The Witch of the Wood Read online

  “Super Fresh or Giant?” she said.

  For a moment, it didn’t compute.

  “Hmm?” Rudy said, still struggling with the stubborn spring locking clip. An arm linked with his and he stopped, caught a hint of perfume. He looked down and April Orr was right here, close up, touching him, and even though it was just a polite and perfunctory gesture, like shaking hands or waving hello, she was, in fact, touching him. She looked at the broken fixture.

  “I’d say Super Fresh, the umbrella stand by the flowers and watermelons. Classy.” She looked at him directly then. “Walk me to my car? I left my umbrella in the trunk.”

  Rudy paused for a moment, and someone who had just brushed past them opened the bay door. A sharp wind cut across the foyer, and April linked both of her hands around Rudy’s elbow now, snuggling in closer, stamping her pretty little black boots.

  “Pretty please?”

  “Yes. Of course,” Rudy said. He looked forward and nodded a bit, hating himself for the puritanical manner he’d adopted, but also knowing it was the best he had in the wardrobe. He was poor and book-smart, socially challenged and practiced in patriarchal politeness. Of course, chance favored his coming away from this empty-handed in reference to his instinctive fantasies, but at least he was going to walk her to her car properly.

  Their footsteps made echoes on the stone floor, and out in the night the wind brought darts of sleet from the left, April’s side.

  “Jesus Lord!” she said. Her fingers closed over Rudy’s, and he forfeited the umbrella. His arm went around her shoulder then, and she drew into him. Just like that.

  “Smooth,” she said wryly, her step quickening with his.

  “It was innocent, I assure you.”

  “Then you used me as a wind-buffer, Rudy?”

  He looked down into her face, the wind whipping her hair around, her smile still genuine.

  “Never.”

  She glanced off and nodded a bit to the right.

  “I’m the black Volvo over there.”

  They adjusted course, and it brought more of the icy wind to her back. She squealed a bit, snuggling in harder, her free hand going around his back now, and suddenly Rudy had the feeling he was being had. It was just too perfect, too easy. And it wasn’t only her lack of an umbrella, or the timing in the archway, or the goddamned direction of the wind. It was the way he had just been thinking about all he lacked in terms of clever wordplay and social maneuvering, and she’d somehow managed to make him look witty and suave. What was she feeding here, and the better question was why? Was there some kind of office pool going down, odds stacked upon how much of a fool she could make out of him? The wind changed, blasting in from the front for a second, and they bent into it. He fell then to internal argumentation, weighing the improbability of April Orr choosing him because of some credible need or attraction against the idea that she would actually profile him for a prank. And neither made sense. None of this did. Hell, maybe she really did just want a companion in the sleet, and this, coupled with the crinkling of her nose, the clever conversation, and the fact that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen made Rudy feel horribly lonely.

  “This is me,” she said, releasing the umbrella that Rudy did his best to shield her with as she opened the door and tossed her purse on the seat. When she bent in and sat, her skirt rode up showing off an inch or two of thigh, and then there was a sudden “whap-whup” sound as Rudy’s umbrella pulled right out of his hand, a wounded bat flapping off on the knifing wind to the darkness of the lot.

  “Shit,” he said, the sleet blasting him like wet shot. April got hit too, the open door a poor shield. She gave a short screech and shut it, but before Rudy could give a little wave and run off the other way with his free hand in his pocket, he heard the engine give nothing more than an audible “click.” The headlights flashed, then deadened. The door opened slowly.

  “My battery is dead, Rudy. Can you drive me home? I don’t live far, just off campus.”

  Her hand was saluted across her forehead, eyes batting, and the cold rain made lovely, running beads down her cheeks. Her dress was damp-darkened now, that beautiful leg offering its long shape all the way up to the hip.

  “Of course,” he said.

