by Leigh James
I stopped here and drank a large quantity of wine. Part of me felt guilty drinking while I was telling this story, but I knew I would never end up like her. I didn’t have it in me. I was lucky.
“Soon after that Ray set up what was basically a heroin shop in our house. He had lots of scary, dirty-looking people coming over, and a lot of times, they sampled the product right there. I’d come home and find a bunch of strangers nodding off on my couch. At least when it was coke they came and went; the heroin people seemed to like to stay together, and they seemed to really like staying in my living room. Because I had developed, I started to get even more afraid. They were looking at me in a way I didn’t like — Ray was looking at me in a way I didn’t like. I started keeping a metal baseball bat under my bed, a knife under my mattress, and wearing enormous tee shirts and sweatshirts to hide my body. Ray was starting to scare me. I heard him and my mother having sex all night, every night, when I thought she was too out of it to even brush her teeth. She didn’t sound happy — but I guess not scared, either. She just sounded out of it. Like he was having sex with someone in a coma. And every morning, when he’d come out of her room, I could feel him watching me.”
I looked down. I felt hot bile pooling in my stomach.
“Liberty, do you want to stop?” John asked me quietly.
I shook my head, no. “I’m almost done.” I took another gulp of wine.
“Like I said, Ray had started looking at me in a way I didn’t like. Even though I always wore bulky tee shirts and baggy jeans, he would still stare at me. I slept with my door locked and my baseball bat in my bed every night. He kept my mom completely doped up, day and night, so I couldn’t talk to her about it. Even if I had, she might not have cared at that point. She was slipping away.
She was starting to lose her looks. I didn’t think it was possible, but she was comatose most of the time, and she wasn’t able to take care of herself. One night Ray had a couple of his friends over and he let them into her room. I heard them. They were having sex with her while she was passed out. I sat there on my bed, with my hands over my ears, and cried and cried. After they left, she woke up a little and I heard Ray cursing her out. ‘You dirty fucking cunt,’ he said. ‘You’re so fucking out of it, they don’t even want to pay me anymore.’”
John let out a low hiss of a breath. I didn’t look at him. It was only going to get worse.
“She was using all day, every day, and she was going downhill fast. I couldn’t lift her to bathe her; Ray just started to ignore her. He was watching me more every day, with a hungry look in his eye. I knew it was just a matter of time, but I was prepared, and unlike everybody else around, I was completely sober. I figured I had an advantage.
One night after work I had a glass of water at home before I went to bed. That was my fatal mistake. Ray must have put something in it when I was in the bathroom; the next thing I remember, I woke up in my room, and he was in my bed. Neither one of us had any clothes on. He was rubbing himself between my breasts, moaning. Then — this is bad, but — he shifted up a bit, and started trying to poke the tip of his penis into my mouth. He must not have liked my unresponsiveness because he grunted, like he was frustrated, and pulled out. Then he slid down my body and started to put his thing between my legs.
I didn’t move; I didn’t give any indication that I was alert or knew what was going on. After a second he stopped, reached down and got a syringe. He was talking to me, then, but he didn’t know I was awake. ‘I’m gonna dose you up nice and good, little girl,’ he said, and held the syringe down in between my toes. ‘Then you’re going to be begging me, for everything,’ he said, rubbing his hardness against my leg as he prepared to shoot me up.
I knew what was coming: the needle piercing my skin, the heroin invading my body...and then Ray would be piercing and invading my body. I couldn’t handle it. It was too horrible. I had to act fast.
‘Ray,’ I said quietly so I wouldn’t startle him, ‘you don’t have to do that.’ He looked up at me. In the darkness of the room, I hope he couldn’t see the tortured look on my face. ‘I want to do what you want to do,’ I said. I tried to sound seductive, even though I was clueless and petrified. I sat up and slid down the bed towards him. I gently took the syringe out of his hand and put it on the nightstand, and then I crawled, naked, onto his lap and kissed him.
He was hard, obviously. I pushed him back onto the bed and kissed him on a trail down his body. I took him in my mouth. I had no idea what to do, but he was moaning, and then he grabbed the back of my head and pushed me further down on him, so it was pretty easy to figure out. I tried to act like I was into it; I didn’t want to stop before he came. I didn’t want him to try to have intercourse with me. He got pretty excited, calling me all sorts of nasty names, telling me I was a dirty whore just like my mother, thrusting into my mouth. He shoved his fingers inside me the whole time, hard and dull, over and over, like he was trying to hurt me.
And that’s how he came: calling me a dirty whore, shoving his fingers into my vagina with one hand, and crushing my head down on him with the other.”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” John said, lethally.
I sighed heavily. “Hold on,” I said, and held my hand up. “I’m not done.”
“The next night I was ready for him. I actually went to Walmart that day and bought a tacky, cheap thong and a matching bra, so he’d know I’d been thinking of him. I wanted to seem eager. I made sure I didn’t drink anything at the house so I could stay awake — he was watching me, with those cloudy eyes, and I was pretty sure he still didn’t trust me. So I went straight to bed hours before he and my mother did, and I waited for him.
