Kick (Songs of Perdition #1)(7)
Author: C.D. Reiss

“What performance?”

“Specific to you, there will be no masturbation.”

I laughed. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Next time we hear you through the door, we’re coming in. We are a private institution. Accredited, yes, but we do get to custom-tailor the Westonwood experience to each patient. In your case, sex is a distraction that is strictly forbidden.”

“Lady, I can make myself come by breathing a certain way, okay? And shame’s not my thing. Privacy isn’t a prerequisite; I’ll come right in front of you. So that rule is a fucking joke.”

“I assure you, it’s not a joke.” She slid back her chair. “Your meals are scheduled. Mark will take you to the dining hall.”

***

Mark, the orderly, was one of those guys who was trouble outside his job. He had on the same pale blue uniform as the rest of the orderlies, but his goatee was fingered to a point and his hair was shaved over the ears. The top flopped down, but I knew he made it stick up on the weekends. I tried not to look too closely, but I couldn’t help it. He had an empty piercing hole in his nostril. He glanced at me, and I turned away.

I held my tray in the center of the dining room, trying to decide between seats that all looked the same. The room was done up in modern grey and white, same as everything else. Even the Christmas decorations were simple brushed-chrome snowflakes hanging from the windows. The linoleum shined, the paint scuffs were removed nightly, and the chairs were Scandinavian, but it still looked and smelled like a mental ward.

A group of three ate on the patio. It rained on the other side of the overhang. They laughed and smoked cigarettes as if they were at the Wilshire Country Club, not Westonwood. They were my age, more or less, with smooth skin and trim bodies. One girl saw me and waved me over. I stood in the doorway.

“Fiona Drazen,” she said. “Heard you were here.”

They all looked at me. I waved. Their faces seemed familiar. The girl in question had her bare feet curled on the chair and a lit cigarette in the fingers that rested on her knee.

“Hey.” One of the young men, with tight curly hair and a knowing slouch, raised his hand to me. “Good to see you again.”

I didn’t know him. Had I fucked him? Was I supposed to remember? I couldn’t even remember the last two days.

“Hey.” I nodded at him, then the rest.

The girl’s shirt buckled under her crouch, and I saw the curve of her breast. I remembered her. It had been a weekend in her mother’s time share—two days in an ocean of skin. I barely remembered their three faces from that party. Karen. Karen Hinnley. Her mother was a producer.

“Ojai,” I said. “Fuck, man. What a weekend.”

“It was…” She rolled her eyes as if at a loss for words.

“Beautiful,” I finished for her.

“Damn,” said the guy with the curly hair, “we should do it again.”

“Yeah.” Karen nodded to a boy with blond hair who couldn’t have been a day over fifteen. “You gotta come this time.”

Everyone concurred except me. I couldn’t bear another minute. I didn’t know why.

“Nice and quiet here,” I said.

“Christmas,” Karen said. “Everyone gets sprung for a couple of days. Except I don’t want to go home to look at the buffet. Gross. After New Year’s, there’ll be a line for the tri-tip.”

Too-Young shook his head. Curly Hair laughed. Warren. That was his name. Warren Chilton, son of the actor.

“I’m going inside,” I said. “Call me when we’re all out of here.”

There was agreement, but no discussion about whether or not I would serve time, even though my situation must have been public knowledge. People like us didn’t serve time. Even the suggestion meant that my lawyer wasn’t connected well enough.

I wasn’t hungry, so I drifted into the common room, where the TV screen showed nature in all its high-definition glory. It was compelling in its way. I sat on the grey leather couch and watched, staring at daisies fluttering in the breeze. I felt too weak for a walk. Frances had given me a cocktail of pills for the headache, some of which I recognized, and they dulled the pain and the brain.

I’d stabbed Deacon. What would make me do such a thing? What could he have done? Beat me? I laughed to myself, because beat me was what he did on any given day. I rubbed my eyes as if I wanted to erase the lids and see what I’d done.

My body tipped a quarter of a degree when someone sat next to me. I glanced toward my right. He had short-cropped hair and pink lips, and he smiled and blinked slowly. I could fuck him. No reason not to, besides the no touching rule and Deacon, who wasn’t dead. I’d betrayed him enough already.

“Bellis perennis,” he said, tilting his head toward the nature show. “Common daisy, often confused with their more tightly petaled family members, Arctotis. You’re Fiona Drazen, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Jack Kent. Carlton Prep. I was a year below you. You were a celebrity even then. What are you in for?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer before a nurse came close, and Jack pointed at the TV.

“Arctotis stoechadifolia, nearly extinct in its native South Africa, and now a weed pest in Southern California,” he said.

“Attempted murder,” I said when the nurse passed, “but I don’t remember it.”

“Car?”

“Knife.”

“Wow. Trust you to do it big.”

I wished I remembered this guy half as much as he remembered me.

“No, wait. I remember you,” I said. “Nerd.”

“Not totally unfuckable, I think. But yeah.”

“What are you in for?”

“Being an embarrassment, unofficially. But officially, bipolar disorder.”

“Picked up in a manic phase?” I asked.

“Totes manic. I came up with a new way to process ricinus communis in a hundred forty-seven steps. No one in their right mind could get past the seventy-fifth.”

“Why did you?”

“Because I could. And the high? Woke out of it with my underwear full of jizz.”

I nodded. I knew how he felt.

“You voluntary?” he asked.

I shook my head. The flowers changed from yellow to pink.

“Fifty-one-fiftied?”

“Yeah. I supposedly tried to stab a cop. Resisted arrest. Turned the knife on myself. Yada yada. I’m screwed.”

“Who’s your psych?” he asked.