by David Risen
His hands found the home row on his keyboard. In the search field, he typed, “Carcer Surname.”
Google responded by correcting his spelling and returned results for the Carver Surname.
Nick clicked on the back tile, and in the new search field, he typed, “Carcer.”
The first result on the page was a Wikipedia listing that told him that the term referred to an ancient Roman Prison officially known as Tullianum.
The second result was a web page describing where the Carcer was in ancient Rome, and that it was Rome’s only state prison. It was where the Romans took high-profile war captives and housed them as they awaited execution.
Another result was a Wiktionary page that defined the noun as a prison, a jailbird, and barriers at the start of a horse race, or commencement or beginning.
Nick sat back in his black, leather office chair and gazed at the square computer screen as he considered what to do next.
Then he leaned forward, clicked the back button, and typed, “Nick Carcer.”
The first link the search engine brought up was the Web Page for his magazine The Georgia Crawler.
Several articles afterwards dealt with his most recent article.
The fifth link down offered to take him to his own Facebook page.
The sixth, seventh, and eighth links were security companies offering to do background checks.
Nothing about his time as a linebacker for UGA.
No other members of the Carcer family mentioned.
Nick had a bad feeling.
“Daddy,” Aurora screamed.
Nick jumped to his feet. He was doing a little homework on his new article in his home office, and he found the topic so riveting that he dozed off in his office chair.
It was highly unusual for Aurora to scream as she had.
He trotted out of his study, down the cream-colored hallway, and into her bedroom. Aurora sat up in her bed and reached out to him like a toddler wanting to be held.
“What’s wrong?” he barked.
She cried.
Nick closed the distance and held her in his massive arms. After a moment, she drew back and studied his face.
“I dreamed you were driving a truck like your Navigator only it was white. I was little and sitting in a booster seat. A tractor trailer smashed into the side of us, and one of my arms wouldn’t work and I couldn’t breathe.”
Nick rocked her. “It’s okay honey. It was just a dream.”
He peered back over her shoulder at the window – a sinking feeling dragged all the organs in his chest toward his abdomen.
Now he worried that all the claims that Sister Amiss made may have some validity.
He rocked Aurora back to sleep, and then he gently sat her back in bed.
He slipped out of her room and closed the door, and then he pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and cycled through his contacts.
He found the contact labeled, “Deena (work),” and started to touch it but his thumb stopped and hovered five millimeters over the screen.
He touched the circle icon at the lower middle of the phone and then touched the google chrome icon. At the google search bar, he typed, “Conrad International Manufacturing, Brunswick, Georgia.”
The search engine returned an address and a number for the main office. Nick touched the phone icon and dialed the number.
The youngish voice of a female receptionist answered after the fourth ring.
“Conrad International. How may I direct your call?”
Nick frowned.
He realized now that his hands and knees were shaking as if he’d consumed too many cups of coffee, and he didn’t understand why.
“Could you connect me with Dena Carcer?”
He heard a keyboard clacking in the background.
“Hm,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I don’t have a person by that name in the company.”
A pang of terror surged through his chest. “Is there another location in Savannah or somewhere nearby?”
“No, our nearest other location is in Mississippi.”
Nick bit his lip.
“Thanks.”
As Nick cleaned the dishes from the maple dining table, he saw the white glow of Dena’s headlights turn into the driveway. He stepped through the French doors leading out into the foyer. He stopped by the staircase, propped his left hand on the walnut bannister, and pointed his eyes at the door.
In a moment, the door opened and Dena stepped inside. She stopped as soon as she saw him and gaped as if she knew something bad was coming.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
Nick stared at her a moment longer and then shook his head. “How was work?”
She turned and hung her purse on the coatrack by the door. “Several interviews. New hire paperwork. OSHA log. A couple of corrective actions. A termination.”
She faced him, and her shoulders slumped.
“Okay, spill the beans. What did I do?”
He shook his head.
She gave him a wry grin. “You’ve got your pout face on. I’m too tired to play guess why I’m pissed.”
Nick shook his head again. “It’s not about you. I’m just not looking forward to Monday.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“It’s Saturday night. Chill out.”
Nick sighed.
She gave him her most seductive smile.
“Where’s Aurora?”
“She’s asleep.”
Her smile broadened. “Wanna fool around?”
Nick kicks the stained door to his bedroom of burgundy walls shut, presses Dena’s back against the wall, and kisses her hard. Her dark bangs tickle his forehead as he holds the embrace.
He pulls back from her and stares into her feral eyes. In the dim light of their bedroom, her irises look almost yellow. He grasps both sides of her ruffled, white blouse, and rips it open like a curtain revealing perfect, tan skin and a lacy, black bra.
Nick clutches her right breast and squeezes hard enough for it to hurt a little. Dena closes her eyes, reclines her head against the wall, and bites her lower lip.
