Secret window into his soul

A dreary and wet Thursday began with a pile of books falling over and waking Mort up. Cassie had been in the kitchen for a little over half an hour, and he hoped she was making breakfast. Or at least coffee. Coffee would be nice. He moaned and got up, moving zombie-style into the kitchen.

“Good morning Sunshine.”

“Ungh.” He grunted, and she giggled.

“How do you take your coffee?”

“Black, thanks.” He said, nodding as she set the steaming cup before him.

He sipped it and smiled. She made coffee the way Amy had at the beginning of their marriage… it was dark, bitter, and had all the splendid consistency of swamp muck.

“I know it’s thick stuff… It the only way I’ll drink it.” She said, taking a gulp out of her own cup. He arched an eyebrow.

“Kind of young for coffee, aren’t you?”

“Hun, I started drinking when I was ten to try and stunt my growth. I’m 5’ 6”, imagine how tall I’da been if I hadn’t. Besides, I like it.”

‘Wonder what else she may like, Mister Rainey?’ Shooter mumbled in his ear.

‘Shut up you lecherous old man.’ Mort two said, circling around to stand behind Cassie, his hands resting on the chair back.

‘But…’ Shooter began, but he was interrupted.

“Mort? You feeling okay?” Cassie was staring at him, her brow wrinkled in concern.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.”

“You were kinda zoning out on me there. I thought you were having a relapse.”

“Oh, nah, I just have problems waking up on rainy days like this.”

“Yeah, sometimes I do too.”

“So what are we planning on doing while your mother won’t let me leave the house?”

“I dunno… There’s some board games upstairs, and there’s plenty of books…. Our Tv only gets about five channels, but other than that…” She trailed off.

“And what are you planning on doing at my house over the weekend?” He asked her.

‘What, me? I’m planning on seducing her, and taking advantage of her nubile high school body.’

“You told mom you’d baby-sit me?”

“She didn’t give me a ton of choice.”

“Right. I dunno… what kind of novel are you working on now?”

“I’m not. All that comes out is crap.”

“That’s a shame. Maybe we can try and write something together.”

“You write?”

“Well, yeah… mostly bad fan fictions and some really random mysteries.”

“And if you get bored with that?”

“Well, if it clears up, I might go sit by the lake and draw.”

“A writer and an artist? Well, just a pencil wielding wizard, aren’t we?”

“Wizard? Harry Potter’s a wizard. I’d rather be a Death Eater.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because they’re the bad guys. The bad guys are always better, because they have to be smart, they have to stay a step ahead of the good guys.”

“Why do you have to defend yourself?” Mort asked, resting his chin on his entwined fingers.

“Most people don’t understand the bad guys. You can’t have a story without a bad guy, without an enemy. Without some opposing force, there is no story, there is no excitement.”

“Most people. But I’m a novelist.”

“But you still don’t understand the bad guys. That’s the real problem with your stories. You can’t believe your bad guys, your antagonists. You can’t relate to them.”

She’d begun speaking in a hushed tone, speaking very quickly. A flush had risen to her cheeks, and she’d licked her lips, making them shine. He had an over whelming urge to lean forward across the table, grab the sides of her head, and kiss her. Surprisingly, it was Shooter who stopped him.

‘You’ll ruin everything. Don’t you dare touch her. Listen… her ma’s coming now.’

Indeed she was. Alice was coming down stairs, mumbling mutinously under her breath. She brightened when she saw hem sitting at the kitchen table.

“When you weren’t on the couch, I thought you’d tried to go home.” She told Mort, making him laugh a little.

“No ma’am. When a pretty lady tells me I’m staying at her place, I don’t argue.” Shooter’s voice, accent and all, came out of Mort’s mouth. Alice and Cassie laughed.

Mort shrugged it off and finished his coffee, then they pulled out the board games. About fifty games of LIFE later, Alice announced that it was lunchtime.

“Pizza, Chinese, Mexican, or Italian?” She asked, spreading menus out between her hands like some sort of strange card trick.

“How about I walk across the street and get us some burgers?” Mort volunteered.

“How about I go with you, so when you pass out at the burger joint there’s someone to drag you home?” Cassie came back, wrinkling her nose and laughing.

His eyes caught on the thin layer of freckles that traipsed across her nose.

“How about you both go, and stop acting like bickering toddlers?” Alice asked.

“I’ll get out the soda machine, and we’ll make homemade root beer.”

“’Kay.” Cassie said and ran upstairs to get dressed and grab her rain jacket.

