by Jack Ketchum
“Go ahead, Ray. Move the flashlight around a little. Have a good look. Have fun. You can see my face anytime, right?”
He held it on her a moment more and then moved it down. He took his time. When he got back to her face again she said, “Think I’ll take that swim now.”
She turned and waded into the water and he followed her with the light until she was in up to her shoulders, he was hardly able to look away from her, from her ass disappearing in front of him into darkness and the dimples in the small of her back and then he scrambled out of his own clothes and naked, plunged in after her. The water was like ice cubes on his stiff prick and had the effect of melting it but that was okay too and he swam fast and hard watching her own slow measured strokes ahead of him and soon he caught up with her.
She turned and they were only a few feet apart treading water face-to-face. He was warmer now.
The frogs had gone silent. He heard them tentatively start in again.
“Now what?”
He reached for her through the water and she pushed his hand away. She was smiling.
“Thirty bucks bought you a look, Ray. Not a feel.”
“Shit, what am I gonna have to pay for a kiss?”
“You already did kiss me and it was free. But it’s not a kiss you want, is it.”
“It’d do for starters.”
She looked at him a long moment.
“Tell you what we’ll do,” she said. “We’ll have a little race to shore. You beat me, you can fuck me. How’s that.”
“What?”
“You having a hearing problem? You can fuck me.”
She’d had his dick’s complete attention ever since they’d started treading water and now it was close to painful. He nodded toward the shoreline.
“You mean right now?”
“If you want we can wait a couple of weeks. Yeah, right now.”
“You’re not just messing with me?”
“Bet’s a bet.”
“And if you beat me? I mean it won’t happen. I’m just saying, if.”
She thought about it.
“I can’t think which you’re more fond of Ray, your car or your boots. Suppose we say you give me your boots.”
He laughed. “You sure do like your games, don’t you.”
“As much as you like yours.”
“This one, though. You can’t lose.”
“Either way I win?”
“Either way.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. You ready? We go on three. One, two, three. “
And it wasn’t just the prospect of fucking her that propelled him through the water though god knows that was the main thing but it was also the boots and what was stuffed inside the boots too, she wasn’t going to get a peek inside those babies if he could help it and get a laugh at Ray Pye’s expense plus the boots cost a fortune plus there was the matter of his pride so he swam like every leech and snake in Sussex County was after him, catching a glimpse of her only just slightly behind to the side graceful and barely cutting the water and gaining on him steadily for chrissake while he pounded at the water like the water was the enemy and kicked at it like it was some kid he was kicking the shit out of in a schoolyard and soon he stumbled gasping onto shore and fell to his back to the pebble beach and she fell right beside him.
“You won,” she panted.
He couldn’t tell if she was surprised or not. He knew he was. She’d scared hell out of him back there, coming up on him like that.
She wasn’t as winded as he was but still she was breathing hard, she had her arms up over her head, looking straight up at the stars. He watched her breasts rise and fall, beads of water rolling down, water in the hollow of her belly, hair plastered back so that for the first time he could fully see her ears and the shape of them, to his eyes perfect like the all rest of her, looking back to her breasts and the long dark nipples, looking down to the glistening pubic hair, the proximity of what he was seeing making him start to rise again.
“You gonna cop out on me?” he said.
She still didn’t look at him.
“No.”
And with just that single word breathed quietly and without emotion into the still night air he went fully erect and rolled onto her.
Her skin was cool and wet like his, her mouth hot but the kiss didn’t last, she turned away from the kiss and he thought in a moment of panic that something must be wrong, his breath or something until he looked into her eyes and saw that things were fine. She reached down between his legs and put him inside her and began rolling her hips and moving up and down beneath him. She closed her eyes and turned her head offering him her neck, and he kissed and bit the water-sweet flesh and went suddenly to some place beyond himself, beyond sheer sensation, overriding his senses somehow, it was like watching himself in a movie, only not like any movie he’d ever seen, he could see himself take her breast in hand and turn the nipple, see his ass pumping his back straining as though from a great height, as though he were outside himself watching. She was silent and he was moaning and he heard this too as though these were two other people not Ray and Katherine and then suddenly he was coming and that was far too real and not part of the movie not part of the plan because it was far too early, he’d only just begun, he’d only just gotten a taste of her but he couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop, and he groaned his disappointment and shuddered his pleasure, both.
When it was over he lay on top of her awhile feeling himself shrink inside her and then slowly rolled away. He felt the sweat drying along his chest and hips. He was aware of his heart still racing, moving slowly from gallop to down to canter.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“That was a little fast.”
“I’ve had faster. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.” She gave the tip of his dick a flick with her forefinger. “Either head.”
But he couldn’t help but worry. First Jennifer couldn’t get him hard and now this.
With the one girl he needed.
