Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  “Thoroughly. Fucked thoroughly.”

  A moment later, the only sound coming from her mouth is that of a soft, gentle snore. Anna pulls the blanket up tight beneath Beth’s chin. She strokes Beth’s forehead. Her eyes are misty and she hums a soft sound as Beth drifts off to sleep.

  She looks at the wall, at the empty walls where Beth’s basketball posters used to be. The ones she tore down and threw into the garbage.

  Anna curses everyone and everything.

  But she saves the worst for herself.

  Forty-Eight

  Anna is on the second label when the shakes hit her. At first, the sensation feels like when you’re at a movie theater and you go to uncross your legs only to discover that your foot has fallen asleep. It’s a weird, detached feeling and Anna quietly observes the tremors worming their way around her fingers and hands.

  She puts the pen down and pushes the sheet of stick-on labels away from her. The package cost her five bucks and she’s not about to ruin them by scrawling unrecognizable letters across their faces.

  That would defeat the purpose, now wouldn’t it?

  The shakes advance up her forearms like an evil little army that has infiltrated the very nerve center of her being. The army sends out a battalion of chills and Anna shivers as a cold sweat brakes out along her forehead. Her face flushes hot and cold, her heartbeat accelerates and she instinctively thinks about the whiskey bottle sitting out on the driveway. Is it still there? Is there any left? Did Beth finish it? She can see herself walking out, picking it up and taking just a small drink - just a little one to combat these fucking withdrawal symptoms.

  Withdrawal.

  The word sounds so strange to Anna. She’s thought about in the past, sure. Even read a little bit about it. Got as far as the AA’s parking lot before heading for the nearest tavern.

  She imagines herself standing up at an AA meeting and saying “I’m Anna Fischer and I haven’t had a drink since I collapsed on the living room floor and my daughter called 911 and an ambulance came and got me, took me to the hospital where I had my stomach pumped and then later, I found my only daughter in tears, drunk shooting baskets at two in the morning.”

  They would all stare at her quietly and then say, “Hi Anna.”

  She pushes away from the table, away from the stack of padded envelopes and blank sheets of paper.

  She has to be careful not to push it, not to try to do too much too soon. She needs to move, to do something to take her mind off her body’s desperate screaming for alcohol. She needs something to hold on to, both literally and figuratively.

  Anna thinks for a moment, her body cold and hollow inside, and then comes up with the answer.

  In her room, she opens her top dresser drawer and pushes aside the odd assortment of pennies, spools of thread, old letters and pictures, reaches for the back of the drawer. Her hands scrape the cheap plywood bottom of the drawer and then she feels the tiny steel links.

  She pulls it from the back, and she hears it rattle slightly. And then she lifts it, scattering the papers and pictures turning it all into a slightly different mess.

  The dog tags are dull and feel heavier than she’d imagined. She holds the chain, imagining the feel of Vince’s neck, of the sweat that must have poured from his skin onto the chain as he fought.

  Anna drops the dog tags into her palm, and her fingers close over them. She likes their heft, likes the tactile sensation of the edges pressing into her palm. The edges are sharp enough to hurt if she squeezes hard enough, but not thin enough to cut her skin.

  Anna closes her hand again, the shakes are coming back and then they are upon her. She sags against the dresser, holding onto Vincent’s dog tags with everything she’s got. She’s dizzy, and for a moment, isn’t sure if she’s going to faint.

  And then it passes.

  She opens her hand and the edges of the dog tags, sharper than she’d thought, have made neat lines in her palm. She gives the tags a squeeze. Vincent would want her to do this.

  If she wants to keep what’s left of him alive - that part of him inside her and inside Beth - she’s got to keep from drinking. She’s got to save what’s left of her relationship with Beth.

  She’s got to do what Vincent would do.

  Anna shuts her top dresser drawer and drops the dog tags into her front pocket.

  Together, she thinks.

  You and me, Vincent.

  Together, we’ll help me stop drinking.

  Forty-Nine

  It is nearly unbearable.

  Beth can’t decide what hurts more; her head or her knee. She takes a handful of Tylenol knowing that it will merely put a dent in the agony that is consuming her body, but it is all she has. The agony she feels inside, the image of Peter…well, there isn’t anything she can take for that.

  She sits alone in the living room. Outside the wind whips through the eaves and somewhere in the house a wallboard pops. The sound of the coffeemaker finishing the brewing of its first pot of the day reaches the living room.

  Beth gets to her feet, a painful act that leaves her with a bead of sweat on her forehead and groaning from the pain.

  She goes into the kitchen, gets a chipped cup from the cupboard. The cup has a logo of a travel agency on it. A travel agency? When’s the last time she or her mother ever went anywhere?

  Beth fills the cup, adds cream and sugar and navigates her way back to the living room.

  She hasn’t seen her mother this morning; her bed was empty. Where the hell was she? She never gets up early. Usually, she sleeps until late morning.

  Beth sips from the cup and her stomach, uneasy to begin with, recoils slightly at the harsh coffee settling in. Beth ignores it and drinks more. She needs a shot of something to face the day. To face whatever kind of future she has left.

