~DiXiE~ Part ONE

a sychopath falls in love with a woman who has secrets of her own...

 

Allan dialed Dixie’s number once again. Once again it went straight to voicemail. He picked up a pencil and doodled distractedly. He stopped and looked at what he was drawing. Dixie. Damn. He put down the pencil and tried calling her again. This time she answered. When he heard her hoarse voice say, “Allan?” he felt faint as the euphoria of hearing her voice flooded his mind. He must have sounded a little anxious and out of breath as he said, “Hon, I was trying to reach you whole weekend.”

There was a moment of silence before she said, “I was not feeling well, I’ve been sleeping and watching TV, I turned my phone off because I…” there was a suspicious pause which Allan quickly filled saying, “you didn’t want to speak to me,” another pause. “Did you?”

Allan waited impatiently for her answer his breathing getting heavier every second, his heart beating faster and faster till he felt as thought he would explode. Beads of sweat danced on his forehead, his knees felt weak and in his head all he could think was, “She can’t leave me, I will never let her leave me.”

She spoke slowly, cautiously, “Allan I think you are becoming a little too, uh, personal with me. I never survived a serious relationship and I think we should take it slow.”

Allan inhaled slowly, “Okay Dixie, I understand.” They exchanged goodbyes and then he hung up. He sat down and drew another picture. When it was finished he hung it directly in front of his bed. He took out his wireless and sat up in bed. Dear diary, he wrote, Dixie is still mine today. He scrolled up to the previous entries and they all read the same thing, “Dixie is still mine today.”

With a sigh of satisfaction he stretched, and lay in his architecturally designed bed. I am still in control of my life, he thought to himself. Before long he was asleep.

He woke abruptly, disturbed by what he had dreamt. As he made his way to his kitchenette he recalled the dream in blurs of emotion, sounds and images.

Dixie was running; away from him. They were in the middle of a busy street and he remembered the sounds of the cars zooming past them and how they did not frighten him; all he wanted was his Dixie. She was running to Fred, an attractive member of the Art Club who owned his own tattoo parlor. Fred was dressed in all white except for his boots; the boots were white with red paint stains. Dixie looked beautiful in the dream; she wore a short, black dress with red stilettos. Dixie always looked beautiful. Fred was not bad looking either and he was young with many body piercings and a tattoo on his arm. Her eyes scared him, they were large and frightened. Why was she afraid of me? He asked as he fixed himself some vodka and orange juice.

He checked his watch 1:48 pm. That’s not too late. Grinning like a mad fool he rushed into his bathroom and prepared himself. He shaved his face, slicked down his hair and sprayed enough perfume for everyone in the expensive high-rise apartment building he lived in. Allan put on the tee-shirt Dixie had given him and studied his reflection. The tee-shirt did not belong to his era, it belonged to Dixie’s. His face belonged to his era, though, and it showed. He was gaining weight around his stomach. Dixie’s stomach was flat and smooth. He should start jogging.

He ran down three flights of stairs and then jogged to his Ferrari. He felt a little better, even though an old man might be panting less. He would go over to Dixie’s house and rescue her. Most likely she was bored. Women her age always were. Her would take her to the beach, an expensive restaurant maybe even Hawaii if she wanted. Hah. The strange thing about Dixie was that she did not seem to want anything. Not even life, or Allan. Or life with Allan.

Allan overtook a blue sedan and swung onto the street where she lived. There was a car parked in front The Den as Dixie jokingly called her home. Allan parked on another street and walked up Dixie’s. A light was on in The Den. Allan quickened his pace. He jumped over her creaky gate and crept up to the living room window. His eager eyes met a flat surface behind which he squinted out shadows. He forgot that she put a screen in front of the window to ‘block out the sunlight’. Yeah right. It was more probable that she wanted to block out Allan.

He knew Dixie’s house well enough to guess where he could eavesdrop best. He walked around the perimeter of the house to the adjacent window in order to avoid being seen. He jammed his face against the glass like a madman. He saw Fred wrap his arms around Dixie as if she belonged to him. ‘She belongs to me’ Allan wanted to shout. He waited for The Sentence. Dixie’s sentence. Dixie and Fred sat together chatting like a couple. Asking each other about their day, their week, their year, their life.

Dixie didn’t ask about his day, his life. She never cared about hearing his story. He wanted to cry about Sara. How she left him, how she filed a restraining order against him. Sara should thank Dixie. Dixie was the only reason Sara was still breathing. Dixie diverted Allan. She saved him from his own folly. Unfortunately for her that came with a high price. Allan would not easily let go of the only thing that kept him going.

