Susan, kidnapped, raped, and threatened with disfigurement, had discovered escape in the traditional sense wasn't an option. Her captor had maneuvered her into an unwilling acceptance of his hospitality.
The man with whom she agreed to temporarily abide fascinated and frightened her, but she saw him mostly as an obstacle to her primary goal. All she really wanted was to return to her former life as a woman of the world and successful attorney.
Shawn, Susan's would be assassin, now host and though she wouldn't acknowledge it savior, wanted her to stay around, but he wasn't introspective enough to understand his own motives. He had rival careers one as an honest professional and the other as murderous criminal; the first he'd cultivated and enjoyed, the second had been a younger man's way to make money.
Susan's entrance in his life had triggered a nascent dissatisfaction with his younger more reckless decisions. Now he knew he wanted more. He knew what it was too, and Susan figured in it. He was just uncertain how to communicate what he wanted.
As they walked toward the house Shawn asked, "Are you hungry; how about something to eat?"
Susan replied, "I'm not hungry."
"What would you like to do?" he asked.
She answered tartly, "Nothing with you."
He sheepishly persisted, "I thought maybe we could sit on the porch and talk."
Susan answered savagely, "Not a chance."
That wasn't what he wanted to hear, but he didn't have any clever replies or beguiling comments. He was being his usual stupid self. Crap, when there was something he didn't care about he could talk a mile a minute, but if it was something he wanted he was tongue tied. Some men always knew what to say. He knew men who would have been able to deflect Susan's anger and use it. He could never figure out how. Some men had this facility for smooth talk. They could be affable and clever. He knew some men who could talk an outhouse cleaner into buying a pile of manure. Him, he couldn't get a dehydrated man in the Sahara desert a thousand miles from the nearest oasis to accept a canteen full of fresh water. Shit! Where were his brains when he needed them? He needed to say something clever, something to knock this dreadful edginess off. Not him! He stood there and stammered, "Oh OK."
What a fool he was.
They walked back to the house in silence, neither looking at the other. Shawn would have talked. He felt so awkward. He wanted to invite her to do something, but she either wasn't in the mood or just wasn't interested in anything having to do with him. He hoped it was the first, but knew in his heart it was the second.
There were no constraints now. He'd promised her complete freedom. If he could just get her to talk? They could talk about real things like what they each liked, what they had in common, what they wanted, where they saw themselves in ten years.
She only knew the one dimensional kidnapping scary rapist. He didn't buy the rapist thing. Well maybe a little. If he couldn't get her to talk to him how could he show her he wasn't all things she imagined? Unless he could talk to her, get her to listen, even a little, he was totally fucked.
Women in America were such a mystery. Of course he understood Susan's feelings, but women in general fascinated and confused him. Oh he liked sex. Had his share. He was a hard core heterosexual.
He'd been to other countries, and he'd seen how foreign women were treated. Women in America were special. Men in America, for the most part, treated women differently, and that made them more alive and free. In other places the creative energies of the women were often stifled, but in America they were vibrant and full of energy.
He thought about some of the countries he visited where women, half the population, was denied the most basic opportunities. What a waste. If they'd just loosened up a little bit their countries would be so much richer, so much more productive.
Even in Europe, where one would think the women would have access, they were too often stymied. He didn't like European women much. They were kind of haughty, and for no reason.
Only in America could someone see the benefits of a truly free society. American women were the most beautiful, most alive, most vivacious, most God damn confusing, most exasperating creatures in the world. And going up the stairs right now was Susan; the most beautiful, most vivacious, most confusing, and most exasperating woman he'd ever met. This was indeed one mell of a hess!
Jesus! he wanted to run up there, grab her, turn her around and explain he wasn't just the bad things she'd seen. He wanted to tell her he wasn't all that bad a guy. He'd like to tell her he liked her, thought she was pretty, not just sexy pretty, but pretty inside too.
When they reached the foyer Susan went immediately to the third floor room she'd occupied since her failed escape attempt. She didn't know it was his bedroom. She curled up with Tom and pretended she was home in her own apartment. She'd sit out the next few days, play with her cat, stay away from the son of a bitch downstairs, and plan ways to get even.
Shawn remained downstairs. He watched her climb the steps. He could see the outline of her calf and thigh muscles through the thin material of her brown slacks. He watched her ass cheeks perambulate their way up the steps.
He figured sooner or later she'd come out. He wanted to socialize, but he understood she had every reason to hate him. He'd never been very much with women even on a good day. He figured with her there probably wasn't much hope. If she decided to come down he'd do his best soften her feelings, meanwhile he'd have to content himself with working out their primary problem.
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They'd had their little round of fisticuffs on Wednesday. By Saturday she still hadn't come downstairs. She was taking all her meals and managing all her time in his bedroom. He'd gotten Kia to go up and gather most of his clothes. For the first night he stayed in one of the other third floor bedrooms.
