A heartfelt thank you to my editors Xpoerotica and Decal_Last for their unvaluable hard work and insight, you guys are the best!

DESTROYER

Tommy Balagan was six when he discovered he was color blind.

He lived in a world painted in shades of brown, bronze, blue and beige.

His Dad, Carl caught him eating moldy party food leftovers and took him to a clinic; there, curiosity got the better of him and Carl requested an additional test.

When they came home later that night, the man was livid.

Dragging the boy by the arm through the front yard, you'd have trouble recognizing the once upbeat swagger of the philandering "Maestro" Carl Balagan.

HVAC technician by day and party animal by night, Brooklyn residents had long grown used to the last of the Balagans to take up residence in the old brick house of New Jersey Avenue.

The family had bought the place back in the fifties when they first arrived in America, fleeing the descent of the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately, their curse had followed them to the New World and soon became part of the neighborhood charm.

Infidelities, shouting matches, domestic abuse charges, and even a knife fight that made prime time news back in 1972.

Neighbors' hopes that Carl would be different were quickly shot down by noisy late-night parties that sometimes bled into jealous fits and street brawls.

"Swingers parties," savvy voices would whisper behind closed doors.

Into this mess and out of nowhere landed Charissa, Carl's young wife, and his polar opposite.

Where Carl was charming and festive, she was melancholic and reserved, with an hourglass figure crowned by a head of prematurely graying hair.

Not even the birth of Tommy had managed to bring a ray of sunshine into the woman's bleak demeanor. Quite the opposite, the mere sight of the boy rendered Charissa miserable. Her rare smiles were reserved for Carl only, the fruit of her devotion.

Charissa's love for Carl knew no bounds; her eyes tracked his every gesture as she drank from his words.

This, to everyone who knew them, would only make the events of that fateful night all the more surprising.

Sitting in the kitchen clutching her phone, there was no joy in Charissa's lips when she saw her husband barge through the front door hauling the boy by the arm.

"D-Daddy, you're hurting me..."

Charissa knew the jig was up before he had opened his mouth.

"You... whore!"

"Carl..." her eyes lowered under the weight of shame and remorse. "Oh, God..."

"How could you do this to me?" His voice trembled with ire. "To me!"

"I'm sorry! Please..." Charissa threw herself at her husband. "Oh, my God, what have I... I'm so sorry!"

Carl held her at length, pointing at the boy in disgust.

"You lying bitch! I gave you a shelter, a home and you do this to me? You've... you've destroyed me, Charissa," tears of despair formed in his eyes. "All my hopes, all my dreams, I'm ruined!"

Carl turned to the boy and a wave of nausea swept through his body.

"I'm finished..." he stumbled forward, mumbling like a mad man. "I'm finished..."

Hatred grew in his heart, consuming all reason. Charissa's eyes widened in horror as her husband's expression turned from anger to madness. Trembling fingers found a life of their own and traveled across the kitchen counter.

"I'm finished..."

"Carl, don't..." Charissa's plead was cut short by the sight of his hand coiling around the handle of a kitchen knife. A shiver crawled down her spine.

"You little shit," he muttered. Lifting the shiny steel, Carl lunged at the boy. "You fucked up everything, you filthy little shit!"

"No!" Charissa stood between the two.

The blade stabbed through her hand.

"Aah!"

Blood sprayed the child's face warm, brown, and metallic.

"No!" Carl screamed. "Charissa!"

"Tommy, get outta here!" Charissa shouted at her terrified boy.

"This is all your fault, you worthless little fuck," Carl roared.

Charissa sprawled her leg, tripping her husband who fell to the ground.

"Tommy, run!" Her bloodied hands held onto Carl's legs, painting his beige pants in shades of copper. "Get away from here, run!"

The boy fled upstairs; the sanctuary he was forbidden to leave during Mom and Dad's noisy parties.

"Let go of me, you backstabbing whore!"

"Carl, please! You will be arrested!"

"He's a fucking disease!"

Tommy cried, stung by those words. Why was Dad doing this, hadn't he always been a good son? He already made his own bed and had learned to moonwalk all by himself. Why, Daddy?

Reaching the first-floor landing, Tommy glanced at his fragile bedroom door before pulling down the attic stairs. Maybe it'd be safer up there if he found a way to jam the mechanism in the retracted position.

Approaching footsteps startled the young boy, time had run out.

"Lying bitch, I fucking knew it!"

"They'll put you in jail," Charissa sobbed downstairs. "I will never see you again..."

"Fucking Mike Lawrence, I knew it," Carl climbed into the dark attic. His knife drew circles in the air, probing the darkness around him. Where was that fucking kid?

Wood screeched to his left. The window!

Tommy let out a terrified squeal, vaulting outside onto the roof of the old house.

In the distance, the Swingin' Sappho Dance Club challenged the night with its loud music.

"Get your feet off the ground and give it up for 2002,

Don't you know, pump it up, you've gotta pump it up."

Leaning against the brown tiles, Tommy negotiated the narrow ledge with his heart hammering his chest.

Carl fumed, just a few feet behind him.

"Why are you doing this? W-what did I do?" Tommy cried. "Please, Daddy, just tell me, what did I do?"

"I'll tell you what you did, you piece of shit, come here!" Carl swung his blade, missing Tommy by inches.

"Aah!" the boy screamed, watching his Father gain on him.

Panicked, the boy's left sneaker slid on a rotting leaf.

"No!"

Tommy's hands grabbed air and he fell to his death.

"Aaah!"

"Hnrrgh!" a man grunted, breaking the fall with his powerful arms.

"Gotcha! I've gotcha..."

Tommy opened his eyes in shock. He wasn't dead?

"Don't you know, pump it up, you've gotta pump it up."

Mike Lawrence, the high school coach, and a family friend had saved him. His Harley's headlight lit the front yard; he had driven like a madman after Charissa's phone call.

"You're alright, kid. You're alright..." Tommy followed Mike's eyes upward and found Carl staring down at both.

His towering frame projected a colossal shadow against the roof and there were brown blood handprints on his pants and shirt. But it was the madness in Carl's expression that would render Tommy sleepless for many nights to come.

"You've gotta pump it up."

A flashbang grenade smashed through the Balagans' bay window.

"Bang!"

Light and noise shattered the night peace.

"Breaching!" a cry flew and wood splintered as both front and back doors surrendered to battering rams.

SWAT teams swarmed in, rifles at the ready. There was no need for that, Tommy had told them the spare back door key was buried in the orchids' vase at the rear.

"Clear!"

Sobbing came from the kitchen. The armoured officers converged on the Balagans hugging on the floor, crying.

Laser dots painted Carl's chest red and a cacophony of barked commands filled the house:

"Freeze, douchebag!"

"Show me your hands!"

"Motherfucker, show me your fucking hands now!"

"How could you do this to me, baby?" Carl whimpered. "The one thing I told you not to..."

"I am so sorry!" Charissa bawled. "I love you. I love you so much!"

"They never change," the neighbors smirked watching Carl being dragged away in handcuffs while paramedics tended to Charissa's hand.

Gossip spread like wildfire over the following months, knowing grins fluttering away whenever Coach Mike dropped by to fix the doors or help around the house. The boy's schoolmates were the cruelest:

"Oh, Tommy, oh, Tommy,

Can I fuck your Mommy?"

With coached testimonies from the three key witnesses, all eager to exonerate the man, the District Attorney had very little to build a case. Carl was charged with Child Endangerment and served six years.

When he was finally released, prison had changed him.

The Maestro's joyful personality faded into the bottom of a whiskey bottle and eventually, the man himself vanished from a 4th-floor rooftop.

He somehow managed to miss the pavement of West 105th street and land in a coma at the Brooklyn Mercy Rayne Clinic where he's been ever since.

"They're scum," someone whispered. "It's in their family's blood, they destroy everything they touch."

Horrified by those words, little Tommy Balagan swore that day that he would never marry or father children; his cursed family name would die with him.

Puberty was Tommy's turning point.

As a child, he had dreamt of dazzling his parents' party guests with his wicked dance moves. As a teenager, his dancing talents shifted toward cheering up his Mother.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried Charissa could barely stand the sight of him. Rejected by his own Mother, Tommy grew up with a deep crave for human touch.

One day, watching the sad boy dancing in front of Charissa, Mike had an epiphany. The Coach recruited him for the school football team's mascot Ray Raven and Tommy flourished.

Under the suit's anonymity, he quickly became by far the best Ray Raven to ever grace the gridiron.

Crowds cheered and laughed so hard they cried as Tommy, the Maestro of Pranks raised a storm among cheerleaders, players, coaches, and officials.

Home team or visitors, nobody was safe from his wacky antics, be it on the field or on the bleachers.

He joined the youth automotive training program to become a car mechanic.

He worked after school in his Dad's garage fixing the neighbors' cars to help out his Mother with the expenses.

He galvanized crowds on Fridays at the school's football field, cheering for the Black Birds.

And at night in bed, he'd lament the deafening silence that had taken over the old house, recalling the loud music that had once filled his childhood.

Tommy managed to stay true to his vow of celibacy until the age of eighteen when on an autumn afternoon coming out of practice in his Ray Raven suit, the tall young man bumped a brunette beauty rushing out of the girls' bathroom in tears.

Both fell on the floor.

"Are you alright?" Tommy turned to check up on her.

"Are you a bad boy, Tommy?" Madeline Poppe sat sobbing. "Do you enjoy breaking girls' hearts too?"

"Y-you know who I am?" he recoiled. As many Brooklynites, Tommy knew of the Poppe family. Thugs, thieves and troublemakers, they all knew the cells of the Metropolitan Detention Center inside out. Out of that abject cesspool came Madeline, a talented rose with a gentle heart and a limitless imagination.

"I'd recognize that swagger anywhere, Tommy," she whimpered. "You walk like Goofy."

"I... do?"

"Mascots are part of the cheering squad, right?" Her sunken chestnut brown eyes pleaded. "Do you have some cheers for me?"

Watching the once chirpy girl reduced to tears was heartbreaking.

Tommy got up and sprung into the Ray Raven dance; an old school fila punctuated by air flares and Jackhammers leading up to a robotic arm wave that peaked on a bop to her nose. Madeline burst into a delighted laughter and Cupid's arrow pierced straight through Tommy's young brown heart:

"I could listen to that sound for the rest of my life," he thought.

Brown and beige paper flowers decorated the hallway, leftovers from the homecoming party. The young man snatched the biggest one for her.

"Thank you, Ray Raven, you have a heart of gold," she grinned as Tommy pulled her off the ground. Holding onto her brown paper flower, Madeline strode away with a renewed bounce in her gait, glancing at him over her shoulder while classmates cackled.

"Look, Ray Raven is in love!"

Madeline started coming to practice, sitting on the bleachers with her sketchbook, drawing and staring at Tommy in his suit while he trained routines with the cheering squad.

A month later, the young man was eating his brown strawberries in the school cafeteria when she sat in front of him.

"So, Tomasz Izydor Balagan... do you know other moves besides the Ray Raven dance?"

Through the corner of his eye, Tommy saw Madeline's ex-boyfriend, Ricky Tinsley disengage from Kay Cordoba and glare at them. Tommy had never liked Ricky, a snob punk with a pretentious Mother who thought herself royalty.

Ricky's Dad, in an attempt to escape from under the umbrella of his filthy rich Mother-in-Law, had moved their core family back to his Brooklyn roots. There, he had opened a studio hoping to build a name for himself and instill in Ricky the ethics of a hardworking man.

Watching his Dad at work, Ricky developed a taste for the arts from a very early age and once enlisted at Marlon Merlo Brooklyn High, the boy was swept off his feet by Madeline's talent. Added to her kindness, her bubbly personality and their shared love for cartoons and he quickly fell madly in love with her.

It took longer for Madeline to return his feelings. She didn't take kindly to his critical eye for her artistic shortcomings and his pompous air, but as time progressed and she improved in her craft, Madeline grew to value his input. He was one of the few people who could hold conversations on subjects that she was passionate about. Madeline was amused to watch their bitter clashes of opinions turn into pleasant debates, fascinated to discover how much they had in common and delighted to see his eyes light up each time she floored him with her latest art piece.

Their Cinderella story was short-lived.

Once Ricky's Mother Kitty learned of the girl's family, she swiftly shut down their little fairytale. Kitty had grand plans for her son and they didn't include a lowly spawn of street criminals. Quickly, she shoved Kay Cordoba into her boy's arms. The once wealthy Cordobas had been hit hard by the Stock Market crash of 2008, but their relocation from a lavish Tribeca address to a Brownsville loft hadn't dented their standing with the woman.

Kitty saw herself in Kay's eagerness to rejoin the Manhattan socialites and was thrilled to pair her son with such an ambitious young lady.

Under her wing, Ricky and Kay became the hottest new item at school.

Now, watching his entitled sneer wither into a frown, Tommy realized that the pompous boy still had feelings for Madeline.

'Well, tough luck!' the young Balagan thought. For once he too deserved a slice of happiness.

"Why, Madeline Poppe, are you asking me to the Winter Formal?" Tommy smiled. "I dunno, I would have to check my schedule."

"Pick me up on Saturday at seven," she stole one of his brown strawberries. "Don't wear the Ray Raven suit."

Tommy feigned a pout and Madeline pecked him on the cheek, winking.

Charissa was far from elated with this development, having grown colder toward the boy since Carl's coma. Despite Coach Mike Lawrence's help around the house, the place had fallen into an untidy mess, made worse by her need to juggle two jobs to keep the family afloat. Getting her to agree to let him go to the party was a challenge, so the young Balagan poured his heart into the performance of a lifetime.

