The Righteous and The Wicked

by April Emerson

  Unaware that anyone is watching him, Eric doesn’t see anything but the dancing girl. He stalks the dance floor and he begins to bob his head with the music. He doesn’t hesitate or speak, but the dancing girl notices him immediately. Her friend is forgotten as she turns toward him and smiles as he touches her hip. She sways and he moves with the rhythm of the music. Then, their bodies move together.

  Emma witnesses the searing heat between the couple and is ashamed for watching. She looks away, but she can’t help herself. She gives in and stares at the now entwined pair. They touch each other and she sees Stormy Eyes put his lips to Dancing Girl’s neck. A long forgotten feeling rises inside Emma. Her face is flushed with lust, but she succeeds in breaking out of her trance and tears herself away from watching them. When she does, she finds two pairs of eyes staring at her from across the table.

  “Hey, do you want to go dance?” Abby asks.

  “What? No. No, I don’t want to dance.” Emma remembers the last person she danced with, and feels love and regret rise up in tandem at the memory. Still, she sneaks a glance back at Stormy Eyes and Dancing Girl. Emma wants to be looked at the way he’s looking at her, to be touched the way he’s touching her.

  Abby deciphers the emotions that are passing across Emma’s face. “It’s time to make new memories,” she whispers.

  Danielle offers her hand. Emma relents and takes it, and the three girls leave their now empty martini glasses and walk toward the dance floor. Upon standing, Emma realizes how buzzed she is. The lights are dim and the club is lit with flashes of red and blue. The bass from the music pounds and different colored lights twist and swarm. Only flashes of flesh and moving limbs are discernible. A calm smile is willed onto Emma’s face, in spite of her woozy head and racing heart. The girls congregate in a small circle on the outskirts of the dance floor and Emma watches as her friends feel the music. They begin to dance alone and with each other at the same time. Eyes closed, they lip sync the song that’s playing. Emma moves her feet from side to side, but her eyes and her thoughts linger on the couple.

  Dancing Girl runs her fingers through her hair, and Stormy Eyes sways with the music. Emma’s enthralled with the way his body moves. So confident, so sexy. The couple’s hips touch and rub together. It makes Emma dizzy. She knows she shouldn’t be watching this. It isn’t right, but she needs to watch the way this man is making this girl feel. It’s been so long since Emma felt anything, and she’s remembering what it’s like to experience passion and be desired. She remembers the last man who made her feel that way, and for the first time in a long time, her memory of Aaron is a good one.

  Aroused by the scene in front of her, Emma is transfixed. Stormy Eyes whispers something in Dancing Girl’s ear, and she smiles and nods. The couple walks off the dance floor together and Emma panics. She doesn’t want to lose this feeling so she steps away from her friends, knowing they won’t notice she’s gone for some time. There’s a flutter in her stomach as she follows behind the couple, because she’s doing something she shouldn’t. It’s exciting, and that pushes her forward. The couple walks down the hall hand in hand and stop at the women’s bathroom door. He looks inside, and then pulls the girl in with him.

  Emma struggles against the strange desire and unfamiliar feelings bubbling up within her. Her conscience is telling her to stop, but instead, she continues. The alcohol has softened her usual resolve to behave according to the moral constraints of her faith. She creeps after the couple, down the darkened hallway. As she approaches the bathroom door, she hears a groan and stops, gripping her dress in her fists as she eavesdrops. Her skin crawls with anxiety and she shivers. Emma remembers the sounds the girl is making. Not just any man can make a woman feel that way. She closes her eyes and pictures the couple making love. That description is far from what’s actually going on inside the bathroom, and Emma knows it, but she won’t allow herself to think the word. Still, she imagines it’s being done to her, by the man she still loves. The brown-eyed man who should be occupying the vacant side of her bed. She remembers what it felt like to have Aaron’s hands on her body.

