The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  Why is the first First Time always such a bitch? she thought. A log snapped loudly as the flames reached the sap. Richard jumped like a runner at the starting blocks.

  She smiled, and lifted the covers suggestively. Richard slid into the queen bed. With a deep breath he rolled over, arms on either side of her body, and held himself above her. There was the barest glitter of white-blond stubble along his jawline. Seconds passed. His arms began to tremble, and then lowering himself only slightly, he kissed her.

  Angela reached up and pulled him down against her, skin against skin, chest to chest. The kiss deepened and there was a faint stir as his penis began to stiffen. She grabbed his hands, twining her fingers through his. There was still something separating them like a layer of ice.

  Angela looked up into that beautiful face. Richard’s eyes were tightly shut. His lashes were a deep amber and they brushed his cheeks, but the muscles of his face were so taut that his face seemed more like marble than pliant skin. He clearly wasn’t going with the moment but rather working at the moment.

  “Here,” she whispered. “Let me help.”

  And she levered them over so she ended sitting on his thighs. Her hands swept down his torso, feeling the ribs and the bands of muscle in his belly. She took his penis in her mouth and went to work. A groan broke from between his lips. It was still slow but he was beginning to quicken. She drew her nail down his sternum and touched his navel. His hips arched beneath her.

  She chuckled and lifted her head from his crotch. Richard reached up for her, but she caught him by the wrists and forced his arms back toward the wrought-iron headboard, and held him down.

  She felt the puckered line of a scar on the right wrist. “Hey, what’s … ,” she started to say when a scream of sheer terror broke from his lips.

  He began to thrash wildly. Bucked to the side of the bed, Angela went sliding off onto the floor. She stared up in shock as he hunched over his knees, hands clasped over his head, body shaking, guttural whimpers punctuating each breath.

  “Here, here.” She laid a hand on his shoulder and jumped back when he cried out in terror.

  “Richard. Richard! Richard!” The shout penetrated. His breath caught, and he managed to look up at her. His eyes seemed dark, dark and very distant. She wished he’d stop looking at whatever he was seeing. Shudders passed through his body.

  There was the sound of running footsteps and a hammering on the door. The owner’s voice called out, “Is everything all right in there?”

  “Fine, we’re fine!” Angela shouted and then added inanely, “I’m a doctor.”

  “What does that mean?” the voice asked.

  “That we’re okay. Please, go away.”

  The footsteps retreated and she turned back to Richard. “Wait. Breathe. I’ll be right back,” she ordered.

  Angela ran into the bathroom and began to fill the tub with hot water. She ran back, her bare feet slapping on the tile.

  “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,” came the monotonous whisper, and Angela wasn’t entirely certain for whom the apology was intended.

  “I’m going to touch you,” she said in her best brisk Doctor Voice.

  He flinched but endured her touch. She got him to his feet, guided him into the bathroom and into the tub. She snatched down a washcloth, the thick Egyptian cotton soft against her fingers. Carefully she dipped it in the steaming water and squeezed it across his shoulders. His muscles were banded iron.

  For a long time she sluiced water across his neck and back, and mentally berated herself. Not nervousness, flat-out terror, and she had missed it. Missed every cue. Missed it on the lift. Missed it outside the B & B. Missed it inside the B & B. Because you were so hot to trot you couldn’t spare a thought for him. You wanted to get past that first coitus, and get down to the lovemaking that can only happen when a lover’s abilities are known. Well, congratulations, you’ve got a real mess on your hands now.

  Eventually the shivers subsided and his breathing slowed. The water was cooling and her fingers puckering and wrinkling. Richard hadn’t looked at her once, but now he said, “I was so hot. I didn’t think … I thought I could …” His voice broke. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

  Knees screaming in protest, Angela levered herself to her feet, using the cold porcelain side of the tub for balance. She stripped down a huge fluffy bath sheet and held it out to him. He climbed out, sluicing water. She wrapped the towel around him.

  “Look, before you try this again you’ve got to set the ground rules so your partner doesn’t hit … well, whatever button I hit.” Placing her hands on his shoulders she guided him back toward the bed. He froze in place.

  “No. I’ll … I’ll sit in the chair.” The leather on the woven Spanish basket chair creaked under his weight. Angela pulled the down comforter off the bed and wrapped him in it.

  She began throwing on her clothes. “I’m going to go downstairs and get you a brandy—”

  “No, please don’t. Alcohol … alcohol always gets me into trouble.”

  “Buddy, you are already in trouble.” And she cursed her smart mouth because it had the same effect as if she’d hit him.

  He flung himself out of the chair and headed for his clothes. “Look, I’ll take a taxi or the bus back to Albuquerque.”

  “No, you will not. Richard, I’m a doctor. That means I did a rotation in psych. It’s clear you’ve endured some kind of trauma. You need to talk about it.”

  The pale head gave a violent shake of negation. “No. It will destroy me.”

  “I’d say it’s doing that right now.”

  “I’ve been fine as long as I didn’t—” He broke off abruptly. “Sorry, sorry, that makes it sound like I blame you. It’s all me. My fault.”

