Restrictions

By E A (Edward) St Amant

The love of a woman–Helen, the famous Judge Lemmeur’s beautiful daughter–by two identical twins, Bryce and Juno Pontoon, law-clerks from St Pauls, Minnesota, leads to calamity. A tale so dark and so lacking in civility that you will fear for its perpetrators and victims alike. A powerful story of thwarted intentions and twisted designs leads in short order to the culmination of murder, degradation and despair. Half Nut was spooky and Eddie was downright evil. An excellent read at an incredible speed. At first it seems about lust, violence and deception of the worst kind, yet in there lies a perplexity, for it’s offset by witty and downright hilarious dialogue taking place between outrageous characters who will stay with you as long as a tattoo. Yes, it’s about tattoos, and as well, about the war in Iraq, obesity, excess in America, drugs, art theft, betrayal of the most unsavory kind, all sorts of physical gratification and sex you’ll want to forget or maybe even remember.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E A (Edward) St Amant
• Release date: May 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452368979

E A (Edward) St Amant

E A St Amant is the author of How to Increase the Volume of the Sea Without Water, Dancing in the Costa Rican Rain and Stealing Flowers.https://www.minds.com/edwardatedstamant/https://tededwardstamant.substack.com/

Book preview

Restrictions

Published by E A St Amant at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition August 2011

Verses and poems within, by authors

Web and Cover design by: Edward Oliver Zucca

Web Developed by: Adam D’Alessandro

Copyrighted by E A St Amant May 2007

e-Impressions Toronto

Author Contact: [e-mail]

E A St Amant.com Publishers

www.eastamant.com

All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, emailing, ebooking, by voice recordings, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author or his agent. Restrictions ISBN -13: 978-0-9780118-7-1; Digital ISBN: 978-1-4523-6897-9. Thanks to the many people who did editorial work on this project and offered their many kind suggestions, including Lisa D’Alessandro, Marko Markovinovic and Robbie Morra. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances whatsoever to any real actual events or locales in persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Restrictions was in part originated by Edward Oliver Zucca, who, with thanks, supplied some of the original ideas, scenes and characters.

Edward St Amant

How to Increase the Volume of the Sea Without Water

Dancing in the Costa Rican Rain

Stealing Flowers

Spiritual Apathy

Book of Mirrors

Perfect Zen

Five Days of Eternity

Five Years After

Five Hundred Years Without Faith

Fog Walker

Murder at Summerset

This Is Not A Reflection of You

The Theory of Black Holes (Collected Poems)

The Circle Cluster, Book I, The Great Betrayer,

The Circle Cluster, Book II, The Soul Slayer,

The Circle Cluster, Book III, The Heart Harrower,

The Circle Cluster, Book IV, The Aristes,

The Circle Cluster, Book V, CentreRule,

The Circle Cluster, Book VI, The Beginning One

Nonfiction

Atheism, Scepticism and Philosophy

Articles in Dissident Philosophy

The New Ancien Régime

By E O Zucca & E A St Amant

Molecular Structures of Jade

Instant Sober

Living Animal

Chapter 1

From where he stood, he could see the mirror-faced facade of a modern monolith in sight of St. Paul’s’ City Hall Courthouse, the place he worked. The air smelled of dog urine or the muddy Mississippi River, he couldn’t tell which. He had no Resoral left for his neat Brandy and stared from his glass to his watch to the deserted streets below. The odd car flashed by but without inveighing itself on his dream-like state. He faced an ill-lit Victorian building, The Bellaire Hotel. Sleepless slumber was now a way of life. He was half-seriously contemplating throwing himself off. Imagining the satisfaction of crushed bones and pooling blood from 25 floors up. Would his eyes be open or shut when they found his body? The time moved toward five a.m. and he had to be at work by eight. In this way, one horrible empty twenty-four hour period followed another. A steady state of panic was creeping over him in these last days. He tossed his half-smoked cigarette off the balcony and went back inside.

