by Sage Hunter
“Nah,” said Henry. “If it were a bear, you’d know it.”
Tessa said her goodbyes and headed out, ready to settle things with Lucas.
CHAPTER 5
Tessa could hear the house long before she saw it. Driving the Roadster down the winding road out of town towards to Dusty’s farm, a steady thumping of bass vibrating the windows and windshield of the car. Moments later, Tessa made the final turn, revealing a massive, white farmhouse on a seemingly endless stretch of land, a lake shimmering with moonlight visible in the distance. In front of the house were dozens of cars parked at erratic angles, throngs of people around them and packed onto the front lawn. Rolling down the window, the sounds of electronic music filled the car, the raucous noise of the party-goers as they whooped and hollered was audible through the music.
Pulling into a spot near the road, Tessa exited the car and walked towards the party, the music growing to a nearly deafening volume the closer she drew to the house. The partiers, all with drinks in their hands from beers in red plastic to handles of cheap whiskey, stared at her with narrowed eyes as she approached, as though she were an unwelcome guest. And as she scanned the crowd, she recognized not a single face- a fact that struck her as odd, considering the town of Branlen was only a few thousand people.
Something else struck Tessa’s attention: most of the crowd seemed to have the same weary, worn face, as if they’d been up for days partying. But before she could ponder the curiosity, the nearby flicking of a lighter provided the answer to her question. Looking at the direction of the flame, she saw a group of four especially trashy-looking men and women gathered into a small circle, all passing around a small pipe. Tessa figured that it was pot, but as she smelled the air, she detected a strange, astringent scent.
Soon after, she realized what it was- meth.
Ignoring the eyes of the reed-limbed men in oversized jeans and dirty, white undershirts, she made her way into the house, the music now loud enough to drown out her thoughts. She didn’t know where she was heading exactly, or what she was going to do if she was able to find Lucas; she only knew that she needed to see him, to get closure on their fight.
“Hey, baby,” said a man wearing expensive, gaudy clothing, and beady black eyes that peered out at Tessa from behind matted, red hair. “You want a smoke?”
Tessa’s first reaction was to tell the man to fuck off, but as she looked over his outfit and saw that he had money, she realized that he might know who was who around here.
“Sure,” she said, moving next to the man, the scent of overabundant body spray filling her nose.
“That’s what I like to hear, missy,” he said, his voice an urban drawl. “What’s your name?”
“T-, uh, Charlene,” she said, forcing a coy smile onto her lips.
“Charleeene,” he said, drawing out the vowels as if trying the name on for size. “I’m Reynaldo.”
“Nice to meet you, Renaldo,” said Tessa, taking his boney hand and shaking it, a thin sheen of sweat on his palm.
“No, no, no,” he said, slipping his hand out of Tessa’s and waving it back and forth while shaking his head. “Not ‘Renaldo,’ ‘Rey-naldo.’ Big difference.”
“Sure, uh, Ray-naldo,” said Tessa, taking the cigarette Reynaldo offered and slipping it between her lips.
“Now, pretty lady,” he said, lighting her cigarette, the sickly-sweet taste of menthol rushing into Tessa’s lungs as she took the lighting drag. “I gotta say, you don’t exactly look like you fit in here.”
“And why is that?” she asked, taking another drag and trying to mask her disgust at the taste of the cigarette.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But you’re a little older than the, ah, usual types we get around here.”
Tessa was mildly offended but thought better of indulging the urge to slap this young man across his face. Instead, she looked around the packed, dimly-lit house, and sure enough, he was right- nearly everyone there looked no older than 25.
“I love older ladies, personally,” he said. “So that ain’t even a thing for me.”
“Great to hear,” said Tessa, taking another drag.
“And the other, well, let’s just said you got some really clear skin.”
