Dismember

TWENTY-ONE

Libby wasn’t exactly petite, but Marshall still had an inch or two on her and at least twenty-five pounds. Unfortunately for him, what he also had was a weak spot, the same weak spot every man had, a weak spot that didn’t currently realize it was weak and jutted into her hip instead of retreating turtle-like into Marshall’s pelvis like it should have.

Libby rammed her thigh into the man’s crotch so hard it hurt her; the ensuing crunch sounded very much like what you get when you stomp a cockroach.

Given the way Marshall had pawed at her breasts and dry-humped her leg, someone who’d missed the blow to his testicles might almost have confused the look on his face for one of orgasmic pleasure. His mouth opened into a wet, perfectly round O, and his eyes rolled up into his head as if looking for his own brain.

Nothing up there, Libby thought and pushed the pervert away.

Marshall stumbled back, and his facial features drooped to reveal the pure agony hiding behind the mask of ecstasy.

“Hhhhnnnnnn,” he said, rasping harder than an octogenarian. His hands found his groin and cupped it gingerly. He shifted from side to side, looking less like an old man than a little boy who needed to use the restroom, and although she would rather not have associated thoughts of her son with this disgusting situation, she couldn’t help but think of Trevor. Is this how he’d looked during his dash to the Mountain View restrooms? Had he danced uncomfortably before rushing away from the carousel?

Libby moved away from the counter, still holding the water-damaged paperback, feeling better, safer, though still not safe enough. She wiped a hand across her face and felt Marshall’s sticky saliva. Although he was no longer standing within arm’s reach, Libby still felt the man’s fingers on her breasts, his erection on her hip, his tongue in her ear and probing her lips. This sort of thing had never happened to her until today. Before Mike, she’d only ever kissed two other men (two other boys), and since the divorce nothing had gotten that far. No one in her life had more than looked at her inappropriately. Nausea, fear, and fury combined to create a single, horrible sensation. Her heart thumped more wildly than it had when she’d lost Trevor, and she had trouble breathing with any sort of regular rhythm.

Marshall had stopped his dancing but still clutched at himself and gasped. Libby circled around behind him. She’d had a scary thought. She’d hit him hard, but how hard? What if some of this was just an act, a ploy to lower her defenses while he prepared another attack? She’d never hit anyone in the crotch, except maybe for a cursory bump or two in the marital bed, and really wasn’t sure how much it might hurt. She’d seen a guy take a football to the groin on TV, had once heard a secondhand story from an elementary school friend who’d accidentally pushed her little brother into a doorjamb, but she’d never been there, never heard the groans and seen the doubling over and the swaying.

She wouldn’t take any chances. She sidled over to the knife drawer and slid it open far enough to get her hand inside, never taking her eyes off Marshall, simultaneously expecting him to stay where he was and preparing for him to spin around and lunge at her.

She cut the first knuckle on her index finger, then the tip of her pinkie, both shallow wounds hardly worse than paper cuts, before finding one of the knives’ handles and wrapping her hand around it. The drawer slid out another couple of inches when she pulled her fist through the opening, bumping into her rump and startling her. She almost dropped the thing in her hand, which turned out to be, much to her dismay, not a knife but a potato peeler.

Marshall turned around, and whether he’d exaggerated his injury or not, he’d apparently recovered fast. He had one hand still cupped around his dangly bits and an incongruous grin on his face. His glasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose, but rather than reach up and straighten them, he simply peered over the tops.

“You cunt,” he said, and coming from his lips, the word sounded almost unbelievably wrong. In his slightly rumpled three-piece suit and thick glasses, he looked like a university professor or a used car salesman, not like someone who assaulted you and then called you a cunt.

When he saw the things in Libby’s hands, his grin expanded, and he said, “What are you gonna do, read me to death or peel me?” He took a step in her direction.

Libby considered tossing the peeler back in the drawer, replacing it with something at least semi-dangerous, but she knew if she did that Marshall would be on her in a second. The potato peeler had a pointed tip at least. If nothing else, she could jam it in his throat.

