Kevin stumbled out of Ren’s car, slammed the passenger door behind him, and lovingly flipped his friend off as the Jaguar sped away. The dark green Victorian home before him—his mother’s—wouldn’t come into focus. It insisted on splitting in two, then orbiting around the point where the sturdy front door should’ve been.
“Sssssstay in one ffffucking p-place!” Kevin growled. “Ssssstop being an asssssshole, house!”
Ren had not been happy to discover what had once been a mostly full bottle of Glenlivet made empty and sticking out of Kevin’s jacket pocket. After what Kevin had seen—or, as he was coming to believe, merely thought he’d seen—getting absolutely shitfaced via someone else’s liquor had seemed the only sane option. Oscar had not impaled himself on a pitchfork, died, and then woken up moments later. Doorknob’s neck never twisted like a pretzel and then repaired itself. And that man in the woods? A figment of an overactive imagination stressed by job loss and the subsequent forced move to a less than desirable locale.
And, above all, none of it was his fault. Kevin blamed Waltman. It wouldn’t have been the first time his friend had thought it a good idea to sneak shrooms into whatever they were eating in the Works—although usually Waltman only did that to Doorknob, because that was hilarious.
Kevin stood on the cracked sidewalk and stared intently at the house, willing it to stop moving. It refused. He didn’t like his chances at a quiet entry given his current state of intoxication. And any noise, any noise at all, would bring his mother running in her robe and slippers, armed with the rolling pin she kept in the nightstand for fighting off burglars, murderers, rapists, and atheists. As family, Kevin had much worse to fear than a blow from the rolling pin; he risked an annoyingly calm, heartfelt lecture reminding him of the evils of alcohol, decrying the quality of his friends, lamenting the state of today’s youth, and musing on just how it was that his mother’s peerless parenting skills had failed to keep him from becoming a miscreant. Having been on the receiving end of several such speeches, which always came spiced with a sprinkle of Jesus and a side of hellfire and brimstone, Kevin wished she’d whack him with the rolling pin instead.
He supposed it could’ve been worse. Abelia Felton always kept an even tone with Kevin regardless of how frustrated she became with him, like she knew he was a good person deep down who occasionally made a few mistakes and needed a little motivation to get things right. She didn’t seem to have the same sort of faith in anyone else in Harksburg. Abelia Felton had stormed Waltman’s front door more than once, and her dressing down of Doorknob at the town’s annual Fourth of July fireworks eight years ago was the stuff of legend—even though no one could remember exactly what Doorknob had done to anger Kevin’s mother.
The porch swing beckoned Kevin’s exhausted body, the soft creak of its chains in the breeze a siren’s song like no other. He eyed it suspiciously. Besides the fact that it, too, had decided to duplicate itself and spin, the swing had a reputation as a cold, hard mistress that had ruined many a nap and enjoyed leaving painful creases in the flesh of those who spent too much time in her steely embrace. Kevin knew better than to spend the night in the porch swing—chances were sleeping outside would only postpone the lecture until the morning, when his mother would surely discover him while coming out to retrieve the newspaper. He needed to get inside, to his own bed, where he’d be able to combat any accusation of impropriety with the simple, reasonable excuse that he’d come home at an appropriate hour and done so quietly and politely so as not to wake the other member of the household.
Kevin stared dumbly at the house for a few more moments before a brilliant idea twisted his drooping face into a big dumb smile: the Pussy Hatch! So named because he’d used it to sneak many a girl into his bed in his wilder, younger days, the ground-level window of Kevin’s basement bedroom would get him inside safe and sound. It had never locked correctly except when it froze shut, and he thought that unlikely given that it was the third week of September. A quick jiggle and it would flip right open. He just hoped he could still fit through it.
“Ffffuck you, porch ssssswing,” Kevin slurred as he staggered into the driveway. He skirted his mother’s little white shitbox of a car as if walking a highwire in a windstorm, taking small, tentative steps as he wobbled precariously on the narrow strip of asphalt between the vehicle and the house. Banging against either, he knew, would bring his mother stampeding down the stairs, ready to clobber any ne’er-do-well she found traipsing about her property, an outcome that would ruin any chance Kevin had at getting close to a good night’s sleep.
