Thor'sday Night - Paranormal Erotica (27 page)

Jay grips both her arms as if to keep her from
falling. ‘What are you telling me?’

She looks away.

He shakes her, forcing her to meet his eyes
again. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Carmen?’

‘He said he was finishing what he started.’

‘And you fought him? Is that how you got these
marks on your neck?’

‘Yes…’ His pupils feel like black holes sucking
in her soul, leaving only her worthless body in his hands. ‘No.’
She lowers her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighs, ‘he might have
forced me.’

He lets go of her. ‘What are you telling me?’ he
asks again.

Her voice is expressionless. ‘I let him fuck
me.’

He heads for the door.

‘Jay,’ she follows him and grabs a hold of his
jacket’s slippery sleeve.

He turns, and slaps her hard enough to daze
her.

‘Jay, I love you,’ she whispers miserably. ‘I
love you!’

‘You love me? Why do you think you love me,
Carmen? What makes me different from all these other men? Is it my
mind? Is it my charm? No, I don’t think so, I think it’s this.’ He
slaps her again. ‘I think it’s because I treat you,’ he punctuates
his opinion with another blow, ‘the way you deserve to be
treated!’

Half blinded by tears, she edges around the
glass coffee table away from him. ‘I don’t know why I let it
happen, Jay, I didn’t want to, but I just couldn’t…’ she sobs, ‘I
just couldn’t stop him!’

Rage has polished his irises into frighteningly
blank, lifeless stones. ‘Did he handcuff you?’ He reaches out and
grabs a fistful of her hair. ‘Did you come?’

‘Let go of me!’ She wrests free of him, opens
the front door, and runs out into the night.

Chapter Eleven

Even in her high-heeled boots she makes it down
the stairs

and halfway to the sidewalk before he catches
her.

‘Let go of me!’ she cries again.

‘It’s all right, Carmen,’ his tone is soothing,
‘I understand. I’m not angry with you anymore. Come back
inside.’

‘No!’

‘Stop yelling.’ He pulls her back against him
and covers her mouth with his hand.

Coral Gables is well protected by the high taxes
its residents pay to feel safe, and at that moment a police car is
cruising slowly up the street.

Jay sees it and lets go of her.

Blue lights flash, and the squad car accelerates
over to the curb.

‘Fuck.’

Carmen can’t take her eyes off the restless blue
serpents of light slithering over the vehicle’s white hood and dark
windows.

Leaving the engine running, the police officer
steps out to investigate. One hand resting on his gun, Will strides
up the walkway towards them. ‘What’s going on here?’

Jay lunges past her.

‘No!’ She grabs one of his arms with both her
hands.

‘Go ahead, assault a police officer,’ Will says
coolly, but doesn’t come any closer.

The tension in Jay’s body makes it feel as
dangerous to hold on to as a live wire.

Will ignores him. ‘I was worried about you,
Carmen.’

‘I don’t believe this.’ Jay sounds deceptively
calm.

She steps in front of him and slips both her
arms around his chest.

Will looks around them. ‘Did you tell him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Listen, Carmen, I’m sorry, I don’t know what
got into me, I really don’t. It was like – shit, it was like being
possessed.’

‘Really?’ Jay says. ‘Then it wasn’t your dick
that fucked her?’

‘You know what I mean.’Will looks around them
again to make sure no one is approaching along the sidewalk. ‘I’m
not the only one she’s affecting like this.’

Jay’s tone is poisonously civil, ‘I thought you
didn’t believe in anything, officer.’

‘I do now,’ Will declares.

Carmen finds his sudden humility strikingly
attractive.

‘Judging by the marks on her throat,’ Jays
accuses, ‘you nearly strangled her.’

Will meets his eyes. ‘And what the hell were you
doing just now, whispering sweet nothings in her ear?’

Jay pushes her away from him.

She suddenly finds herself face down in the
grass wondering at how sharp the short blades are. From this angle,
the terracotta vases adorning the front of her building look
sinisterly significant, as if their true purpose as something more
than decorative objects had eluded her until that moment.

Jay crouches down beside her. ‘Carmen, I’m
sorry, are you all right?’

She rolls over onto her back, but then discovers
that she can’t sit up.

Will crouches down on her other side. He sees
her problem, and grasps one end of the scarf to pull it out from
beneath her, just as Jay grabs the other end with the same
intention.

