"Jesus. That's three good guys we've lost because of that bitch."
Tiny exhaled. "At least there won't be any more." He pulled himself to a sitting position and faced his pack.
"We gotta get out of here, guys. We've been here too long. It's bad luck. We ride tomorrow."
"Where to, Boss?" Mac Swanson's voice was hesitant.
"Ask me tomorrow." With assistance from Hans, Tiny hoisted himself off the sofa and limped toward the bunk room. Every eye followed him.
Low-pitched conversations broke out everywhere among the rank and file Butchers as the door to the bunk room closed. A few made plans for their last evening in Onteora. A few others speculated on the state of Tiny's health and his continued tenure in command. Two riders talked in low voices about the merits of leaving the pack.
Rusty had no interest in any of it. It was Rusty's good fortune that he had been at the back of the gathering, and that Tiny's gaze had never lit on him. The newest Butcher had murder in his eyes. He was screaming your pussy hunt killed my guy from every cell in his body.
==
Chapter 20
"Yaaaaaaaaa-AHHHH!"
Christine's grunt was accompanied by a loud clank from the weight train on the universal as she forced her elbows to lock. Louis clucked and shook his head in disapproval.
"You're not supposed to jerk it that way."
She lowered the lift bar until it rested against its low stops, just above her heaving chest. "Why not?"
"Because it doesn't have the muscle-building effect when you do that. And if you jerk it sharply enough, you can tear something, and then you're in real trouble."
"Louis, just where did you learn all this stuff?"
"I had a trainer, just as you do now."
"Did you ever check up on him?"
He snorted. "At first, always, until I became convinced he knew what he was talking about. After that, I just did what he told me." He leaned forward and pulled up on the lift bar, allowing her to slide past it. "Go look at how much you just pressed."
She rose to a sitting position, grabbed the front of her shirt -- one of his old flannel checks, too frayed at the collar and elbows to be worn outside the house -- and flapped it, hoping to cool off. She could feel runnels of sweat pooling in all her hollows and crevices. It would be good to shower.
"Well?"
"What's your hurry? You know already." Grinning at his impatience, she rose and went to the back of the machine to count the plates on the end of the resistance train. There were seventeen.
"Why did a hundred seventy pounds take so much work? I was doing two-fifty more than a week ago."
She heard him chuckle at her back. "Read the number on the top plate, Chris."
She did. It was a twenty pound plate. The stack was uniform.
"Three hundred and forty pounds?"
"Yup."
She rose from behind the weight machine and bounded to where Louis stood, arms folded across his chest and beaming like a brand new father. She stared at him for a moment, then took his head in her hands and kissed him fiercely.
"Thank you!"
That puzzled him. "What for? It's your achievement."
"Never mind. Just thank you." You took me past the top end of what you can do yourself and never said a word about it, you incredible idiot.
He appeared embarrassed. "I would have bet heavily against this. You're not big enough to be able to lift this much, but you're doing it anyway. I don't know if we should be worried."
"About what?"
"About doing you damage." He hesitated, then put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. "That's not on the agenda."
The embrace surprised her. He'd avoided touching her for the whole of the week past. They hadn't made love since the morning after the assault. She'd gone to his room that night, and he'd all but ordered her to her own. They hadn't talked about any of it.
She hugged him and laid her chin on his shoulder. She hadn't known him long, just over two months, but she was beginning to think that there were ways in which he would remain forever beyond her comprehension.
He doesn't trust himself. Helen and I know him better than he does. He lives like an ascetic. He's always in control, always responsible. He distrusts pleasure.
If I hadn't raped him, I would never have gotten him.
That realization was accompanied by a second one that sent a tremor through her. She pulled back from him, hoping he hadn't noticed it.
"What's the matter, Chris?"
"Nothing."
He smirked. "Why do women think we can be fooled so easily?"
She squinted at him. "What?"
"You don't recognize your own words?"
"Oh, that." She shrugged. "I was just wondering how long it was going to take you to get around to admitting that I'm the first gal that ever had your pants off."
All the blood drained from his face. She was surprised not to hear a gurgle as it passed through his neck. His hands dropped to his sides. "How did you know?"
"I know you, Louis." She enfolded him in her arms again. "You take nothing for yourself unless you absolutely can't live without it."
He held her and said nothing.
Uh-oh. Little Chrissy has gone and done it again. When will I learn how to keep my mouth shut?
Probably about ten minutes after they put me in the ground.
"Are you afraid of getting hooked on something?"
"No."
"Well, why, then?"
"I don't know." The words were soft. "Self-control's an old habit with me."
"Self-control, yes, I understand that. But I was talking about self-denial. Refusing to enjoy when enjoying costs nothing."
He shrugged against her embrace. "When the price is low, the goods aren't usually worth much."
"That's a crock of shit -- oops, excuse me, that's an evasion, and you know it. Look me in the eye." She took him by the shoulders, pushed him to arms' length and held him there. "You could have had me, willingly, at any time over the past two months, and you knew it. Cost to you, zero. Finally I had to force myself on you. Now tell me with a straight face that you don't think I'm worth at least that much."
