Paradise - Part One (The Erotic Adventures of Sophia Durant) (8 page)

Rising up once more with the glasses, I saw Stafford holding his index and middle fingers together pointing at the man on the ground with his thumb back like the hammer on a gun. He jerked his hand back twice like he was firing off two rounds with this imaginary gun. Then he turned and left, heading back into the brush toward where they must have parked. Stafford walked very much upright, lifting his knees as though he was a soldier on the march. I didn’t know if this was a gesture of mockery, but I’d never seen him walk that way before. The men with guns immediately tore down the canopy tents and the others all began to head back in the direction Stafford went. I ducked behind the rock wall, relieved I hadn’t been discovered in my observation. I hurried back along the rock in the strong wind and first drops of rain, wondering how the sound recording off Stafford’s mobile phone had gone. In this weather, there probably wouldn’t be much to listen to. Still, I could take the track into some sound analysis software and break it down, amplify certain elements while removing others, and hear what there was to hear.

Once I got to the Porsche, I sat inside for a good twenty minutes to give Stafford and company plenty of time to clear out. Even as I reached Public Highway from the dirt road, I paused for a while, stopped well out of view from much of the highway and scanned it with the field glasses. After I was sure there was nothing for a considerable distance in either direction I pulled out onto the road.

I was still deeply paranoid about running into the Stafford’s motorcade, but I reasoned it was highly unlikely I would as they most likely left long before I did. I clung to the thought, telling myself the chances were extremely remote, and reasoning this way and that. If they did find me driving along, I could explain I merely went for a drive to nearby Spanish Wells to explore the beaches and turned back early due to inclement weather.

Constantly glancing up at the rearview, I did spot the first black spec in the distance,
then made out a string of SUVs as they neared. Raw energy coursed through my veins as my adrenal glands dumped the stuff. The sensation was worse than when a cop car flashed its lights behind me and the siren began. I constantly broke the rules of driving and whenever I was pulled over I always wondered what exactly they had seen me do. But at least, then, I knew I would live through it.

The SUVs caught up quick. I was already doing eighty. They had to be doing about ninety-five, at least. I turned onto Queen’s Highway and the SUVs did too. After I passed the turn off for the Stafford villa and kept going, I saw three of the Escalades turn off but one remained on the highway, following me from about a quarter-mile back. My pulse quickened again. I went over my story in my head in the likely event I would have to speak with one or more occupants of that vehicle. Perhaps it was Stafford alone. Perhaps it had nothing to do with me and the occupants were merely going somewhere in the direction I was headed. But where was I going? I didn’t see any road signs for anything and I began to have visions of being run off the road by the Escalade, led into the forest, beaten and shot. Blood trickling out of a gunshot wound to the head, darkening the sand of one of those numerous side roads.
Gray matter in small sand-covered chunks littering the ground, ants already carrying it off tiny pieces. And in those brief moments before my body was tossed out over a rocky cliff into the sea, looking up and seeing Mark Stafford glaring down at me in that silly English cap, next to his man who had pulled the trigger, watching the life ebb from my eyes. My sad mother seeing the news of my disappearance on TV. Her hopeless trip to Eleuthera Island with my distant father to scour the places she knew I had, in my last days, seen.

Of course I was being overly dramatic. The island had thinned out and now I could see the ocean on either side of the highway. The Escalade still followed but kept a liberal distance. I saw a sign that said Governor’s
Harbour, twenty miles. Thank God. I’d overhead Anna talking about the town with one of the other girls at the villa. I’d stop there at a restaurant and see what happened. Most likely, I reasoned, they’d pass me by or get off my tail before I reached the cozy seaside hamlet.

Fifteen minutes later I reached Governor’s
Harbour. It was a placid town with some nice sea views. I pulled into the parking lot of d’Artegnan’s, a restaurant with a decent view of BoneFish Bay. As I got out, I looked around but didn’t see the Escalade. I walked inside d’Artegnan’s. It was a darkened place with teak walls and tables. A young girl of no more than sixteen with several piercings and a body like a rake, told me to sit where I liked. As I did, near a window with a view to the harbor, I saw the Escalade roll up in the parking lot. I braced myself.

