“Rothenburg,” he murmured. “That’s in Germany, right?”
So he knew his geography. Was that surprising? She bet he’d memorized the world capitals, the periodic table, ready for his debut on Jeopardy.
“‘The sexton’s wife moved to the window,’” he read, “‘and with slender white fingers, brushed aside the curtain.’”
Anna’s toes curled into knots, the skin of her chest burning.
Bryan continued, insensitive to her annoyance. “‘She screwed up her eyes and peered over the hill. The cemetery gates were fastened tight, as always.’”
Anna stood, moved beside him. The fact that he was the first person to speak these words aloud was an outrage. He was sullying her story, his inflectionless voice leeching it of passion.
“Cemetery,” Bryan said, eyes crawling down the screen. “The moon.” He turned to her, one eyebrow cocked. “This a vampire story?”
“Of a kind.”
“Title?”
She folded her arms. “The Nachzehrer.”
“Ah, the German vampire legend. I’ve always enjoyed that one. Very quaint.”
Her lips thinned.
“How have you worked in suicide?” At her silence, Bryan grimaced. “Tell me you know the legend?”
She couldn’t face that incredulous grin. She turned away and stepped purposefully toward the window.
“You didn’t research it, did you? Christ, you’re like every other writer. You go joyriding and the reader is forced to ride along, and, my God, suicide is the most important aspect of the legend!”
And this time the word suicide clanged in her head like the tolling of sinister church bells, and Bryan was raving now:
“…and here I thought you were different. I told myself, here’s someone who’s not afraid of a little elbow grease, who understands that.…”
Bryan’s words died as, her back to him, Anna untied the robe. Spread it open.
“What are you—” he started and fell silent when the robe piled at her feet.
She felt his stupefied gaze on her naked backside. Sensed his churning conflict.
Anna turned and riveted him with her eyes.
Bryan’s gaze roved over her bare sex. He looked like he might be sick.
“Something wrong?” she teased.
He didn’t speak. She let the morning sunshine drowse over her, augmenting the brown of her flesh. The russet curls of her pubic hair.
“You don’t have to compensate with me, Bryan.”
His eyes were unfocused. “I’m getting breakfast.”
“I’m going to win.”
His smirk returned. “The hell you are. My story is gonna blow the doors off—”
“You’re going to help me,” she said. Her nipples were hardening. She could feel his gaze descending, tearing away, descending. “If your book is as good as you claim, you’ll be helping yourself win.”
He barked out a harsh laugh, dragged a hand through his hair. “I have no idea what we’re talking about.”
“Pressure,” she said.
“What—”
“Everyone feels it,” she explained, stepping toward him. “We need to intensify the pressure.”
“How?”
She kept coming. “You liked it when Marek got kicked out.”
He glared at her. “You liked it too.”
She stopped a foot from where he stood. If he turned, his arm would brush her jutting nipples. On some level, she longed for this. His body was heavily muscled, hardened by cardiovascular work. He was a physical specimen. His mind, though, was a hornet’s nest of self-loathing.
“I liked it too,” she agreed. “I liked it when Tommy ran away.”
This brought a chuckle. “Couldn’t take it.”
“I’ll enjoy it when Elaine runs.”
“You think?”
“Or Evan.”
A hungry look flitted over his face. She stored it away for later. “Or Lucy. She was frail to begin with.”
“Had her shot and blew it,” he muttered. His eyes lowered to her pubic region, flicked to her face. “I assume you have ideas about how to get rid of them?”
“I do. But first we have to trust each other.”
He snorted, began to turn away.
“Bryan.”
At her tone, he froze.
“When it’s down to two, we can hate each other again. Until then, let’s cooperate.”
He didn’t speak.
“Will you do that?” she asked. “Knowing, in the end, one of us will destroy the other?”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then his face spread into a wicked grin. It simultaneously chilled her and made her ache below.
“Let the bloodletting commence,” he said.
Chapter Six
Dear Justine,
The Nachzehrer is my masterwork. And you know what else, Justine? You’re an insolent bitch. And tricky. Oh, so tricky. I thought I knew myself, but it turns out self-knowledge is as elusive for me as it is for everyone else.
But you know what?
It doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t matter that you’re in my story, doesn’t matter that I’m writing you.
You know why it doesn’t matter?
Because it’s good, Justine.
Fuck that. It’s fabulous.
More fabulous than you were when we roomed together our sophomore year at Syracuse.
Yes, Justine, I’m admitting it. You were fabulous then. Quiet grace is the phrase my mother used after I brought you home, and I think it might have been then that the idea began to form.
You see, my mother never used that phrase with me. Hell, she never used anything approximating that phrase with me. Lively, sure. Prima donna was another. Or my favorite, the damning cliché that made me want to claw her eyes out: Her head is in the clouds.
Do you see, Justine? The words imply I’m a flake, some hippy-dippy lovechild who glides about uttering gibberish about tolerance and acceptance and living in harmony.
Fuck tolerance.
Fuck acceptance.
Fuck harmony in the ass.
