drifting off.

He leaned toward
me, his face a mask of fury.

“…
I heard some
people on the deck. Did you have friends over?”

He didn’t reply,
but remained as he was, frozen, slightly stooped over. His look was
flat, devoid of emotion. His dark eyes were pools of nothingness,
boring into me, searching, trying to intimidate me with their lack
of humanity. He wore only a pair of blue jeans. He was shirtless,
barefoot.