Save Johanna! (20 page)

For Imogene there was no terror, not even much excitement. As always, she had removed herself from the firsthand experience and instead focused all her concentration on Avrum. From the beginning he had seeped into her very being and now was a presence always, shielding her from the rest of the world. When he was out of her sight, she thought of him constantly, and when he was near, she had to touch him. However lightly, inconspicuously, she had to be in contact with that energy, had to feel it flowing into her body.

Sitting there in the back seat, she wanted to caress his hair, but he had shaken her hand off before and she felt timid about trying again. But she had to; so great was her need that any kind of touch would do. She curled her fingers around the back of his seat, close enough so that any slight movement would make his shoulders brush against them. Each gentle bump of the car allowed her to inch closer until, when Swat swayed to avoid a pothole, Avrum lurched forward slightly and Imogene put her hand directly behind him so that when he leaned back he would be pressing against her fingers.

She allowed her free hand to slide between the buttons of her thin cotton blouse to her naked skin and move slowly and gently over her breasts, the tips of her fingers tracing tiny circles around the stiffened nipples. She wasn’t aware that she had resumed humming. Nor was she aware of the tightness that had come over Avrum’s body. All she felt was the pressure and the heat of him, and it was enough.

Avrum sat straight in his seat, his deep brown eyes riveted to the road ahead. Their luminosity darkened to near-black and glowed with red pinpricks of light that flashed without stop like a trapped electric current trying to escape. Except for a slight pulse in each cheek where the jaws met, his face was frozen still. He hadn’t uttered a word since they’d left the house twenty minutes before, but now he spoke softly of their mission. A small smile creased Swat’s lips, and she shook her head in tiny, emphatic nods of agreement.

“Yes . . . yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen and I want it to.”

“Because you have love,” Avrum said, and she opened her mouth in surprise. She didn’t realize that she had spoken the words aloud and her face snapped instantly back to empty, but she was pleased. She was always pleased when he noticed her, when he spoke to her beyond an order. She loved him alone, deeply, blindly, but with a misery, sometimes even an anger, and always a frustration. Avrum spent little time alone with her. He had made love to her only four times in the two years she had been with him. Three of those times he was so high on coke and booze that he hadn’t even remembered that it was she. He never touched or caressed her the way he did Imogene, yet he was not unkind to her.

Once when he chose her, he was so stoned he’d passed out inside her. She remembered every detail of those moments, had played them over and over again in her mind. It was the only time she felt she had ever possessed anyone, and the rush of love she felt had overwhelmed her, and she held him tightly and wept, something she hadn’t done since childhood. That was more than five months ago, but still she waited, trying not to show her longing in front of the others. She gave as little of herself as possible to the others, always holding herself apart from them. She hated them all. It was only Avrum who held her to the group. The power of his brilliance mesmerized her, and she became the physical hand of his spirit, ready and waiting for his command. She felt her normal awkwardness dissolve to grace under his powers.

“I am that love,” he was saying, “and you are part of my essence. I have taken you into my body and now we are connected and my spirit floods you and our love is joined and filled with power. Nothing is stronger than that love. Nothing on earth.”

Swat was silent, luxuriating in the sound of his voice, but in the back seat Imogene heard nothing. She never listened to Avrum’s words unless they were a direct order to her. She was still fixed on the feel of him. By now her fingers had gone numb and pinpricks of pain charged up her arm, and she squeezed her thighs together tightly to relieve the aching in her groin. When he leaned forward briefly to check the location, she flexed her fingers but didn’t move them away. She felt nothing but the physicalness of Avrum, no anxiety, no apprehensions, not even an interest in where they were going or what they would do.

“Swat.” Now he was talking business, and Swat snapped back to alertness. “There’s a wooded area a couple of blocks up at the start of a dirt road and enough room to park the van. Watch out for it, it’s just past that white wall.” He pointed to a whitewashed brick wall that wrapped around yet another of the grassy mounds. Swat slowed down as she came to it and continued alongside the wall for two hundred feet until it ended. A thick, black wooded area abutted it.

“Bring it down to a crawl,” Avrum said softly, tapping her lightly on the hand. “As soon as we hit the entrance to the road, cut the lights.”

