Josephine The Outlaw King

1: The truth about Josephine Lillywhite. . .

You must be certain that as you read this there is no other truth as solid as this slab of granite-like proof.

He left her, bleeding on a grey gravel rough of a path.
Good and dead, he thought. He could jerk away now. He could go on. She’ll not have that baby in her belly, the one from the other. She’ll not be around to see him gloat over the sympathy he’ll receive. Finally still, all that life soaked to mud.

After no stir dusted up around her fall, she dared peek out. The blood was more than the gash and she couldn’t feel it anymore. Her baby kicked. Her heart beat. Nothing was still as he had thought.

She knew the news would reach her love and he’d believe it. He’d set out, too. He’d try to kill back that mourning. And if the one who gave her her first child should find out she still stirred, he’d surely finish it up. Real snake like, he’d finish it and put a new back on. A faster one no doubt. Real snake like.

She’d head out underneath another call, engraved with a new kind of love. Life just got bigger and Josephine multiplied to three on Tuesday night, both wounds healed, both children lovely.

And he was sure she thought no more.
One real heart broken, one false heart light because of one slightly missed bullet.

He never could find her heart, not even with a gun.

2:Josephine, each break makes the heart good inside

So what if 24 hours rain through her, flooded into a bunch of 12 month bundles of storms?  So what if she’s barely wet?  And who gives a damn if it comes out of her eyes when you’re not looking and dribbles into years and years?

Each break in the heart makes it good inside.  Each cheat and mistake makes it sweet and warm.  This a woman.  This is your woman.  She burns from the day she’s born.

You know her.  She comes into a room not knowing it wasn’t as bright as when she entered.  There’s no darkness when fire’s in you.  There’s no coldness that lasts, either.  She burns, your woman.  She fills up every day, like clockwork, automatically. 

Maybe you didn’t recognize her.  She was the one that looked at you with humor, with an eye that cut you back and molded you right.  In an instant.  Maybe you didn’t feel the owner of you as she grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you to her.  She looks so deep she may be looking past you into your future.  Her confidence is in the swagger of that hip.  She doesn’t even know she carries you with every swing and swang. 

Do you know her now?  She looks different all the time.  She’s small and big all at once and she can be your cat if you back her into a wall. She trusts you completely.  And depending on how this day is heating up, she’ll forgive you for awhile.  For lessons unlearned and untouched only. 

See?  That’s her.  She smiles.  Alot.  She loves.  Alot.  She breaks even more and builds a bigger rage of flames.  That’s why she gets brighter, hotter and so much more easy to see.

And if I were you, I’d let her know everyday your not lazy in your tending.  She needs only this:  protection.  To keep the fire lit, to show you the way so you can protect her from whatever’s out to get her.  That is your job.  And it’s your job to define it and to stop it way before it gets to her.  If you fail, she’ll snuff.  She’ll have to start all over again. 

And so will you.

3: You become immaculate to Josephine. . .

When YOU open your woman’s heart, when you peel back the paper thin iron and steel that protects it, when you find the lock underneath and pull the key from your pocket, when you do all that and get inside that dark, red and  loud beating thing you’ll find everything you never knew you wanted.

You’ll see your face as she sees it, beautiful and pale.  You’ll glimpse old tears that dried into tiny, whispy, swirly ghosts.  You’ll see the reflection of somebody you may or may not recognize but I effing bet you’ll instantly like that creature.   You’ll watch as pearls, diamondsand rubies drop from the gash and splash like hot water at your feet.  You won’t care how they got there or why she kept them because you’re now aware of the biggest, warmest place.  Life does exist and it beats so well here.  You’re home.

When SHE opens your heart to you, the inside might drip differently.  It won’t peel back as easily and the steel skin around the keyhole will only bend back so much.  She’ll trick the lock and make it snap open suddenly.  She’ll reluctantly push the old words and letters that made her cry under an ancient bed and show you around instead of letting you wander.  She’ll lead you to the same reflection and she’ll wonder if you believe it.  She does.  Her doubt in you will cloud the reflection and you’ll pretend to know what she sees in you but it’ll just be more words she’ll put under that bed later on.  She’ll push you past the scars so fast that you’ll wonder if they were actually healed or still pulsing tiny bits of pain.  And she’ll usher you out as quickly as she let you in and hope that the next time she has to peel it back it will bend easier and it won’t be locked up at all.

When her heart opens all on it’s own it’s because of a glance you’ve given her or an unexpected touch, gasp or kiss. That goddamn pump will look as clear as glass for a moment.  It’ll turn clean and new and you’ll both inhale ice.  It’ll feel sharp.  And everybody will want to watch you as
you
become
immaculate. 

4: Josephine’s Saint Mattered in her World

Well that woman thing didn't love him.  She couldn't see how he mattered in this world.

That thing sensed it.  That's why she was attracted to him.  She could almost taste something worth eating but she wasn't good enough to define it, nurture it, appreciate it, love it.

She came to him with damage from a badly timed birth.  She was too much of a coward to address it so it just sort of mutated into some very obvious behaviour.

He knew all of this and still loved her.  His heart was good.  His soul was, too.  He was all he should be and humble enough not to feel complete.

He was young.

She was young, too, but so effing old the cracks swallowed people within two blocks of her.  She hid it with her own special pancake and it worked most of the time. 

He believed her when she said she'd jumped over the divides, why wouldn't he?

She figured she'd get some of his sweet rub-off if she could at least have his name.  So he gave it to her.  Why wouldn't he?

She took it.  She took it and wore it when she met other men in the hole she couldn't fill no matter what, who, why or where.  She showed it proudly as if it were HER secret but it was never whispered in her ear.   It was never shouted from his rooftop, either.  She still owned nothing that resembled an answer.  She wasn't bad but deep down, she knew she wasn't good enough for him.  How long could she hide that?

Not very.  It seeped out on the sunsetted honeymoon.  It swirled for years as he paid her angry debts, loving his duty while still loving her.  This made his worth even more bewildering.  He did not crumble when he learned of her "sharing".  He merely faded away.  The worst thing she could think of and yet she had run to that ruin as fast as the ring could roll.

It was his damage repaired that made him pulse.  A boy who became a man by growing his heart big, growing his heart well, in spite of the bully of life.  He held that heart open. 

It's light grew strong shoulders.  It made tender hands.  It gave him generous ears and sincere actions.  It gave him his strength. 

She couldn't love him, that thing.  She couldn't see how he mattered in this world because she doesn't know what really matters.

But Josephine did.

She could see him and god damn. . . he could surely see her.

That Josephine.  What a lucky girl.

5: Miss Josephine, a figure like two hearts

Josephine was small but not frail by any means.
A figure like two hearts.  One right side up, one upside down.

She was pale pale.  Black, silksoft hair that licked the top of her breasts when she bounced over her filled thighs if you were ever lucky enough to witness this feat. 

And that vehicle always snapped back saluting, reporting for duty sir, even after both babies.
Maybe because she kept it encased in a steely-white skin that only seemed vulnerable after it freckled in the sun.  She never questioned the payment, owning it like it was bought and paid for.

