Chapter 5

"What time is it?"

Two minutes before, she had awoken to find Susan asleep, head down on her extended left arm. The water was clear of bubbles, tepid, and no longer a comfort. Her fingers looked like those of an eighty year old. It was dark outside.

"Nine o'clock," Susan said. She stretched, joints popping loudly.

Laura sat up. "Can I get out now?"

Susan laughed. "Of course you can get out." She pushed off the floor. "The first thing," she said, helping Laura stand, "is to find you something to wear." She shook her head preemptively. "That dress is going in the trash."

While Laura stepped from the tub onto the hook-latch bathroom rug, Susan removed a blue terry bathrobe from the back of the bathroom door, and, slipping it around the dripping girls shoulders, belted it closed at the waist. The bottom of Laura's hair hung over the robe's collar, raining droplets onto the floor. Otherwise the robe soaked her dry

"Thank you," Laura said, squeezing her hands. "You saved my life."

Susan shook her head. "Don't count your blessings. The evening's not over."

Laura shuddered. She looked out the sliding glass door. "I should go back to my cabin," she said. "Get some clothes. Call my mom and dad."

"In the dark? With Wolfman outside?" Susan laughed. "I think not."

"What if my parents come home?" Laura complained. "They'll go hysterical if I'm gone."

"They'll go twice as hysterical finding you tied to a tree," Susan said. "Me with you. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Laura gave a tired grin. "I should at least call the motel. Make sure they stayed."

"A good idea," Susan said. She led the way to her bedroom.

Laura paused in dialing the phone. "If your brother is out there, how much safer are we in the house?"

"We're not safe at all. Go ahead and dial."

Laura dialed 411 and after getting the number, dialed the Ramada Inn in Utica.

"Could you tell me if the Clane's have checked in?" she asked. "Room 211?" She grinned tiredly at Susan, formed an okay with her fingers. "No. I'll call later, thanks." She hung up.

Susan looked exasperated. "You didn't talk to them?"

"What would I say?" Laura said. "Hi, mom. Guess what I did this afternoon?" Her eyes teared. "I'd be bawling inside of two seconds."

Susan gave her a hug. "You're a brave girl, Laura Clane. You can handle it."

"Not as brave as you think." She sighed. "Please tell me what's going on."

Susan shook her head. "First we eat. Then I'll tell all."

For the first time in hours, Laura felt hunger stir. Food. She could do that.

On the way they passed a large room cluttered with exercise equipment. The machinery lined all four walls, pushed into the center of the room, leaving just enough room to get about.

"What's this?" Laura said, stopping outside the door. She identified a Stairmaster, a Bowflex Muscle Machine, and a Wellcraft treadmill. A press bench in the far corner held a barbell stacked with huge circular weights. Although she knew little of weight lifting, the barbell looked enormously heavy.

Susan looked around in amusement. "Our gymnasium," she said.

Laura looked at Susan more closely. "Looks more like a torture chamber."

Susan laughed. "Bruce's the fitness nut. I just watch." She took Laura by the hand and led her to the kitchen.

The walls were brick along the two exterior walls, paneled with barn siding on the two others. Laura could smell the wood, a deeply musk gray. A pair of counters came off at right angles from the refrigerator in the corner, the long counter incorporating a sink, dishwasher, stove and microwave oven. In a combination breakfast nook/work station in one corner sat another Compaq computer, complete with scanner and printer. Like every other room in the house, the kitchen was spotless.

Susan went to the refrigerator and opened the door. The shelves were completely stocked, everything from a sliced- in-half watermelon, to huge link sausages on a white Styrofoam tray.

"Wow," Laura said. Her own refrigerator was a wasteland compared to this. "Expecting a war?"

Laughing, Susan withdrew a package of smoked, sliced ham, white American cheese, and a bottle of Dijon mustard. "From two days ago," she said. "A major resupply. We stay up here all summer." She tore off a slice of ham. "Try?"