  So what does she want to do?

  Beth knows the answer to that. She wants to revel in the agony. She wants to feel sorry for herself.

  Goddammit, though. She’s not going to.

  It’s pitiful. She never felt sorry for herself on the basketball court when she got into a shooting slump, or when the refs missed a bad call, or when her coach got on her case for something she didn’t deserve. She just got tougher, stronger, she bore down harder.

  Despite her lifelong admonition to not end up like her mother, Beth has been doing just that for the last couple of weeks.

  Beth hobbles to her backpack. She rummages through it and finds the Navy brochure she’d had mailed to her.

  Beth looks again at the cover. It shows a woman on the prow of a battle ship. The woman is strong, brave and confident.

  Everything Beth used to be.

  The brochure has plenty of information about money for college, the financial benefits of joining.

  But for Beth, those benefits are secondary.

  The thing she wants is less concrete.

  She simply wants to escape.

  Beth takes the brochure, flips it over and finds the local recruiting office’s address and phone hand-stamped near the bottom of the page. She picks up the phone and punches in the number.

  The act has accomplished what the coffee and Tylenol could not.

  The pain is gone.

  Fifty

  From the start, the so-called “tour” is a disaster.

  Julie can sense it. There’s something about the way Samuel is acting. He seems tense and distant. Not all the time, granted. There are moments where his eyes seem to clear, where his focus returns and she feels like he’s actually here with her. And then just as fast, it feels like he’s gone again, lost in some other world.

  But then again, she really doesn’t know him all that well - maybe that’s just his nature. She laughs at the irony, at the hypocrisy. She doesn’t know him well enough to gauge his interests, but she’s doing this whole ruse of a tour because she wants him? As exciting as the lure of Samuel Ackerman is to her, she feels like she’s hitting an all-time low.

  Still, she somehow tho
ught he would loosen up, show more of his true personality. Whatever that personality may be. She senses his internal goodness. Again, she’s good at judging people, and despite his cool exterior, Julie feels like she can see into his heart.

  And his heart is good. She knows that as a given.

  So could it be that he is simply always this reserved?

  They have done a circuitous route through District Three. From the northern suburbs all the way through the worst of Detroit’s ghettos. For Julie, it’s extremely familiar territory; she is able to point out neighborhoods where she’s done well getting recruits, others that have yielded nothing. The areas are like that; pockets of interest, where good experiences have led to good word-of-mouth. And likewise, where there have been bad experiences, there is very little interest in the Navy, or any branch of the military.

  All told, they’ve spent nearly two hours in Julie’s car and she is ready for a break. She’s got to figure out a way to get Samuel to open up, to relax. She wonders if it’s because she’s a woman and his superior officer? No, her instincts tell her he’s not that insecure, even though the majority of men who have worked for her have had at least some issue with having a female boss.

  But Samuel is different.

  It’s partly why she is so attracted to him.

  She’s been trying to fight it. Trying to keep in mind that he works for her. That there are rules about officers dating their subordinates, but goddammit, she is more attracted to him every minute.

  They have made it through the city and Julie has just hopped onto I-75, headed back toward the office in Troy. Traffic is beginning to get thick as they approach rush hour.

  “How does a drink sound?” she asks. It comes out as casually as possible, but her heart skips a beat when she hears the pause. Goddammit, she thinks, what’s wrong with him?

  “Sounds perfect,” Samuel says. He’s looking out the window when Julie asks, and he answers without turning to face her.

  This is a mistake, Julie thinks. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Well, too late now.

  She takes the same exit she would have to head back to the office, but goes east instead of west. A few blocks down, she turns into the parking lot of a place called The Preserve.

  She parks the Taurus - Government plates, of course - and they head inside. The bar is made to look like a game preserve - done all up with knotty pine and log cabin touches. It’s a big cavernous space that’s only partially filled with customers, most of whom have most likely sneaked out of work early for a quick tot before heading home.

  Julie sees Samuel hesitate when they get inside - should they get a table or sit at the bar? Julie instinctively knows that sitting at the table will be too intimate, will put too much pressure on Samuel. She wants to make him relaxed, get him to open up a little bit. Plus, she wants a drink now, she doesn’t want to wait for a cocktail waitress to take her time with their drinks.

  She heads for the bar.

  They order their drinks; a beer for him, vodka tonic for her. Julie tells herself to be careful. She doesn’t want to get drunk and make a total ass of herself. She takes a drink of the vodka, it feels good, she hadn’t realized how tense she herself was. Alcohol, the great social lubricant. She turns to Samuel, a gentle smile on her face that she thinks is both encouraging and slightly coy.

  “So what’s on your mind?” she asks.

  Fifty-One

  Escape, Samuel thinks. That’s what’s on my mind. Escape from you and this interminable tour that’s really nothing more than a thinly veiled, desperate plea for me to sleep with you.

  He takes a drink of the beer to buy some time. He’s thought of his options to get away from her, but there are none.

  His hands are tied.

  “You,” he says finally.

