The Method of Transgression: Part Two

The Method of Transgression: Part Two

Helen tapped an impatient foot as she waited for the telephone maintenance man to finish. A cigarette dangled from her fingers, though she had quit smoking nearly a year and a half ago when she found herself pregnant. She could almost hear Allan's admonitions even now.

"Helen, for Christ's sake, have a little respect for the baby's health, would you?" He snatched the cigarette from her manicured fingers and tossed it into the pool. She slowly slid her sunglasses down to the tip of her aristocratic nose, and peered at him in blasé disgust.

"I didn't ask to carry your child, Allan. I thought we'd agreed on this." She pursed her lips into a grim smile. "You've decided to insist that my body be used as an incubator for your brat, can't you just leave it at that?"

A shadow passed over his expression, and she cringed as he reached forward, violently grasping at her bikini top, and yanked her forward as he leaned down to stare into her startled eyes. His voice was soft, caressing, but she had been married to him for twenty years, she knew that the soft tone was disguising a violent rage.

"You're right, Helen. This was unplanned, as we have been over time and again. But don't misunderstand me, I can hold some sympathy for you with this unexpected turn of events, and I know it's not going to be an easy adjustment." His hard eyes softened, and he loosened his grip. "I know it's not even all that safe, for you at this age," she winced at the reminder of her years, "and I am as concerned for your safety as I am for the baby's. I will not tolerate disobedience in this." He let her go, and she fell back against the reclining chair, her sunglasses tumbled to the cement.

He picked up her pack and tossed them into the pool behind the one he had taken from her lips. "I've done enough for you, Helen, over the years. It's time you repaid some of the debt." And with a parting look of combined sadness and repulsion he turned and made his way back into the house.

She knew better than to contradict him when he had made up his mind. As his business associates and even those he was not particularly associated with knew, Allan Joseph Clarkson III was not man to oppose when he made up his mind.

Helen shook the recollection from her mind, and lifted the cigarette to her lips, saw that it had burned to the filter, and ground it out in the ashtray on the desk. "What?" She questioned irritably, as she realized Frank, the installation man, was speaking to her.

He looked at her curiously, which was certainly nothing strange. She had received many such looks from the people of the small town of Brighton since it became known that she was now a resident, even if she was on the outskirts.

"I said everything's all set, Ms. Shannon."

"Great. Do I pay you or-"

"-you'll be billed, ma'am."

"Fabulous. Thank you for coming out on such short notice. It just didn't occur to me how alone I was out here, not to mention I'll need the phone service up for prospective clientele, I suppose."

"Oh yeah? If you don't mind me asking, what do you do?"

Perhaps there was more than curiosity to his inquiring gaze. Did she detect a spark of appreciation in his eyes? "I'm a seamstress."

He nodded. "Well, you'll be competing with Anne Littleton for customers then, she owns the shop down on Montgomery."

Definitely interest. She allowed her eyes to travel to his hand. A band. He was married. "I don't think we'll be competing. Most of my work gets shipped to New York."

"Ah." It seemed he was searching for something more to say. He apparently gave up, tipping the brim of his service cap. "Well, I'll be off. If there's any problem with the service, just give us a ring."

She followed him to the door. He stopped outside on the threshold. He turned to face her and held out a hand. She took it, and they shook hands, their eyes meeting. "A pleasure to meet you, ma'am." She decided suddenly that he was a handsome man. His build was lean, his face tanned and weathered. A locked of sandy brown hair fell from under his cap and brushed a strong brow above light blue eyes. She sought the word that described him. Rugged. She smiled. It was an interesting contrast to the well-manicured and oily businessmen she had known exclusively for the past couple decades.

"You seem more congenial than most of the people I've met, although briefly, in town so far." She allowed her voice to fall into a low timbre. "Maybe you should stop by for dinner some evening."

She saw a surprised expression cross his features, his brows lifted slightly. He did not seem taken aback, however. "Might not be such a good idea," he grinned. "My wife might not approve."

"Then don't tell her."

He startled her by tipping his head back and laughing. "I suppose that would solve that problem, wouldn't it?" He dropped her hand, and turned away, striding out to his white maintenance van. She waited, and was not disappointed. He climbed into the van, and paused before pulling away, turning his face to stare back at her. She could see him weighing her, and possibly the likely unorthodox offer beneath her invite.

He pulled off his cap and winked. "I've got your number Ms. Shannon." He laughed again as he was pulling out.

She closed the door behind her, and made her way to the kitchen. After making herself a salad she sat down at the small kitchen table, a paperback in her hand. Her eyes occasionally trailed to the phone that now rested beside her bed. Perhaps now she would be able to sleep at night, knowing that the local police department was only a phone call away from an out-flung wrist.

The words of her book blurred together, and she realized she wasn't really reading it anyway. She placed it on the table, and continued to pick at her salad. Frank's blue eyes drifted through her mind, and she smiled almost girlishly. Almost, because it was a trifle too predatory to be mistaken for a young girl's.

