Deaths of jocasta, p.10
Deaths of Jocasta, page 10
“Joanne,” I repeated, trying again to slow her down. “Why are you so angry?” I blurted out.
“Because,” she said, and she stopped to look right at me, “she doesn’t get any second chances. Some incompetent quack takes a few belts or hits or whatever and his hand slips. He dumps her in the woods to die, rather than risk her telling someone in some ER that he smelled like gin or something. Fucking bastard.” Her voice was loud and harsh, a cold fury lurking beneath the words. She started her pacing again, trying to relieve the anger with motion, it seemed.
“Joanne…I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say, because I was thinking about other things. My walk in the woods just before the party. Why didn’t I go back and look?
“No, I’m sorry,” Joanne replied. “Barging in like this, foul tempered.” Her pacing slowed, but didn’t stop.
“I…Something was there,” I said. “I was there, in the woods around eight.”
“What?” Joanne stopped to look at me.
“I…I’m not sure. I felt I was being watched.”
“Did you see something? Anything at all?”
“No…nothing.” I picked at my memory, trying to see what it was, a shape, a color, but nothing showed. “I don’t know. Maybe a sound, something at the edge of perception.”
“Really just a feeling?” she questioned.
“Yeah…I guess. I should have gone back to check it out.”
“Don’t you start,” Joanne said brusquely.
“Start what?” I retorted.
“If only—why didn’t I—the standard crap.”
“If I’d followed my instincts, maybe Vicky Williams would be alive today,” I shouted at her, stung by her harshness. “If—”
“Not likely,” she cut me off. “Pardon my interrupting with reality. She was from Marrero. Probably had the abortion done in the city. That fucking shithead managed to hit the uterine artery. She probably went into shock within a few minutes. If she was lucky. And she probably died in the trunk of a car somewhere on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.”
“Then what the hell was in the woods?” I was still shouting. Joanne, was in all likelihood, right. My anger was now at my helplessness. That this young woman had died needlessly and that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.
“Probably a squirrel,” Joanne answered and resumed her pacing.
“Too big,” I retorted.
“Yeah, right,” she said from out of my vision. “You planning to turn into a pickled P.I., or are you going to get out of that tub anytime soon?” She was still out of sight.
“I didn’t have a chance to finish scrubbing when you barged in.”
“Should I wait outside while you finish?”
“No,” I replied. “Here, be useful. Scrub my back.” I tossed a washrag in the direction of her voice.
“Bend forward,” she said.
I obeyed.
“Wash, not flay. I need that layer of skin.”
“Sorry. Just trying to get the dirt off.”
But her washing was gentler when she resumed. I became aware of her touch, how close she was. Where her breath hit the damp spots on the back of my neck. The abrupt appearance of desire shook me.
I had lied to Alex. No, to myself. The first time, in the woods, had been for comfort, friendship. Not now, not this time. This time counted. Desire flared. I became acutely aware of my nakedness, the water lapping at my nipples, making them hard. Joanne had to notice.
I felt the washrag slide into the tub behind me, but the pressure of her hand remained on my back. I wondered vaguely what I would say to Alex the next time I saw her. But here, with the insistent press of Joanne’s hand on my back, it didn’t seem important.
Her hand moved to my shoulder.
I turned to face her.
There was nothing to say. Her arms went around me, holding me roughly, and we kissed. I didn’t know if I should hold her, get her wet with my damp arms, but her kisses demanded more response than I could give with only my tongue and mouth.
Then abruptly, and it was all beginning to feel too abrupt, too rapid for my emotions to ride, she broke away, standing up and stepping back, partly out of my sight.
As there had been no words for the start, there were none now. I wondered what I had done, then wondered if it had anything to do with me, as angry and upset as Joanne had been a few minutes ago.
“Let the water out,” she said.
I twisted around to look at her. She had taken off her shirt. I kicked out the stopper with my foot, not wanting to turn from her. She moved back toward me, closer, inviting me to watch her. She kicked off her shoes with a rough impatience, then slowly unzipped her pants. Coming even closer, so I could touch if I wanted, she took them off.
“Don’t forget your watch,” I said.
As she started to undo the band, I leaned forward, keeping my hands on the rim of the bathtub. I kissed her on the V of her underwear, pressing against the mound hidden by white cotton. I left a wet mark.
Joanne quickly pulled off her underwear. She stepped into the tub, first one foot, then the other, placing them both between my legs. She stood over me for a moment, letting the tension build.
I looked at her above me. She still wore her glasses, keeping me uncertain about what was in her eyes.
Bracing her hands on the tub, she lowered herself, slowly, making me watch her. Her strong shoulders, her small breasts, erect and firm. Her knees pressed on the inside of my thighs, opening my legs.
The water was dangerously close to the rim of the tub, prompting a thought about my irregular schedule of drain cleaning. Then Joanne put a hand on my breast and drains became monumentally unimportant.
Her palm pressed into my flesh, then both hands pushed my breasts together. I gasped. She pushed harder.
This would be no gentle, lacy lovemaking. I’d hardly expected that of Joanne. And I realized, as I thrust my breasts back at her pressing hands, I wanted the coarseness, the full physical brunt of sex. A few bruises in the morning wouldn’t be out of place.
