Never Trust a Stranger

by Mary Monroe

  “What? What do you mean by that? I thought I was ‘people-friendly’ today.”

  “Except for Mother and Sister Sharpe, you practically ignored most of the other women at the barbecue. Just before we left, Stella Wharton made a comment to me about how ‘aloof’ you were with her and how giddy and flirtatious you were with the men—especially her husband.”

  My mouth flew open and I whirled around to look at Reed. “Oh hell no! Don’t you dare go there! You know me better than that! I would never be that loose and disrespectful in public.” Reed kept his eyes on the road. My eyes were on the side of his face, which I wanted to slap with both hands. “Can we discuss this later?” I said in a low voice, motioning my head toward Junior slumped in the backseat, bobbing his head to whatever he was listening to on his precious headphones.

  “We’ll do that!” Reed boomed.

  It was a tense ride the rest of the way home. Reed didn’t say another word, and I didn’t either. I closed my eyes and played possum.

  When we made it back home, I made a beeline for the library. Reed went to the living room. Before I could select something to read, I heard him marching down the hallway to our bedroom. I decided not to read, but I still wanted to sit in the library for a while.

  Now that my buzz had worn off, I replayed some of the things my mother-in-law had said to me in her kitchen and I got agitated, not just at her but Reed too. If that wasn’t enough to ruffle my feathers, I recalled a comment my father-in-law had made at the barbecue: “Joan, I’m glad to see that you’re a little more polished than you were when I first met you.” For a man who always had so little to say, and who was practically a recluse, I was surprised that he’d noticed anything at all about me. I was just as surprised to hear that he thought I was “more polished.” As far as I was concerned, I was basically the same person I’d always been, and always would be.

  I stayed in the library until it was Junior’s bedtime.

  I made sure he was tucked in before I went to the living room and dropped down onto the couch. There was something about being miserable that made me feel so tired, and I was about as tired as I could be. I could no longer feel the alcohol I’d consumed at the barbecue, and I was glad. I needed to be completely lucid because when I joined Reed in the bedroom I knew he was going to resume the conversation he’d started in the car. And I didn’t plan on doing that for a while.

  Before I could reach for the remote on the coffee table, I noticed several magazines scattered next to it. Most of them were medical journals, recent issues of Sports Illustrated, and various other publications. I was about to organize them into a neat stack when the one on top caught my eye. It was a local magazine. I cautiously turned to a page that Reed had dog-eared. “I don’t believe that man,” I said under my breath. I squinted and read the article’s title, which he had underlined with a red Sharpie:

  When Suicide Is the Only Solution

  It was a four-page piece, but I was in no mood to read the whole thing. I didn’t want to know why some people thought suicide was the only solution to their problems. There was a picture of a sad-faced middle-aged woman below the title. She was the mother of a young man who had taken his life a few months ago when he found out he was dying of leukemia.

  Tears flooded my eyes. I did not condone suicide. But it made more sense for a person who had no hope to do it than a man whose only reason was he didn’t want to live if his wife left him! I still didn’t want to read the whole article, but I glanced at a few sentences that reported the huge number of suicides in Northern California. The author had done a lot of research and had even broken the numbers down by age, ethnicity, and profession. According to him, most of the people who had chosen suicide were white males between the ages of thirty and seventy-five. Black men in the same age group were a close second.

  I had seen enough. I knew that Reed was bad off, so I didn’t need a magazine article to convince me. And I knew he’d purposely left the magazine out in the open for me to see. I didn’t know why he thought it was still necessary to keep “reminding” me that he was suicidal, because he had made his point a long time ago. Now I was convinced that he had staged that call to Suicide Prevention for my benefit.

  I was so tired, physically and mentally, it was difficult for me to move. I wobbled up from the couch and padded to our bedroom. When I clicked on the light, I was surprised to see that Reed was still awake. He was on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Reed, honey, are you all right?” I asked gently as I moved toward the bed. “I’m really worried about you.” He looked so pitiful lying there, I felt guilty about having that dream about cutting off his dick with a dull knife. As far as I was concerned, he was already only a piece of a man.

