Sociopaths In Love (20 page)

After a few minutes, from her right, she
heard Dawn say, "I almost didn't recognize you."

Erica finally turned to look at her. She
looked good. Erica thought there was a brightness in her eyes that
had been missing the last time she saw her but thought that could
possibly just have been because she hadn't seen her when it wasn't
night. But it was night now, and the bar was dimly lit. Maybe she
just imagined it.

"Dawn," she said. "How are you?"

Dawn smiled crookedly, exhaling smoke. "It's
hard to say. How are you?"

"Well . . ."

"Hard to say?"

"I guess I'm just not sure how things are
supposed to be. That's all."

"It could be good. It could be a waking
nightmare."

"That's about right."

"Try living with three of them."

"But I thought we were just like them."

"Similar. No one's just alike and we're even
less alike than they are because we have vaginas."

"That does explain a lot."

"So much for the sexes not being different,
huh?"

"I still don't think that explains
everything."

Dawn took a long drink of beer. Erica asked
if she'd gotten waited on or if she'd had to help herself.

"Guess."

"Had to help yourself, huh?"

"For the first one but, after that
. . ."

"The bartender saw an empty glass and knew
it needed refilled."

"Yep. Do you even know the bartender's
name?"

"No."

"Come here a lot?"

"I've been here a few
times." Erica paused to take a drink of her own beer and asked,
"Why are
you
here?"

"I've been here for about a month. I have an
apartment nearby."

"So do we."

"I know. Mine's in a different building
though." She named one down the street and Erica felt momentarily
sorry for her before remembering that Dawn could probably live
wherever she wanted to, also.

"So why Dayton?"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Dawn looked at her and said, "You."

"Me?"

"Yeah. It's . . . hard to explain.
I met Blake a couple of years ago. I was into it at first, I guess,
getting anything I wanted. But things started . . . I
started feeling like I didn't really connect with any of them. And
then you and Walt came that one night and, for a few hours, it felt
like I had a friend."

Erica had felt that way a little but put it
out of her mind because she assumed she would never see Dawn again.
And it was in the first few days of meeting Walt and she'd
convinced herself she could love him.

"Anyway," Dawn said, "I thought I'd come up
here and give it a shot."

Erica was quiet for a moment, taking a deep
drag from her cigarette and a long drink from her glass. "I would
love to have someone to talk to."

"So what's bothering you?"

"I think I'm depressed. Or feel cooped up or
something. I know I could get out and go anywhere I want to
relatively easily but I feel like I should try and make things work
with Walt and then we can go together."

"But the truth is that you're probably just
terrified to go anywhere alone."

Erica thought about this. Dawn was probably
right. She'd never really been alone. She'd had moments when she
felt alone. Living with her dad after her mom died for a few short
months. He was never really there and when he was there he either
had a girlfriend with him or was too drunk and involved with
whatever was happing on the TV to fool with her. Then he'd taken
her and dropped her off with Granny before running away and when
Granny was up and about she was a lot of fun to be around and a
great companion but as soon as she became bed ridden, Erica was
pretty much alone again. But she'd stayed close by those people and
would have probably done anything either one of them asked her to.
And, realistically, she'd been too young to do anything on her own.
And, in school, the only time she went anywhere or did anything
that wasn't required was when one of her friends had asked her to.
Still, Dawn had stated it bluntly and it stung. She thought it made
her sound weak. She supposed any admission of weakness would sting.
It didn't mean it wasn't true.

"You're probably right," Erica said
finally.

"Do you care about Walt?"

"Not specifically. I guess I care for what
we are together."

"I'm not sure what that means."

"Like, I don't know, he
does his things and I do my things and at the end of the day we're
around each other and, sometimes, do
our
things."

"I'd love to know what those things are."
Erica thought this was clever of Dawn. By not asking what those
specific things were, it made Erica actually have to think about
them. Basically, the only thing they did together was have sex. He
frequently abused and degraded her, but that was just part of the
sex. At first, it had been very pleasurable for Erica. She hadn't
even minded the roughness. But it had deteriorated. The last few
months, they didn't even really have sex. Erica felt like Walt had
become more into the degradation than the sex. He had, more or
less, humiliated her. That, she supposed, was the one thing he
couldn't get from a dead girl. He could shit on a dead girl's
chest, but he wouldn't get the look of disgust he drew from Erica.
And there was an element of the humiliation Erica enjoyed provided
it was part of mindblowing sex. She needed her degradation to have
a payoff. But she couldn't even think of the last time they'd
touched each other.

"So what about you and the Boys?"

Dawn smirked as she crushed her cigarette
out against the top of a beer can and immediately lit another. "I
burned them alive in their sleep. So I guess you could say I am
alive and they are . . . not."

Erica knew a look of surprise crossed her
face but she didn't know what to say.

"The thing is," Dawn said, "is that when no
one knows you're alive, no one really misses you when you're
dead."

"Why?"

"Why did I do it?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. I got tired of being around
them. I got tired of being used by them. They passed me around,
fucked me at the same time, made me do a lot of really bad things.
I thought it was fun at first and then . . . I don't
know. It just wasn't anymore and I woke up every day hating them
and wishing they were dead. Okay, I'm not a really good person and
I'm certainly not the type of person who thinks she can make the
world a better place and, quite frankly, I still don't really give
a fuck about any of that shit and probably just used this as an
excuse to kill them and get away from them without leaving any
record of the atrocious things I've done save for what's in my
head. But I thought by killing them I was avenging, in a small
part, all of the lives they'd taken, all the misery they brought
into people's lives. More than that, think of how many future
deaths I eliminated. The last time I killed someone, before the
Boys, was terrible and I vowed never to do it again. Do you ever
feel that way?"

