Deaths of Jocasta (30 page)

“‘Even if’?” I interjected.

“When she is found innocent, she will still have this thing hanging over her. Her reputation as a doctor is probably shot to hell. ‘Okay’? Yeah, as much as one can be under the circumstances,” Danny said, her voice becoming raspy and hoarse as she finished.

“No more questions, Danno. Get some rest. If there’s anything I can do…”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know. I’ll tell Cordelia you asked about her. She needs her friends now. ‘Night, Mick.”

“Good night. Say hi to Elly for me.”

I heard her click off. I gently replaced the receiver.

I waited another hour, hoping Joanne would call, but she didn’t. I hoped she was with Alex. I should have asked Alex to call me, too. But the “other woman” doesn’t have such privileges, I supposed. Stop, I told myself. Alex would call you. Joanne might have tried to call me while I was on the phone with Danny, given up, and gone home to bed. I went to take a shower. I needed one after today, maybe it would relax me enough to fall asleep. I let myself take a long, cooling shower.

When I went back into my big room, Joanne was there, sitting at my desk, drinking bourbon.

“Joanne?” I said, not sure if I was surprised more by her late appearance or her drinking. Both were disconcerting.

“Hi, Mick. Do you know what burned flesh smells like?”

“Uh…not really.”

“Some punks lit an old wino on fire. He lived for a couple of hours afterward. That’s what I spent my day doing. Can you think of a better way to spend a day?”

“Joanne, Alex is worried about you,” I said.

“Oh, she is? So? I’m fine, just fine.”

“She asked me to call her.”

“It’s late. She’s probably asleep. She sleeps regular hours.”

“She sounded pretty worried.”

Joanne shrugged, but didn’t reply. Instead she reached over and picked up my phone, then dialed a number. Alex’s, I assumed.

“Alex? Joanne. I’m with Micky. I’m fine, so don’t worry about me. I was going to have dinner with you tonight to tell you Micky and I are fucking, but I guess you know that by now.”

“Joanne!” I cut in.

“You did test negative, didn’t you, Micky? Alex wants to know, but she’s too polite to ask,” she said, not bothering to cover the receiver.

“Goddamn it, Joanne!” I burst out angrily. Then I grabbed for the receiver, but she kept it away from me.

“Well, did you?” Joanne taunted me.

“Yes. I did,” I answered, realizing that she was deliberately provoking me. I stood back, letting her have the phone. “Don’t worry, she’s drunk, Alex,” I said loudly.

“And getting drunker,” Joanne said. “But you’ve fucked drunks before, haven’t you? I’m just another one.”

“Joanne.”

She held the receiver out to me.

“Come on, you and Alex can compare notes.”

Warily, I took a step toward her to the phone. She calmly handed it to me.

“Alex?”

“Micky? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m…”

Joanne pulled the towel off me and started sucking one of my nipples.

“I’m okay,” I finished, trying to push her away, but she put her arms around me and held on tightly. Fine, I decided, having my tits sucked had never done me any harm.

“Is she really drinking?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It’s okay, I can handle it,” I added with more assurance than I felt.

“Call me in the morning,” Alex responded.

Joanne put her hand between my legs, causing me to grunt. I needed both hands and I needed to get off the phone.

“I have to go, Alex. She’ll be okay,” I said.

“Micky? Tell Joanne that I love her.”

“I will.”

Alex hung up. I tossed the receiver in the direction of the phone, then grasped Joanne by her shoulders and pushed her away from me.

“Hey, Mick, shouldn’t have given me your key if you didn’t want it.” She shrugged, but didn’t fight. She sat back down and took another swig out of the bourbon bottle.

“Alex says she loves you.”

“Who gives a fuck!” Joanne exploded, slamming down the bottle. “She doesn’t know what love is.” She took another angry swallow of bourbon.

“Neither do you, it seems,” I shot back at her.

“Maybe not. Maybe I don’t,” she said softly. She stared fixedly at her hands for a moment. “We’ll never catch them. They poured a bottle of rotgut over him and then threw a match. Random violence. Too random to catch. Unless we get real lucky. Random luck to catch random violence.”

She paused and took another swallow. I was letting her drink, hoping she would pass out, or at least get drunk enough to be quietly led off to bed.

After a few minutes of silence, I said, “Come on, Joanne, let’s get some sleep. We both need it.”

She shook her head slowly. “Can’t sleep,” she replied. “I’ll dream of burned old men and bleeding young women. Did you see her?”

“Who?” I asked, confused.

“From the empty lot. The young…can you call a fifteen-year-old a woman? Can you call someone who slowly bled to death from a botched abortion a girl?”

“No, I didn’t see her.”

“Good. Good for you. Keep her face out of your dreams. The young and the old. That’s who we kill these days. Old men while they sleep and young girls who are desperate. It’s a world gone mad. Fucking mad,” she added savagely.

“It seems that way,” I commented uselessly.

“‘Seems’? They’re dead, aren’t they? I saw their bodies at the morgue. They didn’t ‘seem’ dead to me,” she shouted angrily.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.” I could think of nothing that would defuse Joanne’s fury.

“Don’t say anything,” she retorted. “That’s not what I came here for. If I wanted to talk, I’d be with Alex.”

“Then why are you here? Just to yell at me?”

“To fuck you,” Joanne said bluntly. “To get drunk, have sex, and forget what I saw at the morgue today. Do you want to fuck?”

“Joanne…”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No, you can stay,” I answered.

She got up and came to me, then kissed me, a heavy, wet kiss. I could taste the sharp bite of bourbon on her tongue and lips.

Why not? I suddenly thought. Why not get drunk every once in a while? When bodies, or memories, piled up and needed to be pushed aside for a few hours?

