The Beating Room
“They’re disruptors. They’ve upended the whole wellness industry.” Amanda stabbed at her takeout with chopsticks, a finicky stork hunting prey. Soy sauce and gochujang packets littered her sleek white desk. “You’re their ideal client, Mara. Dragging such tense vibes into our workplace.”
Mara pursed her lips, her own lunch a cardboard-dry protein bar, miserly in flavor and proportions. Well, who hadn’t heard about the Beating Room? Its flagship had appeared two years back—quick success, new locations springing up everywhere. A throwback to those “smash rooms,” where people paid by the hour to break random objects. The twist being: now you paid to whale away at real, live people. Like, actually physically hit them. Catharsis was the promised result. Cardiovascular fitness. Emotional regulation, recovery from past trauma. Relief from suffering.
Nestled within this built world of stolid angles and utilitarian grey, TBR’s antique brick storefronts and neon signage seemed cozy, quaint, even subversive. This morning Mara had spotted a newspaper scuttling along the gutter, coaxed by the wind, their ad splashed on its front page. The sight of something so old-fashioned and analog gave her an unpleasant jolt, as though she’d encountered an injured bird.
“Maybe it’s worth a try.”
Amanda smoothed her wheat-colored hair. “What is, hon?”
“That punchy, kicky place. My cardiologist’s pushing more exercise.”
Her boss’s forehead furrowed. Was Amanda really struggling to recall the serious episode that’d sent Mara to the emergency room last week?
Mara sighed softly. Nothing yet had fixed her old hurt heart. She was open to everything, anything that might help.
#
The Beating Room’s twee waiting-room pillows were cute enough. But the thin smile from the pretty receptionist set Mara’s teeth on edge. Vague, dismissive, like middle-aged Mara was too boring and faded to register. Mara opted to park herself back in the hall to await her appointment, thank you. An athlete coolly awaiting her Agent, Manuel.
Or a road bump. Either way.
She’d been coming for weeks and could now recite the posters hanging gallery-style in the white hallway by heart:
“We take it on the chin, so YOU don’t have to!”
“BEAT the heat with our summer specials.”
“Smash stress, bash the blues AWAY!”
Her favorite spokesmodel had a chipped tooth and a bruise shading one eye like a perverse pirate. Such blemishes only bumped up his swashbuckling charm. Well, the young and the beautiful—and lately the two blurred for Mara—could get away with it.
That very moment a young man came trundling down the hall. And everything changed.
Pale eyes under puffy lids, a fade of freckles, and the white uniform of a Junior Agent. Thirteen years collapsed for Mara like dominoes. Freddy. Once her sworn enemy, he was all grown up.
Before disappearing into Room Three, he flashed Mara the same benign grin you’d give a park bench or bio-enhanced street tree.
Mara’s pulse seesawed. Normal sign of shock and surprise? Harbinger of another cardiac event?
But she’d been so good! Chilly morning jogs through her Neo-Brutalist neighborhood. Cryotherapy, ZoomYoga. A salt water “urban float adventure.” Sealed in its “sensory relief pod,” Mara had watched sea flowers unfold in rare colors. Twenty minutes in, they grew tentacle vines, wrapping her. She’d fastened her blouse with dripping fingers, knowing she’d never return.
At 3:00 a.m., Mara still woke to arrhythmia. Dragged herself up, wrinkled sheets imprinted on her cheek. Unwell, unhappy: every day began and concluded the same. So far, the Beating Room had been the one safe place, shielding her against the shadow on her heart.
#
Moments later, Manuel arrived, perfectly punctual. His smile seemed engineered, a product of plumb lines and careful architectural drafting. The shadow along his jawline hinted that his hormones hummed, tuned to ideal levels. His black uniform fit sleek as a panther’s pelt.
“That new guy next door,” Mara couldn’t help blurting. “What’s his story?”
“Ah, Fred. Trained him myself. Good kid.”
That was all Manuel wished to say on the subject.
