by Jeff Gunhus
And for the first time, Allison felt afraid of the man she was chasing.
Allison rocked in time with the swell, feeling the power of the water through the wheel of the catamaran. She fixed a bearing on the three radio towers in the distance that stood sentry outside Annapolis.
Arnie came out of the main cabin and slid the glass door behind him. He carried two bottles of beer and handed one to Allison. “Here, you deserve this.”
Allison took a long pull on it. The cold liquid cut through the briny taste left in her mouth from the Bay water. She tipped the bottle toward him in thanks. “You know, I really don’t mind if you want to sail home. I can take a taxi back to Annapolis.”
Arnie shook his head. “After your heroics you deserve the red carpet treatment. That was something else. You didn’t even hesitate. I hardly realized what had happened, and you were already in action.”
Allison smiled and tried to look embarrassed by the compliment, but the alarms were going off. His tone was only slightly masked incredulousness. She knew the question that was coming next.
“So, where’d you learn those reflexes? Does freelance photography lend itself to life-saving skills?” It came out like casual conversation, but Allison sensed the underlying suspicion. Who are you really?
Allison laughed. “You’d be surprised. When you take the wrong pictures, it’s usually your own butt you’re trying to save.” Arnie chuckled and took a drink from his beer. It didn’t make her feel any better, though. She could feel his eyes scrutinizing her, testing her. “Three summers lifeguarding spoiled rich kids at Camp Fellowship when I was in college,” Allison lied. “It’s been a few years, but some things don’t leave you, I guess.”
“Well, on behalf of my spoiled rich kid, I’m glad you were around.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” Arnie said smiling, seeming a little more relaxed. “Since I lost his mother, Jason’s been everything to me. I can’t think of what I’d do if I lost him. Thank God you were here. You saved his life. I won’t forget that.”
“Well, let’s call it a team effort and just thank God he’s all right.”
Arnie nodded and looked away.
Despite the kind words, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow angry at her intervention. Was it a blow to his ego? A woman saved his son instead of him doing it himself? Did that minimize his role as caregiver? No, it wasn’t that. It was about power over her. The position of power had reversed. That must be it. She wondered if—
“What are you thinking about?” Arnie asked.
Allison realized that he was staring at her again, and she wondered how much of her concern had registered on her face. She craned her neck from side to side. “Thinking I’m going to need a massage before all this is over.”
Arnie held up his hands. “These hands give a great massage. For the right price, they’re all yours.”
“The right price, huh? Do you charge by the hour?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of dinner. Have you tried Harry Browne’s yet?”
“Walked by it. A little pricy for a freelance photographer’s budget. I’m not sure your hands are worth that much.”
“I’m buying. All you have to do is agree to come.”
Allison pretended to weigh the options carefully. “Well, if that’s the only way I can get the back rub, I guess I’ll pay the price.”
“Perfect.” He slid around behind her and put his hands on the base of her neck. She felt him lean forward and then his mouth was next to her ear. “Just relax,” he said. “I’ll take care of you.”
Allison tried to suppress it, but a shudder passed through her body, and her skin turned to gooseflesh where he touched. “Sorry, I’m just a little cold,” she said, trying to hide her repulsion.
Arnie pulled back his hands. “I’ll get you a dry towel.”
She leaned into him before he could stand. “No, it’s all right. I’m fine.” He put his hands back on her and she steadied her breathing, reminding herself that there was a chance Arnie might not be the man she suspected he was. The evidence was circumstantial. Not enough to build a case on. But she had to know the truth, regardless what it cost her. If that meant letting him feel in control of the seduction, then so be it. One way or the other, she had to find out the truth about Arnie Milhouse.
CHAPTER 16
The day spent waiting for the date with Arnie tortured her with too much time to think. After a restless night of half dreams and fitful sleep, she rose before dawn and set out early to take photos. But the camera never left the bag. Instead she found herself walking the path that twisted along the Chesapeake shoreline, sorting through the emotional baggage that had been heaped on her the day before.
She knew on her arrival in Annapolis that there were ghosts waiting for her on every corner, that being in the town could be the grindstone on which the dulled edges of old memories were rechiseled so they could pierce her again. But Arnie Milhouse was a perfect opportunity for her. Passing up the chance meant admitting the ghosts’ power over her. And that was a failure she would no longer permit herself to tolerate.
But that was before Craig Gerty showed up.
Walking the solitary beach, arms hugged across her chest, tear-filled eyes focused on the step immediately in front of her even while the world lit up in the sun’s gorgeous hues of oranges and yellows, she wondered if she knew what the hell she was doing.
Before coming back to Annapolis, she had been so certain, willing to do anything to achieve her goal. As hard as it was to admit, she had doubts about Arnie. There was something dark there to be sure, something she’d seen in his eyes on the boat. But she found herself second-guessing what it all meant. She supposed the conversation tonight would tell her what she needed to know. She found herself hoping she had been wrong about Arnie the entire time. And if she was, she wondered what she intended to do about it.
