https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/detonate/

 

Please Read Serial One #1 First.  https://dancingpalmtrees.com/2016/05/02/all-gone-wrong/

Wandering Water Serpents

Once again safely back home fully reclined in his favorite worn leather chair, sipping a lukewarm Chai Tea Bryce silently ruminated about the drab pundits blathering assessments of his demon cargo and the havoc spreading across the nation over and into Europe. They uselessly attempted to dissect his effulgent genius.  Secretly the yammering pundits, police, and criminal psychologists probably wondered wouldn’t it be nice to be a third world backwater with only a hodgepodge of rickety patchwork vehicles left over from bygone decades that were held together with duct tape, elbow grease and the occasional hard to find auto replacement parts.

In fact Bryce thought aloud, “I should defect to one of those corrupt countries where allegiance can be had for a few shillings and some shiny trinkets. Noggin-head me.”

Meanwhile Gordon Lightfoot droned on…………..

 

Meanwhile his latest acquisition briefly looked up from the filthy rumpled bed covers her thick wavy cascading ruby red hair alternating betwixt her face and shoulders the odalisque reacted to his voice wondering if any body slamming sex session was at hand.

His so-called love-making was more like being assaulted by a pneumatic jackhammer but the money was good. And she needed the money to send to her family back home.

She knew she was a prize. Her burgundy tresses glinting flecks of gold, golden flecks that echoed to the smattering of freckles that butterflied across her cream colored skin. His passion. Not hers.

Sessions with Mr. Battering Ram Bryce left her bruised and in a tangled heap much like a boxing prize fighter taking the ten count. Trapped in the ring. Gored by a Minotaur.

During these grueling, grunting heaving battles Majorca put her mind to her seven year old daughter Marrakesh.  Fanciful names for freshly rejected now nomadic females. Home–the war torn arid steppes that once governed their lives.  Majorca was still a nomad. A nomad who had wandered into the convoluted mind of a reasoning maniac.

A conquest from Bargain Town. Smuggled. A hidden object. Nothing but so many blow up dolls for sale in an open air flesh market. After use a priceless gem returned to its alabaster jewelry cabinet. Bought and sold much like the oxen, yak, goats, and chickens that used to freely wander the streets of makeshift campsites.

I was supposed to  feel honored to be chosen by this man among men. But then again where does the Sycophant stop and the Courtesan begin?

Born of ignoble means. A scion of lust filled rape by a demented half-brother for his sister. My mother Tamar was left desolate save for another brother who took pity upon her and found recently widowed village elder willing to take her because he needed someone to care for his six motherless children. I an outcast daughter was born to an outcast mother.  She even gave me her name as an imprint on my life.  Branded. Labeled for life.

Majorca and Marrakesh came later when I at least had my one power to pick my label or my brand as they called it in America.  America the magic land of quick fixes and plastic surgery.

Came to this place from a rural backwater village after a disastrous arranged marriage. Truthfully there was no consummation on my wedding night once my betrothed disrobed me and began screaming and cursing in horror and disgust at my Quasimodo form tossing me from the matrimonial bed calling the town elders who made preparations for me to be sent back to my father’s tent.  My father who was always ashamed of me and who found himself disgraced not only within our tribe sent me away into the wilderness with only the clothes on my back and what few possessions I could gather whilst trying to escape his stormy anger.

Good fortune did smile upon me as I traversed the dusty road away from the only home I had ever known. Angels in the forms of my mother, aunts and sisters had extinguished my father’s fiery rage through liberal applications of wine.  Once he entered the land of intoxicated snores my weeping women saddled horses, loaded them down with as many provisions as they could hold and interception my journey.  We hugged, cried and mourned my passing knowing a rejected woman is as one dead. A Jephthah’s daughter placed upon the sacrificial altar never to be seen or heard from again.

They also managed to bargain with the disgruntled groom managing to win back half my dowry which my mother tearfully entrusted to my outstretched hands.  I was also given one strong yet steady sway back donkey. A fitting companion who mirrored my disability and temperament.  My past I knew well but my future was just a cloudy day on the horizon.

The first place I landed was a dusty, dirty, filthy inn made for transients and one-night stands. The hallways and stairwells had a constant smell of vomit and day old sex that even applications of bleach and pine cleaner could not erase. The proprietor Anne was a shrill, sarcastic, snarky harridan who served Meals twice a day were little more than leftover offal that even the pigs refused to eat. Anne had a willful ugliness that was present in her body as well as her soul.

The small bag of gold coins quickly ran out and having no other worthy profession I became a hump-backed Burlesque trollop selling my body in order to pay the rent and eat.  I felt like a slow motion train wreck powerless to stop the oncoming impending crash about to take place.  Since I had a gift for bringing money to Anne’s cash starved establishment my food and living quarters were upgraded. The men who required my services were working class lads who had no other options with which to release their pent up semen. I was a welcome distraction from the booze addled winos and frazzled addicts who frequented the place.

Then Bryce came to town……………….