CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“Hear what?” Glen said, but he was too busy kissing her to hear anything. The inside of the truck was cramped and nearly lightless; she relaxed in his arms, as if mildly tranquilized, and succumbed to his petting. Glen kissed her assiduously, dizzied by the scent of her perfume. His free hand crept up and down her side, a directionless gesture prompted only by his need to touch her. She began to unbutton her blouse.
The entire notion was silly, even absurd—two adults parked in the woods and necking like high school sweethearts. In Willard’s security truck no less. Glen might’ve laughed had he not been so intent on her. When her blouse was open, he pressed a hand between her breasts and smiled at the simple thump of her heart.
It was midnight now. A light breeze traced over them through the open cab window. Night sounds throbbed in from the forest. It had all been Nancy’s idea; generally they went to a motel, or to Glen’s, but lately she’d seemed bothered about her age. “Let’s be eighteen again,” she’d insisted. “Let’s park in the woods.” He wouldn’t have cared if they’d parked in a landfill, so long as he could be with her. But she was only thirty; why should she be depressed about her age?
They’d parked north of Belleau Wood’s largest interior ridge, a vast, rising slope of serried woods, and faced a small clearing which extended to the end of the property. Despite the clearing’s openness, Glen could see almost nothing ahead of him. Clouds expunged the moonlight, laying a caul through the forest. He could feel her more than see her.
Nancy had forgotten her question; she turned in his embrace and went into one of her long hot penetrating kisses. During moments like this, moments of complete abstraction, Glen thought this was all he lived for—to be kissed by this woman. Through her kisses came a vital element, the final, necessary amalgam of a system which avouched his spirit and legitimized his love. Without it, he’d feel stained black by guilt, or at least he would have at one time. He didn’t know now. Or care. He realized how vulnerable he was. How pussy-whipped. He loved her. He would do anything for her. If he saw another man kissing her, or even looking at her closely, he’d fight before he had time to think twice. And if anyone ever hurt her…
The truth held no consolation, though. The futility of this relationship beat in the back of his skull like a headache, and he doubted he was anything more to her than a fleck of spice in a particularly dull life. She would leave Willard for him only after they started serving Hawaiian Punch in hell.
“Let me,” she said. “Right here, in the truck.”
He knew what she meant, of course, one of the many mysteries of femininity. He could see her eyes in the dark; he could see the desire in them. But that only made him more morose. It was just desire, and nothing more.
“Not yet,” he said.
Her skin felt like warm silk. He touched her breasts alternately in smooth, pressing motions, until her nipples filled. She leaned tighter against him, her tongue slipping insistently over his. She moaned in his mouth, and then her hand slithered over his cheek and down his chest like fluid. She moaned again; her fingers closed on his crotch, caging it, and seemed to oscillate there.
“Yet?” she said.
Glen couldn’t answer.
Just as she prepared to unfasten his belt, a loud quick crunching sound came at them from the rim of the woods.
Nancy swallowed a shriek, jerking back into the seat. Glen felt his heart slam in his chest. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear
“I heard it,” Glen said. But he didn’t say he’d been hearing sounds like that a lot lately. The scare wore down when he considered the possibilities. “No need to lose our minds,” he said. “It’s probably just some deranged murderer sneaking around. Either that, or Cody Drucker hunting for his cufflinks.”
“Goddamn it, Glen!” she said, her whisper now fiercely sharp. She locked her door and rolled up her window, then leaned forward, holding her blouse closed. “This is no time for jokes! Turn on the lights, for God’s sake!”
Glen grinned.
“There’s your culprit,” Glen said. “A four-legged Peeping Tom.”
Nancy seemed to deflate from relief. “You don’t know how close I came to wetting my pants.”
“Thank God for vinyl seat covers.”
“I don’t know how you stand working out here,” she said, and looked around nervously. She began to button her blouse, concealing her unflawed breasts notch by notch. “It’s so
“No,” but that was not an honest response.
“Well, it’s got to be dull, at least.”
“Not really. I get my share of action—hunters, trespassers, dumpers. And lots of parkers, especially this time of year.”
“What are parkers?”
“You know, kids parking in the woods to make out. Like what we’re doing. Belleau Wood is a regular Trojan Alley. Every teenager with a car tries to bring his girlfriend here.”
“But how do they get past the gates?”
“Sometimes they cut them, sometimes they come in before the gates are locked. Lots of them slip through the old haulage lanes at the back of your husband’s property. There aren’t any gates on those, the trick is finding them. But it doesn’t matter. You could put the Great Wall of China around Belleau Wood, and these kids would still find a way to get in. Hell, tonight I ran off three sets of parkers before I’d even been on duty an hour.”
Nancy’s fascination seemed to spread across her face. “You mean, you catch them…doing it?”
“Yeah.”
“You see them
“Sure, lots of times. What’s the big deal?”
“I don’t think I like the idea of you roaming around out here, watching people screw.”
Was she jealous? He felt delighted. “Well, it’s not like I stand there and watch. I run them off. They could even be prosecuted for trespassing, but that’d mean your husband would have to file the complaint, since he’s the property owner. He doesn’t want the hassle, he just tells me to run them off.”
“That figures,” she said. “And speaking of my husband, you better take me back now.”
“But it’s only—”
“It’s late, Glen. And sooner or later, Charles is going to start to wonder about all these ‘movies’ I go to at night.”
Glen laughed, but it sifted away when he realized there was little to laugh about. He didn’t want her to go just yet; he didn’t want to be alone. But she was right, as always—these late-night rendezvous would have to end. It seemed preposterous that Willard didn’t suspect.
“We’ll have to be more careful from now on,” she said, as though she’d probed his mind. “A lot more careful than this.”
Glen was staring at the deer. “I know.” Then, after a pause, “Do you think he’s caught on?”
Nancy shrugged in a very unconvincing way.
He U-turned and drove back toward the access road. The truck rattled over rough earth, and neither of them spoke. Nancy looked blankly out the side window, seemingly lost in secret thoughts. Glen wondered if the thoughts involved him. They’d been seeing each other, intimately, for months now—Glen suspected that the awkwardness of their relationship was beginning to grate on her. He loved her genuinely, while her love for him seemed stilted, not real love at all, but something doomed and inferior. He couldn’t blame her, though. She’d be an idiot to dream the same dreams he did. The night coaxed truth from him, and he felt more useless than he ever had. In his most resplendent moments, he pictured her in his future, but now, through the gaps in the fantasy, he saw the lie. There was nothing he could do but wait for their bond to disintegrate altogether.