Enter, Night (3 page)

A fourth thought—that this was as dangerous as anything he’d ever
done in his life, knowing that Don could come home at any moment—
came and went in another wave of lust.

When Fleur shrugged off the bathrobe she wore, Jordan saw she
was completely nude. Her belly arched gently outwards from a body that
was more slender than he would have expected, freed of the smocks and
baggy shirts she’d worn during the time he lived there. Jordan marvelled
at the pale curves of her body, the swollen breasts and the soft delta
between her legs, almost hidden by the press of her belly. When she
knelt down and took his cock in her mouth, he thrilled at the unfamiliar
sensation of her mouth and tongue on a part of his body that only he had
ever touched.

She’s beautiful,
Jordan thought, surprised. He realized that he had
expected her body to look grotesque and distended in its fecund state,
but he’d never seen anything as desirable in all of his seventeen years. He
put his hands on her upper arms and awkwardly raised her to her feet,
leaning forward to kiss her. The feeling of his cock against her flesh made
him light headed. He reached out tentatively and touched her breasts. She
moaned softly in response and arched her back, offering herself further.
Her nipples were moist with fluid lactate that tasted sweet against his
tongue.

He allowed himself to be led to the bedroom she shared with Mack
and Don. Fleur lay down on the bed. Jordan spread her legs with his
knees and pressed himself between her legs.

“No,” she whispered, as he started to grind. “Slow down. Not like
that.” She climbed on top of him and gently lowered herself on him.
Jordan gasped as he slipped inside her. “Like this. Slow. Yes, slow down.
Good. Yeah.”

“I love you,” he blurted out, realizing, even as he said it, how
ridiculous he sounded. But at that moment, he was telling the truth. He
loved her. He’d never loved anyone so much in his life. He laid his hands
over her belly.

“Hush,” Fleur said. “Don’t talk. Just fuck me.”

“This is my first—I mean, I never—” Jordan wasn’t sure if he was
apologizing to her or warning her, but it was suddenly very important
that she know he was a virgin.

Fleur whispered in his ear, “Oh baby, I know. That’s all right.” She
put her hands on his ass and guided him into her. “Like this. Now, just go
with it.”

When he came, Jordan cried out, a sound from deep in the back of his
throat, one that sounded foreign even to him. He felt himself dissolving,
as though everything from his waist down had become insubstantial. He
shouted again, this time as his body shook with erotic aftershock.

He was drenched in sweat. Rivulets of it ran from his hair into his
eyes, making them sting. He was suddenly terribly thirsty.

“I need a glass of water,” he said, inclining his head towards Fleur.
“Do you want one?”

“Yeah, please.” Her voice sounded very small. She gathered the
sheets and blanket around her body and rolled away from him, staring at
the wall.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. You’d better get dressed. Don will be coming home soon.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Jordan looked at her again. “Are you sure you’re
OK? You don’t sound it. I mean, you wanted to, right?”

“Yeah, I wanted to. Hurry up, now. Get our water, and get dressed.”

Jordan was halfway back across the kitchen floor with two glasses
of water, still naked, when he heard the sound of a key in the lock. He
looked back over his shoulder into the bedroom. Fleur was sitting upright
on the bed, her mouth a perfect oval of terror.

The door swung open and Don stepped across the threshold. Jordan
smelled the whiskey even before Don looked up and saw him standing
there, frozen in place. Don took in Jordan’s nakedness, the two glasses of
water, and Fleur on the bed with the covers gathered around her.

“What the
fuck
? You
whore
! And with this fucking
kid
?” He whirled
to face Jordan. “You little piece of shit, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Don drew his arm back and slapped Jordan across the face. Jordan’s
vision went white, and the two glasses of water shattered on the floor.
When Jordan stumbled backwards, pain singing through his head, Don
punched him, knocking him to the floor. Jordan felt the broken glass
cut into his palms as he tried to stand. Don clenched his fists and turned,
stumbling, towards the bedroom.

Fleur screamed. “Don, it didn’t mean anything! Don’t hit me! The
baby! Don’t hurt the baby!”

Don leaned down so his face was inches from Fleur’s. “Who’s fucking
baby is it, you whore? Is it mine? Is it even Mack’s? How many other guys
have you been fucking while we’ve been out busting our asses trying to
keep a roof over your head? You slut!”

