Community Service Read online

  It was another ten or twelve minutes to get home from here, always with that thought in the back of your mind that the house would be cold and dark and you didn’t have a friend or even the prospect of a friend in the world and that a girl really was on her own sometimes.

  Your thoughts just wouldn’t leave you alone sometimes.

  Oh, God, let it all be over soon.

  Finally she turned onto her street, a pleasant block of two-story houses, once the epitome of middle-class prosperity but now surpassed and supplanted by bigger, more fashionable designs, for the most part further out, in more expensive and trendy neighbourhoods. They’d bought the place shortly after they had married. It seemed like another life, once-upon-a-time, and she wondered why she hung onto the place.

  It was at least familiar.

  Something to cling to desperately.

  Hitting the button on the automatic garage door opener, Marion eased the Lexus, cream with white leather seats, Blaupunkt radio and Harmon-Kardan speakers, into the right side space.

  There really wasn’t room for two cars in there, with the other slot dominated by exercise machine, a rowing machine, a stationary bike, a lot of her husband’s old stuff in boxes and a metal set of shelves with all kinds of crappy old books, pots and pans, house-wares and Christmas decorations piled up every which way but neatly.

  It had been a long week, with the weather generally dull, and with the cases on her docket even duller. There might be lonelier ways to live, although it was hard to think of what.

  Why had she ever become a lawyer, let alone a judge, in the first place?

  Life was so rarely like a Harold Robbins novel. She almost spat, all these literary allusions coming from that voice in her head. Remembering her briefcase and her raincoat, still in the backseat, she unlocked the door into the house and stepped in, with just a bit of a hollow in her heart. She had two whole days to kill and perchance to rest, if only sleep would come.

  Then I get to do it all over again.

  Getting out of these clothes, into a hot tub and maybe having a nice glass of red would be a blessing. She opened the interior door and stepped in, feeling for the light switch.

  There was the faintest suggestion of some odd sound from the front foyer to her right.

  Turning, all she saw was a tall, dark shape there and then something brushed past her eyebrows and over her head and the whole world disappeared.

  “Oh!”

  Someone had her upper body and they spun her around before she even knew what was happening.

  “Ah! Ah! Ooooh!”

  Strong hands gripped her, one hand on the back cord of the bag over her head, it’s interior full of tiny pinholes of light from the nature of its rough fabric, and the other hand wrapped around her arms and upper chest. The cord tightened around her neck…

  Her briefcase and the raincoat dropped as she struggled and attempted to get at the man’s face, which must the right up close beside her head.

  “Ah!”

  “Shh.” The man gave her a shake.

  He loosened the cord.

  “Oh, no, please…please.”

  “Shh.”

  Marion went limp, tears sprung to her eyes and she begged the person who had grabbed her for her life.

  Act Three

  The Voice Beside Her Ear

  Her arms were at her sides now.

  She felt sick to her stomach.

  The voice was up beside her left ear as he guided her from close behind.

  “Off with the shoes.”

  She struggled with her balance as he held on, trying to remove one tight shoe by using the toe of her other foot against the heel and Achilles tendon area. She kicked them off so to one side in unconscious habit, but then she was always tripping over them. He yanked her coat down and back and off and she heard something, presumably it, hit the tiles. Her keys were in the pocket. She was incapable of effective action and she knew it.

  “Okay, now we’re going to walk straight ahead. You know where the couch is.”

  “Please…Mister…please don’t hurt me….please don’t kill me…I have some money, sir. Please, sir. Take my car. Take it. I’ll do anything you want. Please, please, please…please don’t hurt me.”

  He’s going to cut me…

  Her guts were icy and shaky inside.

  She could barely walk. Her knees were beyond her control.

  “Keep going…be careful, the coffee table’s right there.” He stopped her there.

  She reached out with a trembling foot and found it. There were children playing in the street right out front, she could hear their voices. Yet she could not bring herself to scream. She would be dead and he would be gone before anyone could get here.

  Please, God, let it be quick.

  “Sit down. Careful.”

  Marion took very small steps. She felt something brush against her right calf. It must be the couch. Her heart pounded in her chest. He pushed, prodded, and lowered her, and she went. The voice seemed familiar and yet unfamiliar, soft and low.

  Much of it was in whispers, and yet it could be Albert—oh, God, what had she done in tormenting him?

  It was all so clear now.

  The man was a criminal after all.

  The couch was under her, and then she felt something cold and hard on her wrists. They snapped into place.

  “Oh, God, no—please—”

  “It’s okay, Marion. Trust me a little bit. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Please, Mister, whoever you are—”

  “You know who it is.”

  Yes.

  Of course she did.

  An electric chill went over her, it flashed from head to toe and the fear was unbearable.

  She gulped convulsively, listening intently and wondering if she was dead—already dead. Marion fought for air.

  He’s going to cut me up in little bits.

  Slowly, one piece at a time.

  She wondered how bad it would be and how long it would take. A primal sob escaped her and he shushed her again. He shackled her feet, and then, taking her in his arms again, settled her back into the cushions.

