The Great Escape

by Amanda Carpenter

  Opening her eyes, she stared hugely up into Mike’s concerned face. Then awareness and reality hit her and she straightened with a groan. They had pulled into a parking lot in the middle of an apartment complex, stylish, modern, and well maintained. Shoving a quick, slightly shaking hand through her hair, Dee muttered, not looking at Mike, “Sorry. I was having a bad dream.” One hand left, but he rubbed at her collarbone with his other hand, thumb rotating gently.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” His head was bent to her and he suddenly seemed too near, so she sat forward and found her shoes. She’d slipped them off earlier, and one was stuck under the car seat.

  “I’m fine. It was a foolish dream, but then dreams always seem that way when you’re awake and out of them.” She sent a slanting, wry glance up at him, a twisted smile on her lips. “But when you’re caught in them, they’re as real as the edge of a knife that can slip and prick you if you aren’t careful. I always thought that getting stuck in a nasty, sticky mud would be horrible, and I always dream of it, or getting caught and mired down some way. Filthy thought!”

  Her shoes slipped on, she straightened and looked about her with interest, then sent a questioning gaze to the still figure beside her.

  He smiled at her, easily, but the hand that had stayed on her shoulder tightened as if he had felt the keen edge of the knife she had described. Then he was pointing out a group of windows that was his apartment, warning her that since he hadn’t been back for a while, the place would be a mess.

  Dee’s mood lightened and she laughed at him as they struggled to get everything from the car into the building. He had been quite right: the place was a wreck, with an unlived-in air about the rooms and a layer of dust that was settled on the furniture not covered up, and a few boxes lying around, stacked to the brim with things that he swore he’d stored. She teased him unmercifully as they set about cleaning up the roomy place. The furniture was good, she discovered, and the few ornaments around were tasteful and both looked and felt expensive. She admired Mike’s huge record collection as he dusted off cabinets, and peered at all his books with approval and interest. He had disappeared to the bedrooms to make them up and to check the kitchen and heating. After tidying up the place, they set off to buy groceries, and in spite of Dee’s voiceless apprehensions and darkening perspective, they had an uproarious time, skating a shopping cart dangerously through the aisles and making each other laugh helplessly. Dee ran into an older woman’s cart and was treated with a hostile, disapproving stare, and Mike accidentally knocked over a stack of cereal boxes when she startled him by zooming around a corner unexpectedly.

  Back at the apartment, they put away the food companionably, and she asked him curiously, “Whatever are you going to do about Judith and Howard? You called them and told them you were coming back with me. What will happen when you don’t show up with me, as promised?”

  Mike bent and stuck his head into the refrigerator as he arranged the perishables neatly on the shelves. “I called them later and told them that you’d gotten away, and that there would be a delay while I located you again.” The words echoed oddly in the small confines of the humming cubicle, and he backed out to shut it finally, only then glancing at her still body.

  Dee asked quietly, feeling strange, “When did you do that?”

  He smiled at her cheerfully. “When you were in the bathroom taking a shower this morning. It ought to give us both a lot of time to think, don’t you agree? They’re well aware of how slippery a fish you can be, when you choose to get away.”

  She nodded, absently, her eyes vaguely puzzled, and the sudden descent of his hand on her bottom jerked her out of her thoughts with a small shriek. “What was that for?” she exclaimed indignantly, trying in vain to slap him back.

  He laughed down in her face. “It was to get you started on my supper, slave,” he growled, and she made a rebellious face.

  “I don’t make suppers, or do windows, or clean bathrooms, or wash dishes…” she ticked off the items on her fingers, haughtily. Mike looked extremely indignant.

  “And to think I spent all that money on a worthless slave! What in the world do you do?”

  The peep she gave him from under her lashes was quite mischievously provocative. “I could become quite a good masseuse,” she replied, contemplatively, and he immediately appeared appeased.

  “Well then, that’s all right. But how are we going to live?”

