SOMETHING WAITS (11 page)

She shrugged small, perfect shoulders. “Ohh, ‘till seven or so, I imagine. Maybe eight.”

He nodded, resisted a temptation to glance at his watch. How long had the pharmacist said until the pills took effect? Janice took another sip from her drink, he followed suit to keep it companionable. She smiled at him graciously across the room, smoothed her skirt with red lacquered nails. He smiled back, suddenly nervous again.

Now what? Make small talk until the drug kicked in? He realized with chagrin he didn’t know what to say, was at a loss for small talk this close to her. Terrific at the office, but here now, alone with her, fingers aching just to touch her, he found his mind gone blank. He hadn’t anticipated this, hadn’t thought this part through. Without Hal and Jill here as buffers, conversation trailed off rapidly. He never realized until this moment how little they had in common, how completely physical was his attraction to her. He shifted in the chair, tried to look relaxed, unhurried, cleared his throat, still trying to remember what the druggist had said about the pills. Ten minutes? Twenty? He couldn’t remember. An anxious thought struck him: what would he do if they didn’t work? What if that guy behind the counter had tricked him, filled the bottle with aspirin? No. No stop this. You’re acting like an irrational fool. You have to give it time. Say something. Anything. Tell her how nice she looks. No, that’s too forward. Say how nice the place looks. Yeah, right: he’d seen it a hundred times before, it looked exactly the same. He shifted in the chair again. If something didn’t happen soon he was going to look like he was stalling…exactly what he was doing. He knocked back a gulp, immediately admonished himself. What if his drink ran out? Asking for another would look suspicious. She’d start looking at her own watch…hinting it was time for him to go. The whole deal would be—

The door buzzer sounded so loud he actually gasped.

Janice stood, frowning. “Now who could that be? Excuse me, Paul.”

He felt his heart sink to his stomach. A visitor! My God, she’d taken the pill and now she was going to let someone in the house! And any minute she might start feeling light-headed, start to waver, fall… Great plan, Paul! Really great fucking plan!

He watched in horror as she moved down the hall to the front door, even rose half out of his chair in an uncertain attempt to go after and stop her.
Whoever’s at the door will go away if she doesn’t answer—they’ll think no one’s home! Stop her! Stop her now!

But already he heard the front door opening. Too late. It was over. He was a dead man. There would be an ambulance. Then cops…

He froze in place, craning to hear. There was a short exchange of voices, then the sound of the door closing again. When he looked, Janice was walking back into the living room again, a wry look on her pretty face.

“Paper boy,” she grinned, “collecting for the week.”

He felt the blood surge back into his face.

At first he thought she’d just stumbled on the rug…then he saw her hand go to her head, her other one claw feebly at the edge of the bar. She looked up at him, swaying. Her eyes were funny. “I…I…”

He made it across the room in time to catch her. She’d almost hit the coffee table. He lifted her in his arms, amazed at her lightness; smaller boned than Jill. Smaller boned and bigger breasted. He laid her gently across the sofa, watching her face closely. Her eyes seemed unable to focus. “Ohhh,” she murmured once. He straightened and whipped off his jacket, throwing it over a nearby chair. Janice moved languidly on the soft material, head lolling, breasts rising tautly against the sweater. His hands twitched.

She mumbled something incoherent as he moved across the room and gently, carefully pulled the curtains on the picture window. He hustled down the hall and made sure the front door was locked tight. He moved to the back of the house, checked the door there. Locked. He came back down the hall to the kitchen knowing exactly where he was going, what he was doing. He selected a long, sharp steak knife from the butcher block holder atop the counter. When he returned, Janice was sleeping quietly, stretched invitingly across the sofa, red lips slightly parted. He could almost feel the pressure of his own covering them.

He sat down beside her, reached around and lifted her to a sitting position by the shoulders. He slapped her face lightly. “Hey! Hey, wake up!” he commanded, voice haggard. “I want you awake!”

