The Trojan Horse Wore Hightops (4/4)

The Trojan Horse Wore Hightops

Part 4 of 4

By Jess Faulks

"I've called the police."

Sunnie wasn't completely awake yet but the words were concise and complete as they ran through her stomach like a spear. She was in Kim's bed, laying on her side and could feel that contented smile she'd never woken up with in her whole life, disintegrate.

"They're on the way. Get out of my house."

Kim knew.

Sunnie's eyes opened to see her hunched over at the bedside. She couldn't focus fast enough but when she did, she saw her mother, red-eyed from crying and sickly pale, almost green. She held a kitchen knife in two hands, threatening.

Her bag. She had walked right in with a bag full of self-incrimination. Her prison release. The comic. The swimsuit picture of a younger Kim that she'd jerked off to in truck stop bathrooms and the back rows of a Greyhound bus.

Sunnie covered her mouth, feeling the hollowness in her throat that wanted to vomit over a stomach that churned like a garbage disposal. Tears flooded her eyes as she shook her head, slowly at first, then faster.

"Kim, this is not what you think!"

She brandished the knife and tears fell off her cheeks, raining down on her white tee shirt. "Isn't it? Did I misunderstand that you spent five years in jail for rape?! Did I misread your elaborate, revenge porn fantasy? The first thing you did when you got out was to try and find me?! Or that you're my goddamn SON?! Tell me how I'm misunderstanding that?!"

Sunnie rolled onto her back and covered her face, digging her nails into her skin.

"You didn't misunderstand." She said through her hands. "But that is not the whole story. I never raped anyone."

"You didn't rape Beth Hammond, the nun who worked at your youth facility? Who you went to jail over?! The first person you went and found when you got out? Jesus Sunnie, is Beth still alive?!"

Stay calm, Sunnie. It's your only chance to fix this.

She tried to breathe, deep and counted like they'd taught her in anger management back in juvie. Now it was like she was doing it with a knife in her heart.

"Yes, Beth Hammond is alive. I never hurt her. Assaulted her. Raped her. Whatever. Beth is one of the nuns who works at Saint Mary's. I was still a kid but I was developing fast and I was developing a lot. There wasn't any privacy in a place like that and she was... she was interested in me. Things got super inappropriate and we had sex. More than once."

"So she raped you?" Kim's tone was calmer but skeptical.

"No. I dunno. It was as consensual as it could have been between a horny teenager and a grown woman. I mean, I don't know how it works, but I guess legally she did? I didn't know any better. But when we got caught one night, one of us was definitely going to jail. Beth said I forced myself on her. I said I didn't but it's an orphan's word against a nun's.

"The kids in the system are basically all fuck ups and criminals, so it fits the narrative, but I was still a good kid back then. The only thing I'd done wrong was hit puberty in a way that took everyone pretty fucking by surprise. In a way that made my supposedly loving, caring, bible-thumping, foster parents want nothing to do with their freak, trans, faggot, son."

She exhaled through a puff of her cheeks.

Keep going, Sunnie. You've still got room to finish.

"Sister Hammond is a nun. She's not supposed to be having sex with anyone, let alone a teenager. She lied to cover her own ass and I went to jail for it." She pulled her hands from her face and slapped them on the bed, pushing herself to sit up.

Kim had softened her guard but jumped at the sudden movement.

"Can you please call off the police and put away the knife? I'll tell you everything and if you want me to leave after that, I'll go. But I need to explain what happened."

Kim shook her head. "No, I think I won't. Even if all that's true, that's just one of the litany of fucking crazy things you did. Jesus Christ, Sunnie. I'm your

mother

."

Sunnie sighed and nodded. "Yeah. The revenge porn stuff was all real. I didn't know anything about you except what the fosters and the nuns at the center told me and everything I imagined between the lines. They were all crazy, religious people and would talk about my 'slut mother' and that I was 'born of sin' because you gave me up for adoption. My foster parents said that's why God was punishing me. Why I developed this 'whore's body' when everyone thought I was a boy. Every shitty parental figure and adult who was ever responsible for me, blamed you for how terrible my life was and I believed it. It barely registered that none of them had ever met you."

She was out of breath by the end of it and gasped, near hysteria. Panting, trying to calm herself again, she looked at Kim, wounded. She wasn't saying anything yet, but the crumpling of her face and the quiver in her eyes showed she was at least listening.

