He loved Irene instead.
Chapter 19
“She can have a new attorney if she wants,” Irene said as she stirred the browning meat in the wok, Abut she’d be a fool. Now that I got her a change of venue, we’ve got it made. In LA, she had no chance at all. It’s too hot an issue in LA. But here? We’ll win here.”
Joseph sliced a mushroom and put it on the growing pile of prepared vegetables. Every time he heard Irene talk about winning Cynthia’s case, he tried not to think about the “vested interest” comment Owen Crowell had made. Irene spoke with such confidence about winning. What would Irene win if Cynthia went to prison for murder?
What would Irene win if Cynthia went to prison for a murder that Irene committed?
He picked up his wine and drank, then selected another mushroom, cut off the stem and sliced it. He loved these knives. He could cut a mushroom so thin the slices were transparent.
Above the cutting board was a magnetic strip that ran all the way to the corner of Irene’s kitchen. Dozens of knives hung there, all of the same Swedish make, all with three rivets, all with black handles, all spotlessly clean and honed to perfection. He had never used such professional quality knives in his life.
“Meat’s done,” she announced, turned off the wok, then hoisted herself up to sit comfortably on the counter top, next to the sink. She plucked a long, thin boning knife from the magnetic knife holder and stabbed a round carrot slice from the cutting board and put it in her mouth.
“I’m worried about her,” Joseph said, watching Irene chew the carrot, then wash it down with that exquisite white wine. He kept working on the mushrooms.
“I’ll order a psychiatric exam,” Irene said. “Not a bad idea.”
“Are you considering an insanity defense?” Joseph scooted the pile of chopped vegetables to the side of the cutting board. Irene stabbed and ate another carrot.
“Not really. It’d never fly. And if it did, she’d be committed.”
Joseph went to work on stick of celery with a vengeance. He didn’t like the thoughts he was having. If Cynthia were in prison, or in a psychiatric hospital, he wouldn’t have to deal with her. He could have Irene. That shutting away of their problem was too convenient, too attractive. He was ashamed of himself for having those thoughts.
Vested interest thoughts.
He shook his head, then wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He was a grownup. He could take responsibility for his actions. His actions were not without consequences, and he was completely able to deal with this situation. With his choices.
With his heart.
With his life.
With his wife.
With his wife’s sister.
Jesus Christ.
Irene turned the heat back on under the wok. “Ready for the veggies,” she said, and splashed in a healthy amount of oyster sauce, and followed it with half the contents of her wine glass.
“Almost...” He pushed the stack of newly sliced celery to the side just as she stabbed at a carrot round with the point of her knife. The knife point dove cleanly into the meaty part of his hand, between thumb and forefinger.
“Ow! Damn!” He grabbed his hand, blood oozing out from between his fingers and dripping onto the cutting board.
“Oh, my God!” Irene handed him a dish towel. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, oh Joseph, I’m so sorry.” She helped him wrap the towel around his hand.
Joseph let her. It stung a bit, but it didn’t really hurt. He watched her face as the blood seeped through the towel. It wasn’t a deep cut; it wasn’t serious.
“I’ll take you to the hospital. Think you need stitches?”
He took his hand back from her, and pressed his thumb down hard over the cut. She watched him, then she looked up. Their eyes met and held.
Slowly, he unwrapped the towel, holding her gaze with his eyes. He watched her pupils dilate. She wanted to look at the cut. She wanted to see the blood. She wanted it so badly he could see her pulse flutter under the delicate skin at her temple.
He dared her to break eye contact. The towel fell to the floor.
Her small, soft hands took his injured one, and she brought it up to her mouth. She kissed the cut. Then with effort, she broke the magnetic eye contact and looked down at it. It was a tiny little wound, but there was something so damned genuine about her actions that Joseph could barely breathe. She was like a child in her tenderness; yet she was like a wild animal in her heat.
He parted her knees and moved between her legs as she sat on the counter top, her skirt riding up those exquisite thighs.
As she sucked on his injured hand, he slid his palm up the inside of one of those thighs, resting his fingers quietly on the crotch of her moist panties.
She sucked on his wound.
He pulled his hand away from her mouth, pulled her head up by her hair, kissed her, chewed gently on her lower lip, then moved out of the way while he pulled her panties off. Her hands, busy at his belt, opened his pants and he let them drop to the floor. She wrapped her legs around his waist, knocking the cutting board off the counter, scattering dinner all over the floor, and they clung together in heated confusion, gladly substituting the sanity of passion for the insanity of their reality.
Chapter 20
Cynthia didn’t really want to see Joseph, but she couldn’t refuse the break in the prison monotony. She let herself be escorted placidly to the visitation room, where he was sitting in the first cubicle this time, maybe because it was cleaner, maybe because if she flipped out, they wouldn’t have to carry her far to get her out through the double security doors. Maybe he wouldn’t be embarrassed as long.
She sat down across from him, but the hurt in her gut gave a squeeze, and she didn’t want to talk to him. He picked up the black phone on his side of the glass and waited.
She let him wait.
He gestured for her to pick up the phone, and she saw it.
A bandage.
