Текст книги "Fear Itself"
Автор книги: Duffy Prendergast
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“Well aren’t you gonna say something?”
“Like what?”
“How about ‘Damn Amber! You sure do suck a mean dick!’”
“Amber, you have a hell of a way of introducing yourself!” My pulse was gradually slowing but my nausea persisted.
“Well you were sleeping, and it was already pretty hard, and to be honest I was a little horny.” She giggled.
“You’re crazy.”
“No, just horny lover! You make me that way.” I could see her bright smile by the light that seeped into the room through the window and seemed to cast directly on her teeth. She was talking in the comically-sluttish manner in which she liked to speak on the phone, and in the dark, her image still dull and scratchy like an old black-and-white movie, it was is if we were talking on the phone still miles apart.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Well I was a lot better until you scared the hell out of me.” She put her hands on her hips feigning anger, but naked as she was she didn’t quite pull it off.
“Thank you…for setting this up.” I reached out and held her hand. “Melanie is one fantastic girl.”
“Isn’t she though? We go way back. She’s a sweetheart.”
“Is it okay for you to be here so late?” I looked over at the clock on my nightstand and noted that it was past one a.m. “I mean your husband didn’t have you followed or anything?” Bringing her husband into mind seemed wrong even if only in words but I needed her reassurance that we were not in danger.
“I think the good detective got bored with me. I saw that he was following me so I called Melanie to have her meet you and then I took the private dick,” she placed her free hand under my prick and flipped it like she was tossing a hotcake, “to every shoe store in
Wichita.” She drawled the word Wichita. “Won’t your husband be wondering where you are?”
“Charlie? No. I called him from my sister’s house so he could see her number on the caller I.D. and I told him that we were playing cards and that I wouldn’t be home until very late.” Amber pulled herself a little closer to me and slid her hand along my thigh while she lifted her legs over mine and straddled me.
“Where is Sarah?”
“She’s asleep on the couch.” Amber slid a little closer, shuffling forward on her knees, still straddling me.
I never thought that in my lifetime I would ever know another woman intimately. I never thought I would want to, but then I never thought that Catherine would want to either. But with the heat of Amber’s smooth thighs against my own my lust overwhelmed my nausea and I found that I wanted her very much. I found that, despite the pain I felt at Catherine’s betrayal, I had no problem becoming a party to another man’s emotional disquietude. Instead, his loss was my gain.
I had been quite nervous about meeting Amber ever since I began my journey west, and as excited as I was at the prospect of finally meeting her I could not begin to imagine breaking the ice with her let alone getting comfortable enough to sleep with her. The buildup of over a year of phone-sex was too much for reality to possibly assimilate to. But with Amber already in my bed, having done what she had done with those tender loving lips (no matter the accompanying dream) I no longer had any apprehensions.
I had wondered, during those many sleepless nights at home and in those cheap motel rooms, how we would broach the delicate transition from fantasy to reality. I wondered how awkward our love-making would be. I wondered if I would be like a clumsy schoolboy and leave my ejaculate dripping down her thigh having never reached the Promised Land as I did with Catherine on our first attempt. As you can imagine, having not been with anyone but Catherine all my life I was a bit concerned. I was worried that I might disappoint her. But my clever Amber had found a way to take us past all that. And there she was in my bed, this Beautiful enchantress of a woman. She appeared before me, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, like a vision of
Venus and I reached out my hands and I cupped the underside of her naked breasts. I felt Amber’s semi-erect nipples grow hard against the tender skin of my palms and my senses tingled in euphoria as I lost my self in the moment, falling backwards, head over heels in my mind, but only as far as the mattress in reality, and I pulled her to me by her breasts until she lay upon my chest and then I wrapped my arms around her back and I pressed her body to my body enjoying the exploratory entanglement of our feet and ankles, thighs and hips. I grew aroused again.
Amber was small and light and her skin was soft and supple as I brushed my fingertips over the firmness of her muscled flesh; her buttocks and waist; the small of her back and the ripple of her spine; the blades of her shoulders and the curves of her arms. She raised herself up and looked down into my eyes and then she collapsed into my lips with a kiss and I swam, with my tongue, in the churning ocean of her mouth and I was transported back to the time to when I had first kissed Catherine, and I got lost in Amber, as I had once done with Catherine so long ago, and I realized that
Amber was my Catherine in a different time and place. I realized that Amber could fill the void that Catherine had left. And I realized too that I wanted, more than anything, to vanquish the pain that Catherine had caused me with her betrayal; and I grew hard.