Both her children favored others.  They shared her knowing eye but the shape and color glowed differently.  Her boy was golden and blue, tall and beautiful.  She wanted to raise him a gentleman and it was working. 
The newborn was moonfaced with the same blue eyes neither their father’s or mother posessed.  Josephine’s eyes should’ve been dark but they’d faded to hazel after too much exposure to the flash of an exposed life.

She’d gather them up and take them with her.  A false absence will serve her well, at least halfway.  She’d find the jealous one and end him with her own weapon.

She knew her love would mind his path and not try to join her.  She hoped he’d stay  far from this last battle. 
Another sacrifice for innocence,
so it seemed,
so it goes,
so it will be done.

6: Josephine finds work

Deeper into the desert is where she had to go.  Toward the guilty and away from  the saint. 

Needing money, Josephine finds a red den.  New at something again, she was never comfortable with that.  For the babies, she rationalized and reasoned.  It crashed against the stones of "no" she’d kept in her head since forever but the banging would be a necessary distraction if she was really going to go through with this.

He came in, eyed them all and chose our snow white.  The banging in her head grew louder as he parted his thick drape of a mustache and leared through capped teeth, spurting from a fat cheek. 
Thick with entitlement, he was.  Expensive clothes and shoes a lucky life had brought him, undeserved she could tell.  She sniffed no kindness from him, just twat covering cologne that seemed unfamiliar but not unknown.

She walked ahead of him to the angry room and he smacked her heart shaped ass through the doorway, swinging his hard, hairy arm like a croquet mallet. 

That stinging swat ignited something unexpected.  Passed repulsion and pride.  It conjured a vision of sizzling wives, so powerful and too pretty chasing these cowards all the way here. 

Exposing a phoney crown, strutting like Dukes, they were. Sauntering and pointing filthy sausages at their quest for the evening, their latest escape.  I’m no sovereign cave, Josephine spat at the rocks rolling in her head.

The sting lingered as it spilled everything over she’d held in to keep tight and sane.  If only they knew how everything they do here makes everything they own small.  Falsely crowned and head of nothing.

He grabbed at her and tried a kiss.  It was hard and punctured her cushion lips like a prick naturally would.  He squeezed and pulled and pushed and tried to get passed the pale steel. 

She hadn’t lost her senses and they hadn’t dulled yet, either.  Something lit up and started to burn in her cavities.  Uncontainable.  A new logic appeared.

Her reverse was not what he’d paid for.  Full speed ahead is what he wanted but this might be fun if she can keep it up without flattening his puffiness. 

He lurched forward and pulled his smooth, manicured hand back slapping her fine bone.  He’d convinced himself this was the game and she’d play no matter what.  He’d laid down the card to make sure of it.  He’d signed with no amount given.
This was better than he thought.
Better than he bought.

Josephine had felt the slap before, this wasn’t new.  It wasn’t as loud as the ringing of the stones, anyway.  The new logic became clear.  Take your skin back, dear.  Take it back and don’t forget to leave full.

The vintage pitcher looked close and it looked heavy, hearty and inviting.  It almost smiled with a shiny answer.  He was sweating slime now, hard and showing.  He tugged his pants away, his undertrow, pushed down and off with the shoes, the socks.  He pushed back the unbuttoned shirt as if to bare a real man’s chest, only to reveal a simple baboon. 

She couldn’t help but stare.  There it was, his reason for living, leaving, loving and lying.  He looked proud and he felt the power she always ignited in the lesser.  False to the cruel,  true to the kind.  That’s how it affected all.  Finally she found a use for it.  On this night, she found a confounding calling.

Take back your skin, dear. 

The pitcher splintered against a sharper toothed chair except for the finest shard that jutted from the handle still in her hand.  It was smooth in it’s entry and re-entry.  He still greased over, still stayed hard as he crumpled at her feet.  A true king had cum in him.  How does it feel, darling?

"Do you like it"? she whispered, brows arching over the center of her royal nose.  "Do you like when I fuck you"?

"You’re killing me", he sputtered and she nodded like an aristocrat.  "I’m taking back my skin, dear". 

He passed and she showered in the room that he paid for.  She gathered herself and his wallet and strode out as if covered in golden robes and dipped in marble.

A new logic was needed, wasn’t it.  How else would you be able to go deeper towards a familiar danger and still stay intact?

The stones had stopped slamming, not even a tap.

Deeper in the desert, the three of the them rode.  The Royal Family of Rock and Roll.

7: Josephine on the back of a 1964 Suicide Machine

The first time was an ambush.  So not fair but par for the course, right?  Let it be a known battle next time and let the toll of the last surprise be laid on the greasy, diamond banded’s gushing belly.
There.  Done and done.

The bedtime stories she told her babies had changed.  The hero’s were their mirror images and their enemies looked like anybody and everybody only shinier.  As they slipped deep into their velvet, she imagined what their crowns would be made of.  Not gold, not for them.  The purest silver, white hot and light for their tiny heads.  Her burden would not be theirs.  She promised that.

She sunk her foot deep into the gas pedal of the ’64 Lincoln, the one the saint gave her as an engagement present. This black dragon with it’s flapping wings, suicide style pelted the gritty, hot wind and she sang a song of the tallest nature.  She grew with each mile, big enough to fight any and every battle. 

King’s fight for the greater good.  There’s no guilt.  Check mark it under the "sacrifice" category.  Their subject’s trust is what makes them so strong and their conviction makes them courageous.

She wasn’t tired or hungry at all.  Sated with that blood, probably.

Full of spark and bolts of lightning she sped on knowing he was out there celebrating her demise.  She’d always protected him under her roof but that’s over.  He’s unshielded now and she knows his prior gashes and scrapes.  She taught him everything he knows.  She just didn’t teach him everything SHE knows. 
And that just might give her an extra fist.

8: Josephine's Guilty Monster can't seem to sleep

His first clue that she housed a sacred heart, that she indeed had a crown, was that his own very particular taste in company had been completely defined by her existence. 

He positively favored the palest of skin and darkest of hair.  Big eyes as wide set as her smile and a warm, faraway look, the kind Josephine wore when she was gone, baby gone. 

Most importantly was the ignorance of her reign.  It gave her a humble, generous glow and she lit up a room like a barrel of firecrackers.   And because she didn’t know she owned it, they never failed to explode.

His next clue was that he lay soft between the finest of thighs.  No image of his hero could prop him up and he confessed this to himself immediately as if to rid his cock of the curse. 

It didn’t work.  It wasn’t the look or the feel of her but the essence of Josephine that haunted him.  The power.  It was like plugging in to some great company of energy he couldn’t afford, knowing he’d never be rich enough to pay the bill.

He knew one day he’d get shut off so he never even attempted a remittance.  Fool.  She never charged even one half of what she paid him and was patient with collection, always.  Fool again. Over and over.

Losing this, his religion, his maker, his king he was now a subject with nothing and nobody to serve.  It made him even angrier than he expected to be.  Emptier. It made him lash out at the very thing he worshipped.  Kill it and it will be gone.  No more ghostly wisps from that being. 