  She listens. It’s rough, what they’re doing, and Emma is jealous. Her conscience tells her she doesn’t deserve to feel this way, but she lusts, she covets, she sins. Warmth blooms inside her when she hears the profanities coming out of his mouth. Her man never spoke that way, and she never wanted him to—but when Stormy Eyes does it, it turns her on—it makes her feel dirty. Her mind diverts away from Aaron, the person she’s still in love with, to the man inside the bathroom—and it’s his face she sees when she closes her eyes again. Not brown eyes, but blue.

  Chapter Three

  Eric enters the bathroom with his latest victim. She said yes. She wants it. She told him her name, but he doesn’t remember, and he doesn’t care. Throbbing with need, he pulls her into a stall. The girl’s mouth falls open as he slides his hands down her body and grips her ass. A voice inside him screams stop, but he doesn’t. Everything blurs. She speaks but he doesn’t hear what she’s said. His mind is focused on his goal, on filling his void, on feeding his hunger.

  She kisses his neck and he grasps at her flesh. She pulls a condom from her purse, and in his haste, he fumbles with it. He can’t get inside her fast enough. When he finally feels the tight, wet warmth surround him, he’s grateful to be so close to having his need satisfied. She moans, she likes it; she takes what he gives her. But he’s the one taking and will stop at nothing. He grips her pale, slim neck and she cries out with pleasure, pulling him closer. They’re a tangle of fabric and skin. His uncontrollable fury spreads through his body and leaks from his pores as he begins to sweat. It drips on the girl’s breasts and her legs wrap around him. Her back slams against the stall door as he pounds against her.

  “Oh, yes . . . oh, yes . . .” she chants. The door creaks and threatens to burst open against the weight of Eric’s thrusts. She tells him to go slower, but he doesn’t. She says how good he feels, but he doesn’t care. He’s boiling inside and the end is near. His mouth waters in anticipation of the few moments of real pleasure—the delusional bliss that comes with his release. The only time he feels alive.

  He groans as his release pulses out of him, drunk on the euphoric ecstasy. When he’s finished, they both catch their breath. The girl pulls her skirt into place and he buckles his belt. She touches his face and tries to be tender. She wants to kiss him but he pulls away. He’s lived this moment a hundred times before. He has no more need for her. He doesn’t look at her or say goodbye as he walks out the bathroom door.

  When the door swings open, Emma startles, but she’s hidden in the dim light of the hallway. She stays very still and waits to see the couple emerge hand in hand, but Stormy emerges alone. He doesn’t walk back into the club. Instead, he stalks straight toward the emergency exit, pushes through the door, and disappears out into the night.

  There’s no sound from inside the bathroom. Emma waits, but the girl doesn’t come out. When her curiosity consumes her, Emma slips inside. Dancing Girl is there, fixing her hair in the mirror with a quiet little smile on her face. She doesn’t know that Emma knows her secret. Emma feigns interest in her own image, but watches the girl out of the corner of her eye. She reapplies lipstick to her swollen lips, throws something away, and walks back out to the dance floor. Emma follows her, looking down to see panties discarded in the trash.

  Still high from her first journey into voyeurism, Emma rejoins her friends on the dance floor. A guy is talking to them, and Emma’s already making judgments in her head.

  “Oh, here she is! We were just talking about you. Emma, this is John.”

  John’s arms are threatening to bulge through his shirt and he’s very taken with himself. Abby winks at Emma, and is disappointed to see her friend’s face fall. Danielle sees it, too, and wishes Emma would allow herself to live a little. She whispers words of encouragement. “Not everyone here knows about your past.”

  Eric drives home to his trailer. His c
raving is muted, for now. Defeated but satisfied, he rolls over in his bed. He should sleep soundly tonight. His body is satiated, but his mind feels regret. The wind blows, and there’s that ringing noise again. It’s meant to be soothing, but it does not soothe Eric.

  The following morning, Emma opens her groggy eyes with a flutter. Alcohol is a poison that bangs and slams around in her brain. Her head aches, but the pounding is coming from the lot next door. It sounds like a hammer. She cranes her neck to see out her window and glares at the woods that hold the punishing noise.

