Love Lies Dying (66 page)

“Please...” she said again.

Donny turned angry then. He swung her around and slammed the front of her body hard against the wall. Her head cannoned off the wall and she let out a muffled cry.

He grabbed her hips and pulled them towards him. Pattie mumbled something, but John couldn’t hear it over Marty’s laughter.

Donny lifted her dress up and over her ass.

And Marty pulled down her oversized plain panties.

They could all see her fat white arse and, between her legs, her hairy pussy.

John felt sick. He turned and poured himself another cup of punch using the silver ladle.

“I want it to be with
Johnny
for my first time,” she yelled.

Donny pulled the handful of her hair back hard again, then let go of it. She yelled in pain as her forehead hit the wall hard.

“Don’t worry, bitch, you’ll
never
forget your first time,” Donny said to her through clenched teeth.

She dropped her head and stretched her legs further apart. Almost as if she finally realised she was beaten. As if they’d broken her spirit.

Donny had placed his left hand on her fat arse cheek and spread it to one side.

He turned to look at Marty. They both smiled at each other, a sick and twisted smile.

John did nothing. He felt frozen, unable to control the situation.

Marty turned around and surveyed the lounge, his eyes finally coming to rest on the punch bowl.

He leaned over and whispered in Donny’s ear. Donny turned and looked at John. 

And at the ladle still in his hand.

Donny’s smile grew wider and he reached out to the food table with his right hand.

“Give it to me, Murdock,” he said.

The silver ladle.

John stared down at it in his hands.

He didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes from it. He knew what was coming. Before he could react, Marty was by his side.

“Quit stalling, asshole,” he said as he ripped the ladle from his hands. The punch spilled from the ladle all over John’s right hand as Marty took it away from him.

By the time John looked up, Donny had the ladle and was bringing it towards Pattie.

Donny let go of Pattie’s arse just long enough to rub his hands together. Some punch had spilled on his hands too.

His hands were sticky now, just like John’s.

But Donny didn’t care.

He knelt down by Pattie’s arse and positioned the long silver handle of the ladle, resting it on the lips of her pussy.

“Ready?” he had asked.

“
Please, don’t hurt me,
” Pattie whispered.

But he did.

He pushed in hard and fast.

The ladle resisted at first, but then slid easily inside.

He pushed it in hard and deep.

Very deep.

And Pattie screamed.

As she screamed, she turned to face John. She looked him right in the eyes. He could now remember the hate and sadness in them, mixed with fear and revulsion.

“Johnny!” she cried. “
Help me!
”

And John had closed his eyes, turned around, and headed for the door as quickly as possible.

He had to get out of there. That was all he could think of doing.

Pattie’s screams followed him out of the lounge and into the hall as he left her alone with Donny and Marty.

“Remember now?” Richard asked in his head.

John knelt by the pine, his back against the trunk. He wrapped his arms around his body and closed his eyes to the rain.

I can’t believe that happened!

“It did,” Richard continued. “And you blocked it out.”

I was drunk. So were they.

“It doesn’t matter.”

I blocked it out because it was so terrible.

“But Zoe didn’t. She remembered. She remembered the suffering and the pain and the humiliation. You left her there, pal. You left her in the lounge room, on her knees, the ladle so far inside her she had to get help removing it.”

Oh God!

“You just walked out of the room and down the hall.”

And then I met Helen.

“Yes,” Richard said. “You wiped your hands clean and walked straight out to meet Helen.”

It was the happiest night of my life.

“Only once you removed the events that made it the worst night of your life. You thought you were above those other guys, better than them, and finding Helen that night proved it. At least, in your mind...”

No wonder Zoe’s so crazy! Something like that would change anyone…

“And all she was trying to do was be noticed by you.”

I realise that now. But I was younger then. Much younger. How was I to know?

“She’d forgiven you for what you did at the funeral. She was willing to try again.”

Huh?

“Come on, pal. Let’s open up all the way. Let’s get all the skeletons out of your closet…”

“Are you
okay?
”

John opened his eyes. Sherrie was standing over him, a worried look on her face.

“No,” he muttered as lightning flashed and the rain poured down. “No, I’m not okay.”

Seventy-four

Side by side they walked through the rain.

Thunder rolled and echoed deep into the night.

“You want to talk about it?” Sherrie asked as they walked.

