by JD Nixon
I hesitated to continue. I hadn’t told anyone the full truth of what had occurred between us, not even Marianne. Renewing my decision to be honest with him, I plunged on. “He was stunned all right, but not in a good way. Our first time didn’t end up happening because he became so angry with me when I told him I was a virgin. He actually yelled at me for not telling him earlier, the first suggestion of temper I’d seen in him. I scooped up my clothes and fled his apartment, horribly upset and humiliated. It was one of the most miserable times in my life. I decided that night I was never seeing him again.”
“I can’t blame you.”
“He tracked me down the next day to apologise. He explained that he was only angry because had he known it was my first time ever, he would have made it more special. I blew him off for a while, but he persisted, and eventually convinced me to resume our relationship.”
A wallaby leapt out across the highway without any warning, forcing him to slam on the brakes, swearing. The startled animal bounded away and the Sarge accelerated again.
“So our first time really was special and our relationship grew stronger every day. I was deeply in love with him and even brought him home to meet Dad and Nana Fuller. He accepted me the way I was and understood about my knife when I showed him my scrapbook. After about six months, we decided to move in together. I’d never been so happy before. I honestly believed my life was going to turn out perfect, after all.”
“It was pretty serious then?”
“Yes, or so I thought. I still remember everything that happened that awful day so clearly. It was a Sunday, and we met up with a group of his close friends at a pub for a lazy lunch and afternoon. During the lunch Mitch told them about our decision to move in together. While most of his friends congratulated us, one woman, his ex-girlfriend, gave me a backhand compliment. She congratulated me for being able to forgive Mitch for what he’d done and still carry on with our relationship.”
“That would have set off alarm bells.”
“I had no idea what she was talking about. But the expression on Mitch’s face when she said that, and the way he immediately told her to shut up, made me realise she was trying to tell me something I probably didn’t want to hear. This woman gleefully spilled the whole story, and I knew it was true just from the guilty faces of everyone around the table.”
“He cheated on you?”
I laughed, but it was devoid of joy. “I wished he had. It would have been easier to take than what really happened.”
“What happened?”
“I’ve told you when I met him, I wasn’t dating anyone. I guess some men would take that as a personal challenge. Mitch’s friends – the same friends sitting around the table who I thought liked me – had made a bet with Mitch that he couldn’t get Tess the Ripper to go out with him. A hundred dollar bet.”
“Oh. A bet he won.”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“That’s appalling behaviour.”
“That’s not the end of it. Obviously that was too easy a challenge for Mitch and his friends, so they all upped the ante. Another two wagers were laid – one to get me to tell him I loved him and the other to get me to sleep with him.”
“Tessie, I’m speechless. I literally don’t know what to say. I’ve never heard of such an act of bastardry.”
It was so difficult to recount this to him – the memory of my devastated humiliation so incredibly strong after all this time. But I pressed on. “As you can imagine, my whole world collapsed around me as those people tried to deny what they’d done. I kept asking Mitch if it was true, over and over, until he broke down and admitted it. I didn’t stay to listen to their excuses and deflections. I still remember the pain of betrayal burning into me. I’d shared my body and I’d shared my past with that man. I’d even started secretly hoping I’d be able to share my future with him. I’d given him my trust and he’d abused it.”
“God, Tessie.”
“I left the pub and Mitch chased after me, begging me to stop and listen to him, to give him a chance to explain. So I gave him a minute. He told me that it was true he’d deceived me at the start of our relationship, but that his feelings had changed and deepened as he got to know me more. He said he hadn’t expected to like me quite so much, or to end up loving me as he claimed he did.”
“Which was probably true. Nobody could keep up such a charade for over six months and even consider moving in with a person if they weren’t genuine in their feelings.”
“Don’t you understand though, Sarge? He deceived me about his feelings. How would I ever know when they’d been genuine and when they hadn’t? Was he faking it when he first told me he loved me? When we slept together for the first time? Our whole relationship was a lie.”
“Maybe that’s why he was so angry when he found out it was your very first time? He never expected to have to deal with something that momentous.”
“I don’t know. But anyway, I heard him out and then I spun back towards my car. He grabbed my arm, so I swung around and slogged him in the jaw. He dropped like a rock. My knuckles were bruised for weeks afterwards, but it was worth it. I drove straight to Marianne’s place and cried all night long on her shoulder. I never spoke to him again. He tried to contact me on hundreds of occasions, but I had friends running interference for me. Marianne’s husband kept him away from me at her house, and my sergeant kept him from me at the station. At my own place, I didn’t answer my door and let the phone go straight to voicemail. Eventually he took the hint and left me alone. Not long afterwards, I returned to Little Town.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“Apparently he married his ex-girlfriend, the one who spilled the beans on him. I heard they have a couple of kids.”
“That was probably what she was hoping for when she told you in the first place.”
“Yep. The winner takes it all, right? But she did me a favour in the end. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. And I wouldn’t want to be with any man who considered behaving like that towards another human being was in any way acceptable or a lark.”