From the corner of the living room, he stared at the single main attribute on the longest wall, a large oil on canvass by a childhood friend of the family. It was of the Huygens probe, parachutes inflated above it, landing on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, a terrestrial satellite bigger even than the planet Mercury. How he had come to have a beautiful original production of Alien Skies by the famous David Harper was that Harper had been in a crisis and Juno had bailed him out for less than two thousand dollars. The painting was priced now at $20,000. In the long hours of a depressing sweaty July night, this was about all he had in the world.

Her name was Helen. She had a wired-in biological effect on him. Her impact on Juno, even upon meeting her, was devastating. It was Juno who had by fraud and deception, tried to steal her away from his brother, and who had so bitterly lost. Her impact on Bryce was apparently no less than it had been on Juno. It had ripped both families apart and severed what had seemed his birth-right, his enduring relationship with his twin brother.

Juno had been in love with Helen even while she was engaged to Bryce. With the worst dupery he had consummated that love at the twin’s twentieth birthday party. The identical twin brothers looked shockingly similar.

Juno was glad of his conquest even to this day.

He remembered every swiftly passing second of that night. She was a pale lithe edible woman, her eyes deep and satisfying, her hot sticky body coaxing the fluid to spring from him, four, five, six times, he had lost track. He had licked every inch of her, his heart racing through the whole of the night. She had responded. The sheets were wet with her. She knew all along who it was - that it couldn’t be the withdrawn, timid, pussy-shy Bryce - although she avidly denied it later.

Yes, she knew, and Juno knew, and worse still, Bryce knew.

Everyone fucking knew.

Hell, Bryce and he worked at the downtown courthouse together. It was a fiasco and what was he to do except wait for his chance again to be with her, or disappear from St. Paul’s forever.

Kill or be banished!

The panic returned.

He sat on the single sofa-chair and slumbered until the beeping from the alarm in his bedroom woke him up. How long he had slept was hard to tell. He showered and shaved in a rush and when he left for work, he carried his old high school olive-colored army haversack. The bottom was scraped; the old canvass bag was worn and some holes were patched up with dull blue duct tape or stickers of long forgotten high school bands. Inside was a thick drafting-cylinder, a book, his overnight bag and a clean set of underwear and socks.

He entered the courthouse building at around 8:15. How bloodshot his eyes were he could only imagine. Without reporting for work, he went to the huge public washrooms in the concourse, which in the early mornings were usually clean, splashing cold water on his face. Although he was alone, he looked around with resentment as he studied himself in the mirror.

No one in the these buildings really liked him, well, except for maybe some of the younger female staff in the victim witness center who found him cute or funny - he got plenty of uninspirational sex with them - but the people that worked at the County Courthouse, colleagues, friends of his, always made a note whenever he had screwed up, almost always going out of their way to ‘check up on him’ looking for mistakes, and today, he was starting the day with another fuck up. This was the third day running he had been late. He looked at his watch, but couldn’t muster the courage to head upstairs. He splashed some more water on his face and left it running.

His brother Bryce was no exception to the rest of the crew here either; he too, hated Juno. Who could blame him? Although they’d never talked about why, it was understood. Yet for years Juno played it up as if it had only been an innocent opportunity; sometimes it was set in his mind that he had done no wrong in taking it. He had been drunk, in love, and in his heart, he knew that she had loved it too - for Christ’s sake - she had sucked his cock several times that night. How could she not know? How drunk could she have been?

Bryce had a small ridge on his nose from a previous fistfight between the two brothers. What about that?

No, she knew all right! Helen wasn’t fooling anyone and Bryce neither. He knew full-well that Juno would take the opportunity again if he had half the chance. Helen knew it as well. Was she waiting for it? Longing for it? He wondered about this same thing every single day!

The staff on his level would be wondering just about now why there wasn’t anyone telling crude jokes, using vulgar language, or just plain shit-disturbing. Of course, one staff member after another would feel inclined to ask Bryce where Juno might be, possibly with a snicker. Late again?

