Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

Dream of Murder by Ruth Francisco

Ruth Francisco worked in the film industry for fifteen years before the publication of her first novel, Confessions of a Deathmaiden, in 2003. An expanded version of “Dream of Murder” forms the first chapter of her new novel, Good Morning, Darkness, which is due from Mysterious Press this September. The following is the author’s first published short fiction — a superb debut that EQMM is proud to bring its readers!

I found the first arm. The second one washed up on Malibu beach seven miles north of here. The rest of the body must’ve gotten eaten by sharks.

The newspapers gave credit to a jogger who came by later and that’s okay by me. I’m legal and everything. I was born here. But that doesn’t mean I want to talk to cops.

Two or three times a week, I get up at four-thirty and take my beat-up Toyota truck down Washington Boulevard to the beach. I go to fish. They say the fish are too polluted to eat, but it tastes better than what you can buy at the store and it’s free. In the two hours before work, I catch enough bonito or barracuda to feed my family and my neighbors for a few days. When I snag a halibut, I give some to Consuello Rosa, my landlady, and she lets the rent slide awhile.

Usually I fish off the jetty in Marina del Rey at the end of the channel because it’s quiet and beautiful. That’s the real reason I fish. My younger kids prefer to eat hot dogs, and the fourteen-year-old won’t eat nothing her mother cooks, period. So I fish for myself.

On the morning I found the arm, it was still dark when I got to the beach. The moon was setting over the ocean, cutting a white path to the horizon. I threaded leftover chorizo on my fishing lines for bait. I like to think that it’s like home-cooking for the fish who got spawned down in Baja. I don’t want them to forget where they come from. I threw in three lines, then unscrewed my thermos and poured myself some coffee. I was leaning on my el-bows, not thinking about much, watching the black night fade to gray and the low mist pulling back from the shore like a puddle drying up on hot asphalt.

Then I saw the arm.

It lay on the sand about twenty feet from the water where the beach is hard and smooth. The tide must’ve brought it in and left it.

At first I thought it was a piece of rain gutter like I bought from Home Depot the other day for a job. I climbed down from the jetty to take a closer look. I didn’t have to get close to know it wasn’t plastic. It was a left arm. It didn’t smell like the seals I’ve found on the beach or the whale from a few years back. That you could smell for a mile. But then the morning was still cool. I could tell it was a woman’s arm, white with fine hair. The fingers had chipped pearl and clear nail polish, which, ’cause I have a fourteen-year-old daughter, I knew was called a French manicure. There was a pretty ring on her third finger.

I probably would’ve taken the ring if her fingers hadn’t been so swollen. I looked to make sure no one else was around, then squatted by the arm. I touched the skin; it didn’t bounce back. It felt like a mushroom — fragile and a little slippery. I wasn’t repulsed, but maybe a little sad, like when you stop to move roadkill to the side of the highway and realize it’s an animal you don’t see much anymore, like a silver fox or a bobcat.

As I stood up, the waves pushed a white rose onto the beach. Most of its petals were gone, and it had a long stem like the expensive kind people buy to throw off their sailboats along with someone’s ashes.

The sun was beginning to come up; and it was going to be one of those hot spring mornings that acts like summer is in a hurry. I knew someone else would come by, so I went back to my fishing poles and kept an eye on it. In a half-hour a jogger found it, a white man in his forties running on the beach. He was working at it like his lower back hurt, and I bet he was glad when he saw the arm and had an excuse to stop. He touched it with the toe of his sneaker like he thought it might still be alive. That made me laugh. He reached into his pocket and whipped out a cell phone.

From then on, it was his arm.

A lady with a couple of dogs walked toward him and he yelled at her to put them on a leash. She looked pissed until she saw what he was fussing about. By the time the cops showed up there was a ring of people and dogs around the arm. Plainclothes detectives and the coroner showed up twenty minutes later. They spent an hour poking at it, taking its temperature, snapping photos. I even saw one of the detectives bend down and sniff it. Finally, they put the arm in a blue plastic bag and drove off with it.

It wasn’t until that evening, after I told the kids and the wife about it, and the neighbors on both sides, and my cousin Paco who dropped by just in time for dinner, after the house finally got quiet and I was drinking a glass of tequila behind the garage on the brick patio I’ll finish one of these days, that I thought about the woman the arm belonged to, of what she must’ve looked like.

That was when I realized I knew who she was.

Laura Finnegan woke with a start, her heart pounding, her white tank top sweaty, clinging to her breasts, the sheets twisted around her ankles. She let her head fall back onto the pillow, exhaling with a bleating sound. She could feel the blood throbbing in her neck, and she imagined her heart and its network of veins and arteries as an octopus caught in a trap, convulsing, thrashing its arms. A dull headache began above her eyebrows. She wiped the pools of sweat from under her arms with the bottom of her shirt.

What a horrible dream.

