Ionic Relapse Read online

  It wasn’t because everyone knew he was in foster care. It wasn’t because of his orangey red hair, brown freckled cheeks, or paper-white complexion, either. Really, no one knew why. Everyone had their own reasons to justify their unease around Christopher, but most never got to know him well enough to ever form an actual opinion.

  Simply put, Christopher was easy to dismiss.

  Word of mouth also didn’t do him any favors in the Friends Department. Once everybody heard about the shy ginger kid with no parents or friends, the image was already painted in their minds of who he was. The reasons were all superficial and, in most cases, ill-informed. But, really, you just couldn’t help but dislike the kid. Something inside everyone who ever encountered him showed immediate disapproval. Not instant hate or prejudice, but a deeply imbedded discontent for something only perceived by their guts. There was an invisible aura of toxic radiation that encompassed Christopher always: a natural magnetism that kept him in perpetual isolation. He was just as agreeable and polite as anyone else, but something was still off. If pressed to give a positive description of Christopher, most would say he was painfully quiet and reserved.

  Just another white face in a rural land scarred with them.

  He was a spunky fourteen-year-old boy in only one sense of the term. After countless rejections by nearly everyone he ever attempted to form a relationship with, Christopher had started to give up. Just as he started to contemplate why he should even bother going on, a ray of hope shined into his life. Actually, make that two high beams of hope.

  The female form.

  His obsession started on a warm summer night back when he was only ten years old. He had been living in the same group home since he was three. The big three-story house acted as a waiting station for kids transitioning out of their “situations” and being fitted for a new home. In his seven years there, he had seen dozens of throwaway kids just like him come and go. Their stays were always relatively short, six months to a year, before they were whisked off by the state to a new home with a new life. Christopher watched patiently, month in and month out, expecting any day now to see his own name come up on the list of departures. It never did.

  He grew older, but everyone around him stayed the same age. And the older he got, the more his odds of adoptability dwindled. When most people adopt, they go for a baby or toddler. Most adopters tend to raise someone else's child as if it were their own flesh and blood. Taking in an older kid who really needs a good home is just as important, but much riskier. But, either way, those babies in demand grow up to be those same kids you turned your nose up at. Same trash, different name.

  Another reason for going young is the option of limiting the possibility of having your new “child” grow up to resent you. Most kids do at some point in their lives anyway, but they shouldn’t think of you as nothing more than a slave owner or human trafficker. A child should never be able to question a parent's role in their life with any leeway. They will throw the fact that you aren't their real “birth givers” in your face at every opportunity. It’s a real crapshoot. You could enrich some poor kid's life, or potentially waste years of your own on a lost cause. In the end, blood connection means nothing. It’s the people who raise or don’t raise you that shape the person we become.

  Them used goods ain’t cheap neither, if you catch my drift.

  There wasn’t a lot of speculation as to why Christopher stayed while everyone else got to go. The group home workers assured him from time to time that he would find a place eventually. After a while, he would just force a smile and nod in response. Their shifty eyes told him everything that the state humane board couldn’t.

  Christopher was always very quiet and well behaved compared to some of the other cases that came in. Due to the violent or sexual upbringings that most of the boys came from, adult supervision was constant. Shifts were taken by the staff to ensure that things stayed under wraps at all times. The only time a child was to be alone was when they were shitting, bathing, or dressing. Most of the rooms didn’t even have doors. When you went to bed, you had a bunk buddy who slept either under or above you.

  He was the only boy who didn’t have to share a room. Aside from having the option of closing his door, he was also one of the few kids with privileges. He got to leave the house during the day without a chaperone and was trusted with handling himself in everyday chores. His extreme seniority paid off in that aspect. He had stayed there for seven years at that point without incident. Fights and tantrums happened on a weekly basis, but none ever involved Christopher. So when he decided one night to climb out his second story bedroom window and go for a walk, no one noticed that, either.