He’d planned it pretty well.  Getting a pistol was easy as long as you assure them you won’t kill a god.  As long as you assure them that toothpick you’re chewing on isn’t the femur of Jesus.

He was as good as a game show host, convincing them to look the other way, towards maybe even a better prize as he stole yet another moment of grief.

He knew their son was safe with Josephine’s mother that day. The baby inside her wasn’t a finished prince or princess so he’d take it, too.  It would kill the Sainted Thief.  Two birds with one stone.  It made him almost feel like he’d just fucked her.  Nice to revisit the rush, he groaned.

His head pounded as usual but it didn’t deter him from this one, final act. 

He was hidden, she was out in the open and he fired quickly and accurately.  She went down, barely a twitch and not a bit of sound.  He half expected a roar that would rumble the world into war.  Silence was all he heard.  It rang so loud it broke a barrier in his heart.

Blood is stickier and thicker than he thought.  He left her there, in her personal mess.  It was better this way.   Better for him, of course, that’s all that mattered. 

He rode away waiting for the lightness.  Surely when the curse lifted he’d feel it, right?  His head would rise, his cock would, too and there would be no more lifeless bit for him to trouble over. 
No more half hearted parting of the milky white seas. 
And so, he waited.

9: Josephine's Saint is broken

His love for her was ancient.  When she touched him it seeped into cracks he didn’t even know he needed filled.  Some kind of cement, that woman made. 

He couldn’t figure out which dust she mixed with what blood that made him but he knew she had created him,  just as sure as she had created her monster.  He had to forgive her for that.

What faulty powders did she grind for that one?  A cowardly mix. She was so something.  Her mold so unique.  Curved and cornered.  Substance defined.  She made him porous.  Every bubble burst to create yet another hole.  Why didn’t she abandon it?  He was so frightened that deep down, she knew he’d be her demise and that she had even welcomed it.  He knew that because we all know that.  We know our end’s recipe. 

Well it didn’t matter now, didn’t matter what clock, calendar or newfangled timepiece she used to measure the value of her time. The monster had disassembled her, springs and all.
He stopped their child from ever ticking.  He’d go against his grain and find him, end the creation  himself.  A new duty he never wanted. It steamed his eyes open, even when they needed to shut.

That vile, pulsing thing still walked in a coward’s shadow while her veins poured out onto blessed hot sand, into the ruddy mud leaving her the stillest still.   A sudden portrait he couldn’t tear up, rip or erase.

Life will always been wrong here.  He hurt so hard he could feel his tubes and cells scream.  He’d end him, it and he’d end his heart as well. 

Where would he find a balloon of faulty meat and irreverent bone?  And how would he peirce it dead enough?  Dead enough for the three of them.  That’s alot of blade.  He’d forge it himself if he had to. 

A new train of thought had left his rational station.  The beginning of his end

10: Josephine rode everything like it was wild

She owned her agony.  She rode it.  Imagine how twisted it was to bend behind her every day for the flogging?  She took the lashes hoping it would even the rails, the sways, the swoons. 

The coaster actually started out a straight and fine road but the spikes bent it with and up and down, up and down.  It left her sometimes dizzy and swooning but never piteous.

The Whipsmart was such a perfect blackened skin and it never wore out.  It never softened, it never frayed and she counted on that.  It was as familiar as the open hand and the cinching ties. 

Imagine the flying up and crashing forward and down without a safety?  Intoxicating.  Frightening.  Still, she rode it, bucking all the way.

She rode everything like it was wild.  She assumed.  She was almost always right. 

He made her fall off over and over and every time she got back on she took in a new discipline.  She owned that pain.  She was the ruler of such frantic jerking around. 

She got off each round with a new strut.  How’d she do that?  Where’d she get the gold?

11: Josephine armed with every precious failure

There’s a cleanliness she must always keep at home.  She douses the children with the purest love, almost perfectly clear it is and she even swears tidy.

But out into the battle, into the filth she carries a different weapon against the dirty devils and devilettes.  She becomes them and washes their sweat and blood away before she crosses her threshold. 

Their sludge never sticks.  She’s armed with every precious failure, cradled in a steel sack of speed and power. 

Oh, but this fight still hurts.  It reels in her head and heart like ripped and grated shards.  The separation from the Saint is the hardest blow.

She misses him so much.  She misses him on her mouth, in her mouth.  His perfect skin against hers.  She misses him filling her.  God she misses that.
She misses the surrounding of his hold and the calm of his voice.
She aches like this.  She rails against the wait.  Patience is not her virtue.  Time’s a slowing enemy and getting to the Monster before he does is the real race.  She feels like she carries a dead bag of bodies on her back and in a very clear way, she does.

The babies sleep and she schemes.  The Monster continues to live without conscience.  It makes her shiver all the way down to the very foundation she’s built herself on. 

He could rationalize the insult of innocence, he could.  She’ll make him shut up for good. . .

12: The Monster speaks of Josephine's "Death"

Completely worth killing, he hissed. The monster sat above everybody in his room twisting with complaints of bruises and cuts from the last embrace he gave to Josephine.
Totally worth a good killing. She knew it was coming. How could she not?

She walked up to ME. She said my name in that way nobody could mimic. Nobody could master. She touched me like the mother/lover even I didn’t know I needed.

She let me ride her.

She let me give her our son.

She let me suck blood that’s sweet and taught me all of my needs. Or made them rise to the surface like that cum-warm cream I left inside of her.

She wanted my murder. She begged for it. She made it all so easy, even the final shot.

She turned, looked at the barrel and then at me, cocked her head to the side like she always did with a "fuck you". The pistol spit at her like it was cast for that task.

She went down odd, though. Surprisingly, she went down smooth. Not a jump-back jolt but a slide into the velvet.

And I felt hungry. I could’ve eaten her myself, right then and there, warm and still pulsing but I didn’t. I held back, just for her.

I wanted to leave her whole, in all that ripped and torn history she left me with.

She didn’t close her eyes.

It made me mad but I held that in, too.

And I brought it back with me and stacked it with all the other madness.

She needed killing. She earned it.

13: Getting rid of this Outlaw King

She was the bane of his existence. She knew that. As long as she breathed and pulsed, fucked and fought, he’d feel her blade of breath sear through his thin skin.
She knew it and rather enjoyed it at first.
Then it turned. It made her feel bad for what she owned.

Then another day brought on another twist: It made her even more.

She grew silent in his presence. She removed her enthusiasm and kept her bright light muted.
No more midnight talks about what really brought her about.

He pretended not to notice and if he admitted it now, he was relieved. No more reminders of how he was NOT her. All he ever wanted to be.

Around the novices, he WAS all that she was. They couldn’t see through his ruse. It was thick and it stung like a salt wall. Without her presence, they’d look upward towards him. They’d adore him.

Not like all the times she’d enter his rooms. The pain of their eyes ripping themselves from him and then, casting downward killed little bits of him.
It hurt so bad.
She was his king, not theirs. He didn’t want to share his room or his ruler. He could never be happy like this. He’d convinced himself that ridding this realm of her would not only propel him upwards, it would make him whole. Finally. He’d correct the mistake of meeting her, wanting her and feeling like all the other subjects about her.