Popping and Locking in front of her in the kitchen, sliding the Typewriter across the living room, he finally managed to yank a smile out of her thin bronze lips with a Happy Feet Dance while handing her a pizza dinner.

Wearing his Dad's suit, that night the young man glided through a forest of brown and beige dresses and black and blue suits holding Madeline in his arms.

Feeling her chest pressed against him as she panted out of breath and listening to her excited laughter, for the first time in his life Tommy tasted Heaven. As he stared into her gorgeous chestnut brown eyes, he realized this was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Madeline must have read his mind because she leaned forward and her bronze lips touched with his. From the other side of the room, Ricky Tinsley glared at them livid and stormed out dragging Kay Cordoba with him.

Giggling in the backseat of Tommy's Dad's Pontiac Grand Am later that night, the lovers couldn't undress fast enough. It was Tommy's first time and having been rejected all his life, he was nervous. But he was also in love.

Madeline saw the apprehension in her lover's eyes and soothed him with a tender kiss while guiding his fingers toward her intimacy. Her flowery scent filled the car interior as she opened herself to the young man.

"Relax," Madeline smiled as she kissed him, showing him how to stimulate the sensitive hood of her love bud. "Gently."

With soft caresses from his fingers and delicate touches from his tongue, Tommy slowly licked Madeline toward her peak.

"Now," she lead him inside her. "I am ready."

Magic coursed through his body when they joined, feeling her tight and damp womanhood yield to his slow advance.

Thrusting into her for the first time with loving passion, Tommy finally found himself where he belonged. He kissed her naked body, drawing her nipples into his lips as their sexual tension increased.

"Ooh, Madeline! You are amazing!"

"Hn! Oh, Tommy! Yes!"

His first climax came too soon.

"Oh, my God, Madeline! Oh!"

"Yes! Yes, Tommy, give me all of it!"

He continued entering her long after their orgasm. Twice more they mated on that night.

So this is what being loved felt like.

They dated for the rest of the school year. The cheerleaders had to pry them apart every time Ray Raven was needed on the field. In the backseat of his Pontiac, the locker room, and his bedroom whenever Charissa was at work, every sexual encounter was a glimpse into Paradise, as Tommy watched in wonder Madeline's delicate frame writhing on top of him, the necklace with the back door spare key to the Balagan house dancing around her neck.

But alone at night in his room, the dark thoughts would trickle in.

"You're just a rebound, her heart belongs to Ricky Tinsley."

Still, the color blind lad was determined to enjoy his stint in the sun for as long as he could.

The sun set on their little tryst on a cloudy May afternoon.

Tommy was strolling down Bradford Street carrying a bouquet of brown roses in his hand when he heard shouting coming from the dingy house Madeline shared with her alcoholic Dad.

"Are you trying to ruin your future? My Dad asked me to show him your latest work but you don't even draw anymore, always hanging with that guy," Ricky Tinsley shouted. "I can't believe you're sleeping with such a loser!"

"Well, I can't believe you're sleeping with that cow," Madeline shouted back.

"I'm not sleeping with her and she's not a cow. Kay's a good girl, her family and ours have been friends for generations. Mother says..."

"Oh, you always gotta listen to Mother, don't you? God forbid her precious son was caught dead with that filthy Poppe girl from Bradford Street."

"Don't talk about my Mother like that!" Ricky burst out of the front door fuming with Madeline in tow. "At least my Mother's not a whore who cheated on her Husband and birthed another man's child!"
Tommy's knuckles were white with anger.

He pummeled Ricky's face, throwing him onto the ground. Blood from his mouth colored the pavement brown.

"Get up." Tommy snarled. "I want you standing when I rip you in half. Get up!"

Rick stood up pale-faced, trying to mount a pathetic guard. All the rage and frustration bottled up over the years, the insults in the playground, the whispers behind his back came rushing in and Tommy's punches rained down on Ricky with homicidal fury.

Whap! Whap! Whap!

The smug boy's defense broke like cardboard and he went down like a rag doll.

Tommy kicked at the weeping frame curled on the ground.

Whump! Whump! Whump!

"Stop it!" Madeline begged, terrified at the thought of Tommy being arrested. She had lost so many relatives to the prison system. "Please, Tommy, you're gonna kill him! Please, stop it!"

A huge black FedEx driver emerged from the crowd. In his early sixties with gray hair and powerful arms as big as trees, he grabbed Tommy.

"Whoa there, killer! You're way too pretty to go to jail, trust me."

He trapped Tommy in a grappling hold while Madeline rushed to hug Ricky on the ground, hoping to calm him so he wouldn't press charges.

"I'm sorry..." she cried... "I'm so sorry!"

"Wha... are you for real?" Tommy roared, furious. "Are you for fucking real?"

The fucker had just insulted his Mom and she was comforting him?

"Get outta here, kid," the FedEx driver released him. "Scram!"

"Fine by me!" Tommy grunted, looking at his girlfriend. "You want rich boy, you can have him! I always knew you still have the hots for the guy."

Madeline turned in shock.

"No, Tommy, you've got it all wrong..."

"Fuck you, Madeline!"

As he ran away furious, Tommy heard her screaming:

"Tommy, oh, my God, Tommy! I'm sorry, come back! Please, you've got it all wrong!"

The fucking bitch!

He knew she'd go back to that fucker one day.

Three giddy teenage girls stood at the corner of Wyona Street and Blake Avenue, taking pictures, posing for selfies and making duck faces. They were thirteen, maybe fourteen years old.

Tommy saw them too late. He rammed the taller one, a cute Pacific Islander with long black hair, throwing her onto the ground. Something expensive smashed on the pavement.

"Vailea!" the freckle-faced girl with short bronze hair screamed.

"My camera!" The Asian girl in a scarf shouted. "You browke my Dad's camera!"

Tommy noticed her speech impediment, but he was too angry to exchange pleasantries.

"Fucking tourists!" he hissed. "Get off the sidewalk!"

"Get back here, you cunt!" she chased after him. "You browke my Dad's camera!"

"Yeah?" Tommy growled back at her. "Fucking bill me!"

"Motherfucker, get back here! Swear to God I will fucking hunt. You. Down!"

"Hyeon, let it go," the other girls called to her. "The mark is on the move."

Tommy had reached New Jersey Avenue when he saw Kay Cordoba coming out of St. John Cantius church, arm in arm with her friend Ashley. He needed to get his cheating girlfriend out of his mind or he'd drive himself crazy.

"Hey, Kay! Hi, Ash!" He waved at them, glancing at Kay's tits. Had they always been this big?

Both girls read his mind.

"Kay, I've gotta go, I promised to help out Mom." Ashley beat a retreat. "Bye, Tommy, see you in practice."

Tommy turned his sights onto the busty teenage girl and, summoning the Balagan charm, flashed her a big smile.

"So, what does Kay stand for?"

"What do you want, Tommy?" She folded her arms in front of her generous orbs. "I have a boyfriend."

"Ricky Tinsley? I've just caught him with Madeline at her place and kicked his ass."

"Get outta here..."

"Call him." He shrugged. "Ask him where he got the black eye from. Can't believe that Motherfucker was going after my girl..."

Kay stared at Tommy in disbelief. He returned a steel glare and her eyes enlarged.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it! All this time he's still carrying a torch for that bitch! That's why he never takes me out, it's always Mother this, Mother that..."

"He and his rich Mother can go fuck themselves," Tommy grunted. God, he was so angry.

"That bastard... " Kay trembled with rage as she dialed Ricky. "That fucking bastard..."

"Where the fuck are you?" she growled into her phone. "Don't lie to me, I know your bullshit!"

Kay's fury now dwarfed Tommy's.

"You think I don't know where you've been? Who you've been with?" her voice grew strident. "Show me! Send me a snapshot of where you are and who you're with right now. Right now!"

Tommy pictured Ricky battered and beaten, trying to lift the phone to take a picture of his surroundings.

"Don't bother!" She screamed. "Have a happy life with that whore, you lying piece of shit! We're through!"

They sat in front of two untouched cups of coffee, commiserating while Ricky and Madeline blew up their phones. Eventually, both grew tired of the persistent calls and blocked them.

"I've only dated her because I felt sorry for her," Tommy lied.

"Hey, I didn't even wanna go out with the guy, his Mom talked me into it," Kay confided. "Pathetic baby still likes cartoons..."

Twilight found them still at the same table, talking.

"You really punched his fucking face, uh?" she smirked.

"Oh, yeah, caved it right in. He won't be raising that smug nose of his at anyone anytime soon."

"Ah! Ah! He does have a smug nose, doesn't he?" Kay laughed. "The pretentious little fucker!"

"She's probably camped outside my house with a whole bag of lies to sell me."

"Him too, I'll bet," she sighed. "I... don't wanna see his fucking face today."

Depression loomed in and they sought refuge at the Kings Theatre on Flatbush Avenue.

Sitting in the dark, they watched The Great Gatsby while drowning in the kaleidoscopic brown, beige and blue vertigo of the roaring 20s. How could she have done this to him? Eighteen years he had endured the cold of rejection. From his Mother, his Father, his friends, and colleagues. He had grown used to being unwanted and now she had ruined him. He had become addicted to the human touch, the feeling of her skin on his, her lips brushing his. He couldn't live without it. Tommy's arm ventured around Kay Cordoba's shoulder, pulling her toward him.

"You remind me of a rose," he whispered in her ear, feeling her tense shoulders relax.

Tommy's lips met Kay's as coveting fingers drew circles on her left nipple.

The car suspension of his Dad's Pontiac was put to the test that night as the young Balagan pounded with angry lust at the farthest reaches of her intimacy, enjoying the feeling of her tight pussy opening to welcome his cock.

"H! Oh! T-Tom...! H! Ooh!" Kay howled and moaned through her very first orgasm.

A vaginal orgasm to boot!

"Oh, my God!" She writhed underneath him. "I never knew it could feel this good!"

"Night, old sport," Tommy smiled to himself.

"H! Ooh! T-Tommy!" she moaned. "My God, where did you learn...! Hmm! Ooh!"

Kay's eyes filled with gratitude, she needed to thank him for introducing her to these sensations. Thrusting her hips against his, she goaded Tommy into a climax.

"Hnf! Hnf! Give it to me! Make me yours! Give me all of it! Hnf! Hnf!"

"Oh, fuck! Madeli... K-Kay, I'm... oh, shit!"

An obscene glimmer lit up her expression as Tommy crossed the point of no return.

"You're mine now, Tommy Balagan."

"Oh, my God..Kay, I ... oh, fuck! Oh, shit..."

Cum.

A deluge of thick white goo poured into the innermost walls of her fecund love tunnel.

Kay grinned with satisfaction while Tommy continued to pump her long after his peak.

Then, Kay's face morphed into a mask of horror.

Chestnut brown eyes stared at them through the car window, twin streams of tears flowing down her cheeks. Her harrowing expression would haunt Tommy to his last day.

She had been searching for him the whole day, trying to apologize.

The only girl he had ever loved, and she was in so much pain.

Madeline never returned to school. Tommy was busy by then, trying to graduate while dodging Kay's sexual advances. He had opened the floodgates, the girl was insatiable but he was committed to getting his girlfriend back.

Rejected, Kay turned to her schoolmates for a replacement who could quiet her unrelenting appetites. On the last leg of their senior year, she banged half the football team, from quarterback Brandon Hill to linebacker Scott Ruiz. None could bring her to the sexual peaks she had reached in the young Balagan's arms.

Over the summer, Tommy returned to Bradford Street several times looking for Madeline, but her drunken Dad never saw her again.

Kay's best friend Ashley eventually spotted her at the church's soup kitchen, disheveled and dressed like a hobo.

"She's selling her watercolor paintings on the streets now," she told Tommy after the Regents exam. "She reeked, did you two have a fight?"

Desperate, Tommy began tracking her all over the city shelters.

He'd draw circles on a map in his room, trying to guess her moving pattern, always ten steps behind.

At night, she started visiting him in his dreams.

In his bed, a voice from the past would whisper:

"They're scum. It's in their family's blood. They destroy everything they touch."

INTO THE DARK

Trapped between the brick warehouses of West 240th street, there is a seven-story building office with blue-tinted windows. The employees call it The Mill.

It's not barley or wheat that they grind there.

These are the corporate headquarters of UpNorth Miller Co., where Charissa spent her nights cleaning before her shift waiting tables downtown. Dawn was still a way off and the building was quiet, with only a skeleton crew patrolling the empty hallways.

Charissa shoved a mop bucket against the wall, inserted her card key on the scanner and the twin oak doors to the CEO office parted with a muffled pneumatic hiss.

A man lay on the couch, typing on a laptop resting on his stomach.

"Hm," she slid the mop bucket into the office with her foot, scratching the scar on her hand from Carl's knife all those years ago.

"Crr... crr... crr..."

Merrick Miller, the CEO sat up and flashed her a crooked smile.

"Oh, good morning, Mrs. Balagan, please let me get out of your hair."

The man skittered to his desk, clearing the space for Charissa to work.

Merrick repulsed her, he was a cold and vindictive man whose dead eyes reminded her too much of her Father.

A cheerful voice chirped from behind her and the CEO's elegant niece marched in carrying dossiers, handbag, cellphone, laptop case, and a coffee cup.

"Good morning, Uncle Merry!" she flashed her clear white teeth. "Hello, Mrs. Balagan."

"Hm."

"Hello, Mindy how's Trevor?" Merrick yawned.