Swat nodded her head and slowed to ten miles an hour. They both leaned forward, watching for the dirt road. Avrum spotted it first. “Lights!” he said.

Instantly she cut the lights. In the brightness of the night they could easily make out the dirt road not more than twenty feet ahead.

Carefully Swat pulled the car off the cement road and onto a deeply rutted muddy clearing. The clanking noises of all the loose pieces bumping around in the old van resounded in the silent night. Both Avrum and Swat squeezed up their faces at the noise.

“That’s far enough,” Avrum said. “I just want it to be out of sight from the street.” Swat brought the van to a slanty stop in a deep rut. “Don’t open the door yet,” Avrum said. He turned around to Imogene. “Just pass me that stuff from the back.”

Without a word Imogene started handing the coiled rope and the tools to Avrum. He passed the rope to Swat and shoved the wire cutters and screwdriver into his back pockets. Now Imogene picked up a bulging knapsack and handed it to Avrum, but he shook his head no. “You hold onto that,” he said.

Avrum leaned back in his seat, took a deep breath, and the women waited while he held it. Slowly, as they watched, he allowed his breath to escape in one long, uninterrupted hiss.

“Open your mouth,” he said to Swat, and she turned toward him and, with her eyes locked into his, slowly parted her lips. He took another deep breath and, holding it, leaned over into her face, his mouth open, his tongue wiping shiny spittle over his lips. Just as his open lips touched hers, he exhaled, words and breath together, “Inhale me, take me into your body. Breathe my breath.”

And she did with such passion and power that his lips were pulled into her mouth as if she would devour him. He whipped his face away, and she fell back, overcome by the contact.

Now Avrum turned to Imogene and, with his hands, brought her face close to his and again he inhaled deeply, but now, when he let his breath out, the exchange became a kiss and his tongue drove deep into her mouth, and her whole body seemed to move into his, and Swat watched them. She saw him holding Imogene’s head, his fingers buried in the soft red curls, and a wave of weakness broke in her stomach. She turned away and stared at her reflection in the dirty window. And she waited. Hating. Then she felt Avrum turn back in his seat, and for a moment only their breathing was heard as their passion subsided.

“We are one,” Avrum finally spoke, “and that one is me. You are of my breath and my body now.”

“Avrum . . .” Imogene whispered, and it was as if she said, “Amen.”

But he sliced the air with his hand and cut her short. “Say nothing more until I tell you. From now on I am your sound. Do you feel that?”

Both women nodded their heads but didn’t speak.

Very calmly now and slowly Avrum gave them their instructions. Only his door was to be opened. They would all get out that way. They would follow him to the bottom of Pinky’s driveway, walking in single file with Swat last. At the driveway he would give them further instructions. Avrum took a small black capsule from the glove compartment and flipped it far back into his mouth. He swallowed it and took another. The women took nothing.

Quickly, with barely a sound, Avrum opened his door and stepped out. Swat’s heart was pounding as she waited for Imogene to slip over the back of the seat and slide out the door. Now it was her turn, and she moved across the seat, the plastic whining against her pants, and then she too was out the door. Avrum closed it behind her. There was a soft click and then silence again.

Avrum led the way, their black clothes blending into the darkness and their footsteps almost soundless on the soft earth. They walked close to the side, and when the road turned Swat watched Avrum and then Imogene disappear around the bend.

Alone for an instant, out of Avrum’s aura, a thought caught her in midstep. There could be a choice. But then her foot came down, carrying her forward, and there was no choice. Maybe not ever again after tonight.

The three arrived at the foot of the driveway. It had a gentle slope that rose and climbed and turned half circle in front of Pinky’s house. One dim hall light was burning just inside the front door. From the road they could barely make out the contours of the house. Luscious bougain-villea hid all but the top of the slate roof and the four white chimneys. From the look of the roof peaks, the house rambled on and probably ended in an interior courtyard. It was huge, the size of a mansion, but all on one floor.

