The Girl Next Door (17 page)
Meg was standing on a small pile of books—three thick red volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia.
She was gagged and blindfolded.
Her feet were bare. Her shorts and shortsleeve blouse were dirty. In the space between the two, stretched out as she was, you could see her navel.
Meg was an inny.
Woofer paced around in front of her running the beam of his flashlight up and down her body.
There was a bruise just under the blindfold on her left cheek.
Susan sat on a carton of canned vegetables, watching. A blue strand of ribbon made a bow in her hair.
Off in the comer I could see a pile of blankets and an air mattress. I realized Meg had been sleeping there. I wondered for how long.
“We’re all here,” said Ruth.
A dim amber light bled in from the rest of the basement but mostly it was just Woofer’s beam in there and the shadows moved erratically along with him when he moved, making things look strange and fluid and ghostly. The wire mesh over the single high window seemed to shift back and forth by subtle inches. The two four-by-four wooden posts supporting the ceiling slid across the room at odd angles. The ax, pick, crowbar and shovel stacked in the corner opposite Meg’s bed appeared to switch positions with one another, looming and shrinking as you watched, shapeshifting.
The fallen fire extinguisher crawled across the floor.
But it was Meg’s own shadow that dominated the room—head back, arms wide apart, swaying. It was an image straight out of all our horror comics, out of The Black Cat with Lugosi and Karloff, out of
Famous Monsters of Filmland,
out of every cheap twenty-five cent paperback historical thriller about the Inquisition ever written. Most of which I figured we’d collected.
Famous Monsters of Filmland,
out of every cheap twenty-five cent paperback historical thriller about the Inquisition ever written. Most of which I figured we’d collected.
It was easy to imagine torchlight, strange instruments and processions, braziers full of hot coals.
I shivered. Not at the chill but at the potential.
“The Game is she’s got to tell,” said Woofer.
“Okay. Tell what?” Ruth asked.
“Tell anything. Something secret.”
Ruth nodded, smiling. “Sounds right. Only how’s she going to do that with the gag on?”
“You don’t
want
her to tell right away, Mom,” said Willie. “Anyway, you always know when they’re ready.”
want
her to tell right away, Mom,” said Willie. “Anyway, you always know when they’re ready.”
“You sure? You want to tell, Meggy?” said Ruth.
“You ready?”
“She’s not ready,” insisted Woofer. But he needn’ t have bothered. Meg didn’t make a sound.
“So now what?” Ruth asked.
Willie pushed off from the doorjamb where he was leaning and ambled into the room.
“Now we take a book away,” he said.
He bent over, pulled out the middle one and stepped back.
The ropes were tighter now.
Willie and Woofer both had their flashlights on. Ruth’s was still at her side, unlit.
I could see some red around Meg’s wrists from the pull of the ropes. Her back arched slightly. The short-sleeve shirt rode up. She was only just able to stand with her feet down flat on the two remaining books and I could already see the strain in her calves and thighs. She went up on her toes for a moment to take the pressure off her wrists and then sank down again.
Willie switched off his flashlight. It was spookier that way.
Meg just hung there, swaying slightly.
“Confess,” said Woofer. Then he laughed. “No. Don’t,” he said.
“Do another book,” said Donny.
I glanced at Susan to see how she was taking this. She was sitting with her hands folded in the lap of her dress and her face looked very serious and she was staring intently at Meg but there was no way to read what she was thinking or feeling at all.
Willie bent down and pulled out the book.
She was up on the balls of her feet now.
Still she made no sound.
The muscles of her legs defined themselves sharply against her skin.
“Let’s see how long she can go like that,” said Donny. “It’s gonna hurt after a while.”
“Nah,” said Woofer. “It’s still too easy. Let’s do the last one. Get ’er up on her tiptoes.”
“I want to watch her a while. See what happens.”
But the fact was that nothing was happening. Meg seemed determined to tough this out. And she was strong.
“Don’t you want to give her a chance to confess? Isn’t that the idea?” asked Ruth.
“Nah,” said Woofer. “Still too soon. C’mon.
This is no good. Take the other book, Will.”
Willie did.
And then Meg did make some kind of sound behind the gag, just once, a sort of tiny exhaled groan as all at once just breathing became harder. Her blouse pulled up to right beneath her breasts . and I could see her belly rise and fall in an irregular labored rhythm against her rib cage. Her head fell back for a moment and then came forward again.
Her balance was precarious. She began to sway.
Her face flushed. Her muscles strained with tension.
We watched, silent.
She was beautiful.
The vocal sounds that accompanied her breathing were coming more frequently now as the strain increased. She couldn’t help it. Her legs began to tremble. First the calves and then the thighs.
A thin sheen of sweat formed over her ribs, glistened on her thighs.
“We should strip her,” Donny said.
The words just hung there for a moment, suspended as Meg was suspended, tipping a balance that was every bit as precarious.
Suddenly it was me who felt dizzy.
“Yeah,” said Woofer.
Meg had heard. She shook her head. There was indignation, anger and fear there. Sounds came from behind the gag. No. No. No.
“Shut up,” said Willie.
She started trying to jump, pulling on the ropes, trying to throw them off the nails, squirming. But all she was doing was hurting herself, chafing her wrists.
She didn’t seem to care. She wasn’t going to let it happen.
She kept trying.
No. No.
Willie walked over and thumped her on the head with the book.
