Chapter Four

Nearly all the memories I have of Rachel Bentley are the handpicked, polished on my sleeve, red and juicy ones. A few rotten apples lie at the bottom of my basket, but I rarely partake of those. My taste is for the sweet flesh of romantic interlude, and the tart flavor of forbidden desire. But when I have consumed all the good apples....

My first crush, and I used to think my only love, Rachel and I were high school sweethearts, and how sweet it was. For four years I could foresee no other girl in my future, and she no other guy. We were consumed with each other, filled with thoughts of how it was going to be, and fed on the forbiddance of our love. Her father, a devout Jehovah's Witness, had destined her to marry only someone of the same faith, and only at the proper, fated time. I didn't believe in fate. So we fought to keep us alive, despite the father we called enemy. She became double agent, infiltrating her father's trust with seductive words and reassurances of obedience. I became spy at her window, eagerly climbing to her rooftop in the darkness, wearing only the black apparel of a thief. It was a grand affair to sneak to her window like some fated Romeo, stealing kisses from under the nose of the ever-watchful guardian of her virginity. We thought we were so adept at our trickery. Little did we know who the real master was. We were ignorant to the extremes her father would go to assure that his holy inclinations would be passed on, extremes that would bring him and I face to face, and tear Rachel away from me forever, extremes that provided him with the opportunity to play upon the lusts he had for his own daughter.

If I had had any foresight back then, I wouldn't have found myself sitting on the sofa in Rachel's house with her father talking to me like I was a prospective son- in-law. I had a hunch that his sudden about-face reaction toward me was a bit too good to be true , but I also knew when to take advantage of a good thing when it was thrown my way. So for weeks Rachel and I were given his blessing to be together. Every day after school I would go over to her house, sometimes eating dinner there, all the while playing footsies with her under the table. At first we were nervous to show any physical desires openly. I would kiss her when no one else was in the room, or feel her up when outside in the garage. That's when we started our own plans to consummate our future marriage. We talked sex, whispering how good it was going to be, and every time we kissed she would breathe a little more fiercely, and I would hold her a little more tightly. I took the bait as her father had planned I would.

That's when he arranged for me to sleep over. His wife was going to be gone for the weekend, and he invited me to stay the night if I could keep the secret. He told us we could sleep together on the couch. That's when my sixth sense kicked in for the first time. Something was wrong, but Rachel wanted me to accept the invitation so badly that I could smell the sweetness of it in her breath. How could I say no?

That night of pure, unforgettable freedom, of slow caresses in the warm darkness, of eye to eye, mouth to mouth, belly to belly exchange of love and desire proved to be the end for us. It was a prelude to what we were planning, a preview of shared feelings and mutual wants, and a lick of the real thing which we were hoping for, and which would never come. If I had known everything which eventually would come between us, and prevent us from sharing that which young love urged us to share, I would have made love to her right then and there. But we fell asleep in each other's arms, half-naked, around four in the morning, confident of another time and another place. I had to get up for work at the local Friendly's at five. That one hour of sleep was never more peaceful for me. For Rachel, it was a nightmare.

When I awoke, I sensed something was wrong. She was quiet and withdrawn. We sat on the couch in the gloom of the early summer morning with a blanket wrapped around us. I had overslept. It was past five, and I was already late for work. I asked her if there was anything wrong. She said there wasn't. I told her I'd be back after work, got dressed and left.

When I returned that afternoon, she told me what had happened between four and five that morning.

As she lay awake, watching me sleep, her father had crawled in on his hands and knees. Thinking Rachel to be asleep, he crawled over to where we were and touched her under the blankets. And kept touching her. She lay paralyzed by the horror of what her father was doing. Then abruptly he left her, lying in my unsuspecting arms as a broken young girl who had just been molested by her own father.

And that wasn't the first time that son of a bitch had done that. But I knew it was surely going to be the last.

I sat there on the sofa as she whispered to me what had happened while I had lain asleep. I seethed hotly inside with the thought of such an unthinkable wrong. Rachel must have seen the restrained vengeance in my eyes, for she immediately made me promise that I keep it all a secret, that I not make a big deal out it. It seemed her mother knew of past incidences, and had threatened divorce and legal action if it happened again. She didn't want her father to go through all that, her father who was putting her through so much more. As I promised her, I knew it was a promise I had to break. If her mother's threats hadn't stopped him from doing it again, then I doubted if it was ever going to stop. And it would stop. I would make sure of that.