  She somehow made it seem graceful, getting back out of her car and pushing her wet skirt between her knees as the wind threatened to blow it up over her head. When she took her place again beneath Rudy’s arm, both were soaked, his coat shiny with it, strands of her black hair plastered to her cheeks. They hunched together then into the wind of the storm and hurried to Rudy’s Toyota. Once inside, soaked to the bone, April Orr scooched on over and cuddled up next to him, and by this time Rudy had stopped questioning this about her. She was cold, that was all. He was a body. Available. She was simply charming enough to be able to borrow these moments for her own comforts, no questions asked, no string attached. Some people just “had it.” April Orr was one of them, and it was almost ungentlemanly to suspect there was more to it than that.

  Rudy concentrated on his driving, peering through the smear the wipers left on the windshield and navigating the dark road unfolding before them. Sleet swarmed in from the left and made odd rainbows in the dull blare of the headlights. April was wet and warm and close and she smelled good. She guided him to the right off the main road, and two lefts back in toward the thickest part of the wood. There, in a culvert, was a white house with a river running to the side of it and a walking bridge. Rudy pulled up into the drive, put it in park, and turned toward her. She brought her palms to his face.

  “Thank you, Rudy,” she said. Then she bent in and pressed her lips to his. It wasn’t long enough to be considered what the kids called “first base” when he was growing up, but it was no peck either. There was audible suction on the release, and they looked at each other.

  “April . . .” he managed.

  “Do you want to come in for a minute,” she said. “To get warm?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “I was being rhetorical.”

  She put her palm on the chest of his wet coat.

  “Then come in just for a minute. I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate.”

  “But you hardly know me,” he said, wanting immediately to kick himself for the gentle scolding, the fatherly tone he’d adopted, the role he just couldn’t help but fall into time and again.

  She looked at him with big, serious eyes.

  “Then you won’t come in?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Good,” she said, brightening, reaching for the door. “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  Rudy paused. Hadn’t he just thought that, or something like it, something with similar wording just a minute or so before? What on earth was going on here? As if chiding him for pausing, she wasn’t even waiting for him to be her weather-guard at this point, and he got out quickly, awkwardly, following her silhouette to the front door, the surrounding trees covering the sky in scattered patterns thick enough to fend off the sleet to relative intermittence. April opened the door and pushed into the foyer, then bending up an ankle to the back of her thigh to remove her boot. Of course, she was a bit off-balance and used Rudy’s shoulder for support; he got there with perfect timing, his or hers, undeterminable. Oh, they were in rhythm, to be sure, and Rudy played the mimic, kicking off his wet shoes, removing his coat, and putting it on the hook next to hers, his scarf right there by her shawl. There was a towel on a hook, and she used it first, brusque and brisk. When she was done, she gave a little pout and pose, funny, because her hair had frizzed a bit. Then, the nose crinkle and shrug Rudy had fallen in love with back at the sign in table, and she handed over the damp towel.

  “Dry off and come on in, Rudy. I’ll put on the hot chocolate.”

  She flicked a light and walked off toward the back kitchen area, and Rudy took a step or two into the living room, rubbing the towel across the top of his head, then his face, dr
awing in a breath, smelling her. He was actually tempted to pocket the towel, and while on one level this bothered him because it was so akin to stealing underwear out of a drawer, it more deeply disturbed him that even considering this symbolic action confirmed his assuredness that he wasn’t going to get to experience her fragrance close up in a more personal way. It was an admission of failure before failure, and while he despised himself for it, he was always the fundamental realist. April Orr was friendly, kind, maybe some kind of weird philanthropist when it came to wallflowers like Rudy Barnes, drawing them out by the hand and making them feel some kind of worth. But she wasn’t going to fuck him, not now, not tomorrow, and Rudy knew better than to think that by some strange bend of fortune this plot was going to twist. He’d just been around too long to believe in miracles.

  He stepped into the living room and remained standing at the edge of it. The place was welcoming but strangely unfurnished, an easy chair that seemed a bit too low to the ground, a lamp beside it, a fireplace without irons, a sofa that dipped down a bit toward the wall as if one of the leg supports were broken or bent in.

  There was a noise from behind, an audible creak from the stairs.

