Bone Deep

24

Captain Luv became aware of the car following him home from Trumbull while he was on the Merritt Parkway. At one point he found himself trapped in the right lane behind a car with its distress lights flashing, while the cars behind Luv continued to slide into the left lane and pick up speed, effectively sealing him into place. He drove with his eye on the mirror, looking for the opening that would allow him out of the pocket, and that was when he noticed the Toyota keeping pace with his enforced forty-five miles per hour yet staying a hundred yards back. When the opening came in the left lane, it was available to the Toyota first but the Toyota driver ignored it, staying behind Luv as if invisibly attached. Only when Luv managed to pass the distressed vehicle did the Toyota also slide into the left lane, still maintaining its discreet hundred-yard distance.

Once he was aware of it, it was a simple matter to confirm that the Toyota was following him. Luv pulled off the Merritt one exit early and made his way through the local roads, the Toyota tagging along turn for turn, varying the distance, sometimes almost disappearing, allowing other cars to slip in front of it, but never falling completely out of touch.

Disturbed but not frightened, Luv drove home and left his car parked conspicuously in the driveway. He locked himself in his study for a time, ignoring his wife, who wanted to prattle on about some grievance or other, and paced and thought. Through some stroke of dumb luck the police, or more likely the FBI, had stumbled onto him. It wasn't the result of a mistake he had made, he made no mistakes; it had to be another calamitous misfortune, like the freakish flooding that had started the investigation. Whatever it was, it could only be suspicion.

If they had anything concrete, they would have arrested him. If they were going to follow him, it meant they were only fishing, hoping he would do something stupid. Luv grinned. He didn't do stupid things, that was why he was Cap'n Luv. That was why he had lived his life for years without detection. They would have to wait forever if they waited for Luv to get dumb.

He felt a tremendous surge of pride as he reflected on how well he had done, how he had accomplished so much. So many women! They were his, they were all his for the having! Had any man a richer, fuller life?

They loved him, they all loved him! He could make any woman love him and spread her legs for him and call out his name begging for him when he was with her, and weep with longing when he was not. Any woman, anyone he wanted. He knew their secrets, he knew how to manipulate them, he knew what they wanted and what they needed and he gave them both in the best way they had ever had or ever would have in their lives. If he had any regrets, it was that he could not have each of them over again because he was better now, he knew more now, understood more, than he did a few years ago, and would be better still in years to come. When the best continues to improve, no one else can come close.

Had any other man ever affected so many women's lives so profoundly?

They didn't just fuck him, they loved him. They could not believe their good fortune in meeting him, he was perfect, he was their dream come true, or better, an improvement on the dream which had been limited by their association with other men. He was an experience they would never forget-Luv reshaped lives for the better.

He felt so proud, so good about himself that joy swelled to fill his chest and broke forth in laughter. In the privacy of his study he laughed and laughed, bursting with triumph. He had overcome so much, his looks, his body, the contempt of other men, and he had overcome, overwhelmed, the resistance of so many women. It was always a contest with them and he considered each seduction a victory, no matter how fervently the women wanted to lose. But he was a magnanimous winner and he treated them all so well that none regretted him. They loved him still, he knew that.

He felt as confident, cocky, and proud as a rooster and he crowed and crowed, laughing at himself, mingling the laughter with a hoot that turned finally to a cough. He fell to his knees, coughing, laughing, hooting, and his eyes ran with tears. No one could stop him!

Was he going to let some idiot cops ruin everything for him? For the women? They needed him, he brightened their lives, and if he had been selfish a few times, if he had thought only of his own pleasure and not theirs, was he not human? Wasn't he entitled to be selfish a few times?

He had never killed them with malice, they had not suffered, they had not been afraid. They had given their lives in love for him, trying to the utmost to give him what he needed, and he was profoundly grateful to them all. It was not an exchange the police would understand, of course, but Luv felt certain that the women who died for him did understand. He was certain that they forgave him his selfishness-if any forgiveness was needed at all. He had given them so much too, don't forget. No other man had ever treated any of them with the love and tenderness and expertise that Cap'n Luv could bestow. He gave them the love of their lives-and they gave Luv their lives… And so few of them, really. Only 9 out of 128 women that he had loved since becoming Cap'n Luv. He did not even count the few fumbling fucks he had had before he learned what it was all about. He had been crude, incompetent, just like other men, too preoccupied with his education, then his profession, to give the proper attention to his true calling.

