“Yeah.”
“Eight guys,” he says, discounting my adjustment. “Wow. That’s a lot.”
“I don’t know. Most of them were relationships, not just . . . you know, one-night stands.”
“But some of them were?”
I shrug.
“How many?”
“How many what?”
“How many were just strange men you picked up at a bar?” God, this color commentary.
I grab a number out of the air. “Three.”
“Jesus.”
“What?” I cry. “You said you wouldn’t judge me. And that’s not so many. I’m thirty! What’s your number?”
He laughs. “I’m a guy. It’s higher.”
“Then I don’t know why you’re judging me,” I grumble.
“It’s just a lot for a girl, that’s all. You’re almost into double digits.”
“But I’m not!”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands to try to calm my sensitive feelings. “You don’t want dessert, do you?”
I do, of course, but I shake my head.
He pays the bill and we walk to the car. He’s silent on the drive to my place, and I’m still pretending to feel bad about what he said, so I stay quiet too. The days are getting shorter and it’s full dark even though it’s only 7:30.
I haven’t seen Luke at all this week and I’m getting bored with this long game. To entertain myself as we drive, I try to predict where my cat will be when I get home. Her favorite place is the highest place, of course, on top of the cabinets. But she doesn’t have to convey superiority when I’m not there, so maybe she’ll be sprawled on the couch or curled on the bed.
The silence holds until Steven slides into a parking space a few doors from my building and shuts off the engine. “My dad is really old-fashioned. I don’t believe all that stuff.”
Ah, right. I’m supposed to be worrying about my sexual worthiness. “But you believe some of it?” I press.
“Look, I think premarital sex is a sin, yes. But nowadays people don’t get married at sixteen, and men have needs. Women have needs too,” he adds hastily. “I get that.”
“Okay. Sure. I’d better get inside. I need to check on my cat.”
“The cat.” He groans, letting his head fall back against the seat as the interior lights fade to dark. “I forgot about that. There’s probably cat hair everywhere already.”
“There’s not.”
“Whatever. I can’t risk it with my allergies.”
“Oh. Okay.” It’s the first time he’s mentioned being allergic.
“I guess we’ll have to say good night now.” He smiles and reaches to slide his hand behind my neck. “Come ’ere.”
I let him pull me toward him for a kiss. He kisses me hard and deep, as if he’s already turned on. I’m not, but I let him devour me and I gasp when I feel his hand on my breast.
He tugs me even closer, twisting me over the console in a way that would’ve turned me off if I’d been anywhere near excited. Then he grabs my wrist and lowers my hand to his crotch. He’s hard, and I wonder if I’m supposed to be impressed that I’ve caused an erection.
“Oh God,” he groans. “You’re so fucking hot.”
I haven’t really done anything except confirm that I’m a slut, so I guess that’s his thing. I cup his penis for a moment. I even rub it a little and he thrusts up into my hand.
“Steven . . .”
“Oh yeah. Touch me, baby.”
“Steven, I can’t.”
“You’ve got me so hard.”
“I know, but . . .” I twist my wrist out of his grip. “We just started dating. I don’t want you to think—”
“I know. I don’t think that. I swear. Just touch me a little.”
I let him put my hand over him again. This time he keeps his fingers pressed to mine as he thrusts into my palm. “You see what you do to me, Jane? God, I’m in pain.”
He slides his other hand over my chest and pops one more button on my dress. “Did you wear this for me?” he asks as he exposes my black lace bra.
“Maybe,” I whisper.
“I saw it when you leaned over in the office today and I knew it was for me.” He pushes his fingers under the lace and finds my nipple. “Oh God, yes. Unzip me,” he mutters.
“Steven. Anyone could walk by!”
“No one will walk by. And it’s dark.” He lets go of my hand and unzips his pants. “Just make me feel better,” he whispers. “That’s all. Please?” He takes out his penis and wraps my hand around it. “Make me feel good, Jane. Come on.”
I give in with a whimper. He urges me on, telling me how hot this is, how good it is. He tells me to move faster. I’m slightly turned on by the idea that someone could be watching from a second-floor apartment, but Steven makes no move to make me feel better.
Finally he finishes with a curse, thrusting and thrusting into my fist.
“Oh God,” I murmur, as if shocked at the outcome. Ha. The outcome.
A few seconds later Steven tucks himself away and zips up. I have nothing to clean up with and am forced to wipe my hand on my dress. “That was great,” he sighs.
Yeah. A real crowd-pleaser. I bite my lip, then exhale slowly. “Are you sure?” I ask in a shaky voice.
“You’re amazing,” he assures me. “Really. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.”
“Hey.” He pulls me in for a gentler kiss. “I’ll watch and make sure you get inside. I can’t really get out now. I’m in a sticky situation.”
I laugh at his joke. “All right.”
“I’ll text you later, though.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Smiling uncertainly, I say good night and get out. He turns on his lights so he can see me walk to my door. I wave and escape inside.
Once in my apartment, I wash my hands, put out food for the cat, and then check my window to see if his vehicle is gone. It is.
Steven made absolutely no move to get me off, so I feel no qualms about texting Luke. I wouldn’t feel any qualms regardless, but I really do have the perfect justification, don’t I?