Without using her hands and without breaking off our kiss Amber found me with her soft fissure and swallowed me with one slow undulating stride. I was reduced to a human probe as with eyes pressed closed I saw her nakedness, with my tongue and with the head of my prick, from the inside out while she devoured me in successive pulses, her hips rhythmically rocking, her pelvis grinding, seeking, finding; that perfect point of sensation; ever-so-slowly tweaking that ecstasy laden g– spot somewhere deep in the flaccidity of her cavern until she could no longer maintain our kiss. Her mouth opened up as she raised her tiny torso and squatted above me, still grinding that sensitive point against me, and emitted a moan of the slightest steadiest pitch so high that she could have broken a wineglass, and she hummed until the sound of her pleasure sent a signal, with her low piercing squeal, to some place in my brain that cut loose my bonds and forced me to release deep inside of her a scorching torrent of liquid that seemed to sap my mind of oxygen and all but the slightest connection with consciousness. I was only vaguely aware of Amber’s little body collapsing against my own, her harbor still a vacuum to my pier, as she cooed my name up into my ear. “Mathew, I think I love you.”
Her words, spoken in the passion of the moment, were warm and comforting, as from a mother to a child; or at least that was their effect on me. I may have been Sarah’s caregiver and her comforter; but in my damaged state of mental disarray I needed an emotional guardian of my own. Amber’s affection was the first real abetment I had known since my last night with Catherine. Her words of affection gave me a sense of peace I had not known in what had seemed like ages.
Her words told me that everything was going to be okay. That she would take care of me, like
Teresa had taken care of Albert.
With Amber’s words still sliding around in my brain I slipped away into a dizzying sleep, the warmth of Amber’s body my only blanket. When I woke in the morning from a dreamless sleep Amber was gone and I wondered at first if she had been the dream; and had she not left her dainty pink panties on the pillow next to mine I might have doubted that such a perfect night could have happened outside of a hallucination.
* * *
Melanie was a stripper. She lived like a homemaker but she made her money the old fashioned way, or as close to the old fashioned way as one can without being a prostitute. The beauty of it was that she wasn’t the least bit ashamed of what she did. And why should she have been? She was putting to use the tools god had seen fit to give her, much like Amber had done when she left home at a young age and she too took off her clothes for a living. I’m not saying that I would have wanted Sarah to have grown up to be a stripper just because she had the body for it, but you have to admire a survivor.
Besides being a stripper, Melanie, as it turned out, was also a fantastic cook. After sleeping for so many hours I woke up ravished and Melanie, despite having worked until two– thirty in the morning the night before, made me the most incredible breakfast I had ever eaten. She made a mushroom and cheese omelet that caused me to audible grunt my appreciation, with bacon and hashed-brown potatoes mixed with a delicious concoction of spices and homemade rye bread slathered with butter. And for breakfast-dessert we had sizzling strawberry crepes. Sarah, who normally didn’t like breakfast at all, feasted as though she were at a pastry shop.
And Melanie, dressed in a set of pink cotton flannel pajamas, made the atmosphere so homey. Melanie even let Sarah help prepare my breakfast, something Catherine never had the patience to do. And she made Sarah, who had grown a little self-conscious about her boyish short Auburn haircut, feel every bit the girl both helping in the kitchen and afterwards making her pretty little face up with lipstick and rouge and eyeliner so that she looked as though she were a Beautiful teenage girl instead of the seven year old boy that I had manufactured. Given the dreams I had had of late I wasn’t thrilled about the look but it made
Sarah happy and I certainly didn’t want to insult our hostess.
“Hello lover!” I turned around from building a fire in the fireplace just in time to see Sarah bat her eyelashes at me while Melanie stood admiring her work from the hallway threshold.
“Lover?” Melanie laughed the word.
