The Woman In the Mirror: (A Psychological Suspense Novel) (Alexandra Mallory Book 1)

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The Woman In the Mirror: (A Psychological Suspense Novel) (Alexandra Mallory Book 1) Page 14

by Cathryn Grant


  “You don’t worry about kissing a stranger on a public street?” he said.

  “No.”

  He took my chin and turned my face up toward the blank sky. He held it tightly so that I felt his control but it didn’t hurt. He left his other arm hanging limply by his side. There was space between us, filled with fog, nothing touching but his fingers on my jaw and now, our lips brushing against each other, the pressure increasing ever so slightly and incredibly slowly. When his tongue slid into my mouth, every one of my organs slid down toward the pavement and I thought for a moment my bones might follow.

  We kissed for several long, timeless minutes. Our eyes were closed. The fog smelled clean and seemed to grow warmer as it pressed against our skin and hair, leaving a thin covering of moisture.

  He let go of my jaw before he released my lips. He stepped back. I looked at him. His eyes remained closed.

  “Well,” he said. His eyes were still closed.

  “Yes, well,” I said.

  I bent over and touched my toes, stretching out my legs and back, readying them to continue my run. When I straightened, he was looking at me.

  “I’d like to do that again sometime,” he said.

  I smiled. He held my gaze for a very long time.

  I turned and began a loose, easy jog. I rounded the corner and still hadn’t heard his car start up. Not knowing his name was to my liking after all. It’s like going to a masked ball, flirting with a man whose face is hidden. His mouth moves and takes on greater importance because only the color of his eyes are revealed, not the shape or the creases of skin that indicate expression. The structure of his nose is concealed and there’s no way to know if he’s handsome or hideously deformed in the parts of his face that are covered. The connection is on another level, cutting past the usual ways of assuring trust. In fact, there is no trust.

  Hiding what’s normally revealed suggested we could satisfy physical needs rather than social. It suggested there wouldn’t be any obligations.

  Over the years, I’ve received a certain amount of criticism for my attitude toward sex. I’ve been told I’m like a guy, a not-very-nice guy. I’ve been told I’m undermining feminist advancements, when in truth, I’m the ultimate feminist. I’ve been called a slut and a ho’ and told I’m full of self loathing. I’ve been accused of stealing men who belong to someone else, and of creating an atmosphere that allows guys to skate around commitment. People have said I’m going to end up diseased and alone and unwanted. As if ending up alone is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the majority of the human race is alone at the end. You don’t get to die drinking tea with your BFFs or watching a sunset with your soul mate.

  I don’t care if people want to paste a label on my back. Men get to enjoy sex without being called ugly names and told their behavior has a far reaching societal impact. I like the almost sweet taste of rare steak and the rich creamy texture of potato salad. I like Indian food and Chinese food and pasta and Mexican food. I like pizza and chocolate ice cream. I adore the cold silky taste of martinis made with top shelf vodka and the salty alcohol-soaked olives. I like classical music and old movies. I like running until my body is bathed in a sheet of sweat, and training my muscles until they turn to pudding. I like smoking an occasional cigarette or two. I like dancing to music so loud all I can hear is the thud inside my head and my body moves without my conscious direction. I like sex in exactly the same way. Simply because two bodies are drawn to each other doesn’t mean they should buy a house and spend the rest of their lives arguing about how to squeeze the toothpaste and whose turn it is to take out the garbage.

  It’s made my life quite enjoyable but it has caused problems from time to time. Serious problems.

  25

  Los Angeles

  The morning after Tom dragged Lisa out of the apartment, it felt quieter than usual when I woke. The empty space left by a missing human being, I thought. Randy was deep asleep beside me. I crawled out of bed and pulled on leggings and a football jersey I’d borrowed from a boyfriend in high school. I still love that thing. It’s red with a huge number one and his name across the back — Masters, Dave Masters.

