Their lips parted.
“That was a first kiss to remember,” she said.
“It was,” he said, breathing hard. “It really was. But you haven’t answered my question.”
She kissed both corners of his mouth. “I’ll answer it later. When I’ve finished.”
“When you’ve finished what?”
“Doing things for you.” She kissed his chin.
“What are you going to do for me?”
“Give you things. Fulfill your most secret wishes. Like I promised you the other night.”
A chill seized him.
“What did you say?” he said, the unthinkable flashing in his mind.
Not answering, smiling as if amused at his sudden horror, she lowered her hand to his crotch, unzipped his jeans, and slipped her fingers inside his boxer shorts. She squeezed him gently. That soft pressure and the feeling of her smooth, warm hand filled his chest with a delicious tension. He moaned.
Slowly, she stroked him up and down.
“Oh, God,” he said. In spite of his terrifying knowledge of this girl’s true identity, he was unable to push her away and run. She had discovered his sexual fantasy, had taken his hand and enticed him to live it, and he was helpless to resist. Overwhelmed by the power of his own secret desire.
With every fluid motion of her expert hand, a flash of pleasure shot through him. His knees weakening, he leaned against her. She curled her free arm around his waist and leaned back until she lay on the blanketed platform and he lay beside her.
She placed her hand on his chest, pushed him onto his back.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I shouldn’t do this.”
She helped him remove his shirt.
“I have to get out of here,” he said. “This is nuts.”
She sat up and began to take off her tank top.
“This is insane.”
She whipped off her shirt, then slid off her shorts, too.
He gaped at her nude body. Her body was fabulous, better than he had dreamed it would be. As he stared at her, the front of his boxer shorts rose into a pyramid. He blushed.
“Looks like a friend wants to be let out.” She rolled his jeans down his legs, freeing him.
“I can’t do this,” he said, aroused anyway. “I just can’t.”
She straddled him, placed his hands on her hips, and lowered her face to his. She kissed him. “You can,” she said, and started to prove her point.
When Jason awoke, he was sprawled on the platform, alone. His pants and shirt lay crumpled beside him. The sweet scent of Michelle’s perfume hung like a lingering spirit in the humid air.
No, not Michelle’s perfume. Its perfume. The Stranger’s.
Grimacing, he sat up. The idea of having done it with the Stranger, regardless of the beautiful body he had assumed and the pleasure he had given him, was sickening. He had a compulsion to wash himself, to scrub until his skin was raw, as though by giving himself a thorough cleansing he could wipe the experience out of his memory. Something within him felt dirty.
He put on his shirt, zipped his jeans. Jumping off the platform, he left the stall and stepped onto the roped-off walkway.
When he had approached the tent, he had sensed a presence within. Now he sensed nothing.
He wanted to track down the Stranger, learn who he was and why he was doing these things, but he did not know where he had gone. Soon after he climaxed, things had got blurry and he passed out. When he awoke, the Stranger had vanished.
The prospect of searching the carnival for the Stranger was daunting. In this nightmare place, the Stranger was king. There was no telling what obstacles he might throw at Jason in an attempt to keep him away.
Because he had no alternative, Jason walked down the passageway, toward the fluttering flaps of the entrance. Each naked lightbulb that he walked under mysteriously extinguished itself when he passed it, the darkness behind him tightening into a black womb.
He arrived at the tent doorway. A dilapidated ticket booth stood beside the entrance. It was empty.
No one was in sight.
Outside, the carnival was silent.
He stood inside the doorway, soaking up the peculiar atmosphere of the place. Where, exactly, was this amusement park located? In another dimension? In a dream world? Figuring that a walk would kick his mind into gear, he stepped outside
... and found himself sitting in the gondola on the Ferris wheel, beside Michelle. She frowned at him.
“I thought we agreed to kiss on the count of three,” she said. “You sat there with your lips puckered. I ended up kissing your shirt.”
He blinked. “Huh?”
“If you didn’t want to do it, you should have told me,” she said. “I would’ve understood. I admit, kissing on a Ferris wheel is kind of silly.”
He stared at her, heart ramming against his rib cage. He looked around. The basket in which they sat had passed the top of the wheel. It descended slowly, creaking gently. The carnival was crowded, music and other noises bursting from everywhere.
The day was clear, sunny, warm.
His watch functioned. It read 1:39, and the seconds steadily ticked away. His clothes were dry, too, even though, only a short while ago, he had been walking through rain.
He slumped in the seat.
He wondered how much more of this he could endure.
She leaned toward him. “You look terrible. Are you feeling okay?”
“Michelle, I think I need to go home.”
Her eyes were compassionate. “You feel bad? Is the Ferris wheel making you sick?”
“I think so. Or it might have been something I ate. I don’t know. But I want to go home and lie down for a while.” He didn’t enjoy lying to her, but he could not give her the truth. He did not want to involve her. And because she would probably decide he had lost his mind if he gave her the real story, he might risk losing her friendship, too.
Disappointment flickered in her eyes. ‘We can go. But remember, I’m going out of town tomorrow to visit my cousins in Atlanta. I won’t see you again for a couple of weeks.”
