by T. H. Moore
“Someone did this to you,” Elaina persisted. “And the way you hurt girls and take pleasure in doing so tells me it was a woman.”
Charles made no effort to hide his frustration. “So you’re my psychologist now?” He issued a harsh bark of laughter. “This heat has you convinced you’re Sigmund Freud? Just keep walking. Save your breath.”
“Why do you hate women so much? And why children? You and your Duenno have destroyed so many daughters, nieces, and granddaughters. You’re all failures as human beings!”
He stopped suddenly, turned toward her, pulled out his knife, and grabbed her by the throat. Elaina didn’t resist. Instead, she allowed the razor-sharp blade to graze her cheek as she stared him in the eyes with a resolute glare.
“Okay,” she said flatly. “You have a knife pointed at me, and I’ve witnessed you slay men with ease. But we both know I’m not afraid of you, Charles.”
“You don’t want to understand me,” Charles said. “These are the questions you want answered about yourself.” When she blanched, he kept on. “What about the hate inside you? You ask me the why like you’re some child, ignorant to the ways of the world and the people who live in it. People like us aren’t exiled by accident. We’ve earned it. You’ve earned it!” A slight smile of condemnation crossed Charles’s face.
“We’re not the same, Yäbälay,” Elaina mocked. “I’m not a notorious child molester.”
He grew furious and threw her hard to the ground. Elaina’s eyes fluttered to regain her focus, only to face Charles’s blade still pointed at her face, reflecting the sun’s light.
“You’re right, you just cut them from their mother’s belly. Then you mutilate the corpse with cigarettes burns.”
She spat in his face. He slowly pressed the blade into the skin on her face. The tip of the knife pierced her skin drawing blood that ran down her cheek. “Go ahead. Do it! Do the only thing you know how to do well. Which will it be? Rape me? Kill me? Or both, you coward!” She forced a condescending chuckle. “Do you even know how to give pleasure to a woman, Charles?” A single tear escaped from her eye, mixing with the blood trailing down her cheek. Then she allowed the tension from her body to release as she lay flat and spread her arms and legs in surrender to him. She grabbed his hand and uncurled his fingers until the knife dropped. “You don’t need that today,” she said. “I’ll take my clothes off for you and let you inside me.”
Charles couldn’t make sense of the pinwheel of emotions Elaina had demonstrated in the last few minutes. His arms shook as his eyes danced from her face to the surrounding landscape. Elaina pulled his chin around to face her as she undid the buttons of her jumpsuit until her exposed body lay beneath him, her legs spread.
“Can you do it, Charles?” she said. “Can you be with a female without forcing her into submission? Without forcing yourself inside her?”
He looked down at her and back into her eyes before pressing his body on top of hers. Like a novice, he fumbled to unfasten his pants as he buried his head along her shoulder to avoid eye contact. As he ground his hips into her pelvis, she felt the head of his warm penis touching her labia.
Just then, his body tensed while he shivered like a lost soul. Elaina remained beneath him and positioned her head to look at his face, but he was insistent on looking off into the distance.
She put her hand along the side of his face. “Thank you, Charles,” she whispered. “Thank you for revealing the real you. A scared, powerless, little man in the presence of women.” Now she placed her other hand on the side of his face and pulled him toward her, forcing him to look her in the eyes.
Charles struggled to hide his embarrassment.
Elaina leaned in and kissed him on his forehead.
Lightheaded, Charles jumped to his feet and pulled his clothes together. Once dressed, he gathered his portion of the supplies and marched off in the direction of Darwin, visibly shaken.
Elaina rose, and as she pulled her jumpsuit back up past her thighs, her hand brushed against the semen Charles had released before even entering her.
She looked up and watched him marching away, rubbing the back of his head.
Chapter 27
THE BRIGHT STARS THAT HAD illuminated the desert sky were dimming, a signal that the sun would soon reveal itself. Charles wondered if this would be the last night they would spend traveling Katingal’s outback. The thought triggered a memory of the book about the continent’s geography and population distribution. Darwin was a small city with a population of 124,818, by far the largest and most populated city in the Northern Territory.
Charles halted their march just past Mitchell’s creek so they could bathe for the first time in more than a month. The bath was without soap, but submerging themselves in a clean body of water was refreshing all the same. Charles hadn’t realized how a thick layer of dirt could cling to the human body. The crystal clear water became murky the moment they waded chest high into the cooling stream.
Afterward, Charles and Elaina sat naked on the bank of the creek to air dry. While Elaina worked her fingers through her wet, tangled hair, Charles watched the Eastern sky, trying to determine how much time they had before the sun would rise.
The cloak of night would help them covertly enter the pristine cul-de-sac of houses a half mile or so away. He had played this scenario countless times in his head for the past four and a half weeks.
“You see those houses there?” he asked. “That’s where we’re headed.”
Elaina peered in the direction Charles pointed.
“There we can get a change of clothes, a few hours’ rest, food, but most importantly, a car.”
“But you said Darwin was a port city and we needed a port city. Now I may not be some genius like you, but I know cars don’t work well on water.”
