“Really?” I ask.
“They destroyed my car in the garage,” he says hesitantly.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “You loved to take Laura to work on that Corvette, didn’t you?”
“Well, someone had to do that.”
I open my mouth to respond, but Phill says first, “It looks like your wounds are worse, Jimmy.” He stops stroking his wife, who avoids looking at me.
“Yeah, but I'll probably be fine for the festival our dear Robert will hold.”
“Just be careful not to have any unforeseen events again,” Susan says, glancing at me.
“We're all subject to contingencies, Susan. Believe me, the worst shit happens when people least expect it.”
My presence seems to make Susan really uncomfortable. Sometimes she looks at me, but quickly looks away and holds Phill's hand. Surely she must be thinking about what it'd be like to fuck me. I may be running the risk of sounding like Polasky, but women like Susan are crazy to run away from their monotonous marriages and have fun with a different man. And this man could be me, right? Just saying.
Of course, anything I did to another woman now would be nothing more than a carnal pastime. In seven months my wife will give birth to a child and I don’t intend to leave the child this time, even if it was for another woman.
Everything I do will be strictly carnal.
Phill runs with Samuel to the parked car saying he needs to check the engine. Laura goes with Robert and the kids to the garage, saying that soon we will leave. Susan goes up to the bathroom and I say that I need to get my wallet in the bedroom. Laura tells me to be quick.
The bathroom door is open and I can see Susan touching up the makeup in the mirror. I push the door slowly and she turns to me, startled, her chest moving very fast under the black shirt. I kiss Susan and grab her waist. She pulls her face away, but I pull it again and squeeze my body harder against hers. She struggles, tries to pull away with her hands and turns away, but I'm stronger than she is. My hand runs down her rib, grabs her left breast and I squeeze it. She’s without a bra and I can feel her nipple hard, same state as my cock is now. I unbutton the four buttons from above Susan's shirt, displaying her breasts.
“Stop,” she says into my ear. “Stop with that, please.”
My hand grabs the middle of Susan's legs and she lets out a low moan. I kiss her again, this time around the neck. She fights, tries to set her free, and I caress her breasts. Susan then sits down in the sink and her legs crisscross my waist. I open her pants, running my hand through her panties.
“Jimmy,” she whispers, running her hand over my face.
And now it’s she who kisses me, guiding my hand through her panties, my fingers in the midst of her pubic hair. With my other hand, I continue stroking her breast, carefully nipping her nipple and listening to her moan. Just a carnal pastime, my friend. Just a carnal pastime.
I pull Susan's pants down to her ankle and she insists on lowering her panties to half her thighs. She smiles at me and I kiss her, opening the zipper of my pants. And when Susan's panties get to her knees and she lifts her legs, ready to get it all out, I hear Peter's voice calling me downstairs, “Dad?”
The excitement of the moment is cut with a knife-strike. Susan hugs me, panting, and I touch her thighs.
“Yes?”
"Laura wants you to come quickly. Robert called Abby's parents and we're leaving.”
“I'm on my way, son.”
Susan let me go, and then we both look embarrassed sideways. Without saying anything, I leave the bathroom while zippering my pants and wiping my face. Inside, Susan begins to pack up in a hurry. By now she must have noticed what she was about to do, and the regret must surely be beginning to attack her. Susan is not one of those women, though. Who was about to have sex with me in the bathroom sink was another Susan, a side of her who begs for something more fun than lying next to Phill while he eats and watches TV shows.
Robert is at the wheel in Laura's car, who’s sitting in the back seat. I sit next to her and my wife holds my hand that was just inside Susan's panties a few minutes ago.
*
Abby's parents take a moment to open the door after we ring the doorbell. Robert prepares to ring it again when the door finally opens and two worn-out people appear. The man, with thin blond hair that begins to turn gray, wraps his arms around the shoulder of a dark-haired woman with deep dark circles bellow her eyes and lips all bruised. She probably spends her nights without sleeping, biting her lips nervously and thinking of the little girl she loved so much and who she raised. The little girl she put to sleep every night, told stories and hugged in the raining days. The little girl she saw growing up and who, deep down, she has lost her faith of finding.
They lead us into the living room where the adults sit and the kids stand. Abby's father sits in an armchair while her mother offers us tea. When she comes back with a teapot and a few cups, only Laura accept. Abby's mother sits on the arm of the armchair and the father puts his arm around her waist.
Robert introduces us.
“My name is John Sullivan,” the father says. “And this is my wife, Emma. We are so grateful for what you guys are doing for our daughter, since the police seem to be completely useless. All they do is come here from time to time and ask some stupid questions, but they never bring any answers.”
“I still don’t understand how this happened to Abby," Emma says. “What kind of person would do something to her? For God’s sake, Abby was an exemplary girl, everyone liked her. You know, I pray every day asking God to keep my daughter well wherever she is, but after a month ... well, even your faith is put on the table. And I wish things weren’t like that, but ...” Emma sighs. “Abby still has so much to live. So much to conquer. She has friends waiting for her, her boyfriend ... It's hard to imagine that she can be deprived of it all without doing anything. Where’s justice now?”