As soon as she was awake enough to command her muscles, she propped herself up on her elbows and turned her head.

Scott lay sleeping beside her, soundless, oblivious. He never seemed to wake up gradually to morning sounds — birds, traffic, garbage trucks — but slept deeply until the alarm went off, like a child dead to the world. The top sheet, white with blue cornflowers, curtained over his shoulder and tucked under his chin. She found it odd that it had never before occurred to her that sheets with flower prints were meant to give you the impression of sleeping in a field of blossoms. She squinted, blurring her focus, and imaged a boy napping on the hindquarter of his dog in a meadow of wildflowers. He looked so sweet, so harmless.

She shuddered, remembering him in her dream. Her terror lingered, leaving her drained, her stomach raw and nauseated.

Slowly she pulled the sheet off his body, admiring his shoulders, his chest, his muscular thighs and calves.

He slept on his right side, facing her, his right arm draped over the pillow, his left thigh at a forty-five-degree angle as if he were climbing. He had a long face with a squared-off chin, tanned skin, and a mop of straight blond hair. She noticed faint wrinkles on his neck and at the corners of his eyes, which were set a little too close. He was a perfect L.A. boy-man.

As if pricked, she jerked her hand back to touch her neck. Never had she been so frightened by a dream. Never had a dream felt so real. She seldom remembered her dreams, but this dream she could still smell — the stench of red tide at dawn, decaying fish, rancid seaweed. Even with her eyes open, faint images, black, white, and red, flashed like danger signs over her irises. She could see the coldness in his eyes and an odd twist in his mouth, like when he was close to coming.

Yet here he was, nuzzling the pillow, sweet as a toddler.

Scott was a generous man, an enthusiastic although not a particularly adventurous lover. He claimed to adore her. He was handsome, athletic, attentive, and funny. He acted as if she were the first and only girl he’d ever loved. Her girlfriends told her that when he asked — for there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he would ask — she should agree to marry him. When they said this, they looked invariably wistful, yet happy for her at the same time, as if she’d won the lottery, as if having a guy like this be nuts about you happened only to the lucky few.

But in her dream he stood glaring at her with red in his eyes and black in his heart, an image far more vivid than the man who lay beside her.

Was her subconscious telling her that Scott was dangerous? Warning her? She tried to think of anything about Scott that ever frightened her. He was a little jealous, she admitted. He acted proud when other men looked at her, but bristled if they looked too long. She avoided talking about her male colleagues, hating the way his face froze, his eyes stabbing hard into hers until she explained that Ralph, Harry, or Tom was gay or sixty.

But most men were like that, weren’t they? A little insecure? Scott couldn’t hide his emotions. He complained obsessively about imagined slights, his face turning beet red, his voice rising, usually out of proportion to the transgression. But he’d never directed his anger at her. He’d never raised a hand to her, never yelled at her. Never.

Nothing she could think of explained her dream. With her arms and legs still fluttering with adrenaline and a fuzzy skunklike taste souring her mouth, she realized it didn’t feel like a dream at all.

It felt like a premonition.

Scott Goodsell was in love. He was sure of it. He felt like dancing, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the bank parking lot like some crazy homeless person on Venice Beach. He was in love with the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a goddess.

Scott thought of himself as a sensitive man, a post-women’s-liberation man who respected women and treated them as equals yet appreciated their oddities. He’d grown up with three sisters and had listened when they wept about their boyfriends. On occasion, he’d even flipped through women’s magazines, astonished at their tales of sexual abuse, even more astonished at all the products women could buy to make themselves more appealing to men, stuff men don’t even like — perfume, makeup, shit like that. He couldn’t understand guys who shouted obscenities at a beautiful woman walking by. Did they really think women found that sexy? Or did it give them pleasure to torment women they could never possibly have?

Scott felt he’d tried to be honest in his relationships — at least during the last few years — and when he broke up with a woman, he always did it in person, gently, always reassuring her that she was incredibly desirable, but that it was all him, a problem with commitment he was working on. He almost always was able to remain on good terms with them, usually to the extent that they’d welcome a call if he got stuck alone on a Saturday night without a date.

Yet, even though he’d had his share of women, and despite what he considered to be his special understanding of them, he’d never before been in love.

Laura changed all that. Her beauty took his breath away. She was thin and delicate, with long fingers, a long neck, and long thighs. Her dark-brown hair fell perfectly straight down to the middle of her back, and when he turned her to him, pushing back her hair to reveal her piercing blue eyes, he lost himself.

She was a Modigliani come to life. She possessed a sad, mysterious quality, her body relaxed but alert, her head angled slightly to one side as if she were trying to catch the words to a distant song. And if he stood quietly beside her, sometimes it seemed that he too could hear the music.