“Darwin is Katingal’s largest port city,” he replied. “That translates into a necessity for border control, which means KPP detection. Our stop in Darwin is out of necessity.”
He reached into the satchel and removed some articles of women’s and men’s clothing he had stolen from Oodgeroo’s hut weeks ago. He tossed some at Elaina. He put on a pair of dungarees and a green tank-top shirt on himself. Elaina held the dress up in the air and then next to her body before looking at Charles in disappointment. The garment was made for a slender, nomadic body, and despite how much Elaina had thinned, she remained too curvy to fit the dress.
“You can calculate how many miles we traveled the past month in a single breath,” she said, shaking her head. “But you haven’t reserved a single brain cell for artistry or creativity. Give me your knife.”
Elaina took the knife he handed her while biting a small tear at the front neckline of the dress. She cut the legs of her prison uniform half way up the thigh and removed her shirt. When Elaina pulled the dress on, it fell down her waist until her hips prevented it from sliding any further, so she cut a straight line down the front and pulled the two sides around to her back. She turned around, facing away from Charles.
“Now, tie it into a knot or a pretty bow, if you can,” she instructed.
The tight fit of the dress and the slit just below her breasts with a secured knot in the back propped her breasts like any sports bra. Her handiwork had transformed the rustic apparel into a lusty outfit that would distract anyone.
“Your turn,” she said, moving toward Charles with the knife.
Within a minute, she had cut off the legs of his dungarees two inches above his knee. She stepped back to admire her creation. “Come on, turn around for me,” she said, speaking in a playful tone for the first time since they had been together.
Charles performed a half-turn without moving his feet much until she gave him the nod of approval. Then he gathered their spears, satchel, and other items, and threw them into the deepest part of the creek. They watched the heavy items sink and the ragged clothing float until the current carried
them out of sight.
They turned and faced the peaceful cul-de-sac before them.
“It’s been two months since I set my feet on a paved street and smelled fresh flowers and grass,” Elaina said. “I’d almost forgotten the beauty of a city.”
Charles was fixated on the neighborhood, its residents, its closed-circuit televisions, or any other potential threat to his freedom.
“Now would be a good time for you to share how you plan to get us off this continent without our implants alerting the peacekeepers,” Elaina quipped.
“I can’t explain every detail to you, Elaina. Sometimes you’re going to have to just trust me. For now, let’s just keep walking. The sun is almost up.”
They closed in on the edge of the city, the cul-de-sac just a stone’s throw away.
“Trust you?” she said. “I didn’t suffer the last month just to get captured the moment we make it back to civilization.”
The dirt perimeter bled into a cement street.
“Not now, Elaina!” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders.
Elaina pulled away from him, but Charles cupped her far shoulder and yanked her back in closer to him. “Look and walk as normally as possible, and follow my lead. We’re just a local couple out for some morning exercise.”
They had officially breached the city limits. The soles of their boots touching paved ground felt odd to Charles, just as Elaina had said, and the smell of fresh-cut flowers wafted in the air as the sun rose higher in the sky.
“The first empty house we find,” Charles said, “we break in, find a change of clothes, take the vehicle, and then we’re headed to Channel Island.”
“You expect to find a car at an empty house?” she challenged. “If the house is empty, won’t that mean that its residents have taken the car?”
Before Charles could reply, they spotted a young couple leaving a house. The couple hadn’t noticed Charles and Elaina. The husband was lugging two laptop bags to their car while his wife carried an infant.
“Quick, start jogging.” Charles said as he shoved her into a slow trot.
Within seconds, they were within sight of the couple, and the husband took a full glimpse of Elaina’s frame. Every curve bounced to the stride of her soft trot and drew attention away from Charles’s less-convincing jogging attire.
“Greet them.” Charles whispered to Elaina.
“What?” she questioned.
“Just do it! Greet them!”
“Peace be onto you,” Elaina said with her Portuguese accent while both of them raised their palms into the air and then set them over their left breast.
The husband returned the smile while placing the bags into the car. “Peace be onto you,” he replied, reciprocating the hand gesture.
His wife’s forced smile melted into a jealous gaze as she stepped in to break her husband’s line of sight on Elaina and shoved their child into his arms.
“Keep going and don’t look back,” Charles instructed as they continued their farce of a workout.
A few seconds later, he heard the engine of the couple’s car starting.
“Now let’s cross the street and head back toward their house,” Charles ordered.
They crossed the street and slowed their jogging pace to a near crawl on the same side of the couple’s home. The couple’s modest car pulled out of the driveway, and the husband stopped to ensure that there was no oncoming traffic. His wife glared to deter him from stealing another glance at Elaina.
He turned away from Elaina and Charles’s direction and headed down the street.
Charles and Elaina finished their jog back down the street toward the unsuspecting couple’s home and up the walkway until they reached the driveway. There, Charles grabbed Elaina by the arm and darted to the back of the house. When they arrived at the back door, Charles removed his shirt and wrapped it around his fist. Elaina stepped in front of him, stopping him from smashing the window. Then casually she turned the doorknob.