As my mind raced with possibilities of retribution, her father called to us from the kitchen. He sat at the table, hands folded, a smile on his lips, lips I wanted to see split and bleeding. A large, leather-bound book rested before him. At that very moment I saw through the absolute sickness of it all. I knew why he had let me get so close to his daughter, and why he had let us sleep together on the couch.

"Shawn," he said as he unfolded his hands. "Have you thought about your future? Have you ever considered studying the Bible?"

I almost hit him as I felt a rage swell in me like the wrath of an outraged god. If not for what I had just learned, I might have let him baptize me for the love I felt for his daughter. But now I had eaten from the Tree. I stifled the anger inside me, bracing myself for what I knew was coming next.

"No," I said evenly.

He folded his hands again, and his face grew serious.

"Well, I'm afraid I can't let you get too serious with Rachel if you don't."

I almost laughed, a gleeful wicked, laugh. I suddenly knew why religion held so little interest for me. People like this preached it.

"You can't stop us from seeing each other!" It was Rachel.

He wouldn't ever have to. I would unfortunately save him the trouble. I was going to tell all. I thought I knew what that would mean. I didn't. Rachel not only would feel the tremendous guilt and shame of being a victim, she would also be choosing between a father she still somehow loved, and me. As the breaker of promises, the traitor to her love and destroyer of her family, I didn't stand a chance. But I believe to this day that I made the right decision, perhaps not for us, but for her.

As it turned out, she denied everything, no legal charges were brought, and no divorce was filed, though her family was torn with the knowledge of it all. The only thing that changed was us. I couldn't get near her house. She never wanted to see me again. I know that was the reason she did what she did when Glenn was killed three months later.

Our senior year at school came and went. A short time later she moved out of her house and got her own apartment. I went to college and met Jane, and that was the last time I had seen Rachel Bentley.

As I left Shabooms and walked the distance to my car, I placed Rachel's business card in my pocket. If Rachel was in any sort of trouble, I'd want to help her, for old time's sake, even if just to clear the air between us. Actually, it went deeper than that. I reflected on my real motives for a moment. Maybe I wanted to show her that I still cared, and that I had always cared, that what I had done back then, I had done out of concern. Maybe I felt guilty.

I was jolted from my thoughts by the sound of shattering glass. Not fifty feet away, a man stood beside a rusted red car, a glittering of splintered glass beneath his feet. He held a large rock in one hand. The car that he was breaking into was mine.

"Hey," I yelled as I ran toward him.He spun about to face me and I got a good look at him. Early twenties, dark hair, short, stocky. He just stood there as I ran up the street toward him, stood and smiled, tossing the rock he held from hand to hand. I slowed my approach, keeping an eye on the rock. Suddenly three other men stepped from out of the alley to my left. I stopped not twenty feet from them. They were tall, dark haired like the other. They gathered behind the shorter man and that's when I saw there was something peculiar about him. He had one blue eye and one brown eye.

His smile was gone and he clenched the rock tightly in his hand, his knuckles blanching. He spit in my direction.

"Run," he said.

"That's my car." I said it as if he didn't know it.

"Run!"

I started to back away and glanced quickly around. The street was deserted. I quickened my pace.

"I didn't say walk!" he yelled.

A police car turn onto the road. It was coming our way. I knew he saw it too, even though his eyes never strayed from mine. The men behind him watched the police car nervously and I smiled. Help was on the way.

"Maybe you had better run," I said, feeling more courageous now.

The police car was nearly upon us when it turned off down a side street.

I ran.

The rock sailed past my head and bounced off the pavement in front of me. I heard them laughing. Once I was far enough away, I stopped and looked back. They were all in my car. I stood and watched as they stole my radio and anything else of value they could find. They held up their loot for me to see before they left.

"Next time, when I say run, I mean run!" the leader shouted to me. The others burst into laughter. Then they all ran off.