She felt only elation with the fine of breathing. Kings don’t mean to rule. They’re just born high. She didn’t notice the head turning and gasps ever. She just loved the possibilites of the simple things. And this made it all the more heavier to bear for him.

It felt like a sack of toothpick chewing devils on his back. Poking, prodding, laughing and with every prick, making him carry the burden of his truth.


She tried to hide her sense of knowing. It didn’t work. She tried to take the sack and bury it for him but he couldn’t let it out of his grip.

Kings and their freakish strength.

He hated all that he loved about her.

And she knew it.

14: Josephine's your wreck

Don’t think she didn’t know she was their wreck. From the time he blew full into his young wife on a cold and sentimental Christmas, they both felt the weight of the mistake. They now owned a regret that they hung on an altar of existence they wanted to just get rid of.  Just rip it out, something, someone. The moment their creature proclaimed the hottest summer she came into was a-okay with her, they knew they just couldn’t like her, let alone love her.  They just couldn’t. And don’t think she didn’t know. Still she hoped.  All the time.  She was still allowed to do that, at least, right.  With every new discovery of the simplest things, reporting them with such genuine glee, she knew she’d bring a slap down but at least it was a touch of some kind.  The humiliation goes away with the fading red-hot cheek.  Weird. Most of the time, they turned their back turned to her.  Her pure thankfulness  of just being here made them wince. Let her run wild and do her own damage.  That would take the responsibility off of them if something happened. Dont’ think she didn’t know. What she didn’t know was a certain kind of love.  She didn’t know just HOW certain it was.  She gave herself away at 14 to a cause that didn’t want her and she just kept giving.  It was odd that she was intimate with unconditional without ever having met it. She was a fool of the most foolish kind. It was her nature. It was her beast. Don’t think she didn’t know. . . Look at that, they thought. That accident. A horrible mistake. A stubborn one, too. It stays and stays and stays. Each and every magnet that came to her through this life, they were left in the same blanket of wrap-around pain that she knitted oh so quickly to protect them. They were left thinking they belonged with her. Left with shiny scars that sensed less and less as her time went on. Don’t think she didn’t know. Didn’t know how worthless this was. How worthless she was. To give out a gift nobody really wanted.  To feel that need to keep doing it.  She felt so nothing most of the time.  In her head, that jumbled skull, that thick wrap of bone protected the one singular thought that she didn’t deserve a thing. Then came the baby boys.  She was something.  She was their mother.  And that was so. . so. . . something. . . Don’t think she didn’t know. . .

15: Josephine reunites with Baby Dagger

Josephine knew that girl.  The one in the booth on the left.  The one she was going to deliberately sit behind, she and the boys.

She was with somebody, nobody Josephine recognized but still he was familiar.

Slicked back greasy and not in a good way.  Dirty with a low slung
brow that made Josephine almost snarl that sideways smirk that fell across her full lips when she was utterly disgusted.

They slid inside the red vinyl and the black hair on Josehpine’s neck stuck straight when she felt the girl’s voice in her nape.

Her name was Baby Dagger when they used to battle.  She looked thinner and her hair wasn’t yellow anymore but that was definitely her.  She’d dyed it black as Josephine’s.  She had a look Josephine had never seen slashing across her flat face.  It was defeat.  She’d been broke like a spirited pony and Josephine felt her white skin flush.

The boys chittered and chattered, letting their fingers fall like new onto the same old thing they always ordered:  a grill cheese sandwich and chocolate milk. 

That made Josephine smirk in a good way.  Both corners up, eyes crinkling in the corners as if it was the first time they’d ever ordered that.

She ordered a steak and fries.  What the hell.  She figured she’d need the knife by the end of the meal.
For the rare and the cooked.

The rumble of Baby Dagger’s monster made her swing from that same fallen star she knew with her own creature.
Josephine was disturbed.

Gaddamnit, she found her own monster.  Goddamnit.

Josephine thought she’d taught her to stay away from such waste but her own shining example obviously wasn’t enough.
He rumbled low and she shuddered.  Josephine could feel it through the vinyl.  He was opening her store with punches and lies and setting her price in his register.

She’d come to this and this was what was never supposed to happen again.

Josephine ordered and the boys colored their menus like pros.

Baby Dagger’s monster had slit on his last threat right to her throat.

Josephine jerked during their entire exchange.  ..
She could smell the skunky metal of fear from her former soldier.
She could trace a line from herself to this woman and see where she’d fallen off.  The same hole where Josephine had settled with her own creature.
Their eyes met and Josephine lifted her head in defiance for both of them.
The Dirty Monster caught the glimpse and decided it was harmless.
He lowered his growl but Josephine’s hearing was always cued into that hideous frequency.  He could mouth it with his asshole and she’d still decypher it.

Baby Dagger was pleading.  Her look was helpless and she was too tired to fight anymore.

The Monster started towards the men’s room, ironic.  No man would occupy it when he was inside. 

She told her eldest she’d be right back, to watch his little brother and be good.
She lifted her hips off of the hot red plastic and slid the steak knife down the front of her 501’s like wiping crumbs from a cupcake.  The blade laid against the thick of it and it felt almost fine.

She shot a look at Baby Dagger and  she coaxed a
soft smile that only a mother knew how to keep warm even during the coldest of intentions.

She waited outside the Mensroom door.

He came out and almost jumped at the site of her.  Nobody else could see it but Josephine did.  Most assuredly she did.

"What might you want, little lady, hmmm"?  He had an almost fake drawl and and even phonier snear that couldn’t hide his damage.

"Whatcha got"? Josephine said with the last word dropping a few notes.  She  was already impatient for his wheeze and whimper. 

He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back into the bathroom.  Nobody saw or cared.

Josephine let him push her tits against the linoleum tile glued on the wall and she even let him twist her arm into the pose.
So what?  It’s when it’s new and a surprise that you’re in danger.
This dance was old and tired and overused by his kind.

Her other arm was still free. 

He was almost disappointed that her struggle didn’t exist but that still didn’t stop him.

Josephine was scared, don’t misunderstand.
Without that fear, she couldn’t be this brave.

He had his cock out quickly and she felt him jerking it alive.
She grabbed it with her free hand and he released her twisted right with a gutteral groan. 

He felt he had what was coming to him.  The bullying had earned him all of this.  This is how women need to be treated in order to understand their weakness of power.

This is what they really liked.

These creatures have always been so one celled.

With her right free she reached down her jean’s to "help" him find his way in.  She slid the now hot blade, serrated and dull up, out and down on his wanting.

Off it went but not without some sawing and  a tug or two. 

His eyes bulged and he slobbered a bit.

He fell to his knees, how he should’ve greeted the King in the first place,
He drew his deepest breath to scream a note so high it served not one ear.

Josephine lowered her chin, knife in one hand, worthless cock in the other, arms outstretched like his new saviour.

Her eyes stared into his as they glazed. 
She nodded and gave him a scolding look only a mother could give and said softly, "Enough".

