Sweet Little Lies (23 page)

Mark lost count of how many shots of tequila he did that night; he wasn’t sure how many tables he danced on or how many drunk “I love you, mans” he and Tim had tossed to each other. All he knew was that he felt relief. Tim and his fiancée, Diane, ducked out sometime around three-forty five to pass out at her place, and Mark crawled into a cab about four-thirty. He threw a ten at the cab driver and growled that he should keep the change.

It took Mark a few tries to put the key in the lock, but finally he got it to turn, and he staggered inside. The next thing he knew, he was pushed into his living room, where he landed face down on the rank carpet. He looked up, barely able to make out Geneva’s hulking figure standing over him.

She was laughing at him, mocking how drunk he was. He tried to inch away, but he was too drunk and she was too fast. He cried for her to leave, to go away, but all she did was laugh and say she’d been waiting for this night for a long time. She then dragged him into the bedroom and managed to hoist him up onto the bed. She pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her purse and shackled him to the headboard. She shoved some pills into his mouth and clamped her hand over his lips, demanding he swallow. He screeched and he kicked, terrified at what she was about to do to him.

Mark would block out much of what happened that night. It would be years before he could feel the flesh of a woman against his own and not recoil. He would bed a bevy of women to try and forget. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes the guilt and shame would tighten around his insides like twin ropes. Her taste and her smells would haunt him for an untold length of time. He would wake up in cold sweats, jolted by nightmares of her bouncing on top of him or the squeaking and groaning of the bed underneath him. Illness and brief violent flashes of how he’d been violated that night would squirm around his insides like a relentless plague, making him vomit, or break into cold sweats or simply grow mute with fear. He wanted to die. He wished he could slit his throat, his wrists, anything, anything at all to just end it. Fear, stress, and physiology had all banded together to combat his will and give him an erection. He felt himself release at one point and was horrified that he had come with this woman. He felt the bile rise in his throat many times, but it never left his mouth. He wasn’t sure what time he passed out, but when he came to, she was laying on top of him in a peaceful slumber. A fresh wave of tears began to flow from his eyes, and Mark looked around, frantic to find the key to the handcuffs, rattling them uselessly. He cried himself to sleep again, and when he woke up, Geneva was standing over him, a satisfied smirk on her face. She kissed him, thrusting her tongue in his mouth. She ran her hands over his chest and told him he was the best lover she’d ever had. She undid the handcuffs, blew him a kiss, and left. Mark rolled over, curled into the fetal position, and closed his eyes.

He’d never felt more alone in his whole life.

When Tim got home the next day, Mark was still wound into a ball on the bed, and his roommate assumed he’d continued to celebrate. Eventually, Mark dragged himself into the bathroom and turned the shower to the hottest setting he could stand. He stood under the searing needles of water for twenty minutes before he began to scour at the memory of her, scraping her imprint from his skin until he burned. Shaky and spent, he struggled to put on a sweatshirt and jeans before he ripped the sheets off the bed with methodical precision and stuffed them in the dumpster in the parking lot. He then flipped the sagging mattress off the bedframe and up against the wall, determined to send it into the dumpster as well. He fell down into the empty hole where the mattress had been and cried silent, pained tears.

Finally, Tim knocked on the bedroom door, concerned since he’d never seen his friend like this before. Mark didn’t speak, just continued to sob. Tim threatened to call 911 if Mark didn’t spit out what was going on. Tearfully, Mark choked out what Geneva had done to him. Horrified, Tim found himself fighting back his own tears and demanded Mark call the police. He refused, not wanting anyone to know what had happened, and told Tim he’d kill him if he ever said a word. Reluctantly, Tim agreed and asked what he could do for him.

Mark simply shook his head and said there was nothing anyone could do for him now.

M
ark rubbed his eyes and tried again to focus on the brief in front of him. Sleep had become a distant memory, and it was becoming harder to concentrate on work. It had been two weeks since Geneva had attacked him. She peppered him with constant calls and would sit in her car outside his place. To his credit, Tim was hanging around the apartment more, sacrificing time with his fiancée. Mark felt a mixture of guilt and relief at his friend’s gesture. Tim tried to convince him to get a restraining order, but he was both terrified of someone finding out what had happened and of possibly provoking her further—not to mention, he didn’t want to start off his legal career with this black mark against him.

