Honeymoon for Three

by Alan Cook

  “I…I was sick. I couldn’t go. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  At least he had given more than a one word response. “Did you know Darren Filbert?”

  “Slightly.” He smiled. “He used to ride his bicycle to the school. He kept it inside his apartment. It’s a wonder it wasn’t stolen.”

  “Do you think he’s capable of murder?”

  Alfred looked at Penny for the first time since she had started the conversation.

  “Why? Don’t you think he did it?”

  “He was convicted. He must be guilty. The police found her bracelet in his apartment. Who else could have done it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I want to go to bed.”

  So much for stalling. Alfred wouldn’t let her go off by herself in the dark to pee. She had to do it a few feet from him. He relieved himself at the same time she did. Ugh.

  He produced a toothbrush and toothpaste and proceeded to brush his teeth. He offered it to her, but she declined, figuring that in addition to the gross factor of using someone else’s toothbrush, the worse her breath smelled the better off she would be. She rinsed her mouth out with water, but that was all.

  Penny climbed into the bed. With Gary she slept on the left side of the bed. She deliberately moved to the right side of the camper bed. She didn’t want this night to be anything like her nights with Gary. She lay on her left side in a fetal position, as close to the side of the camper as she could get, and pulled the blankets up to her chin.

  Alfred closed the sliding door and said, “You didn’t take off your clothes.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “The blankets are warm. Take off your sweater and pants.”

  Penny didn’t move, hoping he wouldn’t insist.

  Alfred ripped the blankets off her. “You don’t sleep that way with Gary. Take off your sweater and pants.”

  At least he hadn’t asked her to take off all her clothes. Yet. She sat up and turned toward him so she could watch his reaction. She pulled the sweater over her head, revealing her bra. He was looking at her body, but he seemed to be focusing lower than her breasts. She unzipped her pants and slid them off her legs. She thought Alfred was concentrating on her stomach. At least it was flat, unlike his. But then she realized that he was looking at her navel.

  In the past, having a man look at her like that would sometimes make her tingle. Now it scared her. She hesitated, wondering whether he would ask her to take off her underwear. He didn’t say anything, so she scooted back under the covers, relieved. He didn’t know that with Gary she usually slept in the nude.

  Alfred turned out the dome light of the camper. They were in almost complete darkness. Penny lifted her head to see what he was doing. It appeared that he was also taking off his outer garments. In the dark. He was a prude. He didn’t want her to see him undress. This gave a slight lift to her spirits. She felt the balance of power shift a little.

  He climbed into the bed, being careful not to touch her. A further lift to her spirits. She went back to the fetal position against the side of the camper. Alfred settled down, and all was quiet. Penny almost didn’t breathe, her ears alert to the slightest movement on his part. Five minutes passed.

  She felt his hand on her back. She tensed. Now it was going to happen. She was prepared to fight for her honor. She would die before she would let him have sex with her. That was Gary’s exclusive territory. Alfred’s hand slipped around her waist until it reached—her navel.

  She remembered the evening in the campground when they had taken a walk together. He had gone for her navel then, too. Detective Landon’s analysis that Alfred had a navel fetish was correct. He began to investigate her navel with his finger. Penny didn’t like his hand on her, but it could be a lot worse. If this was all he wanted, she could stand it.

  “Alfred, I want the light on. I-I’m scared of the dark.”

  He didn’t say anything. He kept playing with her navel. Penny sat up on the bed, cast off the blankets, and swung her legs around, leaving his hand behind. She slid to the floor of the camper, feeling the cool night air on her body. At least she was still wearing socks so her feet wouldn’t get cold. She had watched Alfred turn off the dome light, and she was able to find the switch by feel. She turned it back on.

  She swiveled back toward the bed and saw that Alfred was now the one with the covers up to his neck. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t interpret. Surprise? Uncertainty? She lifted the sheet and blankets high enough to see what Alfred was wearing, and then slid back under them. A T-shirt and boxer shorts. Not the most appropriate costume for seducing a girl.

