Lyle lifted his head and said, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Get off me, get off,” she begged. “Help me, please, please, dear God, Lord Jesus, help me now, help me, please.”
Fumbling with her underwear, Lyle said, “Do you hear me, Didi? Stop screaming, or I’ll have to kill you that much sooner. Live a little longer, even if it is with me. But live, Didi.”
When she wouldn’t stop, he ripped her wet panties off her. Didi didn’t give a shit about anything. She needed him off her instantly.
“Lyle, let me get on top of you,” she pleaded. “You want me, Lyle?”
“Yes, Barcelona,” he said. “I don’t want you to be chaste when your husband finds you. I don’t want him to think you died without sin.”
“Then, Lyle, let’s do it well instead of badly,” she said feebly. To get him off the baby, she would have taken him standing.
He laughed and kissed her again, or licked her, or brushed his mouth on hers. She didn’t give a damn anymore and couldn’t believe he would want to touch her blood-covered body, couldn’t believe he wanted to, to—with the broken holy water of her baby.
The baby’s holy water.
She could barely breathe, and the pains came again. He ground against her. She tried to move from under him. It was no use.
He’s going to squeeze the baby out of me with his weight, oh God he wants to take my baby—
Then she felt something sharp at her throat. She thought it was thirst at first. Her eyes were closed. Or was it just dark?
She opened her mouth to speak and felt pain at her throat again. “Didi?” he said softly into her face. “How long do you think it will take you to bleed to death if I cut you?”
“I’m not dying, Lyle,” she said hoarsely, her world darkening.
“Open your eyes and look. Open them.”
So they were closed. She opened them.
In front of her face she made out the shape of his knife. The same knife that had slid across her fingers earlier when all she had been fighting for was her ring.
Didi closed her eyes.
She felt an awful pushing sensation inside her groin. It was an insane baby pain—his head pressing against her pelvis.
“What are you going to do, Lyle? What are you going to do, you worthless piece of shit?” she hissed at him between her moans through her gritted teeth. “Because you’d better do it now. You’re hurting the baby. You say you want it? Then get off it, get off the baby!”
That seemed to make an impression on Lyle. Still holding the knife in his right hand, he propped himself up on his arms as if he were about to do push-ups. His body came off hers. Holding himself up, he pushed her legs open.
Didi’s mouth opened and her head moved from side to side. This is how my life—deliver me, protect me from the violent, keep me, keep me, Lord God do not strip me of my life—
She felt his penis trying to find her.
“God, you’re wet,” he whispered. She felt the knife at the inside of her thigh. “You know what I plan to do, Didi? I plan to fuck you, and then I’m going to cut the baby from you. I will take the baby from you, and then I will cut the cord, and then I will leave with it, and I will go to Mazatlán. I would have taken you too, but I see that you don’t love me and you never will. Don’t worry,” he panted. “Your last deed in this world will be a good one, Desdemona, don’t you worry. You lived to give life, you will die to give life to your child. It’s a good deed, and you will go to heaven. Maybe God won’t forget you then, when the good angel Gabriel will come to Him—” Lyle’s breath assaulted her face—“to show him the onion of your good deeds—”
Didi uttered a breathless cry. The baby pushed against her insides, and his penis pushed against her crotch.
“But Didi,” Lyle said, bringing the knife down to the ground and holding himself up above her. “But Didi, tell me,” he whispered gleefully into her face, “when you’re being lifted out of hell by Gabriel, tell me the truth—will you let me hang on to your soaking yellow dress, so that I might be saved too?”
Didi felt life seeping out of her.
Lyle laughed. “I thought so,” he said.
He was thrusting into her, but still not finding her. Her big belly and his angle were making it difficult for him. Didi felt another gush of water flow out. “Wait,” she whispered, suddenly getting an idea. “Wait, let me help you. You can’t find me. Let me help. Lift up a little.”
He lifted his pelvis higher. The knife rested on the ground under his right hand. He wasn’t holding it; he was holding himself up.
