The Delilah Complex

Sixty-Nine

Daphne stood in the shadows of the staircase. Her hair was wild, her blouse was pulled out of her slacks. There were sweat stains under her arms. Her mouth was twisted into an angry grimace. “What are you doing here?” she screamed at me.

I didn’t have much time-only a few seconds while she was still in shock at seeing me-to push past Nicky and then get past Daphne in an attempt to get upstairs and out of there. To get to a phone. To get away.

But before I knew what was happening, Nicky fell on me and the force of his body pushed me to the floor. My shoulder started to throb. Nausea came in waves. I knew from experience that my bone might be broken.

Nicky sat up. “You pushed me,” he was saying to Daphne in a dazed voice.

The pain in my arm was making me dizzy, but I managed to sit up, too.

“Why did you push me?” Nicky asked his wife. He was on overload, trying to work out the meaning of what was happening, not understanding anything.

Behind me, the men were screaming and shouting.

Daphne was standing over her husband and me, staring down at us; in her hand was a gleaming pair of scissors. Her back was to the staircase, blocking it. To get to it, I’d have to push past her.

“Get up,” she said to him.

Nicky did what she asked.

Slowly, despite the pain, I got up, too, keeping my eyes on the scissors. She was three or four feet away from me. I wondered if I could lunge at her and throw her off balance. The scissors weren’t much of a weapon against two of us. Nicky could take them out of her hand in one movement. But he was just standing there, rubbing his chin, staring at his wife.

“Nicky?” I said. No response. “Daphne, please put down the scissors. You need to call the police. I’ll help you. You won’t even go to jail. You just need help. Everyone is still alive. You will be fine. But you have to put down the scissors and let me get to the phone.”

She laughed at me and looked at her husband. “Do you see, Nicky? You have to see. I did all of this for you, not to hurt anyone. I had it all planned out. I even picked Liz to send the photos to because I knew that she hated you all so much she’d enjoy making you cower. I guessed who she was. Saw her at a party. Lucky me. Screw conflict of interest. I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of keeping the story for herself. That she’d do everything she could to feed the police the bare minimum while milking the news. She didn’t want the crimes solved-she wanted power over all of you, and I was giving it to her. I wanted you to live with the fear. Day after day. And have it grow in you. Until the fear was so big it overpowered the lust.”

He was just nodding.

“You have to give it up-you understand that, don’t you? No more going to the Scarlet Society.”

Daphne was talking to him in a more strident tone of voice than she had used before in my presence, and her face was arranged in a mask of power that was the opposite of the sensitive, loving wife I’d met the two previous times. Which woman was real? The wife who only wanted her husband to be faithful to her? Or this aggressive, powerful woman crazed with jealousy?

“Daphne, we have to call the police now.” I was using a calm voice, hoping I could reach her and break through her rage, but she was ignoring me.

“Nicky, do you understand?” she asked.

He nodded his head.

“You have to do what I say from now on, Nicky. All right?”

He nodded.

“Come here.”

He moved closer to her.

She reached out with her free hand and stroked her husband’s groin with her fingertips.

It seemed that we had all disappeared-me and the four naked men strapped to their gurneys. They were talking and shouting, but she was not hearing them. She continued to rub her husband until a smile curved her lips. She’d made him hard. Despite the plight of these men, the stink of the torture chamber, the imminent danger and the shining weapon, he was under her spell.

Her fingers curled around the bulge in his pants, squeezed it, and then unzipped his fly and pulled his penis out.

“See, when you listen to me, when you accept me for who I am to you, when you don’t fight me, it’s fine. You’re hard, aren’t you? You’re nice and hard. And that’s for me. Because I know how to treat you.”

Nicky had slipped into a sexual fugue state. His eyes were shut. His lips parted. His face muscles went slack. Daphne leaned down and sucked on his penis. Up and down, licking him as she swallowed him.

This was my only chance. How concentrated was she on proving her erotic domination of her husband? How much did she want to show him, or herself, or the other men in the room, that she had the power and could command them all?

Enough so that I might be able to inch away?