Sibirskaia: Your Local Twelve O'Clock News Part 2
Your Local Twelve O'Clock News Weather
(November 26th)
Just past noon.
A television buzzed upon a cluttered kitchen counter. And from its screen shown the dark and disheveled mugshot of a wolf...while, over it, spoke a calm, metered, and professional voice.
A newscaster, reporting, "...including sexual assault, statutory rape, kidnapping, child abuse, and child molestation."
Previously filmed footage replaced the mugshot. Vehicles passed in front of a sign reading 'Brooksboro Middle School'. Police cars congregated before a school administration building. A football team trained on a practice field. A locker room lay empty.
But the reporter's voice remained, "A spokesman for the Sakhalin County Sheriff's Department has disclosed that it was a student who first came forward with the accusations, reporting the claims to a school resource officer. Since then, five other children have made similar accusations, and the police suspect that DNA testing may link Mr. Sutela to even more unsolved cases."
Feet from the buzzing screen, a grilled sandwich was lifted from a panini press, carried by the white furred paw of a female husky, as her eyes shifted, again and again, between it and the television...
...where the stock footage gave way to the image of the reporter -- a ferret -- with his name in bold block letters beneath him: Jerry McCollough. "School district officials declined to speak on camera," Jerry went on, "but, in a written statement, had this to say:"
But she couldn't listen to anything more. And Robyn Kharski -- the husky so recently known as Robyn Masters -- hastily switched off the set.
Somewhere, was her husband watching the same report? Might it finally make him see?
No. Of course not.
Because he was blind to this, wasn't he? He'd made that more than clear these past two months. He couldn't see the dangers of the world. The dangers to his own son. The predators lurking in the shadows, whom he so willingly let Elliot expose himself to. No. He was blind to it. And not even a hundred different reports on a hundred different ravenous wolves would change that.
But she could see it. And this was the truth of the world beyond her walls. No matter what her husband, or his brother and their new rabbit friends, believed. No matter what certainties Elliot and those he'd gotten himself involved with felt they had.
These were the dangers that awaited her son. Her fourteen-year-old son. The dangers which he, his father, his uncle, and all their friends so gleefully invited upon him, by supporting such careless promiscuity. The dangers no one seemed to believe were real...
...and the dangers which, in fact, he had already faced.
No one else would protect him. No one else would keep him safe. No one-
From the corner of her eye she caught a flash of black and white, en route for the front door. Not again. She spun and marched from the kitchen, past doors, and archways, and stairs. This wasn't happening again. And in the entry way, at last, she caught her son slipping into a coat.
"You're not even going to say goodbye?"
Elliot winced at the sound of her voice, freezing for a short moment -- half way in and half way out of the coat -- before pulling it the rest of the way on. Dressed, he turned to face his mother, his eyes set and lip curled in a scowl.
It was an expression she was used to, though. "Didn't we just talk about this, the other day, Elliot?"
Three days ago, in fact. Saturday. After she'd gone up to find his room empty, she'd considered calling the police. And his father. But she waited, and she gave him the chance to come home on his own. And he had.
"Yeah," he huffed, "and you told me not to sneak out, again. So I'm not sneaking! I'm walking right out the front door where you can see me."
Robyn simply sighed. He was provoking her. She understood that, and she even understood why. But a fight was the last thing she wanted, and she offered him a soft little smile, instead, "You know, if you stay...you could come eat with me. I'm making you lunch right now and it-"
"I can eat out, Mom," he cut her off...
...and at once, her resolve to avoid the fight broke, as she snapped: "Oh yeah? And how are you going to be paying for that? You don't have any money."
"God! Really?" Elliot howled. "So now I'm not just a fag, but I'm a thief, too!? Wanna' go check your purse before I leave? Make sure everything's still there?"
And, again, she sighed, lowering her forehead into her paw, "That's not what I meant, Elliot."
He shook his head, though, through a growl, "Look: they offered, okay? I'm covered. Are we good now?"
No. Of course they weren't. They hadn't been good for a while...
...and hesitantly, Robyn motioned back toward the kitchen, "They're paninis. I know how much you like those."
"Mom!" he barked. "They're waiting on me. I need to go."
And, with every moment her frustration stacked, and more and more, it bled through in her voice: "So, can I at least expect you to be here for Thanksgiving, on Thursday?" But her frustration aside, she was shameless. And she was begging, "I bought a ham just for you, you know."
She knew her son. No matter how he might feel, he wasn't cruel. He wouldn't just disregard her pleas. And, sure enough...
...Elliot averted his eyes. "I don't know. I'll think about it."
But, of course, that was not the response she'd hoped for, "Oh how generous of you. But it's something you have to think about? Where else would you go?"
"I have a few invitations," he shrugged.
"You DO know," Robyn amended, "that your grandparents are coming down, too, right? They'd really like to see you."
