Darkness at the Edge of Town

by Jennifer Harlow

  Helen hugged me again. “And we like you a lot too.” As I embraced her, I mentally sighed. I’d pulled that one out of my ass. No more Billy talk. At least not that night. Helen broke away first. “You should always listen to your instincts. Always. It’s the universe whispering to you and the universe is always right. You just have to trust it and yourself, as Mathias always says.”

  “D-Do you think he’ll like me?” I asked meekly.

  “He is going to love you. We’ve told him all about you.” I bet you did, especially my “settlement” money. “He’s dying to meet you too.”

  “What’s he like?” I asked.

  “The most selfless, wise man I’ve ever met,” Helen said. The girls nodded in agreement.

  “Is-is he psychic?”

  “Do you believe in psychics?” Helen asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I lied. I did believe some people were faster and more adept at reading people and situations, then quickly putting together an accurate conclusion before others could. That’s precisely what we did at Behavioral Analysis. A hundred years before we’d be considered psychics. But “Carol” wasn’t that deep a thinker. “I had a psychic advisor in New York. He told me he saw a baby coming into my life, and a week later my husband told me about his mistress. Sage was usually right.”

  “Mathias hates being called a psychic,” Britt said. I’ll bet he does, I thought. “He’s just really smart and willing to think outside the box. ‘Keep your eyes, heart, and soul open and the possibilities are endless.’ ”

  “Did Mathias say that?”

  “Yeah. It’s so true, right?” Britt said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “He’s really good at opening minds to the truth about this plane of existence, the universe, and our place in it,” Nessa said. “How we can use these truths about the universe to expand our energy and make our journey the best it can be.”

  “But where did he learn all this?” I asked. “India or something?”

  “No, but he has traveled there,” Helen said with reverence. “He’s traveled all over the world. Been on almost every continent. He’s lived on Park Avenue and on the sidewalk. He can and has talked to movie stars and felons alike. He always knew, even as a teenager, to remain open to all of the universe’s signs and experiences. To take them and the lessons from all the people he has met and remember them. Learn from them. And one day he realized he could help. That he should help. So he’s used those lessons to save all our lives. He saved me from killing myself with one simple conversation. Everything he said made sense. I’ve known him for over a year, and he has never uttered one word of nonsense or white noise.”

  “Did he already own this place and The Apex when you met him?” I asked.

  “No. We found The Temple a few months after meeting and The Apex months after that,” Helen explained.

  “Did you all buy it?”

  “No, it was all Mathias,” Helen said. “He visualized, he asked, he believed, and he found not one but two havens for spiritual enlightenment.”

  So Mathias was a drifter who somehow found enough cash to buy or con people out of two homes? Hell no. Not suspicious at all, I thought as we put the lasagnas in the oven. I had a ton of questions cycling through my mind, like was he ever in prison, had she seen the deeds to either property, and if she knew his real name, but I found no way to work them in. I missed being able to just interrogate people.

  We began making the pie crust from scratch. I was going to be a regular Gordon Ramsay by the time I left. In between instructions, I continued my fishing expedition. “So how did you meet Mathias, Helen?”

  “I actually met his partner, Ken, first. We worked together at the meat processing plant.”

  “Partner?” I asked.

  “Lover. No, too much flour, sweetie. The crust will have no taste,” Helen said.

  I stopped adding flour. “His lover? How long have they been together?”

  “Off and on for years. They met on Mathias’s travels,” Helen said, working on her own crust. “Kenny had just gotten out of a fifteen-year prison stint and was attending NA meetings. He’d just broken up with this other man, a real bastard, and was staring at his crack pipe when Mathias passed him on the street. Mathias sat down and just talked to Kenny. For hours and hours, and Kenny never felt the urge to use again. I met them both months later.”

  “Kenny was in prison for that long?” I asked nervously. “He-he didn’t murder anyone or anything?”

  “No. His old partner got him involved in drug running and fraud,” she assured me. “He may look terrifying, but he’s really a big softie. And he’s certainly not violent, especially now.”

