One Way Or Another You Will Pay (13 page)

I
hug him harder, desperately wanting to hug away the pain, fix the damage I am responsible for. Somehow.

We
sit entwined in each other, in silence, the muted sounds of the disco music no match for the chorus of cicadas in Soong’s garden. Then, Bear takes a swig of beer, pulls my mouth to his and motions for me to open mine.

I
do, and he shares his swig of beer with me, a trick we used to do when we first met. Attempts to. As I try to take the beer from his mouth, I choke and splutter, spraying us both with it. We crack up laughing at our silliness.

“Let’s
try that again,” I whisper.

“Okay,”
he says, but doesn’t reach for the beer.

Instead,
he lifts me up to straddle him. When he kisses me, it’s with the intensity and passion reserved for quarreling lovers or for make-up sex.

It’s
been a while since we kissed like this, hungry, ravishing kisses filled with need and want. I mean, we’re married with three children – things tend to get stale, even though we have regular date nights.

But
tonight, in the dark, we’re back to being Bear and Arena holed up in my tiny apartment, with my kids asleep in the next room.

“This
is what I’m talking about,” he whispers in a low voice. “I missed this. Man, I missed it so much.”

I
laugh and probe his mouth with my tongue.

“I
wanna fuck you, Morticia,” he whispers between kisses. “That black lipstick does it for me.”

“Oh,
Frankenstein, that green look you sport, always made me wet.”

We
burst out laughing and engage in a bear-hug. Then the groping starts and the mood changes from playful to ardent. His hand slips under my top, pushes up my bra and kneads my breasts. After a few moments, he lowers his head to take a nipple into his mouth, his hands fighting lengths of fabric to cup my butt at the same time.

“Bear,
no, not here!” I protest, even though I’m caressing his head. “Oooooh!”

When
he raises his head, our mouths fasten to each other, eager and desperate.

“Now,”
he growls, his hands caressing my butt, then moving inside my panties.

“N…o…”
My whisper is half-hearted.

“No
one can see,” he says, as his fingers probe me. “It’s too dark.”

“Bear,
no!”

He’s
listening to nothing. Within seconds he has me impaled on his hard-on, Morticia’s long black skirt offering us the shield we need, as we take from each other what we need.

“I
missed this so much,” he whispers.

“Me
too, but hurry, baby,” I whisper, as he rocks me over him. “Oooh, bab…” I hear a crack. “The chair’s gonna break, Bear!”

“No,
it woooooon't!”

“Bear!”

He’s oblivious to the chair and it’s protests.

Just
as Bear fills me up, the chair breaks.

Way
too quickly for my liking.

“I
didn’t mean
that
quickly,” I say in a sulky voice as we lie on the floor over the broken wooden patio couch that has obviously seen better days.

“You
said ‘hurry’ and I did.” He laughs and kisses me again. “Round two later, okay? You don’t even have to be awake for it. I’ll leave a calling card.”

I
give him a playful smack.

“Oh,
fuck!” Bear says, frowning at the chair in pieces. “Let’s get out of here before they blame us for the broken chair!”

“They
should,” I say in a thoughtful voice. “We broke it.”

“I
think it was broken.”

“Mm,”
I say. “I think you’re right.”

Eventually,
we return to the party and I pull Bear onto the dance floor. He doesn’t really dance but for me, he will hold me and sway out of rhythm.

Sometimes,
depending on how many beers he’s had and how happy he is, he will twirl me around and dip me for a kiss.

I’m
happy to take both of his moves. The
only
two of his moves. Sadly.

With
Savannah sleeping soundly in her stroller less than two feet away, and Amy and Warren high on sugar and jumping around us, Bear twirls me around to Fall Out Boys’
My Songs Know What You Did in The Dark.

“Light
me up! Up! Up! I’m on firrrrre!” he mouths. Yep, Bear’s been known to jumble lyrics and massacre a good song.

He
dips and kisses me, but in an error of judgment, brought on by too many beers (we took a cab to the party, as we planned to drink and drink we did!) he dips too low causing Morticia and Frankenstein to lose their balance and fall to the ground, taking with us Sonny, Cher, Elton John, and Elvis and two drunk 40-something fairies.

Yep,
it’s murder on the dance floor.

We
all remain on the floor and laugh our heads off.

All
is well again. Me and my beautiful Care Bear are tight once again.

Oh,
and I’m awake for a lusty, unrestrained round two.

Bear
made good on his promise to handle Tom and his blackmail.

As
a result, we are outside Ingrid Felix’s house, a corner property in a row of newly-built homes in the suburb of Auburn.

Double-storey,
tan-peachy face-brick, black aluminum windows, a small balcony, and a double garage. The lawn is small, but green and maintained.

For
a single mother, it’s not a bad house.

Maybe
her moonlighting as a kidnapper pays well. Bitch.

Ritchie
and Bear have been tailing her for a while and even though she’s not listed in the phone book, does not have a Facebook account, and is not active on the Internet, they’ve managed to compile quite a dossier on her.

