The Girl Next Door (19 page)
Exactly what we weren’t supposed to do.
It made me feel like fainting. The push and pull. It was that strong.
“Want some more?” said Woofer.
“Could I? Please?”
He ran out to the sink and then back again with another jarful. He gave it to Donny and she drank that too.
“Thanks. Thank you.”
She licked her lips. They were chapped, dry, split in places.
“Do you . . . do you think you could . . .? The ropes . . . they hurt me a lot.”
And you could see they did. Even though her feet were flat on the floor she was still stretched tight.
Willie looked at Donny.
Then they both looked back at me.
I felt confused for a moment. Why should they care what I thought? It was like there was something they were looking for from me and they weren’t sure that they’d find it.
Anyway, I nodded.
“I guess we could,” said Donny. “A little. On one condition though.”
“Anything. What?”
“You have to promise not to fight.”
“Fight?”
“You have to promise not to make any noise or anything and you have to promise not to fight and not to tell anybody later on. Tell anybody
anytime.”
anytime.”
“Tell what?”
“That we touched you.”
And there it was.
It was what we’d all been dreaming about in that bedroom upstairs. I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. I could hardly breathe. I felt like everybody in the room could hear my heartbeat.
“Touched me?” said Meg.
Donny blushed deeply. “You know.”
“Oh my God,” she said. She shook her head. “Oh Jesus. Come on.”
She sighed. Then thought for a moment.
“No,” she said.
“We wouldn’t hurt you or anything,” said Donny. “Just touch.”
“No.”
Like she’d weighed and considered it and simply couldn’t see her way clear to do that no matter what happened and that was her final say on the matter.
“Honest. We wouldn’t.”
“No. You’re not doing that to me. Any of you.”
She was mad now. But so was Donny.
“We could do it to you anyway, jerk-off.
Who’s gonna stop us?”
Who’s gonna stop us?”
“I am.”
“How?”
“Well you’ll only do it to me once goddamn you, and only one of you. Because I won’t just tell. I’ll scream.”
And there wasn’t any question but that she meant it. She’d scream. She didn’t care.
She had us.
“Okay,” said Donny. “Fine. Then we leave the ropes the way they are. We put the gag back on and that’s that.”
You could see she was close to tears. But she wasn’t giving in to him. Not on this. Her voice was bitter.
“All right,” she said. “Gag me. Do it. Leave. Get out of here!”
“We will.”
He nodded to Willie and Willie stepped forward with the rag and scarf.
“Open up,” he said.
For a moment she hesitated. Then she opened her mouth. He put the rag in and tied the scarf around it. He tied it tighter than he had to, tighter than before.
“We still got a deal,” said Donny. “You got some water. But we were never here. You understand me?”
She nodded. It was hard to be naked and hanging there and proud at the same time but she managed it.
You couldn’t help admiring her.
“Good,” he said. He turned to leave.
I had an idea.
I reached out and touched his arm as he passed and stopped him.
“Donny?”
“Yeah?”
“Look. Let’s give her some slack. Just a little. All we have to do is push the worktable up an inch or two. Ruth won’t notice. I mean, look at her. You want to dislocate a shoulder or something? Morning’s a long way off, you know what I mean?”
I said this in a voice loud enough so that she could hear.
He shrugged. “We gave her a choice. She wasn’t interested.”
“I know that,” I said. And here I leaned forward and smiled at him and whispered. “But she might be
grateful,”
I said. “You know? She might remember. Next time.”
grateful,”
I said. “You know? She might remember. Next time.”
We pushed the table.
Actually we sort of lifted and pushed it so as not to make much noise and with the three of us and Woofer it wasn’t too hard. And when we were done she had maybe an inch of slack, just enough to give her a bend at the elbow. It was more than she’d had in a very long while.
“See you,” I whispered as I closed the door.
And in the dark I think she nodded.
I was a conspirator now, I thought. In two ways. On both sides.
I was working both sides from the middle.
What a great idea.
I was proud of myself.
I felt smart and virtuous and excited. I’d helped her. One day would come the payoff. One day, I knew, she’d let me touch her. It would come to that. Maybe not the others—but me.
She’d
let
me.
let
me.
So “See you, Meg,” I whispered.
Like she’d thank me.
I was out of my mind. I was crazy.
Chapter Thirty
In the morning we came down and Ruth had untied her and brought her a change of clothes along with a cup of hot tea and some unbuttered white toast and she was drinking and eating that sitting cross-legged on the air mattress when we arrived.
Clothed, freed, with the gag and blindfold gone, there wasn’t much mystery left in her. She looked pale, haggard. Tired and distinctly grumpy. It was hard to remember the proud Meg or the suffering Meg of the day before.
You could see she was having trouble swallowing.
Ruth stood over her acting like a mother.
“Eat your toast,” she said.
Meg looked up at her and then down at the paper plate in her lap.
We could hear the television upstairs—some game show. Willie shuffled his feet.
It was raining outside and we could hear that too.
She took a bite of the crust and then chewed forever until it must have been as thin as spit before swallowing.
Ruth sighed. It was as though watching Meg chew was this great big trial for her. She put her hands on her hips and with her legs apart she looked like George Reeves in the opening credits of
Superman.
Superman.