She slumped back, stunned.
I looked at Susan. Her hands were still clasped together in her lap but the knuckles were white now. She looked directly at her sister, not at us. Her teeth were biting hard and steadily at her lower lip.
I couldn’t watch her.
I cleared my throat and found something like a voice.
“Hey, uh . . . guys . . . listen, I don’t really think . . .”
Woofer whirled on me.
“We’ve got
permission!”
he screamed. “We do! I say we take off her clothes! I say strip her!”
permission!”
he screamed. “We do! I say we take off her clothes! I say strip her!”
We looked at Ruth.
She stood leaning in the doorway, her arms folded close into her belly.
There was something keyed tight about her, like she was angry or doing some hard thinking. Her lips pressed together in a characteristic straight thin line.
Her eyes never left Meg’s body.
Then finally she shrugged.
“That’s The Game, isn’t it?” she said.
Compared with the rest of the house and even the basement it was cool down there but now, suddenly, it didn’t feel cool. Instead there was a growing filmy closeness in the room, a sense of filling up, a thickening, a slow electric heat that seemed to rise from each of us filling and charging the air, surrounding us, isolating us, yet somehow mingling us all together too. You could see it in the way Willie stood leaning forward, the World Book clutched in his hand. In the way Woofer edged closer, the beam of his flashlight less erratic now, lingering, caressing Meg’s face, her legs, her stomach. I could feel it from Donny and Ruth beside me, seeping in and over and through me like some sweet poison, a quiet knowledge shared.
We were going to do this. We were going to do this thing.
Ruth lit a cigarette and threw the match on the floor.
“Go ahead,” she said.
Her smoke curled into the shelter.
“Who gets to do it?” said Woofer.
“I do,” said Donny.
He stepped past me. Both Woofer and Willie had their flashlights on her now. I could see Donny dig into his pocket and bring out the pocketknife he always carried there. He turned to Ruth.
“You care about the clothes, Ma?” he asked.
She looked at him.
“I won’t have to do the shorts or anything,” he said. “But . . .”
He was right. The only way he was going to get the blouse off her was to rip or cut it off.
“No,” said Ruth. “I don’t care.”
“Let’s see what she’s got,” said Willie.
Woofer laughed.
Donny approached her, folding out the blade.
“Don’t start anything,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. But if you start something we’ll just have to hit you again. You know? It’s stupid.”
He unbuttoned the blouse carefully, pulling it away from her body as though shy of touching her. His face was red. His fingers were awkward. He was trembling.
She started to struggle but then I guess thought better of it.
Unbuttoned, the blouse hung shapeless over her. I could see she wore a white cotton bra underneath. For some reason that surprised me. Ruth never wore a bra. I guess I’d assumed Meg wouldn’t either.
Donny reached over with the penknife and cut through the left sleeve up to the neckline. He had to saw through the seam. But he’d kept the blade sharp. The blouse fell away behind her.
Meg began to cry.
He walked over to the other side and cut through the right sleeve the same way. Then he jerked the seam apart, a quick tearing sound. Then he stepped back.
“Shorts,” said Willie.
You could hear her crying softly and trying to say something behind the gag.
No. Please.
No. Please.
“Don’t kick,” said Donny.
The shorts zipped halfway down the side. He unzipped them and tugged them down over her hips, adjusting the thin white panties upward as he did so, then slid the shorts down over her legs to the floor. The leg muscles jerked and trembled.
He stepped away from her again and looked at her.
We all did.
We’d seen Meg wearing just as little I suppose. She had a two-piece bathing suit. Everybody did that year. Even little kids. And we’d seen her wearing that.
But this was different. A bra and panties were private and only other girls were supposed to see them and the only other girls in the room were Ruth and Susan. And Ruth was allowing this. Encouraging it. The thought was too large to consider for long.
Besides, here was Meg right in front of us. In front of our very eyes. The senses overwhelmed all thought, all consideration.
“You confess yet, Meggy?” Ruth’s voice was soft. She shook her head yes. An enthusiastic
yes.
yes.
“No she don’t,” said Willie. “No way.” A sheen of greasy sweat rolled off his flattop down across his forehead. He wiped it off.
We all were sweating now. Meg most of all. Droplets glistened in her armpits, in her navel, across her belly.
“Do the rest,” said Willie. “Then maybe we’ll let her confess.”
Woofer giggled. “Right after we let her do the hoochykoo,” he said.
Donny stepped forward. He cut the right strap of her bra and then the left. Meg’s breasts slid upward slightly, straining free of the cups.
He could have unsnapped it from the back then but instead he walked around in front of her. He slid the blade beneath the thin white band between the cups and started sawing.
Meg was sobbing.
It must have hurt to cry like that because every time her body moved the ropes were there, pulling at her.
The knife was sharp but it took a little while. Then there was a tiny pop and the bra fell away. Her breasts were bare.
They were whiter than the rest of her, pale and perfect and lovely. They shuddered with her crying. The nipples were pinkish brown and—to me—startlingly long, almost flat at the tips. Tiny plateaus of flesh. A form I’d never seen before and wanted instantly to touch.
I’d stepped farther into the room. Ruth was completely behind me now.
I could hear myself breathing.
Donny knelt in front of her and reached up. For a moment it looked like adoration, like worship.
Then his fingers hooked into the panties and drew them down over her hips, down her legs. He took his time.
Then that was another shock.
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