You Can't Choose Love (20 page)

Autumn’s first whispers came when Alma returned to
the hotel one evening to find a rather excited Elise standing outside of her
bedroom door. “What is it?” Alma said. “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong!” Elise laughed. “Wrong! Wrong! I want my
pay. That’s what’s wrong.”

Alma took the old crone by the arm, unlocked her
door, and led her inside. “Keep your voice down,” Alma warned. “Don’t lose
control. You’ll get the rest of your pay when you give me enough to work with.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Elise said. “I have details,
now. I have many, many details. I have so many details you could fill a book
with them. Hair color, where they went, everything . . .”

“Excellent,” Alma said. She led Elise to the chair
and sat her down. Alma sat on the bed opposite her. “Tell me everything.”

And Elise told Alma everything, from the first time
DeBell had met Bethany right up until her death. About half way through, Alma found
her notebook and pencil and made Elise start over. She scribbled down the
details, as precisely as she could, and then asked Elise to turn around. She
collected the woman’s wages.

“You’ve more than earned this,” she said, handing
her the notes. “You’ve helped me a lot.”

“You won’t be seeing me again,” Elise said, as Alma
helped her to her feet.

“I won’t?”

“I’m leaving Calico. With the money you’ve paid me
and the little I’ve saved, I’m leaving. I have a sister in the east. I reckon
I’ll go there. There are a lot of whores and a lot of old people, but few old
whores. I’ve worn myself out. That’s the truth.”

Alma found herself oddly sad to hear this. “Turn
around,” she said. She went to the mattress and took out two more notes.
“Okay.” Elsie turned back and Alma handed her the notes. “I wish you the best
of luck, Elise.” Spontaneously, she wrapped her arms around the old woman.
Elise, to Alma’s shock, fell into the embrace.

“I feel blessed,” Elise said, “to have laid eyes on
a woman as beautiful as you before I die. I feel truly, truly blessed.”

“I have a favor to ask you,” Alma said, as they
stood apart. “When you go east, do not mention me. My name, my appearance, my
accent—do not mention anything about me, I implore you.”

Elise held her hands up. “You don’t need to tell me
nothing,” she said. “I won’t say a word. I wouldn’t.” Elise leaned in, licked
her lips. “Alma, my girl, are you going to be the queen of Calico one day?”

“No, Elise.” Alma smiled and touched the old woman’s
face, her wrinkled skin. “I’m going to be queen of the Mojave.”

*   *   *

When Elise left, Alma began to write the letters.
She was not sure if she had done more malicious things than what she was about
to do. She consoled herself, briefly, with the knowledge that DeBell was a killer.
But so was she. So was Solomon. So were, most likely, half the people in this
town. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t focus on that. The plan was all.

She wrote:

Avery,
my star.

Do you miss me? It has been a long
time, but I miss you. I miss you very much. But, I have to say, I am ashamed by
what you tried to do to me. Yes, I should not have been with the tavern owner.
Yes, I should not have hurt you. But did you have to try and murder me? Did you
have to leave me in that alley, near the drains, like a piece of garbage? Oh,
when that doctor found me, I was almost dead!

I am here, in Calico. I am here!

Always watching you,

Your love,

Bethany.

Alma wrote thirteen letters after this one. She wrote
by candlelight until the candle spluttered out and she could no longer see the
page. She relit the candle and finished the last letter. She would have to wait
until morning to buy envelopes, but her plan was set.

She slept for a few hours and then went to the
general store, where she bought a variety of items as well as envelopes so it
wouldn’t be obvious later on. She sealed the first letter and stored the rest
under her bed. Then she stuffed the letter in her trousers and left for the
office, half an hour early. As she hoped, it was empty. She crept through –
flinching at every creaking floorboard – and came to DeBell’s office. Kneeling
down, she slid the envelope under the door and then paced through the offices,
to Wallace’s office, and waited, eyeing that throne-like chair that would one
day be hers.

Wallace entered, sat down, and smiled at her.
“You’re here early,” he said.

“I’m excited,” Alma answered, honestly.

She was excited, oh yes. Over a year it had been –
and maybe another year would pass – but she was so close now she could feel it.
She thought of Father and how he had hurt her and the things he had said to
her. “You will always be a useless whore,” he had said. “Nobody will ever want
you,” he had said. “You are a waste of breath,” he had said.
Look at me now,
Father, richer than you ever were, more successful than you ever were, you
piece of scum.

“Shall we get going?” Wallace said.

“Sure.”