My heart was still pounding when I returned to my car. They had smashed in the passenger's window. A large rock sat on the driver's seat. The frayed ends of wires poked out from the hole in my dash where my radio had been. I was too disgusted to be angry, so I carefully brushed the splinters of glass from my seats and drove away.

When I got home, Heidi failed to meet me at the door.

"O.K.," I called out. "What did you do now?"

Whenever Heidi didn't meet me at the door, it meant she was hiding somewhere, feeling guilty. Maybe she peed on the rug, or knocked over a plant. Whatever it was, it was something she thought warranted trouble.

I checked the rug for wet spots, the plants for spills, and even the toilet paper roll. Once she had somehow managed to pull nearly all the paper off the roll, and had streamed it into every room. I had laughed at that one, so she had escaped trouble.  This time I couldn't find anything wrong, so it seemed she would escape it again. I often wondered just how many carefully hidden wet spots there were in the apartment, dried by now and forever unknown.

"Alright, come on out. You're safe."

She didn't come. It must have been pretty bad, whatever it was, but with how my night had gone, whatever she had done was really unimportant.

"Heidi?"

Then I noticed the door to the den ajar. I called it a den, but it was really just a glorified junk room, the second bedroom of my two bedroom palace. I looked in, turning on the light. She wasn't in there, either. As I was about to leave, a picture on the desk stopped me. I walked over to it and picked it up. Jane's smiling face stared at me from under the cracked glass. I studied her image for a moment. She was so beautiful. She suddenly seemed even more beautiful than I remembered, and as I looked at her photo a dull ache pulled at me deep inside. I took a deep breath, letting out air like a punctured tire. This was one hole I knew I couldn't patch. I gently wiped away the dust that had collected over her image. I quickly pulled my hand away, blood welling from my finger where the glass has sliced it. I threw the picture in the desk drawer.

It wasn't a deep cut, and as I washed it out in the bathroom sink, Heidi's little brown head peaked around the door frame. She walked slowly over to me, dragging her ears on the floor. She had done something bad, that was for sure. But I didn't care. I bandaged my cut finger, then scratched her gently behind the ears.

In the kitchen I checked for messages on the answering machine. There were two, one from my mother, and one from Kimberly Ryan.

My mother was calling to remind me about lunch tomorrow, and not to forget the wine. Kimberly Ryan was another thing altogether. She lived a few apartments down from me. I had met her a month or so ago, when she was moving in. She was very attractive, and confident. A bit too confident for me. There was something else about Kimberly Ryan that scared me. I couldn't put my finger on it at first. Then one day it hit me and I began avoiding her whenever possible. I was never rude, but I avoided her nonetheless. She reminded me of Jane. There was no physical resemblance. It was something I couldn't quite explain.

It was really a shame I felt that way because Kimberly liked me, a lot. She called me often, usually just to say Hi. But this time . . .

"Hi, Shawn. It's me, Kim. Just calling to see how you're doing. I haven't heard from you about my invitation, so I figured I'd ask you again. So how about it? How would you like to come over to my place for dinner one of these nights. I'm not a bad cook, you know. I just need more practice. Give me a call if you're interested, or just give me a call. Bye."

It was too bad. I wasn't going to call her.

"Let's watch some T.V.," I said to Heidi as we walked into the living room. I grabbed the remote and sat on the couch. I felt the warm urine seeping through my pants even before I smelled it. I shot up in surprise as Heidi ran for the cover of the kitchen.

I threw my pants in the washer and scrubbed the couch clean. Then I sat in the recliner, waiting for Heidi to make her appearance into the courtroom for sentencing. But my heart got the better of me and soon she was happily sleeping on my lap.

Later, as I lay in bed asleep, I was awakened by loud banging from the apartment above me. I knew that sound all too well. I waited for the banging to abate to its usual steady knock, punctuated by rhythmic, sometimes melodic, cries.

"Not tonight," I moaned.

It was Shawn Bennet, my upstairs neighbor. Several times a week, he and his girl would practice playing consenting adults for about an hour. I knew because they seldom failed to wake me up.

The first name was the only thing I had in common with the man upstairs. For one, he had money. He drove a new Mercedes, leather seats and all. For another, women liked him. A lot.

I had to stop at that one. There was always Kimberly Ryan.

I buried my head beneath my pillow and went back to sleep.