Stafford and one of his goons got out. I looked down at my menu and pretended not to notice them. Then Stafford waved and, when I looked at him, smiled broadly. I felt massive waves of relief roll over me. This would go fine, I told myself as he entered the building. He made his goon stay outside. The man lit up a white stick from a pack of
Dunhills and quietly stank up the parking lot.

Stafford sat down across from me. He paused before he spoke.

“Sophia, I saw you on the road up by the villa and wondered where you were going. Actually, I didn’t know it was you but recognized the car.”

I faked a blush. “I’m so sorry. I hope you don’t mind. Anna said it was alright.
Gave me the keys.”

“More than fine.
That’s what the cars are there for.”

He paused again uncomfortably. I wondered if this was because he also felt slightly infatuated, or was it completely different—was he totally inhuman and only concerned whether or not I had seen where he and his cavalcade went, or even whether I had followed him and seen
more?

“I went up to Spanish Wells to explore that end of the island and then thought I’d round it off with a little trip to Governor’s
Harbour. I’d overheard Anna talking about it and it made me curious.”

I smiled. My performance was Oscar-worthy and it came easily. The truth is I lied more naturally than I told the truth. And I had always come into trouble with this early in life. As a child, my parents invariably believed me when I lied and accused me of lying when I told the truth, which of course made me an inveterate storyteller. But as an adult it definitely helped in my journey through life.

“Find anything interesting at the Spanish Wells end?”

This was to the point, I thought.

“Some very beautiful beaches,” I said with wondrous enthusiasm.

“Yes, they are nice. Actually, I was coming from that direction myself when I saw the 911.”

“From your meeting.” I raised my eyebrows with a smile.

“Yes—that.”

“How was the British associate?”

“Same as ever.
The Brits I know always talk about having money. They’re always on the verge of being ready to spend their money, as they get you to do something. Then once it’s done, they’ve had an accident, been involved in one or two deals that didn’t turn out, and bam—the money’s no longer there. Wam, bam, thank you, ma’am. We’ve just got you to render a service for free.”

Judging by the tone and the way in which he was venting, I believed the danger had passed and I began to relax even more. And waves of exhaustion came over me.

“I wasn’t having any of it,” he continued.

I pictured the Old Bristly being kicked to the sand on the beach.

“Well, that was that. Pretty dull, right.”

“Not at all.
Sounds like a day at the office—or wherever it was you happened to have the interaction—”

He looked at me strangely for a split second now.

“—Business is always interesting to me. I majored in finance after all.”

I grinned inwardly at the smugness of the comment, having realized today that Stafford probably didn’t have the remotest ideas of finance or business—other than whatever sordid illicit trade he was in; drugs, money-laundering, whatever—it was all basically the same simple logic: get the money at all costs. Break their
legs, kill them, whatever it takes.

“I’m glad you enjoyed the beaches at Spanish Wells. I was beginning to think you might have followed me.
Crazy, right?”

He looked at me hard, minutely studying my reaction.

I smiled without expressing the slightest trepidation.

He lowered his head without taking his eyes off me and spoke this next in a hushed tone I will never forget: “Because if you did I would’ve had to kill you.”

It seemed as if the air was sucked out of the room at once and I had to gasp for breath, my fear was so great at these words. Still, outwardly I concealed it and laughed it off. He joined in the laughter. I was suddenly, oddly reminded of Bram Stoker’s novel
Dracula
as Jonathan Harker had been sent in his employment to the noble’s castle and had at first been impressed by the largess of his lifestyle and his expansive way of thinking only to be sucked into a trap, a bizarre situation of increasing fear and helplessness. Though I felt fear, which I tried to keep at bay, I didn’t feel helpless. It seemed the beast had taken an interest in me and the only recourse, I thought, was to seduce the beast. If not literally, then to control him through the careful use of subliminal signals in our encounters. I don’t mean to be diffuse in the use of this expression; I have given long study to the ways in which people hold sway over one another, to how some people use subtle tricks to gain power over others, and to power relationships in general. Obviously Stafford is a master of certain kinds of power relationships. Otherwise he wouldn’t be in the position he’s in. But I would attempt to dominate him in aspects of life I assumed he was as yet unfamiliar with. I would slip in through these alleyways on the outskirts and work my way in. I would make it my singular objective in life to dominate Mark Stafford in every way. To come in through a side door and break him. I’m not talking about BDSM, which has become fashionable in the cheaper kind of fiction and is really only a cat-and-mouse game between two pussies who are trying to experience a sense of power. I’m talking about pure psychological domination. I was Alexander fighting Darius at Gaugamela. I was Elizabeth I warring against the Spanish Armada. I was Julius Caesar about to cross the Rubicon. I was Cleopatra about to conquer Caesar.
Vini, vidi, vici
. I was the Kundalini energy in meditation, entering the highest chakra at the top of the skull—illumination. I was Arab
assassiyun
eating magic mushrooms and hashish, committing murder in Holy Jihad—enter Paradise.

