“The Bureau isn’t that interested in you, John… It’s been a long time for me, too… Do you think that accounts for it?”
“For what?”
Karen buried her face in his chest and willed herself to shut up. There was a difference between complimenting him on his sexual performance-a blandishment she knew men required-and gushing like a schoolgirl who’s just had her first orgasm.
After a pause, Becker said, “It is being duly noted that you didn’t immediately say, ‘I like you, too.’ ”
“Do you want me to say that?”
“I’m just noting that you didn’t.”
Like you, Karen thought. Like you? I want to chain you to the bed and feed you oysters and clams. I want to have your magnificent knowing hands surgically implanted onto my flesh.
“I don’t know if I like you or not,” Karen said aloud. “But I obviously respond to you. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. I responded like a bitch in heat-and proud of it, let me add. As for liking you, I guess I don’t not like you. But you’re a hard man. John. Can we just live with that ambiguity for a while?”
“It would be very adult of us,” he said.
“Do you want to take back saying that you liked me?” Becker paused.
“You don’t really get to take it back, you bastard,” Karen said hurriedly. “It was a bogus offer.”
“Oh, I don’t want to take it back,” he said. “I was thinking of clarifying the statement.”
“Don’t,” Karen said, and immediately regretted it. “You’re right. It speaks for itself. I was just going to gush for a while.”
Gush! Karen thought. Rave on about my charms! But instead of saying it to him, she slid her hand from his chest to his abdomen and felt him react involuntarily to the tickle response.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked after the silence had lengthened.
“Granted.”
“Do you still see your ex-wife?”
“Cindi? Sometimes.”
“I mean, do you see her?”
“We’re divorced.”
“I know. Still, it’s not unheard of. You made no effort to get away from her, after all. You’re still living in the same little town.”
“Clamden’s my home.”
“I know. I’m just asking. Sometimes husbands think their rights continue after divorce, you know. Sometimes they keep coming around and try to resume relations.”
“What did you do?” Becker asked.
“I didn’t say it happened to me,” she said.
“How did you handle it?”
“With aplomb and diplomacy. I kicked him in the nuts. He didn’t try again.”
“The man’s a quitter.”
“I call him a fast learner. I only had to explain to him once.”
“Amicable divorce, was it?” Becker asked.
“Do we have to talk about it in bed? Couldn’t we discuss politics or something else cheerful?”
Becker spoke in a serious tone.
“What did he do. Karen?” He felt her body tense against his.
“Let’s drop it.”
“I mean during the marriage.” he said.
“I know what you mean.” She rolled away, turning her back to him. “Let’s not spoil the night, John.”
“It would have made your life easier if you had given him more frequent visits. You could have had more free time without Jack, but you didn’t. What went on?”
He put a hand on her shoulders in the dark and felt her tense against his touch.
“Was it something he did to you?”
“You’ve just ruined a great fuck,” she said coldly.
“Or was it something he did to Jack?”
Karen started to get out of the bed but Becker held her. He put his arm across her belly and pulled her back so she spooned against him. Her body was stiff but she did not struggle.
“Let go of me, Becker.”
Becker held on to her and pressed his body against hers from behind. Karen grunted once and tried to jerk away but stopped when he tightened his grip. They both knew she was trained and skilled and could make a good battle of it if she chose to fight.
“What did he do to Jack, Karen?”
For a moment Becker thought she really was going to make a battle of it. Her muscles tightened as if she were going to spring. He would let her go if she really wanted to get away, of course, but he did not think she wanted to.
She was quiet for a moment and both of them were coiled and poised, but then she slowly relaxed. Becker continued to hold her tightly for both self-defense and support. If she was going to kick back into him, it would be when he eased up in response to her; but he sensed that she had given in and was releasing something from inside and his grip helped to show her he was there for her.
“He beat him,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “The son of a bitch beat my sweet little boy. I should have killed him. John, I should have killed him.”
“No.”
“I should have, I should have.”
“When did it start?”
“When Jack was about four. Suddenly Carl seemed to blame Jack for everything that went wrong. Not just around the house, anything that went wrong in his life. And there were a lot of things going wrong in his life. Me, for one. I should never have gotten married in the first place. I’m too selfish.”
“We’re all too selfish,” said Becker. “But we all do it.”
“First it was just spankings, then worse. He started to hit him with things-belts, a hair brush-usually when I wasn’t around. I’d be at work and I’d come home and Jack would have a bruise and Carl would tell me he fell off his trike or tripped while running or… And Jack wouldn’t deny it. He was so afraid of Carl he wouldn’t even tell his own mother. What kind of mother does that make me?”
“Don’t blame yourself. You weren’t the one who was doing it.”
“But I didn’t stop it. I figured it out eventually, but even then I didn’t stop it right away. Not as soon as I should have. Carl called it discipline and I just, somehow, I just couldn’t believe he was doing it in the way he was doing it. I tried not to look it right in the face, John; I even told Jack to be careful and not enrage his father. I blamed Jack.”
Karen stopped. She heard Becker’s hard breathing behind her. He sounded as if he was engaged in a fight with himself that he would not win; but he made no comment.
“I’m not fit to have a son,” Karen said. “I just could not admit to myself that it was happening. Even in court, even when we were fighting for custody, I couldn’t bring myself to come right out and say it. I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I don’t deserve that wonderful little boy, John, but I’d die before I’d let him go live with his father. Nothing happens now on their weekends together. I check Jack as soon as he gets home. I’ve told Carl what I’ll do to him if I even suspect anything. He knows I will.”
“You said you couldn’t believe it was happening to you, but you meant you couldn’t believe it was happening to you again,” said Becker. “Isn’t that it?”
This time Karen was silent.
“Because it happened to you as a kid, didn’t it, Karen?” She did not answer.
“I know it did. You told me about it ten years ago.”
“I never said a word…”
“No, you didn’t talk about it, but you told me. I could tell by the way you reacted to my touch, the things you didn’t feel comfortable with, all the things you didn’t say when I told you about myself… You don’t have to admit it