Trembling, he tried to pull her against him. She prevented it.
Shit, I really am stronger than he is now. I've got to watch this.
"And it's not just yourself you're depriving, Louis. I ache for you. I really do. Of all the things you've given me, intentionally or not, your body is the thing I value most. Every time I lay eyes on you, I want to pull you over me like a blanket. But ever since the attack, you've been acting as if I were covered with lice. Are you embarrassed about my...let's see, how would you put it...having had my way with you?"
"No!" His eyes went wide with outraged hurt.
"Then what the hell is all this about? I'm bought and paid for! You've been paying for the things and people you refuse to enjoy. You just veer off before the good part. You're shortchanging yourself six ways from Sunday for no good reason. Do you really want to skate all the way to the end of your life without ever tasting the good stuff?"
"And what would you know about it?" Tears were welling in his eyes.
"I know plenty!" Exasperated, she started to shake him. His unresisting body fluttered like a flag in a brisk wind. She stopped at once. Her own tears had started to rise. "My life hasn't been all rape and torture. I don't chill out by pulling off fresh scabs. And there's Helen, too. You made that happen, damn it! Don't you dare tell me you don't know what we do!"
He dropped his gaze to the floor. She waited, hands clamped to his shoulders, but he would not speak.
He's ashamed. Of what?
What does it matter? You started this, now you have to finish it. You owe him.
Good old Nag. Haven't heard from you for a while. How's the wife and kids? But you're still always ready to stir the pot when it doesn't need it, aren't you? I'm busy, damn you. Get the hell out of my skull!
She bent and scooped h
im up into her arms. He offered no resistance. She shouldered open the exercise room door and carried him to the little room that housed his furnace before she set him back on his feet.
"Remember what happened here, eight days ago?"
He nodded, still pale.
"And that night, and the morning after?"
He nodded again.
"We're going to do it again, right now. Here or upstairs in bed?"
"Upstairs." His voice was faint.
"But this time it's my party. When I'm done with you, you won't know whether to shit or wind your watch."
"I don't wear a watch."
She scooped him up again and headed up the basement stairs.
"One less thing I have to take off."
***
She ran her fingertips along his cheek.
"Was I too rough with you?"
He smiled in the semidarkness.
"Not at all. Where did you learn all that?"
"Before I became your Galatea, I put in ten years as a sex object. The duties were varied. There was a lot of on-the-job training."
He chuckled. "I should never have given you Bulfinch."
"I would have found it eventually."
"I suppose." He put a hand to her breast, let the tip of his index finger trail across her nipple. She shivered. "So it wasn't all rape and torture?"
"Not all of it, no. I wasn't always the only woman they were holding, so now and then I had company." She rose onto an elbow. "When we had a chance, we tried to make each other feel better, and we used what we had."
She never gave up. It probably kept her alive.
"I'm not going to kid you, Louis. There were days I would have killed myself if I'd had a way to do it. Another girl did do it. Really put Tiny's nuts in a twist, too. He took it out on me. But there were moments of light in there, too. Little ones."
"Was that Marie?"
"Yup. They took their eyes off her once when --"
"Don't talk about it any more, Chris. I can't stand to think about it." He took her in his arms and began to stroke her back. The velvety feel of her skin was amplified by the sinuous power of the muscles beneath it.
She threw her arms over her head and arched her back, leaning into his caresses and pressing her pelvis against his. His penis rose and stiffened again. His hands slid down to her buttocks and cupped them, luxuriating in their generous softness.
He put his mouth to the hollow between her breasts and kissed it. Warmth blossomed from his lips and shot through his body. She took his head between her hands as he traced a path down her torso.
Her aroma was the fine clean scent of a woman at the peak of her health and power. It drew him down the length of her body, kissing and nibbling. When he reached her mons, he stopped for a long, lingering taste. His lips and tongue glided over the dome of smooth, taut flesh. She moaned and pressed his head against her.
"Aren't you supposed to have hair down here?"
"What do you mean, supposed to?"
"Well, it grows here, doesn't it?"
"It grows on your face, too."
"Oh, I see."
"Are you objecting?"
"Not at all." He traced her labia slowly with the tip of his tongue. The small red bud that peeked out between them at their upper juncture was shining and hot to the touch. He took it between his lips and nibbled it, and she moaned again.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this."
She chuckled. "You'd better be. There'll be a test tomorrow."
"Comprehensive?"
"Exhaustive." She combed his hair with her fingers, pressed his head towards her again.
He resumed his nibbling. Her mons grew warmer and began to pulse against his face. A low, unobtrusive humming, the sound of the cosmos at rest, swelled to fill his consciousness as he immersed himself in the riches of her body.
He had always been puzzled by sexual hunger. His lack of understanding had made him more than a little afraid of it. He was beginning to see. It was not the savage abandon of animals in rut. Nor was it a vanquishment of the mind by baser and more powerful impulses of the body.
