The quake, p.15
THE QUAKE, page 15
Oh, how I’d love to take a bath in this. Judy on one side of me, Sheila on the other. We’d be all cool and soapy and slippery…
Judy suddenly slipped down through his arms again. He planted his knee against the moist crevice of her rump, thrust her upward, and struggled to hold on while he hurried down the tile steps.
The bottom of the tub was as flat as a floor. He crouched and laid her down on her back, feet toward the faucets. Then he climbed out.
He looked down at her.
A tub this big wouldn’t be much help in confining her. He wondered if there might be a guest bathroom with a normal tub somewhere in the house.
I’m not gonna lug her around looking for one, he thought. This’ll do. Long as she’s tied up good and tight.
With what?
He doubted he would find anything useful in the bathroom, so he hurried into the bedroom. He glanced from the bed to the dresser to the closet, considering what they might have to offer: bedsheets, pantyhose, scarves, neckties…?
I don’t wanta be tying her with rags—nothing that’s gonna stretch and rip.
Belts?
In the closet, he found a good collection of leather belts hanging by their buckles from a rack on the inside of the door. They were men’s belts—her husband’s, he supposed. He grabbed several and hurried back to Judy.
She didn’t look as if she had moved.
Stanley dragged her closer to the faucets. The two chrome handles were slightly higher than his own knees, and about twenty inches apart.
He twisted both handles. As he’d expected, no water came out.
Would’ve been nice, though. Could’ve had a nice, cold bath.
Just as well, he told himself. I’ve gotta get back to Sheila.
He lifted Judy’s right leg up between his own legs. He pressed its ankle against the side of the cold water handle, then squeezed his legs together to hold it in place. With both hands free, he wound a belt three times around her ankle and the faucet. He pulled it tight, then buckled it.
He did the same with her other foot, binding it to the hot water faucet with a second belt.
Legs elevated and separated as they were, she was probably secure. It would require a major effort to reach the belts, and Stanley doubted that Judy had the strength.
Bet she can’t, he thought.
And he imagined how much fun it would be to watch her try.
He could just see it! Fabulous struggles and contortions! Grunting and sweating and weeping, she would fight to sit up, strain to stretch her arms to the faucets and, failing, flop back down and resort to twisting and bucking and kicking.
It’d be great!
But Stanley knew he couldn’t stay and watch. He’d already stayed too long.
Can’t leave her this way, though. Not for real.
To leave her arms free would be tempting fate.
When you tempt fate, you get screwed.
He remembered seeing a straight-backed chair someplace.
Returning to the bedroom, he spotted it in a corner. His pajama pants were wadded on its seat cushion, where he must’ve tossed them at some point—though he couldn’t remember when.
He flung the pants to the floor and carried the chair into the bathroom. At the bottom of the tub, he set it down on Judy. Its back legs fit nicely above her shoulders. The rungs pressed against the fronts of her shoulders like the straps of a peculiar wooden bra, and the chair’s front legs touched her sides just above her hips.
Squatting above her head, Stanley picked up another belt. He held it in his teeth, lifted both her arms over the padded seat, and forced her hands toward each other. Her arms weren’t long enough. He couldn’t get her hands to meet. Which meant he wouldn’t be able to strap her wrists together with the belt.
If I just had some handcuffs…
He could change his plan, he supposed. But he really liked the idea of fastening her hands together above the seat as if she were clutching the chair against her chest. She wouldn’t have a chance of sitting up and going for the ankle restraints—not while she was hugging the chair.
But a leather belt wouldn’t work.
There must be some sort of belt or tie or strap that’ll do, he told himself. Something handy. Don’t wanta go rooting through the whole house.
Back in the bedroom, he returned to the closet.
Maybe two or three neckties…
Maybe Judy has a belt made out of rope, or…
Nothing useful near the front, so he worked his way deeper into the closet. He couldn’t see much, and felt his way along. He liked the way some of the clothes rubbed against him.
