Anthology. Robert Deshaies
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The second ding struck, and we stumbled out one more time. She rummaged through her purse without taking her eyes off me, and she found the keys to her place. She inserted them, and she looked at me while doing so. Her tongue was moving in a manner that was so provocative that I’m hesitant to describe it here.
The door opened, and I saw her fling her bag onto the couch. She motioned her fingers for me to come inside, and I did. I stepped inside, and the lights still weren’t on. It was okay. It was always better when they were off anyways.
She reached for my hand one more time, and I grabbed it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move from behind one of her drapes. It quickly approached and struck Sonja’s head without thought. Before I could let out even a squeal, I felt blood rush to my head, and it all went black.
People describe the taste of blood as copper mostly, but tonight, I tasted a hint of tin. Don’t ask me how I know the difference, but I do. That was my lip bleeding by the way. The room was still dark, but I could see glimpses of the horizon drawing out across the closed drapes. My hands were tied behind my back. Everything hurt. My legs were tied up as well. This chair felt old, but… I then felt the skin behind me. I hope it was Sonja. I began thinking, and I tried to wriggle my toes. Okay, that’s good. My senses are reconnecting. I don’t know where the assailants are, or that’s what I assume they are. I hope they won’t torture us. Please just let it be a house robber. Please.
Then I heard it. It was this noise, like tick, titch, tick, titch, tick.
Someone was either approaching or watching. It was just too dark for my eyes to see. My heart was racing, but I couldn’t feel the pounding. It was this fusion of adrenaline and overwhelming fear that was feeding my drive to stay awake. Stay awake. I must stay awake. I think if I can nudge my chair and wriggle Sonja and I loose, then…
Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Well, well, well. Melanie Percourt. It’s been too long, sweetie. You never even told me you were running off to Paris. Was New York not good enough for you? Did you even think about me while you were wandering the streets of Paris?”
No, no fucking way. Absolutely, no fucking way. There is no way in Sam Hill this bastard knows I’m here.
“Donny…I don’t know how you got here or found out where I was…but, Donny, I need you to listen to me. You have to let me go. You have to give my friend leave as well, okay? We can take this somewhere else…just not here. Please.”
I smelled those old cigars he would always smoke back in New York. Donny was complicated. He and I were together for some time. I thought we were going to get hitched a few years ago, but things changed. He moved into my line of sight. He looked the same—the same strange scar down his left eye, the same posture that took me off my feet, and those bright baby-blue eyes, the eyes of a scoundrel-to-be.
“Melanie, I don’t think you have much of a say here, darlin’. You see, I have answers to the questions pouring out of your stupid hole from a few seconds ago. You see, I don’t want to be the asshole who never explains how he never found you.”
“Donny, please.”
“Melanie, shut the fuck up! You don’t get to speak.”
I was sweating, and the ties around my feet and legs were steeping in the brewing sweat. I was scared now. Donny, my schizophrenic, drug-abusing, asshole of an ex, was here about to do God knows what to Sonja and me. Then I heard another voice enter the fray.
“Take a step back now, boy.”
There was another voice—dark, deep, creamy. I think the stranger was black. Then I felt touch. It was cold. It felt almost cruel. He made his way around to my line of sight, and he was tall. Not just tall but tall. His accent, I would guess African, but I didn’t want to guess wrong. I think I’m just going to listen now.
“Melanie Percourt graduated Princeton with a master’s in English literature and communications. Lost her mother at ten from a drunk-driving incident. Lost her father at twelve to a suicide. Grew up in Brooklyn Orphanage. Taken in by the Devorahs. Then sent to school abroad—England, finishing school. She graduated and returned to the city that birthed her. Now after four years at your firm, you have achieved this promotion and moved once again. Now it’s Paris. Where to next, little one?”
He knew everything about me, and for some reason, that didn’t seem scary. You could practically decipher all that about me from the Internet. I was more scared of Donny than him right now. This tall man was the only thing holding Donny back.
Okay, let’s see if he would listen.
“Thank you for reading my life story back to me, but will you please let the woman behind me go. If this is a revenge deal or the normal ex-boyfriend jealousy, then she shouldn’t be a victim. I know you’re a good person deep down, and you don’t want to harm this woman.”
He stared soullessly. His eyes were melting into my skull. The visions were… I felt like sleeping suddenly. Did he inject me with something? Suddenly, the edges began filling in, and I was helpless. What did I say? Oh no. Open. Open. Please…
It was pitch-black.
I was alone. This place, it was neither cold nor warm. I couldn’t feel the wind. I couldn’t feel…
“To think that you’re alone in here is very unwise, little one.”
“Mister, please, I didn’t do anything wrong. I just left, okay? I left New York because I was tired. I was stressed. I was only there because of him, and I felt like I had to be with him. He was…Donny was broken. I felt like I had to fix him. No one else could. So I put up with it. I put up with the nights he didn’t remember hitting me or the nights he raped me, and I lay there because deep down, I just wanted to make him feel better. I…I had to leave. I had to just start somewhere no one knew me. Tonight, I thought I was back into the thing I thought I had escaped. I guess that was the panic attack talking. Then I met this girl, and she was everything that Donny was when it all started. Started so long ago now it seems…”
The entire time I was pleading to this soulless…this man, he approached without a sound. His hands held behind his back with strength and reserve. And then he had finally reached me just floating in this pool of…nowhere. He had contacted me in nowhere, and he looked. As I pleaded and poured my soul unto him, he just stared. In his hand, he held a pendant. There was a decorated skull with a long silver chain. He moved it up to his lip, and he spoke, “Melanie, wake up.”
Then I was back. I could see the lights pouring in from the curtains. I was lying in a bed; I was no longer tied up. I glanced around, and the room appeared…it appeared to look as it should be if Sonja and I…
Sonja, where was Sonja?
“Sonja!”
Suddenly, next to me, a rustling appeared, and I prepared for the worst.
“Yes, what is…whoa. Vous-êtes bien, Mélanie?”
Oh my god, what was that?
“Sonja! Oh, I’m sorry. Umm, do you remember much from last night?”
“Oui, mi amor.”
“Oh…” I was utterly confused. “What do you remember exactly?”
So she began explaining, and everything appeared perfect. Perfect, as in once we got back to her place, we made love all night and woke up with a bit of a hangover. No assailants, no questioning, just nothing. What was wrong with me?
We took it slow. She mounted me. She looked compassionately down at me, and she began to touch. I…
“Melanie, are you sure?”
Yes, I needed this. I needed this release. It was the stress. It’d been building since I left New York. That was just a dream. There was nothing to be worried about. So I pulled her waist to mine, and the morning went by. It was Sunday. We didn’t need to do anything but lie here.
It was 5:00 p.m. We were still in bed. Sonja made coffee and