  This time Penny lay on her back. She took Alfred’s hand and placed it on her belly. He lay on his side, facing her.

  “You like navels, don’t you, Alfred? Here, you can play with mine.”

  Whatever happened wasn’t going to happen in the dark where Alfred could hide from the truth of it. Or pretend he was normal when he wasn’t. To make it even more real, Penny decided she was going to report a play-by-play of the action. Out loud. And she was willing to give in to him to some extent if that would help to keep him out of her pants.

  “Do you like my navel?”

  Alfred continued to feel her navel. He grunted something that sounded like an affirmative.

  “What do you like about my navel?” Make him face his secrets.

  “It’s an innie.”

  “An innie? Oh, I know what you mean. What’s yours?”

  He didn’t answer. She turned her head and looked into his eyes, inches away. He looked stricken. She took her right hand and ran it lightly down his shirt to the hem. She pulled the shirt up so she could reach his bare skin. His skin gave way under her touch like a partially inflated balloon. It wasn’t firm, like Gary’s. She could feel his body tremble.

  She found his navel. She swore that it withdrew when she first touched it, like a girl the first time a boy touches her breast. She persisted and placed her fingers squarely on it. It protruded slightly. Is that what he didn’t like about it? She began to caress it.

  “You don’t like your navel, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I like it. I think it’s an outstanding navel.”

  Oops. Wrong choice of word. But Alfred didn’t take offense at her language, and he seemed to like having his navel rubbed. He began to move his stomach against her fingers. He continued to rub her navel. So far so good. Penny thought about one way she put Gary to sleep when she had her period. Maybe the same thing would work with Alfred. She was willing to go that far.

  She moved her hand down to the waistband of his shorts, intending to slide it underneath the elastic. His hand grabbed hers and stopped it cold. This was a real surprise to her. Men liked hand jobs. Or at least most men did. She regrouped and moved her hand back to his navel. He relaxed. One thing she noticed was that he smelled clean. He had taken a shower recently. His shirt was clean, too. It made her job easier.

  This couldn’t go on all night. With sex there’s a climax and a definite ending. Where was the climax to navel rubbing? Penny got up on her elbow and rolled Alfred over onto his back. He looked surprised, but he didn’t resist. She shifted her body around so that she could place her mouth on his navel.

  She began to flick her tongue against his navel. At first she thought she would be grossed out, but it wasn’t so bad. It was only a navel, after all. He reacted to her ministrations. He started moaning softly. After a couple of minutes of this, she placed her hand on his shorts, hoping to speed up the process.

  She was shocked to find that he was flaccid. She jerked her hand away before he could react to what she was doing. No wonder he had restrained her previously. He was with a sexy young woman—as she thought of herself—and he couldn’t get it up.

  Something was definitely wrong with one of them, and past experience told her she wasn’t the one with the problem. However, her activity seemed to be producing some kind of a cu
mulative effect on Alfred. His panting grew louder and faster. Finally he had what could only be described as a climax, with deep moans and muscle spasms in his stomach, although Penny couldn’t have given a physiological explanation for what actually happened.

  She lay on her back, hoping that her job was done. Alfred rolled onto his side and placed his hand on her navel. His movements were lethargic. Within three minutes, he was snoring. It had worked. She felt relieved.

  Now was her chance to get away. Since his hand was resting on her stomach, she didn’t move for another five minutes, hoping that he would fall into a deep sleep. Then she cautiously started to inch away from him. He groaned and closed his fingers on the flesh of her stomach. Damn. She stopped moving, and his hand relaxed.

  Another ten minutes went by. She tried again. He reacted the same way. This was going to be harder than she thought. She would wait another ten minutes. She found herself drifting off. She was exhausted. She tried to focus on escaping, but she felt strangely languid. The events of the day and evening had tired her out. The last thought she had was that she should try moving again.

