Anthology - Dark Whispers Part 11

And how about you, Andrea wanted to ask, wouldyou act on it? But dared not, not this early. Never easy, this playing the role of the initiator, but at least she was glad she had it better than a man in the same position. Most straight women weren't so h.o.m.ophobic that they got bent out of shape when propositioned by one of their own gender, but a straight man might punctuate his refusal with his fist. A pa.s.s from another woman? A reaffirmation of attractiveness. A pa.s.s from another man? An a.s.sault upon hallowed masculinity itself.

Evening became night, and night lost its bloom. Melanie insisted that she really had to be going, no more backsliding. Andrea said it was probably a wise idea. They settled up finances with Tequila Mike, who smiled and gave Andrea a discrete wink as they clumsily slung on their jackets. And when the two of them stood outside Tappers on the sidewalk, Melanie simply stopped and longingly watched the traffic.

"I don't want to go home," she said, half declaration and half question.

"Then don't."

"Easy for you to say.You've probably got all these friends you could stay with. I don't haveanybody . Used to, maybe I did, but not anymore, and I don't even know how that happened. Now there's n.o.body."

"Sure there is. Or at least there is now." Andrea paused until Melanie looked her in the eye. "If that's what you want."

Melanie's eyes slid closed and for a moment she swayed. "He will really kill me for not coming home."

"Correct me if I'm wrong. But I'll bet he's not come home himself a few times. Am I wrong?" Melanie stared, then shook her head. "Then worry about it tomorrow."Or the day after that, or ...

And simple as that, it was decided. They covered the six blocks to Andrea's apartment on foot. She'd not driven, had lately become accustomed to leaving the pub in poor shape to handle her car. She lived on the top floor of a roomy old Victorian, drawn and quartered into apartments, no two alike, with windows scratched at by oak and maple branches.

When Melanie sank into the sofa, her lap was immediately commandeered by a three-legged cat that Andrea introduced as Tripod. When asked about the missing back leg, Andrea explained that she'd picked him out at the animal shelter as a kitten because it was obvious no one else would, and that the cause of the leg's absence was a mystery.

Andrea put on a CD, Steve Hackett'sBay of Kings . The faintly muted solo cla.s.sical guitar floated throughout the apartment, soothing and therapeutic. Pa.s.sion and delicacy from the fingers of a master. She joined Melanie on the sofa with a bottle of wine, which they agreed was the last thing they needed but uncorked it anyway. Tripod lurched off as though sensing himself in the way.

"I appreciate this," Melanie said. "I'm not really very used to someone being so ... so..."

Andrea shushed her. "It's okay." Wondering if the hunger showed in her eyes. And if it did, if it was noticed. And if it was noticed, if it mattered. And if it mattered, if it was shared.

Melanie's head bowed much as it had when Andrea first noticed her. From behind the hair came the sounds of sniffling. "Why do we make most of the biggest decisions in our lives when we're too young to even know what we're doing?"

Andrea scooted closer, resting one hand on Melanie's arm and with the other brushing locks of hair back from her face. The move proving to be a double-edged sword, that initial contact thrilling but she hated herself a little, too, feeling no better than some reptilian pickup artist who preyed on the wounded because the pickings were easier that way.

She trailed feathery fingertips over the half-hidden bruise circling Melanie's eye, and when her hand was captured and held, leaned over to continue with her lips and wine-sweet breath.

"No," Melanie whispered, a denial negated by her sharp intake of breath.

"You hurt,"Andrea whispered back. "I just want to take that away."

"I ... can't..."

"Yes. We can."

Soon there were no more denials. Only aches and longings. They moved from the living room to the bed, followed by the gentle strains of guitar, while the stereo's repeat kept the music playing for hours, until dawn came and went, and everything looked new again.

AUTUMN MADE A great time to fall in love.

