Bad Desire

by Devon, Gary;

  She spent swift, urgent seconds digging inside her purse, sifting through its contents for matches, but none were there. Inside the stable, she found a hatchet, the blade the color of gun metal except for its sharpened edge.

  Adrenaline blew through her veins. I’ll kill you.

  Grasping the stubby handle in her fist, she whirled to go back to the house—and noticed their cars. No one was escaping this. She was crying by then, sobbing, tears running from her open, angry eyes.

  The hood of the girl’s car was still warm; Faith put it up and swung the hatchet, driving it down with a careful, deliberate fury, the blade hacking through hoses and wires. The wires she couldn’t cut, she yanked out with her hands, connectors popping from spark plugs.

  The noise, she thought suddenly. They’ll hear me.

  She ran to the door and peered across the barn lot at the house, waiting for Henry to come tearing from it. But no. They had music on and they were too far away to hear. There was nothing to hold her back. Faith rushed back to the Jaguar’s hood, folded it up and over. Again she destroyed—new red rubber hoses, new electrical wires, anything she could cut.

  When she was sure both cars were immobilized, she felt a welling up of gleeful relief, yet she was still shaking with hatred—trembling so hard she thought the air around her shook with it. “To hell with you,” she gasped, barely able to speak. “To hell with you both.”

  Sweat covered her face, and she could feel it dripping down her sides, under her arms. Tossing the small hatchet aside, Faith grabbed her purse, flipped off the light and ran out, closing the two doors behind her.

  The music still leaked from the windows. They’re still at it. A flurry of stars lit the night sky. I’m going to be sick. She reached the split row of evergreen hedges barely in time; she stumbled into the weeds, doubled over and threw up. Grabbing a handful of waxy branches to keep from falling, she vomited a second time and then, feeling weak and light-headed, she straightened to look back at the house. No lights burned.

  She started to sob uncontrollably as she scrambled through the darkness up the hill. By the time she got to her car, she was calm. Deathly calm. Caught you, I caught you. She started the motor, shot back across the pavement, ground gears and tore away.

  21

  Nine-thirty.

  They dozed, Sheila curled to his side, her arm draped loosely over him. The upstairs room was like a black ship adrift in the slow, spinning currents of starlight. A breeze stirred the air; Sheila’s lashes rose and fell and she was awake. She didn’t want to be awake. She touched Slater’s hair and then held it between the scissors of her fingers, thick and damp and luxurious. “You’re so warm,” she whispered.

  She waited, but he didn’t answer. Dreamlike, with a slow, roving hand, she felt the hair on his chest, then his stomach, his genitals. She nestled her cheek against him for a moment, then raised her head and kissed his ribs, looking up at him, smiling.

  “It’s late,” he said, quietly. He shifted, stretching out, and reached to turn on the night-light. From its sconce, the white beam leapt up the wall, spilling its reflection over them. He took up his watch, looked at it and put it on his wrist, but all the while Sheila was sliding on the bed. She kissed his chest, then turned her head toward him again.

  “Yes,” she said, “yes, I know.”

  The house was quiet as a stone. “Come here first,” Slater told her and drew her into his arms, bringing the sheet up over them. She was damp with his sweat. She liked the intimacy of being here, hidden with him, the world awaiting them outside—so far away, it seemed.

  “I love it here,” she murmured.

  “This place?” he said. “It doesn’t exist. It disappears when you’re gone.” He ran his hand between her legs and Sheila wanted it never to end. This was the feeling of time standing still, waiting for her, that she always wanted, having him inside her and the forgetting. “I want it always to be like this,” she whispered. “So you’ll never forget me.” She tried to grasp his hand with her thighs when he took it away.

  “I never forget anything about you,” he said. He got out of bed, and she went after him, playfully throwing her arms around him, pulling him back. “Now I’ve got you,” she said, smiling up at him. “Come back.”

  “I think I’d better not,” he said.