She held the makeshift weapon between her breasts, felt her fluttering heartbeat against her clenched, white-knuckled fingers. He lunged at her one-handed, never letting go of his groin, and she moved without thinking. She twisted her body to the side, dropping the book on the floor at her feet, and although it would have been a simple thing to ram the peeler into his exposed temple, maybe get a little bit of brain, she used her elbow instead, clipped him on the back of the head and sent him flying into one of the cupboard doors.

The door was solid wood. So when she heard breaking glass, she knew it must be his glasses and hoped against all common decency that he’d get an eyeful of shards.

Not that Marshall deserved any decent thoughts. No, he deserved to be blinded so that he could never ogle another woman in his miserable, disgusting life.

Libby backed away, not wanting to, wanting to rush him and stab him and kick him in his thing again but unable to control her legs. Marshall turned to her and glared from behind fractured eyepieces. Despite the cracked lenses, Marshall’s eyes looked fine. Wide, angry, almost predatory, but uninjured.

His nose, on the other hand, was a disaster. It only made sense, she guessed. Unless you were moving backward, your nose would always be the first part of your face to arrive, even if you were headed flat into the door of a kitchen cabinet. Especially if. Marshall’s nose favored his right side by about half an inch, and the bridge had become red and distorted. He’d bled a little, just a trickle that ran to his lip and then down the lip’s upper rim.

“You’re a worthless tease,” Marshall said, sounding like he was in the middle of a two week cold. “I never should have come here.”

No shit, Libby thought, but she said, “Leave. Right now.” She hefted the potato peeler, and Marshall grinned. He moved, not toward her but in the direction of the door.

“Cunt,” he said again and hobbled out of the kitchen.

Libby wanted to stay where she was, or maybe drop onto the floor and cry, but she had to be sure he was actually leaving, watch the door slam behind him with her own two eyes, otherwise she’d never feel comfortable at home again. Thoughts of a bloody-nosed Marshall leaping out at her from a dark closet while she changed her clothes or from behind the shower curtain while she sat on the toilet sent shivers through her body, and she hurried to the doorway.

She caught just a glimpse of his inappropriate suit when he exited the house, but that was enough.

Before she let herself do anything else, Libby took a tour of the house, potato peeler still in hand, locking all the doors and windows and pulling the drapes tight. By the time she’d finished, her heart had slowed to normal speed and she could breathe regularly again, but she still felt dirty and more than a little scared.

Stupid. She had nothing to be scared of. He hadn’t actually done anything except slobber and feel her up a little. Besides, she’d fought him off, kicked him in the nuts and broken his nose, for God’s sake. If anything, she should have felt powerful, proud.

She didn’t.

In the kitchen, she replaced the unused potato peeler and retrieved the water-damaged book from the floor where she’d dropped it. Later, she could press the book under some heavy dictionaries and blow dry it to keep it from warping too badly, but it would never look quite normal again.

Hopefully, she thought, neither will Marshall.

She wondered why he’d done it, what he’d actually expected to happen. Marshall had always seemed a little strange in a nerdy sort of way, but until today she’d thought of his sometimes-odd behavior as eccentric, unconventional. She’d never realized he was crazy. Did he think he’d woo her with his cheap flowers and his rumpled suit or win her over with his use of archaic coffee terminology? Maybe he’d been on drugs.

Libby shivered and returned to the staircase where she’d left the beer and the rest of her bath gear. The ice in the plastic bucket had melted a little, but not as much as she would have expected. How long had Marshall been here? It seemed much longer than it probably had been, seemed like hours.

She wasn’t sure she still wanted the bath. How could she ever expect to relax after what had just happened? But at the same time, she needed the bath. She felt like she’d swum through a sea of slugs and dried off with a couple of dirty diapers. Plus, her body was still tense from her experience at the mall.

God, what a day.

She gathered her book, her candles, and her beer and climbed the stairs. From the bedroom, Paul McCartney sang a love song, and although it should have seemed ironically inappropriate, Libby found it soothing.

She hurried toward the music and away from any thoughts of what had happened downstairs.