Dark Passions

by Jeff Gelb

  She was walking down the hall toward the bedroom when she caught herself and stopped. What was she going to do? Scream, demand they stop immediately? Order George to move out? Tell them both how disappointed she was? Tell Tessa she’d be finding a new manicurist?

  Instead she ended up gawking.

  The bedroom door had been left open, and as Emmie approached she could see a couple on the bed, their figures outlined by the flickering glow from the bedroom television set. Now she could make out a second layer of sound, more moaning voices and a cheap musical accompaniment. It took her a few seconds to place it.

  It was that sleazy porn flick George always tried to get her to watch. Apparently he’d found someone else to share his interest.

  Except they weren’t watching the movie. The woman, who Emmie could see now was definitely Tessa the manicurist (she could tell by the teased blond hair spread across her pillow), was naked and spread-legged on the bed, her eyes closed, head thrown back in ecstasy. George was sprawled near the end of the bed, his head bobbing up and down as his tongue worked on Tessa’s crotch.

  He never did that with me, Emmie thought.

  Then she ran, all thoughts of confrontation having vanished. She slammed the front door on the way out, hoping they’d heard it, wiping tears from her eyes as she stumbled to the car. She gunned the engine too strongly and then peeled rubber as she shot down the street, heading for the interstate and ...

  . . . she didn’t know.

  A quarter hour later she found herself in a lowlife bar.

  She’d picked it completely at random. Or maybe she’d liked the name—the Last Resort. That felt right, tonight.

  Normally it wasn’t the kind of place she’d ever go into, but it’d been open and there’d only been a chopper and two pickup trucks in the dirt lot (it was a Tuesday night, after all), and there’d been an empty table near the rear. She’d ordered a beer (or three), taken a chair facing the wall, and cried into the solace of a cocktail napkin.

  “That bastard,” she’d muttered, uncaring of what anyone thought about the sobbing woman alone in the back muttering obscenities to herself. “That lousy, stinking sonuvabitch.”

  She’d supported him for the last six months, and she thought they’d been a good six months. He was so handsome, with his easy grin and wavy brown hair, that at first she couldn’t believe he cared about her. Their life together had been for the most part easy, and he seemed to like the sex, even if Emmie secretly thought it was a bit dull and found his interest in porn embarrassing. Sure, she didn’t like all of his friends, and he had a tendency to drink too much, but she’d believed him when he’d sworn (with that gorgeous grin) that there’d be no other girls for him.

  Jesus, what an idiot she’d been.

  And now ... they hadn’t even tried to hide it, hadn’t even had the decency to go to a motel. And right when George had known Emmie would be coming home from work—had he wanted her to find them? Or had they just been so lost in their sexy hijinks that they’d lost track of time?

  And what would she do now?

  She couldn’t picture herself facing him. She was still burning in shame from the customer at the store who’d called her a bitch when she’d told him they were out of his favorite cigarettes. She hadn’t even been able to respond; she’d just fled to a restroom, locked herself in a stall, and cried for ten minutes.

  She hated herself.

  “Don’t hate yourself, honey, it’s that dickwad’s fault.”

  Emmie looked up, surprised to find a woman now sitting at the other side of the table. Emmie was already on her third beer, a little drunk, and so it took her a few seconds to wonder: How did she know I was thinking that?

  “Caught him with another chick, huh?” the woman asked.

  Emmie nodded, then wiped her eyes again and looked at the woman more carefully. She wasn’t attractive—in her thirties, with bad skin, worse teeth, and dirty blond hair—but there was something about her, something familiar, as if she was a movie star that Emmie had seen once in something, or ...

  Then Emmie gave up on trying to place her and asked, “How’d you know?”

  The woman grinned and waved a hand about the room. “Please, you’re a young girl sitting by yourself in a biker bar and crying. You don’t have any bruises, so I know it’s not that he beat on you; so what’s that leave?”