He shook his head, “Not yet.”

“Okay,” she replied. “But I’m here for you when you want to talk.”

“I know,” he replied as he turned and kissed her forehead.

He smiled at her.

She’s so good to me. So loving and loyal. I just hope this time I can be as loving and loyal too.

The rain fell heavily.

Sherrie’s hair was a mess and John could see the wound she’d received when Zoe had driven into her car. It was high on the side of her head, and it looked deep. But it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

That’s the main thing.

“Just don’t run off like that again,” she continued.

“I won’t.”

“It
scared
me. And you left me all alone.”

“I know. I promise, it won’t happen again.”

She hugged him.

“I love you,” she said.

How can you?

“I love you too,” he replied. He hoped he sounded as if he meant it.

The rain continued to fall.

They walked on in the night.

“You ready?” asked Richard in the silence.

Yeah. We might as well…

“Okay, you start the story.”

John sighed. He knew what had to follow.

I had no idea the funeral was for Patricia’s mother.

“Yes, you did,” Richard replied. “You’ve just decided to forget it.”

And it was before the party Donny DuBois held?

“Yes, quite a while before.”

For some reason you and I and some of our other friends attended the funeral.

“Uh-huh, not
us
– just
you
. And you had one
particular
reason, pal.”

Laura?

“Laura. Yes, well done, my friend. You’re starting to think through this already! Laura was there because her mother was a close friend of the family.
You
were there to see her. ‘It won’t look so suspicious if we both go,’ you’d said to me. Like
that
was going to stop you! I told you to jam it. I wasn’t going!”

Everyone tried to sit as close to the exit as possible, aiming for the back pews, and far from prying eyes.

“Wrong! You sat down the front. As near to Laura as possible.”

Really? I don’t remember that…

“That doesn’t surprise me, pal.”

During the service, I turned and looked along the row and I saw Laura Austin staring back at me.

“Close, but no cigar, my friend. Don’t you remember? She was sitting
next
to you! You’d purposefully headed down the front to sit with her. Can’t you remember even that?”

No. I mean, well, maybe. It’s all so confusing.

“Lies will do that to you…”

I didn’t know who she was at the time, didn’t even know her name, but I wanted to know her. Very badly.

Richard chuckled. “Boy, you old romantic you! What have you been doing? Reading those one-buck romance novels? You’d known her for about two months then. It was a Monday morning and because you had an out of state football game on the weekend, you hadn’t spent any time with her since Friday. You two were fucking like it was going out of style at that stage, and two days apart must’ve been like a drought of epic proportions for both of you. Think, Johnny,
try
to find the truth.”

Are you sure? I can’t’ve made all this up.

“Really? But you’re so
good
at it! Lies are your forte. You should know that by now. Think of all the lies you told Helen to keep your relationship with Sherrie a secret.”

Laura was sitting about fifteen feet away.

“She was sitting
next
to you with her hand on your thigh…and then higher.”

But outside, when we met, we introduced ourselves.

“Pal, you’ve just confused stories, that’s all. You’ve merged two different events into one. You already knew her when you decided to sneak out of the funeral. The mind can do that sometimes. It compresses things. You just like to help it by sprinkling a few lies here and there too. It
makes
a better story if you compress it all into one!”

We did have sex in the toilet though.

“Oh, yes, you did that. But it wasn’t your first time with her. It was one of your last.”

Thunder rolled by and he remembered all.

She
was
sitting next to him. He was fondling her groin and she was rubbing her hand across his cock. They both got hot very quickly.

They both needed more.

She was wearing that cheeky grin he loved and he smiled back at her.

They both knew what they wanted.

John looked around to make sure no one was watching.

He looked back into her eyes and bent forward, whispering his plan into her ear.

She giggled loudly.

Heads turned towards her and she blushed and slumped down in her seat. But as she settled back down, the heads turned away and back to the priest, who was giving his sermon.

John continued to watch her, smiling at her…loving her.

“Don’t worry,” he remembered whispering to her now. “I’ll make it all up to you.”

She smiled again.

He remembered he was hard and pulsing, his cock pushing to break through his pants. The room was hot and he felt claustrophobic.

Waiting a few minutes more, he timed it just right.

The priest’s back was turned when he stood up.

Faces began to turn and a murmur ran through the whole room. People were watching him, but he didn’t care.