Want to come over? I ask Luke.
He does.
CHAPTER 18
I prefer a king-size bed so it’s easier for me to keep my distance if a man spends the night, but this place only accommodates a queen, and barely that. But Luke stays firmly on his side of the mattress after sex and I don’t feel crowded. When the cat jumps onto the bed and settles down on the blanket between us, Luke laughs.
“You got her! She’s gorgeous!”
“Thank you.”
“What’s her name?”
I shrug and rub my palm along her soft tail. “I don’t know.”
“She didn’t have one at the shelter?”
I grimace. “They called her Bunny.”
“That’s cute!”
“No, it’s awful. She’s far too regal for a stupid name like that.”
He scratches under her chin and she stretches to give him better access. “She is very regal.” When he stops scratching, she butts his hand and rubs her cheek against him, marking him as another of her new possessions. He gives her more scratches. “Well, you have to name her.”
“She’s a cat. What does she care? She’s not going to come when I call her. Not unless there’s food.”
“Good point.”
“So you like cats?” I ask.
“Sure. I had one when I was little. What’s not to like?”
Exactly.
“What about you? Did you have cats?”
“No. She’s my first.”
“Dogs?”
“Just junkyard dogs who lunged at everyone, including me.”
“Yikes. That doesn’t sound very fun.”
“No. It wasn’t. The dogs didn’t seem to like the situation much either.”
“Where did you grow up again? Oklahoma?”
I feel a jolt that
he knows the truth. I must have told him in some offhand conversation during college. But it hardly matters. He already knows my real name and where I went to school. It’s not as if I can disguise my identity from him.
“Yeah. Out in the boonies near the panhandle.”
“I grew up in the boonies of Bemidji. It probably wasn’t that different. More trees, though.”
“And fewer tornados,” I add.
“Yeah, and I’ve gotta be honest, I never had a junkyard dog.”
I laugh. “Did you have a white picket fence?”
“Uh, we did, actually.”
“Wow. Sounds like the American dream.”
“To be honest, it really wasn’t.”
“Why not?” I’m curious now, but Luke goes silent, so maybe that was a question I wasn’t supposed to ask. Sometimes I’m not sure of boundaries.
But then he decides to answer. “I don’t know. It should have been. A middle-class life in the country. Nuclear family. Nobody ever hit me.”
He leaves it at that, and I understand, at least a little. I didn’t come from a broken home either. We were never middle-class by any means, but my parents were together. I got hit every once in a while, but no one ever beat the tar out of me, and that’s the minimum standard for abuse in Oklahoma.
But those are surface issues. It’s the underneath that makes you who you are.
It’s your parents drinking with their trashy friends while all of them make fun of you for wetting your bed the night before. It’s your mom cackling when the handsy guy who rents the back room asks when you’re going to get titties. It’s living alone for five days in first grade and wondering if your parents have finally decided they don’t want to come back. It’s your dad saying he’ll send you to the Cherokee orphanage if he gets another letter from that stacked kindergarten teacher about your bad behavior.
Luke blows out a long breath. “Let’s just say I only went back a couple of times after I left for college.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Me too.”
“But now,” he says, “now you have a cat.” It’s sweet and simple and true.
Luke reminds me a lot of Meg.
CHAPTER 19
Be nice.
That’s what she used to tell me. Not often. Just when she needed me to be better. Be nice, Jane. Just be nice, okay?
And I would be nice. For her. For a little while. Long enough to listen to her problems and not tell her what she was doing wrong. Long enough to meet her new boyfriend and not scare him away.
She told me to be nice about Steven too. We were drinking. We both said mean things. He’s still a really good guy. Be nice, Jane.
So I’d be nice and not remind her that he’d called her a stupid whore. I’d keep my mouth shut and not tell her it seemed like she believed all the terrible things he said.
I shouldn’t have been so nice about him. Or maybe I should’ve been nicer to Meg? I don’t know. But I did something wrong; that much is obvious.
I only came back to the States once while she was dating him. They’d just broken up, and she was a weeping, terrified mess. She seemed to think she couldn’t go on without him. She was stupid, helpless, not good enough.
He’d kicked her out of his house again, and since she’d given up her apartment to live with him, she was sleeping in a friend’s basement. I’d gathered her up, rented a cabin on the coast of Lake Superior, and we’d stayed there for two weeks.
But I’m not a nurturer. I can’t heal people. I thought she was better when I returned to Malaysia, but my clumsy offerings of love—wine, s’mores, bad movies, sunburns, margaritas—they hadn’t done the trick. A week later she was back with him and sending me texts about how great everything was now. How nice he was being. How happy she was.
I didn’t speak to her for over a month. I was furious.
The next time he kicked her out, she was so embarrassed to tell me. She was ground down with humiliation. And all I could offer was I told you so.
She stopped telling me to be nice. And I couldn’t remember.
CHAPTER 20
Hey, where are you?
I glance down at the text from Steven and imagine answering him honestly. I’m in a rental car in the Minneapolis suburbs, following GPS directions to your house. I smile a shark’s smile and pull over to the curb in front of a row of 1980s ranch homes. It’s 8:45 in the morning and freezing cold. A lone jogger bounces by in winter gear, but otherwise the neighborhood is quiet.
