Elastic Heart

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  “I…” My tongue tripped over itself as I searched for an excuse. Eventually I was going to have to turn around and face my fate, but for now I was still facing his window. He and his wife were gone and I stared into the dark, empty kitchen. I’d been following him for two months, and in those months I’d learned nothing save that he took bribes and cared for his wife.

  Perhaps the police had been right in turning me away.

  Is it rape if the person deserves it?

  I turned around slowly, ready to face my fate.

  It was Coffee Shop Fucker. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or utterly frightened it wasn’t a cop. The guy was showing up everywhere.

  “I…” I still couldn’t think of an adequate excuse for why I was in a rich neighborhood, dressed in black, hiding behind a dumpster.

  I went on the offense.

  “Why are you here?” I countered.

  I swore the man grinned, but it was gone so fast I couldn’t be sure. “I have business in the area.”

  “Oh.” I liked that explanation, so I stole it. “So do I.”

  He leaned forward a bit. “You do?”

  I shrugged, leaning back. “I do.”

  “What kind of business?” Coffee Shop Fucker asked.

  I folded my arms. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  CSF raised an eyebrow. “It’s confidential.”

  I shrugged, averting my eyes. “As is mine.”

  “How convenient.” I ripped my gaze back to his because I swore I heard him laugh. Still, when I looked, there was nothing. He eyed me with cool calculation, not a hint of humor in his hard features. I shook my head, sick of feeling insane for the night—for the rest of my life—and glared. I was done with the conversation.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” I pushed past him, but he grabbed my elbow. My body tightened and my lungs filled with ice. When strangers on the street bumped into me, my entire body reacted with carnal instinct, fear, and aggression, and that was just a bump on the street. Imagine what happened when someone actually grabbed me.

  I was torn between pulling my gun out and shooting his fucking face off or crawling into the fetal position. It was possible he suspected the war going on inside me, because his next words were: “What are you gonna do, punch me in the face again?”

  “Possibly,” I snarled. “I haven’t decided.”

  He let go of my arm. “Tell you what, I won’t call neighborhood security and tell them you’re lurking about if you go out with me right now.”

  I scoffed. “Are you threatening me?” Literally the last place on Earth I wanted to go was with some strange man. Fool me once—no, wait, fool me once, you’re still a rapist and terrible person. Fool me twice and I just have really, really shitty luck.

  “No, I’m trying to date you.” I nearly choked on my tongue. Dates were flowers and chocolates and Nora Ephron, not this.

  “The answer is and will always be a resounding no.” My mother was always a great packer. She had packing down. Need to pack a fur coat, a regular coat, three weeks worth of clothing, and a freaking bookcase into one overnight bag? She had you covered. Why had that thought popped into my head? Because at that moment I wished my mom was alive, just so she could have helped me pack a little bit more hate into my words.

  He shrugged. “All right, well why don’t I just go up to this guy’s house and ask him about your ‘business’?”

  I gulped. “Fine. Do it.” I was sincerely hoping he was bluffing, but as CSF made his way toward his stairs, I screeched. “Fine, fine! I’ll go with you. Jesus!” If going with him meant avoiding one nuclear situation so I at least had a few minutes to disarm the next, then fine. Seriously, what were my other options?

  Call the police? Alert the media?

  HA!

  I knew I had put myself in this situation, I knew it. I should have been at home, behaving like a good little rape victim and ignoring my rapist. I should have been moving on. I shouldn’t have been stalking him.

  Well what the fuck ever.

  The only solution I saw was to go with Coffee Shop Fucker, preferably to someplace well populated and well lit, and figure out how to get myself out of the new mess. I walked past CSF, intending to make my way to a more well lit street, when I heard his gravely, cocksure voice float to me from behind.

  “My name isn’t Jesus. Close, but it’s actually Nick Law.”

  I stopped mid-stride, barely able to control my indignation. Turning back to him, I scoffed.

  “What?” CSF—or Law, apparently—leaned back against his concrete steps. The lights were off in his house now, but I knew better than to think he was asleep. He was now in his study, his wife was asleep, and CSF and I were standing out in broad fucking night waiting to be caught.

  Still, I had to comment.

  “Your name is Law? As in, follow and obey the? Uphold and honor the?”

  Law grinned. “I guess you could look at it that way.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. Enigmatic, enraging, and probably rotten like him’s name was Law?

  I loved it.

  I glared at Law and continued down the road, yelling over my shoulder, “I hate it.”

  Law took me to a 24-hour pub that sold southern classics like chicken and waffles with the drinks in mason jars. I’d heard of the place before, but I’d thought it had closed up shop. It was actually quite delicious, but I wasn’t going to give Law anything, even something as small as choosing a good restaurant.

  When we left his house, I tried to lose Law. I didn’t try running, because that would have been too obvious. I told Law I knew of a “really good place, right around the corner”. He seemed suspicious, but let me lead nonetheless. My plan was to take him to the convenience store and lose him in the aisles, disappearing out back.

  It was like he fucking knew what I was thinking. When we arrived at the store he said, “This is the great place?” I told him I needed to use the bathroom first. When I went to the back, sidestepping the restroom for the back exit, he was waiting for me outside. Leaning so lackadaisically against the dirty concrete wall, it was as if he’d been reading a book.