"Sometimes. But, like I said, I can't just
leave Walt. Definitely don't think I could kill him. Also, he might
be sick."

"You might hate me for saying this but Walt
probably doesn't love you. Probably doesn't have many feelings for
you at all. In fact, he's probably planning on killing you. He will
probably even make you think that's what you want."

"Why would he do that?"

Dawn rolled her eyes and snorted a laugh. "I
don't know, because he's a fucking sociopath."

"I don't really know what to do."

"Do you love him?"

"I'm not sure I know what love feels like.
Like I said, there's something there. I think I felt something like
love when we first met but I definitely don't feel that strongly
about him now."

They talked a little more. Dawn listened to
her. Erica didn't think anyone had listened to her like that since
she would sit by Granny's bedside and ramble aimlessly for what
felt like hours. As Erica grew drunker, she became even more
honest. Eventually she told Dawn that she and Walt hadn't been
having sex much lately.

"That's probably because he's already picked
out your replacement."

"Replacement?"

"Some people just hate to be alone. All the
reasons you've given me for not leaving and striking out on your
own? Walt has his version of all those same reasons. He will not
get rid of you until he has someone who can take your place. He's
probably been scouting her for a while."

When Erica thought about this, it made
sense. She was about ready to ask Dawn if she had any suggestions
for getting out of it when Dawn said she had to go to the bathroom.
She went toward the back of the bar and Erica grabbed her glass of
beer and stepped out onto the sidewalk. A soft rain was coming down
so she stepped under the awning of the abandoned shop next door. A
woman crossed the street from the bus hub and reached the curb
before squatting, pulling up her dress, and urinating onto the
street. Gunfire erupted in a parking lot down the street and by the
time she finished her cigarette the night was alive with the sound
and strobing lights of sirens. A man came out of the bar, vomited
onto the sidewalk, and went walking toward all the sirens. Three
helicopters circled overhead and Erica wasn't sure if they were
emergency or news choppers. She went back into the bar. Dawn had
returned. Now, from a distance and with the other girl unaware of
her presence, Erica let her eyes run up and down her. Tight black,
long sleeve shirt. Loose black skirt falling to just above the
knees. Low top black Converse with no visible socks. She had a
tattoo on her left calf but Erica didn't know what it was. Some
kind of symbol or just a random design. She made a note to ask
about it later.

Dawn had another beer in front of her. Erica
went behind the bar and topped off her glass even though she was
already slightly drunk. Over the past several months, she had
experienced every stage of drunkenness and recognized this one as
the one she liked the most. She would say the first things that
popped into her head and, if Dawn were at the same stage of
drunkenness, she wouldn't take anything too hard and would respond
with truths of her own. Essentially, it was the stage where
everything was kind of funny. Head spinning and skin tingly, it was
why people started drinking in the first place. Erica hadn't done
enough drugs to know of one that could make you feel like this all
the time but, if such a drug existed, it would probably be her drug
of choice. She was still at a stage where she would remember
everything with perfect clarity. It made the world seem decent and
agreeable. She just had to make it a point to not think about what
she was going home to.

When she reached the bar, she placed a hand
on Dawn's back, between her shoulder blades, and didn't bother
taking it away. Erica said, "I'm not looking forward to going home
at all."

Dawn turned slightly toward her and looped
an arm around her waist and said, "You don't have to."

"I probably do."

"Well, my place is always open."

For the next hour or so they sat and talked
about things in a not very serious way although the things they
were talking about probably involved crimes that would put most
people in prison for several lifetimes.

The touching became more frequent. A hand on
Dawn's knee. A comment like, "Oh, your skin's so soft
. . ."

Dawn reached out to rub Erica's collarbones
and said, "These are really nice."

And by the time they left
the bar Erica had entered a stage of drunkenness she thought of as
the total need stage. There was a weight in her lower stomach and
between her legs. She knew she was slightly wet. She knew if she
went home she would wake Walt up and, if his cock actually managed
to get hard, she would ride him until she either came or threw up.
It hit her how much she
really
didn't want him inside her. Especially if what
Dawn had said about him finding a replacement was true. For some
reason, she could live with him fucking the dead girls. She didn't
like it but she could deal with it. But to think he wanted to
replace her completely – physically as well as mentally – made her
feel not so much mad as completely unwanted and
rejected.

She grabbed one of Dawn's dangling hands and
whispered in her ear. "Do you mind taking me home with you?"

"I wasn't lying."

So she followed Dawn a block in the other
direction from her apartment. Dawn unlocked the glass front door to
the building, the lobby looking like something from a David Lynch
film. She unlocked another door to the smaller elevator lobby. The
elevator didn't work so they had to walk up six flights of stairs
in a cinderblock stairwell that smelled like bleach, trash, and
ass. Erica followed Dawn into a narrow, inadequately lit hallway
and into perhaps the smallest apartment she'd ever seen. Erica
turned to watch Dawn lock the door, taking this opportunity to
again drink the girl in. Shiny black hair pulled back into a loose
ponytail. The fine bones in her neck. Pale, soft skin contrasting
with her black clothes. A smell like beer, cigarettes, clean night
air, and flowers.

Erica knew she wouldn't make the first move.
Dawn turned around from locking the door and seemed momentarily
surprised to see Erica still standing there so close. Dawn,
possibly as drunk as Erica, took a step toward her and put her
hands on Erica's hips. She leaned in and kissed her softly, slowly,
and for a long time.

"Do you want to try?" Dawn asked.

Erica bit her lower lip and nodded.

"It doesn't have to hurt." Dawn unfastened
the button of Erica's jeans and pulled Erica's hand beneath her
skirt.