"Yeah! Because that's gonna' convince me to show up for Thanksgiving!" he shook his head through a dark, sarcastic laugh. "They hate dad and Will more than you ever have. And sitting around listening to them badmouth my father really sounds like a wonderful holiday, Mom!"
Finally, her scowl matched his own, "So, is that where you're going, today, then?"
"What?"
"Out with your father. Or William?"
"Of course not. I'm not that stupid, and neither are they!" Elliot tapped himself on the chest to say: "I know you better than that. We all do! They'd be in handcuffs for kidnapping me before we could even say hi."
"Okay," she crossed her arms as she demanded: "well then who ARE you going out with?"
"None of your business!"
"You're my son." Robyn clarified for emphasis: "My fourteen-year-old son! It damn sure IS my business, Elliot."
"It's a friend, okay?" he tossed up his paws. "A friend. Can I go, now?"
"No!" she snapped. "You know? I don't think you're going anywhere!"
But Elliot met her refusal with a crescendo of laughter, "And you're gonna' stop me? What are you gonna' do? Hold me down? Lock me in my room?"
It stung. It stung to know that this mocking, victorious elation...was the first real smile she'd seen him show, in months. But she pushed the sting aside. This was more important...
...and she countered, "Or I could call the police the second you step out the door..."
"Oh! Oh please do! PLEASE!" her son's eyes grew wide as his paws clapped together in mock prayer. "Please call the police! Let's get it on record that you're keeping me prisoner here, or...or no! Even better! That you've completely lost control over me. Maybe then, they'd send me back to dad!"
And to that, Robyn sat stunned. What could she say?
"So what'll it be?" he asked, as he lowered his paws. "Wanna' get the law involved? Or do you wanna' let me go see my fuckin' friends?"
"Watch your mouth, Elliot!" she barked.
"No! I'll say -- and do -- what the fuck ever I please! You've already gotten your way. I already can't see my dad because of you!" Elliot, again, tossed up his paws, "Isn't that enough? Or do you really have to take my friends away from me, too!?"
She was poised to answer, immediately. She would explain to him, once again, how none of this was punishment. How she was protecting him. How his friends were a dangerous and unhealthy influence on his life. How she loved him and only wanted the best. But before she could even open her muzzle...
...the sharp electronic tone of a cell phone notification -- a text message -- hit her ear. But how? She'd taken Elliot's phone away over a week ago.
"What was that?" she asked...
...as her son's paw clasped tight over his pocket, "Something that doesn't belong to you."
"That wasn't my question," Robyn inched forward.
"Well it's your answer!" he snapped, growling as he moved away. "It's something that you didn't pay for and can't take away from me."
And she abandoned her pursuit on the spot. She wouldn't be able to get the phone away from him, and it was pointless to try. "So I guess that was that Hunter, then? Trying to get a hold of you?"
"No. If you must know, it was probably my ride."
"You're ride? And who's that?"
She had seen her son's angry eyes before. What parent hasn't? And this situation had given Elliot more reason than most to bare them. "Donald! But what the fuck do you care what his name is?" The look in those eyes now, though...was something entirely different, "He'd just be another faggot to you, anyway. You know? Like me?"
Today was the first time they'd shown hate.
"Are we done, here? I need to go. You've made 'im wait long enough."
Hate.
This is what it had come to. Her own son hated her. She loved him. She hadn't made one decision, taken one step, or planned one move in all of this, that hadn't had him in mind. He was her son. It was her job to protect him when no one else would. And he hated her for it.
But the problem was, of course, no matter how it hurt, no matter how unfair she believed it all to be...
...she couldn't blame him.
Why wouldn't he hate her? She'd taken him from his father. She'd taken him from his friends. She was asking him to change, when everyone else in his life was happy to leave him be. And nothing she did could undo that. She could shower him in gifts. She could tell him every day, how he was the most important thing in her life. And even today, like so many before, when she set to work making lunch, she'd made something that she knew he loved. But no panini would replace his father or his friends. And she knew that. How did the song go? Blue on black...tears on a river...?
She couldn't blame him. But what choice did she have?
She knew her husband hadn't touched Elliot. He was better than that. He, on some level, was still the man she once loved. And she prayed that she was wrong about William doing it, too. But what choice did she have? She couldn't just leave him alone with them. They wouldn't protect him. They hadn't, yet. She had to get him somewhere safe. She had no choice.
And if meant dragging them through the mud to do it, then it was a price worth paying.
After all...her son WAS molested. Maybe not by Will, and probably not by Kris, but it DID happen. Her proof notwithstanding, Elliot himself had admitted it! It was a fact. A fact that everyone else seemed happy to forget. But she wouldn't. She couldn't. She had to make sure it never happened, again.
It didn't matter if Elliot believed he was gay. It didn't even matter if he really WAS gay. And it damn sure didn't matter if he believed he was okay with what happened. If he'd been somehow convinced that he wasn't a victim.