I smiled back at Melanie, a little embarrassed, “It’s a private joke…or at least it used to be.” I laughed, “We like to watch old movies together, and she got it from a one of the movies. Anytime she wants to get me to smile, she says ‘hello lover’ and raises her eyebrows and it tickles the hell out of me.”
“Speaking of lover,” Melanie flopped into the room wearing a pair of big pink fuzzy slippers that matched her pajamas, “I have a business proposal for you, if you’re interested.” She tumbled onto the loveseat at the edge of the fireplace. “Sarah honey, why don’t you go put our makeup things away and clean up while I talk to your daddy.”
Sarah hesitated, frowning slightly, unsure of whether she liked being told what to do by her newfound friend, and then she skipped out of the room cheerfully.
“What did you have in mind?” I tossed the last log on top of the growing fire.
“Well…Amber says that your looking for work, and while it’s not a fulltime gig…you would really be helping me out and you could make a few dollars.”
“Doing what…exactly?” “Being my security.”
“Your security? What do you need security for?”
“Amber told you what I do for a living, right?”
“She said you have this tendency to shed your clothing at night…professional werewolf?”
“Exactly!” she smiled, “Now you know why I need security. On weekends, usually on nights when there is a full moon,” she rose from her seat and she began to animate her hands, “I go to bachelor parties and other such events and I take off my clothes,” she covered her mouth feigning embarrassment, “and I…grow hair all over my body…” she covered her chest and her crotch with her hands, “and you know, I just feel so defenseless, being a she-wolf an-all! And I need a big strong man,” she squeezed my bicep through my shirt, “to come along with me to collect the money…and all of the silver bullets,” she fired two imaginary six-guns and blew the smoke from the barrels, “from all those bad boys who want to eat me up!” she said this while unbuttoning the top buttons of her pajama-top and revealing a titillating portion of her cleavage. “So what do you say big guy? Wanna help protect a little ole she-wolf?” she asked as she sat down close to me and looked up at me.
I must admit I felt a bit flush from her sexy little routine. She was very good; very provocative, even in flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers.
“I don’t know that I would make a very good body guard. I’m not really much of a fighter. I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be of much use to you.”
“Amber already told me you’re a lover…does that mean you’re not a fighter?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, come on; a big strong guy like you?” She pouted her lips, “You probably wouldn’t have to do much of anything. You’d be there more for show than anything. I’ve never had a problem that required a fight.”
I felt the guilt of accepting her generosity without having any real value to offer in return. Reluctantly I opened the door to the possibility, “What would I have to do?”
“You’d be my protection, lover.” She raised her eyebrows, as Sarah had done, as she stood and took my face into her hands, “Oh my god, your blushing…you shy thing.” She smiled a genuine smile, “After all those dirty things you said to Amber I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so shy.” I could see that she was taking great pleasure in my embarrassment.
“She told you huh?”
“I must confess, not only did she tell me…but she was at my house once…and she let me listen in on one of your conversations.
And you do have a sexy voice!” she slapped the back of my hand, “and a dirty mind.”
“What would I have to do exactly?” “Well,” she pulled a small antique looking wooden chair with a plush blue cushion up across from me and sat down across from me, “you’d have to carry a little gun… just in case,” I rolled my eyes, “but I’ve never been to a party where anyone has had to use it…ever!” Her eyes opened wide, “And you’d just have to make sure nobody gets out of hand…no touching unless I let them… and since I won’t have any clothes on…you would have to hold the money.”
“It doesn’t sound too bad.” I could hear the apprehension in my own voice. I had gone from respected investment banker to pimp in a single leap. “How far the mighty have fallen.”
I said dejectedly.
“You get ten percent of the profits. I usually make a couple thousand a night, Friday and Saturday nights when I’m booked solid.” She was trying to figure out the math in her head.
“Two hundred dollars or so a night?” “Yeah.”
“What happened to your last body guard?”
“He’s in jail.”
“What for?” I said, not a little alarmed. “Nothing to do with me.” She laughed,
“He sold drugs on the side. He did security for me because he was able to move a lot of coke at the parties. But he got busted and he’s going to be gone for at least five years. Anyway, it had nothing to do with my security.”
“What about Sarah? Who would watch her?”
“I’ll get her a sitter.” “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s cool…” her expression went from happy back to pleading, “only I need to know soon because I have three parties booked for tonight.” She whined.
