Richard Laymon - The Lake

Guys. What is it with them?

Wondering what he’d come up with next, she watched, hands on hips, eyebrows raised.

“Uh-huh,” she murmured, eyeing the bedcovers and wondering who’d used them before she came along.

“Very handy.”

“I snuck these in last night, after you’d gone.” He looked as if he expected her to pat him on the head and say, “Gee, thanks, Charlie.”

She didn’t.

He spread out the sheet on the mattress. Then he put the blanket on top.

At least they’re clean.

If they’d been dirty, I’d’ve been out of here, she told herself. Then, immediately, she felt guilty. Charlie had done all of this for her . She was sure of it.

He was smiling eagerly. Folding down the bedcovers, he motioned for her to get in.

Still, she was cynical.

“The romance is killing me, buster…Can’t wait for dessert.”

Cocking his head to one side, he tried to understand her words. Her mood. He hadn’t seen her like this before. His eyes shifted to his feet.

“I…I thought you’d like my secret place…,” he said quietly, disappointed she seemed displeased.

Leigh let out a small “aahh” of guilt. She couldn’t bear to see him hurt. Innocently, his eyes questioned hers. Like a small boy who’d brought his mom a special gift, only to be told she didn’t want it.

She relented, couldn’t take his discomfort any longer.

“Okay, Charlie. I give in. This sure is some place you got here.”

Moving over to the makeshift bed, she clambered in, hugged her knees, and smiled up at him.

Charlie looked happier already. It dawned on her that in his own special way maybe Charlie was in love with her.

She opened her arms, and he came to her.

They lay there for a while, he stroking her breasts, her belly, her thighs and legs. Doing it carefully, like she was a piece of precious china.

Lying by her side, propped up on an elbow, head in his hand, he looked at her. She smiled deep into his eyes.

His arm dropped down.

They lay together, their bodies touching. The pain, the hard ache between her legs, began again. He caressed her back, gently. Kissed her lips, her eyelids, her cheeks.

Then tenderly, and with infinite feeling, her lips again.

She sensed the different kind of passion.

Not the wham-bam, thank-ya-ma’am stuff that had happened yesterday.

This was a wonderful, titillating foreplay to the main event.

Leigh responded, gently at first, then with impatience and a growing need. She came on top, straddling him, her mouth opening on his, finding his tongue, sucking, sucking, and pulling it into hers. Drawing it into her throat.

Wishing it were him she had in her mouth.

Like last night.

She left his mouth. Sliding down, she trailed her tongue over his slick, muscular chest.

His body tasted good; it was hairy and salty with sweat.

She licked harder now, her breath coming in short, hard gasps. Her tongue traveled past his navel and through the dark curly hairs spreading across his hard belly.

Down to his huge erection.

She grasped it and took it in her mouth until he came, writhing, moaning, spurting into her. Sobbing and gagging, she swallowed his come.

Gasping, tears running down her face, she lay with her head between his legs, panting, breathless. Pulling her up against his chest, he massaged the backs of her thighs with firm, smooth strokes.

His mouth found hers again; he took her tongue and sucked at it, hard. As he shifted slightly, his pubic hairs rubbed against her belly. Then, with a strength she wasn’t expecting, he shoved a hand inside her.

Aaaaghhh…

She cried out. In shock. In pain.

With a catlike movement Charlie was on top, thrusting himself deep into her center. Pounding into her, gouging, shaking her body to the core. She rose to meet him, raw, hurting, pressing herself against him, raking herself up and down his shaft till she could take no more.

He came into her again. And again. Still gasping, crying a little, she lay back on the tousled, sweat-soaked sheet. Charlie lay on his side, looking down at her, hungrily.

Panting. Wanting more.

Playing with her dark, softening nipples.

She felt the hard ache rise again…

“Charlie,” she breathed, closing her eyes, lifting her arms to hold him.

But Charlie leapt up, grabbed his shirt, and thrust his arms into it. Fumbling with the buttons, he gave up trying and dragged on his jeans.

Hopping from one leg to the other, he looked almost comical.

Except it wasn’t funny.

Leigh was in shock.

Crying out in disbelief: “Charlie?”

Astounded.

Bereft.

“Where are you going? You can’t leave me now…not like this…”

“I gotta I gotta…,” he stammered desperately. “I promised Mom I’d be home for supper. She thinks I’m out collecting wood for tomorrow…I gotta go…I just gotta…”

He looked around wildly.

Torn. Willing himself to be somewhere else.

Night shadows had gathered. She couldn’t make out his features.

Couldn’t see if he was disappointed.

What had gone wrong?

Had she been too forward?

Whatever. Looks like she’d frightened him off…

And now he was leaving her.

But he couldn’t .

Not when we’ve had it so good together.

Nothing, no one, is gonna keep us apart!

She sprang up and grabbed him; he wrenched away from her urgent, shaking hands grasping his shirt, holding on to him.

“Mom’ll be looking for me. She’s expecting me…”

They fell to the floor, struggling, fighting. He rolled away from her.

Pushed himself up.

Unable to believe what was happening, she reached out to hold him.

He fell back, away from her, shoving an elbow hard on the floorboards. With a rending, splitting sound the rotten floor gave under his weight.

He plummeted to the ground below.