He loved her efficiency and that she never complained. To his relief, she never talked about her job. All the other women he’d dated yapped on about their careers, office politics, job deadlines, chauvinism, both real and imagined, from superiors. Not exactly what a guy wants to hear after a long day. Nor did she jabber about her periods or her mother or her ex-boyfriends. In fact, she didn’t talk much at all.

Laura talked with her body. To Scott, her movements were enchanting. Even something as simple as picking up a book or walking across the room seemed choreographed — graceful, fluid, pregnant with meaning. Starting with her lips, her smile spread down her shoulders, up her lifted arms, then to the tips of her fingers. It was like watching a flower unfold in time-lapse photography.

He liked to play a game. He’d watch Laura while she did something simple like peel an orange, then try to guess what she was thinking. Then he’d ask her. He loved her all the more when he guessed right. And when they made love, he found he forgot about himself, completely enchanted by the undulations of her body.

This must be why he loved her. No matter how anxious he was about his work or family, when he saw her he forgot everything, seduced like a pyromaniac gazing into a fire.

So this is it, he thought, as he sat in his white BMW convertible queued up to make a left turn on a backed-up Westwood Boulevard. What was he waiting for?

He stepped on the gas and swerved into the right lane, accelerating through a yellow light. Two blocks down, he pulled up to the red zone in front of a flower shop. He dashed in and bought a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Before the florist finished wrapping them in silver paper, he impulsively asked her to add one white rose. He didn’t know why, it just seemed right.

He jumped back into his car and raced toward the beach. He swerved into a parking lot next to a liquor store.

It was the grungy kind of store that made most of its money from overpriced junk food, beer, and lottery tickets, but in a refrigerator hidden in the back, he found a dozen excellent champagnes to choose from. Overpriced, of course, but what did he care? This was a once-in-a-lifetime event. He selected a bottle of Dom Perignon.

He stood in line behind a construction worker who wanted cigarettes and a woman wearing too many clothes who smelled like urine, but he barely noticed them. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, eyes darting around the store. What else did he need? Dinner. He needed to make reservations, then call her for a date. Where? It had to be just right. Ambiance was more important than food. He got it. Geoffrey’s in Malibu, right on the water, small and intimate. On his cell phone, he dialed directory assistance, got connected, and made reservations for seven o’clock. Laura liked to eat early. God, this was fun.

Then he rang up Laura at work. She answered with that sleepy voice of hers. “Good afternoon. This is Laura.”

“How ’bout dinner?” He tried to sound sexy.

She hesitated a little before answering, but he didn’t make anything of it. She was probably preparing for a client. Then she said, “I would like that.”

“I’ll pick you up around six-thirty.” He couldn’t wait to see her.

The clerk, impatient for his money, glared at Scott with an expression that said he hated cell phones and hated the people who used them even more. Scott slipped the phone into his pocket, then paid for the champagne in cash. He was jazzed.

He had twenty minutes before he had to show a house in Brentwood. He dashed home to put the roses in water, cutting the ends at an angle like he’d seen his eldest sister Martha do.

He stopped. His heart was pounding. He hadn’t felt this stoked since he’d surfed the Banzai Pipeline in Oahu. That was awesome, but how many years ago was that — two? three? — way too long between mega-rushes. What had he been doing with his life?

His eyes drifted slowly around his apartment, a beige affair with Berber carpets and motel furniture left over from a fraternity brother who’d moved out. His surf board lay against one wall. He’d never gotten around to putting up pictures, not wanting to put up posters like a teenager, but also not wanting to take the time to figure out what else to hang.

He’d have to give all this up. He laughed at himself. Grow up, Scott! But was he doing the right thing? Was she the right girl?

Yes. The answer was clearer to him than anything in his entire life. Yes, he would ask her to marry him.

When Scott called Laura on the phone, she heard the excitement in his voice. She figured he’d gotten a job promotion, or a new motorcycle, or some other toy, or maybe one of the vacation bonuses that his job doled out to motivate their salespeople. She didn’t ask. She wasn’t even curious. She knew he liked to tell her such things in person, drawing out the telling like a ringmaster holding the spotlight as the house lights go down.

She liked Scott. She liked his boyish energy. She liked being treated so well. Perhaps she even loved him.

She put on a short black dress with spaghetti straps that clearly revealed her breasts underneath. It felt like wearing nothing at all. When she told him, she wanted to be completely vulnerable. She wanted to feel his hurt, and she wanted to appear her most beautiful when she hurt him.

It was a small revenge for what he did to her in her dream.

As he entered the restaurant, Scott overtipped the valet, the doorman, and the maÎtre d’. He wanted everything to be perfect. He got a table on the terrace and ordered a fancy wine.

She looked so beautiful in that black dress that looked like a slip, her hair loosely piled on top of her head, her eyes blue as tropical water, her mouth red, her bony shoulders vulnerable and seductive, her only jewelry a single black pearl he’d brought back for her from Tahiti, its pear shape falling in the crevice between her breasts.

