The Righteous and The Wicked (3 page)

She kisses his neck and he grasps at her flesh. She pulls a condom from her purse, and in his haste, he fumbles with it. He can’t get inside her fast enough. When he finally feels the tight, wet warmth surround him, he’s grateful to be so close to having his need satisfied. She moans, she likes it; she takes what he gives her. But he’s the one taking and will stop at nothing. He grips her pale, slim neck and she cries out with pleasure, pulling him closer. They’re a tangle of fabric and skin. His uncontrollable fury spreads through his body and leaks from his pores as he begins to sweat. It drips on the girl’s breasts and her legs wrap around him. Her back slams against the stall door as he pounds against her.

“Oh, yes . . . oh, yes . . .” she chants. The door creaks and threatens to burst open against the weight of Eric’s thrusts. She tells him to go slower, but he doesn’t. She says how good he feels, but he doesn’t care. He’s boiling inside and the end is near. His mouth waters in anticipation of the few moments of real pleasure—the delusional bliss that comes with his release. The only time he feels alive.

He groans as his release pulses out of him, drunk on the euphoric ecstasy. When he’s finished, they both catch their breath. The girl pulls her skirt into place and he buckles his belt. She touches his face and tries to be tender. She wants to kiss him but he pulls away. He’s lived this moment a hundred times before. He has no more need for her. He doesn’t look at her or say goodbye as he walks out the bathroom door.

When the door swings open, Emma startles, but she’s hidden in the dim light of the hallway. She stays very still and waits to see the couple emerge hand in hand, but Stormy emerges alone. He doesn’t walk back into the club. Instead, he stalks straight toward the emergency exit, pushes through the door, and disappears out into the night.

There’s no sound from inside the bathroom. Emma waits, but the girl doesn’t come out. When her curiosity consumes her, Emma slips inside. Dancing Girl is there, fixing her hair in the mirror with a quiet little smile on her face. She doesn’t know that Emma knows her secret. Emma feigns interest in her own image, but watches the girl out of the corner of her eye. She reapplies lipstick to her swollen lips, throws something away, and walks back out to the dance floor. Emma follows her, looking down to see panties discarded in the trash.

Still high from her first journey into voyeurism, Emma rejoins her friends on the dance floor. A guy is talking to them, and Emma’s already making judgments in her head.

“Oh, here she is! We were just talking about you. Emma, this is John.”

John’s arms are threatening to bulge through his shirt and he’s very taken with himself. Abby winks at Emma, and is disappointed to see her friend’s face fall. Danielle sees it, too, and wishes Emma would allow herself to live a little. She whispers words of encouragement. “Not everyone here knows about your past.”

Eric drives home to his trailer. His craving is muted, for now. Defeated but satisfied, he rolls over in his bed. He should sleep soundly tonight. His body is satiated, but his mind feels regret. The wind blows, and there’s that ringing noise again. It’s meant to be soothing, but it does not soothe Eric.

The following morning, Emma opens her groggy eyes with a flutter. Alcohol is a poison that bangs and slams around in her brain. Her head aches, but the pounding is coming from the lot next door. It sounds like a hammer. She cranes her neck to see out her window and glares at the woods that hold the punishing noise.

She shouldn’t have gone out last night. She shouldn’t have had alcohol, and she should
not
have listened to the sexy, stormy-eyed man do what he did to that girl. Guilt and shame consume her. The hammering next door is relentless, incessant. She knows what she has to do.

She gets dressed. Her demure clothing and neat appearance make her look the part. Numb, bland, and pious. Ready to confess. But she feels something different brewing beneath her skin. A little spark. The box calls to her from under the bed. In her drunken haze last night, she abandoned her ritual. She sits and places the box in her lap, running her fingers over the initials that rest there,
“E.M.”

She makes her way down creaky steps, past peeling paint, over the warped and rotten wood of the porch. Her ritualistic path is disrupted once again when she notices something’s missing. Her wind chime is gone, but she leaves for church, vowing to search for it when she returns.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . .” Emma kneels, veiled in darkness. Father O’Hara sits behind the screen of the confessional, waiting to hear what evil has been done. He never grows tired of providing counsel to his parishioners—his compassion knows no bounds. He’s a loved and respected man in this small Christian town.

