Eve Winters was out on the patio, serving drinks, engaging in small talk with her husband's business associates, when she heard the loud sandpaper laughter that pierced her unconscious, let flow the terrifying memories, the horror of that night. Upon hearing it she froze at first, then knew exactly what to do. A shiver ran through her body as she walked slowly through the crowd, not wanting to look distressed, back to the house, where she entered her husband's study and opened the bottom drawer of the desk. She had never touched the gun before, had been afraid to. But she picked it up now and held it by its grip to see how it felt. She found several cartridges lying on the bottom of the drawer and, hands shaking (knowing that her husband never kept the gun loaded), managed to swing open the cylinder, slip in six cartridges, then close it all up again neat, before carefully placing the pistol back in the drawer.
Then she went to the kitchen, picked up a tray of canapes, returned to the patio and made her way through the crowd, listening for, and following that voice. Canapes in hand, body shaking, she drew closer to the flame, until she was there, standing right in front of the monster. The terror of the moment made her feel woozy; the fact that her husband was right there, talking to the man, did little to alleviate her nausea.
The man looked at her first, a slim smile on his face. Until then her husband, John, caught up in the point he'd been making, hadn't seen Eve standing there.
"I'm sorry, Eve. Have you met Jeffrey Mullins? He stopped in the shop this afternoon, gave me a real good deal on a color copier. Being so far from home,
I thought he might like a little company this evening."
The man laughed. It was the same laugh that she had heard moments ago, that laugh. Her hand stiffened as the man took her hand and shook it. "I do cover a wide territory," he said, still holding on to her hand, wouldn't he ever let go? She pulled her hand from his, repulsed, wanting to run into the house and wash away the touch. But she restrained her impulse and tried to recover her poise, smiling as he said, "It's a lovely place you've got here. I wouldn't mind owning something like this, not that I'd get to stick around much to enjoy it, I'm on the road so much." He was smiling, staring right at her now with his dark eyes. And then for some inexplicable reason -- didn't he know, couldn't he see from her face? -- John put his hand on the man's shoulder, like they were old friends and, with an apologetic smile, said, "Well, I've got to make the rounds, make sure everybody's happy. See you two later."
Just like that, the two of them were alone. Alone! She stood there for a moment, silent, then bit into her resolve, knowing what she had to do. She put on her best hostess smile and asked, "So, are you enjoying yourself tonight?," moved a step closer to him, made small talk, asked him about his business, actually flirted with him, looked deep into the well of his murky brown eyes, and touched, actually touched him on the shoulder.
"Sure is noisy out here, isn't it?" he said, smiling at her in that wry way. "How about going somewhere quieter, where we can talk?"
She smiled, leaned closer to him and, in a whisper said, "That sounds like a very good idea." Then she led him to the house, shaking more on the inside now, hoping it wasn't visible on the surface, and thinking how predictable he was, how simple.
Inside the study, after she shut the door behind them, he instantly made a grab for her. She managed to push him off. "You know you want it, baby," he said. "Why else would you be coming on to me like that out on the patio?" She didn't say a word, but backed up slowly to the desk and, without looking, knowing exactly where it was, pulled open the desk drawer, reached in and got the pistol. She aimed it at him, told him to move back, back against the wall and, in his moment of surprise he did.
For a moment she stood there, pointing the gun's muzzle at him. What would it feel like to kill someone, she wondered, to kill the author of the hell she'd endured ten years before? The spider-like fingers of that night returned, crawling without bounds across the length of her body as she remembered what she only wished to forget. And she knew then that it would feel good to pull the trigger, to make him her victim this time.
He leaned against the opposite wall in his oily manner and smiled, actually smiled, thinking it was what? Some sort of game, part of the foreplay, perhaps? Smiled as the ice cubes clinked in his gimlet glass, smiled as he brought the glass to his lips.
She closed one eye, stared at him over the top of the little pistol, and focused on the shiny skin of his forehead. "Don't move, you bastard, or I'll blow your goddamned head off."
