The Witchs Want Ch 06

**This is going to get a little weird, but it's even stranger to the two characters in most of this. O_o

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As the sun began its climb into the Midwestern sky, a man stood on an as-yet deserted street corner in Dairydale. There was a bit of dust on his boots from his journey, but his jeans and his denim jacket were clean.

So this was it, he thought, as he leaned against the corner of a closed store across the street. It sure didn't look like all that much. He looked down then at the sidewalk, wondering again why he'd been so drawn to come. It had cost him a fair bit of change to come here. He didn't have all that much to his name to begin with these days. He'd gone to bed with his girlfriend one night, and in the middle of it, he'd had the strangest thought, knowing somehow that he wasn't where he needed to be – other than where he'd been at that moment.

He thought back to that evening. He was drifting in his life and he knew it, but then again, he'd been born drifting, learning almost anything with insane ease, though nothing much had ever held his interest for long, other than one thing.

The same was true about that girlfriend. She was alright, he supposed, but what had been between them had only been something more of an arrangement of convenience. They were only the outlets for each other's sex drive, nothing much more than that, though they lived together- two people not all that much in love.

She took other men to bed when she felt like it. He knew it. She'd even told him that it was fine with her if he found other women that he liked now and then, but all that he wanted was a warm body to press up against and spend himself in five or six times a week. It was fine with him, and they didn't even argue about anything. He did the things that she wanted from him in bed, never showing her what was in him. She'd never really roused him, so what was the point?

If he showed her what could be when he put his heart into it, she'd likely never have let him go as easily. Then again, she might just have had him arrested. He couldn't decide.

But they'd both been drifting, and it was just a fuck to both of them, so why bother? It was all about a few beers that he never drank, some TV that he never paid any attention to, and then a quiet screw that he'd never really enjoyed, since she only laid there for him and took no active part once her legs were apart. Her repertoire only had the one position in it. She didn't want to do it any other way.

But he knew what would come from it all eventually. Sooner or later, she'd settle down enough and decide that he was the sucker that she'd settle for. A while after that, she'd make her move and try to get them married so that they could get a place together and raise their 2.2 children.

But that wasn't going to happen anyway, he'd decided. He'd been thinking of moving on anyway, but the strange feeling in him had forced him onto the road even quicker.

He had enough quiet desperation in his soul now. He had no need or wish for more. He wasn't the kind to live in silent resentment, wondering what had happened to bring him down to one half-hearted fuck every two weeks - at best. It had been all that he could do to stay awake then as it was.

For a while, he couldn't believe it. If she was this passive and boring in bed now, married life with her could be a necrophiliac's dream, though it just couldn't end well. That would lead to divorce and then he'd be right back where he'd begun, so what the hell was the point, other than to make one woman and 2.2 children unhappy?

The only thing which had held his interest throughout his twenty-seven years of existence was human physical conflict. He'd never had the desire to ever hurt anyone outside of a setting where he could test his body and those of the ones who'd chosen to come up against him.

It didn't matter to him if it was in a back alley brawl or in a ring, he'd learned and knew most of the ways that one human being could do damage to another one in a fight. He'd studied and sought out teachers for every form of martial art that he'd found, and he'd learned them all enough to draw on the practicality of them. He didn't give a shit about belts. Outside of that, he was a peaceful young man, but if he was presented with a challenge, well, ...

He lived for that. It was the only time that he felt really alive.

He pushed himself from his leaning position and began to walk toward the little bistro, feeling a little hungry and wanting a cup of coffee. It was still early. As he walked, he looked at his own reflection in the windows of the stores that he passed for a second now and then.

Not that he cared all that much today, but he supposed that he looked alright, sort of half-assed presentable, anyway. If he hadn't been this close last night, he'd have shaved. He could just see the glint and sparkle of the blonde whiskers on his cheek lit by the still low angle of the sun. His eye drifted up and he saw his blonde hair and the blue eyes over the high cheekbones. The view in the next window showed him the angular face a little bit better, He for sure didn't have a baby face. The motion of his jaw as he chewed the piece of Juicy Fruit in his mouth revealed a little of what others saw, the Young and Handsome Man.

