by Edward Lee
It was the ultimate form of disgrace in her field, the ultimate taboo. She’d be shunned, ostracized, flensed of all credibility if it ever got out, and she knew it. Never get involved with a patient…
But I already am involved, she realized. Secretly. To herself. Just because Alice doesn’t know it, that doesn’t mean I’m not involved. She quelled her guilty thoughts, let the water cool her down. It wasn’t fair, though. I love her, she thought. I can’t help it. And for that, for truly loving someone, she was what?
Professionally damned.
What could she do?
Could she admit her love to Alice? Confess? But if she did that, she could risk losing her career. Alice might be mortified. She might sue her. Holly’s only alternative was—like everything:
Keep her feelings to herself. Admit nothing. Confess nothing.
And live in torment.
No, it wasn’t fair. Nothing was…
Later, she went back to sleep. It took some time, though, to drift off again. There was always the fear.
The fear of her dreams.
The fear that the good Professor Saul would visit her again.
««—»»
Steve awoke at almost four in the afternoon. It had, after all, been a long night. He sat at his kitchen table over a steaming cup of coffee. The late newspaper, the Evening Capital, lay unfolded before him.
A small box at the top of the front page read: teen murdered in city [see Arundel Section, p. C4].
He turned quickly, then stalled. There, staring up at him, was the girl from Hillsmere.
The girl he’d murdered last night.
He hadn’t meant to kill her. The bitch had left him no choice. He’d tied her up with the stockings, had tagged her twice, and was going to leave. No big deal, she’d get over it. But he’d just been so boned up. The bitch, he thought. The stupid bitch…
She’d somehow managed to get a wrist out of one of the stockings. She’d tried to free herself. He’d tried to stop her, figured he’d beat her unconscious and scoot, but she’d swiped her hand upward, grabbed the top of his mask, and—
Stupid, stupid bitch…
—pulled off the mask.
She’d seen his face. And that just didn’t cut it, not in Steve’s book.
Not by a long shot.
He’d strangled her rather crudely there on the bed, with his jersey-gloved hands. Thank God for the gloves—he needn’t worry about fingerprints. Sure, he’d left enough of his semen in her to fertilize a couple of planets, but that wasn’t anything to worry about, either. The police would do a genetic-profile workup on it, but that could only link him to any future rapes.
And Steve didn’t plan on getting caught in the future.
Chalk it up to experience, he told himself, sipping his coffee. He had a strawberry Danish too, fresh-hot from the microwave, with little squiggles of sugar-syrup on top. The article reported the robbery/murder. Aside from snuffing the broad, he’d had a good night. He’d made a hell of a haul. His fence is Eastport, dude named Charlie, had laid a clean two grand on him for the jewelry and silver he’d snagged from the joint. Cash. The necklace alone, 10mm pearls, would’ve made the night worth it. Wifey’s jewelry turned out to be tough stuff; primo, in fact. And two grand was good scratch for about an hour’s worth of work. Shit, even lawyers didn’t make that much per hour.
Next time be more careful, he thought.
Who are you kidding, fella?
His endeavors of the night before had shown him something, hadn’t they?
It had enlightened him.
His mind drifted back to the point-sharp images of the memory. The girl had been one hot number: young, gorgeous. And seeing her tied to that bed by her pretty wrists and ankles, and her pretty face gagged—shit, he’d nearly come in his pants just looking at her like that. And the fucking he’d given her had been—
Had been—
What?
It had been the best fucking he’d ever had. Twice, too. Her tensing, jerking body. Her pouring sweat. The beautiful, undiluted terror in her bulging eyes.
But the best part…
The best part…
Steve was getting hard again just thinking about it. He was breaking out into a sweat.
He couldn’t help it. He jerked off right then and there, his mind inundated with the images. Drenched with them. Smothered by them.
Because…
The best part had been killing her.