"Travis is fine," she extended him a cup of coffee. "Why don't you take a break, it's six in the evening in Hong Kong. Your fly on the Zhou Trans-Pacific shareholders meeting won't buzz till noon."

"I guess..." he looked at the folder under her arm. "Is that the Kuraitis report?"

"Yeah, go easy on the sustainability figures," she handed it over. "Travis spent a week crunching those."

"Poor Travers," he stretched the corner of his lips. Then, in a lowered voice: "Any word from your sorority mentor Laquisha?"

Mindy's poise lost its glee.

"Y... yes, her team hacked Beverly's smartphone easily enough."

Charissa raised her eyebrow. Beverly was the name of the man's new wife.

"And?"

"Uncle Merry, I am so sorry..."

"Who's the guy?"

"Her... her high school ex-boyfriend Vance. They've only sexted so far, but they're planning to spend a week in Pensacola next... next..."

Merrick gestured for her to stop.

"That will do," he looked outside. "Collect the evidence, pay Laquisha and her crew, call in the lawyers, and execute the prenup. I want the bitch begging for spare change at soup kitchens before Christmas and prostituting herself on the streets for meth by this time next year."

A cold chill ran through Charissa's veins, the man was ruthless.

"Y.. yes, Uncle Merry." Mindy nodded. "Will there be anything else?"

"No. Thank you, Mindy."

Mindy left texting frantically. At the door, she turned to Merry.

"Uncle Merry?"

"Yes, Mindy?"

"L-loyalty is key?"

"Loyalty is key, Mindy." He nodded.

Then, as he turned to face the laptop, the CEO's dead eyes crossed Charissa's and his lips stretched into a crooked grin.

Soon, he was once again typing away.

The grin never left Charissa's mind, following her as she took the subway to her waitress shift at Café Matilda. It was still in her thoughts when she finished at 3 p.m. and headed to the clinic.

As she sat in Carl's room 225 of the Coma Ward, Charissa asked herself how could that man be so heartless.

Nothing much had changed in the room for the last eight years, except Carl. His face had grown thinner, his cheekbones now salient underneath his dry skin like poles in a tent. Even his sleep seemed deeper. Her beloved husband was slipping away.

Leaning over her husband, she hummed their secret love song:

"Come with me and you'll see

In a world of pure imagination".

Seductively, she unbuttoned her shirt revealing her ample cleavage.

"I was fucked yesterday," her trembling voice whispered. "I came three times."

Charissa touched his hand, feeling the precious heartbeat under his skin.

"On the subway home, a tall, skinny Puerto Rican with ripped abs pressed his massive junk against my butt and whispered '¿Hola, vamos a bailar?' I was so nervous, wet and excited I didn't even have the decency to say 'Si.'"

No reaction.

In past, happier times, such a confession would have energized Carl into a sexual frenzy. He'd have forced her to retell her sexual encounters in minute detail while he reclaimed her, penetrating his young wife for hours.

Charissa pressed Carl's hand against her breast.

"His name was Ferdinando and my mouth followed his to a loft in Bed-Stuy he shares with two twin Belgian exchange students, Chiana and Chiara."

Carl remained deaf to her tale.

"I never found out which was who, they were identical except for one thing. One wailed like a she-wolf when I licked her clit into an orgasm. The other squealed like a sow when I fucked her with her own dildo," she whispered in a husky tone while caressing his sex. "All the while, Ferdinando rode me from behind while I moaned like a breeding mare. He came so much. I was leaking his seed for hours..."

Nothing.

In the past, her stories had often managed to spring his deflated manhood back to life, even in his comatose state. Carl's condition had worsened, her husband was drifting away.

He was her everything, the lighthouse in the stormy sea of her life and she had fucked it all up.

The belt visited her thoughts again, the one that had haunted her childhood. How many times had Daddy punished her with it?

For leaving the table without permission, for crying when the other Hedge Fund kids made fun of her. For seeing him cry during the stock market crash of 1987. For not smiling when the shareholder asked her for a kiss. For telling Mommy about the summers with him and his friends at her family's cabin.

Charissa learned all too soon that no matter what she did, the belt was always coming.

Running away brought her some relief. Living on the streets, working in sweatshops, she slowly gathered enough money to get by. Barely.

One night, coming out late after a twelve-hour shift, a guy approached her:

"Hey, baby, how much?"

"Fuck off..."

"C'mon, babe, you know you want it. How much?" he grabbed her arm.

"Get off me!"

His fingers gripped her neck and Charissa screamed in panic and pain.

"Leave the girl alone, you fucking creep!"

A group of bohemians rushed in to help her, throwing rocks and bottles. He hurtled Charissa to the ground and a fight ensued.

When the dust settled, the man had ran away covered in bruises.

Someone helped her to her feet.

"Are you alright?" the most amazing smile shone upon her, dashing and petulant with a distinct note of sadness underneath. Its owner took her by the arm and led her away for a warm meal.

They called him the Maestro.

Charissa found herself longing to see that smile again, stalking him every night while he and his bar-hopping friends chased the blaring music and the neon lights well into the dawn.

Their friendship grew with each warm meal.

She was ensnared by the hint of melancholy in his lips. He was fascinated by her haunted eyes.

The day he finally made her his was the happiest in her life. The Maestro snatched her from the streets. He brought her to his home and made it hers too. He taught her that sex didn't have to hurt. He introduced her to his friends.

He loved to watch her being pleasured by others and she went along, willing to do anything for that smile. There were glorious swingers parties and delicious mornings when she'd wake up trapped in a rainbow forest of sweaty limbs. All was allowed in their quest for sexual ecstasy.

There was only one thing that Carl had asked of her. Only one rule.

And in her greed, she had broken it.

Charissa caressed her beloved husband's face, kissing him and Carl whispered:

"The boy dies."

She sprung back. Her husband's eyes were glued on hers.

"Carl! Oh, baby..." Charissa whimpered but his answer never came. Coma had claimed him again.

When she left the clinic, the crooked grin visited her thoughts once more.

Her beloved Carl had reached out to her, asking her to undo her mistake from twenty years ago.

Could she be so heartless?

THE MONSTER GIRL

A man in a Borsalino hat sat in a parked convertible Volkswagen Beetle.

He watched Charissa get in, before returning to the video-game in his phone.

She didn't notice him.

She didn't notice the smell of stew coming from the kitchen, the delightful, unopened set of colorful potholders on the living room coffee table, or the flowery scent of a clean house.

Charissa's mind was stuck in a loop, replaying Carl's words in her head.

"The boy dies."

"Hi, Mom," her Father's voice greeted her, making Charissa's blood run cold in her veins. "Widow Curtis brought some leftover stew for dinner."

Her heart raced and she turned to find her son carrying tools up to his room. Charissa had tried to love her child in the past, but she could never get past the visceral revulsion she felt for the boy. The same face, the same voice... he was the spitting image of her cruel Father.

Memories of a belt slashing her skin returned, and she began scratching the scar in her hand.

"Crrr... crrr...crrr..."

Tommy watched her, concerned. Maybe he was a diseased piece of shit, like his Father had once said, but he still cared for his Mother and seeing her like this every day, working two jobs to keep them going broke his heart. He wanted to hug her so much, but there was always a flinch of rejection, an invisible barrier stopping him from getting close. Lowering his head, he returned to his tools.

"Looking foxy today, Chari," Coach Mike Lawrence grinned from the top of the stairs. "Back from the clinic?"

"Hm," Charissa ignored him, heading up for a shower.

Mike returned to Tommy's room, helping him move the blinds off the window and lay them on the bed.

"I see business is booming," the coach glanced through the window at the parked cars down on the street.
"Yeah, I can't complain..."

There was never a shortage of cars in need of fixing.

"At this rate, soon you're gonna have to hire The Monster for your assistant," Mike smiled.

"Don't even joke about that..." Tommy grabbed a pair of pliers from a toolbox while Mike removed the wand tilt. There was a suit resting by the door.

"You're going out again? That's twice this week..."

"Yeah, thought I'd catch a movie," Tommy shrugged.

"A movie, uh? Does it star Kay Cordoba?" Mike grinned. "Hey, I'm not judging, it's good you're getting over your Madeline obsession, it's been two years. You've gotta let her go, eventually."

"Nah, Kay's just a nympho who won't leave me alone," Tommy shrugged. "What Madeline and I have is special."

Coming out of the shower, Charissa shivered at the sound of her Father's voice in the next room.

She stared at her breasts in the mirror, studying the hickeys from her sexual encounter with Ferdinando and the Belgian twins. Was there anything she wasn't willing to do for her beloved Carl?

"Crrr, crrr, crrr..."

In Tommy's room, her Father's voice groaned:

"Oh, shit. The Monster is here..."

"Yo, Tommy!" a girl shouted from downstairs, banging at the front door. "Get your flat butt down here."

"God, will this brat ever go away?" Mike grunted. "You've already paid for her Dad's broken camera fifty times over."

"She's the gift that keeps on giving," Tommy shrugged.

"Open up, you rowdent!"

Heading down, Tommy summoned the willpower to face the insufferable Korean teenager that had become the bane of his existence. Inhaling, he opened the door.

"Took you lowng enough, were you gowing down on your mowmmy?" As always, the girl's speech impediment only got worse when she was upset.

"And a good afternoon to you too, Hyeon," Tommy greeted her. "How can I help?"

His eyes were trapped in her makeup.

Heavy contour and highlight, punctuated by thick eyeliner that made the girl look like a sinister bird of prey.

"W... what is that?"

"My war paint, you like it? Kim did it, she says it matches my scarf."

"Who's Kim?"

"A hooker. Meth addict, Cormac met her on the bus. Mrs. Vee locked the bitch up in the gym's boiler room til she's detoxed."

Tommy lifted his hand, asking for a break; he needed a time out to process the nonsense coming out of the girl's mouth.

Cormac and Mrs. Vee.

Those were her adoptive parents, that much he knew. Tommy had never met her adoptive Belarusian Mother and Krav Maga instructor, but from Hyeon's descriptions over the years, he had grown to suspect that her Dad was the FedEx driver who had stopped his fight with Ricky Tinsley.

Unless there was another sixty-two years old black guy as big as a house roaming the streets of Brooklyn.

The man was a Bronx P.I. and the owner of the camera he had smashed. Tommy had paid for its repair, but the girl's passion for cars and bikes kept bringing her back to his garage. Being homeschooled, she had free reign over her studying schedule to hang around and ruin his days.

"You've kidnapped a hooker?"

"Nah, it's all good. She doesn't even vomit anymore. Mrs. Vee brings her galuskies," Hyeon smiled. "I need an Allen key. This stupid ass bitch busted her scooter grip on that giant pothole on Clarkson Avenue. It's all loose and flappy."

Behind her, a tall Samoan girl with a carnation on her long black hair waved.

"Hi, Vailea," Tommy waved back. "How's school?"

"School's fine, thank you," she returned him a shy smile. There were scrapes running along her left sleeve.

"What happened to you?" Tommy turned to the Monster. "Hyeon!"

"Wasn't me, I towld you it was a pothole. Made us lose our mark." Hyeon flailed her arms about as she headed for the workshop. "Not that it matters, we have his cheating ass tagged on GPS now."

"You're helping your Dad on another case?"

"Yeah, we... what happened to the Dynasty?" Hyeon shrieked, pointing at the empty space in the garage. "We were working on it!"

"I was working on it. I've fixed it."

"That was our car!"

"No, that was Mrs. Holm's car. You don't work here, how many times do I have to tell you?"

"You ungrateful cunt, I did everything in that car," Hyeon exploded. "I helped replace the gearbox, I greased and installed the gaskets, I mounted the carburetor... I even changed the fucking oil!"

Tommy sighed; geez, this fucking kid.

"Vacuumed the seats... cleaned the windshield..."

"Here," he handed her fifty bucks; she snatched them off his hands in a single motion, rolling it around a fountain pen from her breast pocket.

"Fank you!" her obnoxious little mouth stretched into a sneer. And then, "You know, I couldn't help nowtice widow Curtis' Pontiac Firebird with a busted fender outside."

"Get the fuck outta here, Hyeon. Off you go."

"You know I can take care owf business, c' mon!"

"You're not working on the Firebird."

She was already combing the keys cabinet. "There are no Pontiac keys in here."

"Good!"

She slid next to Tommy, twirling her fountain pen between her fingers while glaring at him from head to toe.

"What?"

"Stew breath. Peas... carrots... your Mom doesn't cook and you only eat junk food. Widow Curtis brought you leftovers when she dropped the car, didn't she?"

"Hyeon, don't..."

"That blonde ho is trying to get in on Tommy's gun, eh?" the girl grinned. "She left the keys at the house, didn't she?"

"Hyeon, don't you dare..."

"I'll be in and out before you know it!"

"Hyeon!"

The Monster sped toward the house before Tommy could grab her.

"Sorry, s-she's like that sometimes..." Vailea apologized, fiddling with her wristwatch.

"Sometimes?"

Sighing, Tommy pointed to a toolbox.

"You wanna get started on your scooter, the Allen keys are over there."

"Thanks, I knew I had left the old grips in here." Vailea smiled timidly. In moments, they had replaced the ruined grip.

"Nasty fall..." Tommy pointed. "Why do you hang with that beast, Vailea?"

"Grandpa Joe used to fly her Dad's unit, back in the day," Vailea stared at her feet. "He says she'll toughen me up."

"If she doesn't kill you first..."

"Nah, she's slippery and her elbows are like atom bombs, but I'm taller; more reach," Vailea smiled. " I'm catching up, I can make her eat the mat four outta ten now."

