6

Robin 

Alexandria, Louisiana 

Allureʼs Bed & Breakfast

October 31st, 2014

Time: 7:00 AM 

_________________________    

  Robin tried to cover up the h*ckey. 

  On the swells of her b*easts, they gleamed: a bright maroon for all-the-world to see underneath a flimsy cotton tank and her Cross necklace. Sitting at the bar of Allureʼs, she watched the fae bartender fill the pot of black, authentic Cuban coffee with scorching hot milk, and she took in the retro furniture of the restaurant. It was a groovy bar for the elves and fae of the area, a golden hub with hot pinks and vibrant neon oranges kissing the walls, and as she sat, nursing her headache and applying cheap drug store makeup onto the swells of her breasts, the scent of Mojitos and marijuana grew increasingly inviting. The waves of the Pacific that writhed in snake-like rivers around the bends of Alexandria grew more prominent in the background, hissing and rustling with the leaves, Robin closed her eyes and sighed with content. 

    Safe. Quiet. It was safe and quiet– 

   And then Lafayette begun screaming at the top of his lungs, laughing hysterically.

     "Well, I donʼt be trusting these h*es and I don't be smashing these h*es. Go-o-d*mnn–"

    Lafayette, in all his g*y glory, ran into the bar, naked up from the waist up. Black and beautiful, he sang and twerked. Groaning, Robin hit her head on the desk – peeping at him through the crease in her arms – and listened to Lafayetteʼs tone-deaf singing with an aggressive headache. 

   He was drunk. 

    Lafayette, drunk drunk from the trap music – as a finale – twirled around, jerking the scathing hot coffee out of his employeeʼs hand and effortlessly leaned his chest across the aisle from where she was sitting, sipping on her coffee like it was sweet, homemade ice tea, and stared at her with his large electric green eyes. 

    "I didnʼt pay two-forty-nine to listen to some hillbilly rapper spit trash and for you to drink my g*ddamn coffee, Lafayette," Robin told him, frowning. 

    Lafayette smirked into the cup, pouring her a glass of ice cold water. 

    "First oʼ all, based on all the drinkinʼ youʼbe been doinʼ, the only thing you gone buy for two-forty-nine is a little somethinʼ called sobriety, and second oʼ all, that man is my gonna be my baby daddy and I donʼt tolerate you slanderinʼ his black, beautiful, sexy motherf*ckinʼ *ss, baby girl." 

    Robin snorted. 

     "Last time I checked, that positioned was filled," Robin teased. 

    Lafayette flipped his dreads. 

    "Well, if she leaves *ss, she leaves his *ss. If she donʼt, more fish in the sea for me. Now; in the mean-time, who d*cked you down? Was it that Eboni Gray chic, the one that gave me that job in Boston that pays three-k a night?" 

    "No."

    "Sh*t, was he big, then?"

    Robin choked on her water.

    "Lafayette," she spluttered. "Filter. We talked about this. Fil-ter."

     "You the one coming to me for spiked coffee, Robin. If the coffeeʼs goinʼ to be hot, the tea better be ho-t."

    Lafayette stared her pointedly, coffee in hand and b*tch-face locked-and-loaded. He waited for her, and sighing, Robin leaned in. 

    "Damon Maverick," she told him, cupping her face. 

    "Damon Maverick? From Natchez?"

    "Yes."

    "Oh, hell. Damon Maverick, Mikey Rayʼs big brother?"

    "Yes," Robin repeated, face burning with embarrassment. Lafayette tskʼd, staring at her with gaping eyes, and the dialogue shifted. Concerned, confused, and above all, catatonic. She, on-the-other hand, was not. 

    "Robin. First, you f*cked: Damien, Blake, Elaine, and Scott OʼMalley, and now you and the Maverick brothers goinʼ at it? Whatʼs next; takin’ Malcolm Prince for a spin? Or maybe that Lisbon chicʼs cougar mama? This is how you get killed. F*cking around until you canʼt see straight."

    "You done?" Robin snapped. 

    "Are you?" Lafayette asked. "Because Iʼve been watchinʼ you burn through people before to fill the hole in your heart for years. This time, it ainʼt just that. Sh*t from your past cominʼ back?"