Room Two was brightly-LED’d, relentlessly white-on-white. Mara stowed handbag and car keys in the locker. She picked at the back of her leggings in case things were lodged where they ought not be stuck. These days, she fought a slight paunch, a minor bra strap spillover. Well, gravity and mortality marched everyone down this same path. You could fight it surgically, hide behind avatars. Mara believed in the luxury of being real, ending the pursuit of shoring up.
Feeling Manuel’s gaze on her, though…she realized being seen as desirable still mattered to her. How easily he could snare her, had he half an inkling! That first day, her finger sliding down the illuminated list of Agents, she’d chosen Manuel without hesitation. Grant. Something of her ex, Grant, in Manuel’s face.
And last session, Manuel had squeezed her shoulder and called Mara a “tiger,” his hand a friendly, comfortable weight she wanted to lean into.
A tiger.
Manuel’s eyes twinkled. “Ready to choose your weapon?”
Mara hemmed and hawed.
“An upcharge, yes. One well worth the price.” He popped in his mouthguard, adjusted his helmet.
Eventually she selected what looked like a stylish croquet mallet and gave it a test swing. It felt right.
What always impressed Mara was how well Manuel took it. Submitted to his beating without flinching or protest. Eyes open, lips parted, body open and willing. Such dignity, strength, and forbearance! A thrill rose in her throat as she swung the mallet. She imagined her tiger ears pricking, swiveling. Searching for signs of life from the Room next door. For Freddy, for her old enemy. She wanted to hear thuds, whimpers, frantic scrabbling. Pleading entreaties, howls of anguish.
But rooms were soundproofed. A black eyeball on the ceiling kept watch, green light blinking. For safety’s sake. Later, Manuel would review these recordings, making adjustments. Tweaks and twists, to keep things fresh.
The rubber head connected with Manuel’s padded chest again. But it was Freddy’s face Mara saw, wavering like an unstable star.
#
A dulcet tone signaled their session’s end.
“Started off strong. Then, poof—where’d Mara go?” Manuel’s eyes shimmered with concern. “We can add features for focus. Light sneering, mild verbal teasing? Brief questionnaire, then I’ll draw up a script. Enhances your session’s therapeutic value.”
Instead, Mara politely excused herself. Filled with sharp, sparkling expectation, she raced outside. Expecting what? Motoring home to a frozen potpie and bland streaming content?
Freddy.
There he was, leaning over a car wiping an imaginary spot with his thumb. His vintage Dodge Charger dazzled in cobalt paint with gold highlighting. A white decal dominated its windshield, a buxom woman in silhouette, her ankles caught up in a pair of tiny underwear. The custom license plate read “Pntydrpr.”
Mara scowled. Precious fossil fuels wasted on this tasteless hobby.
Pantydropper slid into his gas guzzler. The blue car pulled away with the roar of all its horses.
#
“Got the fruit plate?”
Mara pushed away paperwork, softly sighing.
Today Amanda wore her magical linen suit, the one that never wrinkled. “Baby shower. I pinged you last night.” She ticked her fingers: “Extra melon, no pineapple. I’m allergic. Cross-reactive, actually. Real allergy is birch trees.”
“Must’ve conked out early.” Mara’s night had been swollen with memories. Freddy. Though he’d scarcely glanced at her, yesterday’s encounters felt like dramatic, full-blown altercations. She’d thought hard about everything. She had to confront Freddy. He owed her an apology for his past misdeeds. For ruining her life, when it came down to it.
Only then could Mara finally move on from this stuck place and heal.
Amanda frowned. “Girl, you don’t look fantastic. Do the set-up, then take the afternoon.”
“Thanks, that’s sweet.”
“I mean, you could be contagious. Anyhow, Janessa’s having a girl. Use all the pink stuff, but keep it classy.”
Mara smiled wearily. The break room closet was full of dented paper wedding rings and cradles. Die-cut cardboard storks, bunting sullied by blue tack and grimy tape. All those hours she’d prepped and primped, drudging away, and for what?
To celebrate the intimate highlights of other lives.
One day, she’d be buried in a coffin full of wilted, grubby paper cheer.
