Total Victim Theory (47 page)

Then, suddenly, in a motion that could be mistaken for a lunge—a motion I don't plan and could never explain—I rise from the bed and wrap my arms around him.

I don’t care why he brought me here. I know that whatever he intended, he won’t do it. We both know he won’t. All I want is to be near him. Whoever he is or was. Whatever he’s done. Whatever has to happen.

I lift my face from his chest and bring my mouth close to his. Closing my eyes, I lightly press my lips to his.

But he doesn't react at all. His lips just eerily hold their ground.

I open my eyes and look at him.

“Kiss me,” I whisper. Everything that’s happened will go away, or won't matter, or will be redeemed, if he can just do this one thing.

But his eyes only study me, no human expression taking root upon his face.

A pang of panic.

Did I miss the boat here? Did I misread that look that was just in his eyes?

I hear him swallow. Breath streams against my cheek.

Now something lightens in his eyes. Then slowly, ever so slowly, his arms enclose me. The few inches between our bodies shrinks away and I feel the press of his sturdy frame.

Finally, he kisses me. Again, I close my eyes, but this time not to hide from him, but to be alone with his lips.

This time there's no hesitation from him. This time it's the real thing. And the kiss is so slow, time almost stops. A frozen, snow globe moment. A moth in amber.

Who can say how long it lasts?

In his arms. At his lips. It’s so beautiful it deserves to last forever. To be relived and replayed a million times.

He looks lanky from a distance—I think he might have lost weight. But up close, he's like a wall. Secret strongholds of muscle scattered across his long bones.

Heat wafts from us in slow, languid pulses.

Then eventually things start to change. A new tempo is introduced. A new cadence to the kissing.

I'm aware of our breathing now. Heavy and almost in unison.

And then suddenly, I'm moving. Fingers, unbuttoning his shirt. Hurriedly, without opening my eyes. Without retreating from his lips.

His hands are on me now too. Tugging at the bottom of my blouse. Trying to pull it over my head. Our mouths part, just long enough to permit the cloth to pass.

Neither of us speaks. There's nothing that needs to be asked or explained. It doesn't matter if there were tears in his eyes that day. It doesn't matter why he brought me here tonight. Not knowing is truer than knowing.

He fumbles with my bra. I bring my hand back and help him with the clasp. And then I grapple with his belt buckle.

His hands cup my breasts. His lips prowl about my throat. Wanting him closer. Closer than the lines of our bodies will allow. So there’s no distance at all.

The ropes that tied my hands are lying on the bed. I brush them to the floor.

I undo the button fly on his jeans and begin tugging his pants to the ground. When they're crumpled at his ankles, I rise and run my fingers through his hair, and search his eyes. Watching every staccato twitch.

Now I bring my hands down and find his hands and interlace all his fingers with the rest of mine. Then I whisper to him, “Turn out the lights.”

*

Hours later I awake. The room, completely dark.

Takes me a moment to remember where I am.

A swirl of hormones wafts through my mind like dissipating rings of smoke. I feel a Cheshire grin plumply sitting on my lips.

The room's warm. It reeks of humid happiness.

All our pent-up energies, extinguished and spent. Like crushed-out cigarettes.

Flashes of our bodies flit through my mind. A montage of moonlit, commingled limbs. The residue of his weight presses down on me. Like a patch of trampled grass.

His smell clings to me in clusters of lurid fumes.

I close my eyes and breathe it in.

Can feel that he was inside me. A valley of tiny tears sings the shape of him. Wetness trickles in secret recesses.

Is he still behind me?

I scooch my body back a few inches, intending to nuzzle up to him. But I feel nothing. I reach back, groping about the bed for a swath of him. But all I get is a warm tangle of blankets.

I sit up, scanning the dark room.

“Luke,” I call out. The serenity of the prior moment long gone.

I catch sight of a small red ring hovering in the darkness not far away. Then a whiff of smoke in the air.

“I’m right here,” his voice says, soothingly.

“Can you turn the light on?” I ask.

