Sociopaths In Love (17 page)

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, first of all, I think we've both put
on some weight. Maybe we should go get an exercise bike or
something. You still have the truck, don't you?"

"That's it?"

"And, I don't know, can we just talk? Will
you listen to me?"

His face pinched up and she felt like he was
really close to sighing. She was surprised when he said,
"Okay."

They went to a cafeteria on
the corner across the street and had bagels and coffee. Erica was
briefly appalled that Walt had a wad of human meat wrapped in a
Ziploc bag in his pocket that he added to the bagel. She tried to
find important things to talk about and decided she didn't really
want to talk about them or couldn't think of anything really
important so she talked to him mainly about things she'd read
in
Glamor Face
:
what kind of makeup she'd considered getting, a certain clothing
style she was contemplating trying, some of the clever quizzes she
thought were so completely universal. The only thing he seemed
vaguely interested in was weirdstream. She tried to describe it to
him but the more she tried to make it make sense, the less it did.
After brunch they got into the truck and drove out to the suburbs.
They went to a place specializing in pools, games, and exercise
equipment and stole a stationery bike. Walt said he needed to go to
Home Depot while they were out this way and she acquiesced, even
though it was supposed to be her day. He grabbed a grill, a
hacksaw, a lot of duct tape, and three large tarps. Then they went
to the Halloween store and picked out some masks. Walt stole an
elephant mask and Erica stole a dog mask. Walt seemed excited by
this and stopped at a pet store on the way home where he took a
collar, chain, and large cage. He didn't expressly say what he had
in mind but, for the first time in a few months, had succeeded in
making her wet. They went home and used most of their new
acquisitions. Except for the stuff from Home Depot. That went into
the baby's room with the freezers.

Date Night

Walt finally let her out of the cage to go
take a much needed shower. She stayed in the shower for a very long
time, letting the steam clear the last few thoughts from her head
that the marathon sex bout hadn't. Although, she guessed there
really wasn't a lot of sex. It was mostly, what did they call it?
Role playing? Maybe. Except it felt more real than that. Once she
had showered and shaved everything that needed shaving she spent
about an hour picking out clothes and applying makeup. Finally
ready, she went back out into the apartment to find Walt sitting at
the table, still naked and smeared, eating what looked like a human
hand.

She'd had her day, done what she'd wanted to
do, and didn't really mind blowing off the rest of the evening.

"I guess we're not going anywhere," she
said.

"What makes you say that?" Walt wiped his
greasy lips with the back of his hand.

She gestured at him.

"I'm ready," he said.

"You're not even wearing clothes." Not to
mention that he smelled really bad, even from where she stood.

"I don't really need them."

"You should probably put something on."

"Fine." He dropped the hand on the table. He
hadn't even bothered with a plate.

He disappeared into the bedroom and came out
wearing the old lady satin warm-up suit. The one she distinctly
remembered leaving in a dressing room at the mall. Smiling, he
strolled toward her in a riot of sound. She rolled her eyes. It
didn't even fit him. The zippered top bared his midriff while the
pants cut off at mid-calf.

"You're going out like that?"

He threw out his arms, a look of utter
resignation flashing across his face. "I can go out like this or I
can go out naked. Special nights require special clothes
. . . or no clothes."

"Fine."

She thought he would ultimately be too
embarrassed to leave the apartment in the ridiculous get up. She
realized she'd never seen him in anything other than the blue jeans
and white t-shirt. Maybe that had something to do with his
unnoticeability. Maybe since he'd decided to wear something people
were almost sure to notice – and probably laugh at – it meant they
would have an evening on the non-violent side. She thought she
would appreciate that.

"So what do you have on the agenda?" she
asked.

"It's all a surprise."

He grabbed his keys and she followed him out
of the apartment. He said he needed to go to his friend's house.
She said she was hungry. He drove them through the drive-thru of
Arby's, the truck so enormous it towered over the pick-up window.
Despite this monstrosity looming in plain view, they never handed
the food out the window. Erica had to climb out of the truck and go
inside and get it. Walt didn't eat anything. He dismantled his
giant roast beef sandwich and spread the slices in a single layer
on the dashboard. Then they went to his friend Ben's. There was
still a bit of daylight. Ben lived in what seemed to be a rougher
section of town. Erica still wasn't incredibly familiar with Dayton
and didn't really hope to ever be. Nearly every other house seemed
to be either a burned out husk or had all of the windows boarded
up. Ben and a number of friends were in the back yard, which was
more dirt than grass and surrounded by a privacy fence that was
slouching inward. Four men were gathered around a girl who didn't
look much older than fourteen. She had a tube in her mouth that was
attached to a funnel and one of the guys was pouring a brightly
colored can of malt liquor into it. Once the can was empty, the
girl tired to stand up, couldn't, and ended up lying on her stomach
in the yard. The guy pouring the bottle turned out to be Ben. He
had a haircut that was clearly self-administered, bad skin, and
broken crooked teeth. But he looked really happy and seemed really
friendly. He and Walt had a conversation Erica only half-listened
to and the snippets she did catch were in that weird gibberish. She
thought if she could actually bring herself to focus on it, she
might be able to figure out what they were saying, but she was
mostly too busy scanning the yard in the dying October light. It
had been warm, a bit of Indian summer, but that would probably
change once the sun disappeared from the sky. She hoped they didn't
plan on staying around too long. An overweight man probably not
long out of his teens was feeling up the girl who'd passed out in
the yard. The people standing around in the yard looked as rough as
the neighborhood itself. Rap music blared from speakers, probably
in the house, and she didn't know why she hadn't noticed it before.
The singer, who sounded black, was rapping about having tea with
his grandmother and the dangers of trading stocks. Walt told her he
was ready to go but she had to hit the bong first. She thought this
meant he wanted to smoke pot and she said sure. Then she was on the
ground and Walt had that tube in her mouth and Ben smiled down at
her while he shoved his hand between her legs and Walt stood over
top of her pouring an enormous can of Steel Reserve into the red
funnel. She managed to keep it all down but felt immediately drunk
and woozily followed Walt to the truck, listening to several men
talk about various parts of her body and how much they'd like to
either fuck her or have her suck their cocks. Once in the cab of
the truck, it wasn't just drunkenness she felt. Now dark, the
streetlights shot out like laser beams and all the colored lights
in the distance blurred together and time moved both very fast and
very slow at the same time – almost like she was two different
people. Walt seemed to glow and laugh and laugh and laugh and she
thought maybe he was one of the glowing men and wondered why he
would try to shatter people who were just like him but this steered
her into an area that seemed too heavy and philosophical and all
she really wanted to do was drink and have a good time. Walt seemed
to be able to read her mind because he pulled the truck up to a
strip club and they went inside and Erica heard the strangest music
she'd ever heard and all of the dancers – both men and women –
looked like they had Down's Syndrome but money was raining down on
them and the music was so grating it felt like she had a migraine
but it was a slender sliver of pain amidst so much pleasure that
she didn't completely care and soon they were back out in Walt's
truck driving around dark country roads, the windows cracked, the
fantastic smells of the season rolling into the truck and she was
reminded of a number of nights like this from her teenage years and
for the first time all evening Erica noticed the moon was huge and
full and glowing and somewhere toward dawn they were running around
the streets of downtown Dayton and Walt said he hadn't planned on
hurting anyone tonight but wanted to "let off the magic" and
dragged a homeless black guy into an alley where he beat him in the
face with a chain. Erica had no idea where he got the chain. It was
gruesome and horrible and Erica was wet and told Walt she wanted
him to take her back home, lock her in the dog cage, and fuck her
from the outside.

