RED SOX: Thank God they are finally home from that horrible road trip.
FIBBING: Okay, I lied but I didn't mean to. Last time I said this story would be completed in Part 4. However, due to creative circumstance beyond my control the story needs a Part 5. Sorry. I promise never to promise an ending again until I'm at the ending.
Part 4
Dakota slammed the gate of the elevator closed. Slapping at the button for the loft and missing only fueled her fury. She punched and smacked the panel until the face piece snapped into a thousand shards of splintered plastic. Her knuckles bled but she didn't stop her tirade until the elevated thudded into place at her floor. Grabbing the gate with throbbing fingers she shoved it back with a sickening shriek of metal sheering off its tread.
"Fucking piece of shitty junk," she shouted as she kicked the gate out of her way. "Fucking fucker…,"
Her breath was coming in short gasps from her violent efforts. Feeling strangled, she reached up and fumbled with the buckle of the collar. Succeeding only in loosening it, Dakota gripped the worn leather and tore it free. She hurled the pieces across the room with the last of her strength and fell to the floor in a wretched heap.
The sobbing came then. It emerged from her with each exhalation. Softly at first but growing steadily stronger, it was worse than any infant's famished cry. Her grief came from deep within her. From the pit in her belly that she tried to fill with excess; sex, booze, drugs, pain. Somehow, though, that pit only sunk further down in an endless internal collapse of her own self esteem.
"When will it end?" Dakota weakly muttered to the empty space around her. "When will I forget?"
She lay still then on the floor. Her chest heaved with that familiar ache. Her only friend through her entire miserable existence. She cried the same bitter tears she shed the day he violated her. Nothing had changed in the last twenty years. She still hurt inside from the memory just as much as with the act. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks until she finally cried herself to sleep.
"WAKE UP!"
Dakota bolted upright from the noisy shout in her dream. She was all alone. Still laying on the floor of her loft. Her head pounded with a relentless post cry hammering.
"Aspirin," she muttered as she rolled to her knees. "Need aspirin and whiskey…," the sight before her stopped her mumbles in mid sentence.
The painting was finished. The sunset was the same. The calm blue sea was the same. But, the burning cross was now occupied by the man with the flowing robes. And, the naked little girl was missing from the scene.
Dakota crossed the room to stand before the art. She reached out a shaky hand and touched the surface.
"Dry."
Her mind raced with impossible thoughts. The canvas could not be dry if she had made the changes in some catatonic haze brought on by her grief. It took days for it to dry after her last attempt to complete it.
"This is not possible…,"
Dakota shook her head and rubbed her eyes but the painting remained unchanged. Stepping up for a closer look, she was startled to realize the crucified man was not yet dead. His body was in the throws of trying to pull up for a breath.
"She doesn't know he's dead," Dakota whispered. "Deidre thinks he's still alive."
Stumbling back from the work, Dakota panicked when she realized the natural light from the skylight above her head was dimming. It would be dusk soon. Shadows would be cast.
"Oh no," Dakota ran toward the stairwell, "Kierce is alone at his house. Deidre's gonna kill her."