“Sometimes it's not about justice,” I tell her. “Sometimes bad things happen and sometimes good people do these bad things against other good people simply because they have no other choice. We can’t say anything before we know what really happened to your daughter.”
As if you didn’t know.
“Did you know my daughter, Mr. Gibson?”
“I didn’t.”
Liar.
“If you knew her, you'd understand what I'm talking about. No matter the reasons of the person who took my daughter, nothing, and I said nothing, justifies this. Crimes simply can’t be justified, Mr. Gibson, especially when they involve innocents. There are always choices, and to harm a mere little girl can never be justified.”
I put some tea in the cup and take it to my mouth.
“I understand why you're nervous, Mrs. Sullivan, but try to see my point. Nobody has any idea of what happened to Abby and we can’t just assume the worst and say, may God protect us, that some psycho did something bad to her. We need to think about all the points and consider all the hypotheses if we wanna get somewhere, including the possibility that someone has been, I don’t know, induced to do something he didn’t like. I've heard of such cases before and —"
“It’s you who must see my point, Mr. Gibson. I don’t believe in this thing of being induced to do something, and I swear to God that if I find out who took my daughter from me, I'll do it myself, if you know what I mean. I carried Abby in my womb for nine months, took care of her and spent entire nights with her when she got sick. I taught her to ride a bike, I stayed with her in the school until she got used to it and I comforted her every time she was afraid of something. I loved my daughter more than I loved my own life, and whoever took her from me will pay for it. And if it doesn’t happen by the hands of men, be sure it will happen by God's hands.”
“You're totally right, but—"
“Jimmy,” Laura whispers. “Will you please shut up?”
Emma is starting to cry and John comforts her, running his hand down her back. I look embarrassed sideways, until I find a wall with a pi
cture of smiling Abby dressed in an space suit. I remember when I hit that little smiley face. I remember the way she looked at me. I remember the way she bled. May God forgive me, but I remember every detail.
As soon as Emma calms down, Robert asks if we can check Abby's room, and they agree.
We climb the stairs, Laura holding my hand tightly and my heart pounding now.
“Watch your mouth,” she warns me.
We stop outside Abby's door, where there’s a sign written “Humans are not allowed,” with the design of a flying saucer on top. John turns the key on the knob, and the sweet smell that comes to me is familiar enough to make my stomach turn; the same smell I felt on Abby's neck as I penetrated her and begged for forgiveness.
Abby's bedroom looks the same as any other geek girl's bedroom should look. Pink wallpaper with rocket prints, movie posters on the walls and various books scattered through desk, shelf and floor. Authors like Kafka, Phillip K. Dick and Charles Dickens. Trophies and medals adorn their own bookshelves, all won by her since she was only six years old. She also has action figures, robot projects and half-painted drawings, in which she signs her real name: Abigail Sullivan. Above the computer desk, there’s a mural with several photos of Abby with her family, friends and boyfriend. In all of them she seems happy, a girl who possessed everything anyone could have. Maybe, and just maybe, a leaked video of Laura masturbating and the guilt coming over me wasn’t such a high price to pay for this girl's life.
Mandy sits with Peter in front of the computer and turns it on. She’s able to enter it by typing Abby's boyfriend's name when the password is required and then she goes to check the girl's history and her personal files. Behind them, Samuel watches silently.
Phill and Susan (who tries to act with the utmost naturalness next to me) find the girl's diary and sit on the edge of the bed to read it. Robert talks to Abby's parents at the door and tries to comfort them. Laura and I take a look at the closet, where Abby's sweet scent is stronger.
“Laura?”
She touches a gray blouse.
“Yes?”
“What do you think that happened to this girl? Honestly.”
She sighs in exasperation and folds her arms around my neck.
“Are you really worried about her, Jimmy? Look, that’s really a surprise.”
I touch Laura's waist.
“What do you think that happened to her?”
Laura responds in a low tone, “Jimmy, Abby was ... I mean, she is a very pretty girl, and you know how the world is. Maybe some mad man made her do things and then, I don’t know, got rid of her. These things happen all the time. Unfortunately, they do.”
“That's disturbing me.”
She kisses me.
Back in the room, Laura joins Robert to talk to Abby's parents. Susan and Phill now reviews the girl's books and notebooks with expressions of disappointment. I stand beside Samuel, watching as Mandy checks Abby's conversations on the computer.
“Did you find something?” I ask.
“No big deal,” Mandy says. “I mean, there's a lot of guys in here saying she's beautiful and everything, you know, the kind of thing stupid guys do thinking girls like that, but nothing that could make anyone suspicious. There’s a big problem with the disappearance of women: we always assume that some man was responsible and almost all men are the same, always sending the same stupid messages and acting in the same way. So it's hard to blame someone without a concrete clue.”
We stay for a few more minutes in Abby's room until we finally decide that there’s nothing here that could help us. Robert apologizes to the girl's parents as he runs his hand down Laura's back.
