Rag Doll Ch. 03

"Just remember, from now on, you're a couple, Nicky and Ashley, not brother and sister; you can't juggle two identities and hope to keep them straight indefinitely, one of you will make a slip. I suppose the fact that you have different names, and you're obviously English, Nicky, means nobody is going to make any connections between you two other than the obvious. Just make sure you keep quiet about who you really are, Nicky. That goes for you, too, young lady!" She shot at Judy, who nodded wordlessly, obviously wishing she was anywhere but here right now.

We both nodded wordlessly. Was that it? Was she really that accepting? I was confused, and I'm sure Ashley was; we were her children, and we'd been caught in the aftermath of a sexual encounter, and this was all she wanted to do about it? In all the possible scenario's I'd concocted, all the openings I'd considered giving myself to tell her about us, this situation here had never occurred as a possibility, and I was mentally gasping for air.

Ashley was the first to speak.

"Mom, do you really mean it? You're gonna let me and Nicky go on together?"

Mother grinned wryly.

"I can't see a way to stop it, not without driving both of you away! I don't like it, I really hate it, but I like the thought of losing you both even less, so this is how it has to be. Don't you dare let me down!"

She looked thoughtful for a second. "I suppose, if you'd grown up together, it would have seemed wrong, more wrong than it is, anyway, but Nicky's grown into a considerate, caring young man, not at all like Brian Davis, and he obviously cares for you, so that kind of takes some of the worry out of it for me. It could have been worse, much worse. This way, at least, my kids are happy; I think I'll come to accept it, just don't expect me to dance for joy just yet!"

Something she'd said had caught my attention.

"Mother, who's Brian Davis?" I asked her, wondering what he had to do with all this. Mother looked at me strangely, like I was simple. "He's your father, of course Nick, why are you asking such a silly question?"

It was my turn to look strangely at her. "My father's name is Robert Davies; my surname is Davies, look!" I pulled out my UK Driving License and showed her how my name was spelled.

"Go get your birth certificate, Nicky, I want to show you something!" she said, so I went and rummaged through my flight bag, and came back with the package Barbara had given me. I looked at my passport, my new US passport, and sure enough, my name was spelled Davis, as it was on my birth certificate. I hadn't noticed the different spelling; other than admiring my US passport and noting the part on my Birth Certificate that stated where I was born, I'd completely overlooked the different spelling to what I'd always believed was my surname.

I looked at her in confusion. "What's going on, mother?" I asked her.

Mother looked at me sorrowfully. "This is how your father hid you from me all those years; with a simple name change! His name is Brian Davis, he was born in Wrexham, in North Wales, and he grew up in Coventry, in the English Midlands. All your father did was add one letter to your surname and use his middle name; I've been searching for the wrong name for the last 18 years!"

She was in tears now, thinking of how she'd been misled by my father's deviousness and petty revenge-taking. He'd changed our name so she could never find me, which was just one more thing I had to pay him back for.

Ashley shifted uncomfortably, wanting to comfort her mother, but not knowing if she'd allow that just yet. I had no such qualms; my mother was crying, and this business with Ashley and I was on-hold for now, as far as I was concerned, so I put my arm around her and held her while she cried silently for the years taken from her with a simple trick.

I wondered at the mental state of a man prepared to take such a petty, and yet ultimately so profound a revenge on a woman his own rage and abuse had driven into the arms of another man. Even if mother had looked for us in Coventry, or the surrounding Midlands, she'd have drawn a blank; I grew up in Carlisle, in the far North-West of England, in the Scottish borderlands, hundreds of miles from Coventry, or Wrexham, or any of the surrounding areas she might have tried looking.

Eventually she stopped, fishing out a tissue from her purse and wiping her eyes, looking at me sorrowfully. "I tried to find you Nicky, I really did, now I know why I couldn't. I'm sorry, baby!"

I remembered a random factoid I'd read once when googling my name, that 'Davies' was the 6th commonest surname in the UK, and I realised my father had chosen to alter his name for precisely that reason; that any search would turn up hundreds of thousands, maybe a million people with the same name.

Judy stirred. "If it's OK with everyone, I'll just leave now..." she began, but a glance from mother nailed her back into her seat. "Wait there please, Judy, I'll get round to you in a minute!"

