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OP
OP
Dane Stalling
Super-Earth
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2014
- Location
- Midwest
Luke woke to the sun in his face. The lake reflected the glare and he squinted through the rails of the balcony. He didn’t remember climbing the stairs.
Rose was gone. He remembered that much, remembered trying to gather his thoughts to stop her, to say something that would make her stay, trying through the haze of the champagne and the persistent excitement of his body, even as the dust rose up red in the tail lights of the truck, to understand what he had said that had changed the air between them.
He remembered finding the bottle of bourbon as he went back to the mansion to find his pants.
That explained the headache and the raging thirst and the way the tiny waves that broke on the pebbled beach below grated on him. The nausea though, wasn’t from the liquor. He was sure.
She was gone. What had he said to set her off? He staggered to his feet, needing the bathroom. He had found his jeans in the night, dragged them up here even, but hadn’t managed to get into them in the dark. He had slept on the folded duvet and as he took the first few tentative steps toward the bathroom, he looked down and saw the black silk rope wrapped around his ankle. Bits of the night flitted in and out of his mind. He couldn’t be sure which parts were drunken dreams. Pink champagne, a snarling dog, lying on a cliff with his arm hanging over the precipice, damp hair, boiling in a soup, overturning a boat. He had dreamed over and over of throwing stones into the lake. Stone after stone. Some of them were gemstones, emeralds, chocolates, rings.
He looked at his left hand. He could hardly see the indentation where the ring used to be. Only a slight tan line. That part wasn’t a dream. He shook off the rope and used the bathroom, drank what seemed like a gallon of over-aerated water from the tap. He needed a shower to wash off the chlorine and the alcohol sweat, but he couldn’t use the one here. He kept seeing Rose, pinching her nipples for him, luring him into the water.
He showered in a guest bathroom shower cubicle, barely wide enough for his shoulders. The grief formed itself into a ball and pushed his organs out of the way. Settled in his belly. He felt clean at least and he wandered the mansion and its property, setting things back to the way they had been. The canoe, the bed, even the silk rope tied innocently around curtains instead of Rose’s wrists. He worked in just the jeans. She had taken everything else. Even his shirt.
That was a strange thing she did. He didn’t remember her getting the shirt but he was sure it had been upstairs. It was gone though. Along with all of her clothes. He had his phone and his jeans and nothing else. He turned the phone on again and slipped it into his pocket. He didn’t want to see the messages that would spin by. He found a work shirt in the garage and put it on. It was too small for him.
The phone buzzed in his pocket. Dozens of messages he’d have to sift through later when there wasn’t a headache, when there was less raw humiliation.
He pulled the sliding door shut, locked it, put the key back into the fake rock. Every meaningless small action he could think of to undo the night. It didn’t work. When he was done he stood outside the gate on the road, the lock looped through the hasp, pulled the phone out finally and dialed.
“Hey Josh. I need a ride.”
——
Josh fumed in the driver’s seat of his practical green car. Luke leaned against the passenger window, his head against the glass, his eyes closed.
“You fucking tell them and they never fucking listen. Every fucking time. This. Who picks up the pieces? The stupidest fucking friend in the world. Me.”
He spoke more to himself than to Luke. “Is she going to press charges?”
Luke shrugged. “I didn’t rape her.”
“That wasn’t the fucking question, asshole. Try to keep up.”
Luke closed his eyes again. It didn’t matter. His head hurt and he kept wondering if Rosalie’s imaginary study group were real, what kind of insane students would have invited her to it.
“Look. You sleep this off in my pool house. Then we need to have a postmortem on this. You have to tell me everything, and I mean everything because the shit is going to come down on you when your hot little piece of ass starts calling news stations.”
Luke snorted humorlessly. At least Rosalie wouldn’t do that. She would consider it beneath her.
"Just take me to my house and leave. I’ll take care of myself.”
“Fucking every time,” Josh said under his breath, “unbelievable.”
