BURGUNDY

“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened to the last woman who slept here?” Randy said as he stood over Casey, his father’s most recent girlfriend. She didn’t open her eyes. Randy could hear the sound of the shower running. The bathroom door was closed. Randy guessed that father was showering. He touched her shoulder. There was no response. Randy smiled. “There’s a reason daddy takes his time bringing new girlfriends home,” he whispered.
“Today we’ll go meet my mom. You’ll love her. She’ll love you too,” Scott, Randall’s father, yelled through the closed bathroom door. “Get in here, share this shower with me! What's taking you so long?”
Randy pressed down on her shoulder, and she didn’t respond. He dared to squeeze her nostrils tightly, to press them closed. If she was still alive her eyes would suddenly open and she would push away whoever it was that was violating her. But upon watching her body lie there like a life-size doll, he did just that, but there was no movement. No reaction, and with that, Randy smiled.
“She had an aneurysm, just like you. Did you know that people with aneurysms often show no symptoms? Do you even know what an aneurysm is?” Randy asked her. He wasn’t expecting a response. He answered himself; “It’s a ballooning-out of the wall of an artery in the brain. It ruptures and blood leaks out into the brain. I found out that’s what happened when my mother died. Giving birth to me.” Randy stood over her, as his father was still beckoning through the closed door for her to join him in the shower.
Randy left his father’s bedroom. He went to his room and waited for his father’s reaction. He closed his bedroom door just enough to see the poster that was behind it. It looked like a brain with thin tree branches growing in every direction inside the brain, each branch independent of the other. He looked at the description on the bottom of the poster, studying it. He was surprised. He looked at it as if he had never seen it before. It said:
X RAY OF A SUBARACHNOID ANEURYSM
Five minutes later he heard, “Oh my God! Oh my God! No! Wake up Casey! Wake up! You’re not dead too! No! Every time I bring a woman home she dies in her sleep! What the hell is going on?”

To Be Continued