"With nothing to go on but all that, I believed you were a bigot like every other adult I knew. I imagined you were a hypocrite like Sister Hammond was. You had to be another religious nut like the so-called loving parents who put me in that horrible system and you had to be a slut with a size fetish because my biological father was obviously in the one-percent of penises!"

"Sunnie..."

"The other girls in juvie didn't help. I was convinced you must have other freak sons and daughters. That you slutted around with all these guys with huge dicks and dropped off the babies you made at the orphanage every nine months."

Kim's cheek twitched. She almost laughed.

Thank God.

It let Sunnie chuckle at the absurdity of it too.

"I know, it's so fucking stupid! I'm such an idiot for believing any of it, but hopping from prudish fosters to St Mary's to juve to jail, who was going to set me straight?"

Kim tensed up again on the knife. "Why should I believe you about Beth?"

Sunnie huffed. "Because the paper trail is in my backpack. I went to find Beth because I knew she could find you. I tracked her down and confronted her, while secretly recording the whole thing. Once I had that, I told her I'd take it to the judge if she didn't get my records, by any means necessary. So she got the info about you and your Father, then made me delete it."

"You didn't back up the confession that proved you weren't guilty?"

"I didn't know how. Young people are supposed to be all tech-savvy, but ma and pa bible-thumper weren't the types to give their kid her own phone. Then I was in the center, then fucking jail for five years. I'd used one but they changed while I was inside. Besides, I wasn't thinking straight. Finding you was the important part."

"Clearing your criminal record of a felony and proving your innocence wasn't important?"

"If I believed it would have worked, I'd have cared a lot more, but I don't think you understand how crooked the whole system is."

"Fine. So what does your story prove?"

"That I had leverage enough to make a nun steal some highly confidential information. How else could I have found you?"

"There's a knife in your bag. Did you force her with that?"

"Like, she did whatever breaking and entering she needed to do for your paperwork with a blade at her throat? That'd be some Mission Impossible shit. If you check the dates on the searches, you can see it took her a few days. I couldn't strongarm for that long."

Kim began to pace but at least her knife was lowered. "So you didn't rape Beth. You just blackmailed her to find me and ruin my life?"

"Exactly."

Kim stopped and glared sharply back. She was cold again.

"That was the plan! You knew that part. Then I met you and I fucking melted. I heard everything you told me and realized I'd been an idiot. My whole life was a lie and you were the first adult who wasn't a total piece of shit."

"But you still had sex with me."

"YOU started that."

"You knew I was your mother but you didn't stop me?!" She was boiling over again. "No, this is some Lifetime movie kind-of-crazy. You need to go. Grab your things and go."

"I tried to stop you! For a second. But I didn't want to stop you."

Kim was storming toward the door. "Get dressed and get out. The police will be here any minute."

Sunnie flopped back, clutching her head and, for the moment, was left alone. She started to convince her. She had to finish. The thing with Sister Hammond was the worst part, wasn't it? Apparently not for Kim, who'd had sex with her own child, twice now.

She slipped on her boxers and jeans quickly, then searched for her bra, pacing with frustration. It must have been downstairs, where she heard her mother moving about. How long did she have?

She put on her shirt and ran down the stairs. Kim was sitting on the front windowsill of the living room, her head in her hands, right above where she'd hidden her phone for the video. She stopped at the bottom to keep a comfortable distance, half-hanging off the banister.

"I wanted to have sex with you. Not for revenge or because of any of the other bullshit that people told me or I told myself about who you were. I wanted to because you're kind and sweet and beautiful. And I saw you were like me. You had your whole life controlled by other people and driven off-course, just like me. I never felt a connection like that with anyone."

"Probably because I'm your mother," Kim peeked out from her hands, scowling.

Sunnie shook her head. "Not because you're my mother. Because life put you through the same shitty ringer it did me and I turned out a piece of shit, but you turned out amazing."

Kim's jaw clenched, trembling. She was crying again and Sunnie's instinct was to rush to comfort her but she gripped the banister tighter instead. Kim wasn't ready.

"I meant everything I said. I meant it, when I said I love you."

"You just met me, Sunnie. You don't know me at all."