Birds chirping outside the apartment, they
lay in bed. Erica thought she would get sick and pass out but she
felt pretty awake.

And just after thinking that, she fell
asleep.

Bonding

Erica awoke to Walt poking her in the face.
He stood beside the bed and looked really excited.

"Want to go hunting with me?"

She didn't want to go hunting with him but
also did not really want to spend another day bumming around the
apartment, alone. She supposed she could go shopping but that could
wait. It would always be there. Whether Walt wanted to acknowledge
it or not, she felt like something important had happened last
night. Important events promoted change. Going on his hunt with him
would be a change for her, at least. And a change for him too,
since he wasn't used to having her along. If anything, it could
reinforce her view of him as a powerful man and provide him with a
chance to show off. What he had become to her, with the possible
exception of last night, was something like a big impotent baby who
she saw at feeding time, gorging on the only thing he wanted to eat
and then going to sleep. Getting fatter and fatter. She knew it was
probably wrong but she equated fatness with a sort of infantile
weakness. She had gone the opposite direction, losing nearly twenty
pounds, most of it burned away by fear, stress, and anxiety
probably. The bike had really been more for him than her.

"I guess," she said.

"All right. I need to eat breakfast
first."

She got up, got dressed, made coffee, and
took it out to the balcony to smoke until it was time to go.

They climbed up into the cab of his
enormous, gleaming black truck. She thought it was new but wasn't
entirely sure. This was probably the fourth such truck he had
acquired since they'd come here. The interior was spotless and
still had that new car smell. Dayton's streets were pretty wide so
the truck didn't seem as enormous as she thought it would.

"Going anywhere particular?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I usually just drive for
a few hours in one direction or the other, get out and do the job,
and then come back."

"You've been doing this every day?"

"What else would I do?"

"You act like you don't have a choice."

"I know I have a choice. This is what I want
to do. When it stops being what I want to do, I'll stop doing it,
and then do the next thing I want to do."

"What do you think that will be?"

"It's hard to say. One time, for like a
year, I was really into rape."

"Now you just rape corpses."

"That's not rape. Are you going to start
this shit again? I thought you got it all out of your system."

She pulled a cigarette from her pack and lit
it.

Walt looked over at her. "No smoking."

"You cannot be serious."

"I haven't smoked in quite a while. I'm
surprised you haven't noticed. And I definitely don't want the
truck to smell like smoke."

"I think you'll be okay this one time." She
was pretty sure she'd smoked in it last night. She couldn't
remember. It was possible this wasn't even the same truck.

He slammed on the brakes, the truck coming
to rest in the gravel at the shoulder of the road.

"Either you can throw the cigarette out or
you can get out."

Part of her really wanted to get out. To
just get out and start walking, anywhere. She tossed the cigarette
and said, "Jesus."

He pulled back onto the road and she rolled
the window up.

"Leave it down for a bit," he said. "Gotta
let that smoke air out."

She rolled the window all the way down. It
was really cold. She felt her nipples press against the thin fabric
of her t-shirt and thought she probably should have brought a
sweater with her. It would be cold once the sun was gone. She
didn't know if they would be outside a lot or not.

Walt put his hand on her chest, palming her
breasts. "I like the way the cold makes your nipples stand out.
Want to?"

She looked at the crotch of his jeans and
noticed his erection. She put her hand on it and he was again
pulling off the side of the road and his hands were on her and he
was inside her but it felt like something was lacking. It felt
mechanical and she knew that him coming was the goal and the only
real thing he had in mind. She was close but didn't have an orgasm
and then she thought about the next time she went to the bar.
Thought about inviting every guy there back to the apartment.
Thought about letting them all fuck her while Walt watched. Thought
about looking at him and saying, "This is how real men do it."