Tessa was confused at first, but scanned the party once more. With Reynaldo’s comment in mind, she looked over the faces of the party-goers; they all seemed to have the same blotchy, red skin, with complexions so bad she could barely make out their features through their sores. If she hadn’t already figured out that this was some kind of meth party, she would’ve known now.
Then, the question rushed into her mind: Why would Lucas be here?
She decided to take a stab in the dark.
“You don’t happen to know anyone named Lucas Henderson, would you?”
Reynaldo’s mouse-like eyes widened, his youthful features lighting up with recognition.
“You mean Mister Henderson? Why you asking about him?”
Tessa was taken aback by this question. Namely, that he seemed to know right away who Lucas was. And also, that this kid didn’t seem to be the type to typically use formalities like “mister.”
“I have important business with him,” said Tessa, unsure of what else to say, and not wanting to give Reynaldo the real reason for wanting to talk to Lucas.
“Are you dealing?” he asked, now seemingly unsure of how to talk to Tessa. “No, wait- you’re not a fucking cop, are you?”
“No, not a cop. I promise.”
Reynaldo took a quick, jerking drag of his cigarette as he looked at Tessa with a side-eye.
“Let’s say I believe you; why should I let you talk with Mister Henderson? I mean, I could get you up there with him. But he doesn’t just talk to anyone.”
“Trust me. I’m someone who he’ll want to talk to.”
Reynaldo considered it.
“OK, fine. I’ll get you in with him.”
“That easy?” asked Tessa.
“Yeah,” he said. “I like your face.”
Tessa shuddered internally at Reynaldo’s leer as he walked passed her, gesturing for her to follow him. They moved through the party, Tessa staying close behind Reynaldo, but no too close. The two eventually made their way to a flight of stairs, the pounding of the bass decreasing as they traveled up. Once they reached the top, Reynaldo pointed to the door at the end of the long hallway.
“Mister Henderson should be in there. Just, uh, don’t tell him I sent you.”
With that, Reynaldo dashed back down the stairs, leaving Tessa alone in the hallway with a handful of kids who seemed to be all passed out, slumped unconscious against the wall. She spotted a crack of light at the bottom of the door and as she stepped towards it, she found herself wondering if Lucas was in there, or if this was some trick that she didn’t understand.
Tessa looked over the passed-out partiers in the hallway, noting that just like the ones downstairs and out front, they all seemed to be no older than their early twenties, with many still in their teens. All seemed to be either strung-out or high on meth, and as Tessa stepped around their limp, splayed-out limbs, she began to realize that if Lucas was here, it either meant that he was a user himself, or, even worse, that he had something to do with what was going on here. Either way, Tessa felt herself growing queasy at the possibilities.
Finally reaching the door, Tessa wrapped her hand around the handle and prepared to open it. But before she did, she heard murmuring on the other side. She leaned in and pressed her ear against the flimsy wood of the bedroom door, plugging up her other ear to listen more carefully.
“You like that, baby?” asked a female voice.
“I think he does,” spoke a voice belonging to a different girl.
“Mmm,” said another voice on the other side, a man’s voice. “Yeah, just like that.”
Tessa instantly recognized the man’s voice as Lucas. She’d heard that voice every day for the last 16 years; there was no way it could be anyone but him. Ta
king a deep breath, she twisted the handle and pushed the door open. And she couldn’t believe what she saw on the other side.
It was Lucas, alright. He was sitting on the end of the bed in the middle of the room, his pants down at his ankles, his shirt off, exposing his sculpted chest. At on the floor, at his knees were a pair of girls. They were young women, one a blonde, the other a redhead, neither of which appeared to be out of her teens. The redhead had Lucas’s cock deep within her mouth, her eyes wide as Tessa opened the door. The blonde was at a different sort of work, her tongue mid-lick on Lucas’s balls as Tessa stepped in.
“What the hell?” shouted Lucas.
He pushed the two girls away, his cock leaving the mouth of the redhead with a loud, sucking “pop.” The girls, both nude, slim, and long-limbed, let out a pair of shrieks as they darted to the other end of the room, covering themselves up with their skinny arms.