  “Could have fooled me,” he whined.

  I stood stock-still for a few tense moments and breathed through my mouth. I sat down on his side of the bed and placed my hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “You know I care about you,” I said with my voice faltering. “I just wish . . .” I paused. “I wish you would stop scaring me with talk about . . . well, you know. I saw that magazine article you made sure I’d see.”

  He sat bolt upright and looked at me as if I had just sprouted a beard. He glared at me as if he wanted to kill me. I had never seen such a hostile look on his face, and it frightened me.

  “Reed, why the hell are you looking—”

  He interrupted me with words that shot out of his mouth like bullets. “You say you care about me? Then I suggest you treat me more like a husband than a dog, Joan,” he barked.

  His remark caught me completely off guard, especially after what he’d said to me in his parents’ kitchen earlier. I had no idea what had made him turn on a dime. “I thought I was treating you like a husband,” I hollered. “I don’t know what you want me to do!”

  “You don’t? Well, let me tell you a few things, Joan Riley.” Reed cleared his throat and continued, speaking in a husky, angry tone of voice. “One thing you can do is show me more affection. The last half hour of the barbecue you practically ignored me, and it’s been bothering me ever since. And there’s another thing that’s been bothering me. The last time we made love, you were like a bump on a log. You didn’t move a muscle until we finished, and then you leaped off the bed like a frog! Sometimes when I kiss you, it feels like I’m putting my lips on a goddamn rubber blow-up doll. I don’t remember the last time you gave me a blow job! Or, even a hand job!”

  There were times when I found it hard to believe that Reed was an educated man. What he had just said sounded like some of the shit I used to hear from my hood boyfriends in high school.

  “Is this conversation just about our sex life?”

  “This conversation is about our married life.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t want you to say another damn thing!”

  I gave him a dry look and then I let out such a hard, loud snort I was surprised that sparks and smoke didn’t shoot out of my nostrils. “Fine. I won’t. This conversation is over, and I think I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight.” I stood up.

  Reed’s next move happened so fast, it took me a few seconds to realize what he was doing. He leaped to the floor, grabbed me by my arms, and threw me down on the bed. Without a word, he piled on top of me and ripped off my clothes.

  Then he did something I never thought he would do: He forced himself on me.

  Chapter 35

  Calvin

  I WAS SO HAPPY TO BE BACK ON CALIFORNIA GROUND, I WAS TEMPTED to kiss it when I got off the plane in San Jose.

  It had been a rough flight—lots of turbulence and screaming babies. Taking a nap had been impossible, so I’d just sat slumped in my seat with all kinds of thoughts. On my mind the most was Lola Poole and how anxious I was to get my hands on her throat. And since she was such a hottie, I planned to fuck her at least a couple of times before she took her last breath. I couldn’t ignore that restless beas
t within me too much longer, especially since I’d logged in to the Internet during the flight and gazed at Lola’s profile again. I was filled with so much white-hot anger, I thought my blood was going to melt my veins. How much more could I take? How much longer could I wait to kill the bitch? A month, two months, a year? I scolded myself for even thinking I would wait longer than a few more weeks.

  The sooner I completed my mission, the better. Maybe that beast in my belly would die or be satisfied enough and I could move forward and actually live like a normal man. The next phase of my life would be crime-free—I hoped—and include a wife and two or three children.

