A Knight Comes To Bed (3 page)

The night air held a small chill and Sam quickened his step, hoping that moving quickly would warm him enough that he wouldn't be shivering when he finally caught up with Rachel. He caught himself smiling—excited that he’d be able to see her again. He hoped she would be happy to see him too.

SHE’S SO PREDICTABLE,
Kurt thought to himself.

Kurt Sully, football defense lineman, hid behind one of the sculptures outside of the library, watching Rachel's form walk down the street. Her black silhouette cast a long shadow, illuminated by the yellow-gold of the street lamps above her. Kurt had been at Sam's party, seen Rachel and knew she would be heading home sooner than later. He'd hot-footed it out to the sculpture garden to wait at a spot he knew he would be hard to see in the daytime, and especially so at night.

Kurt had always disliked Rachel. She was a goody-two-shoes know-it-all and he hated that about her almost as much as the looks of contempt she gave him. Rachel was one of those girls that turned their noses up at guys like Kurt. As hard as he tried, no matter how big he got or how many tackles he made, he couldn't get the smart pretty girls to like him.

Kurt got that he wasn't attractive by any means, having the face of a snubbed-nosed pig rather than an angel. Guys like Sam looked like fucking James Dean in their varsity jackets, while guys like Kurt looked like big thugs with varsity letters.

Maybe it was just his luck, or his place in life, or his destiny, or
whatever
that girls like Rachel wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't give him the time of day, but he was over it. Kurt was sick of Rachel's discriminating looks and it was time to put her in her place.

Rachel thought she was so special, so above it all. Her aloof attitude wouldn't help her tonight, Kurt thought, and he was going to make sure of it.

Kurt hadn't really given the possible ramifications of his actions much thought. He had shown a couple of girls that had been walking home how good it could be with him and, even though they had cried, he knew they liked it. How could they not? They always liked being fucked, eventually.

Somehow nothing had happened to Kurt—no street justice or police detective knocking on his door. Kurt had a secret weapon, a strong left hook. Kurt being a southpaw was something only boxers or street fighters really took note of, so he had the element of surprise on his side. Not only that, but Kurt knew how to throw a punch and had no qualms hitting a girl so hard he knocked her out.

Once they were out, they weren't enough conscious to see what was going on, or really know what had happened except by putting the pieces together. Most of them were so drunk they could barely see anyway, and Kurt suspected Rachel was in the same condition.

Rachel walked steadily down the hills sidewalk, to the front of the library, and stopped. She was at the point where, if she continued forward without stopping to admire the sculptures, Kurt would have to take action to intercept her or there was the possibility that she could sprint straight away from him.

As a defense lineman, Kurt wasn't exactly fleet of foot so he was ready to take action, his whole body tensed, when she slowly came to a halt and turned to admire the sculptures.

The sculpture garden itself was about fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and filled with all types of sculptures. Some of them were the old Gothic kind that filled city cemeteries—angels in flight or ducking around stone crosses, old men with laurels on their brows holding stone anchors while looking stoically into eternity, angels with relaxed wings, and big granite obelisks pointing accusingly at the sky. Those made up about one-fourth of the stone work. The other sculptures were from different kinds of art periods, imitations mostly.

The university had a great artisan stone working program where final term students had to plan and execute a fairly large piece of stone work. Sex, rebirth, death, life, harvest, autumn, equinox, spring turning to summer then to fall then to winter, and all other forms of subject matter could be sussed out of the tirelessly standing and rigid structures erected in the garden.

It kept from becoming spectacle through careful mentoring from a few of the professors. But in the last few years, a few sculptures had been, at their inauguration, controversial, and considered obscene.

The latest sculpture to have this notoriety was Kurt's current hiding spot. It was a two-person sculpture—one man, one woman—groping each other. The piece, entitled “Greed”, had roused quite a stir in the feminist community and in Kurt's pants. He always found the image of two pieces of stone twisting together, one groping the other while the other one pushing at the other's chest a powerful one.

He liked the idea of destroying innocence, and waiting for Rachel seemed to him just like clubbing a baby seal, except not for money, just for the pure joy of wrecking something so beautiful he would never be able to own.

He would make her touch him, though, and Kurt shuddered as he thought about it. His mouth salivated at the thought of grabbing her hand and shoving it down his pants as he choked her.

Kurt could hardly contain himself as Rachel slowly stepped onto the path that ran elliptical through the garden, coming back full circle to where she stood, and right by where Kurt hid. Then Rachel slowly padded around the curve of the path that went away from Kurt. He didn't move though. It took all he had but he didn't move to pursue Rachel as she walked slowly away from him, oblivious to the danger and her impending doom.

Kurt felt powerful, like he was witness to something precious and secret. It had happened like this once before and he had sprung too soon and his prey had escaped. Tonight would be different. Tonight would be the night that he learned from his past mistakes. He would be patient with his prey. Too often he charged head-long into these things and somehow penalized himself by rushing through the experience instead of really appreciating every moment along the way.

Kurt stood as still as a stalk of Midwest corn, after the summer's heat has sucked the moisture out of it and the sun had dried it, bleaching its long green leaves a sickly yellow. He sucked his teeth while Rachel slowly walked around the trail. And when she finally walked to the sculpture which he hid behind, she walked by with a quickened step, not looking up at the vulgar display but instead looking down the trail past it.

This bitch,
Kurt thought,
she would be one of those people who don't like this beautiful work of art. This cunt thinks she is better than everyone and everything. I'm so sick of it.

Something inside Kurt broke, and hate rushed through the thin walls of his heart to fill him completely. It was exhilarating and it turned him on like it always did. Without conscious thought and acting completely on predator instinct, Kurt sprinted around the monument he loved so much and bee-lined for Rachel.

