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There's something weird goin on with Colin. I mean, there's always something weird goin on with him, but last night he went out to some party I wasn't invited to (not that I'm ever invited to the parties he hangs out at, but he'll often take me with as a prop and advertisement) and he didn't come back till very early in the morning. I know cause I met him at the bathroom door. At the time I thought it was weird he didn't just wait to get to his own room and it's en-suite, but that's alcohol for you.
A hand crashed into the door frame, but the arm it was connected to was trembling. “Move, lass.” he said, sounding weird, just as aggressive as always, but kinda thick voiced. Again, alcohol. He doesn't drink much, but when he does drink, he drinks. In the flat early morning dark, it was difficult to make out his face, but his eyes were glittering like an animal's, but not looking at me.
I turned sideways to let him pass. “Fun night, Colin?” We're nowhere near friends, but you've either gotta talk to the people you live with, or go insane. Usually he makes some quip, but not this time, this time a weird sound crawled out of his throat, like an undead frog. Even more strange, he didn't immediately slam the door in my face or even turn on the light, but staggered into the room and began trying to get his waistcoat off. I always wonder how he doesn't freeze on cold nights, and that morning he was acting like he had hypothermia, moving real slow and clumsy. Piss drunk, I thought.
After a beat of watching him struggle to undo buttons, I thought I should be nice. Like I said, we ain't friends, but I've been real close to him, real close, if you catch my meaning, and that adds different facets to a relationship. I can be casual with him in ways other people can't.
“Want help, honey?” it's very important never to imply he needs anything. Gotta let him do that.
“Huh? No. Get out. Close the door.” but before I did that he managed to throw his coat off his back (only to get it stuck in his elbows) and then I noticed that his shirt wasn't buttoned, but hanging open, like he pulled it on in serious haste. His belt was the same way, a length of it hanging uselessly, making him look a real mess. “Get out!” his shout and bleary eyed glare knocked me out of my daze.
But I didn't go far when I closed that door, listening from around a corner to him lockin it, then the whoosh of water. It stayed on for ages. Why the heck is he using Gob and I’s (servant) bathroom?
A couple hours later, when I wake, I meet him again in the kitchen, looking like hell. Absolute hell. The Ninth Circle. Such a long shower did absolutely nothing to take the grime of a long, hard night off him, and if it weren't that I knew he'd been out, I'd think he's sick. Instead of being all go go go! he stands at the fridge, looking into it, faded eyes sunken into grey skin. At the counter, Gob sneaks glances at him, extremely apprehensively.
“Hey, Colin. Morning.”
There's no answer, but that don't mean he ain't heard. If I say hi again he'll call it nagging, so I set to making my fave breakfast - beans on toast- which I got the taste for from him.
Halfway through me making it, he turns from the fridge, without having got anything from it. It's then I see that his nose is broken, his lip is busted, one eye is black, and there are fingerprints and scratches on his throat. The sight is doubly shocking, triply horrific, and four times as creepy, cause he hasn't said anything. He's just standing there. Like it's normal. Me and Gob stare at him as he repeats his silent interrogation, this time of the inside of a cupboard. I mean, he's been in fights before, but he wins and wears any injuries like badges, strutting around like a gamecock (his words). Now I see that he's actually unwashed, his hair still has blood in it.
For an answer, I round on Gob, but he stares back, wide eyed and frightened. With Colin you really don't want any change in his shitty routine, because he's volatile enough as is.
A cupboard door swings shut, slowly, Colin performing yet another dead eyed sweep of the kitchen. Suddenly it hits me what he's doin, or tryna do.
“Colin, honey, do you want me to make you some of this?” My beans on toast smell delicious, and it's one of his favourite dishes. At that he briefly returns to life and awareness, his eyes catching mine for just an instant. The contact makes me shiver like I haven't for a while. Looking into his eyes, the one that's open, is like looking down a dark tunnel, with only a very faint spot of light at the end. The uninjured eye itself is even wider open than Gob’s, white all around, like he's watching something terrible unfold that I can't see..I've never seen that expression on him before, and it makes me want to go for his gun. To keep it away from him.
“What? No, no…Cheers.” he says, but dithers some more until he finally leaves the room.
Downstairs at work, nobody but me and Gob seem able to see that there's something wrong with the boss. Or maybe we're the only ones even a little affected by it, probably cause we literally are part of his household, and there's a pale sort of sympathy between us and him. Or more than pale, if I'm being honest. Everyone's doin their thing, chatting with customers, laughing when he's out of earshot, smoking. Shiners and bloody noses are common round here, and no one is going to tell you that they don't like to see a beating applied to Moriarty. He knows people wanna see him hurt, he told me once, when we were sharing the same pillow. I told him I didn't, but he laughed and called me a liar. Which I am. But he ain't no gal, so makeup can't rescue him. He stays in his office most of the day.