I put my hands on her hips, pulling her toward me, not even bothering to wonder if the tub would overflow. She let her weight tip and be carried on the hands pressing into my breasts. Just when the pressure was almost too much, when I would have had to pull away, she released me, letting her body lie across mine. Only now did she remove her glasses. We kissed again, making every part of our bodies touch. I ran my hand down her back, feeling the scar under her shoulder. My hands moved, until I was cupping her ass with both my hands. Then I started to slide one hand between her cheeks, exploring, searching for the opening to her vagina. But she shook her head no, not letting me in, giving me no control.
She took her mouth away from mine, moving it to my breasts, sucking hard on one nipple, twisting the other between her fingers. Then her hand moved to my thighs, forcing my legs to spread. Water still covered my bush. I expected her fingers to enter me, but she didn’t. She took a breath and her tongue was suddenly between my legs, insistently prying me to even greater openness. Several long strokes left me gasping, then she came up for air. A quick breath, then she was between my legs again.
The water drained slowly. She had to lift her head for a breath again. The insistent warmth of her tongue was on me again, forcing me to thrash in the ebbing water. Her arms wrapped around my thighs, holding me in place. The water finally drained out, all but a few puddles sucking wetly beneath me as I moved. I could watch Joanne now, her mouth covering me, her hair undone, fanning out over my thighs. Her tongue, her lips, either or both, I was no longer sure, pressed into me, sucking and stroking, until I couldn’t know whether to pull away or push to her. No matter, her arms held me where I was, stronger than the spasms that shook my body. She had my legs spread as wide as they could be in the confines of the bathtub.
I heard myself let out a long moan and I knew I had no control. I’m usually aware of how my body responds, the noise I make, but not tonight. This was too intense for me to do anything but gasp and jerk and wonder for a brief second how much more I could take.
“Joanne,” I cried, oblivious to anything but her touch.
Then wave after wave of sensation rocked through my body. My orgasm blotted out sight and sound. Joanne had been between my legs, eating me, then she was next to me, holding me, gently kissing my cheek, my forehead, my mouth. I couldn’t recall her moving.
For a moment, I was afraid, unsure of what I had said and done in that brief oblivion. Then afraid of anything that had that much power. As if drinking and fucking around the way you used to was any better, I told myself. There were times when I had lost track of hours, even days, not brief moments. But they hadn’t mattered.
My breath lengthened, returned to normal.
“You survive?” Joanne asked.
“Ask me in the morning,” I answered, then I tightened my arms around her, aware of her body.
She slowly moved from beside me to on top of me. Her hands were on my shoulders, gently pushing me down. She lifted herself while I slid between her legs until my head was poised beneath her, ready to suck the glistening drops of water that clung to her. God, did I want to do this, I realized, as I spread her lips, pausing for a moment to gaze at the inviting flesh. I put my mouth to her, my tongue gently licking.
I wanted to please Joanne, to make all the right moves. It wasn’t something I had worried about before. I strained, listening for her to make noise, her heavy breathing, but it was hard with her thighs covering my ears.
“Is this all right?” I finally asked.
“Just keep going.”
“Anything you want me to do differently?”
“No.”
I started again. I felt her hand touch my face, a reassuring gesture, brushing hair off my forehead. Then her fingers stiffened and she gasped, then gasped again. She lowered herself slightly, opening to me. Now I could hear her breathing, ragged and harsh. Then I heard an intake of breath, a silence, her body taut and still, then her breath rushed out as she shuddered.
I knew that was it. Even in sex, Joanne was quiet and controlled. At least with me. I gently kissed her a few more times, letting her be the one to move away.
She did, lying next to me for a few minutes, then standing up. She extended a hand to me, to pull me up.
“Let’s dry off,” she said as she stepped out of the tub.
“Good idea,” I answered.
She threw me a towel. We dried ourselves, saying little.
“Should I go, or do you want me to stay?” she finally asked.
“Stay. If you want,” I replied, not sure which scared me more.
She nodded what I guessed was agreement.
“You hungry?” I asked, trying to be a decent host.
“No. Tired. Are you?”
“No, just trying to be polite.”
“Don’t. Polite isn’t your natural state,” Joanne answered. “And I’m too worn out for it tonight.”
“Okay. Do you want to borrow something to sleep in?”
“No. Unless you have some objection.”
“Me? No,” I replied. Joanne was right, polite hosting was not one of my strong points.
“Can I borrow your toothbrush?”
“Help yourself.”
I left her in the bathroom and made a quick check of my bed, not wanting to find any of Hepplewhite’s clever little surprises. She was innocently asleep at the foot of the bed. The sheets were in company condition.
Joanne came into the room. She hadn’t dressed, instead she had wrapped a towel around herself and draped her clothes over one arm. Those she neatly laid over the back of the one chair in the room.
“Are you sure you want me to stay?” she asked. “Sometimes I can be…” And she faltered. Joanne Ranson didn’t say a lot, but I’d never seen her at a loss for words.
“An aggressive, overbearing bitch?” I supplied, unable to leave Joanne groping for words. If it wasn’t a night for me to be polite, neither was it a night for her to be unsure.
