The Violence Beat

by JoAnna Carl

  He slid out of the truck, then leaned over to pick up the sack behind his seat. I crawled across the seat and managed to have my face upturned, waiting, when he straightened up. I caught a handful of his shirt front and stopped him before he could stand—well, erect.

  “You nut,” he whispered. But he kissed me again. About three minutes later he pulled away, but I still had a fistful of his shirt.

  “Don’t you know that girls who tease get in a lot of trouble?” he asked.

  “Is that a promise?” I let go of the shirt and reached for another part of his anatomy.

  Mike laughed and shoved my hand away. “Nell, I’m going to embarrass us both unless we get in the house. Now!” he said.

  I stood demurely while he opened the door. We went through a utility room and into a pleasant kitchen with white-painted cabinets and a round table in one corner. There were two glasses and a plate in the sink, but they’d been rinsed.

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “Glad you like it.” Mike put his sack on the counter and dug the box of condoms out. Then he reached purposefully for my hand. “In here,” he said, nodding toward the next room.

  Somehow going from the kitchen to the living room required quite a bit of maneuvering. It’s hard to walk and kiss and take a guy’s shirt off all at the same time. Awkward. But we finally got through the door, and Mike shoved me onto a big overstuffed couch that sat in the middle of the room.

  “Ooooo. Leather,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

  He ignored the comment and sat down at the other end of the couch. “Let me have your feet,” he said.

  “Wait a minute! I didn’t sign up for anything kinky! If you’re into feet—”

  “I can take feet or leave them alone,” Mike said. He reached down and lifted my foot onto the couch. “I may not be a rocket scientist, but I know enough about physics to see that those tight-legged jeans of yours are not coming off over those tennis shoes.”

  As soon as he pulled the left shoe and sock off, I moved the foot over and buried it in his lap.

  “You nut!” he said. “Who’s got the thing about feet now?”

  He fumbled with the right shoe and sock, and as soon as they were off, I yanked my feet away. “Now, you,” I said. “You’ve got shoes, too.”

  He bent to pull his loafers off, and I stood up and slipped out of the tight-legged jeans. This didn’t leave me in too immodest a position, since my sweatshirt was enormous and hung well past my hips.

  Mike looked up at me and shook his head. “Absolutely nuts,” he said. “Nutty as a big hunk of pecan pie, and just as tempting.” He pulled me over in front of him. “Maybe not as sweet,” he said. “Luckily, I like spicy better than sweet.”

  We began to try to get the big baggy sweatshirt off, and the love scene quickly became slapstick. I got my arms out of the sleeves, but when I lifted the shirt over my head, Mike unhooked my bra and began to practice a technique usually used on ice cream cones. This made me so weak I dropped my arms and grabbed him around the neck. The shirt fell down, covering both of us like a tent. Mike’s face was buried in my cleavage.

  “I’m smothering.” He gasped dramatically. “But I’m going to die happy.”

  We finally got the sweatshirt off. Mike stood up long enough for us to drop the rest of our clothes in a heap at our feet. He sat down and reached for the box of condoms. I ripped the box open and fumbled around with one—like I said, I’d been on the pill and in a long-term relationship.

  Then Mike pulled me onto his lap. He began to gasp almost immediately. “You nut,” he said. “You wonderful nut.”

  Mike held me tightly, pressing my head into his neck. He even murmured my name a couple of times. Then we shifted around and wound up lying side by side on the couch. It was a tight fit, but I was on the inside.

  “So you’re a tease,” he said. “Tease me until I have to hurry. Well, two can play at that game.”

  He began to kiss me, caress me and do generally terrific things to all the most sensitive parts of my body. But he didn’t tease. He kept it up without stopping until I did my own moaning and gasping.

  “Suave,” I said, as soon as I could talk. “Suave. And if I ever find out her name, I’ll write her a thank-you note.”

  Mike kissed me. “Are you implying you’re not the first woman I’ve ever done this with?”

  “Certainly not. I’m sure you got all those moves out of a book. I was referring to the librarian.”