"Well, kick that obnoxious potty mouth of hers for me, will ya?." Tommy smiled.

"Wilco," she returned him a cute military salute.

Hyeon's voice broke the afternoon quietness:

"Tommy, get owver here! Fucking now!"

Fresh and relaxed after her bath, Charissa put her wet towels in the washing machine, pausing to take in the house's flowery scent.

The whole place looked gorgeous, cleaned and waxed. So much love had been poured into turning it into a welcoming haven. New wallpaper, new curtains... when had Tommy developed such good taste? Guilt pressed her heart, how could she have rejected such a dedicated boy all these years? Looking through the bay window, she saw her son in the garage arguing with that horrible girl again and her heart rate spiked. He looked so much like her Father.

Her mind drifted back to the belt hissing and slashing at her skin.

Crrr... crrr... crrr...

Strong hands surrounded her by the waist.

"Admiring our work?" Mike licked her ear lobe. "We do make beautiful babies."

"Let me go, Mike..."

"Come on, it's been weeks since I've last been inside of you" he kissed the back of her neck. "I need to taste you again."

"No, Mike..." her voice trembled. "Not here..."

"We'll do it quickly," the coach whispered. "Tommy's busy, he won't be back in the house til dusk."

He enveloped Charissa in his arms, kissing her passionately.

"I'm tired..." she finally broke it off for air. "Tomorrow."

"Today," Mike slid his hands across her belly. "I want to put another baby in hee..."

His words were devoured by the piercing eyes of a malicious bird of prey.

Hyeon was staring at them, holding car keys in her left hand.

Her right hand pointed a phone camera straight at them.

"Hyeon, don't..." the Coach stuttered.

"Tommy, get owver here!" the girl screamed at the top of her lungs. "Fucking now!"

Mike jumped away from Charissa.

"What?" Tommy ran into the house. "What happened?"

Hyeon was grinning at the couple.

"I had never been inside your house, this place is gorgeous!" the girl smiled. "I love what you did with the place, it's cute. Whimsical."

She twirled across the living room, grinning and pointing at the beige curtains and the brown couch.

"Triadic colowr scheme, nice touch. I love the way the purples peek through the dialogue between the yellows and greens, like an unruly child interrupting her Mother's illicit affair with the school coach."

Reading Mike's awkward expression and the daggers in Charissa's eyes, Vailea smacked the back of the Monster's head.

"Whap!"

"Ow!" Hyeon screamed. "Bitch, I will gut you!"

"Can you not be evil for two whole minutes?" Vailea reprimanded her.

"You called us here to give me a decoration review?" Tommy shouted.

"Oh, no," Hyeon bit her lower lip, eyeing Charissa and Mike. "Your Mom had a very important thing to tell you, didn't you... Chari?"

Charissa's cold stare clashed with Hyeon's smirk.

"Hm."

Turning, she climbed the stairs back to her room.

"Hey!" Hyeon called her. All eyes turned to the girl.

"We're done here," Tommy snatched the Firebird keys from her hand.

"Wait!" she followed him back to the garage. "Tommy, c' mon! Towmmee..."

"You're not working on the Firebird," he shouted. "Vailea's fixed the grip, so for the love of God leave. Just. Fucking. Leave! Please!"

"I... Tommy, I..." she stood pleading at Tommy who put the keys in the cabinet and slammed it shut. "Come on..."

"C'mon, let's..." Vailea pulled Hyeon by the arm.

"No, I..." the girl froze, gears turning in her head. The crazy gleam of an epiphany flickered in her eyes. "No!"

"What?" Tommy looked back at Hyeon.

"I said no, you color blind douche," She stood in defiance. "I want that Firebird and you're gownna give it to me. You're gownna let me work in that fucking car because I know the magic words."

"What the fuck are you going on about..."

"Madeline. Poppe."

"Wha... what do you mean?"

"The howbo girlfriend you cheated on?" Hyeon smiled. "The street painter you and Mickey are always talking about, the one who got away? I can get her for you."

"Fuck outta here..."

"You always forget my Dad's a fucking P.I.. Two days. Gimme two days and I will hand her to you," she boasted. "Do not touch my Firebird."

The Monster turned on her heels and exited the yard.

"Two days!"

"Hyeon, wait up!" Vailea chased after her, pushing her scooter along. Hyeon turned and shoved her.

"Bitch, I can't believe you smacked me."

"You were being rude..."

"'Rude'..." the Korean girl snickered. "Bitch, we'll make a woman outta you yet."

"Ho!"

"Lard ass!"

They shadowboxed playfully on the sidewalk.

"Blind's all fixed," Mike approached the garage, watching the girls mount the scooter and put their helmets on. Hyeon was staring at a parked Volkswagen convertible, glaring at both the man behind the wheel and the license plate. Uncomfortable, he started the car and drove off.

"That girl is one bad penny," he sighed. "She's always sneering at me, you ever noticed?"

"She's a street urchin," Tommy smiled, watching them roll out. "Watch your wallet around her, light fingers."

Alarmed, Mike patted his pocket. The wallet was still there. His relief was palpable.

"She says she can find Madeline," Tommy said. "Do you... do you believe her...?"

"I dunno, maybe? You say her Dad's a P.I.?"

"Yeah, ex-military," Tommy recalled. "Germany, Bosnia, Okinawa, Korea..."

"Probably found her eating out of a dumpster in Seoul and brought her home when his tour ended," Mike shrugged, exiting the yard. "I'd say play along. What have you got to lose? Good luck with your date wit Kay tonight."

"It's not a date," Tommy asserted.

Feeling a presence behind him, he turned to see his Mother glaring at him from his bedroom window. She was scratching the scar on her hand, mumbling something to herself: "More lies?" "Toy prize?" "Coy guys?"

It wasn't a date.

Dates usually mean a meal and pleasant conversation.

There was no talking inside the car at the far end of the parking lot and the only meal was Kay Cordoba's pussy. Tommy gently kissed her inner thighs, building up the anticipation as his tongue approached her juicy pussy lips. He pulled back a few times, teasing her before finally licking Kay's vaginal lips while his fingers toyed with her drenched entrance. She was excited. Tommy ate her with gusto, frantically sliding his tongue against her clit while his fingers caressed her G-spot.

Her orgasm was explosive. Kay moaned with ecstasy as the young Balagan licked her into her first climax.

"H! Oh! Yes! Oh, yes!"

Giving Kay time to collect herself, his cock replaced his lips, filling her love tunnel with its thickness and the empty parking lot with her high-pitched squeals. Tommy pistoned her with abandon, feeling her soaked womanhood stretch and hug his erection. God, how he loved to motorboat those glorious tits. He was still in love with Madeline, but he could never bring himself to deny this warmth, the softness of Kay's skin on his. He needed it to feel human. Sharp fingernails carved trails on his back, but no pain could stop his climax from arriving. Kay sensed it in his breathing and rolled to get on top.

"Oh, my Tommy..." she purred into his mouth, giggling like an adolescent. "God, who taught you to fuck like this?"

Her hips moved in a slow cadence at first, trying to find just the right angle to stimulate her erogenous spots. Then, she increased the rhythm, enjoying the throbbing mast buried deep between her soft vaginal walls.

She was happy, having fully enjoyed his masterful tongue. Staring into Tommy's lustful eyes, Kay wondered if she could join her lover in his orgasm.

Rubbing her clit against his pubic hair, she felt it building up. Kay reached down, touching the hood of her love button. She was close to her zenith but not as close as Tommy. Kay increased her clitoral stimulation. The slapping sounds of their flesh was now frantic. "Hhh, Kay, I... Oh, God, I'm..."

"Yes, cum for me Tommy! Give it to me, Tommy!"

"Ooh, Fuck! Oh, Kay!"

With a roar, Tommy thrust upward and deep into Kay, ejaculating the full content of his ball sack in her pussy. She pressed Tommy against her, feeling his skin against hers. Inhaling his manly smell, something inside her gave in and her orgasm exploded.

"Oh! Ooh, Tommy! I'm cumming! Oh, f-fuck... Tommy!"Tommy smiled, watching Kay convulse on top of him. Spent and exhausted, he continued to jab into her, helping her ride up and down the waves of pleasure.

"Oh, God, I've fucked half a football team and none of them ever made me feel like this! I love you, Tommy Balagan!" she rubbed her cheek against his. Tommy looked into her glazed beige eyes and he wished they were chestnut brown.

His phone buzzed.

"Yo, Tommy, you know a guy named Filbert Ranta?"

"Hyeon? No, what... I don't know anyone by that name," he replied. "Wait, how did you get this number?"

"Seriously?"

"Never mind..." Tommy sighed, putting his shirt back on. "Who's he?"

"He's the owner of a blue Volkswagen beetle convertible, Utah license plate. I've seen him casing your place twice now. Apparently, the guy's a Bouncer owver at the Swingin' Sappho, his Instagram is filled with fake tits."

"Could be a potential client who wants his car fixed..."

"Could be..." Hyeon sounded unconvinced on the other side. "Say, your lovely purple curtains... who bought them? Was it you or your Mom? Mike, maybe?"

"What... this again?" Tommy shouted. "What's with you and decorations?"

"Who bought them?"

"Why... Mom, of course, she leaves all that stuff on the coffee table for me to put up."

"She does, uh? Your chronically depressed Mom. The tasteful wallpaper too?"

"Geez, are you... the fucking wallpaper? Stop pestering me, you obnoxious little brat!"

"I... see I've caught you at a bad time. Imma gow now, say 'Hi!' to Mrs. Tinsley for me."

The phone went dead.

"Hyeon? Hyeon!"

"Hyeon... who is that?" Kay sat up, hooking her bra. "That obnoxious kid you're always going on about?"

"'Mrs. Tinsley'..." Tommy mumbled. "You're... you're married?"

Kay's face turned white as paper.

"Wh... she told you that?"

"You married Ricky? I've been fucking a married woman for these past two years?"

"Well, engaged..."

"How could you do this to me, Kay? Knowing me, knowing my history, my family's history..."

"Does it matter? C' mon, Tommy, don't ruin what we have. I like Ricky, he's sweet and his family is loaded, but he's just a stupid kid who likes cartoons..."

"Get out! Get the fuck out of my car!"

"Tommy, please... we can talk about this. Please, I love you..."

"Love? Gimme a break..."

Tommy's Pontiac screeched out of the parking lot, leaving Kay in tears.

"Tommy..."

The young Balagan cursed himself for being so weak and letting his cock do his thinking for him.

As his car sped down FDR, heading for the Brooklyn Bridge he wondered when had he become so stupid?

He was like a fucking junkie addicted to pussy.

Madeline was somewhere out there; the love of his life, cold and alone on the streets. She needed him and he needed to do better than this.

Tommy hit the gas and the Volkswagen beetle convertible following him vanished from his rear view mirror, swallowed by the horizon.

Madeline didn't visit his dreams that night.

His restless sleep found him standing in the front yard, staring at his bedroom window. Sinister birds of prey flapped their wings inside. The glass shattered and a hundred wings gained the skies. One of the birds landed on his shoulders and shouted:

"The boy dies!"

Tommy woke to his Mother standing by his bed, leaning over him with haggard eyes.

Beneath the folds of her robe, she was scratching the scar on her hand.

"Crr... crr... crr..."

"Mom? Is... is everything alright?"

"Hm."

As she turned to leave the room, something sharp and metallic shone in her hand.

GAMBLE

The call came at the start of the night shift; a coffee stain on the carpet of the CEO's office.

Grabbing her cleaning gear, Charissa climbed to the seventh floor.

A somber Mindy Miller greeted her at the twin doors, something was up.

Her uncle sat at his desk, immersed in a video conference.

"You're being pigheaded, Merry," a voice made Charissa freeze on her tracks." I need to cut down costs or Kuraitis will be swept by next quarter."

"You're missing the big picture here, Urian," Merrick Miller replied. "The people that you're letting go, we paid a lot of money to have them trained. They're highly skilled, reliable, and loyal. We're gonna need them to expand our East Coast operations."

"You're reading tea leaves," the man on the screen waved his hand dismissively. "I can't go by your future projections, Hong Kong is eating us alive, here, now."

He looked much older, but Charissa would have recognized that face anywhere. Urian Forst was on the other side of that screen, her Father!
A belt hissed in her mind and Charissa shivered.

"Crr... crr... crr..."

"Speaking of Hong Kong," the CEO gritted his teeth. "Where do you think these highly trained professionals who know our companies inside out will flock to when they find themselves out on the street? If you're worried about corporate espionage now..."

The weight of a pair of eyes pressed the back of Charissa's head. Mindy Miller was watching her as she cleaned the coffee stain.

This was a setup.

Of course, they'd have known who she was when they hired her. They had an entire sublevel in this building solely dedicated to uncovering secrets.

"It's done, Merry. We're dumping the excess fat and selling the East branch," Urian Forst smiled and Charissa felt Mindy bristle behind her.

"You didn't even look at the proposal I put on the table, Urian." Merrick Miller sighed. "Talk to Vinter, he's the majority shareholder! Hear what he has to say."

"Johan and I are on the same page, Merry."

The conference ended.

"Fuck," Merrick grunted. "Motherfucker! He's been a thorn in my side from day one."

"Just fire the guy," Mindy hissed.

"And what message does that send to the other subsidiaries?"

Charissa finished cleaning the floor and got up, eager to leave.

Mindy and Merrick's dead eyes followed her. Whatever they had hoped to accomplish with this little charade, it had been for nothing. She wanted nothing to do with these scheming and despicable people.