#
Work finished, running on dregs of coffee, Mara found herself impetuously heading to the Beating Room. May as well get that confrontation with Freddy over, or at the very least…open a dialogue. Her arrival interrupted a tête-à-tête between the receptionist and her phone.
“Back already?” The young woman’s irritated face rearranged itself into an expression of bright supportiveness. “I’m not seeing you scheduled…”
“I’d like to request a different Agent.”
“Oh no! There a problem we can address? With your sessions, with Manuel?”
“No, just hoping for a change of pace. A li’l palate cleanser.” Mara forced a laugh.
“Okay… Though folks usually don’t swap around all whimsically.” The receptionist spun the screen toward Mara. “You’ve been through this process before. Our algorithm matches you to the Agent best suited to your personal journey.”
“Honestly, I’d rather hand-pick.”
The receptionist shrugged.
Fit strangers in tight bodysuits scrolled by. Confident cheekbones, thick hair immune to blame. Under each, a blurb noted relevant experience and awards. As if anyone cared. People went on appearances and hunches, as Mara had.
Freddy was at the bottom of the heap. The screen squirmed at Mara’s poke, as though personally offended.
“Unfortunately, I cannot set you up with Fred,” the receptionist said, faintly amused.
“What—why?”
“Fred’ll need to go through considerable ‘seasoning’ before he’s ready.”
“He could practice on me.” Mara sounded brittle and desperate. “My uppercuts are weak. My strikes lack precision. I hurt myself trying to hurt another.”
“We never put new Agents with newish members. It’s a liability. We have considerable stipulations and provisos and riders. State and federal guidelines.”
“Can I rebook Manuel for today, then?”
“Hmm. He might be persuaded…”
“Sure you can’t set me up with Freddy?”
The receptionist’s eyes went cold. “That, I cannot do. Absolutely not.”
#
Mara was fitted in.
She’d requested no idle chit-chat. The silence in Room Two felt ceremonial as Manuel prepped, gliding like a pope in vestments, his expression inscrutable. Was this his meditative look, unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos? Or was it a thousand-yard-stare? A blinking vacancy sign?
“Smile—it’s nature’s facelift.” Mara remembered this advice, foisted on her by some stranger on a tram. She’d been deep in thought, in a place that should be private, beyond reproach. Such remarks had died away. Lately, nobody looked her way.
If nobody’s looking, you can’t be criticized. And if you aren’t criticized, maybe you don’t exist?
She refused the gloves Manuel proffered. Bare knuckles today. No foam booties, either. Going bare cost extra. Unfair, considering her skin and bone were to be sacrificed.
They faced off.
Mara made a fist and lunged, striking Manuel’s ribs. He winced and grunted, hanging his pretty head in its helmet.
She pitched forward, kneeing him in the groin. Its guarding cup made her knee ring with pain. Plastic, that’s what that was. How much here was real, how much play-acting? Agents were trained to roll with punches, to surreptitiously block vitals already well-protected by struts and pads. This was theatre, when it came down to it.
Fakery, a pantomime.
This session was costly, though. She couldn’t waste it. She circled as Manuel half-crouched, his legs set solid as the base of a skyscraper. She aimed for a kidney, a clumsy grazing of knuckles followed by wrenching pain in her arm socket.
Manuel bore each blow tirelessly. His expression aped at feeling, at connection and intimacy. Hinting at something she’d been promised, but that hadn’t quite happened.
Where was the liver, then? She wanted at it. She’d topple him, expose his underbelly, rip and tear him asunder. Asunder—the word hung like petals, vascular and baroque. A real tiger. She’d tear this man apart. She’d feast.
Normally, a moment arose when Mara would step out of time. Rational thought would go as her body took over, zipping with endorphins and adrenalin, numb to the impact of flesh. All purpose narrowed: to strike, strike, strike her target. Personality drawn to a pinprick, snapped off like an old television. But Manuel’s locked legs and natural balance resisted her. Her noises—as she shoved and punched and smacked—became a pathetic mewling.
Ruby rings of pain encircled her fingers, her knuckles raw. Manuel remained disconnected. Bored, even.Thinking only of the extra bump to his check, enough for a round of day-glow cocktails or a virtual rendezvous. This was an actor, simply acting. All of this phony, designed to please clients.
