"It doesn't... ooh..."
He was moving inside her again but only enough to keep her there but not over there. It was torture of the most delicious kind.
"How," he thrust slowly, "was he," again, "intimate with you?"
"Oh... Wyatt... please."
"How?"
"My hair," she finally shrieked. "He discovered my hair thing! Oh Godd..."
"Your hair thing?"
"Please..."
"What about your hair?" He felt her insides quivering, he once again stopped, left her hanging.
"I have an exaggerated grooming response," she squawked, "it puts me out. Wyatt!"
Well well well. Something that put his little angel out. But she was not going to be out now, nosiree.
Wyatt loved his wife until she released so violently she writhed in his arms, as he too detonated within her. He waited a bit but then he started experimenting. He stroked her hair. He ran his fingers through it. And he could see the effect what he was doing was having on her, Angelique was gurgling, she seemed helpless, her eyes glassed over, her entire body relaxed almost to the point of immobility. And then she was asleep.
Yes, he understood now. Robert had caressed her hair, riveting her, probably then kissed her, mistaking her response for rapture, captivation. But you can't get much further than that with a virtually stuporous woman. How frustrating it must have been for him, so near to her, controlling her, then... nothing. Out like a light, foiled every time. Wyatt smiled. It was, he realized, a tool. How-do-you-control-an-ornery-angel? Wyatt Cochran knew what the punch line was.
"Oh baby," he whispered at her sleeping form, "I so own you."
Chapter Nine
Lexa did everything the monster demanded. She made his video. It consisted of the two of them on a large chaise lounge outdoors by his pool, smiling, festive drinks at their side. Donald filmed it. Malcolm had his arm around her in it, his hand on her back holding a Taser to her spinal cord. The gold ankle bracelet she wore glinting in the sun was actually chaining her to the lounge. He'd given the bikini to her, what there was of it. Altogether he'd made her watch three other women do the same video and she'd been right --the little actress that had disappeared had been one of them.
She wore the costumes he gave her no matter how demeaning they were. She recited the lines like she meant them, the words he told her to say all a betrayal of her own humanity, her own right to personhood. She enacted the endless permutations of fantasies. But for her what was real was her screams with the pain he inflicted --choking, electrical, ropes, gags. And when he left she would walk, sometimes crawl, to the shower, turn it on and curl up into a little fetal ball on its floor for hours waiting for the horror to pass into unconsciousness. Sometimes when he left and she was coughing up blood Margret would enter and tend to the housekeeping. Lexa abandoned her feeble attempts to get Margret to help her. Days slipped past without dimension and in each one Lexa's hands trembled worse than the day before.
*****
"Yes, Wyatt, the work is proceeding splendidly. Mr. Johnson has paid our overdue bills and we are well on our way back to self-sufficiency thanks to you and Angelique." Mother Superior Rosemond glanced to the table and wondered if she really should leave. It probably was the only way. "I will give you both some privacy," she said exiting the room, the same room in the convent Wyatt had had his first meeting with her in.
"Thank you for coming, Wyatt. Please --can you tell me how Angelique is?" Father Wadzniak, seated across from Wyatt at the table, asked.
"I am not here to discuss my wife with you. I am here because you said it was the only way you would give me the Church's archived material I want," Wyatt responded irritated that the priest had called him by his first name.
Father Wadzniak was a squat muscular man with strong white teeth, blotchy skin and bland red rimmed eyes. His voice was thick, caramel, making no concessions for his past or his actions indeed almost defiantly pompous. He was a man who firmly believed he had the answers who never gave off the impression there was any possibility otherwise.
"True. But what harm would it do to humor an old priest?" he asked dryly.
"When it comes to harming Angelique, you're the one who would know."
"I have paid my penance, Wyatt."
"You locked a child in a root cellar. A child! If it were up to me you would be in prison to this day Father."