In the room, Tessa noticed money here and there, stacked into neat piles of hundred-dollar bills sitting among small baggies of white drugs. Her stomach sank to her feet as she realized what was going on.
“Please tell me that I’m not seeing this,” said Tessa, standing frozen at the door.
“You need to leave, right now,” said Lucas, his voice stern and demanding.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what all of…this is!” she shouted, gesturing to the girls, the drugs, the money.
“It’s what you think it is,” he said.
“Luke, baby, who is this lady?” asked the redhead, her voice sweet and somewhat fearful.
“Shut the hell up!” he said, holding up a finger at the girl, who responded by doing as he asked, her pretty face an expression of concern and confusion.
“I can’t believe this,” said Tessa. “I can’t believe that you’d do this, that you’d live this life and hide it from me.”
“Well, believe it,” said Lucas, rising and pulling up his pants.
“Is this your wife?” asked the blonde. “She’s…so old.”
“I said, shut the hell up!” yelled Lucas, the blonde silencing just as quickly as the redhead.
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” said Tessa, her heart feeling like it was being sliced in half by a dull knife. “Don’t come to the house ever again.”
“Wait a minute,” said Lucas. “Don’t you leave. Don’t you run out! You do and you’ll regret it!”
Tears in her eyes, she turned and ran down the hallway, out of the house and to the car. She wanted to do nothing but curl into a ball and weep, but more than that, she wanted to leave, to put as much distance between her and Lucas as possible.
She’d save her tears for the drive back.
CHAPTER 6
When Tessa awoke the next morning, she, by instinct, moved her arm over to the other side of the bed. But touching nothing but air, the reality of her situation came into brutal clarity. The images of last night- the party, the drugs, seeing Lucas in the middle of being pleasured by two girls whose ages combined probably weren’t much more than Tessa’s- flooded her mind. She felt sick, she felt weak, and she felt lost. She lay in bed for a time, not wanting to move, as though she could pretend that reality wasn’t what it was simply by refusing to interact with it.
Eventually, however, she made the decision to not be a weak woman, lost without her man. Placing both feet on the ground, she stepped out of bed. The bedroom was just as sunny and cheerful as it had been the previous morning, but now she was alone. Her first stop was the bathroom, to take a long, hot shower, as though she could wash away the memories of last night. As she soaked, she realized that at the very least, she could wash away the grime that the air at that horrible party seemed to be full of.
Stepping out and wrapping a towel around her body, she thought about just what her husband had gotten himself into. Tessa had considered that he was having an affair, and had considered that he had picked up a substance abuse problem- what other reasons could a husband have for acting the way he did, after all- but what he was into was something that she wasn’t prepared for at all. She couldn’t tell for certain by what she saw over the course of that horrible minute, but it appeared that Lucas was involved in the meth business- not simply using it, but dealing it. There were hundreds of young adults, kids, just about, at that party last night, and judging by the amount of drugs in that room, it wasn’t hard to believe that he was responsible for supplying the whole thing. She wondered how the artist she fell in love with so many years ago could fall so low as to get involved with something like this.
Tessa threw on some simple clothes, making sure to put what she wore the previous night in a sealed bag for fear of that astringent, industrial smell of burning meth would infect the house. And as she tossed the plastic bag stuffed full of her clothes into the back of her closet, the image of the two girls came into her thoughts like an invader. She knew that the sight of her husband sitting at the edge of the bed, his cock deep in the mouth of another woman while yet another serviced him, would be burned into her memory for as long as she lived. She cursed Lucas for doing this to her, knowing that these two girls were likely just two of many others.