They rose to their feet and left the offices. As
Alma mounted Roach, she could not help but feel more at ease than she had for a
long time.

She was not honorable, proper, ladylike, but she
knew how to use what she had. Nobody could take that away from her.

The seasons rode on and Alma rode on with them. She kept
up the practice of buying gifts for the miners, and soon – as Wallace had
anticipated – she became known as a kind, loving woman. She had never been
known as a kind woman before. Though it was part of her plan, she also found it
enjoyable. She sent DeBell a letter once or twice a month and noticed a marked
change in his behavior. Every time she was in the same room as him, she noticed
that he looked at the shadows as though they contained monsters, as though the
walls could fold inward. She once, as innocently as she was able, asked him
what was wrong. He muttered unintelligibly and ran from the room. He was
terrified, Alma could tell, and that was good; she needed him terrified. She
needed him flinching at shadows.

She approached her sweet Solomon three times over
the course of the months. He rebuffed her the first two times, but then he
agreed to meet her.  Alma had always kept her intimate moments with
Solomon innocent, never going beyond simple kissing. Solomon was more to Alma
than any other man and so she forced herself to wait, until her urges for him
became uncontrollable. She entered the stable which they had agreed to meet in.
Solomon was leaning against the wall, moonlight creeping through a window
glistened off of the edgy curves of his body. He stayed still as she approached
him, she could tell he was mad.

“Solomon I know what I have done has hurt you” she
stuttered softly, her usual controlled tone gone. “but you have to understand,”
she continued “I have plans,” she hesitated “for us.”

Solomon slowly looked up at her.

“I don’t know if I like these plans,” he said in a
low childish voice.

“You will,” Alma replied quickly with her usual
confidence. “But in the meantime can you forgive me?” She said in an even more
childish tone than he had just used. Solomon said nothing but held her gaze
firmly. Alma felt an overwhelming sensation to kiss him. She leaned in. Solomon
didn’t lean in back but he made no effort to stop her. As soon as their lips
made contact, Solomon’s tense body relaxed in soft shivers. Solomon slowly
moved his hands up to her thighs, then up to her hips and finally up to her
breasts. He quickly moved his hands to her armpits and forcefully picked her
up, spun her around and pushed her against the wall. Alma had never seen this side
of Solomon before but it was enough to put her over the edge. She moaned as he
kissed her, she could feel his hard cock pressing against her slit through his
tattered britches. Alma decided that she couldn’t take it any longer. She
pushed him off of her and dropped to the floor. Her hands went straight to the
strings of his pants.

He was not prepared for her aggressive response to
his.

“wha what are doi…” his voice cut off as she wrapped
her hand around his cock and pulled it from his trousers. She took his cock and
pulled it towards her lips. Solomon’s eyes glazed down at her as she slowly
placed it in her mouth. His body trembled and his head leaned back from the
pleasure. Alma stood up and pushed Solomon onto the dirt floor. She took off
her clothes and crouched over Solomon, rubbing his cock on her clit. Solomon’s
eyes darted from her eyes to her breasts to her slit. He reached forward and
grabbed the inside of her thigh, pulling her towards him.

“Fuck me.” Alma moaned.

She pulled the head of his cock against her opening
and slowly inserted it. Solomon moaned loudly as she sat down on his cock. Even
though she was the wettest she had ever been, getting his cock inside her was
not easy. Almas jaw opened widely as his cock stretched out her pussy. She
quickened the pace. He moaned and moaned as she rode him, right there in the
stables, and Alma had more orgasms than she remembered having at any other
point in her life. She dug her fingernails into his skin as she came—and he
came with her.

“I love you,” he whispered, bringing her close.

“Don’t,” she said. “I have to do something that will
hurt you.”

“I don’t care. I love you.”

She couldn’t say it back, because she knew what was
coming; and she knew that it would be a long time before she and Solomon could
openly be together. But there was love in her heart. There was no denying that.

She rode and rode as the temperature rose and once
again summer came to the Mojave. She received a letter from Elise, who was
living with her sister and enjoying a life which did not involve whoring. Alma
did not write back. Perhaps it was paranoia but she feared her letter might be
intercepted. The sheriff had not mentioned the wanted poster. Nobody had. But
she could not be too careful. In any case, she wished Elise luck and good
health. She liked the old crone.

She knew she was reaching the last stage in her
plans, but she also knew that the last stage could take a long time. But it
would be worth it.

She had a clear picture in her mind each morning
when she woke: she and Solomon, sitting on a shaded porch, gazing out over the
Mojave with servants offering iced lemonade and cakes.

