Broken windows part 15

Oh Professor, please sink those fingertips into my body.

Don’t let this moment pass…

We’re doing a dance, I say to myself, a dance without movements, a dance that is linguistic. My lover has a sword like weapon, his tongue.

I want to feel safe, as I tell myself that Shadowy is gone and my dear Professor is back for good, but I feel on edge anyway. I peer over at my hidden sword, the blunt, plasma infused tungsten blade I used to knock the hacking sickness of black shadow that was poisoning my darling. I don’t think I’ll need it, but I look at it to pretend that I’m safe. It’s a doubt I try to swallow and pretend doesn’t exist. I notice he sees it. But he says nothing. It’s almost as if he knows it’s just for a reminder. A reminder that he is good. Or… that he better stay that way.

Finally, the new sort of air we bring together is a old fashioned sort of musk, one that still was left on us after we left each other, hastily, painfully. We try not to let it sway us until we clear the air.

He drinks his tea with peering eyes looking about the cabin with a look that feels like he is a stranger.

“Make yourself at home, PV.”

He puts down the cup with a tremble. It’s been a long time since I called him that.

“I can’t… I can’t believe you let me in,” he says, looking down. I sigh and feel my chest hurt thinking just how awful it would feel to shut the door on him after this whole time. “I thought you’d slam the door on me.”

“Please, I’m not a monster, after all. I can barely call myself a villain anymore,” I say with faux confidence, drinking my tea with more gusto than I wanted to. He notices and smiles lightly, but covers it up with his hand. “I’m retired. Ernesto has taken over the family business.”

Professor Venomous nods in a curt manner, and though he says it in the calmest voice, the intense interest in the eyes carries in his words. “That would suit him, definitely. What about our.. the other kids? How are they?”

I look at him in a quiet bit of thought and then answer, feeling my chest warm up at his obvious intent to make sure all of our kids have been doing okay.

“Shannon has her own talk show,” I grin. “Raymond helps his sister, plays for the band on the show. He also still has his fashion line he continues and updates it every quarter. I get his updates regularly. Darrel has his farm. What can I say? The boy loves agriculture and animals, and well? Being a cowboy,” I chuckle, licking my lip slightly. He notices and his eyes go half-lidded.

“What about…” he starts, and bites his lip. “How’s… how is Jethro?”

I frown. As Shadowy, Professor Venomous and his son, TKO, mercilessly attacked Jethro to the point that he almost no longer could exist. Thankfully, that wasn’t quite the reality, as crafty as my son was, he escaped with other Jethro’s to secure their design.

“He’s doing well. Reads about philosophy and existential questions of life and death,” I feel a bit of loose breath tumble out of my mouth in a nervous way. “Could say he wants to be a professor.”

The effect of the statement seems to deflate his very body, and he sinks into the couch, looking ashamed and yet still proud, a gleam of a sort of unspoken victory in his eye.

“If he’ll see me… if any of the kids will see me… I’d like to tell them that…” he puts his hand over his face and sighs deeply.

I lean over and place my hands over his knee. I know it is sudden and almost too intimate, but it feels right.

“And… Fink…” he barely can contain it any longer. The tears that he was holding in, the ones I saw were begging to burst forth the moment our eyes met outside my home, finally poured out.

“Fink is good. Really good. Does tournaments and wins quite often in … well, what she calls her “videos game,” career. She calls me. She checks in. Still calls me Butt-man and Stink-man… hehehe, but sometimes she’ll call me…” I trail off and see the most pained expression on his face.

“She must be happy. I’m glad,” he says with a turn of his head, the bit of sad jealousy peeking through, and as he wipes his tears with a swift and steady hand, I sense a scowl. His anger covering up his intense sadness.

“You should see her. You should see all the kids,” I say. He nods, but his eyes betray the motion. “Well, except of course, Mikayla…” I point to her over by the fireplace and she is looking at us quietly.

“I am glad to see her… I think I’ll need to talk to her in a minute. If that’s ok, of course.”

“She’s hot and cold, but usually very forgiving. Let her cool off a bit,” I say and he nods. When he first came in just fifteen minutes prior, she was wary to get too close, sizing up her step-father to ascertain his motives. Slowly, though she was initially near the stairs, far away from him, she has been slowly moving closer as our conversation drops to a steady pace. Like a slow dance, now.

He looks over at Mikayla again in a affectionate manner and then sighs, moving his long black hair behind his ear. “I have no one to blame but myself, you know, Boxy,” he starts softly, and places his hand over my hand. His hand feels so warm. I missed him more than ever in that single moment, even as he was sitting right in front of me. All this time, and all that we missed out on. “I didn’t know about Shadowy at first. Being tired and cranky all the time, I thought things were a little off, but normal otherwise. I didn’t realize… but when I did, I tried to get rid of him. He was a parasite, after all. Not me. But after while, he convinced me that he was a part of my brain.” He pointed lightly to his head, almost unconsciously imitating a different sort of gesture. As though he was thinking of ending it all at one point. It made me shudder to think he had possibly considered such a horrible conclusion, but thankful he didn’t try.

“How are you now?” I ask, and he jolts a bit, seemingly unready for such an inconvenient yet basic question.

He laughs in a joyless chuckle, “Making it. Just… making it.”

He leans in a bit and I look at his mouth, the very mouth I longed to press all over my body, and almost find myself climbing Over the furniture to get to, but I stop myself. This conversation was long overdue.

“PV, what… what exactly do you think… what do you want coming here?” I ask in a gentle manner, our hands still layered together.