Her heart pressed, knowing the world belonged to the likes of them.

At the door, Mindy opened her mouth to say something, but it died in her throat.

The elegant woman offered her a joyless smile instead.

"Hm."

The belt was now slashing at her in full force.

Those endless summers at her family cabin. Those men. Their disgusting touch. Charissa turned toward the twin doors, but her feet refused to leave the office.

No, the world belonged to those who took it.

"Crr... crr... crr..."

"What do you want from me?" she whispered.

"Anything you can give us," Merrick replied.

"What do I get?" her tone hardened.

"Name it," Mindy joined in with enthusiasm. Merrick glared at his niece in disapproval.

The belt hissed in the air, relentless.

"He dies slowly," her teeth gritted. "He dies painfully, and he dies alone."

"Done!" the Millers uttered in unison, nodding at each other.

"No," Charissa insisted. "I want to hear you say it."

"He dies slowly," Merrick repeated. "He dies painfully, and he dies alone."

"Crr... crr... crr..."

" All of it is destroyed afterward," she said. "I want none of it on the internet."

"Of course!"

"That goes without saying."

Charissa stared at Mindy. Such a pretty lady, so young, elegant, and intelligent, her childhood must have been truly blissful. Then, she turned to Merrick.

"Our family cabin on the Five Finger Lakes," she mumbled. "The left bedside lamp is a camera. Daddy used it to secretly film the shareholders. He called it leverage."

"That was thirty years ago," Mindy looked at her. "I doubt..."

"He married again. Their new daughter should be about the same age I... I..."

Merrick and his niece exchanged a look.

"You want Sublevel 3 on this?" Mindy asked.

"No, no paper trail. Meet Laquisha for lunch, today."

Looking at Charissa, Mindy smiled.

"And Daddy dearest?"

"Urian's attending the Symposium in Rio tomorrow, isn't he? I'm thinking... Santinha da Rocinha?"

"Dead, military police shot her gang last June. Her nephew, Negão Paredão took over the whole operation."

"I'm fascinated already."

"Thank you, Mrs. Balagan," Mindy winked at Charissa as the twin oak doors parted. "Now, it's our turn to do our magic."

"Loyalty is key," Charissa said softly.

"Lo..." Mindy's eyes bulged out of their sockets. Then, she smiled. "Loyalty is key."

The sun was rising when Charissa left The Mill. A crooked grin skewed her lips when Charissa realized she could no longer hear the belt hissing.

She would not fail her husband again. Loyalty was key.

THE CHASE

By a complete fluke, Tommy drove by the Sacred Lady of Hope Church on Albany Avenue on his way back from O'Connor & O'Neil Car Parts on Kensington.

The new priest, Father Corna had started organizing a flea market once a month, and the churchyard was crawling. The event was geared mostly toward baked goods, so Tommy paid it no mind until a familiar scooter caught his attention. The scratches on the paint and the mismatched brown and beige grips were unmistakable. What was Vailea doing so far from school during lunch hour?

Parking his car, Tommy ventured into the flea market, navigating through the crowd drawn in by the sweet smell of cheese bread. An elderly lady grabbed his arm, hoping to entice him with chocolate fudge pie. A busty housewife tried to lure him toward her gingerbread muffins stand. Amid the sea of gray heads, Vailea's long black hair adorned with a carnation stood out. The tall Samoan girl was stuffing a paper bag with cranberry shortbread cookies, mesmerized by the variety on offer. Tommy tippy-toed toward her, ready to give the timid girl a scare when his phone rang.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Hyeon growled. "You're gownna spook her, get out!"

"Hyeon? Where are you, spook who? Wait, did... did you find a lead on Madeline?"

"A lead? I've been shadowing her all morning. Get the fuck out, you're gownna ruin everything!"

Too late.

Madeline sat on a stool on the far end of the market, surrounded by her paintings, sketching an amused Father Corna.

She didn't look like a hobo by any stretch of the imagination. Draped in a gorgeous white and beige floral dress with her hair tied in a stylish French twist garnished with an orchid, Madeline appeared lifted straight from the cover of a romance novel. If not for her wide chestnut brown eyes that stared at him in shock.

Grabbing as many paintings as she could, she bolted toward Paerdegat Park hoping to blend with the crowd enjoying a lunch break under the trees. Tommy gave pursuit, pushed by powerful legs with years of training running up and down bleachers.

A black woman in a tracksuit sat on a bench, talking to her phone.

"Your mad dogs at the cabin yet?" she inquired in a slight Jamaican accent. "Well, tell Angel and Cervical to extract the video files and get out, I want zero residual presence."

Mindy Miller watched her put the phone down before returning to her tuna salad.

"You treat your hackers like shit," she smiled. "Who did you put in charge, Dos Thai Eve?"

"Huginn and Muninn. They're good."

"They're sociopaths!"

"Bomboclat, all geniuses are..."

Madeline rushed past them. Tommy followed her, almost bumping Mindy's iced tea can.

"Hey! Watch it!"

The young Balagan quickly gained on Madeline.

She was within reach when a Nike sneaker tripped him, sending Tommy to the ground.

"Sowrry!" An obnoxious girl mocked him from the sea of people.

"Hyeon!" Tommy screamed in frustration. Getting up, he resumed pursuit, but the trail went cold halfway up 40th street.

Tommy leaned against a tree, panting. He had lost her again.

The braking shriek of a Beetle convertible double parking drew his attention:

"Lost your girl, uh?" the driver left his vehicle.

"Yeah, looks like it..." Tommy tried to place his face. Borsalino hat, late forties, big build, brass knuckles on his right hand.

Whap!

The sucker punch caught him off guard and everything faded to black.

Tommy fell to the floor.

The kick to his ribs dragged him back to reality. More kicks followed.

Whap! Whap!

Tommy rolled on the pavement, in pain.

"So this is what Ricky Tinsley felt like," he thought as darkness reeled him in.

"Leave that guy alowne, you fucker!" a girl shouted and a Taser gun fired, discharging 50,000 Volts on the attacker.

"Zzt-trr-trr-trr!"

The man was strong. Withdrawing in pain, he ripped the electrodes off his jacket and fled to his car.

"So that's the guy you were talking about, uh?" Vailea rushed in holding a pastry box under her arm and a cranberry shortbread cookie in the free hand.

They watched his Volkswagen Beetle speed away.

"I wonder what his deal is..."

"I'm still trying to figure out myself," Hyeon helped Tommy back up. "Heyyy, Tommy Bala-gun, you alright? Man, the guy flattened you."

"Ooh... I'll be..." Tommy groaned. "What the fuck was that?"

"What?"

"You tripped me!" Tommy screamed. "You stopped me from getting Madeline!"

"Dude, what...?" Hyeon clenched her fists. "That guy almost slaughtered you and you're thinking about Madeline?"

"I... I'm gonna get my scooter," Vailea took a bite on her cookie and made herself scarce.

"You've ruined my one chance to get her!"

"I was trying to help, you moron!" Hyeon shouted back. "You're not ready to meet Madeline yet!"

"What..?" Tommy stared at the girl in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

"What were you gownna do if you caught her? Hug and kiss her, live together happily ever after? You think she doesn't know you've been banging Kay?"

Tommy was stunned.

"How would she know I've been...?"

"Take a wild guess, you color blind douche," the two stared at each other like a bickering old couple.

"Gah! I'm going home," Tommy grunted, turning to leave.

Watching him limp down 40th street back to his car, Hyeon called to him.

"Tommy..."

"Whaat?"

"You can have Madeline anytime you want. You always could."

"What do you mean?"

"Dump Kayleigh and she's yours forever."

"What are you talking about?"

Hyeon skip walked toward him.

"Did you know there is a Namibian tribe that has a million words fowr green but none for blue?"

"Get outta here, who told you that? Your Dad? Mrs. Vee? The junkie hooker you've got detoxing in a gym's boiler room?"

"Her name is Kim." Hyeon's eyebrows knitted, then softened. "It's not that they couldn't see blue. They just had never nowticed it."

The girl peered into his eyes.

"There are happiness and love all around you, Tommy, you just haven't nowticed it."

Tommy thought of his Dad who had tried to kill him. Of his cold Mother who had never given him a hug or a kiss.

"Fuck outta here," he limped back to his car, but stopped after a few steps.

"Listen, uh... thanks for helping me back there."

"No problemo," she smiled.

"So that's the guy, uh?"

"That's the guy."

"Any idea why someone would pay a bouncer to kick my ass?"

"Could be an angry customer you owvercharged," Hyeon shrugged. "Could be one owf Madeline's relatives, mad that you cheated on her and ruined her life."

"Her father's her only close relative," Tommy sighed. "And his drunk ass has barely noticed she's gone."

He knew what Hyeon was going to say before her lips had parted.

"Could be the fact that I've been sleeping with someone else's fiancée," he sighed.

Her sad smile confirmed his fear.

"Tommy..." Hyeon grabbed his shoulder. "Please dump Kayleigh."

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

"Hnf. Hnf. Hnf."

It was pleasant.

Sex with Mike had always been great, he was well endowed and attentive in bed, but the absence of Carl, the Maestro conducting her through the peaks of ecstasy made it all meaningless, just a primal animal function.

"Chari.. ooh, Chari, you're always so sexy!"

"Hnf. Hnf. Hnf."

Charissa turned on the sheets, offering him her sculptural ass. She knew this was his favorite position and Mike didn't disappoint, pounding her with gusto. His hands reached around and he began playing with her clit, slowly caressing her pleasure button with his soft fingers.

Charissa bit the pillow, feeling her orgasm approach.

"Oh, you drive me wild!" Mike kissed between her shoulder blades.

"Hnf. Hnf."

Her climax arrived predictably. Charissa made a mental note to exaggerate its description when retelling it to Carl. Her husband had a fondness for the dramatic.

Behind her, Mike spasmed.

"Hng! Hh! Oh, shit! Chari.. oh, fuuck!"

"Come in me."

His sex kissed the depths of her femininity and an offering of warm nectar was deposited at the gate to her womb.

"Aah, fuuck! Aah, shit!"

They fell on the sheets satiated and Mike spooned her.

"Oh, fuck, Chari, that was amazing!"

"Hm."

His lips kissed her softly; distracted, she returned the gesture.

"Are you alright, babe?"

"Hm."

"You seem out of it today."

"Sorry, I was in... Rio."

"You know someone there?"

"Hm."

"Let's go there, one day," he dreamed.

"On your coach salary?"

"Sure! You, me, Tommy... we'll make it a family tradition."

"You're not family, Mike."

"What are you talking about, of course, I am..."

"No," her eyes clouded. "That's the tale I sold to Carl."

Mike looked at her puzzled.

"Have you ever noticed how alike you two are?" Charissa glided her fingers through his hair. "Same hair, same eyes, same build... that was on purpose. When we met in that bar in Canarsie, twenty-one years ago and you followed me home where Carl was waiting to watch and film us? That was a setup."

"Well..." Mike smiled, incredulous. "it was a pleasure falling in your honey trap, Mrs. Balagan".

"You never knew Carl's family, did you? Vicious, horrible people from top to bottom. The things Carl would tell me... Pure scum. I can't even begin to imagine the horrific childhood he had, growing up in that house."

"I've heard some stories..."

"When I met him and we fell in love with each other, Carl made me promise him one thing."

Mike stared into her eyes, silently.

"No children," Charissa said. "'The Balagan family line dies with me', he used to say."

"No... he did?"

"Hm," she nodded. "But I was greedy. I was selfish, and I was in love, I wanted his baby. So, I betrayed him. I took advantage of his hotwife fetish and I convinced him that it was an accident and that the baby was yours."

"You mean...?" Mike's eyes bulged. "Tommy's not mine?"

"No," Charissa smiled. "I made sure of that."

"Fuck..."

And you want to know the irony?" her expression filled with sadness. "There's nothing of Carl in that kid. Not his eyes, not his hair, not his face... all I see in him is my Fa... mily side. Fate is really one cruel bitch."

Mike hugged her closer to him.

"You know there is no curse, right?" He kissed her head. "That's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo, DNA doesn't make one a shitty person."

"I dunno..."

Mike took his finger to her chin and pushed her to look at him.

"Well, fate may be a bitch, but I am a bastard," he smiled and his erection touched her thigh.

"No, Mike..."

"Yes, Mike," he grinned, kissing her. Mike rolled over Charissa and his cock willed its way toward her entrance, playing with her drenched lips. Slowly, the rigid phallus glided through the soft folds of her tightness.

"Mike, we can't..."

"Yes, we can. Tommy may not be mine, but the next one will be," he intensified the rhythm and Charissa succumbed to the sensations.

"Well, alright..." she purred.

"Fucking yeah, I am gonna impregnate this pussy! Ooh, Charissa! Ooh, fuck, Charissa! Ooh!"

"Hnf! Hnf!"

For long, passionate minutes, Mike pummeled Charissa's pussy toward their climaxes.

"H! Hmm! Chari! Oh, God, Chari!"

"Hnf! hnf! Hnf!"

Gorged, Mike rolled to the side and Charissa caressed his face.

If only she could have loved this man instead...

Getting up, she cleaned herself up and got dressed.

There was a message on her phone. Someone had sent her a picture of her Father boarding a plane. The title read, 'Wave Daddy goodbye.'

"Goodbye, Daddy," the cold tone in her voice surprised her. The message self-deleted.

She turned on Mike's computer and searched for Urian Forst, 68 and current CEO of Kuraitis International with a net worth of 96 millions. Ninety six millions, that's how much he had sold her childhood for? The man wasn't even good at being bad.