    Biting her lip, Robin nodded and tears streamed down her face. Heart-broken, Lafayette put down his coffee and devoted his attention to her; his eyes softening, his gaze warm. 

    "The Cuban government lifted their trade embargo temporarily ʼcause Thatcher wanted to continue the cigar trade in Vinci; wanted to leech off of the people as he always does because Desdemonaʼs properties are in escrow around the state, and her company in Italy is facing a sh*t-ton of lawsuits. Sebastian negotiated a deal with the government to get Virgilʼs body exhumed from an unmarked grave in Havana and to be imported into the States. 

         "After that, the son-of-a-b*tch froze my bank accounts so I couldnʼt bury him. I spent my entire paycheck from the Hellbenders to bury him, and slept with the engraver just to get a few damn letters onto his tombstone."

    Robin cried silently, tears slicing down the sockets with a newfound sense of hate, of bitterness, of disgust.

    "Robin," Lafayette cooed, stroking her hand. Robin gulped, squeezing her eyes shut as she laughed coldly at her luck.

    "That b*stard took everything from me," Robin told Lafayette with a small smile. "But the wildest thing is, I still love him. I bled for him, I wept for him, I had four kids for him, I belonged to him. He saw me for who I was when I came to this country. He never ignored it: the pain, the r*pe, the...loss. I was so broken, so weak and helpless, and he flocked towards me like a shepherd towards sheep with a love I never knew, a love I never had. 

    "He saw me for me and that didnʼt stop him from needing me, from wanting me, from craving me, and I loved him. From the deepest, purest part of my heart. He was everything; he was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and he took it away. He became his mother; became Desdemona. Inch-by-inch, step-by-step. He robbed me of the one thing I wanted, he...imprisoned me, he locked me up like I was locked up back in Cuba. 

         "I was his housewife, his s*x toy, his property, and his parents used me the way Lyman used me, and Jorge Cortéz used me, and Peter Tudor used me. A baby every few years, a drunken f*ck in Puerto Rico once in a while. He cheated on me, so I cheated back, Lafayette. And it hurts. Loving Sebastian hurts, wanting Scott hurts. So I drink, and I sleep around, and I sober up to raise my kids and so I can do it again every weekend in Monroe. So I can kill myself a little bit each day until...until I can feel innocent like I used to. So one day, I can feel whole again. And it sucks. Smart prey. All Iʼve been is smart prey."   

    Lafayette took his hand and hers, and they sat in the silence – bludgeoned by it. Pain was as violent as the wind chimes outside Allureʼs, scarred and ghastly in their mourning vindication, and as they held each other, she sighed. Closing her eyes. She wanted to move Heaven and Hell for a small chance at being the little girl she was before all the politics, and the scheming, and the otherworldly things that went bump-in-the-night, and she hated herself because she couldnʼt. Couldnʼt be that girl. 

          And Lafayette cried for her because he knew. Deep down, he knew that she was gone. Robin DeMarcus was the moon rising to its peak and casting its shadow on the darkness of the Order of the Dragonʼs visage, and there was no stopping her rise to power. Too dark, covetous, beautiful, pure power.

    Lafayetteʼs playfulness vanished then, replaced with an anger that he rarely assumed and rarely architected. It was crafted so carefully, so precisely, and when he spoke, he put the fear of God into her. 

    "No baby, you ainʼt smart prey. Youʼre the predator, youʼve always been a predator. They broke you, and baby, you canʼt let that happen. Men fear a powerful woman, but no matter how much they try to do to bring yʼall down, to bring us down, we always rise. We never stop risinʼ to power. We feast on control; we eat them for motherf*ckinʼ breakfast without battinʼ an eye, because behind a strong man is an even more formidable woman," Lafayette ground out. 

    "So my advice, play him...play her the way sheʼs playing you. Nobody takes Robin DeMarcus; Robin DeMarcus takes you. Youʼre the predator, baby girl. Theyʼre the g*ddamn prey, and that keeps those sons-oʼ-b*tches up at night."

     Silence. A thousand knives cutting her heart left. 

    "And what if there are people that take that chance away from me?" Robin asked. "Ghosts, from the past?"

    "Then we take a long *ss match and some gasoline and we leave this world Butch and Sundance style."

    "Blaze of glory?"

    "Blaze oʼ glory, baby girl."