Sintown Chronicles II: Through Bedroom Windows (7 page)

“Mind if I join you?” Maggie asked.

He lifted his head and looked to his left. She was standing there, smiling radiantly, with a towel wrapped around her wet hair and a simple white, terrycloth robe around her body. He wondered where the breasts suddenly came from.

“Please,” he said as he tried to sit up, “I'd love some company."

“Don't get up,” she protested as she hastened to his side and gently pushed him back into a reclining position. “Somebody's muscles are sore,” she said with a soothing voice. “Turn over on your tummy and let my magic fingers come to your relief."

He smiled weakly as he obeyed, and he moaned with pleasure as her fingers found the aching muscles of his shoulders. She sat on the edge of the sofa and worked slowly to his lower back. They listened to the sounds from the television and did not speak until the ten o'clock program began.

“Oh,” she said. “Wildcat is my favorite show."

He sat up and said, “I could have guessed,” he laughed. “You picture yourself as the female detective who weekly rights the wrongs of the world."

“Yeah, maybe I do,” she confessed.

They sat side by side through the first segment of the show. As the first of a long series of commercials began, he felt her head on his shoulder. She was fast asleep. He eased away from her and gently guided her head to his lap. She opened her eyes briefly and smiled at him. Her robe gaped open and he saw no more television that night. He could not pull his eyes away from the magnificent exposed breast and the soft brown curls that adorned her pubic area. When the eleven o'clock news ended, he carefully slipped out from under her head. He thought about trying to carry the sleeping beauty to her bedroom, but knew he did not have the strength. He placed a pillow under her head, an afghan over her body now curled in a fetal position, and gently kissed her cheek.

“Good night, Maggie,” he whispered.

He dreamed of holding in his arms a beautiful young lady wearing a red cap, and the young lady was definitely not his daughter.

The room was dark when she awoke. It took her a minute to realize where she was. There was an afghan on the floor; her robe was completely open, exposing her body from neck to ankle. Did he do this? Did he take advantage of me while I slept? She slipped her hand between her legs. If he screwed me, she thought, he used a condom. She ran both hands up her rippling belly and fondled her breasts. She felt her nipples harden and she flicked them playfully with her fingers. It had been an incredibly good day. She landed a great job and a palace to live in. She thought of George Bennett. She visualized his salt and pepper hair, his small but wiry body, and his sad eyes when he spoke of his deceased wife. She smiled when she remembered his comment to the effect that her breasts were small. Perhaps he knew better, now. She remembered the feel of his tight muscles and how they relaxed under her prodding fingers. She pulled the afghan back over her and smiled contentedly as she drifted back to sleep.

“Damn, Eddie. You've never made love to me like that before—so sweet and gentle. I could fall in love with a guy who handles me like that."

“Greta,” he replied. “Have you ever thought of wearing a baseball cap?"

Greta awoke with a start when the first rays of sunlight filtering through the bedroom window danced on her eyelids. She sat up quickly, remembered it was Sunday and she had the day off. Eddie was not in bed and she wondered why he had gotten up so early on the one day he could sleep late. She slipped into the bathroom and relieved herself, washed her hands and looked at her face in the vanity mirror. Her eyes dropped to her breasts and she handled them gently, regretting that they were beginning to sag. She looked better in clothes, but Eddie made her sleep in the nude and required her to remain that way unless she was going outside the house.

She headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Crow sitting at the kitchen table.

“Why are you wearing a white shirt and tie?” she asked.

“It's Easter Sunday. We're going to church like everybody else in Dot."

“Aw, Eddie. Please. I ain't been in church in so long I've forgotten how to act. Besides, I don't have nothing I can wear.” She sulked to the kitchen counter and poured a cup of coffee, which she knew would be too strong. He always made it too strong for her taste.

“We need to establish our credibility, Greta. Letting folks see us in church is a major step in that direction. In fact, we're going to join the church this morning. When you fill out the membership card, remember your last name is now Crow, not Dominick."