  “I was arrested a few times for prostitution and possession,” Nessa offered, I think to make me feel better. “None of us are saints here. I’ll bet yourself included.”

  Well, I certainly hope I’m the only one with two deaths on her conscience, I thought. “I…used to drive drunk and high on Xanax around the Hamptons. I got a DWI. But everyone else did the same thing; I just got caught.”

  “You still could have hurt someone. Or yourself,” Nessa said.

  “But I’m sure she learned her lesson,” Helen said, “as we all have from our past mistakes. Just like Kenny. And me.”

  I sensed that Helen wanted to end this topic, and I couldn’t press her about Kenny without raising suspicion. Really, I felt I couldn’t ask that many more questions on any subject before they noticed that was all I was doing. A new tactic was required. I began rolling the pie dough with a frown and hung my head. It took a minute for Helen to notice my pout, but she did take the bait. “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

  “I just…it’s stupid, but I was remembering our times in the Hamptons. Patrick got the house in the divorce. I loved going there. It was my haven. Anytime I was stressed I’d just drive to the equestrian club and get on Jellybean and ride for hours. During the divorce it was the only activity that kept me from slitting my wrists. It-It’s stupid, but it felt like that horse was the only friend I had in the world. I just…all of a sudden I missed her. He sold her after the divorce.”

  “That’s terrible,” Britt said.

  I hung my head again. “I keep thinking about her lately. It’s silly, but I’ve always felt a kinship to horses. I just, I’d like to be able to ride again. Be around them. Is that weird?”

  “Not at all,” said Helen.

  “I thought about buying one, but I only got two million in the settlement, and—”

  “Two million?” Nessa asked, eyes bugging out. “As in dollars?”

  “Yeah, and it has to last me until I die, so having a horse isn’t financially prudent right now, but I keep thinking about it. It’ll eat almost a quarter of my settlement, but maybe you’re right about trusting my instincts. I did research already and I found one in Niagaraville.” I started fitting the crust in the pie tin. “I don’t know.”

  Come on, ladies. Come on…

  “O.M.G. That’s so weird. We have a horse at The Apex,” Nessa finally said.

  Booyah! I immediately perked up. “You do?”

  “Yeah. It came with the farm, which is in Niagaraville,” Helen said. “But no one knows how to ride him.”

  “I-I-I could teach you all,” I lied. I’d never even been anywhere near a horse.

  “That’d be fantastic,” Nessa said.

  “I’ve always wanted to ride a horse,” Britt added.

  “Cool.” And since we were on the subject of the farm…“Do you guys like living there?”

  “It was tough at first, especially working in the fields,” Britt said.

  “Is it completely self-sufficient? Suppose it would have to be. Niagaraville’s pretty isolated.”

  “We try to be. All the foods at the grocery store are full of pesticides and hormones,” Nessa said.

  “How many acres is it?” I asked as I started filling in the blackberries for the pie.

  “I don’t know. At least fifty,” Helen said.
“Why?”

  Fuck. I grimaced. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

  “What?” Nessa asked.

  “Asking too many questions. I do that when I’m kind of nervous,” I said, shrinking in on myself. “In school I was really shy and never talked to anyone; then my husband told me the best way to make people feel good about themselves is to ask questions. Of course, then he told me I turned conversations into the Spanish Inquisition. I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” Helen said. “Having an inquisitive mind is a glorious thing. It should never be stifled. The only way to learn sometimes is to ask.”

  I looked up at Helen and half-smiled. “Are you sure you won’t adopt me?”

  She chuckled and squeezed my arm.

  I’d pushed the envelope as far as I could with the trio, so I kept my mouth shut as I finished the pie and just listened as they talked about the upcoming seminars in Pittsburgh and Grove City. About five minutes later, a door closed somewhere in the house. One minute after that, Megan, a beautiful African American woman, and Paul all strolled into the kitchen. Megan’s face lit up, but Paul’s grew as bright as a Las Vegas night. I blushed, really blushed, as our previous conversation came back to me. I looked away.

  “Carol!” Megan said. “How are you? How are you feeling?”