“Wait, Lyle, wait,” Didi said. With a superhuman effort, she lifted her head and chest off the ground. Without her hands to help her, she was nearly paralyzed under him. “Wait,” she moaned. “I can’t—can’t push off the ground. My hands are no help.” She stuck both hands between her legs, right into her own wetness, and she rubbed them back and forth, all the while muttering, “Wait a second, wait, where are you, where are you?”
“Here I am,” and he thrust himself into her cuffed hands. He shouldn’t trust me so much, thought Didi. Her fingers went around his balls—
Instantly he brought the knife to her throat and screeched into her face, “Let go, let go right now.”
She let go. “Let me help,” she said. “Some men like that, you know.”
“Not this man,” he said, relaxing a little and supporting himself on his hands again.
He senses so many things about me, thought Didi.
Though not all things.
Didi thought, here we are. He’s rubbing his dick against me and I am rubbing myself on my blood and water. God forgive me.
Crying out in pain, she fell back on the ground. She pulled up her hands from between her legs, twisting her left wrist, slippery with blood, out of the cuff.
That’s it. I got it out! I got it out. All I needed was a little blood and water! She nearly wept.
“Can’t hold myself up anymore,” Didi whispered.
“Don’t need to,” he said and rammed himself inside her.
She felt him slamming into her body. She heard him moan and felt rage: how dare he moan? How dare he? And he told her how he dared. “You’re so wet,” he said. “How can you be so wet?” And she was going to tell him she was about to have a baby, to stop, but all that came out of her was a hacking “Please.” Please, please.
Please don’t hurt me.
Anymore.
Please—
Lyle stopped moving for a moment, saying, “Too good, too good. Wait. I’m gonna wait, just a second.” And she felt the fury fighting thirst in her throat. He bent his head down to hers to kiss her. Then he stopped.
“You don’t taste so good,” he said.
“No?” she croaked. “Must be the blood.”
In the dark, she saw him look at her distastefully.
He said, “Desdemona, should I suffocate you?”
She moved her head slowly from side to side. She lay very quietly, her hands close together above her head.
“How would you like it, Didi? I thought you would like Desdemona’s death.” He was breathing into her mouth. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t worry about your baby. It will be safe with me. In Mazatlán. I’ll rent a house by the ocean. Our baby will like it. I promise.”
Didi’s face was turned away from him. She was barely listening. Her attention was focused on his right hand and the knife.
She felt him bend down and kiss her cheek. He moved inside her. She willed herself to keep her eyes open. “Desdemona,” he said. “I like you, you know. A lot. You’re feisty. If it’s a girl, I will name her for you, all right? I will name her Desdemona. Would you like that?”
She did not answer him.
“It will be all right.” He was starting to breathe heavier. “I just want to—” He groaned. “Just one thing, and then I am going to—” He could barely keep talking. Keeping himself up and moving against her was taking all his strength. “It will be all right,
pretty Didi.”
Labored breathing. His? Hers?
No, she wasn’t moving at all. Her energy was waning, but her gaze was riveted on the knife under his right hand.
She was right-handed, but she would have to be ambidextrous for the first time in her life. Yes, she couldn’t throw with her left hand and she couldn’t cut meat with her left hand. Now she would have to try.
Lyle was on guard and wary of her. Even this close to climax, he wasn’t letting the knife go. Didi decided to help him. “Come on, Lyle,” she whispered. “Come on. Feels so good, doesn’t it? Come on, move, move harder, more,” she moaned, her belly tensing into the grip of agony. “Come on, Lyle, it’ll be so good, I like it too, move, go on, go on, go on.”
As he moved harder, she groaned, screamed maybe, she couldn’t tell.
She heard him yell out, “Ahhh, yes, yes, yes.” Quickly she turned her head to look at him. His eyes were closed.
In the next second, Didi turned her head to the left and slid her freed left hand from above her head down in an arc to Lyle’s hand. He had let go of the knife and was clutching the grass. The knife was free.