  He sees the surprise in her eyes. Followed immediately by a goofy look of obvious pleasure. She obviously wants him, has been sending out signals like a goddamn radio tower. He’d have to be a complete moron not to see what she wants. Is she not aware of the power she has over him, or does she just refuse to acknowledge it because it would make her feel like all the men over the years who have put pressure on their female subordinates? Some sort of backward refusal to face the reality of what she is doing.

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “You’ve talked a lot about your job, but not anything about yourself.” I can do this, Samuel thinks. I can do this. I’ve done worse than her, much worse. So keep it together.

  “That’s funny, I was going to say the same thing to you.”

  “Yeah, but I said it first.”

  Samuel watches as she signals the bartender. He glances at her drink. It’s empty. Christ, that was fast. He hasn’t even drained a third of his beer. Not that it matters as it’s light beer. There won’t be any buzz for him tonight. And really, spending time with her is enough to ruin any kind of buzz. What at first was a mild sympathy for her has now turned into pure animosity. And the worst part of all?

  He’s going to have to fuck her.

  It’s a given.

  He listens, a patient expression on her face as she talks about growing up in a big family with lots of brothers, blah, blah, blah.

  Suddenly, he senses Julie looking at him.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said,” her words are slightly slurred. How long has she been talking? He rubs his temple, it’s been throbbing and the pain is piercing through his mind. How many drinks has she had? He looks down at his beer. It’s been re-filled. When? How could he not notice?

  Samuel, keep it together, man!

  “That’s my story. Now, I’ll give you two options, Mr. Mysterious. You either tell me more about yourself, open up a little bit, or just take me home.”

  Samuel drains half of his beer in one long drink, suddenly wishing that it wasn’t light beer but something much, much stronger.

  He pays the bartender and they walk out together, Julie walking very close to him. There’s no questions who will drive as she’s clearly half in the bag. She blathers on the whole way to her house, Samuel having to interrupt to confirm directions. Finally, they pull into the driveway of a small Cape Cod on a quiet street. Ordinarily, Samuel thinks a house like this would be someone’s idea of quaint domesticity. But knowing what he knows about Julie Giacalone, it seems depressing.

  What happens doesn’t surprise Samuel. In fact, it feels like it’s been scripted and he’s just following along, playing his part.

  As soon as they’re in the door, she practically throws herself at him. Her lips are all over him and he tries not to recoil at the feeling of her cold nose pressing against his cheek, like an English Pointer eagerly licking its master. He pretends to respond with equal passion as she pulls him toward the bedroom. She pulls at his clothes practically ripping the buttons from his shirt. He is trying to get her clothes off, but she’s moving, already has his pants down. He looks around her room. It’s what he expected. A soft yellow with a flowery comforter and pictures of her parents on her dresser.

  She takes off her clothes, pulling him toward the bed where in no time he finds himself on top of her and she’s kissing him, her legs wrapped around his ribs, thrusting her pelvis at him with brutal force.

  The pain in Samuel’s head is pounding at him, he feels inundated, sensory overload. He feels his will begin to subside and it scares him. He forces everything from his mind, grits his teeth and bares down. He thinks of Nevens, of how good it felt to slit his throat.

  He grabs each of Julie’s legs and spreads them wider, opening her up. She moans in anticipation. He leans in, but turns his head away from her, looking at her will break the spell. He focuses on the blood lust that seeps through is body at the memory of killing Nevens and lets himself be consumed with the task at hand.

  Fifty-Two

  When he lifts her legs, Julie Giacalone’s passion boils over into a primal frenzy. Samuel’s gentleness, his smooth motions have slowly built the seeds of a raging orgasm insi
de her. But when she feels his passion rise, she is electrified by the explosive pleasure sweeping through her body.

  She is succumbing to it, feels a howl of pleasure start at the base of her vocal cords.

  She presses her head back in the pillow and turns her face to the side. She opens her eyes, startled by the sheer intensity of the orgasm rampaging its way through her body.

  And then she sees something in the bathroom.

  It doesn’t register at first, so consumed with the intensity of the pleasure as she is.

  The mirror.

  She sees Samuel’s face in the mirror.

  At first, she thinks it must be an illusion. But no, it’s his face. It’s his face, on her dresser. It’s like an optical illusion until she realizes that’s the reflection of a reflection. The mirror in the bathroom is a make-up mirror, on an extendable metal hook. When she used it this morning, she must have left it pulled out. The mirror is turned toward the doorway of the bathroom and on its face, she can see the reflection of her dresser.

  On her dresser, however, is another, small mirror. She uses this for a final check before she goes out the door. It’s tilted down toward the bed. And on its face is Samuel’s face, reflected.

  Julie is shocked by what she sees.

  Samuel’s face is not filled with pleasure, not with ecstasy.

  His face is wrinkled in fact, with displeasure.

  Julie feels a coldness sweep through her body.

  He’s fucking her out of duty.

  It’s that obvious.

  She stops thrusting as Samuel rocks her body with his orgasm. He’s done and Julie, out of breath, closes her eyes.

  She feels like she’s been violated.

  But no, that’s not right.

  She forced herself on him.

  And then it call becomes clear. He felt he had to do it, had to do the boss. Oh God, how awful. How unbelievably awful.