He wanted to give her the ring now so he could watch it on her long fingers as she lifted her wine goblet and ate dinner, but he knew you were supposed to wait until after the meal, down on one knee, before the waiter brings coffee and dessert, before you order champagne to celebrate.

They ate in silence. She ordered Chilean sea bass in mango sauce, he the rack of lamb.

As the waiter took away their plates, Scott felt his heart beating rapidly and sweat gathering inside his shirt collar. He didn’t quite know where to start. He’d prepared a short speech in his mind, something about coming of age, taking his place in the community, sharing his life with the perfect woman, but now it seemed so cliché. He wanted words that were more real, that told her how wonderful she made him feel.

Then she said, “Scott, I have something to tell you. Perhaps it isn’t the right time, but I don’t suppose it ever will feel like the right time.”

“Go on,” he said. After his initial surprise, it occurred to him that maybe Laura was pregnant. A bit of a shock, but what could be better? They’d start a family right away. That sure would make his mother happy. Or maybe she was going to propose to him. He loved how she continued to surprise him, her secrets, her little revelations. He waited as she paused, searching as she always did for the right words.

“You know how much I think of you—”

“No, tell me,” Scott said, his smile crooked, a smile he’d perfected in front of the mirror as a teenager to pick up girls, a smile that had become part of him, which he now used to sell houses. “You know I can never hear enough about me.” He got her to smile back and it flooded his body with warmth.

“You’re wonderful,” she said. “You’re generous and kind and handsome—”

“And a sexual athlete.”

“That too. You’re the greatest guy I’ve ever met.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said, not used to blushing, his body tingling all over. He felt a flash of heat in his groin and felt like leaping over the table and taking her right there.

“But I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

It was like someone slammed a two-by-four in his face, his ears suddenly pounding, his dinner burning in his chest, threatening to erupt. He was speechless.

“It’s not that I don’t care for you. I do. But I don’t feel comfortable anymore. I think we should stop before things get out of hand.”

“Out of hand?” he nearly shouted. “How can things get out of hand? I want to marry you.”

It was her turn to be surprised, but she shook her head and said, “No, it’s too late for that.”

“Too late? What are you talking about? You’ve been screwing someone else?” Several diners looked over at their table with raised eyebrows.

“No, nothing like that. Calm down, Scott. There’s no one else.”

“Then what? I don’t understand. Tell me.” A shiver went through his body; he felt he might suddenly lose control, as if he were driving on ice.

“I had a dream.”

Scott paused, then laughed too loudly. Everything would be all right after all. “So... you had a dream?”

“Not just a dream. It was horrible. Last time you slept over.”

He felt a nastiness creep over him, something like jealousy but different. He pushed it aside. She was obviously upset. He should listen. “What was your dream about?”

“I dreamed you killed me.”

Scott paused a second — thinking — then laughed, warmly, confidently. How he loved her, her face so serious, her neck taut and vulnerable. He wanted to reach over and kiss that spot that drove her crazy, where her neck joined her shoulders. “It’s a metaphor, don’t you see? It’s so obvious. You’re afraid if we marry, you’ll lose part of yourself... that something of yourself will be killed off.” He took her hand. “That won’t happen. I promise you.”

Laura slowly slipped her hand away. “In my dream, you became obsessed with me, stalked me, then brutally murdered me.”

The word “murder” stung him, took his breath. “I can’t believe it,” he sputtered. “You’re more afraid of commitment than I am and I’m the playboy of L.A. I’m the guy Hefner publishes for.”

The corners of her mouth turned down in a slight frown. “When I look at you, even now, I see your face just as you were about to kill me, your eyes filled with loathing. I don’t want you ever to hate me that much. I couldn’t bear it.”

He saw her lips trembling, her forearms folded across her chest, her hands cupping her shoulders. Her fear stabbed deep into his heart. “Laura, darling. I love you. I could never hate you. It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t just a dream. It felt real.”

“Forget about it, sweetheart.”

“I can’t forget about it. Besides, it doesn’t matter if it was just a dream. I’ll always wonder when you’ll start hating me... when you’ll hate me enough to murder me.”

Again, that word. He suppressed a small ulcer of anger blooming beneath his ribs. He had to make her believe him. “Laura, I’m here, in the flesh and blood.” He paced his words deliberately. “All I can think about is how much I love you. I want to marry you. I want to have children with you. I want to live with you until we’re old and ugly and our dentures clack together when we kiss. I was going to ask you tonight. I even have the ring in my pocket.”

He reached into his sport coat, pulled out the cracked leather ring box, and opened it. An antique diamond ring, simple and exquisite. He set it in the middle of the table for her to look at, then reached over and gently caressed her left hand.

Her fingers were shaking, cold as ice. He looked deep into her eyes. “Who are you going to believe? A dream or me?”