Mort went back into the downstairs bathroom he’d changed in before and put his own clothes back on. Apart from being a little stiff, they were fine. He grabbed his jacket from next to the door, and held the door open for Cassie and himself, closing it behind them.

“Is it hard?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of rain hitting the sidewalk.

“What?” Cassie asked.

‘What’s hard?’ Shooter asked mockingly in his ear.

“Making root beer.” He responded, ignoring Shooter.

“Oh, no. You just carbonate the water, and then you pour in the flavoring. The hard part is figuring out which box it’s packed in.”

“Oh.” He said, then was quiet for a minute.

“I didn’t see any boxes in your house.” He said, pulling on the door to the burger joint.

Cassie went inside, and he followed her.

“They’re all in the basement. Mostly all that’s left is cooking stuff and some knick knacks.”

“Maybe I could help you unpack today.” He offered, as they joined the short line. The few people in front of then cast nervous looks at him.

“That’d be great,” Cassie said, watching as one lady pulled her little boy over on the other side of her, away from them.

“For the love of God, we’re not going to eat him.” Cassie told the woman, who blanched and turned around.

“He’s way too old, and anyways, it isn’t a full moon yet.” Cassie whispered loudly to Mort. Had to suppress his laughter and ended up snorting instead.

“That’s attractive.” Cassie told him. Nonetheless, she looked quite pleased with herself and she ordered lunch with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

At first the burger boy flirted with her, but when he saw who was with her, he turned nearly white and finished their order, refusing to take any money for it. Mort sighed and slapped his twenty on the counter, then grabbed Cassie’s arm and walked away.

While they waited for their number to be called, Cassie looked at all the people staring at them.

“What is their problem?” She whispered hotly to him.

“They think I killed a couple of people, remember?” He replied, not bothering to quiet his voice, or hide his ire.

“Right. I remember.” She said. “Still… innocent until proven guilty?” She said, glaring at an elderly couple who were whispering behind their hands.

“Not in a town with fifty four people living in it. Well, Fifty six, now.”

They retrieved their burgers from the counter, and Cassie marched out of the restaurant angrily, mort having to jog to keep up with her.

A while later, after the rain had cooled their tempers, Cassie turned to him and hugged him unexpectedly.

“What was that for?” He asked, looking down at the top of her head.

Her voice came to him, muffled by his jacket.

“It must get lonely.” She said. He felt that urge to kiss her again, and pulled her head so she was facing him. He bent down…

‘Don’t ruin it.’ Shooter said, and he sighed internally and laid a chaste kiss on her forehead.

“Sometimes. But sometimes, just when you start thinking everything is wrong in the world, somebody shows up and changes your mind.” He said. “C’mon, the burgers are getting soggy.”



o0o



Alice left that night around eight Pm, and insisted on following Mort and Cassie up to Mort’s house. They gave her a quick tour, and then she drove to the airport, leaving them alone.

Mort gave Cassie the guestroom, downstairs.

“So, you want to talk about any ideas you’ve got for a novel?” She asked, flopping onto her bed and sitting Indian style on top of the comforter.

“Well, there’s this guy, and there’s this other guy who… hell, I’ve got nothing.”

“Well, let’s look at what your other stories have in common, hmm?”

‘Death and destruction?’ Shooter remarked dryly.

“Like what?”

“Well, most of the ones I’ve read are set in New York City or around here, and most of them involve just a few main characters: A guy, a girl, and the bad guy or girl.”

“What’s wrong with that?” He asked.

“Nothing. But right now, you’re writing stuff that’s like, flat. You need to go 3-D.”

“How?” He asked, with the air of someone humoring a small child.

“Delve deeper. Tell us about the character, what makes them tick. Where they come from, some of the events that shaped their personalities, How they came to be who they are.” She replied very seriously, and suddenly Mort decided to get serious too.

“How do I do that?” He asked.

“Well, write me a character. Just the basics.”

“Um, a spunky seventeen year old who is too smart for her own good.” He told her. She rolled her eyes.

“Well, let’s see, she’s a pretty bright and cheery person on the outside, but inside, she’s been through a lot of pain and is drowning in all that bottled up emotion. She goes home every night from school and relieves some of the tension by…?” She trailed off, and he pushed his glasses up higher on his nose.

“By… painting very macabre pictures, depicting the grisly deaths of those who piss her off at school.”

“And some of these paintings begin coming true, like the head cheerleader who is found tied up in the science room, empty bottles of oxidizing agents littering the floor…”

“How’s that gonna kill her?” Mort interrupted. Cassie looked at him like he was stupid and he spread his hands in defeat.