Now Ashley spoke.

"Mom, why did Nicky's dad leave you, and what does daddy have to do with all this?"

Mother looked resigned, as though she'd been waiting for this question, and was relieved it had finally been asked.

"Honey, when I was married to...Brian, I was only eighteen, younger than you are now. He was much older than me, almost twenty-eight, and my parents objected, but I loved him, so I married him anyway. After we were married, I discovered what kind of man he was, how violent he could be, what he was capable of. He...assaulted me, many times, and each time I'd leave him, but then he'd come and plead with me and promise not to do it again. I'd go back to him, and things would be fine, for a while, then he'd do it again."

"Nicky was born the first year we were married, when I was nineteen. Brian was becoming worse; he was dealing with some scary, shady people, and he'd bring them to the house, and there'd be arguments and shouting; on top of that, his fits of rage lasted longer, and came more often, especially when a deal with one of those people fell through or went wrong, and he'd take it out on me, over and over again, until I'd had enough. I met a good man, he was younger than Brian, only a little older than me, but he became a good friend, my best friend, and eventually I couldn't help it, I fell in love with him."

"I didn't love Brian any more, he and his 'business associates' frightened me, and I wanted to stay with James all the time, he was a better father to Nicky than Brian, so I left Brian and moved in with James, your father, honey, and asked Brian for a divorce. He refused, until I told him I was pregnant. He decided that he wanted nothing more to do with me, but that he wanted his son to live with him. I refused, and he made...threats, against me, against your father, against Nicky, threats I knew he was capable of carrying out, so I insisted we let a court decide."

"Brian petitioned for sole custody, but the court awarded us joint custody, with Nicky residing with me during the week, and with his father on weekends and public holidays; we had a visitation schedule drawn up and had it approved by the court, and at first, all went well. Then one day, when Brian had Nicky as part of his custody, he called me and said that Nicky was his, and he was taking what was his, and put the phone down."

"When James and I went to get Nicky back, the house was empty and he'd gone. I had no clue where he'd gone except that he'd most likely gone back to England, but I could never turn up a clue as to his whereabouts. Now I know why!"

Her tears began again, and I hugged her to me again.

At last I had the whole story of who I was and where I came from, and my heart was breaking for my mother; she'd lost so much, had so much go wrong for her, and now this, with Ashley and me. I should hang my head in shame for what I'd done. I was lucky indeed that my mother was human enough to recognise what Ashley and I had, and gentle enough to keep us all together any way she could. This was my family now, all of it, and I would never again do anything to hurt any of them, but especially mother; she'd had enough loss and grief and pain in her life already.

Ashley was silently weeping at the story, the full realisation of what mother had gone through hitting her, and when I held out my arm for her, she crept into the crook of it, burying her head in my shoulder as I hugged both of the women in my life close to me.

Eventually mother stirred and dried her eyes, passing Ashley a tissue so she could dry hers too. Now that everything was out in the open, the atmosphere lightened considerably, and I was able to leave and get dressed properly. Ashley followed me out, her hand finding mine, and mother didn't say anything.

When we'd dressed, we came back into the living room; mother and Judy still sat in the same places, waiting for us to return. Ashley rescued Judy, taking her into her room and closing the door, leaving mother and me some privacy while we talked.

Mother looked at me sadly, her voice soft, almost pleading.

"Nicky, this whole business here, you and Ashley, why didn't you just tell me? I wouldn't have understood any more than I do now, but at least you'd have come and stood in front of me and told me to my face. Catching you like that was the worst feeling in the world, like I was spying on my kids!"

I hung my head in shame at that. We'd planned how to tell her, and the exact thing we didn't to happen, for her to catch us red-handed, had happened.

I cleared my throat, and tried to explain.

"We'd decided to tell you, mother, truly, we were just waiting for what seemed like a good opening. I've already had this conversation with Ashley, and I told her then how bad it made me feel that we were hiding from you. If you'd asked me outright, I wouldn't have been able to lie to you, I'm no good at that..."

She looked at me steadily, then reached out and gently lifted my chin, raising my head to look into my eyes.

