Cause for Alarm

by Erica Spindler

  Even now, after all these years of playacting, she experienced a moment of alarm. A tiny explosion of panic in the pit of her stomach.

  He bent closer and pressed his lips to her temple. "I brought you something."

  "You did?"

  "Mmm-hmm."

  Feigning childish excitement, she scooted up in the bed. "What is it?"

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. "Were you a good girl while I was gone?"

  She nodded, the past and the present blending, creating a weird sensation of fear and excitement, discomfort and pleasure deep in her gut.

  "Are you my good little girl now?"

  She nodded again, beginning to tremble.

  "I can't stay away, Julianna." He stroked her hair. "I've tried but I can't, not anymore. You're mine. You always have been. Always will be. Do you understand?"

  "What…do you mean?"

  "You'll understand. Soon." A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "You will, I promise."

  He carefully drew the covers away, murmuring his satisfaction. "Pretty," he whispered, rubbing the fuzzy fabric between his fingers. "So pretty and sweet."

  "John?" she said, working to sound young and frightened.

  "It's all right, love. Show John how much you love him." He applied gentle pressure, forcing her back to the mattress. "Show him what a good girl you can be."

  So, she did. She lay absolutely still, the way he liked it, as he ran his hands over her, gently at first, then with more urgency.

  He didn't undress himself; he wouldn't penetrate her, she knew. He rarely did. Instead, he concentrated on gentling and pleasuring her, first with his hands, then his mouth.

  Only when she had climaxed, arching up, crying out as with stunned uncertainty, then falling back to the bed and whimpering meekly like a kitten, did he press himself against her. He was sweating and short of breath, as if he had just finished a ten-mile run. He quivered with the force of his own unfulfilled needs, with excitement.

  "My sweet, sweet Julianna. What would I do without you?"

  She turned her face to his and kissed him, thinking of their baby, allowing herself a moment's fantasy about how John would take her news. "I love you, John." She smiled and kissed him again. "I love you."

  "Show me how much, love." He caught her hand and brought it to his erection. "Show me."

  Julianna did. She rubbed and stroked and massaged him, curling her hand around his penis, pumping him to orgasm.

  Julianna jumped as a burst of raucous laughter came from the apartment next door. She blinked, momentarily disoriented, then realized she had to go to the bathroom. Had to go so badly she wondered if she was going to be able to make it.

  She dragged herself out of bed and padded to the john, the wooden floor cold and gritty beneath her bare feet. The mirror above the vanity was cloudy with age, a crack ran diagonally through its center, warping her reflection by causing the two sides of her face to not quite fit together.

  She stared at her misshapen image, breath catching, hardly recognizing herself. She turned to the side, bringing her hands to her swollen belly. Pathetic, she thought, recalling what the other waitresses had said earlier that day. Rejected. Without options.

  "You're not going to make it. You or your little bastard."

  It hurt to look at herself, and Julianna turned away from her reflection. Why was she doing this? Why was she here, alone and pregnant? She didn't want to be a mother, did she? She didn't want to be one of those hollow-eyed women who came into Buster's, the ones who were always chasing after their children and wiping their running noses, the ones who always looked so tired. That's not why she had gotten pregnant.

  Yet that's what lay before her.

  She brought a hand to her mouth, realizing the truth. She should have done as John demanded, gotten rid of the baby. Even her mother had wondered if Julianna was certain she was making the right decision. Being on her own, keeping a step ahead of John, would be difficult enough without an infant to care for. She had offered to accompany her daughter to a clinic where the problem would be taken care of.

  But Julianna had still been starry-eyed about the pregnancy. About being a grown-up. About her future.

  With a moan, Julianna sank to the floor. She rested her cheek against the vanity's doors, the faux wood cracked and peeling. She didn't have any starry-eyed notions anymore. She saw the future-and it frightened her. Almost as much as the past.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, tumbling back once more, back to that last night she and John had spent together…

  They had lain facing each other on the bed, talking quietly. John had asked her about how she had spent the weeks he had been away. She had filled him in, barely able to catch her breath, going into great detail about the watercolor class she was taking and about her jazzercize group-when all she could think of, all she wanted to discuss, was her pregnancy.