  Keeping to the side streets of the residential part of town, Christopher walked casually in no certain direction at all. It felt good to be out in the warm night air. The sound of rustling leaves mixed with the grasshoppers' song filled him with an odd sense of purpose. He didn’t know why he felt this way; he had walked alone on this very street so many times before with no thought at all. The dense moonlit sky above him shone brightly in its celestial patterns and dusted lines. If he looked up at it while he was walking, it felt like he was falling upward. Being sucked up towards those dead lights on a tractor beam of archaic energy.

  As he turned onto another side street, his head raised to the sky. Bright lights splashed across his chest. Whipping his head back earthward, Christopher saw a car driving up from the other end of the short road. If he was caught sneaking out, he would be severely punished. He’d probably be stripped of all his privileges. They would stick him in one of the bunk bed rooms with an arsonist or sleepwalker who would try to cut him as he slept. Christopher couldn’t survive in that kind of environment. Getting caught wasn't an option.

  Panicked, he ran into the bushes of the yard across the street, climbed a couple of fences, and hid up in a tree. Sitting on a tree branch, hidden in bushels of leaves, he caught his breath and listened for any signs of chase. There were none.

  As he was about to climb down and try to find his way back to the home, a flood of light illuminated a window in the house directly across from where he sat. Bathed in naked white light, Christopher froze on his perch. Afraid that he would be spotted, he tried to hunker down on the branch like a napping sloth.

  Soon, the silhouetted shape of a woman filled the empty window frame.

  Balancing himself on the teetering limb, he heard the fibers of the wood creak sharply under his added weight. If he tried to get down at this angle, the branch might snap, sending him noisily to the ground twelve feet below. Unable to move, Christopher had no choice but to lie there looking out onto the window.

  His labored breath was loud in his ears; his heart thudded painfully in his chest. He watched as the outlined shape drew back the thin curtains to reveal the features of a curly haired woman wearing silky green pajamas. She looked as if she was in her mid-thirties, possibly with children, but still very pretty. Her rounded cheekbones and sharp nose reminded him of the lady who played Princess Leia in Star Wars. For a second, he imagined her chained up to his bed in a bronzed bra and panties, but instantly pushed it away.

  She appeared to be searching the darkness. Convinced that he had been heard, Christopher quickly shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable screams of outrage. When nothing happened, he slowly looked back up. What proceeded next would forever alter his life.

  Standing in the window was the same woman, completely nude from the waist up. The sight of her exposed flesh made his eyes water. It was as if he were trying to look into the sun with a telescope. Her radiant skin and full rack momentarily scrambled his brain waves. Before this moment, Christopher hadn’t realized what women carried around under their shirts all the time. Never had he seen anything so beautiful in his entire life. He blinked the tears away and readily gazed upon her miraculous melons.

  Suddenly, the heavy branch pressed under his waist sprouted another limb.

  She continued to face him, her open hands slowl
y rubbing along her stomach in a circular motion. It looked like she was staring right at Christopher, curly hair tumbling down around her delicate shoulders in long, spiraling locks. After a few tense moments, he realized that she was only staring at her own reflection in the dark mirror of the lighted window. He had his own two-way mirror into heaven.

  For the first time ever, God was smiling on Christopher.

  His breath hitched in his throat as he watched, hypnotized by her traveling hands. They swooped along her lower back and moved their way across the front of her ribs. Stopping to grab more lotion from the bed stand, the woman turned again to face the window.

  Then, the real show began.

  For ten minutes Christopher watched the mystery woman slowly lotion her breasts. Up and around every curve, her fingers would sometimes stop to squeeze at her hardening nips. He didn’t know if this was what women considered to be masturbation, but it sure looked that way to him. He didn’t have to see her face to know that she was relishing the moment just as much as he was. Those hands might as well have been his, although a bit more steady and confident in their touch.