  Her arms went tightly around him in an impulsive embrace. She was keenly aware of who he was going home to. She covered his shoulders in kisses, took his hand and slid it under the sheet, onto her skin. “For a minute …,” she said, “for just one more minute.”

  “No, Sheila,” he said. He disentangled himself from her a second time. “I’ve got a full day tomorrow, even if you don’t.”

  “Won’t you ever stay with me?” She stroked the bed between them.

  He started to laugh. “You know I have to go home. Come on, get with it.” He pulled the sheets from her and she lay there naked, her breasts curving softly toward her upper arms, her eyes half-closed watching him. He groaned and looked away. “My God,” he said, “you drive me crazy.” He took his clothes into the bathroom to get dressed.

  Sheila rolled into the middle of the bed. I don’t want you to go home to her, she thought. In the other room, she heard him turn the water on. The bed was a cool white field and she luxuriated in lying there, hearing him move about. On the other side of the world, Faith Slater would be waiting for him, Sheila was sure, in an elegant silk negligee. After a moment, she stood and slipped into her brassiere. She knew how dangerous this was for him politically. But I’m taking risks too, she thought.

  She was pulling on her khaki shorts when he returned to the room, immaculate and distant now in his thoughts, his neat, dark hair with its silver cast, his shirt dazzling white, the creases sharp in his trousers. It was as if for a while they had forgotten who they were and now had to assume different identities. It always left her feeling a little unstrung.

  He watched as she finished getting dressed, as he always did, admiringly, she thought. Sheila buttoned her blouse, stepped into her Weejuns, ran a comb through her hair.

  When she was nearly ready, he went around the room closing and bolting the windows. He turned off the night-light and flicked on the flashlight in his hand. In the few minutes that remained they would say very little to each other. As she turned to leave with him and he took her arm, Sheila felt unaccountably vulnerable, as if she didn’t quite know where she was. He must have sensed it for he took her in his arms and kissed her, saying he was sorry that they had to go. All the things she needed to hear.

  They went down the old stairway, where she waited for him to lock the steel door on the landing, and on out across the gutted parlor to the front door, which he also locked. A full moon had risen in the east; the night was bronze and black. A step or two ahead of him as they crossed the barn lot, Sheila turned, stepped quickly up to him and kissed him. “Tomorrow, then,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where? Could we go for a moonlight swim?”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “I’d love it.”

  She was still ahead of him when they entered the stable and she opened the second inside door, reaching through the beam of his flashlight and hitting the light switch. A pungent chemical odor assailed her and she turned her head, questioningly, but already Slater had pushed past her.

  “My God,” she said, swallowing her voice.

  They stood a few steps apart, surveying the wreckage: the hoods of their cars gaped open, bits of wire and hose were strewn about, dark liquid stains soaked the floor. “What the—” Slater said. “Who the hell did this?” For the barest instant, he stared at Sheila, jaw muscles clenched, eyes cold. “Who did this,” he kept muttering, “who did this?” There was a sudden hardness about him that made her want to back away, but just as quickly, his eyes shifted back to the room.

  Someone knows.

  All at once, Slater flew past her outside. In seconds, he was back, still studying the
darker corners of the stable. “They’re gone,” he told her, his voice choked with tension. “Whoever it was—they’re gone.”

  Sheila wanted to touch him for her own reassurance, but he trailed into the room, crouched and picked up a few of the severed strands of wire. He examined the ends as he stood, then slapped them against his pant leg like a cat-o’-nine-tails. “Look at that,” he said, motioning toward their cars. “Would you look at that? Christ, look at it! Son of a bitch!”

  “You’re scaring me,” Sheila said. “Do you think someone did this because of me?” She could see how hard he was trying to overcome his rage. “But who?” she said. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I think you know,” he said.

  “Me? Are you kidding? No, Henry, I swear … I don’t …”

  “That goddamned spaced-out boyfriend of yours.”

  “No … Denny? No. He’s not even around this summer. He’s seventy miles away from here.”