Laura took a bite. It was delicious. "This place is yours, then? The two of you? You own it?"

Susan nodded. Moving aside a tub of Land of Lakes margarine, she removed a three-pound container of potato salad and a tub of coleslaw. Balancing the food in one hand, she opened a wooden breadbox and withdrew a loaf of wheat bread. "Get the milk, okay?"

Laura chose two percent over Vitamin D, and together they carried the fixings to the counter. From one of the cabinets Susan removed a pair of white Chinette plates, two plastic tumblers, and a handful of napkins. "Silverware's there," she said, pointing to the drawers beside the refrigerator. "Plastic's okay."

Getting forks, spoons and knives from a cardboard box, Laura asked: "What does your brother do, anyway?"

Susan shook the bottle of mustard. "When he's not tying neighbor's to a tree?"

Laura reddened.

"He's a programmer." She indicated the Compaq workstation. "He writes security programs for banks, investment houses, the airlines." She laughed bitterly. "Even law enforcement. Right now he's testing Carnivore for the FBI." Susan licked mustard off her forefinger. "Carnivore lets them read peoples e-mail. Very controversial." She piled three pieces of ham onto each sandwich, added cheese, and said, "They had hearings before Congress to get it approved. Bruce is working out bugs."

Laura felt dazed. "If Bruce is such a hot programmer - obviously he makes a lot of money - why chance it all on - " Laura shrugged.

Susan tucked hair behind her right ear. Filling her tumbler with milk, she took a bite of the sandwich, and then, thoughtfully, said: "Because he can, Laura. Look, Bruce is not like other people. In fact, he's like nothing else at all. He influences people when he talks, even when he's not trying to. When he is trying, when he wants something done in a certain way, something you might not want to do - " she grinned wryly " - he gives you a push. A mental push. Makes you think what he says is right, whether it's right or wrong. Usually it is anyway, because shit, Bruce is fucking brilliant."

Laura said, "ESP?"

"More than that." She wiped mustard from Laura's lip, licked it from her finger. "The push he uses for day-to-day stuff. Work." She looked at Laura, her eyes saying it all. "What he reserves for me - and now you too, I guess - is a whole lot different. More like a damned bazooka." She wiped the corner of Laura's mouth again, unexpectedly caressed her cheek. "You feel, you do, you see whatever he wants. Without question."

Laura blinked. "Like a dog? Goats?"

"Anything."

Laura shook her head.

Susan brushed off her hands. "He's not the monster you think," she said, trying, but unable to sound convincing. "Anyone else with his abilities would be a sadistic animal, which he isn't - usually. He kept me out of foster care, which I dreaded more than anything, and as you can see, I want for nothing." She gestured out the window. "I have a brand new Acura, all the clothes I can buy, and next semester I start my sophomore year at Boston College."

Laura said: "He ties you to the bed, Susan."

The briefest smile stole across Susan's face. "It's...not entirely against my will, Laura. Not always."

Laura blinked.

"Bruce was much worse as a kid," Susan said. "I lost my virginity at six. I had no say in anything I did, what friends I kept, or how I spent my time. A wrong look got me beaten or raped. He kept me tied to the bed for days at a time, until I was almost insane. I spent ninety percent of my time naked. I sucked his cock daily - everyday Laura! - and most of the time I slept in his bed."

She paused. Her face grew pinched. "Every day he found some excuse to beat me. Over his knee, on my bed, in the kitchen trying to cook dinner. I lived in constant fear." Her face tightened more, and her eyes teared. "He spanked me in front of my friends, in the car, in a restaurant once. He did it in a movie theater, once in the parking lot of my school, once he even did it in a mall. I was thirteen, Laura. Do you know how that feels?"

She took a deep breath, tried to regain her composure. "It finally stopped when I ran away from home. I got as far as Kansas before he caught up, and I threatened to jump off a bridge. I actually climbed the railing and hung over the side. I was hysterical. It was a hundred feet down with nothing below but railroad tracks."