His own little slice of heaven. The feeling defied description, actually. The closest he could come would be to say that power—power over a helpless consciousness—proved the most unique and gratifying feeling in the world. And then, to take that consciousness—that life—in his own two hands, and to snuff it out…
There was…nothing like it.
And this proved to him one very important thing.
From now on he’d rape a woman every time he pulled a job.
And, he thought with absolute certainty, I’ll kill her, too.
««—»»
Alice felt as if she’d been run down by a truck the next morning. Actually, it wasn’t even morning; it was early afternoon. She’d slept long and hard. And fitfully.
She’d had the dream again, the dream of the black church, the figure in Stygian raiments and hood, and then Dessamona—sleek, beautiful, nude—coming to her bedroom and promising to make her beautiful.
Alice knew she’d have to tell Holly about the dream eventually. It would be stupid not to. Dreams revealed the underpinnings of the subconscious. They could be examined, taken apart, analyzed. That’s what I’m paying her for, isn’t it? she thought. I’m paying her to analyze me, to find out what’s wrong and to fix it. She knew it wasn’t quite that simple, but it was at least a basis. To conceal her dreams from Holly would be not only a big mistake but foolhardy, too, counterproductive, illogical.
I’ll have to tell her.
Alice dawdled around the house for the next few hours, puttering, fixing up. She dressed in old clothes, went out to work in the small garden she had by the old carriage house, but gave up twenty minutes later. The day was stifling, a high sun blazing down through the hazy sky. Either the garden burns up or I burn up, she thought. Sorry garden. She watered down the soil briefly, then fled the heat back into the house.
Inside, she hit the message button on her answering machine, suspecting that Holly might have called when she’d been sleeping the day away. But the only message, thankfully, was from George, the plumber. She’d called him a few days earlier, reporting a minute leak in her kitchen faucet. I’ll be by around five, he said on the tape. Then she roused herself in alarm. That didn’t give her much time.
I look like shit, she thought crudely, sitting in her work clothes with her blond hair poofed from her quick jaunt in the garden. She hurried to prepare herself, showering quickly, drying her hair, dressing. It was funny how life worked sometimes. A day and a half ago I tried to kill myself, and here I am now hurrying to get ready for the plumber. She repressed her frown as she pulled up her jeans over the prosthetic leg. Then she picked up a bit more, straightening the den, the living room, making sure the kitchen was in order. Christ, Alice, it’s the plumber coming, not the president. George doesn’t care if the curtains on the kitchen window are perfectly straight.
She turned up the air-conditioning; it was probably close to a hundred outside, and horrendously humid. She’d been to Phoenix once, on a case back when she was still working for the firm. Litigation against an avionics manufacturer that sublicensed work out here. It had been late-August, as she recalled, and a hundred and twenty degrees. But even that was more tolerable than this. There was no humidity in Phoenix. Here, the summers were drenching, even this early.
Hot air blasted her when she opened the front door at the sound of the bell. “Hello, George,” she greeted him. “It’s nice to see you again.”
George smiled within his beard, embarrassed that he was back for repairs so soon. “Leaky faucet, h
uh? I’ll have it taken care of faster than—”
“Faster than it takes ice to melt in hell,” Alice remembered. “It’s nothing catastrophic, just a small leak.”
“Probably a washer,” George speculated. “You wouldn’t believe the crummy washers some of these manufacturers put in their gear. They contract out for them to China.” With that bit of useful information, George toted his toolbox, and himself, into the kitchen. He turned the faucet on and off several times, frowning at the small ooze of water emerging from the faucet’s base. Then he said, “Well, how do you like that? It’s not the washer after all. It’s the blammed joint connector.”
“I guess you owe the Chinese an apology,” Alice tried to joke, standing aside, behind him.
“Problem is, see, this’ll probably take me a while. I’m gonna have to lift the whole sink out of its mount to get to the joint. But don’t worry; you won’t be billed. Like I said when you hired me, my work is guaranteed.”
