I stood there, wanting nothing more than to erase the last few days. I longed to return to the safety and love we’d shared, the bliss of the life we had created. The madness in me, the crazy part that managed to block out the reason for my departure, remained tucked away in the recesses of my mind. I watched through the glass that separated our worlds, perhaps forever.
If I had experienced loneliness prior to my life with Luke then what plagued me now was loneliness times ten. The intense pain that ripped at my heart and threatened the very fabric of my soul screamed its anguish within me. I had exhausted the little food I ate the night before and yet it wasn’t hunger that threatened to do me in.
I knew I should’ve left then, cherishing that one glimpse of him, but I was riveted to the spot. The scene before me continued to play out until I saw Luke look out the window panes. If he saw me out in the dark I can’t be sure but I instantly ran around the house and up the road. Propelled by fright, I ran the whole way back to my seedy motel and headed straight for the bathroom.
Although I hardly recognized the woman staring back at me in the mirror—wild-eyed and crazed—I knew I hated her. I averted my eyes, filled a glass of water from the sink and gulped it down. I filled the cup twice more and then stripped off my sweaty clothes.
I showered, dried myself off and climbed under the covers. I knew, after all the abuse my body had sustained, that I would pay the next day for not stretching. I lay there, hoping sleep would take over, but it eluded me. Then my cellphone rang, startling the crap out of me. I scrambled out of bed and frantically dug through the pack. When I finally found it, I didn’t recognize the number and let it go to voice mail. No message alert, so I imagined the call must have been from Marcello or Janice.
* * *
The next two days progressed in similar fashion. I spent most of my daylight hours curled up in bed. When I did wake after dark I’d make my pilgrimage back to our home. The second night on my own I was crushed to find the house unoccupied and, on the third, I stood farther out of sight. I knew he could feel me there because he kept looking out the window. My heart pounded and my palms were sweaty. Part of me wanted him to catch me and possess me but another part was afraid of what he might do. As I prowled around to the front of the house the lights in the back flared, startling me. As I hurried back to the hotel that night, I kept looking back over my shoulder, again and again.
As I entered the small lobby, the clerk stopped me.
“Your credit card has been declined,” he said gruffly.
“What?” I was incredulous. I couldn’t fathom Luke cancelling my credit card. What did he expect me to do? “Please try it again.”
“I ran the numbers three different times,” he said impatiently. “It says to confiscate it.”
“Please, my husband must have cut me off. I will get you the cash. I promise you, I’m good for this.”
The clerk paused, staring me up and down and then said, “Do you have another card?”
“No … ummm, like I said, I’ll be back with the cash.”
“Yeah, sure … okay,” he said warily.
I ran up to my room and threw my clothes into my backpack. I hadn’t touched my computer since my arrival at the motel so it took mere minutes to gather my things. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I had already made the trek to the house and back, and I doubted that I had the strength to make it again. First I had to get past the guy at the front desk. I felt grateful to have the card still in my possession and hoped he would forget my name.
I crept down the stairs and waited at the base for ten minutes, until the clerk went into the back office.
I wished I had obtained the address of Luke’s other house—the party mansion. At the very least I could have crashed in the back of that place. It wouldn’t have mattered if it took me all night to make it there. Two nights still separated me from the next party and I had to figure out a way to survive until then. Deciding that the beach would be the safest place to sleep, I staggered back down Dania Beach Boulevard, completely exhausted. The hike took me much longer with my backpack but I eventually found the now familiar lounge chair in the vicinity of my former home.
My jacket didn’t offer my thinning body the heat it needed during the chilly night. I ate a few of the crostini I took from Marcello’s when my growling stomach wouldn’t allow me to rest. I tried to curl into a tighter ball but the cold seeped into my bones. I got up and trudged up the beach and around the house I had once occupied. I climbed into the passenger side of Luke’s two-seater, laid my things on the driver’s seat and pulled the hoodie over me.
Physical pain served as a welcome distraction, drowning out the fear and anxiety that threatened to push me even further over the edge. The hollowness in my stomach echoed the hollow feeling in my heart. I couldn’t believe Luke would cut me off financially. I wondered if I still had access to my bank account, given that I had handed control of our finances completely over to him. I knew he kept some cash in our bedroom and thought that in the morning I would check my writing room window to see if it remained unlocked.
I rummaged through my backpack to set my cellphone to wake me before sunrise, only to find it dead. I had failed to plug it in while at the motel.
“Damn it,” I said out loud.
I reclined the seat as far back as it would go and pulled the hoodie tighter around myself, grateful to be sheltered from the wind. Time seemed to inch slowly. I eventually managed to fall into a deep sleep, which included no dreams to plague my waking hours.
Sleep abruptly ended with the cold dawn of reality.
“What the hell do you think you doing?” Luke said, standing over me with the passenger door open.
I squinted and blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the daylight. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“YOU are sitting in MY car.”
“YOU cancelled MY credit card.”
“My credit card. I cancelled MY credit card.”