Arnie drove up to the valet at the Calvert House at seven forty-five, fifteen minutes early for his date. Harry Browne’s was only half a block away from the inn, a convenience measured to make the night as pleasurable as possible.
“Good evening, sir. How long will you be parking with us?”
Arnie gave the kid a wink and a ten-dollar bill. “Might be a few hours, might be overnight. Just depends.”
The valet grinned, both at the insinuation and because Arnie had spotted him checking out which president was on the bill now in his hand. Arnie could tell the kid was considering his own snappy comeback, probably weighing the appropriateness versus the possibility that he might step over the line with the juicier comments he could make. Arnie threw him the keys. “You got it covered?”
“Yes sir. Enjoy your night. Good luck to you.”
Arnie nodded and walked up the steps of the Calvert House.
From her second-floor room, Allison watched Arnie park his car and talk to the valet out front. She had been ready for the last half hour but knew she wouldn’t appear downstairs a minute before eight, ideally five minutes after. She had Arnie pegged for a punctuality freak and being a bit late would set just the right tone. She walked around her four-poster bed over to the bathroom and dumped three Tylenols into her hand. She washed them down with tap water, praying that was enough firepower to beat back the stress headache using the back side of her right eye as a punching bag.
She checked the mirror, turning to the side to make sure her dress hung properly. She’d gone with a simple black dress, a staple of women on first dates. Slenderizing, sexy, and easy to accessorize. She tugged at her bra to bring her cleavage into balance and pulled the neckline up slightly. Conservative, sexy, and slutty all came down to a matter of inches, and Allison made sure she came down between the first two looks instead of the third.
At eight o’clock, the phone rang.
“I’ve come to collect payment for serv
ices. One dinner date for one massage, if I remember correctly,” Arnie said.
“Are you downstairs already?”
“We said eight, right?”
Allison paused as if checking the time. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m running a little late. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be here.”
Allison hung up the phone and sat in the overstuffed Queen Anne chair in the corner of the room. She sat quietly, running through possible lines of dinner conversation. Five minutes passed and seemed an eternity, but she forced herself to wait another five before going to the bathroom for one last check of her hair, and then headed out the door for what could be the most important date of her life.
“Jason can’t stop talking about you,” Arnie said, taking a sip of his wine.
“I’m just glad he’s feeling better,” Allison replied, raising her glass. She knew she had to limit her alcohol intake tonight so she could keep her edge, but she had to admit that the glass of wine she had already consumed with their appetizers and the second with their meal had done wonders for her headache. “It must have been a scary experience for him.”
“They bounce back from anything at this age. One day disaster, the next it’s back to video games and texting for hours.”
“I thought that was just teenage girls who did the texting thing.”
Arnie laughed and leaned back as the waiter cleared his plates. “You wouldn’t believe it. I walk in there and he’s got five or six conversations going simultaneously. He tried to show me how to follow along on the different threads, but I was lost immediately.”
Allison watched Arnie’s body language change when he talked about his son. He sat up a little straighter and leaned forward, almost squirming in his seat from his enthusiasm. She wondered if her father ever spoke about her like that anymore. She knew at one time he did. There wasn’t a person in town that didn’t know she was accepted to the Naval Academy. The news of her leaving the academy was disseminated at a slower and more hushed rate. She wondered if now—
“Hey, where’d you go?” Arnie said, waving a hand in front of her as if trying to induce her out of a trance.
She smiled but inside she chastised herself for losing concentration. “It just seems like you and Jason have such a great relationship. I admire that. It can’t be easy as a single father.”
“I travel a lot for business. That part is hard. But he’s at an age where we can hang out and do fun things together. I only worry about when he stops wanting to do stuff with his aging old man. Now, that will be hard.”
“I thought you were in investments? I pictured you sitting in a little room surrounded by computer screens, watching the numbers roll by. But you travel a lot, huh?”
“Yes, I have some real estate interests, and I sometimes will visit a small company before buying their stock.”
“So, you are a cautious investor,” Allison baited.
“I don’t think I’d use the word cautious,” Arnie said, shifting in his seat almost imperceptibly. “I’m pretty aggressive in what I do.”
“You don’t believe in caution?”
“I think cautious people sit on the sidelines too much. What they explain as prudence usually is nothing more than fear.”
“But can’t fear be a good thing? You know, like the way fear of getting hurt keeps kids from touching a hot stove?”
“Ah, but that’s different. That’s experience. You touch the stove once and you get a burn; you cry but then it heals. The experience has taught you an appreciation for the power of the stove to hurt you. But from that experience it’s up to you to decide how much fear you let into your life.”
“But you’re not talking about a stove, right? You’re talking about people.”
Arnie took a sip of wine as the waiter delivered their crème brûlée desserts. When the waiter left, Arnie leaned across the table. “Other people are the source of most fear. Not always that they can hurt you directly, but indirectly. You know, through their scorn, their pity—”
“Their judgment.”
“That’s right. How people, even strangers we’ll never see again, judge our actions, or even how they might judge our actions, keeps most of us watching life instead of living it. Our nature calls for action, but being bound in society means that we’re strapped down by the judging nature of society. Think about it: some people fear public speaking more than death; that’s how much we allow ourselves to be sucked in and limited by the need to conform.”
