Blackout (34 page)

I don’t know how long I wait until the smells and images of long ago Ping-Pong in my head and my nostrils flare. Black spots dog pile on the periphery of my vision.

Even though it’s night, daylight flashes in mind, and the scent of the earth cleansed by morning rain opens my senses. At a beach hotel, I spot Mama’s Lexus. She’s been gone for two days. She didn’t say goodbye, and I miss her. I swipe the tears spilling down my cheeks.

From the back, the coppery waves of her hair flow past her shoulders. Her long cotton skirt billows in the sea breeze. From the side, the fullness of her breast and the knot of her nipple strain against the silk of her tank. She’s beautiful. Everybody says so. I wish I were pretty.

I call to her, but she doesn’t stop. She gets into an old Chevette instead of her Lexus. I cock my head. Whose car is she driving? I straddle my bike and follow her. My legs pumping as fast as they can to try and keep up. By the time I ride onto Roanoke Island, my legs cramp, but I don’t give up.

Even though she’s out of sight, I push harder until I reach the swamp. The same Chevette is parked at the refuge. She couldn’t have gone too far, and I want to see her. Why did she up and leave Daddy and me? I cry out for her. “Mama.”

“Mama,” I yell again. No one answers, only the cicadas respond and a hawk screeches.

I inspect each of the immediate trailheads. A tissue is left on one. My feet hoof through the bog. I slide out a stalk of tall grass to chew on the tender end and moisten my parched mouth. Why did she leave me? Does she hate me? My face puckers as I fight off more tears.

My legs no longer hurry but drag. What if she doesn’t want me? What if she tells me to get lost and to quit bothering her? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Low moans and whimpering grow louder as I wander further into the swamp. My memories fast-forward until they stop abruptly on three masked people coupling in the clearing.

I jerk in the truck seat until my mind settles onto the time just before I flee from the clearing. Dare reaches for me, but I brush him off. I have to see.

In my memory, the top of my head feels like it exploded. I touch it and stare at the blood on my hand. Nausea scrambles in my stomach, and dizziness obscures my vision. I feel like I’m about to pass out.

Mama’s voice calls out, “Teal, run.”

She nudges me. The smell of her perfume comforts me. I want to curl up into her arms and sleep.

She shakes me roughly this time. “Run baby. Get up.” Her voice is oddly calm.

I startle awake from the blackout.

Dare is holding onto me, and his shirt is drenched from my tears. “It’s okay, Teal. I’m here.”

My palms sweat, and cold ices me to the point I’m shaking uncontrollably.

My body is spent from the painful emotion draining me. I’m left with the nagging question. Why did she leave me? Is she really in Paris? I didn’t want her to go. I wanted her to love me, like Daddy does.

“Let’s go,” I say barely above a whisper.

Dare pulls out of the parking lot. After he puts the truck in the garage, he opens my door and doesn’t let me walk to his house. He picks me up and carries me.

“I can walk,” I insist, struggling.

“No. You’re knees are shaking.” He kicks open the door and lays me onto the bed, careful of my broken arm and pinky. The lock is still busted from the earlier break-in. He secures the door from the inside by using a screwdriver jammed into the temporary latch.

Squeak chatters and runs circles in her cage, so Dare lets her out. She climbs down the table to make her way over to the bed. She crawls onto one of the pillows like she owns the place.

I smile, and it feels good, though the last blackout memory nags at me. What does it mean? Who are the three masked people in my mind? Mama, she never liked me. I was a burden to her. My lips pucker, stifling a sob.

“Do you want to tell me what you saw?” he asks, reaching for a bottle of Jack. He nods at me.

“I’ll take one.” I need it after what I saw. Spikes feel like they’re being pile driven into my head, like that day in the swamp just happened.

He fixes two fingers for each of us. I take a small sip and almost cough it out. He gets up, grabs ice cubes out of the fridge, and plunks them into my glass. “Let them melt.”

I tell him about the earlier one I had when I was attacked on the beach, about the threesome in the swamp, and then the one where I followed her to the swamp.

He sits on the double bed beside me. “I should tell you something. You’re not going to like it.”

“What? That you think my mama is buried in the swamp?”

“I believe that, but Sam told me something about your mom you should know.” He fluffs up the pillows behinds us and scoots in beside me.