This was extraordinary: an honest plumber. She wondered how long “a while” meant, and suddenly realized how odd she felt. She knew why, too.
I feel odd because there’s a man in my house…
Not odd, though, as in nervous. George was a successful plumber with a good reputation. He was harmless. Just a big, friendly, burly redneck plumber. No, she didn’t feel odd simply because there was a man in her house.
It was because there was an attractive man in her house.
And that proved a big difference.
Alice couldn’t deny the thought. George, of course, wasn’t her type in any real way. He was strictly blue-collar, working class, and Alice was an attorney with a Harvard law degree. But…
What did that matter? What did compatibility have to do with attraction? And that’s what spurred this course of thought. Suddenly Alice found him to be, well, very attractive. Earthy. Rugged. Macho.
She was gazing absently at his back, his longish dark hair, his strong shoulders. Wrenches clinked as he tended to his tasks, oblivious to her gaze.
Jesus, she thought to herself. She began to feel tingly, even a trifle light-headed. It was inexplicable…
“Hot one out today, isn’t it?” George said without looking at her. He was on his knees now, reaching up under the sink. Just making small talk.
“Oh, yes, it is, very hot,” Alice replied stiffly. “Beastly. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the humidity. I went to Phoenix once, and…”
Her attention dissolved. She felt awash in lusty imaginings; she felt drunk with them. What she imagined was this: George suddenly grabbing her by the hair, pulling her lips to his. Primal. Spontaneous. She imagined being taken by him. Brutally, lustfully. Not rape, not against her will, because this was her will, wasn’t it? Alice wanted to be ravaged by him, a damsel by a pirate. She wanted to feel his big, rough hands haul her to the floor, shuck her out of her clothes, knead her breasts, ply her sex. She wanted to feel his weight on top of her, his hair-covered chest squeezing her bosom, his breath gusting into her as he penetrated her right there on the floor—
She wanted to be plundered by his desire for her.
“What, uh, what was that?”
Alice blinked. “What?”
“You were saying something about Phoenix,” George reminded her, exchanging a small box-end wrench for a larger one.
“Oh, yes,” Alice caught herself. “What I meant was, even though it’s a lot hotter there, it doesn’t feel like it because there’s no humidity.”
“Yeah. Lotta places like that out west.”
Christ Almighty, Alice thought. I must be out of my mind. The poor guy‘s fixing the sink and I’m having sexual fantasies about him right here in my kitchen.
George went on tinkering. Now he lay on his back, with his head half into the open cabinet beneath the sink. Alice eyed his splayed form. A big man, yes, stocky, large-framed, but not fat. After a moment Alice caught herself—she’d been eyeing his crotch.
She couldn’t deny it; she wanted to be plundered by his desire for her. But then she thought: pretty futile. How could she ever be plundered by his desire for her?
He has no desire for me; she felt certain. She thought back to the dreadful night with her former associate, and how repelled he’d been by the sight of her stump.
George would take one look at my leg and that would be it. He’d be out of here faster…than it takes ice to melt in hell…
When the phone rang she jumped. She picked it up quickly, nervously. “Hello?”
“Just checking to see how you’re feeling,” Holly said on the other end. “Weren’t you supposed to call me this morning?”
“Oh, I’m sorry; I overslept,” Alice admitted. Her eyes kept darting down to George, who still lay on his back as he fiddled under the sink.
Her eyes kept darting down to his crotch.
It looked like a tight satchel of denim. Alice blinked, then imagined him naked, his big workman’s hand grasping her by the hair, urging her face to his groin—
“Alice?”
—her mouth opening voluntarily—
“Alice!”
“Oh, y-yes, I’m here,” she said, her mind finally finding its way back to reality. Snap out of it! she demanded of herself. You’re on the phone with your psychiatrist, for God’s sake! “The plumber’s here—”
“Who?”