  I went around to Randy’s side of the bed to open the window. Lisa was curled up on the floor, wearing the same clothes she’d worn the day before. She was lying on top of her sleeping bag with a quilt wrapped around her shoulders and back. Her bare feet looked pale and tender, poking out beneath the dark blue fabric.

  I left the window closed and went into the living room.

  The puddle of batter was hard as a chunk of concrete. The sunscreen tube was open on the table. I closed it and tapped the end of the tube on the solidified batter to confirm its consistency. I walked to Dianne’s bedroom door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again. I put my ear up to the door, as if I might hear the sounds of them sleeping. I couldn’t but it didn’t mean they weren’t in there. I opened the door. The room was empty, the bed made, the drapes closed.

  Leaving the door open, just to piss off Dianne, even though she wasn’t there for me to enjoy her aggravated state, I went into the kitchen. I pulled on a pair of white rubber gloves, took a metal spatula out of the drawer, and dragged the trashcan into the living room. I chiseled at the batter. It came off in thick, pliable strips. The smell was sickeningly sweet. When everything that could be removed with the spatula was in the trashcan. I pulled off the gloves. I went into the bedroom and got a pack of cigarettes out of my dresser drawer.

  For the next thirty minutes, I sat on the balcony and let cigarette smoke scrape the odor of batter from the inside of my skull. I thought about the vomit in the carport and wondered who would clean that up, or if it would harden and dry, eventually scuffed off by shoe heels as people walked over it, no longer recognizing what it was. It would disintegrate into tiny fragments and get swept up with crumbled leaves and pine needles and dust.

  When I felt ready to inhale more batter, I went back inside and got a brush with stiff plastic bristles and a bottle of dish detergent. I began scrubbing at the mess to try to return it to a liquid state where I could wipe up more. A carpet cleaner would be required, but I couldn’t keep looking at it and smelling it without trying to remove as much as possible.

  An hour later, I was having another cigarette when Randy stumbled onto the balcony. His eyes looked like he’d consumed double the number of beers I remembered.

  He flopped in the chair beside me. “What’s up? When did Lisa get home?”

  I shrugged.

  “She’s a trip.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno.” He stretched his arms over his head. His ribs jutted out. He left his arms raised, clasping his wrists, and yawned deeply. “I’m gonna get cleaned up and head out.”

  “Where to?”

  “Take the bike for a ride.”

  “Lisa was…”

  He shrugged. “Glad she’s okay. Don’t need to hear the drama.”

  I held his gaze.

  He made a face, drawing his lips into hard lines. Finally, he looked away.

  “The weather’s perfect for a ride,” I said.

  He lowered his arms, nodded, and yawned again.

  “Don’t fall asleep while you’re riding.”

  “Not to worry.” He went inside.

  The day before, he’d seemed ready to defend Lisa, but now that I thought about it more, there was something false in the way he’d acted. He wasn’t a fan. Lisa’s prudish views irritated him, the murder game being a good example. He didn’t like her rabid feminism and her aggressive dreams for political office. As if it had anything to do with him. At times, she’d made it clear she considered him sub-human, simply because he was male.

  After Randy left, I changed into workout clothes and went for a run. Only three miles, but I pushed myself to sprint for nearly a mile of that. I felt loose again, back in control. Cleansed, as I usually do after a run. I came home, showered, and made a ham and provol
one cheese sandwich with tomatoes. I was on the balcony drinking a glass of wine when Lisa appeared in the doorway. Her hair was wet and her face shiny clean. She wore jeans and a faded black t-shirt that Randy loathed. In bold, red lettering it shouted — Angry. Liberal. Feminist. Killjoy.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Can I have some wine?” Her voice was thin and faint.

  I put my glass on the table and stood up. “Anything to eat?” I was still hungry, and my mind ambled to potato chips and dip, or popping frozen egg rolls in the microwave.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  In the kitchen, I poured her a glass of wine, dumped a bag of chips into a bowl, and opened a tub of green onion dip. I gently placed the dip container on top of the chips and carried everything to the balcony.