Nick slips the clasp holding the cups of her bra together, and pulls her bra and her blouse off. He backs away and looks her over – awestricken as he always upon seeing his perfect wife nude from the waist up – wearing only the black, pleated skirt.
Her breasts are perfectly proportioned with silver-dollar-sized areolas that are almost brown, cupped slightly at the nipples like that one might find on a baby bottle.
This is not real, says an alien voice in his head.
He frowns.
No stretch marks. Perfect body.
He recognizes the voice now. It is the same voice as the strange missionary he met in his driveway.
Sister Amiss.
“What’s wrong?” Dena says.
Nick forces a smile. “I just can’t get over how perfect you are.”
She gives him a come-hither smile and pulls him toward her – kissing him hard.
Nick kneels slightly and closes his lips around her right nipple, and then he gently rakes his teeth across it as he pulls away from her.
He reaches around behind her and unzips her skirt. It falls in a heap at her feet.
Perfect tan.
No moles.
No scars.
No birth marks.
Wrong.
She looks like an airbrushed model.
Nick pulls her to him. Her nipples press against his ribcage. The scent of the apricot bodywash she always uses waft through his nostrils.
I’ll bet she’ll be up for any weird thing your mind can conceive.
Nick frowns. You’re emasculating me, he thinks.
I just want you to see what’s really in front of you.
Dena touches his face. Her hand is smooth and soft against his five o’clock shadow.
And what’s really in front of me?
He rests his hand on her belly just over he
r navel. Then he caresses her skin down to the black lace waist of her panties. He tucks his fingers beneath the waistband, brushes the palm of his hand over the coarseness of her pubic hair, and then he pushes his middle and ring fingers inside her.
The tips of his fingers find the raised bulb on the front wall. She shudders. Nick strokes it hard. Wetness pours out of her and fills the palm of his hand.
She’s very responsive, isn’t she?
Is it wrong for a wife to be very attracted to her husband?
He kisses her hard.
You’ve never physically been with this woman. You aren’t with her now. She is an initiate member of the Sisters of Divinity – a very old secret society of witches that have hidden in churches and charitable organizations masquerading as philanthropists, religious leaders, politicians, and nuns. She is not allowed to have sexual relations.
Nick draws back from her and searches her face.
A look of concern darkens Dena’s mien. “What are you thinking about?”
Nick smiles and cups her breast with the dry hand. Then he wraps his arms around her waist and hugs her gently.
“I just can’t believe that such a beautiful woman would have anything to do with me.”
She gives him a shrewd look. “I can’t believe I landed such a great man.”
This is making me sick.
Then mind your own fucking business.
Nick pins Dena’s hands against the wall and kisses her hard and slowly.
Of course, you realize that this is all in your mind. It’s half-enchantment, and half dream.
Get out of my head, Lady!
Nick picks Dena up and sits her on the cool, wooden surface of their dresser. Dena leans back against the wall, propping her heels on the edge of the surface, exposing all of her.
He smiles like a pirate and edges up close to her pressing his torso between her legs.
He slips his fingers back inside her.
Dena tilts her head back and bit her lower lip.
He thrusts his hand in and out applying pressure to the G-spot as if gently massaging a sore muscle.
She moans.
Warm liquid spilled out of her and onto the palm of his hand again.
Don’t you think that’s just a little too easy?
Nick smirks.
You’re welcomed to come over and let me give you a personal demonstration.
For heaven’s sake, if you weren’t dripping with pride, you’d be able to see the obvious.
Nick shakes his head. She’s my wife. I’ve had years of practice.
You’ve known her for less than three months, and she’s not even in the room with you right now.
He leans in closely and nibbles at her right earlobe – working his way down her neck with a flurry of soft kisses.
This is a dream. You’re totally in control of it. You can make her do whatever you want just by thinking it.
Nick unbuttons and unzips his jeans and works his way out of his boxers.
Bullshit! Dreams don’t feel this real.
They do if they’re induced by hocus-pocus.
Dena pulls away from him and considers his eyes.
“You seem...distracted.”
Nick gives her his softest smile. “Just trying to melt into the music.”
Try it! Back away and will her to do something ridiculous, or perhaps you’re afraid to know the truth?
Try what?
I’m certain you can think of a million things a woman would never do in this situation.
Fine!
Nick stands up and takes a step back away from Dena.
She flashes a look of concern, but then she climbs down off the surface of the dresser, gives him a thumbs-up with her left hand, reaches around her back with her erect thumb, and plants it in her rectum with her face contorting – left eye closes, nose crinkled, mouth slightly open.
Gross, the uninvited guest in his head thinks.
Nick’s eyes popped open. The crisscrossing, white beams of his bedroom ceiling soared over his head bathed in shadow.
He sat up, throwing the burgundy comforter that covered the king-size bed off his bare chest and looked across the room at his dresser.