Her head roused from the next slap and her blue eyes opened to stare up glassily at him, uncomprehendingly. “Hal--?”

He grunted, jerking the sweater up under her chin, pulling it over her head, her uncooperative arms. She fell limply out of the garment, backward against the sofa cushions. Her breasts moved heavily under the bra. Paul reached behind her and found the hooks, lifted it from her shoulders, tossed it on the floor. He turned back to her. His breath caught. She was even lovelier than he’d dreamed. A pale goddess.

With fingers he couldn’t stop shaking he tore clumsily at the zipper of her skirt, jerked down the material, slipped it over her feet. It landed on a lamp. He slipped his fingers under the band of her panties and worked them over her hips. He stood for a moment, breathing labored, as if he’d just run three block. He began unbuttoning his shirt. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. God, but she was beautiful! He kept shaking his head absently: that lucky bastard, he thought. He slipped his trousers down past his bulging underwear. He froze…

Janice’s eyes were blinking open, her head moving sluggishly. “Hal--?”

He stood immobile, watching the drugged glaze lift from her pupils…watching her pale cheeks begin to pink again. Slow awareness was creeping back into her features. And then she was staring up at him, staring down at him, between his legs…confusion quickly turning to disbelief, fear. She opened her mouth to scream.

With a swiftness that surprised him, Paul clamped a hand over her dark mouth, pushed her hard back into the sofa. That damned druggist! He’d kill him!

Janice made a muffled choking sound, twisted in panic, raked at his arm with her nails. She arched her back and turned under his pressing arm. He grabbed her neck with his other hand, pressed down harder, hissed at her: “Stop it!
Stop
it!”

She ignored him, kicked out with her legs, arching again, trying to rise. “Goddamnit, stop it! Don’t make me hurt you!” He was finally obliged to draw back and slap her savagely across the mouth. The sound cracked around the room.

Janice sat stunned a moment, cheek burning. Expression blank. Then her body seemed to collapse inward, slump submissively. She closed her eyes in humiliation, jammed them tight; a single fat tear squeezed out, coursed the angry mark on her cheek. The sight of her: naked, trembling, helpless. It was revolting. And it sent a wild white heat rising up in him.

“Make another sound,” he promised, voice amazingly even now, “and I’ll hit you again.”

He stepped back and grabbed his coat, still watching her. He withdrew the clothesline and picked up the steak knife. He cut the white cord into short lengths, made a slip-knot with the end of one, looped it over her left wrist and jerked it tight. Janice winced quietly. He tied the other end of the cord to the wooden arm of the sofa. He took a second piece of rope and tied the other wrist the same way. Then he tied her ankles to the opposite end of the sofa.

She lay spread-eagle before him, a thin ribbon of blood runneling her chin. “Please…” she whimpered, pathetically, “…please…don’t…”

He stared down at her helpless, supple body, his breath rasping, brow burning. He’d never done anything like this in his life, never experienced such terrible guilt, felt such uncontrolled exhilaration. It was high time, some other voice whispered at him. He’d been a fool to worry.

“I’m going to take you, Janice,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m going to take you hard, maybe more than once. If you try to cry out I’ll knock you senseless.”

He knelt between her legs, irrefutable triumph surging him. The waiting was over. The long held dream about to become a reality. She was his.

“Don’t,” Janice gasped, eyes widening at the sight of him…then moaned in anguish as he moved over her.

* * *

He stood before the oval mirror in the hallway, adjusting his tie. Behind him, on the living room carpet, the girl lay breathing quietly, slumped and exhausted. The coffee table was overturned, as were two chairs and a lamp. She had not resisted. They had done all the sweetest things. And the bitch loved it, he knew she did.

Paul walked back to where she lay, shrugging into his jacket. He gazed down for a moment at the tangled yellow hair, the light bruising on pale face and body. He hadn’t hurt her, not really. And she wouldn’t talk, she wouldn’t say a word other than some hurried thing about falling down the stairs or such. She’d keep their little secret. He’d made sure of that.