Consumers.
Hoping to salvage something, Mara summoned Freddy. Her fantasy felt flimsy as a wet paper napkin.
Manuel craned to check the time. A space opened between his uniform and helmet, tender skin shadowed by beard. Drawing her fingers together, she jabbed, aiming for this, the only naked part of him she could reach.
Spitting out his mouthguard, he flung himself slantwise. Coughing, tears sparkling through his helmet’s latticework. Mara moved to close the gap, absurdly opening her arms to embrace Manuel. He blocked her and stumbled, slapping at the wall till an ear-splitting tone sounded.
Gasping, Mara hunched, her legs like rubber, like she’d done something monumental. Her knuckles were split open, bright blood spattering the white floor. The security camera’s eye was now red, capturing everything.
“Where’d this bullshit come from? You’re a nice lady. You know the rules. Now I gotta write you up.”
She blinked back tears. “I’m sorry…I got carried away. Inappropriately.”
Now only quiet, broken by Mara’s sniffling.
“Listen,” he said. “First aid kit under the bathroom sink. Take whatever you need and fix yourself.”
#
Mara’s clumsily bandaged hands throbbed on the drive home. On her condo’s doormat, a black mitten awaited, an acorn nestled in its palm.
This was autumnal trash, not some hidden symbol. The younger Mara believed in signs, harbingers, portents. In fate written on a golden scroll, unrolling as she went. She pitched the filthy knitted thing into a hedge for the yard drone to deal with.
Dinner was something scraped from a microwave container, the dignity of a plate beyond her. Life was such a meaningless shadowboxing, wasn’t it? Striking back at darkness folded into dusty curtains and corners. Nobody really came together, nobody touched, certainly not in the ways that counted most. Intimacy was a violent fraud that usually involved an exchange of money.
She wiped her mouth with her shirt’s hem, smelling sour sweat.
In the shower, the soap burned. Fine—let it hurt.
Maybe Mara was, at heart, a horrible person?
#
“Something in you isn’t nice,” Grant said over lunch, thirteen years back. “I love you, but he’s my kid, Mara. He’s afraid of you.”
Afraid. Yeah, right.
Freddy, that nine-year-old imp. Spilling salt on her table and toys on her rug, leaving dribs of mess in his underwear for her to find. All of it deliberate, she was sure. Those beady eyes were too bright and calculating.
Anyhow, she’d never signed up to be a caretaker of someone else’s brat. She was Grant’s partner in both love and business. They ran a mobile candy service housed in a silver van. The Candyman Can. Like ice cream trucks of yore, their loudspeaker broadcast this song, possibly bending legality. “We’re copyright bandits, ” Grant always joked. He made everything risky seem playful, adventuresome.
Food trucks were huge, back then. Birthdays, weddings, corporate events. People of all ages lit up—it was candy, for fuck’s sake. Trade shows, vendors, catalogs packed with vintage candy and sweet new innovations. She’d fall asleep to pastel swirls, sugar-fever brights, her heart full.
Until Mara was pressed into caring for Freddy. First, only afternoons. Then, with incremental excuses, more. “Easier than heading home to switch off,” Grant said. “Logistical tightrope-walking burns time. Which is money.”
Of course she’d made a mess of taking care of this kid. But she’d also double-knotted his shoelaces. Cut his hot dogs into pieces, wiped pee from the toilet seat. She couldn’t help how her spirits lifted while packing up his clothes and lumpen stuffed bear, preparing to send Freddy back to his mother, whom she considered his real parent.
On off-weeks, he’d shrink in her mind into something manageable and compliant. Yet when the real Freddy arrived again, the resentment would hit.
She’d think who hates a child?
The awful finale was that thrifted lamp situation. Sea green glass, the piece cleaned up for her good as new. Mara was carrying it downstairs when something made her slip. She managed to grab hold of the railing, but the lamp flew, shattering on the tile entryway, its shade bouncing away.
Papers covered the stairs.
Pages torn from a book, one she’d given Freddy. The Brothers Grimm. She went to his room and grabbed his shoulder, marched him to the scene of the crime.
