The Brand Ch. 10

"Lianne? Tell me: fishies book or brush?"

Now, marching around the room, howling, her hands flying through the gestures to her head, shoulders, knees and toes, Lianne headed for the corner carpet and her pillow cover. Still, she uttered, shrieked, one thing or another. Melody drew closer, thinking she'd heard something; brus, brus, brus. Did that count? She wasn't sure. Melody glanced at Luella, watching from behind her desk. Harper slowly nodded. Go on, keep going, her eyes said.

"Lianne!" Melody shouted above the din of her student, "Say brush!"

Who was she kidding? Melody Eunice May didn't know jack about how to teach kids that didn't want to talk. Why try to get her to talk when she didn't want to anyway? Stomping, Lianne past close by Melody's right and then back again around her left. She had gone to the table and picked up the brush. Waving it in her hand, Lianne growled; ready to bite like some crazed little zombie.

The young girl crossed the room, and sped past the rest of the crew to the area where Mrs. Harper kept the extra toys. Then, Melody, motionless, stared as her student dragged a toy, foil mirrored, pink plastic vanity table across the room, to the corner carpet with the pillows. In the next instant, Lianne set the brush down onto the vanity's surface and poised herself before the less than perfectly reflective mirror. Melody took a few steps closer and looked at Leanne's clouded reflection. Her wide, beautifully brown eyes seemed to say: I'm tired and I would like my hair brushed please. Again, Melody regarded Harper. Harper shrugged and gestured to the child. Melody sighed then as she crept to her knees behind Lianne, carefully took the brush, and then began to slowly, tenderly, run it through the child's silky hair.

They remained that way until Leanne's hair was thoroughly combed free of any existing snags. Then, as Melody set the brush down and prepared to stand, Lianne reached for the brush and began to wail. Melody expected to get whacked with the brush. But, instead, Lianne stepped behind her adult support, and proceeded to brush her hair while pulling her right sleeve down to get better access to the top of her head. She wants, thought Melody, she wants to brush my hair. This is new. Melody slowly moved into a cross legged position before the vanity, putting her face's reflection in the center of the toy's mirror. Cautiously, she smiled, looking to Luella. Harper looked back, her own expression reserved yet seeming pleased, her eyes filled with their usual warmth.

"That's significant sunshine Ms. May," she said; sunshine being Luella's euphemism for progress, "I'll say she'll be on the phone ordering Friday take-out for us in a few more weeks. Good for you Mel."

Energized, the certainty of accomplishment in her mind and an unusual welling of well-being in her heart, Melody waited patiently at the end of the school's semicircular driveway. Dean had promised a ride home, since he'd be coming back into town after a doctor's appointment that afternoon. She stood, the March wind gently blowing about her face as she read through one of the pages she'd printed after bringing Lianne to her bus.

Training and experience Requirements: The applicant must complete 225 classroom hours of graduate level instruction (see Acceptable Coursework below) in the following areas and for the number of hours indicated: Ethical considerations - 15 hours; Definition & characteristics and Principles, processes & concepts - 45 hours; Behavioral assessment and Selecting intervention outcomes & strategies - 35 hours; Experimental evaluation of interventions - 20 hours; Measurement of behavior and Displaying & interpreting behavioral data - 20 hours; Behavior change procedures and Systems support - 45 hours; Discretionary behavior-analytic content - 45 hours-

Holy shit, that's a lot of hours, she thought. But, it would all be paid for; well, barring books. A tingle of excitement rose from within her very core. I could stay at work and take them online. I could go to Arizona State. No, that's too far. Is it? Maybe Utah has a program! Utah isn't too far. Wait; New Mexico. That's dumb. It might as well be Arizona State then.

Melody peered up into the blue skies overhead and the great purple majesty that rose to meet it. Life is like climbing a mountain, she thought, at least it should be. But, here, my life is a mole hill. Shit. My problem is; I need fire. I don't have any fire. Where does that come from if you weren't born with it? Her father, Dean, was born with it. Or; was it only because he was a man, a man who knew how to just take other people's fire for himself or maybe he faked it and others just gave it up without a fight. She thought of Dory then; bold, facetious, misdirected, her fire burning low like the orange glow at the end of a joint.