Charissa removed a shoebox from the upper shelf of Mike's closet.

Inside laid a Ruger LCR 9mm. Ideal for her palm size.

Loading the weapon, she put it in her purse.

The world belonged to those who took it.

She stood next to the bed, looking at the man asleep.

"Crr.... crr... crr..."

Twenty years ago, she had betrayed the love of her life. Tonight, she would fix her mistake.

THAW

The wait paid off.

It was 5:27 p.m. when Madeline made her way to the Sacred Lady of Hope Church. From a distance, Tommy watched his girl sit on a stool in the churchyard and finish Father Corna's portrait amid jokes and pleasantries.

When it was over, Father Corna paid her and returned the paintings she had left behind the previous day. Madeline gave him a warm hug and left carrying the heavy set.

Tommy moved to intercept her under the idyllic trees of Paerdegat Park.

Someone else saw in the empty surroundings an opportunity to earn his paycheck.

Near the swings, Filbert Ranta stood in front of the young Balagan.

"Where's your Chinese groupie now, boy?"

Tommy watched Madeline getting away and realized this was his last chance to get his girl. He telegraphed a left jab but Ranta dodged it with a confident smile:

"You get one."

His counter hit Tommy in the stomach, draining his will to fight.

"It's about time you learned not to fuck with other people's wives," Filbert's uppercut savaged his jaw, planting Tommy square on the ground.

He grabbed the young Balagan by the collar, ready to unleash a storm of fists on his face.

The leathery sound of a taser unholstering reached his ears and Filbert turned to see Hyeon aim the weapon at him.

"Pak!"

He dodged the electrodes that hit a nearby tree.

"Zzt-trr-trr-trr!"

Hyeon reloaded the taser with a new cartridge, but Ranta shielded himself behind Tommy.

She dropped the taser and closed in fast on the assailant who threw Tommy to the ground.

Ranta's left jab swung on empty. The girl was swift and nimble.

Her sword hand flew to his throat, but Ranta blocked it by sheer reflex. He had decades worth of street and club brawl experience on her. Hyeon insisted with a palm to his left ear, but Ranta raised his defense further up. It was a feign.

Her devastating knee hit him hard in the solar plexus.

"Whump!"

At six feet two and 280 pounds, his intense workout regime was all that saved Filbert from hurling his lunch.

Ranta folded on himself in agony, instinctively grabbing the nearest object; Hyeon's jacket.

Channeling all her strength, Hyeon discharged her "atomic" elbow on his right temple. It was a brutal hail Mary that would have killed a person in her weight class.

Unfortunately, Ranta was three times her size.

He reeled back a step, dazed and in excruciating pain.

His hand was still holding onto her jacket, throwing the girl off balance.

Pulling the fabric in, Ranta over-committed with a haymaker that broke through the girl's defense as if it were pasta.

"Whap!"

It hit Hyeon square in the jaw and pain exploded in her mouth.

A premolar gave in and darkness engulfed her.

Hyeon dropped on the pavement, unconscious.

"Hyeon!" Tommy screamed. "Motherfucker!"

Ranta spun on his heels and a ruthless fist hit his nose, rendering the man blind with pain.

Tommy's ruthless kick punished Ranta's groin, dropping him to the ground in agony.

The young Balagan was back on his feet, kicking the distressed bouncer.
People rushed in. Getting up, Ranta fled stumbling back to his car.

"Hyeon!" Tommy leaned over her body. "Are you alright?"

Blood pooled in her mouth.

Night had fallen when they arrived at the Balagan residence.

"Why didn't you lie down on the back seat?" Tommy helped the girl drag herself out of the shotgun seat.

"No, thanks," she grunted, nursing her swollen left cheek. "There are already enough seamen in there to man the Pacific Fleet."

Tommy winced. This fucking kid...

"Hey, hmm... thanks for helping me back there. Again..."

"Does this mean..."

"You're not touching the Firebird."

"You fuck..."

"You don't even have a mechanic certificate. Hyeon, why do you wanna fix cars so badly?"

"Because."

"Because.. what?"

"Because..." she eyed the pavement. "I wanna be like you, Tommy."

"Fuck outta here..."

"You get to be around cars and bikes all day, fix them, play with them,,, and you're good at it too!"

"You're good too. No, Vailea tells me you're a great P.I.!"

"I hate being a P.I.."

"What? Does your Da... does Cormac knows?"

"I'm not gownna tell him that, you crazy? It'd break his heart," she leaned against the Pontiac. "I just... I just can't do this anymore, been sneaking and spying and snooping since I was eight. Cheaters and thieves and liars and schemers... I'm sick owf it all. Just last month I saw two women shoot each other on the street."

"Geez..."

"I need... I need to do what you do." Her perpetual sneer was gone, but Tommy recognized those eyes. They were the same ones that had stared at his Mother's all his life, pleading for an act of kindness, a gesture of affection. Any kind of human warmth.

"... Okay."

"Owkay?"

"I'll let you help out in the garage."

"You will?"

"On one condition. You join the youth automotive training program, which means you go to school like a regular human girl. And after school, I'll show you the ropes."

"You've gowtta be fucking kidding me... school?"

"It's time you've learned to be around people, Hyeon."

"Fuck!" she groaned. "Fuuck..."

A taxi parked next to the Pontiac and a woman fully dressed in black came out, a jade bracelet shining on her wrist.

"The notorious Mrs. Vee," Tommy thought to himself. "We meet at last."

His smile died when her piercing green eyes fell upon him. Eyes that had seen death.

Hyeon's Belarusian Mother opened the side door, and the girl slid inside like a little mouse. Tommy watched the car drive off into the night.

Eyes followed him when he walked inside.

CHASING THE RAINBOW

A fountain pen rested on the foyer dresser, the one Hyeon carried around wherever she went. Smiling, Tommy grabbed it, noticing its weight.

She'd probably be back in the morning wondering where she had left it this time.

Tommy put it back.

His Mother wasn't in her room sleeping. Her shift at UpNorth Miller Co. would start in a few hours. Worried, Tommy heard a knock at the door.

"Hi, Tommy..." Kay grinned. She looked ravishing in a sexy beige dress holding a brown gift box and big brown balloons.

"It's not my birthday," he tried closing the door, but she slid her shoe in.

"P-please don't send me away, we have to talk."

"Go away, Kay," he hissed. "You're engaged to be married!"

"Not anymore. I gave Ricky his ring back," she showed him her fingers. "I love you, Tommy."

"You just love fucking," he sighed.

"Yeah, I love that too," she smiled, sliding inside. "but tell me you don't like fucking me too, you don't love these tits."

Seeing them again so close, he caved. Fuck, those really were an amazing pair of tits.

Kay glided into the living room, twirling.

"Oh, my God, your house is gorgeous! I had never seen..."

"What's in the box?"

She turned to face him with a mischievous smile.

"I can't give you the sky," Kay handed him the box. "So I'll give you the rainbow instead."

Tommy raised his eyebrow, opening it while Kay ran around turning on the lights. Soon, the house was as bright and festive as it had been during his parents' parties all those years ago.

There was a pair of shades inside the box.

"Well,... thanks, I guess?"

"Put them on!"

"At night?

"Just put them, you bozo!"

Glaring at her nonsense, Tommy put the shades on.

"Now they tell me this may take a bit to work, but it should..." Kay looked at Tommy nervously.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary, at first.

Then, Tommy noticed the yellow and green flowers on the wallpaper. And then the purple curtains. The yellow couch. The balloons, red, pink, yellow, blue...

"Oh, my God..." Tommy exploded. "It is amazing!"

"Isn't it?"

He turned to Kay and her tearful and fascinating green eyes smiled at him. Eyes that matched her dress and shoes.

"Oh... my... God..."

"Night, old sport," her voice crackled with happiness. "So, what do I look like in color?"

Staring at her from top to bottom, Tommy lifted Kay in the air, spinning on the living room.

He pulled her down to him and whispered:

"You remind me of a rose."

They fell on the couch and Tommy took the shades off and put them back on again.

"I.. I had no idea... is this.. is this yellow?"

"That's yellow. That's green, that's purple, that's red, and that's blue."

"That's red? Oh, my God, I always thought it was... geez!"

"What about pink, have you ever seen pink?" She put her hand on her cleavage, taking out a pink pregnancy test.

It was positive.

"is.. is it...?" Tommy stammered.

"Happy birthday, Daddy!" Kay jumped on his arms and Tommy broke into laughter, kissing her.

Their clothes flew away before they had landed on his bed. Within minutes, his lips were kissing her love button. Her orgasm was sublime.

Pushing Tommy back on the sheets, she climbed on top of him and finally took him in his own bed, claiming all of him for herself.

They fucked rabid and desperately for hours.

It was almost midnight when exhaustion finally conquered them.

THE SAD CLOWN

Loneliness woke him up.

Something was missing, but he couldn't place it.

Kay purred, clinging to him in her sleep. Had he left that bedroom door open?

Tommy walked downstairs, wondering why the house felt so empty.

The shades felt weird in his face, but he couldn't get enough of the colors. Now that the excitement had faded, he could admire his surroundings and the harmonious way the colors played with each other, mixing and matching in a charming visual rapport.

Triadic color scheme, Hyeon had called it; whatever that meant. Probably another artistic term she had learned from her Meth hooker friend Kim.

"You think she doesn't know you've been sleeping with Kay?" the girl whispered in his head.

How would Madeline know about him and Kay?

Tommy remembered the Namibian tribe of men who could see a million different shades of green but had never noticed blue. What had he failed to notice?

Her fountain pen still rested on the dresser. It felt heavy. Tommy played with the push-button and the muffled sound of a shutter responded.

That horrible girl had hidden a camera in his house.

Furious, Tommy inspected the device to find a hidden USB port.

Connecting the pen to his laptop, a 2 Gb folder popped up with video files inside.

He clicked on the oldest one and a tiny, lovely living room appeared. The camera panned to show Hyeon's most prized possession, a shelf filled with miniature toy motorbikes. She started humming Born to be Wild off camera.

The camera veered to a huge black man in his early sixties snoring on a couch. Her adoptive Dad, Cormac the P.I. was sleeping; on his lap, a book dangerously close to falling to the ground.

Hyeon's finger poked his nose and Cormac stopped snoring before resuming. The finger poked him three more times, interrupting Cormac's snoring at each turn. The girl giggled in delight.

"Hyeon!" someone reprimanded her.

The shot panned to Mrs. Vee at a table in a tiny kitchen, cleaning a Soviet Zastava M76 sniper rifle; gun parts spread in front of her.

"Turn that shit off."

"Sowrry, Mrs. Vee!"

The second file showed Hyeon in Tommy's foyer angling the camera to capture the Balagan household. Satisfied, she left through the back door and five seconds later, the camera turned itself off.

The third file opened with the same static shot of his house. What could have triggered the camera's motion detection?

Then, Tommy saw it.

On the first floor, the hatch to the attic opened quietly and the stairs descended.

Madeline climbed down the steps.

"Tommy... you can have Madeline anytime you want. You always could," Hyeon had told him.

She was gorgeous, even with a sleepy face.

Yawning, she headed into the bathroom and emerged an hour later in a floral dress.

Madeline proceeded to dust and clean the house, watering the orchids at the back and varnishing the wooden floors, only pausing to study Hyeon's fountain pen.

Her eyes were blue.

Grabbing a set of paintings under her arm, she headed out through the backdoor, locking it. She had kept the spare key after all these years.

Two hours later, Madeline rushed in terrified and climbed to the attic.

Tommy's heart skipped a beat, was she still there?

Another file filmed just recently caught his attention.

Charissa had arrived home, sitting on the couch. There was a gun in her hand. He recognized Mike's gun.

From the camera angle, all Tommy could see was her head rocking in and out of frame, eyes lost in space.

"Crr... crr... crr..."

His eyes kept traveling to the attic hatch. If his Mother found out there was an intruder in the attic, she could shoot Madeline.

Tommy scrubbed the timeline, and Charissa was still in the same position one, two hours later.

Finally, she got up and left, missing Tommy by mere minutes.

What was she planning to do with Mike's gun? He knew she had been depressed for years, could she be planning to kill herself? Kill him, like his Father had tried?

Fear took hold of his fingers, he needed to see more of what the girl's hidden camera had witnessed.

The next file captured the last events between him and Kay, ending with the couple kissing and rushing upstairs to his bedroom.

His heart raced, he had had sex with Kay while Madeline was hiding in there the whole time.

The hatch opened and Madeline climbed out with her paintings and a bag. She opened his bedroom door and stood watching him and Kay asleep. Crying, Madeline headed for the back door. Through its translucent panels he saw her silhouette lock it from the outside, put the spare key in the orchids' vase and walk out of his life.

The orchids' vase was still at the back.

Grabbing it, Tommy walked back in and sat on the couch, laying it on the coffee table.

He dug through the dirt and found the key tied to the ribbon she had proudly worn around her neck. Holding it close to his heart, Tommy cried.

The attic had been cleaned.

Torn pencil sketches of him in his sleep littered the floor.

It wasn't a dream, she really did come to his room several times.

A mattress lay by the window with blankets carefully folded on it. A crumpled pink paper flower rested on the pillow. It was brown on that day he had first stared into her eyes. Hugging the pillow, Tommy smelled Madeline's precious flowery scent.

She was gone, he had finally managed to completely destroy her.

Tommy walked down the stairs and into the living room holding the paper flower to his heart.

"Crr... crr... crr..."