Maybe I can find a robe, he thought. A terri-cloth robe like mine at home might have a belt that’ll work.
As he felt among the blouses in search of one, however, his hand collided with several empty wire hangers.
Hangers!
He snatched a few out of the darkness.
Moments later, he was again squatting at the bottom of the tub. He swung Judy’s arms up, pulled them toward each other above the seat of the chair, and slipped a hanger over both her hands. Then he forced them toward the sides until their wrists were wedged between the narrowing wires.
“Beautiful,” he muttered.
He collapsed the middle of the hanger, trapping Judy’s wrists at each end, then bent and twisted the wires to make his trap secure.
Got her now, he thought. She’ll never get out of this.
He tossed the unused belts and hangers out of the tub. On his knees, he smiled down at Judy. Her face was upside-down. It looked strange that way; her mouth was where her forehead ought to be, her eyebrows under her eyes. For the first time. Stanley noticed that she had a few freckles on her eyelids.
“Yoo-whooo,” he said. “You still out?”
She didn’t react.
“I’m going away for a little while. You gonna miss me? Huh? Anyway. I’ll be back, so don’t worry. Just stay here and relax.”
With his left arm for a brace, he eased down and kissed Judy’s mouth. Her lips felt dry and scratchy, so he licked them. That seemed to soften them up some. He went on kissing her. While he did that, he reached his right arm around and under the chair and fondled her right breast. It was slippery and sticky, but he enjoyed squeezing it. He tried for the left breast. He couldn’t get to it, though, so he stayed with the right.
He had his tongue deep in her mouth.
He was hard again.
He wondered what it might be like to fuck her the way she was tied like this to the faucets and chair.
“It’d be fuckin’ impossible,” he muttered, and laughed.
He gave her nipple a final pinch, pulled his tongue out of her mouth, and struggled to his feet. He climbed out of the tub.
By the side of the wastebasket, he crouched. He sniffed.
Cotton candy.
But a perfume, really.
At the bottom of the plastic receptacle were wads of pink facial tissue, loose pills, pieces of broken bottles, a tooth brush.
Stanley scooped out a handful of the tissues. They were still moist. He lifted them to his nose. He gave them a small, careful sniff.
Yes!
He inhaled deeply, then rubbed his face with the tissues, smearing himself with the wonderful aroma.
When he was finished, he put the tissues back inside the wastebasket for safe keeping and headed for the bathroom door.
He stopped and glanced one more time at Judy.
She looked like the victim of an exotic, failed contraption.
“I shall return,” Stanley said, and left the bathroom.
He pulled the door shut, crossed the room and stepped into his moccasins. They felt mushy and slick under his feet, as if they’d been lathered inside with lard. Barefoot was better, but he had to wear something on his feet when he went outdoors.
He found his pajama pants, stepped into them and pulled them up. They stuck to him. They seemed to trap the heat against his skin.
He supposed he could probably find a pair of shorts to wear, instead. Something of Herb’s.
But then Sheila’s gonna know I found clothes.
“Can’t have that,” he said.
He liked the idea of shorts, though.
So he went into Judy’s kitchen to hunt for something sharp. He’d been through the kitchen when he carried Judy into the house, but he hadn’t noticed much about it. Now, he realized that it seemed untouched by the quake.
Maybe Judy had already picked up all the things that had fallen. Sure, she had. Must’ve started scurrying around and cleaning house the second the quake stopped—even before rushing out to check on the neighbors.
Busy girl, Stanley thought.
Or maybe the kitchen had simply gotten off easy, the way some places do for mysterious earthquake reasons.
He started looking in the drawers for a sharp knife. But he found a pair of scissors, first. He took off his pajama pants, snipped off both the frail legs, and put the pants back on.
Much, much better!
He started to set down the scissors, then changed his mind. They might come in handy, later on.
What else? he wondered. There’s a whole house full of stuff here, and it’s all mine.