"Do not impugn my motives Wyatt, at the time I thought I was saving her but that is not something you could understand. Just tell me. Is she well? I have not seen her in years, not since the court hearing where she got that abominable order. Stay away from her! And leave her to whatever would come her way. That's what they made me do. But there has not been a day that I have not worried about her. Indeed, giving you these archives could lead to my defrocking if Rome so had a mind. Yet for her I will do it. So please --is she all right?"
Wyatt was flabbergasted. He was not seeing regret or worry or concern --he was seeing love! The priest loved Angelique though Wyatt could not discern the nature of the love, prurient or beneficent.
"She is well and happy," Wyatt said thinking mostly because I haven't had to spank her for anything again, "and I would like to keep it that way. Now are you giving me those records or not?"
"Here," Father Wadzniak said handing Wyatt a thick envelope, "but they are written by religious scholars so I doubt you will comprehend much of it." He made his action sound magnanimous.
That's what he wants Wyatt thought in sufferance, he wants to advise me concerning Angelique, worm his way back into her life through me.
"If you have something to say helpful to Angelique's wellbeing, say it."
"I would like to see her again."
"Not a chance," Wyatt said standing up.
"All right, all right. Not see her. Would you give her a letter for me?"
"No."
"A message?"
"What message?"
"That she can always come to us. To me. We will welcome her," he said, his tone neither veneration nor acrimony.
"That would be quite a feather in your cap, wouldn't it? The answer is no, I will not even mention to her that I have seen you and if you try to contact her you will pay heavily. Goodbye." Wyatt turned and left, praying that what he held in his hand would hold the answer for keeping his earthbound angel as he had described her --well and happy though he would settle for alive and safe.
It took Wyatt and Johnson all the rest of the morning at company headquarters to read through the archives, to research and decipher the meaning.
"This is what I get out of it," Wyatt finally said to Johnson who was still reading, looking surly. "Seven recorded cases. I don't think that one in Milan was legit so I discount that one. Four, the presumed angel was killed," he tried to keep his voice from cracking, "in two the angel apparently survived. Wouldn't you say that's the size of it?"
"Yes," Johnson answered. "Though it makes no sense. In those four the Protector killed to protect the angel and yet--"
"Yes, I noticed that. There were no mentions of any killing in the two cases of survival. Of course that doesn't mean anything, it could just be coincidence. Why are you looking like that?"
"Something I was told once in Catechism class, I didn't pay much attention at the time. It was something about the battle between good and evil, that to win, good couldn't become evil. Killing --even to protect the angel-- that would be evil, wouldn't it? The Protectors who didn't kill, who were successful, they--"
A tone sounded. Wyatt pushed a button on his desk.
"Mrs. Cochran and Mr. Cochran are here for your lunch date sir," a voice said.
"I'll be right out."
Wyatt turned to Johnson.
"Whatever it takes, we keep her safe."
"Whether she likes it or not?"
"Whatever it takes. I want her happy but first I want her alive." He opened his office door and greeted Angelique and George.
"So... lunch. Where to?"
"I
know a place but I gotta stop back at the floor for a moment, one of the guys is having a meltdown," George said. "The guy from Stanford."
"Gas Wind himself, eh? Why is it always the guy from Stanford?"
"It's not. Last time it was the guy from Harvard. Before that, the guy from Princeton. It's never the guy from Bebop U. They're tough." They boarded the elevator and George pushed a button.
"Why's he having a meltdown?" Angelique asked.
"We're wrestling with a problem that's stumped us now for months so we brought in this math whiz and his theorem is about to crash and burn and he is... what's the polite word?"
"Flummoxed," Wyatt said as the elevator door opened and George led them down a long carpeted hallway into a large room filled with computers, tables, papers, and large sheets of plate glass standing like sentries, all covered in written mathematical formulas.
"Yeah, I was gonna say shit-faced-pissed," George said.
A man with a gray face and a sparse whatever-was-he-thinking comb over dressed all in polyester (even his pink polka dot bow tie) was standing before one of the glass panels, marker in hand. He had a narrow torso perched precariously on two short thin legs, sharp features, and quite an irascible look on his face. He turned to them, his eyes immediately snapping on Angelique.
