The Last Incubus: Chapter 19
Chapter 19: No good deed goes unpunished.
"Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed." ~ Daniel 4 v. 27.
*****
It was almost 10:30 by the time I got back to Tina's house. When I got to the top of the stairs, Tina was there waiting, wearing nothing but a smile.
"Coming to bed?" she asked, suggestively.
"Not tonight. I'm exhausted. I just need to get some sleep," I replied, wearily.
"You do look beat, but we can just cuddle. It will help you relax," she said, offering me her hand.
"Yeah, right. Since when did you ever 'just cuddle?' The first chance you get, you'll be all over me doing a lot more than cuddling."
"I can understand how you might think that, but I was being serious. I saw how tired you were this morning, so I can only imagine how utterly exhausted you must be now. We can still sleep together without fooling around. We'll both get a better night's sleep if you do," she said earnestly.
"Oh, really? Wherever did you get that idea?"
"I read it in a magazine article," she replied, confidently.
"Where? In one of those girl's magazines?" I asked sarcastically.
"No. As a matter of fact, it was a men's magazine, Penthouse." And before you ask, it was an actual article, not one of those so-called letters from readers."
"Oh. Sorry I doubted you. Alright, I'll join you, but only if you promise to do nothing more than cuddling and sleeping."
"I promise. Now get undressed and come to bed," she said, heading towards her bedroom.
"Give me a few minutes. I need to call my folks first," I replied as I went to my room.
***
"Oh, dear. I was wondering when you were going to ask about that," my mother sighed.
"You mean it's true, I was adopted?" I asked.
"It was your Aunt Piper's idea. Your father and I had been trying to have children for quite a while. For years, we prayed that God would bless us with a child and for years those prayers went unanswered. It wasn't until a couple of years after my sister gave birth to your cousin Tina, that she told us about a woman who was looking for a couple to adopt and raise her 6-month-old son and she would pay us for it."
"We thought that God had answered our prayers at last. Not only was He giving us a son, but we would also have enough money to keep the farm afloat," she explained.
"She paid you for taking me?" I asked.
"We were a little suspicious at first, especially since she didn't want to go through an adoption agency. We thought you might have been stolen or kidnapped, but we checked with the police and there were no reported missing children." I could hear the worry in her voice.
"I don't understand. If my birth mother had money, why didn't she raise me herself?"
"According to Piper, your birth father threatened to kill you, and your mother wanted you to grow up someplace where he couldn't find you. She even provided a forged birth certificate that stated you were my child."
"Who is this woman? What's her name?" I asked.
"I don't know. That was a part of the agreement. She was to remain anonymous to your father and me, although I was told that at some point, she would reveal herself to you. I got the impression from the forged papers and the amount of money she gave us that she must be very wealthy," she replied.
"How did Aunt Piper hear about this woman?"
"She wouldn't say, and she warned me not to ask questions because it could result in your death. That's why your father and I never told you any of this. We thought we were doing God's will, but looking back now, I'm not so sure," she explained, sounding remorseful.
Before ending the call, I thanked both of my parents and told them how much I loved them and appreciated them raising me. At least it confirmed the theory Bailie and I had about me being adopted. But many more questions remained. Who were my birth parents? If my birth mother was as wealthy as my mother thought, why couldn't she have found a way of protecting me and raise me herself? Maybe she knew I was evil, and this was all some elaborate story to get rid of me, and save herself from future embarrassment. And why did my father want to kill me? Did it have anything to do with my being a demon? Was he also a demon?
Tina kept her word about 'cuddle only' when I joined her in her bedroom. She was also right about the relaxing part, as I snuggled against her warm body. It wasn't long before those questions about my birth parents seemed to fade away.
But as I drifted off to sleep, I thought about Bailie and wondered how she managed to deal with her stepfather and his "mean drunk" behavior...
***
I was in a strange apartment. To say it wasn't in the best condition would be a gross understatement. There were cracks and holes in the ceiling and walls and the paint was peeling. The place was cold and dingy, and smelled mostly of stale beer and cigarette smoke, along with a hint of bleach and pine-scented floor cleaner.
The kitchen was to my left. It was small with a noisy refrigerator that looked like it came straight out of the fifties with its rounded corners at the top and the vertical pull handle to open it. There was no separate door to the freezer section, which I guessed was inside.
The countertops were made of pale green Formica, the kind I hadn't seen in years. The kitchen table had a red top and looked like it might have come from an old diner. There were two chairs around it that didn't match each other or the table. The stove was old, but clean with just two burners at the top and the oven door was slightly askew and didn't quite close properly.
The living room was also small with an old-fashioned color TV that looked to be about 28- or 32-inch diagonal. There was a large stuffed chair with ripped upholstery next to an end table with a dirty ashtray filled with cigarette butts. There were at least a couple dozen empty beer cans scattered about on top and underneath the end table, and around the chair. On the other side of the room was a love seat of a different furniture style in a similar condition, except without the butts and beer cans. There was an open door to a dingy bathroom opposite the living room and a hallway to my right.
I heard a noise coming from a room at the end of the hallway.
"Gary, no! Please don't!" a girl's voice pleaded. It sounded like Bailie.
"Quiet! You're old enough now and it's about time you became a real woman," a man's voice said.
I ran to where the voices were coming. The door to the bedroom on the right was open and when I entered, I saw a bald, stocky man with a "wifebeater" shirt unbuckling his belt. He had the Marine Corps emblem tattooed on his right upper arm.
In front of him was a single twin bed with a thin, green blanket on top. There was a slightly younger, frightened-looking Bailie curled up in a ball, with her back to the wall, hugging her knees and looking up at the stocky man.
"What's going on here? Who are you?" I demanded.
The bald man turned to me with a surprised expression.
"What the fuck are you doing in my apartment? Get out of here before I call the police!" he yelled. His beer breath seemed to fill the room.
"Go ahead and call them. What do you think the police are going to say when I tell them you were about to rape this girl?" I retorted.
"You asked for it, you bastard," he shouted as he swung his fist at me.