  John listened attentively, so attentively it was almost as if he knew she was keeping something from him. And while she spoke, he studied her with an intensity that was unsettling. He knew her so well. As no one else did or ever would.

  Just tell him. Blurt it out-about how she had stopped taking her pills and about her missed period, her visit to the doctor, the urine test. Her excitement.

  Not yet, she thought, a thread of panic snaking through her. Not yet.

  "How was your trip?" she asked instead.

  "Successful."

  "Where did you go?"

  He simply looked at her. He had a rule: she wasn't to ask him about his business, not ever. Julianna knew he worked for the state department, CIA, or somebody like that, and that what he did was classified. But that was all.

  And for a long time, that had been enough. She hadn't cared what he did. But lately, she had been curious. Frustrated and annoyed by his secrecy. By feeling shut out of his life. Bored with her own.

  So, even though she knew he would be displeased if he discovered what she was up to, she had started to snoop. The first time, he had just returned home from a trip and was in the shower. Heart thundering, she had rifled through his travel bag and jacket pockets.

  She hadn't found anything suspicious that time, but in the many since she had unearthed several items that hadn't added up. In a coat pocket she had found a letter, its open envelope addressed to someone other than John, at an address other than his. The letter itself had consisted of a single line of gibberish. In the front pocket of his travel bag, she'd found an airplane ticket stub to Colombia, a place he professed never to have been, the passenger name on the stub a Mr. Wendell White.

  Success had made her bolder.

  When John was out of town and her nights seemed to stretch endlessly before her, she had gone to his place and searched it. Each drawer and every closet, every piece of furniture for a secret hiding place, baseboards and floorboards, behind framed photographs and the few pieces of art he had hanging on the walls. She had even checked the contents of his freezer. There she'd finally hit pay dirt. Wrapped in white butcher paper, between two packages of frozen meat, she had found a small, spiral-bound, black leather book. Inside had been columns of dates followed by notations in some sort of code.

  It was then that she'd figured out why John never spoke of his work; why he never mentioned an associate; why he flew all over the world, yet never left a number where he could be reached.

  A spy. John was a spy.

  Frightened, she had quickly returned the notebook to its hiding place.

  "I have to leave again in the morning."

  She propped herself on an elbow. "But you just got back!"

  "Some unfinished business. Sorry."

  "How long this time?"

  "I don't know. A week or two. Maybe a month. Depends on how the assignment unfolds."

  "At least tell me where you're going."

  "I can't. You know that."

  She did. But it didn't make it any easier. Pouting, she turned her back to him.

  "Don't be like that," he chide
d. "You're too good for that kind of behavior."

  She glared over her shoulder at him. "But I'm so bored when you're gone! There's nothing to do! And I'm lonely."

  "Maybe this will help."

  He had dropped his jacket beside the bed, and now he reached over the side for it. From one of the pockets he drew out a small, navy blue velvet box. He handed it to her.

  "For me?" she asked, pleased.

  "Who else?" He smiled. "Go ahead, open it."

  She sat up and took the box eagerly from his hands, lifted the lid and gasped. Inside, sparkling against the blue velvet, was a pair of diamond stud earrings. She stared at them, stunned. They were huge-at least a carat each. She lifted her gaze to his. "John, they're beautiful."

  "Not as beautiful as my special girl," he murmured, taking the box from her. "Here, let me put them on you."

  She tucked her hair behind her ears, and he slipped the posts through her holes, then fastened on the backs. As soon as he dropped his hands, she bounded out of bed and to the bathroom. She flipped on the light and raced to the mirror. They were beautiful. Stunning. They sparkled like icy fire against her earlobes.

  John followed her to the bathroom, coming to stand directly behind her. "They don't do you justice," he said. "They're not special enough. They don't have your warmth, your fire."