Susan wiped her eyes and blew her nose in a napkin. Laura placed an arm around her waist, hugged Susan tightly. Suddenly there was a very strong and unsettling desire to hold Susan and kiss her.

"He can't control you past a certain point, Laura, if hysteria or terror block him out. I guess I had reached that point. Anyway, he promised to leave me alone, stop doing it in front of my friends. I told him I didn't believe him - which I didn't of course, I didn't believe anything he said- -and he said he would rather jump off the bridge then let anything happen to me. You can imagine my joy. I screamed at him to jump."

Her crying was back under control, and Susan hugged Laura gratefully. "Thank you," she said. "I needed to say this." The hug went on so long both girls grew embarrassed. They parted. "Anyway, he didn't jump and I didn't jump, and he finally convinced me to calm down. Then I did as he said. The truth is, I expected to be beaten right there on the bridge, but he kept his word." She laughed. "He waited till we got back to the motel. After that, my spankings were done in the privacy of our home, with no audience, and only when I deserved it. When he said I deserved it. Anyway, he hasn't spanked me in over a year. I come and go as I please and only worry when he's in a really bad mood. The only condition is to put up with his special needs, when they arise."

Laura didn't want to ask. "Do I want to know what those are?"

Susan smiled, wryly. "I think you already know."

Laura sighed. "He sounds like a werewolf, Susan."

"That, I think, is exactly what Bruce is."

Chapter 6

Susan and Laura sat opposite the other at the kitchen nook. Susan's hands were clasped before her on the table, and she stared at them as she talked.

"Two summers ago, I came home from a trip to the camp store and got raped. Something came into the kitchen behind me while I was putting away supplies." She cast Laura a dread- eyed look. "I thought it was Bruce but when I turned there was nothing there. But I could hear it." She crossed her arms, shivering in remembrance. "I dropped the bag of flour and jumped onto the counter and started screaming for Bruce. The bag split open and sent flour across the floor in a fan, and as I watched - " she shivered again " - tracks appeared in it. Animal tracks. I screamed and jumped off the counter and tried to get my room, but the thing caught me in the hallway." Her voice faltered. "It raped me right there."

Laura closed her eyes. Gooseflesh erupted on both arms. "Oh, Susan."

Susan went on. "My clothes were torn completely away. Then it forced me onto my hands and knees and mounted me. I tried to fight, but its claws were like razors. When it gripped the back of my neck in its jaws..."

Laura shuddered from head to toe. "Jesus. How awful."

Susan blew out her breath. "Worse than what happened to you? You had to watch. I didn't."

Laura said nothing for a time. "What I thought was a goat and a dog were really your brother then?"

Susan agreed, though this was only partly true.

"And the little boy?"

Susan nodded.

Laura fingered the robe's lapel. "Fucking them wasn't my idea?"

"Unless you like beasts."

Laura shivered. She remembered her desperate feeling of loss for the dog, how the act of making love with it seemed so extraordinary. This was truly a dangerous man.

Susan poured another glass of milk. "Kind of rules going to the police. Or anyone else. But hey! Do enough kinky things, and you begin to enjoy it!"

Laura looked up sharply.

"Sorry. Bad attempt at humor."

"At least I'm not loosing my mind."

Susan met Laura's eyes. "It gets worse."

Laura didn't want to know

Very softly, Susan said: "What you said before is correct. In a way. Anyway you look at it, though, he'll take us both tonight. With or without our consent. It's a full moon."

Laura, her heart thudding hard and slow against her chest wall, looked out the window and saw the bulbous sphere of moon illuminating the landscape. The tree line at the edge of the property was clearly visible, as was the corner of her own cabin a hundred yards away. Something moved in the periphery of her vision, either shadow or cause, but when she looked the movement had stopped. If Bruce was out there- -in any of his guises - he couldn't be seen.