“I flunked high school chemistry.”

“Too many minerals in your system can cause kidney failure. That’s why you shouldn’t drink too much Gatorade.”

“Anyway, you were saying?”

“I dunno, um… how about she also has to deal with a huge crush on the head jock…”

“Take it a step higher, make it more interesting and taboo, let’s say she has a crush on the school’s chemistry professor.”

“Ooh, touché, and he’s sort of obsessed with her, and he ends up being the real one killing people…”

“yes!” Mort said, plucking at the hair on one side of his head, making it stand up.

“See, that’s what I mean. Now you’ve got a whole plot idea, based on this one character’s development.” Cassie said, smugly.

This time, he didn’t even stop to think, he just grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her up, and kissed her full on the face. Then he let her go and ran up the stairs and to his computer desk, where he began scratching words out onto a bit of paper.

Cassie put her hand to her lips, surprised, and grabbed a sketching pad and some pencils and ran outside, through the cornfield and out to the edge of the lake. She sat there until almost nightfall, with every intent of sketching the landscape, how the splotchy sunlight hit the water, the birds, the distant mountains, but all she could think of was the kiss. She found herself squinting down, trying to work more details into a portrait of Mort, despite the darkening sunlight.

She sighed and gave up as a shadow darkened her view further.

When she looked up, she saw Mort wearing a funky, almost puritanical looking hat.

“Nice hat. Did you steal it from the Quaker Oats dude?” She asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Now look here, missy, I ain’t gonna take none of that this weekend. Now, it’s getting dark, so what say you and I go inside and have some dinner or somethin’?”

“Whatever you say darlin’,” she said, fixing on a more feminine version of Shooter’s Mississippi accent. She started up for the house and was surprised when the rough hands grabbed her upper arms and spun her around, pinning her back to the tree she’d been sitting under a minute ago.

“Don’t laugh at my accent, or bad things may start happening to you.” He could see her eyes go wide and round, and could smell the fear rolling off of her in delightful waves.

“What… kind of bad things?” she asked falteringly, searching his eyes. He sat her feet back on the ground and pinned her to the tree with his arms.

“I know I can do it, Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl. I’m sure that in time, every bit of her will be gone, and her death will be a mystery, even to me.” Shooter quoted quietly, and Cassie’s eyes widened a little more, if possible.

“Sowing time? You… I… the corn, it’s all real?” She glanced up towards the house, noting the extreme angle of the place, where the old house joined the addition, where the corn was growing.

Shooter didn’t answer in words, instead falling to the ground, where the hat fell from his head and rolled a few feet away. Cassie stood by the tree for only a few moments before dropping to her knees beside the fallen man.

“Mort? Mort, please wake up, I can’t drag you uphill through the corn and the mud. Mort?”

He was slowly coming to.

“Whassup?” He asked, slurring a little.

“Get up, come on, we need to get back up to the house.”

“How’d it get dark so fast? I thought it was still early when I was writing.”

“You don’t remember?” She asked him sharply. He looked around and spotted the hat. He grabbed it and turned it around and around in his hands for a moment before looking back up at her.

“What’d he do to you?” He asked mournfully, obviously bracing himself for the worst.

“He told me not to make fun of his hat or his accent or else.”

“Or else what?” Mort asked, looking at her and hoping that Shooter hadn’t gone all perverted on her, like he’d been doing since he first saw her.

“He didn’t really say. He just said bad things would happen, then quoted the ending for Sowing season… that new ending you published last year.”

“With the corn.” Mort said, standing slowly. Cassie rushed to help him up.

“Mort… did this other guy, the hat guy… did he kill your wife?”

“I think so.” Mort said, closing his eyes.

“Alright. Come on, let’s get you into the house.” Mort’s eyes snapped open.

“That’s it? You’re not going to tell the Sheriff, you’re not going to make me go show you where I.. He.. Shooter, buried the bodies?”

“No, I am going to take you, Mort Rainey, into the house before you collapse again, and I am going to get some warm dinner going, and you are going to get some rest.”

“But why?” he almost wailed, his voice plaintive.

“because… I don’t know. Just because.”

“And what if he comes back and hurts you?” He asked.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not gonna make fun of his accent, but it’s your job to try and protect me, okay?”

“’kay.”

She pulled open the door and got Mort settled onto the couch, which, remarkably enough, had a mort-shaped indent in it.

She walked into the corn laden kitchen and pulled out a couple of boxes of Mac-n-cheese.