  I didn’t know yet if I was going to marry Sylvia. I knew she was crazy about me, but I wasn’t sure I was crazy enough about her to spend the rest of my life with her. She was too much of a pushover, for one thing. And she was not the brightest woman I’d been involved with romantically. Sex with her was a comical event. I did all the hard work and all she did was wiggle like a worm on a hook and holler. She always managed to climax, and she raved about my bedroom skills, so I never complained about her mediocre performance. Oral sex with her was absolutely out of the question. She thought it was too “nasty” and refused to even consider it. And there were other things about her that I didn’t like. She hated sports and the fact that my job took me away from home for days at a time. I couldn’t stand her siblings, her parents, her dog, her coworkers, her neighbors, and most of her friends. If I did marry her, we would have to do most of our socializing with my friends, or be alone. I had no doubt that if I proposed to Sylvia, she’d accept in a heartbeat. If I married her, the most important thing was, I’d always be the one calling the shots. That was how well I knew her.

  I decided to wait a few days before I contacted Sylvia to let her know I was back in town. With all the time I’d spent thinking about Lola since my trip to Chicago, my mind was so scrambled I wouldn’t have been good company to Sylvia anyway. As important as she was to me, I had another important woman to call on first. I didn’t know her name yet, or what she looked like. But I was anxious to find out.

  I was not exactly sure when I was going back to work. When I notified my boss and told him I had returned to California—but I was also still stressed out—he told me again that I could take off as much time as I wanted. No matter when I decided to return to work, I couldn’t count on picking up a female hitchhiker to help ease my frustrations. I couldn’t wait another day anyway. I had to go hunting for a new victim tonight.

  * * *

  After I left the airport I took the rental car shuttle to Avis and picked up a car to drive myself home, and to use later. I didn’t want to go hunting in my Jeep. I had had it thoroughly detailed before my trip to Chicago. I was in no mood to sop up some nasty bitch’s blood, sweat, tears, or any other DNA shit off my seat covers tonight.

  I had planned to go home, change clothes, drink a few shots of tequila, and get one of my knitted caps to hide part of my face. But during the drive on the crowded freeway, I changed my mind. I didn’t want any of my nosy neighbors to know I had made it back home yet. Robert what’s-his-name, the busybody who lived next door, would be at my door in no time.

  I cruised down my street to make sure nothing looked out of place at my residence. Everything appeared to be in order, so I drove back in the direction I had come from. A few turns and about fifteen minutes later, I entered a run-down, low-rent area where some of the most ferocious people in San Jose lived. They robbed, beat, and killed one another on a regular basis. Last year, somebody stabbed a disabled man to death, robbed him, and took off with his wheelchair.

  A man had to be horny as hell, a fool, or both to drive into this neighborhood at night to pick up a woman. I felt like both. I was glad to see that there were a lot of other horny fools looking for sex on this particular night. That meant all of the prettiest women would be so busy they would have to turn down dates, but it also meant nobody would be paying too much attention to me and who I picked up. And it didn’t take long.

  Her name was Adele, but she told me to call her “Miss Honey.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. This random woman had only a slight resemblance to Glinda/Lola, but it was close enough. I was so anxious to do what I had come to do, I settled for just a twenty-dollar blow job. But I had a rage going on inside me, so I didn’t even let her finish doing that.

  She put up one hell of a fight, but she still lost. I wondered why a female stupid enough to trust a stranger died with such a surprised look on her face.

  Chapter 36

  Lola

  SUNDAY MORNING, I ROLLED OUT OF BED AROUND EIGHT. I WAS anxious to get dressed and go downstairs to eat a plate of the grits and bacon I could smell Bertha cooking.

  Jeffrey and Kevin had left before dawn to go fishing, so it was just Bertha, Libby, and me at the breakfast table. Libby and I had very little to talk about, so most of the conversation was between her and Bertha.

  After Libby talked trash about a dress one of her friends had worn to somebody’s baby shower last week, she announced that she was going to get her nails done.

  “Mine need to be tuned up too,” I said, looking at my own nails, noticing a few cracks and chips. “If you’re going to that shop on Morgan Street, do you mind if I tag along? They take drop-ins.”

