Lust Demented

{XXXIV}

A SERVANT TO THE HOT spirit, Kiko coerced me up the spiral staircase to the third floor. We twisted a couple times. Then out of the corner of my eye - I saw it. The door at the end of the hallway was left open just wide enough to see Chiara’s crib.

“Farrow… are you telling me everything?” Kiko’s voice trailed off as I slid past the cracked door. I didn’t want to touch anything. This was the real crime scene. The place where another man stole my daughter.

Her room was in perfect order. Instead of making me jealous or angry, it made me calm. Overwhelming joy in every hanging star of her mobile. I could feel her close. It was a good start for her, because it was a start - and that is all you could ask for. She would soon forget it as are the benefits of that age. Other things are impossible to forget.

“That’s why it’s so serious. From the first day I found out I was going to be a father, you’ve threatened to strip me of the miracle. From the first second I always had to worry about her being taken away from me.”

“She needs you.”

“I won’t lose her.”

“You’ll probably write that in your book.”

“Farrow, what are you doing in there?” Kiko cautiously pushed the door open.

“She haunts every crevice.”

“So while you were in here being haunted…” Kiko closed in on me with Percy’s pulp trash masterpiece. The binding of the book worn like the sampietrini of Rome. Most importantly the pages were still in place. I could picture Percy flipping soiled wax-thin pages, spitting out a few lines, attempting to drop a little wisdom on Missy.

“Ever make your way through this?”

“Ghost piss.”

“What?”

“Forget it.” Kiko cracked the book open a little too wide and the fifty year spine finally split. A neatly folded page fell to the ground.

“What’s that?” Something about the paper was unsettling.

“That’s not from the book.” Kiko bent over to pick up the loose paper. “It’s something new.” She had it in her hands. “It looks official…” Then she stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” I could tell by her face it was something worth knowing about.

“Uh Farrow…”

“Kiko…”

“It’s your daughter’s birth certificate. It says Chiara was born on January 6th at Bellevue Hospital.”

“She was born exactly on the due date. Does she have a middle name?”

“No it just says… Chiara… Chiara Featherton. Farrow it says Percy is her father. Legally, I mean.”

“Motherfucker.”

Kiko handed me the birth certificate. I couldn’t even touch it. Somehow, the document was alive. Replete with a hex of manipulation that became both my venom of paralysis and vein-bursting shot of pure revenge.