"I thought my work was in a restricted area," he carped looking at the rich man's eye candy.
"My wife is an owner, Mr. Smythe," Wyatt shot back, in no mood for Gas Wind's crankiness. Angelique's eyes jerked up. She was?
Gas Wind, or rather Mr. Smythe, returned to his mathematics; he was not a man who could handle adversity. And unfortunately for him his theorem had become not just adversarial but downright hostile. He changed tack.
"I think we'll need to bring in a third layer here," he said pointing to some numbers scribbled on the glass panel no doubt from the bright yellow marker held in his hand.
"You think that might solve it?" George asked.
"Possibly, we'll just have to--"
"It won't," Angelique said staring at the theorem. "It'll just kerbolix it up worse." All eyes turned to her.
She stared back at them. "Well it will," she said.
"And how," Gas Wind said sounding proud and preachy not to mention pigheaded, "would you know?"
Uh oh, Wyatt thought as he spotted the surprised and confused look on George's face as he stared at Angelique. One of her little talents was obviously about to emerge. Lord give me strength.
"Your theorem's crapola."
Gas Wind went apoplectic. "Here," he said thrusting the marker into Angelique's hand, "you try." He stepped back sneering.
And she did. As she wrote the math on the glass panel and prattled on, Wyatt caught words like "gradient theorem" and "holomorphic antiderivative" and "curve integral." George's eyes got big and round as she spoke and wrote and Gas Wind's expression changed from trying not to appear too interested to trying to look like he knew what she was talking about.
"--so you see when it's applied practically, you'd lose a teensy bit of speed, but you'd more than make up for that with the power so--"
George turned and stared at Wyatt in abject shock, obviously he had been unable to keep up with her. Wyatt simply shrugged his shoulders.
"See?" she said when she finished and turned to them, like she was expecting a word of praise that she'd correctly finished a crossword puzzle when what she'd actually done in two minutes was to solve a problem George's crack math team hadn't been able to solve in six months.
Gas Wind managed to rip his eyes from her work and look at her, desperately trying to appear intelligent.
"My dear," he said now urgently eager to prove his good manners, "where were you trained?"
Here it comes Wyatt thought.
"I read a lot."
As Wyatt ushered her away he knew he'd be spending the rest of the afternoon fielding excited phone calls from George all in the nature of what on earth?! And the answer, Yup, she's on Earth now wasn't exactly one he could give.
Get used to it he told himself. 'Cause there's probably more where that came from.
As he drove her to a restaurant she couldn't figure out how to change the channel on the car radio.
Chapter Ten
"Maureen, this is quite the little trap you've set for Angelique," Malcolm smiled thinking but incomparable to mine.
Malcolm and Maureen were having one last meeting in his office at the Performance Center before the night's big movie premier.
"Trap? Why do you say that, Malcolm?" Maureen asked with all the sham innocence she could concoct.
Malcolm threw his head back and laughed at the particularly stupid expression she was attempting.
"Tinka told you he was her former dance partner here, right? And out of all the movie premiers you could have angled for it's just coincidence you chose his?"
"This is for charity, Malcolm, it's a very big movie and he's the star. The premier and after-party will be well-attended, it will raise a lot of money for--"
"So if it's that big how did you get it on such short notice? Our charity movie premiers are usually booked months in advance. You must have pulled some real strings."
"Well... I did track down his agent, sent a message that we'd like the premier and would Robert perform one of his old dance numbers with Angelique here for it. He'll be coming back to his old haunts, it'll be like his alma mater, the Center, welcoming him home." She tried to make it sound like it meant no more to her than the most trifling of irrelevancies.
"Let me guess. He sent you a bet-your-ass-I'll-be-there answer as soon as he saw Angelique's name. There's more to it Maureen, you always have your reasons."