His clothes lay in a wadded heap on the rich hardwood just before the dresser and approximately in the spot where he thought he was standing only moments ago.
He folded the comforter back and stood – his white boxers damp with pleasure goo and sticking to the insides of his thighs and his pubic hair.
And now it made sense.
This was the state of affairs he awoke to every night he and Dena had relations since moving to Darien, Georgia.
“What the fuck?” he asked the empty room.
He eyed the bed and found Dena’s side empty. In fact, he couldn’t recall having ever awakened with Dena in the bed beside him since the move.
He stripped off his soiled boxers and pulled the khakis lying at the foot of his dresser on.
Then he found his way downstairs.
Just as he reached the bottom of the staircase, he heard the door that led to the garage thump shut.
He stopped and listened hard.
Somewhere in the house, the central cooling unit kicked on and hummed. A second later, cold air whispered from the vents mounted at the tops of the walls.
From the vicinity of the garage, he heard the muffled thud of a car door followed by the mechanical whine of the garage door.
The engine of Dena’s Jaguar whinnied to life.
Nick padded over to the front door and peeked out one of the narrow, curtained windows to the left of the door just in time to see the electric red taillights pulling away into the darkness as the navy luxury car taxied down the long driveway headed for highway 99.
Where the hell is she going?
Try the Catholic Church.
In less than half an hour, Nick dressed, dropped Aurora off at the emergency babysitter’s house, and found his way back to highway 99.
The rainwater on the road swished beneath the tires of his black Lincoln Navigator as he passed beneath the thick canopy of trees on both sides of the road with heavy branches laden with Spanish moss causing all of them to look like weeping willows.
The sleepy and dying city of Darien, Georgia was the archetype of what most of the country would consider a town in the Deep South.
The city’s population was less than 1,500 souls. It was built upon acres and acres of marshland. Muggy summers and air so thick and moist that it was difficult to breathe embattled the inhabitants.
Mosquitoes the size of humming birds, yellow flies that swarmed around anyone foolish enough to step outside during the heat of the day, Mountain lions hoping for an easy meal, and alligators all inhabited the area.
The town itself was distinctly Old South.
Revolutionary War era buildings hid quietly amid 1960s and 70s built shopping centers and garages – a few of these buildings still covered in streaks of black char left over from General Sherman’s march through the South.
He thoughtlessly glanced out the driver’s side window as he passed a large sign announcing Fort King George – the reason the city of Darien was established.
James Oglethorpe himself settled the city – among his other greatest hits included Savannah and Colonial Georgia.
Considering the historical wealth of the town, Nick didn’t understand why the city wasn’t larger based on that fact.
In a few moments, McIntosh Middle School blew by on the left. Built in the late 1950s, it was one of those oversized, boxy buildings supported by round metal pillars.
A thousand feet later, he arrived.
The Catholic Church in Darien was a small, wooden building typical of the eighteenth century. It wasn’t difficult to imagine it doubling as a schoolhouse.
Nick casually circled the building and spotted Dena’s rain splattered Jag sitting under a tall tree on the gravel parking lot amid several other vehicles.
He passed the church and pulled
his Navigator into a dark, convenience store parking lot before the double-lane bridge over the marsh that led to Brunswick.
He stopped the Navigator, cut the engine, and buried his face in his hands.
He slid his hands down his bristly cheeks, elongating his face, and then he pointed his hazel eyes at the rearview and stared at himself.
His passenger door clicked open and the woman he knew as Sister Amiss climbed in and sat in his passenger seat.
Nick’s mouth fell open. She didn’t even look at him. She gaped out the windshield with a blank expression.
“What’re you doing, Nick?”
He shook his head tightly. “So the voice in my head...that was all real?”
She neither confirmed nor denied.
“Coming out here was reckless and dangerous. You don’t know how deep this rabbit hole goes.”
“What’s Dena up to?”
She glanced at him. “She’s a member of a secret society. I think her job is mostly to keep you out of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
She sighed and looked at him.
“Let’s go find out, shall we?”
Nick’s eyes bulged. “You mean, just walk right in?”
She shrugged. “Unless you have a better idea.”
He squinted. “I thought you said they were dangerous.”
She looked forward again.
“Only if they know we’re here.”
Nick’s eyebrows spiked. “That building is tiny. How will they not see us?”
She nodded toward his rearview mirror.
“Have a look at yourself.”
Nick looked up at the mirror, but he could not see himself. He only saw the brown leather of his headrest.
He adjusted the mirror so that it pointed directly at him.
Nothing but empty leather seats.
“I’m dreaming.”
She shook her head. “You can see me, and I can see you, but no one can see either of us. If we’re quiet, they’ll be none the wiser.”
“Who the hell are you, and how are you doing that?”
She gave him a Mona Lisa smile. “I don’t know.”
He smirked. “You don’t know who you are, or you don’t know how you’re doing this?”
She looked down at her lap. “Both.”