  It was hard but she said it anyway. “Richard, as of this moment I’m assuming that we will never make love. So we can put all that aside. But I am still, and will always be, your friend. You can talk to me. I also think having this bed sitting here staring at us doesn’t make this the best venue. So let’s get dressed and get out of here.”

  But he never would talk. She ended up dropping him off around 11:00 p.m. at his apartment. They had exchanged not a word on the drive back from Taos. As she drove down Montgomery headed for Rio Grande and her condo she wondered if she should tell Weber or Kenntnis. But that seemed like a betrayal.

  Still, she had unleashed a torrent of memory and trauma and it was her experience that people didn’t easily rebury these kinds of memories. In this strange twilight world of gods and monsters it was Richard who had to hold them at bay and she was pretty damn sure it was going to take all his strength and concentration.

  And she had just made that a whole lot harder.

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  Richard overslept, waking near noon, and rolled out of bed with a groan. Some of it was sore muscles from skiing after five years away from the sport, but much of it was due to the vivid and terrifying nightmares that had disturbed his rest. The figure on the cross kept coiling down, but it wore a different face, a face Richard had spent four years trying to forget. He kept trying to talk to Angela but she kept turning her back on him. At one point in the confused and tumbled images and sounds, his father walked through. Richard had tried to follow him, to catch him and talk with him, but Robert Oort always stayed just out of reach.

  He forced himself out of the apartment and went to the club for a swim. The sunlight outside the wide bay windows at the end of the pool was deceptively bright, and the sky a brilliant turquoise blue. At the end of the hour his muscles didn’t hurt quite so badly, but depression still dragged at his mind and body.

  The message light on the phone was blinking. Tossing his keys on the small bar, Richard called the voice mail center. While he listened to the first two messages—Rhiana and Weber—he stared into the refrigerator, but the thought of food was nauseating.

  He nudged the door shut with his hip and listened while the impassive and impersonal voice on the service said, “Message t
hree received yesterday at 7:33 a.m.”

  We were already on the road to Taos, he thought, and the queasiness increased.

  But there was no voice—just barely audible breathing, rapid and desperate. “End of message,” said the computer voice. “Message four received yesterday at 9:17 a.m.” Again the breathing. There were two more messages in the early afternoon. On the final one he could hear a woman crying.

  Berating himself for not checking the messages last night, Richard dialed home and felt his gut clench when his father answered.

  “Oort residence.”

  “Papa. What are you doing home?” Cringing at the inadvertent blurt, Richard closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.

  “I might ask the same of you.” Richard could hear the congestion from a cold blurring his father’s voice.

  “I’m on administrative leave.”

  “Why? What have you done?” The suspicion and obvious implication that he was guilty of wrongdoing sunk Richard’s spirits even lower.

  “I was involved in a shooting.”

  “Oh, dear God. Did you hurt anyone?” Robert Oort asked.

  A flare of anger and resentment kindled in his chest. Why doesn’t he ask if I got hurt? “Actually I killed someone.”

  “Dear God,” the judge repeated, but this time in a whisper.

  “He was trying to kill my partner.”

  “So, you aren’t in trouble?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And you called to tell us about your cowboy moment?” his father asked lightly as if making a joke, but Richard knew better.

  “No, I called to talk to Mama.”

  “She’s out.”

  “Papa, is Mama all right? She’s called me a couple of times and she seemed … upset.”

  “She’s fine. A little tired. She’s on a number of committees at church. This time of year things get very busy.”

  The phone shifted in his grip because his palms were slick with sweat. Richard remembered the dossier on his mother and Grenier’s threats. “Has … has anything changed at church?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is there anyone new there?”

  “Well, of course there is. Our membership is growing. Don’t be so foolish,” his father snapped.

  “I meant like a new minister.”

  “What is this about?”

  What indeed? How could he possibly explain, and, more to the point, warn his father? And warn him against what?

  “Is there a new minister?”

  “I don’t understand why you are asking. But, no. We do not have a new minister. Reverend Hoffsteader is still here.”

  Relief made his knees sag. “Okay. Well, tell Mama I called and that I love her.”

  “When are you coming to visit?”

  “Christmas.”

  “See to it that you do.”

  “Yes, sir. And Papa, please keep an eye on Mama.”

  There was a snort that could have been assent, disgust or goodbye, and Oort senior hung up.

  Richard drifted back into the living room and stared out at the small patio. The flat expanse of concrete looked sterile. Only a small hibachi broke the monotony. I don’t really live anywhere, or belong anywhere, he thought. Then he remembered the admiring faces of his coworkers and he smiled wistfully, wishing he could go back to work.

  He was pouring out a glass of milk when the realization hit. It doesn’t need to be a new minister. Anyone would do. A new member of the congregation who showed an interest in her.

  Richard knew his mother was lonely. That had been the hardest part of leaving. Robert and Pamela’s disdain over his new career choice and Amelia’s disinterest had made it easy, but his mother’s brittle cheerfulness, the books she had bought about New Mexico so she would know what it was like where he was going, and how he’d have such a wonderful adventure and come home a real cowboy—he knew it hid a bruised heart.

  And suddenly Angela’s face was before him. He dropped his face into his hands.