In one motion Didi grabbed the knife handle and then turned her head to see Lyle’s face. His eyes were still closed, but his brain had belatedly realized something was wrong. Didi could tell, because even now, in the throes of coming, he tensed. Didi knew half a second more and all would be lost.
There was no time for him to open his eyes.
Didi screamed and rammed the blade into the side of Lyle’s neck.
Lyle opened his eyes.
His mouth went slack in stunned surprise, his throat gurgled, and blood poured out. He collapsed against her, and his hand grabbed her elbow, then her forearm. Didi whimpered. She tried to break free of his hand but did not let go of the knife. The blade continued to pulse back and forth inside his throat.
The only sound coming from Lyle was the sound of a backed-up, sloshing sink. He was convulsing on top of her, burbling. Didi felt wet all over.
Get off me, she thought. Get off me, get off me! But she couldn’t move him.
Terrified because he seemed so alive, Didi thought, it’s all over for me. I couldn’t kill him, he’s laughing at me, I grazed the back of his head, or his ear, and he’s pushing against me, into me, he’s trying to crush me with his weight, with his laughter, and when he stops, that’s when I’m done for, God, one chance, one chance to see that my baby didn’t end up in Mazatlán, and look what I’ve done, scratched Lyle with his own knife, we’re all sweating, I’m sweating from him, from the baby, these are my last sweats, I didn’t need to stick my handcuffs into myself to make my hands slippery, feel how slippery my sweat is, and his too, the pig is sweating too.
Didi wasn’t letting go of the knife, and Lyle wasn’t asking her for it. She wanted to tell him he was too heavy, but she thought he knew that. He wasn’t about to help her.
She tried to move the knife away from him, but the knife wouldn’t move. Was it stuck in Lyle? She was still grasping it, so she twisted it up and down with all the force she could muster.
And then Lyle stopped moving.
Didi still felt a twitch here and there, but it could have been her own body. She wasn’t sure, but Lyle seemed to have stopped moving completely—
But he hasn’t stopped sweating, Didi thought with disgust. God, how can he be this wet? Or is it me? Am I wet?
Get off me, she said. Or thought she said. Or felt. Or prayed.
No. She didn’t pray.
“Get off me, you revolting bastard,” she said, her raw throat hurting. “Can you hear me?”
Lyle’s head slipped off her shoulder and hung down to the ground.
Didi moved slightly out from under him, and breathed. Lyle’s heavy body felt flaccid.
And Didi thought, I didn’t miss.
Ahh, she breathed. I didn’t miss.
“Get off me, you bastard,” she said, louder.
There was no movement from Lyle.
Didi grabbed his shirt with her right hand and yanked him hard enough to slip half her body out, then the rest of it. She slapped his forehead with the palm of her right hand. The cuffs hit him, and his head bobbed back.
He was dead.
His eyes stared out at the moon and at Didi. His mouth was open in the same stunned surprise.
That’s the face I’ll remember, she thought, gritting her teeth. The relief left her. She felt pain start up inside her, rev up, and grip her. Moaning, she let go of the knife, closed her eyes, and clutched at the ground and her dress and her leg. When the contraction was over, Didi opened her eyes.
The right side of Lyle’s throat was torn open. Even in the dark, Didi could see the ragged wound. Didi grabbed the handle and pulled the knife out. The hole gaped bigger, blacker, more exposed.
Didi realized she was too weak to stand up.
She touched her dress. It was wet. She looked at it. In the moonlight, her once yellow dress looked black. She felt her face. It was sticky.
Her arms, her chest, her entire body were covered with his blood as it drained out of him and down onto her.
She didn’t care. He was dead.
“You’re dead, you pig,” she whispered, lying next to him on her right side, holding her belly. It was a bit more comfortable if she lay on her side. She dropped the knife, and with her left hand grabbed him by the hair, lifted his flopping head, shook it, and let it fall hard to the ground. She liked the sound. She let it fall again.