He realized that actually was the word for it. It surprised him.
Needed.
He didn’t know how or when that had happened or how it had happened so fast but right now the thought of not having her, of losing her to some other guy and maybe just because of this stupid fast fuck by the pool was unthinkable, impossible to consider. There was no goddamn way he was going to let that happen. If he did he was just another loser and probably she had a pretty long list of losers in her past, a girl like her. It was just not going to happen. Not to him. No fucking way. He had to find a way to grab her and hold her. He’d do just about anything, say just about anything to hold her.
He had to put his mark on her.
One way or another.
He had to piss on her tree.
“I never should have brought you down here,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
He looked away from her down along the dark narrow beach.
“Remember last night you asked me what was the worst thing I ever did? And I told you about trashing the house?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was a lie.”
“Trashing the house?”
“No. We trashed the house, all right. But that wasn’t the worst thing I ever did.”
And then he told her.
Later driving back to her place he didn’t know exactly why he told her. It had come crashing down into his brain all at once, the telling and the aftermath of the telling, like a movie where you already knew the ending from the first few minutes of the story. He didn’t know why he told her, only knew that it had been the right thing to do. Of that he was absolutely certain now. He’d felt its lightness. He knew that telling her had set him apart from every other guy she’d ever met. Whether she believed him or not.
He wasn’t sure she did.
But no one else in her life had ever confessed to murder, that was for sure. Not even one of her biker-type boyfriends from Frisco. No one had e
ver in her life trusted her with a secret that big or that dangerous. In fact it was a measure, he said, of how much he cared about her and trusted her that he was telling her at all.
He had to tell somebody, he said.
He was all alone carrying all this weight, all this guilt, this shame, all these years. Alone.
It was probably why he’d had this problem just now, he said. Why he’d gone off so fast on her.
There was just so much inside him. So much bottled-up guilt and tension. And being here where it happened, that just brought it out again.
They’d dressed and he’d shown her the tree and the campsite and where the tent was and the place where he’d fired on them from the bushes, and she listened seriously and quietly and didn’t even ask him any questions except, finally, at the end of it, Why? and to that he said he didn’t know. He was a kid, he wanted to know if he had guts enough to do it he guessed, to see what it felt like. That was cold, he knew. He was mad at his parents that day he remembered. Mad at everybody. Mad at the world. He was crazy. An angry, crazy, troubled kid. But now as an adult, knowing what he’d done, he felt horrible.
Fucking horrible for those two poor innocent girls. Horrible for taking somebody’s life for no reason.
He couldn’t go on like this, alone with this awful secret.
Of course there were a few things he didn’t tell her.
He didn’t say that they were a pair of fucking rich-bitch lesbos.
He didn’t tell her about Tim and Jennifer being there. Mentioning them would just complicate things. He said he was alone. She already didn’t like either of them. It was easier.
He didn’t tell her about hunting the second little bitch through the goddamn woods half the night and then losing her.
That part was humiliating.
But he told her enough of the rest to make it believable he thought. He gave her enough of the detail.
And when he was through he had this feeling that something had happened between him and Kath that was a lot like what he’d had the last four years with Tim and Jennifer. A kind of bond.
A closeness that only a certain kind of knowledge can bring.
From now on he’d be special to her. She’d be carrying his secret.
He’d done what he’d set out to do, needed to do.
He’d marked her.
He didn’t worry much about her telling somebody. She wouldn’t tell. And even if she did, all it was was hearsay and all he had to do was deny he’d ever said a thing. Plus the cops had squat on him in the way of proof.
But he didn’t think she’d tell. He thought it very unlikely.
And that he’d finally managed to intrigue her.
He drove silently. Slowly and seriously. Shouldering his guilty burden for her and happy as he’d been in his life.
Chapter Twenty-five
Katherine
This was really twisted.
She was pouring a scotch for a guy who said he’d committed murder. He was sitting outside in her living room.
She was alone.
The guy definitely had a line of bullshit and he was probably in most things an out-and-out liar. She didn’t believe his story about the broken legs for one minute. So why should she buy this one?
But if this was a lie it was the strangest damn lie she’d ever heard. Why would he tell me this shit? Did he think it was romantic? She thought about the Tate murders on the news tonight and wondered if they’d maybe fed into his story somehow, if they’d brought on some kind of weird dark personal fantasy for him.
The guy was strange.
Her father would die if he knew she was sitting around with him. The truth of the story be damned.
It was late at night.
She was alone.
I should have gone with him, she thought. I should have gone with dad. The thought came unbeckoned and nagged her. What kind of a daughter am I to him, that I wouldn’t go too?
She pushed the thought angrily away. She’d made her decision on that one. She’d have to stick by it. And she had enough to think about right here and now.
She could not say this was the smartest thing she’d ever done, letting him in tonight.
