Predator (3 page)
One down, one more parent to go; and his life would be under control once again. Life as an orphan, especially without Dad, beguiled him – a life out of the shadows.
He’d never blamed Florence for leaving the house and moving in with her friend. Perhaps she knew something more about the circumstances of Mom’s death. Although Florence had been very young then, she had always been brilliant and knew stuff. She now had an IT job and could take care of herself.
Florence, now ‘Salmonella’, had always hated her Dad. When Mom was alive, the siblings had an unspoken pact that while Chris would be around for Joe, Florence would be Mom’s solace, and together they’d present a happy-family façade for society. She couldn’t bear to see her Mom’s agony, while the complete-waste-of-space, their asshole of a father, delighted in it.
The years of living in the shambles of domestic violence had made her strong as steel. Now, dealing with the four-letter word ‘life’, was a piece of cake.
Joe’s wife had died under mysterious circumstances and Salmonella had moved out. Chris was disappointed and sad. Selfish woman, he thought. He hated her for leaving him alone with Joe.
The moment Salmonella stepped out of the house that fateful night, Chris felt like a mouse trapped in a cage full of cheese. The only ray of hope in his life had cut her ties with their dysfunctional family.
Chris turned into a frosty snowman while Joe became the powerful God that the stupid townsfolk loved. He hated this hick-town where everybody knew everybody. Chris decided he’d be the coolest dude around, so cool that if he were to get any cooler, he’d freeze over and die of hypothermia.
The years had rushed by since that fateful night and it was soon to be the 18 October again. Death Metal blared on his Internet radio as his iPad popped messages from his girlfriends. Chris decided to have a bath. The cool water from the jet-spray trickled down his body and made him feel human again.
He stepped out of the shower and looked at himself in the mirror. He saw a handsome, athletic man, the most eligible bachelor in town. His strong biceps glowed and the symbolic tattoo on his bulging chest made him look menacing. His deeply tanned and chiselled body with the great six-pack made him an altogether perfect Adonis. He let his hand rove over his chest and smiled. He was a good-looking, suave and sophisticated dude who women just loved to love.
Good education had taught him to camouflage the true persona beneath his sun-kissed skin. He was the proverbial God’s gift to women. Joe, the almighty God of the vineyard, had grown a lot older now, burning like a candle at both the ends and inching ever closer to death with every breath. Chris was now the new God in town.
He missed his mother momentarily, but more than her presence, in his twisted mind, he missed watching her convulse and groan in pain on her deathbed. The pleasure of watching her agony was far greater than the satisfaction he’d felt after shredding Florence’s doll. Maybe his mother was being punished by the heavens for bringing Chris into the world.
‘You’ve grown up to become just like Dad! Maybe worse, you’re falling into an abyss, you’re so evil,’ Florence had once yelled at him. He’d retorted, ‘No, sister, I’m your cute, li’l brother. I’m just a piece of you!’
Chris had felt a sudden violent urge to rip out Salmonella’s tongue and nail it to the wall before banging her head on the hard floor over and over again till her skull split open and the brains spilled out. Maybe he should have done her instead of the Barbie Doll that night.
With age, Chris had matured enough to mask his feelings with an enigmatic scowl. After all, education had taught him to be nice. Life had taught him to be cruel. It was people who had turned him evil.
Chris briefly glanced at his diamond-studded Rolex. It was almost six in the evening. He had to pick up that witch of a sister for the high-school reunion. He’d volunteered to pick up Salmonella only because Grace would be there with her. If not, he’d have chosen to bury his sister alive in some godforsaken place that would have been just right to suffocate the bitch.
He would have then watched Salmonella’s limbs thrash in a shallow grave, and her death throes would have taught her a salutary lesson to never yell, especially at Chris. Of course, watching her feeble struggles would have given him the highest adrenaline rush.
The bond between him and Salmonella went far beyond any sibling attachment. He could never quite put a finger on it, but she could make him do just about anything she wanted. It was much more than a normal brother-sister relationship. It was not love; she controlled and manipulated him like a puppeteer. But just why this was, was something he could never fathom.
You let him in, you didn’t take care
,
Lost in your world, You walked into the Predator’s lair
;
Caught in a web of lies, you never gave it a thought
,
Now you’ll die in here, I’ll let your body rot!
Here comes the Devil with the apostles of doom
,
Rot my butterfly, huddled beneath a cloud of gloom
Touch that cell phone again, will you ever dare?
The Predator’s your thought police, you’d better beware!
—The Predator
The Party Venue
Joe had graciously given his permission to let Chris arrange the college reunion soirée at their own vineyard. Graciosity or business savvy? Chris was convinced, it was hard-ass, conniving, business acumen. The student network and social media at this party would make their vineyard’s wine all the more popular that night and take Joe’s very own nectar of the gods to yet another level of the deadly sins – covetousness. His jackass friends – they seriously needed lives – would provide all the free publicity for the ‘awesome’ Shiraz Cabernet all over their geek sites on the world-wide web. Perfect timing for his sly sire, with the wine competition in the offing. His Dad was a cunning bastard!
Salmonella’s intense loathing for her father had baffled Chris at times. He could see she couldn’t stand the sight of Joe. But why? Perhaps their misogynistic papa was yet to evolve ideas of feminine emancipation … but perhaps it was something else altogether that ticked Salmonella off. Oh well.