“It must have shaken your faith in men.”
“I vowed after that I would never become involved in a relationship again. I was prepared to be single for the rest of my life rather than risk a repeat of anything so painful and demoralising.”
“But then Jake came back into your life?”
“He had a hard time convincing me to trust him and not just because he’s a Bycraft.”
As we pulled into his driveway, the conversation ended and we didn’t say much more to each other, the topic lost in our preparations for sleep. I thought about making him reciprocate in story-telling, but was too exhausted to listen. We had a little spat about whether I should return home now that Red Bycraft was recaptured, but as it was very late and I was so tired, I let myself be talked into staying one last night at his house.
In the middle of doing the bathroom shuffle, he stopped me from entering with a gentle hand on my arm. His eyes were sincere and warm as he spoke. “Not all men are bastards, Tessie. Remember that.”
We searched each other’s faces for a loaded moment.
“I know that,” I said quietly, before slipping past him and off to bed.
Chapter 32
Unsurprisingly, that night I dreamt.
I danced in Jake’s arms at a smoky, pulsating nightclub. He kissed my neck and ran his hands down my back and over my butt. I wanted him to, burning with desire for him, pressing my body up against his, feeling his hardness. He touched his lips on mine and I opened my mouth and met his tongue with my own. We kissed deeply for a long time, our hands wandering over each other, passion building up to volcanic levels, our bodies throbbing in time with the relentless beat of the dance music.
When the kiss ended I caught my breath and noticed the Sarge over Jake’s shoulder. He stood against the nightclub wall, his arms crossed, a disappointed expression on his face.
“I bet Jake that Red coul
dn’t get you to dance with him, Tessie,” he said, his eyes full of pity. “I thought you wouldn’t.”
“But this isn’t . . .” I started to say and glanced up at my companion, only to find that it wasn’t Jake I’d been dancing with and kissing, it was Red.
I began struggling against him in panic, but Red held me in a death grip, throwing back his head and laughing and laughing. He thrust himself against me suggestively, pushing me backwards towards the fire exit.
“I’m going to do you slowly tonight, lovely,” he laughed and he patted the knife he had sheathed on his thigh.
“No!” I screamed, thrashing about uselessly in his arms. “Sarge! Help!”
But he didn’t hear me because he was busy with his phone, his thumb flying over the keypad, texting.
“Sarge!” I screamed. “Please help me!”
He looked up from his phone, annoyed, his thumb poised mid-air. “Just go with him, Fuller. It won’t kill you to pull your weight around here for once.”
“No! Sarge! He will kill me! He will!” I screamed desperately, tears streaming down my face. Red pushed me out the door to the dark and isolated garbage-filled parkland directly behind the club, laughing all the while. “Sarge! Help me! Help me!”
My last sight of him before Red bundled me away from safety was him handing money over to a jubilant Jake.
I must have cried out in my sleep, because the Sarge came running into my room again, carefully removing my knife from my hand. I’d unsheathed it without even knowing. He put his arm around me and I leaned against him until I’d stopped panicking and my breathing had calmed down.
“Tessie, you can’t keep living with these nightmares,” he said patiently. “You need to see someone. Get some professional help. A psychologist maybe.”
I sniffed noisily and wiped my nose on my forearm. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
He chose his words carefully. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’ve had to deal with a lot of trauma in your life and you’re trying to brush it all off as if it’s not affecting you.”
“I can’t afford to let it affect me because then I would go completely crazy.”
“It is affecting you. Don’t you see that? You’re not as tough as you think you are, Tess. All those suppressed emotions and fears come out when you’re sleeping. Why else do you think you have so many nightmares? Normal people don’t –”
Too late, he realised his mistake.
I pushed him away. “Yeah, I get it. I’m not normal. Maybe you should have been a shrink if you think you’re so good at knowing what makes me tick. I am tough and I’m not going to let any stinking Bycraft do my head in. That’s just what they want. My dreams mean nothing. Nothing!”
He stood up and looked down at me with some strong emotion in his eyes – compassion? At the door, he paused and glanced back. “Try to get some sleep.”
After five guilty minutes of lying awake staring at the ceiling, I climbed out of bed and padded down the hallway to his bedroom. I hesitated at the door. “I’m sorry, Sarge. I didn’t mean to be so ungrateful when you’re just trying to look out for me. I really appreciate it and I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “I meant what I said, Tess. You shouldn’t try to manage what has happened to you by yourself.”
“That’s where you come in, isn’t it?” I said, trying for a lighthearted tone, but suspecting I sounded wistfully needy.
“I don’t seem to have any effect on your nightmares. In fact, judging from how you were shouting out my name just then, I seem to have become yet another character in them. For good or bad, I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry I can’t seem to help you more.”
“You do help me a lot. You coming here has made a big difference to my life,” I said. I wasn’t sure I’d have been brave enough to say that to him if it hadn’t been for the enveloping darkness.
When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “It’s been a long day. Try to get some sleep.”