  She shouldn’t have gone out last night. She shouldn’t have had alcohol, and she should not have listened to the sexy, stormy-eyed man do what he did to that girl. Guilt and shame consume her. The hammering next door is relentless, incessant. She knows what she has to do.

  She gets dressed. Her demure clothing and neat appearance make her look the part. Numb, bland, and pious. Ready to confess. But she feels something different brewing beneath her skin. A little spark. The box calls to her from under the bed. In her drunken haze last night, she abandoned her ritual. She sits and places the box in her lap, running her fingers over the initials that rest there, “E.M.”

  She makes her way down creaky steps, past peeling paint, over the warped and rotten wood of the porch. Her ritualistic path is disrupted once again when she notices something’s missing. Her wind chime is gone, but she leaves for church, vowing to search for it when she returns.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . .” Emma kneels, veiled in darkness. Father O’Hara sits behind the screen of the confessional, waiting to hear what evil has been done. He never grows tired of providing counsel to his parishioners—his compassion knows no bounds. He’s a loved and respected man in this small Christian town.

  “What are your sins?”

  “I drank alcohol. I got drunk, and allowed myself to feel . . . envy. I was envious of another woman, and I had sexual thoughts about a man. A man other than my husband.”

  “Well, while it’s true that alcohol use is not a sin in itself, it does weaken our minds and our resolve to behave as the Lord wants us to. How often do you have these thoughts of infidelity?”

  “Father, I haven’t thought of another man for so long. I love my husband. He’s the only man I want, but he hurt me so much, and I haven’t seen him. It’s been so long since I’ve been with him.”

  “My child, everyone feels desire. Jesus himself felt desire and temptation, but you must pray when you have those feelings. You must ask the Lord to give you the strength to hold true to your marital vows.”

  “But, Father . . . my husband . . . he left me. He left me because I . . .” She stops, unable to finish the sentence. “Father, I don’t know where he is, but I know that I’m still married in the eyes of the church.”

  “Yes, that’s true. In the eyes of the Lord, you’re still committed to your husband. You have taken a sacrament. A holy vow, and you must uphold it.”

  “I know that, Father, but what if I can’t?”

  Eric has thrown his whole body into his task. He’s trying to forget his weakness, trying—as he has intended—to move on. He lifts lumber onto his shoulder and throws it down in the dirt. He measures and saws, relishing the painful twinge that makes itself known every time he slams the hammer to the nail. He kneels in the dirt as he works. This is his penance. His work is his church. He takes another nail from the box and places it between his teeth. Memories flip through his mind, and they’re all bad. He wants to make new ones. Good ones. Every day is a new day. He lies to himself, over and over again.

  The day was overcast and the night is no different. The road is covered in fog as Eric drives to meet Sean and his fiancée. Sean’s overjoyed to have two people he cares for meet in person, but as Danielle shakes Eric’s hand, she senses something off about the rugged and handsome man in front of her. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her, the way his hand lingers in hers for too long. She pulls away from him while maintaining a polite smile, and grips Sean’s arm as the trio is guided to their table to sit down to dinner. She begins a conversation in an attempt at learning something about this creepy friend of her future husband.

  “So what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m an architect.” He scans the menu.

  “And what brings you to Pine Lake?”

  “I’m building a house here.” Eric gives another short answer, but Danielle is not daunted in her quest to get to know him.

  “So you’re here for good, then?” she asks.

  “No. I’m not.”

  Emma has so few tangible things left to cling to. Things that remind her of happier days. It’s Monday and she’s pissed, and she wants her damn wind chime. She stares out her kitchen window at the wooden structure. She sees it growing through the woods that separate her and her new neighbor. Small waves of rage are building inside her. She slams her hand on the counter and grabs her keys.

  Her car hums as she backs up and stops at the end of the driveway to check her mail, but she finds more than mail inside the aluminum cylinder. The item she misses is stuffed inside her mailbox, along with a crumpled piece of paper. She drags her mother’s wind chime out and reads:

  I’m sure you are old as hell, and half deaf, and don’t realize how irritating this damn thing is. I cannot sleep with it clanking around all night. I’d prefer it if you didn’t hang it up again. Bury it out back with your cats.

