In the next room, Dale’s mother was taking a bath. Dale had heard her running the bathwater hours ago. She hadn’t left the bathroom since. He wondered if he ought to check on her. She had been in the bath far too long and he had heard a splashing and thumping sound coming from in there twenty or thirty minutes ago. He was afraid she might have fallen and hurt herself. It didn’t matter though. If she was dead, he would simply bring her back like he’d done before.
The hollow echo of solitary drops of water splashing down into a larger pool of water echoed down the hallway as Dale approached the bathroom he shared with his mother. He grasped the handle but the door was locked. It was one of those privacy locks that were about as useless as childproof caps on medicine bottles. Dale reached for the little metal pin that his mother kept above the doorway. All you had to do was slip it, or just about anything else that would fit into the little hole, in the center of the doorknob and the lock would disengage. It was more of a nuisance than a deterrent if someone really wanted to get in. The “key” wasn’t there.
“Mom?”
There was no answer.
“Mom?” Dale spoke in a louder voice. “Are you all right in there?”
Still no answer.
Dale banged his fist on the door.
“Mom! Mom!”
All he could hear was the drip of the tub faucet.
Dale sighed and turned away from the door. He took his time walking back to his room to get a hanger. There was no hurry. He had learned through trial and error that even if someone had been dead for several hours he could still bring them back, as long as they hadn’t begun to decompose. Once a corpse began to rot it was good and dead.
Once he had retrieved a wire hanger from his closet, Dale began straightening it as he walked back down the hall. He imagined he would find his mother drowned in the bathtub after slipping and hitting her head on the edge of the tub. Perhaps she had fallen out of the tub completely and cracked her neck. Whatever it was, he could fix it.
Dale slid the straightened hanger into the hole in the doorknob and disengaged the lock. The door popped open and Dale slipped inside. He wasn’t prepared for what he found. Dale’s mother lay in the tub just as he had expected, only she hadn’t slipped and hit her head or broken her neck or drowned or had a stroke or a heart attack. She had slit her wrists. The bathwater was tinted red like fruit juice. She had made a mess of her wrists. She cut across them first; then she’d taken the blade and cut all the way up her forearms. Ghastly red crosses scarred her arms.
Her eyes were closed and she looked as if she’d simply fallen asleep. Her breasts were pale and flabby and had flopped to either side of her chest. Her legs were splayed immodestly but the amount of blood in the tub prevented Dale from seeing anything. Dale felt that uncomfortable stirring in his shorts again as he stared at his mother’s nude dead form. This time he didn’t shy away from it. There was no one around. No one to see what he was doing. Why not have some fun? he thought. He had never seen a real woman naked before, and even though it was his own mother, she was naked, and at least she wasn’t just a picture in a magazine or on TV.
He reached out and hefted her big flabby breasts in his hands, then rubbed the nipples. The straining in his pants became more persistent. Dale knelt down and licked droplets of blood and bathwater from her nipples, then began to suck them. He pinched them hard, bit one, then brought his lips to his mother’s mouth and prepared to breathe life back into her lungs. He was just about to exhale when he spotted the words written on the shower wall behind her.
Let me die.
Dale paused there, trying to decide what to do.
Let me die.
It was her do-not-resuscitate order.
But why does she want to leave me?
The idea of being alone terrified him. Maybe it was just a test? Maybe she knew he would bring her back and she was just testing him? Maybe she was warning him to be a good boy or she’d leave him forever.
I’ll be good, Mommy. I’ll be good. Just don’t leave me.
Let me die.
“Noooo!”
He clamped his mouth onto hers and breathed into her lungs again and again until she began to breathe for herself. She let out a deep breath and then a sob. A wail of anguish came from her as she rose from the bathtub. Her eyes were wild and she pulled at her hair and scratched her face.
“Why? Why? Why, Dale? Why did you do this? Why didn’t you let me die? Why did you bring me back? Why didn’t you let me die?”
