“I don’t miss the druggie slut bitch. She deserved what she got for how rotten she treated me all those years. She’s in hell where she belongs. Punching her ticket was the best thing I’ve ever done, it gave me the confidence to go out into the world and become the man I had the potential to be, be all I can be, now that I’m free, I don’t have her steel albatross ass hanging over my head any more, holding me back and cutting me down like Tom Thumb.”
Coldness shuddered through her. No remorse. He’s got no remorse whatsoever. Jesus.
He smiled at her. In the lantern light, he looked like a grinning wolf.
She had to snuff out her fear. She could not back out now. The door to hell had been opened, a finger beckoned, and she had to follow it all the way inside.
She slid her toe along his thigh. “I thank you for sharing that secret with me, Leon. There’s nothing like a man who can be open and honest with a woman. I find it very. . attractive.”
He lowered his cigarette. “You do?”
“Very much so.”
“It doesn’t scramble your brain that I confessed to offing my moms?”
“Was it shocking? Yes. Do I feel as if you were justified in doing it, considering the abuse to which she subjected you for so many years?” She shrugged, though inwardly she wanted to scream. “That’s not my judgment to make.”
“You’re a believer in moral relativism, huh?” he said. “Nothing is intrinsically good or evil, you have to judge a man’s choices by his life’s circumstances. Spinoza said that.”
“You’re so smart.” She scooted closer to him, and crossed her legs Indian style. Her knees touched his ankles.
He looked down at the juncture of their bodies. Redness crept into his face.
“Here.” She took a sip from her cup, and passed it to him.
Never letting his eyes leave hers, he drank, and handed the wine back to her. She drank some more. Her mind buzzed, and the alcohol had nothing to do with it.
“Corey was never as honest with me as you’ve been,” she said. “He’s not a real man, not like you are.”
Leon sneered. “C-Note’s scared of his past, terrified of the skeletons lurking in the closet, the insects beneath the rocks. But I’m not, I can go there, I’m not scared of anything.”
“Not you, Leon. Never.”
“I’m stronger than him, always have been.”
“Yes, you are.”
Silence hung between them, as tangible as the smoke in the air. She thought about the community shelter where she worked once a week. There she had counseled many women who walked the streets, performing oral sex or other acts on men for ten bucks-sometimes less, if they were desperate-and one common thread in their heartbreaking narratives was how they’d learned by necessity to separate sex from emotion, from caring, from love, how they considered it a mere business transaction, and would go about the process, no matter how repelled they were by the john, with the mechanical indifference you might have used for washing dishes or folding laundry.
That was what she had to do now. Disassociate.
She gazed deeply into his eyes. The soul of a murdering psychopath lurked within them, cold and calculating, but she could not let that stop her.
She batted her lashes, flirtatiously.
“You’ve got pretty eyes, like freshly minted pennies,” he said. He touched her cheek with his index finger, and she resisted the natural impulse to pull away, and instead, smiled.
“Thank you,” she said.
“And those dimples. . so adorable.”
She edged closer to him, knees pressing firmly against his legs. Bending forward, she placed her hands on his crotch.
A soft gasp of surprise escaped him. She felt the hardness in his slacks, and gently kneaded it.
He groaned, eyes boring into her. “Don’t do this unless you mean it. I haven’t been with a lady in a while.”
“And as I sit here with you, I realize that I’ve never been with a real man.” She squeezed him, and pleasure flared across his face. “Until today.”
“Wait a second, wait a second, wait,” he said with hushed awe. He looked at his cigarette as if finally remembering it was there, and stubbed it out on the floor. He snapped his fingers. “Wait, I get this. This is like, what they call the Stockholm syndrome. You’ve heard of that? Where the hostage-takers and the hostage start falling head over heels in love with each other. That’s what we’re doing here, I think, I’m really feeling you, like, whoa-”
She cut him short. “Honey, are you going to take off these damn handcuffs so I can get out of these clothes?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you, I got you.” He fished a tiny silver key out of his pocket. As he reached for her wrists, she held her breath.
Then, he stopped. His eyes narrowed to slits.
“Are you serious, Clair Huxtable?” he asked. “Or are you just fucking with me, playing some kind of sicko, shrink game?”
“You’re looking at the same girl who once rode her high school principal like a pony, sweetheart. What the hell do you think? Huh? I’ll tell you what I think, Leon. I think you’re scared I’m gonna lay it on you so hard you’ll forget your damn name.”
His suspicion faded, and he broke into a grin. “We’ll see about that, uh-huh, we’ll see about that, that’s right.”
Hands trembling with eagerness, he fumbled the key into each cuff, and unlocked them. He tossed them aside, the metal clattering somewhere behind them.
Thank you, God.
She examined her wrists. They had purple-black rings on them, and throbbed painfully. She massaged them-and tried to keep her gaze away from the gun on his hip.
“There you go.” He made a wild twittering gesture. “Free as a bird.”
“Thank you so much. Now, I can do what I do best.”
“Lay it on me.” He started to unbutton his shirt.
She swatted his hands away. “No, I’ll do that. You relax.”
“Okay, okay, okay, do your thing, yeah, do it, do it, do it.”
She rose to her knees and crawled onto his lap, straddling him. He licked his lips. She took his hands and placed them across her rear end, inviting him to feel the round firmness.
“Think you can hold on to these reins, cowboy?” she said.
He dug his fingers into her and squeezed, forehead glistening with sweat. He was as hard as cement. Ignoring her stomach-wrenching aversion, she sinuously ground her pelvis against him. He closed his eyes, moaned.
“Thank you for calling me to the principal’s office, Mr. Sharpe,” she whispered in his ear.
Eyes closed in rapture, he clutched her as if holding on for dear life. Starting from the top and moving down, she unfastened each button of his shirt.
“Going to turn you out,” she said.
“I can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait, uh-huh.”
“Better not be a minute man, baby.”
His head whipped back and forth. “Not me, no way, nope, nope, nope, I stay long till the break of dawn.”
She reached the last button, right above his belt buckle. She traced her fingers up his arms and rolled the top of the shirt down, making it snug around his shoulders and biceps. Like putting him in a straitjacket.
“I can’t wait to feel you inside me,” she said.
She playfully pinched his nipple, making him flinch, while she stealthily slid her other hand around his waist.
“I can dish out pain, too, I like to bite.” He bared his teeth comically and growled. “Grrrrrr.”
She chuckled, flicked his nipple with her thumb. Her other hand closed around the butt of the gun, quietly unsnapped the strip of leather securing it in the holster.
“I like to do all kinds of freaky things, honey,” she said. “It’ll be so nice to be with a real man who can respect what I’ve got to offer.”
“I am so respecting you right now, ma cherie, like you wouldn’t believe.”
She snatched the pistol out of the holster and jammed the muzzle underneath his chin.
“That’s so good to hear,” she said, “ ’ cause if you don’t respect that I’ve got the gun now, I’ll blow your fucking head off.”