  “We’ll see,” Slater said. “If it’s not him, I don’t know.” She could feel the anger in his voice. “But you’d better damn well believe I’m going to find out.”

  “Well, it’s not Denny. I can prove it; I can call him—”

  “Don’t you dare. Don’t you even goddamned think about calling him. That’s all the hell we need—”

  “Why are you so mad at me?” Sheila said, aghast.

  This seemed to bring him to his senses. “Christ,” he said, now angry with himself. “Christ, I’m sorry. Sheila, I’m sorry.” But even as he was comforting her, he realized the immediate danger they were in. Someone knows! The thought of it wouldn’t let him alone. Someone knows. Someone knows. He was covered with sweat, a burning cold sweat. With the back of his hand he wiped his eyes clear. He had loved her too much and far too long, now, ever to give her up. “We’ve just got to be a thousand times more careful from now on.”

  “I’ve wondered all along,” she said, softly, “if we could really pull this off. I’ve dreaded that something’s going to happen every minute. Now I can’t even get home.”

  “We’ll find a car,” he said. “I’ll go find a car.”

  “And leave me here? No way. I’m sorry, but Henry, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to stay here by myself tonight.”

  “All right,” he said, “then we’ll have to walk it. It’s going to take us all damned night.”

  “I don’t care,” Sheila said, heading out as he reached to take her arm. His fingers were hard as they pressed into the soft flesh of her underarm. “Ouch,” she protested. “That hurts. Don’t do it so hard.”

  Slater immediately let go of her and went about shutting up the stable and locking the outside door. Even then, as they followed the white beam of his flashlight into the darkness, he could feel it all along his spine, like ice, terrified of looking back as if a dark shape stood watching them. Not since that morning in the garden with Reeves had he felt so close to the edge.

  Slater couldn’t think straight. None of it was making any sense. Who would do a thing like this? If it wasn’t that kid. No matter how ridiculous it seemed, only one name continued to surface, again and again, in his thoughts. Reeves.

  But Reeves wouldn’t stoop to this. Would he?

  My God. Was he here? Trying to force my hand?

  Does Reeves know?

  22

  Faith was home, in her dark bedroom.

  Leaving the light off, she sat on the side of the bed, hands folded in her lap, wretchedly and convulsively crying. She had cried before but tonight the tears rose from the depths of her body, hard wracking sobs.

  “Oh stop it …,” she gasped. “Oh, God, stop it … please make it stop!” Her face, her neck, her collar were all soaked with tears. Now her monstrous rage had compressed to a white burning core.

  I knew it was coming, she thought. I could smell it.

  Oh, grow up, she told herself, and live in the modern world. “But I’m not modern,” she said, weeping, “I’m not modern.”

  It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt so bad. It hurt like a son of a bitch.

  He loves her.

  She simply couldn’t make it stick in her mind.

  Wearily, Faith sat there, shuddering, staring out at the night. With every convulsive breath, she could feel him being ripped from her insides. All the time, she was listening for the sound of his car on the drive. Everything was waiting for him, she was waiting for him, the house waited. Condor Pass was quiet and empty; no one drove by. Henry would come home that way. The clock showed a few minutes past eight-thirty. How could it be so early?

  It was still some minutes before she realized he would be late coming home tonight. Very late. If at all.

  “He loves her,” she said aloud. She seemed to speak by rote, as if she had rehearsed saying those three easy words so many times that they were now stripped of all importance, devoid of all feeling.

  Well, Faith, what’re we going to do now?

  Presently she stood and went into the bathroom. She flipped on the light. Who was that woman in the mirror with the wrecked stare? Her face was streaked with grime, her eyes so red they seemed bloody. That was when she noticed it for the first time—the cold hardness in her eyes. It made her uncomfortable; she pushed the image from her mind.

  What can I do?

  Faith sat on the edge of the bathtub and looked at her hands. Her palms were red, nails broken. There was a thin, brown scratch of dried blood on her left thumb. I must have done it on those wires, she thought, distractedly, but she couldn’t remember. It was frightening how little she could actually remember.