Jesus, he thought to himself, what was it that everyone saw in him, anyway? A lot of the time, he didn't even feel as though he was the same species.

His conditioning to be observant caused him to look to his right, hearing the sound of tires whining on pavement. He considered the man that he saw behind the wheel.

Some poor bastard, he thought as he looked. He'd probably been a football star on the high school or college team, loving the way that his body felt to him as he placed demands on it while he played. Now? Well the guy was already looking stressed and his day had barely begun.

Life on the hamster wheel.

We're all the same, brother, the blonde stranger thought. At least we all start out that way.

Then we find a need to be loved, and that's the start of the descent. The next thing this poor slob knew, he was working his balls off trying to pay for all the things that "honey" demanded and wondering just how he'd gotten into this. From there it was a short slide into wearing wife-beaters, Saturday afternoons sweating over lawnmowers and then the grille while sucking on a beer to deaden the cries of your own soul and telling yourself that the trouble and expense of raising your kids was all worth it.

All that he could see was a group of people who took each other for granted, the father figure most of all.

After all, a half-century of TV sitcoms where the man was portrayed as an idiot in every one just couldn't be wrong, could it?

Dream on, he thought. Kids are made sweet and lovable when they're little just like puppies for a reason. But when they get to be about twelve, they all think that the ones who work themselves to death for them are idiots.

Then they get older and want the keys to your car.

Without knowing anything else about the man driving, he already knew that they lived in the house that they'd chosen because no matter what was said, it was the nest that the woman had chosen for herself.

He found himself chuckling then. He'd have bet money that the poor asshole had to sleep in a frilly bed in a peach-painted bedroom when he'd never have dreamed of it if he'd gotten a choice in it. He already knew that the man in that car hadn't been given a vote.

There you go, the blonde thought, on your way to another day of half self-imposed slavery on behalf of the little woman that you tell yourself that you love, the one who works hard at her own job so that the kids can be driven all over Hell's half acre for the lessons that they'll never thank you for as you both wear yourselves to a frazzle burning fossil fuels for nothing.

He tried for a moment to imagine the woman in that life, the one who makes little jokes to her friends about how when God made man, she'd only been joking – the one who rolls her eyes when she talks on the phone and often uses the phrase, "Well, he's a man. What do you expect?"

There was a simple and very telling question that had always been raised in his mind. How can it be possible that the one man who'd declared his love for a woman always turned out to be the dumbest thing on the planet to that woman? Why did every married woman that he'd ever been close enough to overhear say things that only caused anyone in the room with a working brain to wonder? Was it just contempt because he'd offered, or was it the contempt born out of familiarity?

At one time, this had really bothered him, because to his admittedly simple way of looking at it, the attitude made no sense. If you'd chosen somebody to live your life with, why make him (or her) out to be such a fool for choosing you? Weren't you making yourself look foolish too?

He chuckled as he walked. It was a conundrum. All that he knew was that it made no sense to him, it was just a fact of life in the modern age. He wasn't being critical to his mind, it was just what he'd observed.

And anyway, he thought, there were likely just as many stupid men in the world as well. He doubted that there had ever been any shortage of those. He figured that if everybody could just grow a brain and use it now and then to see what they had, and then discard all of the things that everyone juggled in their super-busy lives, the divorce rate would plummet and the unemployment lines would be filled with out of work lawyers.

The way that it ought to be, he chuckled.

But no, if everything went according to plan, what the woman had gotten was just what she'd wanted, a gelding that she'd created herself. That was fine for paying for everything, but she was bored to tears in the life that she'd made. If he said a word, he'd be called an insensitive, selfish brute, so he went on being quietly miserable, shaving with a 7-bladed Tilt-a-Whirl razor and thinking about buying himself one of those old-fashioned straight razors. But then deep down, he was likely afraid to, knowing that if he had one of those, it wouldn't be too long before he'd be thinking about using it on the arteries of his own neck. The blonde was a little surprised that more men didn't try it.