  “Much better, thanks,” I said. “I’m never eating Chinese again.” I glanced over at Paul. His starstruck eyes were glued to me. “Hi…Paul,” I said with a nervous smile.

  “Carol’s been helping with dinner,” Helen said.

  “I just hope I don’t poison you with my cooking,” I said meekly.

  “Oh! You owe yourself two positive traits for your put-down,” Britt said.

  “Okay. I’m clever and…uh…”

  “You’re beautiful. Inside and out,” Paul finished for me. “Just as you are.”

  I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Even if it was a line, it was nice to hear.

  “How long until dinner?” Megan asked.

  “About an hour,” Helen answered. “How was outreach today?”

  “Five maybes,” Paul said. “Twenty more took fliers.”

  “Why don’t you guys go hop in the showers? You reek,” Helen said.

  “Standing in the hundred-degree heat does that,” Megan said. She looked at her sweaty friends. “You two go first.”

  “Thanks,” the African American woman said. “Keisha okay?”

  “She’s great, Chantal,” Nessa said.

  Paul shot me another seductive smirk. “I’ll just be in the shower, then, if anyone wants me.” He winked at me before walking out of the kitchen with Chantal.

  I gazed down in embarrassment. Two years was definitely too long. Megan stepped beside me and whispered, “You’re blushing, you know.”

  “No I’m not. It’s just hot in here.”

  “Then let’s get you out of here,” she whispered before looking at Helen. “Mind if I steal Carol from you?”

  “Only if we fight to the death,” Helen responded with a smirk.

  Megan fake-glared before locking her arm in mine. “Come on. The air-conditioning actually sort of works upstairs.” After I grabbed my purse, Megan led me toward one of the living rooms and up the stairs. “Some days I absolutely hate ambassador duty. Not only is it a trillion degrees outside, but someone actually yelled at us today. Called us cultish brainwashed parasites. I wanted to kick him in the balls.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Me wanting to kick men in the balls? Every day and twice on Sundays,” she said with a smile. “Thank the universe Paul was there. He convinced the asshole to leave and even calmed me down.”

  Jesus, did they send a memo out to the whole group about the initiative to hook up the new girl and Paul? I thought as I ascended the stairs. Next I’m going to hear he worked with AIDS babies in Africa or something.

  Actually it was worse than I thought. Megan led me upstairs to the second door on the right, opening the door and instantly treating me to the sight of Paul’s very nice, perfectly rounded ass. I gasped loudly, and he began to turn around. My eyes immediately jutted to the celling. “Oh, hey,” Paul said.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” I said.

  “Why? I’m just naked. No big deal.”

  “You’d better get in the shower before I jump the line,” Megan chided as if nothing were out of the ordinary. As if there weren’t a naked strange man two feet away. “Go on.”

  My eyes didn’t leave the water-damaged ceiling as he brushed past us. I didn’t lower them until he was behind me. I felt dirty, almost used, as if I’d been flashed in a park. Yet I still followed Megan into the bedroom. The room was small, or at least seemed that way with two sets of bunk beds, a dresser, and a desk against the wall with one lone window. It was practically a cell. Megan picked up Paul’s clothes from the floor with a sigh. “It isn’t like the hamper is right there, Paul,” she said to herself. She tossed his clothes in the hamper by the dresser before sitting on one of the beds and pulling a plastic bin from under it. “I have to get these clothes off. I’m gonna get naked. Do you mind?”

  At least she asked that time. “Uh, not really.”

  Megan rose again, moving the fan on the desk toward herself before removing her shirt and shorts. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. Ugh…The first thing I noticed was the rose tattoo on her hip and butterfly tramp stamp. I tried to stop there, but I couldn’t. She was beautiful, with perfectly round breasts and hips, and no cellulite that I saw as I quickly assessed her before peering away again. I suddenly felt like Humpty Dumpty. “You can sit down if you want,” Megan said as she lay on her bunk. “Just don’t block the fan. I’m seriously about to get heatstroke.”

  I sat on the bottom bunk directly across from her. “Uh, do your tattoos mean anything?”

