He touched her, tested her. Leaning forward, he chucked her under the chin with his nose, then pulled back. His breath reeked of rye whiskey. “What a little liar you are.” A grin stretched his face. “I know how to help you, baby. I know what you like.”
Then he moved down and did things to her with his mouth, terrible things. She didn’t squirm, held herself rigid until she couldn’t help herself. He called it coming, an orgasm, other names. Whatever it was, she did it, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, dripping down into the hair at her temples.
“That’s better, baby.” He tested her again. “Perfect,” he murmured, as if she had ears down there. “You’re so good.”
A perfect little girl, she spread herself for him. When he was done, he lay on her, squished the breath out of her, his bloated body inert. Air squeezed out refused to be replaced. Her power to scream died beneath his dead weight. As she clenched her fists to beat against him, he climbed off, a callused hand trailing the length of her, chest to tummy to the newly formed nest at her apex.
“You’re good, baby. I can’t help myself. Little girls like you shouldn’t be so perfect. It’s a crime.”
His perfect little girl went to the bathroom to wash away his stuff, and worse, her own. Her legs shuddered. Her body ached. She ran the water scalding in the sink, rinsed the washcloth really, really good, then lay it across her face. It burned, but unlike fire, it couldn’t cleanse the things she’d done.
Max opened her eyes, stared into the mirror, and the face she saw was not the one she expected. The face belonged to her, not Wendy. The reflection over her shoulder was not Bud Traynor.
It was her own uncle, shriveled to the texture of dried apple, the face he’d died with.
*
“Do you believe in destiny, Max?” The line crackled as if he were on a cell phone, his breath fast, unlike his usual relaxed state.
Bud Traynor woke her from the horrible nightmare. She almost cried with relief. It wasn’t a vision, it was a mixing up of personalities. She hadn’t liked it ever, never had an orgasm, couldn’t have. She’d traded places with Wendy’s closet dream. That’s all it was.
Remember the time, Cameron murmured in her head. Max switched the phone to her left ear and rolled to look at the clock. Three-twelve in the morning.
A dream, a very bad dream. Let it go.
Bud’s words echoed in her ear as if she hadn’t quite registered them the first time, so did Cameron’s earlier ones. She answered. “I’m your destiny, Bud.”
He’d pay for the things he’d done to Wendy. She’d make him pay for Cameron. That was her destiny.
“I believe you’re right, Max.”
As much as she hated him, inside she knew how easily he could seduce with that extraordinary voice, deep and powerful in the middle of the night. So many unsuspecting victims he must have brought down with it. The mountains he could have moved, the peoples he could have united, if only he hadn’t turned to the dark side like Darth Vader in Star Wars. Like the line between love and hate, the line between good and evil was thin, tenuous. One event, even one small word, could turn it aside.
“Are you alone, my love?”
Her stomach rolled over with the endearment. If he’d called her baby, she would have screamed. “I’m not your love, and I’m not alone.” Something in his tone brought out the need to lie.
He saw through it. “He’s not there. I’d know it if he was, Max. I’d feel it in my bones, sense that you’d just given yourself to another man when you’re mine.”
She thought of the dream, cringed against the images as if they were somehow tangible. Witt, he was talking about Witt, no one else. Useless to correct him, so she didn’t try.
She comforted herself with the feel of a gun pointed at his head. A garrote around his throat. A knife in his heart.
He let her have her moment of silence, then said, “You’ve never let him touch your soul, have you, Max?” He sighed. “I’m so glad, my love.”
Asshole. The tender phrase was an abomination coming from his mouth. Raging words abraded on her lips, but she kept them locked inside. Forget the dream, think like Bud, wrest the upper hand from him, find his button the way he so easily found hers. Because she had so many questions, about Cordelia, Cameron, Wendy, Bootman, questions only Bud could answer.
Remember his buttons. Two weeks ago, Cameron had broached a theory. She’d dismissed it. Maybe it wasn’t so far off. Monsters begat monsters, created them from the seeds of sweet young children.
Her steady voice did her proud. “Who did this to you?”
A subtle change of tone, less seduction, more ... something. “Did what, my dear Max?”