She cut the thick liquid with milk. “Are you gonna ever marry me, Eddie?"

“You wish,” he laughed. “Tell you something else we're gonna do. We're gonna join the church choir."

“Shit, Eddie,” she said as she sat opposite him at the table and shook cereal into her bowl, “I can't sing."

“Sure you can. You have a nice alto voice."

“Well, I can't read music."

“I'll teach you.” He moved behind her and fondled her breasts. “These things are beginning to look like knee-knockers. Aren't there some exercises you can do?"

“The way you tug and pull on them all the time, exercise won't do no good. Eddie, what am I gonna wear to church? I don't even own a dress."

“Look in the closet. The old lady might have something in there."

He went to the counter and poured another cup of coffee. “Snatching the kid is going to be easy."

“Why do you say that?"

“Twice I've seen the Dollar bitch pull up at the Dot Grocery across from the Korner Kafe and leave the kid strapped into a kiddy seat. She doesn't stay in the store more than five minutes, but that's long enough. If I can make this dart gun thing work, he won't even make a sound."

“Why don't you just do it and get it over with?"

“We haven't lived here long enough to establish a good reputation. When it happens, I want us to be so loved by the community that no one will suspect us of having anything to do with it. That's why we're joining the church today and later will join the choir. I think it would be a good move for me to also join the volunteer fire department."

“I can't picture you risking your life fighting a house fire,” she said.

“I was a damn good volunteer the last time I lived in Dot."

“Is that Elliott fellow dead yet?” she asked.

“I heard Mr. Bennett talking about it yesterday. The bastard's still in ICU, but they now think he'll recover. I hit him where his heart is supposed to be, but it seems the bastard is one of those freaks whose internal organs are reversed from the normal positions."

“Don't you think he's suffered enough?"

“Maybe. It's the flat-chested bitch with the leaky bladder I'm really after."

She took her empty bowl to the sink. “Okay,” she said. “Let's say we snatch the kid. What are we going to do with him? If one of us stays out of work, won't that raise suspicions?"

He slapped her playfully on her bottom. “I cleaned out a place behind the furnace for him. We'll tie and gag the little fucker and let him rot in the basement until the bitch comes up with the ransom money. Maybe I'll kidnap Sandy too and keep both of them tied and gagged in the basement. Tim would come up with the big bucks in a hurry if his kid and wife were both being held for ransom, and I'd love to torture that scrawny bitch with her kid watching."

The daydream returned and an evil grin creased his lips. “Wouldn't it be a kick in the ass for you to take a Polaroid of me humping Miss Tiny Tits with the kid watching and send that to Tim Dollar. Man, he'd shit in his pants."

“But then he'd know who kidnapped them."

“We wouldn't show my face in the picture, stupid."

He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to her knees. She knew what he wanted and unzipped his pants.

He wrapped his hands in her hair and stared out the window. “If I do decide to just take the kid, I'll grab the bitch when she brings me the ransom money. Maybe I'll build a medieval style torture chamber in the basement and let the kid watch his mama get worked over day after day after day. A torture chamber—now that's a great idea. It'll need to be soundproof, ‘cause I want to hear that honey-haired bitch scream and beg for mercy."

He tightened his grip on Greta's hair, groaned as his semen pumped into her throat, and backed away. “Now get your flabby ass in the bedroom and find something to wear,” he commanded.

Greta went to the bathroom and gargled, fighting the urge to regurgitate. His semen smelled and tasted like rotting fish. She again looked at her sagging breasts. If I'm ever gonna leave him, she thought, I'd better do it now while my tits still have enough uplift to attract customers.

She went to the closet and jerked the string. She pulled out dress after dress and finally found a navy blue one that seemed to be larger than the others. She tried it on. The hem fell just below her knees. Must have been ankle length on her, Greta thought. When she buttoned the dress at the waist, it popped open at the bust. When she buttoned the top first, it puckered at her waist.

She returned to the closet in search of a wide belt and once again felt a chill run down her spine.