  As I handed her the glass, Lisa looked past me into the living room. “Are they here?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t want to see them.”

  “I understand.” I put down the food and closed the glass door. I sat beside her and took a sip of wine. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head.

  I went back inside and got the wine bottle and chiller. When I was settled again, I held up my glass. She tapped her glass against mine, but didn’t say anything. Her face was expressionless.

  “Do you feel like talking about it?” I said.

  “Give me a minute,” she whispered.

  “Did you throw up in the carport?”

  She nodded and put down her wine. She leaned forward, holding her stomach. After a minute or two, she sat up and took a long swallow of wine. “I know some men are threatened by strong women, but I had no idea.”

  She was right, to a point. I’m a strong, self-reliant woman and men are often threatened by me, but I also know how to tone it down. I don’t need to announce my opinions on a t-shirt. I keep a lot of thoughts to myself. Some might call me passive-aggressive, even a liar. Of course I lie when it’s necessary to keep things going my way, to make sure people are drawn to me and accept me as being like them. Lying is a critical skill, but I never lie to myself. A few white lies wouldn’t have hurt Lisa. Most people don’t want to know the specifics of every single opinion you hold.

  “He said women like me need a dose of reality.”

  “For what?”

  “He’s tired of me acting so superior, as if I’m smarter than him. He’s sick of hearing about my political ambitions. I’m arrogant for carrying a double major and aiming for law school. He thinks I have an agenda to emasculate men. Funny. What hit me was that he even knows what emasculate means.” She laughed with a bitter sound.

  “And he thought shoving his prick in your face was the solution?”

  “It’s so much worse.” She took several sips of wine. She pulled the bottle out of the chiller and added more wine to her glass.

  The sun had moved lower in the sky and was shining directly onto the balcony. Even with my sunglasses, it seared my eyes. I turned my chair so it was behind me. Lisa did the same. I scooped some dip onto a potato chip and ate it, followed by three more.

  “When we got to his car, he tied a plastic strap around my wrists. He had it all ready to go in the glove box. That’s when I threw up. He shoved me in the car and tied a rag around my head to cover my eyes. We drove around in silence for about twenty minutes. When he stopped the car and took the rag off my face, we were parked in front of a pink house with a yard full of weeds and windows that were missing all the screens. Instead, there were bars covering the windows. Flies were swarming around the front porch as if they were waiting for their next meal.”

  I felt queasy, knowing her story was going to turn ugly. I ate a few chips without dip to settle my stomach. I finished my wine and refilled my glass.

  “It was a brothel of some kind. He knows someone involved with it, although it wasn’t clear how. I’m pretty sure it’s a human trafficking situation. The women looked scared and not very healthy. Their skin had this stiff quality, and a grayish color. They were so young. About ten of them were sitting in the living room. Four were smoking a joint. They weren’t wearing anything but thongs and bras.”

  She paused for a sip of wine. I joined her. I nudged the chips toward her but she ignored them.

  “I…he…” She drank more wine and put down her glass. She leaned forward. “It’s so strange. I feel ashamed. I don’t want to tell you what happened. But why do I feel ashamed? I didn’t do a damn thing. He’s a fucking pervert.”

  I waited.

  Without sitting up, her voice even lower than before, she told me.

  While the women watched, their eyes glazed with boredom, Tom tore her shirt. He didn’t bother to remove the plastic straps from her wrists. He unhooked her bra and slid it down to her wrists. He took off her shoes and pants and made her stand naked at the edge of the living room. Then he walked around her and commented about the shape of her ass — too soft and kind of droopy. Her breasts weren’t symmetrical… If she looked like that now, he couldn’t imagine what she’d look like in ten years. He poked her breasts and then told her to take a good look at the women in the living room.