They didn’t have sex that night. Maybe he gave her more drugs than usual so she’d sleep through what he had planned with me. I laid in bed, sweating, waiting, for what seemed like a very long time.
I had to time everything exactly right, otherwise things were going to go very, very wrong.
Finally he came in, naked and hard, stroking himself. ‘I’ve been waiting for this all day,’ he said softly, and he shoved himself in my face. Without pausing, I licked him and pulled him into my mouth. He threw his head back, grunting, standing over me, thrusting lazily, just getting warmed up. I licked and sucked with abandon, until I was sure he was totally into it, not paying attention.
‘Ray,’ I said, in a singsong voice, ‘I’m ready for you.’ I laid back on the bed and spread my legs. I reached down and stroked myself with one hand. He was huge, rock hard, and he came over and straddled me. He pulled down my underwear. He started pressing himself into me. I let him get a rhythm, and moved against him so he moaned. He was just about to slide it all the way in. I could feel him getting ready.
‘I’m gonna fuck you hard,’ he said, lowly. ‘I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’re going to cry and you’re going to love it, you little whore. Just like your mama does.’
I let him pulse into me one more time. I reached behind my pillow and wound my fingers around the bat.
‘Sorry, but this little whore’s not into it tonight, you motherfucker’ I said.
He looked at me, confused: you could tell he was struggling with the urge to put himself in me and to comprehend what I’d said at the same time. A moment was all I needed: I pulled out the baseball bat. Boom! I aimed for his head, but I only cracked it against his shoulder, knocking him off me, off of the bed.
‘You bitch!’ he screamed, landing in a surprised heap on the floor. He stood up, still ridiculously hard, and lunged at me. I hit him again then, right down near his privates, and he went down. I was really hoping that I permanently damaged his testicles as I got up and whacked him one more time — in the head — and then I ran, ran to my mother’s filthy room. I locked the door, hoping he would leave and leave us alone. I didn’t hear him for a while; I hoped he was dead, but I knew I hadn’t done anything that exciting. He was thin and wiry, and I hadn’t hit him that hard. He would be up and at it, eventually.
&nb
sp; That’s when I sat down on my mother’s bed and held her cold, cold hand. Too cold. ‘Mom?’ I asked, knowing she would never answer me from the depths she was in.
I put on her one clean tee shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms and nudged her again. ‘Mom?’ I asked. She didn’t move. I got up and turned the light on. I gasped when I saw her. She was white, so white and still. ‘Oh, Mom,’ I moaned, cradling her to me. I don’t know if Ray had given her more than usual, but this had been coming. She had finally crossed the line. Her poor body, which had seen too much for too long, had finally given in.
‘Mommy, I love you. I’m so sorry,’ I said, sobbing. I laid down with her then, and I held her until the sun came up.
I heard Ray a few hours later. I went out with my baseball bat. ‘She’s dead,’ I said to him flatly. He was standing there, naked in the middle of my living room, and it just seemed so ridiculous to me. Here was this man, with ugly, cloudy eyes, a skinny body and small, saggy dick. And he’d ruined us. He’d taken everything. ‘Get out,’ I’d said, but before he did, I stole a bunch of cash from him. I hadn’t made a plan yet but I knew I had to get away.
And that was the last time I saw Ray.”
I sat, looking at them, and I felt nothing but relief. Yes, this is what happened to me. I was lucky, I knew. I was so lucky that it hadn’t been worse.
John just sat there, rocking back and forth, his head in his hands.
“Okay,” said Matthew, clapping his hands together, trying to break the tension, “quitting time.” He and Ethan got up and quickly left the room.
I poured the rest of the wine into my glass and John’s. We both stood in silence and drank them. See? I thought. Now you know. Now you know why I’m broken.
“Liberty, you are an incredibly brave woman,” John said, sounding awed. “I don’t know how you had the strength to do what you did, after all you’ve been through…. You are an incredible person. And you’ve done it all on your own.” He looked up at me, worshipfully.
“Thank you,” I said, drinking more wine. But I wish I was a clean slate for you, John.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said, when we’d both emptied our glasses. I needed some air.
On our way out I stuck my head into the living room. John’s dad was curled up on the couch, snoring lightly. I grabbed the throw on the couch and gently covered him up.
“Should we move him?”
“No,” John said softly, looking at his father and shaking his head. “He sleeps down here sometimes since my mother died.” He turned off the television, grabbed my hand and led me outside.
It was dusk. We walked, hand in hand, down past the pool and onto the rocky beach. The cornflower blue sky stretched overhead, darker blue to the east, with streaks of cotton candy pink clouds to the west. There was a sprinkling of stars visible, brilliant and unobstructed by light pollution. It was so beautiful, I might never go back inside.
I had liked living in Eugene even though it rained a lot. I’d liked Vegas for a different reason; the desert was stark and exotic, and I felt like the dry heat had finally sucked all the dampness of Oregon from me. But even though I’d only been here for over a week, New England now had my heart. It smelled clean, like you could sense the fresh oxygen being produced by the leaves on the trees. The lush green grass, the tall pine trees, the freezing ocean; it was as if an artist had created it for you to enjoy. You could stand and stare, mouth agape, at all the color contrasts and different textures, all of them amazingly and painfully beautiful.
