Лоуренс Блок - Catch and Release

But for now this was fine, this was more than fine, and she took him right up to the edge and held him there, held him there forever, and then tipped him over the edge.

The climax was shattering, and it sent him away somewhere, and when he came back he was no longer wearing the blindfold. He opened his eyes and she was there, naked, glistening with perspiration, and he would have told her how beautiful she was but his mouth was still taped shut.

“You naughty boy,” she was saying. “look what I found in your pocket.” And she held out her hand and showed him the knife, worked the catch to free the four-inch blade, turned it to catch the light. “Now tell me, Gerald with a G or Jerry with a J, just what were you planning to do with this?”

But he couldn’t tell her anything, not with his mouth taped. He tossed his head, trying to get her to take off the tape, but all that did was make her laugh.

“That was a rhetorical question, sweetie. I know what you had in mind. I knew the minute our eyes met. Why do you think I picked you? I wasn’t sure you’d be bringing a knife to the party, but it’s not as though I don’t have a knife or two of my own.”

She turned, put the knife down, turned back to him, and her hand reached out to take hold of him, her soft little hand, the one he’d had thoughts of crushing. She stroked and caressed him, and if he could have spoken he’d have told her she was wasting her time, that he wasn’t capable of response. But his flesh had ideas of its own, even as the thought went through his mind.

“Oh, good,” she said, using both hands now. “I knew you could do it. But sooner or later, you know, you won’t be able to.” She bent over, kissed him. “And when that happens,” she murmured, “that’s when I’ll cut it off. But whose knife shall I use, yours or mine? That’s another rhetorical question, sweetie. You don’t have to answer it.”

That’s better, isn’t it? The only thing wrong with it is the predictability of it. The biter bit, hoisted upon his own petard, and what’s the use of a petard if you’re not going to be hoisted upon it? He’s on the hunt, he finds Little Miss Vulnerability and makes off with her, and in the end he’s the vulnerable one, even as she turns out to be Diana, goddess of the hunt. Perhaps this particular Diana makes it a little more interesting than most, but still, we saw it coming. A surprise ending is more satisfactory when the reader as well as the protagonist is taken by surprise.

How’s this?

They took his car, drove to the dead-end lane he’d scouted earlier. Earlier there had been another car parked at the lane’s far end, and he’d crept close enough to identify its occupants as a courting couple. He’d entertained the idea of taking them by surprise, and some day he’d have to do that, but he’d stayed with his original plan, and had had the great good fortune to find this girl, and the other car was gone now and they could be alone together.

He parked, killed the engine. He took her in his arms, kissed her, touched her. He noted with satisfaction the quickening of her breath, the heat of her response.

Good. She was turned on. Time now to show her who was in charge.

He took hold of her shoulders, moved to press her down on the seat. She didn’t budge. He put more into it, and she pushed back, and how could such a soft and yielding creature be so strong?

Her lips parted, and he saw her fangs, and got his answer.

Now that might work, if we weren’t up to our tits in vampires these days. The undead everywhere, curled up in their coffins, guzzling artificial blood in Louisiana, being the coolest kids in a suburban high school, so many vampires it’s clear Buffy never made a dent in their ranks.

So what’s left? Werewolves? Cannibals? How many ways can we spin this? And to what end?

Ah, the hell with it. I could go on, but why try to dream up something?

Here’s what really happened:

Her apartment, her bedroom, her bed. Soft lighting, soft music playing.

Soft.

“Jerry? Is there, you know, something I should do?”

Dematerialize , he thought. Vanish, in a puff of smoke.

“No.”

“I mean—”

“It’s not gonna happen,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

“I think that last vodka put me one toke over the line, you know?”

“Sure.”

Dammit dammit dammit dammit...

“But here,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make the magic happen for you, huh?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Please.”

He used all his tricks, his mouth on her, a finger in front, a finger in back. It took time, because his own failure held her in check, but he was patient and artful and he found her rhythm and took her all the way. At one point he thought her own excitement might be contagious, but that didn’t happen.

“That was wonderful,” she assured him, afterward. And offered again to do something to arouse him, but seemed just as glad when he told her he was fine, and it was late, and he really ought to be on his way.

He got out of there as quickly as he could, and on the way to his car his hand dropped to feel the knife in his pocket. Its presence was curiously reassuring.

He drove around, thinking about her, thinking of what he could have done, of what he should have done. He found a place to park and thought of what might have been, if he were in life the man he was in his fantasies. The man who didn’t let his knife stay in his pocket. The man who acted, and reacted, and lived as he wanted to live.

The scenario played in his mind. And he responded to it, as he’d been unable to respond to her, and he touched himself, as he had done so many times in the past, and as he’d known he would do from those first moments in the bar.

Afterward, driving home, he thought: Next time I’ll do it. Next time for sure.

Red light’s on, so I guess that thing’s recording. This whole project you’ve got, this oral history, I’ll confess I didn’t see the point of it. You running a tape recorder while an old man runs his mouth.

But it stirs things up, doesn’t it? The other day — Wednesday, it must have been — all I did was talk for an hour or two, and then I went home and lay down for a nap and slept for fifteen hours. I’m an old man, I got up every three hours to pee, but then I went back to bed and fell right back asleep again. And dreams! Can’t recall the last time I dreamed so much.

And then I got up, and my memory was coming up with stuff I never thought of in years. Years! All the way back to when I was a boy growing up in Oklahoma. You know, before the dust, before my old man lost the farm and brought us here. Memories of nothing much. Walking down a farm road watching a garter snake wriggling along in a tractor rut. And me kicking a tin can while I’m walking, just watching the snake, just kicking the can. Del Monte peaches, that’s what the can was. Why’d anybody remember that?

Mostly, though, what I kept going over in my mind was something that happened in my first year on the force. If it’s all the same to you, that’s what I’ll talk about today.

Now you know I wasn’t but sixteen when the Japs bombed Pearl, and like just about everybody else I was down there the next morning looking to get into it. They sent me home when I told them my age, so I waited two days and went back, and wouldn’t you know the same sergeant was behind the desk. This time I told him I was eighteen, and either he didn’t remember me from before or he didn’t give a damn, and they took me.

I went through basic and shipped out to England, and from there to North Africa, and what happened was they cut me out of the infantry and made an MP out of me. But I don’t want to get sidetracked here and tell war stories. I came through it fine and wound up back here in Los Angeles, and I’d been Military Police for better than three years, so after a few months of beer and girls I went down and applied to join the LAPD.