  “Can we go now?” he asked, bored. Snow had started falling, the white flakes landing on Law as if in agreement with God himself. I ignored how beautiful the flakes looked resting on Law’s thick lashes, instead opting to glare.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.

  “Look, I’m hungry, you’re hungry, and I actually do know of a good place only a couple of blocks downtown.” My fists curled, ready to fight, when Law said, “Yeah, yeah. You have a gun and I should be scared.” He grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the neon lit door at my back. I jerked my hand back.

  “If I go with you will you leave me alone from now on?” I attempted to wager.

  He seemed to mull that over. “If you decide that you want me to leave you alone, sure.”

  I laughed. “Like I would decide anything else.” Law reached for my hand again and I folded my arms. “Tell me where we’re going.”

  “The Bell Jar.”

  I narrowed my eyes at his response. “That closed.” My bullshit meter was perking up. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was beginning to trust Law, but I was beginning to think he didn’t outright want to do me harm. The minute he said we were going to The Bell Jar, though, that changed.

  The Bell Jar was closed. Why would he be taking me somewhere closed?

  Law sighed and the movement drew my eyes to his chest. He was wearing a wool pea coat, the buttons straining against his hard mass. “No, it’s not. It closed for two months and it reopened with new management. I’m beginning to think you aren’t worth this much trouble.”

  I pounced on that. “Good! You should go with that. I’m not worth this much trouble.”

  “I said beginning to. Come on now, let’s go before all the good beer is drunk.” Law skipped off down the street. I watched him walk, his tall form almost cheerful. He was definitely an enigma.
One minute intense and brooding, the next skipping down the deserted downtown streets of Salt Lake City.

  Part of me wished he would slip on the newly fallen snow and die.

  The other part…well, I was ignoring the other part.

  I didn’t trust him, but he was starting to captivate me. Law was getting inside my head, making me want to understand him. I shook that off. There was only room for one man inside my head, and he held that spot.

  Unfortunately.

  “So whose house were you spying on?” Law asked, taking a gulp of beer from his mason jar.

  “I’m surprised you’re pretending you don’t know,” I mumbled, poking at my chicken and waffles sans chicken. Law, after all, was working with him. Even though I was only eating with Law so he wouldn’t immediately give me up to him, I still felt like I was walking a dangerous and fraying tightrope.

  Was Law playing with me like a cat does a mouse?

  “What was that?” Law asked, wiping beer from his mouth. I watched, fascinated, as his hand scratched across his five o’clock shadow. Law seemed so carefree, drinking beer, enjoying chicken and waffles. His hazel eyes gleamed as he talked to me.

  Did he not walk the tightrope? Did he not think about him?

  I stabbed my waffles. “I said can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure. Are you in school or working?”

  I thought about that. I had been in school before the incident with scholarships paying for everything. Now I was working just so I could pay the bills. I didn’t want Law to know anything real about me, so I decided to start lying.

  “School,” I mumbled, spearing mashed potatoes with my fork just to watch the perforation.

  “What are you studying?” he asked, taking another gulp of his beer.

  “I’m leaning toward peace and conflict studies.” Back before the incident, I had been studying peace and conflict. I had fancied that I would change the world and make it a better place.

  Now I knew the world would never be a better place, because the people who were making the changes were evil, terrible people. I took a chug of my whiskey cocktail and shrugged. The drink was delicious. It tasted like fruit and sugar and syrup, and the alcohol hit just the right spot.

  Law took another sip of his water and the ghost of a smile appeared on his face.

  “Are you amused by something?” I asked caustically.

  “Yes,” Law said, his smile broadening. I glared, taking another swig of whiskey. It was entirely unladylike, but whatever. I didn’t want to be there anyway. I would have preferred the seventh layer of hell to this.

  “I do find the idea of a pedestrian bashing, gun-toting woman such as yourself studying peace and conflict amusing.” I scowled, feeling vile and venomous. I had always hated the idea of violence, a pacifist by nature. Call me a constitution hater, but I thought guns should be banned. That was, until the attack. I still didn’t like guns. Every time I reached for mine, I felt such conflict. Wasn’t now the time I should really stand for my beliefs? It’s easy to say “Put your guns away!” when you don’t feel threatened, but now that I felt threatened, I tossed my ideals aside and reached for my gun. I don’t know. Fuck. I took another sip of my cocktail in an attempt to allay the troublesome thoughts.

  “What about you?” I asked, attempting to change the subject. “What do you do?” I knew it was futile. Law was a liar just like him. Whatever he told me was only to serve whatever new sick plan they had for me.

  I hated this. I hated that I had felt some semblance of power for two months but yet again he was taking it away from me.

  I didn’t want to be at dinner, but he and his henchman had forced me there.

  He was taking control of my life once again.

  I gulped the last of my drink, hoping the liquid would stave off the tears brimming beneath my lids.

  “You should eat something,” Law stated.

  “Fuck yourself,” I replied, and ordered another drink.

