Derailed

TEN

He passed out, more than once he passed out, but each time the man brought him back, slapping water onto his face, whispering into his ear.

Don’t fade on me, my man. Round two . . . baby. Round three . . . four . . .

It was like bad porno . . . the kind you don’t really want to see, but your friend just happens to have it, so you watch. Even as you pull your eyes away, you watch. The woman with the dog, the scat tape where she swallows it all — sickening, really, can’t believe she’s really doing that, but she is, and you’re watching it. Your stomach churning, your guts heaving, makes you want to throw up, but you have to look at it. Don’t know why, but you do.

Him and Lucinda. Beautiful naked Lucinda and him.

And she was beautiful. As he placed her on hands and knees and put it into her ass. Telling Charles what he was doing, too — keeping up a kind of running commentary. . . .

See, Charles — they love it in the ass. They tell you they don’t, but all whores do.

Telling her to moan for him. Putting the gun up by her head as he rode her and making her moan. Moans of pain, probably, but they sounded like moans of pleasure. Moans were moans. Hard to tell which were which, except for the fact that her eyes were squeezed shut, her mascara streaked and running, and she was biting into her lip until it bled.

And Charles watching, sitting there in the chair as if he were tied down, even though he wasn’t tied down.

See this, Charles — a born cocksucker. . . . That’s right, baby . . . suck that big daddy dick. . . .

The tableaux changed, no longer fucking her in the ass, but standing in front of her, hands cradling her face, that beautiful Lucinda face. And Lucinda choking, gurgling, the sounds spurring him on . . .Oh yes . . . oh yes . . . you watching this, Charles, Charley . . . don’t want to miss the cum shot . . . gotta see the money shot . . . oh yes . . .

And later, Lucinda lying there — how much later? Charles didn’t know, later that morning, later that afternoon. Lucinda lying there covered with sweat and cum, hardly moving. Was she dead? No, she was still breathing, if only barely. Charles looked down at the dried blood on his hands and wondered whose it was, forgetting that it was his, that his nose must be broken.

And now the man was rubbing himself, naked except for his sweat socks and sneakers, staring at Lucinda on the floor and jerking himself. For another round. Round . . .what? Five, six?

“Still with us, Charles? ” the man said. “Hang in there, bud. More to come. . . .”

And there was.

The man taking her again, propping her up against the bed as if she were a marionette, all loose arms and legs, twisting her into his vision of lewd. Legs up by her ears, hands spreading herself — giggling at this. Taking his time, placing her just right, an inch here, an inch there. Lucinda slack jawed, just a prop, a blowup doll.

And Charles decided to give it one more shot—not him deciding, his machismo deciding, his reptilian cortex, maybe — pushing him up off the chair in the general direction of the man who was about to rape Lucinda for the fifth or sixth time.

The first thing was — he was dizzy. It was blindman’s buff and he’d been spun around the room like a top and couldn’t tell which way was which. He staggered, he teetered, he wobbled — the man not even aware of him yet because he was still positioning Lucinda and had maybe forgotten that Charles was even in the room. So Charles eventually righted himself and actually made it all the way over to him. He grabbed the man from behind, around the neck, and squeezed.

He squeezed for all he was worth, he squeezed like there was no tomorrow, a virtual death grip of steel. But the man calmly, almost lazily, stood up and sloughed Charles off him as if he were dumping garbage onto the sidewalk. Charles ended up splay-legged on the floor, wondering what happened, as the man grinned and shook his head.

“Charles . . . Charles . . . what the fuck’s the matter with you? Giving you the show of a lifetime. Championship fucking—you’ve never seen fucking like this. And this is the thanks I get. Shit. I ought to kick your ass, Charles. I ought to kick the shit out of you.”

Charles mumbled something back at him. What did he say? He didn’t know. . . .

“Okay,Charles. Let’s calm down. Let me count to ten. You just wanted some for yourself, that it? Watching the fuck machine got you hot, that it? I understand. Only not today, my man. It ain’t your turn, understand?”

Lucinda was still stuck in that pornographic position, like a bored model waiting for the shutter. Only she didn’t look bored as much as dead, not even turning to look at her would-be savior, who in the end had simply traded one seat for another. One in the balcony for one in the front row.

As the man—fully erect, the clumsy violence had apparently invigorated him—knelt between her white thighs, the thighs Charles had lain between not two hours before, and began again. So close to him, Charles could almost touch him, even if he couldn’t hit him, even if he couldn't stop him.

“Oh, Charles,” he whispered, “like velvet. Like smooth, fucking velvet. . . .”

It took a while after the man left to know the man had left.

Charles heard the door slam, even saw him walk through the door before he heard the door slam, even heard the man say good-bye to them — Hate to go, but . . .And Charles continued to sit there on the floor as if the gun were still trained at his head. As if the man were still moaning into Lucinda’s hair, that grotesque ass pumping up and down mere inches from his face.

And Lucinda, too. Still with her legs apart like something wanton, like those Amsterdam hookers who lounge in shop windows with their legs spread in an open invitation. Only their expressions not quite as horrified looking, their hair not matted to their chins with sweat and blood and dried cum.