Dale looked confused.
“B-because I need you. I love you.”
Dale’s mother shook her head.
“No. No, you don’t love me. You don’t know what love is. You’re not capable of feeling love. I don’t know what you feel, or if you feel anything at all, but it isn’t love. You’re evil, Dale. You’re some kind of monster. Now just leave me alone and let me die.”
Tears welled in Dale’s eyes. He couldn’t believe his mother was saying these things to him. She had been looking at him suspiciously ever since his grandmother died. Now she’d finally said what she was really thinking.
Dale’s brow furrowed and his voice lowered. He stood up and put a hand beneath his mother’s chin, turning her head to look him in the eyes.
“No, Mom. I won’t let you die, ever. I need you and I’m not going to let you go. You can kill yourself again but I’ll just bring you back. I’ll just keep bringing you back again and again. You can’t leave me. You can’t ever leave me.”
The next day his mother set herself on fire and burned down the house. Dale awoke to a room filled with smoke and a bedroom door that was engulfed in flames. He’d had to crawl out of his window and jump down into the parking lot below to avoid being immolated himself. He had just barely managed to get out of the house alive. The firemen told him that there had been gasoline poured outside his door. His mother had tried to take him with her. This time, he was not able to bring her back. She had found a way to get away from him after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sarah Lincoln awoke to the smell of maple syrup, frying bacon, and the clash and clang of pots and dishes. She loved Saturdays. Saturday was the day that Josh felt guilty for working late all week and woke up early to cook her breakfast. Sarah knew that Josh had to work to support the family. She still hated it. She wished he could spend every day with her.
She loved being able to stay home and play the dutiful housewife, cooking and cleaning, decorating their home, clipping coupons, balancing the checkbook, and making herself beautiful for him, but she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she resented it sometimes. Seeing Josh leave for work every morning before the sun rose, and sometimes coming home long after dark, working double shifts, ten-, eleven-, and twelve-hour days, awoke all of her jealousies and insecurities. Even knowing that Josh was hard at work, all Sarah could think about was that at least he had people to talk to there, and that many of those people were women.
Josh was a blackjack dealer at one of the largest casinos in town, and while she just could not imagine standing in place for eight hours shuffling cards—it would have been hell on her feet and her lower back—she could imagine all the interesting people he got to meet. Including drunk, flirtatious women looking for a Vegas fling.
Sarah didn’t think Josh was cheating on her. He wasn’t the type. But she knew he enjoyed his work. He enjoyed the social interaction. He enjoyed getting the chance to meet celebrities and millionaires and people from all over the world. Sarah didn’t get to meet anyone except the clerks at the local grocery store and the sales people at Wal-Mart. She was alone. She had no friends in Las Vegas. She’d left her family, her friends, and everyone she’d grown up with back in Indianapolis. After living in Las Vegas for eleven years she still did not even know the names of her neighbors. With all the foreclosures, her neighbors kept changing before she got to know them. Josh was her only friend.
The acrid aroma of burning butter wafted up from the kitchen,
followed by a few whispered curses and the whoosh and sizzle of cold water running into a hot pot. Sarah giggled. Josh was many things, a hard worker, a sensitive listener, an attentive lover, even a pretty good singer, but he was a terrible cook. As she did every weekend, Sarah crawled out of bed and decided to go downstairs and rescue Josh before he burned down the house.
A loud banging noise came from across the street and several loud voices began shouting, not angrily, just talking louder than was necessary. Sarah went to the window and looked out. There was a moving truck pulled up to the little single-story house that an old couple named the Jensens had lived in before their mortgage rates had gone up and they’d gone into foreclosure. Sarah felt sorry for them. They were the only neighbors she spoke to regularly and even then it was mostly just small talk on the way to the mailbox.