He smiled before turning. “Bye, honey!”

He went to the front door and let himself out.

In the driveway, backing out, he saw Hal’s red sedan coming over the hill a block away. He glanced at his watch, nodding. Again: perfect! Then he put the car in gear and pulled the other way down the street and out of sight.

He clicked on the car radio and rolled down the window beside him, letting the fresh air rush across his hot face, rumpled hair, filling the automobile with summer smells. He smiled confidently. He felt good. No, he felt
great
. With not an iota of the expected guilt or self-recrimination. Almost mechanically he flipped open the glove compartment and replaced the rope and bottle. He turned the radio up louder and whistled along with the music until he reached his street.

When he opened his front door he felt his cellular tremble against his chest. He felt a momentary pang. Had Janice talked already? There was only one person to whom she could have spoken this soon. Paul dropped his briefcase in the hall and walked to the bar, started making himself a drink. He plucked the vibrating phone from his jacket.

“Hello?”

“Well? How do you feel, big shot?” It was Hal, his voice trembling with emotion.

Paul grinned. “I feel fine, Hal. How about you?”

“How about me? I feel terrific! Liberated! A new man!”

Paul smiled, sipped at his drink. “How’s Janice?”

“Fine! She says to tell you she enjoyed every minute of it!”

“I’m glad.”

“How’s things over there? Is Jill still good with this?”

“I just walked in. Hold on, I’ll check.”

He carried the cellular through the house to the master bedroom. Jill was there, lashed tightly to the king size bed, her naked body slick with sweat… tiny cuts, cigarette burns. She was sleeping peacefully, a sated smile on her pretty, tousle-haired face. She looked years younger. Like when they were dating.

Paul put the phone to his ear. “She looks more than satisfied, old man.”

“That’s what I wanna hear! The old pencil’s still sharp! Shall we make it same time next week, then?”

“It’s a date. Oh, just one thing…”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Janice she forgot to wear the blouse. The white one with the ruffles? Ask her to wear it next time, will you? Love that white blouse!”

I think this may have been the first story I ever sold. I’m not positive about that, it was some time ago. I do know the idea, or fragment of an idea, had been banging around in my skull since college. I kept seeing this one scene in particular.

I wrote a lot of stories in high school and college but never had the courage to contribute them to the Campus Courier or Literary Laureates or whatever the hell the University of Kansas student magazine was at the time. I’d been writing with regularity since grade school, rarely sharing the results with anyone or even much thinking about it. I was writing for myself, possibly to maintain my sanity… largely still the case.

After surviving college and barely dodging the Vietnam bullet, I married a beautiful young Italian-American girl named Yvonne Baiocchi. Even her name was beautiful. She was a very talented artist and we met my sophomore year. First rule of writing and drawing: never marry anyone more talented than you are. Anyway, school done, army requirements unfinished but under control, we married and moved to New York. She was going to be a fashion designer (she could have been a model) and I was going to be…an artist or writer or actor or something. I’d done a lot of acting in high school and community theater in Kansas City, embraced the stumble-and-mumble actors like Brando and Dean—the vaunted Method--and saw myself as the next Warren Beatty. How hard could it be? When my new wife and I arrived in the Big Apple I even dropped by the Actor’s Studio on W. 44
^th
when it was still “the thing.” Figured I’d hang there awhile and dazzle Kazan and Strasberg with my footwork, be discovered and off to Hollywood. Except, again, I never screwed up the courage to audition there. I did appear in several off-Broadway plays in mostly minor roles. But truthfully the idea of running lines—of even memorizing lines—had always made me uncomfortable. So I hedged my bets (a constant habit) and did modeling work instead, with magazine and TV spots. All you had to do was stand there and not look repulsive. I was the “Steam Away” man for a tim;, you may have seen me on the tube. I hawked a gadget that collapsed into your suitcase so you could press your wrinkled suit while on the go. Big time: Brando, watch out!