Along the road, about ten feet past the driveway, was a telephone pole with steel rungs jutting out from it every three feet. Avrum put on the heavy gloves that were clipped to his belt and leaped up onto the first rung and with great agility made his way up to the top. Once there, he seemed to know exactly what he was about. Sliding the wire clippers from his back pocket, he chose a thick double strand from a dozen such wires and snipped it. Then he slipped the cutters back into his pocket and climbed down the pole, jumping the last eight feet cat-quiet.

Once on the ground, he led the others to the wrought-iron gate at the entrance to the driveway and told them to wait outside until he called them. Quietly he pushed the unlocked gate open just slightly and slipped through.

Outside the gate, Imogene poked her head around the shrubbery. Pinky was nowhere in sight. She could see Avrum leaning against the inside of the stone wall that held the gates. She watched him. He didn’t seem concerned that Pinky wasn’t there or that maybe she wasn’t coming.

Suppose she had changed her mind? After all, it was weeks since Avrum had been with her. Maybe his power had been sapped away by the deprogrammers her parents had hired. But Avrum didn’t look worried, so she wasn’t going to either. When Avrum was with her, nothing frightened her or touched her or even mattered much. She was safe, and her mind was free to fly. Even now, untouched by the enormity of the plans, she peeked around the bushes like a child in a hide-and-go-seek game.

Smiling, Imogene watched Avrum, delighting in the way his muscles rippled under his tight shirt. His stomach was perfectly flat, and as he leaned back against the wall his hips jutted slightly forward, tantalizing her, and she giggled softly, absorbed in some delicious fantasy of her fingers tickling down the sides of his body, weaving under his shirt, and running down over the hard belly. Then suddenly, from behind her, other hands dug pain deep into her shoulders and yanked her backwards. She yelped a soft ooh that was smothered by a sweaty palm over her mouth. Now the hand on her shoulder whipped her around, and the fury of Swat was upon her. In terror, with her back pressed in against the bushes and the sharp twigs sticking into her spine and her lower legs, Imogene stood rigid with Swat’s face not two inches from hers, her foul odor assaulting her at every breath.

“Quiet, you fool,” Swat spat at her.

Inside the gate Avrum waited. It was 2:57. Pinky wasn’t late. She still had three minutes to go. As he had done hundreds of times in the past few weeks, Avrum let his mind work over the details of his plan, easy things like the lights, the cars, the door that should be unlocked, and then the most important thing, the logistics of keeping the people inside where he wanted them. Swat would help handle that. She was strong, smart, and could be counted on to respond instantly to any order he gave.

The boldness of the plan—his plan—mixed with the anticipation and the growing effects of the amphetamine was beginning to charge his brain to racing speed, but the only sign of this inner fury was the shine of his red-black eyes.

It was 2:59. Though Pinky was nowhere in sight, she was there, nonetheless. But well hidden. Directly behind Avrum there was a small rock garden with a child-sized, white cement bench in one corner and tucked neatly under the bench and curled to a third her petite size was Pinky, watching him motionlessly. Not with the sexual hunger of Imogene or the frustrated longings of Swat. Pinky stared with a mixture of fear and fascination. Such strong fear that even though she knew he was waiting and would be angry, still she couldn’t move. Nor would she allow herself to imagine his purpose or what her part would be in it.

It was 3:07, and her legs and back were beginning to ache from the cramped position.

At the same time, outside the gate, Swat had loosened her grip on the terrified Imogene. Still, neither spoke as they stood together, Imogene facing the road and Swat watching Avrum through the bushes. Imogene tried not to stare at the face in front of her, but her eyes kept sneaking back, and even in the dim light she was close enough to make out the tough leather texture of Swat’s skin, the large pores around her fleshy nose, the blackheads on her cheeks, and the raised lumps of boils that made her chin appear misshapen. Everything on Swat’s face was oversized and gross except her lips, which were thin and dry and turned down at the corners. No wonder Swat was always so mean and angry; people didn’t like you if you were ugly like that, and the best thing you could do was to hate them first. Swat hated everyone first. Except Avrum. Even now as Swat watched him, her eyes softened, and some of the sharpness and bitterness left her face. Imogene stared at her eyes until Swat, sensing it, gave her a quick warning look, and Imogene lowered her head instantly and was afraid to look up again.