“Something like that,” she replied.
“Those rumors are exaggerated. Stay. I’d like your company.” Disconcerted as I was by the probing of her gray eyes, I preferred them to dismissal. I wanted Joanne to like me well enough to stay the night.
She nodded, not saying anything, but she pulled back the covers and got into my bed.
I went into the bathroom to quickly brush my teeth. I also left some food for Hep, so she wouldn’t be too meddlesome in the morning. After turning out the lights and making sure my door was locked, I went back into my bedroom and got into bed beside Joanne.
She put her arms around me and hugged me very tightly. I returned her embrace, then wanting more, kissed her. She broke off.
“I’m sorry. I really am very tired,” she apologized. “I wasn’t too rough earlier, was I? I did come storming in here.”
“Naw, I’m used to a few bruises,” I answered, brushing it off, trying to be casual about her refusal.
“You that kind of girl?” she asked, giving me a questioning look.
“No, not often,” I answered.
“Anything you haven’t done?” Joanne asked, still appraising me.
“No elephants, I swear,” I joked to turn aside her queries. I doubted that Joanne would approve of my sexual history. I wasn’t sure that I did. “At least none that I can remember,” I added, still joking to fill the silence.
“It’s okay,” she replied, then touched me, briefly, on the cheek. “See you in the morning.” She rolled over to fall asleep.
She was tired. It took only a minute or two before I heard her steady breathing.
I lay awake, wondering for one panicked minute what I was doing sleeping with Joanne. Imagining Danny’s disapproval, Alex’s anger, and Cordelia… I backed away. Joanne was here. It was too late to escape the consequences of it.
I looked at her, sleep doing little to relieve the tiredness and strain etched on her face. And I realized that there was no way I could have said no to her. Not if she wanted me.
We made love again in the morning, sex that rapidly turned hot and sweaty, no less intense than that of the night before. For both of us, though in different ways, I suspected, it was an escape, a release from the everyday. Even a lover, after a certain time together, becomes everyday. Perhaps Joanne needed the passion of the illicit, that tug of desire from areas off-limits. I wanted to ask, “What about Alex? What will she think? Does she know? Will she know? Are you tired of her?” But I couldn’t. Something in Joanne said not to ask, not to intrude between our sweaty and gasping bodies.
Later we went out for brunch, being sure (at my suggestion, I must admit), to avoid a place where we might run into Danny. But still we talked of nothing substantial. I asked no questions and Joanne ventured no answers.
She drove me back to my place, stopping next to a parked car.
“Well, it was fun,” I said, with a forced jauntiness. “Thanks for brunch.” She had paid. I started to get out, not wanting any messy lingering.
“Micky.” She stopped me. “Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I owed you. Remember?”
She shrugged off my answer.
I got out.
“Can I call you?” she asked through the car window.
“Yes. Call me. I would like that,” I replied, knowing what she meant.
“Bye, Mick. I’ll let you know if I find out anything more about Vicky Williams.”
“Good-bye, Joanne.”
She pulled away. I watched her drive off. We hadn’t mentioned the dead woman’s name since that first conversation last night. For a few brief hours we had forgotten about her.
Joanne was probably going to her office. I was left to spend the rest of the weekend remembering Vicky Williams.
Dante wasn’t much of a distraction. Not that I had thought he would be.
Chapter 7
Monday inched by, morning creeping into afternoon. My appointment with Cordelia was at five thirty. After office hours, I presumed.
Around four thirty I decided that motion was required. I got in my car and headed for the clinic. I took the long way there, using side streets. Then I drove around the neighborhood for a while, checking it out. In its better days, it may have been middle class, but those days were long gone. All that remained was a shabby gentility on some of the older buildings. They alternated with empty lots, already crumbling new buildings and ramshackle clapboard, built with no intention of permanency. The clinic itself was on the corner of a busy avenue. It had been built, perhaps as a school, in the red brick style of an earlier age. Attempts had been made to make it look taken care of—a new sign out front, already graffitied, some recently planted shrubs, but I didn’t think the trash around their roots was meant as fertilizer.
I pulled into the potholed parking lot at 5:05. I sat in my car for a few minutes, reluctant to be so early. Instead I told myself it would be useful to watch the people who went in and out of the building.
I didn’t see any anti-abortion protesters about. Probably too late in the day for them. People that self-righteous had to be early risers.
The door opened. A nun came out. A nun? Out of a building that was a hot target for right-to-lifers? There was a Catholic church a block away, but this still didn’t strike me as a nun hangout.
Time to find out what was going on. I got out of my car, made sure it was locked (didn’t want those nuns stealing any of the lesbian porn that I always kept on my backseat), and headed for the building.
The first few rooms I passed were filled with secondhand toys and battered children’s books. A few kids were still here waiting for their parents, some contentedly, others less so. Farther down the hall were some classrooms that had been divided into offices. Several of them on the left side of the hall had crosses in them. Curiouser and curiouser.
The clinic occupied the last part of the building, but only the right side.
A harried-looking young receptionist took my name, telling me that Dr. James was with a patient and would I please wait.
