BABY WITH THE BEAST

by Naomi West

  “He didn’t need to be here, did he?” Kendrick asks, glancing around nervously.

  Lisa rolls her eyes. I get the sense she’s used to him being too nervous, used to taking the lead.

  “No,” I say, swallowing dryly. The AC is on but it’s far too hot in here. I flip open my notepad. I just need to do my job. That’s all. Nothing else. “This is what we call a human interest piece,” I tell them. “That means I want to know how things happened from your perspective, so if you could start by telling me how you first became aware of the fire.” My voice threatens to break at several points, but somehow I manage to keep it under control.

  “Of course,” Lisa says. “That’s why we agreed to come down.”

  “And we’re hoping the insurance companies might see the story and not mess us around,” Kendrick adds. “You know how they can be.” He stares down at the table.

  “I know,” I assure him.

  “Will you tell it, or shall I?” Lisa asks.

  “You,” Kendrick says.

  “Okay, then.” She takes a deep breath. “It was like this.”

  I do my job as best as I can, but the combination of the hangover, the look of sadness on Kendrick’s face as his wife speaks, and the knowledge that I most likely know the person responsible is driving me crazy. The pen scratches too loudly against the paper. Lisa and Kendrick were able to secure a mortgage on their two-bedroom apartment just three months ago. The fact that it was next to a laundromat annoyed them, since it woke the baby, but Kendrick is a builder and Lisa is a hairdresser, so they couldn’t afford anywhere else. They had just finished decorating it when a knock came at the door. They answered it and found a note telling them to get out. They ignored it. There was another knock and this time a bullet was in its place. Off to the east, they heard a gunshot into the air. They fled the house, calling the police out of fear, but by the time the police came it was too late. The damage was done.

  Lisa shakes her head slowly. “What kind of a person would do that?” she asks. “We are private people. We don’t go around causing trouble or making enemies. I can’t think of anybody who would do such a thing.”

  “It was the laundromat,” Kendrick says quietly. “I am convinced of that. They wanted to burn down the laundromat and we just happened to be there.”

  “But why burn down a laundromat?” Lisa demands.

  Kendrick’s shoulders sag. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”

  I lick my lips. They’re so dry. My head feels like it’s going to implode. I want to cry but then that would lead to awkward questions. Outside, I am ice. Inside, I am the fire which tore through their home, decimating me.

  “And how does this make you feel?” I ask.

  “How does it make us feel?” Lisa snaps, thumping the table. “How do you think it makes us feel? We have a baby. That was our home. How would you feel?”

  I say goodbye to them and then join Peter in his office, feeling stunned, numb, and guilty all at once. The worst part about this medley of feelings is that I still don’t hate Diesel. I can’t stop thinking about what he told me about his dad. I can’t stop thinking about the pain in his eyes. The memory of his cock aches between my legs.

  “Did you get everything you need?” Peter watches me closely.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ll write it up now.”

  “My offer’s still open,” he says, as I leave his office.

  I finish the write-up a couple of hours after lunchtime, and then I come to my decision. I want Diesel. I love being with him; I love being close to him and the feel of him. But I have to let him go. I can’t go on being with a man who’s going to cause this much pain. Even if he isn’t physically hurting anybody, I can’t let myself fall for a man like this. I have to make a change. It’s daylight now. I can’t pretend, not like last night.

  I ask Brittany to join me in the hallway. She peers at me over her chunky red glasses, sighs, and then gets up to follow me.

  “Is something wrong?” she says, using one fingernail to pick at the red paint of another. We stand around the corner from the elevator, near the storage cupboard where people rarely come. She gestures at its door. “I hope you’re not coming onto me, Willa.”

  “I need to ask you something,” I say. My heart is thumping loudly in my ears. My belly aches. For the umpteenth time, I wonder how much Diesel and I drank last night.

  “Okay, what?” She folds her arms. I wonder if she’s always been this short with me.

  I just come out with it. “I need a place to stay. I’ve been living with a man since my building burned down, and the insurance company is still messing me around. Next month, they say … but until then, Brittany, I really, really need a place to stay. I can’t stay where I am. I just can’t. It’s too complicated. I won’t be with you for very long.”

  “You just said a month.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “A month. Doesn’t that seem like a long time to you?”

  “I won’t stay with you the whole month.” I hate the note of pleading in my voice. “Just until I figure out something else.”

  “And what if you don’t?” She smiles awkwardly, flashing whitened teeth. “Then what happens? I like my apartment, Willa. I like being able to relax there. You know?”

  “I know. I get that.”

  “I don’t have two beds in my apartment. I have one bed and one office, and a couch. But I use the couch for sitting on. I don’t sleep on the couch.”

  “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m twelve!” I snap.

  She takes a step back. “That was completely uncalled for,” she says, head held high. “I was simply explaining.”

  “And I was simply asking. I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends! Friends! This isn’t TV, Willa. Grow up. How many times do I have to tell you? We’re work friends.”