“That book scares me.” His eyes narrowed. “Plus, I don’t like you, Mara. Not even one tiny bit.”
Then Mara said it. It’s true. “Well, guess what, bucko? I absolutely loathe you. And what loathe means is hate.”
The boy ran.
Almost immediately, Mara realized her mistake. She called Freddy’s name, searched, pulse quickening. Had he run outside? She pictured a van, a man ushering him back where the chains and ropes waited. Finally, she yanked open her closet. There Freddy was, huddled in the hamper. Her dirty underwear spilled out like the beached sheddings of a sea monster.
“Forget that ugly thing I said. Adults sometimes say stuff they don’t mean. I won’t tell about the book and lamp…if you don’t.”
“I won’t tell,” Freddy said. Pinky-swearing it, his finger hooked around hers like a sticky worm.
But Freddy broke his promise.
After Mara moved out, Grant hired platinum-haired Annie as caretaker. A woman apparently light as candy floss, who spun silvery stories out of thin air.
“Freddy’s enchanted,” Grant texted Mara. “Enthralled.”
Soon enough, Grant was under Annie’s spell, too. He made Mara a fair cash offer to buy her out of the Candy Man Can. She bought a condo in the city. Distance, a buffer to help with closure. When money ran thin, she got a job. Amanda, her co-worker, eventually her boss.
Years passed. Mara dated people. She was told there was never a reason for a young woman to be alone.
But aging complicated things. Everyone acquired exes and children, unsolvable quirks and barriers. The dating pool thinned, dried up. Now anyone could conjure their ideal companion online, a beautiful chatbot who’d never break your heart.
Mara didn’t want a perfect phantom.
She wanted Grant. He’d been her best and only chance. And she’d blown it.
Even now, years later, Mara sometimes thought she glimpsed their silver van or heard their song on the breeze. On quiet nights, like tonight, her ears ached, listening.
But maybe breakups weren’t always for forever? She could make this right. Fix things with Freddy, then reach Grant through his son.
Falling asleep, Mara folded her hurt hands on her chest like a prayer.
#
After calling in sick, Mara planted herself at the Beating Room’s front desk. “Things got too heated. It won’t happen again.”
“Hon?” The receptionist raised a beautifully-shaped brow.
“Manuel. Yesterday’s situation.”
“You weren’t flagged. Things can get rough and tumble sometimes. Try not to trouble yourself. Manuel’s an expert.”
“Still, I’d like to offer him an apology and gratuity.”
“Okay, look, whatever. He’s back in the business office.” She buzzed Mara through, chuckling. “Knock yourself out.”
#
Mara sidestepped a sweaty, dazed client. Someone else stuck their head out of Room Three. Heavy-lidded eyes. Faded freckles.
Dropping into her path like magic, here he was. Freddy. Now she’d score that long-overdue apology, then nab Grant’s new number.
“There you are, Marilyn,” Freddy said. “Worried I’d been stood up. Today’s last day of the quarter. Gotta grab this final clock hour so’s I qualify for my promo.”
Marilyn? Mara touched her chest as though the wrong name tag were pinned there.
Freddy opened his door wide, smiling, beckoning her.
#
His white uniform’s collar and cuffs were slightly dingy. All the falling socks and grubbed-up denim knees of Freddy’s childhood returned to Mara. Those candy-stained lips, his open pleasure when taste-testing samples. Moments when rare happiness leaked through.
“Welcome, Marilyn. Long-time member.” He scanned his tablet. “Got it, got it. Thank you, again, for showing. I’m one measly sesh shy of leveling up to Team Yellow!”
So. Freddy didn’t recognize Mara. And she was “Marilyn” now, just like that. A Marilyn who had married, maybe. A Marilyn with children. She saw a crayon house scrawled under sheltering green leaves. A scribbled neighborhood spread outward, a yellow school bus rounded the bend.
“Yep,” Mara said, rolling with it. “Old-timer here at TBR.”
