Fear Itself

by Duffy Prendergast

  Her words told me that everything was going to be okay. That she would take care of me, like

  Teresa had taken care of Albert.

  With Amber’s words still sliding around in my brain I slipped away into a dizzying sleep, the warmth of Amber’s body my only blanket. When I woke in the morning from a dreamless sleep Amber was gone and I wondered at first if she had been the dream; and had she not left her dainty pink panties on the pillow next to mine I might have doubted that such a perfect night could have happened outside of a hallucination.

  * * *

  Melanie was a stripper. She lived like a homemaker but she made her money the old fashioned way, or as close to the old fashioned way as one can without being a prostitute. The beauty of it was that she wasn’t the least bit ashamed of what she did. And why should she have been? She was putting to use the tools god had seen fit to give her, much like Amber had done when she left home at a young age and she too took off her clothes for a living. I’m not saying that I would have wanted Sarah to have grown up to be a stripper just because she had the body for it, but you have to admire a survivor.

  Besides being a stripper, Melanie, as it turned out, was also a fantastic cook. After sleeping for so many hours I woke up ravished and Melanie, despite having worked until two- thirty in the morning the night before, made me the most incredible breakfast I had ever eaten. She made a mushroom and cheese omelet that caused me to audible grunt my appreciation, with bacon and hashed-brown potatoes mixed with a delicious concoction of spices and homemade rye bread slathered with butter. And for breakfast-dessert we had sizzling strawberry crepes. Sarah, who normally didn’t like breakfast at all, feasted as though she were at a pastry shop.

  And Melanie, dressed in a set of pink cotton flannel pajamas, made the atmosphere so homey. Melanie even let Sarah help prepare my breakfast, something Catherine never had the patience to do. And she made Sarah, who had grown a little self-conscious about her boyish short Auburn haircut, feel every bit the girl both helping in the kitchen and afterwards making her pretty little face up with lipstick and rouge and eyeliner so that she looked as though she were a Beautiful teenage girl instead of the seven year old boy that I had manufactured. Given the dreams I had had of late I wasn’t thrilled about the look but it made

  Sarah happy and I certainly didn’t want to insult our hostess.

  “Hello lover!” I turned around from building a fire in the fireplace just in time to see Sarah bat her eyelashes at me while Melanie stood admiring her work from the hallway threshold.

  “Lover?” Melanie laughed the word.

  I smiled back at Melanie, a little embarrassed, “It’s a private joke…or at least it used to be.” I laughed, “We like to watch old movies together, and she got it from a one of the movies. Anytime she wants to get me to smile, she says ‘hello lover’ and raises her eyebrows and it tickles the hell out of me.”

  “Speaking of lover,” Melanie flopped into the room wearing a pair of big pink fuzzy slippers that matched her pajamas, “I have a business proposal for you, if you’re interested.” She tumbled onto the loveseat at the edge of the fireplace. “Sarah honey, why don’t you go put our makeup things away and clean up while I talk to your daddy.”

  Sarah hesitated, frowning slightly, unsure of whether she liked being told what to do by her newfound friend, and then she skipped out of the room cheerfully.

  “What did you have in mind?” I tossed the last log on top of the growing fire.

  “Well…Amber says that your looking for work, and while it’s not a fulltime gig…you would really be helping me out and you could make a few dollars.”

  “Doing what…exactly?” “Being my security.”

  “Your security? What do you need security for?”

  “Amber told you what I do for a living, right?”

  “She said you have this tendency to shed your clothing at night…professional werewolf?”