  Emma sees red. Her hands shake. She can’t believe someone who just moved here, onto her street, could be this evil. Enraged, she grabs a pen from the glove compartment and scrawls on the paper:

  Dear Neighbor,

  You are so rude! For your information, your bulldozing and hammering have woken me up for the past two weeks. I’m not an old woman. I work all day, and I’d like some damn peace and quiet on Saturdays! So I’d prefer it if you didn’t wake me up! You have a lot of nerve. Don’t you dare come on my property or touch my things—you jerk!

  Even in this rare state of anger, Emma can’t bring herself to use profanity. She folds up the letter, stomps over to the Jeep that’s parked at the top of her new nemesis’ driveway, and leaves it beneath his windshield wiper. The rebuttal should make her feel better, but she’s disappointed to find it does not.

  Eric takes a shower in the tiny, cramped bathroom of his trailer. The uncomfortable living situation is the best motivation to get the house completed. He thinks there might be a way to get into someone else’s bath, but ignores that thought and tries to focus on something else. The desire to be a normal person weighs on his heart. He needs a routine. He buttons up his clean black shirt, pulls on his filthy work boots, and walks up to the top of the driveway.

  There’s something stuck under his windshield wiper. He grabs what he believes is a parking ticket, and reads the note that has been left. He scoffs, then crumples it, gets in the Jeep and drives away.

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t know. I mean, what else can we do? You can lead the horse to water, but that’s about it. We can’t make her happy. She has to want it.” Danielle looks in the mirror at the jeans she’s trying on and turns to be sure she looks good in them from every angle.

  Abby runs her manicured nails over silk and takes a hanger off the sale rack, then crinkles up her face at the garment and puts it back. “I don’t know, I thought maybe she’d at least flirt with John. He’s hot.”

  “I don’t think hot is what she’s looking for, exactly.” Danielle returns to the dressing room, unhappy with the jeans.

  “Well, what then?” Abby asks.

  “I think she’s waiting for him to come and find her.”

  Abby shakes her head at the door between them. “How would Aaron even know where to look?”

  “Her mother knows she’s here, and we all know how much Sylvia loved Aaron. She pretty much took his side,” she shouts so Abby can hear her over the irritating mall music.

  “That’s terrible. I can’t believe her own mother didn’t suppo
rt her.”

  “That’s why she ran. That’s why she came back to us.”

  At work, Emma walks past Abby’s classroom and sees a substitute standing in her place. She rolls her eyes knowing Abby must have taken a fake sick day. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, and for once, Emma doesn’t feel like going home. She’s distracted thinking about what happened at the club and is still trying to shake off her anger at her neighbor from this morning. She can’t comprehend how someone she has never even met could be so cruel. Emma is familiar with cruelty, but she wonders when it will end. She wants more for herself, but she’s crippled by her wounds.

  Looking beyond her scars and shadows, she notices what a nice day it is—warm and bright. She climbs into her car and turns the ignition, not quite sure where she’s going. She stops at the coffee shop and the door chimes as she enters. Emma smiles at the girl behind the counter and sits down on a shabby sofa near the window. The counter girl comes over and Emma notices her gaudy fingernails and shameless cleavage.

  “What would you like, ma’am?”

  Emma cringes at the formal title. “Well, ma’am, I’d like a cappuccino, and a biscotti if you have it, please.”

  “Right away.” The girl turns and reveals her firm, round backside, concealed in too-tight pants.

  Emma looks at her own reflection in the window. No grays, no wrinkles. She resents the title the waitress gave her. Beyond her reflection, through the glass, there’s a woman with a baby carriage. She paces on the sidewalk. The person she’s waiting for approaches and he runs to her. He picks her up as he hugs her, and then bends down to look in the carriage. The love the couple shares is evident as they kiss. The scene should be joyous but it causes Emma to crumple and collapse in on herself.