Three men in overalls were carrying large boxes out of the back of the U-Haul. A small, skinny guy with dirty blond hair, wearing a white polo shirt and jeans, stood by nervously. One of the movers dropped a box onto the ramp that led out of the back of the truck and it slid down into the street. Nothing appeared to be broken, but the skinny guy looked like he was about to scream. Veins popped out in his forehead, the muscles in his jaws were clenched tight, and his complexion had turned red, but when he spoke his voice was calm and measured.
“Would you please be more careful? I have some expensive computer equipment in these boxes. It’s what I do for a living.”
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. If it had been her stuff those clowns had dropped all over the street she would have flipped the hell out. She never understood why guys always felt like they were never supposed to show any emotion. Josh was the same way. If the house was on fire he’d be standing there trying to figure out how to wake her without raising his voice.
The skinny guy turned his head toward the sky as if praying that his stuff would all make it into the house unscathed. His entire body was tense and his eyes were closed. He turned his head toward the house slowly and opened his eyes. A full thirty seconds went by with him standing in his driveway staring up at her window. His face relaxed and he calmed down. For a moment, Sarah thought he was looking into her eyes. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a shirt but she doubted he could see her through the blinds. Then the man smiled. The expression wasn’t particularly perverted or threatening. It merely looked amused. Still, Sarah felt a chill race over her skin. She crossed her arms over her chest and stepped away from the window.
Sarah walked into the closet and picked out a shirt. She thought for a moment about getting dressed but didn’t want to give in to paranoia and admit the man had spooked her. She threw the T-shirt back onto the shelf and walked downstairs into the kitchen wearing only her panties, pink cotton boy-briefs, and no bra. She was thirty-four but still had the body of a teenager thanks to long morning jogs and a couple marathons a year. She and Josh planned on having kids soon, which meant that in a few years she would no longer be able to walk around the house naked, and after a child or two would probably not want to. She hefted her breasts in her hands. They weren’t the silicone-filled double-D cups every other woman in town seemed to have, but they were real and at a 36-C she thought they were just the right size. They hadn’t begun to sag yet and were still fairly firm. Josh liked them, and that was all that mattered. She knew that after she had a few kids they probably wouldn’t look quite the same and she’d become more self-conscious. She couldn’t imagine walking around the house with stretch marks, sagging tits, and a paunch. But until then, she planned on enjoying her freedom, which meant that in her house, she wore as little as possible.
“Good morning, honey.”
Josh turned toward her, smiling, then turned red when he saw her naked body. He was still such a prude. Sarah didn’t know how any man could be married to her for ten years and still be so sexually inhibited.
“Do you have to walk around naked all the time? What if some pervert is looking through the windows with a telescope right now?”
“This is Vegas. If a guy wants to see a naked woman he can see better bodies than mine for a handful of ones and a two-drink minimum.”
“But why would he if he can see yours for free?”
“I’d be flattered if someone were going through all that effort just to see me.”
Josh walked over to the windows in the kitchen and then in the great room and shut the blinds. Sarah giggled.
“You really do think someone might be looking. That means you still think I’m hot. Wanna fuck?”
“I made pancakes.”
Josh smiled wide like a proud parent as he held up a plate of crispy bacon, fluffy eggs, and three blackened pancakes.
Sarah smiled back. At least the bacon and eggs looked good.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Maybe we can fuck after breakfast?” She winked at him, then took the plate and plopped down at the kitchen table. She didn’t even have to look at Josh to know that he was turning red again. He embarrassed so easily it never ceased to amaze her.
“Maybe you can lick butter and syrup off me?” She smiled at him and he fumbled a plate and almost dropped it. Sarah laughed.
“You are so wild.” Josh laughed.
“That’s why you married me.” She winked at him again and shoved a piece of bacon in her mouth.
“There’s someone moving in across the street.”
“I know. I saw him when I was upstairs. It looks like it’s just some guy moving in by himself.”
“He didn’t see you, did he? I mean, you had some clothes on, didn’t you?”
“If he can see through the blinds, two stories up, in the daytime, then he’s Superman.”