John squeezed my hand and broke my reverie. I looked at his handsome face and I had a sudden flash of him being alone, sleeping on his couch, like his father. Not on my watch, I thought. I reached out and brushed his shaggy hair out of his face.
“Is your dad lonely?” I asked. He’d seemed very alone just now, curled up on the couch.
“He misses Mom, of course. We both do. She passed away about five years ago — cancer.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and stopped to hug him. He held me tightly.
“I’m so sorry. About what we had you talk about tonight. That it happened to you, and to your mother,” John said. We found a big rock to sit on and John pulled me onto his lap.
“I told you not to be sorry for me,” I said, shrugging. “He didn’t hurt me as bad as he could have. I’m lucky. There are so many people out there who have it so much worse.”
“I’m still going to kill him,” John said, and smiled at me without a trace of humor in his eyes. I heard some iron in his voice that I’d never heard before. Of course, I reasoned, there has to be this part of him. In order to do what he does.
So I knew how I was broken; and I think I knew how to fix it...by being with John, and letting myself trust in the love I had for him. But this side of John was what worried me...this lethalness, this ability to crush others...this was how he was broken. And I was worried that he was broken in a way I couldn’t fix.
I sat there a moment, gathering the courage to ask him something I’d been wanting to know since we met. I hesitated, not sure I really wanted to hear the answer. But I had told him about Ray, about my mother, and I was almost out of secrets. I needed to know his.
“Have you?” I asked, looking out at the darkening waves. “Killed someone?” It came out like a whisper.
He stroked my face and sighed. “I hope this doesn’t change things between us, but yes, I have. I’ve killed people.”
I didn’t say anything. Deep down, I’d known. “And Darius?” I asked, still staring out at the water.
“Darius is alive, but he’s refusing to cooperate. So we’re moving on to the next stage of asset management.” He grimaced and looked away from me.
“...And that means?”
“It means we are attempting to extricate information from him by means of force,” he said, turning back and looking at me levelly. “It means we're torturing him. Water-boarding him, if you want to know the specifics.”
I shuddered. I didn’t know what water-boarding was, but it sounded horrible. Oh, John. I just couldn’t reconcile the man in front of me, who was filled with so much warmth and humor, with a man who could torture someone else. He had to be so messed up from what happened with Catherine. Maybe he thought about whoever had taken her every time he hurt someone.
“How can you do it?” I asked. I hated Ray. I knew he was bad, through and through. But could I let someone torture him, with my knowledge? Would I approve? I couldn’t picture it. Then again, I had tried to bash his brains in with a baseball bat. I shuddered again.
“Liberty, there is a reason for what I’m doing. Darius has connections to some bad people, brutal people, and he has information about what they’re going to do next. It affects Cruz’s family and business in Brazil. If we don’t stop them, there will be serious consequences for innocent people.” He looked at me imploringly. “He was at your club to kill Cruz. I’m not harming an innocent person, Liberty.”
“Oh, John. I know. I could never think that about you,” I said, and I looked at him fully, so he could see I wasn’t hiding anything from him. “It’s just a lot to take in, to put together. You’re so kind and generous, it’s just hard for me to imagine you like that.”
I traced his lips with my fingers. Then he kissed me, a deep, lingering kiss that left me breathless.
“I don’t like to think about it,” John said, “but I’ve made peace with my decisions. I know I’ve helped more people than I’ve hurt. I don’t forgive myself for what I’ve done, but I can accept it for what it is.” He paused for a second. “Do you think that you’d be able to do that?”
“What?” I asked. “Accept you for the bounty hunter you are?”
He laughed a little and pulled me closer to him, so that my head was nestled against his broad shoulder. “Can you accept me for who I am, and what I’ve done?” He held me tightly as he waited on the answer; he didn’t seem to be breathing.
“I think so,” I said in a rush, looking up and kissing him,
holding him to me. “I want to.” It was true. It didn’t matter what I learned from now on; I knew who he was, and that he’d done some questionable things, but I felt — in my very bones I felt it, I was so sure — that he was a good man. I knew his heart was good. But he was broken, and his pain drove him to lengths I couldn’t understand.
I wasn’t sure that I could handle being a part of that. I couldn’t see my life, my future, being around violence and torture. Being afraid for him. Worrying about what he was doing, if he was hurting anyone — and if anyone was hurting him. But that’s a discussion for another day, I reasoned. Today’s been filled with enough revelation.
He exhaled in relief, kissing me again, forcefully, crushing his lips to mine. I ran my hands down his chest and shivered deliciously. Mmmm, I thought, this was more like it. I brought my body up so I could straddle him, and I could feel him, suddenly enormous and erect, springing to life underneath me.
He pulled back from me. “Are you okay with this?” he asked. “Being close to me? After everything we talked about tonight?”