  I feel like raking my fingernails down her face. I need somewhere to stay. I can’t be with Diesel anymore. Not because I don’t want to, but because I want to too much. I’m afraid we’ll end up screwing every night for the next month if I stay with him, and then what does that say about me?

  “Fine,” I mutter, pushing past her. “You’ve made yourself clear.”

  “Don’t be upset with me!” she calls. “Don’t be like that!”

  Peter starts when I push open his office door. He stands up, and then when he sees it’s me he drops back into his seat. “Willa,” he says.

  “Do you have a spare room?” I ask. My voice sounds frantic. I need to calm down. But I know if I don’t sort this out now, I never will. I’ll stay with Diesel. Even if that would feel incredible, it would also mean I’m admitting I’m an arsonist’s woman, and I can’t be that. I drop into the seat opposite Peter.

  “A spare room … oh, yes. I have a spare room.” He rests his elbows on the desk. “Why, have you given my proposal some consideration?”

  “Yes,” I say, “but I want to lay out some ground rules. We’re just friends, right?”

  He lifts his hands, trying his best to look innocent. “Of course,” he says. “Just friends.”

  I wish I had money. I wish I had parents or family. I wish I had close friends. But since I have none of those things, I’ll have to go with the next best thing.

  “Then yeah, I think I want to take you up on your offer.”

  He nods, smiling. “That’s fantastic news!”

  I find it difficult to return the smile. All I can think of is Diesel, and his scars, and all the horrible stuff that happened to him as a kid. But that’s not my responsibility, I tell myself. It’s not my job to fix him.

  I force myself to think of Lisa and Kendrick instead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Diesel

  I don’t listen to Grimace or the guys, even Johnny who usually pisses me the hell off. Grimace tells me how proud of me he is and Johnny basically begs me to take him with me, but all I think about is last night. I was drunker than I’ve been in years, but I remember most of it. I remember telling W
illa about what happened to me as a kid. I don’t know why I picked the switch story. But then, there are hundreds of them, so one is as good as another. Most of all I remember the shower, the way she felt, the way she moaned, the way she exploded for me twice. I relive that moment countless times as I play cards with the guys. I lose one hundred dollars but I don’t give a damn.

  I head back to the apartment at around seven o’clock after making some routine deliveries. I’m smiling all the way, even if I’m hungover and my bike’s engine is tearing my head in half. I finally found someone I can be open with, I reflect. Even if I was drunk, it still happened. And she listened. And she didn’t run. Maybe there is a chance that I can be halfway normal. Maybe me and Willa will have a kid one day … maybe we’ll even get married. I chuckle. I’m getting ahead of myself. I can’t help it, though. I haven’t smiled this much since in—well, maybe this is the first time I’ve smiled like this.

  As I climb from the bike, I think about the kind of evening Willa and I will have now. Maybe we’ll order in some pizza, pig out and watch TV and agree that we’re both too hungover for sex. And then later we’ll fall into bed together, unable to stop ourselves. That’s the sort of thing that makes a man glad he isn’t surrounded by bars anymore. For the first time since getting out of the slammer, I feel like I’ve got a normal life ready for me.

  I’m smiling like such a fool when I walk into the apartment, I know Willa will laugh at me. She isn’t in the living room. She’s in my bedroom, messing round. Maybe she’s getting changed. I’m smiling as I walk across the room. I’m smiling as I take off my jacket. I’m smiling as I open the bedroom door.

  The smile dies when I see her shoving her clothes into a cardboard box.

  “The fuck is this?” I whisper.

  She has her back to me. She doesn’t respond. She just keeps pushing clothes into the box. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this before. Maybe once, when I was very young and still thought that one day Dad might stop beating me. When I realized he wouldn’t—when I realized he really had rejected me—this was how I felt. Like I was outside a warm house with my nose pressed against the cold glass. Outcast. Alone. Rejected.

  “Willa?” My voice gets louder. I can’t stop it. “What’re you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” She speaks quietly, still not turning to face me.

  “It looks like you’re gonna run out on me without so much as a fuckin’ explanation. That’s what it looks like.”

  “Don’t get angry,” she says. “This isn’t the time for an argument. Let’s be civil about this.”

  “Civil? Civil?” I throw myself into the living room, rage coursing through my body. Once I’ve smashed the TV screen and broken most of the cupboards, tearing one completely off the wall, I march back to the bedroom, vision red. “I never said I was civil!” I feel like an animal when I see her backed into the corner, clutching the cardboard box like a shield. “Why do you think I went in there?” I nod at the living room. “I’m not going to hurt you, Willa. Jesus fuckin’ Christ. What do you take me for?”

  “An arsonist!” she breaks out. “That’s what I’ve always taken you for! You can’t expect that to change just because we fucked!”

  “Just because we …” I bite down to stop myself from roaring. I take a deep breath, and then say, “This is damn cruel, Willa.”

