Passion (28 page)

Freeing her hands from the sheet, she slowly sat up and shoved her hair out of her face. In the mirror across the room she
caught a glimpse of what an unappealing picture she made this morning and resolutely turned away from it. She’d had a rough
night. Hell, she’d had a rough
life.
She deserved to look it once in a while.

Leaning across to the nightstand, she opened the drawer and rummaged inside for a pack of cigarettes. Besides the cigarettes
and a red throwaway lighter, there was an odd assortment of items in the drawer. They wouldn’t mean anything to most people,
but for D.J. they held plenty of significance. There was the length of nylon rope that Rich used when he tied her to the bed.
There was the belt, brown
leather, an inch wide, that he used when he was really angry. There was the bandanna and a roll of duct tape for when he gagged
her. Sometimes he liked to hear her cries. Sometimes he liked to make her scream. And sometimes he wanted to hear nothing
from her, not even a whimper.

Those were the times, she thought as she held the lighter’s flame to the cigarette and inhaled deeply, when he pretended she
was just another object—like the rope and the belt—intended for his sexual pleasure.

Or when he pretended she was somebody else, one of her friends. Or Teryl.

He never bothered to deny his interest in Teryl. She told herself he wanted her to believe it, even though it wasn’t true,
because he was a mean son of a bitch. He understood her conflicting feelings toward Teryl better than anyone else—better,
even, than she understood them herself. Their parents thought they were the same best friends they’d been twenty years ago
when D.J. had become a part of the Weaver family. Their brothers and sisters believed it, too. Hell, even Teryl believed she’d
never had a better friend.

But Rich knew better. He knew that Teryl was everything D.J. wasn’t, that Teryl had everything she’d been denied. He knew
that her fondest dream, her most cherished fantasy, was to go back more than twenty years ago, back to a time before she’d
known the Weavers existed, before the Weavers had known Teryl existed. Then D.J. would somehow slip herself into her friend’s
place.
She
would be the Weavers’ first daughter.
She
would be the one who held a special place in their hearts.
She
would be a real Weaver instead of always being on the outside, part of the group but not a real part of the family, not a
legal part.

She
would be the one all the other kids looked up to, the one they all envied, the one they all wanted to be like. She had spent
much of her life trying to emulate Teryl, trying to make herself over into Miss Straight-A-student, Abide-by the-rules, Never-step-out-of-line,
Sweet-generous-and-kind-to-animals, A-virgin-until-she-was-twenty-one-fucking-years-old Goody-two-shoes. She had wanted to
be
Teryl… but at the same time she had felt contempt for what
Teryl was. She had hated herself for being so bad, and she’d resented Teryl for being so good. She had craved the respect,
acceptance, and love Teryl had always been given so freely, but she had wanted the sex, rebellion, and the inevitable punishment
even more.

She had been warped ever since her parents had gotten their hands on her—too warped to ever become Miss Perfect. Like perfectly
normal, perfectly average, perfectly well adjusted Teryl.

It had taken Rich about five minutes after they’d met to see and understand those things about her. It had been Teryl who’d
brought him into D.J.’s life nine long years ago. It had been Teryl he’d wanted then. Encounters with her in the class he’d
taught had made a major impression on him, but Teryl hadn’t returned his interest. D.J. had found it amusing to watch him
make a fool of himself over someone who clearly would never want him, and, when the time was right, she had offered herself
in Teryl’s place.

And so love—perverse, sick, depraved—had been born.

At least, it was the closest thing to love
she
had ever known. In nine years she had learned to hate him, to fear him, to loathe the things he did to her, the things she
begged him to do. She was miserable with him and even more miserable without him. Like an alcoholic’s craving for booze or
an addict’s hunger for drugs, she needed him—needed the sex, the disdain, the derision, the pain. The few times she had tried
to walk away, she had always come crawling back. The few times she had found some pride, some dignity, she had brought it
to him to destroy with his sharp tongue and his capable fists.

Her biggest hope was that someday she would escape this unholy, unhealthy hold he had on her.

Her biggest prayer was that someday never come.