Even at home, there was far more magic during the end of Andrea's vacation than there ever could've been in Cabo. After she returned to work, everyone told her how much good that three-week trip must have done her. And still the magic endured. Walks in the park. Pizza by candlelight while camped on the floor. Sunsets watched from the windows of tiny restaurants or after plundering second-hand shops of dusty treasures. The thoroughly everyday, made enchanted by soul's alchemy.

While she didn't quite feel comfortable admitting it even to herself, it felt to Andrea that their roles of rescuer and rescued had evolved into those of teacher and pupil. She didn't want to feel that way, wanted to feel they were equals. Yet how else could you respond when an entire new dimension seemed to blossom in someone you cared deeply about, who then sought you for guidance?

Not that it wasn't pleasant. Not that it wasn't flattering. She found a pride almost decadent in introducing Melanie to the fact that love-making needn't be confined to the standard male biological sequence of arousal/plateau/o.r.g.a.s.m/snore. That the interplay could go on for hours, that they could lock into the middle half of the cycle and repeat it almost endlessly, until their bodies were too spent for anything else.

Not that it wasn't rapturous. But there remained the underlying fear. Wondering if, for Melanie, this would be a pa.s.sing fad and soon she would turn her life back toward the tried, the true, the familiar.

"I'll have to confront Bart face-to-face someday, you know that," Melanie said. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, gray and bl.u.s.tery outside, dark and warm within. They lay in bed while raindrops spattered the window and branches sought their way in. "The way he is, just that phone call won't do it. He'd have been over here right away if he'd known where I was."

"Do youwant to see him?"

"No. Not really. But it seems like I owe him that much."

Andrea shifted from her back to her belly, recalling fragments of Melanie's verbal portrait of her husband. Bad about retaining jobs. Worse about considering the feelings of others. Quite proud of his half-dozen tattoos. Always able to score good crystal meth. That such men could inspire loyalty had always been unfathomable.

"You don't owe him anything."

"Plus, I still need to get the rest of my things from the house."

"So we go back again when he's not there. Mel, you owe himnothing ."

"Suppose he changed the locks after the first time." Melanie sighed, leaned in to nuzzle her shoulder. "If Kim wanted ten minutes of your time, wouldn't you feel like you should give her that much?"

Silence, but for the rain.

"You can't honestly tell me no, can you?"

Andrea shut her eyes and curled in one herself. Because she would not lie, and knew when she was beat.

TAPPERS WAS DOING moderate business a few evenings later. Andrea and Melanie sat at the bar, the remnant's of the morning paper in folded disarray around them. Melanie had been making periodic forays into the crossword puzzle. Andrea fed her the name Dianaa"five-letter word for Moon G.o.ddess of the Hunta"and a corner of the puzzle was finished. They celebrated with a quick kiss.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h. I wouldn't've believed it if I hadn't seen it."

The voice came from behind them, a stranger's to Andrea's ear but still she had no doubt as to whom it belonged. Even before she caught the flash of guilty shock on Melanie's face.

"Bart," she said, and swiveled around to face him. Voice neutral.

"Friend of mine tells me, *Hey man, she's gone and turned lesbo on you.' I say, *No way, not my Melly. I have it on good authority that she likes d.i.c.k.'" Bart shook his head ruefully at the floor, then looked up with a scowl. "Making a liar out of me, that'll cost you."

Andrea swallowed revulsion. She had never hated men by simple virtue of their gender. Did not reject their friendship, when genuine, just did not seek their pa.s.sion. Hating Bart, though? That was another story.

He wore mostly black, and carried a denim jacket slung over one shoulder. An arm sported a greenish tattoo of an eagle gripping a snake. His hair needed washing. All of which was benign enough, on its own. But blend them with the look in his eyes, that sense of him claiming everything in sight as his to do with as he pleased, and Andrea knew: She did. Not. Like. This. Man.

"Pack it up," he told Melanie. "You're coming home."

"I ... I don't think so, Bart." If her voice held a third of the conviction of his, she was doing well.