He made his way along his row, excusing himself time and time again, as his legs knocked the knees of other mourners.

Finally, he made it to the end of the row. He straightened himself up, kept his eyes on the floor in front of him and walked up the aisle and out of the room.

“Back up, pal, think
again!
” Richard said in a deep voice. “Someone grabbed your arm, remember?”

John thought about it for a second. He didn’t remember that at all.

“Patricia grabbed you as you were walking down your row. She was sitting in the row in front. She turned around and grabbed you, remember?”

John was about to shake his head.

But then he
did
remember.

Shit, yeah. I do! I was almost at the end of the row when my arm was grabbed. I turned around and Pattie the Fattie was staring up at me. She had tears in her eyes.

“Do you remember what she said to you?”

Lightning flashed around the forest.

He could see her now. The image was clear. He watched her lips move.

“Don’t go, Johnny,” she had asked. “
Please?
”

He looked down at her. Took her hands in his and smiled consolingly.

Jesus Christ!
He remembered it all now.

He bent down to her, leaned over to her ear.

And he whispered into it.

“You can sit here crying your fat little eyes out, for all I care. I’ve got something better to do.”

My God, how could I be so heartless?

John’s eyes filled with tears.

“A bit too late to show remorse, pal,” Richard said in a sad voice. “The time for that was years ago. You can’t take back the words that forged Zoe into who she is today.”

He remembered standing back up and leaving the row, smiling as he did so.

He remembered the total silence in the room as he walked up the aisle. There was just one loud solitary weep.

It came from Patricia.

Everyone’s eyes were upon him and he wondered if anyone had any idea what he had said to her. He didn’t know if they did and, at the time, he didn’t care.

He walked from the room.

And then, a couple of minutes later, so did Laura.

“Clearer now, is it, pal?” Richard said.

John hung his head.

I can’t believe I did that.

“You did.”

I can’t believe I’d forgotten it either.

“I think you know exactly why you blocked it out.”

Because I was an asshole.

“More than that, my friend. You blocked it out because it doesn’t fit the nice, suave, successful guy you think you are now. It just doesn’t fit. You’re as shocked as anyone would be to find out you did those things. And the worst part of it is that Patricia let you get away with it. She didn’t tell anyone, she didn’t call the police when she was raped with the punch ladle. She didn’t tell anyone. She moved on with her life and tried to make it better.”

Until…

“
Exactly!
Until you come back into it to steal Sherrie from her. She loved you once, pal, and you broke her heart. Then you broke it a second time.”

John nodded.

I know.

“She’s not so crazy now, is she?”

Probably not. She’s just fighting for what’s hers. It makes more sense now.

“The truth always does, my friend.”

I should apologise.

“I think the time for that has long gone. For you and Zoe…and Helen.”

I should say something to Zoe.

“She still loves you in a strange, twisted way. I think she finally was content when she had you tied to the X-frame at the church. Finally you were hers and she could do what she liked to you. To apologise now only shows you pity her.”

Not a good idea.

“No, I don’t think so.”

I want to do something…so she knows I’ve changed.

“Pal, the game’s too far gone. You can’t control this now. All you can hope for is that you win.”

He nodded.

I have to win. For Helen and Sherrie.

“And for you. But you can only beat her by playing your rules.”

I know.

“You have to be the one who calls the shots from now on.”

I’m trying.

“Try harder.”

I will. Thanks, Richard.

“Good luck, pal. You’re going to need it.”

And with a clap of thunder, Richard was gone from John’s mind.

Just like that.

As suddenly as he had been taken from them all in the car accident that killed him four years earlier.

Just like that…

I miss you pal,
John thought.

But there was no answer. Richard was gone.

Just silence.

Poor Zoe.

It’s all my fault.

I know that now.

But I’ve got to win.

I have to.

“You okay?” Sherrie asked as they walked through the night.

He nodded.

“You’re very quiet.”

“I’m wrestling with ghosts from the past.”

“Oh…”

“And the present.”

“Sometimes it’s good to talk these things through with somebody,” she continued.

“I know.”

“A good friend or someone even closer.”

He nodded. “I just did.”

She looked confused by his comment, but he smiled and kissed her once more.

“Come on,” he hugged her. “The quicker we get to the church, the quicker this will be over for all of us.”

Lightning flashed and lit their way through the forest.

Game’s end was near.