But the sheer weirdness of it. A couple of dates and the guy confesses murder. Shows her where and how he did it and how he cleaned up afterwards.
In a way it was more twisted if it was a lie than if it was the truth. You could have some motive for spilling your guts out even to someone who’s practically a stranger, even to someone you’ve fucked only once and spent a few evenings with. But what in the world would be the motive for making the whole thing up? What in god’s name could you hope to gain?
He said he cared for her. Was maybe even falling in love with her.
She thought it was a little early for that.
He said he trusted her.
Why would he trust her?
He hardly knew her.
Something inside her was inclined to believe his story. Another part of her denied the possibility, said that he was a liar.
Still another part wanted to play detective.
Maybe that third part was the reason she was pouring the scotch here.
It was the strangest thing that had ever happened to her, though. No contest. And she had to admit there was something exciting about it too and probably dangerous as well because whether truth or fantasy there had to be something dangerous about a guy who would tell you stuff like this.
Murderer or nutcase.
Either one could hurt you.
You’re playing with fire here. Kath. You’re pushing yourself again. But this is a game you should maybe think about twice, you know?
He was sitting on the couch just staring off into nowhere when she brought in the drinks. He looked exhausted. Drained. If he was acting it was easily the best performance she’d seen from him so far. She handed him his scotch and sat down across from him in the armchair. She wanted that space between them, and he looked as if he expected as much. She took a sip from her vodka and tonic.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Ray. I honestly don’t.”
“I don’t expect you to say anything.”
“And I don’t know whether to believe you, either.”
“I figured.”
“It’s fucked up, though, you know? Either way.”
“I’m fucked up. I been fucked up all these years. Shit, I used to think it was because I was adopted but that’s not true. My parents are good to me. And the fact that I never got to know my real mom and dad, well, so fucking what? Lots of kids don’t know their real parents. That’s got nothing to do with anything.”
That’s a new one, she thought. He’s adopted. Or says he is.
She took another sip of the vodka. Ask him, she thought. It’s sick but it’s what you really want to know most of all, isn’t it? So go on and ask him. Truth or lie you want to hear his answer. She lit a cigarette and shook out the match.
“So you didn’t tell me, Ray,” she said. “What did it feel like?”
“Huh? I did tell you.”
“You told me how it felt after. Not then. Not at the time.”
She took another long drink and looked at him.
“Not when you were out there killing people.”
“Jesus, Kath.” He looked uncomfortable as hell but she noticed that the spark had come back to his eyes. “You really want to know this?”
“I guess I must. I’m asking.”
The house was silent. She could hear the ice clink in his scotch as he tipped the glass and drank. She felt absurd for a moment and a little frightened. Like they were sitting around a fire and she was about to hear him tell a ghost story.
He pushed himself up on the couch. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
He spoke slowly, carefully, like he really was having to work at this.
“It felt scary,” he said. “It felt dangerous and scary. But I gotta tell you, I gotta be honest. It also felt like I had all this power all of a sud
den. I mean, I could scare them or just wound them or whatever. And then, even when I started shooting I could still stop and let them . . . let them live. Or I could . . . go on doing what I was doing. But also it was like I was on a fucking roller coaster, you know? I mean, part of me couldn’t stop. It was . . . it was so fucking . . . it just grabs hold of you, you know? Jesus! I’m sorry. That’s so sick. That’s so fucked up. I’m . . .”
He shook his head. She leaned over and put a finger to his lips.
“Shhhh,” she said.
She couldn’t believe it. She was going to do this, she thought.
She was going to do this just once and then never again.
I dare you, she thought. I dare you, Katherine. Double-dare.
Ray was fucked up all right. Either way. Truth or no truth. But then so was she and here she was, about to prove it again. The fact was nothing new to her. She’d known for a very long time. She was her mother’s daughter. She’d grown up practically comfortable in the knowledge. It had the familiar sting of the inevitable.
Katherine’s about to screw up again.
Only question was, how bad?
She was going to do this whether he was lying or not, but do it believing he was telling her the truth because at that moment it was what she wanted to believe and the truth right now was unknowable anyway. She was going to take a certain leap into the murky waters of what it feels like. A place she liked to visit now and then. A place where she felt wide awake and wholly at home.
In her mind tonight and for just this one time and then never again, she was going to fuck a murderer. An enemy of human life. She was doing it just to see what it felt like inside while she was doing it and for no other reason than that. No good reason, certainly. Certainly not to comfort him.
Did that make them two of a kind?
Maybe.
Whatever.
She put down her drink and went to the couch and straddled him and she could feel the energy pouring off him, he was practically vibrating in the grip of it staring at her wide-eyed, unbelieving as she pulled her sweater off over her head and put her hand down onto him and found he was already hard and closed her hand over him.
And that was when the phone rang.