He was married. So what? I'm not looking for anything serious. A woman has needs. That's no excuse to chance breaking up what could be a happy marriage. If it was that happy he wouldn't have had that look in eyes. What look? For Christ's sake, that look. Anyway, I am in my sexual prime. You wouldn't have a need to be seeking out strange men in the middle of nowhere if you still had Allan. Well I don't! Allan's-

She stood from the table, the remainder of her salad forgotten. Allan wouldn't have wanted her even if he had been available. He had stopped wanting her when she knocked up with the kid she was loath to give birth to. So typical. Besides, she had left that all behind.

She was no longer Mrs. Allan Clarkson III. She was Helen Shannon. Seamstress. And if she wanted to fuck a telephone maintenance man there was no one to say her nay. She had a feeling he would be discreet. There was a surety in that wink that did not come from a man doubting his ability to be faithful to his wife.

She made her way across the room and opened the drawer of the nightstand table. Her fingers ruffled through the various odds and ends she had haphazardly tossed within until she found what she was seeking, placing it on the bed next to her. She quickly loosed the buttons of her blouse, her fingers quick with intent. When it fell open she shrugged the white silk from her shoulders, reaching behind her to unlatch her bra. She stood, and kicking off her flats, she slid her slacks down her long legs, followed by her panties. Nude, she carefully folded the clothing and set it in a pile at the base of the bed.

She stretched out across the bed, the new comforter she had purchased felt sleek and smooth beneath her naked limbs. Her hands began to skim over her skin, soft and deliberate in the wide paths they spread across her breastbone, palms sliding down her sides, over her hips. Electricity followed the path of her sure hands as they slid back up over her belly, teasingly over her breasts. Her breath caught and her back arched ever so slightly. She imagined large tanned hands flowing over her skin, and her hands cupped her breasts, roughly. She squeezed her thighs together, clenching them and creating a warm pressure on her swollen clit.

It watched. The sunlight from the open windows painted dappled shadows over the woman's skin, shining now with a faint sheen of sweat. She groaned, seemingly with frustration, and reached for the small object she had removed from the nightstand. A soft buzzing filled the room, and It watched as the woman slowly parted her legs, guiding the object to the swollen, glistening flesh revealed there.

Her face contorted it seemed, in pain, and it longed to reach out and smooth those twisted features. Her breathing began to come in short, labored pants, and she writhed as though burning from some unseen flame.

It longed to offer this troubled creature solace. It felt a deep affection for the woman who had let the sunlight in. Who had filled It's prison with fresh air, the woman who chased the dust and the shadows and most importantly, the loneliness away.

She seemed to suffer the affliction it seemed It had seen before, a madness of fear and anxiety. Such had been the case with Adele. And who was before that? It searched It's memory, but It's memory did not seem to work so much in affect like It's friends. It could not recall precise events, as they seemed to, or much more than names, really, and when they left, as they inevitably always did, it was left with only fragments. But It understood fear.

The woman released a cry, her body lifting from the bed. It wished that it could help her. Comfort her as it had seen others do for one another. Perhaps soon. It could already feel Itself changing. And it felt good be alive once more.

It felt good.

Helen's breath began to slow, and she felt a combination of relaxation and hatred. The prickling feeling intensified, and she bolted upright, her eyes surveying the room with a wrathful intensity. It was there again. She could feel what seemed a thousand eyes crawling over her skin like the detested German cockroaches of her youth. She felt sullied, dirty, and angry.

There was, of course, nothing there.

She leapt from the bed, and stalked to the middle of the room, and turning as was becoming a habit, she disregarded decorum and shrieked in frustration.

"What? I can feel you there, whoever, whatever you are. Why don't you show yourself, coward?" Her words sliced through the silence like a razor blade. They seemed to echo in her head. She was alone. She could see that she was alone.

Gazing into the mirror, her eyes flashed. "You're going nuts, Helen. For Christ's sake, get it together."

She turned from her reflection, repulsed by her behavior. She glanced at the phone on the nightstand, and with a disgusted sigh made her way into the kitchen. She plopped into a chair naked, and began to attack what was left of her salad with a vengeance.

***

The water dripping into the cooling bathwater was a hypnotic melody of comfort. Helen lifted a shriveled toe to the water faucet, shivering slightly at the sensation of the icy water that dripped down her foot. She pulled it away. It interrupted the rhythm of the tiny splashes of water. After all, the sound was comforting.

She knew she would have to leave the bathroom eventually. She was loathe to, knowing that upon doing so her watcher would return. Not so much return, because it never left. The bathroom for some reason seemed to be the only place in the house that the eyes couldn't reach.

You're just turning paranoid. No one is watching you. Certainly no one knows who you are or why you are here. You just need to relax. It's over.

It was true. As secluded as she was, sometimes it was as though she'd forgotten why she had left L.A. That day seemed hazy in her memory. An ambiguous tickle that slipped from her thoughts if she tried to focus on it too deeply. At times she wondered if all that had happened had really occurred.

