CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Gabe
“Tis in my memory lock’d…shall keep…”
“Wider, I want to see every inch.” I stare down at the nude girl on the bed angled into the corner of her cramped studio apartment, watching as she spreads her tanned thighs wide, baring the slick pink flesh between her legs.
“Touch yourself,” I say, reaching down to stroke my cock with one hand, keeping myself hard. “Show me how you make yourself come.”
“But I…don’t do that,” the girl says, blushing.
“Now you do,” I say, seriously doubting that a twenty-five year old cocktail waitress who agreed to take me home without much more than a crook of my finger has never masturbated. “Touch yourself. I want you to come on your hand before I fuck you with my mouth.”
The girl’s breath shudders out and her nipples tighten as she dips her fingers between her legs. Her eyes slide closed as she begins to stroke herself with a confidence that confirms my theory that she was only playing innocent.
Her lie makes me even less inclined to remember her name.
Her name doesn’t matter. She is what she is.
She’s Wednesday night’s girl, another blonde, but different than the blonde I was fucking last week, or the week before. I don’t keep any of them around for long. None of them hold my interest, because none of them are Caitlin, the girl I loved, the one who has vanished without a trace. When the memories first started coming back, I thought maybe I’d actually seen her that day at the airport, but once I learned more about her history, I realized that must have been wishful thinking, my damaged brain projecting the image of a girl I didn’t yet know I was searching for.
Since then, I’ve broken the Internet looking for her, but I can’t find a phone number, an address, or a social media page. Not even an abandoned Facebook page from high school. There is a link to an article in the local paper from years ago, naming Caitlin as one of the scholarship winners receiving a full ride to Christoph Academy, and nothing else. It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth the day she dropped out of school to raise her sister’s baby, and so far, none of the memories I’ve recaptured give me any clue where she might have gone.
But I’m going to find her. My memories are fuzzy and full of holes, but I am painting a more complete picture of last summer with every passing day. Fragments of memory flash on my mental screen, like scraps of film plucked from the cutting room floor. Piece by piece, they are filling in the blanks, confirming I am an even worse person than I suspected in the early days after the surgery.
I didn’t just fuck around and lie to everyone who loved me, I made a hobby out of breaking and entering. I stole thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise that I put through a fence in Charleston, even though I have a trust fund worth millions and more money coming the day my aging grandmother passes away. I robbed people for fun, I suppose. I don’t know for sure.
I don’t know who I used to be, or why I did the things I did, I only know that this helps. Fucking takes me closer to the memories. When I’m rock hard, and balls deep, riding this week’s blonde like this night is the last I’ll ever have, the lid on my memories creaks open and the past comes buzzing out. The rush of sweat and heated blood and orgasm sends me swinging out over the edge of the chasm left behind by the surgery, showing me some of what is waiting on the other side.
Two nights ago, I recaptured thirty seconds of Caitlin standing in the shadows across from a farmhouse. I was walking softly through the trees behind her. She didn’t know I was watching as she pulled on her black leather gloves and smoothed a knit mask over her head. She didn’t know I tracked her fingers as she tucked her hair beneath the mask with graceful movements that made me certain she was going to be an elegant thief.
I’ve seen Caitlin in my memories enough to know that we committed crimes together, even if I don’t know why, or where she’s gone. When the memories started trickling in last January, I convinced Olia to drive me by Caitlin’s house, wheedling at my nurse until she consented to violate my mother’s “no going into town without a parent” rule for something other than a trip to the pizza parlor. Back then, I was still using a cane, but I left it in the van, forcing myself to stand tall as I climbed the steps to Caitlin’s front door, my heart slamming in my chest as I realized I might be seconds away from seeing her again.
But Caitlin wasn’t there. Her father met me at the door to their sagging ranch house, leaning against the doorframe with his thick arms crossed over his stomach, making it clear I wasn’t welcome inside. He said he hadn’t seen Caitlin since last summer, shortly before he received a call from his oldest son, Danny, saying that the rest of the kids needed help because Caitlin had run away. I asked where his other children were, and Chuck said he’d taken them Florida to live with his younger sister. None of them wanted to stay in Giffney, not after being abandoned by yet another person who had promised to be there for them.