“Good deal.” He rubbed damp palms on his pants. He had none of Manuel’s oiled finesse. Freddy was meek, a hesitator and a throat-clearer. “Yeah, so, uh. Most clients are gonna want the gloves. Murder on the hands ’til you’ve seasoned them.”
“Are you seasoned?” This came out awkwardly flirty.
“I mean, I’m getting my clock hours in.”
Mara dutifully slid on a pair of gloves. She’d rumble with him first, get things loosened up. Kid needed her and the clock hour, and she could do this much. He’d feel grateful, obligated… Then they’d talk as old friends, sort out their differences. Disinfectant—or someone’s old sweat—bit into her scabbed knuckles.
Freddy avoided eye contact. A shyness. No—a peevishness. When Mara had every right to expect friendliness. If not friendliness, then attentiveness, good service.
No tip from her today!
As she chose today’s implement, she remembered someone else had paid for this session.
“That there’s called a ‘boffer.’”
“I know that, Freddy.” A satisfying whoop as she swung the bat-like weapon.
“I prefer ‘Fred.’ Dontcha wanna warm up first?”
“I’m good, Fred.”
Freddy winced as the boffer struck his flanks. Once, twice, three times. The feel of his flesh…how it differed from Manuel’s compact brawn and thew, these differences radiating back into Mara’s hand. Less solid, though Freddy was by no means small.
Whoop!—she aimed lower. His eyes squeezed shut. A yelp escaped.
Pathetic. She’d barely touched him.
Again, again. Normally she liked to build to the really definitive strikes, but the threat of being found out loomed large. Before each blow, Freddy shrank. Still, those deep-set eyes remained unfocused, like a pupil dreaming through a dry lecture. This worthless lump of putty needed to snap into shape. Then he’d remember her. She’d changed, but not that much. Older, but by no means old. The sessions with Manuel had made muscles emerge from her arms and shoulders. She’d massage them with private appreciation, sitting at her desk.
Freddy whimpered. This was going nowhere fast. Mara dropped the boffer and tore off the gloves. Her hands were damaged, useless. She’d have to use feet. Though permitted, she’d rarely kicked Manuel. Today she tested out a kind of roundhouse, slamming the side of her foot into the boy’s sad carcass. She stumbled and caught herself.
He moaned, shaking on his ankles.
Mara’s heart—too fast, eyesight dimming with each beat. But to press on felt paramount —things never fell so neatly into her lap. She had to break through to him somehow! Make him see her. She aimed higher, kicking toward the helmet. Freddy registered the abrupt change in her tactics. Soft, murmuring, begging words slipped out. “Please” and “no” and “don’t” and “stop.”
Well, what if she didn’t stop? A growl escaped. If Mara had a tail, it’d be striped, lashing.
“Please, Marilyn, I’ll do anything,” he said, panting. “I beg of you…let’s work this out gently, sweetie…”
“You’ll do anything? What do you mean, anything?”
“Whatever you want.” A glistening string of saliva fell from his mask, streaking wetly down the front of Mara’s tank top.
“Control yourself, Freddy. Don’t be gross.”
“I’m sorry, Marilyn. Tell me what you want.”
“Okay, then. Helmet off. Let’s have realness. I want you to see me clearly.”
“What the—?”
“Ditch the mask, Freddy. It’s for therapeutic purposes.”
Abruptly, he stood tall, another person altogether. “I meant I’d do anything already agreed upon. Going off-script? No bueno, señora.” He retrieved the tablet, tried to scroll. Remembered he was wearing a glove and struggled to peel it free, finally using his long front teeth like a horse.
The contract looked like a swarm of ants, but a few keywords leaped out to Mara. Begging, beseeching, pleading. “‘Whimpering?’ ‘Light crying?’ What kinda garbage is this?”
He unclipped his helmet and raked fingers through his sweaty hair. “I was working up to the crying. I’m getting real good at it.”
“Forget scripts,” Mara said. “Be honest. Have you really forgotten me?” She widened her eyes, as though this might help. “I’m not Marilyn. I’m Mara.”
“Ah, so you wanna change it up. Role-play some trauma release.”
“I’m not your client. It’s Mara, from when you were little…”
“Never seen you before. Honest.”