  There was a strange sympathy in the woman’s tone, and Emmie relaxed, even smiled herself. “Yeah, I guess so. He was ... well, he was in bed with the woman who gives me my manicures.”

  The woman threw back her head and roared. “Hey, that’s good—he was nailing your nail expert!”

  Emmie chuckled, bitterly, then thrust out a hand. “I’m Emmie.”

  The woman took it, and Emmie was shocked at the strength in her fingers. “Lori.”

  Her grip was also cold, and Emmie pulled her hand away before it froze. “I don’t know what to do now,” she confessed miserably.

  “This hasn’t happened to you before?”

  “Nope,” Emmie said, shaking her head. “Although I suppose I should’ve seen it coming.”

  “Yeah, you fuckin’ should’ve.” Lori leaned in closer and held Emmie’s gaze with her own, which jittered slightly and left Emmie less comfortable. “There’s only one question to ask yourself at this point: do you want to stay with this guy?”

  Emmie thought for a moment and finally answered honestly, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, that you gotta fuckin’ decide for yourself. But if you want to keep him”—here she lowered her voice and cocked an eyebrow at Emmie—“I can tell you how to get what you want.”

  Emmie dried her eyes and listened, intrigued. “You can?”

  “Oh, hell yes, honey, it’s easy: you gotta take control. You know—in bed.”

  Emmie’s jaw dropped a half-inch. Then she looked away, her face hot. “Girls don’t do that—”

  “Fuck they don’t!” the woman exclaimed loudly, causing Emmie to look around nervously. No one else in the bar seemed to have noticed. “Your boyfriend—”

  “George,” Emmie obliged.

  “Right, George,” Lori continued, “he’s got a dick, right? Then I guarantee you he wants you to lead him around with it. It’s up to you, honey. Take the lead—or spend the rest of your life crying in bathroom stalls.”

  Emmie shook her head, tilted it back for another swallow of beer—and when she looked again, Lori was gone. She turned and scanned the bar, but there was no sign of her.

  And how the fuck did she know about the crying-in-bathroom-stalls thing?

  For a few days, Emmie wanted nothing to do with George.

  She avoided him around the house, and he acted as if nothing was wrong; apparently he and the nail-filer really hadn’t heard the front door slam as Emmie had stalked out.

  But even while she was hating George and his smiling, happy deceit, Lori’s words kept rolling around in her head.

  Take control ... in bed....

  Emmie would look at him working out in the mornings, with his muscled body lightly covered in muskyscented sweat, or the way his white teeth glistened as he played videogames, or the endearingly silly way he bounced his head to that one Eminem song he listened to over and over, and she realized that she really didn’t want to lose him. At least not right away.

  Take control ... in bed....

  It was twelve-thirty the night George staggered into the bedroom, pleasantly drunk ... and found Emmie waiting for him in bra and panties.

  She hoped he was drunk enough that he wouldn’t notice how nervous she really was.

  He didn’t notice. Instead, he actually stopped in the bedroom doorway and gaped, an expression which made Emmie both more anxious and happy. She tried writhing slightly against the sheets, tilting one hip up, and a slow smile started to spread across George’s fine face.

  “Well, girl ... what’s this?”

  He looked good lounging there in the doorway, and Emmie began to think maybe she
really could do this. She motioned him forward, crooking one finger. “Get into this bed now.”

  He had his shirt and pants off in record time.

  He tried right away to lower himself onto her—like usual—but she put a hand against his chest and pushed him back. “Uh-uh,” she purred, “not like that.”

  He stared at her for a moment, and Emmie nearly let out a scream as she saw that he was plainly waiting—waiting to be told what to do.

  She suddenly realized she had no idea what to tell him. “Lick my feet” popped into her head.

  To her astonishment, he obliged all too happily. His tongue on her tender soles brought delicious tickles of pleasure that drew out slowly as he began to work his way up her body, pausing behind her knees, at her belly, and along her neck.

  Finally he was kissing her, just as his fingers found their way under her panties, and he groaned when he felt her wetness. “Oh, baby ... whatever this is that got into you, I like it.”