“Go on. Have some more,” she said.
Meg shook her head. “It’s too . . . I can’t. My mouth is so dry. Could I just wait? Have it later? I’ll drink the tea.”
“I’m not wasting food, Meg. Food’s expensive. I made that toast for you.”
“I . . . I know. Only . . .”
“What do you want me to do? Throw it out?”
“No. Couldn’t you just leave it here? I’ll have it in a while.”
“It’ll be hard by then. You should eat it now. While it’s fresh. It’ll bring bugs. Roaches. Ants. I’m not having bugs in my house.”
Which was kind of funny because there already were a couple of flies buzzing around in there.
“I’ll eat it real soon, Ruth. I promise.”
Ruth seemed to think about it. She adjusted her stance, brought her feet together, folded her arms across her breasts.
“Meg honey,” she said, “I want you to try to eat it now. It’s good for you.”
“I know it is. Only it’s hard for me now. I’ll drink the tea, okay?”
She raised the mug to her lips.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” said Ruth. “Nobody said it was easy.” She laughed. “You’re a woman, Meg. That’s hard—not easy.” Meg looked up at her and nodded and drank steadily at the tea.
Donny and Woofer and Willie and I stood in our pajamas and watched from the doorway.
I was getting a little hungry myself. But neither Ruth nor Meg had acknowledged us.
Ruth watched her and Meg kept her eyes on Ruth and drank, small careful sips because the tea was still steamy hot, and we could hear the wind and rain outside and then the sump pump kicking in for a while and stopping, and still Meg drank and Ruth just stared.
And then Meg looked down for a moment, breathing in the warm fragrant steam from the tea, enjoying it.
And Ruth exploded.
She whacked the mug from her hands. It shattered against the whitewashed cinder-block wall. Tea running down, the color of urine.
“Eat it!”
She stabbed her finger at the toast. It had slipped halfway off the paper plate.
Meg held up her hands.
“Okay! All right! I will! I’ll eat it right away! All right?”
Ruth leaned down to her so that they were almost nose to nose and Meg couldn’t have taken a bite then if she’d wanted to—not without pushing the toast up into Ruth’s face. Which wouldn’t have been a good idea. Because Ruth was burning mad.
“You fucked up Willie’s wall,” she said. “Goddamn you, you broke my mug. You think mugs come cheap? You think tea’s
cheap?”
cheap?”
“I’m sorry.” She picked up the toast but Ruth was still leaning in close. “I’ll eat. All right? Ruth?”
“You fucking better.”
“I’m going to.”
“You fucked up Willie’s wall.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Who’s going to clean it? Who’s going to clean that wall?”
“I will. I’m sorry, Ruth. Really.”
“Fuck you, sister. You know who’s going to clean it?”
Meg didn’t answer. You could see she didn’t know what to say. Ruth just seemed to get madder and madder and nothing could calm her.
“Do you?”
“N . . . on.”
Ruth stood up straight and bellowed.
“Su-san!
Su-san! You come down here!”
Su-san! You come down here!”
Meg tried to stand. Ruth pushed her down again.
And this time the toast did fall off the plate to the floor.
Meg reached down to pick it up and got hold of the piece she’d been eating. But Ruth’s brown loafer came down on the other one.
“Forget it!” she said. “You don’t want to eat, you don’t need to eat.”
She grabbed the paper plate. The remaining piece of toast went flying.
“You think I should cook for you? You little bitch. You little ingrate!”
Susan came hobbling down the stairs. You could hear her way before you saw her.
“Susan, you get in here!”
“Yes, Mrs. Chandler.”
We made way for her. She went past Woofer and he bowed and giggled.
“Shut up,” said Donny.
But she did look pretty dignified for a little girl, neatly dressed already and very careful how she walked and very serious-looking.
“Over to the table,” said Ruth.
She did as she was told.
“Turn around.”
She turned to face the table. Ruth glanced at Meg, and then slipped off her belt.
“Here’s how we clean the wall,” she said. “We clean the wall by cleaning the slate.”
She turned to us.
“One of you boys come over here and pull up her dress and get rid of them panties.”
It was the first thing she’d said to us all morning.
Meg started to get up again but Ruth pushed her down hard a second time.
“We’re gonna make a rule,” she said. “You disobey, you wise-mouth me, you sass me,
anything
like that, missy—and she pays for it. She gets the thrashing. And you get to watch. We’ll try that. And if that doesn’t work then we’ll try something else.”
anything
like that, missy—and she pays for it. She gets the thrashing. And you get to watch. We’ll try that. And if that doesn’t work then we’ll try something else.”
She turned to Susan.
“You think that’s fair, Suzie? That you should pay for your trash sister? For what she does?”
Susan was crying quietly.
“N ... noooo,” she moaned.
“’Course not. I never said it was. Ralphie, you get over here and bare this girl’s little butt for me. You other boys get hold of Meg, just in case she gets mean or stupid enough to walk into the line of fire here.
“She gives you any trouble, smack her. And careful where you touch her. She’s probably got crabs or something. God only knows where that cunt has been before we got her.”
“Crabs?” said Woofer. “Real
crabs?”
crabs?”
“Never mind,” said Ruth. “Just do what I told you to do. You got all your life to learn about whores and crab lice.”
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