  When it was over, she turned back to the bed and grabbed her pajama top. Sliding it onto herself, she took a moment to adjust her hair in the dark reflection and then left the room. The light flicked off behind her. He then heard the muffled sound of a door closing and padded footsteps receding into nothingness.

  Slowly, Christopher shimmied his way back down the tree and retraced his steps back to the group home. Once back in his bed, he lay awake thinking. He stared emptily at the pressure-cracked ceiling until the rising sun forced him to blink.

  His thoughts were no longer his own.

  Almost every summer night after that was spent searching for more. He would take to the dimly lit back streets of the suburbia surrounding the north end of town where he lived, hiding in trees and thick bushes, waiting for another chance encounter. He thought a lot about visiting his first love. He remembered where she lived, but decided against it. That tree couldn’t handle what he had become accustomed to doing.

  It took a lot of searching and many summers of climbing and burrowing to find the perfect spots, but he gott’em. Six in all, every one within a three-block distance of his home. The ladies ranged from eighteen to maybe thirty-five, C-cup to double D. It hadn't taken him long to figure out where that extra branch kept coming from. It took a few tries to get his balance just right, but eventually he got the hang of it. He was a master monkey puller by the time he was twelve.

  Now fourteen and still just as lonely and obsessed, Christopher Shaw set up at his number three for the night. Name unknown, Lady Number Three was among one of his favorites. Moderately big C-cups, from his guess, Lady Three loved to sing and dance while getting ready for bed. No curtains. A bouncy young blonde of maybe nineteen, she had a terrible singing voice, but an amazing set of sweater puppets. Her birthday suit was usually the costume. It made her elaborate dance routines to overplayed Cyndi Lauper and WHAM records much more tolerable. She would twirl around with a hairbrush in her hand, providing the off-key harmonies to all the hits. Aside from having to hear that, it was one of the best shows he had found. Christopher had the leisure of crouching behind a bush instead of having to perch in a tree. With Lady Number Three’s bedroom being on the first floor of the home, his seat was comfortable. There was nothing to his back but a dense patch of trees to separate the properties; he had an easy escape route if anything should go wrong.

  Cock in hand, he watched Lady Three sing and dance. His eyes bounced around after her, unblinking glass balls shining reflectively in his skull. His hands worked down around his pants in muffled silence; separate beings independent of his receptive brain.

  The connection was brought back by a rough voice emanating from somewhere over his right shoulder.

  “Holy ol’ Jesus, would you look at those things.”

  Christopher jumped, his pants dropping around his ankles, as he whirled around towards the sound.

  A man dressed in a black jacket and blue jeans stood about ten feet away. His back leaning against a tree, he looked down at Christopher and started to laugh.

  “Pullin’ your pud, kid?” he asked between low chuckles. “Here, let me help you out with that.” The shiny glint of a blade flashed under the spilled window light as the man walked over to where Christopher stood. Knees buckled, Christopher panicked. When he tried to turn and run for the woods, his pants bound up around his ankles, sending him tumbling headfirst into the bushes. His belated cries were soon muffled under the stranger’s gloved hand covering his mouth. The other gloved hand held the glistening switchblade inches away from his nose. “Make a sound, and you're dead. Play along, and you’ll live,” the harsh whispers in his ear echoed like static ripples through his scattered thoughts. He stood shaking, his hands plastered to his waist. The man’s grip on his mouth loosened slightly. The blade receded back out of sight. The man still at his back, Christopher felt the hard edge of the knife reappear at his right side.

  “I hate to break up your party,” the man whispered, his hot breath filling Christopher's right ear, “but I need that girl.” They both stood for a moment in silence watching her dance. She was still completely unaware of their presence. “If you help me get her, I’ll let you fuck her. That’s what you want, right? Would sure beat standing out here getting ticks all over your sack. You help me, and I’ll help you.” The words slithered out of the man’s unseen lips like a couple of king cobras. “If you don’t, I’m gonna' have to cut off your dick. Then you’ll probably scream, so I’ll have to shove it down your throat. Is that what you want? To be known as that kid who died choking on his own dick?”