Rising from the bed, she found her clothes on the floor where he’d thrown them and quickly got dressed. She would bring an
overnight bag with clean clothes, a toothbrush, and other toiletries if he wouldn’t mind, so she wouldn’t have to go home
in worn, wrinkled, and sometimes tattered clothing, but he wouldn’t let her. He didn’t want her to get the idea
she was welcome here. This was
his
home. He would screw her here. He would debase her here. He would hurt her here.

But he would not welcome her.

He
could live without
her.

While she would die without him.

Once her hair was combed and she looked at least presentable, she left the bedroom and went searching for him. She found him
in the kitchen, seated at the kitchen table, a bowl of cereal and the newspaper in front of him. Stopping behind his chair,
she laid her hands on his shoulders, intending to massage away the stiffness that so often settled there, but he shrugged
her away. With a suppressed sigh, she drew back. “Good morning.”

He didn’t look up from the newspaper as he responded to her greeting with a distracted grunt.

“How long have you been up?”

“A couple hours.”

“You should have awakened me. I would have fixed breakfast for you.” She wasn’t of much use in the kitchen, but she had mastered
his favorite foods—eggs over easy, canned biscuits, and cream gravy. It had been one pathetic attempt to make herself useful,
one more reason for him to keep her around.

“Cereal’s fine.”

She circled around to the closest empty chair and sat down. “Want me to make a pot of coffee?”

“No.”

For all the attention he was paying her, she might as well not even be there. Of course, that was what he wanted. When he
had no further use of her, he wanted her gone. That was the way of their sad, sick romance.

She sat there a moment, considering leaving without another word, but studied him instead. He was handsome, though it had
never been his looks that attracted her to him. She had never cared how thick and silky his hair was or what a deep, cocoa
brown his eyes were. He’d had a beard when she’d met him, but that had neither attracted nor repelled her. Neither had his
body—long and lean, sometimes, when he became absorbed in something, to the point of thinness.

No, what she had first liked about him was the fact that he’d wanted something—Teryl—that he couldn’t have. She had liked
the fact that he’d taken that desire seriously. She had liked the intensity of it.

And she had particularly liked the fact that he was a kindred spirit. Just as he had so quickly recognized the ambivalence
she felt toward Teryl, she had recognized herself in him. She didn’t know then—and still didn’t now—what had made him the
way he was. She didn’t know whether someone in his childhood had mistreated him the way her parents had mistreated her or
if it was a genetic defect or if he was just plain mean, just plain driven. For a long time, although she had never dared
ask, she had cared, just as she had cared why Teryl had turned out as good as she had and why
she
had turned out so bad.

Now she didn’t wonder, didn’t care. He was beyond saving. And so, she feared, was she.

Finishing the cereal, he dropped the spoon in the bowl with a clatter, set it aside, then pushed his glasses up on his nose.
The thick lenses made his eyes appear hazy and somewhat unfocused, but they weren’t. He saw life with a clarity that she envied.
He saw everything around him and its effect on him. He saw the problems. He saw the solutions. Unfortunately, his solutions
weren’t always the right ones. They weren’t always logical ones.

And sometimes they scared the hell out of her.

As she rose from the chair, she picked up his dishes, taking them to the sink and rinsing them. When they had first met, he’d
been as sloppy and messy as any typical young man, but lately he’d changed that. Lately he’d gotten very finicky. He might
make messes—might scatter dishes around, might spread newspapers out, or throw clothing to the floor—but he wanted them set
right as soon as possible. This old farmhouse had never been so clean as it had been the last week.

Too bad he wouldn’t come to
her
apartment and get a little finicky there.

“I guess I’d better be going,” she said, standing halfway between him and the hall door, half hoping he would say,
Nah, why don’t you stay? even though he never had before, not once in nine years.

This morning was no different.

“Should I come back this evening?”

At last he looked at her. “No. I’ll be working.”

“I won’t bother you.”

“No.”

“Come on, Rich,” she cajoled. “I’ll stay in the bedroom until you’re finished. I’ll be quiet. I won’t distract you.”