  “Shut up and eat me,” she ordered. If it was good enough for Tessa, it was good enough for her.

  And it was good. Very good. His tongue and fingers worked the places between her legs until she was bucking like a jackhammer and making Tessa sound quiet by comparison. The first orgasm shook like none had in years. The second came when she finally allowed him inside her, and even though he was on top of her it wasn’t like it had always been in the past: it was sweaty and hard and had them both screaming. The third came later that night, when she’d demanded he stay awake and hard long enough to fuck her again, slower and quieter this time.

  Sometime toward dawn, as they finally exhausted themselves and were drifting toward sleep, Emmie thought she owed her friend Lori a beer. Hell, maybe a whole keg.

  “C’mon, honey, don’t be a fool. They all fuck around, all the time,” she says, her strange, twitching eyes jumping from Emmie’s to the house and back again. “The only question is what you’re gonna do about it.”

  The sex with George was equally great for the next three nights. They tried things Emmie had imagined when she was horny and by herself but that she’d never thought she’d actually have the nerve to attempt for real. She rode atop George. They nearly tore the house apart with a sixty-nine. He even let her tie him up one night, and he finally had to tell her to stop because he couldn’t come again.

  On the fourth night, George was out of town helping a buddy who was a stock-car racer, and Emmie went back to the Last Resort, looking for her new friend, Lori. She sat at the same table, in the same chair, ordered the same beer ... and waited.

  She waited for an hour. For two. She finally realized Lori wasn’t coming, and it’d probably been stupid of her to assume she’d be there. But Lori had looked so at home in this bar, as if she’d always been there.

  Emmie finally asked the bartender if he remembered seeing her and the woman from last week. She mentioned she’d been crying. The bartender, a huge ex-biker named Big Joe, with tattooed arms the size of Emmie’s waist, scratched at his grizzled beard and said he recalled seeing her, but he’d have sworn she’d been alone all night.

  She finally left, slightly disappointed, and got into her beat-up old Honda. She was just starting up the engine when she heard, “Hey, girl.”

  She jumped and jerked to the right, where she saw Lori sitting in the passenger seat. “Where did you—?!”

  Lori cut her off. “You tried that thing, didn’t you?”

  Emmie sank back, tingling at the memory of George’s mouth and fingers and cock. “Yeah. That’s why I came here tonight—to say thank-you.”

  “Uh-uh,” Lori corrected, “that’s not why you came here. You came to ask me what you should do next.”

  “No, I ... I know what to do now,” Emmie replied, confused.

  “That’s what you think. Start the car.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re going for a little drive.”

  Emmie nearly told the woman to get out of her car right then and there, but she remembered the strength in Lori’s fingers (and the cold) and realized the other woman could easily overpower her. Emmie’s stomach churned as she turned the keys. “Okay. Where to?”

  “Easy: home. Your home.”

  Oh God. Is she going to do something to me right in my own home? Even if she doesn’t, she’ll know where I live—

  Lori interrupted her thoughts with: “Georgie-boy’s fucking a waitress in your bed right now.”

  Emmie put the car in gear without a second thought.

  Ten minutes later she found out Lori was right. They stood outside Emmie’s bedroom window, and this time they could hear both George and a woman whose voice Emmie didn’t know.

  Emmie felt her throat fill with bile. “He told me he was going out of town! He lied to me! Motherfucker!”

  “Nah, Emmie,” Lori corrected, “right now he’s a waitress fucker.”

  “I can’t fucking believe it!” Emmie hissed, her hands balling into fists.

  “Believe it, honey, because it’s happening. And it’s going to keep happening, because that’s just how Georgie is.”

  “But ... ,” Emmie said and was ashamed at the hot tears spreading over her cheeks, “I thought we were back on track. We were doin’ great—”

  “C’mon, honey, don’t be a fool. They all fuck around, all the time,” Lori said, her strange, twitching eyes jumping from Emmie’s to the house and back again. “The only question is what you’re gonna do about it.”

