He had a fetish that ultimately caused his death. But that’s not this story. This story is about what happened after.
Freddy the Fish, so called by his friends because he drank too much, was an alcoholic. And not your average run of the mill Alco, no, Freddy was the king of the glitter mile.
A stretch of water so glittery that the stars were jealous. The ‘glitter’ riding the surface was from a peculiar practice called dunking. Freddy the Fish was the best. Freddy could dunk for five minutes and seventeen seconds at the best of time. Even after imbuing twenty pints and copious whiskeys.
But again, this isn’t about his heydays. This is about his last day. The time he attempted to throw all the other glamorous glitter queens in their showgirl bathers, out of the water.
Freddy, ever rambunctious, entered the water amidst the backhanded comments and snide looks. Someone had stolen his glory and lasted longer than he. What Freddy didn’t know that night, was that the glitter king had been out maneuvered.
When Mr Fish dunked his glittery head beneath the cold waters, that someone was waiting for him.
“So Freddy. Why do you think that you are addicted to this practise?”
The man in front of me was more amphibian than man. His green skin was boardline translucent and his eyes were lidless and elliptic. He shifted uneasily on the seat. Dank water plinked on my office floor.
“I just…” he shook his hairless head. “I’m addicted. You know. I’ve tried to stop but it’s hard.”
“You want to stop. That’s good. The first step is admitting that there’s something wrong, Freddy.”
“I know. I know.” He sat despondent. Webbed hands crammed into his thighs. “It’s not so much the want, doc. I can’t stop. You know… it’s more than an addiction. I need to.”
Since Freddy’s arrival I sensed that he wasn’t telling me the whole truth. Like an onion, I had to peel back each slippery layer to find the cause of his problems.
“Freddy, there is a program. It’s much like the seven steps of the alcoholic anonymous.”
Freddy nodded.
“You’re familiar with this?”
He nodded again. “Drinking isn’t the problem, doc. She is ok with that. It’s the other stuff.”
“By she, I take it that’s your mistress? The one who turned you?”
Freddy clenched and unclenched his hands. A wet sucking sound puckered each time he did.
“She wants me to bring back food.”
He shook his head and wiped a hand down his face. I could sense the distress wrestling in his consciousness.
“And you don’t want to?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I want to make her happy but…”
“Does she hurt you, Freddy? When you refuse.”
Freddy lifted his leaf shaped eyes to me. The irises were clouded white. But behind them I could see the faint outline of his once brown human eyes.
“You don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to. Let’s focus on you, Freddy. What do you want?”
I couldn’t tell if it was a tear trickling down his cheek or the residue of his amphibian skin.
“I want to go back to how it used to be. Back to the glitter mile. Back when I didn’t have to kill.”
For the first time since Freddy arrived unannounced to my office I felt a prang of fear. I caught the glimpse of small serrated teeth behind his smooth lips. Saw the sharp discoloured fingernails on the end of his webbed fingers.
“How many times have you killed, Freddy?”
Freddy shook his head again. “I - I don’t know.” He stood up and squelched over to my window. He looked beyond the glass out to the silent street in the backend of London.
I took my client’s privacy seriously. They didn’t want to arrive at a swanky high rise office building or step off a busy street to enter my counselling sessions. The secluded workspace I rented was in a back road. Quiet. Discrete.
“When she took me under that day, I thought I was going to die. I was the king of the glitter mile. The champion amongst the queens. I still remember looking up at the surface.” Freddy drew in a long breath that rattled the gills on the side of his throat. “So pretty. How they sparkled. Then I drown. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
He turned back to me. His translucent skin shifted to a vivid green. The nails on his fingers stretched and his lip peeled back to reveal those sharp teeth.
“I had to accept. I have to do as she says. Nothing can stop that, doc. Not even you.”
Freddy lunged. I was lucky that the table I sat at was facing him or I wouldn’t have managed to dodge the slash. The table toppled as I kicked it. Instinct winning out. Freddy buckled beneath it as I stood up.
“Now wait just a minute. I’m here to help you, Freddy. Please calm down.” Although my heart was pumping in my throat, my training kept my voice level and calm.
“No! I have to kill you. She wants me to!”
He tried to squirm and free himself of the weight pinning him to my office floor. But the carpet grabbed his skin better than superglue. I rested my weight on the table making sure to keep out of reach of his claws.
“You can fight this! You’re a strong, independent man! You have the power inside yourself to stop this circle of abuse.”
“I can’t!” Freddy trashed around but soon the fight went out of him. His wet sobs heaved his chest. “I cannnn’t!”
“Yes you can’t, Freddy. Together we can do this,” I said past a dry throat. My heart was still racing in my chest. I didn’t know if I was still in danger. The man before me showed all the signs of Stockholm syndrome. We had ways of fighting the condition but first I needed him to accept that someone could help him.
I’m going to let you up now, Freddy. You’re not going to hurt me, are you?”