  Mike laughed, maybe a little longer than the joke deserved. “I read a lot. It’s surprising how much good a library card does a boy,” he said. “And now, I’m moving before I fall off this couch.”

  I gave him a little body English then, and he did fall off. He lay on the floor, naked and laughing for a couple of minutes. Then he sat up.

  “I’ve always been afraid to pick up girls in bars because I was sure I’d get a crazy,” he said. “And I finally did it, and—by gollies!—I was right.”

  I started to sit up, too, but he kissed me again. “Don’t move, you crazy, sexy coot.”

  Right at that moment, the phone rang.

  I jumped all over, and Mike said, “Damn.” But he didn’t get up off the floor.

  “Are you going to answer?”

  “The machine will catch it. I’m off duty.”

  But we both sat listening until the answering machine picked up the call after the fourth ring. At the sound of the beep, Coy-the-Cop’s voice came on.

  “Okay, Mike. The national television and wire services tracked me down. They’re demanding equal time with Nice Nellie. I’ve set a press conference for three o’clock tomorrow, Sunday, at headquarters. I hope you get this message in time to make it.” Coy clicked off.

  I wasn’t too thrilled at being recalled to the real world.

  Mike stood up, went to the phone, and fiddled with the answering machine

  “I’m not ready to be interrupted,” he said. “Let technology handle the world tonight.” He shook a finger at me. “Don’t move.”

  He went into another room. A light went on, and I could hear a door opening. Then he was back with a terry cloth robe. “One size fits none,” he said. “If you’re chilly, please try this. I don’t think I can face that sweatshirt again.”

  The robe had apparently never been worn, because he ripped tags off its sleeves before he handed it to me. I put it on. It was one of those short, kimono styles. It swallowed me, but not entirely. Mike disappeared again, and the noises told me he’d gone into the bathroom. I picked up a few of my clothes, and he was back.

  “Neatening up?” he asked.

  “I hate to be too messy. You seem to be a pretty good housekeeper.”

  “No, I have a pretty good housekeeper.”

  Mike’s house was in an area of Grantham which had been the “in” neighborhood back in the 1930s and 1940s, so the houses had plenty of character. His was no exception. It had a tiled fireplace, and an area rug centered on hardwood flooring. The living room really was pleasant—very much a bachelor’s, with the overstuffed leather couch, a matching chair, a big-screen television, and bookshelves flanking the fireplace. They actually held books, along with some speakers and a CD player. A computer was on a desk in the corner, surrounded by textbooks and papers.

  It wasn’t messy. All the magazines were lined up on the coffee table. There were no spiderwebs on the lamps.

  “I’m glad we didn’t go to my place. It’s Clutter City,” I said.

  Mike put his arms around me. “That’s the advantage of having a mother in the real estate business. She can always dredge up a cleaning woman. Happens she came yesterday. The cleaning woman, not my mother.” He nuzzled my neck. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? Want a shower?”

  I gave a happy groan at his last suggestion.

  Mike led me to the bedroom, which featured a king
-size bed in which one person had slept the night before, judging by the way the covers were thrown back. Behind it was a very modern bathroom with no bathtub, but with a giant stall shower. We got in it and scrubbed each other’s backs, among other activities. When we got out, Mike took clean towels from a cupboard, and we dried each other’s backs. While I toweled my hair, he left, and when I went into the bedroom, the bed had been straightened and both sides were turned down.

  Like I say. Suave. I felt like an honored guest.

  I tossed the robe on a chair and got into the bed. The pillows were fresh and the blanket was soft and the sheets were smooth. It felt great.

  Way off, I heard Mike laugh. “I thought going to sleep was the guy’s bad habit,” his voice said. But the sound didn’t disturb me at all.

  When I came to, the room was dimly lighted, and Mike was asleep on the other side of the bed. I pulled my watch out of the pocket of the terry robe. Two A.M. I’d been sleeping like a rock for more than two hours.