He was a fourteen-year-old cub.
A fourteen-year-old already having sex? And with adults!? This was the kind of shit they put on trashy daytime talk shows! Teenagers barely into puberty proud to be giving themselves up to lecherous old men. Whoring themselves out, before they're even old enough to drive. Drinking, doing drugs, and cussing out their parents...
...while their mothers cry on stage, for the whole world to see.
This was what was becoming of her son. Maybe not the drinking and the drugs...not yet. But he was headed down a path no fourteen-year-old should be on. And it felt like she was in a fun house, a dream, a nightmare even...surrounded, on all sides, by people who really believed this was all okay!
Her son hated her.
She couldn't blame him.
But what choice did she have?
"Elliot, wait," Robyn spoke softly as her son's paw touched the door...
...and he stopped to look back with that same scowl. "What now?"
Silently, she picked up the tall black umbrella by the coat rack, pausing with a sigh, before she stepped nearer to her son and the door.
"The news says the storm's not letting up any time soon," she explained. "You should take this."
For a moment, Elliot looked to the window, where the rain rolled down the glass, and then looked back to the umbrella in her paw. "I'm not walking," he shook his head. "Somebody's picking me up."
"Here?" she asked. But she knew better. None of his friends would risk showing up at her house. They'd pick him up a block away, at least. If not two.
And he averted his eyes, "No."
"Well then, at least use it until you get to their car, okay?" She held it out with a hopeful little smile, "It's November. It's cold out. I don't want you to get sick..."
But a new look overtook his eyes. One worse than hate. Robyn had grown used to the hateful and defiant eyes of a teenager. She understood them. She sympathized with them. But what she wasn't ready for was this.
Shock. Confusion. Astonishment.
It was one thing if he hated her for what she'd done. Who wouldn't? But this? He was surprised and bewildered by the simplest act of kindness. He didn't even believe that she cared for him, anymore.
And so, this was it. This is what she'd become. The villain. This was the price she paid. To protect her son, this is what she had to be, now, in his eyes. The whisker twirling devil, cackling as she tied his loved ones down to the tracks.
So be it.
She'd tried to handle this nicely. She'd never intended to take him from his father, so completely. She'd never wanted to be the reason Kristoff couldn't see his son. She'd offered him joint custody -- weekend visits, and maybe even more -- so long as she remained the primary. But Kris was stubborn. He was determined to make this an all or nothing fight. So she had no choice but to do the same. She had to protect her son. Kristoff wouldn't. And if that's how he wanted to play it: all or nothing...
...then she would make certain he got nothing.
And if that made her the villain...if that was the price she had to pay to protect her son...then that's what she would do.
Elliot took the umbrella from her paw. He didn't thank her. He didn't agree to use it. He simply took it, turned, and opened the door. A mist hit them both -- a gust of wind from the storm -- as he began to unwrap the umbrella's Velcro straps.
She had to say it. She had to be sure he knew...
"I love you, Elliot."
And he stopped. He paused for a long moment, to the backdrop of rain and wind. But he didn't look back. "I..." he stammered to begin, only to shake his head with a sigh, "...I used to."
He stepped out, into the rain. The umbrella opened with a pop: the flap of a vinyl wing. The door closed. And he was gone.
Robyn waited there, but she couldn't say for what. He wouldn't be coming back. Not until he absolutely had to. He'd be gone as long as his friends would have him. But she waited. She listened to the rain against her walls...to the treble as it buzzed through her empty home.
She did not twirl her whiskers. She did not cackle. She did not revel in her husband's defeat. But this was her victory, and these were her spoils.
She turned, in time, and crept back past her stairs, and archways, and doors. She returned to her kitchen. Tears drew lines through white cheeks. Darkened. Stained. And two grilled sandwiches -- now long cold -- fell to pieces, as they tumbled into the trash.
~
And Sibirskaia continues...
* This particular chapter (and the rest of Sibirskaia) was written entirely by Oloroso Rhone. But it was based on characters and story lines I created jointly with my friend Phil Anthro Pist
If you'd like to go say hi to Phil, he's got an account on here at http://phil-anthro-pist.sofurry.com/ *
Well, well! It seems like Elliot's mother hasn't COMPLETELY managed to keep him from his friends! We even saw Donald's name in here. So where's Elliot going, and what's he going to do? Will we find out next chapter? Also, what's up with that news report? Wasn't that the same one Kris was listening to?
SIDE NOTE 1: I am VERY curious to see what you think about this chapter's perspective...
SIDE NOTE 2: Sorry DW. I'm impatient...
Anyway, thanks for reading! I welcome any feedback. Comment or PM me here, add me on skype, or email me at theottercoon[at]gmail.com
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See you around for the next 12 chapters of Sibirskaia!