Prologue
I'd known them as long I was growing up: the old couple in the yellow house in the
middle of the block. I'd be on my way to the bus stop, and they'd be drinking coffee on
their front porch. On my way home, sometimes one or the other or both would be there.
We'd wave to each other.
Years later, I'd earn a few dollars by mowing their lawn in the summer and
shoveling their walk in the winter. I was 12 when my parents split up, and during that
horrid time I remember suddenly thinking that if I had to move, I wouldn't see Mr. and
Mrs. Novak anymore. I didn't move--Mom and I stayed there, and I started spending more
time with the Novaks. They introduced me to coffee, and, when I was 16, Mr. Novak gave me
my first beer (so I was a bit behind). We talked about school, and life, and my failure
to get a date for the prom. Mostly it was Mr. Novak and me talking; Mrs. Novak didn't a
say a lot, but she was always jumping up to get drinks or snacks, and she always seemed to
be smiling.
When I was 18 I moved out, but whenever I went back to visit mom, which I did three
or four times a month, I'd stop by to say hello to the Novaks, and we'd sit on their front
porch and drink beer and Mr. Novak and I would talk, and Mrs. Novak would be popping up to
get things, and she always seemed to be smiling.
I guess that, more than anything, is what brought me back there that day.
Twenty-two was a bad year for me: I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't going
to get into collage and that I'd probably be driving a UPS truck for the rest of my life,
and then Sandra broke up with me because I couldn't keep my eyes from following pretty
girls, and she couldn't keep from hating it. That sucked. I had it pretty bad for
Sandra, and was getting close to asking her to marry me. I remember wondering if there
was ever really such a thing as a happy couple, and then I thought of the Novaks. It was
about eight o'clock on a Friday evening, and without even thinking about it, I got up and
drove over to the old yellow house.
I knocked on the door, and she opened it. She smiled and called over her shoulder,
"It's Jack."
He came up behind her, looked at me, and said, "Come in. You look like you have
something on your mind."
I sat on the old gray couch, he sat on his big overstuffed chair, and she brought
us each a tumbler of whiskey; she always seemed to know what was called for. She sat on a
plain chair next to him.
"Okay," he said. "Give."
I had been worried about whether I'd be able to talk, but I shouldn't have; it came
poring out. Was I going to spend the rest of my life alone? Was I always going to feel
like a failure? And on, and on. They listened quietly until I ran down.
"I think it's time," said Mr. Novak slowly, "that you start calling me Ethan."
Funny, it had never occurred to me that he had a first name; I couldn't remember
ever hearing her address him by it.
"It seems odd," I said. "Ethan." I tried it out.
He smiled. "You'll get used to it. And you want to know how to please a woman."
He laughed. "Welcome to the club."
"But you--"
"I know. I got lucky." He smiled her; her eyes seemed to be shining as she smiled
back. My god, they must be 70 years old, and her eyes were shining.
"Women," he said slowly, "want different things. What pleases one will not please
another. This isn't profound, Jack. And if you're going to make her happy, you have to
be happy yourself, which means not trying to be what you aren't. That isn't profound
either. You've heard these things before."
I nodded, feeling bummed. I don't know why I had hoped that they could tell me
something useful.
"But," he went on, "I can tell you something useful."
"You can?"
"But that's only because I know you. Or, rather, she knows you. She told me years
ago that you were like me. I don't know how she does it, how she can look at someone and
just know. I've never been able to tell."
She tilted her head at him when he said that, and he answered what she didn't say,
"I keep telling you, I didn't know. I got lucky."
She shook her head, and had an expression like she was trying not to smile.
"I think we should tell him about it," he said.
She nodded.
"You'll tell your side of it. Frankly," he smiled fondly at her, “I'm looking
forward to hearing it."
She blushed, looked down, then nodded; she still hadn't said a word the whole
conversation. I had no idea what I was about to hear, but felt unreasonably excited.
Ethan wasn't looking at me, he was looking at her. Then he said, "Off the furniture,
girl."
She slid off her chair and knelt, facing him. My heart gave a thump, and some
mundane part of my mind wondered how her old knees could take it on the hardwood floor. It
was weird hearing this 70-year-old woman called “girl.” But, somehow it wasn't weird at
all.
He said, "Sit comfortably, girl, and face our guest."
I hadn't noticed it before, but there was a large pillow on the floor next to his
chair. She took it, and sat on it, leaning against the chair. His hand went to her hair,
almost as an automatic gesture, and began stroking it. She pushed into his hand like a
cat being petted.
"Let's tell them about us," he said.
"Yes, master," she said.
Then I listened.
Part One: The Victim
Chapter 1
I don't want you to get the wrong idea, Jack. I'm not telling you this so you can,
ah, go and do likewise. I got lucky, that's all. If you try it, you'll probably land in
jail, and I don't want to be responsible for that. And, well, it's wrong. The fact that,
at the time, I never thought about that says something about me.
And, Hell, it isn't like the world is full of girls who--
No, I need to tell this in order.
Let me go back. It was so long ago.
