“What’s yours?” he asked.
“I asked you first.”
“I wonder if the fire’s still going.”
Dana saw no flames, but that was normal. Warren stepped away from her and lowered an open hand close to the grill. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
“I’ll tell you mine,” she said.
He turned to face her, but stayed near the fireplace. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to. I want you to know me. Do you want to know me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I have to tell you my deepest, darkest secret.” Her heart was pounding fast. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from someone else.
“You don’t have to. You’re not completely sober.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Tomorrow, you might wish you hadn’t said anything.”
“No. I’ll tell you mine and you tell me yours.”
“I’m not sure this is such a great idea, Dana.”
“Hey,” she said. “After I tell you the worst, it’ll all be uphill. Everything about me’ll be better. Know what I mean?”
“I think you should wait till some other time.”
“No. Now’s...”
“I don’t even know your favorite color yet, and you wanta tell me...”
“Blue. Royal blue.”
“What’s your favorite song?”
“When I was fifteen, I had this terrible crush on my English teacher. Mr. Johnson. I I guess he was about thirty, and...”
“Don’t tell me this now. You’re half drunk, and...”
“Mr. Johnson had a wife.”
“I got attacked in Beast House,” Warren said.
“What?”
“About two years ago.”
“Oh, my God!”
She hadn’t expected this.
“How?” she asked. “What happened?”
He drank his glass empty and set it down on the fireplace.
“If I tell you, you’ve got to keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Lynn. Do you promise?”
This is serious.
“I promise,” Dana said. “But you don’t have to tell me.”
“Now you tell me.”
She smiled and almost sobbed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to force you into...”
“It’s all right. I’d have to tell you sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.”
“Are you sure?”
Nodding, he said, “What happened, we came up a couple of tape players short at closing time. Janice and I did a search of the house, but we couldn’t find anyone. She was pretty upset about it. We’d been having a lot of trouble with that sort of thing. Players missing. People staying overnight. Vandalism. I figured, this time, they wouldn’t get away with it. So I went in by myself at around midnight. Didn’t tell anyone. I just snuck in, figuring I’d probably catch a couple of teenagers, scare the hell out of them, then make them clean up whatever mess they’d made and throw them out.
“But I couldn’t find anyone. What I did find ... You know the iron door down in the cellar?”
“Yeah.” Dana lifted her glass and noticed it was empty.
“Can I get you a refill?”
“No. Thanks. What about the door?”
“You know how it’s always padlocked from the Kutch side?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the padlock was off. It was down on the tunnel floor, and the door was ajar.”
“Jeez.”
“What I thought was, maybe these jokers had reached through the bars and picked the lock so they could go through the tunnel.”
“Pay a visit to old lady Kutch?”
“You bet. Everybody wants to see what it’s like inside her house.”
“Including you.”
“I used to,” Warren said. “And that night was my big chance. It was perfect. The lock was already off. I had a responsibility to find the intruders. They’d given me a great excuse in case I ran into Agnes at the other end.”
“And you did it? You went through the tunnel?”
“I never got the chance. I opened the door a little wider and bent down to pick up the lock, and...I guess I hadn’t been exactly alone down there. I got jumped.”
He unbuttoned his bright silk shirt and took it off.
Dana stared at the scars on his shoulders.
He turned around.
“My God,” Dana murmured.
The nape of his neck, his shoulders, his upper back...a tangle of scars as if he’d been mauled by a pack of raging cats.
He turned to face her again. Looking miserable, he said, “That’s why I...stopped things in the kitchen. You don’t want to just stumble onto a mess like this.”
Dana felt tears stinging her eyes, running down her face.
She went to Warren and set her glass on the fireplace beside his glass. She put her arms around him. “Tuck,” she said.
Before he had a chance to respond, she kissed him. Her hands glided up his bare back. She wanted to touch his scars, caress them, let him know they didn’t repel her.
Holding her by the sides, he pushed her gently away. He shook his head.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
“So you’ve got a few scars. I don’t...”
“These aren’t the worst of them.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Show me?”
He stared into her eyes. His head jerked very slightly from side to side. “Nobody’s ever...I’ve never shown them to anyone. Just Janice. She...bandaged me afterward.”
“Can I see?”
He studied her eyes, but didn’t answer.
“I’ll have to see, sooner or later.”
“Why’s that?”
“Why do you think?”
“You tell me.”
“It’s customary to remove one’s clothes before making love.”
As she spoke those words, her face burned.
“We don’t have to,” Warren said.
“Which? Make love or remove our clothes?”
“Either. Both.”
“Don’t you wanta?”
“Of course I want to. Are you kidding? I haven’t...you know...I haven’t let anyone get near me, much less... I want you so badly...You’re all I’ve been able to think about since we met yesterday. But I just can’t...”
Reaching down with both hands, Dana started to unfasten his belt.
He clutched her wrists.
“No,” he said.
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. If you knew...”
“I want to know. I want to know everything.”
“You just think you do.”
“Warren...”
“Trust me.”
“I never trust anyone who says ‘trust me.’”
“Okay. Okay.” He shoved Dana’s hands away, then turned around.
“Don’t be angry,” she said.
“I’m not. It’s just...” He shook his head. His arms moved, and Dana heard the jingle of his belt buckle.
“If you don’t want to do this...”
“I don’t,” he said. He bent over, pulling down his white trousers and his shorts in the same quick movement.
Dana gritted her teeth, but didn’t make a sound.
Warren straightened up and stood there.
His buttocks and the backs of his thighs looked as if they’d once been shredded by claws, gnawed on.
The sight made Dana feel squirmy.
“That isn’t so bad,” she said.
“It’s hideous.”
“What did it to you?”
“The thing that jumped me in the cellar.”
“But what?”
“What do you think?
“I don’t know.”
Warren pulled up his pants, fastened them, and turned around. His face looked grim.