There was a sudden swirl of dry leaves then as Dean's beat to shit Chevy S 10 rolled into the school's drive way. Melody watched him through his road dusty windshield; his hair greyer, his face furrowed around his line of a mouth, his skin sun baked brown, his eyes narrow slits of too proud to wear a helpful pair of glasses. She quickly flung her back pack around, tucked her papers inside, and then reached slender golden fingers to the mud caked passenger door.

They sat in the cab, together in silence; its weight comforting to Melody only in that it meant Dean would not criticize, ridicule or rage. There would be no intellectual discussion of educational philosophy or of the merits of the Socratic method of inquiry. He might mention how expertly he pulled off the rebuilding of a 12.4 liter MaxxForce or that someone had brought in a restored Plymouth Superbird with its Magnum 440 cubic V-8. But, their trip home half over, Melody's father too had nothing he wished to say.

The radio had been on, old school country playing low. Melody quietly hummed along as she took in the muddy brown landscape of another early spring in Bear Lake. The town sprawled away from the mountains, its roads rising up and then shallowing again between channels dynamited through great shelves of granite. Dean wasn't driving in any great hurry. The doctors, she thought. He hasn't said anything. Should I ask? Yes, I suppose I should. It won't hurt; to ask.

"So what the doctor say Daddy?"

Melody turned to regard Dean, her expression alert and sweetly watchful. He glanced at her, his head lolling as he drove through a run off hidden pot hole. Shrugging, Dean looked back toward the road. Still, Melody watched, her green eyes bright in their depth, her mouth beginning to frown slightly. Dean opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as he turned to peer out the driver's window.

"I'm fine." He said; swinging his head back to face his daughter, "Just a little back pain some rest'll take care of is all. Say; why don't you call your mom on that cell phone of yours and tell her we're gonna'pick her up and go to Miller's for dinner."

Melody stared at her father, her eyes narrowing slightly. He wants to take us out to dinner? What does that mean; good news, bad news?

"You sure you okay Daddy?"

"I'm great baby girl. Go on; call your mother."

Worry; Concern, showing disquiet shows you care. But, Melody really wasn't sure exactly how much she cared. What had there been about her father, Dean, that gave her cause enough to care? Stop it; you care because we're supposed to love our moms and dads. That's just how its supposed to be. I mean its not like he's one of those family guy serial killers. How do you keep loving good old Dad after that kind of news comes out? You don't. You can't; can't you?

She cared about her mother, there was no doubt of that. But her dad; what had she felt for him? What had she admired about him? The smell of his after shave, the feel of his whiskers when she used to, as a little girl, hop up into bed between him and mom, when he'd make her grilled cheese, he would put two slices of cheese instead of one and he'd give her potato chips with it too.

He hadn't been that bad to her. Her mom, Martha, had taken the brunt of it. He'd never actually hit either his wife or daughter or anything like that. Sure, there was the psychological abuse, for lack of a better way of calling domestic domination, subjugation and repression. But, Martha survived into older age relatively unscathed; the scars on her self-perception, her badges of honor: the cracked dry skin of her hands, her old lady hump at the back of her neck starting to show and the yards and yards of cushion covers she'd crocheted to cover the sagged shallows of her butt prints of day in, day out, year after year, for over twenty years, of sitting idly by, watching other people on TV pretending lives.

Dean was well into his forty-ninth year of life on the planet. But, true enough; he looked about sixty-eight. He worked. He worked hard; toiled from dawn to dusk. Something had to be catching up with him anyway. Again, Melody shot him a glance. Dean kept his eye on the road.

Presently, he turned right instead of left, and headed toward Beckman's Supply. Melody thought he was going to get some feed for the chickens. Melody took out her cell, dismissed her father's change of route, and then dialed the house. Across the span of a minute, she'd made the call. Martha too was a bit mystified, but no less grateful for the break. She'd be ready, she'd said. Melody turned off her phone and tucked it back into her jacket pocket.

Realizing that she'd a little more time on her hands, now that they were taking a longer ride home, she withdrew the BCBA training program information from her book bag. They'd passed Beckman's as she read. Then, after another eight or so minutes, Dean drove the Chevy over the point where Junction 31 is crossed by the Amtrak line. There, he stopped, cut the engine, and then withdrew his keys from the ignition.