I savored the forbidden bourbon I found in her mouth, thrusting my tongue deeply inside to find the hard taste of it.

Her hand ran down the length of my body, going directly between my legs. I gasped as a finger entered me. She had to work it in, since I wasn’t very wet. I shifted slightly to open my legs more to ease her way in.

“I didn’t think you would say no,” Joanne muttered in my ear.

“It’s cooler in the bedroom,” I said, trying to ignore the harshness in her tone.

“By all means, let’s be comfortable,” she answered, sarcastically, pulling her finger out. She led the way to my bedroom.

Joanne took off her jacket, throwing it carelessly across a chair, then hastily finished undressing, throwing the rest of her clothes on the chair with her jacket.

“Lie down,” she ordered.

I got in bed. She stood, watching me, then swung a leg over me, sitting astride my stomach.

“I haven’t taken a shower. I probably stink. I hope you don’t mind,” she said, looking down at me.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I demanded, suddenly angry. “Do you want to do this or not?”

“My problem? A fifteen-year-old girl was drugged and spent yesterday slowly bleeding to death. Why should that be a problem?” she yelled savagely.

“What’s that got to do with us?” I yelled back.

“Nothing. You’re right. Not a fucking thing. Do you want to do this? Yes or no?”

She moved down on me until her crotch was over mine, then she pushed into me. She bent over and kissed a nipple, still slowly rubbing her groin into mine.

“Yes or no?” she repeated, blowing on the wet spot her mouth had left, making my nipple almost painfully erect.

“Yes,” I said finally.

She straightened up and stopped moving.

“Typical Micky Knight. Rub her cunt a little bit and she’ll do anything,” Joanne said callously.

“Goddamn it, Joanne!” I exploded, furious at her. I tried to sit up, but she easily pushed me back down. Then I abruptly twisted, trying to roll over and get her off me. But she went with me, letting me get all the way over until I was on my stomach, then she put her weight back down, pinning me under her.

“What did I do to deserve this from you?”

“Nothing. What does anyone do to deserve what they end up with? What did that wino do to deserve to be made into a human torch? What did that girl do to deserve to have her uterus shredded?”

“That doesn’t give you the right—”

“You said yes, didn’t you?” she cut me off. “You wanted to be fucked, didn’t you?” Her knee forced itself between my thighs. “Don’t say yes if you don’t mean it.”

“No wonder Alex is afraid of you,” I taunted her. “What’s the matter, can’t you get it any other way? Don’t think you’re some tough butch, you don’t hold a candle to some of the women I’ve slept with.” I was angry, trying to hurt her, to get her back.

“It’s hard to compete with the number of women you’ve slept with. They sell road maps of your cunt, so many women have been there.”

“Goddamn it, bitch, you want to fight…” I shouted, thrusting up, trying to dislodge her. She grabbed one of my arms from under me, and shoved her weight against my shoulders, roughly forcing me back down. Still holding my arm, she twisted it behind my back.

“We’ll fight,” she finished.

I was clearly defeated, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I strained with the arm she had pinned, trying, with brute strength, to get it free. I struggled under her, bucking and twisting. But I didn’t have the leverage or the power. She slowly pushed my arm toward my head.

“Joanne, you’re hurting me,” I said, finally forced to stop fighting.

“Bitch, huh?” she said. “Come on, Mick, let’s be friends. Spread your legs.”

“No,” I retorted.

She had already forced one knee between my legs, now the other one pressed on the inside of my thigh, catching the muscle, until I had to move it away to escape the pain. She had my legs open. A finger went up me, another one started stroking my clit.

Somehow the pleasure made me struggle more than the pain. I didn’t want the two linked. I finally stopped, realizing that my fighting only made her fight back. She had forced my arm almost to my neck and it hurt. She released a bit of the pressure when I stopped struggling.

I lay still, rigid, as her fingers moved in me, trying to feel as little as possible. I knew that somewhere there was a Joanne who would be appalled at what she was doing.

“Joanne, please stop,” I stated calmly, matter-of-factly. “You’re hurting me.”

“Don’t fight,” she answered, “and I won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t mean physically. I don’t care about that. I’d prefer you break my arm than for you to use me like this.” I tensed my twisted arm, straining against her. “Go ahead, break it. Just don’t rape me.”

Suddenly my arm was free. Joanne rolled off me to the far side of the bed. She had curled up, her back to me. I reached for her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She jerked away from my touch.

“Joanne?”

She abruptly sat up, her back still to me.

“I’m sorry, Micky…I’ve got to go.” She stood up, reaching for her clothes.

“Joanne, don’t go.” She was crying.

“No…I don’t know what…” She was fumbling with her clothes, trying to ignore the tears.

I rolled over to her side of the bed, then sat up. I reached out my hand to her.

“Joanne, I’m okay. Please don’t go,” I said. I never thought I’d see Joanne Ranson break like this.

She looked at me, at my outstretched hand. For a moment, she didn’t move, almost as if giving me time to reconsider, to reclaim my hand. I held it stretched out to her. Tentatively she reached out and grasped my hand.

“Don’t go,” I repeated.

She nodded, then slowly sat down on the bed, still keeping a distance between us. She sat still, silently staring ahead, occasionally wiping tears away with her free hand.

“I’m sorry,” she finally spoke. “I didn’t mean what I said. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I know,” I replied.

“Do you?” She looked at me. “I hope to hell you do.” She moved next to me and put her arms around me. “I hope to hell you do,” she repeated, then laid her head against my shoulder. I felt her tears drip down my breast and fall onto my thigh. I held her, letting her cry.

“Oh, God, Micky, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m sorry for what I said.”

“I know you’re okay. I know that,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I wish to hell I hadn’t.” She kissed me, her lips wet and salty from her tears. “I do care about you.”