Eventually Charles moved.

One leg at a time, tentatively, like a man testing the water. As if to prove he could move even if he wasn’t quite willing to believe it. And then after he’d moved his legs, his arms, and then his whole body, getting up off the floor and standing, a little wobbly, but up on his own two feet again. And when he moved, so did she.

Not saying anything, nothing at all, but slowly bringing one thigh over to the other, hiding that open part of her that resembled a raw wound. And then slowly picking herself up off the floor and trudging over to the bathroom, where she went in and closed the door.

He heard the water running, heard the sound of towel rubbing skin, then what sounded like retching. A toilet flushing once, then twice.

He still hadn’t cleaned himself up yet. Bloody hands, blood all over his face, too, no doubt—his nose feeling twice its normal size, as though he had a clown nose on his face. And maybe he did—maybe that was entirely appropriate. Charles the clown, getting whacked in the head and booted in the bottom while the circus master had his way with the star attraction. Who was opening the bathroom door now. Still not saying anything to him—what, after all, do you say to a clown? Still looking dazed and battered, if a little more cleaned up. Still naked, too, as if that didn’t matter, as if she could never be more naked than she was fifteen minutes ago—spread open and violated, and after that, what could clothes do for you? And maybe something else—that clowns don’t count, they’re superfluous in the scheme of things, and it doesn’t matter what they see if they can’t act.

Are you all right? he started to say to her. He almost had the words out of his mouth until he realized how hopelessly inadequate they were. How could she be all right, how could she ever again be all right?

“I should take you to a hospital,” he said.

“No.” Her first word to him in what must have been hours.

“You should be looked at.”

“No. I’ve been looked at enough for one day.” Her voice sounded dead, the way bad actors sound, wooden, no real emotion there. It was scarier than screaming, more frightening than tears. If she’d cried, he’d have put his arms around her and comforted her. But there was nothing he could do for her.

She began to get dressed, slowly, one item at a time, not covering up, no coyly turning away from him like before. So Charles went into the bathroom, where he flinched at his own reflection, thinking at first that it was someone else staring back at him. It couldn’t possibly be him. But this was Charles the clown, remember? He of the bulbous nose and red paint and fright wig.

He pressed a wet towel up against his nose, where it stung, as if he’d applied iodine. He smoothed down his hair and tried to wipe the blood away from his cheeks.

When he came back into the room, she was more or less dressed. One stocking ripped, skirt slit where it wasn’t before, yet she was put back together in a reasonable facsimile of a dressed woman. The way a mannequin is a reasonable facsimile of a dressed woman — minus the thing that actually makes a woman alive.

“What do we do?” Charles asked her, not just her, but himself as well, because he didn’t know.

And she said, “Nothing.”

Nothing. It sounded so ridiculously preposterous. So blatantly ludicrous. The criminal was still at large, his victims beaten and bleeding, and what does she propose doing? Nothing.

Only the opposite of nothing is something, and he couldn't think of a something.

Go to the police?

Of course you go to the police. You’ve been robbed and raped and beaten, so you go to the police. Only . . .

What were you doing at the Fairfax Hotel?

Well, we were . . .

What were you doing at the Fairfax Hotel in the middle of the morning?

Well, the thing is . . .

What were the two of you doing at the Fairfax Hotel?

If I could take a minute to explain . . .

Maybe they could ask for some discretion here, maybe you were allowed to ask for a little discretion, and the police detective would wink at them and say, I understand. That he’d be sure to keep this just between them, no need to worry. Only . . .

There was a criminal here, and sometimes criminals get caught—you report them to the police, and sometimes the police actually apprehend them and bring them to court. And then there are trials, public forums that make the front pages, where witnesses have to get up and say, He did it, Your Honor. Those witnesses being him. Him and Lucinda.

And what were you doing at the Fairfax Hotel?

Well, we were . . .

What were you doing at the Fairfax Hotel in the middle of the morning?

Well, the thing is . . .

Just answer the question.

What do we do? That was the question.

Nothing. Maybe not as ludicrous as it first appeared. Maybe not so ridiculous.

Yet was it possible that they could just ignore what had happened to them? That she could just forget about it, like a rude comment or a vulgar gesture? Go to sleep and wake up and poof — gone.

Lucinda said, “I’m going.”

“Where?”

“Home.”

Home. To the blond five-year-old who never met a playground swing she didn’t like. To the husband with the nine handicap who might or might not notice the sudden pallor in her cheeks, the bit lip and shell-shocked disposition.

“I’m sorry, Lucinda,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He was sorry for everything. That he’d asked her up here in the first place. That he hadn’t seen the man lurking in the stairwell opposite their room. That he’d sat and watched as the man raped her again and again. That he hadn’t protected her.

Lucinda trudged to the door — that amazingly elegant gait turned plodding and ungainly. She didn’t look back, either. Charles thought about offering to call a car for her, but he knew she’d turn him down. He hadn’t been able to provide the one thing she’d really needed him to. She’d want nothing more from him.

She opened the door, stepped through the open space, and shut it behind her.