By now - 9 a.m. - Bryce would have given the same stupid answers to a dozen brainless questions. I don’t know where he is . . . By the time the new coordinator, that ignorant little shit, Fernando, asked Bryce, he would have changed his tone to one of rancor. I don’t give a fuck . . .

But this morning, Juno’s mood had been different than every other poor bastard on his or her way to work. He could see it on their faces. They were going to the same place as the day before, five boring days a week, week after week, the same mind-numbing hell; a perfect form of slavery, and nothing ever changed. But today, for the first time in a long time, Juno seriously thought about leaving St. Paul’s and felt better than he had for days. His panic lessened and he imagined that he could almost sleep through an entire night.

He thought of the retaining area where he supervised `the impending’ cases. The worst sorts of people sat in line waiting on the grinding legal process. The room would be filled - the phone would be ringing - a belligerence permeated the air, not just here, but on the phone as well and the reminders of Helen were all around: Bryce, Helen’s father, who was a senior judge for the court, her mother, who was a state attorney and the staff who all whispered a campaign against him.

Pssst! You can’t trust him! Did you know he tried to steal away his own twin-brother’s beautiful wife!

He was a fool to stay and take it. He splashed some more water on his face, freezing water by now. Again looking at his reflection.

What makes a man go over the edge? What makes him think of buying a gun - a Taurus PT 908 - and overly contemplate friends of his at work? What stops a man from actually going over it . . . allows him to find serenity in the midst of emotional crisis? Maybe escape? But was he losing it . . . was he indeed going over the edge? All these questions were burning in Juno’s mind. He wiped his face one last time and straightened out his brown wavy hair. Then resolution came to him: he had to leave St. Paul’s . . . to escape . . . immediately.

He almost sprinted out of the building then, not looking back, and down the main drag with his old haversack on his back. He only wished he had packed a suitcase, but he dare not return to his apartment, he might not have the courage to leave, but inside - rolled up and carefully protected in that drafting-cylinder - was the oil painting of Huygens. He had found a buyer on eBay, an art dealer who had offices in Bermuda, Barbados, and Florida, Vic Scalon.

He had bought it three years ago from David Harper. David and he hadn’t spoken for about a decade before that, and he remembered well, why: when Juno had turned thirteen, he had sex with David Harper’s younger sister. David was Bryce’s best friend, then and now. His sister was retarded, or at least Juno thought so. One day, David had said it was all right for Juno to do it with her for ten bucks, back then, it had seemed plenty of money for sex with an unattractive girl, but while they were doing it, she had started whining that it was hurting her. He had punched her in the side of the head with a couple of swift ones, but nothing too serious, just so she had shut up until he was done. David Harper never talked to him again, well, at least until three years ago. David had planned to go to a prestigious art school, and his parents, without doubting his character, advanced him the funds in cash, and wouldn’t you know it, their god-fearing irreproachable son - who until then could do no wrong - blew it up his nose.

Around that same time, David’s sister died. She was found in a church parking lot, they never found out how or why. It wasn’t homicide, or anything like that; she just lay there over night until some nuns found her in the morning. However, Juno knew how she had died. She was left handed, and left-handed people always die sooner, especially retarded ones. Juno had studied kirology. People with two middle toes the same length, frequently died before their thirty-fifth birthday. People with tiny or nonexistent baby toes often became centurions. And many other startling facts, which related to the study of hands and feet, and more facts were being discovered by kirologists all over the world everyday.

Shortly after this, David’s mother killed herself, and no way was David’s father going to pay for any art-schooling for David - twice!

Juno heard from a friend that David needed cash to attend this hot art course taught by the world famous painter, Barbara Dysan - David had desperately wanted to attend - and Juno offered to buy the painting which he had formerly seen at a cheese & booze-can gallery near the William Mitchell College of Law on Summit, the area where Helen worked. He bought it at once - at what he was warned - was a foolish overpayment. But who was laughing now? David Harper was quickly becoming famous. Besides, Juno felt it was the least he could do to make up for the thing with David’s sister.