I felt sympathetic toward him as a hunter might feel sympathetic toward his pray before he slays it. But there was no empathy. That was something I was incapable of. When I was a small child of about five or six, I used to kill tiny geckos and, imagining I was a mad scientist, hook their bodies up to stripped wires I would attach to batteries. I was seeing if somehow I could restore them to life. It never worked. Invariably the lizards died and didn’t recover. The strangest thing about it was that I had no feelings about the creatures or any creature up to and including people. Instinctively I felt that death was the state of ultimate satisfaction, the greatest peace. It was later in life I had to be told by my parents that death was sad and something to be mourned. I had always just naturally assumed it meant paradise.
Strange, huh.

Stafford looked like a seismograph might look if it was to miraculously take on human form. I had never seen a more sensitive looking soul. He seemed to be able to register the slightest electrical disturbance on another continent. Stafford is the antithesis of me, I thought. This was no doubt part of the attraction.

The rake-bodied girl showed up to take our order. Stafford asked whether I was hungry, I pretended that I was and she took our order. Stafford himself did not eat but ordered only a tall lemonade. We didn’t speak much over my sandwich and his lemonade. It was more a montage of awkward silences and I remember gazing out the window quite often, wondering about his goon chain-smoking Dunhills in the parking lot. Eventually, Stafford typed something into his phone. (I made a mental note that he still had it with him and looked forward to listening to what was recorded on our return.) A few seconds later the goon received a message on his phone, got in the Escalade and exited down the road along BoneFish Bay. Mark Stafford was riding home with me. The fear subsided a bit at the thought of this and my mind turned to thoughts of a more enthusiastic nature regarding him. I could feel things heating up for us like the sensation one gets tanning on the beach in the morning sun.

The white heat of the solar afternoon reflects off the long, narrow stretch of Queen’s Highway. The deep blue of the mighty Atlantic extends to the horizon on either side. Not a word has been spoken between us since we entered the Porsche. I look over at Mark, now wearing the English cap and shades, and an overwhelming sense of freedom passes through me. I conceive of us as two tiny specs on this tiny blue world in a galaxy that is nothing more than a miniscule grain of cosmic dust in the inconceivably vast
multiverse. We are a mere instance, lost somewhere in the three tenses of time. It feels good. The insignificance and obscurity. In my deluded human heart, a brain of limited capacity as all brains are thusly limited, this is how I conceive of freedom. I wish for a thousand golden brains, as Kerouac once said. Stafford sets his hand on the leather-enshrined console between us. I tense the muscles in my stomach. If I don’t, the whole universe melts. Fleeting thoughts of Isabella pass in my mind. I allow them to appear and disappear of their own accord. They are unwanted intruders that I can’t force to leave. As if that would somehow change the course of world events. As if somehow I would lose this moment and all the fruit it might bare if I run from thoughts of her. I have the distinct sensation she is watching us as I set my hand next to his. It can’t happen like this. It’s moving too fast. I’ll lose control. Thoughts fly through my head a mile a minute. Uncomfortable thoughts. Thoughts I never thought I’d think again. Wildly unrelated thoughts. Gross and depraved thoughts. Between us there exists a magnetism that feels as though, when I look in his eyes, I can see the whole universe turn. Its axis is there. He is the light and the life, the truth and the way. It’s now I realize just how far gone I am.