What Comes Next (28 page)

She slowly unlatched her bra and placed it on the edge of the bed. Then she stepped out of her panties. This was almost painful. One hand instantly descended past her waist, trying to cover her pubic region. The other she clasped across her small breasts. Behind her blindfold she could feel the man’s eyes burning her, scouring her body, inspecting her like a piece of meat.

“Get busy,” the man demanded.

She bent down as coyly as she could and dipped the washcloth into the water and then rubbed the soap against it. Then she stood and slowly, systematically, began to clean herself. Feet. Legs. Stomach. Chest. Underarms. Neck. Face—being careful not to dislodge the blindfold, trying to be as modest as she could.

To her surprise, the feel of the soapsuds against her skin was nearly erotic. Within seconds she realized that she had never once felt anything quite as wonderful as the sensation of cleaning herself. The room, the chain around her neck, the bed—all disappeared. It was like washing away fear and her inhibitions abruptly dropped aside. She ran the washcloth over her breasts and then over her crotch and thighs. It felt like she was being caressed. She thought maybe once, skinny-dipping and diving into early summer salty surf on the Cape, or playing in the cool fast water of a river on a hot August afternoon—those were feelings that came close to what she was experiencing. But now, she scrubbed her skin hard, wanting to peel off a layer like a snake shedding an old skin, so that she would glisten. She was aware that the man was watching, but every moment that some self-consciousness about her body tried to creep past the delight of washing she simply repeated to herself
fuck you fuck you fuck you, you bastard
like some Eastern mantra. It made her feel even better.

She reached for her upper arm and suddenly she heard: “No. Not there.”

She stopped.

The man’s voice continued, softly but insistently.

“On the lower part of your abdomen, adjacent to your hip and near your crotch, you will feel a slightly raised Band-Aid-like thing. Leave that alone.”

Jennifer touched the area and felt what the voice described. She nodded.

“My hair,” she said. She desperately wanted to wash her hair.

“Some other time,” the man said.

Jennifer continued, alternating dipping the washcloth in the bucket and using the soap. She redid her face. She took an edge of the cloth and, even though it tasted terrible, she rubbed it against her teeth and gums. She reached for every part of her body that she could, once, then twice.

“You’re finished,” the man said. “Place the washcloth in the bucket. Use the towel to dry yourself. Replace your underwear. Return to the bed.”

Jennifer did precisely as she was told. She rubbed the rough cotton towel over herself. Then, like a sightless person, she groped around the bed until she found the two items of clothing and she struggled back into them, slightly covering her nakedness.

She heard the sound of the bucket being picked up, and then muffled footsteps crossing the room toward the door.

She did not know what came over her right at that second. Perhaps it was the energy that exercising had given her heart and muscles, or the sense of strength the meal had given her, or the feeling of renewal that bathing provided, but she leaned her head back and reached her hand up to her face and impulsively lifted the edge of the blindfold, just for an instant.

By the time Michael had put the water bucket away, removed his tight, black long underwear and the balaclava that concealed his face from the cameras, slid into a pair of worn jeans, and got up to the bank of computers in the control room, Linda was already typing away furiously. She was still dressed in her crinkly Hazmat suit. Without lifting her head, still concentrating on her keyboard, she said, “Look at this! The board has lit up!”

The interactive message screen that accompanied Whatcomesnext.com was filling with instant messages from around the world. Passion, excitement, fascination redoubled. The viewers had loved Number 4’s nakedness, they had loved her exercise, they had loved her animal-like devouring of the food. Testimonials of love.

More than a few wanted to know much more about Number 4. They demanded a chance to experience a greater depth of understanding.
Who is she? Where does she come from?

Both Michael and Linda saw these requests and were troubled. They knew there was a fine line between anonymity and exposure. They knew they needed to be cautious about demands that came from hidden places.