  And right here and now, Rudy was dead-positive that April Orr’s husband had woken from the second-floor bedroom, shock of graying hair sticking up on one side, jammy-bottoms stuffed in his sweat socks, bathrobe floating behind him like a cape. And he’d grabbed the Smith and Wesson double-barrel from the top shelf in the closet, shoved in two humongous rounds, and snapped it closed with that deadly, masculine click of hook, clasp, and cold oiled steel. He’d never actually fired it before, didn’t really know its range, but this towel-sniffing, cleavage-watching son of a bitch was going to be the guinea pig, taking advantage of a poor girl just trying to get shielded from the sleet.

  Rudy turned hard.

  There was a boy on the stair, two at the eldest, dressed in red pajamas that had the feet sewn onto them. He had crystal-blue eyes beneath arching brows and blond hair that lay on his forehead like corn silk. He had his mother’s jawline, and he had a hold of the banister with one hand, the other playing with his bottom lip, hooking it, keeping it wet and ajar. Then, slowly . . . slowly, he turned his head toward the kitchen, keeping his steady gaze fixed on Rudy, pivoting the eyes in the skull to give the illusion of remaining stationary within the swiveling base, and it was a deliberate move that made it appear the kid was measuring him from the corner of his eye, and the eyes were suddenly crystalline doll’s eyes, and Rudy was overcome with an irrational flood of childlike fear one would associate with clowns, or monkey toys that bashed little cymbals together, or eighteenth-century marionettes that had squared off mouths that slowly dropped open.

  The feeling of dread was crippling, and Rudy sat right there on the floor, his long knees angling out at odd points. Normally, Rudy Barnes was the cold analyst, practical, sensible, breaking things down to their working parts and deducing flat truths, and he fought this irrational burst of melodramatic foreboding with everything he had. There was nothing about this rather handsome toddler that was actually frightening, nothing the little boy could do that would harm him, but Rudy felt absolute terror in places he wasn’t used to focusing on: his shoulders, the back of his neck, his throat, his spine. He forced himself to break glance, looking off toward the part of the house April had run off to, trying to scrape forward the rational adult at the rear of his mind who was mouthing, “Where’s the babysitter?” And when Rudy turned back to the stairs, the boy was no longer standing on them.

  He was right there at Rudy’s knee.

  He was wobbling a bit now, rocking back and forth, and Rudy couldn’t breathe. This was impossible, yet not, an optical illusion as if the boy had jumped camera frames, but he was right here before him just the same.

  The boy crawled into his lap, and suddenly the fear vanished, as if it were sucked right out of Rudy’s stomach, replaced now by an overwhelming desire to protect this child, to hold him, to kill for him if necessary, and Rudy understood this wave of fierce sentiment as little as he’d been able to fathom his feelings of horror. The boy smelled like baby and April Orr, and he reached up to play with Rudy’s sideburn.

  “Are you going to ride Mommie now?” he said. “Like a horsie?”

  Fingers slipped under the boy’s armpits, and April straightened, hauling him up to her chest where he buried his face in the hollow of her neck and collarbone, his legs dangling down. She kissed the side of his temple long and deep, and whispered into his hair, “You got out of your crib again, honey.” The boy lifted an arm and slung it around her, and she glanced down at Rudy. “I see you’ve met little Wolfie. He’s a quick one, isn’t he? Don’t worry, it just takes a little getting used to. He moves when you blink.”

  She padded off and up the stairs, sing-songing softly over her shoulder, “Be right down.”

  “O.K.,” Rudy whispered back, still sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  Are you going to ride Mommie now?

  Did he hear that correctly?

  Like a horsie?

  It hit a deep chord, the image that boy had put in his head, the way it was voiced as if this was the natural way things should go, as if it was not only acceptable, but expected that he mount this woman and pump her until he burst.

  She was back on the stair now, and Rudy stood heavily. His breath was thick and, as he moved toward her, she came to the landing to meet him.

  Something snapped.

  It was red and high and urgent and savage, and it was him and it was not, as if he stood like a silent, hulking shape in the corner watching himself go through the motions of coming undone, taking her by the shoulders, turning her, pulling her dress sleeves and bra straps down, ripping the clothing, feeling at her breasts.

