Reprisal

"Shut up!"

It was true—too true. She'd seen it then, she'd known it all along, but she'd never faced it. It had hurt so much she'd buried it in some deep, dark recess. But now Rafe was digging it up, rubbing her nose in it. Why?

Rafe smiled. "Suddenly Daddy was standing foursquare behind his precious little academic meal ticket!"

"Damn you!"

She swung a fist at him. He didn't turn, didn't try to block it or fend her off. She felt her knuckles land square on his chest with a meaty impact, saw him wince.

"He was a creep!" he said.

She hit him again. Harder. Again, he took the blow.

"He drained off your self-esteem like a drunk guzzles beer. So what did you do? You hooked up with a creep in college who was the same. Good old Brian! He proposed and you accepted. He let you support him through med school and then he dropped you the first time a pretty nurse smiled at him!"

Lisl was almost blind with fury now. Why was he doing this? She rose to her knees and began slapping at him, scratching him, pounding on him. She couldn't help herself. She hated him.

"God damn you!"

But Rafe wouldn't stop.

"They all dumped on you! And you know why? Because you're a Prime. And all those petty nothings who raised and educated you hate Primes. But worse than that, you're a woman! A woman who dares to be intelligent! Who dares to think! You can't do that! You can't be better than them! Not unless you're a guy! And even then, don't be too much better!"

Lisl kept slapping, scratching, pounding. Rafe flinched with each blow, but took it all.

"Go ahead," he said in a lower tone. "Get it out. I'm you're mother. I'm your father. I'm your ex-husband. Beat the shit out of me. Get it out!"

Like smoke in a gale, Lisl's anger suddenly dissipated. She continued striking Rafe, but the blows were fewer and lacked their previous force. She began to sob.

"How could you say those things?" -

"Because they're true."

Lisl gasped when she saw the scratches, welts, and bruises on his chest.

I did that?

"Oh, Rafe, I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?"

He glanced farther down and smiled. "Not so's you'd notice."

Lisl followed his gaze and gasped. He was erect again. Hugely so. She let him pull her atop him. He kissed away her tears as she straddled him, then he slipped smoothly inside her. She sighed as her turbulent emotions faded and became lost in the misty pleasure of having him so deep within her. She couldn't be sure, but he seemed bigger and harder than ever before.

"I can see we've got a lot of work to do," Rafe said as Lisl got dressed.

Lisl's hands shook as she rolled her panty hose up her legs. Never had she experienced anything like their second bout of love-making today. Numerous smaller eruptions had led to a final explosion that had been, well, almost cataclysmic. She was still weak.

"I don't know about you, but I think we've got that down pretty near perfect."

Rafe burst out laughing. "Not sex! Anger!"

"Who's angry?"

"You are!"

Lisl looked at him. "Rafe, I've never been happier or more content in my entire life."

"Perhaps." He sat down beside her on the mattress and put his arm around her. "But way down deep inside, where you don't let anybody go but you, you feel you really don't deserve it and you're convinced it's not going to last. Am I right?"

Lisl swallowed. He was right. He was so right. But she didn't want to admit it to him.

"Lisl, you've said as much, haven't you?"

She nodded.

"And you don't want to feel that way, do you." It was not a question.

She felt a tear form in each eye. "No."

"It makes you angry, doesn't it."

"I hate it."

"Okay," Rafe said. "Now we're getting somewhere. You 'hate' it. That's the key, Lisl: anger. You're riddled with it. You seethe with it."

"That's not true."

"It is. You've bottled it up so well behind this placid exterior of yours that even you don't know it's there. But I do."

"Oh, really?" His know-it-all psych grad student attitude was begi

"Recent experience," he said. "Like maybe half an hour ago."

She glanced at his chest. The wounds she had inflicted—the scratches, the welts and bruises—were almost completely gone. She ran her fingers over the near-normal skin.

"How—?"

"I'm a fast healer," he said quickly, pulling on a T-shirt.

"But I hurt you!" She stifled a sob. "Oh, Jesus! I'm so sorry!"

"It's all right. It's nothing serious. Forget about it."

How could she forget about it? She frightened herself.

Maybe Rafe was right. Now that she thought about it, she did resent her parents for the way they had managed to denigrate all her interests and cheapen her accomplishments. And Brian—God knew she had reason enough to hate her ex-husband.

"It'll never happen again, I swear it."

"I didn't mind, believe me. As a matter of fact, I want you to take some of your anger out on me. It's good for both of us. It binds us more closely to each other."

"But why… why would you want to put up with that?"

"Because I love you."

Lisl felt her heart swell within her. It was the first time he had said it. She threw her arms around him and hugged him to her.

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course. Can't you tell?"

"I don't know what I can tell. I'm so mixed up now."

"We're going to have to fix that. We're going to have to find a way to cleanse you of all that anger."

"How?"

"I don't know just yet. But I'll think of something. You can count on that."

THE BOY at ten years

December 8,1978

Two patrol cars and an ambulance in her driveway. Carol dashed toward the kaleidoscope of red and blue flashing against the front of the house.

More than a house. A three-story mansion. The former pride and joy of an oil company executive, with a pool, lighted te

"What happened?" Carol cried, grabbing the arm of the first policeman she saw.

"You the mother?" he said.

"Oh, my God! Jimmy! What's happened to Jimmy!"

Shock ran through the fear coiling within her. Jimmy was so self-contained, so self-sufficient, she couldn't imagine anything happening to him. He seemed almost indestructible.

"That's some boy you've got there," the cop said. "He's fine. But his grandfather…" He shook his head sadly.

"Jonah? What happened?"

"We're not sure. He was in the elevator shaft. Why, we don't know. But whatever the reason, he was trapped in there when the car came down."

"Oh, God!"

She pushed past the policeman and ran toward the open front door. She stopped when the ambulance attendants appeared, pulling-pushing their wheeled stretcher. A black body bag was strapped atop it. Blood oozed from one of the zippered sides.

Carol pressed a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. She'd had her differences with Jonah, and many times had wished he'd pack up and move out on his own. But this!

She slipped past the stretcher and into the house. Something had been going on between Jonah and Jimmy lately. Jonah's previous deference and almost slavish devotion had undergone a strange transformation during the past year or so. His attitude had become challenging, verging on threatening.

"Jimmy!"

She spotted his short, slight figure, dwarfed by the pair of policemen flanking him. Her impulse was to run to him and gather him in her arms but she knew he'd only push her away. Affection was repugnant to him.