Her stomach lurched, her jaw dropped, tears sprang to her eyes in an emotional spasm. With desperate control, she slowly reached for the telephone and brought it up to her ear, never taking her eyes from his face. “She cut you, didn’t she?” she asked, and watched him, watched him closely for his reaction.
There it was. Guilt. Sure as shit.
“No,” he looked at the bandage on his hand. “No, I cut myself. In the kitchen.”
“On the back of your hand.” Did he think she was stupid? She looked at him and looked at him, but his eyes were downcast in shame. Again.
“It was an accident,” he finally admitted, and looked up at her, but the guilt hurt him, too, and she had a hard time seeing his pain while drowning in her own.
She hung the phone up, stood, and walked back to her cell, gently, silently, knowing for certain this time that there would be no end to the breaking of her heart.
Not in this lifetime.
Chapter 21
Joseph tugged on the two wide, silver-studded, black leather wrist straps that encircled his powerful wrists. They were clipped together and shackled to a sturdy eye bolt screwed into the wall at the head of Irene’s bed. He lay on his stomach, a strap around each ankle tethering his legs, one to each corner. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and it wasn’t exactly frightening, but it wasn’t exactly erotic, either. He tried to remember giving her permission to tie him down like that.
“Want to try something new?” She had breathed it so softly, so hesitantly into his ear that he couldn’t help but nod. “Something exciting?”
“Sure,” he said, his hands full of her, his mind filled with her, his soul overflowing with her.
“Trust me?” she asked, and he couldn’t imagine trusting her more or trusting her less, both at the same time.
She was wonderful, she was dangerous.
She was family, she was alien.
She was soft and fluid, she was hard as nails.
Did he trust her?
Absolutely.
Never.
But the part of him that was making all the decisions at that moment wanted only the exciting part that she promised. “Yes,” he said into her neck.
She picked up a small bottle from the nightstand, squeezed some clear liquid into an eye dropper. “Open wide,” she said.
Without losing eye contact, Joseph, knowing better, stuck out his tongue. She squeezed the dropper onto his tongue, and then onto her own. The liquid had no real taste, just an oily consistency.
“Good boy,” she said, and opened the nightstand drawer.
Within seconds, it seemed, he was tightly bound. He was amazed at how quickly she did it. She knew her way around those things. Those bondage toys.
Her bedroom was dark except for a couple of candles set in strategic locations, flashing large shadows on the walls. Joseph began to feel the effects of the drug. It was not unpleasant.
Irene knelt on the bed next to his head, wearing thigh-high black lace stockings and a zip-front leather bra. She began honing the blade of a knife on a leather strop that hung from another eye bolt in the wall at the head of the bed. Funny he’d never noticed those there before.
She was raised up on her knees, and he could see the candlelit fuzz of blonde pubic hair between her lean thighs.
The strop slapped against the wall when she let it go. He craned his neck in order to see her. She turned to make sure he was watching as she examined the blade. She ran it down the meaty part of her thumb, slicing it cleanly. Fat, voluptuous bubbles of blood burbled out of the cut. She licked the first one off, and let the next one drop onto his arm, right in front of his nose.
He sucked it up and she cooed her approval. He felt her cool hand on his back. He’d grown accustomed to the worshipful way she had about his skin. Her hand moved back and forth lightly feeling, testing, little sounds of appreciation escaping her. His penis responded. Her hand caressed his whole back, from shoulders to waist to buttocks, to thighs.
Joseph closed his eyes in appreciation, and let the drug take his mind for a little cruise. She’s not going to hurt me, he thought. Whatever she’s going to do, she’s not going to hurt me, because she loves me. But the photographs of Warren Begay’s skinned corpse kept cycling on the screen of his mind.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Too much hair here.” She began to shave the backs of his thighs with her knife.
Joseph tugged on the wrist restraints, but they were holding him firmly. This whole event made him nervous, and yet it was horrifyingly exciting as well. He felt a touch of desperation, and that felt kind of good, that increased his excitement. His penis swelled even more.
What kind of a woman would do this?
He wanted her. He wanted her so badly all he could do was squeeze his eyes closed and know that soon she’d be finished with her game, and then he could begin his game. He had an idea of a place on her body he wouldn’t mind shaving with that razorblade knife while she was tied to the bed.
God, he wanted her. He wanted to fuck her until she fainted.
She cut the back of his thigh. It sent a jagged yellow lightning bolt through his vision.
“Ow!” He said, tugging on the restraints. He tugged hard, but they held him solid. He only hurt his wrists. She’d done it deliberately. His erection deflated.
She was going to cut him some more. She was going to hurt him. She might hurt him bad. He felt a peculiar panic rising.
“Shhh,” she said, coming back up to kiss his forehead. “Shhh,” she said, lying down beside him.
She held the knife up where he could see the fresh blood on it—his blood. She wiped it off the knife onto his arm, mixing it with the remnants of his saliva and drop of her blood that were already there.
It made him a little bit sick to his stomach.
The wound on the back of his thigh stung.
“Irene...”
“Shhh.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Afraid?”
Yes. “Yes.”