The look he gave her was cold and derisive. “You
couldn’t
distract me. You’re not smart enough, you’re not good enough, you’re not interesting enough. I’ll let you know when I want
to see you again.”

“Please, Rich…” Calling on her deepest reserves of strength, she bit off the plea. He liked to make her beg in the bedroom.
They both derived a certain pleasure from it there. Outside that room, though, it just made him angry.

It got demeaning.

“I’ll see you later,” she muttered, turning toward the door. All the way down the long hall, out the front door, and across
the porch, she hoped he would follow, hoped he would stop her, hoped he would call out, Yeah, come back tonight.

Of course he didn’t. He never did. He never would.

But she always hoped.

It felt good being home again, Teryl thought as she sat at the kitchen table, a microwaved bagel and a Diet Coke in front
of her. Sitting in her favorite chair instead of in the truck or on a lumpy bed, smelling potpourri and roses instead of must
and mildew or gasoline and exhaust, moving about freely without being constantly watched. Sleeping in her own bed, bathing
in her own bathroom, drying off with thick towels, wearing clean clothes… Those were all little luxuries she had taken for
granted, but not anymore.

The only thing that would make it better, the only thing that would make her truly comfortable, was if she were here alone.
If John wasn’t here. If he wasn’t giving her doubts
about the Simon Tremont she knew. If she were as blissfully ignorant of his claims as she’d been the last time she’d sat here
at this table.

Thanks to John, she might never wear that floral dress again. Or stay in a motel. Or speak to a strange man. She might never
venture out of Richmond again. She just might not ever venture out of her house again.

Not that staying locked up at home would keep her safe. After all, the strangest man she’d met in a long time—or, at least,
a candidate for that title—was temporarily living with her.

When he had come upstairs yesterday carrying their luggage, she had shown him to the guest room down the hall and around the
corner from her own. It was a tiny room, big enough for a double bed, two night tables, and nothing else. Some previous resident
had sacrificed a portion of the small closet space to build in shelves since there was no room for even the smallest of bureaus.
There was no window, but plenty of light entered through the glass-paned doors that opened onto the balcony.

That damned balcony. From her door to his, more than half the length and about half the width of the house separated them.
By way of the balcony, it was just a few yards from French door to French door.

Not that she had felt unsafe last night. They had slept only a few feet apart for three nights, and he’d done nothing. Now
that they were in separate rooms, he wasn’t going to force his way in. She was much safer now than she’d been the last four
days.

Still, there had been something terribly disconcerting about waking up this morning, snug in her own room, lying on her own
pillow, tucked beneath her own covers, and looking out one of the three sets of doors that lined her wall only to see him
standing out there on the balcony. He had been wearing jeans, no shirt, and no shoes, leaning against the railing, smoking
a cigarette, and staring down at the garden.

When he had finished that cigarette, he’d lit another one, then had turned directly toward her doors. She’d known he couldn’t
see her, had known the shadows were too deep.
Still, she had burrowed a little deeper into the pillow, had snuggled a little farther into the cover, and in so doing she
succeeded in reviving an ache that she’d hoped wouldn’t come back, at least, for the time being.

That was what she got for sleeping naked. For watching him when he didn’t know he was being watched. For letting him touch
her face and her breast yesterday, for listening to him say the things he’d said. For bringing him to her house in the first
place.

He had been right yesterday. Her breasts
had
been swollen and tender, her nipples had been hard, and, yes, she’d been wet between her thighs. That was why she’d stopped
him from touching her there, so he wouldn’t feel the moisture and the heat. So he wouldn’t know how quickly and how intensely
he could arouse her. So he wouldn’t know how easily he could seduce her.

She would have been so damned easy… if he’d given it any effort.

But he hadn’t. Her only satisfaction last night had been self-induced under the cover of the pounding water in the shower.
D.J. would say the shower was the only place Teryl could have done it because it was the only place and the only time when
it was not only all right but necessary for a good little girl to touch herself there and Teryl, her friend always teased,
was
such
a good little girl.