He rolled his eyes. "That wasn't a f.u.c.king yes or no question. That was reality, Melly. Get off the stool and walk out that door with me, and don't you make me drag you. It's time you relearn where it is you belong."

Andrea pointed to his arm. "Maybe she just doesn't belong with someone who walks around like a dime-store art gallery."

"Pipe down, Butch." He slid a longneck bottle along the bar to her. "Here. Amuse yourself with this awhile. You might even like it."

Andrea shut her eyes for a moment. She seethed. She boiled. She felt something shoot up her spine like mercury blowing from the top of a thermometer. When she reopened her eyes and saw Bart stepping up to roughly seize Melanie by the upper arm, she couldn't hold it back.

She balled one hand into a fist, extending the middle knuckle like a dull spike, then let it fly, punching Bart just below the ear and behind the jaw, dead-center into the delicate bundle of nerve ganglia. His head snapped, his eyes widened, his jaw dropped.

Bart stepped back for a few seconds to compose himself, then looked up at Andrea with a humorless grin that made her wish she'd given calm reason one more chance. Public place or not, he was ready to do murder. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up another empty bottle and c.o.c.ked it back like a small club.

And promptly dropped it to shatter on the floor. Tequila Mike had leaned over the bar and clamped one large hand around Bart's wrist. Once the bottle was dropped, Mike maintained the pressure and applied a twist, and all at once Bart had new priorities.

"Got a happy hour special," Tequila Mike said. "You let my customers stay happy, and I don't snap your scrawny arm."

Bart grunted wetly as Mike, still behind the bar, began to drag him toward the door, three people forced to s.n.a.t.c.h their drinks and flee their stools as the two of them struggled by. At the end of the bar, Mike climbed over, then twisted Bart's arm behind his back and sent him none-too-gently on his way out the door. Mike lingered for a moment, waiting for further trouble, an attempted reentry, but there was none.

Andrea's relief faded when she saw Melanie's face. Her painfully obvious gaze at the door.

"I should talk to him. I don't want to leave it like this."

Andrea could only shake her head. "Mel. Dont. Please, for me." Not knowing which she was more afraid of: losing her to coercement, or to her own free will.

Melanie touched a finger to Andrea's lips. "Five minutes. That's all. Ten at most, and then I'll be right back. What can he do right outside?"

Andrea bit her lip and turned to the bar. Listened to the footsteps fading toward the door. Ordered a refill on her gimlet. And then another.

While ten minutes stretched on until last call, and closing.

THE NEXT WEEK was as fully miserable as she had expected. But she could endure. She took perverse comfort in cynical twists on old plat.i.tudes.If you love something, set it free. If it returns, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it .

After ten days, she knew she would survive once more.

And then, at day's end after work, she returned to find Melanie slumped on the sofa, cradling Tripod in the dusk as though he were her last and only friend. As Andrea stood in the doorway, instantly recognizing Melanie's shadowy silhouette, numb existence turned to joy. At least until she turned on the light.

"Oh Melanie," she whispered. Her skyrockets fizzled into clouds of soot. "What did he do to you?"

The answer was obvious, Bart's legacy written in swollen lips and puffy eyes, and the now-yellowing bruises that circled them like satellites. Even her posture hinted at how stiff and sore she was.

"At least I'm free now. He said he never wanted to see my face again." Her eyes gleamed with defiance, tempered by heartbreak. "Can you blame him?"

That Melanie had left her sitting there in Tappers was forgotten. No grudge could survive in the face of that much pain. Andrea dropped her briefcase and shed her coat to the floor on her way to the sofa. She slid in beside Melanie, held her as carefully as she would a Ming vase, eggsh.e.l.l-thin.

"I'm sorry, Andrea," Melanie whispered into her shoulder. "I treated you bad that night."

"Forget about that, it's ancient history."

"It just seemed like he really wanted me back. Like it'd be better than ever. He cried. And he was so good to me those first three days." Melanie winced when Andrea's hand caressed her belly. "But I think this is what he had in mind all along. Hurting me. That's all."

