"Sometimes when I'm up here I want to hurl myself off the edge," she said.
"Don't. I would hate it without you."
"I feel as if I could float just like that bird, all the way down to the water."
Heights made Tee giddy. Sometimes he felt as if he might be forced against his will to leap, pulled by some unknown force to the edge and beyond. He tried to stay well back from balconies, railings, cliff edges.
He sat on the blanket and pulled her down beside him, relieved that she came without resistance. Some days he would have to coax, or listen to her for a long time while she told him the convoluted stories of her life, her dealings with her mother, her husband, a coterie of tortured girlfriends. Some days she would talk while Tee made love to her, giving him little encouragement, indeed little recognition until she was ready. Tee would feel belittled, insulted, humiliated, but it did not matter, he could not stop himself, he was crazy for her, crazy with his need for her.
"I swear, I must be nu-uts," she said, elongating her vowels into two or three. "My husband is on the brink of bankruptcy. Right on the brink, just every bit as close to it as I am to the edge of this cliff…"
Tee tugged at her clothes. She wore a spandex jogger's outfit that fit her like a surgeon's glove. He had to peel it off, taking arduous care.
She wore it every time and never helped him remove it, but lay there talking, ignoring him, making him do all the work.
"He doesn't speak to me at all anymore, except to snap or yell at the kids. I think he's losing his mind. I know I'm losing mine."
Feeling coarse and humbling, he made love to her, kissing her mouth when she let him, caressing her with his hands, his lips, pressing himself against her. She talked through much of it, revealing details of her life in a long, rambling monologue. Tee felt as insistent as a beast, determined to have his own way, but he proceeded slowly, gently if clumsily, trying to bring her with him. He would stop in an instant if she asked him to, but she never did, even though she seemed to ignore him. When she reached down for him at last and took him in hand, her grip was so stron it almost brought him off at once, but her attitude did not change. It seemed throughout that her mind and her body were engaged in two separate events.
When he could restrain himself no longer and finally entered her, she was so tight he found it hard to believe that she had given birth to two children. She gasped, then fell silent at last. He tried to move slowly but as usual it was no use. Her indifference, her begrudging consent, and his final acceptance excited him too much and he could never wait long enough. As he entered his final spasm, she gripped him again with her thighs, impeding his thrusts. He did not know if he was too large for her, if his weight frightened her and she was trying to restrain him to protect herself, or if she squeezed him with passion, but it was too late to stop himself now. He struggled against the power of her legs, trying to penetrate fully and rapidly but forced into a defeated compromise, moaning to a climax, feeling premature and inconsiderate and unfulfilled.
It was only then she came alive, rolling on top of him and grinding herself against his body, breathing hoarsely, seeking hungrily for her own moment. Tee tried to stay with her, grimly forcing himself not to withdraw, not to collapse. She gave him no pause, no chance to recover, made no concession to his need for a moment of complete inactivity. She tore at him, rasping against him the way she did everything physical, too hard, too relentless. Tee wanted to cry out, to push her off him, to make her stop, but he never did, he gave in to her will always and let her do what she had to do.
When she came at last with a muffled keening sound and collapsed atop him, her tiny breasts flattening on his chest, her cheeks were wet with tears. She lay on him, weeping gently, for that moment a different woman. He loved her most then, when her tears wet his body, and he would kiss her cheeks and engulf her in his arms as if to protect her from the world. For that brief time he did not feel like a clumsy lover, he did not feel inadequate. He felt strong and towering and gentle and he gripped her in his arms as if he could hold the feeling within his grasp for both of them and never let go of it. When he tried to ask her why she wept, she would always shake her head and turn away from him and not answer, so he no longer asked but allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy that it was because of him, that he had touched her as deeply, moved her as profoundly as she did him.
From the trees at their back, a blue jay scolded, mocking him.
When she had dressed and run off down the hill on legs that seemed even lighter and more energetic than when she came, Tee sat alone atop the cliff, exhausted and overwhelmed with guilt. He didn't know why he did it, he didn't understand what compelled him to put himself through this time and again. He would leave disgusted with himself, filled with distaste for her. A day later he would be thinking about her, two days later he would long for her, and within a week's time he would be beside himself with desire again. He would risk exposure, climbing a cliff to lie with her in the open air, where if they were discovered, there would never be an adequate excuse.
He wondered if he was a masochist and was only now finding it out. He wondered if he was being punished in some way for the easy sex of his early marriage, when although he had not always been perfectly faithful, he had never gotten truly involved with anyone but his wife. He was involved now, and there was little that was easy, or even pleasurable about it. Next time, he thought, he might just pick up that small, strong body, lift it over his head, and hurl it down the cliff.
With the rolled-up blanket under his arm, he clambered awkwardly down the steepest part of the hill, clinging to rocks with one arm while he stretched to the next foothold. Like an old man, he thought. He was too old for any of this.
He walked through the replanted orchard again, pointing straight between the rows. They had located the absentee owner of the acreage, a retiree living in sun-soaked ease in Arizona. The land was leased to a nurseryman from Newtown, who supervised the annual harvesting of Christmas trees, the planting of new saplings, the semiannual clearing of brush. He was being thoroughly investigated by the FBI, as were his employees, the seasonal workers who took time off from plowing snow to cut and bind and sell the trees. They were all suspects and no one expected to find out much from any of them. The man they were after was much too smart to plant bodies in his own backyard.
When-he crossed the Saugatuck at the base of the hill, skipping heavily across the stream from stone to stone, he could just glimpse part of his car across the road. Someone was sitting on it.
Tee paused within the last fringe of trees bordering the road and sized up the situation. McNeil was leaning back on the hood of the cruiser, his head against the windshield, his face to the sun as if basking on the beach. As Tee watched, McNeil languidly turned his face in Tee's direction, pulling his sunglasses down so they rested on his nose like a man with bifocals. He stared for a moment, then pushed the tinted glasses back to cover his eyes and returned his face to the sun. For a foolish moment Tee thought of stepping back farther into the woods and waiting it out. Instead, he came out of the trees and crossed the road to his cruiser.
"You're out early," McNeil said without turning to face Tee.
"Sit on your own car," Tee said. McNeil's cruiser was parked a few feet behind Tee's, in effect imprisoning it against the cement wall of the reservoir.
McNeil slowly swung his feet around so that he was sitting up, pointedly taking his own time to get off the hood. He looked at Tee, his eyes inscrutable behind the dark glasses.