“We are so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, but we promise that we will continue to look for clues. And in a few weeks there'll be a festival in which we will gather dozens, perhaps hundreds of people to look for Abby around the city. The Abby Festival will be a landmark for Desert Rock.”
Of course, the "Abby Festival".
XVII
As the days go by, my wounds are no longer large marks on my face and become just reddish spots. My arms bruised by Polasky's chains also begin to present a better state, although I'll probably have to live with the scars for the rest of my life. That's the price you pay for killing a rapist and preventing him from raping a lot of other women, after all. In order to try to recover even more of my normal appearance for the Abby Festival, I shave my beard on the morning of the event.
I look at myself in the mirror as the razor goes doing its job and removing the excess of hair, revealing that conservative face with which I have lived for a long time. Then I move the razor with the face covered by the shaving cream until my skin is smooth and the almost healed wounds around my mouth are visible.
Steve hasn’t contacted me for weeks and I didn’t play Total Life to find him. In fact, you might even say that my life has taken a good turn. Laura and I argue, but discussions almost always end in sex. For the first time, we are fucking like two teenagers instead of a couple who’s been married for a few years now - and anyone who has been married for a few years knows very well the difference between these two types of sex. Peter and I don’t have the best relationship ever, but sometimes we talk, and I took him to watch a baseball game with me and Laura. It’s been a long time since I had the feeling of having a real family for the last time. And that feeling became even greater as Peter smiled at me during the match, smiled in a way he hadn’t since he was a child.
And if you're worried about the festival and the searches, I don’t think anyone will be able to find Abby's body, not after I buried it outside that abandoned warehouse.
Even when Peter tells me about the whole structure of the event, I still can keep calm.
“More than five hundred people have confirmed their presence,” Peter says, sitting at the counter with his phone in his hand. “This is much more than we expected, but we still worked hard to divide the groups that will do the searches. We'll have at least one group for each neighborhood, all designated within the support group. The case drew even the attention of TV stations that will be in the square to cover the event. They also set up a stage where we're gonna play in honor of Abby before the groups separate.”
I shrug and sit next to him.
“That's good.”
Laura arrives in the kitchen with her purse on her shoulder, wraps her arms around me and kisses me.
“That's not good, that's great,” she says. “It shows that people aren’t a complete bag of shit, after all. There are still some able to do the right thing.”
I caress her hands on my chest.
“You're right, my dear.”
We left the house at nine in the morning, one hour before the festival began. Several cars are already heading towards the town square, while other people walk with ABBY written on headbands and glitter-decorated signs that say ABBY TO THE END. Police also start patrolling, probably annoyed by the population deciding to do a job that they failed miserably. And what could they do, considering that they were unknowingly facing a force far greater than they could ever imagine?
There are already hundreds of people scattered across the main square and a screen on the stage shows pictures of Abby. The instruments are being set up and reporters spread out with their cameras among the people. In front of the stage, there are bars that separate it from the rest of the public and policemen who guard the place. We drive around the square and park behind the stage, next to Phill's car.
Phill and Susan are next to the metal ladder that goes up to the stage. Peter climbs it up quickly to help his friends arrange the instruments, completely forgetting me and Laura.
“That's crazy, isn’t it?” Phil asks, looking at the square. More signs come out in honor of Abby. “Looks like people really got concerned about this little girl's case. Just imagine if they pick up the kidnapper? The bastard would be burned alive.”
“And they'd be right,” Susan says. “People are tired of people who commit heinous crime
s and aren’t punished. It would be no surprise if they killed the person who did it.”
“Then they wouldn’t be much different from that person,” I tell them.
“Don’t play the moral guy now, Jimmy,” Laura says. “That doesn’t suit you.”
“I'm just saying.”
We walk around the square a bit, until we find Robert talking to the mayor and his wife. He invites us to join the conversation, introducing Laura with a hand on her shoulder that doesn’t help me to create much sympathy with him.
“Laura and I work together,” he tells the mayor. “She’s surely one of the smartest women I've ever met.” Then he point at me. “And this is James, her husband. He used to work at a company but was fired after fighting with his boss. The guy beat the shit outta little Jimmy.”
Robert laughs at his own joke, but the mayor and his wife open mere smirks. For a moment, I wanna have a chain in my arms to break Robert's plump neck the way I did with Polasky. Or I wish he was trapped in an abandoned warehouse, where I could torture him without any remorse. That's basically what all the Roberts out there deserve.
More and more people are gathering in the square until it is crowded and the voices shouting Abby's name becomes a thunder in the midst of a storm of people, all of them holding up signs and wearing headbands on their heads. Others wear t-shirts with the smiling face of Abby. And while I watch all this, a voice inside my mind doesn’t shut up.
Murderer.
I see Abby's parents standing by the stage talking to the mayor.
Rapist.
I touch the gun in my holster and I imagine it would be fair if I blew my own brains out.
Coward.
The voices are getting louder and louder, screams and chants and homage to Abby everywhere. People seeking justice, begging for the innocent little girl to be found.
You cunt.
“Dad?”
It's Peter with his guitar in his hands.
Assassin.
“Is the show going to start?”
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