It was a rising, an exaltation.
We spend our lives locked in prisons of flesh, yearning to believe that there might be something greater than our individual selves, and that someday, with enough preparation and enough effort, it might allow us to become part of it. Corporations, armies, governments and religions are all part of the same pattern. Yet how many would believe that such a thing might be possible to any two people sufficiently unafraid of one another to touch without fear? To offer themselves without reservation?
She stiffened and cried out. The high, sweet sound was like a fanfare of trumpets, announcing the triumph of pleasure. He raised his head to search for her face. She was breathing raggedly through parted lips. Even in the evening murk, he could see that her face and chest were deeply flushed. His attention caught her eye; she smiled beatifically, reached down and pulled him up the length of her body.
As his penis brushed them, her labia parted to receive him. He entered her slowly, savoring the dissolution of the boundaries between them. They moved with effortless rhythm, a single organism afloat on a dark ocean of peace.
The beast with two backs, they used to call it. God is truly good.
==
Chapter 21
Louis pulled the truck to a stop before the rectory, killed the engine and set the handbrake. The dashboard clock read noon exactly. His hand went to the door handle and stopped there.
"What's the matter, Louis?"
He turned toward Christine and tried to smile. It didn't feel right. "Nothing, really. I'm just getting so I hate to let you out of my reach."
She raised an eyebrow. "You could come in."
"No, better that I don't." Father Schliemann would probably tear my head off if I stuck my nose through that door today. I promised him a solo shot at you, and he wants it badly. "Do you remember what I told you?"
She nodded. "'Believe nothing, no matter where you have read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, except it agree with your own reason and your own sense of things.'"
"And who said that?"
"Originally? Buddha. Recently? You."
He chuckled and patted her cheek. "Damn right. Now go in there and show 'em what you've got, Tiger." He gestured toward the rectory stoop. Father Schliemann had heard them arrive, and stood there waiting.
She leaned forward and kissed him.
"I'll see you at two."
Seconds later she was striding up the rectory path, heels clicking against the slate slabs. When the pastor closed the door behind the two of them, it felt as if one of his limbs had been torn from his body.
He settled back into his seat, closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.
The more she learns, the more she masters, the more determined I become to watch over her at every instant. I'll feel that way even after she no longer needs anyone's protection, and that day won't be long in coming.
He slipped into prayer.
Dear God, thank You for giving me the care of this fairest of all Your children. Thank You for choosing me to protect her in her weakness and to nurture her into strength. Thank You for the love she has given me, a light unto the awful darkness in my soul. One thing more do I ask: may I be strong enough to bear parting from her, as I must soon do forever. For I knew not how much joy there could be in the world, until she came to me.
He started the truck and drove away.
***
Christine chose one of the leather armchairs and Schliemann seated himself upon the sofa, as usual.
"You look lovely today, child. Is that a new outfit?"
She looked down at her suit. "Well, sort of, Father. I got it a few days ago. It's a replacement for one I ruined a few weeks ago." She leaned forward and held out a sleeve for him to inspect. "Just a slightly different weave."
He admired it politely. "How did you ruin a beautiful outfit like that?"
"Trying to hide behind a furnace."
"What?"
She looked puzzled. "Hasn't Louis told you about that yet?"
"Ah, no." He hasn't told me much of anything for quite some time, come to think of it. When was the last time I heard his confession? "Should I wait for him to tell me, or would you like to?"
"Oh, I don't think he'd mind."
And Christine told Father Heinrich Schliemann, pastor of Onteora parish, all about how his parishioner Louis Redmond had killed two men on his front lawn and surrendered his virginity to her afterward.
***
"Father, are you okay? You look really pale."
The old priest pressed both hands to his chest. His heart fluttered and skipped in a way that presaged nothing good. "It's all right, child. I'm just old, that's all. But please, reassure me about just one thing: you haven't exaggerated any of this, have you?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Never mind." Great God in Heaven, what do I do now? Three weeks and he hasn't breathed a word of it to me.
"Father, is this like when I told you that Helen hadn't been to church for a long time?"
"Somewhat, child." A mouse and an elephant do have some things in common. "Louis could be in a great deal of trouble."
"With you?"
"Ah, no. With the civil authorities."
She sneered. "You mean the police? The hell with them. Where were they when the shit hit the fan?"
"Christine!"
"Knock it off, Father. Louis got used to it. You can, too." She rose and paced the room for a few seconds. "You're not going to tell them, are you?"
The baldness of the question stopped Schliemann's mental processes dead. The idea hadn't occurred to him until she asked about it.
I have a duty, don't I?
To whom? The so-called justice authorities of this extremely corrupt county, who've done nothing for your parishioners but tax half of them out of their houses and harass the rest for parking on the streets around the church?
But murder!
Louis Redmond is not a murderer. If he killed two men, it was because it was right and necessary. You know it, Schliemann.
On Broken Wings Page 15