“I feel as if she is
my possession,
” a man wrote from France. Linda had punched the message into a Google translation service before reading the words. “Like my car, or my house or my job. I need to be even more intimate with Number Four. She belongs to me.”

Another viewer from Sri Lanka wrote, “More close-ups. Extreme close-ups. We need to be even closer to her all the time.”

This, Michael understood, was a technical request that could easily be managed with any of the cameras inside the room. But he was also smart enough to understand that
close-up
meant something different than merely a camera angle.

He turned to Linda.

“I think we need to speak about the direction all this might go in,” he said. “And I damn well think I might need to make some adjustments in the scripts.”

Michael stared down at more responses flowing into their computers.

“It’s important,” he said, “that we
always
keep control. Stick to the scripts. Stick to the plan. It’s got to
seem
spontaneous out there…”

He gestured at the screen.

“… But we always need to know where we’re going.”

Linda was both uncertain and excited. Her voice picked up momentum as she spoke. “I think Number Four just might be the most popular subject we’ve ever had,” she said. “That’s going to make us money. A lot of money.”

Michael nodded. He touched the back of her hand. He grinned, although there wasn’t a joke being told.

“Who would have guessed that snatching a teenager would make people so…” He hesitated. “I don’t know.
Fascinated?
Is that the right word? Is the whole world made up of people who want to seduce sixteen-year-olds?”

This comment made Linda laugh out loud. “You might be right,” she said. “Except
seduce
is the wrong word.” She looked over at Michael, who was smiling. There was something in the skewed way he twisted his upper lip when he considered something to be amusing that she found utterly endearing. She thought that the two of them were the only pure items left in the world. Everyone else was twisted and perverse. They had each other. Her shoulders twitched, and a shiver went up her back. She believed that every minute
Series #4
was being broadcast brought her and Michael closer. It was as if the two of them were on a completely different plane of existence. It was all erotic. All fantasy. The danger aroused her.

Linda turned back to the screen and finished typing a reply, which was limited to
Number 4 lives today—but what will happen tomorrow?

She hit the SEND button and the reply soared through the Internet to thousands of subscribers.

She got up from the computer bank, taking one last look at Number 4. The girl was back on the bed and clutching her stuffed bear. Linda could see that Number 4’s lips were moving, as if talking to the toy animal. She turned up the volume on the in-room microphones but there was no sound. Number 4, Linda realized, wasn’t actually speaking out loud. She pointed at the computer screen with the live feed.

“See that?” she said to Michael.

He nodded in reply. “She’s really a whole helluva lot different from the others,” he said.

“Yeah,” Linda said. “She’s not crying and whining and screaming and…” She stopped, looked back at the image of Number 4. “Or at least she’s not
anymore.
”

Michael seemed to be thinking hard. “We’ve got to create more for her, because she’s so much…” They were both aware that Number 4 was much more
something
but they were unsure
what.

Linda turned and suddenly began pacing back and forth across the room. “We’ve got to be careful,” she said, making a fist. “We’ve got to give them
more
to appreciate. But we can’t give too much, because then, when we reach the end, it will be too hard…”

She didn’t need to finish. Michael was acutely aware of the dilemma she was describing.
You can’t make people fall in love with something that they’re going to watch die,
he thought.

“It’s because she’s young,” he said. “It’s because she’s so…
fresh.
”

Linda knew exactly what he was saying. The first three had been different sorts of prisoners. Number 4 was compelling to all the viewers for reasons she was only beginning to understand. She had demanded someone with no hard edges. Acquisition had been more dangerous, but more rewarding. She took a step forward and wrapped her arms around her lover. She could feel a quickening in her pulse. It was not like the sensation she felt when Michael slipped between the sheets of their bed late at night and, even if they were both exhausted, she could feel his insistence; nor was it like the sensation of achievement she got when she totaled up their earnings. This was something unusual. She had expected Number 4 to be—within reason—like the others, and now, for the first time, she thought Number 4 was far better, far more advanced, and far more compelling. It was a contradiction, she thought. Number 4 was much younger than Numbers 1 through 3. Number 4 had been seized under different circumstances, with a different intention in their minds.