It was 1964, and I was younger than you are now. I liked Elvis, but not the
Beatles, though I came around later. Kennedy was dead, and the big thing about that was
that we had a Texas boy in the White House. We were just starting to hear about Vietnam,
but I have to say I never gave it much thought. We were also starting to hear about
Martin Luther King, but I didn't think about him much, either. Mostly what I thought
about was wishing I had a pickup truck. It took a few years for me to figure out that I
only wanted a pickup truck because I didn't have one. My hair was short, because you
weren't going to get a job in Texas in 1964 if you had long hair, and I guess I never
thought about letting it grow anyway.
Mostly I wanted a girl.
I'd scored a few times--that's what we called it, then. I liked sex. I liked it a
lot. What I didn't like was doing all the things you had to do to get it--acting like you
wanted to marry the girl, or acting like you were a tough-guy, or acting like you were
fascinated by a piece of fluff you didn't give a shit about. Acting. I didn't like
acting. I didn't feel like I knew how to do it, and I didn't want to.
I'd landed a job cleaning vats at a chemical company the year before. It wasn't
hard work, just dull. But sometimes after work we'd go out for beer.
I first saw her on a Friday at the Broken Spoke, a new place that had opened a mile
south of town. It was a small place; they pushed the pool table out of the way and put
the band up against the back wall. She was a waitress there. I was drinking with some
friends from work and listening to the music when I saw her cleaning a table, two tables
away. God! I remember that. She bent over the table, facing away from me, and, you know,
wow! She was wearing jeans, and her ass was just so perfect. Small, round, perfect.
Fortunately, no one I was with noticed me, because I couldn't stop staring.
Then she turned around. I can't forget that moment. Small, lithe, a sweet
triangular face with big brown eyes. Yum. Her hair was black, straight and fell to just
below her shoulders. She wore a plain, loose-fitting white blouse, with blue jeans and
sneakers. She was the only waitress wearing blue jeans, the other two wore mid-thigh
length skirts.
I kept staring at her, hating that stupid blouse because I couldn't tell anything
about her tits.
She didn't notice me, and I didn't do anything to bring myself to her attention. I
just watched her. All that evening, I watched her. I had no idea what any of my buddies
said that night.
I was sad when closing time came.
I went home that night thinking about her. I couldn't get her out of my head. I
guess that's when I first thought about taking her.
I was 20 years old, you know. Things like "consequences" never entered my mind.
I went back to the Broken Spoke the next night, but she wasn't working, so I came
home depressed. I went back every night until Wednesday, when I saw her again. I sat her
in section. That proved to be a mistake: I couldn't even look at her when she was serving
me, and I couldn't look away when she wasn't. Once she leaned over me and I could smell
her--fresh and spicy. It was all I could do not to just grab her.
Her name, she said, was Kaitlyn. A pretty common name now, I think, but not
then--I'd never heard it before. It echoed in my head. Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn.
I was back there a lot for the next week: watching her, and thinking about how I
was going to take her. I planned it, yeah, but even when I started collecting supplies, I
don't know if I really thought I was going to go through with it. No, that isn't right.
I thought I wasn't going to go through with it. The planning was a great diversion; it
was fun. But, deep down, I couldn't actually see myself kidnapping her.
When I got the new job, I was making enough to rent a house. A small house, but a
nice one, with an attached garage and a good kitchen, in a halfway decent neighborhood.
Yeah, you guessed it; right here. I've been living here since 1963.
Where was I? Right, right. Planning. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I got
myself a king-sized oak bed. Yeah, I had her in mind when I got it--it was solid, with
posters nine inches thick.
I bought I-bolts, a bunch of them. And chain. And rope. And several padlocks
that were all keyed the same. All the fun stuff. I didn't know anything about how to use
them, but I had them.
Ever been to a magicians supply store? They sell jokes, gags, marked cards, shaved
cards. And they sell everything needed for escapes--including blindfolds, gags, shackles,
and manacles. You could get trick ones, and you also could get real ones. Oh, I
know--these days you can buy those anywhere; but in 1964 they weren't so easy to find.
Yeah, I got those things, and the little acne-faced kid behind the counter, who was
either showing off or practicing some coin tricks, didn't even give me a funny look.
On the other hand, any medical supply store, even then, had EMT shears, though they
weren't called that. Most expensive scissors I ever bought, too.
I want you to understand that when I was doing all of that preparation, I still
didn't think I'd go through with it. I know I've said that. And maybe somewhere in the
back of my mind I did know. But the pleasure came from thinking about it, from planning
it, from getting all the pieces together. When I went to the boat store and got the
winch, I remember thinking how stupid it was to spend that much money on something I'd
never use.
But then I hooked it to the bed, secured top and bottom, and screwed in the I-bolts
in either corner, and it was . . . today I'd say it had an erotic charge; then I just knew
it made me horny.
I had I-bolts along the bottom, and one in the middle of the headboard. I had four
lengths of three-foot chain, and fifty feet of rope. I imagined her there, naked,
spreadeagled. I don't know how much time I spent imagining her like that, but I know it
was a lot.
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