  “Um, I have several stops to make along the way first,” Libby replied, looking uneasy. “And after I leave the shop, I’m going to go shopping. I’d rather go by myself so I can take my time. Maybe we can go together the next time.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I’ll go to that nail salon on Cambridge. It’s just a couple of blocks from here, so I can walk.” I would rather shovel shit than accompany my stepsister to a nail salon, or anywhere else for that matter. But I was still trying as hard as I could to get along with Libby. I brought her favorite wine and food home from the market, and I offered to take Kevin to the movies and do other things with him so she could have some time to herself. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t do much good. She’d be nice to me for a short time, but it didn’t take long for her to be her same old mean-spirited self again.

  Libby left the house first. A couple of hours later, one of Bertha’s friends picked her up so they could go have lunch. I went back upstairs to my bedroom and started flipping through the most recent issue of Ebony magazine. I was still trying to decide which article to read first when my cell phone rang. I was hoping it was Calvin, but when I saw Joan’s name on the caller ID, I was just as pleased.

  “Hey you,” I began.

  “Lola, I was forced to have sex last night,” she said in a steely tone of voice.

  “OH MY GOD!” I sat up on my bed, gripping my phone with both hands. “Are you okay? Did you call the police?”

  “There was no need to. I’m fine,” Joan said with a sigh.

  “Joan, you have to call the police and you have to report it to the club’s management people.”

  “Tell the club’s management people? W-Why would I do that?”

  “The rapist was a man you met on the Discreet Encounters website, right?”

  “Lola, none of those men would have to rape me. I joined the club for the same reason they joined.”

  “Then who did it?” I was frantic, and I couldn’t understand why Joan was sounding so cool and calm.

  “Reed did it.”

  “What? Joan, he’s your husband. I don’t think you can call it rape.”

  “He forced himself on me. Last time I checked, forcing somebody to have sex was still called rape.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t want to go into the details right now, but on the way home from Monterey yesterday, Reed started talking all kinds of crazy shit again. He said I was aloof to the other women at the barbecue and was flirting with their husbands. He warned me that we’d finish our conversation later. When we got home, I made myself scarce because I wanted to put off talking to him as long as I could. I holed up in the library first, and after I
heard him go to our bedroom, I went to the living room.” She had to pause and take a couple of deep breaths before she could continue. “Anyway, he had left a magazine on the coffee table where he knew I would see it right away. It had a long article about suicides in Northern California. He’d even dog-eared the page to make sure I’d turn to it when I picked up the magazine. After spending the afternoon at my in-laws’ barbecue—which was not as agonizing as I thought it would be—I was not interested in reading about suicides. I glanced at a few paragraphs before I joined Reed in the bedroom. We started talking and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, he was on me like a cheap suit. He raped me.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” I hollered. “I know the man has a few screws loose, but I never thought he’d physically hurt you. Did you try to fight him off?”

  “Girl, I just laid there like I always do when we have sex. I knew it wouldn’t last long. It was over in no time. Thirty seconds, if that. After he finished hissing like a damn cobra and yip-yipping like a rowdy-ass cowboy, he rolled off me.”

  “You should have called me to come pick you up! I don’t care if Reed is your husband, he can’t victimize you like that!”

  “He was more of a victim than I was. Once he was done with me, he started apologizing like crazy. But I went upside his head with that ceramic elephant I picked up at the last flea market we went to. He didn’t even try to defend himself. He just cried like a baby and cowered like a punk-ass bitch.”

  “I thought Reed was a macho man. I can’t even picture him crying and cowering. Where is he now?”

  “He’s in the bathroom putting more medication on his wounds. I wonder how he’s going to explain the knot on his forehead and the scratches on his face to everybody, especially his parents and his staff.”

  “Joan, I am so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Pffft! Don’t be sorry for me. If you want to feel sorry for somebody, send Reed a get-well card.” Joan laughed. “I told him I’d report him to the cops if he ever does it again. If he does, I wouldn’t call the cops because he’d probably get away with it and I’d be the one looking like a fool. But my threat shook him up enough. He swore he’d never do it again, so as far as I’m concerned, this case is closed. Now let me tell you the real reason I called.”