Food? Probably plenty of good stuff in the fridge.
He wasn’t hungry yet. Besides, he could come back whenever the urge might strike him. Sheila shouldn’t be needing food yet, either.
We’ll have a little party after I get her out. Maybe even come over here. Yeah, bring her here.
Judy and Herb were drinkers, he knew that. He’d seen their empty bottles in the recycling bin that they put out to the curb once a week for trash day.
I’ll offer Sheila a nice, tall vodka and tonic. We’ll sip cocktails together on the sofa.
He pictured Sheila sprawled on the sofa, naked, smiling, sipping her drink, beads of icy condensation falling off the bottom of the glass and splashing her breasts, sliding down them, dripping off her nipples.
He groaned.
He wandered through the kitchen, checking cupboards. The cupboard doors had either stayed shut during the quake—which hardly seemed likely—or Judy had gone around and closed them afterward. She must’ve done some tidying of the kitchen: it couldn’t have gotten off this lightly.
After tugging open the doors of several cupboards, he found the liquor supply.
“This’ll be great,” he said. He shut the cupboard. “Great.”
He hurried to the refrigerator. Planning to check for ice, he reached toward the handle of the freezer compartment.
No no no no no! Don’t open it, you’ll let out all the cold.
The voice inside his head sounded a lot like his mother, the Bitch. He grinned.
“Just can’t get rid of you, can I?”
No no no no no.
In this case, however, he appreciated the warning. Judy and Herb were certain to have plenty of ice in their freezer, so there was no reason to look. The only question was how long the ice might last with the power down. It would last a lot longer if the door stayed shut.
Stanley turned away from the refrigerator.
“Okay,” he said. “Anything else?”
Bet Sheila could use some sun block.
He laughed.
Then, with the scissors in his hand, he stepped outside. The sunlight made him squint, but he liked how it felt on his body. He took a deep breath. He smelled smoke, but he also detected a fresh scent of the ocean air, and the sweet candy aroma of Judy’s perfume.
In the driveway, he bent down and picked up the saw and the plastic jug of water. The jug was dripping. It left a wet place that looked brown on the gray concrete.
With the saw and scissors in one hand, the jug in the other, he made his way down Judy’s driveway. As he walked, he rubbed the jug against his chest. Its wet plastic was slightly cool. Too bad it wasn’t ice cold, the way it had been when Judy brought it out.
That was a long time ago, Stanley told himself. I’m lucky the water isn’t hot enough to boil eggs by now.
He crossed Judy’s front yard. On his own driveway, he stopped and looked at the door of his mother’s house.
My house.
He wondered if anything needed to be done inside.
Go in and give the Bitch a kick for good measure. One to grow on.
Laughing and shaking his head, he walked up his driveway. The garage in front of him was a collapsed ruin.
At least I’ve still got half a house, he told himself.
Too bad I can’t change houses with Judy, he thought. Hardly fair, hers getting off with nothing more than a few broken mirrors and windows while mine is half destroyed.
I can change houses with her, he realized. At least for the time being. Who’s gonna stop me?
When he came to the cinderblock wall at the back of his yard, he turned sideways and raised his arms and started to ease himself in between two of the rose bushes. A nettle snagged his shorts. He stopped.
He glanced at the saw in his hand.
“Ho! No time like the present!”
Backing clear, he set down his scissors and jug of water in the grass. Then he knelt in front of a rose bush. Bracing himself up with his left arm, just as he’d done in the bathtub to kiss and fondle Judy, he reached low with his right hand and pressed the teeth of his saw against the base of the stalk, no more than two inches above the garden’s soil. The bush shook as he worked the saw back and forth. The teeth bit a deep slot into the stalk.
Sweat got into Stanley’s eyes, making them burn. It dripped off his chin and the tip of his nose. It tickled him as it spilled down his body.
But soon, the bush keeled over sideways against its neighbor.