Thing is though, because of how we function, he soon finds me in his office, where I go multiple times a day, sometimes cause I need something, but mostly cause he's the only one who says he loves me. The only one who shows it in even a milquetoast, half assed, self centered way. But today I move slow towards his place, because something is up with him, and I want to find out what.
Just as well as I do step careful along the wood paneled corridor, with its brass bits and fancy lights, cause outside his door the horrible sound of puking reaches me. He's throwing up, into a wastebasket by the sound of it, then he's dry heaving, and worst of all, he's sobbing, a high, keening wail breaking through breathless waves of tears. Sound becomes a blade, to cut and slash me.
…What the heck do I do? If he's sick, he wouldn't be crying, unless he's in pain, maybe. I can't just walk in and ask him whats wrong, it'll humiliate him, and no good tends to come of that. But this is something I've never heard from him. Not even close. He never cries, not out of sadness, not out of joy. Careful as I can, this girl tip toes back down the corridor, along wooden floorboards, kept bare so he can hear people coming.
💔
By the afternoon, Colin is still going about his business without most people noticing that he's not himself, that he's out of it. Or should I say, they don't care. How do I know they don't care? Cause their conversations and faces don't change. They laugh, there ain't no frightened, concerned expressions, no hushed tones. His pain doesn't affect them, not even a little. If anything, it's funny. Real freaking funny. I want to hit someone. One time a group of them are in the process of wondering what hero blacked his eye, when he walks into the room. He always pauses before entering a room, so he can listen, but today he gives no hint that he's hearing anyone's voice.
And he's walking blind, I realise. Usually dangerously observant, today he only sees enough to more or less get where he needs to go, but he bumps into things, doesn't notice the slight signs of slacking off that he would otherwise. The most incredible thing - I see a customer hand him cash, and I see Moriarty put it down on the bar and walk off a minute later, eyes flipped inwards. That's when I know for sure that something awful has happened.
But his gaze is not turned so inwards that they don't see the door and the windows, he's not deaf to little, sudden noises. He's not unaware of surprise touches. Nope, he focuses on those alright, eye open as wide as it can be while he visually and aurally interrogates the people outside, body jumping through the freaking roof when I brush him from behind. I ought to know what's wrong with him, because something about it is eerily familiar.
The day is tortuously long when you're worried about someone, especially in our line of work, where the party never stops. I stand around, and think of him. I see customers, and I think of him. I lean against a wall and smoke, and I think of him. Sayin I'm worried is one thing I can't say, at least not to Gob, who doesn't and can't have the same relationship with the boss that I do. Sayin it to Moriarty himself, before today, would be met with scoffs. To be worried about him is an insult, or a symptom of your inferiority, or a weapon to use against you, though I think deep down he likes to hear it for its own sake. But that was yesterday, and today he is not the same man.
Evening arrives, followed by its big sister, night, and Moriarty is still a zombie, walkin around in a dream, a nightmare, sticking to his office enough that people have commented. A suspicion is putting itself together in my mind like an evil fetus. I don't want to give birth to it, this impossible thing. Shit like that doesn't happen to guys, and it definitely doesn't happen to guys like him. He overpowers, he ain't overpowered. But I know these symptoms. They are unique.
“Colin…” It's closing time and I'm helping him get things sorted, locking the door, pulling down shutters, putting away chairs. It's early in the morning, still a couple hours from being twenty four hours since I met him at the bathroom door, and he's barely said ten words since breakfast. Gob is doing his best to avoid him, and that's sayin something, since he always does his best to avoid him. “Colin…” I want him to respond, stop terrifying me, give me something to work with, see if this bridge is fit for walking, because I know what men are like, they say women are emotionally fragile, but they're the ones who commit suicide in droves. “Colin, babe, look at me.” that phraseology…I hope he doesn't realise I suspect something.
Third time's the charm. Anguished eyes lit by green neon, turn towards me in the dark at the front of the pub. “What do you want, Nova.” his voice is all ash, dead and flat. Even his funny accent has fallen on its face, and lies still. Shot in the back of the head. Behind us a shadow moves, and Moriarty spins, a scared and hurt animal trapped in a corner, but it's only Gob, trying to zip up the stairs to the upper floors, where the three of us live. Before, Moriarty would rage at him for making a noise, for surprising him, but now, he just watches, eyes bulging, horrible to see. Now I know that I can say something without him blowing up, though there might still be other consequences. I wait till the door at the top of the stairs clicks, and so does Colin, wait for it I mean, before he carries on the final tasks of the night.