"Oh all right. I asked around here at the Center. It seems this Robert was pretty dotty over Angelique and there was some speculation that she liked him too. They're near the same age, similar backgrounds, they performed together for two years, were apparently quite close, and have you seen him? Fabulous. They only broke up because he went off to do his movie."
"And she got married."
Maureen scowled.
"A marriage she wasn't prepared for, Malcolm, she didn't even know it was happening. She left a lot of interrupted and unfinished business, hasn't even moved her things out of that houseboat Tinka says."
"Ingenious. You're hoping throwing Robert and Angelique back together will rekindle something, eh? And if it doesn't you can treat Wyatt to the sight of his wife dancing around in front of an audience with another man, a man who wants her? What a ruckus that'll probably start between them. Has Angelique been fool enough to agree to this?"
"I may have forgotten to mention it to her when I invited the two of them to the premier --the charity premier."
"She doesn't know she'll be publicly performing with Robert tonight? Dancing with him in front of Wyatt? With no preparation? Oh Maureen you are cold." He was almost cackling.
"What does she need preparation for? All she has to do is re-enact some old dance routine of theirs."
"It will be an interesting evening every tedious moment of I now look forward to in fervid anticipation."
"You're staying for the after-party? You never stay for late nights."
"I'll make an exception for this one. But if I'm going to do that, I'd better get home now. I've something waiting for me."
"What?"
"Oh, just a hobby of mine."
"You? You have a hobby?"
"I am a man full of surprises, Maureen. Particularly where my hobbies are concerned."
Gross she thought. Probably going home to log onto Sickosadists-Я-Us. Still, she was a bit put out he'd never approached her for his activities, not that she'd ever accept. He was her father for goodness sakes. Well, stepfather.
"Yes, I should get going myself, I have a lot of things to do to put on the finishing touches for tonight's event."
"I'm sure it will be inspired Maureen, all of it." Malcolm departed thinking it was a pity that she wasn't his type. Maureen? Heck, she'd probably
like it. And that would ruin the whole thing for him. Ah Maureen, he thought in almost affection, she was as dangerous as a pissed prostitute with a baby on her tit told to get lost --something he'd learned about the hard way.
*****
The monster appeared, not his regular time.
"Angelique's old friend Robert is having his big movie premier at the Center tonight," Malcolm said to Lexa. "So I'm afraid this will have to be a bit rushed, my apologies. I'll make up for it tomorrow. Everyone will be there tonight for him of course. I will be sure to convey your warmest regards from Paris and reassure them of your astounding success there. And now, I have something new for you. I'm quite looking forward to it."
And when he was finished with her and left to get ready for Robert's movie premier at the Performance Center, Lexa began to contemplate suicide in the peach bedroom, trying to figure out how to do it.
Lexa was broken.
*****
"Robert's a big star now," Angelique said to Wyatt that night after the movie as they moved into the Performance Center's grand ballroom for the after-party. "He won't have any time for me."
"He's here, isn't he?" Wyatt said still fulminating over that turquoise teddy.
"Oh Wyatt, you don't think he came back here to see me!" Angelique pooh-poohed Wyatt.
It was precisely what Wyatt thought and every time he looked at Angelique he thought it more. And he thought she darn well thought it too --she'd gone all out for this event.
She looked like a sex goddess.
Nothing cheap, just the opposite. Her hair was free, in long flowing curls down her back which was odd because she hadn't gone to the hairdresser. (In fact, now that he came to think of it, she never did. Was that normal? Maureen had gone every week.) And he hadn't seen any curlers or curling wand in the bathroom when she'd emerged with those extravagant curls that he'd never seen her wear before.
And she'd finally used the charge card --to buy the dress from Anthony she was wearing that looked incredible on her. He could swear too that her skin had an almost golden-ivory iridescence to it. She'd gone all out. All. Out. For Robert?
"Wyatt, Angelique, I'm glad you came," Malcolm said to them, "come, sit at my table."
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