“The plumber. My sink sprang a leak, and he came around to fix it.”
A suspicious pause came over the line. “Are you all right, Alice?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You sound…funny—”
Funny, Alice thought, holding the receiver to her ear. Well, that seemed fitting, because she felt funny, too. Ever since the plumber had arrived. The odd feeling had intensified, that dizzy, tingling sensation given over to hot flashes as well as other sensations that were proof-positive of arousal. Her breath going thin, her nipples hardening, her sex turning damp.
“Are you having any bad effects from your medication?” Holly asked.
“No, no,” Alice replied, and then nearly laughed. Actually, she hadn’t even taken the new meds yet; she’d forgotten.
“Can I get you anything?” Holly asked. “Would you like me to come over?”
“Oh, no, really, that’s not necessary. I’m fine.”
Another pause, one that somehow rang of disappointment. “Well, don’t forget your appointment tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” Alice assured her. “See you tomorrow.” Then she hung up quickly. She was acting weird and she knew it. It was almost as if some part of her had wanted to hang up on the doctor.
George was standing up, putting away his tools. “Got it,” he said. “Didn’t take me as long as I thought.”
Alice was staring at him.
“Works fine now.” He turned the faucet off and on several times to demonstrate. “No more leaks.”
But Alice couldn’t break her stare.
George cocked a brow. “You okay?”
She couldn’t answer. The dizzy flashes sharpened. George was staring back at her now, his dark eyes fixed point-blank on her bosom, and it was only then that Alice remembered that she hadn’t put on a bra when she’d been getting ready earlier. Now that fact was obvious to George. Her swollen nipples tingled, their tender points sticking out against the material of her blouse.
George scratched his beard. “Look, I, uh, I guess I better get going—”
“No,” Alice heard herself saying, and then she seemed to hear waves of the faintest whisperings in her head, words she could not understand, and then it was almost as if she were watching herself from some impossible nook as she slowly stepped forward, unbuttoning her blouse…
— | — | —
15
BRIDE’S BAY, ENGLAND, 1793
(Katelyn? Katelyn? Come outside now. Come outside and see me.)
Her husband lay asleep in bed, on his belly. His snoring filled the room, and so did his malodor of sweat, fornication, and
ale. He’d had his way with her earlier, upon returning from the pub, but it was Katelyn’s custom now to enjoy it, to take from it anything she could. The beatings had stopped. Her contentedness, as well as her new-found willingness in bed, had put a quick end to the brutality—
—just as the angel had promised.
Katelyn knew he’d been with other women just hours before—prostitutes at the pub—but even that didn’t matter to her anymore. The angel had taught her to view her life from a new and different angle. Katelyn had learned to take the abuses of others and turn them into pleasures she could use for herself. Why live in futility when she didn’t have to? Why live in fear and further heartbreak?
Her husband safely asleep now, Katelyn slipped out of the house. The hot night and all its clamor of life seemed to welcome her, and the moon—its furtive face—smiled. She felt beautiful traipsing across the grassy field; she felt as she did every night now: reborn.
(Katelyn? Katelyn?)
I’m coming! I’ll be there soon! she thought with new joy in her heart.
Thus far there’d been many. All the handsome soldiers, so young, so virile. And such pleasures she knew now. The young men made her feel ravishing, shining with desire. They always told her they’d return, come back to her for more, but they never did. This did not sadden her, however; new pleasures came with new men, another new ecstasy each night. Men hadn’t changed; they would always be the same. But that didn’t matter either. It was Katelyn who had changed…
As was her habit now, before answering the angel’s call, she shed her nightdress and stepped into the tarn. The tepid water felt luxurious on her naked skin, and soon she was clean of her husband. She caressed herself in the water, cupping her breasts, tracing a finger up the charged groove of her sex, honoring, by touch, the flesh of her womanhood. In her mind came a cavalcade of new desires, new bliss.
(You’re so beautiful, so beautiful now.)