‘No,’ she gasps, ‘please don’t!’

Their eyes meet, and lock, over her body.

‘Jesus,’ Will breathes.

‘Incredible,’ Jay murmurs.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Will sounds stunned. ‘I
remember… I remember… killing her!’

Just as in her dream, Mike suddenly appears at
her feet. ‘Carmen?’

She tries to sit up again.

Jay and Will both hold her down.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Mike
demands.

Jay glances up at him. ‘You know what’s going on
here. You’ve felt it too.’

‘Look, I’m just here to pick out a kitten for
my—’

‘No you’re not.’

Carmen feels as though she tripped, not on a
crack in the sidewalk, but on the line between reality and dreams.
Elation and terror, desire and despair, every emotion inside her
suddenly has an evil twin biting it in the throat like that Viking
doorway.

Will looks over both his shoulders. ‘We have to
get her inside before someone sees this.’

‘Her apartment’s too small,’ Jay says.

‘Where then?’ Will sounds impatient.

‘I have a boat,’ Mike announces, ‘at a Marina in
Ft Lauderdale.’

Jay asks, ‘What about your wife?’

‘She’s afraid of the water, she never goes near
it.’

‘Let’s do it.’ Will pulls her roughly to her
feet. ‘I’ll take her with me, since technically I have the right to
restrain her.’ He cuffs her hands behind her back with practiced
ease.

‘What are you doing?’ Mike asks nervously. ‘Take
those things off her.’

Ignoring him, Will leads her towards the squad
car.

‘Jay?’ she cries, and watches in disbelief as he
walks away towards his own car as though he didn’t even hear
her.

Will yanks her off the sidewalk onto the street,
forcing her to concentrate on her footing. He opens the back door
on the passenger side, and rests a hand on her head. ‘You’re under
arrest, sweetheart.’ He eases her in, and then slams the door
closed on her.

Carmen twists around in the seat, and cranes her
neck in an effort to catch a last glimpse of Jay.

Will slips in behind the wheel.

Mike’s Porsche races down the street. Then the
sight of Jay’s small black car shooting after it sucks the breath
out of her. ‘Will, wait, you have to go close the door to my
apartment!’

He shifts into drive and glances back at her.
‘What?’

‘My apartment door is wide open! My cats are
going to get out!’

‘More importantly,’ he shifts back into park,
‘you might get robbed.’ He gets out of the car and runs into her
building as if responding to a 911 call.

She can’t believe Jay would have left her home
open and vulnerable. Even if he had bothered to close the door when
he ran after her, he wouldn’t have locked it, and his lack of
concern for her possessions cuts her with a despair so sharp she
barely feels it. Or rather, she feels nothing as a result of it.
Yet it is her own fault that her feelings are worthless to him
now.

Will walks back to the car with his arms held
slightly away from his body to accommodate all the instruments of
violence orbiting his hips. At least he made sure her home was
locked and safe. At least he cared enough about her that he didn’t
want her to worry, which reassures her that her life will, somehow,
go on after tonight.

‘Your cats will be fine, Carmen. Your door was
closed and I locked it, after I grabbed your keys.’

‘Thank you,’ she says fervently.

‘You’re welcome.’ He meets her eyes in the
rearview mirror as he accelerates down the street. ‘You should be
more concerned about what’s happening to you.’

‘I don’t really care anymore.’

‘Listen, Carmen, I’m sorry about this
morning.’

‘Why, didn’t you enjoy it?’

‘Shit,’ he whispers, ‘you know I did.’

‘Then why are you sorry?’ she snaps.

‘I was just trying to be nice.’

‘Oh, really, handcuffing me is being nice?’

‘It is if you like it.’

She can’t argue with that, and fear and
excitement make all the headlights they pass feel like her own
burning blood cells rushing down the street’s dark artery.

‘Look, Carmen, admit it, you wanted this to
happen. If I really thought we were forcing you—’

‘What, you’d let me go?’

His eyes in the rear-view mirror are the cold
silver-blue of a wolf’s. ‘No, I don’t think I would.’

Knowing she couldn’t stop what is happening even
if she wanted to turns her on so much she can’t speak.

