14. Connor
Connor
Every session, without fail, Dr. J, who is one of the Musketeers, asks me to throw out my gum while I speak with him.
Pushing eighty, he’s a retired psychology professor.
He may or may not know this, but I prefer caramel candy over gum, and the only reason I buy gum nowadays is so I can chew it when we meet online.
I love breaking his stupid rules. If he were a bird, all his feathers would be fluffing up right about now. I chew my gum the way a bull chews grass and blow a big balloon, then pop it.
“Please discard your gum.”
I spit it onto the screen. “Bull’s-eye.” Right in the middle of his forehead. I let it stay there and focus on it, not on Dr. J’s face. I don’t like him. “Where are the other two today?”
“Couldn’t make it. How was your week?”
“Why couldn’t they make it?”
“I don’t know. But I am here for you.”
I narrow my eyes at the subtle suggestion that I need any of them to be here for me. “They’re done with me. They won’t come back unless my brother forces them into these meetings. Bummer. I liked Dr. H. I don’t really like you.”
I watch his reaction. It’s measured, subtle in the way this man shuts down to remain professional.
A deep breath, then an exhale. “I’m sure it’s a personal matter they’re attending to, and they’ll return next week.”
“I thought you didn’t know. Why next week?”
“I am speculating.”
“You’re patronizing me. You know I don’t like that.”
The man shakes his head. “They’re professionals. They wouldn’t miss a session with you if they didn’t have to.”
“Both of them? Maybe they gave up on me.”
“Maybe.”
I take a deep breath, then exhale the way he did only moments ago. “What’s the topic for the day?”
“Whatever you want it to be.”
“Talk dirty to me, baby.” I flash him a smile.
He fights my charm, but I bet he fantasizes about me. I lick my lips, and his eyes follow the movement. Yeah, he liked that all right.
“Your brother said you’ve taken an interest in a girl,” he starts.
“And how does that make you feel?” I ask.
There’s a tic in his jaw, but he remains quiet.
He’s married. There’s a ring on his finger.
I could keep teasing him, but he showed up while the others gave up.
I have zero doubt they’re done with me. Everyone wants to change me, “help” a bad motherfucker, until they come face-to-face with a bad motherfucker.
Then they run like the chickens they really are.
“My brother talks a lot.” Actually, Declan talks very little. “I’m surprised he noticed.”
Doc stays quiet, hoping the silence will make me yap. It won’t. When he doesn’t speak, I reach into my pocket and grab another piece of gum.
“Do you want to tell me about her?” he asks.
I place the gum on the desk. “Brown hair, pastel-green eyes. Very pretty. Great tits. An even better ass. I’d like to fuck her.”
“Is that all you want to do with her?”
“All? Having sex with someone is not what I normally want to do with people.”
He blinks. “How do you mean?”
“Most people irritate me with their stupidity. I want to silence them.”
“She’s special. Do you want to date her?”
“I don’t date. I fixate.”
Dr. J writes in his notebook. “When did this fixation start?”
“I don’t have a fixed start date.” When I figured out she’s a great mother to the baby she’s raising all on her own.
When she said yes on a whim and let me eat her out.
When she dumped her doctor boyfriend and walked a mile to my house.
When I couldn’t find her in the yearbook of the school she was supposed to have attended.
When her birth certificate said one thing, but people I called in the town she grew up in said another.
It doesn’t take much. It’s the little things.
“How did you meet?”
“She’s friends with Dina.”
“Ah, so she’s already in your closest circle.”
I roll my shoulders.
He picks up on my body language. “Does that bother you?”
I scratch my head. “Mmhm. Something’s not right with her.”
“How do you mean that?”
“She doesn’t check out.”
“Check out how?”
“Fuck! Why do you want to know everything?” I rock in the chair.
“She doesn’t check out. Her background is…
It’s wrong. It doesn’t check out. There are pieces missing.
The pieces of her life don’t fit, and life always fits.
Nature fits. It’s when people mess with it that they make everything bad.