He saw the gun first, the barrel aimed at his chest. Clarissa glared at him.

"Mom...?"

Tears streamed down his face, there was so much hatred in her eyes. The gun was meant for him after all. Tommy finally understood why she had never shown him any love or tenderness as a child. She wanted him dead too, just like Dad.

And how could she not? He had destroyed everything he had ever touched. He had let Madeline slip away between his fingers.

"He's a fucking disease!"

Tommy lowered his head, feeling empty and foolish. This was it.

His way out of everything wrong with his life. In a few moments, he would be free, dead and gone. Relief took hold of him and a hysterical giggle climbed out of his throat.

Tommy sprung up.

Despair drove him, powered by twenty years of rejection.

He was Ray Raven for one last time, dancing and grinning like a sad clown.

The voices that had taunted him in his childhood were his soundtrack as he spun on his toes, cutting frantic shapes with his legs and arms.

The gun followed his pathetic grin as he waved it all goodbye with one last performance, his 'Farewell and fuck you' to the world he had been shat into. Segueing from a Soulja Boy to a moonwalk to a B-Boy Power move, Tommy threw himself to the ground and circled his Mother doing a ridiculous Worm.

He finished with his arms stretched in the air and a stupid smile, waiting for the hail of gunfire. His lips were frozen in a grin but his eyes pleaded at her, begging to be put out of his loneliness and misery.

The bullets never came.

Tears were sliding down Charissa's face.

Her son's smile, that broken grin. It was Carl's smile, the one she had fallen in love with all those years ago.

And she had made that, through a lifetime of neglect and coldness.

Her shoulders twitched, and she lowered the gun, crying.

How could she have done this to her beautiful little boy?

At that moment, at the Brooklyn Mercy Rayne Clinic, an ominous beeping alerted the nurses to a flatlining patient.

They scrambled to resurrect him, in vain.

"Maestro" Carl Balagan died peacefully in his sleep on October the 5th, 2016.

Charissa reached out for the child she had rejected for twenty years.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Footsteps rushed from behind her. Charissa lifted the Ruger LCR 9mm by instinct and Tommy screamed:

"Kay, no!"

Bam! Bam!

A bullet embedded itself on a step. The other dove into the wall plaster.

Kay lifted her arms and smashed the orchids' vase on Charissa's head.

Whud!

"Mom!" Tommy screamed, running to his Mother's aid.

Her head was covered in blood. He turned to his girlfriend and shouted.

"You've killed my Mom!"

"She... she was gonna kill you!"

"You... bitch!"

THE BROWN KITCHEN

"I'm done."

"What happened?"

"I got my ass kicked, that's what happened. I'm out; your boss-lady ain't payin' me enough for this shit."

"Fil, calm down. Start from the beginning."

"Okay, I was getting home and there was this black guy sitting there reading a book."

"Who was he? What did he look like?"

"I dunno; old, gray hair, sixties, big as a house."

"I don't know anyone by that description..."

"Well, he knew me! He saw me going in, got up and went 'Filbert Ranta?' I said 'Yeah, is me' and Kablamo! Knocks me right in the chin, I didn't even see his arm move."

"You got clocked? By an old guy?"

"Fuck off, Ed! This guy was a beast, he'd eat you up in a single bite. One hit and my whole head was ringing. He pulled me up and hit me again, twice. Whamo! Kablamo! Old fuckface Hinkley was there watching with his hound, he did nothing. Lenny Tabasco, Donnie Weaver, all the Motherfuckers saw this cunt turn me into lasagna and they just stared. Louie Frizell was actually smiling; I mean, yeah sure, I've fucked his sister but geez!"

"You... you must have seen something, a clue, what was he wearing? What book was he reading?"

"I dunno, 'Alexander' something, from that movie we saw."

"Alexander Unleashed."

"Yeah. This cunt grabs me by the collar and goes 'Libras can't fight for shit.'"

"You're a Libra? I always figured you for a Leo."

"Libra, with Ascendant in Gemini. The guy shook me, realized my brain was quiche and went. 'Stay away from the Balagans. Next time you so much as look at my baby girl, I will blow your fucking brains out.' I'm done."

"Fil, the lady paid you half in advance."

"I'm out! Geez, look at this, the prick broke my tooth. Motherfu..."

His cousin hung up.

Edmond sighed, staring at his soup. Outside, the wind blew across the Central Park trees. He could hear the ma'am gossiping in the kitchen with her daughter Kitty about the son's upcoming wedding. What was he gonna tell her now?

The doorbell rang.

"Edmond," The ma'am called. "Door!"

Straightening his suit, Edmond walked toward the door.

"Tiramisu, caramel cupcakes and profiteroles fowr Ms. Kitty Reid-Tinsley," a green-haired Asian girl in glasses stood before him holding an Arnaud's pastry paper box. Her swollen left cheek and bloodshot eye hinted at a background of violence and the makeup added a good five years, but Edmond couldn't picture her as more than fifteen, sixteen tops. Still, it wasn't in his job description to question Arnaud's hiring practices.

Edmond extended his hands to receive the package and the girl sneered.

"Fuck out of my way, Alfred. Lady specifically asked fowr hand delivery."

"Of course..." he rolled his eyes, familiar with Mistress Kitty's shenanigans. "This way, please."

He ushered the girl into the kitchen where the two mature women sat chatting over a cup of Twinings English Breakfast Tea.

"Arnaud's pastries? Oh, Kitty, what am I ever going to do with you?" the elderly woman raised her eyebrows. "You've heard the Doctor, no sugar!"

"I didn't order anything..." her daughter defended herself. "I honestly didn't."

Sensing an upcoming argument, Edmond left them to their own devices and retreated to the living room.

Watching him leave, the teenage girl placed the package on the table, cocked a hand on her hip and extended the other at them.

"That will be twenty-eight bucks fifty cents, cash."

Intrigued, Kitty reached for her purse while the elderly one opened the paper pastry box.

Inside, a huge dog turd stared back at her.

"Whu... what is the meaning of this?"

The younger woman turned to look and the delivery girl grabbed her arm, twisting it. Kitty screamed in pain.

"That's your dinner, bitches."

The attacker shoved her forward, landing Kitty's face on the table inches away from the pastry box. The elderly woman scrambled to close it and remove it from the table, placing it on the kitchen island.

"Ms. Reid, is everything alright?" Edmond rushed into the kitchen, alarmed. He was greeted by a yellow Taser staring at him. The teenage girl signaled the butler to join the women.

"P-please..." tears began to stream from Kitty's eyes. "Just t-take the money..."

"I down't want your fucking mowney, bitch!"

The elderly woman noticed the girl's speech impediment, but something else caught her eyes. The sneer, that obnoxious little mouth.

"You're... you're the assistant mechanic..." she stuttered. "The girl in the garage..."

Hyeon looked at the gray-haired woman.

"You? You're the one who hired Ranta?" she probed the older woman. "Owf course! Ricky's rich Grandma Reid! Eliza... Lisa.. Isa..."

"My friends call me Izzy. You may address me as Mrs. Reid. Please leave my daughter alone," the woman straightened up. "I'm the one you want."

"I should have known... you've been a naughty girl, Grandma Izzy."

"Yes, I hired Mr. Ranta to teach Tommy Balagan a valuable lesson. Yes, I would do it all over again," she stared in defiance. "I've had it with people like him taking whatever they want. The Reids protect their own."
Smiling, Hyeon backed down.

"Careful when you go up against monsters, Mama bear. You may just become one."

She grabbed her cell phone and played back the recording.

"Yes, I hired Mr. Ranta to teach Tommy Balagan a valuable lesson. Yes, I would do it all over again."

The woman went pale and Hyeon stuck her tongue out at her, amused. The teenaged girl removed a pink pregnancy test from her pocket and threw it on the table.

"What's this?"

"Call off your dog, Grandma, Tommy's going to be a Daddy. Leave him and Kayleigh alowne or I'll get upset. And when I get upset, Mrs. Vee gets upset."

"Who's Mrs. Vee?"

"You've never heard about the Vulture of Minsk?" Grabbing a fountain pen from her breast pocket, the girl drew a sneering fly on Arnaud's pastry paper box. "She was a Belarusian bride during the Balkan wars. Snipers shot up her wedding, killing her groom and guests, so she decided to pay them back, an eye fowr an eye. Legend says she could hit a fly from a mile away."

Hyeon took a few steps to the side, and the drawing lit up with a green laser dot.

Arnaud's pastry box exploded into paper shards and dog poop sprayed the kitchen walls.

Ka-pow!

A sniper rifle shouted from a distant rooftop.

The two women and their butler gawked at both the window and the teenage girl, their eyes wide with fear.

"This was a courtesy call, from a monster girl to another. Back the fuck off, Grandma!"

That was the last time they meddled with Ricky, Kay or Tommy's love lives.

YOU SCREAM, WE SCREAM ICE CREAM

"I want that bitch's drawings out of my house!"

"It's my fucking house, those are my drawings!"

The shouting could be heard from across the street. Sighing, Mike rolled his Harley into the Balagan front yard. From the garage, Hyeon saw the biker and sang:

"Who's the leader owf the club

That's made fowr you and me

M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e!

Mickey!"

"It's Coach Lawrence to you," Mike grunted, patting his wallet.

"Bulb again?" Hyeon pointed at the bike.

"Yeah, right in the middle of the Lincoln tunnel."

"Tommy told you to replace it weeks ago," Hyeon leaned in to inspect the frame. "You've gotta check the lights once a month, grampaw, you know how hogs are with electrical."

She turned to find the biker staring at an envelope on the workbench.

"Marlon Merlo Brooklyn High?" Mickey's eyes widened, looking at the heading. "My school? What is this, you're finally going to...?"

"Not. A. Fucking. Word."

"A homeschooled Bronx girl in a Brooklyn high school, this is gonna be a whole ball of laughs..." Mike smiled at her pouting. "How's the tooth?"

"Still hurts a bit," her frown morphed into a smile. "The dentist recommended ice cream."

"I'm not buying you ice cream."

"You miserable prick; there's like a hundred dollars in here," Hyeon reached for a wallet in her back pocket and counted the money in it. It was Mike's wallet.

"Gimme that!" he yanked it off her hands.

A door slammed, drawing their attention. Tommy stormed out of the house with Kay Cordoba in hot pursuit.

"Don't turn your back on me when I'm talking to you!"

"I'm going to work. Someone has to pay the bills around here," Tommy screamed.

"Fuck you," Kay screamed back. "I work too, you know?"

"Yeah? How come I never see a dime?"

"Fuck you," Kay headed for her car. "We're gonna have a talk when I finish my shift. Things are gonna start changing around here, starting with that!"

Her finger pointed at Hyeon who clutched her imaginary pearl necklace in feigned shock.

"Ain't love grand..." the girl snickered.

"Hyeon, ju... just shut the fuck up..." Tommy growled at her.

Then, his demeanor softened and he lowered his head in apology.

They watched Kay drive away in her car.

"God, I hate that nympho bitch..."

"Then, maybe you shouldn't marry her, uh?" Mike chimed in.

"I... can't," Tommy sighed. "She's carrying my kid..."

Mike and Hyeon exchanged a look while the young Balagan rolled up his sleeves, preparing to dive into his work. The garage had never been so pristine, the teenage girl's eagerness for acceptance reminded him of that sad young boy dancing in front of his cold Mother, fishing for a smile, a hug, or a pat in the head.

"The place looks great, Hyeon," Tommy smiled, watching the girl's face light up. "I could eat off the floor."

"You mean it?"

"Oh, yeah," he smiled, helping Mike set his Harley in the garage.

"Bulb burnout?"

"Bulb burnout," she ticked items off a sheet with her fountain pen. "Which do we do first, the hog owr the Firebird? Green owr blue?"

"I don't deserve blue..." he sighed.

Hyeon fought off the urge to comfort him. Monster girls didn't do hugs.

"Green is cool too," she winked. "Mrs. Vee's eyes are green..."

Mike smiled, watching Tommy teach Hyeon an easier way to remove the headlight housing. The girl mirrored his moves, drinking from his every word.

"So, Mike," Tommy started while checking the wiring. "Hyeon told me something very interesting yesterday..."

"Did you try to kill his Dad, Mickey?" the girl blurted out.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Hyeon!" Tommy shouted. "Fuck!"

"What... what do you mean?" Mike raised his eyebrow, uncomfortable.

"Nobody kills himself by jumping off a 4th story building," Hyeon said. "Especially a HVAC technician, thowse guys have access to the tallest buildings in New York. If I wanted to go splat, I'd pick at least a twelfth story."

"Cats can survive a twelfth story fall..." Tommy pointed out.

"They can?" Hyeon looked at him in wonder.

"Oh, yeah, I saw it on youtube once; above the seventh, the higher you go..."

"You're out of your mind..." Mike stared at the girl angrily.

"You had the motive," she insisted. "You wanted Chari."

The pair stared at Mike in silence. He looked at Tommy, then at her and back again.

Their eyes dug holes in him. The weight of keeping a secret all these years was too much. Mike hunched his shoulders.

"It was an accident... it was never meant to..."

"It was never meant to what, Mike?" Tommy raised his voice.

"Your... your Dad was crazy when he got out, you have no idea!" Mike remembered. "Why do you think your Mom made you move in with me at the time? Carl... your Dad was determined to kill you, Tommy. He told Charissa about this whole plan he had cooked up while in jail..."

The vision of his Dad standing on the roof of their house, casting a colossal shadow on the tiles flashed through Tommy's mind. Suddenly, he was six again.