He went faster than she thought he would. 

She washed off what little bit of his filth had splattered and went back to the table where her sons were already finished.

Baby Dagger’s eyes were wide and Josephine nodded and smiled again.

Josephine held out her hand and welcomed Baby Dagger back into her life.

She introduced the once and soon-to-be beauty to her boys and paid the check. Both of them.

Josephine would do what she was born to do.
She’d sacrifice for the greater good.
She was no saint, no sinner.
She was both of those things and more and it didn’t matter either way.

Josephine is
the mother of sons.
She is
no ordinary woman.
They are
not ordinary boys.
They are Princes.
Princes of The Outlaw King.

The four of them crawled in to the ’64 Lincoln and drove to their new home, wherever that was going to be. . .

16: Josephine, your basic woman

She couldn’t help but wonder as she held his face in her hands if he’d ever once been told he was beautiful.
Had he ever been noticed like this?

Did he know what it felt like to be looked at like this?

She kissed him over and over.

He felt different and he wondered if he’d ever felt loved like this.

No.

Not like this.

When he walked by he felt her eyes watching him. He felt appreciated without having to do anything. For once, not having to work. What man gets to feel that ever?

She was curious. Had he ever been told how lovely his skin was and how amazing his profile played against a stark background of anything?

He looked good in every color.

Had he ever been called an angel? Had he ever been touched and traced and brought in so close that he’d fade inside her, wading in her blood, peering out of her very eyes, seeing somebody that looked a bit like him?

And if this was a true thing, how could he settle for anything less?

He’d catch her watching him. He felt her hunger. It was good. It was nice. To affect. To move. To be just a man.

17: Josephine melting like Dali clockwork

Josephine didn't have her siblings burden of parental love.
Her father had her sister, her Mom, her brother.

A perfect square, tightly edged and bound by symmetry she witnessed from the outside.

What lopsided Josephine was that she didn't knock on the wall or bust it down with rebellion.

Instead, she pretended she was inside of the square.

Wait, not only inside but dead center.

The sun that their angular galaxy could circle. She was not odd or alone there. She was their necessity of a warm existence.

Josephine's bloated, upside down, red balloon was a fantastic thing to flick their heated pins and needles.

The pretense didn't make bitter in her.
It made drunk in her head and in her heart waking with a smile and a plan to win her share of their special burden.

And like melted Dali clockwork, she draped over the shoulder of another impossible hour of a man, one after the other until these men stretched into years and wasted smiles and plans.

Until one day. That day. When her head blew apart with what she thought was a beautiful moment.
The ones she needed never liked, loved, needed nor wanted her.

She was a blurry wasted mistake and instead of the beatings or torture that common people practiced, they'd honed the art of apathy and disdain.

Tons of eye rolling and better-than-her talk went on moments before every holiday she bound into.

She stopped pretending. The heart deflated, still pumping but no common substance to bind her to her people.

They didn't know how she mattered in this world.

And if they didn't know, she couldn't possibly fathom any worth staring back at her from a shiny, reflective thing.

She bent. She broke. She shrank.

Please let me know I matter in this world.

Speak my language, make me hear it.

A wish, a prayer, it settled into the dust around her.

18: Josephine’s short and sweet for the day

Out of sync, pretty much the whole time she’s been stop-starting on this flat planet.

Like a gear too small compared to the biggies around her. Trying to keep up and do her job and more, but still can’t find a gracious hole in the toothy structure.

But every now and then there’s a slip. The earth curses her when it happens but she gladly takes the groove for the ride that is exactly ONE revolution.

One turn around the wonderful merry-go-round forbidden to commoners like her.
She takes it and she smiles and laughs the whole time, throwing her head back.

She fucks and thinks and springs about, free from all of her out of sync upbringing.

She breezes and breathes you. She becomes understated in this overstated place and loves it.

When she feels the slow of it she knows they’ve found a need to repair the whole damn machine.

They cast her out again and she smooths the steel skin, stands up and keeps toiling, watching it jumpstart back to life, this time without her. . .

She waits for the gracious hole, the one her cog can fit into for at least one revolution. .

She waits, she baits and she barters hiding the sorrow of knowing what it’s like to be you. . .if only for a revolution.

19: Between clit and crown, she soars and drowns, Josephine

A woman’s religion is a bit different from a man’s.
Her holy trinity is based on reaching a state of divine creation.

She prays to the nothingness expecting nothing, hoping for something.

She worships what is honest and real. She believes in her divine curves, her determined profile.

Her bible is written and re-written everyday. Sometimes by those who don’t really care much for women and sometimes it’s scratched out by a desperate voice that only she can hear.

Josephine named her god at three. Finding this magic and trying to demonstrate to her somewhat curious and bewildered friend, she named it the "greatest feeling in the world". An innocent moniker only a 5 year old could come up with. Simple and true.

Too bad they were caught with coconut half shells masking taped to their chests and fingers in each other by her not so religious mother.

Coming wasn’t only seeing god, you understand. It was feeling god, having god.

Heaven, enlightenment. All if it as it crawled up her body only to blast out of the top of her head, freeing what put her here in the first place.

But this god was a frustrating, short god, one that pulled away as soon as she felt that ever-flying, floating freedom.

As soon as she knew all the answers in the universe, this god would shut the window she flew out of everytime she flooded herself.

The God, coming.

The Saviour, the Jesus of her Trinity, was music.

This Jesus used her and she liked it. She needed it. This Jesus gave her a life after being born. After all the devils tried to sway her into submission and boredom, this Jesus didn’t smack her hand away when she reached out.

He pulled her up by the shorthairs, the woolies, and showed her what it was gonna take to serve him proper.

And on her knees, she felt more power than he ever would. Now that’s a good saviour. And that was a good way to pray.

The Holy Spirit of her Trinity was creation.

Whether she created a situation, a child, a good family life, a wonderful meal or all of the above. All of it lended to her debt. The one she owed the saviour.
And when she needed strength, she went straight back to her god.
Sometimes three or four times a day.

And there’s a church around every corner.

Back to the god she went to get a glimpse of what makes her this kind of woman.

Neither sinner nor saint. She glimpsed the horror and euphoria, the charm and the triumph.

All there, between clit and crown, she soars and drowns and she lays it down, her own flowing river of being. . .

20: Josephine on top

 

You know, she’d been thinking.  She’d been thinking what a get-get world this is.  This big fat circle spinning back to one more gimme-gimme.

She’d been thinking about get-getting.  A brief break for a woman since it’s mostly giving.   Out, in, up.

She thought about this at a funny time as she sat upon him,  this lucky man indeed. 

She said it almost out loud, "You know, I’ve been thinking".

When a man gets inside a woman he gets to see God.  When a woman slides down, all plump-bottomed and hipped, dipping waist, soft tits, ah man, what a feeling.  What luck to have a woman surround you with full red lips and flooding thighs.  You get to see your maker, feel her.  And you get to come through her window.  A four leaf clover of a moment.

But that’s not the charm she was thinking of.