  Law paid the tab. I didn’t even reach for it. Are you kidding me? I was practically a hostage. It wasn’t a date. I wasn’t going to foot the bill on my own kidnapping. When we left and Law opened the door for me, I grunted. His manners were like a lifejacket on the Titanic. Just like I would rather die quickly than float for a few hours before freezing to death, I would have rather had Law cut to the chase than sprinkle manners on top of his bullshit.

  My car was actually near the restaurant; I hadn’t thought it was smart to park near his house when doing reconnaissance. So, I only needed to walk about a block and half to find my car parked along the street, but I wasn’t about to lead Law to my getaway vehicle—cough, old Honda, cough.

  I looked around. It was probably about three in the morning. Since I’d started working the night shift, I was getting good at recognizing the time of night. Sort of how people learn to tell what time of day it is, I’d started to understand the night.

  “All right, well, you can go now,” I said, gesturing to Law. “It’s about to blizzard, anyway. You can tell by the way the nimbostratus is forming.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. I worked at a meteorology lab and my grunt work was identifying clouds and cloud patterns to store in a national database to help predict weather patterns. A toddler could do it.

  Law narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?”

  Fuck it, it’s not like I’ll see the bastard after tonight. “I work in a meteorology lab. If I didn’t know that I’d be pretty piss poor at my job, don’cha think?”

  “A peace and conflict student working in a lab?” Law’s disbelief was evident.

  I rubbed my nose, ready to end the night. “I’m not studying peace. Or conflict.”

  Law took a step closer. “What?”

  “I’m not studying peace. Or conflict,” I repeated, folding my arms and taking a step back as Law inched nearer.

  “Why would you lie?” I shrugged at his question. Did it matter? If Law stuck to his word, I wouldn’t see him after the night. I’d agreed to the dinner just to get the man off my lawn and out of my life. I honestly didn’t expect him to find out about my white lie. Chalk it up to in vino veritas, or in whiskey veritas.

  Law stepped even closer to me. Instinctively, I stepped back again—into a wall. I glanced hurriedly around, looking at the brick and cement walls that pinned me. How had we ended up in an alley? I supposed it wasn’t really an alley; Utah doesn’t have many “alleys”. Chalk it up to the Mormons: they may have their problems, but they know how to keep a street clean—on the outside, at least.

  I swiveled my head to the right and could see some lone people walking down the street. Downtown wasn’t much of a metropolis past ten o’clock. Things started closing at ten and everything was closed by twelve. It was three in the morning so any people up now were getting ready for the day, not ending the night like Law and me. Law took another step closer and I surreptitiously reached for the gun in my purse.

  “I just wanted to know why you would lie.” Law took two steps back. “I don’t like lying.” There was now considerable distance between us. I breathed, unaware that I had been holding my breath, and took my hand away from my purse. I scoffed at his words.

  “I’m beginning to hate that,” Law said.

  “What?” I asked, scoffing again. “I just find it utterly laughable that you don’t like lying.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  I yawned, preferring to divert the conversation rather than confront Law. “It’s getting late, and I have work tomorrow—today, I guess.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “Nope.” I nearly scoffed again but thought better of it. “No thanks.”

  “I’m not about to let you drive in the state you’re in.” The state I’m in? I’d had two drinks and they’d since settled, thankyouverymuch.

  I rolled my eyes to the side and smiled acidly. “Let’s get this straight, Law: you don’t tell me what to do, what to think, what to wear, how to act, or
anything else, got it? If you’re looking for some girl to boss around and make you feel like a man, you’ve picked the wrong one. Maybe you heard my story and thought I was damaged and could be groomed easily, I don’t know, but you picked the wrong target.” I coughed, feeling drained. It had taken every ounce of emotional energy I had left to make that speech.

  I was fearful. Fearful that I was an easy target, that after what had happened to me, men could groom me. Part of me was beginning to think the reason Law was being so inquisitive in my life was because he had figured out who I was and thought I was an easy target. I hadn’t yet told him my name for that very reason. Still… I hoped Law wouldn’t question me or my speech, that he would just take it at face value and fuck off.

  Law took another step back, his face a mix of emotions. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” I hadn’t expected that.

  “I wasn’t trying to groom you, or shit, I don’t know. I uh…think I should go.” Law rubbed a hand through his dark blond hair.

  I grabbed his arm. “Why did you follow me out of the coffee shop? Why have you been following me?”

  His eyes snapped to mine, so fierce they were almost shining yellow. “I’ve seen that face before.”

  “My face?” I froze. My fears were materializing. He thought I was an easy target. I was becoming a Nami smoothie, ground up and sucked up.

  “One of complete terror and isolation. It’s the face a victim gets when she sees her attacker. ”

  I sucked in a breath, snapping out of my whirling thoughts. “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “My line of work is…unique,” Law replied, ever the inscrutable one.

  I scoffed. I was starting to believe him; how dumb of me. “Your line of work?”

  He eyed me incredulously and repeated my words, almost annoyed. “Yes, my line of work.”

  “As a fucking political puppet?” I couldn’t help my response. I wasn’t a seasoned liar—unlike the company I kept—so it was hard to keep my tongue in check.

  Law craned his neck to the side, eyeing me with confusion. “What are you talking about?”