  He sat down on a couch between two women and put an arm around each one. They giggled and leaned into him. They slid their hands behind the waist of his jeans. He stared at Lisa, half smiling. He said women were put on the earth to please men. She should read her Bible, or any religious book that fit her inclinations, and wake up to the reality of the world. He said it was BS for women to think they could be attorneys or run for office. The whole reason the world is so screwed up now is because of women taking men’s jobs away from them, government quotas that force businesses to hire women. She needed to stop spending so much time studying, and put some of that effort into getting her body in shape, making herself more sexy like the girls sitting in that room. Then she might get a man and then she’d have something worthwhile to contribute to the planet.

  Lisa paused for a few minutes. Then she told me about him covering her eyes again and driving her around, half undressed, until two or three in the morning, ranting about everything wrong with the world the whole time. Most of his rants were about how men were being marginalized.

  We finished the bottle of wine and opened a second one. I listened while she continued talking, circling back to the beginning of the story, relating more details each time.

  I ordered a pizza and we ate it in our bedroom in case Tom or Dianne, or both, came home. We drank wine and Lisa talked. After a while she stopped talking. She sat with her back against the wall, sipping wine. She closed her eyes. I stripped the bed, went down to the laundry room, and threw the sheets in the washing machine. When they were dry and fresh smelling, I made the bed. Lisa curled up in the bed Randy and I usually shared. I pulled the blankets over her and turned out the lights. I sat on the floor with my knees bent, thinking. Someone needed to be punished.

  26

  Aptos

  Like most office workers do when they first arrive at their desks in the morning, I was surfing the web. I’d checked my email and nothing screamed for immediate attention, so I skimmed Twitter, scrolling through the massive string of commentary posted since I’d last visited. I looked at what was trending, and then glanced through Tess’s feed to see what she was up to. I hadn’t found Twitter accounts for Noreen or Jared, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. You have to know exactly what you’re looking for, and people who avoid using their legal names are impossible to locate.

  I don’t tweet often, I don’t need that kind of visibility, but I have a profile, more than one, actually. Every few weeks I send out something innocuous about my latte being too hot or the horrible traffic backup, without revealing city or street information. I could be anywhere in the world, stuck in traffic. Everyone can relate, and I usually get a few likes. The feeling of being trapped, unable to move the vehicle forward and unable to leave the vehicle stirs up a universal emotional reaction to being trapped. The updates I send
are enough so the Twitter police don’t kick me off the platform. I’m not sure if they actually kick people off for not tweeting, but I’ve heard it’s a possibility.

  I like to see what the world has to say, not just the experts and people in power and people with faces everyone knows. Twitter gives me the pulse of the world. Or at least a certain part of the world, the part that feels the need to make their thoughts and opinions and breakfast food public. Even if no one is tweeting back and all you hear is an echo of your own voice.

  It’s an efficient way to get the news. The stories that float to the top reflect what people are saying in the hallways or in bars. Twitter provides an automatic filter for stuff that won’t be useful in casual conversations. A person who has a daily intake of Twitter news is considered well-informed, even if that information comes at the cost of a sound-bite view of the world, at the cost of being subjected to unwanted ranting, from the ugly, angry, bigoted, misogynistic, hysterical fringes. Sometimes I wonder if they’re not the fringes, if they’re actually the core of the human race, but I prefer to think it’s the former.

  Tess knocked on my door, catching my eye through the glass panel in the center. She was already pressing down on the handle with her other hand, opening the door while she knocked. I dragged my mouse to the corner of the screen and put the computer to sleep.

  She closed the door and sat in the chair facing my desk. Normally, I’m sitting in her much larger office in the supplicant chair facing her desk. She looked small, even in the somewhat insubstantial metal frame chair with its ultra thin seat cushion and back. The red fabric is supposed to echo the splashes of red in the corporate artwork to make the offices bright, and stir up subliminal energy and enthusiasm in the employees.

 

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