  I hurt everyone I care about.

  He tried the piano, but the notes hadn’t been sufficient to stop the constant play and replay of the disastrous events in Taos. Richard kept searching for that one action that would have made it all turn out differently. A total waste of time, but he couldn’t help it.

  Finally, in desperation, he turned to the vocal repertoire. He chose Schubert. Litanei auf das Fest Allersellen, an andante lied to commemorate All Souls Day. The keys depressed softly beneath his fingers and his foot working the pedal was like a second, slower heartbeat. He played the three notes of the introduction and he began to sing.

  The music wove a net of sound, filling the room and resonating in his chest and head with the shiver of overtones. Long breaths took air deep into his lungs. The strength of his diaphragm forced those breaths back out, carrying on them the glowing notes. He sang in German, but his mind provided the translation.

  Rest in peace, all souls who, a fearful torment past

  and sweet dream over, sated with life, scarcely born,

  have departed from the world:

  Rest in peace, all souls

  And those who never smiled at the sun

  but under the moon lay awake on thorns

  to see God face to face

  one day in heaven’s pure light:

  all who have departed hence,

  rest in peace, all souls.

  As he sang he mourned friendship lost and faith destroyed. The final note died away, followed by a soft knock at the door. It wasn’t who he’d expected. Kenntnis stood outside, his bulk blotting out the light.

  “May I come in?” he asked with great formality.

  Richard stepped back. “Please.” As Kenntnis entered the piano gave a soft, melodic sigh as if a wind had passed across the strings.

  Kenntnis surveyed the living room, his gaze lingering on the grand piano. “So that wasn’t a CD. You play and sing extremely well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Mourning for lost innocence?” the big man asked with an eerie omniscience.

  “Four days ago I killed a man. Before that I denied my god. I think I’m entitled.” And I hurt and shamed a woman I care deeply about. But he didn’t say that. For a long moment they regarded each other, then Richard remembered his manners. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “I take it the offer doesn’t include coffee or liquor?”

  “No, sorry. I can make hot chocolate,” Richard offered.

  “Sounds good.”

  While Richard busied himself in the kitchen, grating the Mexican chocolate and heating the milk, Kenntnis strolled about, studying the books on the shelves. There were a lot of holes. Richard had culled the religious works.

  “My Fifty Years in Baseball; Babe: The Legend Comes to Life; Lucky to be a Yankee; Five O’Clock Lightning; Damned Yankees; The Mick,” Kenntnis read aloud, trailing his fingers along the spines of the books. “You like baseball.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m betting the Yankees.”

  “Yes.” Richard knew his responses were not rising to the level of conversation, but he didn’t feel much like talking. He carried the chocolate into the living room, and handed Kenntnis a mug.

  “Some people say they’re evil incarnate,” Kenntnis said.

  “Some people say that about you,” Richard replied. Kenntnis gave his rich, rolling chuckle.

  Richard settled into the armchair, giving Kenntnis the entire couch to accommodate his massive body. They sipped chocolate in silence for a few minutes, then Kenntnis said, “I came by yesterday evening.”

  They had been at the Adobe and Stars, Richard thought. “I went skiing,” is what he said. “I didn’t get back until late. I’m sorry. Was it important? Stupid question; with you everything is important, right?” Richard forced a smile.

  Kenntnis swirled the cup, watching the chocolate form a whirlpool, then sat it down on the glass coffee table. “I went to New York.” Richard coc
ked his head, indicating polite interest. “I met Danny McGowan.”

  A constriction closed around his throat, cutting off the air. Richard coughed and hoped his tone was disinterested as he said, “Oh, and how is he?”

  “Hurt that a young man he rescued didn’t see fit to tell him about his promotion.”

  Richard wasn’t aware of his hand moving, but he found himself clutching his right wrist. “Well … yes, but I didn’t really … earn it.”

  “From what I hear from the chief you are earning it now, but I’m not here to bolster your ego.” Standing, Kenntnis walked to the piano and softly stroked his hand across the keys, pulling out a whisper of sound. “Grenier’s people have also been making inquiries.”

  “Danny wouldn’t talk to them.”

  “He didn’t, but others have. One of the EMTs who picked you up out of that alley and took you to the hospital. Our enemies know the nature of your injuries.”

  Panic and shame roiled corrosively through his gut. Richard bent over, clutching his stomach, fighting down nausea. A warm hand cupped the nape of his neck, the fingers gently massaging taut muscles.

  “They will try to find the man who hurt you.”

  “I don’t think he’ll talk to them,” Richard whispered.

  “Are you sure? They can be most persuasive. They use both threats and bribes. And even if he doesn’t provide them with the details they will spread the rumors, and those who hear will fill in their own details and may make it far worse than it actually was.”

  “That would be hard,” Richard said softly.

  “Who knows what happened to you?”

  “No one. Well, Danny, but he doesn’t know the specifics.”

  “You never told your parents?” Disbelief and surprise edged the words.

  “No. Medical confidentiality is a wonderful thing. They just think I was mugged.”

  “What did you tell the police? You had clearly been raped and tortured.”

  “I told them I was attacked on the street. That I never got a look at them,” Richard answered.