The Pussy Hatch was just beyond the car but prior to the garden hose dangling from an old metal hook that itself dangled from the side of the house. Kevin knelt awkwardly and examined the window. To the uninitiated, the lock would’ve appeared firmly engaged, but Kevin knew better. He pressed firmly against the bottom of the rectangular window, jiggled it to the right, then jiggled it back to the left. The Pussy Hatch opened with a soft pop, pivoting outward on hinges across its top, and he lifted it as high as it would go. This must be what mail feels like! Kevin thought as he slithered through the narrow slot feet-first. He inhaled deeply to squeeze his beer gut through. Kylie had warned him that he was getting a bit plump, but she was a dirty, two-timing slut and so her opinion didn’t count and Kevin didn’t miss her. Most of the time.
Kevin’s feet sank into the lush carpet and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He turned, gently pulled the window shut, and reset the locking mechanism. Mission fucking accomplished!
Navigating in the darkness wasn’t a problem. Kevin knew his way around that room like a concert pianist knew his way around a baby grand. To the right of the Pussy Hatch stood his desk, an ancient mahogany monster he suspected once belonged to his father which now played host to a broken PC and a pile of Cubs memorabilia. If he reached the shelves of soccer trophies on the far wall, he’d know he’d gone too far. The red lights of the alarm clock in the far corner to his left was a beacon beckoning him into the nearby bed—but he moved slowly, wary of the heavy chest at the foot of the bed on which he’d bruised many a knee. The faucet in the attached bathroom dripped at a familiar interval, a metronome of sorts that sped up whenever someone came down the stairs. He could’ve tapped and named each of the posters on the wall in turn blindfolded—Scarface, The Seven Samurai, Rounders—had anyone challenged him. Luckily, his mother had decided to leave his room untouched when he’d moved away. Sneaking in would’ve become prohibitively more difficult if she’d filled it with the Jesus crap that infested the rest of the house.
He shucked his jacket and his jeans and pulled on the flannel pajama pants he kept at the foot of the bed. Good, God-fearing children who go to bed at reasonable hours—soberly, by the way, and only after thanking the Lord for every breath, sip of water, and bite of food said children had partaken of that day and as such would not benefit from a stern talking-to—always put on their PJs. Years of practice had made Kevin a master at avoiding his mother’s attention. Sometimes he thought he should publish a book on the subject—under a pseudonym, of course. He didn’t want his mother or Jesus to catch him.
As he settled into bed and closed his eyes, a warm, familiar arm settled across his chest and a gentle hand reached up to caress his cheek. “When I heard you were coming back, I almost couldn’t believe it.” Her voice was like silk, soft and smooth and welcoming.
Kevin rolled to his left and took the slender woman in his arms. As usual, she wasn’t wearing anything. She sighed as he traced a finger down her smooth back and grabbed a handful of her soft ass.
“I missed you too, Nella.”
Kevin must’ve fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Nella was not real; her visits were a recurring dream he’d had since his teenage years. Oddly enough, it was a dream he’d only ever had in that bed. Never had he dreamed of Nella while napping on the couch, while staying with friends, while living in his college dormitory, or while working and living in Chicago. He’d given up trying to explain it long ago.
Definitely something in the fucking water. Something really fucking potent. Whatever it was had made Nella absolutely gorgeous, but also blue from head to toe, with glittering silver eyes, hair blacker than the surrounding night, and a set of gills that flared open in her neck when she came. He didn’t know what his subconscious was trying to tell him with this one and he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.
Her eyes twinkling in the darkness, Nella leaned in for a kiss. Sparks flared in Kevin’s mind as her supple lips caressed his own. He pulled her closer, letting the feel of her wash him clear out of Harksburg and onto another plane of existence.
So what if she was blue and a figment of his imagination? Kevin wasn’t about to reject this: Harksburg’s most redeeming quality.