“Lady,” she said. “I'm sorry to be taking your clothes, but if it helps any, I'm wearing them to church.” Suddenly she spotted a wide black belt. She was almost certain it was not there before. It fit. As she buckled the belt, her eyes fell on a shoebox on the floor. She tried the shoes in the closet rack earlier and found them too small. She knelt down and opened the box, wondering how she could have overlooked it. The black low-heeled pumps fit perfectly. Somehow, she knew they would.

The chill crawled up her spine as she turned to leave the closet. She reached back and pulled the string, extinguishing the light. “Okay, lady,” she said reverently. “I'll look through your stuff in the other room when we get back from church."

“Who the hell are you talking to? Eddie barked. “Hot damn. You look down right respectable. I told you you'd find something in the closet, but take off your bra."

“Eddie, not in church."

“Yeah, in church, and we'll sit close to the front. I want to watch that preacher get a hard-on while staring at your nipples."

“I don't know why I let you drag me to church Sunday after Sunday,” Borders griped as he held the car door for Leora.

“Just hush, Julius. We go through this every Sunday. You know you like Mack McGee's sermons as much as I do."

“Yeah,” he said as he sat behind the wheel of the car and fastened his seatbelt. “I guess I do, but this is Easter. The place will be packed. The choir will sing a dozen anthems and Mack will preach forever."

“His sermons never last more than twenty minutes,” she said as he eased the Toyota onto Lumbermill Road and headed for the church. “I saw today's bulletin when I was at the church yesterday. The choir is just singing two anthems. One of them is the
Hallelujah Chorus
. I know you'll like that."

“The choir isn't good enough or big enough to perform anything by Handel."

“Then you ought to get your lazy butt up there on Thursday nights and help them out. You have a beautiful bass voice."

He smiled, remembering years gone by when he used to sing in a church choir. It was fun. Maybe he should try it again. “How's the history coming along?"

She laughed. “I've come to a tough spot on the road,” she said. “In the early days, the church disciplined members for every real or imagined infraction of their rigid moral code. They held public trials and the minutes don't record anyone ever being found innocent."

“Why is that so hard to write about?"

“Because the minutes call a spade a spade. If they suspected a woman of committing adultery, for instance—and the minutes are full of such cases—they describe her sin in minute detail. Up to this point I have been quoting the minutes verbatim to illustrate my points, but somehow I don't think it would be in good taste to do that in these cases."

“Give me a ‘for instance',” Borders said with a little smirk on his face.

“Okay, you lecherous old man. There was this one woman who used her tobacco barn for more than curing the golden leaf. You know, when they cured tobacco, they had to tend the fire in the curing barn around the clock. They would set up a cot at the barn to make the long night hours a little more comfortable. She always volunteered to tend the fires during the wee hours of the morning. Finally, her husband became suspicious and spied on her one night. Several neighboring farmers called on her during the night and crawled between the blankets with her. The minutes indicate that the church severely condemned her because, unlike a prostitute, she slept with her neighbors purely for the pleasure it gave her."

“What punishment did the church render?"

“Exclusion, of course, but in this case they told the husband to use a razor strop on his wife daily until she came to know the fear of the Lord."

“What did the church do to her gentlemen callers?"

“Nothing. The minutes don't even name the fornicators."

Borders shook his head.

“Then there was the case of a young man who, for unnamed reasons, committed suicide. The church decided that taking your own life was a sin and refused to allow the body to be buried in the church cemetery,” Leora said.

“Aren't there some records of lesser sins?"

“Lots of them—public drunkenness, moon-shining, failure to attend services regularly, failure to contribute financially to the church, petty thievery—stuff like that. An interesting situation showed up in 1900. They charged a member of being a sot. I suppose that today we would call him an alcoholic. The church convicted him many times of this offense, excluded, and then reinstated him. Finally, they threatened him with permanent exclusion unless he ended the use of alcohol as a beverage completely. He argued that if he followed their instructions, he could no longer take communion. That's when the church switched from using wine to grape juice in the observance of the Lord's supper."