He came out of the men’s bathroom. There was never a line there. He was like a foot taller than me, looking all cocky and handsome, like Sean Connery when he was in Goldfinger and not older than dirt like in Never Say Never Again. Ajax checked out my face, my dress, my arms, my legs, my nipples, pretty much everything I had to offer the world. His mouth bent into a grin. It was a cute grin. He knew where I was going and what I had to do, and he thought it was incredibly funny.
“Gotta pee?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Go in the men’s room. I’ll watch the door.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
The men’s room was foul, but I didn’t care. Nudie photos hung over the urinals, and the floor was wet and yellow where the boys had missed. A machine sold condoms and cigarettes, but someone had broken the glass and taken what was inside. The bathroom had one stall, and I ran in there and shut the door and barely got my underwear down before Niagara flooded over the cliff. I practically screamed with relief. As I sat there, I tried to read the graffiti on the door, but the dirty jokes and limericks made somersaults in front of my eyes.
By the time I was finished, yes, I was definitely crying, and I was trembling with cold so hard that my knees knocked together. I didn’t want to go back out there, I didn’t want to face everybody looking at me, I didn’t want to sit next to my husband again, but all I could do was go to the sink and try to clean myself up. I closed my eyes to make the world stop spinning, but I was riding a Tilt-A-Whirl inside my head.
Then he was there with me. I opened my eyes, and he was right there.
Ajax.
I hadn’t heard him come in. He turned me around and nudged me gently against the sink. His hand lifted my chin, and he bent down and kissed me. I won’t lie to you, sweetheart, he was a good kisser, and I needed to be kissed. I didn’t push him away. I put my arms around him and pulled him close to me. His body pressed against mine, and I could feel his muscles, hard everywhere. His hands were all over me. His fingers snaked under my skirt, pushing aside my panties, going places they shouldn’t go.
I finally woke up to what was happening, but I was too late.
I shoved him backward and slapped him hard, my wedding ring making a gash across his cheek. That was going to leave a scar. He was going to hate that. But I saw in that same moment that we weren’t alone. Ricky stood in the doorway of the bathroom. He’d seen everything; he’d seen Ajax kiss me, seen me kiss him back, seen me do nothing but moan as his worst enemy groped me under the dress I’d put on for my husband.
My cheeks flushed red. I stammered but couldn’t get out any words. Ricky grabbed my wrist. He grabbed it hard. As he pulled me out of the bathroom, I saw drunken images popping in my head like flashbulbs: Ajax bleeding profusely; people staring at us; Sandra shouting my name; the back door flying open; and then the moon and stars shining as Ricky carried me kicking and flailing across the snowy parking lot and threw me inside the car.
Nobody did a thing. Nobody tried to stop him.
Ricky didn’t say a word as we drove home. His silence felt utterly terrifying, cold and deadly. I sobered up fast. Twenty minutes later, we got to the house, and I didn’t want to go inside. Bad things waited inside. So he came around the passenger door, ripped it open, and again he wrapped me up and took me bodily inside as I squirmed and fought and screamed.
The light was off in the hallway. The strap on my dress had torn, and I was half-naked in front of him. He was in shadow, full of primal rage, completely out of control. A tiger. Slowly, I backed away, but he advanced toward me. There was a little lamp from my father on the table near the door, and Ricky picked up the lamp in a rage and threw it to the floor with a crash.
He was going to kill me. I knew that.
He was going to beat me to a pulp, and then he was going to kill me. I turned and ran for my life. He charged after me, yelling the most horrible things, calling me awful names. I ran up the stairs, but he was right behind me, catching my heel and trying to drag me down the steps. I kicked and broke free. I got to our bedroom and slammed the door shut and locked it, but that wasn’t going to stop him for long.
I went to my dresser and wrenched open the top drawer and reached for the gun inside. By the time I had my service revolver in my hand, Ricky was kicking open the door. It flew off the frame, and there he was, his eyes black with rage, his fingers curled like claws. I lifted the gun and pointed it at him.
“Stop,” I shouted.
He kept coming at me.
“Stop!”
This time I fired. Not at him. Over his head. The explosion sounded like a bomb, loud enough that I thought my ears would bleed. Plaster and dust cascaded on him from the ceiling.
“The next one goes in your head,” I told him.
Ricky stared at me, and he knew I was serious. He put up his hands, but I could tell that he wanted to put those hands around my throat.
“We’re done!” I hollered at him. “We’re over. We’re through. I never want to see your face again. Get out of here, Ricky. I want you out of this house. Leave right now and never come back.”
He backed away. I went toward him, my gun leading the way. I kept it level, my arms rock solid. He turned around as he headed down the stairs, and we crunched over broken glass in the hallway. I’d lost a shoe during the chase, and my foot began to bleed.
When Ricky got to the front door, he faced me again. I saw the taunt in his eyes. The threat. “You’re making a big mistake. You don’t want to do this.”
“Get out!”
“I’ll be back, and then you’ll see what I can do to you.”
“If you’re not out of this house in five seconds, I’m going to shoot you dead.”
He’d lost this round, and he knew it. He turned around and stalked away. Seconds later, the door slammed shut with him on the other side. I kept pointing the revolver at the door, unable to drop my arms. I heard a roar as he gunned the car engine outside, and then I saw the headlights as he sped off toward Main Street.
I slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. Slowly, carefully, I uncocked the revolver and laid it beside me. Then I put my face in my hands and sobbed.
After that night, sweetheart, I knew that nothing would ever be the same. I also knew, because I knew Ricky too well, that this was far from over.
Chapter Eleven
I was still in the hallway the next morning when I heard a knock on my front door. I knew it wasn’t Ricky, because Ricky wouldn’t knock. I pushed myself off the floor and went and put the chain on, just to be sure. Half the time, we left our doors open in Black Wolf County, but I didn’t think I’d be doing that for a while. I opened the door a crack and saw Darrell on my front step.
His face was grave with worry. He knew.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” I replied in a low voice.
“Where’s Ricky?”
“I don’t know. I made him leave.”
“Come stay with me and the girls,” Darrell said.
“No. This is my house. I’m staying.”
“What do you need?”
“Half an hour,” I told him. “I need to shower and change, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
“That’s not what I meant. What do you need?”
“I need to work.”
“Rebecca, you’re in no shape for that.”
“Yes, I am. Give me half an hour, Darrell. I’m fine.”
He shook his head. “Well, in that case, how about I make coffee?”
I worked up a stubborn smile. I undid the chain and backed away, and I had to hold my dress up at the broken strap to keep it from falling. The morning air blew in and made me shiver again. It was still dark out, so I turned on the hallway light. Darrell came in, his eyes taking note of everything: the broken lamp, the blood on my foot, my revolver on the floor.