With a sigh she stood, goosebumps rippling over her flesh as the cool air brushed her naked body. She took her time drying, and chided herself, knowing she was only stalling. This knowledge chafed, but did not speed up her drying process.

With a deep breath she opened the door, and stepped into the presence of what she was beginning to refer to as the Watcher. It seemed to grow worse as the days passed, and she couldn't seem to grow used the sensation, especially when she had been out from under its gaze for awhile. Like now, as she was immediately greeted with it, she felt as though her freshly cleaned skin was suddenly coated in oil. She felt dirty under that gaze. She felt as though it could see deeper into her than merely her mind; that it could somehow see into her soul.

And she had secrets that must be kept at all costs.

She moved through the room slowly, pulling on the robe she had left hanging on the bathroom door. It must just be the solitude, she tried to convince herself. You've spent so much of your life surrounded by people, events, being active, you just don't know how to cope with being alone. The eyes followed her to the kitchen where she had been dicing vegetables, before she had become so overwhelmed by the weight of the Watcher's stare she had needed to escape for a time.

As she threw herself back into the preparations for her dinner, her skin crawled. It was behind her, approaching... She spun around, the knife poised in her hand, and the space behind her was empty. Maybe it was there, did she look close enough? There it was again, she could almost feel its presence pressing against her. Her head cocked to the side and she listened for some proof; the whisper of a footstep, a breath, anything that could justify her turning around again. Nothing. Only her heartbeat speeding up again, and the slimy feeling of violation.

She wanted to turn around again, but she was beginning to fear her own paranoia as much as she was the Watcher's presence. If she turned again for no reason other feeling as though she were being stared at, it would win again. It was becoming a bit of a game to them. It would stare hard, until she could feel its eyes branding itself on the back of her skull, and she would try her damnedest not to succumb to the desire, the need to turn around.

Her breathing began to speed up, and this time she was sure, she could almost feel its hand reaching for her, to brush her neck, her waist, to perhaps pull her into some cavernous maw and swallow her alive. She began to turn, tears raw in her throat, and she held her breath in anticipation.

A piercing ring sliced through the thick silence that bonded her to her voyeur. She leapt with a cry, and realized it was the phone ringing. At once relieved and almost disappointed that her possible confrontation would be stalled, Idiot, there wouldn't have been anything there this time either, she forced a charade of calm to her step as she made her way to the phone.

"Hello?"

"Is something wrong?"

Helen closed her eyes for a moment, willing the tremor from her voice. "No. Who is this?"

"Frank."

Her lips parted in surprised pleasure. "Right, Frank. What can I do for you?"

She was answered with a tense silence. Just get it out. It's not the high school prom for Christ's sake. After a moment, "Well, I was thinking about your invitation..."

"I'm fixing dinner now, why don't you come on by?" That ought to make it easier for you.

"Sounds good. When?"

"Should be ready in an hour or so. Come right on over."

"Will do." Then the silence again.

"Okay," she finally responded. "'Bye." She placed the phone in the cradle.

Helen turned and surveyed the room. "So there!" She taunted the emptiness. A shiver rippled through her. She lifted her chin defiantly and returned to the kitchen, where she resumed dicing vegetables with a ferocious violence.

***

"So where are you from?" Frank inquired, his eyes following her as she moved around the kitchen, making the finishing touches on a Caesar salad.

"Here and there. Hope you don't mind vegetarian lasagna."

"Are you a vegetarian?"

"No," she laughed. Just from California. "But a woman my age has to watch her figure," she finished, running an elegant hand down her flat belly.

"Your figure looks fine to me." His rakish smile revealed strong white teeth. She always was a sucker for a beautiful smile.

"Case and point." She turned, placing two plates on the table before claiming the chair across from him. "Bon apetite."

As they ate she felt a quiet pleasure in his obvious enjoyment of the dish. She had cooked rarely in recent years. After Allan's father had died, and he had come into his inherited money as well as position, he had not believed it was appropriate for her to spend any time in the kitchen. She certainly had not minded at the time, but she had forgotten the simple joy in cooking for a man.

"So have you ever been married?" He paused, taking a swig of the Michelob he'd brought with him.

"A long time ago." She thought it was unrealistic for a woman her age to have remained unattached. "It didn't work out. Just another statistic."

"Any children?"

"Do you see any children?" She smiled, though she could feel the muscle next her left eye twitch. "How about you?"

"Yeah, that's actually why I have some free time from the wife. She's taken them to her mother's for the evening."

"Ah yes. And where are you?" She arched a brow

"Down at the Grant Station Tavern, shooting pool."

She folded her hands together beneath her chin and leaned forward, her brown eyes glittering. "And how're you doing? Taking the boys for a few bucks?"

"Here and there. I expect I'll break about even." The cerulean eyes that challenged hers were steady.

"That's good," she whispered, before falling quiet. Their eyes remained locked, the silence between them thick with expectation.



"The Method of Transgression: Part Three"