  “I don’t know,” Emmie said, pacing a few steps, feeling her nails chip as she ground them against her own palms. She suddenly turned back to Lori furiously. “You were the one who told me to take control—”

  “Yeah, but you couldn’t keep it. There’s only way to do that, Emmie: kill that fuckin’ bastard.”

  Emmie felt both a chill of revulsion and great, obscene glee sweep through her. “What?!”

  “Wait until the girl leaves, then take that old pistol of his in there and blow him away.”

  Emmie stared at the woman in disbelief, and for the first time she realized:

  She’s crazy.

  “I’m not going to do that—”

  “C’mon, he needs to fuckin’ pay for this.”

  Emmie backed away, scared. “Yeah, but ...”

  Lori stepped closer to her, and Emmie suddenly realized she’d backed up against the house and there was nowhere else to go. Lori reached out, and her arms went around Emmie ...

  . . . and Emmie felt something like fire, and like ice, slide into her. It entered through the spine, and Emmie stiffened as it curled up through her guts, her head, and finally settled into her heart.

  The next thing she knew, she had George’s gun in her hand, and it felt so good there, so right, and she burned as she walked down the hallway toward the bedroom, and George was alone (When did the waitress leave? She couldn’t remember.), and the gun went off (more than once), and for a moment Emmie was deafened.

  George was dead.

  He’d taken at least three bullets at close range, and his blood had spattered everything in the room, including Emmie. Emmie lowered the gun and stared, feeling something wild rising in her, something primal. She let it come ...

  . . . and then she felt cold hands on her shoulders, and there was a voice in her ear, whispering:

  “It’s good, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, absorbing the smells of the gun and the blood, and then the chill fingers were around her and gripping her breasts, kneading them, and Emmie was almost instantly perched on the edge of orgasm. One hand slid down to her crotch, under the hem of her jeans and panties, and Emmie gasped as something icy slithered into her, pumping at her, and then Emmie screamed as the orgasm took her, but this one went beyond simple sex into something Emmie couldn’t name, something so deeply at her root that it felt like she’d just fucked God.

  And when the last wave of pleasure passed, the voice behind her murmured again: “So you listen to me now ...”

  She did.
<
br />   It was hard work, cleaning up after the murder.

  Fortunately it was late, and none of the neighbors gave any sign that they’d heard the shots. Lori said getting rid of the body was first, so Emmie used the bloodsoaked sheet to drag George’s heavy body down the hallway and out to his truck. She drove the truck two miles to a heavily wooded area, then tried her best to settle him in the driver’s side. She used a towel to wipe the truck clean of her fingerprints.

  By the time she’d walked back home, the first hints of dawn were in the sky, but she still had a few more hours of work in front of her, wiping down the walls and the floor, putting the rest of the bedding in a big black plastic trashbag that she’d dispose of later.

  She’d have to buy new sheets.

  And through it all, she felt only that needle of icefire that now inhabited her heart and a grim satisfaction at knowing that George got what he deserved.

  “They’ll get easier every time, from now on,” Lori says with a grin that reveals her stained and crooked teeth.

  They did get easier, and Emmie got good at it.

  The first one (after George, that is) was a truck driver she met in the parking lot of the Last Resort. He cornered Emmie against his truck, and in the past a moment like this—with his arm over her, virtually pinning her into place—would have terrified her.

  But tonight George’s pistol was in her purse.

  They crawled into the little space behind the truck cab, where the driver had a bed, complete with photos of spread beavers tacked to the walls. Emmie tore his shirt buttons off with her teeth, and he cackled with glee. The thought of what she was about to do already had her nearly dripping, and the driver couldn’t believe his luck as she tore off first her jeans, then his. He was already hard, and although he was disappointingly small, she lowered herself onto him eagerly. His hands reached up and held onto her breasts as if they were handles while she rode him, groaning. They both came quickly, in minutes.