Andrea withdrew her hand, leaning in to brush her lips over the constellations of bruises and abrasions.Tears stung her eyes. She would nurse those wounds, heal that heart back into working order. And then they would try their d.a.m.nedest at happily ever after.

Melanie took a deep breath. "He beat me. And then he raped me." She spoke with the flat, husky voice of someone who has cried every tear that could possibly be shed, then emerged into numb compliance. "And then he drugged me so I'd stay unconscious for hours, and hours."

Andrea felt her soul cracking in two. "He could've killed you."

"Sometimes ... I wish he had."

Before Andrea could respond, Melanie pulled up her sweater and tugged down the top of the loose drawstring sweatpants she was wearing. Enough to expose her belly, and the most hateful violation Andrea had ever seen.

From just under her ribcage to just over her pubic bone, Melanie's stomach was canvas to a huge depiction of a graphically rendered p.e.n.i.s and s.c.r.o.t.u.m. Lewdly erect, swelled beyond all dimensions of reality. Colored the dark pink of sausage and traced with bulging blue veins. The skin was only half-healed, still scabbed.

"He had his tattoo artist friend do that to me while I was knocked out. And said ... said that ... that..." Her voice faltered, and it appeared she had some tears in reserve after all.

Andrea held her closer, shaking her head, about to be miserably ill. "You don't have to repeat it. Please don't."

"He said no one would ever want me like this, manor woman. But just in case they did, they'd still have to think of ... ofhim ."

ANDREA TOOK OFF work the next several days on the pretense of sick leave, she and Melanie becoming hermits, rarely venturing beyond the apartment door. She made anonymous calls to crisis centers, speaking in general terms and learning what sort of counseling Melanie should undergo. For she would never completely heal without professional help. As well, she tried in vain to convince Melanie to file felony charges.

"No. No police," was all the reply she could elicit.

"But why not? You could get him locked away for this."

"No police," Melanie would repeat, hugging herself and looking away. Never toward a mirror. "I'd have to ... to show them ... myself."

The days pa.s.sed. The cuts healed. The bruises faded.

The scars, inner and outer, remained.

After she returned to work, Andrea felt the guilt of a career mom leaving behind a latchkey kid. She was no good in her office, distracted and jumpy and irritable. That she returned the first day to find Melanie in tears and darkness did not help. Nor did, the third day, finding Melanie's stomach newly raw and b.l.o.o.d.y, sandpaper in her hand.

"I want it gone," she said. "I just want to be rid of this."

"Soon," Andrea told her. "Doctors have techniques now, lasers, they can remove tattoos, erase them right off..." Hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. Such procedures were much easier said than successfully done. Especially with red-based inks. She'd checked. Melanie seemed to sense this too.

The next day Andrea brought home a bag of takeout Chinese, hoping it might perk Mel up. She flipped on the light, and kung pao shrimp splattered to the floor when she noticed the blood on Tripod's whiskers.

After a frantic room-to-room search, Andrea found her in the bathtub. Naked, curled onto her side like a sleeping child. Pale, so pale. For she must've bled herself almost clean.The handle of a kitchen knife protruded from her belly, from its gaping wound.

And for Andrea everything snapped at once. This went beyond tears, beyond screams, beyond grief. She knew what it must feel like to die inside, without your body getting wise to the idea.

Calmly, so calmly, she sat on the floor and reached over the edge of the tub to hold the cold, limp hand. To contemplate the loss. And the damage.

The knife in Melanie's stomach had been driven on a very deliberate course, from one side to another, severing the tattooed c.o.c.k from the tattooed s.c.r.o.t.u.m.

Just look at her: the castrated woman.

Andrea stared mutely at the knife, the input weak and fuzzy, dreamlike. More distinct was the gentle ache in her own belly, the nudge preceding her own blood loss, the cramps before her period.