“Exactly what the fuck do you expect me to do? Sell my body on the streets?”
“Do you not get it? I don’t care what you do.”
“Fine, give me my money back. Give me the money we made on the apartment. Give me the money I had in my account. You can’t just kick me out with nothing. Call the fuckin’ police and ask them. I’ll wait.”
I don’t know what happened to me in that moment but I felt so happy that we were talking; I didn’t care that the only words we exchanged were furious ones.
“You irrevocably broke our contract and therefore deserve nothing from me.”
“The law doesn’t work that way.”
“So divorce me.”
“I don’t want a divorce. I don’t want us to be over. Luke, please, I’ll do anything you ask but please don’t keep pushing me away.”
“I’m done with you, don’t you get that?”
“No, and I won’t ever believe it, Luke. We’re meant to be together. It’s what you kept telling me, kept reassuring me.”
“Done, Jane. Get the hell out of my car.”
“I need money, Luke.”
“Call your mother.”
“I’m not leaving until you give me some money, damn it.”
He reached into the car and literally yanked me out by my arm. I fell to the ground, staring in wonder at the man I loved, wondering how I had managed to bring our relationship to such a low point. One thing was clear: no man would ever love me over time. I was doomed to be alone, like my mother. Maybe I was more like her than I wanted to admit. She could never sustain a relationship after my father left. We were both impossible to love.
Luke dropped my backpack, which spilled out next to me on the ground, and threw five twenty-dollar bills on my lap as though I were a common whore. Then he got into his car and drove away.
I lay there watching his car until it traveled out of sight. I should’ve been fuming mad, irate even, but I felt happy to have had contact with him. With some difficulty I rose to my feet, picking
up the bills he had scattered. I shoved them in my pocket and looked down on the contents of my backpack. I pushed the clothes back in and picked up the keys that had fallen out.
It was then that I realized I had Luke’s set of keys. I must have grabbed the wrong set off the counter. Would they open the front door?
I tried all the keys on the chain, but none of them worked. He had changed the locks again. I looped to the side of the house and put my bag down. After removing the screen from my writing room window, I was vastly relieved to find the window unlocked. I grabbed my cellphone and charger and climbed through. Plugging in the phone, completely out of other choices, I broke down and finally called Parker.
“Hey girl, I was wondering if I’d ever hear from you.”
“Yeah, well married life has been all-consuming. Sorry I haven’t touched base with you sooner. I need a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Thank you Parker for being you. I knew I could count on you. Can you pick me up after you get off work? I need a place to stay for a few days and thought we could go to the wedding together.”
“What happened?” she asked, concern spilling through the phone.
“I don’t want to talk about it now, but Luke and I both need some space. It would be great to stay with you, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the house but I can’t stay here. It’s a long story.”
“I’m coming right now and should be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Oh Parker, that would be so great.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“See you in a few.”
I flew across the hallway into my bedroom and gathered my dress and shoes for the wedding. I took the time to pee and saw the frizzy disarray of my hair and the dark circles under my eyes. I lost myself for a minute, gawking at the mess of a person staring back from the mirror. Finally I shook myself out of it; I knew it unwise to remain in the house any longer than necessary.
Scouring our closet for the wooden box that held the cash for the models and not finding it, I had to assume Luke had hid it in his locked office. The realization delivered another slash to my heart. It was harder than ever for me to hold out hope that I could ever get back in his good graces.
Tears trickled down my checks as I made sure to put everything back the way I found it. After closing the closet door, I zipped straight to the window in the other room. I unplugged my charger and phone and placed the screen close by the window on the desk. I laid my dress and shoes on top of it. Squirming my way out of the window, I placed the phone and charger on my backpack. I drew my dress through carefully and hung it in a nearby tree. Then I grabbed my shoes, placing them next to the rest of my things. I tugged the screen through the window and shut the window pane. Reattaching the screen as best as I could, I hoped Luke wouldn’t notice it had been tampered with.
I returned to the front of the house and sat on the stoop. I should’ve been an emotional wreck, but the phone call to Parker that I had resisted for so long had brought temporary relief. Although I looked a mess, I felt better than I had for days. Luke had spoken to me even if he still chose to be mean about it. He had given me money, which meant I could pay for the motel room and not worry about being chased down by the police. I hadn’t figured out how I’d explain going out on Friday or how I’d get to the party, but I still had time to sort it out.
I daydreamed until Parker showed up.
“Holy crap, girl, you look like shit! You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks,” Parker said as she got out of the car and walked around in front of me. “Why did you wait so long to call?”
“I thought we’d resolve things quicker than this. I just need a shower and I’ll be fine.”
“I have known you for a long time and have never seen you look so … so … pale and skinny and disheveled and frankly, smelly. You stink.”
“Thanks, Parker,” I said, rolling my eyes and laughing.
“I’m serious,” she said, going to the back of the car and opening the trunk. “I had my doubts about your marriage from the start but now I’m convinced. Luke is not good for you. I think you need to get help … talk to someone.”