She stared at the black space where the floor, where Charlie, had been.

Hearing his low, hurt grunt as he hit rock bottom.

The dull crack that was a thud and a splish! all at the same time.

Like a ripe melon bursting open.

Terrified, Leigh scrambled to her feet.

“Charlie oh my God Charlie Charlie! Wait, I’m coming I’m coming.”

Naked, she bounded across the landing and took the stairs, two, three at a time.

Ouch.

Shit!

She caught her toe in a broken stair and stumbled.

Flinging out her arms, she clawed at the balustrade, almost falling headlong.

No need to search for Charlie.

His legs sprawled at weird angles in the room facing her.

“Charlie. I’m here. Don’t move…”

Then her heart stood still.

She was terribly afraid.

More afraid than she’d ever been in all of her eighteen years.

Her stomach turned to ice.

But she went forward, through the doorway.

To get to Charlie.

Lying there.

So still.

She was in an old-fashioned kitchen. Dark with shadows. Shuttered windows. Narrow rays of the setting sun carving through dust motes rising from where he’d fallen, in an awkward nest of wood and flaking bits of plaster.

She stared at Charlie.

“Oh, God. NO! NO NO NO-OOO!!!”

Forced herself to look at what had been his head.

Clumps of brown hair clinging to slivers of scalp, scattered in a mess of brain and shattered skull.

Slimed with matter, the base of the stove poked through the red mush of Charlie’s face. An eye, a bloodshot globe attached to bloody strings, escaped from its socket.

Leigh stared. The eye slipped a little.

Showing the brown iris.

It knows I’m watching it. It’s smiling Charlie’s smile at me…

Leigh heaved, swayed, doubled over, and slid to her knees on the dusty clay floor.

Breath burst from her lungs in great, ragged gasps.

Hot, chunky vomit rose in her throat.

This, this…wasn’t… couldn’t be Charlie.

Charlie’s beautiful, strong—and he loves me. I know that. He loves me…

Taking one last look at Charlie, flaked with dust and plaster like a discarded tailor’s dummy, she fled down the passageway, out onto the stoop, and stumbled down the steps.

Whimpering.

Fighting back vomit.

Sobbing, muttering, as she ran.

Straight into the small, rigid figure of a woman.

Charlie’s mother.

Thin, birdlike.

Openmouthed.

Shocked. Staring at Leigh’s naked body with horrified, accusing eyes, bright as polished stones in the fading light.

The woman skimmed past her. Into the house. Leigh hurried on, toward the canoe, her feet cut and bleeding as she fled over stones and fallen branches.

The scream coming from the house pierced the evening quiet, renting the air like a knife through silk.

Pure. Vibrant. Agonized.

An animal caught in a trap. Then…

“Whore; Lilith; poisonous bitch; filthy murderess!”

Under glowering skies, Leigh pushed her canoe into the lake and climbed in. Grasping the paddle, she worked it hard, bending forward and back; dipping, skimming through the dark water. As she traveled, crisp, white wavelets lifted around the bow, telling her the wind had changed direction.

She shivered, feeling its chill on her tear-streaked face, on her cold, trembling body.

Paddling hard, her uneven breaths coming in raw, hurting gasps, she left Goon Lake behind.

The screams of Edith Payne followed her like arrows from hell.

EIGHTEEN

“Hey. Earthling. Anybody home?”

Jenny eyed Leigh over the breakfast table. She didn’t like what she saw. Yesterday Leigh had been bright and breezy. Today, it looked like her personal piece of sky had just caved in.

“Sorry, Jenny. I…I didn’t sleep too well last night.”

“Didn’t hear you come in.” A pause. “We waited to eat supper, just in case. Then, when you didn’t show, we ate your share and decided to turn in.” She paused, not wanting to appear heavy—after all, Leigh was on vacation. She decided on the concerned-aunt routine, hoping it wouldn’t come over too strong.

“Didn’t you know that Mike and I would worry if you stayed out late? ’Specially nights…What happened, Leigh—or is it a state secret?” Beneath her determined smile, Jenny was worried.

If this is what life with a teen is all about, Mike and I sure missed out on all the excitement.

They’d regretted not having kids, and visiting Jack and Helen on the West Coast once in a while made up for it to some degree. That, and teaching kids at high school, helped them both understand what went on in those young minds.

Leigh hung her head. Put her fork down and pushed away her untouched eggs. Her lip trembled. She scraped back her chair and rushed from the table.

Jenny followed her to the guest bedroom. She spotted Mike coming out of the bathroom and put a discreet finger to her lips. With raised brows, he carried on rubbing his damp hair and went on his way.

Kids, eh?

Jenny sat on the bed and drew the sobbing girl to her. “Come on, now, tell Aunt Jenny,” she said gently, cradling Leigh’s head against her shoulder.

Leigh let everything go, crying as if her heart would break. Eventually, the great, gulping sobs trailed off and she recovered sufficiently to wonder where to begin her story and what, if necessary, should be left out. The plain, unadulterated truth was just too awful to say out loud.

“It’s bad, Jenny. It’s real bad…” Leigh broke down again, heaving and sobbing into her aunt’s soft, accommodating bosom. A cold shiver touched Jenny’s spine. This was bad. She knew she wasn’t going to like what Leigh was about to tell her.