“It’s open,” she said, looking disappointed at Charles. “Had you surrounded yourself with normal people rather than pedophiles and other degenerates, you’d know that people rarely lock their doors anymore.”
Elaina walked in ahead of Charles as he unwound his shirt from his hand, embarrassed. He hurried in after her, then immediately crouched down and closed the door behind him. He pressed his back against the wall and pulled Elaina down next to him near the back door facing into the home’s kitchen. Then he turned around to peek through the wooden blinds covering the windows next to the door, surveying the nearby houses for any neighbors who may have witnessed them entering the house.
“I think we’re okay,” he said, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Elaina had already gone.
When he looked up, he saw that she had shuffled further into the kitchen and was standing at the sink. She turned the knobs of the faucet, cupped her hands below the stream of clear water, and lowered her lips into the pool she had created, swallowing large gulps.
“Not so fast,” Charles warned. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
Elaina replied by removing one of her hands from under her mouth and extending it to Charles, its middle finger pointed toward the ceiling. She splashed water on her face before she made her way over to the refrigerator and pulled the door open.
Elaina gasped with delight and started rummaging through its contents, eating whatever she found that didn’t require cooking. Charles took up a space next to Elaina and plunged his dirt encrusted hand into a bowl of mashed potatoes that she had moved on from after having her fill. He devoured what remained of the creamy dish until there was nothing left but the bottom of a large green bowl. Elaina had emptied another plastic container of food and let her eyes roll to the back of her head in satisfaction.
The moment Elaina swallowed her last mouthful, she jumped up to inspect the remaining shelves of the refrigerator. Before her stood more food, condiments, and beverages she had been deprived of for the last month. They plowed through meatloaf smothered in gravy, a bowl of mixed vegetables, and an assortment of fruit in the bottom drawer.
Then Elaina’s eyes bulged as she grabbed for a can of Foster’s beer. Charles almost knocked her over to seize one for himself. They both pulled the tabs back, and Elaina gestured, holding her beer in the air, awaiting Charles to return the sentiment. Elaina took a mouthful, swallowed, and released a large belch that would have made any man proud. Charles’s throat bounced up and down with each gulp until he had guzzled every drop.
“Oh my God! That was good,” Charles rejoiced, taking a few deep breaths and releasing one last short burp before he could feel the effects of the alcohol coursing through his system.
Elaina continued to take single mouthfuls of beer until she finished at her own pace. Charles sat back to enjoy the gradual sense of euphoria that was overcoming him. He was content for the first time since before he had been arrested. Elaina continued her sacking of the refrigerator until Charles broke the silence.
“Did you see the laptop bags they were carrying?” he asked. “They won’t be back until after work hours. We’ll be better off waiting for them to come home to steal their car rather than trolling the neighborhood looking for one to break into. So, in the meantime, let’s get cleaned up, acquire some real clothes from their closet, and squeeze in another meal before they get home.”
She nodded acquiescence, and he was grateful that at last he’d made a suggestion that she agreed with.
He rose from his place on the floor, the alcohol causing a pleasant swirl in his head. For the first time in months, he felt free.
Then Elaina jumped up from her place on the floor, nudged past Charles, and ran up the stairs. “I’m going to take a bath,” she called back over her shoulder.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Charles said. He walked the length of the house on the first
floor in search of a second bathroom he could claim as his own. He went from room to room while Elaina’s footsteps upstairs had come to a halt and the sound of running water traveled downstairs.
There was no second bathroom to be found, so Charles took up a spot in the master bedroom while Elaina continued filling the tub.
On one side of the room, there was a set of double doors, and on the other side was the bathroom. Charles had barely stepped into the room before the soft fragrance of bath salts greeted his senses. He leaned in the threshold of the bathroom door, watching Elaina rummage through the medicine cabinet in a white cotton robe.
She stopped, grasping a small plastic container of antibiotics in the palm of her hands. She turned the nobs of the faucet, and water shot from the spout. With hurried and fumbling hands, she twisted the childproof top from the bottle, shook three pills from the container, and threw them into her mouth. Then she shoved her open mouth under the running water, gulping mouthfuls until the lack of air forced her to stop.
She dropped the container of pills into the pocket of the robe and hurried over to the bathroom’s linen closet. She paused once the doors swung open, and a wide smile graced her face—wider than any smile Charles had seen from her before. For the first time, he glimpsed the true beauty she had possessed before the ravages of men and the harsh sun had stolen it from her. She popped open every beauty product and smelled the contents of each one before snatching the shampoo and conditioner of her choice.
Then she retreated to the bath.
“Oh meu Deus, sim!”39 she sang from the bathroom. “Eles têm uma Jacuzzi!”40
Charles headed for the king-size bed in the middle of the bedroom. It was encased in a wooden frame, draped with a burgundy bed linen, and topped with a collection of oversized pillows. Charles placed the pillows in a perfect formation before lying down.
Seconds later, the rumble of the Jacuzzi jets sounded. Elaina’s melody and the constant rumble of the Jacuzzi lulled Charles into a brief but deep slumber until his appetite wakened him. He headed back downstairs to riffle through the cupboards for any delicacy left behind from the first feast.