“Yeah, but put a gun to their head and say, ‘Get out there and talk or I’m pulling the trigger,’ and they wouldn’t think twice. The will to live is stronger than fear.”
Arnie smiled, appearing to enjoy the argument. “No doubt. But no one is there to hold that gun to their head to make them overcome the fear, so instead they become a slave to it. Soon their life is nothing but weakness, a numb life not really lived.”
Allison raised her glass. “To a life lived and not merely survived.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Arnie said.
They touched glasses and sipped their drinks. Neither spoke. Allison wondered if Arnie would try to turn them back to small talk now that things were just starting to get interesting. She decided not to give him the chance. If she was right about him, she knew exactly the direction to take. “If you have this philosophy that fear diminishes the life experience, you must do things to fight your own fears.”
“What fears?” Arnie asked with a smile.
“You have to fear something.”
Arnie shook his head. “I used to fear a lot of things. I was paralyzed by it. I walked through life flinching at shadows.”
“What changed?”
Arnie lowered his voice and Allison noticed that while his right hand casually swirled his wine glass, his left hand grasped his dessert fork in a white-knuckled grip. “I took control. I reached a limit of abuse and simply decided to no longer accept my fear.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Allison said, surprised at her sudden longing to understand this man’s secrets, to somehow make her own fear disappear. She forced herself to concentrate.
“Like most things, it’s simple. What people lack is the desire to see the answer and then the courage to implement the solution. But it is simple, Allison. That much I can promise you.”
Allison met his piercing eyes and felt exposed before them. In some inexplicable way, she understood there was an offer on the table for her to have a way out of her pain. She suddenly felt that she had gone too far.
“Well, this is awfully heavy discussion to have over crème brûlée,” she said.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have . . .”
“No, I enjoyed hearing your ideas. I think it’s fascinating. I think we should discuss it further the next time we go out on your boat.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?” Arnie asked.
“Yes, and I’m using your boat to do it. How do you like that?”
“Actually, I like it quite a bit,” Arnie said, finishing his wine.
Allison raised her own glass to her lips and took a deep drink. She thought of the road that had brought her to this moment, everything she had endured during the past ten years. This scene had played out a hundred times in her mind and never once, so close to her goal, did she expect to feel uncertainty. Doubts clouded around her and she had the uncomfortable sense that she was on the verge of making a horrible mistake.
Could it be that she was wrong about Arnie? Her evidence was all circumstantial, otherwise she wouldn’t be at dinner trying to pry secrets out of him. Her facts were compelling, but only because she didn’t believe in coincidences. And because her gut told her she was right about him. Only it was that same instinct that was wavering now.
It seemed almost a cruel trick to have second thoughts so late in the game. After months of being a
bsolutely sure Arnie was the right man, she found herself suddenly nervous that she’d gotten it all wrong. Or maybe, after getting to know him, she wanted to be wrong.
With another deep sip of her wine, she resolved to do whatever it took to find out for sure, even if that meant continuing the date late into the night. Right or wrong, she had to see this through no matter the consequences. She just hoped those consequences turned out to be less severe than what she had come up with in her imagination. She finished her drink, put on her best smile, and did her best to hide the sense of terror building inside her.
CHAPTER 17
Arnie left his conquest naked in the other room, sprawled out on the cheap motel bedspread, used up for now, sore, spent, bloodied. He went into the tiny bathroom, chipped plastic veneer on the counter, mold blackening the grout, and he stood naked in front of the mirror. The bulb that stuck out from the wall was at least twice the wattage needed and the harsh light turned his skin pasty gray. Like the belly of a dead fish, Arnie thought.
The rest of the image was no more flattering. A regular exerciser, there was not excessive fat on his body, no spare tire that most men seemed to acquire when they entered their middle years. Instead, lean muscle quivered under his skin. Besides a dusting of hair on his chest and nipples, the only other body hair was a thick patch of pubic hair that framed an unsatisfactorily average-size crank.
He scrutinized his penis more closely. It hung limp, more shriveled than usual, as if exhausted and afraid of what it might be asked to do next. He had already removed the condom, tied it closed, and stored it safely away in his bag to dispose of off-site. Now he dug carefully through his pubic area to make sure there were no abrasions. Leave no fluid behind. If Arnie Milhouse had a motto, that would be it.
He looked back into the mirror, leaning in close to get a good look at his face. Not ugly but, truth be told, not a pretty one either. The ears were a little large, nose a bit small, mouth too thin for the size of his face, everything just a little out of proportion. But he knew that the woman in the room next to him wasn’t attracted to the face or the body. She was attracted to the money. The aura of it. The power of it. Sure, he made the overtures, but it didn’t take much convincing to get her to come with him to this motel room, cheap and dirty because that was his thing. He was eccentric, and she said it turned her on. And once here, she knew what to do and all the nastiest ways to do it. It was like after a lifetime of practice, she finally had the audition for the guy rich enough to warrant her entire bag of tricks.