He wasn’t friendly, but he wasn’t unfriendly, either, and I had no reason to believe he was lying. From what I remember, Chuck and I hated each other. If he had known where Caitlin was, I’m sure he would have enjoyed shoving the information in my face. He legitimately seemed to think his daughter had tired of the drudgery of raising four kids and run off, the way her mother and sister had before her.
But I remember the way Caitlin looked at those kids. I remember thinking she’d be an amazing mother and that maybe—if things had been different—she and I might have had a child together, a life together. But things weren’t different, and for some reason she vanished, and I don’t know why, and it kills me a little more every day.
I have to know what happened, I have to find the missing pieces before I lose what’s left of my mind.
“That’s good enough,” I say to the blonde on the bed as her breath grows harsh and uneven, stopping her seemingly moments before her busy fingers bring her over the edge.
“But I—”
“Turn over,” I order as I join her on the bed. I roll on a condom as I move, deciding I don’t want to get my tongue between her legs, after all. I can smell that she wouldn’t taste like peaches dipped in the ocean. She wouldn’t taste like Caitlin, and I can’t stand to have another woman’s taste in my mouth.
“Turn over,” I repeat when the woman takes a second too long. “I want your ass in the air.”
The blonde nods and scrambles to do my bidding, and I hate it.
I hate the way her pink claws dig into the pillow in front of her as she lifts her ass and spreads her legs. I hate the happy whimper she makes as I grip her hips and drive, hard and fast, into her slick channel. I hate the way she bounces her ass back against my cock as we establish an urgent rhythm and pound toward the edge together.
I hate her, not because she deserves to be hated, but because she isn’t Caitlin. Caitlin, who handed over the reins to her pleasure with a steady hand, and wasn’t afraid to call me an asshole even as she parted her lips and sucked me off exactly the way I told her to. Caitlin, who submitted the way she did everything else, with pride, honesty, and so much heart you could feel her passion pulsing in the air with every breath she took.
Now, I close my eyes and hold my breath, not wanting to see or smell this stranger. This is simply a means to an end, a way to reach out and touch the razor sharp edges of my lost memories, even though it hurts.
Because it hurts.
I want to hurt. I want to feel alive again.
I want to feel the way I felt when I was with her.
I fuck harder, faster, focusing on the pressure building low in my body, the way my muscles heat and my spine vibrates with the orgasm that is so close, so close. Fuck…I’m so close. I clench my jaw and pump faster, until skin slaps against skin and I’m hurtling toward the edge so quickly I couldn’t stop if I tried.
My orgasm hits like running into a brick wall. Stars explode behind my closed eyes. There is a flash of orange light and then I see a room with a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. I see a stained mattress in the corner, and taste fury on my tongue. I’m so enraged it feels like the ligaments stretched over my clenched fists are going to snap free of the bone. I smell burning rubber and sulfur and a hundred foul things. I am so filled with hate I’m almost blind with it, and when the memory comes I catch only flashes—my hands wrapped around someone’s neck, a mouth parted in a silent scream, eyes bulging with terror, and then a wave of pain so intense even the memory of it makes me wince.
The memory world goes black as I am blinded by the pain, but I can feel the way the person I’m straddling struggles as they fight for life. I feel slim ribs contract as I clench a body between my thighs, determined to crush the person beneath me to pieces.
After a few breathless moments, my orgasm ebbs away, taking the dark memory with it. My eyes crack open, but I don’t see the girl catching her breath in front of me. I see the web of my own lashes and the blurred edges of my nose. I pull in a deep breath, grateful it’s over, but as I slide my spent cock from the blonde’s body, another image flashes through my mind. It is Caitlin’s face and she is as beautiful as ever, but crying like the world is ending. Her arms are wrapped tight around her narrow ribs, her face is blotchy and red, and when she turns her head to one side, I see that her neck is covered in bruises that bloom blue, black, and yellow against her pale skin.