“Really, it’s all going to be fine. I appreciate your concern but time away from each other is all we need.” I put my things in her trunk and hung the dress in the back. “Can we go up Dania Beach Boulevard? I need to stop by and drop off some money.”
“Okay,” she said, but I could tell by her tone that my request had heightened her already high level of concern.
She pulled into the back of the building and I got out of the car. I mounted the stairs to the front desk. When the clerk saw me, his jaw dropped and he reached for the phone. Before he had a chance to say anything I held out $80.00 in cash and his shoulders relaxed.
“I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“Sorry about that,” I said as he handed me my change.
I got back into the car and Parker said, “I’m not even going to ask.”
We drove in silence to her house. After she pulled into the driveway, she took her house key off the keychain hanging from the ignition and handed it to me.
“Do yourself and everyone else a favor and shower and brush your teeth. There is plenty of food in the refrigerator. Help yourself.”
“I know you’re worried about me, but don’t be. I’m fine and will be like new after a shower and some breakfast.”
Parker drove away as I entered her home.
Her house was small and quaint. The colors on the walls and the furniture gave it a cottage-feel. I hung my dress in the closet of her guest bedroom. There was a bathroom opposite the bedroom, where I set down my backpack and ran a hot shower.
After I cleaned up, I threw all the clothes except the shorts and shirt I wore into the wash and made my way to the kitchen. I still didn’t feel the urge to eat but I knew Parker would expect me to, so I scrambled a couple of eggs and ate some toast with it.
After cleaning up the dishes, I climbed into bed and mulled over my plans for Friday night. I knew I had to devise a way to get to the mansion on my own. I also needed a suitable excuse to explain to Parker the reason for my absence. One way or another I was determined to get answers about Luke.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It turned out that the gods of self-destruction were on my side. Parker came home from work Thursday night bubbling over because the guy she had been interested in for the last several months had finally asked her out for Friday. She was too excited to grill me on my failing marriage, but felt guilty leaving me home alone. I told her I’d be fine. Perhaps, if I could borrow her car, I’d go to a movie. It worked out to be that simple.
I obtained the address of the house through a quick phone call to Christian, who said he would see me there. After Parker left on her date with Andre, I rummaged through her closet for something that would fit. She was taller so I settled on a skirt that I had to roll up at the waist and wore it along with one of my shirts. Somehow it seemed fitting, remembering my first encounter with Luke at the mansion.
Looking back on that first night, I still find it hard to believe I willingly handed over my panties to him and let him roll the waist of my skirt so that when I went downstairs on his fool’s errand, my ass was barely covered.
I did not apply make-up as I had the first time because I planned to be at the house to explore the upper floor and not partake in the debauchery downstairs. I would sneak upstairs unnoticed. Before leaving I emptied out my backpack, putting back only my charged cellphone, Luke’s keys and a bottle of water.
* * *
At nine-thirty I arrived at the all too familiar towering house surrounded by large banyan trees. Vines climbed the lattice that covered the gray stone, which was embellished with steep gables and rounded arches. I parked on the grass next to the other cars. A few pulled in at the same time. I pretended to rummage around in the car to give them a chance to go in ahead of me. When the coast was clea
r I hurriedly made my way to the front door. Unlike the first time I had entered the house, the people milled around the base of the stairs, socializing. I sat down on a couch off to the left, waiting for them to move deeper into the house.
More people trickled in and after about twenty minutes I found myself momentarily alone. I jumped up and took the steps two at a time to the upstairs hallway. In Luke’s room I found furniture I didn’t recognize. I shut myself in and leaned against the door to catch my breath.
I slowly stepped through the threshold and peered into the hallway. Then I crept along and quietly opened the door on the right. A guy sat at his computer, masturbating while porn played on the screen. He thankfully didn’t notice my intrusion.
Noticing an entrance at the far side of the hallway, I decided to skip over the doors in between. I gripped the handle and found it locked. Taking out Luke’s ring of keys, I tried each one. By the seventh key I became discouraged. One key remained, and to my utter surprise it opened the door.
I found exactly what I had expected, although I’d hoped to be proven wrong. I quickly shut the door and locked it behind me. A bank of monitors mounted on the wall showed different rooms as well as the outside pool area of the mansion.
Now I knew for certain that Luke had seen me come into the house that first night. He had seen me before I’d ever seen him. I wondered how many other lost souls he had captured in his web of madness this way. Each monitor had a recording device under it. The wall to the left of the TVs was covered with metal shelving lined with videotapes and DVDs. Each bore a title and a date. I inhaled a quick breath, fighting back fear and nausea. Was this the true source of Luke’s income? On the right wall was more shelving and a file cabinet. The file cabinet had names on it; the top one said Janice. I tried to open it, but it was locked. No point in trying any of the keys on Luke’s keychain; they were all too large.
Searching through the drawers of the wooden desk under the many monitor screens, I found a letter opener and used it to try to jimmy the lock. My hands shook, and it wouldn’t give. Then I remembered where Luke hid his office key back when we lived in our old apartment.
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