He knew that he would if he found himself in that prison.

Well fuck that, the blonde had decided long ago. He wanted no part of a world where the sexes were only equal as long as men did what was expected of them, completely tamed and cowed. It was too bad that they didn't make all that many of the girls that he liked. He'd never met even one, but he knew that in the crap shoot of human genetics, there just had to be the kind of woman out there someplace that he'd want, someone like himself, who felt alive when her body and her mind were challenged. He wanted no part of any relationship where both of the parties weren't completely equal – other than perhaps as an allowance for physical stature and the differences between the sexes in their physiology.

For somebody like that, he thought, he'd give a lot. For just a shot at having the heart of that rare sort of woman for himself, he'd probably give everything.

He smiled, knowing that he didn't have enough of whatever monetary means that it took to even play. And with little of the currency that was demanded, he was safe. He'd likely die poor, but after living his life by his own lights, he figured that it would be a fair trade.

But for the record, he decided, that was the sort of woman that he'd want close to him forever. It was too bad that he'd likely never get to even meet one like that. At least he'd feel a little less alone. He didn't mind it all that much, he just accepted that he'd rather live alone if it came to that than live any other way. He'd seen enough to know.

He'd seen his own father rebel in his silent way against what society demanded of men and drink himself to death, since his soul-numbing job wasn't about to kill him. He'd watched his mother try to carry the load and lose almost everything, working two jobs just to feed them both while he worked two as well and went to school after handing her his earnings. At least she was able to maintain some sort of credit rating. With that, he'd been able to swing some college funding and loans. He'd paid them off long ago.

He'd found his poor mother dead in bed one morning, the heart attack finishing what the American Dream had begun. He'd been raised by two people who'd been in love when they'd started out, but as hard as he tried when he remembered, they'd just been another two quietly desperate people lashed together in the chains that they'd put on themselves.

He'd finished his education and was able to turn the muscles that he'd built up while working his ass off on the loading dock combined with his degree in law enforcement into a career that had gotten him into the Secret Service.

But when you're the new kid they tend to stick you with the most inane assignments and he'd found that he just couldn't hack the duty of guarding a past president's daughter's poodle. He smirked. It hadn't been quite that bad, but it wasn't all that far off the truth, either.

He looked at his reflection in the next window and put on his 'Aw shucks, thank you Ma'am' look just for the hell of it.

He smirked a little then, knowing his good fortune. His looks had gotten him laid so often, so easily. Some guys couldn't manage to get their ashes hauled to save their lives.

He walked into the bistro, pushing the old Stetson back on his head just a little. The motion caught the eye of the young woman working the counter there. He saw her first glance and decided to count how long it took her to get to her second one, as busy as she obviously was.

Watching her eyes almost made him smirk, but he kept it at a pleasant smile.

She got all the way to 'Whoa!' before her eyes came up and locked. She even stammered. He thought that he could get to like it here. There wasn't a thing wrong with her and if he was looking, he'd have been happy in other circumstances to maybe get to know her better, in a biblical sense, of course.

But that wasn't what he was here for today. He was pleasant and very polite, and it earned him the attention of the older woman who came to the counter from the back. She was the young woman's mother. He could see the resemblance in an instant – he even knew what he'd have to do to charm Momma on the spot. So he took off his hat, and apologized for forgetting. Both of them made noises that it wasn't a big deal, but he'd said that his mother had raised him right and it was only polite.

Big smiles.

Christ, he'd almost felt the girl's sigh from where he stood.

He paid for his order and left before the questions began. Walking back the way that he'd come, he'd chided himself for being a stuck-up asshole, but he'd only meant it in a half-hearted way. He was just observant and clinical, that was all. These were good people here, he decided, and thought about the younger one for a moment longer. It was a shame that he couldn't ever find a girl like that for himself. Well, he could and he did, he admitted to himself, but he'd meant for longer than what always happened whenever he'd tried it.