“Remember your 10th birthday, the jump house? That was all me. I was with your father for years, running our candy truck. You guys were…you two were my life.”
“Sorry,” Freddy said gently. “Dad dropped that hustle when everyone decided sugar was the devil. After Mom he married Annie. I remember that party she threw. A jump house is all fun and games till somebody pukes. Look, when my folks split up, I blocked shit out. I’ve got li’l candy sprinkles here and there for memories. That’s it.”
He fiddled with his table, content to float in institutional silence. Probably writing Mara up. She hoped she stuck in the corner of his eye, a nagging mote. A splinter.
“Hey, Mara?”
Stupid, stupid, the flare of hope, meeting his heavy-lidded gaze. From this angle, bedroom eyes. The Pantydropper. How many girls and women had already fallen for him?
“Let’s keep this quiet. It’d look bad for me. Super bad for you. Besides, with more work here, you’ll do yourself good. Unchecked anger and aggression are harmful. We’re the safe, trusted place you can direct these feelings at live, trained targets. Real bodies, real results.” He grinned with magnanimity. “Hit us hard, so you can gently heal.”
Her hands shook, gathering her things. “Thanks. But I should take a break from here, I think.”
#
The street outside glistened, a rain that had come and gone without her knowledge. Mara’s knuckles were on fire, her left arm tingling from shoulder to fingertips. Breath trailed her like a dragon’s smoky afterthought.
So that was to be that.
She steadied herself against a SmartBike stand. Men were logical, not emotional. So, she could present Freddy concrete proof. Photos. A whole micro-drive of them. She’d point to his young self, her young self…
Hopeless. No such images existed. She’d always been the one behind the lens, coaxing smiles out of a sulky child leaning into his father’s hip. How, then, to make Freddy remember her, understand her? She’d only wanted to beat something into him. To pummel in memories, pound in an acknowledgment of the destruction they’d caused each other. She wasn’t the only one who deserved an apology. She’d hurt him, too. A mere child, a kid! But now he was cosseted, swaddled, designed to absorb all shocks.
Physical pain, it seemed, was fleeting. Injuries faded, bruises cycled through their specific rainbows. The hot red of a fresh insult shifted to the moody vespers of violet, charcoal, chartreuse. Finally becoming a faded ocher, the color of old news.
What a fool she’d been. A mere ghost mother, a stopgap between birth mother and stepmother. A forgotten misstep for Grant and Freddy. Well, if doors were to remain closed to her—doors and people—the past untouched, unbreachable, even forgotten—then Mara must caretake her own history. Make it, keep it, or let it go. Nobody else could do it for her.
Her meandering ended at the blue car with its awful decal. That poor woman in silhouette on his windshield, hogtied by her own underwear.
She closed her eyes. She pictured Freddy, young again, his white uniform outsized, floppy cuffs covering feet and hands. Something aggrieved, hunted for years, run down, finally cornered. His ribs went in and out under the canvas cloth with the effort of the mortally wounded.
He faded.
Mara stood all alone in the parking lot.
Her sore hand stirred. Keys, her own keys she hadn’t realized she’d been holding all along. They jingled in her palm, metal on metal.
One last thing, then. A memento, a final, fond goodbye. She traced the blue car’s wet flank. A long, thin mark appeared in the wake of her hand, a forever disturbance in that perfect shine, something more felt and sensed than seen.
Mara smiled and walked on.
Jennifer Lesh Fleck has stories published or upcoming in MetaStellar, Gamut, If There’s Anyone Left, Heartlines Spec, Flash Fiction Online, and the 2023 Shirley Jackson Award winner for best anthology published by Cosmic Horror Monthly, among others. She lives with her family near Portland, Oregon in a home that’s a dead ringer for the Amityville Horror House, though repainted a cheery jade green. She’s a grateful recipient of the 2025 Superstars Expanding Universe scholarship, and her work is often informed by the challenges of lifelong hidden disability from a rare inherited disorder. Find her @mettle.and.metal (Instagram), @jen_lesh_fleck (X), and www.jenniferleshfleck.com.