The unnamed miracle is that God sees him.  Looks at him in a way he’d never figured existed.  God looks at him.  With a knowing and a curiosity all at the same time. 

The man, he never forgets it.

It’s not the lovely, lush softness of the swallow.  It’s the way the gaze breathes through him, a slight storm happens somewhere inside and does damage.  It rustles, shakes and topples what he built before her.

When God sees you things go away.  Things you carried in a strong black sack of a soul.

When God sees you, looks down on you it’s a disassembly of some sort.  It’s a sorting out and throwing away of everything you gripped.

It’s when something else is concieved, birthed and left screaming in your skull, it is.

"You see God", Josephine whispered, "But God sees you right back".

21: Josephine inside

It was like he was cheating.  Even if her leaving had been justified, so what. It felt wrong and not in the good way, brother.   Wrong in the weak way. 

Inside anyone but her and he felt like a liar.  He felt almost nothing.
From an atom bomb to a firecracker, this wasn’t good.
Why did he need so much boom? 
You know a man can conjure up just enough to get there but wilting’s a possibility now and it never was with Josephine.
Did she realize the hold her gaze snapped?  Captured. 
But he wanted her trap, he needed it.  Slammed tight.  She moved inside of him as he did in her.  It’s sort of a premeditated revenge.  Yeah, he thought, that’s what it is.  Like she knew it even before I left the gate.

He wasn’t cheating. Geezus.  He  kept telling himself that as he deflated out of this one.
He was mad.  He wasn’t even sure who he was mad at but goddamn it he was mad at somebody.  He looked down on her and slid off.  He looked down on her even from his side of her bed.
She  looked up at him.  Is it me? 
This made him even madder.  God effing damn it.
He didn’t speak, didn’t want to.
He didn’t want to do anything with her.
Not tonight anyway.
He’d just go home and get Josephine out of him.  He’d come back when he was clean again, when his blood spanked his veins like he owned it, not like she did with her damn waves.
Josephine left scars of shorelines. 

Yeah, this one’ll do until time shot Josephine out.  Stroke.
Faster.  Drive. Faster.
It might take awhile he thought, so in the meantime inside the crayon colored version he’d go, just to to get away from the image of Josephine that stained so bright and clear.  Flash.  Crash. Boom. Done and out.  Again.

22: Josephine shot in the back

You can never be the one constant thing he needs, she breathed.


Exhaust yourself, rewrap your present a million different ways until you spin into dusty, old comfort, complacency, she said but you’ll still be too familiar to keep him happy.

His audience must be innocent of him. They can’t know too much. He can’t keep it from his closest ones but he can keep it from those adoring masses that he craves.
Let him have his "show". Let him have first timers with eyes of wonder.
It makes him feel reborn, restarted.
You dress and bathe him, keep him fed. That’s all the duty he has left for you. Except on a generous night, maybe.

Her ghost only haunts you because of what she knows. And what you’re sure she knows.
You can take the learning or not. It’s not her game and never was. Not her program.

Crawl away with your skin knowing it’s good or great, even.

Your shine will blur. Brushed aluminum’s so fine to some but he needs the chrome. All the time.
The watching of a neverending new, he needs.

She whispered to them now...

You can only be new to him for a time. And the time he gives gets shorter. He’ll end you as you face him with yet another gift that can’t satisfy.

She walked away taking her bloody footsteps with her. She wandered from it all so easily this time, no tiptoeing, just a simple turn.
Her back is all you see these days so you’re just not sure if she was ever in your presence.

The whiff of cherry vanilla...ah, she was here, I know it....

23: Josephine beyond the velvet

You won’t slip under that sweet velvet here.  Not tonight dear, she thought.

She was even too tired to touch herself.  She just bent the elbow away and leaned on it like a kickstand.
She looked at the baby boy in the bassinette.  He’d been up for months.  Every hour or so.  That means she was up.
She rolled over and thought about a time when she felt guiltless.
It never occured to her that it didn’t exist in her past.
She was lousy with it.
She deserved it.
She snapped the elastic on her p.j.’s shut.
She stranded her black hair out of her face and listened to what silence looked like.
She blacked.  She blued.  She bawled with no stuttering shoulders, no tears.
Her newborn brought those.  He deserved them.
She was a thief.  She stole things.  Needful things.  She took them and felt they belonged to her even before they hit the bottom of her pocket.
She stole time and lives and hearts and futures.
She wasn’t without sin, not even close.
What made her think she even deserved the goodness she had?

She rolled over and touched the soft curl on top of his lovely moonface. 
God help anybody who’d try to steal what was hers.  To thief her right back.
She’d take their final belonging, she would.
Why was she so mad?  A rage filled her and filled her good.

The velvet faded to orange yellow and morning came back to her again.
How much does another day cost, she wondered.

24: Josephine’s extra purr

Josephine likes her dusk.  It’s her dawn.  It’s when everything begins for her.  Just as those pins start to prick glowing holes into her patent leather sky, she can breathe a bit.

She can plan her way back to the Saint that seeks her.  And back to the Monster that tried to kill her, that still thinks her dead with red mud.

Baby Dagger watches the boys like they’re her own.  She owes so Josephine trusts.

She kisses them and slips into the Lincoln skin.  It smells of oil, leather, cigarettes and ego, all belonging to the former owner, a doctor she never knew but who left a nameplate stating he was here once.

Josephine would leave much more than an etched piece of brass.  She’d leave princes who will leave kings.  She drove with a gliding bounce almost like her tushy swagger.

She hears purring, extra purring.  The engine yes, and something else.  It sounds black.  It sounds familiar.  She tilts the mirror.  Nothing in the back seat.  She cocks her head, shakes it.  Conscience?  Don’t be ridiculous.  At the time, they deserved it.  They had it coming.  We all have it coming.

What’s that throaty buzz? 

She pulled over and opened the trunk because that’s where you go when you really want to push yourself over the edge, right?

It pops open too dramatically for her but there’s nothing in it’s jaws.  Empty. She hikes up a boot to check the status of the blade.  Still a good sharp there, buckled tight.

She knew she’d probably have to use it tonight but for some reason, didn’t want to.  She got back into skin and there it was again.  She knew that sound.  Tape being pulled across magnets.  It was a recorder and she could see it’s red eye on the floorboard.  What now?

25: Josephine knew the brush of the watch

Josephine slammed the door of the 64 over and over. She must be mad.
Come see your girl, put yourself out in the open!
She screamed it in her head and then through the red lips.
Come to your old friend and embrace her.
Somebody dared leave a tape recorder. That means they can get as close as they want. That means they know where she is.
It also means they fear her enough to plan but are stupid enough not be that scared.
Who could that be? An old, beat up flame perhaps?
Who cares, she spat. I have my boys and my revenge to keep me busy.
I’ll rid the bump in the road if he so much as bounces me any which way.
Why a damn tape recorder? What was he hoping to hear? Or did he just want her to hear the purring, old fashioned hum?
Who cares? I have my boys and my revenge.
She slammed the door once more, smoothed the trim and opened it gently, finally.
So they know she’s alive. They want to play.
Games are for cowards, she growled.
She picked up the recorder and turned it over and over. She pressed rewind. To the beginning, yeah.
She pressed play. Click...
I’m going to get you...
Stop. Rewind. Play. I’m going to get you, the black plastic thing said.
Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind. Play.
Josephine didn’t know this voice.
She stared out. Down. She looked over her shoulder. She felt the eyes. She knew the brush of the watch.
She knew the glaze of a lurk.
She pressed Play and Record. The red light came on.
Not if I see you first, she whispered low, she whispered fresh.
Click. Stop.