I sit back on my heels, shaking all over, suddenly as weak as I was during those first marathon physical therapy sessions, when I was determined to bend my body to my will if I couldn’t bend my mind. I don’t want to put together the pieces of what I saw, but I can’t stop my brain from chugging down the tracks toward the obvious conclusion.
Bruises on Caitlin’s throat; my hands wrapped around someone’s neck. Caitlin’s arms cradling her ribs; my thighs contracting, crushing the slim chest I have pinned beneath me. Caitlin gone, vanished without a trace, only a few nights before I suddenly changed my mind about the surgery and fled South Carolina with my parents.
I don’t remember what changed my mind about having the operation when I was so dead set against it, but it must have been something big. Something so big that having my brain carved full of holes and rolling the dice on being a vegetable for the rest of my life seemed like a decent idea. Something I had to run from because I couldn’t stand to stay and face what I’d done.
God… Could I…
Could I have hurt her? Maybe even…
“No.” The word hurts as it claws its way free of my throat. I don’t want to believe I’m capable of hurting someone I loved as much as I loved Caitlin, but I’ve remembered enough to know I wasn’t a nice guy last summer.
Hell, I’m not a nice guy now. I’ve been fucking my way through the single women in Giffney like it’s my job. I lie to my parents, and I’m certain they’re lying to me, even though hacking into their email hasn’t revealed that they are anything but devoted to my happiness. I am arrogant, blunt to the point of rudeness, bitter, jaded—basically an asshole, who doesn’t deserve the amazing luck I’ve had.
But there’s a big difference between being an asshole, and a murderer.
“Are you okay?”
I look up to find the blonde has turned to face me. Her hand rests lightly on my bare thigh and her blue eyes are filled with concern.
“I’m fine.” I snap the condom off and toss it in the wastebasket by the bed, wanting to stand up and get the hell out of here, but my knees are still too unsteady.
“It’s hot in here, isn’t it? Do you want to take a shower while I make us some margaritas?” the blonde asks in a hopeful voice that makes me hate her more than I did before. “Something frozen always helps cool me down.”
I don’t say a word. I look into her face, into those eyes so eager to please a man who’s treated her like dirt beneath his shoe from the moment I told her she was taking me home when she got off work, and I am filled with loathing. I loathe her, and I loathe myself, and together it is the worst feeling. It is a dark, hopeless, terrible feeling, but it isn’t enough to make me want to put my hands around her throat.
I don’t to hurt her, not even a little bit, and the knowledge helps me pull my shit together.
“No, thank you,” I say in a gentler tone than any I’ve used with her so far. “I have to go. I’m…not myself.” Whoever that is. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Her eyes squint with concern, drawing my attention to the mascara smudged beneath her lashes. Even with her makeup running down her face and her curls frizzing, she’s a beautiful woman. Kind, too. She deserves better than a one-night stand with a man who couldn’t give less of a shit about her.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asks. “To make you feel better?”
I shake my head as I stand and begin pulling on my clothes with swift, jerky motions.
“You don’t have to run off.” She crosses her arms and tucks her tanned legs beneath her. “I’m not scared of a little dark stuff.”
“How about a lot of dark stuff,” I mumble, the words out before I decide to speak them.
She cocks her head, studying me, her clear eyes big and wide, but not as innocent looking as they were before. “I don’t know. Depends. I had a husband who used to rough me up. I’m not into that.”
“I’m not into that, either,” I say, praying that it’s true.
“I know.” She smiles a shy smile that seems out of place considering we’ve already fucked. “You’re bossy, but harmless.”
I grunt, wishing I could agree with her, but I can’t. I’m not sure that I’m harmless, and I know I don’t deserve the kindness in her voice.
“I should go.” I turn and cross the room, throwing my parting words over my shoulder. “I’m not good company right now.”
“I don’t need good company,” she calls after me. “I just want someone who will fuck me like a house on fire and not tell me how to live my life.”
I pause at the door, the handle in my hand.
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” she continues. “I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime. I just want to have some fun and…I had fun tonight. With you.”
“I don’t even remember your name,” I confess.
“It’s Kimmy,” she says, laughing. “I don’t mind people forgetting. It’s a stupid name.”
