The Association

by Bentley Little

  There was something wrong here.

  It was a feeling held experienced so often lately that it was beginning to seem like his normal state of being, this constant lurking dread, this condition of being always caught off guard, always worried that some new and horrible problem was just around the corner.

  He debated whether to leave right now or hang around and wait, but quickly decided that to leave would be not only rude but cowardly.

  Besides, he might be overreacting. So Frank and Audrey were into some kinky stuff. What they did in the privacy of their own bedroom was none of his business. He glanced around the room, saw nothing else out of the ordinary: an entertainment center against one wall, the stuffed head of a moose that Frank shot hanging over the fireplace, typical middle American furniture and framed art prints adorning the remaining space.

  There were only the magazines.

  Contemporary Torture Play.

  He waited.

  She emerged from the hallway a few moments later wearing nothing but a chastity belt--a gothic-looking metal contraption that wrapped around her thighs and hips and fit snugly over her crotch and buttocks. Her face was slightly flushed, but not from shame or embarrassment.

  From excitement.

  Her nipples, he noticed, had been sliced off. Only scar tissue remained.

  She opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and on it was a key.

  Already he was standing, instinctively moving away. "I..." he began, but he didn't finish. He didn't know what to say.

  She removed the key with thumb and forefinger, holding it out to him.

  "Unlock my box," she said.

  He was still backing up, though the front door was in the opposite direction. He finally found his voice. "Audrey, I don't know if you're drunk or what, but I have to tell you that I'm not interested, I'm not into this--"

  She sidled next to him. "You can do anything you want to me," she whispered.

  He scrambled, trying to get around her and out of the house.

  "Beat me, hurt me, use my mouth for your toilet, give me a boiling oil enema or a hot Tabasco douche."

  She reached for him, grabbed between his legs, but he was not aroused, and she frowned as her fingers kneaded his softness.

  "What's wrong with you?"

  "What's wrong with me? He pushed her hand away. "Jesus Christ!"

  Outside, there was the sound of squealing brakes in the driveway, followed closely by the noise of a pickup's door slamming shut.

  Barry shoved Audrey aside, the chastity belt clanking as she stumbled, and hurried out of the house.

  "I want the pain!" she yelled behind him.

  He hit the driveway running, and dashed past Frank, staring at the ground as he sprinted by, afraid to meet his friend's eyes. It occurred to him that he hadn't picked up the tax forms Maureen had sent him to collect, but there was no way he was going back in that house.

  He ran past the empty pool site and made it halfway home before the hill became too steep and he had to stop, breathing heavily.

  What was happening back at the Hodges'? There was no way Audrey could have gotten out of that contraption and back into clothes before Frank walked into the house. Was he screaming at her now, outraged at her attempted betrayal, mortified that she had exposed their kinky sex habits to an outsider? Or--and this is what made the sweat turn cold on his skin--was he not surprised, was he in on it, had he come home early on purpose, in order to join in the fun?

  No, that was impossible. He hadn't planned to walk down to the Hodges'. Maureen had sent him out at the last minute to give him something to do and get him out of the house. No one could have known ahead of time that he would be there.

  But Audrey had asked Maureen to come over and pick up the forms. Maybe the whole setup had been meant for her.

  Just because you 're paranoid doesn 't mean they 're not after you.

  He looked behind him to make sure Frank was not following in the truck, then picked up his speed and walked briskly up the road.

  Maureen was still downstairs at her computer when he arrived home, and he ran a hand through his hair, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he entered her office. "Jesus," he said. "Where's that sexual harassment pamphlet?"

  She looked up. "Why?"

  He told her everything. From the beginning. His invitation in, the innocuous conversation about Liz, then the "tinkle" announcement, the uncomfortably long look, the chastity belt, the demand for pain.

  Maureen was disbelieving at first, apparently thinking he was joking, but halfway through his story her demeanor changed, and when he finished she asked, "She actually touched you there?"

  "Squee/edit."

  They looked at each other, obviously unsure of what to say. Aside from Liz and Mike and Tina, Frank and Audrey were the only real friends they had here in Utah.

  Maureen shook her head. "I can't believe it. Audrey?"

  "Audrey. Believe it." He sat down heavily on the room's lone extra chair. "God, I miss Ray. That man was like the last bastion of sanity in this asylum."

  "Maybe we should move."

  He didn't respond, didn't say anything, but for the first time he conceded to himself that that might be a viable option.

  The phone.

  Two rings. Four. Eight.

  It stopped.

  Liz allowed herself to breathe again. The third time this afternoon, the sixth today.

  She told herself that it could be friends, could be Tina or Moira or Audrey or Maureen, could be someone selling something, but she knew better than that. She knew who'd been trying to get a hold of her all this time, who'd been calling six or seven times a day.

  The board.

  Carefully, she pulled open a curtain, peeked out. The driveway was clear, and there were no people or vehicles on the road. Looks could be deceiving, though. There were bushes to hide behind, boulders that blocked sight lines. She wouldn't put anything past those bastards.

  "I'm sorry, Ray," she sobbed. And not for the first time she begged her husband's forgiveness, asked him to absolve her for not listening to him all those years, not believing;

  She wiped the tears away, embarrassed by her weakness though there was no one there to see it.