"The following day, Charissa asked me to go with her to his workplace and talk him out of it. There was a struggle, we fought... it was an accident."

Mike lowered his head, the past had finally caught up to him.

"It was an accident, I've never killed anyone in my life..." he mumbled. "I would never..."

Tommy had never seen Mike this distraught.

"He kept accusing Chari of ruining his life," the Coach mumbled. "I was only trying to..."

Tommy reached for Mike and patted him on the back.

"It's okay, man, thanks for helping out my Mom," Tommy said. "And thank you for saving my life; twice!"

"Hey, I saved your life twice," Hyeon crossed her arms and Tommy smiled. Then, he turned to the Coach again.

"Mike... are you my real Dad?"

"What...? No!"

"Come on, I am not a kid anymore. I've seen you and Mom, I notice the smirks from our neighbors..."

"No, Tommy, listen..." Mike stammered. "I wish you were my kid, I really do but you are a Balagan through and through. That's the problem, you see... fuck, this is awkward... your parents and I had an... arrangement."

"Ew," Hyeon winced.

"An arrangement," Tommy repeated.

"Look, I dunno what fucked up childhood your Dad had growing up in this house, but he swore that he'd never have kids, that the Balagan name would die with him. It was his obsession."

Tommy's eyes bulged at these words.

"The problem is..." Mike continued. "The problem is that your Mom loved him so much that she wanted his baby, so she managed to convince him that you were mine."

"Holy fuck," Hyeon exploded. "That is... holy shit!"

"I'm sorry... I'm not your Dad. I wish I was."

Tommy looked at Mike in silence, weighing everything he had said.

"You were there when I fell from that roof. You got me the Ray Raven part. For as long as I can remember, you've had my back," Tommy smiled. "If not for you, I dunno what I would have grown up to be, a psycho probably. You were more a Father to me than my own Dad. I don't give a fuck whose genes I carry, you are my Dad, Mike."

Tommy hugged him and tears formed in Mike's eyes. The old Coach would probably never have his own kid. Maybe this was as close as he'd ever get but he'd take it. He clasped his boy even tighter.

The muffled sound of a camera shutter snapped them from the moment. Hyeon hid away her cell phone.

"Sowrry..."

"Y... yeah, let's get on with the work, shall we?" Tommy smiled. "Thank you, Mike."

"No prob..."

Taking off his jacket, the Coach joined the pair in the garage.

They worked on Mike's bike before finishing Widow Curtis' Firebird.

"Man, I could eat up a whole ice cream truck," Hyeon mumbled, slamming the hood.

"I'm not buying you ice cream," Mike repeated.

Hyeon groaned, grabbing a wallet from her back pocket.

"You stingy Motherfucker, you have a hundred dollars right here," she counted the money.

"Gimme that!" Mike shouted.

Tommy laughed, watching Coach try to retrieve his wallet back from the girl's nimble hands. She threw it at Tommy.

"I told you to be careful around her," he grinned, giving Mike his wallet back. "Sorry, Hyeon, no free ice cream for you."

"Are you sure?" she grabbed her phone, combing through a set of menus. "Because I'm positive you're about to buy me ice cream."

She hit play on the recording of a conversation and Kay's voice filled the garage:

"Ashley, if you tell Tommy this is Brandon's baby, I swear I will never speak to you again!"

Brandon Hill, the Black Birds quarterback. One of the many guys she had banged in the final months of their senior year. Clearly, they had never stopped.

Mike and Tommy looked at the girl in disbelief, then at each other and back to her again.

"Who wants free ice cream?" Hyeon screamed, waving twin V signs in the air. "Whoo-hoo!"

Mike laughed:

"Well, she's got you."

Tommy put his hand on Hyeon's hair, messing it up.

"Let's go get that fucking ice cream," he smiled.

Closing the garage, the trio headed out to the Ice, Ice Abby on Pitkin Avenue.

They spend the rest of the afternoon sampling the multiple flavors available while discussing ways for Tommy to dump Kay. Some of them were pretty mean while others were probably illegal.

"Blue Moon..." Tommy sat with his shades on, watching the traffic roll by while enjoying his butter pecan ice cream. He would never get used to the colors. "You really like that kiddy stuff?"

"Yeah, Da... Cormac and I had a case in Ohio once and I got hooked on the flavowr."

"You in the buckeye state?" Mike smiled. "I'm surprised they didn't shoot at you."

"We were the ones doing the shooting," she winked.

"Where is she now?" Tommy asked suddenly, in a sobering tone.

"Sh... she who?" Hyeon turned to him wide eyed.

"Seriously?" he knitted his eyebrows. "Just give it to me straight, I can take it."

Busted, she put down her Blue Moon ice cream.

"Dumbo, mostly. Washington street and Plymouth. A bunch of hos shat all over her paintings, stole her mowney and bullied her out of the Old Fulton shelter. She's trying to get into the one in Amity street now, but fuckface-in-charge there won't let her in unless she gives him a blowjob. I've got Cormac to buy one of her art pieces off the street, so she won't be starving for the next few days. It's a nice Notorious B.I.G. art piece with very primal and visceral color values that draw the eye into the canvas."

Tommy wondered how many of those words had been borrowed from her Meth hooker friend Kim.

"We've gotta do something about this..." he stared at the cars passing by.

"The fuckface in Amity Street?" Hyeon looked at him. "Oh, I've got my sights on him."

"No, you dummy..." Tommy turned to her. "I mean Madeline, geez!"

"Well... yeah, I guess I could..."

"You're not sticking her in a boiler room!"

With a strategy set for how to dump Kay, the group finished their ice cream and headed for the Barclays Center where they marvelled at the street performers, joining them in a spontaneous dance session.

Tommy took the opportunity to teach his friends some of his awesome moves.

Watching Hyeon's attempts at a Moonwalk, the young Balagan's lips stretched into a melancholic smile.

"I would have been an awesome Dad..."

COME WITH ME

The warm breeze blew gently on her face.

It was such a bright day.

Charissa walked up the hill toward the silhouette that stared at the dark clouds on the horizon.

"And there he saw the breadth of his domain and he wept," she quoted from a dream. "For there were no more worlds to conquer."

"I already have the only world I've ever wanted," Carl reached for her hand.

"Is it all you've ever dreamt of?" she asked.

"Well..." he smiled. "I had pictured tireless oceans of cocks ravaging you."

"Pervert..." Charissa hugged him. "I've only ever wanted the one."

They softly kissed.

"I wish we could stay like this forever and ever," she muttered. "Just you and me."

"You'd get upset," he smiled. "I like to share you."

"I don't mind..." Charissa sighed.

"They are getting mighty close," Carl pointed at the looming clouds.

"Can't we just... stay here for a little while longer?" Sadness darkened her expression. "I can tell you about how I was once pounded by a retired Yakuza member at the back of Café Matilda..."

"You've already told me that one, in minute detail" he caressed her cheek, wiping away the tear, with his finger. "His cock gets bigger each time you recount it."

"Well, it was a very impressive member," her smile trembled.

"Okay, maybe just a little longer, but then you have to go back," he kissed her forehead. "Tell it one more time."

Charissa's face lit up with a radiant smile.

Tommy could swear he saw his Mother's lips move in her sleep.

It was warm in her hospital room.

Caressing her scarred hand, he returned to Hyeon's signed copy of E. M. Parker's Alexander Unleashed and resumed his reading out loud:

"As the generals leaned in over his deathbed, one of them asked:

'Who shall succeed you, my king? To whom goes your kingdom?'

With his last breath, Alexander whispered:

'To the strongest.'"

There was a knock on the door and a man in a suit came in.

"Mr. Tomasz Isydor Balagan?" he asked. "Hi, I'm an attorney at Rusnak, Rusnak & Waters."

"Is this about the bill? I've already talked to the Insurance company..."

"Mr. Balagan, we believe you and your Mother have enough leverage to contest Urian Forst's will."

"Wha... who?"

"As his daughter, your Mother could stand to easily inherit a third of his fortune, estimated in 96 millions."

"Mom never told me anything about a Grandpa..." Tommy stared at the guy in his expensive grey Hackett suit. "Wait, what's in it for you?"

"Aside from our hefty commission?" he smiled. "Let's just say at the company we represent, the company your Mother works for, they take loyalty very seriously."

They heard Charissa turn on her bed.

"Look, give me a call when you're ready to be a rich man," the attorney whispered, extending a business card before leaving.

Tommy stared at the card.

"Who... are you...?" Charissa asked in a groggy voice.

"Mom!" Tommy hugged Charissa. "You're awake!"

"You're..." she stammered. "You're..."

"I'm your son, Tommy!" he removed his shades; tears were pooling in his eyes. "Don't you recognize me?"

"I'm sorry, I... I don't..." Charissa looked at him puzzled. What a handsome young man, where had she seen him before?

"Don't worry, everything is going to be alright," Tommy buzzed the nurses' station before turning to kiss her forehead. It was the first time he had done that and for the first time in his life, she didn't flinch at his touch. Charissa looked stupefied, was this young man really her son? She had made that? Her heart melted and she grinned, filled with happiness. Seeing his Mother overjoyed, Tommy hugged her even tighter. Yes, everything was going to be alright, he was going to take good care of her.

"I'm so happy you're back..."

"My head hurts..." she touched the bandages in her head. "Must have been a nasty fall..."

"Yeah, something like that," he smiled. "You really don't recognize me?"

"No, I.. I'm afraid I don't..." her gentle fingers examined his features. "But your smile is so familiar..."

AN ACT OF KINDNESS

Friday morning found Ricky Tinsley working in his Dad's animation studio, curating and uploading updates to their website.

Adulthood had changed the once petulant teenage boy into a humble and hardworking young man.

Gone was the snob kid who used to cater to his Mother's whims, replaced by a grownup who had had no problems dumping his cheating fiancée on the spot once he learned from Grandma Izzy that Kay was pregnant with Tommy Balagan's child.

The whole marriage had been a setup by his Mother and he was done kowtowing to her commands. He was free now, free to do what he'd always wanted, work in cartoons like he and Madeline had once dreamt.

Madeline... the name stabbed his chest and loneliness paralysed him. How could he have let the best thing that ever happened in his life slip between his fingers?

The landline phone startled him out of his depression:

"Hi, is this Richard Tinsley?" a girl asked.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Hi, I'm Sara; I've just found your phowne?"

"Oh, God, you did? I've been looking for days!"

"Yeah, it was just like, there on the floor?"

"Thank you, thank you so much. Where can I find you?"

"Y... yeah, like that's the prowblem? I've gotta bail, like Daddy's plane is leaving for Akron. Can you be at the Brooklyn flea on 6th, in like half an hour? I'll be in front of Tadzio's?"

Ricky flew out of the building.

On the radio, reporters discussed Kuraitis CEO Urian Forst's violent death in Rio and the timely resurfacing of his long-lost daughter and heiress in Brooklyn, rendered amnesiac after a home invasion.

On the next station, a Kuraitis International spokesperson was dismissing downsizing rumors.

Speeding down 6th street, he parked his Ford Fiesta near Tadzio's.

As he was getting out, Ricky froze in his tracks.

Across the street, gorgeous paintings leaned against a wall.

He would have recognized those patterns and brush techniques anywhere. Sitting on the ground next to them, a vision reopened an old wound. The dirty floral dress, the messy hair, the disheveled look, and the defeated slouch did little to diminish her beauty; she was still the same girl who had stolen his heart a lifetime ago.

Madeline saw him and her heart was struck with pain.

She tried to get up, gather her paintings and flee, but there was no more strength left in her.

They stared at each other, crying and hurting.
Ricky's knees gave up on him and he knelt on the ground, sobbing and crying.

With an aching heart, Madeline bolted across the street to console him. Her frail arms circled the first boy she'd ever loved. The one who had hurt her so much when he had broken up with her.

Having him again so close to her, she realized he had never stopped loving her.

And as he bawled against her chest, she discovered she still loved her little dreamer as well.

Lifting his chin, she looked straight into his eyes and booped his nose.

Ricky burst into laughter and Madeline joined him.

They sat on the street laughing and crying.

Madeline's tears joined Ricky's and their lips finally met once again.

Both were still crying when they stored her paintings in the trunk of his Fiesta.

Ricky opened the door for his girl, only to find that his lost phone had already claimed the shotgun seat.

Eyes adorned in heavy makeup watched the couple scan their surroundings.

"Are you sure about this?" Hyeon asked, getting into Tommy's car.

"He was her first love," the young Balagan sighed. "She deserves to be happy. Better him than a cheating piece of shit like me."

"Tommy..."

"Who's up for some ice cream?" he smiled.

"You're trying to get me fat, aren't you?" the teenage girl grinned. Tommy winked his reply before turning the ignition key. The car horn played La Cucaracha.

Ricky and Madeline turned to watch his Pontiac Grand Am speed away down the street.

The Balagan brick house of New Jersey Avenue was demolished in 2017 to clear the way for a new Lithuanian restaurant. With their third of Urian Forst's money, Tommy and Charissa moved to a cosy little apartment and opened an auto repair shop on Pitkin Avenue.

There is always loud music playing there and if you drive by slowly, you'll often see Tommy goofing off with his Mother while teaching her his wicked dance moves. She has the funniest laughter.

Sometimes, I like to sit and watch cartoon shows with the kids.

There's one on the BimBamBum channel that's all the rage with the young'uns right now. It's called Poppa, from Tinsley Toons right here in Brooklyn, and it's about a little girl who lives in a gray world populated by dancing birds. Poppa can turn all the gray things around her into colowred ones.

But only if you want it.