Consu(me) [part II]

Paxton never had an original idea. It seemed there was nothing more to him than hundreds of thousands of ideas that someone else had pondered already, and that everyone else was always a step and a half ahead of him. He thought about things—wrote about them, came to personal and introspective conclusions about them, exactly seven months, one week and four days after the rest of the world had made plans to think about it and discuss it at lunch the following day. He figured even that thought was scrawled across the may fifth journal page of every teenager in some small town on the east coast-- “the world theorizes at lunch meetings without me...”1

His most recent cliché (and rather simple) philosophical ambling involved Persephone, as had his oldest ones. He'd come full circle and he was handling the discomfort the way he always handled it.2

“Sir, can I bring you another drink?” The waitress broke into Paxton's thoughts, popping her gum and planting her hand on her hip. Her hips were small, like she was too young for her job, or at least too thin for it. Paxton didn't notice his attention was wandering until she cleared her throat and said something about her eyes being quite a bit higher than that.3

“I'm sorry,” he said quietly, dragging his eyes back to the photo album on the table in front of him. “Another drink would be great, and make it a double this time, please,” he said to the page.4

He wasn't sorry, and if he'd actually managed to look like he was looking her over, it was only by accident and mildly comical in its own right. She was a member of an unfortunate group of people Paxton could actually consider himself better than. She was too abrasive to work somewhere nicer and too dim-witted to tend the bar instead of just fetching drinks for people. There was an edge of pity in the way he watched her return, but he didn't thank her when she replaced his empty glass with a full one. Instead he pretended preoccupation with checking his watch, and then looking over his shoulder to the windows that separated the dining room from the parking lot. He had almost forgotten entirely that he was waiting for someone to meet him here, and the pantomime of “where is he?” was remembered with perfect timing to avoid the waitress he was liking less and less the more he thought about it.5

Alone again, Paxton let his eyes and fingertips dance over one of the photos, even as it occurred to him that the book should be out of sight when Dr. Knol arrived. The last thing he needed was for Persephone's doctor to start psychoanalyzing him too. The problem was the fragile way she was smiling in this particular picture, the fact that she almost looked like the girl he thought he had met, and the girl he was sure he missed. 6

She had been the type everyone watched walk by, braless in her yellow sun dress, the type no one wanted to talk to, and he had assumed he was always going to be nothing to her. He had figured, once or twice, that someone had already written something about loving a woman who no one else would, but still not really having her. Despite the unoriginal nature of the whole situation, or in retrospect maybe because of it, Paxton dove into the poetry that was his years with her.7

“Paxton Lewis?” The inquiring voice was soft, but Paxton still jumped when he heard it. He closed the book quickly, folded his arms on top of it and silently cursed the way he almost certainly resembled a fifteen-year-old who'd just been caught with a dirty magazine. He only nodded his affirmation, trying his damnedest not to look sheepish. 8

“I'd never have guessed were it not for those photos in front of you,” the man explained, taking a seat across the table. “You don't look like her type.”9

“You were expecting a Sinatra, maybe?”10

“Oh no, no one that smooth,” the doctor returned, suddenly a little cold. The words were coupled with an eye-roll and a pointed glance over his shoulder in search of someone to bring him a drink.11

“That's almost insulting,” Paxton coughed lifting his scotch to his lips, increasingly aware that he never would've managed the courage it took to speak this way without the alcohol that was burning through his system. A smile forced its way onto his face, his only attempt to acknowledge that he realized the words were a half-joke shared between two men who only pretended to understand Persephone. The expression (and the peace it represented between them) was fleeting, shortened as Paxton searched pockets for his cigarettes and lighter. He offered one to Greg who feigned reluctance to accept. “I'm trying to quit,” he lied.12

“Aren't we all?” 13

The older man chuckled at that, accepting and searching his own pockets for a matchbook. “I'm Doctor Gregory Knol, by the way.” He casually offered his hand in a late and too formal introduction. “Greg is fine, though.”14

“I know who you are.” Paxton accepted the gesture but didn't bother with pleasantries of his own. “How is she?”15

Paxton wasn't here to make friends; he was here in an attempt to fix this recent longing he'd felt for the woman he had sent to an institution almost seven months prior. The photo album hadn't left his side in weeks; her face had been haunting his sleep for longer. She was consuming him again without even needing to try.16

“As well as can be expected," Greg answered. It sounded rehearsed and mostly was.17

“I knew you would say that, I knew you would act like you have a motive to encourage or inspire some brand of misplaced guilt. Seems like you've learned a lot from her.”18

“I assure you, she would try with all her might to make you feel like a monster, if you ever came to visit her.” the words may have sounded harsh, if the doctor hadn't been laughing when he said them, laughing at what they both knew about the woman in question.19