  She twinkled at him, “T.V. dinners?” and had to laugh at his involuntary groan. Then she became brisk. “No, no, I’ll fix us something to eat, since you drove all day! Go on, get out, get out! Relax in the living room, for heaven’s sake!” She shooed him out and he left, only after giving her a laughing, tickling, hard kiss to which she responded gladly.

  She spent a busy hour in the kitchen, clanging pans around cheerfully, having successfully shaken her dark mood from earlier. She whisked around, setting the table for two and washing up the dirty dishes as she went, and eventually she went into the living room to fetch Mike to the table. Walking softly on her toes in a natural, athlete’s walk that proclaimed her to the knowledgeable as a sprinter, she moved swiftly into the other room.

  As she entered it, she slowed and stared through the semi-darkness of the curtained room at the slumped form on the couch, and stopped silently to stare at Mike, concerned. He had his head in both hands, his fingers tangled in what could only be an attitude of grief, or sadness. Dee looked at his hands, remembering fleetingly, with tenderness, how her hands had tangled in his hair in almost the exact same way—was it only this morning? “Mike?” It came out soft. “Are you okay?”

  His head jerked up at her voice, and he was off of the couch and walking her way, normal, casual. “Of course. I’m about ready to chew on the furniture, I’m so hungry,” he teased, grinning at her.

  She didn’t return the smile, her eyes troubled. “Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?” The change in him was astounding; one moment he appeared to be extremely depressed, and the next he was so completely normal that she sensed even more strongly that something was wrong.

  “Not a blessed thing,” he said cheerfully, then he rubbed at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I think I did too much driving lately, and my eyes are bothering me, but other than that and the fact that I might die in the next few minutes from starvation—why, I’m just fine.”

  Her eyes slowly crinkled at him and she had to chuckle. “All right, I get your drift! Come on, it’s ready and waiting for you.”

  Throughout that evening, as they watched television and played checkers, Mike was indeed so ordinary and calm, and quite cheerful, that she gradually began to believe that what she had seen earlier had been mostly her imagination. She enjoyed herself that evening, more than she had for a long time. He could make her laugh hysterically with his keen, dry wit and humorous, biting comments, and he could force her to concentrate more than anyone else could, driving her mind to quicker and keener decisions. He forced her to make snap decisions at the checkerboard, and she blundered terribly on the first game, flustered by his demands. But the second win came a bit harder for him, for she was beginning to meet his demands, and she had always been quick to react, intelligent and ready to trust her own judgment. And the third time, it was she who moved faster than he, goading him on when his long-fingered hand hesitated briefly over a certain play, and she flushed with triumph when she captured his final checker. “Ha!” she jeered, wrinkling her nose and waving the last checker under his chagrined nose. “You got it that time, my man! Didn’t think I had it in me, did you?”

  Her hand was captured easily, and his green eyes reached down deep into her as he smiled a lazy, heart stopping smile that touched her soul. “I knew very well you had it in you, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing her small hand quickly. It quivered. “I’m the one who spent nine months learning just how much you do have in you, remember? And I think I’m only just beginning to dig beneath the surface. You shouted at me today, c
rying, “When are people going to stop putting labels on me!” and I didn’t know how to respond, then. But you are all those things you listed, Dee, and not only those things but much, much more. And you’ve got to learn that people will see only what you show them—if you won’t show them what’s underneath, then they’ll never know the special part that’s the essence of you.”

  Unexpected tears pricked her eyes. How had they got so serious, so suddenly? Her eyes slid away from his and her nose and throat stopped with the tears she was trying hard not to shed. “But how?” she whispered, and caught at herself before going on. “How do you take the hurt and the cruelty?” Her hand twisted in his. “How do you take the indifference?”

  Mike stroked her hand into quietness. “My poor, sweet girl—is that how you see life? Really? Or is that what you’ve been taught, in the past few years? You ran away from the unhappiness at home physically, but you took it with you as you ran, didn’t you? You kept the memory alive, and you were determined to keep that from ever happening again, so you walled yourself into a busy little life and an empty little hole of an apartment. You weren’t going to be pushed away by anyone else, ever again, because you were going to make sure that no one got that close. You really were on the run, all the time you were settled in one place, and you’d be on the run now, if you hadn’t smashed right into me.”