She thought they were on the verge of something special with Number 4, something that she had not imagined and not anticipated.

Linda shook with excitement.

Risk, she told herself, was like love.

Michael seemed to be feeling the same thing. He suddenly bent down and ran his lips over hers, gently, suggesting. She immediately tugged him toward their bed. Both of them were like teenagers, laughing, almost giggling with excitement, nearly overcome with the sense that they were artists creating something that went far beyond truth.

Their own passion immediately eclipsed their attention, because had they been alert they would have seen an instant message that came from Sweden. A client with the screen name Blond9Inch wrote a single line in his own language, which neither of them understood.
She lifted her blindfold. I think she peeked.

This was followed by dozens of other, far more predictable messages, in many different languages, all commenting on various aspects of Number 4’s body and filled with suggestions as to what Linda or Michael should do to it in the near future, and thus Blond9Inch’s clever observation was obscured.

25

That Mark Wolfe, three-time convicted sex offender and serial exhibitionist, sounded so normal surprised Adrian but not the detective beside him.

“I haven’t done anything,” Wolfe repeated. “And who is that?”

He continued to gesture toward Adrian while directing his questions at Terri Collins. From the other side of the room Wolfe’s mother chimed in, “What’s this about? It’s time for our show. Marky, tell these people to leave. Is it dinner yet?”

Mark Wolfe turned impatiently to his mother. He picked up a remote control from a table and clicked off the television. Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer and whatever they were bent out of shape about disappeared. “We’ve had dinner,” he said. “The show will be on shortly. They’ll be leaving in a minute or two.”

He glared at Detective Collins. “Well, what is it?”

“I think I should be knitting,” his mother said. She took a step toward the recliner adorned with needles.

“No,” Mark Wolfe said abruptly. “Not right now.”

Adrian glanced over at the mother. She had a skewed half grin on her face. Her voice had sounded concerned, even upset, but she was smiling.
Early-onset Alzheimer’s,
he thought abruptly. The rapid-fire diagnosis was unsettling to him; Alzheimer’s affected the same part of the brain and destroyed many of the thought processes that his own disease did. It was simply more insidious, more patient, and therefore much harder to handle. His was relentless and fast, but the woman he saw unsure as to whether to laugh or start crying was gripped by something as determined as the morning tides steadily creeping up a sandy beach. Staring at the mother was a little like staring into a distorted mirror. He could see himself, but not clearly. It threatened to terrify him, and he could hardly tear his eyes off the wild-haired woman, until he heard Detective Collins say, “This is Professor Thomas. He’s assisting me in an ongoing investigation. We have some questions for you.”

Again, Mark Wolfe’s broken-record reply: “I haven’t done anything…” But this time he added, “… wrong.”

The detective’s firm voice seemed to drag Adrian back from some edge, and he focused on the sex offender. He found himself wrestling with his own memory, insisting that he had spent hours watching the behavior of laboratory animals, and then run countless experiments on student volunteers, assessing different types and degrees of fear and interpreting a wide range of behaviors. This moment, he insisted, was the same. He eyed the sex offender, looking for telltale signs of inner panic, searching for signs of deception, listening for signs of dishonesty. A twitch of the eye. A turn of the head. A change in his tone of voice. A quiver in his hand. Sweat on his brow.

“The conditions of your parole require you to maintain employment—”

“I’ve got a job. You know that. I sell electronics and major appliances.”

“And you are not allowed in playgrounds or near schools…”

“You seen me break any of the rules?” Wolfe asked.

Adrian noted that he hadn’t answered:
No, I haven’t been in any playground or near any school.
He hoped Terri Collins had noticed the same thing.

“And you are required to check in with your parole officer on a monthly basis.”