  “Exactly!” she smiled, “Now you know why I need security. On weekends, usually on nights when there is a full moon,” she rose from her seat and she began to animate her hands, “I go to bachelor parties and other such events and I take off my clothes,” she covered her mouth feigning embarrassment, “and I…grow hair all over my body…” she covered her chest and her crotch with her hands, “and you know, I just feel so defenseless, being a she-wolf an-all! And I need a big strong man,” she squeezed my bicep through my shirt, “to come along with me to collect the money…and all of the silver bullets,” she fired two imaginary six-guns and blew the smoke from the barrels, “from all those bad boys who want to eat me up!” she said this while unbuttoning the top buttons of her pajama-top and revealing a titillating portion of her cleavage. “So what do you say big guy? Wanna help protect a little ole she-wolf?” she asked as she sat down close to me and looked up at me.

  I must admit I felt a bit flush from her sexy little routine. She was very good; very provocative, even in flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers.

  “I don’t know that I would make a very good body guard. I’m not really much of a fighter. I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be of much use to you.”

  “Amber already told me you’re a lover…does that mean you’re not a fighter?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, come on; a big strong guy like you?” She pouted her lips, “You probably wouldn’t have to do much of anything. You’d be there more for show than anything. I’ve never had a problem that required a fight.”

  I felt the guilt of accepting her generosity without having any real value to offer in return. Reluctantly I opened the door to the possibility, “What would I have to do?”

  “You’d be my protection, lover.” She raised her eyebrows, as Sarah had done, as she stood and took my face into her hands, “Oh my god, your blushing…you shy thing.” She smiled a genuine smile, “After all those dirty things you said to Amber I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so shy.” I could see that she was taking great pleasure in my embarrassment.

  “She told you huh?”

  “I must confess, not only did she tell me…but she was at my house once…and she let me listen in on one of your conversations.

  And you do have a sexy voice!” she slapped the back of my hand, “and a dirty mind.”

  “What would I have to do exactly?” “Well,” she pulled a small antique looking wooden chair with a plush blue cushion up across from me and sat down across from me, “you’d have to carry a little gun… just in case,” I rolled my eyes, “but I’ve never been to a party where anyone has had to use it…ever!” Her eyes opened wide, “And you’d just have to make sure nobody gets out of hand…no touching unless I let them… and since I won’t have any clothes on…you would have to hold the money.”

  “It doesn’t sound too bad.” I could hear the apprehension in my own voice. I had gone from respected investment banker to pimp in a single leap. “How far the mighty have fallen.”

  I said dejectedly.

  “You get ten percent of the profits. I usually make a couple thousand a night, Friday and Saturday nights when I’m booked solid.” She was trying to figure out the math in her head.

  “Two hundred dollars or so a night?” “Yeah.”

  “What happened to your last body guard?”

  “He’s in jail.”

  “What for?” I said, not a little alarmed. “Nothing to do with me.” She laughed,

  “He sold drugs on the side. He did security for me because he was able to move a lot of coke at the parties. But he got busted and he’s going to be gone for at least five years. Anyway, it had nothing to do with my security.”

  “What about Sarah? Who would watch her?”

  “I’ll get her a sitter.” “I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s cool…” her expression went from happy back to pleading, “only I need to know soon because I have three parties booked for tonight.” She whined.

  “Can I have ten minutes?”

  “Sure…ten minu
tes…oh yeah…and there is a perk that goes with the job.” She waited until I raised my eyebrows expectantly, “You get to drive my Monte Carlo…and…you get to see me naked.” She gave me a seductive look before breaking into a giggle.

  “But you’ll be all hairy!”

  “Just a little patch right her.” She said matter-of-factly as she lowered her pajama bottoms just enough to show me a postage- stamp sized swath of pubic hair at the top of her mound. I felt my face blush bright red once again. I was no a prude but I was easily embarrassed.

  * * *

  As I drove Melanie to the first of three bachelor parties I fidgeted nervously moving my hand about the steering wheel and changing the radio station. My new job made me nervous. When I was a boy it was my father who gave me my first job. He didn’t so much give it to me as force it upon me. He was an electrician and I was made to accompany him on his weekend side-jobs to do the odd things such as retrieve tools and to pull the plastic covered wire through the holes he had drilled. I hated that job, mostly because he forced me to do it and because I had to spend time with him (he was an abusive unrepentant alcoholic and he never let pass an opportunity to remind me of how worthless I was). At that moment I wished I were back with my father pulling wire.