"Bullshit. We connected, like I've never felt with anyone. And don't try to tell me you didn't feel it either. I saw it in your eyes."

Kim shrunk. An admission.

"Why can't we go with that? Why can't we just be together?!"

Kim was cold again. "Because you lied to get into my house and into my pants! I read your comic, Sunnie. It's fucking crazy! You need help!"

"I need you!"

Kim was suddenly hysterical again. "And what do you suggest? We be a normal family, reunited and ignore that time that we fucked?!"

Sunnie steadied herself at those words and tried not to smile at the thought. She shook her head. "I suggest we be a normal couple and ignore the fact that nothing but a DNA test cares otherwise."

Kim's face made clear how revolted she was at the suggestion. Sunnie stepped closer, into the living room but stopped when she saw her tense up.

"Kim, I have never been so attracted to anyone in my life and yeah, part of that's because you're amazingly hot and I've got 19-year-old hormones. But there's this other part. The part where I want to cuddle on the couch with you until we fall asleep like we did last night, but every night. To bring you coffee while you're reading the morning paper and massage your back at the end of the day. I thought how cute it would be for us to wear matching fucking outfits and I promise you, I don't normally think that cutesy shit. I thought about us walking down the aisle, in these gorgeous, white dresses and saying 'I do', then making out in front of everyone. I swear to God, I am not that kind of crazy but YOU make me think that kind of crazy!"

Kim gripped her face again. "How am I supposed to believe anything you say? How can I ever trust you? No Sunnie. This is sick and it's wrong and you need to leave."

A firm knock at the door interrupted and Sunnie's heart broke.

She was out of time. Kim stood up and walked to answer it.

"I put your things back in your bags. Even the stolen ones. Your bra is in the backpack. They're by the door."

"Kim, don't do this."

"You deceived me. You can't be in my life."

She brushed past Sunnie and swung the door open. Two police officers crowded in front of it, standing thick and tall with practiced authority. They were substantial men, stocky and square with small features, beady eyes and no necks. The more senior one had darker skin and hair but neither could have been older than Kim. Both had the manicured style of military-types who never stopped fighting a war when they entered law enforcement. She met plenty of them. They were predators and proud, stoic in expression, at least until they got a load of Kim's tits.

"Whoa! Hello." Was it just one or the pair of them who said it?

"Miss uhhhh... Weber?" The older of them managed to look up first, noticing her red, wet eyes, then Sunnie over her shoulder, looking almost as much of a mess. The hairs on her arms and neck stood straight up and she couldn't tell if it was because they were cops or because of the way they sized her up.

"Carlyle. Yes."

Watching their eyes, Sunnie became acutely aware that neither her nor Kim were wearing a bra. The officers had also noticed.

"You called us about a domestic dispute?" the older one cleared his throat and spoke.

"Yes, my..."

"Girlfriend," Sunnie blurted out, stepping closer to the door. The officers tensed subtly and she froze, showing her hands.

"Sure, whatever. My girlfriend refuses to leave," Kim scowled back at her, crushing her soul with the trembling sadness of her eyes. "We broke up and she won't leave so I need you to take her." She turned back to the two men, finding them staring at her chest again. "Are you serious?!"

"Sorry ma'am. Your girlfriend?" He repeated it with skepticism and judgment, before looking at Sunnie. "How old are you, Miss?"

"Nineteen. Totally legal."

The officers exchanged glances so briefly she almost missed it. Kim narrowed her eyes, watching them.

"Why don't you come with us, Miss? Leave this nice lady alone."

"Kim, this is stupid. You don't want to do this. We were working it out. We were getting somewhere until they showed up. Let's finish talking and if you want me to go after that, you'll never have to see me again. But we aren't done."

"Calm down, Miss. Looks like you've talked plenty."

She glared daggers back, watching his posture change again. "Do you really need your hand on your fucking gun, cowboy? You calm down," Sunnie snapped. They were unphased. Maybe even excited that she might resist. Did their black eyes have whites to them?

Kim swallowed and averted her eyes. Over Sunnie's shoulder, they found focus again, noticing something. "You forgot your phone." She walked back into the living room, taking the long way between the couch and chairs to not pass by Sunnie too closely.

"You know what's going to happen if I go with them, Kim. I'm fucked."

Sunnie didn't know what would happen, but it was nothing good. There was a fear in her voice that she was usually much better at hiding. Could they arrest her for this?