  CHAPTER 29

  If he hadn’t parked near the entrance to one of the campgrounds he had been searching and slept for several hours in the VW, Gary was certain he would have driven off the road and wrecked the car and himself. He was weaving back and forth before he stopped and had completely lost his concentration. He argued with himself about whether he would be deserting Penny by stopping but came to the conclusion that killing himself would be a much worse form of desertion.

  His search had been fruitless. Barring the possibility that he had missed finding the campsite of Penny and Alfred, a possibility that nagged him continually, they hadn’t stopped at a campground north of Bodega Bay. Perhaps Alfred had driven straight to Los Angeles on Route 101. If so, how could he stay awake? He certainly couldn’t trust Penny to drive. In fact, he would have to keep her restrained at all times, because she would not be a passive captive. Her students called her Miss Tiger with good reason.

  They might have stayed at a campground along 101 instead of 1, or in a cheap motel, or…? Or simply gone beyond Bodega Bay before stopping. There were too many possibilities. How did he ever think he could find them? He had been looking for a couple of minnows in the ocean. Searching had helped to lift his spirits for awhile, but as he became more and more tired, he became more and more depressed.

  The rising sun woke Gary. He drove the few miles to Bodega Bay and pulled into the parking lot of a café advertising breakfast, determined to call the Highway Patrol, refuel himself and the car, and rethink his plan. He hoped the police were having better luck than he was. If not, he couldn’t bear to think of the consequences.

  ***

  The first thing Alfred saw when he opened his eyes was the profile of Penny’s head a few inches from him. He couldn’t think of a more beautiful sight with which to greet the day. He would like to draw her, but he couldn’t do that at the moment. There would be plenty of time to draw pictures of Penny in the years to come.

  He remembered how wonderful Penny had been last night—and how understanding. This was even better than his dream of their lives together. Now he was convinced he had done the right thing. She had been so good to him that he must be winning her over.

  With a light heart he got out of bed, careful not to wake her, put on his clothes, and went outside to light the stove for coffee and breakfast. This was one of the happiest mornings of his life.

  ***

  The sound of the sliding door opening woke Penny. She lay still with her eyes closed, listening to the sounds of Alfred getting the stove and food out of the camper, not wanting to see her surroundings. When the noises faded, she opened her eyes out of necessity.

  The first thing she saw was the raised roof of the camper over her head. The camper was her prison and the reality of that came to her. She wasn’t free to leave the camper, or at least go very far from it, while Alfred was awake. She had blown any chance she had of escaping last night. She couldn’t let that happen again.

  In addition, she had a bad taste in her mouth. It was partly from not brushing her teeth last night. But it was more than that. The memories of what had happened in this bed came rushing back. She had always considered herself a moral person, a step above some other people she knew. Last night’s events had disproved that.

  She had done things no good girl would do. It’s true that she and Alfred hadn’t technically had sex, but whores didn’t always have sex with their clients either. They fulfilled their clients’ needs in return for compensation. That’s exactly what she had done—fulfilled Alfred’s needs in return for him not doing something worse to her. She was no better than a whore. If the situation arose again, she knew she would do the same thing.

  As much as she wanted to close her eyes and make the present go away, she couldn’t do it. She had to escape; she had to get back to Gary. He must be out of his mind with fear and frustration. She couldn’t worry about her lost virtue. She would have a lifetime to do that. She got out of bed and pulled on her slacks and sweater, wishing she had some deodorant at least, to give herself a goat bath, as they called it in college. Well, she would dab some of the cold water from the camper’s tank under her arms. A comb would be nice, too. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t do these things. Why should she try to look and smell good for Alfred?

  ***

  Gary made his decision. The layout of Bodega Bay helped him. Route 1 was the main street through town. It was narrow, with sharp turns. Traffic moved slowly. If Penny and Alfred had stopped somewhere for the night north of here on Route 1, they would come through this bottleneck.