She was back in college. It was to be a party, just a simple gathering of women from her dormitory with the men from a male dorm across campus, Hunter Hall. Cindy and Beth had been talking about it for days. At first Eve had said she wouldn't go, she wasn't really interested. It wasn't why she had come to school. But, of course, she wouldn't mind meeting someone nice to talk to, to be with -- it was part of the college dream, really. So, it hadn't taken much arm-twisting to get her to go to the party that night.
The girls had decided to go over in a group. There were only about ten who actually went. Lucy Steinneman said she wouldn't be caught dead in Hunter Hall. But Lucy had spent a year at a Bible college in Maine; nobody took her seriously. Other girls had already made their plans for the night. So it was this small contingent of ten who set out on a chill December night, three weeks before Christmas, for Hunter Hall, chattering, laughing expectantly (Cindy was the greatest of laughers, laughed the whole way it seemed, with Beth right beside her) as they walked.
When they got to the dorm they hesitated for a moment until Cindy walked to the front of the group, said "What are we waiting for? Let's party!" Then they entered a dim, dank, hallway filled with the sounds of thumping drums and blazing guitars. The walls were lined with boys holding plastic cups filled with a reddish liquid. They'd drunk enough, some of them, to be unabashedly appraising the girls. Two particular boys were not at all shy; they came right up to girls, introduced themselves as Fred and Barney -- surely, they must have been joking, must have thought the women were stupid -- took their coats, and told them they would show them where the "refreshments" were being served.
"Well, isn't this a nice welcome," Cindy said, smiling wide, letting one of the boys, "Fred" -- a tall, trim boy with a wide white smile -- lead her down the hallway, while "Barney" -- a shorter boy with curly hair and round wire-framed glasses -- took Beth's arm and did the same. But it made Eve uneasy. She had the feeling that maybe she really didn't want to be there. And the eyes, the way those boys ran their eyes up and down her body, sizing her up like so much meat, the way she could feel those eyes on her as she walked down the hall, gave her the creeps.
She followed after her friends, and let this "Barney" character lead them down to the end of the hall to a lounge, where a keg of beer was set up next to a big metal tub filled with red liquid.
"Well," Cindy said, taking a cup from the first boy, who already had his arm around Cindy's waist. "What all is this?" she said, pointing at the red mixture, as the stereo blasted out, louder still as they came to the lounge area.
"Heh heh heh." The curly-haired boy's laugh was like a chronic cough. "What's that she says?" The other guy ("Fred") with a half-drunken, half-dramatic sweep of an arm through the air, said, "Why that ma'am, is what you would call our Hairy Buffalo."
"Your what?" Cindy said, putting one hand on her hip. "It's a Hairy Buffalo," he said. AIt tastes like Kool-Aid really. In fact it is mostly made of Kool-Aid, with a few other pertinent ingredients added, right Barn'?"
"Yes, indeed," the other boy said, smiling wide. "Just a few. Like to try some?" he said, handing a glass of it to Eve, staring right at her for the first time through his glasses. His red eyes seemed to bulge enormously behind the thick frames.
After talking to him for a while (he did most of the talking) she was relieved when he turned his attention back to Beth. Eve walked down the hall then in search of her other dormmates, feeling a little leery really, thinking that all those rooms were those boys' bedrooms as well as studies. She found a little group of four of her friends standing against the wall, further down the hall. She stood next to them, started talking to a girl named Caroline. Caroline agreed with Eve that the beverage they were drinking was awful. "Tastes like cough syrup," Caroline said. "The one that gave it to me said it was mostly Kool-Aid," Eve told her. She heard laughter behind her then. It was not the harsh wheezing laughter of Barney, but a gentler laugh. She turned around and saw a young man with longish dark hair who was staring at his feet, laughing self-consciously. He looked up after a moment. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I just couldn't help hearing what you said. About the drink, I mean."
"What was so funny about what I said?" Eve found herself smiling at this boy. He was so shy it seemed that he couldn't even look at her for more than a second without looking back down at his feet again.
"What was so funny? That drink has more alcohol in it than any human being in his right mind would drink," he said, taking a sip. "Of course, I never claimed to be of a right mind." He looked at her a little longer then, a soft smile on his face. She found herself warming to him instantly. She liked his face, his gentle eyes, his shy smile.