Melody lifted her gaze, peered out her window, leaned forward to look out Dean's window, and then considered her father: keys clutched in his fist, his fist against his chin, the fading afternoon light turning his skin an ugly mustard color. He was looking out his window, down the line where the California Zephyr runs through on its way to Grand Junction and then Denver.

"Actually honey," he said in his drawl, turned raspy of late, "I lied."

"Daddy?" Melody said fearfully.

"Hush now, and listen." Said Dean; still looking down the line for the 5:05, "I'm not fine. I went to see; a head doctor because your maw said I ought to give it a try. Cause ya see, I been worried about you cause you know your mom says; you're gay and all, and well you know; that don't sit well with me."

Melody, shocked into silence, looked away. Mom said? My diary? No; not my diary. There's a lock on my diary. Oh my God, I can't do this now! Why now? Why- Melody swung her head to face her father again.

"Daddy, I-"

"Shut the fuck up Melody," croaked Dean as he turned to face her, "Please. Don't say a God damn thing. I was always proud of you; good grades all the time, your teachers sayin' nothin' but good things about ya'. But now? Jesus H. Christ Melody Eunice May, I'd sooner been told you'd got pregnant ratheren find out you beddin girls!

Melody suddenly heard the Zepher's whistle in the distance. She looked up and down the line, north to south. The sound was everywhere and nowhere. Abruptly she jumped in her seat, startled by the sudden clang, clang, clang of the warning signal overhead.

"I busted my ass to get you everything you needed. I never once raised my hand to you. You bring one, just one, boy round the house to meet us. Seemed nice enough, but that's the last we see of him. So I bring it up with your mom, and well, it all makes sense, don't it? I mean; what the fuck are you thinking Melody? Oh, what you want; your personal freedom? Shit Mel; cultivatin your personal freedom round here can make you dead Mel!"

Again, the Zepher's whistle blew and again Melody swung her head rapidly back and forth and still saw nothing.

"Daddy please!" she screamed.

"Mel, it literally makes me sick to look at you." Said Dean, beginning to cry, "What are we supposed to do Mel? Huh?"

Melody stared wildly at her father's tears; so struck by them that she hadn't seen the Zepher coming over the rise five hundred yards or so up the line, not until Dean turned to see it barreling towards them.

"The doctor says you can't help it!" Dean cried as he turned to face her again, "Is that true? You can't help it? You can't stop yourself?"

The warning signal clanged on. The Zepher's whistle had become a single, insistent whine. Melody too began to weep. She thought of Dory, the experiments: successful, their love: a failure. Out and dead, she thought. Who am i? Who do I think I am? Out and damned; Mommy, why did you? Why? Melody closed her eyes, shut them tight. Her head pounded. Her ears were filled with the scream of the Zepher's whistle. She felt Dean's Chevy begin to rattle and shake. She held on, crushing the papers in her hand. More rattling, more shaking, more screaming, clang, clang, clang. Then, her heart pounding in her throat, she took a great deep breath through her nostrils and screamed at the top of her lungs:

"No!"

The world became a din of shrieking, rumbling steel; sparks spraying, wind blowing her hair around her face, a sickly feeling in her stomach as Dean's Chevy slowly rolled back, the 5:05 California Zepher passing not four inches beyond the beat up pick up's grill. Why hadn't I jumped out of the truck, she thought inanely as she opened her eyes again. Because he may be a sadistic shit and he may be an asshole, but he wasn't crazy. Melody again stared into her father's tear stained face, the keys still in his fist, a small smirk slanting his lips. He'd done this before, hadn't he? He'd practiced. Maybe, he'd done it to Martha too. It was like a great big "fuck you then Mel." Fine Dad. Fuck you too. Fuck you too.

3

"Seriously; she bit you?"

"She bit me; right through to the muscle."

Victria had taken the liberty, her coat hung on the rack and her shoes kicked off to the floor, of lying back on the sofa in her brother's office. After closing his door, Vance moved his chair around to the front of his desk, and then sat; his posture, body language and expression all patiently tuned to the frequency that was his sister's potential unburdening. He'd been put in the position so many times before, though when they were much younger, it had been more often that Vance was Victria's stress releasing punching bag rather than her most palatably honest critic and objective counsel.

"Did you go to the emergency room?" he asked his little sister while reaching for the sketch pad and pen set on the blotter of his desk.