How would he be able to write; Dixie is still mine today if she was not? No he would not allow himself to lose control of his life again. He watched as Dixie kissed Fred goodnight. Ah, good, Fred was leaving. Fred was glowing from his midnight rendezvous with Dixie. Oh yes, Allan understood how Fred felt, Dixie had that effect on most men. He watched as Fred hopped into his car and sped off.

Dixie sat by herself, eyes shining with the novelty of it all. She enjoys breaking hearts, thought Allan. When Allan met Dixie he didn’t care about Sara anymore. It was as if a burden had been removed from his life replaced by Dixie, a rose. Seeing Dixie with Fred was the prick.

Allan walked around to the side door, which was secreted from the road by a flower screen. He knocked resolutely. Although he heard the noise of Dixie rising to open the door, he knocked again. He liked the sound, the door was rather hollow and it sounded like death.

He smoothed his tee-shirt. Well hers really. He would let her wear it. Just for her to see how it felt to be in his clothes. He put on a pleasant face; how easy for him that was. As a young boy he was adept at making faces and the habit grew with him. After his fling with Sara ended, before he had met Dixie, he would sometimes choose a random person, someone who looked good and normal and happy and play with their mind.

Once he spotted an elderly woman, in her sixties maybe, strolling down the street. It was a quiet, peaceful neighbourhood and the old woman matched her surroundings. She carried a neat little crocheted hand bag and her hair was brushed back into a tidy bun.

Allan caught he eye from across the street and made an extremely diabolical face.

Her brown eyes widened in disbelieve and she unconsciously walked faster, clutching her bag uneasily. Allan rearranged his face and posture until he was once again a well dressed middle aged man with a sober and righteous face. The woman glanced nervously at Allan. To her surprise he gave a pleasant smile and a genteel nod.

After a burger and fries, he followed her to a department store. Not aware of his presence, the woman chatted with an employee. Allan stood a little way off pretending to browse through magazines. The old woman turned around, smiling, having already pushed that unpleasant, puzzling occurrence to the back of her mind. She saw Allan and stiffened.

With a furtive glance to see if anyone was looking he did it again. Except this time it was worst. He hunched his back like some primeval beast and distorted his features to a point where they would have been almost unrecognizable. The old lady unable to bear this startling horror roughly shook the shoulder of the pretty salesgirl.

“That man over there makes the most hideous faces at me, I believe he is following me, oh my, he looked like the devil himself.”

The girl, turning around and recognizing ‘that man’ as being a very prominent writer dismissed the old woman with a, “Shush Marilynn, that gentleman is a successful novelist.”

The old woman still confused and now doubting herself left the store, glancing several times at Allan, who was of course deporting himself perfectly. “I must be losing my vision,” she thought to herself. She felt rather shaky. “Surely a man like him would not do something so, so wrong.” The old woman reasoned to herself.

After she left the store, the girl came over to him and apologized. “Mrs. Stewart was a bit shaken up this morning.” Yes, Allan thought, by me. “She is advanced in years, but nothing like this will happen again, I promise.” His reputation depended on his response to this. Several customers had gathered around after they heard what Mrs. Stewart had said.

He smiled genially, “It’s alright everyone has an occasional lapse once in a while,”grinning, he said, “I suppose my façade (gesturing to his face) is not what it once was.”

Some people tittered at this wisecrack. The tension was broken. Anyone who doubted his normalcy was now convinced of it. How could this reputable man, who had such manners and spoke so well, be guilty of such uncouth and unnatural behavior?

The salesgirl smiled at Allan. It was that smile that saved Sara. That smile made him feel good and worthy of acceptance.

Now he was looking into that gorgeous face.

How would he describe Dixie? Would he describe her as a girl with an angel’s face and a temptress’ body? If only it were that simple. Her face was beautifully angular, her body was all curves. Her skin was soft, her blood cold as ice beneath it. Her breasts were chest was soft and tender; her heart was frozen underneath them. Frozen with agony and perpetual loneliness, which was never fully vanquished, just pushed further during flings she thought were emotional and deep.

Allan was different. His heart was like a ball of twine, the more unraveled the more messed up he was. Sara the mouse had started unraveling him. Dixie the cat had finished the job.

“Allan, its two in the morning, what are you doing here.”

Allan looked at her thinking hard. How should he go about this? What he longed to do was confront her, ask her why she betrayed him, knock her head against the olive walls until she stopped breathing.