“Now I’d like to torture you, Lyle,” she said, turning to him. “I’d like to torture you for a day—” And she started to cry and clutch at the ground. “Please,” she whispered into the ground. “Please, somebody, help me.” She clawed at the ground, tried to grab on and hold anything until the pain was over. With her water broken, Didi felt the contractions slam at her.
There was no time between contractions. It was the end, and she knew it. She had hoped it wasn’t so, but now was the time to press her chin to her chest and bear down.
Maybe I can move next time, in the next thirty seconds when I’m feeling no pain.
But Didi couldn’t move in the next thirty seconds between contractions either. The need to push did not abate. It was blinding, even when she lay on her side.
She rolled over, looking for the car, and then rolled back to Lyle and muttered, “I’d like to stay and make you cry, Lyle. But I’m tired of looking at your stinking face, and I have a baby to bear. A baby that’s not going to end up in Mazatlán. I wanted to ask you something, but never got the chance. Did you become whole through my suffering? Did my humiliation heal you, make you one with God, you filthy piece of shit?”
She rolled away from him and cried through another contraction, pleading into the ground for someone to help her.
Lyle, I know how you died and you had a bad death, but it was the death you deserved. You once asked me this and I answered you, but I lied. I’m not going to cry for you, and if my baby and I are going to be okay, I’ll never think of you again. But if something should go wrong, if I’m never going to be able to have children after this, or if I lose my vocal cords or my rotted fingers, or if my septum leaks for the rest of my life, daily reminding me of you, then I’ll remember that you’re burning in hell, your immortal soul having gone through reliction, and I will feel better. Either way, you should have killed me quick instead of torturing me, because I wasn’t going to go silently.
Lyle, you didn’t know me at all.
She picked up the knife and wiped it on her dress. The knife remained slick and bloody. She let it fall to the ground.
I’m leaving you, and you’ll have to have the Lord Jesus Christ ask for your eternal soul.
Didi Wood couldn’t stand up or leave him.
Lying on her side, facing him, she folded her hands together and prayed. Give rest, Oh Christ, to Your servant, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing nor life everlasting. She meant to say but life everlasting, but went on
without correcting herself. Into Your hands we commend Your servant, we humbly beseech You, a sinner of Your own redeeming, receive him into the arms of Your mercy. Amen.
At last Didi staggered up and limped to the car, handcuffs at her right side, water trickling down her legs.
Unforgiving gravity was pressing the baby down. Gravity’s help was the last thing she wanted.
To stand and walk was unbearable.
When she got inside the car, she sat down.
That wasn’t much better.
So she lay down on her side again, her head at the wheel, and tried not to push.
One thirty seconds.
Two thirty seconds.
Three thirty seconds. She couldn’t open her eyes now. She was nearly done. The pressure in her groin intensified.
“No,” she whispered. “No. We’re not ready. I’m not ready. We can’t be born yet, darling. Mommy needs to sleep just a little bit. Please … please help me.”
Four thirty seconds.
She had to do something.
She pressed on the horn. It blared harshly and briefly in the darkened park.
10:35 P.M.
“We didn’t do anything,” was the first thing Bernie Bleck said.
“No, nothing,” his wife said.
“That’s good,” said Scott. “Glad to hear it.”
“If this is about the taxes from 1995—”
Scott cut him off. “How much do you owe?”
Rich nudged him.
Bernie said, “I don’t know.” Turning to Mrs. Bleck, “How much do we owe, missus?”
Maureen Bleck started to talk. “What, altogether? See, we meant to pay, but Bernie here, he came into a little bit of money, we sold one of our houses—not that we have so many or anything, no, we just had two, and we sold one of them, and we meant to build us a nice house in Naples, Florida, you know where that is? It’s a real nice area, real warm, and the people are real nice, anyhow, we meant to build us a house, but things came up—and we never did go ahead and do it.” She shook her head and stared at the ground.
Rich saw that Scott was about to let go his short-leashed temper. Yet something stopped him. Rich knew what made him stop gritting his teeth. He too felt fleetingly sorry for poor old Maureen Bleck, who had lost her daughter and grandson.
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