She knew that the letters had worked when Wallace
busted into the office with an ear-to-ear grin on his face. He paced up and
down the room, as he often did when he was excited. She had come to know him so
well – to be able to read the quirks in his character so well – that she knew
by the pulsing of head just beside his eye and the clenching of his jaw that something
had happened. She rose to her feet, hardly daring to hope, and then she saw
that he had a notice of ownership clutched in his hands.

“He sold it to me!” Wallace exclaimed, waving the
paper in front of her face. “I can’t believe it . . . He called me into his
office and sold it to me right then and there. Like something out of a romance,
he was shaking and trembling, and he said, ‘I want you to have it,’ and when I
asked him why he just shook his head and named a price far less than I would
have paid. I am now the sole owner of the Silver King Mining Corporation!”

Here it was. This was what her scheming and her
fucking and her beauty and her work had led to. Here was the prize laid out
before her, a prize that would take years to properly win, but would hinge on
the next few moments. If she won now, she would have won forever. She felt
certain of that. She arched her back and smiled warmly at him, shining the full
light of her beauty at him: aiming it like a cannon.

He smiled back at her.

She approached him and touched his leg, just beside
his groin, and kissed him on the cheek. “I want you,” she whispered, moving her
lips to his ear. “I want you, Wallace. Will you have me?” He made to touch her
cunt and she grabbed his wrist. “Not just like that,” she moaned. “I want to be
your wife. Be my husband, Wallace. Be my dear husband. I have dreamed of it for
so long – how I have dreamed! – and I cannot restrain myself any longer. I know
it is not proper, but, please, please, ask me. Ask me and I will say yes in a
moment.”

She hated the desperation in her voice, hated even
more that some of it was real. The idea of spending two years in this place and
losing now sickened her. She truly was desperate. She leaned back and regarded
his face. It seemed torn between embracing her warmly and pushing her away. But
she knew him. He was weak and body-led.
Cock-led
.

She reached down and grabbed his cock through his
britches. He hardened immediately. “Don’t you want me?” she said, giving him an
under-the-eyelashes look. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

He let out a long breath. “Of course I do,” he said.
“Of course I do, Alma.”

He clamped his hand down on her groin.

*   *   *

After the wedding, Alma thought she might be sick.
She had been born into a situation where she was tethered to a man she did not
love, and now she had put herself in another situation like that. She consoled
herself by repeating, over and over in her mind:
It is not permanent. It is
not permanent
.

But it did not make Solomon’s gaze, as he watched the
happy couple emerge onto the sunbaked streets of Calico, any easier to take.
Something reflected the sunlight on his cheek. Alma wanted to go to him and
wipe the tears away, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She had to play the Dutiful
Wife, the Doting Woman. She had to play the absolute antithesis of herself.

“We’re going to be the happiest couple alive!”
Wallace laughed, rubbing her shoulder.

Maybe she should have felt guilty for what she would
do. Maybe she should have felt ashamed. Or maybe she should have felt
triumphant. She had been used by men her entire life. Now it was her turn to
use them.

*   *   *

She couldn’t help herself.

They were staying in Abraham’s house – the house he
had built upon arriving in Calico – and Wallace was fast asleep after their
lovemaking. Alma knew it was foolish, but Wallace had drunk a large quantity of
whisky and was exhausted. He snored loudly and lay on his front, away from
Alma.

Alma rose to her feet, put on her clothes as quietly
as she could, and crept down the stairs and out of the door. She knew that
Solomon sometimes slept in the store cupboard at Beryl’s, and when she walked
into the dead bar and through the moon-touched shadows that was where she found
him. She nudged him with her hand.

“Solomon,” she whispered.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He recoiled when he
saw who had woken him. “What are you doing here?” he gasped.

“I have to say something to you.”

“I loved you. I thought you loved me. Now—”

“That’s why I’m here, you silly man,” Alma said. “I
do
love you. This won’t be forever, Solomon. I promise you that. One day, we’ll
look down on the whole damn bunch of them: the men and women who thought we
were chattel will smile and bow to
us
. I promise you, my love.”
My
love
. . . the phrase she had used so often with her now-husband, but she
meant it this time. “I promise. I have to go now, though. Don’t forget me. I
won’t forget you.”

When she returned to the house, Wallace was still
asleep. She took off her clothes and climbed into bed beside him. She was the queen
of the Mojave, but the man beside her was not her king.

Her king was asleep in the store cupboard of a
hotel.

She would be reunited with him. She knew people
would frown upon them, but money and power talks.

They would have both.