His breath caught in his throat. He loved it when she said his name like that. Ah/lan. “I wanted you, of course.”

The look in her eyes changed instantly. From a girlfriend to mistress in half a second. Amazing. She led him into the house. He stopped in the entrance, taking in the repairs, designer furniture and accents. Out of his pocket came her luxury.

His head was spinning from the importance of what he was going to do. In his back pocket was a small blunt knife. Blunt knives caused more pain, he heard. Blunt knives took longer to get to the point, unlike blunt people. Maybe if you were blunt with me… he thought. An acrid mixture of dread and anticipation filled him. He steadied himself against the wall.

“Ah/lan are you okay?” Dixie had a strange look in her green eyes.

“Oh yes I am fine, just wonderful.”

His voice had a bitter tang to it. Dixie excused herself and walked into the bedroom. Allan stared at her back until she was out of sight. He felt for the knife in his pocket. When returned she wrapped her arms around him with feline grace. He shivered as he cold lips brushed his neck. Slowly she undressed never taking her eyes off his as she did so. She turned around.

“Like what you see?” she asked.

Allan fought the urge to cry. This was too much. Not only did she allow late night rendezvous from Fred but she let him give her a tattoo of a red rose that stemmed all the way down to her backside.

“You did not ask me if, if” Allan choked on the words that were rising in his throat like bitter bile. Dixie stepped back, enraged.

“Ask you, ask you, are you crazy you must be. This is my body Allan, we are not married and I can do what I want with it. She started putting on her clothes.

With a sinking heart Allan took the knife from his back pocket. He felt a vicious jab on his left arm; the one closest to his lover. The room swarm before his eyes and he took a breath to steady him. Everything seemed to get dark and foggy. He fought it, struggling to sit up. He was faintly aware of someone saying, “Relax Allan it will hurt more if you fight it.”

Someone; Dixie his lover.

“Dixie,” he murmured reaching out to her, “I love you.” So she had beat him to it, he thought. Well one of them had to die anyway; Dixie was the hot, young one with the vaguely promising future.

“Silly, you aren’t dying; I just gave you something that would help you to forget this ever happened.”

“Stho, yoh not killing me even as I twied to kill yoh.” His tongue felt heavy and thick inside his mouth, as if it belonged to someone else.

Dixie stroked his hair gently.

“I knew it would come to this, I knew that you would get addicted to me, they all do eventually. They all become obsessed. I do that to people. Daren killed himself, Gary fell into depression, but you Allan tried to kill me. I am so proud of you. I hope you have a good life without me. Nothing would stop you.”

She rose as if to leave. Allan lay on the couch, seeing in blurs.

“No.”

She stopped.

“What did you say to me?” Dixie was watching his face closely.

“If you leave me I will hunt you down.”

Dixie emitted a harsh, bitter laugh. “Hunt me down, you said? I wish. I wish with all of my puny, burnt up heart that you could ever find me where I belong.” Her tone softened a little. “You do not belong with me Allan, nor do I with you. Your kind would despise us if they all knew about us. My kind surely despises yours. Do you know what they would do to you if I carried you there? Break your bones for the fun of it. Disfigure you out of detestation for me. Watch you bleed to death while they bet on how long you would last.”

“Maybe they would make hideous faces at me.”

Dixie laughed at that until tears sprung to her eyes. “I knew since I set eyes on you that you were different. I just did not know that different would mean that you enjoyed scaring senior citizens.”

Allan was falling further into whatever drug she had given him. “Stho you did know, I always thondered.”

“I think it was your similarity to us that attracted me to you. So cruel and feral under that mask you wear every day. How hard it must be,” she bent to kiss his forehead, “To have to hide everyday, from everyone?”

“Yoh mus know tha better than me.”

“Yes I do. You and I would never be accepted in society, yours or mine, if they knew us as we really are.”

“We could be by ourselves Dixie.”

Allan was treading on dangerous ground, knowing what he did about her now.

“You do not know what I am.”

“I don care.”

Allan could not see anything specific now, but he knew that something paranormal was happening; he could feel it in the very marrow of his bones. Dixie was changing, he could feel it. Her aura; he loved it. There was a violent recklessness in the air. It drifted into his nostrils disguised as the scent of her intoxicating perfume. When he opened his eyes he could see clearly. She was taller that before, her hair was long and dark and thick strands blew into her face. Her eyes were the same though, green and haunted. Her nails were long and sharp, her two front teeth also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Dawn]

I dont really like this story, i dont know why it was never a favourite of mine. are the characters too surreal?