  Turning on the tap, she splashed handfuls of cold water on her face. “I mustn’t let him see me like this,” she muttered as she undressed, dropping her clothes where she stood, stepping into the shower. The ice-cold water took her breath. Afterward, she felt refreshed but drained. With her hair in a towel, she put on a nightgown but quickly changed her mind. I can’t stay here, she thought. In the dressing room, while she slipped on clean clothes, she began to actually think it through. I don’t want to see him. She would give anything never to lay eyes on him again. She dried her hair, brushed it into place. He doesn’t know it was me that was out there; he still may not know anyone was there at all. If he’d seen me, he would’ve come down. On some pretext.

  She could almost hear him fabricating his lie. That’s what he would do. She trimmed her broken nails and rubbed lotion onto her hands. Henry wouldn’t hide. Sheila would hide, yes, but not Henry.

  Going back through the bedroom, Faith turned on her bedside lamp and sat at her vanity, quickly applying the rudiments of fresh makeup. “I wish to God I’d never gone out there …” Deep in her memory, she heard her father’s big, mocking voice, “If wishes were pennies, Faith, we’d all be rich.”

  With an ease and control she did not feel, she painted her fingernails. Henry won’t know who trashed his car. He can’t. The farmhouse was dark; he was still in bed—with her. When could this have started? Faith remembered him looking at his watch. We were at dinner. And the stinking son of a bitch was fucking his brains out all along. No telling how long.

  Too late, the web of his lies seemed utterly transparent. Looks Henry had given her, offhand remarks, even his impenetrable silences took on significance where none had been before. In her mind, Faith could still hear his excuses for working late or for playing poker into the night—poker games from which he had begun to return empty-handed. I should’ve known. I should’ve. “I’ve got to stop doing this,” she muttered to herself, “before I lose my head completely.”

  Fanning her wet fingernails before her until they dried, she paced the room. If Henry thought about it, logically, he could probably figure it out—that it could only have been her. Yet she knew he seldom gave her a second thought now. Would he believe that she could do that? Not Faith! Not stylish Faith. Oh, Faith has much too much style ever to do such a thing. She drew a grim satisfaction from that.

  But if he sees me now, he’ll know. I ca
n’t stay here.

  All at once, desperate with the thought of his coming home, Faith started throwing clothes into an overnight bag. She wondered if Henry might have somehow patched up one of the cars, if in fact he wasn’t already speeding for home; she wondered if they were screwing again. She hated him for this. She ached for him.

  She ran back into the bathroom, retrieved her dirty clothes, and stuffed them into a plastic bag. She’d take them along and dispose of them—wherever it was she was going. She tossed the plastic bag into her suitcase, shut the lid and snapped the latches. Then she stood in the room, unable to think, numb all the way through. She nearly wept again, because in those few seconds she realized she’d reached the end. She had nowhere to go. She had made a solid life with him here; he obviously hadn’t with her.

  This is my home, Faith thought, although she knew now she would never have the rocklike comforts of home she’d always wanted.

  “Of course, I’ll leave him,” she said, talking to herself. “I’ll get a lawyer. I’ll leave him penniless.” All at once, she spun around, staring at the windows that faced the driveway and the garage. Every little sound from outside, now, startled her. The publicity alone would destroy him. His political life, all his ambitions would be over. She knew people—lawyers—men of enormous power and finesse. “All right,” she muttered, “that’s what I’ll do. First thing tomorrow.”

  Faith took a pencil and pad from the drawer of the nightstand and wrote, Henry, I’m leaving you, but just as quickly she tore it off and put it in her purse. No, it had to come without warning; he couldn’t have the slightest clue as to what she was up to. See how you like it. She scratched a second note, saying matter-of-factly that she’d tried to reach him at the club and missed him, that she was driving into Santa Barbara to see Meg Winters, who was in the hospital, and if it got too late, she would find a hotel and stay over. “I’ll call you in the morning,” she wrote, “one way or the other.”