Let’s
hope she likes ugly grey buildings with high walls and thick metal bars, because that’s where she will be spending her years pretty soon. Twenty-four hours a day!

Ritchie’s
voice crackles in my ear. “Okay, I’ve picked the lock on the back door. Go!”

“Right.”
Taking a deep breath, I adjust my headphones, get out of my SUV, and remove a bouquet of roses and a clipboard from the back seat. With my head bowed and a baseball cap on my head, I walk briskly toward Ingrid’s house.

The
street is quiet and no one appears to be around. I do hear a Sponge Bob’s laugh emanating from inside a house I pass on my way to Ingrid’s.

I
pretended to knock at the door and wait.

“Clear,”
Ritchie says in my ear.

Ritchie
wanted to do the snooping around but I needed to be here, inside her home. She was in mine, so I am determined to get into hers and see who she is, what she is all about.

With
a slight nod, I walk around to the back of the house.

Leaving
the flowers on the ground, I open the back door that Ritchie had picked moments earlier and enter the house.

The
interior of the property takes me by surprise. It’s totally different to the exterior – sparsely furnished with mismatched, well-worn couches, off-white lace curtains that are missing prongs, clean but stained carpets, and the wooden coffee table is a collage of children’s artwork and crayon marks.

A
baby’s high-chair that has seen better days, stands in a corner.

The
place is shabbily furnished but fairly neat, even though the sink has dirty dishes in it.

After
using my iPhone to photograph the place, I navigate my way around a small tricycle, a plastic dump truck, and some Legos, upstairs into the main bedroom where I poke around.

It’s
neat but the furniture is mismatched, old and marked.

Her
dressing table has not much on it except a hairbrush, some antiperspirant, a spray can of Dove deodorant, and …concealer.

A
lot of concealer.

L’Oreal,
Revlon, Maybelline, Face of Australia, and Max Factor. All half-finished.

I’m
taken aback. That’s how many jars and tubes of concealer I once used except mine were Mac, Estee Lauder, Bobby Brown, Shiseido, Channel, Clarins, Elizabeth Arden… you name it, I had it.

When
you need the kind of cover I needed, you get
really
creative with concealer – learn how to blend and mix, and constantly experiment with different hues because of the smorgasbord of colours on your face – purple, blue, red, brown, yellow.

I
used a lot of concealer for dark skins, even though I am white skinned. Then, I mixed like crazy.

Bet
I could come up with an awesome range of concealers that would knock Bobby Brown and all her competitors out of the picture, if I wanted to.

But
I won’t. I no longer use concealer, no longer own a single bit of it.

It
brings back too many bad memories for me. Just the smell alone makes me anxious.

As
I stare at offending tubes and jars, my mind races. If she is in a relationship with Tom, this copious amount of concealer, this variety, makes sense.

Let’s
say she is; for him to physically abuse her, they would have to be intimate first.

Was
she the woman he bragged about winning over?

Does
she realize she can be imprisoned if the affair is discovered?

Tearing
my eyes from the concealers, I poke around some more, open cupboards and shoe boxes, looking for …anything, really.

I
find nothing. She lives simply, it seems.

On
the top of her cupboards are two large gift boxes.

Curious,
I pull them down and check them out. Bibles. About six of them.

So
she’s religious. I mean, we’re talking
six
, not
one
in your nightstand like I have but never touch. (I’m happy to know it’s there should I need it.)

“She’s
got six bibles,” I say out loud.

“Six?”
Ritchie sounds curious.

“Huh,
huh.”

“Six…you
sure they’re bibles, Arena?”

“What
do you mean?”

“Open
them. Check for documents. Some people hide it in bibles.”

I
open one and gasp.

“It’s
hollowed out!”

“Really?
Anything in it?”

“A
diary!” I whisper and remove the book from inside the bible.

“Still
wearing your gloves?”

“Huh,
huh.” I open the diary. Maybe this will give me some clues or info to use against the bitch. Read her deep, dark thoughts, delve into her sick mind, and find some reference to Savannah’s kidnapping.

Excited
with my find, I sit on the bed and start paging through the diary.

“O…kay…”

3
rd
January

Dear
Diary, I’m sorry, but I’m no longer going to keep you. When I told Tom I kept a diary, he became really upset. He worried someone will find it and read about our precious love.

“Burn
it,” he said.

I jerk upright.

Tom
didn’t want me to keep a diary. Once, I hid my diary from him. When I returned home from shopping, the diary was in his hand. After spending an hour reading through it and mocking me, he burnt it in the kitchen sink.

“Oh
my God, Ritchie,” I hiss, “she’s our woman and her diary, it’s about Tom!”

“Great!”

“But it’s not in order.”

“Bring
it, Arena.”

“Eh,
there’s like six books here,” I say, as I fish through all the bibles. “Maybe a garbage bag?”

“Nope,
don’t use a garbage bag. It’s something people notice. Find some of those green Woolworth shopping bags. Use them.”

“Okay…”
I read some more.

I said, “Okay,” but I can’t bring myself to burn you. You are my best friend.

But,
for now, I have to say goodbye. (Sad face.)