His upcoming revelation unnerves me. I hold onto him, pressing my ear against his rock-hard chest, resistant to what he’ll say.

“Not too long after Mom died, your mom initiated an affair with my dad.”

“How do you know it was my mama who started it?” Rage spikes my words. That’s so unfair to assume it was her fault, though Daddy said she was unfaithful.

“I didn’t even know about this. Sam said he and Dad were finishing up on your mom’s car, and she came in to pay. She asked my dad to coffee to console him over my mom. He said, ‘no’, but then she kept pestering him by stopping by the house, bringing coffee or cookies, and eventually Dad gave into her.”

Dare drapes an arm around me. I don’t like hearing this. Could it really be true? That she cheated on Daddy with Mr. Tucker?

“It went on for a few months until she asked him to run away with her. There was only one problem.” Dare’s voice lowers.

“What?” She wanted to leave Daddy and me?

“She wanted Dad to leave us, and he said he wouldn’t.”

Short breaths catch in my throat. “What about me?”

“She wanted to take you with them. Dad was pretty shaken up. From what Sam told me, Dad and your mom had quite the torrid affair. She dumped him, when he told her he wouldn’t leave us. After Mom and the affair, he took up drinking. When he saw you, he must’ve thought you were your mom. I had to talk him down and tell him you were her daughter.”

He called me a whore. “Do you think their affair has something to do with what happened in the swamp?” Could Dare’s dad have killed her?

“I don’t know.” Dare’s arm slides behind my back. “Sam told me your mom had other affairs. My dad wasn’t the only one. I’m sorry.”

Was she with two of her lovers? I bury my face into the hollow of his chest. He’s already removed the tape on his ribs. His hand brushes my hair back.

“You think one of her lovers killed her?” But she sent me a birthday gift or had Daddy sent it? He wouldn’t have killed Mama, would he? Anxiety knots my stomach. I take another sip of Jack and it splashes into my churning gut like a rock.

“From what you just told me, it sounds like we have several suspects to choose from?” He downs his Jack while scratching Squeak’s neck. She coos her happiness. “You should sleep.”

He lights a couple candles and turns off the main lights. He hands me a clean tee to sleep in, so I slip from the bed to unsnap my bra and turn away from him.

As I grew older, Mama always covered me up with big shirts and baggy jeans. She told me boys wanted just one thing, and I shouldn’t let them see me or they’d hurt me. Dare never tried to hurt me. She didn’t want others to notice me.

Behind me, I hear Dare rise from the bed.

His hand grazes my arm, sending a strong jolt of current into me. “I like to see you. If it’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”

An hour or so ago, I man tried to rape and murder me, yet Dare settles and calms me. He’s a safety net that I’d gladly jump in to. “I want you…I need you to touch me.”

He lifts my shirt above my head then his hands linger on my breasts. The cool air from the window AC chills my nipples into hard knots. “You’re skin is so soft.” His nose lightly brushes my neck while his whisky breath tickles my skin. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “You settle the storm inside me.”

He kisses my shoulder. “Please don’t hide your beauty from me.” He slowly unzips my jeans and lets them pool at my feet.

I step out of them. My hands tremble and my cheeks burn while I stand in front of him stripped of my clothing. He smiles at my embarrassment but then slips a light cotton tee over my shoulders. It’s long enough to cover my ass. The tee smells of soap and him. I inhale deeply, imprinting the scent of him into my memory.

“Are you sleepy?” he asks, his voice low and husky.

His much larger hand cradles mine to lead me to the bed where Squeak is curled up on a pillow. Dare puts her into the corner, so we have room. She barks her displeasure.

He drops his jeans and shorts without the least bit of modesty—his arousal obvious. He slips under the sheet. The soft hair of his legs brushes against my recently shaved legs.

“Smooth and silky,” he says, his hand resting on my hip. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

It’s apparent with the swell of his longing pressing into my hips. “Other girls have excited you.”

“Not like you do.” His words brush the hollow of my neck, tightening my sex.

“You do the same for me.”

A half grin lifts one side of his mouth. His lips descend onto mine while his fingers knot in my hair at the nape of my neck. “I love tasting you.”

The kiss deepens, his tongue snaking into my mouth as his erection presses into my hip. The hunger in his kiss heats my body to the point it sizzles in his arms.