"Right now, I'm feeling very confused, angry, a little sad, and a lot disturbed by all this. I want you to go out, both of you, be gone for a few hours while I get my head round this. Can you do that for me? Just give me some time to think about this, please, I promise I won't go back on what I said, but I really need to be alone here right now. Will you do that for me Nicky?"

I took her hand in mine, squeezed it gently.

"We can do that, sure, are you sure you'll be OK?" I asked her.

She smiled back at me. "Yes, I'll be fine, Nicky, I just need to be alone for a while, just some time to think about how our family's going to work. One thing, Nicky..."

I looked at her. "Yes Mother?"

"You will...be careful with Ashley, won't you?" she asked me almost fearfully, "she's had so much to deal with for so long, please promise me you won't hurt her, she's been hurt too many times already..."

I took my mother's hands in mine. "Mother, I swear to you, Ashley is the only thing I want in this world; I will never do anything to hurt her, or make her doubt me. I know I'm still only young, but I've never been so sure of anything in my life. I love her, and wherever I go, I'm not going without her!"

Mother looked deeply into my eyes for a few seconds longer, then smiled and patted my hand.

"I believe you. Now go, take Ashley with you, and poor Judy, I think I've terrified her out of a year's growth! Be back in time for lunch, OK?"

I nodded. "Whatever you say, mother, or we could grab lunch somewhere, give you a bit more time...?"

She shook her head. "No, I want to have lunch with my children." I grinned and went to collect Ashley and Judy.

"Nicky..?" called mother, and I turned back to her. "Yes mother?"

"Why don't you call me 'mom'?" she asked, a quizzical smile on her face.

I smiled sheepishly back. "I feel weird saying 'mom', it doesn't fit my accent, it sounds phony when I say it, like I'm mocking you, and 'mum' probably sounds just as strange to you!" I said, watching her answering grin.

"Call me 'mum', then Nicky, 'Mother' sounds so...stilted, formal, you know what I mean?"

I nodded and grinned, just glad that we could still talk normally after the morning's revelations. "OK, mum!" and she grinned back.

We took Judy's car and headed to the nearest golden arches, Judy giving a sigh of relief as we left the house.

"I am so glad to be out of there! Next time, remind me not to be so fucking smug, I nearly fainted when your mom walked in the door, and when she asked where you were, I...kind of told her. Look, I couldn't help it, OK? She's just not the kind of person I can lie to...!"

We sat in a corner booth in the fast-food joint after we'd ordered and picked up our breakfasts. While the girls were finishing their coffee's I ducked into the mens room, and when I came out two high-school boys were lounging at the booth, leering over Ashley and Judy. I noticed Ashley was flushing scarlet at whatever was being said to her, so I ghosted up behind them to hear for myself.

The taller of the two was dressed expensively, but badly, a lot of money had been spent on his clothes but he didn't wear them well, and as I came up I heard him say to her "I think you should come with me and my friend here, everyone knows about you, what you are, but if you're nice to us, we'll be nice to you, both of you. How 'bout it, Rag Doll, you wanna fuck?"

OK, that did it. I clamped my hand over the back of his neck and squeezed, hard, while I smacked his friend in the crotch just hard enough for him to lose interest in things for a while; playing rugby for five years has its advantages....

"Who's this fuck-wit, Darling?" I asked, and she looked at him with cold anger in her eyes. "His name's Bobby Czyzyck, he's a dick!"

I swung Bobby round to face me, and smiled brightly at him.

"Is that right Bobby, are you a dick? Tell you what, you apologise to the nice young lady, you say 'I'm very sorry for being a little dick, Miss Lowry', and I won't kick you 'til your eye-sockets bleed, does that sound reasonable?"

Bobby gabbled out an apology, and then I frogmarched him outside and into the alleyway by the side of the restaurant, turned him round and gave him a kick in the plums that made two little lumps pop up on top of his head. As his eyes crossed and he started to fold over, I gave him an open-handed slap that spun him round and sent him flying into a pile of what looked suspiciously like dogshit. I stood over him and waited until the retching stopped and I'd got his complete attention, then spoke to him.