  I turned over and watched Mike. The house had grown chilly, but he had pulled the blanket only up to his waist. He was sort of good looking, I decided. The rugged features would never make it in the movies, but they suited me. His hair didn’t look so bright in the dim light. It was thick and tried to curl—I wondered if that was why he clipped it so severely. He had great muscles in his shoulders and arms. His body wasn’t particularly hairy. I find chest hair a turn-off, so that suited me, too.

  What was wrong with the guy? Something had to be. Nobody’s perfect. But right at that moment, I couldn’t find a thing to complain about.

  He’s thirty-two years old and never been married, I told myself, closing my eyes again. Maybe he’s got a problem with commitment. My eyes popped open. Why had I thought that? Professor Tenure had been my final try at commitment. I wasn’t cut out for permanent relationships. Mike and I ought to get along fine. No strings for either of us. I closed my eyes.

  I woke up again about three A.M., when the earthquake hit.

  At least that’s what it felt like in that wild moment between being a sleep and being awake, that moment when I realized the bed was shaking and rocking. When I managed to wake up, I realized that Mike was doing the shaking and rocking. His legs were jerking, and he was twisting his head and shoulders from side to side.

  “Mike, Mike!” I said. “Wake up! You’re having a nightmare.”

  I touched him, and he lashed out with his arm. He grabbed my wrist, and his grip was like iron. He flipped over and pinned me. In the dim light, his face looked fierce and angry, like a gorilla who’d just seen me eat his last bamboo shoot.

  “Mike!” I yelled. “It’s me! Nell!”

  He looked around wildly for a minute, then focused on my face. Gradually, he seemed to become aware of my identity. He threw my wrist down and rolled back onto his own side of the bed.

  He began to mutter. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” He didn’t say it loudly, but he said it as if he meant it. Then he jerked his head toward me. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.”

  He sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. “Go back to sleep.” He made it a command.

  Instead, I sat up. Mike went to the bureau, yanked a drawer open, plucked out a pair of boxer shorts and went into the bathroom. “Go back to sleep,” he ordered again. Then he slammed the bathroom door and locked it.

  Locked the bathroom door? Did he seriously think I would walk in on him?

  Obviously, the nightmare had upset Mike a lot. He’d calm down in a minute. Come out and apologize. Maybe we’d make love again. I stretched and felt the smooth sheets along my bare body. It felt sensuous. I felt as voluptuous as a 34B can feel.

  The feeling was still there when the bathroom door was unlocked. Mike stalked out. He didn’t look at me, or even at the bed. He walked on through the bedroom and into the living room. He’d left a dim light on in there, too, and I heard the leather couch creak as he sat down. Then I heard a very low voice. It took me a minute to realize Mike had turned on the television set.

  Well.

  He obviously wasn’t interested in coming back to bed. Maybe I should go home. Then I realized he’d have to take me, since my car was still at the Gazette office.

  Stupid, I told myself. You knew it was dumb to socialize with cops. So here you are in some strange guy’s house, and he’s having a fit and actually threatened to hurt you. And you can’t get up and go home because your car is clear across town. Stupid is not a strong enough word.

  Another sound began to butt against my consciousness. A low sound, a sort of clicking. It was coming from the living room. I sat up and listened intently. Then I quietly got out of bed and put on the terry cloth robe. I walked to the door and looked into the living room.

  Mike was sitting with his back to me, just four or five feet away. He had bent forward and was holding his head in his hands. I could still hear the low clicking sound.

  Violent shudders were racking Mike’s body. The strange sound, I realized, was the chattering of his teeth.

  Chapter 6

  I almost panicked. The guy was sick. Was he having a heart attack? A nervous breakdown? Should I call 911?

  Then the small amount of common sense I had left kicked in. Mike was a grown man. He was fully conscious. If he needed a doctor, he was smart enough to instruct me to call one.

  What he had told me to do—and he’d made it an order—was to butt out. Go back to sleep.

  I stood there in the doorway, remembering his first reaction. When I roused him from his nightmare, Mike had been angry. Annoyed, but not frightened. And he hadn’t been shuddering yet.