"No!" answered Victria, "I just put peroxide on it, washed it out and bandaged it."

"Can I see it?"

"Jesus no Vance, you don't need to see it!"

"Okay, okay. Jeez."

Vance sat back in his chair, regarded his sister's handsome, troubled countenance, and then set his first mark upon the blank sheet of his pad. As he glanced between his model and his emerging rendering of her, he was allowing the time to wait his sister out. He believed, he hoped, that like the few times before that she would say what she needed. He'd felt perfectly awful all those years before, after the police had found her the way those girls had left her; naked, cold, locked in an old dog crate, degraded, abused, abandoned. He'd never left her alone after that. She'd had to beat him back when she was ready to try to have friends again, after the rumors and the truths had run their course through the school's gossip mill.

Vance was, not unlike so many other people, right where he was because of his love for his little sister and the rest of his family. He too had lost Victor, just as Victria had. It was just that he had studied his father's work and took more edifying lessons from his reflection; where as Victria had retained the pain. But, in as much as it was hurt that lingered, Victria could channel it through her hand much more profoundly than Vance could. Her art work was Victor evolved. Vance's was simpler, quaint; the extraversion to Victria's introspection.

Suffice it to say, it was no less gratifying to Vance that he'd found his way into tattooing and body piercing. It was its own art infused cultural phenomenon, the clientele varied, generally very kind and it pleased him to help to make them happy. The psychology degree too was, though compelled again by his family dynamic, something he'd done for himself. He could have gone into formal practice, but Vance was having a good enough time as it was, drawing on people, piercing their bodies and collecting anecdotal data on the more psychologically compelling individuals under his needles.

"I, I should have seen it for myself." Victria continued, "But, she made me realize that; I've gone back there again."

"Gone back where Vic?" asked Vance as he drew his sister's eyes and the subtle slope of her nose.

"To drinking."

"Oh. And so; you've had her drinking too."

"Yep."

"Hmm. Yeah, that's got to stop."

"Right."

Vance regarded his sister during a growing silence as she stared blankly at his office's ceiling.

"Okay," he said, "So stop it."

"Yeah, but that would make her right and me; wrong."

Vance stopped mid pen stroke and leveled his gaze.

"But," he said, "You are; wrong."

"Yeah, but I'm the domme." Answered Victria, turning to face her brother's stare.

"Oh Jesus Vic," said Vance; wagging his head, "You know; there's a time and a place for the way you like your foreplay or your scene play or whatever it is you're into, but you can't infuse it into your entire life. I mean; it's a life style, right? That's like, I don't know, like being the nudist teacher in front of a classroom of textile kids."

"That's sick Vance." Said Victria, a sudden disgusted look on her face.

"I'm sorry." Said Vance, "I meant a nudist teacher in front of an adult end class of textiles. My point is; What's more important: having someone there for you to take care of each other with or having someone there to take care of you while you drink?"

Their eyes locked, Victria glowered at her brother while he waited for her answer.

"You're an asshole." She remarked.

"Really?" said Vance with a quick shrug of his eye brows, "Then what did you come here for?"

"Because you're a very intuitive asshole."

"Oh, so you still have some capacity for sweetness." Vance chided, "It sounds as if this; Melody is a positive influence on you, I mean, even if you restrict her, mind, body and soul, through a system of dominance and control."

"Right!" Victria intoned, "I've either met someone as totally fucked up as me, the woman of my dreams or both. I, I want to fix it. She's; she's so, so much."

Again, Vance suddenly stopped drawing and regarded his sister. He'd intended to feel out whether she'd express some remorse for having subjugated another human so completely that it had led to violence. But, what he got was no reaction, obliviousness, as if her and Melody's relationship was the most normal thing in the world. Yet, he thought, perhaps it was. Homosexuality had been taken out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, but S and M remained as a pathology. However, it had come to be characterized as non-disorder/non- debilitating: meaning that if a subject is happy in her S and M, the subject is healthy, but if the subject is unhappy in her S and M, she is unhealthy. And, though there was definitely something that needed to be changed for the sake of both his sister's and her lover's sanity, Vance could not say with conviction that Victria and Melody, as sadist domme and passive sub, couldn't repair their relationship and bring it to new heights of soaring love.