"Now you listen to me, you little dog's cock; if you come within fifty feet of Ashley again, or look at her, or say anything to her, or try and breathe the same air as her, I promise that I will come and find you and fuck you up, and if you or anybody, doesn't matter who, touches her, I'll chop off your fingers. Think how stupid you'll look, doing up your zipper with your teeth for the rest of your life, and how will you ever jerk-off again? Do we have an understanding here, Bobby? He nodded fearfully, trying to look like he wasn't about to piss himself. Then I had an idea from a film I'd once seen, I think it was 'Goodfella's'.

"Give me your wallet, Bobby. Come on, hand it over!"

He lurched to his feet and passed over his wallet and I took out his driver's license, tossing his wallet back to him.

"OK Bobby, now I know where you live, I can come and find you anytime I like. Remember what I told you; if I turn up on your doorstep, it's because you did something to bring me there, so be very careful what you do, what you say, or where you go." Hollywood definitely has all the best lines...

He lunged at me, trying to grab his license back, and I dodged him, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and rammed his face a few times against the wall, not too hard, just enough to split his lip, abrade him enough to leave a nice reminder, and possibly knock a few teeth loose, then spun him around and tripped him back into that same pile of dogshit; as he lay there, the front of his designer jeans darkened; it really wasn't turning out to be his day. I stood over him and nudged him with my foot.

"That was stupid, and pointless, don't ever try that again!" I told him pleasantly. "Remember, now I know where you live, I can come and have a little chat with you any time I want, would you like that, Bobby?" I watched the colour drain from his face, and he shook his head vehemently, little weasel eyes darting around in fear.

"Good," I said, "Now we understand each other perfectly. We're communicating, isn't that nice. One more thing, you little maggot; never speak to or go near Ashley Lowry ever again, or any of her friends. That goes for you or any of your little maggot friends. If any of your pus-bag little boyfriends want to talk to me, send them over; when I've finished with them, I'll come and find you. I think we're going to be such close friends, Bobby, I'm looking forward to getting to know you really well. Oh, and remember, if you put your bastard's breath in my girl's face again, I'll cut your face off and use it to wipe my arse, you hear me? Anything happens to Ashley, anyone makes her unhappy, anyone says anything out of turn, it's going to be your fault, and I'm going to come and find you. She stays happy, you stay healthy, got that?" He nodded, thoroughly cowed. Good.

No, of course I wasn't going to hurt him; I wouldn't know how, I'm a mechanic, not a thug, and I'm certainly not my father; his response would have been to beat this boy into a body-cast, and for all that he was an obnoxious, stupid, spoiled little prick, he was still only a boy. No, my usual response to major confrontation is to run in the direction of 'away', sobbing like little Suzie. But he didn't know that; for a bluff, it worked pretty well, though, and now, Ashley had a protector, someone who thought their own survival depended on keeping everyone else off her back, forever. I love it when everything goes right for a change...

I went back into the restaurant, where Bobby's sidekick was still hunched over in his own private world of pain. I pulled him upright by the hair just in front of his ear, and he stared at me with wide, frightened eyes.

"Your boyfriend's lying down in the alleyway, go and pick him up, just be careful where you put your hands, he's covered in dogshit, and I think he's pissed himself. What I told him goes for you as well, so I don't ever want to see your face again, and neither do these ladies, understood?"

He quickly nodded, one step away from crying with fear, which was quite gratifying for me; I'd only ever been in three fights in my life, and I lost two of them...

I escorted him out, and sent him on his way with a ringing slap to the back of his head as a reminder, making him stumble as he walked away to retrieve Bobby.

I was getting the 'my hero' vibe from Ashley, and even Judy took my arm when we left, so I walked out of there pleased as Punch, with two pretty girls on my arm; if I'd grinned any wider the top half of my head would have fallen off!

As we walked back to the car, I asked Ashley what the story was with this Bobby character. She was reticent at first, but with Judy prompting her I finally got the basic story. After the rape, when she'd finally gone back to school, this Bobby creep had started pestering her, gradually getting more and more aggressive in his approach, making no bones about his intentions.

The fact that he was a low-forehead shambling idiot with the IQ of a bowling ball hadn't deterred him. Most of the girls in the school had been on the receiving end of his attentions at one time or another, his step-father's money shielding him from any major repercussions so far. Judy had once given him the knee, but Ashley had been a particular target of his, and he'd been at her constantly for two years now.