I’m not a pervert. I don’t go sneaking around peeking into people’s windows. But if someone leaves their blinds open after dark, or if they get up early in the morning and open their sliding-glass doors to let out the dog, I look. It’s impossible not to.

So about eight months ago, I noticed a young woman who got up as early as I do. She lived at the end of the marina peninsula in an older two-story Craftsman that was covered with bougainvillea like a pink cloud. She lived in the rental unit over the garage. Her windows looked out over the channel, and she had a deck with planters of white roses and lavender.

The first morning I noticed her, she was in her kitchen making coffee in a white tank top. She was in her late twenties and very pretty, with long dark hair parted in the middle. She seemed lonely. She had that look I see in women her age. Doesn’t matter if they’re rich or poor, single or married, they all get it. Like life has disappointed them.

Hers was the only light on at the end of the peninsula, so naturally my eyes were drawn to her. There was something about the way she moved, graceful like she was still sleeping. I set my fishing rod down on the toe of my boot and stood mesmerized. While she waited for the water to boil, she fed a mourning dove that perched on the bougainvillea outside her window. The bird took it right out of her hand. She left the kitchen, then came back with a hairbrush. She stood there and brushed her hair looking out at the ocean. If she’d looked in my direction, she would’ve seen me, but she didn’t. She looked off toward Catalina as if she were waiting for the mist to clear so she could see her homeland.

From then on, when I came down to the jetty I looked for her. Her routine was always the same: coffee, bird, hair. On warm mornings she’d pull back her hair and pile it on top of her head, arching her long neck, stretching her arms and her shoulders. She smiled and closed her eyes as if she were imagining someone kissing her neck. Not that I thought about kissing her neck. I just enjoyed watching her — like watching the egrets in Grand Canal wading in the mud at low tide.

I got caught once. The guy who owns the place is a famous sculptor from Belgium or someplace. I don’t know what he was doing up so early that morning. Maybe he woke from a dream all inspired and wanted to start work. He uses the sandy lot beside his house as his studio, which is always covered with logs and half-finished pieces of wood bolted on top of one another. On one side of the lot is a tool shed, but sometimes he leaves them out.

As usual, I was standing by the Japanese boxwood hedge watching the girl, the pink dawn reflecting in the kitchen windows. It made her face look like it was floating in the clouds. Like a goddess brushing her hair, smiling down on a poor Mexican fisherman.

Then the sculptor saw me. He was barefoot and wore cutoff gray sweatpants, his naked chest matted with gray and white hair, and his shaggy eyebrows pinched together so I couldn’t see his eyes. He saw that I was watching her. He picked up an axe that was resting by the shed, gripped the handle with both hands, raised it high over his head, and slammed it down into a log. His body quivered. He looked up and glared at me.

I backed up and ran.

Later, I wanted to go back to explain myself, to tell him I wasn’t a Peeping Tom, that I didn’t touch myself while I watched the girl, or even later when I thought about her. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t like that, that she was like the morning to me, sacred and beautiful. He might understand. He was an artist. But then, he might not, and he was a scary bastard.

Then, a few weeks later, I found the arm.

Her boss, Mr. Johnson, called Laura into his office. Was there a problem? Something he could help her with? he asked, his doughy face squeezed into a lecherous smirk. Her personal telephone calls were distracting the other employees. The receptionist was upset, threatening to quit. The poor girl even had to call security once last week when Laura’s friend showed up demanding to see her. As floor supervisor, Mr. Johnson didn’t want to lose Laura, but her work was suffering. Did she want to take some time off? Or perhaps she should talk to someone in human resources who could refer her to an agency? There were laws in California now, stalker laws. She could get legal protection.

Laura thanked her boss for his concern, but she assured him she could handle it. She got the feeling he enjoyed watching her squirm. He obviously got a prurient thrill out of asking personal questions. He gave her the creeps.

As she walked back to her desk, she avoided the curious glances of her fellow workers who now fell silent when she joined them in the lunchroom, as if she were suspected of stealing office supplies, or worse.

How long could it go on? Surely Scott would give up sooner or later. Find another girl. Go away on a vacation and forget about her.

It had started with nonstop phone calls, followed by flowers and presents. When she didn’t return his messages and refused his gifts, he showed up at her house or at work, each time a little more desperate. She didn’t think Scott would hurt her, but there was something wild in his eyes. A craziness. When he grabbed her wrist in the parking lot at Powerhouse Gym, she felt afraid.

“Is it because I didn’t ask you to marry me earlier? That’s it, isn’t it? But I was going to, don’t you see? The very day you dumped me.”

“We’ve been over this, Scott. It’s not that at all.”

“I know I get selfish in bed sometimes. Is that it? I’ll slow down, but you gotta tell me what you like.”

“Scott, you’re a good lover. That has nothing to do with it.”

“I know I’m kind of a slob, but when we get married, we’ll get a maid. You won’t have to pick up after me.”