  Outside, the sun was going down, shadows lengthening and darkening on the hill, and she shivered, letting the curtains fall. She quickly went through the house, turning on all of the lights in each of the rooms, but even with every corner of the dwelling brightly illuminated, she was still filled with fear and a bone-deep dread. She returned to the now well-lit living room where she'd started, and slowly, gingerly, as though handling something that was radioactive, picked up the telephone receiver and took it off the hook.

  It was worse at night.

  It was always worse at night.

  She turned on the television for noise and companionship and went into the kitchen to make dinner. Before, she would have prepared a real meal--pan-blackened swordfish or chicken fajitas or turkey casserole--but now she simply melted some cheese on toast and washed it down with a can of Coke. She told herself that she would not drink tonight, she would remain sober and go to sleep clear eyed and clear-headed, but by eight o'clock there was a bottle in her hand, and by the time she rolled into bed at ten, she was pretty well hammered.

  She fell asleep with all of the lights on, and both the living room and bedroom television sets blaring.

  She awoke in silence to find all of the lights turned off.

  The house was dark and her first panicked thought was that someone had sneaked into her home and flipped the switches to frighten her. But a quick look toward the digital alarm clock on the bed stand told her that it was not just the lights and television. The power was out.

  They'd shut off her electricity.

  She swung her feet off the bed, felt for the wall and guided herself over to the window, where she opened the curtains and peered out, looking down the hill where she knew there were other homes. She wanted to see only darkness, only nig
ht, but through the trees came the faint yellow sparkle of occasional porch lights.

  The other houses had power.

  It was just her.

  She felt her way back to the bed and crawled in quickly, closing her eyes and willing herself to fall asleep.

  But sleep would not come. Instead, she remained wide awake, her mind racing, trying to remember all of the things Ray had told her, all of the details, wishing he had written them down so she'd have a reference, corroboration, proof.

  No, not proof. They were too good for that.

  Her mind was going in circles, but at least it kept her from thinking about the power and why it had been turned off and the fact that there was someone on her property, snooping around her house, probably trying to get in.

  There'd been other incidents on previous nights but none of them had ever escalated to anything dangerous or physically threatening, and she prayed that such would be the case tonight.

  She tried to stop thinking, tried to count sheep, tried to think of black nothingness, but no matter what she did she remained wide awake.

  She heard noises in the dark: the house creaking; the outside cries of nocturnal birds; coyote howls; crickets; an occasional tapping that could have been tree branches in the wind, could have been ...

  something else. Gradually, all of these sounds seemed to coalesce, some disappearing, others gaining in strength, until she heardA

  voice.

  At first she thought it was her imagination. It sounded like a young boy, but it was speaking gibberish, not making any sense. Just as the cacophony of night sounds had blended to form the voice, so too did the unintelligible syllables differentiate themselves into recognizable words.

  Her name.

  "Liz!" the voice called playfully. "Lizzy!"

  It came from everywhere, came from nowhere, and she could not tell if it originated outside the house or inside.

  "Lizzy! Lizzy !Lizzy !"

  Now it didn't sound so much like a little boy. Instead, it had the odd high-pitched timbre of a midget or speech that had been electronically altered. She pulled the covers up over her head, the way she'd done as a child, but that didn't block out the sound, and she tucked the edges of the blanket under her body, under her head, leaving her hands free to plug her ears and keep out the voice.

  She knew it was there, though, even if she couldn't hear it, and she remained unwillingly awake until morning, her arms, hands, and fingers falling asleep and tingling but remaining glued to her ears until a hint of dawn light could be discerned through the material of the covers.

  At six o'clock, the power came back on, lights suddenly blazing, televisions blasting out morning news programs, and it was then that she knew it was finally safe to get out of bed. She quickly threw on a robe and rushed from room to room, checking windows, checking doors, but everything seemed to be secure and in place. No one had gotten in during the night.

  She was not brave enough to go out on the deck and look around, but through the windows she saw no impaled cats or decapitated dogs or any signs of vandalism, and she assumed that all was right.

  "Thank God," she breathed.

  She was eating breakfast--more cheese on toast, this time with coffee--when she heard a knock at the front door.

  She jumped, startled, and nearly dropped her cup. She considered hiding, not answering the door, pretending she was asleep or in the shower, but the knock came again. Louder this time, more insistent.

  She put down her coffee cup and walked out to the foyer. Closing one eye, she looked through the door's peephole.

  Jasper Calhoun.

  Liz sucked in her breath. She could not remember ever seeing the association president outside of an official function--the annual meeting or one of the numerous disciplinary hearings--and to find him standing on her porch this early in the morning, dressed in his robes, was more than a little disconcerting.

  Was he the one who had been playing with her power last night?

  He looked straight at the peephole, smiling. "I see you Elizabeth.

  Open up."

  That was impossible, she knew. The peephole was a security device, visibility only went one way, and for that, one had to place an eye almost directly on the tiny glass circle. There was no way he could even know she was on the other side of this door. Still, her instinctive reaction was to pull away, move back, retreat into the house.

