The Minotauress

'But I'll bet you wanted to, huh?'

Dean's fortitude crashed. 'Well, yeah, I did want to. And I almost did... but I threw it out instead.'

'Good boy. So back to the Jig-Jag. You saw yourself beating her up and raping her. You never did stuff like that in the past, did you? Back in South Dakota?'

'No, I never raped anyone,' Dean hastened. 'Christ, what do you take me as?'

'You didn't answer the entire question.' Now Ajax was flicking clam crumbs off his plate. 'You ever beat up any girlfriends?'

Dean calculated an answer. 'Well, I didn't exactly beat them... but I guess you could say I slapped some of 'em around a little.'

Ajax grinned in shock. 'You guess I could say, huh? How many?'

'How many what?'

'How many past girlfriends did you ‘slap around?''

Dean cast a sheepish look. 'All of them,' he admitted. 'But I swear, half of 'em like it anyway—'

'Don't change the subject.' Now Ajax looked studied as a pro chess player. 'Why? You catch them cheating on you?'

'Naw. They couldn't have cheated on me if they wanted to,' Dean said, fully uncomfortable now. 'I was the horn-cranking champ and, well, I was kind of a bad-ass back then. I beat the shit out of dozens of guys, never lost a fight. Shit, I'd send guys to the hospital for just looking at one of my girls.'

'Hardcore,' Ajax said in awe.

'I'm not proud of it. I admit it, I was an asshole back in DeSmet. I was a redneck rancher, getting drunk in bars every night, slapping my girlfriends around for no reason, cheating on them whenever I felt like it. I was a prick, I was a bastard.'

Ajax stared, amazed. 'Young, dumb, and full'a cum.'

'That was me.'

'But... you look like a frat boy,' Ajax couldn't get over it.

Short hair, conservative clothes, good manners. Dean had to agree that that was the appearance he gave people, and that's the appearance he wanted. 'This is what I used to look like, before I moved to Seattle.' He slipped an old photo out of his wallet. It was a snapshot of himself with his arm around one of his droves of girlfriends.

Ajax spat out a mouthful of Diet Coke when he looked at the picture. 'You gotta be shitting me! This is you?'

'I was about twenty-five when that was taken. Couple months later, I blew town, moved here, started my life over.'

Ajax was aghast; the picture showed a sun-bronzed stud in a muscle shirt, hair down to his shoulders and a goatee. His arms bulged like a power-lifter's. Ajax repeatedly switched glances between Dean and the photograph. 'Unbelievable. Talk about Jekyll and Hyde. This is incredible. And—' Ajax reglanced at the photo and gulped. 'And who's the brick shit-house piece of box standing next to you?'

'Arianne,' Dean revealed with remorse in his throat. 'She was my last girlfriend in DeSmet. I dated her for three years... and cheated on her for three years. I treated that poor girl like total dog shit.'

'Why?'

Dean shrugged. '‘Cos, like I was telling you, I was an asshole.' The memory sunk in his gut. 'Arianne loved me bigtime, and all I did was shit on her. She had a scholarship to Harvard but I wouldn't let her go. Told her we'd get married, have kids, all that, but I never meant a word of it. I just strung her along till I got sick of the whole town, my whole life. One day I told her I was going out to pick up a can of Skoal, but I went to the airport instead. I split, left her cold. Never spoke to her again.' Dean's guts just sank and sank. 'She was so depressed when I dumped her, she just went off the deep-end. Now she's a street whore, turning twenty-dollar tricks to support a drug habit.'

Ajax just sat there with his mouth hanging open. 'Man, you were a Grade-A Number One low-down motherfucker! What a scumbag!'

'I know, and I don't feel too good about it.'

Dean didn't feel like talking anymore, and Ajax could tell. Dark clouds slipped in over Elliot Bay, and the wind gusted up. 'Shit, man, it's Saturday. You've got the car, your wife's out of town—it's settled.'

'What's settled?'

Ajax put his cigarette out in his tartar sauce cup. 'We're going to your place.'

'Why not?' Dean said. 'You can help me vacuum the carpet.'

Ajax laughed as they walked away. He eye-balled several girls getting off the Waterfront Street Car, uttering typical sexist comments. But as he and Dean waited for the WALK sign, Ajax said, 'Hey, what did you say you did with that can of Skoal?'

'I threw it out,' Dean said.

'You sure?'

Dean cocked a brow. 'Yeah.'

'Then I guess that's a can of lark's tongues in aspic sticking out in your back pocket.'

Huh? Dean's hand padded back to the rear pocket of his jeans. His hand froze.

Then he withdrew another can of Skoal.

'You're putting me on, right?' Ajax asked. 'You're making all this shit up just to jerk me.'

'I wish I was.' Dean's eyes fixed wide on the inexplicable can. 'This is really creeping me out.'