And fuck you, Justine. You had the unattainable quality I could never match. Oh, sure, when it came to sex appeal, I blew you away, and to most men, that was enough.
But not to Jake. And because Jake was the one who ignored me, he became the only one that mattered. We’re simple creatures, really. Wanting what we can’t have. A guy could be a leper, but if he showed no interest in me, I’d fixate on him until he did, at which time I’d dump him and move on.
Yet Jake wanted you.
You might have been happy together, built a life, all that crap. Four children, I’m thinking, a brick house in a gated community. Him working some prestigious job, you shuttling the brats around in your SUV, sipping Starbucks and rocking your tennis skirts. Everyone would look at you and think, There goes Justine. My, she has quiet grace.
But we fixed that, didn’t we?
Jake was the best-looking guy in his frat. Cocky, but able to feign tenderness. That was your first mistake, overlooking the lusty gleam in his eyes. He hid it well, but if you peered closely enough, you could distinguish glimmers, the wolf beneath the lamb. When he drank, his eyes would become freer, bolder, and that’s when he’d stare at you, and that was torturous for me.
I saw where things were headed, and I had two choices. I could cut and run, for the first time admitting defeat. Bested by my roommate, the girl I called my dearest friend, the one my parents wanted to adopt.
Or I could do what I’ve always done.
I once witnessed something I’ll never forget. In high school a group of us visited a friend whose parents were dog breeders. They had kennels crammed with yipping dogs. One kennel was compartmentalized, a father Dalmatian on one si
de, the mommy and her puppies on the other. Separated by wire mesh.
My friend Alec commented that it was cruel to keep the father away from his puppies. Alec decided he’d give the father visitation rights. He raised the dividing panel between the daddy and the puppies.
At first nothing happened. The father Dalmatian paused to eye his brood. One puppy approached. I remember thinking how sweet a moment it was, how unjust the breeders were for keeping the family separated. I was thinking this when our friend exited her house, realized what Alec had done, and raced forward, shouting, “No, no, no!”
It happened so quickly I could scarcely believe it. One moment the puppy was inching toward its father. The next the father gripped the puppy in his teeth, whipped it in a mad frenzy, and spiked it on the ground with appalling force. The puppy squealed in pain, and even in the flurry of teeth and claws between the mother and father, I could see the puppy’s broken foreleg, the bone piercing the skin and dribbling blood in the kennel dust.
I’ve thought a lot about that horrid incident. I’ve turned it over and over in my head. What made the father attack his own child? I think there was something in the father’s nature that made him do it. He couldn’t help inflicting violence.
Could I have stopped what happened to you?
You began dating Jake in October. Every time you two started to kiss, you’d pull away from him, a hand on his chest, an embarrassed smile on your face, and murmur an apology, as though you’d just inflicted irreparable damage on me.
I’d return your smile. Toes curled into ballerina knots, neck tendons straining, I’d assure you it was okay, I’d seen people making out before.
The thing was.…
I lied.
Never had I been so thoroughly humiliated. Never had I wanted a boy the way I wanted Jake Bryant. Jake with his blue eyes and black hair and his close-cropped beard before the look came into vogue.
Jake, however, wanted you.
There was only one problem.
You wouldn’t put out.
Your reason? One November night, the two of us drinking wine coolers in our sorority, the windowpanes frosty and the comforter warm, you told me your darkest secret.
Freshman year, you’d shared the precious gift between your legs with four different boys. Nothing abnormal about that, nothing to be ashamed of.
What doomed you was one boy’s possessiveness and his rage at being cast aside. The boy had gone to your high school, knew all your old friends. When you stopped returning his calls, he vented his rage online, shared details about your sexual appetites. He named names. All of a sudden, sweet little Justine was the girl who banged anything with a pulse. Even your parents found out! You were mortified, you confessed over your fourth wine cooler, and you even, gulp, considered suicide. The evils of social media, you claimed, had almost ended your life.
My God, Justine, don’t you see it now? Don’t you realize what you did?
You forged the axe. You whetted the blade.
You handed it to your executioner.
The week before Valentine’s Day, you were on your period. By that time Jake was confiding in me. Venting to me might be a more appropriate description. Quiet grace only goes so far, and after a while, a man needs to fuck. No matter how sweet a guy is, no matter how chivalrous, when you get down to it, his urge to stick his thing in something hot and wet trumps all.
Which is why Jake fucked me first.
It was all unplanned. I was sitting in the back seat of his Mustang and listening sympathetically to his complaints about you. Great girl. Might be the one. But so frigid. So insensitive to his needs.
I nodded, knowing all of it already. I knew that while you were devastated by what happened your freshman year, there was a part of you that enjoyed your little sex spree. Yes, you enjoyed it, Justine, and I think that was the true reason you held out on Jake for so long. You associated pleasure with humiliation, and a connection like that can be a thorny one. Your waking mind despised what happened, grew terrified of being shamed again.
But your subconscious yearned for that wanton release. I watched you in your sleep, read the conflict in your furrowed brow, your sweaty sheets. You longed to lose control, dreamed of being naughty.
