“What’s the problem?”
“He saw me. In the hall one day. So now he’s trying to flirt with me.” It had happened again. A knock on my door, at an evening hour. I didn’t respond to it this time. Instead I unplugged my microwave, hefted it above my head, and stood to the side of the door with it raised high. Waited and prayed that he would try the knob. Find it unlocked. Walk in. Let me slam the thirty-some pound appliance on his head. He hadn’t tried the knob. He’d knocked again. Waited. Knocked. Waited. Waited so long that my arms ached and I developed a cramp somewhere in my upper back. When he finally gave up, wandered back down the hall to his apartment, my arms were so weak they could barely carry the damn thing back to its normal place on the counter. I had collapsed on the floor, shaking out my arms and cursing my lack of muscle tone.
“This is why you shouldn’t leave the apartment. If he hadn’t seen you, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
“You try staying in your bedroom for years at a time.”
He is silent for a moment. “Your concern is that you will be able to talk him into unlocking the door?”
“Yes. Or just invite him in during the day. And it’s not a concern. It’s a fact.”
“And you want to kill him?”
I scrunch my face in incredulity. “Do you think I like paying you money? Why the fuck would I hire you if I don’t want to kill people?”
He sighed in a manner that reminds me of my father, and I suddenly have the urge to cry. Can feel the swell of emotion that used to push its way out in tears. I was grateful when he spoke, grateful to have something to focus on other than the memory of my father. “I don’t understand why you suddenly think you can rejoin society. Hang out in the hall. Go on dates and have sex and cross the damn street for snacks. You’re living as if you don’t have these urges. As if you don’t need me. Why? Why the sudden changes? Have you improved? Because from my end of the line, you seem the same.”
I blink in surprise. A good part of my sessions with Derek is spent trying to goad him into emotion. Because I’m bored, or because it’s fun, there is no rhyme or reason why. Hell, five minutes ago I was lamenting his lack of reaction. For him to snap at me, his tone laced with irritation and frustration, and a dash of… was that damaged ego? The tones are completely foreign, and I grin.
“I apologize, O great psychologist. Yes, I want to kill Simon. I want to cut his stomach open and reclaim every white pill I’ve ever paid him with.”
“You realize those pills don’t stay there. They are digested by stomach acids, pass through the body in a matter of hours. You’d be lucky to find a small part of a pill, even if you sifted through his entire long intestine all afternoon.” His voice is so matter-of-fact, so instructionally Derek, that I almost miss the humor. I gawk at the phone, the man on the other side a stranger.
The man doesn’t rant. Doesn’t get emotional, or frustrated, or jealous. And he doesn’t joke. Not even a little bit. And certainly not about anything as macabre as killing.
Who was this stranger? And could I, despite the lectures, be actually enjoying our session?
I hang up on him just for the hell of it. It helps me convince myself, in some small way, that I have the upper hand. At times it seems my whole life is a fight for the upper hand.
CHAPTER 44
FIVE DAYS AFTER the birthday blow job, I hear the elevator and shoot to my feet, swinging open the door before Jeremy gets to it, my purse in hand. My purse. It feels so strange in my hand, the extra unnecessary weight one carries around for the purposes of… what? What is so imperative that we, as women, must carry an extra appendage? Men manage to survive just fine without carrying around a personal supply of Band-Aids, tissues, medicine and Q-tips. My purse is shiny and new, a whoopee-I’m-rich purchase back when I didn’t have the sense to realize a shut-in doesn’t need a purse. So dammit—I’m using it. A giant, empty purse with only two things inside: a driver’s license and a checkbook.
“Hey.” Jeremy stops short in the hall, his eyes sweeping appreciatively over me. “You look… ready.”
“Ready?” I roll my eyes and pull my door shut. “Wow, you’re as out of practice as I am. How about hot? Sexy? Beautiful?”
I breeze past him and am caught off guard when his hand catches me, rolling me to one side and pinning me against the wall, his body suddenly there, hard and strong against me, his breath hot against my neck. “Hot. Sexy. Beautiful,” he whispers, my body weakening underneath his as my chin lifts up and he captures my mouth in his.
Thud. My purse hits the floor as he dips into my mouth, his tongue dancing over mine in a slow, confident sweep, my hands stealing under his shirt and gripping his back, wanting him closer, harder, everywhere against me.
His mouth pulls off and I catch my breath, looking up into his eyes. “You in a rush?”
I grin, reaching for the front of his shirt and pulling myself upright, appreciating the smooth way it slides over his chest muscles. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Let’s go, Romeo.”
He scowls, taking one last kiss before bending down, picking up my purse and handing it over. “You ready to tell me where we’re going?”
“In the truck,” I promise, accepting my bag and moving toward the stairs.
“You want to buy a car?” the skeptical look on Jeremy’s face is identical to the one I often imagine Dr. Derek wearing, and I shoot him a warning look.
“Yep. Head north. All of the dealerships—”
“Are off Route 1,” Jeremy supplies dryly.
“Right. Deliveryman. I forgot.”