Jordan stood up. His nose was bleeding and his left eye and bottom
lip were swelling shut. “Leave her alone,” he said thickly. “Get away from
her, you asshole.” Don turned towards Jordan, his face contorted with
rage. A line of snot ran from Don’s left nostril. Jordan was again assailed
by the familiar smack of sour whiskey on his breath.

“What did you say, you little—”

Jordan hit Don as hard as he could with his closed fist. It was a
perfect punch, an instinctive punch, the sort of punch he’d seen his father
throw back home. It took them both by surprise. Don fell backwards and
crashed into the bedroom closet. To Jordan, the splintering sound of the
cheap plywood slats as they snapped beneath Don’s weight was deeply
satisfying. He grabbed Don by the hair and pulled him to his feet. Then
he hit him again, and again.

He hit him the way he’d always wanted to hit his father—not only
for what he’d done to Jordan, but for what he’d done to Jordan’s mother.

He beat Don until his face was a pulpy mash of red, and until he
thought he felt the bones of his face about to yield.

Fleur screamed. “Oh my God, Don!
Don
!” She took a step towards
Don, still clutching the sheets against her body. “Jesus, baby! Are you all
right? Jesus!” She reached for him. He slapped her hand away.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” He got to his feet and wiped the blood
from his mouth. He pointed a finger at her. “I’m going for a walk. If this
fucking kid isn’t gone when I get back, I will be. You and Mack can raise
the baby on your own, whoever’s baby it is. And you,” he said, turning to
Jordan, “go back to whatever shithole you came from. You don’t belong
here.”

Jordan heard the front door shut and the sound of Don’s feet on the
stairs, then the fainter slam of the door to the street.

“You need to get out of here,” Fleur said, staring past him to the
door. Her face was ashen and there was an edge of hysteria in her voice.
“He can’t leave me. He just can’t. You have to go.”

“Go? Where?” Jordan screamed. “Where am I supposed to go?”

Fleur was moaning now. “It’s his baby. I need him. You have to leave.
Get dressed, for God’s sake, and get out of here.”

“I thought you said it was everybody’s baby?” He reached for his
jeans and pulled them on. “He’s going to hit you again, you know. You
and this kid you’re about to have.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. Look, it was a mistake. It was nice, you’re a
great guy, but . . . look, get dressed. You have to leave. He’ll be back in half
an hour, I know him. If you’re here, he’ll leave me and the baby.”

“What about Mack?”

“What
about
Mack? It’s not his baby. He won’t be able to help me
take care of it!”

“What, you fuck me, then when I save you from that asshole, you
throw me out? That was my first time, you crazy bitch! Jesus. Where am
I
supposed to go? I don’t know anyone else in this shitty fucking city. I
don’t have any money, and I don’t have anyplace to go! What’s wrong
with you?”

“I don’t know, go back home. Go back to your hometown. You said
yourself it wasn’t working out here for you here. You said you lost your
job, right? You can go back to that town you’re from. What’s it called?
Lake Huron? You can go there, can’t you?”

“I can’t even afford a bus ticket home,” Jordan said dully.

Fleur spoke quickly. “There’s a hundred dollars in the bottom drawer.”
She gestured frantically towards the dresser. “It’s inside the peanuts can,
under my clothes. Go look. It’s under those sweaters.”

It took Jordan less than fifteen minutes to pack what little he’d
brought to the city, and since he’d accomplished nothing, been nowhere,
and done nothing, he had nothing to take back with him except what
he’d brought. When Fleur left the room, Jordan lifted a half-full bottle
of rye from the nightstand beside the bed that he hoped was Don’s and
quickly tucked it into his bag.

In the bathroom, he gingerly washed his face with cold water. He
winced, marvelling at how quickly the wounds from Don’s fists had
bloomed under his cheek and beneath his eye. The blood had stopped,
but he looked rough as hell. There was a bottle of prescription painkillers
on the upper shelf in the medicine cabinet. The prescription was made
out to “Benson, Don,” he noted with grim pleasure as he put the bottle in
his knapsack. Jordan would need it later, he was sure. His nose probably
wasn’t broken, but Don had hit him pretty hard. It was starting to hurt
like hell. He hoped Don felt worse than he did and that he’d go looking
for these pills as soon as he came home from his round-the-block sulk.

Piece of shit,
Jordan thought.
These people are crazy. Especially Fleur.
Crazy bitch. They’re all crazy bitches. They marry men that hurt them and
kick the ones who don’t hurt them out the door. And when the kid is born, he’ll
be next. Just like I was.