  "Oh, John!" She whirled around and hugged him. "They're gorgeous! I love them!" She hugged him again. "Thank you. Thank you!"

  "Silly." He laughed and smoothed her hair away from her face. "Don't you know you deserve them?"

  "You spoil me."

  "You were born to be spoiled." A smile tugged at his mouth. "To be mine to spoil." He kissed her. "I think I'll draw us a bath. Would you like that?"

  She rubbed herself against him. "Sounds delicious."

  He turned and began filling the big, old claw-footed tub. John loved to bathe her, the way he had when she was a child. He loved to wash her hair and body, to wrap her in a big fluffy towel, then pat and powder her and blow her hair dry.

  The bath started off like the hundreds that had come before. He soaped a washcloth and began moving it over her body, murmuring softly to her. Suddenly he stopped, a frown creasing his brow. "You're gaining weight," he said after a moment, his tone one of reproach as he ran his soapy hands over her waist and belly.

  Julianna stiffened. John loved her rail thin and girlish.

  What would he say when she told him she wouldn't be thin like that again for six more months?

  "It's all right," he murmured, taking her silence for distress. "I'll work up a diet and exercise program for you to follow. Find you a personal trainer. You'll have those extra pounds off in no time."

  He dipped the washcloth into the water and ran it over her back and shoulders. From there, he reached around her and ran the cloth over her breasts, softly rubbing.

  Again, he stopped. She glanced over her shoulder at him. "John," she whispered, "there's something I have to tell you."

  He met her eyes, then lowered his gaze to her chest. He smoothed the bubbles away, then cupped her breasts, as if weighing them.

  She felt herself flush. He knew. He could see and feel the changes in her body.

  Her words tumbled out in a nervous rush. She told him how she had stopped taking her pills, how she had missed a period, then gone to see the doctor. "I'm pregnant!" she finished excitedly. "We're going to have a baby. We're going to be a family."

  He stared at her, his expression strangely blank, a muscle beginning to twitch in his jaw.

  One moment became several. "John?" she whispered, a flicker of fear springing to life inside her. This was not going as she had planned it, as she had fantasized it.

  He needed time to adjust, she told herself. Time to get used to the idea of being a daddy. That was all.

  "And you want this?" he asked. "You planned it?"

  "Yes." She looked pleadingly up at him. "I hope you're not angry, but I wanted us to be a…a real couple.

  I love you so much and I…I wanted to be like other women."

  "Like other women," he repeated. "You don't even know what that means."

  "I do. At least I think I do." She lifted her gaze pleadingly to his. "Let me try, John. Please."

  "It's not going to happen, Julianna. This baby's not going to happen." He dropped the washcloth. "So, forget about it."

  His words affected her like a blow. She reached up and caught his hand. "Why not? You say you love me…you don't have to marry me, that's not what I mean. I just want…I want-"

  "What?" He shook off her hand. "To be fat and stretched out and tired all the time? To be a doormat instead of a princess?"

  "No!" Tears flooded her eyes. "It doesn't have to be that way. It wasn't that way with my mother."

  "Your mother's a whore. Is that what you want?"

  Julianna stared at him in shock. How could he say that about her mother? They were friends. They had once been lovers.

  "I won't share you with anyone, Julianna. Not another man. Not a career or a best friend. Not even a child. Do you understand?"

  "But that's not fair!" Even as the exclamation passed her lips, she acknowledged that she sounded like a child, one who was petulant at not getting her way.

  "No?" He laughed, the sound as cold and hard as ice. "Whoever said life was fair?"

  "I want this, John."

  "I'm sorry to hear that, but you'll get over it. Now, get out of the tub. Bath's over. When you're dressed, we'll discuss what you're going to do about this problem."

  "What I'm going to do!" she cried. "You mean what you're going to tell me to do."

  "That's right." He started toward the bathroom door. "I'll be in the kitchen."