When I informed Jake, he was eager to test my theory. We agreed it should seem last-minute, my tagging along on your romantic Valentine’s Day excursion. Jake booked a hotel, one of those sybaritic establishments with a mirror over the bed.
You were cool to the idea of my coming along at first – after all, you wanted Jake to yourself. But he drew you aside in the sorority lobby, explained how poor Anna was going to be alone, and did you really want that? On Valentine’s Day?
Of course you did, Justine, but you pretended it was okay. You pouted on the ride to the restaurant, but a few Long Island iced teas thawed you. At the bars you continued to drink, and more importantly, to dance. Sandwiched between me and Jake, bodies grinding, you ceased caring about whose hands were caressing your ass, whose tongue was in your mouth.
By the time we arrived at the gaudy hotel with the rose-red bathtub and the black satin bedspread, you were up for anything, and Jake was more than game. The three of us writhed like vipers, though the next morning you claimed not to remember any of it.
Good thing I brought the camcorder.
Filming the festivities had been my idea, but Jake offered no resistance. He was too happy to be living out his most cherished fantasy. The only time he frowned was when I refused to hand him the camera.
But that wouldn’t have worked, would it? Because had Jake become the cameraman, he might have caught my face. As it was, I was able to focus on you, Justine, you bent over, perfect buttocks in the air as Jake rammed you. You, Justine, with your face between my legs, your tongue lapping at my clit like a dutiful submissive. You, Justine, deep-throating your boyfriend and guzzling his load.
The quiet grace of a hardcore porn star.
I still remember your shock when I told you, tears in my eyes, that I couldn’t find the camera. It had been in my purse when I’d gone to the coffee shop, but when I got home, it was gone.
The horror on your face was so satisfying I almost let it go at that.
Almost.
But I hated you, Justine. In the end, it was a matter of hatred. Everyone doted on you. Treated you with more dignity. More respect. And I had the proof you were no better than anyone else.
The hardest part was waiting until Spring Break to upload the footage. I didn’t do it, of course. That might have been traced to me.
It’s amazing how many unscrupulous people there are. How easy it is to find a guy who’ll post a sex tape to social media, to porn sites, for a hundred bucks.
I’ll never forget the silence, Justine. How after I texted you the link to the video – OMG THIS IS TERRIBLE WHAT R YOU GOING TO DO??? – you never responded. You were getting ready to go on a mission trip for your church (the irony!), but you never made it. I often wonder what your final hours were like. Did you pace your bedroom? Did your mom knock on your door? Offer you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? How long did it take you to decide on pills?
Here’s the part that kills me. My goal was to devastate you. To humiliate you. To ruin your reputation. I wanted you out of our sorority, out of Syracuse. Out of New York State, if possible.
I didn’t mean to kill you.
Regretfully yours,
Anna Holloway
Chapter Seven
Evan sat fidgeting with his pages.
Nine chairs lined the edge of the dance floor, eight of them arranged in a semicircle, the other a folding black-and-white director’s chair. Their circle was illuminated by a ring of candles in holders of various heights. The rest of the ballroom was steeped in shadow.
Footsteps sounded. Wearing a dapper black suit, Wells strode onto the dance floor.
He must be sleeping better, Evan thought. His clothes are pressed. New shoes too.
As Wells neared, Evan noticed how healthy Wells’s skin now appeared. Gone were the liver spots on his cheeks, the saggy skin near his ears.
No way he’s eighty, Evan thought. Sixty-five at most, and even that’s a stretch.
Wells said, “Mr. Clayton.”
“Yes, sir?”
“The floor is yours.”
Bryan swallowed. “You want me to read?”
Wells eased into the director’s chair and smiled a self-satisfied smile. “Yes, Mr. Clayton. I want you to read.”
Bryan looked around. “Should I sit?”
“Stand in the center. Show me why I should make you famous.”
Bryan nodded, attempted to maneuver between the candleholders without knocking them over.
I hope you burn, Evan thought.
Bryan began to read.
The story chronicled an invasion of Taipan snakes, evidently a deadly breed. Though Evan’s skin crawled at the snakes’ descriptions, Wells didn’t appear impressed. No one in the ballroom spoke, but the disapproval oozed out of the audience, several writers shifting in their chairs or scribbling notes. Bryan looked like he was about to faint.
Evan remembered the way the son of a bitch had abused him; Evan had yearned for revenge. But this…this was better than anything he could have imagined.
He realized he was leaning forward, fists clenched and teeth bared like a member of a lynch mob. He caught himself and relaxed. When he was sure no one had noticed his feral expression, he pulled out his notebook and began to write:
THE SHAMING OF A LOUT
A One-Scene Play by Evan Laydon
BRYAN (sweating): …and then the fierce snake wriggled closer. The man tried to push away, but the dripping fangs—
WELLS: Please God, no more.
BRYAN (looking up from his crumpled pages): Sorry?
WELLS: Cease. Before I grow too nauseated to stop you.
BRYAN: I’m not even done with the first scene.
WELLS: Then thank God I stopped you when I did.
BRYAN (gesturing to the pages): This is only a rough draft.
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