A switch is flipped and the room fills with light. My eyes take a moment to adjust. He's sitting in the rocking chair near the foot of the bed. All he's got on is underwear—prison issue I suppose. A half-smoked Virginia Slim wedged between two fingers.

“Hey,” I say. My pang of worry already passing.

“Hey,” he says.

“What are you doing up?” I ask.

“Couldn't sleep.”

“After all that exertion?” I smile. “I figured you'd be beat.”

He laughs. “Just got a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“Meaning, the prison break?”

“That and other things.”

“Like?”

“You, maybe.”

“What about me?”

“I don't know,” he says. “This situation.”

“That's funny, it seems perfectly normal to me.”

He smiles, but half-heartedly.

“So, seriously,” I say, “talk.”

“Just thinking things through. Like—down the road.”

“Like what's going to happen in the morning?”

“For example,” he says. “I'm just aware that we might not have much time together.”

“Neither did Romeo and Juliet,” I say. “But I don't want to think about that. We're here now and that's what matters.”

“A lot of this is new to me.” He looks pensive. “I just want to make sure we’re open with each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“That we say all the things we need to say.”

A long pause. “I guess for me it's not about saying things. After what just happened, I think—I hope—we know what we know.”

“I'm talking about things we might have held back. The important stuff, you know? I think we should just get it all out on the table.”

“Are you talking about secrets?” I ask.

“Maybe.”

I sit up and brush the hair out of my face. “If you’re talking about things you’ve done, whatever it is, I forgive you. But I don't think I need to know about them.” I pause. “I don't know if I could handle that.”

“I was talking more about your secrets.”

“My secrets?” I ask, surprised.

“I think you know what I mean.”

A flash of anger comes over me. “No,” I say. “No, I don't.”

He looks at me patiently. “The glasses, Nicole.”

“No.” I repeat. “I don't tell people about that.”

“But you showed them to me,” he says. “You told me you wore them to feel safe.”

“Is that why you brought all this up in the first place?”

“No, not necessarily—”

“Why is it important to know?” I ask.

“I just have the sense it's important to you. And I want to understand you, that's all.”

“I'm not a puzzle for people to figure out.”

“Of course you're not. But understanding what's happened to someone—where they're coming from—that's part of what intimacy is.”

My tone sounds hostile now. “I think intimacy is about sharing experiences. Not about doing a background check on somebody.”

Luke glances out the window and then back at me. “Nicole, I understand that whatever it is, it's hard to talk about, but—”

“No, you don't understand.” Suddenly, my face is flushed with rage. “It has nothing to do with you or anything. And I don't want to remember or talk about or think about it ever. Those things just make it real. And I just want it to be like it never happened. I want it to be like
he
was never born.” Tears are suddenly streaming down my cheeks. I lower my head into my hands.

“Like who was never born?” he softly asks.

I sit there crying for a long time. “What's it going to change if you know?” My voice irate and garbled with tears. “If you know, is it going to make you
get me
, or respect me, or care about me? No, it's not going to make a damn bit of difference.”

“You don't have to tell me,” he says. “I just wanted to know who—”

“I'm not going to tell you. Why can't you just fucking drop it?”

“Okay, it's dropped,” he says. “I'm sorry. I didn't know it was going to upset you—”

“You didn't know?” I ask angrily.

“I didn't, I don't, know what it was, so I didn't know it would upset you. I won't bring it up again.”

I don't look up. Just sobs. “It was my father,” I say.

“I thought you didn't want to talk about—“

“Listen to me,” I say. “It was my father.”

“Your father did this thing to you? Your father hurt you?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I hurt my father.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hurt my father. What word don't you understand?”

“I don't understand. How did you—?”

“What's the worst way you can hurt someone?

He says nothing.

“Come on. You of all people know the answer to that.”

Again, he says nothing.

“I killed him, Luke. I murdered him. There, are you happy now. Now that we really have something in common? Does that clear everything up for you? Can you make a diagnosis now? Or do you need to know why?”

“I don't need to know anything,” Luke whispers.

