Page 56 of Violent Delights

Chapter 34

Joseph

I check the time once we’re done eating our food, and I‘m relieved to see that I still have a few minutes before I have to get on my way to Boston.

Time has flown by while we were sitting here eating together. We have been downstairs for more than an hour, but it didn’t feel like any time had passed at all. Talking to her comes so easily to me, it feels natural, right. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn what I did about her family‘s past. No girl ends up as an escort if she grew up in a healthy family environment. There’s always something wrong with them, and just like in her case, it’s most often the father to blame.

I guess the same could be said about me, but I refrain from blaming my father for anything that I’ve done or who I’ve become. He doesn’t deserve the attention. He hasn’t even earned the right to be blamed for my misdeeds.

I pour us another coffee, not ready to return Ruby to her room upstairs. This will be an exception. I won’t bring her downstairs again because it would be a stupid thing for me to do. But since it’s just this one time, I might as well make the most of it.

She’s holding on to her coffee mug, looking so innocent, almost too prim and proper in the outfit I gave her to wear, and it’s hard to believe she’s a prostitute. She strikes me as too smart and timid for that profession. I wonder what was really behind it.

Maybe she’s in trouble? A good girl who made a bad decision, or somehow got caught up in some kind of shady business and now owes a bunch of money to some bad people, perhaps?

Or maybe she simply enjoys it, though knowing her as I do, I can’t believe that.

I would love to ask her, but that would be such a big breach. We can talk about our families, but not about her real job, and definitely not about the reason why she’s here.

“There’s something else I’m curious about,” she says, casting me a cautious look.

“I’m not surprised to hear that,” I say, leaning back in my chair, as I beckon her to continue speaking. “What is it?”

“Your tattoos,” she says. “They are quite… peculiar.”

I smile to myself. “That’s an interesting word for it.”

“What do they mean?” she adds. “I mean, why did you get those particular ones?”

I hesitate, looking at her as I contemplate my answer. The truth may scare her, and it would tell her a lot more about me, and I’m not sure that I want to share. I’d rather say nothing than to lie to her.

“They remind me of something,” I say, deliberately being vague in my answer. “Or rather of someone.”

“Your father?” she guesses.

I snort.

“Fuck no,” I say. “He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.”

“Well, who then?” Ruby presses, leaning forward with interest.

“Myself,” I tell her. “They remind me of the person I used to be but no longer want to be.”

Her eyes flicker with anxious fascination. “What kind of person?”

“An angry person, very angry,” I reply. “I was an angry child, and I wasn’t very good at handling my emotions. I let it out on other people.”

“So you beat up other kids?”

“Yes, a lot,” I confirm. “I constantly was getting into trouble, and I wasn’t shy about using my fists. I’ve always been tall and strong, and I used it to my advantage. I did some real damage.”

That’s the understatement of the year, but she doesn’t need to hear the entire truth. She doesn’t need to know that I almost killed another boy when I was sixteen. She doesn’t need to know that I robbed him of his ability to walk for the rest of his life, and she doesn’t need to know that I took out an eye from another kid shortly before that. Those two were only the tip of the iceberg, but they were also the last ones.

I will never get those images out of my head, no matter how hard I try. They will haunt me forever. The boy, lying on the floor before me in a puddle of his own blood, motionless, so badly ravaged that I wasn’t the only one who thought he was dead. He survived, his life was changed forever, while I continue to walk the Earth being able to use both of my legs. No amount of money that my family paid out to him will ever make up for the fact that he will never walk again. He can’t forget about that day, and when I - with the help of my grandfather - decided to make a change in my life, I wanted to make sure that I could never forget about it either.

The marks on my skin resemble the scars left on my victims. They aren’t pretty, and they don’t look anything like the kinds of tattoo men usually get, but they serve a purpose. They aren’t designed to be vain decorations, but rather to help me never to forget.

“So you really hurt people?” she asks, her voice tight and concerned.

---