“We’re not getting married, Scott.”

“Why not? What did I do? I thought we were such a perfect couple. Everyone said so. Hell, my mother even likes you and she’s hated all my girlfriends.”

“Scott, I can’t take much more of this. It has nothing to do with you or your mother or your friends. It’s over. That’s all.”

“Is it because I never said ‘I love you’? I do, more than anything. I’ll say it over and over again, ten times a day. I love you I love you I love you.”

“I love you, too, Scott.”

“But not that way,” his tone turning sarcastic, nasty. “You fell out of love with me. Is that it?”

“Stop badgering me. It’s over, that’s all.”

“Because of a dream?”

“I know you don’t understand, but I can’t be with you.”

“It isn’t fair. I can compete with another man, I can change my habits, I can read sex manuals, but I can’t compete with a dream. I know you’ve got that Rules book that tells you to play hard to get, but this is ridiculous.”

“I’m not playing hard to get, Scott.”

“But why?”

Sometimes she wondered if she had been unfair to Scott, parsimonious in her explanation. But how could she explain something she didn’t fully understand herself? She had no words to describe the painful terror of her revelation, a darkness as piercing as the sun, a reverberating emptiness that left her aimless and de-pressed. It was better, she decided, to be ruthless, to cut him off cleanly, irrevocably, to catapult him from her orbit like an unwanted satellite. She felt she needed to do this to save herself.

Laura read in a pamphlet that one of her friends gave her that she should alter her routine so she would be less predictable, less vulnerable. So she drove a different way to work, shopped at a different supermarket, used different ATMs, came home at different hours. She signed up for a class in self-defense. She disliked it at first, the punching and thrusting. It seemed so mean. During the first class she cried and felt horribly embarrassed until the instructor said it happened to lots of women. They weren’t used to striking out, he explained. She skipped the second session. It took her two weeks to gather the courage to go back.

Scott was sure she was seeing someone else. After all, that was the most reasonable explanation for why she broke up with him, wasn’t it? But why didn’t she simply tell him? He couldn’t imagine her liking anyone more than him, but he thought he’d be able to accept a rival. At least there’d be someone to hate.

So he followed her.

He couldn’t figure out why she was driving all the way into Venice to go shopping, or to Culver City to use the bank, or to the Powerhouse Gym that was almost in Westwood. Was that where she met her new boyfriend?

On Wednesday nights she drove to a studio on Washington Boulevard and got out of her car with a sketchbook. Since when was she into art? She was a dancer. Dancers don’t have talent, not creative talent like that. He became convinced that was where she met her lover.

He watched closely as she came out of the studio, but she didn’t talk to anyone. None of the guys who came out looked her type. In fact, the class was almost all middle-aged women, a couple of real old guys who probably got off on seeing naked models, and some punk kids he figured were digital animators. It had to be the teacher, then.

So he waited.

The teacher came out of the studio fifteen minutes after the last student. As soon as he leaned over to lock the door, Scott knew it was him, the mystery lover. So she was doing an artist. Not even an artist, an art teacher, which meant he didn’t have enough talent to make it as an artist. He was tall and thin with long blond hair. He wore black jeans, a black leather jacket, and cowboy boots. When he got on a motorcycle, Scott snorted in disgust. Figures she’d fall for someone like that.

A nasty, itchy rage ripped across his chest like a brush fire. He followed the bike up Fairfax — he couldn’t help himself — then to Crescent Heights, across Sunset up into the Hollywood Hills. He had to follow more closely than he wanted because the narrow road twisted as it climbed, but the artist didn’t seem to notice him. The bike turned into the driveway of a Frank Lloyd Wright knockoff on the top of the hill.

So she wanted a house. That must be the attraction. He cursed himself. Of course that’s why she dumped him. Every woman wants a house. He was a Realtor, for chrissake. He could’ve gotten her a house without even trying.

The artist parked his bike underneath an overhang by the garage. Scott pulled up to the curb, leaving the engine running, then unfastened his seat belt. He watched and waited. As the artist pulled off his helmet, Scott leapt out of the car, charged across the driveway, and slugged him on the side of the head. The artist fell backward into some ferns, his eyes wide with terror, covering his head with his arms as Scott kicked his thighs, chest, and stomach. “You leave my girlfriend alone. She’s mine, faggot.”

The front door swung open. A middle-aged man, muscular, clean-shaven, with close-cropped hair, stepped out. “Hey, what’s going on here?” he asked, his voice high-pitched and tense. “Tommy, are you all right?”

In an instant, Scott realized his mistake. He staggered back, aghast at the blood on his hand, the crumpled figure on the ground, the sweat dripping in rivulets under his jacket, the acrid smell of fear seeping from his body.

He turned and ran back to his car.

“There are laws against gay-bashing, you damn Nazi!” the artist’s lover yelled as Scott’s car screeched down the hill.