I called in sick, I respond.
Are you okay?
Sure. I just have a headache. And I felt . . . weird.
Weird?
After yesterday.
Why?
I shouldn’t have done that with you.
Don’t say that. I loved it! ☺
Ok, but . . . you never texted me. You said you would.
Sorry. I had a beer and fell asleep on the couch.
Well, I feel like a slut.
No no no! It was great.
I roll my eyes at his weak-ass assurance. Sure, it was great for him.
Ok. I have to go. I didn’t sleep well last night.
Why don’t I make you dinner tonight?
Will that make you feel better?
I dunno. Maybe.
I bet it will. I’ll pick you up at 6. I might even bring flowers . . .
Flowers for a public hand job. What a bargain. He’s a simple man, really, and I’m sending all the right signals. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex; it’s that I’m worried he’ll think badly of me afterward. This gives him access to sex and the ability to control me with it. What could be more perfect?
I throw the car in gear and pull back onto the quiet street. His house is half a mile farther into this sea of browning grass and falling leaves. But when I drive past Steven’s house, there are no leaves on his lawn. His neighbors are ankle-deep in orange and yellow, but there are only a few stray leaves on his square of yard, as if he rakes every morning.
Steven really likes to keep up appearances. He doesn’t want anyone to see his mess. I laugh as I drive one block over.
Feeling very satisfied with myself, I park and grab the satchel I packed this morning.
The cold is keeping everyone inside, but I’m not worried about being spotted trying to get into his house. I’m an average white woman. Worst-case scenario, I’ll wave and yell something self-deprecating about being dumb enough to lose the key, and that will be enough for the neighbors.
I reach Steven’s house and head up his front walk to check under the welcome mat. When I don’t find a hidden key, I walk around a corner to the gate of his privacy fence. I don’t glance around. The more sure of myself I look, the less suspicious any witness will be.
Once the gate latches behind me, I’m free to slow down and look around. The backyard is just one tree, some grass, and a covered grill on a square stone patio. There’s no dog to worry about, of course. Steven wouldn’t put up with cleaning dog crap off his lawn.
I tried to teach myself to pick locks a long time ago, because it looked like fun, but it turns out I’m not great at it. Not enough patience. I was hoping to find a simple window lock to jimmy open, but I spot a sliding door in back, which is even better. All it needs is a quick slip of a bent metal file and I’m in. If I ever have to go on the run, maybe I’ll make a good thief, at least when it comes to houses with patio doors.
The house is dead quiet and smells of bleach. The kitchen I walk into is spotless. Not high-end, though. It hasn’t been renovated since it was built. The floor is old tile. I turn to survey the living room and immediately notice that the carpet in the rest of the house appears to be dark chocolate brown. Gross. But it’s spotless as well, and I can see the vacuum lines as I step in.
Jeez, will I have to vacuum before I leave to hide my footprints? At least I know he’ll be well groomed when we finally have sex. Not much to look forward to, but it’s better than the alternative.
I give myself a tour of the
rest of the house. He’s using the first small bedroom as a workout room. I can’t tell if it feels still and antiseptic because he never uses it or because he wipes the equipment down after each use. Mounted judo belts decorate the wall.
The brown carpet continues down a short hallway to another bedroom that appears to be half office, half storage. The last bedroom is the master. A big bed with an oak headboard dominates the floor. The only other furniture is a wide dresser with a mirror. And there’s a big flat-screen TV on the wall, of course. His brown drapes and forest-green comforter give the impression that I’m in a tree house. It’s pretty awful.
The attached bathroom is as clean as the rest of the place, but the tan tile continues the old 1980s look. Steven cares about appearances, but he definitely doesn’t have an eye for design.
There’s not much clutter in the bedroom, but I’ve lucked out. There’s baseboard heating, but there are air-conditioning vents as well, and he won’t be using those at this time of year.
I toss my satchel on the bed and unzip it to expose the equipment inside. None of it is legal in the US, not unless you’re law enforcement. I bought it all in Malaysia and shipped it to a rental box here in Minneapolis.
I unpack two digital cameras the size of nine-volt batteries. The equipment doesn’t have any storage but it transmits motion-activated audio and video to me via Wi-Fi, and I can back it all up on my laptop for leisurely viewing. The batteries hold a charge for nearly three months. I can’t imagine I’ll need to figure out how to replace them.
I’ve already synced the cameras up with my computer. The only problem will be accessing Steven’s Wi-Fi. He definitely has a passcode. He’s not the type to happily share bandwidth with his less fortunate neighbors.
I figure he has to give me access to his Wi-Fi if I spend enough time in his bedroom. It would be really rude to let a woman spend the night and not let her use the Wi-Fi, right? I pop open my laptop to check out the situation and find seven named networks. The one with the strongest signal is locked down tight and the name is just a random series of letters and numbers. The second Wi-Fi network is locked as well. But the third signal on the list has three bars of signal strength and isn’t locked. This is very good luck. I don’t need to rely on Steven’s generosity after all.
Jane Doe Page 8