“Why do you say that?” I still don’t turn around, not sure I’m up for even a fuck-buddy level of commitment.
“It’s a bimbo name.” I hear the mattress squeak and when she speaks again her voice is closer. “I’m going to change it as soon as my mom dies. I would do it now, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
I turn, unable to keep my eyes from tracking up and down her nude form, admiring her slim legs and large breasts with the dusky nipples. She’s gorgeous, but her eyes don’t look like the eyes of a girl who wants a no-strings-attached relationship. Kimmy is looking for love, whether she realizes it or not, and I’m definitely not in the market.
“You seem like a nice girl,” I say. “But I—”
“I’m four years older than you,” she says, giggling, her smile making her even prettier. “You can boss me around in bed, but you don’t get to call me a girl, college boy.”
My lips curve the slightest bit. It isn’t a smile, but it’s closer than I’ve come to one in a long time.
Suddenly, I don’t hate Kimmy, and I hate myself a tiny bit less.
“I thought you might have a nice smile.” She grins. “Come on, let’s have a drink and hang out. No pressure, just good times.”
“Why don’t we get out of here, instead,” I say, deciding there are worse ways to spend the rest of the evening, like going home and trying to sleep while Caitlin’s brutalized body flashes behind my closed eyes. “We could get burgers and beers?”
Her eyes light up. “Sounds perfect. Give me two minutes to freshen up.”
She disappears through a curtain of glass beads that leads into her closet and the bathroom on the other side. There’s no door on the john, and I can hear her peeing and running water to wash her hands, hear her humming as she fixes her makeup. The sounds are intimate sounds, and for a moment I feel less alone.
The realization makes me reach for the door again.
I deserve to feel alone, I deserve to suffer and ache until I find out the truth, until I know if I hurt the woman I loved, or if I’m reading the clues all wrong.
Please let me be reading them wrong. Please, if there is a God, let this be okay.
Let Caitlin still be alive.
“You ready?” Kimmy swishes back through the beads before I can make a break for the stairs. Her frizzy hair has been smoothed into slightly damp curls, and her smudged mascara replaced by black liner that makes her eyes look even bigger.
“Ready,” I say, forcing a smile as I open the door for her.
I don’t deserve a stress-free night, but I need one. I need to put the horrible images I saw tonight aside before they drive me crazy. I’ll add them to the rest of my clues, close the lid on the puzzle, and wait until I have enough pieces to form a complete picture.
Or you could quit before it’s too late, move on with your life before you learn something that will ruin your second chance.
The thought teases through my brain as Kimmy and I file down the three stories of stairs to the ground floor of her building, one of the oldest in historic downtown. A long time ago The Merrylark was a hotel, then a rooming house for men working in the textile plant, and now it houses apartments that are supposed to be funky and retro, but from what I’ve seen are simply cramped and poorly designed.
But the building is centrally located, right across the street from Harry’s twenty-four hour diner, two blocks from the old courthouse and central library, and just a block from The Neptune, a Greek restaurant that serves burgers and fries, as well as traditional Greek fair.
“How about Harry’s?” Kimmy asks as we emerge onto the sidewalk and are swallowed into the humid heat of the July night.
I glance across the street at the neon sign flickering above the diner and feel a tickle at the base of my brain. Another memory rises inside of me—something about the diner, something that happened there, something to do with Caitlin—but I banish it with a shake of my head.
“No, let’s go to The Neptune,” I say. “They’ve got colder beer.”
I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s as good an excuse as any not to go into Harry’s. I don’t want to face any more memories tonight. Or maybe tomorrow night, either. Maybe the gutless voice in my head is right, and I should quit fighting to reconstruct last summer before it’s too late. I’ve never considered myself a coward before, but now…
The image of Caitlin’s bruise-mottled neck and tear-streaked face drifts through my mind again, but then Kimmy takes my hand and starts telling me a story about when she was little and her mom would take her for midnight breakfast, and the image fades away, replaced by Kimmy’s blue eyes and open smile. By the time we push through the door to The Neptune, and are enveloped in the smell of garlic, fried meat, and mint, there is nothing but the present and a girl who seems to want to help me put the past behind me.