I said goodnight again and headed back to bed where surprisingly, I slept deeply, and didn’t dream again for the rest of the night.
We both slept in late the next morning. For once I was up first, and barefoot in my pyjamas, I raided his fridge. I began to cook us breakfast, filling the coffee pot, yawning my head off as I did.
When he stumbled out of bed, stretching and yawning, rubbing his face, his hand rasping over his stubble, I served up some toast, eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and big cups of strong coffee. Afterwards, while he washed up, I dressed and stepped out on to the front verandah, breathing in the spring air and thinking that I should head back home to look after my girls. The world seemed brighter, the birds chirpier, and the air fresher with Red Bycraft locked away again.
Propped up against the exterior wall next to the front door was a parcel wrapped in brown paper, thin and rectangular shaped, about the size of a laptop. An envelope addressed to me lay on the verandah in front of it.
Suspecting another Bycraft letter, I opened the envelope with some natural trepidation. The writing was bold and florid, full of loops, brimming with self-confidence – definitely not from a Bycraft.
Dear Officer Tess
Poor Phoebe has been so shaken by her recent unpleasant experience, we have decided to cut short our visit to your lovely town. The dear girl no longer feels safe in the house while that man roams free. I have the bulk of what I need to finish my painting, so it doesn’t present any hardship for any of us to return to the hustle and bustle of city life.
As a token of my esteem and because such beauty should never be neglected, I have left you a small gift. You will admit that my imagination is masterful and accurate!!
Best wishes
Len Whittaker
I unwrapped the parcel to find a watercolour painting.
“Oh, my God!” I screeched, unable to contain myself, certainly not expecting to open something like that on an ordinary mid-week morning.
It was a painting of me, in the nude, entitled ‘Tess of the Mountains’.
In the art work, I stood in a beautiful, verdant garden, a riot of flowering plants surrounding me, the rise of the mountains in the distance. My body was slightly twisted so that my back and butt were exposed, my hair hanging loosely down past my shoulder blades. My boobs were visible, one of them draped in a long diaphanous scarf. That wispy piece of material trailed over one shoulder, across my left breast and dangled down between my legs, barely preserving the modesty of my most private parts. My head was raised as if I was looking at something above me, showing the curve of my neck and jawline.
I was no art critic, but I had to admit it was a beautiful painting, well executed and proportioned, the lighting delicate, the colours tasteful and harmonious. But there was no getting away from the fact that it was a portrait of me in the nude. And Len Whittaker’s boast had not been idle – it was an exceptionally accurate portrayal of my body. It was almost as if he’d had x-ray vision and seen through my clothes. I stared down at the painting in disbelief, not even able to figure out which of the many emotions I currently felt about it was foremost.
“What’s the matter?” asked the Sarge, coming into the room, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder.
I clutched the painting to my chest, not wanting to show him. “Mr Whittaker did a painting of me.”
“That’s exciting,” the Sarge smiled. “Let me see it. He’s extremely talented.”
“No.”
He frowned. “Don’t be silly. Let me see it. I bet it’s marvellous.”
“Oh, it’s something all right. But I’m not sure if marvellous is quite the word.” I held on to it tighter. He pulled at it.
“Tess, let me see.” He yanked it from my arms and peered down at it. If I hadn’t been dying of embarrassment, it would have been terribly funny watching the myriad of competing expressions cross his face. “Oh. Hmm. Okay.” He tried a couple
of other times to articulate again, his eyes glued to the painting. “When did you pose for this?”
“I didn’t! He’s taken artistic licence with my body.”
“It’s very . . . I mean . . . It’s quite . . .” he spluttered. “You know, I don’t think there’s anything I can say about this piece of art that isn’t going to get me into a heap of trouble.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do with it? Take it home, show it to Dad and hang it in my lounge room? Because that’s never going to happen.”
He smiled. “We could hang it up at the station.”
I was not amused. “That ain’t happening either.”
“Why don’t you give it to Jake?”
“No way! Every man in the prison would take a copy, including the prisoners.”
“Something classy for Abe’s bar?”
“Ha ha.”
“An inspirational painting for the nudist colony?”
“You’re splitting my sides.”
“What about if I keep it for you? That way you won’t have to look at it.”
“Yeah, but then I’d be worried about you looking at it.”
He cast his eyes back down to the image of me. “I promise I wouldn’t.”
“You’re looking at it even while you’re promising not to look at it. I’m not sure you’re entirely trustworthy on this matter.”
He grinned. “Probably not. But I’d be proud to hang it in my house. It really is an exquisite little painting, Tessie, regardless of the subject matter. Look at the rendering of those mountains – beautiful and so realistic. This will be worth something one day. After all, he is an artist of some note and great talent. It’s a wonderful gift he’s given you.”
“I suppose,” I said ungratefully. “I’ll just shove it in a cupboard until I can bear to look at it again. Probably in about twenty years.”
“I have plenty of cupboard space,” he offered with undue haste. “Don’t hesitate to ask.”