“Can I have ten minutes?”
“Sure…ten minutes…oh yeah…and there is a perk that goes with the job.” She waited until I raised my eyebrows expectantly, “You get to drive my Monte Carlo…and…you get to see me naked.” She gave me a seductive look before breaking into a giggle.
“But you’ll be all hairy!”
“Just a little patch right her.” She said matter-of-factly as she lowered her pajama bottoms just enough to show me a postage– stamp sized swath of pubic hair at the top of her mound. I felt my face blush bright red once again. I was no a prude but I was easily embarrassed.
* * *
As I drove Melanie to the first of three bachelor parties I fidgeted nervously moving my hand about the steering wheel and changing the radio station. My new job made me nervous. When I was a boy it was my father who gave me my first job. He didn’t so much give it to me as force it upon me. He was an electrician and I was made to accompany him on his weekend side-jobs to do the odd things such as retrieve tools and to pull the plastic covered wire through the holes he had drilled. I hated that job, mostly because he forced me to do it and because I had to spend time with him (he was an abusive unrepentant alcoholic and he never let pass an opportunity to remind me of how worthless I was). At that moment I wished I were back with my father pulling wire.
The only real physical encounter I had ever been involved in, play-fighting aside, had been my fight with Tony Artino and I had never actually landed a single blow. I had never fired a pistol, or any other sort of firearm for that matter, in my life. Melanie sat in the back seat of her Monte Carlo applying last minute touches to her makeup. She chattered on incoherently about a blue dress that she saw in a storefront window and about clothes and about Amber, but I was too nervous and distracted to pay attention so I just nodded and sounded off the occasional “hmmm” to feign interest. It was getting dark outside, which made me a little uncomfortable, but I knew that Melanie would be at my side the whole time so I knew that my phobia would not be an issue. If she only knew that she had chosen someone who was afraid of the dark to be her body guard I don’t think she would have been so chatty!
Amber, of all people, had agreed to watch Sarah so that I could play security guard. “And no touching.” She playfully warned me (referring to Melanie) before she kissed me passionately and patted my behind, sending me off with my loaded pistol to guard her Beautiful friend. She had given her detective the slip again, this time by paying a valet to drive her car to the opposite side of the mall and wait for her as she passed from one entrance to another on the opposite side. The detective was left to chase her on foot for twenty yards or so before realizing the futility of his efforts. She was a clever girl, but how long could she keep it up?
We arrived at the job, a large hotel in downtown Wichita. A valet parked our car and we took an elevator up to the room. I held a small portable stereo in one hand and a satchel of costume attire in the other. When we arrived at the room I knocked and asked to speak to Jeremy, the organizer of the event. Jeremy was a tall neatly dressed twenty-something with a trimmed black beard and a bony face. He handed me a wad of money which I counted out to be six hundred dollars and then I looked at him with a firm smile.
“Rules.” I said. “Rules?”
“No touching unless she initiates it.” “Okay.”
“If she says stop, then they remove their hands.”
“Okay.”
“If anyone gets rowdy you calm them down or we leave; no refund.”
“Okay.”
“I will stay in the room at all times.” “Okay.”
Jeremy walked us into the suite to a host of youthful whistles and cheers. The room was crowded with well dressed young men holding cans of beer and glasses filled with mixed drinks. I ushered Melanie into the bedroom and folded my arms and guarded the door from outside.
“Would you like a drink man?” A fair-haired gangly pock-faced boy in blue-jeans and a white dress shirt held out a can of beer.
“No.” I said stoically, trying to portray a tough façade despite the fact that I could have very well used a tall scotch on ice to calm my nerves. I felt absolutely ridiculous, like the third cog on a motorcycle or a chaperone at a prom. As I saw it those boys were frothing at the mouth fantasizing about what they wanted to do to little Melanie and I was the unqualified guardian of her precious body. I stood stone– faced until Melanie came out of the room. She was dressed in a tight black leather bodice, black fish-net stockings and black stiletto heals. I plugged the boom box into a receptacle near the front door and I watched as Melanie slowly stripped to Joe Cocker’s rendition of “You can leave your hat ”; I watched as the young men shifted in their seats and awkwardly covered their laps in vein attempts to hide their arousal. Melanie stripped the groom down to his underwear and planted him on an armless chair in the middle of the room and gave him a lap– dance. Afterwards Melanie gave a few more lap dances at twenty dollars apiece and then she went back into the bedroom and changed into her street clothes and we left.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” “No, I suppose not.”
