Brian Freeman - Immoral

Graeme's pager beeped, a high-pitched whine filling the room. Both of them jumped. Emily fell back on her butt, her breasts spilling out of her shirt. Graeme reared out of the chair and grabbed for the pager. He plucked it off his belt and stared at it.

"I have to go."

Emily straightened herself, smoothing her hair and quickly attending to her open blouse. She shrugged and smiled at him. "That's all right."

She walked him to the door and stayed there, with the night air blowing in, while he backed his car out of the driveway. She watched the car until she couldn't see it anymore, and still she stayed there, enjoying the breeze on her face.

Emily closed the front door quietly. She headed for the kitchen, humming to herself.

"You looked pretty funny with your tits hanging out," she heard someone say.

Rachel was sitting on the top step of the short stairway to the second floor. Her long bare legs dangled over the stairs. She wore short shorts and a black halter top that fit snugly around her full breasts. Her black hair was wet, as if she'd just come out of the shower. Her skin glowed.

"You were spying on us?"

Rachel shrugged. "Graeme saw me. I didn't want to interrupt your big moment."

Emily didn't want to get sucked into Rachel's games tonight. She headed for the kitchen without another glance at her daughter.

Rachel called after her. "Up to your old tricks, huh?"

Emily stopped. "What does that mean?"

Rachel screwed up her face and mocked her mother's voice. "'I'm on the pill, darling. It was an accident. It was God's will.'"

"So?" Emily retorted.

"So what do you call these?" Rachel said. She held up a tiny pocket-purse, then flipped it open to reveal an unopened wheel of small green pills. "They look like birth control pills to me. What happened, Mother? Did you fall a little behind?"

Emily's hands flew to her mouth. Her face went white. Then she steeled herself, her mind working furiously. "You don't understand."

Rachel jabbed a finger at her mother. "Don't I? You're the manipulative bitch I always thought you were. Just like Daddy said you were."

Emily said nothing. Rachel was right-she had deceived Graeme. But it was for a greater good, for both of them. To finally have a little security. To not have to work. She wasn't trying to trap him, only to make him realize he loved her.

"I suppose I should thank you," Rachel said. "Didn't you pull the same trick on Daddy? Isn't that why I'm here? You knew you could never keep him on your own."

Emily bit her lip. She wanted to scream a denial. But the long pause was enough to convince Rachel of the truth.

"You're becoming predictable," Rachel said.

"Are you going to tell Graeme?" Emily asked. She knew the answer. Rachel wouldn't miss an opportunity to drive a knife into her mother's heart. All the carefully laid plans would unravel.

But Rachel surprised her.

"Why would I do that?" Rachel said. "It's the first time I ever thought we had something in common."

The girl turned and disappeared into her room.

Emily wished they would have let her keep the bracelet. She had only been able to catch a quick glimpse of it in the plastic bag, enough to see the inscription from Tommy. Then the detective had whisked it out of sight. Evidence, he said.

She'd get it back after the trial. If there ever was a trial. If they ever found out what really happened to her.

She continued pacing. The headache got even worse as she tried to squeeze it out of her head with her hands. The reality was too terrible to bear. She needed someone to hold her and tell her it was all right, or just let her cry endlessly into his arms. When she stopped and stared at her husband, she shook her head in mute rage. He worked on his computer as if she weren't even in the room. He ignored her moans, her cries, the sound of her feet shuffling back and forth on the carpet.

Tap, tap, tap. Fingers on the keyboard. Her daughter was dead, and he was playing with spreadsheets.

How did she miss it? How did she fool herself into thinking she loved him, or that he could ever love her?

Her eyes burned into his back. She asked herself again how they had come so far. Rachel was gone, and all she could think of was that her whole life was hollow, starting with her marriage. Everything was gone.

Her silence finally attracted his attention. He turned around, catching her eye as she stared fiercely back at him. Her eyes were wild. She didn't know how to deal with all the grief exploding out of her. The cork had come out of the bottle. She stood there, trembling.

"Emily, sit down," Graeme said. "Relax."

Funny how he always said the wrong thing. How she hated the sound of his voice now. The calm delivery, each word without emphasis. She couldn't handle it anymore.

"Relax?" she hissed. "You're telling me to fucking relax?"

They stared at each other. His eyes were dead, staring right through her. He was patient and pleasant. A stranger.

"I know how you feel," Graeme told her, as if he were speaking to a hysterical child.

Emily put both hands on her forehead. She closed her eyes, grimacing. Tears streamed down her face.

"You don't know how I feel, because you don't feel a goddamn thing! You just sit there in your chair, and you smile at me, and you pretend like we're this loving couple, and all the while I know you don't feel anything for me."

"You're just being irrational."

"Irrational?" She squeezed her fists open and shut. "God, why ever would that be? What would make me irrational?"

He didn't answer.

She shook her head, not believing it. "She's dead. Do you understand that? She's really dead."

"They found her bracelet. It doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"It means everything," Emily said. "I don't have Rachel. And I don't have you, either, do I? I never did."

"Emily, please."

"Please what, Graeme? Please go away? Please don't bother you with my petty problems?"

He didn't reply.

"Why did you marry me?" Emily whispered. "You could have given me money. I wouldn't have told anyone the baby was yours. I would have left town if you wanted. Why marry me if you felt nothing for me?"

Graeme shrugged his shoulders. "Did you give me a choice?"

Emily barely heard him. But he was right. Her fault. Her guilt.

"I guess I should have had the abortion," she said. That would have been so much easier, a simple procedure, vacuuming away the life inside her. Easier than losing the baby months later in a river of blood.

"That would have made it all right, wouldn't it, Graeme? No need to marry me then. No need to marry anyone at all. You could be happy, playing with your little spreadsheets, dialing up your phone-sex girlfriends."

Graeme looked up sharply. This time she had struck a nerve. He was staring at her. He even looked a little afraid. Good.

"You didn't think I knew, did you? I followed you downstairs once. I saw you in here, on your knees, pumping your cock, panting into the phone. I heard you tell that girl how much you wanted to fuck her. That's better, isn't it? Better than having to pretend you enjoy fucking me."

Emily stared at the ceiling. "All of you would have been better off. You and Tommy and Rachel. I've done nothing but screw up all of your lives, haven't I? If only I'd had the abortion. If only I'd done it the first time, too."

She sank to her knees, then onto all fours on the plush white carpet. She pounded the floor over and over with her fist, then rolled over onto her back, pulling her knees to her chest, hugging them. "God knew what he was doing, didn't he? He didn't want me to have another baby. Look what a fucking mess I made of the first one."

She saw Graeme kneeling over her. He had pasted an expression of concern on his face. It was false, like everything else in their life.