During the drive up to Ft Lauderdale she has too
much time to ponder the fact that three men are taking her
somewhere. Yet that is as far as her mind will allow her to go. Her
wrists are handcuffed, and her imagination is similarly paralyzed,
because her helplessness arouses her so much, it is like looking
directly at a white-hot light in which she can catch only a shadowy
glimpse of impossible fulfillment.

Will remains silent, as if she is only another
prostitute he arrested and is driving to the station. He is going
well over the speed limit. It normally takes her forty-five minutes
to get to Ft Lauderdale, yet before she knows it they are turning
off the expressway.

She concentrates on the red and gold glimmer of
traffic below them. The view reminds her of science films in
elementary school, when she first saw a magnified picture of blood
flowing through an artery. In the dark room she was excitingly
aware of the cute boys in the class sitting around her while cells
swerved urgently around each other, rushing into congesting clumps,
slowing down, and speeding up again.

Right now, she can’t think any more clearly than
she did when she was a little girl. Her brain has shut down all
higher functions and is simply sustaining her body, which heightens
her physical awareness of everything.

‘We’re almost there,’ Will finally addresses
her.

She moans, and tries to take a deep breath. ‘Oh,
God,’ she gasps. ‘Oh, God!’

‘Hey,’ he glances back at her through the metal
screen caging her like an animal, ‘relax.’

She laughs, because it helps her breathe.

‘It’s all right,’ he says gently, ‘we won’t hurt
you.’

‘Yes, you will.’ She waits for him to deny it,
but he doesn’t, and with the blood rushing violently through her
heart she senses the ocean drawing closer, its powerful waves
breaking on the shore flowing back into the darkness as dangerous
undertows.

They enter the marina through an automatic gate,
and turn into a sprawling parking lot. She immediately spots Mike’s
red Porsche, and Jay’s car parked close by.

Will backs into a space a few yards away, cuts
the engine, and gets out of the car.

‘Please, God,’ she whispers, ‘don’t let them
hurt me.’

‘Watch your head,’ Will commands as he helps her
out.

Jay walks right up to her, and slaps her.

Mike says angrily, ‘If you hit her again—’

‘She loves it. Look at me, Carmen.’ Jay grabs
her face with both hands. ‘You’re mine,’ he whispers, ‘and don’t
you forget it.’

‘No,’ she breathes.

‘Say it.’

‘I’m yours!’

He lets go of her, and turns to face the other
men. ‘Let’s get one thing straight right now,’ he says, ‘this is an
exorcism, and I call the shots.’

‘I’m not sure I understand what’s going on
here,’ Mike replies gruffly.

Will steps up behind her and unlocks the
handcuffs. ‘Just take us to the boat.’ He snaps them off her and
takes possession of one of her arms. Jay grabs the other one, and
they start walking in the direction of the water.

Mike leads the way, and the rhythmic beat of six
hard soles surrounding her makes her feel so weak with desire she
almost needs their support. Then she sees an old woman heading
towards them, and trips on an irrational stab of fear, so that only
the hard grip of the men on either side of her prevents her from
falling.

The woman’s mouth is just one more line in her
time-ravaged face. ‘Is there a problem officer?’ She is walking a
small black and white dog.

‘No, madam, the young lady just had a little too
much to drink, that’s all. She’ll sleep it off.’

Mike hurries up a flight of weathered wooden
steps onto the pier. In a navy-blue sweater and loose black slacks
he looks right at home surrounded by boats.

‘Watch your step, Carmen,’Will says beneath his
breath, and she trips again over the tension in his voice.

Jay drapes one of her arms over his shoulder,
Will follows suit, and they lift her up the steps between them.

She almost enjoys the sense of floating, of
shedding the weight of her freewill and exchanging it for a blind
faith… in what? Her lovers? God? Is there a difference?

‘This all seems so familiar,’ Will mutters, ‘as
if I’ve done this before.’

‘An old woman was part of the rite,’ Jay informs
him, ‘it’s all falling into place.’

‘We’ve got to get her inside fast, people are
staring.’

‘Give her to me,’ Mike commands, ‘I’ll carry
her.’

Her feet slip out from beneath her, and the
universe breaks over her in a glimmering wave. A strong pair of
arms hold her safe even as they carry her away like an undertow,
yet this is what she wants, to go with him, to lie with him forever
where she’ll never feel cold or tired, and where she will finally
be worth something again, her self-esteem magically resurrected in
the rich dirt of his grave.