And their age stuck in Tessa’s mind like a pebble in a shoe. She knew that she was still beautiful, that she was still an object of desire for men. But she also knew that however attractive she might be now, it wasn’t going to last forever. When she married Lucas, she had hoped that he would be the man that she would grow old with, that he would still be at her side when her looks faded, that she wouldn’t have to worry about finding someone knew, that that part of her life was taken care of. But it wasn’t to be. And now, just a few years short of 40, she found her world turned upside down. Not only was she left to pick up the pieces, but she now had to wonder whether or not she would ever again find someone to love.
After finishing her morning routine, she stepped into the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest, but she knew how easy it would be to ignore her appetite and let the stress take over her body. She was determined not to let that happen. Pouring herself a tall glass of orange juice and a small bowl of granola, she ate and drank, forcing down each swallow as she stared listlessly out of the window. As she watched the gentle rustling of the leaves in the trees, she even felt something approaching calm and peace.
But the rumbling of a motorcycle up the path to their home broke that feeling right in half.
Tessa’s stomach dropped when she heard the sound of what couldn’t be anything other than Lucas’s bike approach the house. Looking down, she saw that her hands were shaking as the noise grew louder. Soon, Lucas appeared on the path leading to the home, racing towards the house. Lucas drove the bike right onto the lawn, letting it drop out from under him and onto its side when he reached the house.
“Tessa!” he shouted as the engine died. “You get out here right now!”
Tessa ducked away from the window, watching Lucas run up to the door and attempt to open it. She thanked herself for having the presence of mind to lock the deadbolts last night, though she knew this wouldn’t stop him if he was truly determined.
“Get out here right now!” he yelled, his face twisted in rage.
She stayed still, fear creeping over her body. Opening the kitchen junk drawer, she removed the mace that she kept in there, feeling disbelief at the fact that she might have to use it on her own husband. Steeling herself, she walked to the front door and opened it, looking into Lucas’s eyes as she did so.
“There you are,” he said, his voice edged with anger. “What the hell did you think you were doing last night? Huh?”
Tessa said nothing.
“Coming to Dusty’s place like that. You have no idea what kind of people were there!”
She still said nothing.
“And I don’t know what you think you saw, but it wasn’t what it looked like,” he said, his body tight and tense as a bowstring pulled taut.
Now Tessa was angry that he would think she was so stupid. But she said nothin
g.
“You better say something,” he said, his hands clenching and unclenching as he stood on the lawn.
She didn’t know what to do. She was trying to stay strong, to look tough, but she knew that she wasn’t prepared to handle this confrontation. It wouldn’t take much for her to break into wracking sobs. Tessa wished that she’d just stayed inside and hoped that he might leave.
“I said 'say something!’” demanded Lucas.
“You need to leave and never come back,” said Tessa, her voice weak.
“What?” said Lucas. “You think you can tell me to leave my own damn house? You got another thing coming.”
He paced back and forth for a moment, as if deciding just what to do. Then, he turned to face Tessa, and began walking towards her.
“Not at a chance in hell you’re gonna tell me what to do.”
But then, just as he seemed poised to do something terrible, a strange thing took place. Right at that moment, Tessa spotted the shaking of leaves in the distance at the edge of the lawn. Her eyes tracked to the spot as Lucas’s stayed fixed upon her. From within the dense, green leaves, emerged a massive, dark animal; it was a black bear. Tessa didn’t know how but she recognized it instantly as one of the bears that she saw last night, and not only that, but the one that approached her. Just as it did yesterday, the bear stared at her impassively. It stood still once it fully emerged from the forest, standing there for reasons Tessa didn’t understand.
But something about the bear’s presence filled her with a sense of safety. She felt as though it were watching out for her, a thought that she instantly recognized as silly, if not insane. What she felt, however, couldn’t be disputed.
Then, before Tessa could say anything, the bear made its presence known. It stood up on its back legs and let out a deafening, mighty roar- a roar so loud and powerful that it shook the branches of the nearby trees and sent the birds perched upon them into the clear, blue sky above.
“What the hell?” said Lucas, turning around and staggering at the sight of the black-furred beast.