The house looked like someone else’s. The sage green looked duller than he remembered. He wondered if the locks were already changed. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t have a key anyway.
He got out of the car, jumped the side gate and walked around to the back. He lifted the sliding door off the tracks and made a space he could squeeze through. He could tell Isobel wasn’t there just by the feel in the air.
He threw a bunch of clothes in a backpack and picked up his car keys.
——
The numbness settled in as he pulled out of the driveway in his own stupid, fuel efficient safety winner of 2009. How had he ended up in a car so aggressively dehumanizing as this one? He knew the answer. It started with “I.” He drove out of the neighborhood, parked in the McCallum High School parking lot and pulled out the phone. Twenty seven messages from Isobel. She had gone from concerned wife to separated with the intent to divorce in fifty seven minutes. He didn’t even read them all. She was staying in an undisclosed place where she would “feel safe” from him. He recognized the narrative. He had heard her give it each time one of Isobel’s friends got divorced. Now it was her turn to shine.
Twenty seven messages from Isobel, and one from Juniper.
Hey cowboy. Heard there’s trouble back at the ranch. What say you drop by for a little neighborly comfort? I got a guest room with a door that locks and a bed that don’t squeak much.
He deleted Juniper’s and wrote one to Rosalie. What did I say? and sent it.
He picked up energy bars, cans of tuna, a commercial size box of saltines, a flat of water bottles at the Fresh & Pack, then he turned his car south and drove back to Lady Bird Lake with his windows down and the radio silent.
He could sleep in the mansion bed for a night or two. They hadn’t done anything in the bed.
——
The email came the next morning as he was getting ready to introduce Chopin. He had promised, but she wouldn’t be there to appreciate it.
Part of him was relieved, the smaller part. The rest of him could still feel her sliding off of his cock in the hot tub, tapping the empty bottle by accident with her toe to spin it. When it stopped it pointed away from him toward the truck. She went where it pointed.
“Kate Chopin wrote about a strong woman,” he said, leaning against the table at the front of the lecture hall. The empty desk seemed to laugh at him. “And guys, if you’re lucky, you’ll never piss one off.”
Rose was gone. He remembered that much, remembered trying to gather his thoughts to stop her, to say something that would make her stay, trying through the haze of the champagne and the persistent excitement of his body, even as the dust rose up red in the tail lights of the truck, to understand what he had said that had changed the air between them.
He remembered finding the bottle of bourbon as he went back to the mansion to find his pants.
That explained the headache and the raging thirst and the way the tiny waves that broke on the pebbled beach below grated on him. The nausea though, wasn’t from the liquor. He was sure.
She was gone. What had he said to set her off? He staggered to his feet, needing the bathroom. He had found his jeans in the night, dragged them up here even, but hadn’t managed to get into them in the dark. He had slept on the folded duvet and as he took the first few tentative steps toward the bathroom, he looked down and saw the black silk rope wrapped around his ankle. Bits of the night flitted in and out of his mind. He couldn’t be sure which parts were drunken dreams. Pink champagne, a snarling dog, lying on a cliff with his arm hanging over the precipice, damp hair, boiling in a soup, overturning a boat. He had dreamed over and over of throwing stones into the lake. Stone after stone. Some of them were gemstones, emeralds, chocolates, rings.
He looked at his left hand. He could hardly see the indentation where the ring used to be. Only a slight tan line. That part wasn’t a dream. He shook off the rope and used the bathroom, drank what seemed like a gallon of over-aerated water from the tap. He needed a shower to wash off the chlorine and the alcohol sweat, but he couldn’t use the one here. He kept seeing Rose, pinching her nipples for him, luring him into the water.
He showered in a guest bathroom shower cubicle, barely wide enough for his shoulders. The grief formed itself into a ball and pushed his organs out of the way. Settled in his belly. He felt clean at least and he wandered the mansion and its property, setting things back to the way they had been. The canoe, the bed, even the silk rope tied innocently around curtains instead of Rose’s wrists. He worked in just the jeans. She had taken everything else. Even his shirt.
