9
The man leans forward, his eyes morning-warm, focused on my mouth.
He’s going to kiss me.
The salt air crackles with electricity, and unbelievably, I want him to kiss me. I need him to kiss me.
I’m even leaning forward in anticipation of his mouth pressing against mine. I can practically feel the scape of his fingers over my breasts, tugging me close.
Which is what decides it for me.
I don’t know this man.
I have no idea who he is.
I’ve never seen him before.
Not in my entire life.
There’s only one explanation. He kidnapped me. He drugged me, hauled me to some shoddy, dilapidated ocean cottage, and he’s holding me for ransom.
Or . . .
“We have a few minutes,” he says, his voice making it perfectly clear how he’d like to make use of that time. There’d be hands and tongue and very fast, very hot orgasms. Guaranteed.
At that I grab my pillow and smack him over the head.
He flinches, throwing up his arms, and I hit him across the face. The pillow makes a soft whap noise as it slaps him.
He scrambles up in bed, the sheet dropping and displaying a large, naked man ready for loving.
I hit him again and then leap off the bed. I back against the door, feeling for the handle while holding the pillow between us.
Looking down, I’m only in a pair of unfamiliar pink heart underwear and a matching push-up bra. This creep undressed me and put me in cotton underwear. I haven’t worn cotton underwear since puberty.
I hold the pillow like a shield in front of me. “Don’t come near me.”
The man holds up his hand. “If this is about the party, we don’t have to . . .”
He stands as he talks, making his way around the bed, inching past the clothesline. With every word he comes closer. Every naked inch of him.
The tiny room is even tinier with him moving through it. Standing. Coming closer.
“I said don’t come near me.” I shake the pillow at him.
I wonder, is he talking about the birthday party my mum threw? Is that the party he means?
“Do you know my mum?”
Without looking he grabs a pair of shorts from the clothesline and shoves his legs through them. “What kind of question is that? You feeling all right?”
He takes another step forward. Only the smallest space separates us. He reaches out, as if he’s going to feel my head for a fever.
I fling the pillow at him. “Stay back!”
He snaps the pillow from the air, catching it before it can hit him, and then casually drops it to the floor.
“Maybe you should come back to bed,” he says, his expression one of concern.
Yeah. Right.
I’ll get back into bed with him when hell freezes over.
Hopefully, he hasn’t locked the bedroom door.
“I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is, you aren’t going to get it.”
He frowns.
“And, you have a wife.” I point at the wedding picture. “What kind of immoral psychopath are you? What would she say?”
He gives me a funny look. “I imagine she’d say we should go back to bed. She’d probably ask for coffee. You want some?”
Oh my word.
He’s out of his mind.
“I’m going to leave, and if you try to stop me, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”
His forehead wrinkles and his mouth falls slightly open as if he has no clue what I’m talking about.
I take advantage of his momentary confusion. I dart forward and kick him in the shin. When he bends over in surprise I shove him, pushing him back. He stumbles and trips backward over the bed. He grabs at the air, his arms pinwheeling. His arm catches on the clothesline and the clothes fall on top of him.
While he’s buried in a pile of worn-out beach-bum wear, I grab the dress on top and fling open the bedroom door.
Thank goodness it wasn’t locked.
I clutch the dress and run into the hall.
I look in both directions. I have maybe five seconds before the man climbs out of the clothing avalanche and is on my heels.
To the right there’s a closed door with a handwritten “Keep Out” sign on it and a tiny bathroom with a gray tile floor and a shower drain, a rusty toilet, a soup-bowl-sized chipped sink, and a rusty shower head over the toilet.
To the left, down the short hallway, there’s a small kitchen with a pint-size refrigerator, a two-burner stove, and a three-foot-long wooden counter with a bowl of fruit on top, a bag of bread, and a drying rack full of baby bottles. There’s also a round four-seater kitchen table and a small living room where a rattan loveseat with a tropical leaf print and two rattan chairs surround a glass coffee table.
The living room is piled with baby toys—colorful alphabet blocks, a toy telephone, an army of yellow and red dump trucks and garbage trucks, a stuffed whale.
I sprint toward the living room and to the door I assume leads outside.
Behind me, from the hallway, I hear the piercing wail of a baby crying. Then I hear a loud thump as if the man’s fallen. Then a low swear. So yes. He must’ve tripped again.
I run through the living room, jumping over an alphabet-block tower and dodging a red dump truck.
As I pass the couch I startle. There’s a gangly teenage girl there, dressed in a black bikini top and cutoff jean shorts. She has short, curly brown hair and cheeks that still haven’t lost their baby fat. She’s all arms and legs and big eyes. She’s lying upside down, her legs propped on the back of the couch, reading a book.
When I step on a baby doll and it cries, “Mama, mama,” the girl looks up from her book.
“Finally. I’m starving. Can you make banana pancakes?”
I stop at the front door, my hand on the cool metal doorknob.
This teenager knew I was here?
She expects me to cook for her?
“Why are you in your underwear? Where are you going?”
Oh gosh. She’s in on it. The teenager is a delinquent, following in her criminal father’s footsteps.
But then again, maybe not. Maybe she doesn’t know the truth. Maybe she’ll help me.
“Your father has kidnapped me,” I say, my voice urgent and low. I dart a look back at the hall to make sure he isn’t coming yet. “If you call the police and turn him in, things will go easier for you.”
“Dad!” the girl shouts, sitting up and dropping her book. “Mom’s acting crazy!”
There’s another bang and the crying of the baby grows more insistent.
Mom?
Mom?
“Becca, can you get Sean?” the man yells, his voice echoing down the hall.
He’s coming.
He’s coming for me.
I can hear his footsteps on the wood floor. He’s getting closer.
And that’s when I decide I’m not sticking around any longer.
I fling open the door and sprint into the bright light of the day.