Freddy’s sobs slowly ceased. Defeated by his demons he nodded and slowly placed his hand on the table. I was thankful that his nails had retracted back into his fingers. As I pulled the table up Freddy slipped out from underneath and sat crossed legged, slowly rocking back and forth.
“Now here’s what we are going to do,” I said, placing a shaking hand on his slimey shoulder.
“You need to get out of your abusive relationship. Your mistress… “
“Miranda,” Freddy interjected.
“Miranda,” I forced past the lump in my throat. “Has control because you let her. The second step is identifying the cause. We both know that it’s her.”
Freddy, leaking over my floor, stood and squelched back to the window. His deep sighed fogged up the glass.
“If it was that easy, Doc.”
“It is, Freddy. You don’t have to go home. I know a place where you can go. A pub with lodging for people with your…” I tried to find the right word. “Conditions. You will be safe there.”
“I don’t know, Doc. It’s all so sudden. She’s waiting for me to come back.”
Suddenly, I felt the tension in his voice. The underlying threat awaiting us both. The lump dissapered as I swallowed hard.
“Umm - what if - umm. What if I spoke to her, Freddy? Would that help?”
Freddy’s gills fluttered as he turned. Wide eyes blinking sideways at the thought.
“No. She can’t know. You can’t tell her I was here!”
Something of the former Freddy emerged. A twinge of fear rattling a human mind. A prang of the still human heart inside the monster before me.
“Ok. Ok. Calm down. She doesn’t have to know. But you have to let me help you. At least let me take you to this safe place, Freddy.”
Freddy paused, webbed hands at his temples. Slowly his skin became transparent again. The organs inside pumped beneath in an array of red organs and blood vessels.
After a few moments, Freddy’s shoulder sagged and he collapsed in a fit of tears.
“Okay Doc. I’ll go. I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t keep killing people. It’s not right.”
The streets of London was a scattering of autumn leaves and distant car horns. We kept to the back streets to avoid any unwanted attention, even though Freddy now wore one of my old coats. His feet slapped a rhythmic beat on the pavement with each step. The pub loomed before us on the backstreet between two office buildings. A single sign swung in the cold November breeze.
The Harrow Inn
“Now Freddy,” I said, as we paused outside. “This isn’t like your ordinary bar. Inside are monsters like yourself. You can be yourself here. No judgement.”
I knocked on the door and waited.
Freddy stiffened. His cloudy eyes, illumined yellow in the streetlights, swept to the floor grate. A trickle of water bubbled up, dousing the wet pavement in a cascade of water.
“She’s here! She knows!” Freddy flapped about like a fish on land, hoping from one webbed foot to the next.
Suddenly the floor grate thundered open in a geyser of water. I don’t have time to react as it showers around us. And Freddy was no more use than a wet sponge.
Miranda came out. First a matting of wet, jet black hair. Then a torso and long, fish scaled arms. Her lower half was lost in the grate, but I knew what she was. A mermaid.
She lunged at me and caught me by the throat, lifting me high above the ground. I choked and gasped for air. Kicked my legs useless against her strong, fishy body.
“Where have you been, Freddy!”
Freddy squirmed on the floor, hands begging out in front of him.
“Please… I didn’t mean to. I - I was coming back. I swear!”
My vision swam before me. Dark pavement. Yellow light. Freddy begging eyes. Miranda sharp teeth. I knew I was going to die, and I was powerless to stop her.
“You’re a liar. Glitter king? You couldnt glitter if you were on fire. Now get back home!”
As my world swam before me, I saw Freddy rise up. Straighten his back. Lift his eyes to mine and then to Miranda.
“No!”
“Want did you say,”
“Pleaseeee, Freddyyy,” Miranda’s grip tightened with anger. Blood pumped to my head, making it throb. The white specks of passing out clouded my eyes.
All of a sudden, I was free. Gasping for the much needed air. Freddy had dived for his mistress. The resulting charge threw them out into the road. Together they thrashed. Although Miranda was much larger than Freddy, he had the upper hand, or be it, feet.
I staggered back as the doors to the pub flew open and the bar man, Oliver, stopped out. The burly young man took in the sight before him, before tapping the door seal. From out of the side of the wall, a huge golem stoped forward and separted the fighting pair.
“No fighting, now kiddies,” Oliver thundered.
Miranda flapped in the golems grasp while Freddy hung limp with a long slash down his side.
“I’ll kill you,” she screamed at me. “I’ll kill you all!”
Oliver pointed to the floor grate and the golem let her go. She splashed inside and disappeared.
Freddy the fish, didn’t go back home that night, or ever. He’s happy now and spends most nights at The Harrow Inn, drinking away a new problem. He found someone to love him for who he is.
Me? Well, I do what I do best and give advice to monsters. Some are strange things with weird challenges. I’m willing to help them if I can, and hopefully stay alive while doing it.