“I know. I’m really sorry. I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t be sorry, sweetie. It’s not your fault.” She squeezed his hand. “Now please, stop talking so much. To feel better, you’ll need all the energy you can get.”
He kept quiet. He would need all the energy he could get, but not to heal. The way things were turning out, he would need it for another purpose: to survive.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Feeling ashamed and adrift after Linda left the restaurant, Thomas dragged himself back to his office. He couldn’t have been more stunned if a physician had announced that he had contracted cancer and had only one month to live. His life was over.
Something, however, nagged at him and begged to be checked out. He grabbed the telephone off the desk and punched in a number.
On the third ring, Rose answered.
“Rose, this is Thomas.”
“What do you want? No, I ain’t meeting you nowhere.”
“I’m not calling to ask you to meet me. I only want to ask you something. Did you ever, uh, send a video to my wife? A video of us together?”
“What?” Her confusion sounded genuine. If she was acting, she was good—she was real good. “I wouldn’t record shit like that. I ain’t even got a camcorder.”
“Please be honest with me, Rose.”
“Thomas, I’m at work. I don’t have time for your stupid-assed questions. Is that all you wanted?”
“Yeah, that’s all. Sorry to bother you.” He hung up.
Rose had to be lying. If she had not sent the tape to Linda, then who was responsible? He had never been with another woman outside of his marriage.
Although the logical answer was that Rose had secretly recorded one of their sex episodes, the explanation failed to erase his unease.
Because the woman in the video was not Rose. Rose had a large, vivid tattoo of a blood-red rose imp
rinted on her back. The woman in the recording did not wear a tattoo. Linda had taken away the tape, but he did not need to review it to recall what he’d seen.
But if the woman was not Rose, then who was it?
He thought about the strange, almost unearthly woman who had been in the backyard late last night, tempting him.
It could have been the same person. Their bodies were the same-lean and shapely-and they shared the same skin tone.
His heart thudded. He was entertaining an impossible scenario, and he must leave it alone. He had only been with Rose. Rose was in the video, and he was sure that, in his shock at seeing himself exposed on tape, he had simply missed seeing her tattoo. Rose had simply lied to him on the phone.
Yes, it was Rose, trying to get revenge for his dumping her, by wrecking his marriage. Oh, she was sneaky. But he didn’t blame her. He was at fault for pursuing an affair with her in the first place.
He pushed away from the desk. He needed to get out of the office, get some fresh air. Or else he would start listening to that insistent little voice in his mind again, spinning its impossible scenarios.
Thomas left The House of Soul and began driving. He drove without any particular destination in mind. An irrepressible urge to travel—somewhere, anywhere—held sway over him. Maybe he needed to get away for a while and organize his thoughts. Or maybe he searched for something he thought he might find during his drive. He could not explain his intentions. He simply guided the steering wheel, balanced his foot on the gas pedal, and drove along the smooth city streets.
Cruising through Spring Harbor, with the afternoon sun casting warm, golden rays on the town, he realized he was nearing a familiar place. Green Meadows Nursing Home. How ironic. He smiled bitterly.
He parked near the entrance.
He did not know why he had come there. This seemed to be the worst possible time to see his father.
His gaze traveled up the brick building and found Big George’s fourth-floor room. The drapes covered the window, as always. Inside, Big George spewed bitterness and hate, as always. Nothing ever changed. Did he expect this visit to be any different from the others?
Unable to understand his actions, feeling almost as though he were a puppet manipulated by unseen fingers, he entered the nursing home. He took the elevator to the fourth floor.
He walked into his father’s room.
“You again,” Big George said, propped up in his bed by pillows. “Shit, Tommy. I thought you already visited once this week.”
“You have a good memory, Dad. I visited a few days ago.” Thomas closed the door. He sat on the overstuffed chair beside the bed.
“Why are you back so soon?” Big George said. “I thought I warned you about leaving my place in the hands of those stupid niggers you hired. Didn’t I?”
Thomas sighed. “Yeah, you warned me. I guess I don’t listen. We share that trait, don’t we, Dad?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Remember what you said? ‘Like father, like son.’ You were right—we do have a lot in common. Like the way we cheated on our wives, for example.”
Big George’s eyes widened. “So you do have a girl on the side! I knew it! You’re a dog if there ever was one, boy!”
“I sure am,” Thomas said, nodding. “A dog. Just like you.”
“Bow-wow-wow!” Big George said. Tears streaked down his dark, prunelike face as a fit of laughter convulsed him. Thomas found himself laughing, too, though he did not know why he laughed. Was he laughing at the sight of his father, a seventy year-old man, barking like a dog? At the tragic bond that he shared with Big George? Or at the sorry depths into which he had sunk, a pit so deep that laughing was the only alternative to crying?
“Like father, like son,” Big George said. Chuckling, he extended his withered arm and clapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Glad you finally admitted it, son. Ain’t nothing wrong with getting all the pussy you can. It’s in a man’s nature. Just don’t get caught!”
“Linda caught me, Dad.”
“She caught you? How?”