  The only real physical encounter I had ever been involved in, play-fighting aside, had been my fight with Tony Artino and I had never actually landed a single blow. I had never fired a pistol, or any other sort of firearm for that matter, in my life. Melanie sat in the back seat of her Monte Carlo applying last minute touches to her makeup. She chattered on incoherently about a blue dress that she saw in a storefront window and about clothes and about Amber, but I was too nervous and distracted to pay attention so I just nodded and sounded off the occasional “hmmm” to feign interest. It was getting dark outside, which made me a little uncomfortable, but I knew that Melanie would be at my side the whole time so I knew that my phobia would not be an issue. If she only knew that she had chosen someone who was afraid of the dark to be her body guard I don’t think she would have been so chatty!

  Amber, of all people, had agreed to watch Sarah so that I could play security guard. “And no touching.” She playfully warned me (referring to Melanie) before she kissed me passionately and patted my behind, sending me off with my loaded pistol to guard her Beautiful friend. She had given her detective the slip again, this time by paying a valet to drive her car to the opposite side of the mall and wait for her as she passed from one entrance to another on the opposite side. The detective was left to chase her on foot for twenty yards or so before realizing the futility of his efforts. She was a clever girl, but how long could she keep it up?

  We arrived at the job, a large hotel in downtown Wichita. A valet parked our car and we took an elevator up to the room. I held a small portable stereo in one hand and a satchel of costume attire in the other. When we arrived at the room I knocked and asked to speak to Jeremy, the organizer of the event. Jeremy was a tall neatly dressed twenty-something with a trimmed black beard and a bony face. He handed me a wad of money which I counted out to be six hundred dollars and then I looked at him with a firm smile.

  “Rules.” I said. “Rules?”

  “No touching unless she initiates it.” “Okay.”

  “If she says stop, then they remove their hands.”

  “Okay.”

  “If anyone gets rowdy you calm them down or we leave; no refund.”

  “Okay.”

  “I will stay in the room at all times.” “Okay.”

  Jeremy walked us into the suite to a host of youthful whistles and cheers. The room was crowded with well dressed young men holding cans of beer and glasses filled with mixed drinks. I ushered Melanie into the bedroom and folded my arms and guarded the door from outside.

  “Would you like a drink man?” A fair-haired gangly pock-faced boy in blue-jeans and a white dress shirt held out a can of beer.

  “No.” I said stoically, trying to portray a tough façade despite the fact that I could have very well used a tall scotch on ice to calm my nerves. I felt absolutely ridiculous, like the third cog on a motorcycle or a chaperone at a prom. As I saw it those boys were frothing at the mouth fantasizing about what they wanted to do to little Melanie and I was the unqualified guardian of her precious body. I stood stone- faced until Melanie came out of the room. She was dressed in a tight black leather bodice, black fish-net stockings and black stiletto heals. I plugged the boom box into a receptacle near the front door and I watched as Melanie slowly stripped to Joe Cocker’s rendition of “You can leave your hat ”; I watched as the young men shifted in their seats and awkwardly covered their laps in vein attempts to hide their arousal. Melanie stripped the groom down to his underwear and planted him on an armless chair in the middle of the room and gave him a lap- dance. Afterwards Melanie gave a few more lap dances at twenty dollars apiece and then she went back into the bedroom and changed into her street clothes and we left.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” “No, I suppose not.”

  “So how did you like it?” “You have a Beautiful body.”

  She smiled at me as she soaked in the expected compliment.