It required a way of life, not just a few minutes' frenzied passion, to be a lover, a proper lover, a man women loved. It was not until he devoted his energies and his imagination to it that he had become Captain Luv. And he was not able to make that dedication until he was professionally secure and domestically stable. A single man could not do what Luv had done, just as a ship could not sail without a rudder, and so he owed his wife a debt that he could never repaynor even acknowledge, of course. It was the need for deception that added much of the zest to the game, and it was the wife that produced the need as much as the victims. She needed to be deceived, just as Luv needed to deceive her, and they moved around each other in a gravitational system, like a planet and its moon-but only the planet was conscious of the movement. Because he had acquired his professional skills and a spouse before discovering his true calling, Luv had begun late, essentially losing his youth to labors. If he had not, the total would be much higher, of course, but he did not regret his tardy entry. It was not numbers alone that counted, but quality, and without the money and flexibility afforded him by his work, he could never have accomplished what he had. Or what he would accomplish in the future. He was not finished, no matter how many cops they put on his tail. Luv had surpassed mere mortal struggles, he had become a force of nature and would persist.

All that he required was a plan, and it did not take long to come up with one. He would do what he did best, he would play to his strength and strike with such cunning and bravado that the cops would have to clear him of all suspicion.

He emerged at last from his study and found his wife in the bedroom, removing the polish from her fingers and toes, the white cat beside her, its fur fading into the matching coverlet so that its green eyes seemed to balance in space. Her face was already scrubbed clean of paint and pencil and her hair fell loosely around her beautiful features. She had been his first great conquest, a woman so lovely, so prized that she had initially looked upon him with illdisguised scorn. Luv had worked on her tirelessly, learning much of his craft with her-the way a woman's mind worked, the way to play upon her emotions, her sensitivities. He learned from her what women really responded to as opposed to what they thought they needed from a man. In the end he had won her and had kept her ever since, pampered and given pride of place like the great trophy that she was.

"Sorry to take so long," he said. "I had some things to attend to."

She smirked at him, a trait that had become stronger over the years, as if she thought everything he said was a lie. "You usually do," she said.

Luv looked at her for a moment, seeing the long legs, scrupulously waxed as always, as if for the first time. Her robe was partially open and he could see the swelling of her breast. She was still magnificent, he thought, and he was going nowhere else tonight, not with his tail out there waiting for him. When he sat beside her and slid his hand up her leg, she gasped with surprise. Luv realized how long it had been. After a few moments she dropped the cat to the floor.

He took his time, trying to treat her as if she were a new conquest, using some of the things he had learned with all the others, and as he made love to her the others cascaded through his mind so that it was someone else's breast he pressed his lips to, someone else's legs he caressed, another woman whose ears and eyes he kissed, and still another victim who cried out when he entered her.

Afterwards, in the dark, she asked in wonder, "Stanley? Was that you?"

He smiled to himself. It was Cap'n Luv, not Stanley the shmuck ' "That was incredible," she said. His smile broadened. He knew.

After she had taken her sleeping pills and he heard her breathing change, after he felt the weight of the cat as it reclaimed its place on the bed, Luv slipped out the back door, across the yard, and into the woods. If he was working under new restrictions, he had to know what they were.

Becker called his house, waited for the answering machine, then left a message that he was working late and not to wait up for him. It was an excuse Karen would not question. By agreement, they never asked each other about their work except in an official capacity. The burdens of the job were grim enough without adding to them. If either wanted to talk and initiated the conversation, that was acceptable. But to inquire without solicitation was not. He hoped that she would take his advice and not wait up. He wanted her to be asleep when he came home-he could not speak to her, could not look at her without feeling the sickening anger rising. And mingled with the anger was the nugget of doubt and hope, the only thing that kept him from total despair. It was the hope which drove him now; it was the chance, however small, that he would be proven wrong about her that propelled him into the woods to take up his lonely vigil for the third night in a row.

Driving home from work, Kom decided to go via the Merritt rather than his usual route on the local roads. It was a marginally faster trip-although he normally shunned it because of a tendency for traffic to sink into a bottleneck around construction at exit 42 during rush hour-but its real value lay in giving him a choice of exits. The logical exit was 42, but Kom got off at 4 1, watching his mirror. Anyone who got off the Merritt behind him and ended up in Clamden was his tail.