“Don’t be.” She leaned in and kissed him. He eagerly kissed her back, wanting her to release him, so he could hold her, he could kiss her, he could make love to her, he could get her to forget about this stuff, conventional sex is better sex. But she pulled away from him. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.
“Please... I want to put my hands on you.”
“I know you do, darling, but you can’t.” She nipped his shoulder, then scampered off the bed.
Joseph looked around wildly, trying to see her, trying to figure out where she was, what she was doing, from what direction she was going to come, but he couldn’t see her anywhere in his limited range of vision. He pulled, pulled hard on the restraints, grunted and sweated, but they didn’t budge. He felt his vision begin to blur, felt a jangling in the ends of his nerves, knew it was the drug.
“Relax,” she said from somewhere behind him.
“I can’t relax. I don’t like this. Please stop.”
“Soon.”
Again the eye dropper, and like the fool he was, he opened his mouth.
Then he felt her hand on his shoulder, and the pressure of her weight on the bed. He sighed, and relaxed a little. She wasn’t going to hurt him, she loved him.
Didn’t she?
She straddled him and sat on the small of his back.
Then he felt the cold steel of the knife as she pressed its point into his shoulder. She took a long, sweeping, curving cut. When she lifted the blade, Joseph felt his body relax, but he saw light globes float about in his vision. She began again, another long cut that made him want to thrash, to buck, to throw her off, but he was helpless, he was powerless, he was totally and completely under her control. And, goddamnit, he liked it.
“Irene, please.”
He felt her slide the point of the knife between the two cuts and strip off the noodle of skin between them very slowly, all the way down.
Joseph bit his lip, squinted his eyes, felt perspiration trickle across the width of his forehead. Again, he tried to remember agreeing to be tied up. He had agreed to something new, something exciting.
Something new for him, something exciting for her.
She moved. He opened his eyes, and a thin strip of his skin dangled from the point of the knife in front of his face. “See?” she said. “Now I have a piece of you to keep. Now you’ll never be whole again, because I own a tiny little part of you.”
She moved again, and it disappeared.
Nausea threatened to overcome him. He’d had too much wine, and the drug made him unsure of anything.
“I’m carving a waterfall,” she said. “Cascading from your shoulder down your back.”
The knife again. Joseph gritted his teeth.
“It’s going to be beautiful.”
Joseph examined his options. He didn’t have any. He set his mind to endure this. He could endure this. It stung, it would sting for a week, but then it would heal. It would heal. He wasn’t going to die from this. He could endure this. He tried to relax. He tried to slide into the effects of the drug that was becoming harder to ignore. He closed his eyes and consciously let her have her way with him.
“And I’ll have a little piece of you to keep forever.”
~~~
Joseph jumped. The bedroom was dark, he was warm under the covers that smelled sweetly of Irene. He reached out a hand, and there she was, sleeping warm and pliant, beside him. Had that all been a dream?
What a weird dream. It had seemed so real. It had scared the piss out of him at the time, but now that he thought about it, it was very erotic.
It was wildly erotic.
He tried to remember going to bed, and couldn’t. He must have had way too much wine.
He reached a hand under Irene, and with both hands on her belly, brought her backwards toward him, his erection pushing between her legs. With a soft sleepy sigh, she moved a little bit to accommodate him. He grabbed her hips with his hands and moved her back and forth. God, she felt good. She was so sweet. Every time he entered her,
it made him feel as if he hadn’t been inside a woman in years.
He kissed her shoulder, and she reached up and grabbed something for stability. He pulled harder on her hips, and harder still, until with a lurch and a gasp, he finished.
Then he felt a little bit remorseful and selfish. He was afraid she’d feel as if he just used her to satisfy his midnight lust. Well, he had.
He drew a forefinger down the ladder of her backbone. She stretched, catlike, then turned her head for a kiss.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
She smiled a sleepy, contented smile, plumped up her pillow, and sighed softly as she settled back down to sleep.
He pulled out, despite a tiny whine of protest from her, and turned over to lie on his back.
His shoulder stung.
God damn, it stung.
He sat up and looked at the head of the bed, looked to see what she had been holding on to just now.
An eyebolt. Embedded in the wall.
Then he remembered.
Chapter 22
Owen Crowell was on his last bite of honey-raspberry scone and last sip of herbal tea when Joseph walked into the hippie coffee shop and sat down. This had turned out to be a good place to know about. It was out of the way, he’d never ever see anybody he knew, and they had good food to boot. He’d never wear tie dye, but he might become a regular at this place. It was refreshingly anonymous. He may be playing with fire by continuing to interact with Joseph Schneider, but the anonymity of the coffee shop gave him a sense of security.
Owen wiped crumbs from his lips and sipped his tea as he regarded Joseph. “We found the husband, Joseph, we found this Bobby guy. Bobby Milner. He owns a tannery over in Orinda.”
Joseph’s mouth curled up into a wry smile that Owen didn’t want to share. He saw the irony, of course, but he failed to see the humor.
“A tannery?”
“Listen, Joseph, if I get any further into this, I’m going to have to refer it all to a grand jury, and I don’t want to do that. If they indict Irene, I don’t want to be a part of it. I can’t be a part of it.”
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