J. McKenna - Wanted - Kept Woman

Now Suzanne jumped in with the oar, clubbing Sam about the head and shoulders. If it wasn’t such a serious situation, it might’ve been comical—a stark naked woman, ropes still hanging from her body, pummeling her ex-husband over the back and head like a woman possessed.

“Get the gun!” Brian shouted, feeling helpless with his arms trapped behind him.

Suzanne looked up, her face a savage mask then her civilized self seemed to return. She scrambled past her groaning ex and picked up the pistol.

“The keys are in his pocket.” Brian held the cuffs away from his body.

Nodding, she leveled the gun at Sam. “Sam, toss the keys over here.”

“Fuck you!” he spat, blood dribbling down onto the floor. His face was a mask of pain and fury.

The gunshot was loud in the small room. Brian jumped, thinking she’d killed him, but she’d just fired a warning shot into his leg.

“Ow! Jesus! Stop! Stop it!” He reached into pocket and yanked out the keys, and slid them across the floor toward her.

“Wow,” Brian said, completely taken with this tough, beautiful, together woman, standing naked, lightning bolt ablaze, the gun steady in both hands. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Grinning, she stooped down and picked up the handcuff keys. In seconds, Brian was free. He rubbed his wrists.

“Thanks for saving us.”

“Couldn’t’ve done it without you,” she replied.

He swept her into his arms, taking the gun gently from her hand. “Now, before we get the sheriff out here, maybe you’d like to get dressed?”

Two Sheriff’s deputies and two detectives spent more than an hour on the island, questioning Brian and Suzanne after Sam had been taken away in the lake patrol boat, moaning and cursing the entire time.

Suzanne huddled in Brian’s arms, the shock finally setting in. She couldn’t stop hugging herself though she wasn’t cold. She had put on shorts and a T-shirt, but she still felt exposed somehow. The detectives had offered to take them the hospital for a checkup, but they said they felt fine, just a little bruised and shaken.

They sat on the couch in the living room, with the two detectives across from them. One deputy hung around in the background, trying to look serious, while another one patrolled around outside, checking to make sure Sam had acted alone.

Brian and Suzanne told their story several times before the detectives were satisfied. They didn’t tell the cops that Suzanne had shot Sam while he was already on the ground, defeated. They simply said he’d been shot during the struggle for the weapon. They doubted the cops would believe anything Sam told them. He’d be heading for prison this time, not the county jail.

Like Brian, the detectives were mystified as to why Sam would risk life in prison for a lousy two hundred grand. Suzanne offered insight into Sam’s personality.

“It wasn’t the money. It was the chance to put me down, to show that I made a mistake in rejecting him,” she said, her voice pitched low. “He probably would’ve killed us both. Only then would he think he’d won.”

Brian concurred with that assessment. “I couldn’t figure out how he’d get away with it otherwise,” he told them. “He couldn’t let us live. My guess is he’d try to stage a murder-suicide, not that it would ever hold up. After all, I’m sure you cops would wonder where the money went.”

Finally, the detectives seemed satisfied. They piled into the Sheriff’s boat and headed away, leaving the couple alone. Brian and Suzanne stood near the dock, watching them recede in the distance, deep in thought.

“What do you say we leave our little paradise?” Brian offered.

“He ruined it, didn’t he? I’m not sure we can ever look at this place the same way,” she replied, her voice touched with sadness.

“Yeah. Maybe in time…” He let the thought hang. “Well, come on, let’s pack up.”

All those clothes that Suzanne had brought, all those sexy outfits, all those plans Brian had made, all the lovemaking they’d planned to do, all washed away by an embittered, insane, jealous ex-husband.

“I’ll bet you’re wondering what I ever saw in him,” she said as they packed in the bedroom, suitcases open on the bed.

“The thought did occur to me. He seemed a bit rabid.”

“He wasn’t always that way. When we first got together, he was sweet and funny and, well, he looked out for me. It was only after we married that he changed. I think jealousy made him crazy.”

“Jealousy? He thought you were going out with other men?”

“Constantly. He couldn’t stand to have anyone even smile in my direction. He accused me of affairs with my mechanic, a meter man—even his brother.”

“How long were you married?”

“Only about four years. I had to get out after that.”

Silence fell as each tended to their own thoughts and their own packing. Suzanne could tell something was bothering him and it wasn’t Sam. She let him wrestle with it. Finally, Brian stopped, and turned to her. “Well, I feel pretty foolish, right about now.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Come on. I advertise for a ‘kept woman’, thinking I’m going to get some cute little lady who won’t ever challenge me or argue with me—just do everything I wanted. You know, the ‘perfect woman’.” He made quote marks in the air. “But that’s not what you are at all. You are an amazing woman—tough, tenacious, witty, sexy—you’re certainly no demure little pushover.”

“I don’t think of myself as tough. Just a survivor. But it was more than that. I felt responsible for Sam’s being here. I felt like I had to fix it.”

“You certainly did that. And in doing so, you just made me realize how silly my quest was. I’m like a sexist Don Quixote—searching for something that no longer exists. Furthermore, I realized it’s not something I’d want. I mean, for just one obvious example, if you’d been waiting for me to save you today, we’d both be dead.”

Suzanne nodded, embarrassed at the kind words. “Don’t feel bad. I never would’ve answered the ad if it hadn’t’ve reached me somehow, deep inside. I think women are looking for something that makes them feel safe, protected—‘kept’ in some sense of the word. At least I am.”

“So we’re both just slaves to our caveman—or woman—ancestry?”

She laughed. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe part of me likes being a little bit of a sex object, at least under certain circumstances. Let you be the big hunter, bring me a mastodon to cook. I’ll just wait here, naked by the fire, so you can ravish me after dinner.”

“Yeah. I think that appeals to men on a basic level. We get to beat our chests and rule the roost.” He stopped packing and took her into his arms.

“The problem is, that’s not what I really want. I was blinded by the shallow, silly women I’d been meeting. The ones who feel a day at the mall is more important than a walk on the beach at sunset, or meeting a movie star is better than reading a good book.”

Suzanne shrugged. “I guess I can understand that. Your value system got skewed. By placing that ad, you were trying to balance the scales somehow.”

“Yeah. Boy was I wrong! But it worked out all right. I met you.” She blushed then, a rose red that lit up her neck and face.

“You know, I really like the way you blush.”

“That’s good, ‘cause I do it a lot.”

Brian kissed her. She responded with more heat than she thought possible, considering the circumstances. They clung to each other, like two survivors.

The kiss lingered. He moved down to her neck, nibbling, making her giggle.

“I love you,” he whispered. “And I want you.”