Some other people created her life. It’s the only explanation. ”
The Musketeer frowns as he tries to understand what I’m saying.
That’s all he’ll get. I’m not about to explain my process to him.
I gathered and sorted information about Ekatia.
At first glance, her life is simple and average.
A city girl, grew up in a middle-class, working family, one sibling.
Her yearbook picture doesn’t match how she looks.
It’s a likeness of her. With green eyes and brown hair, but it’s not her. I know because I’ve memorized Ekatia’s face, every feature of it, and my memory is excellent.
“Do you run checks on everyone you meet?”
“Anyone who comes near my family.”
“What happens to people who don’t check out?”
“I know where you’re going with this,” I say.
Dr. J’s eyes soften. “And I appreciate you letting me do my job, even though I’m aware you’re three steps ahead. But I’d like to think I’m not completely useless.”
I laugh, relaxing back in the chair. “Keep going, then, not-useless Musketeer.”
“Musketeer?”
“Yeah. That’s what I call you three. Now one, but there used to be three of you.”
“That’s very clever, Connor.”
“I’m a clever guy.”
Silence again. This time, I give him a break, or maybe I want to talk to him about Ekatia. I have a feeling I could talk about her for days. She’s my favorite topic. My fixation.
“People who don’t check out don’t have access to my family.”
“Why do you keep her around?”
I tsk. “She’s Dina’s best friend and will be the maid of honor at my brother’s wedding.”
“That sounds like a reason not to keep her around even more. She’s in the innermost circle.”
“I can’t get rid of her.” I feel like ants are crawling over my skin. “She’s a good mother.” There. Dr. J can’t fight his satisfied smirk. He landed on what he wants to talk about with me.
When we first started our sessions, the Musketeers were given my file.
They know my history. They know my father raped my mother and forced her to give birth to my brother and me.
She called us her rape babies while also going out with him, doing drugs, drinking, and occasionally thinking up ways to get rid of me and Dec.
Dec found out that one time, our mom tried to drown us in the river under the Pointe Bridge, from which, at Declan’s order, our father hung our mother after he gutted her.
All of Selnoa witnessed her demise.
It’s one of the main reasons my father was feared. He killed the very person he loved most in the world. And make no mistake, he loved my mother fiercely. It was an obsession. A fixation.
“Do you want to tell me more about her?”
“I can do that. She gives a shit about her baby. She’s a hard worker too.
Doesn’t whine about having to work. I respect that.
She wants to get laid and doesn’t make excuses for her sexuality.
She knows who she is. She pushes back when I’m being a dick, and you know what she did the other day?
” I lean into the screen and stick my tongue out.
“She came on my tongue in under a minute.” I lean back.
When I get no reaction from the Musketeer, I tilt my head. “You know my rules, Doc. If I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall, I’ll stop talking.”
“You have a relationship with this woman.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
“You are sexually active with her.”
“I haven’t fucked her. I just made her come. Do you like coming in someone’s mouth?”
Declan pays these people a fortune to sit here and chat with me, so I’d better get my money’s worth. “Come on, Doc. When you signed up for this job, you knew it wasn’t going to be easy. You accepted after you read my file. I stated my rules on day one. Answer me or fuck off.”
“Yes, I like coming in my husband’s mouth.”
“Does he?” I ask.
“Probably.”
“Did Declan force you to be here?”
“He sent each of us your file. We were all given an opportunity to study the file. We committed to a number of sessions.”
“You are evading. My question has a yes-or-no answer. “Did Declan force you to be here today?” People normally stay away from me. They find reasons to bail, run, die. I’m like a cockroach and can survive anything. Just ask my mother. She tried to kill us multiple times.
“Yes,” Dr. J says, “But…”
I disconnect. Stretch. Roll my shoulders, shake out my body as if I’m a book shaking off decades-old dust that’s stuck on the leather-bound cover.
“Connor!” Declan shouts from downstairs.
Uh-oh. He found out about the restaurant.