“I don’t expect anything, especially from you. Or the kids. I wanted to make amends to you. I… at the risk of sounding like I am trying to get a rise out of your own sentiments… I really missed you,” his eyes glittered to a low hum.

I nod again, drinking my tea lazily. I can’t find the right way to explain just how much I missed him too, not just during this extended absence, either. When we were together and those black outs would get longer and longer. Where I would only see Shadowy. Never my sweet if not temperamental would-be husband. He was gone even as he’d lay next to me.

No love, just cut up leftovers that were too damn cold. Even fire couldn’t heat that up. It was dead, and we both knew it.

He continues after an extremely long pause. I knew he was waiting for me to say something. I felt bad, but I knew this was important to hear him out. I felt safe in him realizing just by me opening the door and letting him in, that he must be aware of my feelings.

“Boxy, we… I… the business… the way we started our life together… it was already packed with fervor, intensity. You stoked the fires in my deadliest dreams, and created a new brilliant bridge to something I never would’ve defined as success. Having a family with you. Sharing our love for petty destruction amongst our creation of our… business that felt more like a home… a true family… a dream that I lost through my selfish pride and damn ego…”

“Ego,” I parroted, and he noticeably blanched at my commentary. “What exactly about Shadowy shaped your ego?”

“He gave me what I always felt I needed. To stop using diversions, mind games and science to keep the power away. To allow myself to have what I deserved, to be as powerful and as menacing as I knew I was capable of being. And more.” He stood up a bit and tilted his head in a childish manner. Almost as if he were emulating a villainous pose he thought of as a younger, more naive hero.

“I… knew that it was bad. I still did it. I did it only for me. Even as I told myself it would benefit you. My family. Our kids. But, I was incredibly selfish.” He turns suddenly and his eyes waver. Suddenly, he drops to the floor on his knees, making Mikayla jump up in alert. I wave her down as a sign of safety and she nods, going back to the bed she created out of large pillows near the crumbling, crackling fire in the hearth.

“John,” he says and I swallow harshly at the use of my first name. “You owe me nothing. Nothing but deserved anger and disdain for the atrocities I created. What I did to you and our whole life together. I can’t forgive it. I can’t forgive myself for allowing such a… for allowing myself to sink to such shitty depths. No excuse.” His eyes trembled yet he still attempted to look stoic. There was such a distressing amount of pleading in his eyes, however. It made me want to just kiss him. “I’m so sorry, Boxy..” he mewled out, like a lost kitten.

“Oh, God, PV….” I bit my lip and closed my eyes. He was so absolutely drop dead gorgeous. On his knees. Begging for my forgiveness.

In my perfect fucking house. My safe haven. Like the most perfect piece of art hanging on my wall. And here was my ex, my lover, my love, my darling, this creeping shadow of a man.

Was he going to blow it up? Fuck me over again? Do me dirty and rip the art off my wall and throw some black paint on my bed? Shove me down, kill me again?

“You really fuckin’ did it, huh, PV?” I say in a gripping anger. “You leapt from the highest point of the mountain. You flew only to fall down hard. Icarus couldn’t have done it better. No wax wings, worse than a bad poem that tried to be an epic ballad, but it turned out to be.. well, just waxing poetic.” I scrunched my nose and I saw my black haired villain rise up, brushing off his clothes.

“Not good enough,” he answered, and I shook my head.

“No. That’s the real tragedy, PV. You see,” I stood up and got close to his form, leaning towards him in a suggestive manner. “You really did a lot of damage. So much so, even our POW card levels broke down, hitting zero for all of us. Hero and villains, both were leveled to nothing… and haha, we all realized how ridiculous they were to begin with. You screwed up the whole thing. You tore down my sense of reality. I watched you as you pretended to die in front of me, instead I saw your puppet of a form dismantling our secret glances. Our midnight conversations, our indecent mid-morning… liaisons…” I saw him blush deeply and I blinked, frowning deeper as his expression turned back into fear. “And the real tragedy was you didn’t see how you were more powerless than ever in that state.”

He was afraid I was setting this all up just to kick him out, and as I kept building it up, he seemed to shrink physically in stature. As though that hard hitting truth had reduced more than just his ego. I wouldn’t touch on how deeply vain he could have gotten just by explaining how much damage he had done to the Netural Zone and other adjacent parts of the cities and towns, and how much it could bolster up that last bit of gray shadow in him, even knowing just how disgusting the acts were.

“I watched you break free only to allow that menace to be the driver. Like you just gave up. Like you didn’t care. But I knew that somewhere… deep down, was the real PV. The one I…”

I felt myself breaking, breaking like the very windows of my old home, my very factory, the deeply felt roots of my family tree, the pillar that had been torn down in a few swipes of a sudden burst of furious, incalculable priggishness. His pride and his over zealous “confidence,” tore out the frames of our safe house, unlike his electrical power strikes.

“The one you…?” He whispers, and my whole body feels a tingle at his deep breathy voice. Gruff and masculine and so sexy.

“Oh, fuck it,” I said, grabbing him roughly, pulling him down in a slinking dip. His eyes were wide in utter shock. More than anything, it was good old fashioned sensuality in his glare. Passion and love and admiration.

We kissed furiously, as I led him to crash into my form, heavy and loud and divine.

Oh Professor, please sink those fingertips into my body.

Don’t let this moment pass…

We’re doing a dance, I say to myself, a dance without movements, a dance that is linguistic. My lover has a sword like weapon, his tongue.

I have now de-weaponized it into something a bit different. I no longer peer over at the sword.

He’s my shield, and I am his protected gem.