“My girlfriend sent Linda a videotape of us in bed. I had no idea that she had filmed anything. She was sneaky.”
“Was Linda pissed?”
“She was furious. She said she’s divorcing me.”
At this news, Big George laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Thomas said.
“You,” Big George said, shaking his head. “I swear, you might be my son, but you can’t do anything right. You’re too stupid to know how to pull the wool over a woman’s eyes. You mean well, but you’re a disgrace to my name, boy. I wish I’d had another son, he would’ve been better than you.”
Thomas’s next words tumbled out before he could catch them. “I wish I’d had another father.”
“What did you say?” Big George’s eyes narrowed to black darts.
By speaking those words, he had crossed a line in their relationship, and he sensed that he could not turn back. He repeated himself. “I wish I’d had another father.”
Big George glared at him.
Then he punched Thomas in the mouth.
Startled by the blow and his father’s unexpected power, Thomas fell out of the overstuffed chair and dropped on the floor. He put his hand to his lips. He felt a thread of blood.
Above him, Big George slowly climbed out of bed. His claw-like hand closed around the weathered wooden cane leaning beside the nightstand.
“I’m gonna kick your ass for that, boy,” Big George said. He planted his big, shriveled feet on the tile floor. His hands tightened around the cane. “I’m gonna whip your black ass like I used to in the old days.”
Holding his bleeding lip, Thomas inched backward along the floor. Part of his mind shouted at him to stand up like a man, but another part of him felt ten years old again, compelled to lie down and take his beating like a good little boy who had made another dumb mistake deserving of a whipping. As he warily watched his father clamber to his feet and grip the cane in both hands, he repressed the desire to call for Mama.
“Gonna tear your ass up!” Big George said. He swung the cane.
It whistled through the air and thwacked against Thomas’s leg. Darts of pain shot up his thigh, and he bit back a cry. Grimacing, he scooted away.
“Got a lesson to teach you, Tommy,” Big George said. “A good, long, painful lesson. “
Big George shuffled forward, his blue pajamas billowing like loose sails around his emaciated frame. His leg pulsating, Thomas turned over and crawled away from his father.
Grunting, Big George slammed the cane onto his back.
Agony fanned through Thomas’s body. He clenched his teeth.
“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again!” Big George said. “I don’t care how old you are, I’m still your daddy. I brought you into this world, I can take you out.”
He smashed the cane into Thomas’s shoulder.
Blood flooded Thomas’s mouth. He had bitten his tongue.
Panting, his pajama top sodden with sweat, Big George raised the cane.
“You gonna thank me later for beating you, Tommy. You been acting lost lately, like you forgot what I taught you. You need this whipping to clarify things for you. I’m the man, boy, and I’ll always be the man. This cane upside your head is gonna knock that fact into you.”
He swung the cane toward Thomas’s head.
In a burst of energy, Thomas blocked the stick. He seized the end of it and snatched it out of Big George’s fingers.
“Nigger!” Big George said. Using the cane to support himself, Thomas rose.
“What you gonna do?” Big George balled his hands into fists. Spittle sprayed as he spoke. “Hit me with it if you got the guts. Hit me, goddamn it!”
“No way, Dad.” Thomas dropped the cane to the floor. He kicked it under the bed.
“You pussy, you think you a man now?” Big George said, spit spraying Thomas’s face. He whacked Thomas with the back of his gnar
led hand.
Thomas rocked sideways, but he maintained his balance.
“Speak up, boy. You think you a man?” Big George clouted Thomas in the jaw again.
Thomas took the blow, then turned back to his father.
“Answer me, nigger! You think you a man?” Big George’s hand whipped toward Thomas.
Thomas stopped it in midair.
Cursing, Big George tried to strike him with his other hand. Thomas snared that one, too.
Hands locked together, they stared at each other.
“I am a man.” Thomas gazed at his father, who stood a few inches shorter than he did. “My own man.”
Big George spat in his face.
“Look,” Thomas said, not wiping away the spittle as it slid down his cheek. “You’re seventy years old and hobbled by a stroke. I’m thirty-eight, and I can bench-press four hundred pounds. If I wanted to, I could kick your ass all over this nursing home without breaking a sweat. Before I give in to the urge to do that, you better sit down.”
Thomas released Big George’s hands.
His father glared at him. His thin chest heaved.
Then, scratching his bald head, he turned and shuffled to the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress.
Standing over his conquered father, Thomas felt jubilant. He had dared to confront Big George, a man who had never backed down from anyone, and he had won. But it was not over yet. To truly break free from his father’s controlling shadow, he needed to do two more things.
“Now we’re going to have a talk,” Thomas said. He sat in the overstuffed chair, across from Big George. “This time, you’re going to listen to me. You won’t interrupt me until I’m finished.”
Big George said nothing. He picked lint off his pajamas.
“I know you’re listening. You’ll definitely hear what I’m going to say. I’m selling The House of Soul.”
Big George jerked up. “No.”
“Yeah, I see that got your attention,” Thomas said. “I bet you don’t believe me. But it’s true, I’ve decided to sell The House of Soul. I don’t need that place in my life anymore.”
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