“So how did you like it?” “You have a Beautiful body.”
She smiled at me as she soaked in the expected compliment.
Sitting in the front passenger seat now, she reached over and hugged me, “Thanks, she smiled up at me and I couldn’t help but smile back at her. I could tell that she was looking for a father figure. She was seeking approval. What a strange sensation; a Beautiful naked young girl showing off her fertility and sexuality and seeking approval from her father figure. I was completely confused. I was torn between wanting to sleep with her and wanting to protect her. Given my dreams of late the last thing I needed was Melanie blurring the lines between paternity and intimacy.
The second party was at a house in an upscale neighborhood. It started much the same as the first with me guarding a bedroom door while Melanie changed into a white maid costume with a top that thrust her bosoms awkwardly forward. She wore bright red lipstick and a little nurse hat. She danced and stripped and she ground her pelvis against the bulging briefs of the young groom-to-be until a crowd gathered round her and obscured my view of her. The young men were jeering and hooting and screaming but through the noise of the party I heard Melanie’s muffled cry from within the circle and then I felt a thud to the back of my head and apparently I blacked out.
When I came too I was in the passenger seat reclining while holding a bloodied towel over my nose.
“You did great in there.”
“I’m sorry; what happened to me?” I lifted the towel and looked confusedly at the blood drenched garment that was in fact the white v-neck t-shirt that Melanie had worn into the house. I felt a hard throb about my nose and I pressed the t-shirt back to my face. I looked outside the window as large Beautiful houses with fancy landscapes passed my line of sight.
“You don’t have to apologize.” She sounded to me a little dejected.
“What happened? Are you alright?” my voice seemed to me to be nasally as though I had a cold, “It sounded like you were trying to yell for help. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“I was yelling for help.” “What did they do to you?”
“One of those fuckers stuck his fingers up me. The nervy little bastard, and the others were groping me and one of them put his hand over my mouth.” She pounded the steering wheel in anger with her little palm and then she drew a long sigh, “I’ll be okay.”
“I should have stopped them from crowding around you like they did.”
“How’s your nose?” she reached out to touch it but I pulled away.
“Someone must have knocked me out before I could get to you.”
“Yeah right! You were great! Lonny would never have done what you did!”
“What did I do?” I was completely in the dark.
“You kicked some ass, that’s what you did. Those bastards are sorry they ever messed with you.” She laughed as if she were reliving the moment.
“What do you mean ‘I kicked some ass’?”
“I mean you beat the crap out of three of those guys, but when you shot the gun through the ceiling those little rich boys shit themselves and scattered.”
I reached down and felt for the little twenty-two caliber pistol. It was still in my pants pocket. “I don’t remember that. You’re just saying that so that I won’t feel bad.” I scoured my brain for the slightest flicker of a memory; the least recollection. “I don’t remember a thing. The last thing I remember was hearing you call for help, and then someone must have hit me on the head.”
“You were an animal.” “I was, huh?”
“Yeah.” She smiled as she slowed the car for a red light.
“You’re not just trying to make me feel better?”
She reached over and kissed me on the cheek then looked into my eyes reassuringly, “You were wonderful.”
“What about the police? Won’t they be calling the police if I shot a gun in their house?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they want anyone to know that they tried to rape me.”
* * *
Sarah and I stayed with Melanie through the Thanksgiving holiday, enjoying a wonderful feast and a crackling fire. Amber came by for a little while too, although I was beginning to feel like the kept man, always waiting for her to steal time away from her family to get to see her. I could see that our part-time arrangement was going to put a strain on our relationship. I didn’t like the idea of sharing a woman with her husband. I’ll admit that he had her first, but I was beginning to feel lonely. Melanie had made a few overtures, but as enjoyable as sleeping with her might have been, it wasn’t sex that I desired; it was love and comfort and affection. I missed what Catherine and I had shared. In Amber’s defense she had not invited me. I had begged her for help, and in my position as a fugitive from justice I was powerless. I was at her mercy. I knew that she had three children who she loved. I knew that if she left them for me that justice would follow her to me. It was all so unfair. I hadn’t killed my wife but I was destined to live the life of a refugee, constantly at the mercy of others.