Even if he was the victim.

Mark looked at his watch and realized it was lunchtime. Tim poked his head into his tiny office.

“Hey, man, wanna go grab a sandwich?”

“Must have read my mind. I’m starving.” Mark stood and tossed the blurry brief to one side. “I can’t concentrate on this anyway.”

They made small talk as they walked to grab a Po-Boy at the deli around the corner. Tim swallowed his Coke and looked up at Mark.

“So how are you—really?”

Mark closed his eyes and slumped down in his chair. “I haven’t slept in two weeks. Every time I close my eyes, I see her.”

Tim looked down at his sandwich, unsure of what to say next. The two men sat in silence for a few moments, neither of them all that hungry anymore.

“You think she’ll try something again?”

Mark sat up and hunched over the table. “If she does,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “I’ll fucking kill her.”

Tim closed his eyes. “Mark—”

“I’m serious, man. I will fucking slit her throat if she comes near me again. She can do all the drive-bys and phone calls she wants, but if she ever lays a hand on me again, I’ll break her neck.”

Tim rubbed his hands over his mouth. “In case that ever comes true, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Mark leaned back in his chair and picked at his food. “Yeah, well, I’d plead self-defense. Either that or temporary insanity, considering what she did to me.”

Tim was silent for a moment, wrestling with what he had to say. “I did a background check on her.”

Mark’s eyes grew wide. “What?”

Tim rubbed the back of his neck. “I wondered if maybe…well, if she’d done anything like this before, so I called in some favors. Said it was for a case,” he added hastily. “She’s from Alabama originally, fourth of seven kids. Parents are both dead. Dropped out of school at thirteen and has been in and out of jail since then. Drugs, prostitution, robbery, weapons, you name it, she’s done it.” Tim leaned toward Mark. “She’s dangerous, man, and I just think you oughta go to the police—”

“No!” Mark let out a curt sigh before he looked Tim square in the face. “I don’t ever,
ever
want anyone to know about this. You have to promise me—”

Tim held up his hand. “I swear I won’t, but something should happen to her for what she did is all I’m sayin’. Why should you be the one to suffer?”

“Look, I’m just trying to forget this whole thing happened, and I wish you would too, okay?”

Tim let out a ragged breath and leaned back. “Okay, okay, I’ll drop it.”

Mark looked at his watch and sighed. “Time to go back on the clock.” He stood up and started to leave. Tim ran to catch up with him.

“Hey,” he said as he touched Mark’s arm to slow him down. “I’ll do anything you need me to do. Whatever you need, you know I got your back.”

The two men stood staring at each other, oblivious to the swarming crowd around them.

“I know, man. I know.”

They stood looking at each other for a second more before walking back to the office.

F
or the first time in he didn’t know how long, Mark allowed himself to smile. Geneva seemed to have disappeared, and he actually felt his body relax as he drove. He hummed along with the song on the radio and looked forward to the weekend. Granted, he’d be spending a chunk of it working, but this was going to be his first big deal, and he planned to knock it out of the park.

He pulled into his complex and walked upstairs to his apartment, feeling like his old self. Tim was moving out next week into the new house he and Diane had bought—or that his parents had bought—and would be married about two weeks after that, so he was spending a little less time at the apartment.

Lucky bastard. Their place was a typical bachelor pad, and Mark would be happy to leave it behind when the lease was up in the summer. The brown plaid couch they’d found next to a dumpster, the sagging, peeling card table with the one wooden chair and metal stool on either side; the ancient television set that didn’t have a remote, so you had to get up to turn the channel, all without knocking it off the orange milk crate it sat on. Yeah, he’d cheer when the day came to throw all that shit out.