  "Why are you being this way?" She stood and grabbed for the towel, shaking with anger and indignation. It was so unfair! She was nearly twenty years old. Not a child, not a baby. "You treat me like I'm an infant! A two-yearold. I'm sick of it! I don't want to be a baby anymore. I don't want to be your little girl."

  John swung to face her. He narrowed his eyes. "I recommend you stop this, Julianna. Now. Before it's too late."

  She jerked her chin up, ignoring his warning though something in his tone and expression chilled her to her core. She held out her arms. "Look at me, John. Why can't you see me as a woman? The way you see other women? For once, why can't…you…why…"

  Her words died on her lips as John's face transformed from the loving one she recognized into a mask of cold fury. The face of a man without warmth or humanity. One she didn't recognize. One that frightened her. He started toward her and she shrank back, feeling small and vulnerable suddenly, feeling every bit the little girl she no longer wanted to be. "John," she whispered, "please…don't be angry with me. I just…I-"

  He shot his hand out, catching her by the throat, knocking her back against the wall behind the tub. Her head knocked against the tile, and she saw stars.

  "So, you want to be like other women, is that it?"

  His hand at her throat constricted her windpipe and she clawed at it, making gurgling sounds of terror as she struggled to breathe.

  "I spoil and pamper you. I treat you like a princess. But that's not what you want."

  She had never seen him like this, had never seen anyone like this. He didn't raise his voice, and yet its very evenness terrified her. Where was the John she knew and loved? The lover who was gentle, patient and tender?

  He leaned toward her, the expression in his light eyes glacial. "You want to be like other women? Like your mother, the whore?"

  He hauled her out of the tub and forced her onto the floor. "Come on then, I'll treat you like other women."

  "No, John, I'm sorry. Please-" She tried to scramble to her knees; he knocked her back to the tile, falling onto her, knocking the breath from her lungs.

  "I'll treat you like other women," he said again, unzipping his fly. "I treated you like you were special, but you didn't like that. It wasn't good enough." He forced her legs apart with his.
"So be like everyone else, Julianna."

  He rammed himself into her.

  Julianna screamed.

  He thrust into her again, then again. Pain tore through her. It felt as if he were trying to punch a hole into her uterus with his penis and hammer to death the baby she carried.

  He pulled out, but the nightmare wasn't over. He flopped her onto her stomach and dragged her to her knees. Then he thrust into her from behind, holding onto her by her hips as she tried to crawl away, his fingers digging mercilessly into her flesh.

  "You like this, Julianna? Doing it doggie style? My sweet girl? My princess?" He laughed, the sound colder, crueler than any she had ever heard. "Grunt like an animal for me. Be a rutting whore for me, it's so much better than being my special one."

  He grabbed her tender breasts, squeezing and pinching them. "Do it, Julianna. Grunt for me. Squeal like a sow-whore you want to be."

  Sobbing, she did, forcing the sounds past her lips, demeaned and ashamed, horrified. She wanted to shrivel up into a tiny ball, one so small that no one could see her. She wanted to die.

  He climaxed, arching against her, his hands on her breasts tightening, the noises slipping past his lips feral, those of a beast who had dominated its foe.

  He released her, and she collapsed to the floor. Her abdomen cramped, a gut-knotting pain, like a jagged blade ripping her delicate innards to shreds. Gasping, she curled into a fetal position, clutching her middle, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  "Now you're like other women." She heard the rasp of a zipper and the click of a belt being fastened. "Now you're like your mother. Happy?"

  Her stomach clenched, then rose to her throat. She tried to hold her vomit back, but couldn't and turned her head to the side and puked.

  He made a sound of disgust, then tossed her a towel. "You'll get rid of the baby tomorrow. Do you understand?"

  She nodded.

  "Until now, I've trusted you completely. Has that been a mistake?"

  She whimpered and shook her head.

  "Good. You'll never defy or disobey me again. Or you will be punished. Severely. Do you understand?"

  She nodded. This time that wasn't good enough, and he asked her again. "Do you understand?"