With customary pettiness, and the universal one-upmanship of sibling rivalry, Chris counted himself fortunate indeed to be male, and to have had the dubious honour of having taken a leak alongside the pater. ‘Betcha, Florence could never do that!’ he gloated as he doused himself with the overpowering Gucci cologne. He carefully extracted the new Armani suit from the cupboard. He had had it handmade and flown in from Paris just for the alumni do tonight.
The phone and his mobile gadgets were beeping, buzzing and burring like crazy with calls and notifications for Mr Popular. Chris chose to ignore them. His strategy of always staying slightly aloof had paid off. His enigmatic air worked like a charm on the females of his species, and seemed to make him all the more irresistible.
Following his mother’s death, all their lives had changed perceptibly. Joe had become elusive and completely wrapped up with his winery business and weird, bordering on the occult, hobbies; and Salmonella, she had abandoned the ship like a renegade rat, surrendered her frivolous, overindulged lifestyle – and, hopefully, her share of the inheritance as well – in pursuit of what … a nerdy career.
‘Women … pah!’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Although’, to give the devil his due, (in this case ‘demi-God’, no less!), Chris was brutally honest in these soliloquies, ‘some make for damn good big-game hunting.’ He donned his suit and deftly knotted the silk tie. ‘What was her definition of a good life? She should have stayed; I’d have taught her to be like me, a skin over another skin – one self for oneself, and another, for rest of the world. Christ … what a loser!’
Chris was narcissistically pleased with his reflection in the mirror. He saw his father’s heir – the new God. Smarter, better, meaner. It was the reflection of the next wine baron.
Ever since Chris had met Salmonella’s beautiful friend, Grace, he was in love … oh, alright then … obsessed. He craved to be with her as she seemed impervious to his meticulously cultivated charm. She piqued his predatory instincts and posed a challenge he’d never encountered before. He wanted to prove (to himself and her) that it was he – the orchestrator, the puppet-master and the greatest manipulator ever! – who did the controlling; he was the one who’d decide when to reel in, and when to let go … and tonight would be the night.
There were times, albeit just a few, when Chris was drunk or doped or both, he’d contemplated proposing to Grace. Sanity had returned to her throne with alacrity. There was always good sex available in truckloads from easy, oh, so easy, brainless bimbos that he picked up using the constellations of social media applications of the Internet universe.
The stock market had flat-lined with the stagflation – but who gave a damn – his job title as a high profile, investment banker only made him the beast God of the bulls and the bears. To the venal Venusians this was yet another trump card in his repertoire.
Yuppie women, mostly the rich, married and bored out of their pea-sized brains, who spent their time on random pursuits of escapism on the internet game sites, were only too eager to send him requests, post messages on his virtual wall and even strip for him on webcam.
Sex with these needy airheads was a brilliant career investment for Chris, and they’d promptly repay his expertise by convincing their fat-wallet husbands to channel their share-trades through Chris. He was financially independent of his pernicious progenitor, and was the provider of sexual and emotional healing to all the frustrated nymphomaniacs out there who treated him like God. Although it was a parasitic existence, it added up to a splendid lifestyle, with mind-blowing sex and all the trappings of wealth and power. He had everything … well, almost everything … but for the elusive Grace!
‘Move over, Dad! The new God has arrived,’ muttered Chris to himself as he re-brushed the gelled hair and fastidiously dusted invisible specks off his shoulders. The gleam in his eyes was more evil than divine. Whatever, God or Devil, he was the man tonight!
He grabbed his keys and phone, and shut the door behind him. His beautiful, brand new Honda SUV, purred, growled, and then roared into life.
Easing out of the driveway, Chris hit the road, and let his mind drift into a fantasy. There was Grace, stark naked on the bed, waiting to be held in his arms. Reverie and reality melded and seemed to superimpose each on the other; he could almost feel and hear his desire for Grace in the muted roar of the beast under his Honda’s hood. He could hear her soft, sensual moans as he slowed down for a speed bump. Then he scowled as the image faded. He wondered why life contained speed bumps like his pal Derek.
Cruising down the wide street, Chris reminded himself, an almost mantra-like list of do’s and don’ts, to keep the beast within locked, in check, and out of sight.
His mind raced ahead, ticking check boxes as he reviewed his game plan. The plan for the moment was to be the ultimate charming host, pick up Grace and ferry her to the vineyard in time for the shindig. Sex could wait for he could summon those skills at will. For Grace to fall in love with him, he would need to play a complex mind game.
The psychosis of the demi-God made him blissfully oblivious to Grace’s young dreams and desires. Perhaps, that was the reason she remained a pursuit, never to be a conquest.
Chris had perceived his relationship with his father as another ongoing board game or battle that he was dead set on winning. He intended to prove to Joe that he was a man – The Man – and not merely his wimpy son as he deluded himself. This was a game not of the heart, but of the mind, a battle of wits. Chris reasoned that even Facebook says, ‘what’s on your mind?’ – it doesn’t really want to know or care what’s in your heart.
Jonathan’s World
The massive acreage was originally a mango orchard, and Joe had expanded it to cultivate apricots and even flowers. The grapevines had started off as a mere experiment, and were amazingly successful. His hybrid vine variety were innovations in India. His wife had been dead against it, and said the Devil’s brew would ruin his family. ‘The dumb bitch’, he cursed her under his breath as he looked across the vast expanse of the vineyard. She had never understood what a passion for grapes meant to him, a connoisseur.