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Before she could decide, she smelled the whopping aroma of man-sweat. She turned and he was there, towering over her with his hands in the side pockets of his overalls. “Instead of changing your tire,” he said pleasantly, “how about I fuck you? How would that be?”
Then Tess ran, but only in her mind. What she did in the real world was to stand pressed against his truck, looking up at him, a man so tall he blocked out the sun and put her in his shadow. She was thinking that not two hours ago four hundred people-mostly ladies in hats-had been applauding her in a small but entirely adequate auditorium. And somewhere south of here, Fritzy was waiting for her. It dawned on her-laboriously, like lifting something heavy-that she might never see her cat again.
“Please don’t kill me,” some woman said in a very small and very humble voice.
“You bitch,” he said. He spoke in the tone of a man reflecting on the weather. The sign went on ticking against the eave of the porch. “You whiny whore bitch. Gosh sakes.”
His right hand came out of his pocket. It was a very big hand. On the pinky finger was a ring with a red stone in it. It looked like a ruby, but it was too big to be a ruby. Tess thought it was probably just glass. The sign ticked. YOU LIKE IT IT LIKES YOU. Then the hand turned into a fist and came speeding toward her, growing until everything else was blotted out.
There was a muffled metallic bang from somewhere. She thought it was her head colliding with the side of the pickup truck’s cab. Tess thought: Zombie Bakers. Then for a little while it was dark. – 6 -
She came to in a large shadowy room that smelled of damp wood, ancient coffee, and prehistoric pickles. An old paddle fan hung crookedly from the ceiling just above her. It looked like the broken merry-go-round in that Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train. She was on the floor, naked from the waist down, and he was raping her. The rape seemed secondary to the weight: he was also crushing her. She could barely draw a breath. It had to be a dream. But her nose was swollen, a lump that felt the size of a small mountain had grown at the base of her skull, and splinters were digging into her buttocks. You didn’t notice those sorts of details in dreams. And you didn’t feel actual pain in dreams; you always woke up before the real pain started. This was happening. He was raping her. He had taken her inside the old store and he was raping her while golden dust motes twirled lazily in the slanting afternoon sun. Somewhere people were listening to music and buying products online and taking naps and talking on phones, but in here a woman was being raped and she was that woman. He had taken her underpants; she could see them frothing from the pocket in the bib of his overalls. That made her think of Deliverance, which she had watched at a college film retrospective, back in the days when she had been slightly more adventurous in her moviegoing. Get them panties down, one of the hillbillies had said before commencing to rape the fat townie. It was fu
“Please,” she said. “Oh please, no more.”
“Lots more,” he said, and here came that fist again, filling her field of vision. The side of her face went hot, there was a click in the middle of her head, and she blacked out. – 7-
The next time she came to, he was dancing around her in his overalls, tossing his hands from side to side and singing “Brown Sugar” in a squalling, atonal voice. The sun was going down, and the abandoned store’s two west-facing windows-the glass dusty but miraculously unbroken by vandals-were filled with fire. His shadow danced behind him, capering down the board floor and up the wall, which was marked with light squares where advertising signs had once hung. The sound of his cludding workboots was apocalyptic.
She could see her dress slacks crumpled under the counter where the cash register must once have stood (probably next to a jar of boiled eggs and another of pickled pigs’ feet). She could smell mold. And oh God she hurt. Her face, her chest, most of all down below, where she felt torn open.
Pretend you’re dead. It’s your only chance.
She closed her eyes. The singing stopped and she smelled approaching mansweat. Sharper now.
Because he’s been exercising, she thought. She forgot about playing dead and tried to scream. Before she could, his huge hands gripped her throat and began to choke. She thought: It’s over. I’m over. They were calm thoughts, full of relief. At least there would be no more pain, no more waking to watch the monster-man dance in the burning sunset light.
She passed out. – 8 -
When Tess swam back to consciousness the third time, the world had turned black and silver and she was floating.
This is what it’s like to be dead.
Then she registered hands beneath her-big hands, his hands-and the barbwire circlet of pain around her throat. He hadn’t choked her quite enough to kill her, but she was wearing the shape of his hands like a necklace, palms in front, fingers on the sides and the nape of her neck.
It was night. The moon was up. A full moon. He was carrying her across the parking lot of the deserted store. He was carrying her past his truck. She didn’t see her Expedition. Her Expedition was gone.
Wherefore art thou, Tom?
He stopped at the edge of the road. She could smell his sweat and feel the rise and fall of his chest. She could feel the night air, cool on her bare legs. She could hear the sign ticking behind her, YOU LIKE IT IT LIKES YOU.
Does he think I’m dead? He can’t think I’m dead. I’m still bleeding.
Or was she? It was hard to tell for sure. She lay limp in his arms, feeling like a girl in a horror movie, the one who’s carried away by Jason or Michael or Freddy or whatever his name was after all the other ones are slaughtered. Carried to some slumpy deep-woods lair where she would be chained to a hook in the ceiling. In those movies there were always chains and hooks in the ceiling.
He got moving again. She could hear his workshoes on the patched tar of Stagg Road: clud-clump-clud. Then, on the far side, scraping noises and clattering sounds. He was kicking away the chunks of wood she had so carefully cleaned up and thrown down here in the ditch. She could no longer hear the ticking sign, but she could hear ru
Now he’ll kill me for sure. And at least I won’t have to listen to any more of his awful singing. It’s the beauty part, Ramona Norville would say.
“Hey girl,” he said in a kindly voice.
She didn’t reply, but she could see him bending over her, looking into her half-lidded eyes. She took great care to keep them still. If he saw them move, even a little… or a gleam of tears…
“Hey.” He popped the flat of his hand against her cheek. She let her head roll to the side.
“Hey!” This time he outright slapped her, but on the other cheek. Tess let her head roll back the other way.
He pinched her nipple, but he hadn’t bothered to take off her blouse and bra and it didn’t hurt too badly. She lay limp.
“I’m sorry I called you a bitch,” he said, still using the kindly voice. “You was a good fuck. And I like em a little older.”
Tess realized he really might think she was dead. It was amazing, but could be true. And all at once she wanted very badly to live.
He picked her up again. The mansweat smell was suddenly overwhelming. Beard bristles tickled the side of her face, and it was all she could do not to twitch away from them. He kissed the corner of her mouth.
“Sorry I was a little rough.”
Then he was moving her again. The sound of the ru