"Exactly what is this drink made of?" Then he told her. He told her how every guy on the floor had been told to bring in a bottle of their favorite kind of hard liquor -- which, when you're eighteen and have hardly ever drunk liquor before, was sort of difficult to determine -- and pour it all into the big vat in which they'd also put cherry Kool-Aid. "There is some Kool-Aid in there," he said, "but not a whole lot." He smiled again, then looked back down at his feet. "Who'd you say got you that punch?"
"A guy who said his name was Barney, you know, like as in Fred and Barney? The Flintstones?"
"Oh," he said, his smile fading a little.
"Not one of your best friends?"
"Ahh, no," he said.
"You want to know something?" she said then.
He looked up. "What?"
"I'm glad," she said, and gently rested her hand on his shoulder.
His name was Michael Ferris. He was a Freshman in Psychology. He was interested, he said, in why people do what they do. "But maybe I'm just trying to figure out why I do what I do." As it turned out, they had a lot in common -- both of them had gone to college, in part, to put unhappy childhoods behind them. Michael's family was a combination of two families which had been broken by divorce and death. But the marriage of mother to stepfather and uniting of these two constellations had not been a smooth process. The family had been torn by internal conflicts, obvious displays of parental favoritism, battles between warring factions, one parent defending his or her child against the other parent in times of crisis. And this was how it always was, not just at the beginning. "The jello mold never quite set," Michael explained, taking another drink.
They talked on for hours it seemed. She didn't remember when she'd met someone like this who she could really talk to. But maybe it was the alcohol -- they'd both drunk too much, without really knowing it. Michael's words were starting to slur. Eve would start to laugh for no real reason, then excuse herself, cover her mouth, like the laughter was some sort of escaped belch, which would only set Michael off laughing. He had a nice airy, sort of laugh.
She was enjoying herself for the first time in a very long while. But then Beth was there, whispering in her ear, an urgent sound in her voice. "Eve, Eve, come on, we're getting out of here."
She smiled dimly at her friend, the alcohol flowing through her, making everything seem all right. "What, what is it?"
Beth was talking in whispers so soft Eve couldn't make out what she was saying. "Can I talk to her alone for a moment, please?" she said, looking at Michael. He smiled, said "Sure, why not," and walked down the hall to talk to some of his friends.
"Eve, we're leaving, Cindy and me." It was just then that Eve saw Cindy behind Beth, sniffing in the hall, a tissue to her eyes, like she'd been crying.
"Why, whassamatter?" she asked.
"Just come on!" Beth hissed in a whisper, her face close to Eve's, her eyes jerking to a sideways glance, watching out for something or someone.
"No," Eve said. "I'm not going. I've just met this guy and...."
"Fine," Beth said. "Suit yourself. But we're leaving." And then she walked down the hall. Cindy stood there, staring hard at Eve for a moment, before walking down the hall after Beth.
She didn't understand what was going on. Didn't put it all together. Nor did she really care to at that moment. She had Michael there. He could walk her home--she was sure he would.
But looking down the hall, suddenly she didn't see him--she wondered where he was.
She thought she'd go and see. It was only then that she was aware of the silence. Where had everyone gone? The music was still playing, echoing from somewhere down the hall. She headed down toward it, thinking that what was left of the party had moved down there now. As she moved in that direction she realized she was having trouble walking in a straight line. She would take a step forward and fall to the left, having to prop herself up with the wall, then take another step and use the right side wall for support. She managed to make her way down to the lounge in this manner, turning the corner and smiling, dizzily, expectantly, saying, "Michael?" But she had said it before she could realize here own mistake. Sitting slumped down on the couch, smoking cigars were the two boys she had originally met at the party, the ones who had called themselves "Fred" and "Barney."
"Well, well, look what we have here," the curly-headed one said with a grin, sitting more upright on the sagging orange vinyl, poking the taller boy with his elbow to get his attention.
"My, my," the other one ("Fred") said, "looking for little Mikey, eh?"
"Uh, yes," she said, suddenly feeling dizzy, sick, grabbing on to the corner to keep her balance.
"What did you want with little Mikey, anyway? I'm not sure he likes girls, you know. Now if you're looking for a real man," he said, putting his hand on the curly-headed man's shoulder, "we can fix you right up, right pal?"