That was a strange thing she did. He didn’t remember her getting the shirt but he was sure it had been upstairs. It was gone though. Along with all of her clothes. He had his phone and his jeans and nothing else. He turned the phone on again and slipped it into his pocket. He didn’t want to see the messages that would spin by. He found a work shirt in the garage and put it on. It was too small for him.
The phone buzzed in his pocket. Dozens of messages he’d have to sift through later when there wasn’t a headache, when there was less raw humiliation.
He pulled the sliding door shut, locked it, put the key back into the fake rock. Every meaningless small action he could think of to undo the night. It didn’t work. When he was done he stood outside the gate on the road, the lock looped through the hasp, pulled the phone out finally and dialed.
“Hey Josh. I need a ride.”
——
Josh fumed in the driver’s seat of his practical green car. Luke leaned against the passenger window, his head against the glass, his eyes closed.
“You fucking tell them and they never fucking listen. Every fucking time. This. Who picks up the pieces? The stupidest fucking friend in the world. Me.”
He spoke more to himself than to Luke. “Is she going to press charges?”
Luke shrugged. “I didn’t rape her.”
“That wasn’t the fucking question, asshole. Try to keep up.”
Luke closed his eyes again. It didn’t matter. His head hurt and he kept wondering if Rosalie’s imaginary study group were real, what kind of insane students would have invited her to it.
“Look. You sleep this off in my pool house. Then we need to have a postmortem on this. You have to tell me everything, and I mean everything because the shit is going to come down on you when your hot little piece of ass starts calling news stations.”
Luke snorted humorlessly. At least Rosalie wouldn’t do that. She would consider it beneath her.
"Just take me to my house and leave. I’ll take care of myself.”
“Fucking every time,” Josh said under his breath, “unbelievable.”
The house looked like someone else’s. The sage green looked duller than he remembered. He wondered if the locks were already changed. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t have a key anyway.
He got out of the car, jumped the side gate and walked around to the back. He lifted the sliding door off the tracks and made a space he could squeeze through. He could tell Isobel wasn’t there just by the feel in the air.
He threw a bunch of clothes in a backpack and picked up his car keys.
——
The numbness settled in as he pulled out of the driveway in his own stupid, fuel efficient safety winner of 2009. How had he ended up in a car so aggressively dehumanizing as this one? He knew the answer. It started with “I.” He drove out of the neighborhood, parked in the McCallum High School parking lot and pulled out the phone. Twenty seven messages from Isobel. She had gone from concerned wife to separated with the intent to divorce in fifty seven minutes. He didn’t even read them all. She was staying in an undisclosed place where she would “feel safe” from him. He recognized the narrative. He had heard her give it each time one of Isobel’s friends got divorced. Now it was her turn to shine.
Twenty seven messages from Isobel, and one from Juniper.
Hey cowboy. Heard there’s trouble back at the ranch. What say you drop by for a little neighborly comfort? I got a guest room with a door that locks and a bed that don’t squeak much.
He deleted Juniper’s and wrote one to Rosalie. What did I say? and sent it.
He picked up energy bars, cans of tuna, a commercial size box of saltines, a flat of water bottles at the Fresh & Pack, then he turned his car south and drove back to Lady Bird Lake with his windows down and the radio silent.
He could sleep in the mansion bed for a night or two. They hadn’t done anything in the bed.
——
The email came the next morning as he was getting ready to introduce Chopin. He had promised, but she wouldn’t be there to appreciate it.
Part of him was relieved, the smaller part. The rest of him could still feel her sliding off of his cock in the hot tub, tapping the empty bottle by accident with her toe to spin it. When it stopped it pointed away from him toward the truck. She went where it pointed.
“Kate Chopin wrote about a strong woman,” he said, leaning against the table at the front of the lecture hall. The empty desk seemed to laugh at him. “And guys, if you’re lucky, you’ll never piss one off.”