The car that had followed him to his office in the morning and from there to the hospital and back was gone, which he had expected. They must be working in a team, since they were on him around the clock. Kom knew that they were capable of all kinds of sophisticated maneuvers, running agents in front of him, changing tails every few miles, even tossing in a bit of aerial surveillance, but if they were doing anything that complicated, he doubted that they would be doing the relatively sloppy job of keeping one car in his wake. It only confirmed his notion that he was still a lowprofile job, still nothing more than a guess.

Two cars followed him at the exit and Kom thought at first it was a man in a blue Buick, but in the end only a young woman in a gray Taurus was still behind him on the twisting roads of Clamden. He had momentary doubts because his shadow was a woman, but he soon realized that Feds came in all shapes and sexes. Karen Crist was probably this young woman's superior, after all. Police work wasn't limited to men anymore, and Kom was glad of it. He preferred women in all circumstances-he was an expert at dealing with them.

He made love to Tovah for the second night in a row, attacking her with a fervor that surprised them both. In the end she stood at the foot of the bed, bent over and gripping the footboard while he took her from behind, one hand around her waist, the other grasping her neck. He tore at her, snarling as she grunted with each thrust, her voice cracking with excitement. Kom felt his fingers tighten on her neck and suddenly the mania was unleashed and ripping at him to be free of its confines in his soul. He tightened his grip further on her neck, felt her shake her head slightly in pain and protest, but he held on, simultaneously squeezing as he increased the pace and power of his thrusts. There had been no prelude, no request for tolerance of discomfort. He had not prepared her and she struggled against him now, trying to dislodge the uncomfortable grip from her neck while not disengaging from the sex. He squeezed harder, feeling his climax approaching, and began to howl crazily as both his groin and the mania flung him about, on the edge of chaos and release.

He tore himself away from her and fell on the floor, spurting onto his belly as he lay there, trembling from his demon and his orgasm. Tovah turned to look at him, astounded. He lay on his back, quivering, panting in deep gasps as spasm after spasm shook him, his eyes closed, tossing his head from side to side. She had never seen him like this, shuddering with passion, all restraint gone, completely vulnerable. She felt a sense of her desirability-and her power-that she had thought was gone forever, destroyed by the same man who had just restored it. She stood above him, her own body still shaken by the force of their passion, still tingling as though his hands were yet upon her. He could not be more exposed, he could not even see her. She could kick him, stand on him and jump up and down, smash his face with her foot, crush his testicles. It was a matter of a few inches, she had but to stretch her leg, shift her weight. She had him, after the years of betrayal and psychic torment, exactly where she wanted, a quivering, helpless victim of her sexual strength. She could hurt him any way she chose.

But she still throbbed from his presence, he was too much with her for such thoughts to last. As quickly as the urge to vengeance had welled up, it was gone, replaced by the realization that she indeed had him where she wanted, but not as her victim. As her lover. As a man reduced to jelly by his passion for her, but not to be punished. To be rewarded with her love. It was all she had ever wanted, to be wanted by the man she loved. To be loved by the man she wanted. Her cat rubbed against her leg, purring.

He smiled, his eyes still closed, then began to chuckle. He laughed harder, his soft belly shaking, his erection bobbing up and down. The room rocked with his laughter. Thinking he was laughing at the joy and release of their lovemaking, Tovah joined in. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw a tall, naked woman, still lean, not modelthin any longer, but spare and taut, with fin-n breasts and legs and buttocks that-in the dim light and from a distance-showed no trace of wrinkle or sag. But what surprised her was the face in the mirror, the happy face of a laughing, satisfied woman. She barely recognized herself.

Luv was delighted with himself Once again he had fought the mania and won. It had come upon him with titanic force, threatening to kill the one woman among all others who must not be harmed, the one on whose survival Luv's very existence depended. It had blind sighted him, sneaking up on him with a great virulence at the time when he was weakest, at a time when a lesser man would not have been able to stop.

The mania was cunning and it was strong, but Luv was stronger. He had used his demon as cleverly as a judo expert, playing its strength against his sexual passion and letting it lift him to a height he had never felt before; then Luv, by strength of will, had disengaged and won the battle. Nothing could beat him, not the enemies without or the demons within. His joy burst forth in laughter that filled the room.