  He must have known that this shaking and chattering of teeth were coming, I decided. So it must have happened before. It made him mad, but it didn’t frighten him.

  So I decided to not let it frighten me.

  I walked the two or three steps to the couch and put my hand on Mike’s shoulder. He yanked away.

  “Nervous reaction?” I said. “Nice to know you’re not made of stone.”

  “G-g-g-go b-b-back . . .” Mike chattered out the two syllables, then quit trying to talk.

  “I won’t bug you,” I said. I touched his shoulder again, and this time he didn’t yank away. “But you’re cold. That’s not going to help matters.”

  My bare feet were chilly already. I looked around the room. A thermostat was near the door leading into the kitchen. I went over and turned it up a couple of notches. I heard the furnace kick on. That wasn’t going to help very quickly.

  Mike needed to be wearing something besides a pair of red-white-and-blue-striped boxer shorts. Should I get dressed and give him his robe?

  Or maybe he had another robe. I went back into the bedroom and opened the door that did not lead to the bathroom. It revealed a deep, walk-in closet. Grantham PD uniforms, summer and winter, were hung at the back. Khakis and jeans hung in plastic dry cleaner bags next to striped sports shirts and knit polos. There were few long garments, however—mainly the pants to four or five suits, hung full-length on pants hangers. No robes were visible.

  It looked as if I’d have to offer Mike the robe I was wearing. I started to pull off the kimono wrap, then I looked up. A folded quilt was stored on the shelf above. I pulled it down. It was a gem. A well-worn gem, true, but a gem. Handmade and washed hundreds of times, until it was soft, pliable and a bit ragged. And it was large.

  I carried it into the living room. “I hope this is all right,” I said. I shook the quilt out. Mike let me tuck it around him, but he wasn’t very gracious about it.

  “G-g-go b-b-ack to b-b-ed,” he said.

  I gestured at the television. “And miss one of my favorite movies? No way.”

  Mike had turned on a videotape of Big, a silly movie, but a good one. It’s a fantasy about a thirteen-year-old boy who wishes he were “big” and wakes up the next morning a thirty-fo
ur-year-old man. I like it; its got some witty observations of adult antics, from a thirteen-year-old viewpoint. So I perched beside Mike, with my knees tucked under me, and looked at the television screen. I put my arm around his shoulder.

  He leaned his head against my elbow. “S-s-stupid,” he said.

  “What? This reaction? It’s not stupid. What would be stupid would be somebody who could go through a day like you had and not have any reaction.”

  “Y-y-you’re not s-s-shaking. Y-y-you went through it.”

  “I wasn’t responsible for the negotiations, the way you were. I didn’t have to grab the guy with the gun, with a civilian present, the way you did.

  “Besides, I did my shaking earlier. That’s one of the advantages of being a writer. When I got back to the office, I had to sit down at the keyboard and go through that whole ghastly mess for the benefit of the readers of the Grantham Gazette. I used up half a box of Kleenex and a year’s supply of adrenaline. By the time you all got there to take me to the Fifth, I’d been from the roof to the basement and back again—emotionally.”

  Mike’s arm came out from under the quilt and reached around my waist. He pulled me close. I re-tucked the quilt, so that I was inside, too. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I put my arms around him. He kept shaking.

  We sat there, staring at the comedic antics of a kid pretending to be a grownup, for fifteen or twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour. Just after the point in the movie when the kid-turned-into-a-grownup tells the pretty girl she can spend the night but that he gets to sleep in the top bunk, Mike’s shuddering slowed to an occasional tremble. His teeth stopped chattering.

  When he spoke again, his voice was soft, but it sounded normal. “Thanks for not fussing,” he said.

  “I’m not very fussy by nature,” I said. “Not much of a compliment to you.”

  “Oh, you’ve got real good taste,” he said.

  He kissed my neck several times. When I arched my head back, so he could have a better angle, he gently turned me so that I was lying across his lap, cradled in his arms. He began kissing my face, my lips, my neck, and my collarbone.