“I killed him . . . because, because he tried to rape me when I was thirteen years old. We were on a camping trip and it wasn't the first time something happened. He'd been touching me for a long time . . . he'd been putting things inside me since I was just a little baby. . . .” My voice disintegrates into a sob. “And then he took me up to the mountains one weekend and he tried to fuck me. And I waited till he fell asleep, and I got a knife that was sitting by the campfire, and I slit his fucking throat.”

For a long time, I just have my head in my hands. Everything is wet with tears. My nose is stopped up. But then I realize Luke's there beside me on the bed. He touches my hair and wraps his arms around me.

“It's okay,” he whispers. “It's gonna be okay.”

“I don't know if it ever will . . . I don't know,” I say. “But just don't let me go.”

60

Colorado

I close the door to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. My eyes are red and waterlogged. There are still smudges of makeup from the play last night. Already seems like a long time ago. I splash water on my face. It's freezing cold, almost to the point it stings.

Wow—when the emotions get out, they really run amok. It's like in
Ghostbusters
when the containment unit gets shut down and all hell breaks loose. What I just told Luke was like unleashing the Pillsbury Doughboy. And he's supposed to be the one that's fucked up.

I dry my hands on a yellow hand towel above the sink. There's a small embroidered butterfly on it. I realize I don't have the faintest clue where I am or whose cabin this is. Luke must have planned this all out ahead of time—he had keys to the front door after all. I wonder how he managed it from jail. Are we at a point where I can ask these things? He said no more secrets.

When I come out of the bathroom, I'm surprised to see that Luke's fully dressed. I figured maybe we'd sleep in, but the sun's not even up yet. He must have some plan worked out. Maybe that's what he was referring to when he said we might not have much time. He's standing at the window, looking out at the darkness. I guess he's keeping an eye out for police. To make sure they haven't picked up the trail.

“Is the coast clear?” I ask.

Luke turns and smiles. “For the moment.”

All I'm wearing is a bra and panties and suddenly I feel
uncomfortable being the only one naked. Earlier my clothes were strewn all round, but now I notice they’re folded in a little pile on the rocking chair. As neat as when you get stuff back from the dry cleaners.

“Do you think the police could find you up here?” I ask, sliding into my jeans.

“I doubt it,” he says. “But the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” I see him glance at his watch.

“I doubt Thomas Jefferson had you in mind when he said that.”

“Probably not,” he laughs.

I put on my blouse and my socks and start tying my shoes. “So, how did you get out and get all this set up—the cabin and everything—if that's not classified intel?”

“It's okay.” He smiles an awkward smile. “No secrets, right?”

“Right.”

“Just between you and me, I had some help.”

I pause tying my shoes to think about that. “Wow . . . was it like an inside job?”

“Not exactly,” Luke says. “But I knew someone with some insider information.”

“Might be a useful person for me to know—given how I've been consorting with criminals lately.” I walk over and stand beside him in front of the window.

He turns and looks at me. “I'll be sure and introduce you two.”

I take his hand in mine and make our fingers interlace. “So, it went off without a hitch—the escape?”

“So far, so good. But we're not out of the woods yet.” He loosens his hand from mine and lights another cigarette. “No pun intended.”

“So what is the plan?” I ask.

He doesn't answer. Instead, a strained look takes over his face, like he's suddenly stressed about something.

“Is that a fair question?” I lean close to him, letting my head touch his shoulder.

He takes a tiny, almost imperceptible step back. “You mean what's the plan for you?” His tone seems more distant now.

“Or for us. . . .”

He looks at me for a long moment. Then he rubs his fingers against his temples, as if he had a migraine.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says. “I just have to stop second-guessing myself.”

“How so?”

“When you opened up like you did earlier . . . it just makes it tough. What we're trying to do.” He's turned away from me.

“You lost me.”

His face looks almost sad. “Come here for a second.”

Taking my hand, he leads me over to the bed. Then he sits and bids me to sit down next to him. We're facing each other. He looks so sad. So hopeless all of sudden. He looks into my eyes and runs his hand through my hair.”