“What are your sins?”

“I drank alcohol. I got drunk, and allowed myself to feel . . . envy. I was envious of another woman, and I had sexual thoughts about a man. A man other than my husband.”

“Well, while it’s true that alcohol use is not a sin in itself, it does weaken our minds and our resolve to behave as the Lord wants us to. How often do you have these thoughts of infidelity?”

“Father, I haven’t thought of another man for so long. I love my husband. He’s the only man I want, but he hurt me so much, and I haven’t seen him. It’s been so long since I’ve been with him.”

“My child, everyone feels desire. Jesus himself felt desire and temptation, but you must
pray
when you have those feelings. You must ask the Lord to give you the strength to hold true to your marital vows.”

“But, Father . . . my husband . . . he left me. He left me because I . . .” She stops, unable to finish the sentence. “Father, I don’t know where he is, but I know that I’m still married in the eyes of the church.”

“Yes, that’s true. In the eyes of the Lord, you’re still committed to your husband. You have taken a sacrament. A holy vow, and you must uphold it.”

“I know that, Father, but what if I can’t?”

Eric has thrown his whole body into his task. He’s trying to forget his weakness, trying—as he has intended—to move on. He lifts lumber onto his shoulder and throws it down in the dirt. He measures and saws, relishing the painful twinge that makes itself known every time he slams the hammer to the nail. He kneels in the dirt as he works. This is his
penance. His work is his church. He takes another nail from the box and places it between his teeth. Memories flip through his mind, and they’re all bad. He wants to make new ones. Good ones. Every day is a new day. He lies to himself, over and over again.

The day was overcast and the night is no different. The road is covered in fog as Eric drives to meet Sean and his fiancée. Sean’s overjoyed to have two people he cares for meet in person, but as Danielle shakes Eric’s hand, she senses something off about the rugged and handsome man in front of her. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her, the way his hand lingers in hers for too long. She pulls away from him while maintaining a polite smile, and grips Sean’s arm as the trio is guided to their table to sit down to dinner. She begins a conversation in an attempt at learning something about this creepy friend of her future husband.

“So what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an architect.” He scans the menu.

“And what brings you to Pine Lake?”

“I’m building a house here.” Eric gives another short answer, but Danielle is not daunted in her quest to get to know him.

“So you’re here for good, then?” she asks.

“No. I’m not.”

Emma has so few tangible things left to cling to. Things that remind her of happier days. It’s Monday and she’s pissed, and she wants her damn wind chime. She stares out her kitchen window at the wooden structure. She sees it growing through the woods that separate her and her new neighbor. Small waves of rage are building inside her. She slams her hand on the counter and grabs her keys.

Her car hums as she backs up and stops at the end of the driveway to check her mail, but she finds more than mail inside the aluminum cylinder. The item she misses is stuffed inside her mailbox, along with a crumpled piece of paper. She drags her mother’s wind chime out and reads:

I’m sure you are old as hell, and half deaf, and don’t realize how irritating this damn thing is. I cannot sleep with it clanking around all night. I’d prefer it if you didn’t hang it up again. Bury it out back with your cats.

Emma sees red. Her hands shake. She can’t believe someone who just moved here, onto
her
street, could be this evil. Enraged, she grabs a pen from the glove compartment and scrawls on the paper:

Dear Neighbor,

You are so rude! For your information, your bulldozing and hammering have woken me up for the past two weeks. I’m not an old woman. I work all day, and I’d like some damn peace and quiet on Saturdays! So I’d prefer it if you didn’t wake me up! You have a lot of nerve. Don’t you dare come on my property or touch my things—you jerk!

Even in this rare state of anger, Emma can’t bring herself to use profanity. She folds up the letter, stomps over to the Jeep that’s parked at the top of her new nemesis’ driveway, and leaves it beneath his windshield wiper. The rebuttal should make her feel better, but she’s disappointed to find it does not.

Eric takes a shower in the tiny, cramped bathroom of his trailer. The uncomfortable living situation is the best motivation to get the house completed. He thinks there might be a way to get into someone
else’s
bath, but ignores that thought and tries to focus on something else. The desire to be a normal person weighs on his heart. He needs a routine. He buttons up his clean black shirt, pulls on his filthy work boots, and walks up to the top of the driveway.