  Shaken, Dee averted her head as her face crumpled into misery. “Don’t, please,” she muttered, tugging uselessly at her hand. Mike began to pull her towards him, though, inexorably, and she finally just collapsed into the warm circle he offered her. A sob shook her, and then another. She buried her face as she recognised the soul-shaking truth of what he had said to her, and she whispered, mouth trembling, “I just don’t want to be hurt any more.”

  “God!” The word was wrenched from him, right out from the deepness of his chest, from his awareness, and it sounded anguished somehow, sad and tortured. His arms tightened convulsively on her, and she welcomed it, both the pain and the comfort, for they were both the same. His face went to her hair and she felt the jutting bone of his cheek, the press of his browbone, and the moving sensation of his lips. Then he was bending, picking her up, carrying her into the other room. It all happened so fast that her breath felt torn away from the wonderful emotional shock of the unexpected. In the darkness of the bedroom, he put her down and wordlessly undressed her with an urgency that left her shaking. Then she was helping him undress and they were loving each other, warm and intense and so giving that she didn’t know where to put all the love and emotion. It spilled over on to the sheets with her dripping tears as she was overcome with the need and the feel and the love of him.

  Much later, he was holding her very, very tightly and tenderly, wrapping his arms around her with a firmness and a tight demand that kept her right up to the vitality of his damp, hot, exhausted body. Silence smoothed over the darkness in a wash of tranquility, and she jumped with the unexpectedness of his voice, oddly compelling. “Dee—Deirdre. Promise me something, sweetheart, please. Can you bring yourself to promise me this one thing?”

  She smiled into his skin and lifted her head slightly to try and stare into his face. It was a pale-hewn sketch of his features, drawn in blacks and greys. “You know I’d promise you anything,” she said quietly, and felt the impact of her words slice through him.

  “I don’t deserve to ask this of you, I shouldn’t say anything at all,” he muttered, tracing her cheek with one hand, going over and over it as if he would like to imprint the feel and the texture of her for ever in his mind. “Sweet heaven, I shouldn’t be saying this, but—I can’t help it. Oh, Dee, you have no idea of what I’m talking about. But you’ve just got to believe in the humanity and goodness of man and never, ever doubt it. Damn, you don’t understand me, and I can’t explain, but—oh, please, Dee, just have faith in mankind, just have faith!”

  And she thought she had never experienced such an intense and fulfilling happiness, even as she wondered blankly what he had meant.

  The next morning she woke slowly, leisurely, luxuriously, and stretched like a satisfied and happy cat, muscle by muscle, glorying in her own inherent sexuality in a way she had never before. She was a woman, in every sense of the word, and she loved being a woman. Her head turned and her hand went over the sheets, encountering nothing but pillow and blanket. Mike was gone. He was probably fixing breakfast, she surmised, running her eyes slowly over the contents of the room. She liked it. It was plain and yet comfortable, and it somehow embodied the flavour of him. She savoured it. Perhaps it was his scent that lingered on the pillow next to hers, or perhaps it was the casual indications of his presence in the carelessly laid comb and brush, and the cufflinks that were glittering like goldfish in a shallow bowl. She definitely liked his masculine presence in her life. She liked it very much indeed.

  After a few lazy yawns, she slid out of bed and made it quickly and neatly. Then she padded to the small bathroom that belonged exclusively to the master bedroom, then showered and washed her hair as fast as she could, impatient with the small delay in starting her day. After towelling dry and dressing, she ran Mike’s comb through her curls so they would not dry all snarled, then she bounded down the hall, eager to give him a special good morning kiss.