She got out of the car, placed the plastic thing next to the road and sped off back to the house.

Not if I see you first, she grinned.

Wanna hear what Josephine sounds like? Click on the pic and she'll take you there...

26: Josephine eye’s the sweet Larain

Eyeing the sweet "Larain" crane shifting the offramp where she gets off, Josephine wondered when and where he gets off.

Placing a recorder on her seat.  1/4 inch tape terrorist.  What’s next?  A VHS?
She snickered.  1/2" tape.  That all ya got, cowboy?

How "Lost Highway" of him.  Very Lynch-ey.
I’ll show you Lynch-ey.
If this was anybody else, it’d feel dreamy.
But this whole nightmare, it was hers. 
Josephine had a funny way of looking at things.  All blame on her.  Then she could concentrate on fixin’ what was broke.
In this case, another heart. 
Another promise.
Not just his but hers.
She owned that. 
But he didn’t have to shoot her and leave her to mud.
Now that’s just a little out of line.

She came through the door and her oldest boy slammed a hug that should bruise, but strangely never did.
Everything meant this.  Her baby squeeled and she scooped up his fatty-fat and kissed his moonface.
She missed her Saint and knew he was feeling twice that.
The Monster still roamed with his empty gun and she still planned for her return.
As soon as she took care of this incher.
Something about the intrusion didn’t make her shake at all.  It was startling but not threatening.  She didn’t know how to straighten that in her head but she trusted her gut and her gut said, this is just for attention.
She guessed they’d tried other ways and failed and now they’ll try to make her shiver a bit.
There shakes only inspired her earthquakes.  Usually enough for the land to crumble in the middle, leave a nice hole in the shape of a "J".

Damn, another battle in the middle of her war.  She felt tired all of the sudden.
The boys followed her into the kitchen while she made them dinner and between their chatter and Baby Dagger’s news report of the day, she could push her thoughts aside and just listen to the symphony of noise.....
And a sweet noise it was..

Wanna hear what Josephine sounds like? Click on the pic and she'll take you there...

27: Josephine the Curious

27: Josephine the Curious

Josephine’s father looked at her with such disdain.
She reminded him he was a failure.
Such promise wasted, he thought.
He thought it so he maybe thought she couldn’t see it in his eyes?
She did. Hurt so bad but that hurt’s not a priority, is it dear...is it.
That’s a luxury Josephine just couldn’t afford.
Indeed she was a king, yeah. Born to rule, but rule what?
A baby King with no hand me down castle, no dented and jeweled crown.
She’d have to find her land on her own. Find her voice and purpose.
She’d have to start from scratch, learn how to make the paper to write her manifesto on.
King’s are meant to battle through for the greater good. Doesn’t mean you’ll come out soon or well, does it.
No, Daddy, it doesn’t.
He didn’t know any of this. He never believed for all of his own reasons Josephine understood even if he didn’t return that favor.


She was not the genius they thought.
Not the kind they wanted anyway.
She was too curious.
What was out there at night? What crawled home in the morning? Should I try it? Should I spill over too, she asked?
I wanna fuck, too. I want to know what it’s like, I want to kiss and kiss deep and not be afraid of skin.


That was the most fatal decision: To seek whatever made her back away. Spring into it, dive in and swim around no matter how muck and mired it leaves you.
She couldn’t help it. This is her nature.


She was born thinking she was nothing and for no apparent reason except that it was some sort of faulty vein running crooked through her.

To her credit, she tried to bleed it out, slitting it from any side, punching holes in it trying to make it dry up somehow.
It always healed and filled up again.
She never blamed her parents, her atmosphere, her upbringing, her circumstances.
She blamed herself.
Bad choices, she flogged. Bad karma, whip. Stupid judgement, she beat.
Beat, beat and beat again.
Scars don’t bleed anymore anyway. They just get all shiny slick.
Everything slides right off them, cool blades and sharp pointy remarks, slip right off.
Her mother agreed with her father. It made Mom sad, though, not mad. She lowered her head when Josephine smiled. It reminded her of all that promise, so bright.
Josephine had to get away. She couldn’t keep disappointing them.

She ran right into a Monster’s arms. Anything big enough to catch a flying failure was what was needed at the time, she guessed.
She didn’t know and didn’t care at this point. She needed a ruler’s rest.

In his defense, he wasn’t a Monster when she met him. She made him that way.
A Cutting Creator, she left him heady and longing.
Just like God did when he created her.

28: Josephine’s Monster, now sealed tight

 

The Monster bit his nails and smoked another cigarette.  He never used to do that with Josephine.

Didn’t need to.  Now he did.

The Saint seethed and fumed and grieved and waited. 

He’d lost everything.  Hope had sweet breath, didn’t it?  She left it there for him, so strong he could smell cherry vanilla forever. 

So could the Monster.  It affected them both the same.

***********************************************************

Josephine had no time for any more nonsense.

The tape maker marked her doorstep with red lipstick.  It said simply and sadly, meet me.

She took out her own lipstick, much darker and redder and then put it back.  Not gonna waste good Mac on the porch, for chrissakes.  Not gonna waste it on a desperate thing like this thing.

I can’t create anymore monsters, she sighed and returned the lipstick to it’s left buttcheek pocket.

These creatures come up every now and then and this one had revealed himself as just another thing.

She did what she always did with the little one’s, she threw him back.

Absence of gesture always scared them the most.  He’d feel the slap of a good mama and go away.  Probably. 

Maybe.

She just didn’t care right now.

************************************

The Monster couldn’t shake the memory of a left Josephine.  The crack of the gun, a pop in her ears, in his.  The blood making mud.  She still looked like she was pulsed.  She did.  So much so he leaned over her.  He stared at her pale skin, black hair softing over her big eyes.  He layed over her and brushed her hair away.  The eyes were closed to him.

At that moment one thought crossed his mind.  What man wouldn’t think it, he twisted?  Still warm.  One last time, Josephine.  Touching her.  He was intoxicated.  Touching her, he was who he was only more so.  Inside your God, you’re all that you should be.  What have I done?  I’ve given up that chance, that feeling..he panicked.

One thought, over and over.  He grew hard.  Once more.  He struggled.  He swung his head about like a beast.  He looked up and then down.  Tears streamed down his face, would she ever know his suffering?

Would she miss this?  Whisper it like that.  Touch her like a whisper.  Like that.  He moaned and reeled.  One thought, one more time, one last wound. 

The Monster, now sealed.

29: Josephine’s Penny Brides

Josephine didn’t sell hot dogs for a buck fifty.  Her stand was a smart operation:

rare and bloody fresh for lots and lots. 