Something was changing in her and she liked it. By altering her routines, she realized how stuck she’d become. She’d forgotten how to see, how to be alive to her surroundings. Now she was developing a new life, trying new activities, finding new friends. She had more energy. Life seemed filled with opportunities. She dashed across parking lots, afraid yet exhilarated, and it must’ve shown in her face because people noticed her, regarding her with interest as if this chance meeting might suddenly catapult their lives into a new direction.

She enjoyed her drawing class so much she signed up for creative writing. She threw herself into it as if making up for lost time. There was a whole world out there of things to do and learn. Just waiting for her.

Yet despite this new feeling of empowerment, she sensed sometimes that she was being watched, a tingling, chilling feeling as if a light fog surrounded her. It was scary and exciting at the same time. She thought maybe Scott was following her, but she never saw him. Maybe it was only his memory, a threat lingering in the imagination, like fear of the ocean after seeing a movie filled with terrifying shark attacks.

Maybe she missed him.

Many times after work, Scott drove by her house to see if her light was on. If she wasn’t home yet, he parked in the alley and waited.

As he sat drinking a beer, watching, he remembered that when they first started spending the night together, she wouldn’t sleep in the same bed with him; after sex, she would pull a quilt out of the closet and go to sleep on the couch in the living room. She said she couldn’t fall asleep in the same bed with anybody, but after a few months, she began dozing off beside him, and he remembered how warm and happy that made him feel.

All it took was time and patience, he told himself. He fingered the ring box in the pocket of his jacket, the old leather soft as suede where it had cracked and worn away. He’d carried the box with him ever since the day at Geoffrey’s because he knew, when the time was right, she would agree to wear it.

This was a Friday night; he knew she didn’t have a class. The front house was dark and he figured the sculptor must be out. It got to be ten-thirty and she still hadn’t shown up. She must be on a date, he guessed, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got. She’d be sorry if she brought anyone home. Those bruises he gave that faggot art teacher were just a warmup.

As it got to be around half-past eleven, he became worried. He finished his third beer, his last, and wished he had another even though it didn’t taste good to him anymore. Maybe she was already there in the house, injured. Maybe she’d fainted and hit her head, or maybe she’d taken too many sleeping pills and suffocated in her pillow. He suddenly felt incredibly anxious, as if crabs were trying to scratch their way out of his stomach.

Dammit! He was going in.

Just as he was about to flip open the car door, he saw her headlights turn up the alley.

She closed the front door to her apartment, but instead of turning on the lights, she opened the blinds to let in the moonlight. She wanted to savor the magic of the evening, that slightly tipsy feeling after a first date, aroused, knowing he’d been interested, but not yet hot with lust; she was intoxicated with the possibility of desire. It was her first date since she’d broken up with Scott, a blind date set up by a friend from work. At first glance she thought she could never be interested in him, but by the end of the evening, after an extended hug which neither of them seemed to be able to break, she was surprised by a powerful attraction.

She pulled off her clothes, leaving them in a pile on the living room floor, then slid open the glass door to the balcony. The cool ocean breeze played over her naked breasts, neck, and shoulders. It felt both soothing and exciting. Soon she was cold; she walked into the bedroom to get a white T-shirt from under her pillow.

She went back into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of iced tea from the refrigerator and stood looking out the windows, watching the moon glisten on the channel water. She loved the stillness, the ripples, the slow creep of moonlight; it completed her like her mate, as if it were all she needed, this solitude.

Finally fatigue melted over her. She dragged herself to the bedroom, climbed into bed, and pulled the down quilt up to her neck. As soon as her body was still and she could feel her heart beating, she longed for the ocean breeze. She got out of bed, threw open all the bedroom windows, then crawled back under the covers. The cold air chilled her face and she kicked her feet until they warmed up.

For a long time Laura lay awake reliving her date. At first, she thought he was rather boring, but she let him talk and discovered he had other interests, in geology and scuba diving, and after their hug, she let him kiss her, and the kiss felt good, like she hadn’t been kissed in a very long time, new and a little scary, and she realized this person didn’t know anything about her, and she didn’t want him to know anything about her, thinking too that usually the better looking a man was the worse he kissed and made love, and the man she was kissing was nice and a little goofy-looking, and his arms and shoulders were wonderfully strong.

She cleared her mind of his image and listened to the silence of the marina, a car passing, the plaintive hoot of a mourning dove. She suddenly felt fortunate to be awake while her neighbors slept, as if their sleeping gave her more room to breathe, more room for her thoughts, for her being.

Then she heard a thud against the side of the house, footsteps on her balcony, and the glass doors in the living room sliding open. She sat up quickly, her skin all gooseflesh, a cold stab of regret shooting up her spine, for she knew immediately that HE had climbed up to the second floor and was there in the dark.