She looked back to see him coming as he plunged through a small patch of knee-high flowers by the path. The scream that left her mouth and filled the garden was one as old as time itself, to be repeated throughout history again and again.

A short ode to the sculpture titled “Greed” that Kurt loved so much. The ballad of the oppressed as they were made to suffer.

RACHEL WALKED AROUND the sculpture garden completely at ease. It was one of her favorite places to stop on her way home from going out, when she actually decided to get out of her apartment. The night had a chill on it that she didn't like though, and instead of really taking her time, she moved rather rapidly down the narrow trail of worn grass.

Sometimes she stopped to peer up at the stars, trying to make out half-remembered constellations. But other than those brief moments of hesitation she moved with a grace born of confidence.

When she got to the sculpture of the two figures embraced in struggle and one groping the other, she sped up her step. Although she hadn't been one of the people that had protested the existence of the stone carvings, she didn't exactly like them, either. For her, the piece was just a reminder that there were people out there who wanted to hurt her for reasons that had been recycled and reused for years, reasons as old as time, really.

As a beautiful and smart woman, Rachel sometimes thought about how lucky she was to not yet be a statistic on a chart somewhere in the annuls of the university that mapped out the rise and fall of sexual assault on campus, moving with the wax and wane of frat boys and sports stars. Rachel didn't think all of them were like that though, always keeping in mind that there were plenty of frat friends and sports people she kept in touch with, and they would never even think of so much as treating her poorly.

That's why Rachel hadn't protested with the feminists even though she considered herself one, even going as far as to tell her mother and father, when he was still alive, that she identified as a feminist. Her mother had taken it well, just laughing a little laugh and telling her not to burn her bra right away. Her father had gotten a little snappy, saying something along the lines of the expected “no daughter of mine” speech. Rachel had taken both reactions in stride, realizing that her parents would always be her parents no matter what, and no extremist political ideology was going to change that for them.

But Rachel didn't really consider feminism to be extremist at all, instead viewing it as a natural reaction—wanting equal pay and to be in charge of her own body was something she felt should be the default way of thinking for women, since it was certainly what men would want if the positions were changed. She was lost in deep thought when she heard what sounded like a large animal rushing through vegetation behind her.

Rachel turned, but instead of seeing a charging bull saw Kurt Sully, one of the football players that always looked at her like a piece of meat. In the brief moments between seeing Kurt and him crossing the distance, she screamed as loud as she could.

Rachel turned to meet him and saw that his eyes were dark and menacing, as if he knew exactly what was going to happen. His left arm cocked back to deliver a powerful punch. She feinted like she was going to duck or shimmy past him to the right. But instead, she held her ground and blocked with her right arm. His punch fell long, with the bicep impacting her blocking arm and his fist overshooting her head by a few inches.

For a second they seemed to freeze in the air, like two marionettes strung up by gods to mime the sculpture “Greed” that served as their backdrop. Before the seemingly stretched-out moment ended, Rachel managed to rake Kurt across the face with her nails, from top to bottom. Each finger opened up a deep rent in his face that gushed blood down onto his varsity jacket.

Then they dropped to the ground with a thud, entangled. Somewhere in the flight or fight part of Rachel's brain, it occurred to her that she would probably need some kind of plan. When she stood up, Kurt would be standing up, too, and his intentions were pretty clear at this point.

Rachel rolled over on her stomach, pushed her palms down on the earth, and brought her feet up under her so she could run right away before Kurt could try to wrestle her back to the ground. But then she saw someone sprinting towards them at full speed.

Just before the blurring figure got to them, she recognized Sam by his varsity jacket. Relief flooded her.

Rachel opened her mouth to say something before Sam soccer-kicked Kurt in the face. The big oaf had been crawling over to Rachel with the intent of snaking one of her legs out from underneath her just while she stood up. The kick from Sam was so viscous it sent him spinning the other way, and left him cradling his head, his face a ragged mess from Rachel's nails.

“You bastard!” Sam said. “How could you?”

Kurt looked at Sam with an expression of blank terror. Instead of saying anything in return, Kurt got to his feet and sprinted into the darkness of the sculpture garden, weaving in and out of some of them to be harder to catch. Sam's body tensed for a moment, as if to take after Kurt, but then he relaxed.

Rachel was glad to see him stay with her instead of chasing the football player into the dark where who knew what could be waiting for him. She wondered how many times Kurt had done this, and what tricks or traps waited in the dark for those who decided to take action against the sick son-of-a-bitch.

“ARE YOU ALL right?” Sam said.

Rachel rubbed the spot where Kurt's bicep had connected with her head when he'd overshot his punch. She looked down at herself to find her clothes disheveled and soiled, but besides that, not much damage was done.

“I think so,” Rachel said standing up and dusting herself off quickly.

They both stood in silence for a moment before Rachel burst into tears.

Sam tried consoling her with a hug, but for a few minutes the sobs wouldn't stop coming.

“Oh my God.” Rachel said. “Thank you so much for being here, Sam. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have happened. That sicko was hiding here behind those perverted statues! Can you believe that?”

Sam held her gently for a few moments, wondering what the right thing to do was. It occurred to him that he needed to get her somewhere safe, somewhere she could recover from the shock of the incident and clean up a little bit.

“We could go back to my place,” Sam said pointing to the other side of the sculpture garden. “It's just across the street from here. We'd just have to follow this path to the street and cross.”

“That sounds fine,” Rachel said. “I just need a second, okay? Just give me a second to calm down.”

They walked carefully through the sculpture garden to the street, wary of the possibility that Kurt might be lurking in the shadows. But it didn't take them long to make it through the stones and to the street where they crossed to get to Sam's apartment.