  Sitting in the front passenger seat now, she reached over and hugged me, “Thanks, she smiled up at me and I couldn’t help but smile back at her. I could tell that she was looking for a father figure. She was seeking approval. What a strange sensation; a Beautiful naked young girl showing off her fertility and sexuality and seeking approval from her father figure. I was completely confused. I was torn between wanting to sleep with her and wanting to protect her. Given my dreams of late the last thing I needed was Melanie blurring the lines between paternity and intimacy.

  The second party was at a house in an upscale neighborhood. It started much the same as the first with me guarding a bedroom door while Melanie changed into a white maid costume with a top that thrust her bosoms awkwardly forward. She wore bright red lipstick and a little nurse hat. She danced and stripped and she ground her pelvis against the bulging briefs of the young groom-to-be until a crowd gathered round her and obscured my view of her. The young men were jeering and hooting and screaming but through the noise of the party I heard Melanie’s muffled cry from within the circle and then I felt a thud to the back of my head and apparently I blacked out.

  When I came too I was in the passenger seat reclining while holding a bloodied towel over my nose.

  “You did great in there.”

  “I’m sorry; what happened to me?” I lifted the towel and looked confusedly at the blood drenched garment that was in fact the white v-neck t-shirt that Melanie had worn into the house. I felt a hard throb about my nose and I pressed the t-shirt back to my face. I looked outside the window as large Beautiful houses with fancy landscapes passed my line of sight.

  “You don’t have to apologize.” She sounded to me a little dejected.

  “What happened? Are you alright?” my voice seemed to me to be nasally as though I had a cold, “It sounded like you were trying to yell for help. That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “I was yelling for help.” “What did they do to you?”

  “One of those fuckers stuck his fingers up me. The nervy little bastard, and the others were groping me and one of them put his hand over my mouth.” She pounded the steering wheel in anger with her little palm and then she drew a long sigh, “I’ll be okay.”

  “I should have stopped them from crowding around you like they did.”

  “How’s your nose?” she reached out to touch it but I pulled away.

  “Someone must have knocked me out before I could get to you.”

  “Yeah right! You were great! Lonny would never have done what you did!”

  “What did I do?” I was completely in the dark.

  “You kicked some ass, that’s what you did. Those bastards are sorry they ever messed with you.” She laughed as if she were reliving the moment.

  “What do you mean ‘I kicked some ass’?” />
  “I mean you beat the crap out of three of those guys, but when you shot the gun through the ceiling those little rich boys shit themselves and scattered.”

  I reached down and felt for the little twenty-two caliber pistol. It was still in my pants pocket. “I don’t remember that. You’re just saying that so that I won’t feel bad.” I scoured my brain for the slightest flicker of a memory; the least recollection. “I don’t remember a thing. The last thing I remember was hearing you call for help, and then someone must have hit me on the head.”

  “You were an animal.” “I was, huh?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled as she slowed the car for a red light.

  “You’re not just trying to make me feel better?”

  She reached over and kissed me on the cheek then looked into my eyes reassuringly, “You were wonderful.”

  “What about the police? Won’t they be calling the police if I shot a gun in their house?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think they want anyone to know that they tried to rape me.”

  * * *

  Sarah and I stayed with Melanie through the Thanksgiving holiday, enjoying a wonderful feast and a crackling fire. Amber came by for a little while too, although I was beginning to feel like the kept man, always waiting for her to steal time away from her family to get to see her. I could see that our part-time arrangement was going to put a strain on our relationship. I didn’t like the idea of sharing a woman with her husband. I’ll admit that he had her first, but I was beginning to feel lonely. Melanie had made a few overtures, but as enjoyable as sleeping with her might have been, it wasn’t sex that I desired; it was love and comfort and affection. I missed what Catherine and I had shared. In Amber’s defense she had not invited me. I had begged her for help, and in my position as a fugitive from justice I was powerless. I was at her mercy. I knew that she had three children who she loved. I knew that if she left them for me that justice would follow her to me. It was all so unfair. I hadn’t killed my wife but I was destined to live the life of a refugee, constantly at the mercy of others.