She figured comfort food would probably do him good, and made a mental note to make him go shopping soon.

She brought his plate out again, and found him sitting up.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Dinner. Macaroni and cheese.” She told him.

“It smells awful good. Not quite so good as you, though.” She realized the accent was back.

“No, I smell horrible. I could probably use a shower.”

“Want I should help you with that?” He asked, running his hand across her cheek.

“That’s okay, I think I can manage.” She said, and watched his face distort in anger. Next thing she knew she was flat on her back on the floor, her arms held in place on either side of her face, while Mort, no, Shooter, ravaged her mouth. She sighed and leaned into the kiss, probably surprising Shooter.

“Quite the hussy, ain’t you?” he asked, his breathing heavy. He felt her body below his, felt her nipples pressing against his chest with each quick breath she took.

“No.” She said. “I was just trying to surprise you so you’d stop.”

“You bitch.” He said, not angrily, but fondly, before putting both of her wrists into one of his hands, and pulling at her pants. Finally he grew tired of playing with the button and pulled out a pocket knife.

Cassie’s breathing grew shallow when he flipped the blade out, and he smiled at the effect. He pressed the cold blade against her cheek, watching her try and hold completely still. She shivered though, and he moved the blade lower, cutting easily through the thin fabric of her tank top. He did it again, slicing through the bra straps, and then he got to her pants, just a pair of slacks, he cut the button hole open and unzipped the zipper. Cassie whimpered as he pulled the pants down, the underwear she wore catching in the fabric.

“Please, no… Don’t, Shooter, please.”

“Why not? You a virgin? You scared?”

“Yes. Please, don’t…”

“I ain’t gonna hurt you… much.” He replied, rubbing her exposed folds.

She whimpered again, trying to wrench her arms free so she could hide behind them.

He wouldn’t allow it, and continued rubbing her clit, hoping to get her wet enough to give him entrance. Finally he figured she was good enough, and that the screams would do him good anyhow. He pressed himself back on her again, pulling at her lips with his teeth while he undid his own zipper. He felt the wetness of her tears falling down her face and heard her surprised gasp when his engorged member struck her clit.

“No! nonononononono…” she moaned, and he let go of her hands, which she promptly buried her face in, so that he could pry her thighs apart. When he buried himself into her, without warning, without further preparation or delay, she thought she could have fainted from the pain.

She peered at him between her fingers when he stopped moving suddenly, and saw Mort warring with Shooter internally. Finally Mort broke through and he looked down at her, horrified.

“Oh, God, Cassie, I’m sorry…” He pulled himself out of her gently. She didn’t stop him, and when he’d put himself away and helped her up, she ran upstairs and found the first bathroom available, and took the opportunity to empty her stomach. Then she made the hottest shower she could stand and cleaned herself up.

When she came back downstairs, she was much more composed.

“Mort?” she called softly, and he looked up from where he was sitting, his heels tucked under him, knees under the coffee table while his arms and head sat atop it.

“Cassie. I.. I can’t ask forgiveness…” He began, but she waved that away.

“Mort, you don’t need to. It wasn’t you, it was that Shooter asshole. I’m not too worried. Not about that anyway, but first thing tomorrow we have to go and get one of those morning after pills.” She said, cutting straight to business.

“Of course. We can do that. Are you going to be okay?”

“I will,” she said, “Once we finish what was started.” He looked at her blankly, and she sighed.

“Look, he broke my hymen, but I’d much rather not have my only memory of sex be that, and I’m feeling that insistent need for release. Would you… please…” her voice lost its surety and trailed off, and he wasn’t sure that he’d heard correctly.

“Please what?” he asked.

“Oh, for Goodness’ Sakes,” she said, and sat down in front of him on the coffee table. She leaned in close and kissed him gently on the lips before whispering in his ear.

“Please… fuck me?” He took her head in his hands and kissed her gently, but passionately, and she moaned into his mouth. Without further ado, he carried her upstairs.



A/N: Much longer, this chapter, no? I'm sorry, my author's note may not make a ton of sense. It's 2 Am, and I've just finished writing this, so I'm running on last night's three hours of sleep. Soon, my pretties, soon...

Thanks to my two reviewers now, you brighten my life and make these late nights totally worth it. Maybe tomorrow I'll have another update for you. Depends on how late I end up sleeping in.

It's like a lava lamp. Actually, I'm not sure what's like a lava lamp, or how it's like a lava lamp, but I just wanted to write the words lava lamp in this author's note for some reason. ...Yeah, it's definately bed time. Please review. Much love, and more soon.

-S.S.