Norman Partridge - Slippin' into Darkness

More than anything. Amy hated April for that.

But it freed something in her. Something evil. She never let Doug forget the things he saw in the basement, or what they did to him. When word got out about the A-Squad and April, Doug had a serious attack of conscience and wanted to tell what he’d seen. But Amy didn’t want that to happen. She wasn’t going to allow Doug to forget any more than she was going to furnish April with a knight in shining armor.

Amy promised Doug that if he said one word, she’d tell her story, too.

Doug knew that story. A day wasn’t complete without Amy reminding him what he had done-and not done-in Todd’s basement. He kept quiet.

Amy didn’t get what she wanted, of course. She eventually broke up with Doug. He just wasn’t the guy she wanted anymore. But she knew that she was the winner. Doug was broken, and she wasn’t. Doug fell apart. She went on.

She went through other men the same way. She came out the winner every time. She always showed her men that she was the strong one. Husband number one learned the lesson. Husband number two was going to learn it.

And Ethan. Would she do the same thing to him?

No. She cared about Ethan. She…she loved Ethan.

But would that last? Could she trust him? And even if she did, what if he got tired of her? What if he looked for a younger woman?

No. She had to show him, just like the others. She had to teach him before it was too late. She had to be in control. She had to be the winner.

And then what would she be?

Alone again, naturally.

Suddenly, the pattern was clear. Here she was, locked in another basement with Doug and April, only now she was wondering if she really wanted to be the person she had become eighteen years ago. She held April’s sweater at her shoulders and she wondered who she would be if she took it off, wondered if her hard core would shatter without it.

April was dead and had no answers for her. Still, Amy couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Did you know? Did you understand?”

And then she heard the footsteps.

Upstairs. Then descending, entering the garage.

Papa Bear was home. Amy lowered the sweater. Smoothed it. She grabbed the empty Jack Daniel’s bottle, imagining the sound it would make as she broke it against the wall, visualizing a spray of blood geysering from Steve Austin’s face as she slashed him with the jagged edges.

She waited for the sound of a key sliding into a lock.

Something hard hit the door, and it exploded inward, and a man came tumbling after it. Amy broke the bottle and lunged. And Bat Bautista’s eyes widened in terror.

Shutterbug’s brain was a dog run, and his worries were the dogs. They raced back and forth, chasing after answers. Getting tired, slowing down. Then running some more, too stupid to stop when they hit the same old walls. Amazing. Countless years of evolution, and all the human race had to show for it was a three pound mass of nerve tissue that thrived on processing misery.

Eventually, Shutterbug’s worries decreased. The threats against him seemed to grow weaker with each passing moment. Like the song said, time was on his side. Steve Austin had threatened him, and nothing had come of it. The anonymous telephone warning was becoming a distant memory. Maybe the call was just an outgrowth of someone else’s paranoia. Or maybe it was a joke. Maybe a competitor was trying to get under his skin. Maybe-

Shutterbug sighed. God, he needed some sleep. If only his worries would leave him alone for a while.

He closed his eyes. Pictured a dog, sleeping. Let sleeping dogs lie, he thought. And he slept.

The doorbell woke Shutterbug at 8:45 P.M. He rolled off the couch too fast and almost lost his balance. He headed into the entry hall, not even sure he wanted to answer the door. It had been a less-than-spectacular day. Perhaps he was due some good news. Publisher’s Clearing House with a big check or something.

The bell rang again just as he opened the door.

“Hiiiii, Marvisssss,” Shelly said, breathing each word as if she were Marilyn Monroe. “Did everything calm down around here? What happened last night, anyway?” She gasped. “God! What happened to your face?”

“Just some old friends having fun.” Shutterbug ran a hand over his scratched forehead. “We went on a little nature hike.”

“Suuuure,” she said. “Sorry I jammed, but they scared me.”

Shutterbug nodded. “I didn’t think we had anything on for tonight.”

“Well, if you want me to go…” She winked coyly, a trick she had mastered in front of Shutterbug’s camera. “But I don’t have anything else to do. I mean, I don’t want to stay at home, because my father’s drunk… again. And I know you said that you wanted to see me this weekend. But my boyfriend’s out with his buds. And I figured, well, maybe I could see you tonight, and then I could see Joey this weekend, and then Joey wouldn’t get mad at me. Because if Joey gets mad at me, I might not be able to see you at all this weekend.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Shutterbug said.

“Shit no we wouldn’t.” Shelly smiled, entering the house, dropping her backpack on the floor. “You don’t know Joey.”

In the basement, Shutterbug set up his camera while Shelly rattled on with tales of her boyfriend, her latest escapades in school, and her semi-tragic home life. Her stories entered Shutterbug’s left ear and exited his right. He figured it wouldn’t be bad to do some work tonight. Get his mind off his problems, spend some time with a pretty young thing. Maybe he would do some coke with Shelly. They could unwind. Together. God knew he needed to relax.

No. Shutterbug didn’t feel right about Shelly. Something about the panic in her eyes when the toilet paper hit the window last night didn’t sit right with him. She’d been awfully quick to claim that she had nothing to do with it. He had to be careful. Business was business, and his business danced outside the bounds of the law’s idea of moral decency.

That was a laugh. What difference did it make if a girl was eighteen? Did that birthday automatically make her an adult? Christ, some of his fifteen-year-olds looked twenty; he had to do the old soft focus bit to make them look younger. And on the flip side, he had once picked up a fresh-faced fourteen-year-old drinking at a bar with a fake ID. The bartender hadn’t even checked it, but the kicker was that some college kid hadn’t checked it either. The kidlet had one annulled marriage under her belt, and that night she was out celebrating with hush money supplied by the preppie boy’s wealthy parents.

But justifications aside, there was only one reason Shutterbug operated outside the law-that’s where the money was. If the law said eighteen, an independent producer couldn’t make a dime with a room full of eighteen-year-olds. Not on a shoestring budget. But if the law said eighteen, and an enterprising indy found a sixteen-year-old, or a fifteen-year-old who was willing to do some really inventive things…

Dollar signs. Big green ones.

Shutterbug adjusted the lights while Shelly stripped. She jawed about her boyfriend and the things they did together. “He gave me these books on acting,” she said. “He knows I want to be an actress and…” She slipped off her jeans. Flat belly, cleft between her legs so enticing because her legs were young and slim. The soft tangle of blonde pubic hair, a nest for an old lecher’s head. “…Marlon Brando. And Montgomery Clift. He was pretty crazy. But I guess I like the one about Marilyn the best. She was so…” Hot. Shutterbug licked his lips. Shelly undid her blouse, button by button. She wore no bra, and her breasts were full and the cool basement air caressed her nipples and they hardened and gooseflesh rose on her puckered aureoles and she reached for her costume. She stretched, turning, and Shutterbug marveled at her slicing ribs and flat belly, and his eyes were once again trapped by the generous swell of her sweet little. “…method actors. It really makes sense to me. I want to be…” April Destino’s cheerleader sweater filled her hands, and she slipped it over her head. It was a little loose on her. It didn’t hug her breasts the way it had once hugged April’s, but it looked good. And, besides, styles were looser these days.