When he inserted his coins, Juno was surprised to find a pair of Manolo Blahnik high-heeled bright red vamp-pumps someone had left in the public locker. He laughed sadly to himself running his hand along the soft suede leather of the thick soles. They were brand new, a half-sling back style with excellent stitch work. Helen had a pair similar, but a somewhat more expensive type. With the bright blood-red shoes was a pair of matching Victoria’s Secrets thong-style frilly panties in a bright gold bag with the words La Vie on it. An old-fashioned clip-up silver cigarette lighter and two packs of cigarettes were tucked into the bottom of the bag. On the top part of the lighter was a phallic symbol. It was like a message from Sigmund Freud or the Marquis de Sade, but the haversack fit in there just right.

The lockers only cost fifty cents at the train station, where, for some reason it was a buck at the mall. He closed the locker door and turned towards the monitors that had the train times. He thought about where he was going, as he put a cigarette between his lips, still hanging on to the red vamp-pumps with his pinkie finger; the panties, cigarettes, and lighter, he had shoved into his pockets.

Hey buddy, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? came a voice from behind him. He swirled on the butt of his feet. The first thing he saw were her eyes, dark blue bold ones with a menacing glare, then he spotted the diamond in the right side of her nostril; he immediately wondered if she had a ball-stud on her tongue. The lobes of her ears were also pierced, but her voice ruined the effect that her sexy style had created. It was a belligerent screech; strictly white trash. That’s my fucking locker!

He held up the key with the bright yellow plastic tag. I don’t think so. He said this quite calmly, and with a broad smile, but he could see that she was in no mood for even his best charming antics. Looking at her more focused, he decided that she was totally fuckable, shrieking voice or not.

She grabbed the shoes from his hand. And the panties, you pervert? Red faced, he slowly pulled them out of his pant-pocket, but also smiling with chicanery. These as well she grabbed. The cigarettes and lighter? He handed them over too, one at a time and she gathered them in her hands, stumbling with them. You owe me fifty cents. He laughed light-heartedly and handed her two quarters without a word of protest. She trembled, put the coins into the slot of the locker next to his, and threw the shoes, panties, smokes and lighter into it haphazardly.

I guess you forgot the key, he said stupidly, trying to make contact, more out of curiosity than anything, or so he told himself, although she was quite a looker in a Marilyn Monroe sort of way. She dropped the key into an envelope, licked it as she walked away. He couldn’t resist a parting shot. Hey, he called, tell me about, The Mystery of the St Paul’s Public Bus-Locker Number Sixty Six?

She didn’t respond nor even turn around and he watched her as she walked away. After all, her figure, was damn fine, her step, full of energy, and her nearly see-through red cotton dress, hanging on her curves like a man’s hand. She was compared to Helen, completely opposite in style and sensibility.

He chuckled to himself without mirth and went to purchase a trip on a Grey Hound to Florida by way of Chicago. It cost $425 - nearly every bit of ready cash he had at his disposal - and a two-hour wait besides. He sighed and wondered what to do with the time. Did he really want to do something so rash? No refunds were to be had on his ticket if he changed his mind. Besides, his apartment was covered for two months - he didn’t have to worry for the time being, his credit cards were paid in full, so he had emergency funds if something fucked up with the painting, but did he want to leave Helen? That was the real question? What choice did he have? Should he phone work and tell them to shove it? Should he phone his parents? They’d be soon worried. He sat down on a nearby wooden bench, trying to contemplate his decision and noticing that his constant companion of vague panic had left him. At once his eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep.

He was awoken sometime later by a security guard who’d roughly pushed him off the bench. He found himself face down on the hard dirty terrazzo floor. He realized that he must have been lying on the bench, probably snoring as most smokers do, but the blood was rushing to his head now and he jumped to his feet at once, facing a fifty-year-old or so security guard.

Juno’s assessment was quick and simple: who stood before him was an angry bald-headed six-foot-something fool praying for another opportunity to be unpleasant. Rage leapt to Juno’s face.

Ta geuule! he swore.

The security guard did a double take as