The bathroom door banged open. "What the hell happened to you?" he inquired angrily.
She spun around, her hand flying to her throat. "I-I was tired. I decided to go to bed."
"The hell you did. We were in the middle of a goddamn fight, and you ran away." He pushed himself into the small room. She waited for the tiled walls to bulge outward from the strain of trying to contain all the energy that he brought with him.
"Arguing never solves anything."
"Who says? Who comes up with shit like that?"
"I don't want to fight."
"Why not?" He glared at her belligerently. "Are you afraid you won't win?"
"I'm not a fighter. I don't enjoy conflict."
"You're an asshole."
She was stunned by his attack. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this kind of overt hostility. A surge of anger, dark and ugly, began to creep through her. She didn't deserve this. She loved him, and he had no right to say these things to her. Her anger frightened her as much as his attack, and she realized that she couldn't deal with either one. She had to get away from him. She had to escape before something terrible happened. Rushing to the door, she tried to push past him.
He caught her arm and pulled her around. His lips had narrowed into a hard line, and his expression was tight with anger. "You're a real chickenshit, you know that? A little mouse afraid of her own shadow."
"Let me go!" Her own anger was growing bigger and stronger, taking over her body like a foreign virus.
"No. I don't like scared little rabbits."
"Stop it! Let me go!"
"Make me."
"Don't do this!" she shouted. "Don't you treat me like this. I don't deserve this and I won't stand for it, and you can just go to hell!"
He laughed and dropped his head to her mouth. "Better. That's lots better." Her lips were already parted in indignation and he slammed his teeth against hers.
She couldn't breathe. She tried to shove him away, but he pinned her against the vanity. She struggled, pushing at his chest with the heels of her hands. And then something strange began to happen inside her. A heat was building there, a dark excitement. She parted her lips and thrust her tongue into his mouth.
The heat turned to fire. He pushed up her cotton nightgown. It bunched around her waist as he lifted her onto the edge of the vanity. He opened her legs and stepped between them. She felt him fumbling with the front of his jeans, and she began pressing hard against him. He grabbed her knees from behind and lifted them higher. She cried out as he thrust inside her, then she locked her legs around his waist so she could take him all.
Their lovemaking was wretchedly uncomfortable and she didn't have an orgasm, but she reveled in the ferocity of it. Afterward he took her to bed and made love to her all over again. That night she lay spent next to him, exhausted from an outpouring of so much emotion, and yet filled with triumph. She had gotten angry, and her world hadn't come to an end.
Her mind churned with so much activity that she couldn't fall asleep. The light patterns shifted on the ceiling. She repositioned her pillow, but it didn't help. Taking care not to wake Sam, she slipped out of bed and headed toward the kitchen so she could get a drink of water. As she passed naked beneath Elvis's full-length portrait in the living room, she glanced uncomfortably at the singer's image. She should have put on a robe, but all her robes were back at Falcon Hill.
The fluorescent stove light in the kitchen was on, emitting a blue-white glow. Her bare feet padded across the floor. She crossed to the cupboard and reached for a glass. At that exact moment she heard a thump.
She spun around, all her senses alert, and watched in horror as the back door began to swing open.
A dark form loomed on the threshold. It took her only a few seconds to recognize the tall, thin figure as Yank Yankowski's. What was he doing here? she thought wildly. It was nearly three in the morning and she was stark naked. What was she going to say?
The chill night air he had brought with him raised goose bumps on her bare skin. Her nipples were puckered, the hair on her arms standing up. He still hadn't seen her. As he pushed the door shut, she glanced desperately around for a place to hide. She wanted to vanish into the walls, get swallowed up by the floor. If she tried to make a dash for the living room, he would see her.
He crossed directly in front of her, passing not more than five feet away but still not looking at her. The edge of the kitchen counter dug into the small of her back as she tried to smear herself into a film as thin as the aluminum coating on a wafer of silicon. The rubber soles of his sneakers squeaked on the floor. He stopped in front of the refrigerator with his back toward her. Her hand snaked along the counter, frantically groping for something to cover her nakedness.
At that moment the kitchen was flooded with light. In her imagination, it seemed as if thousands of watts of electricity had been let loose, but in reality Yank had only pulled open the refrigerator door and activated the small appliance bulb.
She made an audible gasp and then froze, afraid he had heard her. But he didn't turn. He stood in front of the refrigerator staring inside. Seconds passed. Half a minute. The tips of her fingers bumped against a pot holder lying on the counter. She clutched it like a fig leaf in front of her, feeling more embarrassed, more ridiculous by the minute.
Why didn't he move? For one wild moment she thought that maybe she was still asleep, that this was all a silly dream like the ones where she was presiding naked over a committee meeting.
He kept one hand clamped to the refrigerator handle, the other hung at his side. What was wrong with him? Why didn't he move? He was dead, she thought frantically. He had died standing up.
She inched to her right and stepped out of the direct path of the refrigerator light into the glow from the stove light. Maybe she could get to the back door and slip outside. She could hide behind the house until he left. But what if she got locked out?
He turned so abruptly that she made a small, startled sound. It reverberated in the quiet of the kitchen. Finally, he was facing her.
She froze like an animal caught in the beam of a car's headlights. His torso was silhouetted against the open refrigerator, and the stove light had silvered the lenses of his glasses so that she couldn't see his eyes clearly. But there was no doubt about the direction in which he was looking. Those glasses were pointed right at her.
Her hand was clammy around the pot holder. She hunched her shoulders forward, trying to cover her breasts with her upper arms. Her upbringing had prepared her for every conceivable social situation, but she couldn't imagine what to say in this one.
Yank continued to stare at her. She had to do something! Without taking her eyes from him, she began inching toward the living room door, the pot holder clutched over her pudendum so that she looked like Eve fleeing the Garden. As she passed in front of the stove, her body temporarily blocked the stove light and the reflection in his glasses disappeared. For the first time, she could see his eyes.
They were completely blank.
She was so surprised that she stopped moving and looked at him more closely. She had never seen eyes so vague, so unfocused. She took another step to the side. His head didn't move; his gaze remained firmly fixed on some mysterious point to her right. She couldn't believe it. What kind of man was he? Slowly she lowered the pot holder.
She almost laughed. He didn't see her! Once again, Joseph "Yank" Yankowski was too enmeshed in some complex internal electronics problem to be aware of what was happening around him. He was so lost in thought that he didn't see a naked auburn-haired woman standing directly in front of him.