Still, Mark would miss his friend. He loved Diane, but he knew his and Tim’s friendship would change. He tried not to think about that and was still humming when he went to open the door. Before he could turn the knob, it flew open, and Geneva was standing there. Mark dropped his briefcase.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered.

Geneva gave him a lusty smile. “I miss you, Boo. It’s been a long time since we been alone. Every time I turn around, that white boy is with you.” She moved closer to Mark, who backed away.

“Go away before I call the police.”

She continued to move closer to him, pretending like he hadn’t said anything. “Actually, I got some good news. I’m going to have a baby. Our baby.” She smiled again. “Are you happy?”

Mark didn’t say anything for a moment before he burst out laughing. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me. You expect me to believe that?”

She shrugged. “Baby, you the only man I been with, and I took the test a few days ago. I’m supposed to go to the doctor Monday.” She inched closer. “I wanted to let you know first, though.”

His hands flew up to Geneva’s throat, and he squeezed her windpipe, willing it to break.

“Get your hands off me!” she gasped, her hands clawing at his, her eyes starting to bug out with fear.

He tightened his grip. “You stay the fuck away from me. I don’t care if you are pregnant. It’s got nothing do to with me.” He flung Geneva away from him and picked up his briefcase.

Geneva rubbed her throat, coughing. “I can’t believe you would do this to the mother of your child,” she wheezed.

“Listen, you fat bitch, I will
kill
you if you don’t get the hell out of here.” The veins in Mark’s neck were bulging by now, his eyes shooting bullets. Geneva wiped away a tear that had found its way down her face.

“Alright, I can see you’re not ready to face this. I’ll give you a few days.”

Mark dropped his briefcase. “Get out.”

Geneva began to back away, and Mark watched her run to her car and screech out of the parking lot. He let out the pent-up breath he’d been holding and hung his head for a moment. Mark shut the door and then went in search of the phone. He dialed and waited.

“Yeah, hi, this is Marcus Monroe in 207. I need the locks changed on my door. We had a break-in.”

I
t was a week later when Geneva showed up outside Mark’s office. He was leaving for the night and stopped cold when he saw her. She strutted up to him, waving a piece of paper in her hand.

“Hey, baby—how you doin’?” Geneva smiled and went to put her arms around Mark, but he was too quick for her and wrenched them down before she could get to him.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She cracked her gum and fluttered the piece of paper she was holding in Mark’s face. “I got my test results from the doctor.” She paused and smiled. “Congratulations, Daddy.”

Mark snatched the paper out of Geneva’s hand and looked at it. He scanned it before he crumpled it up.

Geneva laughed. “That don’t change anything. We’re still gonna have a baby.”

“Stop it.”

She shook her head and continued laughing. “You know this means we have to get married.”

He slapped her, desperate to stop her cackling. Geneva’s hand flew to her face.

“I can’t believe you would treat the mother of your child that way!”

Mark threw the piece of paper at her and went into his pocket for his car keys. He looked at her. “It’s got nothing to do with me. It’s not mine. I don’t care what you do, but hear this. I’m not marrying you. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

Mark shoved his car key into the door and got inside. She stood with her hand on her hips, and he saw her staring at him in the rearview mirror. He shuddered.

“No way in hell,” he muttered.

G
eneva wasn’t exactly the type to take “no” for answer, so she decided it was her mission in life to make
Mark’s
life as miserable as she could.

She would call his office up to one hundred times a day. At night, she would stand underneath his apartment window screaming for him to marry her so she wouldn’t have a bastard child. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, she keyed his car and punched a nail in all four tires, causing him to miss a deposition and get a reprimand from his superiors. She threw rocks at his windows, showed up at his office on a regular basis demanding he see her, and causing all kinds of scenes while she was at it. He was the subject of hushed water cooler conversations and bewilderment over Geneva not being his “type.”

If they only knew.

He offered her money for an abortion. That suggestion prompted her to show up at his office wielding a razor and threatening to slit her wrists in front of everyone. The police had to be called. Mark wasn’t sleeping, and Spence told him to get the situation under control or pack up and get out. Fifteen pounds slid off his body, and he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.