  “Cruel!” She spins around, tossing a T-shirt to the floor. “Are you really going to use that word, Diesel? Are you seriously going to use that word? Cruel, cruel … and what? It isn’t cruel to make an innocent, struggling family homeless? It isn’t cruel to risk their lives? It isn’t cruel to go around setting fire to shit without thinking about anybody but yourself!”

  She walks closer to me with each step, until she’s standing a few feet away, lips trembling, hands shaking. She looks like she wants to hit me. She raises her eyebrow and I realize she’s actually waiting for an answer.

  “Of course that’s cruel,” I mutter. “I’m not denying that.”

  “So what, then? What did you think was going to happen? How did you think this was going to end?”

  I lick my lips. My mouth is suddenly dry, my tongue stuck to the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know,” I mutter.

  “Don’t tell me it’s cruel, then.” She marches back to her bag. “I’m leaving because it’s the only choice I have. I can’t stay here and …” She shakes her head. “No, I can’t stay here.”

  “But you want to.” I walk into the room, closing the bedroom door behind me. My anger is fading now. Her words hit home. I think about the wrecked kitchen with embarrassment. “I know you want to stay with me. You can’t say what we shared last night—” The words “what we shared” are so far from something I’d usually say that I stop for a moment. I’m getting feelings for this woman. That’s the truth. That’s what I should tell her. And yet when I open my mouth again, I sound far less emotional than I feel. “You can’t say last night was a mistake.” My voice is cold, and I wish I was like other men who can act like a woman and think nothing of it.

  “We were both drunk,” she says. “Isn’t that normally when mistakes happen?”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me it was a mistake,” I say, walking around the bed and standing over her, staring down at her.

  She turns her brown-flecked blue eyes up to me, her lower lip quivering. I think she might be going to cry but then she thumps me in the chest, in the belly, slaps me across the face. I step back, shocked. “I don’t have to say anything to you,” she says. “This whole situation is wrong, twisted. It makes no sense. None of this has any real connection to how things should be. It’s all upside down.”

  “Upside down,” I repeat, smiling despite myself. “From what I know, Willa, our lives ain’t exactly been easy swimming right-side up, so what’s wrong with a little upside down?”

  “You can’t do that.” She takes a step back so that she’s a few feet away from me, at the head of the bed. “You can’t smile and say that and think that everything’s just going to work itself out. That’s not how this works. I’m leaving.” She zips up her bag. “Now get out of my way, please.”

  I want to tell her I care about her. I want to tell her how much she’s changed me. I want to tell her that meeting her that day is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But the words won’t come out. I just stare at her dumbly, wishing I could let out something inside of me. I wish I was drunk, or at least tipsy. There wouldn’t be this block inside of me then.

  I look her up and down. She’s wearing denim shorts and a tank top, her legs perfect, her calf muscles tensed and defined, her thighs making me want to kiss up them toward her pussy. My cock gets hard. I can’t help it. Emotion has failed me, but this never has. I want her. I need her.

  I take a step forward.

  “Get away from me,” she whispers, eyes flitting to my groin. I see the familiar quick movement of her chest, rising up and falling down as her heartbeats gets faster. I see her fists clench and then release, her fingers fidgeting. Lust rises in the air. I can smell it. Nothing makes sense except for this. We want each other. We need each other. That’s certain, even if everything else is confused.

  I take another step forward.

  “I mean it, Diesel,” she says. “Don’t come another step closer.”

  I take another step closer, so that I’m looming over her. She cranes her neck back, looking up at me, lips parted, tongue between her teeth, breathing heavily. “I’m leaving,” she says.

  I reach down and grab her wrist, guiding it to the front of my jeans, pressing her hand down on my rock-hard cock. Her eyes go wide; she’s biting down hard on her tongue now. I move her wrist so that she’s stroking my cock. I can see she likes it by the way her eyes flit around, her pupils getting that big horny look, her body vibrating as though a chord has been struck somewhere inside of her. I make her rub me faster and faster. Her hand feels so fucking good. And she looks so sexy as I jigg
le her around, her braless tits bouncing in her tank top. She doesn’t want me to pounce on her but she’s going to dress like this, goddamn.

  Quickly, she snaps her hand away, pressing herself into the wall, biting her lower lip. Releasing her lip, she says, “You’re a fucking animal. You’re a fucking beast.”

  Maybe she wants to sound disgusted, or scared, as she says this. But really she just sounds as if she likes it, as if she wants more.

  “Yeah.” I growl as I press her into the wall, pushing my groin into her belly. “I’m a fucking beast. How does that make you feel, Willa?”

  My balls ache as I slide my hand down her leg. She’s hot to the touch.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Diesel

  I grip her thigh near her pussy, grab and pull the flesh while staring into her eyes, watching the anticipation build in her face. Despite what she says, she wants it. She wants it badly. She closes her thighs around my wrist, trapping it between her legs, and her hand keeps twitching as though she wants to touch me but is trying to stop herself. I slide my hand up another inch, pressing my fingers against her pussy. Even through denim, her cunt feels fucking incredible. Warm, even a little wet through the shorts.