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“Once, about ten years ago.”
“What happened?”
“Nosy, aren’t you?” he said. “She didn’t like being a cop’s wife; I didn’t like being a bitch’s husband. End of story. She split for the West Coast as soon as the papers were signed. What about you?”
“Nosy, aren’t you?” she threw back at him, then hesitated. “Do you think I’m a bitch?” God knows she hadn’t always been on her best behavior with him. Come to think of it, she’d never been on her best behavior with him.
“Nah. You’re damn scary, but you aren’t a bitch.”
“Gee, thanks,” she muttered; then, because fair was fair, she said, “No, I’ve never been married, but I’ve been engaged three times.”
He paused with the glass halfway to his mouth and gave her a startled look. “Three times?”
She nodded. “I guess I’m not very good at the man-woman stuff.”
His gaze went back to her breasts. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re doing pretty good at keeping me interested.”
“So maybe you’re a mutant.” She shrugged helplessly. “My second fiancé decided he was still in love with an ex-girlfriend, who I guess wasn’t all that ex, but I don’t know what happened with the other two.”
He snorted. “They were probably scared.”
“Scared!” For some reason, that hurt, just a little. She felt her lower lip wobble. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
“Worse,” he said cheerfully. “You’re hell on wheels. You’re just lucky I like hot rods. Now, if you’ll put your clothes on right side out, I’ll take you out to dinner. How does a burger sound?”
“I’d rather have Chinese,” she said as she went down the short hall to her bedroom.
“Figures.”
He muttered the reply, but she heard him anyway, and she was smiling as she closed her bedroom door and pulled off the red sweater. Since he liked hot rods, she was going to show him just how fast she could go. The problem was, he had to catch her.
sixteen
Corin couldn’t sleep. He got out of bed and turned on the light in the bathroom, checking in the mirror to make certain he was still there. The face that stared back at him was that of a stranger, but the eyes were familiar. He had seen those eyes look back at him for most of his life, but sometimes he was gone and they didn’t see him.
An array of yellow medicine bottles were lined up, according to size, on the vanity so he would see them every day when he got up and remember to take his medication. It had been several days now—he couldn’t remember exactly how many—since he had taken the pills. He could see himself now, but when he took the pills, his thinking got clouded and he faded away in the mist.
It was better, they had told him, if he stayed in the mist, hidden away. The pills worked so well that sometimes he even forgot he was there. But there was always a sense of something wrong, as if the universe were askew, and now he knew what it was. The pills might hide him, but they couldn’t make him go away.
He hadn’t been able to sleep since he stopped taking the pills. Oh, he dozed, but real sleep eluded him. Sometimes he felt as if he were shaking apart inside, though when he held out his hands, they were steady. Was there something addictive in the pills? Had they lied to him? He didn’t want to be a drug addict; addiction was a sign of weakness, his mother had always told him. He couldn’t be addicted because he couldn’t be weak. He had to be strong, he had to be perfect.
He heard an echo of her voice in his head. “My perfect little man,” she had called him, stroking his cheek.
Whenever he failed her, whenever he was less than perfect, her wrath had been so overwhelming his world would threaten to come apart at the seams. He would do anything to keep from disappointing his mother, but he had kept an awful secret from her: sometimes he had deliberately transgressed, just a little, so she would punish him. Even now the thought of those punishments sent a thrill through him. She would have been so disappointed if she had guessed his secret delight, so he had always struggled to keep his pleasure hidden.
Sometimes he missed her so much. She always knew just what to do.
She would know, for instance, what to do about those four bitches who mocked him with their list for being perfect. As if they knew what perfection was! He knew. His mother had known. He had always tried so hard to be her perfect little man, her perfect son, but he had always fallen short, even on those times when he wasn’t misbehaving just a little, on purpose, so s
he would punish him. He had always known there was an imperfection in him that he would never be able to correct, that he always disappointed his mother on a basic level just by being.
They thought they were so smart, the four bitches—he liked the way that sounded, the Four Bitches, like some perverted Roman deity. The Furies, the Graces, the Bitches. They tried to play it cute, hiding their identities by using A, B, C, and D instead of their names. There was one in particular he hated, the one who said, “If a man isn’t perfect, he should try harder.” What did they know? Had they ever tried to measure up to a standard so impossibly high only perfection could meet it, and fallen short every day of their lives? Had they?
Did they know what it was like for him to try and try, yet know deep inside he was going to fail, until finally he learned to enjoy the punishment because that was the only way he could live with it? Did they know?
Bitches like them didn’t deserve to live.
He could feel that inner shaking again, and he wrapped his arms around himself, holding himself together. It was their fault he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about them, about what they said.