She had lovely Betties.  If she was gonna have them she at least wanted them to be something she’d really like to gander at as well.  She like the number eight.  It was like a racetrack and she liked ’em built for speed. Yeah.  Va Va Voom.

If you were fair, your hair was black.  Dark skinned, platinum locks.  Red hair was the default.  Went with everything.  Nothing in-between, extremes only.  Something you wouldn’t see everyday.

Modern day pin ups.  Jumping off the garage wall, fingerprints, pin pricks and all.

Soft curls and waves brushed into framing old-odd perfection.

Bobby pins and rollers.  Scarves, merry widows, stockings, pumps.

Curves.  Must have curves.  In and outs for the in and out.

Gardens of tattoos.  Exotic flowers, lilies, orchids, roses stained their skin blossoming under sparrows and dragons.  Lots of tradition.  Lots of customers is what that tongue translated.

Josephine knew how to make money.   She lassoed the two blazing, square planets and painted them accordingly.  One for her, one for the women and their customers.

She saw to the financial arrangement through cameras and Baby Dagger.  No wheeling dealing.  A price, chosen by Josephine given to the girl was non-negotiable.  Don’t even try it here.

None of them fingered Josephine. Hiding out in plain site, that’s the secret to being invisible.

Josephine wasn’t one of them.  Neither were the creatures she attracted, the monsters she made.  They didn’t like the force of money being the leg spreader, the mouth opener.

Josephine didn’t like that kind of exchange, either. 

100 percent sinner-saint pie.  She could care less if you did or didn’t, there wasn’t a gavel and robe in

Josephine’s character.  What was, just was.  Simple.

She was not her penny bride’es friend, either.

She was not their caretaker.  She was their boss.

She negotiated the trade.  She did not want to know them.  That was a gift she didn’t give out easily.

She would take care of them monetarily as long as they took care of her in exactly the same manner.  It’s just money, my girls, my Betties, my Penny Brides.

I can make you quite comfortable, you’ll make me rich. 

You bang bang, I bang bang but I take responsibility for each missed shot.

Betties were not to fraternize with her boys, no.  Only Baby Dagger earning her 10 percent of the place could speak and care for them and only tell them things that Josephine allowed.  Everybody there knew the consequences if you made The Boss mad.

Disappearing was not a sweet slip away if it came from Josephine.

Don’t you dare talk about it, either.

That wasn’t up for chit-chatter.

Now paint your toes and fingers the bloody red that I require and get back on your backs.

Soon, you won’t need me anymore, I won’t need you and our roads will split apart.

Night night my kittens...

30: Josephine saw him first

30: Josephine saw him first   Josephine’s pacing impatience had hurt her alot.  She needed to overcome the stealing of her own terror tick tocking minutes. She hated waiting, why should she?  Well, she must, like the rest of the racers but why did it have to be painful, huh? The boys all tucked, the girls bouncing, rocking, screaming and earning.. She liked this time of night. She always sang softly to the boys and tonight they wanted to join in:  loudly! This made her laugh and wish these times could stretch to Mars or Jupiter. She went out onto the porch and looked out at the red orange dropping unmixed onto the sand and rocks. She like it balancing there, casting some sort of romantic glow that even the lonely could appreciate. She missed romance. She missed kissing. She missed the fucking and loving of a man.  Her man. She sighed hard and let it go even though a sound was interrupting it. She heard it and she knew what made it.  She saw him before he could see her. The creature, the new one, the new little one. She waited.  She hated waiting. What, she growled low and soft just enough for his species to hear. She wouldn’t even turn towards his fumbling.  Fuck him trying to make her work during her sunset. Bring your weapon?  You wouldn’t come to such a sharptooth unarmed, would you?  I’ve been watching you. You’re soft, I can tell. Oh, of course you can tell.  You’re my soulmate.  Fuck this creature and the sights he was stealing.  Besides, he was too close to her baby boys. And? Save me, Josephine. I’m pretty sure that’s your Jesus’ job, or at least your Daddy’s.  Go on, now.  He stood up, came closer.  She looked at him then through him. Her eyes became dreamy.  He crumpled a little, being so close to her breathing, feeling the fuzzy vibration of her voice so close to his skin.  I’m supposed to be with you.  I’ve heard you singing and the way you talk, it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. So he’s heard her lullabies has he?  Well that’s too close.  A lion yawns when and enemy is near and this one made her feel drowsy. Something caught her eye, her instincts twitched. Silver and black, tucked in non-Levi jeans. Two sins against her.  How dare he. I have a place for us. Each sentence he dared speak brought him a step further. You’ll love it, I promise.  A place for us, the boys, it’s where we’re supposed to be.  Together, always. You need a man, Josephine, you need me. With that he grabbed her, grabbed her and spun her around, her back pressed against his chest. She felt his fear and smelled skunky and metallic. She hated that smell, especially on men. Pungently afraid of what he was doing, no conviction. He pinned a hand in between him and her, unknowingly of course.  Mistake, of course.  Amateur, of course. Josephine felt she deserved experts and this brought out a bit of her temper. She felt the silly, just bought gun in his pants.  She grabbed it so easily. He felt it jerk out and she turned quickly on him. Who waits for you, Josephine asked. She wanted an answer. Nobody, he said.  Happy to be alone, what an imbecile.  That idea bought him a gun.  That one thought made him feel special.  It’s such a stupid philosophy, such a waste of a life. Pop, pop, pop in the head.  Out he spilled all over her goddamn porch.  Creatures are messy. Maybe he heard Josephine’s last words to him, maybe he didn’t... I saw you first...

31: Josephine and her goddamn kingdom

 

Josephine felt Baby Dagger behind her.  No horror, no shivers.  Josephine nodded toward the ended creature and BeeDee started the clearing.

Josephine slipped through the door to see the boys still sleeping.  Those boys knew just what to dream through, knew how to keep it deep in the velvet, just like mama.

She smiled and took another look through the window towards the sky now black and sparkly.  She loved warm nights.  All nights should be warm.  Leftover sun. 

BeeDee was whistling while she worked.  That made Josephine laugh out loud.  Hopefully it wasn’t callousness that jiggled her.  Hopefully it was just relief. 

The Penny Brides had just begun their shifts.  She walked into the dark kitchen and made sure none of them were "curious".

They knew curiosity around here was a bit dangerous.  Keep to your business, Brides, she thought.  Her face darkened slightly. 

BeeDee was whistling still.  At least she enjoyed the work, the status, the money.  It was nice to see appreciation.

Josephine’s mind crawled out of the now.  Sliding into the maybe’s, the best case scenarios.  What if, what if, what if, she tapped. 

If he somehow knew she’d be back?  If they both knew she still took in the air, still let it out slowly?

What of the kingdom she battles for? 

The facade is beaten some, but still lovely. 

She began to sing along with BeeDee’s mindless whistling, what an obscure song to choose, yet very apropos. 

Once you come, you never go back, she had written that song, Josephine did.  Taught it to BeeDee a million years ago on the guitar...

She remembered. 

And so did Josephine...