  Even if the man’s hand hadn't been covering his mouth, Christopher couldn’t have answered. Things were moving much too fast for him. The harsh breathing in his ear shattered his ability to think on his feet.

  “Ah, I see,” the voice whispered, now with a friendlier tone. “You want to fuck her but can’t, right? You don’t seem like the forceful type to me. I guess there wouldn’t really be consent. I mean, look at you. I’d probably stand a better chance than you if I didn’t need her soul.”

  Those last few words perked up Christopher's senses. The utterance of needing the girl's soul struck him as particularly odd. Through this short acquaintanceship, he had never asked himself who this man might be. Or why he would bring a knife to look at titties. The man could have been another window watcher like him, only with more than just viewing in mind. Christopher may have been a weirdo, but he was certainly no rapist. It was the mention of her soul that set off bells behind his distorted sense of terror. It became clearer by the second that this wasn’t just some ordinary Peeping Tom. This guy was The—

  “I figured out what They need now. All this time I thought they needed just any old kid, but I was wrong. They want female plasmid,” the man said, his grip fluctuating with every other word. The heavy breathing in Christopher's right ear became painful. He could feel the man’s sour breath blowing into his brain. The strain on his neck sent a tiny spasm through his back. The man noticed and tightened his grip.

  “But not just any female. They need one that is still fruitful with youth but stained by sin. For some reason, if they are too young and innocent their plasmid is… unappetizing. Their innocence and lack of emotional scarring makes them like young honeydew melons. Way too hard and bitter on the inside. They don’t like that.”

  Christopher feels the man’s hand start to slip. He can straighten his neck.

  “I would have figured that out sooner if They would have just let me think for two fuckin' seconds… what do I do when day in and... It’s just... I can’t hear myself even in…”

  The man’s speech rapidly degraded back into internal dialogue. Christopher tried to turn with the man’s hand still loosely placed over his lips, but was met with an iron grip locking him back in place. The hand around his mouth felt like the steel jaws of a fully-loaded bear trap. />
  After a moment, the man loosened a bit around Christopher's face, but still kept his hand firmly over his mouth. “Not so fast, cockboy. I guess this means you aren’t going to help me, right?”

  He waited for Christopher's response, but heard nothing. Suddenly, the man felt him start to heave and gag against his chest. He could feel a warm, gooey substance start to soak in through the knitted glove over the kid's mouth. Pulling his hand away, he saw a long string of snot and vomit that connected him to Christopher’s face.

  “The fuck, kid?!” the man yelled in utter surprise. He stepped back, momentarily letting go of the boy. Stumbling back in disgust, thick ropes of slime dripped from his hand onto the ground. He gagged at the stench of the refried beans and hotdogs that were now greased all over his palm. Christopher saw his only opportunity to live and took it. Kicking his pants off, he whipped them to the side and started to run.

  I’m gonna' make it! he thought madly to himself. Burdock and other low branches snagged his exposed skin. Wordlessly, he zigzagged down the hill to freedom. The wind blowing through his pumpkin patch, he felt strangely invigorated. The thrill of running pantless through the woods at night almost overshadowed the fact that he was running for his life. For the first time ever, he was asserting himself. A frantic rush of shifted perspective carried him closer and closer to the treeline where he could escape from the knife wielding man.

  A couple feet from the dense curtain of trees, Christopher heard a loud bang and then a hard pressure pop in his chest. Still not fully registering pain, the sudden blow made him stumble to the ground just a foot or so from the woods. In the pale light, he looked down and saw his own intestines hanging out of his blood-soaked shirt. Long gristly cords of still pulsing meat dangled and slapped against his cold legs. At that moment, he had an extraordinary sense of the cool air filling the empty cavity of his abdomen. He could already feel the blood congealing under the soft blowing of the night air. Blood trickled warmly over his exposed thighs as the onslaught of intense pain forced him to scream into the night.