“Colin, what's wrong? Are you feeling ill?”
He flips a switch absently, then flips it back on. “Nothing’s wrong. And no I ain't.”
“You've been weird the entire day.”
“Mind your effing business. I didn't ask your opinion.” his back turns, hair more silver than blond now, gleaming in the darkness. He holds my money, and to an extent my life in his hands, but I think I'm not without power. In fact I know I ain't, at least when it comes to him. I've always had some leverage over him, I've always been able to get more out of him than anyone else. So I follow him up the stairs, out of his throne room and into the private wings of his palace, where I have my own room, right next to his, with Gob at the end of the passageway. What do I do, what do I do. I'm worried I'm worried. I don't want to wake up to a gun shot in the middle of the night. It can happen so easy. And when it does, that's it, that person is gone, and no amount of regret can bring them back. Lotta people would celebrate if he put a gun to his temple, but not me.
“Colin, want a massage? Your shoulders are tense.” I ask, after he hands me a tiny can of Coke out the fridge, something that is part of our ‘evening’ ritual. Offering a massage works ninety percent of the time. Mine are legendary, and he's a bundle of knots. All his women are paid for, so it's not like he's going to get a neck and shoulder rub anywhere else, not at this time of night, not without shelling out even more.
The hand holding the fridge door tenses, then relaxes. “Yeah. Fine.” Nearly always we end up sleeping together after a massage, but I seriously doubt that'll be the case today. And if it's not the case, that will go towards proving my suspicions.
We put our drinks down on his bedside table. Almost every night I spend a couple hours in here, his room, which is more luxurious, but emptier than mine, wiped clean of personality. A few photos of his family, that's all that puts some soul into this most intimate place. The photos shocked me when I first saw them, cause I thought he was heartless.
Moriarty removes his gun from its holster, placing it on the other bedside table, flipping on the light as he does. There's another danger spot in here, a pump action shotgun, hidden in the cupboard to his right, lying on its side, a more deadly black panther. He tells me he trusts me, but it only hits me in these moments, when I'm with him in his most secure location, where he feels safest. I could reach across for his pistol and shoot him. I could cut his throat with the knife in his drawer, or smother him while he sleeps. His money is more out of reach than his weapons are. All I would have to do is wait for him to pass out. But I don't, and never will.
After the gun goes his waistcoat. He's less clumsy than last night, so that's something. But it only makes sense. My theory involves drugs or drink messing him up. Now the shirt comes off, and a gasp is torn from my lips…I don't think he's looked at himself since the previous night. And yeah, he follows my gaze to his upper arms, which look like someone has been tryna turn him into a leopard. Black ovals pepper his skin, ringing his biceps, splattering across his shoulders, sitting on his hip bones. Fingerprints, human fingerprints. Solid black, evil. Unmistakable as his odd behaviour. My guy, my boss, my pimp, he can't lie, con, scheme or scam his way out of those. Not in front of me. No excuse in the world can make them anything but what they are, and their placement is an indictment. He was held by someone extremely keen to keep him. Someone who either didn't know how strong they were, or who didn't care. I've seen these marks of cruelty before, on my own skin. If he took his pants off, I would bet my life on there being a spray of them decorating his thighs, up high.
At the sight he turns ghost white, looks like he's gonna throw up, skin developing a sick sheen, and just when I think he's got it under control, he spins and marches into his bathroom, where his knees audibly hit the tiles, followed by the sound of a person throwing up stomach acid. So he hadn't seen those marks. I know how it goes. There's a blank in your memory, a blackout that don't come from drink or drugs, even if they were involved. I don't think those memories ever return, sometimes cause the brain didn't even record them in the first place. Even in the moment, it skips.
I want to go help him, but his hairs not long enough to give me an excuse, and you never can tell how someone's going to react. But he's smart, and he may call me stupid, but he's lying when he does. He knows I know, because he's left marks like that on me. On my body, on my heart.
When he finishes unhauling the contents of his stomach into the toilet, he returns and sits on the bed, waiting for the promised massage. People don't get how it is between girls and their daddys, but they wouldn't. They assume I hate him absolutely, hate hate, black hate all the time, but it's not all beatings and threats. Those are not the things that hold. If they were, I would be gone, whatever it took. I can get beatings and violence from anywhere, but I can't get ‘I love you’, hugs in the dark, or someone handing me ice cold Coke at 3am, from anywhere.
I start with a kiss to the point where spine turns into neck, and that tiny touch is enough to make a mountain crumble to dust. Like watching a human landslide. I've never seen one in real life, but I don't need to, now. Moriarty folds up over his knees, covering his head with his hands, his spine curved till he's all bone and joints, no vulnerable spots exposed. Protected, even from non hostiles. No sound of sobbing comes from this human tortoise, but it shakes, its fingers tearing at its hair. I didn't notice, but at some point he'd wrapped plasters around a couple torn fingernails. Torn trying to fight off whoever did this to him.