"Right," the other boy said, grinning at Eve. She wanted to run, but didn't. Instead she merely squeaked: "What I really need is a place to lie down. I think...I'm gonna be...sick."
"I know just the place," the curly-headed man said. "Nice and private, where no one will disturb you and you can sleep it off."
Before she could say a word in answer, he was up, had his hand on her shoulder and was moving her back down the hall, in the direction from which she'd come. She moved her hand against the wall for balance. He'd gotten his arm around her waist and was guiding her. There seemed to be no escape.
But, maybe he's not so bad, she thought, maybe her original uneasiness was unjustified.
He led her to a door, opened it, and said, "Voila, a perfect place to sleep it off." He was pointing to a bunk much like her own, back in her room.
"But where are you going to sleep?"
"Heh heh heh....Don't you worry about that, little lady. I don't intend on sleeping much tonight."
She was afraid for him to close the door, afraid to be alone with him. But in a moment her fears deflated, as he gave her the key to the room and said,
"We'll give you a wake up call in the morning," and then, "Goodnight, little lady." Then he left, closing the door behind him. It took all her effort to latch the door and then stumble to the bed, put the key he'd given her under her (his) pillow; her head was spinning, and, once down, she felt like she would never get up again. Her body felt heavy, so heavy....She fell into a dreamless sleep.
She awoke with a start; there was someone standing beside her.
"What," she said, trying to catch her breath. "What?"
"This is your wake up call, little lady, just like I promised you, heh heh heh." Before she could respond, before she could move, his cold hands, his legs were on her and he was prying open her jaw, pouring some of the awful red Kool Aid mixture down her throat, a long warm drink. Then he was ripping at her jeans, with one hand pressed hard against her throat, while she yelled "Stop! Help!" But no one was there to stop him or the iron hand that flew through the air, slamming hard against the cheek and nose. And then the hands came, moving across her body, like a spider, like fifty metal spiders, and he was on top of her ripping at her, violating her, as someone whispered in the silence, "Bitch, I'll show you a real man." There was someone else too, another pair of hands pouring more of the syrupy liquid down her throat. And just when she thought it was all over, that she had survived, there was another slap and another, bigger body smashing crushing down on her, she couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes to stop it all--the pain, the fear--but nothing would stop it, nothing, and she screamed as loud as she could before she heard a laugh, another hard slap to the jaw, and slipped into unconsciousness.
The next morning she awoke aching all over, feeling like her insides had been ripped apart. She was still drunk, not quite sure where she was, but then, focusing, realized she was lying on a bench in front of her dorm, as cars drove by, girls walked by, laughing, looking at her out of the corners of their eyes, smirking. "It must have been some party," one of them said, as the others laughed and walked past.
She hadn't reported the attack to the police, was ashamed and, in her fragile state, feared that she'd somehow been responsible. And there was the fear that by bringing it out in the open she would subject herself to further victimization and ridicule. She'd just as soon put it behind her, as quickly as possible. But, in reality, this was not as easy as it sounded.
She'd had to leave school, go back home. She'd had difficulty concentrating, and would break into tears at the slightest provocation. And there were the nightmares, terrible nightmares that made her relive it again and again and again. She'd told herself that she would go back to school when she was able, but that time never seemed to come. She struggled through numerous menial jobs and went in and out of therapy for a couple of years until, finally, the dreams had subsided, become manageable. And, for a couple of years she would have nothing to do with men. She seriously mistrusted all males, especially any who showed an interest in her. She had rebuffed all advances and had buried herself in books, books and more books; living through the lives of characters was much safer than living her own life.
Then one day she'd met John, who had patiently put up with her brushoffs and her fears; he waited for her, and became her nursemaid, slowly helping her rebuild her self-confidence and her faith in the world. He encouraged her to go back to school and fulfill her dreams of being a teacher. For this she was not only grateful, but was touched in a place where she thought she could no longer be touched.
After some time, she had gladly accepted his proposal of marriage and had soon after graduated and started teaching English in the local high school.