“In other words, you didn’t have a shirt on?”
“Relax, nobody saw me.”
She thought about the way the new neighbor had looked up at the window and another cold chill ran over her.
“Well, do you think maybe we should go introduce ourselves?”
“I guess that means you don’t want to fuck me?”
“Sarah, is that all you think about?”
He had concern in his voice when he asked the question, as if he thought Sarah was crazy, some kind of nymphomaniac. Josh had asked her many times in the past if she’d ever been sexually assaulted or abused. He had almost insisted that she had been. It was the only explanation he could think of for her powerful sex drive, using his self-help-book psychology. Men always figured that a woman had to be damaged in some way if she had a stronger libido than theirs. It was one of those male-chauvinist things that pissed Sarah off.
Josh was even worse than most men when it came to that because he himself had been molested as a child. He had told her about it once and then made her promise never to bring it up again. He had been one of the apparent thousands of young boys who had been molested by a priest. His mother had sent him to Bible camp for the summer and one of the camp counselors, a popular young priest, had dragged him out into the woods every night for eight weeks. The camp counselors would tell all the kids what to say in their letters home and then read each one before they mailed them, destroying any that mentioned sexual abuse or any displeasure at being at the camp at all. They had all apparently been in on it.
Josh had come home and told his parents. They had freaked out and sent him to a home for troubled kids, where he’d been abused again by one of the older boys who’d anally raped him at knifepoint and one of the youth counselors had forced him to perform oral sex. This time he told no one. Eventually, he had his growth spurt and beat the hell out of the older kid. The counselor had left him alone then too.
Nothing happened to the priest who’d started it all. He got away with what he’d done for twenty years, and then one day they’d been watching TV when his picture had flashed on the screen, along with a story about how he’d been accused of molesting young boys going back more than a dozen years.
“More than twenty years.” Josh had corrected the newscaster. Then he’d told
Sarah the story. It had explained a lot, his shyness and timidity in the bedroom and his defensiveness around the entire Catholic child-molestation issue. Josh was still religious but avoided church like the plague though he still called himself a Catholic. Sarah didn’t get it.
“How can you believe in a God who would let his own representatives do this? If he does exist, he might as well not exist for all the difference it makes.”
“God had nothing to do with that,” Josh said.
“But I thought God had something to do with everything?”
“He didn’t have shit to do with that! That was just a man. One sick, twisted, evil man.”
“But didn’t God create the man?”
“God gave man free will.”
“How can there be free will if God is all-knowing? If God already knows everything you will ever do from birth to death before he ever creates you, then he created you specifically to do those things because he could have not created you or created you with a different nature. I’m just saying, an omniscient creator and free will are sort of incompatible concepts. Omniscience is more compatible with determinism.”
“You’re going to have to dumb it down for me a little. I didn’t go to graduate school. But it sounds to me like you’re saying that God wanted me to be raped by a priest? Is that what the fuck you’re saying?”
That discussion hadn’t gone well. They never did. Sarah had tried to discuss his religious beliefs with him a few times but they had all turned rather nasty and ended in shouting matches. Eventually, they had agreed that that subject was taboo, as was any discussion of his molestation. And Josh had slowly begun to open up more and more sexually under her patient guidance and coaxing. Sarah had enjoyed the challenge. It had fed her own need for control.
Sarah had always enjoyed making men uncomfortable with her wantonness, and even knowing the reasons for Josh’s rather conservative attitude toward sex, she still enjoyed teasing him and rarely felt guilty about it even though she knew she should have. Much of her sexuality was an act anyway. If Josh had sex with her every time she asked for it she’d have stopped asking. She considered it a sort of protest against the double standard. A man who wanted sex all the time was a stud. A woman who liked sex was some kind of slut or a victim. And sex abuse aside, she knew that Josh felt the same way. This was just one more annoying manifestation of Josh’s puritanical Catholic upbringing that Sarah had yet to adjust to.
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