“Oh, honey…” my most motherly voice isn't very motherly in my ears, but it's a top request from clients. But not Moriarty. He's not a client, and he doesn't make requests, but I know he likes it too. “Colin…” I don't know what to say. I don't want to name it. It hurts too much, especially when the wound is so raw. And guys, I think they will want to hear it even less than us girls. For us it is a fact, we are weak. It is expected. For them it is an annihilation, they are strong. It is the end. “Colin, baby. I'm here.” I only ever tell him that I love him when he orders me to. It sounds too fake otherwise.
Risking it all, I land a hand on his back, high up, flat and warm. Not rubbing though, in case he feels condescended too. Just there to say that I don't find him disgusting. Or, at least I don't find him disgusting for being raped. I don't need to know what happened, it's obvious. Party, drinks, drugs. Happens every day. Everyone's got a story to tell, or knows someone who does. Lotta sick freaks he hangs round with. Big time players. Probably pissed someone off, turned someone down, or they just thought he looked tasty.
He doesn't respond though, stays curled up in his homegrown shell, so I sit back, pick up my Coke, and take a showy sip. When it's empty, I'll leave. Climb into my own bed and try to find that peaceful void, hoping no bad dreams come, expecting they will. Moriarty's been my partner for the longest term out of any I've had, and I've been his, yet we ain't anything but employer and employee, pimp and prostitute…how sad. How freakin sad. I'm the girl no one notes in the report. The girl who isn't let into the hospital ward. I don't go on the headstone or in the will. No one remembers me.
It could be hours, it could be minutes, but the sufferer unfurls, staying where he is for a moment, before sliding back along the bed, on his hip, coming to rest with his back touching my arm. Leaning a bit closer, I try to form a kind of warm wall. Another can of Coke hisses. Cigarette smoke fills the air. No one says anything, but Moriarty tosses what he calls ‘Nova’s blanket’ over my legs. It's fuzzy and duck egg green.
I'm dozing, my head on his shoulder, when he finally speaks. “I'm goin to the effing cops, and it's goin to be a waste of effing time. Or worse.”
“What about the hospital?”
“No way.”
“You're hurt, Colin. Your neck-”
“I'm fine.”
“You're not, sweetie. And it's okay. Please, don't let other people's actions saddle you with long-term consequences.”
That makes him sit up straighter, literally. So straight that he gets off the bed, his skin back to being super pale. I think we're imagining the same thing. “...I didn't shower, in the end. Not that there's any hope. Ain't no justice in this life.” he says, his eyes flicking towards me, then away. All the time he tells himself, and me, that what he did to me way back when, was necessary. It's not the same thing, cause he didn't do it to get off, but to help me. To help me ease into the life I live with him. He's a teacher, a protector. He doesn't leap out of bushes, or stalk parties.
“I'll come with you.” I say, following him, standing next to him, our eyes almost level.
“No, you ain't. I don't need you overhearing what went down. You'll blab to Gob about how your piece of shit boss woke up naked to men treating him like a buffet table. Or about how he ran his ass out of there after passing out again and waking up in a different guy's bed. He took his eye off his drink, the chump.” he presses the back of a hand to his lips when he's halfway done giving this quick overview, eye wide and wet above it. No longer seeing me. “I left my body, like they say happens. My clothes weren't in that room. I have no idea what happened. No bloody idea. There's only fragments. They ain't going to take me seriously.”
Oh. Man. It's good though. He needs to talk about it. And I need a strong drink of my own.
"They’d better. I'm coming with, a king shouldn't travel without his retinue, and there is no sweet a retinue as me.” I say. That makes him smile, crookedly, and very briefly. “You were able to fight them, Colin. I can see you gave them hell. But even if you couldn't, I hope you know it wasn't your fault, hon.”
I get a very rare kiss on the cheek for that, and a squeeze of my hand. “Nova, no one loves you more than me. And I love you to the moon and back. My sweet lass indeed. It wasn't my fault…but maybe I deserve it, ey?” he grins, an inward, savage grin, before biting his busted lip and grimacing. “I deserve to feel the burn. ‘Dish out but can't take’, that ain't me.”
“Don't think like that. No one deserves such horror.”
“Don't tell me what to think, princess. I know what I am. I know.”
He smiles better and longer when I (carefully) loop my arms round his neck and we stand there, eyes closed, foreheads resting against each other, swaying, two utterly worthless human beings, but human beings still.