“Laura? It’s me.” His voice was light and querulous like an adolescent boy, the hard leather soles of his shoes scraping across the living room floor, his palms slapping the furniture, then posturing in the doorway to her bedroom, his hand sliding up the doorjamb, his body still and tense like a dancer waiting for the curtain to rise. “There you are,” he said.

She couldn’t see his face, but saw the angle of his jaw, like an eel ready to strike. “You’ve been drinking,” she said, remembering that drink made him petulant, but not violent. “Go away, Scott.”

“Why’d you come home so late? I was worried about you. Wait. Don’t tell me if it was a date. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Laura used her feet to push herself back until her hips touched the headboard. “I’m calling the police,” she said, reaching for the cell phone by her bed, though not dialing.

“You don’t need to do that. I just want to talk. Can I turn on the light?” He walked toward her.

“No,” she shouted. An urgent instinct to hide in the dark made her pull the cord to the bedside lamp, then scoot to the other side of the bed.

“Jesus, Laura. I’m not going to hurt you. Why are you being like this? Can’t we just talk?”

“Don’t come near me.” She grabbed a wooden hanger from a chair and brandished it like a weapon. “I want you to leave, Scott.”

He walked slowly toward her and she swiped back and forth with the hanger until he lunged and grabbed it out of her hand. “Did you think you could hurt me with that?”

She realized she was cornered. She scrambled to the other side of the bed, then began poking the sequence on her cell phone, knowing it was taking too long. Scott rounded the foot of the bed, grabbed her wrists, and slammed her down on the mattress. “For chrissake, Laura. Would you relax? I just want to talk to you.”

The entire weight of his body lay on top of her, her arms pinned to the bed, his moist beer-breath on her neck. She went limp. He took the phone from her, then sat back straddling her hips. “I miss you something awful, Laura. You’re the only girl for me. Don’t you see? Weren’t we good together?”

“Get off me,” she said firmly, trying hard not to tense her body. “Please, Scott. You’re frightening me.”

He seemed not to hear, but leaned over and kissed her neck. “Baby, I love you.” She struggled, pushing him away, wiggling out from underneath him; he let her go. She jumped out of bed and ran into the living room to her other phone; as she lifted the receiver she dialed madly. The receiver slipped out of her hand. As she bent to get it, Scott came up behind; she darted away carrying the phone with her. The telephone cord pulled tight.

Scott yanked the cord from the wall.

Laura’s eyes got round with fear. Scott advanced slowly, circling the room until his back was touching the front door.

“Scott, please leave. We’ll talk tomorrow if you want. At a café or something.”

“Like a date?” he said bitterly.

“Scott, please.”

“I want to talk now.” He inched toward her, then lunged, grabbing her hand. She turned and kicked his head, her heel landing hard on his jaw. He staggered back, shocked, staring at the streak of sticky warm ooze on his fingers. He looked up at Laura, who was crouched in the fighting stance she’d learned.

“Okay, Laura. I’ll leave if that’s what you want.”

“Yes. That’s what I want,” she said firmly.

He walked to the front door, holding his jaw with one hand. She approached cautiously. As he opened the front door and stepped out, he turned and wedged his body in the doorjamb so she couldn’t slam it behind him. “I love you, Laura. I always will.”

Her eyes did not soften, filled with disgust. He plunged back through the doorway. But she was ready for him; grabbing the inside doorknob and doorjamb, she launched herself, kicking his chest with both her feet. As he stumbled back, she slammed the door shut and bolted it.

She slumped against the door, her heart pounding wildly, sensing him on the other side. She expected him to pound the door and yell, but he didn’t. She ran to the balcony and slid closed the glass panels and locked them, then pulled the blinds. She ran back to the front door and waited. She heard nothing but silence for nearly a minute and she worried that he’d stumbled and hit his head, that he might lie there unconscious until morning, and as she contemplated opening the door to check on him, she heard his footsteps descend the wooden staircase, pause, then crunch across the gravel driveway.

Scott staggered down the steps feeling nauseated, acid burning in his chest. As the cool breeze blew off the water and hit his face, he felt a horror take hold of him, as if life held no more pleasure for him, but was a black bottomless pit crawling with snakes and insects. Dizzy, he caught himself on the post at the bottom of the stairs. He hung there for a moment, his body shaking uncontrollably, his eyes tearing, a deafening rage roaring in his ears so he could hardly see. He squeezed his eyes shut; burning lava shot up his spine, whipping it like a dragon’s tail.

He parted his lips in a silent scream, forcing out air until his lungs hurt. He refused to breathe until his chest jerked in spasms and he gulped for oxygen.

Then all was still. A light mist chilled his skin. A fog horn moaned a distant summons as if from another world.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the sculptor’s axe driven in a stump, its red handle purple-gray in the moonlight, its sharp, wedge-shaped blade glinting, beckoning, luring him to reach out and set it free.