For the most part the memory of that night faded -- she locked it away in the back of her mind. But a few times a year, the nightmare would come back to terrorize her. When it would happen, she would hide it from John. But the memory's faint flicker lived on inside of her and affected her behavior and her relationship with John--it was the one thing she could not share with him. She would have occasional moods of silent depression that she would not explain and that John could never seem to get her out of.
And there were the untold fears. She would not have a child, not while the shadow of that night remained over her. She couldn't, wouldn't even consider having a child in a world where things like that could happen to young girls, even though motherhood called to her loudly, and a child was the thing she wanted most in the world.
And now, with the appearance of this man, the memories of that night came flooding back to her with frightening clarity. It was worse than the dreams; it was as if ten years had been erased with the sound of his horrible voice. She was standing across the room from him, remembering the fingers clamped tight around her neck, the fingers crawling mercilessly over her body, the tearing of her insides, the haunting laughter. Only this time she had a gun.
"You do, you will remember me," she said widening the distance between her feet, stretching her arms out in front of her, keeping the pistol aimed at his temple.
"Remember you what? I don't even know you," he said, smiling, not believing her, that she could do this.
"You will remember because I am the woman you and your sick friends raped ten years ago in your dorm room. I'm the girl whose throat you poured alcohol down, whose body, whose very soul you violated." Her hands began to shake. Seeing this, he took a step toward her.
"Not another move," she said, steadying her hands.
"Relax, relax," he said, unnerving her a little with his calm, lifting his glass, slurping his drink as if she and the gun were not there. The thought flashed through her mind: these are the people who rule the world, who take what they want without conscience or thought, who can't be stopped. But here, now, she thought, this one could be stopped.
"I'll say it again. I never laid eyes on you before in my life."
"So, you deny that you went to the U of M?"
"No, I don't deny that. Why should I? I went there. That doesn't mean I did what you said. And even if I did do what you say I did, which I didn't, what do you suppose'll happen to you if you fire that gun at me?"
"I will kill the man who made my life hell ten years ago."
"And what will happen to you then? You want your husband to visit you in the slammer every weekend?"
Her hands were shaking again.
"You're trying to...manipulate me, the way you did that night...."
"No, no. I'm just trying to tell you something about yourself that you already know -- you can't hurt someone like me. You don't have it in you." He was smiling, challenging her.
"I do," she said. "You put it in me."
"No. You don't have it in you. It's written all over your face. It's in your eyes. So why don't you be a good girl and put that pistol down."
He was right, she thought, she didn't have it in her. And what if he wasn't the one? What if it had been someone who looked or sounded like him? What a terrible mistake that would be. All at once she let out a sigh and her internal strength collapsed, her anger, her rage, flew out of her. Her outstretched arms fell to her sides, her eyes fell to the floor. She was weak, defeated, crushed.
But then there was a horrifying, echoing sound; it was the "heh heh heh" laughter from out of her worst nightmares that brought back in a swirl of terror that night, the cold hands crawling like spiders upon her, and, in an instant, before she knew what she was doing, all the pain and hatred were back, hot, and focused on this man's face -- a face that, in turn, wavered from his own to that of her father's, to the face of that other man, Michael, who had left her alone that night, vulnerable to the attack -- as her muscles twitched and she heard the first crack, then the second and the third, until all she heard was the click click that would not, could not stop. The man was still standing there, stunned, shaking. And now, rushing in, John was the first to come upon the scene, the two characters frozen, the man shaking slightly, almost imperceptibly, the smoke floating up from the tip of the pistol. He ran to her, grabbed her and held her in a tight embrace. She buried her head against his chest and cried, her wailing sobs, after a few moments, turning into howling laughter, for not only had she been saved from the dreadful fate that, only moments before, had seemed to be lying in wait for her, but now she felt a new lightness; it was as if with the firing of the gun the enormous weight of that night had been taken off of her. She clung to her husband with all her might, closed her eyes and tried to envision the face of the future -- a child, her child.
Mitchell Waldman's work has previous appeared in Wind Magazine, the HazMat Literary Review, Innisfree, Poetpourri, the Advocate, Mobius, the Parnassus Literary Review, Desperate Act, Five Fishes Journal, and Poetry Motel.
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