  He found a good location at a right-angle turn to the left. He could watch each vehicle as it approached, and see the driver and front-seat passenger. He would look at the driver first, since Alfred might have Penny stashed in the backseat.

  He parked his car a hundred feet away where the road had a shoulder, so that he could retrieve it and give chase in a minimum amount of time. He had called the Highway Patrol. They hadn’t come up with any leads. Alfred hadn’t shown up in Lomita, although it was probably too early for that to happen, even if he had driven most of the night. He hadn’t been spotted anywhere else, either.

  Gary couldn’t think of anything better to do than wait for Penny and Alfred to pass. If this didn’t work, he didn’t know what he would do next. He had to find Penny. His life would be meaningless without her.

  He took up his position, leaning against a guardrail designed to keep a driver who tried to navigate the curve too fast from ending up on the rocks in the bay behind him. He practiced looking through the windshield of each car that came by. It would work as long as his concentration didn’t waiver. He had to stand, which was a good thing. He would never get too comfortable.

  If he spotted Penny or Alfred, he would try to get the license plate number of the vehicle. If he turned and looked at the rear of the vehicle after it passed him it should be going slowly enough so that he could read the plate. He practiced doing this when traffic was light. He had a pad and pencil available to write the information down. He had a thermos of coffee to help keep him awake, but he would drink it sparingly, because he wouldn’t move from this spot, even if he had to go to the bathroom.

  CHAPTER 30

  In contrast to her somber mood, Penny noticed that Alfred acted as if he were feeling very lighthearted this morning. He asked her how she had slept and solicitously examined the cut in her head. It became obvious to her as they ate breakfast that in her depravity she had done exactly what he wanted last night. She should use that to her advantage. Maybe she could get him to trust her more. She forced herself to smile at him and pretend to be happy. It was difficult, but it might help buy her freedom.

  They repacked the stove and dishes in the camper and were ready to leave. Penny climbed into the passenger seat. When she saw Alfred pick up the roll of duct tape, she said, “Is that really necessary?” in her
sweetest voice.

  He hesitated, looking at her. She could almost see the wheels spinning in his brain. She held his eyes, trying to look her most seductive and most innocent at the same time. Promising bellybutton blow jobs and strict obedience. Finally he looked away and threw the tape into the storage cabinet.

  Alfred sat in the driver’s seat, inserted the key into the ignition, and gave it a twist. There was no answering response from the starter. He tried again. Same result.

  “The battery’s dead.” Alfred hit the steering wheel with his hand in frustration.

  Penny didn’t know whether this was good news or bad news. The reason for it came to her.

  “We left the dome light on last night.”

  Alfred looked blank for a moment. He peered back at the offending light. He had obviously forgotten all about it. He got up and switched it off. He returned to his seat and tried the starter again. Nothing happened. He slumped over the steering wheel, at a loss as to what to do.

  Penny knew what to do. She and Gary had been on one of their pre-honeymoon trips when they hadn’t been able to start the Beetle. They had both pushed it, and when its speed hit five miles per hour, Gary jumped into the driver’s seat with the ignition on and put it in gear. When he disengaged the clutch, it started. The camper had the same kind of transmission. The only problem was that it was a lot heavier, and they were parked on an uneven surface.

  She debated whether to tell Alfred what to do. Was she better off with or without the camper? It was several miles to Route 1. She could certainly walk that distance—she had proved that—but would Alfred let her do it? She couldn’t outrun him. He might decide he couldn’t risk having her on foot and kill her here.

  “It’s got a manual transmission. We can push-start it.”

  “We can?”

  Penny explained how she and Gary had started the Beetle. Then she and Alfred got out of the camper and surveyed the area. Even if they could move the camper with a push, it would be impossible for them to get it up to five miles-per-hour on the rough terrain. Penny saw that the only possibility was to push it back to the road, a distance of some thirty feet. The road sloped downhill toward the ocean.