Stanley cut down that bush, too.
Then another.
He used the blade of his saw to drag and shove the three rose bushes out of his way. Then, breathless from the labor, he sat on the grass. He unscrewed the lid of the jug and took a swallow of water.
The grass felt prickly through the seat of his shorts.
He stood up, and rubbed his rump. With a slick bare forearm, he tried to wipe the sweat off his face. He wished he’d gotten himself a rag before leaving Judy’s house: just something he could use for his sweat. His pajama legs would’ve been fine, but he’d left them in Judy’s kitchen.
So he pulled down his shorts and stepped out of them. He wadded them and mopped his face and hair. The cloth felt sodden after that. He twisted his shorts into a tight stub and managed to wring out some of the wetness. Then he shook them open. He wiped his face once more.
He wished he didn’t have to put the shorts back on. But Sheila might start screaming, or something, if he reappeared naked. Then he would need to hurt her, and he didn’t want to do that until he had her someplace private—in Judy’s house, maybe.
Gotta keep her thinking I only wanta rescue her, he told himself.
So he stepped into the shorts and pulled them up. They clung to him, but the elastic waistband seemed limper than before. He popped open the front, drew the slack out of the band, and resnapped so they didn’t feel quite so loose.
Then he picked up his jug, scissors and saw. He carried them across the newly cleared strip of ground, and set them on top of the cinderblock wall. After that, he stepped to the side so they wouldn’t be in his way when he climbed over.
He placed his hands on top of the wall and jumped. Braced high on stiff arms, the edge of the wall pressing against his waist, he got ready to swing a leg up.
But straight ahead, beyond the lawn and patio, a man was standing in the ruin of Sheila’s house.
Stanley felt as if an octopus had suddenly wrapped its tentacles around his bowels and started to squeeze.
He groaned.
This is exactly what he’d been afraid of—someone else discovering her.
“I knew it,” he muttered. “I knew it, I knew it.”
Shouldn’t have stayed so long with Judy, he thought.
And then he swung himself over the top. He dropped to the other side, stumbled, fell to his knees, then got to his feet and returned to the wall. Reaching up, he took down his jug of water, his scissors and his saw.
He headed for Sheila’s place.
SIXTEEN
“Hey, all right, a saw, cool. Thata way to go.” The stranger hopped down from a pile of rubble and landed on a clear area of the patio.
He didn’t look much older than twenty. His blond hair was almost white. Parted in the middle, it hung straight down past his bony shoulders. He didn’t have a shirt on. His tan was so deep that Stanley suspected his pale hair might be a dye job. He was very skinny. Stanley could see his ribs. He wore faded old blue jeans. There was no belt, and the jeans hung low on his hips. He wore cowboy boots with pointed toes.
“You’re Stan,” he said, head bobbing.
“That’s me,” Stanley said, and smiled.
“Cool. We been waiting for you, me and Sheila.”
“Who are you?” He tried to sound friendly. It was easy; he’d been making himself sound friendly to people all his life, especially to those he feared or despised.
“I’m Ben.”
“Good to meet you, Ben. How’s she doing?”
The young man bobbed his head some more. “Good, good. Just scared, you know? Being stuck that way. She thought maybe you’d got hurt, or something, the way you didn’t come back.”
“I had a delay. How long have you been here?”
“Aah. Five or ten minutes. I been going house to house, you know, looking to see if anyone’s needing help. She’s my first trapped one. Now we got that saw, we’ll have her outa there real fast.”
“Yep,” Stanley said. “Let’s go.”
Ben led the way. As he trudged into the debris of the collapsed house, he looked back at Stanley. “Watch your feet. Stuff’ll poke right up through them moccasins. What you need is a good pair of sturdy boots, like me.”
“Nice boots,” Stanley told him.
“Yeah, thanks.” Ben smirked. “Where the hell’s the rest of your clothes, anyhow?”
It wasn’t much fun being almost naked with a guy around.