  It was strange that she felt no insecurities about Mike and the future. She sensed something in him that seemed to speak to the emotion in her. Can one accurately sense something like that? she wondered idly. Could that kind of sensitivity be trusted? She wondered what would happen if she were in a crowd of people with him, or a full room. Would she be able to sense his presence and direction of thought then, or was it all an illusion…

  The sound of voices hit her a split second before the impetus of her moving body carried her into the living room, and she was so totally unprepared for the blow of intense shock that struck her that it was as if someone had physically hit her, and hard.

  “…you really were very, very clever, weren’t you, Mr. Carridine?” And that voice was one she knew. It was the voice of her aunt Judith. And Dee couldn’t stop her entrance into the room, for the message to move had already been sent to her muscles and was being obeyed, even while the shock of discovery was slammed into her midriff, like a knife. Judith was still talking and she was hearing the words, though she wanted for all the world to stop her ears and block them out for ever. “How in the world did you trick her into coming to Knoxville, of all places, without giving your hand away?”

  Then she was in the room, just barely inside the room, and she was trapped utterly and completely. It was the nightmare that was reality, and the darkness swamped her, eating at her soul. Her mind screamed at the horror, as she took in the scene of Judith standing near to Mike, who was facing the window looking outside, his back ramrod-stiff, straight. Dee noticed with a fleeting irrelevance that his hair was sleekly, neatly brushed and that he was dressed in a tailored black suit with a crisp white shirt. It suited him. Then her eyes, wide and uncomprehending, slewed to the shorter, squatter figure of her aunt, who had turned at her entrance and was watching her with a secretive, triumphant smile on her plump face. It was a very nasty smile. Howard, she noticed, almost as an afterthought, was slumped in an easy chair in the habitual cringing attitude he constantly adopted, as if life were too much for him to bear, or Judith. The still, straight figure at the window did not move. He could have been an unliving statue.

  After the first wide-eyed, incredulous, uncomprehending stare, Dee’s face assumed a semblance of normality, though she did not come right into the room. It was all surface; inside, she felt the plunge of the knife sink to her life’s centre and the burning tip of the painful hot steel of despair started a slow turning.

  Trust, she thought, a last desperate chance to believe that he hadn’t meant it, hadn’t counted on this happening. It was all a huge, monstrous mistake, a colossal error in logic, an underestimation of the opposition. Judith and Howard had obviously had his apartment watched. That was it, sur
ely that was it.

  But then Judith was dispelling that last illusion with a cruel accuracy, hitting her thoughts by an accident of chance. “He was very good, dear, wasn’t he?” she asked, a sly maliciousness in her smile, if not in her voice. Her voice was all cooing affection and falsity. “We never lost faith in him…” and Dee flinched violently at her ironic choice of words, “…all those months. We knew he would bring you back to us, dear girl. Of course, he had an excellent incentive, didn’t he? But he wouldn’t have told you about the staggering bonus we offered him for your return. And it was all well earned. Well earned, indeed! Well, girl, have you got your things packed in your suitcase? We’ve got quite a lot to do today, and we haven’t much time to wait for you. Your room, of course, is ready and waiting for you.” Her light, almost colourless eyes watched Dee avidly, storing up all her expressions and watching for any sign of betraying vulnerability.

  But Dee wasn’t even paying attention to her aunt, for she was watching that straight, stiff back. Walking slowly across the room, right by Judith without so much as a sidelong glance, she halted just behind Mike, right close to his shoulder. She could have moved slightly and touched him, she was so close. But she didn’t. Then, with a quick, stern glance behind her shoulder at the nearby, hovering woman, she said with dignity, “This is private, if you don’t mind.” And at that, Judith, out of a social courtesy, had to withdraw to the other side of the room. Then, facing that quiet figure that stared out of the window and feeling as if she were about to scream from the horrible pain of the knife, Dee whispered shakingly. “Mike—oh, Mike! I don’t believe them. You couldn’t do this. They had your apartment watched, didn’t they? You didn’t—tell them, did you?” Trust, she thought, tasting bitter ashes in her mouth. She was asking for his side of the story, but she didn’t believe that last plea of hers. It was the death throes of her trust speaking.