  "Come on, Elizabeth. I want to talk to you."

  There seemed something odd about his face, as though he were wearing makeup or a mask, and a shiver passed through her as she studied him through the convex glass.

  "You know I've been trying to call you," he said. "I know you're not answering your phone."

  She held her breath, willing him to go away, afraid of moving, afraid of making any sound that would confirm her presence.

  "I'm not leaving until you open that door and speak to me."

  She'd been planning to remain here forever if need be, safe inside her fortress, but suddenly she unlocked and unbolted the door, yanking it open. "Get the hell off my property!" she demanded.

  He spread his hands benignly in a gesture of tolerance that was no doubt meant to seem sincere but that came across as parody. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth."

  "Stop harassing me and get the hell off my porch!"

  "Harassing you?" He chuckled as if the idea had never before occurred to him, as though such an intention were the furthest thing from his mind. "I just came to ask you a question.

  A very important question on behalf of the board."

  "Whatever it is, the answer's no. Now go away and leave me alone."

  "We met earlier this week in closed executive session, and unanimously decided that we would like to extend you an offer to join our august body."

  She blinked, caught off guard. "What?"

  Calhoun smiled, and once again she shivered, unnerved by the odd appearance of his face, by the thick layer of flesh-colored makeup that here, outside in the open air, lent him a weirdly unnatural aspect. Had he always looked this way? Either she couldn't remember or she hadn't noticed. She was reminded of the time she'd seen the filming of a car commercial back in New Jersey. The commercial announcer had looked perfectly normal on television, but in real life the amount of pancake makeup he'd been wearing made him appear grotesque. Perhaps Calhoun did the same thing, tailoring his appearance so he would look regal and magisterial conducting a meeting on the dais of a room with dim lighting, even though it had the exact opposite effect in direct sunlight.

  But why would he be wearing makeup? What was he trying to hide under there? Her chill refused to go away.

  "We would be very grateful if you would accept our offer to join the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Board of Directors."

  "Why?"

  Calhoun put on what he no doubt thought was a friendly, inviting expression. "You're a full-time resident, you've been here a long time, you know and are friendly with a lot of the newer, younger homeowners. You also have time enough to handle the workload. Frankly, we can't think of a better or more appropriate candidate."

  This made no sense. What were they trying to do? Buy her off? She took a deep breath, tried to think this through logically, but she'd barely slept for the past week, had been under constant pressure, and her thought processes were scrambled.

  What would Ray do?

  "How about it, Elizabeth? What do you say?"

  She spoke slowly. "Let me get this straight. You killed my husband, and now you want me to join your tea party?"

  Calhoun's smile disappeared, the expression on his face hardening.

  "That is a false and scurrilous accusation, one that will not be tolerated. I am sorry for the loss of your husband, as are we all, and we are prepared to allow you a certain amount of leeway. But there is no way that we can allow you to go around spreading lies and vicious rumors--"

  "I'm the best candidate, huh?" She snorted. "I don't know the real reason you're asking me to join, the real moti
ve behind this farce, but I know you, Jasper Calhoun. I know all of you. Now get off my property and don't come back."

  The smile had returned. "You're making a mistake, Elizabeth."

  "It's mine to make."

  They stared at each other.

  Had she made the right decision? Her heart said yes but her head said no, and she closed the door on the president, hooking the chain lock and turning the deadbolt with trembling fingers, not daring to look through the peephole until she heard the old man's engine start up in the driveway, heard the clatter of gravel from underneath tires, heard the sound of Calhoun's Lexus fade away and disappear.

  Barry finished the new novel in a weeklong frenzy of activity.

  He sent off the manuscript via the post office's Overnight Express, and they celebrated the way they always did by getting ice cream sundaes, a ritual left over from their earlier, poorer days. The teenaged waitress who worked at Dairy King, the local Dairy Queen knockoff, either didn't know or didn't care that they were from Bonita Vista, and when Barry asked for extra nuts, the girl heaped them on. They ate outside on rickety metal tables under un adjustable umbrellas that completely failed to block out the mid afternoon sun, but the ice cream tasted all the better for the rough and uncomfortable surroundings.

  On the way back, the Suburban's left rear tire blew out, and Barry crouched by the side of the highway for the better part of an hour, sweating and swearing, trying to loosen the undersized spare from the bottom of the vehicle and unscrew the seemingly cemented lug nuts from the blown tire's rim.

  He finally finished putting on the spare, and he stood up, getting ready to toss the flat in the back of the vehicle, when a beer can tossed from a speeding El Camino nearly hit his head, missing by inches and splattering against the side of the Suburban. His clothes and hair were soaked with warm sticky liquid, and he heard a joyfully honked horn as the El Camino sped around a curve.

  "Goddamn it!" he yelled. He angrily tossed the tire into the back and tried to wipe off his face, hands, and clothes with leftover napkins from Dairy King.

  At home, the upstairs toilet had overflowed, although neither of them had been in that bathroom today. He used the plunger, and when he flushed everything was fine, but he worried that this might be the harbinger of septic tank difficulties, the first sign that they had a plumbing problem.