  “Grab the banister,” he growled, “Do it!”

  “Oh!” she said, as if to say, So it’s gone to this level? You brute! I didn’t realize it was such an emergency! and there was such sarcasm in it because she’d caused the “emergency,” and Rudy reached down and pulled the bottom of her damp dress over her hips. She arched up onto her toes for him and Rudy saw in slants and flashes it seemed, her long legs, the black stockings going nearly to the crotch, the black silk underwear that had slipped deep between her buttocks on one side, and he squatted a bit to have one good stroking of her thighs, then went impatiently back north to rip away that undergarment as if it were an enemy.

  “Oh!” she said again, and this time there was a short laugh in it, like, Is that the best you’ve got? and Rudy went into what felt like a frenzy. His pants were at his ankles, and when she tried to shift he jerked her hips back in place where he wanted them. When he entered her it was not slow, and when she turned her head back to him, mouth dropped wide open, indignant eyes accusing him as if to say, Really? he thrust in her so hard and so fast that she actually did have to hold the banister for dear life, palms for buffers, arms as shock absorbers, knuckles bone white.

  Rudy pistoned his hips furiously, making hard, flat sounds against her, finishing in a series of rough, panting bursts. When he was done he rested on her back for a bare second, and when he pulled out of her he fell off to the side, almost stumbling over the lasso his pants had made around his ankles. He drew them up, clumsy and drained, breathless. He turned to her sheepishly, and she was on the first stair now, face wet with tears that had made their way down to the crevices of her nostrils. Her hand was up at her mouth and she shook her head slowly. Then she ran up the stairs, holding the hem of her dress above her knees with one hand, the torn bodice up to her chest with the other.

  Rudy didn’t follow.

  He went to the foyer and numbly got on his coat, never more ashamed and embarrassed in his entire life. He hadn’t given her one bit of consideration, offering her nothing for her own pleasure. He’d fucked her like a whore and she despised him now; that was made clear by her reaction on the stairs.

  He walked into the wind, got in his car, and backed out
of the driveway, hating himself, hating the world.

  But by the time he’d made it to Route 7, his emotions had twisted down to a sick and cold spreading fear. He’d ripped her clothes, hadn’t he? She’d moved and he’d yanked her back in place. She’d said “Oh!” a couple of times, but did he hear it wrong? Had she really said, “No”?

  Did he just . . .

  He thought of her standing on the first stair, her hand up at her mouth in pure shame and disgrace.

  Did he just rape April Orr? He stopped at the light at Hunter Hill Pike and suddenly expected flashers in his rearview. But wait. Did he not have a case? Did she not initiate this whole thing? Kiss him on the lips? Put her hand on his chest? Ask him in for hot cocoa, for Christ’s sake?

  She said “no” twice.

  But that was “Oh!,” that clever little game where the female played innocent, as if she didn’t know that this was exactly what was on both your minds, right?

  You pulled her in place and held her there.

  Was she really trying to escape? She’d just posed for him, making that perfect angle of legs, ass, and arched back like some perfect piece of geometry. She’d wanted him to pull her back into place so he could feel more in control, more manly, the wallflower becoming Paul fucking Bunyan.

  She looked back over her shoulder at you in open-mouthed indignation.

  But wasn’t that more of the “Go Daddy” pouty thing, playing the role of the bad girl, the spoiled brat getting a lesson?

  You made her cry, put her hand to her mouth, and shake her head slowly back and forth. If that’s not a clear reflection of the word “NO,” then what is?

  Rudy drove on, suddenly aware of other discomforts besides his probable guilt in what was unfolding as some horrific sexually based legal offense. He was cold, first of all, frozen to the bone, and now that the car began to warm around him, he noticed that he was wet, more so than what the sleet should have been able to accomplish on his treks to and from the car. He was actually soaked through in strange areas like the seat of his pants and all over his torso, his shirt a cold snakeskin, his toes frozen and numb. He felt freezer-burned. And his loin area stung as if someone had taken sandpaper to his pelvis, then down in the folds made by his upper inner thighs.