Women today don't want a guy like him for any sort of long-haul. They wanted a reliable, steady, quiet, easily-led man who was hopefully at least a little wealthy and could provide for them and their inevitable brood. Once that brood had been conceived and delivered, it was desirable that he just lose his nuts and be done, since he for damn sure wouldn't be needing them anymore. Any sort of masculine adventuring tendencies on that man's part might even have been seen as a desirable trait during the courtship – just as long as he could be weaned away from them once he was in the bag and the domestication was underway.

The most powerful nation on the planet, and half of its population was made up of capons and drones. He sighed.

Too bad that he didn't have it in him. He was pretty sure that he'd rather be dead.

He found his way to the same corner and leaned against the same wall as he unwrapped his croissant and slurped his take-out coffee with his hat down low over his eyes. They both tasted wonderful to him, and he decided that he liked this place even more now. After a quick look at the place across the street, he looked down again and thought about the odd feeling that had brought him here.

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Savannah woke up and pushed the cardboard box that she'd covered herself with off her. All that she knew was that she'd timed her arrival badly and after a bit of quiet cursing to herself, she'd just gone around back to find a place to sleep. Setting her mirror aviator sunglasses on her pretty nose, she noticed that there were no windows facing her way here and she was behind a hedge, so she got up and checked her backpack and her pockets, finding that she still had all of her money.

What she really wanted right now was an honest to goodness hot bath, but she'd even settle for a bus station sink to wash her hands and face in for the moment.

She got up and shouldering her pack, she walked around front. The place was still closed. She looked around and saw the back of a young man as he walked away around the corner opposite to her. He was carrying something which looked to her like food. She considered trying to relieve him of his burden for a moment, not wanting to be away from here for as long as it would take her to get her own breakfast. She decided that it wouldn't be worth the trouble. She stood in front of the store and looked through the window.

It did cause her to smirk and then laugh quietly to herself as she refocused on the reflection in the glass. The young man was wandering a little as he ate, looking as though he didn't want to be too far away, for some reason. She could see the slightly troubled and confused expression on his face from where she stood.

She thought about it and wondered a little. The answer came to her a second later. He was here, just as she was. He had to be. So then he didn't want to be far from this spot for very long either. She knew that look because she'd felt it on her own face for the last two days.

She looked at him, and thought that he looked alright, not that it made any difference. He was a little tall and the distorted reflection told her that he was built pretty well, though she couldn't really see his face all that much because of the angle of the light.

It didn't matter, she wasn't here for that. Her eye went back to the things that she could see in the window, wondering why this was where she'd been pulled.

Was she missing something? She didn't think so, but for damn sure, something had caused her to drop her life to come here this way. She smirked.

Some life.

Brendan had been nothing but long and heated arguments to her after a while. She'd tried to do things in the way that he expected, but there were always more demands. She couldn't do this and she wasn't to do that anymore. He demanded that she stop going to the mixed martial arts classes as well. He didn't know what he was asking for. They'd been an important part of her life for longer than she'd known him. He'd wanted her to be the replacement for his mother in his life. That much was obvious, but she wasn't having any of that shit.

He'd pointed out to her during any of God knew how many of his tirades, that he brought home a good living for her and that he expected something from her in return. He completely ignored the fact that she made a good wage herself. The realization of what he was saying had brought tears to her eyes when she realized that he was going to demand that she quit her job too.

"Just what are you saying here?" she asked, "We used to be so in love before we got married, when you still had a body. We'd do all kinds of things together. Now you're all about me being a prisoner, having your kids and being up to my eyeballs in the dirty clothes that you leave around in a long trail behind you. You used to be a neat man – that was one of the things that I liked about you," she said, "but then, I guess that you had to be, right? With Mom living in Florida, there was no one to pick up after you, but then you figured that you had me for that right?"