“Making me feel terrible has always been her specialty."20

Persephone hadn't always been blatant with her manipulation though. There had been a period of distrust that required her caution with every lie that slipped out of her perfect smile, and every half-truth that was the rest of her vocabulary. Paxton coughed, shook his head clear and spoke again. “As early as the first conversation we had, there should have been some hint of who she really was. I should have realized that the way to be sure Persephone is manipulating you is simply to be sure you're the person she's speaking to."21

The night he met Persephone was one that Paxton was dying to regret. Unfortunately, all the time he'd spent trying to hate her was matched with time he was struggling to do nothing more than capture part of her as his own. He knew what had driven him to speak to her, to brush his hand over one of her pale, bare shoulders, to wink at her. She'd welcomed his wandering eyes and light touch; more than that, she'd encouraged it. Still, he'd been an almost perfect gentleman, only allowing his eyes to touch most of her white skin. It wasn't until weeks later that he learned it was cold and transparent, paper-thin like almost everything else about her. He remembered thinking her collarbone and hips looked dangerous, like they could tear through her dress, were the right pressure applied. At the same time, though, she'd looked deceivingly weak. He was sure only a few straps could be cut on the blade of her bones before they snapped in half and tore her skin, too. There was a certain novelty to that thought, as if her movements had to be a magic all their own-- an unconventional grace she had to master to keep her body covered by what little stretched over it, and to keep herself from falling, breaking, and spilling the mystery that showed only in her grey eyes.22

“It's something like a miracle that skin and cloth stretched so tight and spread so thin over bones as sharp as yours, still manage to be the perfect vessel for something that must be precious to hide behind those eyes.” Even drunk, Paxton knew the sentiment was stale. In the now-irrelevant event he'd kept the words to himself, the emotion that fueled them was still absurd so soon after meeting her, but Persephone hadn't looked fazed at all. The slight smile and the slow, delicate way she'd worked his drink out of his hand and finished it should have served as a warning, if only because she hadn't gotten up and walked away from him. Perhaps it had; Paxton just wasn't at all interested in paying attention to it.23

Back in the smoke-fogged pub, Dr. Greg Knol flirted with the waitress to pass the time Paxton spent drifting. She was giggling and blushing when she returned with his gin and tonic, and she didn't pop her gum even once. Her return was given very little attention though, a half-glance, a half-smile, even half of a thank you.24

“So...”25

Paxton listened to Greg draw out the word, watched him take a long drink after it. He understood the way the other man folded his hands on the table and looked toward him meant that he was hoping Paxton would say something, but he still let the awkward silence settle completely. He wanted to watch the doctor's eyes, to observe every nervous fidget, but he couldn't bring himself to be that obviously intent on causing discomfort.26

“So?” Paxton finally spoke up, prompting Greg to finish his thought.27

“So, why did you want to talk here instead of in my office?” He paused, but not long enough to allow a response. “And what exactly is it that you want to talk to me about?”28

“I wanted to talk to you about Pea,” Paxton answered. “About Persephone, I mean. I thought that much was clear, and I hoped my reasoning was as well.”29

“Reasoning for?” The doctor had stopped drinking and was drilling holes in Paxton's eyes with his own. He'd asked a question he knew the answer to, sending red flags up all over Paxton's mind.30

“My reasoning for meeting you in a bar instead of your office...” Paxton's tone was flat-- he knew he was being scrutinized anyway, even though that was exactly why he'd chosen so informal a venue. The doctor had already started rapid-firing short, to-the-point questions. It was indiscreet and made Paxton painfully aware that this hadn't been the best idea. Greg was asking another question, but Paxton spoke over him instead of listening. “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck...well you know,” he muttered. “And if he smells like a dependent and actually loved someone like Pea, you're going to waste time trying to figure out what is 'wrong' with him, right?”31

Doctor Knol fairly effectively covered his shock and actually managed to laugh in a quick recovery. “Touché,” he said into his glass, apparently back to being just an old man who wanted a few drinks and some company. “Fair enough, we'll talk about her, not you.”32

“She's well, you said.” Paxton's mouth was trying to turn up at the edges in an almost triumphant grin. Greg's sort-of surrendering to talk to him, rather than trying to glean information about him, was a big success in Paxton's mind. “Still manipulative though, isn't that what you implied?”33

Greg flagged down the waitress and ordered another drink before answering the questions. “She's healthy. She's given too much medication in my opinion, but I have very little control over that. The Thorazine problem is serious enough that she spends a lot of time thinking she made you up, but her newest favorite game is to pretend she never hurt you.”34

“She never meant to,” Paxton said, but immediately wished he hadn't. “Y'know, I learned a lot about myself from Persephone.” The rest of the words were said in vain hope that if he just kept talking, what he was talking about would get lost in the long-winded absurdities. “She did a lot of things wrong, but she made me who I am now, and I'm not disgusted by myself any more, so she did this right.”