  “Besides wastes of money and poor decisions while high?” she chuckled. “No, Rose was my grandmother’s name. She took care of me off and on when I was younger. Then she died and…cue horror story.”

  “I’m sorry. My grandmother helped raise me too.”

  “Another member of the shitty parent club. Knew it. The fucking evil government regulates everything but that. You need a permit to drive, to get married, to catch a fucking fish, but any moron can have a child. The world is so fucked.” She flipped on her side to face me, giving me the full Monty treatment. You want to look away, you do, but how can you not look when it’s right there? “You lied to me.”

  And my heart flew into my throat. “Wh-What?”

  “Me being naked is making you uncomfortable,” she said with a smirk.

  Oh, thank God. “Uh, I just barely know you, and I’m not a…nude person.”

  “What? You’ve never slept in the nude? Walked around your house naked? Went skinny-dipping?”

  “Not really.”

  “You’re not big on vulnerability, are you?” she asked.

  Oh goody, another test. “It’s not that,” I lied, eyes down. “I was just raised to be modest. You don’t boast. You don’t show too much skin. You know.”

  “Well, with a body like yours, it’s almost a crime not to show it off. You take care of yourself. It’s obvious. You work hard on your body; that should be appreciated. All that modesty crap, it’s just to make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. To keep you down and depressed so you’re miserable, you have no energy to fight back, and need to buy shit to feel even a fraction better.”

  “Is that what Mathias taught you?”

  “Is he wrong?” she parried.

  “There is…some logic to it,” I said.

  “At our base we’re still just animals who have gotten too damn smart for our own good. We think too much. We place layer after layer of bullshit to suppress our instincts. But at our core…” She began to trace a circle around her belly button and bit her lower lip. “We just want to fuck. And eat. And then fuck some more.” She laid her head on her pillow and smiled seductively, still caressing her perfect b
ody as if it were her lover. “Wouldn’t we all be better off if we just gave in to our base natures?”

  Fucking hell, I thought. She was good. Besides one drunken make-out session in college I’d never had any sexual contact with another woman before, but damned if I wasn’t a little turned on by the gorgeous creature fondling herself mere feet away. I pushed that down—hurrah for repression—and half-smiled. “Of course if we went back to our caveman roots, you and I would have been raped seventy times over and all disagreements would result in a stone to the head.”

  “Do you watch the news? As if neither of those aren’t happening in the modern world twenty times over right now,” she pointed out.

  “So what’s the solution?” I asked.

  “Take your joy where you can get it,” she said, biting her lip again. “You ever been with another woman?”

  “A drunken kiss. Once.”

  “I’ve never told anyone this, but…I prefer women,” she said with a sweet smile. “As a whole, they’re a lot less selfish both outside and inside the bedroom. And breasts. Oh, I love breasts. Their look. Their soft feel. The moans women make when I’m sucking on them. Fondling them. Suckling. Kissing. Licking.” She lightly brushed her own erect nipple. A car crash. I was definitely watching a car crash. “Of course, sometimes there’s nothing better than having a hard cock inside you. Filling you. Stretching you. Gliding in and out of your center like a rock-hard wave.” She fell on her back and sighed. I silently prayed the show was over. “Sorry. I’m getting myself all hot and bothered over here. You probably think I’m a raging nympho or something.”

  I truly had no idea what I was thinking or what she was, for that matter. “I think…you’re hitting on me for some reason I’m having trouble figuring out,” I said honestly.

  She flipped over to face me again. My eyes instantly fell to her breasts, but I regained control and looked at her face. “How about you’re fucking hot and beautiful?” she chuckled. “Because you’re wound up tighter than a drum and I want to offer you some relief? To help you unleash the real, untamed, sexy-as-fuck Carol screaming to get out? To unshackle you from your Puritan guilt and your husband and society’s brainwashing that made you think you’re not beautiful and shouldn’t want and enjoy sex? To see if you taste like white chocolate and strawberries like I’ve imagined you do? Because I want to see your face as you cum?” She bit her lower lip again. “Or maybe I’m a selfish bitch who wants a crack at you before Paul officially makes his move. Do any of those work for you?”