Shawn had acquired the old farm house several years ago. When he bought it there was no central heating and the plumbing and electricity dated to the beginning of the Twentieth Century. He'd invested a tidy piece of change in making it habitable. He thought it had turned out well.
There were four bedrooms on the third floor; one very large main bedroom, and three others of substantial size. There was a private bathroom for the main bedroom and another for any occupants of the other three. He envisioned one day having three or four children. He thought, if it worked out, two boys could always share one room.
The second floor was the main area. There was a long foyer. Actually it had been a porch that he had enclosed. A long bank of windows ran the length of the exterior wall. One could sit in a chair and look out at fields and forest. In the summer he kept the agriculture to things like beans so visibility wouldn't be impaired. In the fall and winter there was always the lovely sight of the changing leaves and later the beauty of the winter snows. Other second floor rooms included a large kitchen-breakfast room, a dining room, living room, and two small sitting rooms each off of a utilitarian bathroom.
The lowest level was largely unfinished. He had created what he called an apple room. That was where he stored things like toilet paper and paper towels. There wasn't much else down there. He thought about making a tool room. He thought about a lot of things like that.
When he originally bought the house he hoped to make it a place where he could start a family and raise kids. He wanted a real family with children of his own and a wife.
Brought up mostly in foster homes as a kid he'd watched television shows that depicted the wonderful family life other people enjoyed. Someday he wanted to have that too. He never complained about his upbringing. He'd never been abused or neglected, but wherever he lived he always knew, no matter how nice the people were, he wasn't really theirs. He reflected how foster parents were extra nice in some ways, and totally ignorant in others.
He never knew who his parents were. He knew his mother gave him up when he was born, but for some reason he wasn't adoptable. He remembered when he was little he'd fantasize how one day a beautiful woman would show up in a big limousine and claim him. She'd be dressed in beautiful clothes and have a mink coat. She'd bend down and call out his name with her arms outstretched. He'd run into her arms and shout mommy. Of course no such woman ever came.
He was told by government people there were families who wanted him, but they never fully met the qualifications. He wondered what the qualifications must have been. There had been one couple who had two children of they're own, but they weren't qualified to have him. He recalled when the officials took him away. The man went out in the backyard. He thought at the time it was because he didn't care. Now he understood why the man left the room.
Even now at thirty-four he couldn't understand what not being qualified meant. He just knew he'd missed something on the front end of life, and he wanted to become a parent and experience it on the back end. He knew he'd be a good father and a good husband. He bet someday Susan would have children. He bet they'd be beautiful.
Shawn just sat there, downstairs, while the woman stayed up in his bedroom. He had a lot on his mind. She knew almost nothing about him, about the real man. He admitted he was a bad man. He'd done bad things, things he was ashamed of. But he wasn't all bad. He had a legitimate life too, a real life. He'd been around the world. He'd seen how other people lived. He'd seen suffering and poverty, but he'd seen strong families. Even in the worst places parents loved their children, and husbands and wives cared for each other. He wished he could have something like that someday.
He wished he knew what to do about the woman upstairs. All his life he'd been awkward around women, always felt self-conscious, foolish. He liked Susan. At first he thought she might be a lesbian. He had nothing against lesbians, but if she had been he'd have killed her right away.
He remembered watching her before he kidnapped her. She was pretty, vivacious and charming, but a little stand offish too, especially around men. Susan was sexy, not in a promiscuous way like a whore, more in a girlish innocent way. She had an innocence that frightened and disarmed him. It sort of stirred his protective instincts too.
He saw she had an inner strength. He reflected about her fighting him off in the stream. But he'd seen that strength even before he'd kidnapped her.
Susan had a past. He'd gotten curious and checked her out. She'd been an only child. He thought at first that must have made her life everything his wasn't; the center of attention, all spoiled and coddled, but he discovered that wasn't the case. Her parents were self-centered career types. She spent a lot of time, maybe too much time, in boarding schools and summer camps.
Sometime when she was still very young her parents divorced. He wondered how many Thanksgivings and Christmases she'd spent alone, left behind at some boarding school. No, it wasn't all midnight and magnolias for her either. He bet with a little support she'd be a good mother, a loyal wife.
Loyalty, that was a tricky word, being willing to stick with people even when you were mad at them, especially when you were mad at them. Holding it together when things looked like they were all falling apart. He'd seen the power of familial loyalty around the world. It didn't take money, it took courage.
In some ways he thought her life wasn't too different from his. Her parents were rich but never around. He never had parents. Both of them were much like outsiders looking in. She was really wrapped up in herself, probably like her parents had been. They say the fruit never falls far from the tree.
He looked around the house he'd had fixed up. It was all here, ready to go, just nobody to share it with. He knew what he should do. He should go upstairs and talk. Go up and make friends. Show her he wasn't only the bad things she thought. That's what he should do. He knew he wouldn't. That took a kind of courage he didn't have.