I rotate out from under him and straddle him.

“You taking control?” The grin turns up half his sumptuous lips.

I rub my lady lips between my thighs against his hard rod. Closing my eyes, I let the sensation ramp me up. His hands slide underneath the tee I’m wearing to cup my breasts and tease them into hard peaks. We groan at the same time.

“That’s right, Teal. Make yourself come.”

My pulse gallops, and I suck in air. When I bend toward his open mouth, his hand sifts through my hair cascading around him. His hand locks onto a handful of hair.

“I love your hair.”

It’s long and coppery, like Mama’s. I look like her, but I don’t want to be like her.

“Let me inside you,” he rasps. “I want to feel you.”

His kisses becomes more feverish, liquid hot fire, his tongue flicks onto mine, tangling them together. The tip of his penis presses against the opening. I ease onto him. He fills me and slams into the wall. I cry out and bite my lip.

“Oh, Teal. You feel so damn good.”

It’s hard for me to say anything sexy, though the pleasure he brings me electrifies my entire body. I ache for him, and my squeezebox tightens around him. I undulate on him, lifting up to grab my own breasts where his fingers pinch the nipples, sending jabs of sweet pain straight to my sex.

I ease up and down on him, squeezing tight while he massages my butt. His tongue digs into my mouth. My breaths are ragged while he kisses me hard and fast. I keep riding until my world explodes and sweat beads on my forehead.

“Oh, gosh.” I collapse onto him but he rolls me over, pounding inside me so that my sex spasms uncontrollably.

He grins at making me come again. The heat of his climax gushes into me, leaving us both wet and sweaty. He falls on top of me until I tell him, “I can’t breathe.”

Before lifting off me, he pecks my lips and nips them. “I can’t get enough of you, Teal.”

He rolls off me, panting and staring up at the ceiling. “Do you want something else to drink?”

“No.” I rise to clean myself up.

He follows me to the bathroom, steals a towel from the rack, and takes it back to the bed to wipe off our fluids. I clean up and return where I snuggle up against him.

As he snuffs out the candles, a shadow darts across the front window curtains and the porch creaks.

My breath quickens. “Did you hear that?” My hand grips tightly onto his arm. It flexes underneath my fingers.

“Yeah,” Dare says, getting out of bed. He unlocks the gun safe and pulls the shotgun out.

“Don’t go outside,” I say, the hair bristling on my neck.

“I won’t.” Dare pumps the action of the shotgun with that disturbingly audible double click, and stows it by the bed. He slips into bed, one arm looping around me.

We stare at the window but don’t see or hear anything else. It’s hard for me to sleep given my heart pumping in my chest.

I fall into a light sleep where dreams of my assault plague my subconscious. The man’s voice is more distinct in my old memory of the masked people, and I should recognize it, but I cannot picture him. At the time, I didn’t understand the sexual acts performed on the masked woman whose hair matches mine. It’s so much like
The Story of O
.

In the midst of the nightmare fading in and out, a clatter startles me awake. I jolt upright while Squeak scampers over the dishes in the sink and into her cage, shivering.

“Go back to sleep.” Dare’s husky voice burrows into my skin. “Squeak spooks easy.”

“Lately, so do I.”

I nestle into his arms, realizing he isn’t sleeping any better than me. Once again, I plummet into dark dreams filled with my assailant and Mama’s voice is frighteningly calm amidst the chaos of the scene in the swamp clearing. Her unshakable composure and shocking coldness roil in my belly.

The next morning, a pounding at the front door of Dare’s cabin wakes us. I tug the sheet over my body.

“What the hell?” Dare grumbles, getting out of bed. “Get dressed.”

I climb out of bed and shimmy into my jeans before tugging on my bra and shirt. Dare yanks on his jeans and a tee too.

“It’s the police,” Jimmy says in a commanding tone. “Open up.”

Dare snorts his annoyance, like this happens all the time, and I worry that it does. The constant harassment has to stop. We can’t keep going on like this.

He slowly opens the front door, and Jimmy barges his way into the cabin.

Before Dare can utter a word, I snap, “What are you doing here?”

“We found Graham’s body,” Jimmy says, one hand on his gun. “We need to ask Dare a few questions.”