Even before opening his eyes he reached out and touched Tovah's ankle.

"You are astounding," he said. "No, you are."

"We are. Together." He opened his eyes and looked up at her as she stood over him. "You make me feel like a giant." He slid his hand up the smooth flesh of her calf, pausing behind her knee to gently finger the delicate skin there. Their eyes met and the look on his face was unmistakable. Tovah had thought he had to be finished-that she had to be finished-but he was still erect, as if made from stone. His fingers crept up her thigh, smoothing their way between her legs, and she sucked in her breath as he touched her.

"Don't move," he whispered.

She was astounded by the strength of her response. He brought her off with just his fingers, still lying on the floor while she stood above him. She came standing, shuddering and crying out, gripping the footboard for support, her legs quivering and threatening to buckle, but when she tried to sit he kept her on her feet and was suddenly kneeling in front of her, his mouth pressed to her. She knew it was pointless but he knew better and she came again, thinking she might die from it.

At last he allowed her to sink to the floor, where she straddled him and rode him, whimpering with excitement, his mouth on her breast, her pelvis thrusting, until she came together with him in one final, huge simultaneous shudder.

Tovah could feel his hands still on her as she lay in bed and he took his shower. She felt them still moving across her skin when she heard him going to the kitchen, then reading in bed. As the pills escorted her to sleep, she felt his hands still there, heat and sensation, fluttering across her whole body. She thought she must feel it for days. Her last conscious thought was of him and how he had changed and how their new life together was just beginning.

When Tovah was asleep Kom dressed and climbed to his attic, where he walked across the beams interspersed with rolls of pink insulation until he reached the small ventilation window on the south side of the house.

Through the slatted vent he could just make out the shape of the Taurus parked in a position that was out of the line of sight from the windows below him. The agent in the Taurus could just make out the edge of his driveway from there, he reckoned. Last night's exploratory trip had confirmed that the agent could not see the back of his house. He had the freedom he needed.

Kom was quickly across his back lawn and into the woods beyond the tennis court. He paused once under the cover of the trees, listening.

He sensed something strange about the night, something different from all of the other times he had stood here like this, but he could not say why. There were the usual noises of the night, but nothing singular. He scanned the area around him, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was a familiar spot, but not one he had memorized. The configurations seemed normal, nonthreatening, and nothing moved, but his eye was struck momentarily by a mound, just one more patch of gray on gray, but somehow different. He moved his head, trying to catch it from different angles. With imagination he could twist it into the shape of a man, but Luv had learned long ago not to trust his imaginings at night Congratulating himself on his good sense and ascribing any unease to his awareness of the agent in the car out front, he moved deeper into the woods. He passed close to the troubling shape, glanced at it and moved on, heading swiftly toward his destination.

He did not turn back to see the shape rise and stand and move after him.

The car was waiting for him where he had thought it would be. He crossed the open playing field, his passage marked only by the stars and a peel of moon so thin he could barely believe it had ever been whole.

Within the border of the hedge he waited as a headlight came and went, then stepped into the black pool of asphalt and crossed to the car. With a final glance around he entered the car. The overhead light came on and off as the door opened and closed but he reached up to shut it off so that it would not happen again.

There was a pay phone designed for a driver to use from his car at another service station a twenty-minute drive to the north. He could not make the call from his home or his office because records were kept.

For the same reason, out of respectful caution, he did not make the call from the pay phone at Clamden Center. If the cops ever tracked it to the center-and they would probably trace every call she had made or received in a day or two-there was no point in bringing them so close to home.

He pulled onto Clamden Road, away from town, watched only by two eyes that peered out from the hedge where he had crouched only moments before.

Luv returned his car to the service station forty-five minutes later, delighted with his work. The plan was in place, and oh, it was brilliant, it was wonderful, it was in "in your face." Daring but so simple, so audacious no one would believe it. It would be just one more achievement that Luv would have to share only with himself. He parked the car where he had found it and stepped out, this time without the illumination of the interior light. After a glance around he trotted across the asphalt of Clamden Road once more and glided through the hole in the hedge. He was never aware of the eyes that followed him, as patient and murderous as a hawk's.