Kim said nothing. She picked up the phone and unplugged it, before looking back at Sunnie and the two slabs of cold-eyed men standing behind her. Any woman could understand the discomfort of their attention and authority but her mother had to be more aware of it than most. Still, she did nothing and it stomped on the pieces of Sunnie's broken heart.

"I guess you're just going to abandon me again, huh?"

It was the meanest thing she could think of saying. She regretted it immediately. Kim looked up from the phone to her daughter, her full lips falling open while her head shrunk ever so slightly into her shoulders.

In the overcast light of the early morning, the phone's screen went from black to white, lighting up her face from beneath, bright enough to capture Kim's attention.

Her brow furrowed and she visibly bit her tongue. Why was it unlocked at all? Technology had changed so much since before she went to juve and these things were supposed to be locked until it recognized your face. Did they look that similar?

Everyone was silent, watching her and Kim began to scroll with her thumb. It was a cop who eventually interrupted. "Ma'am?"

Kim lifted her head and lowered the phone. "You were looking for RVs?"

Sunnie closed her eyes and her face and her whole body as much as she could to keep from breaking down, but the tears escaped, her back thankfully to the cops. "They're not that expensive." Her voice was on the verge of collapse. "I looked up what your house is worth too. If you sold this place and bought one, you'd have so much left over." She couldn't talk anymore. She sounded pathetic. She must've seemed hideous.

In the speckled darkness of her teary-eyes, hands took her shoulders. Arms wrapped around her and softness against her. Was this actually happening? Kim clutched, pulling her hard and desperately, trying to defy the bulk of their bodies with sheer strength. No death would be better than to be crushed by her.

Sunnie opened her eyes to the blurry sight of golden hair and she hugged her mother, squeezing back desperately. Her neck was wet with the hot mess of Kim's tears.

"I'm sorry." Kim was quiet and muffled but it was clear.

Sunnie couldn't relax. She couldn't let go. Not ever.

"I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have lied. It will never, ever happen again."

"Promise?"

"On my mother's good name."

Kim withdrew enough to see her tear-stained face clenched with the attempt to stifle a laugh as they held each other's shoulders. Sunnie's smile spread toothily, reaching its full, unrestrained glory before giving a playful, guilty wince.

"You're sick."

Sunnie closed her eyes and nodded. "Make me better."

Kim's hands fell to hold Sunnie by the arms as she looked back at the officers, still standing in the doorway. Sunnie didn't want to look away from her mother, hoping the police would just disappear and leave them alone.

Whatever impatience they'd had at the situation, only some of the stoicism had given way to keen interest in the two women's embrace.

"I'm sorry for the bother. I think we're good here." Kim shifted her stance but didn't relax her grasp.

Sunnie's lips poured over each other in what must've been the most pathetic, wet, closed-mouth smile she'd ever smiled. She couldn't help it. She didn't want to.

"Are you sure, Ma'am? It's no trouble to take her away."

"I'm sure."

"Want us to wait, in case you change your mind?" It was the younger one who spoke up. Was this the first time he'd made a noise?

"No. That's alright. I'm sorry for the false alarm. I was... emotional." Kim said sharply. Anyone who wasn't a psychopath would have been emotional, but Sunnie recognized the deliberate, feminine deference to stroke the egos of the brutes, hopefully into leaving without a fuss. The older one glared at his partner while he nodded in response.

"Sure thing, Ma'am. Call us if you change your mind." He didn't have to physically pull the other one with him but he lagged with noticeable reluctance. Kim only then let her go, hurrying to the door to close it before they got off the porch. She turned and slumped against the wall and Sunnie rushed back into her arms.

"Why were you looking at RVs?"

Sunnie pulled back enough to look her mother in the eyes.

"Because we were talking about it. Hashtag vanlife, remember? There's no reason this can't be our lives."

"That's crazy for so many reasons."

"No it's not. It's fucking brilliant. You figured everything out already. You don't have to live your life as a pariah, getting judged by these suburban, HOA losers. You just have to do it and you're living the dream." Her voice faltered again with what felt like a ball in her throat. She sighed and looked down, as if she could see the ground and not a wall of smashed-together breasts in cheap tee-shirts. "Even if you send me packing, you'd be stupid not to do it."