He heard her knocking on the bathroom door as he turned off the
faucet and dried his face on the dirty towel hanging over the bathroom
curtain.

“Are you OK in there? Come on, Jordan, you’ve got to leave. He’ll be
home any minute.” She was dressed in her smock again, and it looked like
she’d run a comb through her hair. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but
she was visibly calmer, more like the flower power “it’s all beautiful” freak
chick he’d met three months ago.

“One question,” he said in the doorway. “Why? Why me? Why now?”

She shrugged. “I liked you. You’re cute. Don and Mack, you know . . .
Well, we’re all going to be together once the baby is born, and I thought—”

He cut her off. “He’s going to hurt you. And he’ll hurt the baby. He’s
not going to stop.”

Fleur shook her head. She smiled blankly and said, “No, he’s not like
that. I just made him jealous. He’s never like that. He’d never hit me.”

Half an hour later at the bus depot, Jordan asked the ticket vendor
when the first bus for Lake Hepburn was leaving. He told Jordan there
was a Greyhound departing for Sault Ste. Marie at midnight with a stop
in Lake Hepburn just after 5:00 a.m.

At some point between the apartment and the bus depot, it occurred
to Jordan that he had very likely committed a crime by beating Don as
badly as he had. A crime that Don could report to the police, one that
could land Jordan in jail. And if he was in jail, he could kiss off any chance
of saving his mother from his bastard father. He looked around the
station guiltily, half-expecting to see police officers coming through the
doors, pointing at him and drawing their guns.

“Anything before that?”

The ticket vendor looked up and raised his eyebrows when he saw
Jordan’s bruises. “Not a fan of our great city, I see. Okie-dokie, just a
minute.” He checked the schedule again. “Well, lookie here. There’s a
Northern Star bus leaving in an hour. Ticket’s almost half the price.” He
leaned closer to Jordan. “It’s sort of an old bus, kid. Not real comfortable.
If you wait for the Greyhound, you’ll have a smoother ride. You look like
you could use it.”

Jordan said, “I’ll take the Northern ticket, please.”

The vendor sighed. “Round trip or one way?”

“One way, please,” Jordan said. He paid for the ticket and went to
wait on one of the benches near the platform.

Jordan boarded the bus
at six p.m., making his way to the back where,
as fate would have it, he met the vampire, who was sitting in the opposite
row of seats.

He smiled sympathetically at Jordan and said, “I hope you made the
other guy look worse, at least?”

Jordan turned his head. “Excuse me?”

“Your face. It looks like you were in a fight.” Jordan thought the man
might be in his late thirties, certainly no older than forty. He was darkhaired and clean-shaven, but his face had a thick five o’clock shadow.
“Was it over a girl?”

“Yeah, it was a bad fight,” Jordan said. “And it was over a girl. And
the other guy did look worse. A lot worse.”

“My name’s Richard,” the man said, extending his hand across the
aisle. “Richard Weal. My friends call me Rich.”

“Hi, I’m Jordan.” He shook Weal’s hand warily. He wasn’t used to
talking to strangers, but since the ride was going to be a long one, he
figured it was better to be friendly than not, if only to ensure a peaceful
trip.

Weal smiled. “Where’re you headed?”

“Lake Hepburn,” Jordan said. “Just before Sault Ste. Marie.” He
shrugged off his jacket and put it on the seat next to him. Feeling
obligated, he asked. “How about you? Going far?”

“A town called Parr’s Landing,” Weal said. “It’s been a long ride for
me. I’ve been riding this bus since Ottawa. That’s five hours already. I
can’t feel where my back ends and this seat begins.”

“Never heard of it,” Jordan said. He shrugged. “I mean Parr’s Landing,
not Ottawa. You have family there, in Parr’s Landing?”

“It’s near Marathon.” Weal smiled again, revealing a mouthful of
yellowish teeth that looked like they hadn’t been brushed in days. “On
Lake Superior. In the bush. In the middle of
nowhere,
truth to be told.”
Weal laughed, an abrupt high giggling screech of hilarity entirely out of
sync with the rest of his delivery. “I used to live there a long time ago.
I’m an archaeologist. I’m doing a PhD at the University of Ottawa on
the history of the Jesuit settlements in northern Ontario during the
seventeenth century. Or rather, I was. I took a bit of a sabbatical, for
health reasons. But I’m going back to complete some of my research.” He
patted his hockey bag. Jordan saw that his nails were filthy, the cuticles
crusted with what looked like dried mustard and ketchup.