And except for the occasional once a week romp my relationship had hardly changed from the time when we lived a thousand miles apart. We still spent far more time on the phone together than we did in close quarters. When we did spend time together it was wild and intimate and incredible, but she would inevitably leave me in the wee hours of the morning and I would wake up alone; or worse yet, rushing to cover my nakedness as I heard Sarah approaching.
Melanie was disappointed when we moved out of her house, but we had spent a month there and Amber was finally able to rent a house for us. Much as I came to enjoy Melanie’s company and her cooking I was happy to have a place of my own away from the temptation of her subtle advances. I went with Melanie on a few more jobs and her naked beauty only made my fidelity to Amber more difficult, but she eventually found a replacement for me as I had requested. Working security was obviously not the kind of work to which I was well suited. I worried about my blackout. I wondered if I had developed a brain tumor. I wondered, if someone could clump me on the head and cause me to go berserk, what else I might I be capable of in such a state. Such work was not for me. Besides I didn’t need to draw any unwanted attention to myself. If I had gotten pinched for fighting I was going home to Willoughby in handcuffs.
The house that Amber had rented for us was just a few blocks from Melanie’s home. It was actually the second floor apartment of a two family unit, a white colonial with a two story front and back porch. The house was far from modern in its finish with its beige paint and its plaster and plastic tiled walls both in the kitchen and the bathroom, not to mention the old white painted cupboards in the kitchen, but the rent was cheap (four hundred dollars a month) and the neighborhood was safe enough. The floors were oak and cold to the bottom of our feet in the mornings and the bathroom tub was a squat, but deep, claw-foot cast-iron antique, but Sarah loved the tub because she could fill it to her neck and almost swim in it. For me it was too short and caused me to bump my knees to my chin when I sat, but as there was no shower I resigned myself to get used to this little discomfort.
The apartment came furnished with beds and dressers and the drabbest of plaid living room furniture which we were welcome to replace if we wished so long as we didn’t discard the old (but rather stored it in the basement). As funds were dwindling and I had not yet found a cash-paying job I resigned myself to the poverty of our situation indefinitely.
We celebrated that Christmas at Melanie’s house as well. Sarah helped Melanie in the kitchen while I sat lazily in the living room watching holiday movies in between stoking the fire. Amber had promised to stop by, but as I expected she failed to show and once again I felt like the forlorn lover. But with Melanie at my side and Sarah sandwiched between us we almost seemed like a family. Melanie’s actual family had discarded her as the black sheep after she left what she described as an abusive home life as soon as she turned eighteen. She had no family to speak of except for the dysfunctional fraternity of girls with which she danced, and of course
Amber. So the holiday was a bit melancholy for all of us as Sarah and I mourned our first Christmas without Catherine. By the end of the night, filled with a glorious turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy and cheese covered cauliflower and too much spiked eggnog, I fell asleep with my head on Melanie’s lap, her fingers stroking and combing through the hair on my head, and Sarah asleep on my lap; the three lost shepherds.
After the holidays I began to look for work. I wondered what sort of work I would be able to find with my undocumented status. I was worth little more than an illegal immigrant. I had no skills to speak of when it came to manual labor. Sure I had assisted my father while he did electrical wiring when I was a boy but I had learned very little besides pulling wire and installing receptacles. Furthermore, it was such hard and grueling work and I watched my father get zapped with electrical current on many occasions and although he took it like a man I could tell by his grimace that the experience was not a pleasant one. But truthfully there were few options. I could go back to guarding Melanie but that whole affair was a time bomb waiting to explode.
I scoured the newspaper for labor ads and called one after another from the house phone that Melanie had put in her name (the apartment was also leased in her name as were the other utilities). As I phoned potential employers I disregarded all of the companies that had receptionists to answer their phones. I knew that those companies were too big to consider paying me under the table. When I ran out of ads from the newspaper I scoured the phone directory. I dialed number after number until I heard a grungy sounding workman-like voice.