  “Now. Ahem. Your Honour. Ah, yes, the Right Honourable Judge Marion Carter, of the Fourth District Criminal Court. I’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with you. Now that I have your full and undivided attention.”

  “Please, please, I’m so sorry, Albert—”

  “You and I really do need to have a talk, ah, my sweet lady Marion.”

  “Oh, Albert…oh, God, please.”

  “I am your God now. Marion.”

  That was a show-stopper in every sense of the word and all she was aware of was the thudding of her heart, the ringing in her ears and the knowledge that it was all over but the pain and the bloodbath.

  “Okay. Let’s get on with it, then.”

  She heard him take a deep breath.

  He cleared his throat, and he seemed hesitant as she craned her ears to pick it out.

  “About all this shit, you know, like when you parade around in front of the window. You know, like in your black and lacy Donna Karan thigh-highs, the frilly Victoria’s Secret panties, and the strapless, and yet somehow, miraculously, push-up bra…not too sure of the label, but that was, ah, definitely a very nice little number…that’s right, my dear. I took a little look in your panty-drawer.”

  That was where she kept the vibrator too. One or two other small things.

  He chuckled, low, deep and mean.

  Something thrilled to it, deep down inside of her, in spite of all her terrors.

  It’s like I want him to kill me…she’d often wondered how victims felt just before the moment.

  Perhaps it really was a blessed relief…for some.

  She had suddenly gotten to know herself.

  Marion had never heard that one before, and wondered what other revelations people had in the moment of dissolution.

  There were other things.

  A kind of morbid, narciss
istic terror, a desire to watch vicariously, as if your own death was a cheap summer blockbuster horror movie…all full of slashing blades and screaming teenage girls.

  She could see it from somewhere outside of herself…somewhere up in a corner of the living room. She was looking down on a scene.

  Blood, blood, blood everywhere. A pale, dramatically spread-eagled Marion Carter, the centre of attraction.

  She sat there shaking like a leaf.

  “Oh, Albert…” Her eyes were full of tears and she sniffled inside of the bag. “Oh, God, no, please….Albert.”

  To think that she had been falling in love with him. Was in love with him. She could admit that now.

  She saw it all so clearly.

  You could never say that to a killer. They would like it too much—it would just get them going.

  He listened to her sob for a while, holding her wrists very gently as she shook.

  She felt his hands at the back of her neck, and mercifully, he pulled the bag up, and off, flinging it aside on the far end of the couch.

  He took her hands in his. He was wearing his jacket and tie again.

  “So. What do you have to say for yourself, oh, my Lady Marion?”

  He sat there biting his lip with a most solemn look on his face, and it was in that moment that she realized what a terrible power gap had existed between them before. How could she have missed that? It must have been a terrible torment. What must the poor man have thought?

  She’d made every stupid mistake in the book with this one.

  “…guilty…guilty…guilty…on all counts…” Her voice was low, husky, filled with shame.

  She hung her head.

  He nodded at this response and they stared at each other again, her somewhat more defiantly now.

  She gulped air and she swallowed and looked away, ashamed, but of what?

  Of what?

  As for the present situation, she really didn’t quite know what to think, but some of the tension left her.

  It was all over but the screaming…

  But it was Albert that had been in control of himself all along—it was her that had been out of control, even when she thought she was the one that really had it all together and that he was somehow less competent of a person than she was. Marion was all confused, and rightly so. She was out of control when she bought all those pretty things, never to be used so help me God…

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  “I’ll take them off if you want.” He gave her wrists a little shake, staring into her eyes in all honesty and it suddenly dawned on her that this was a man awaiting his fate too.

  He wasn’t going to kill her.

  He just wanted to know—to really know.

  “Oh, no, Albert…no, that’s all right. Please, Albert.”

  No, leave them on, Albert. This is exactly what I needed. I needed you to take me because I didn’t have the moral courage to give it as a gift.

  She shook off his grip and lifted her hands and took his face in them, struggling to twist around, and get closer to him. She licked her lips unconsciously and stared into those sad, soulful eyes.

  There was a mysterious twinkle in there and then he spoke.

  “You know, this isn’t the only place I worked, Marion.” He spoke in the past tense. “You know, for my community service. I also did four hours a day, on week days, down at the food bank…hell, I even mopped floors at the hospital. But that was only a couple of days. I got the sheets signed and everything.”

  “What…” She licked her lips, staring. “What…what are you trying to tell me, Albert?”

  He grinned.

  “My community service was over ‘bout a month, maybe five weeks ago.” He gave her a wink. “Except I just kept on coming back. On account of you, Marion Carter.”

  She laughed. It was a huge relief after such an opening shock. She sagged against him, trying not to cry again.

  “Oh, God.”

  He held her for a while.

  “I’m glad you did, Albert.” Marion marveled that here she was, literally in Albert’s arms, and handcuffed and shackled too, which she felt now was a kind of a bonus.

  It kind of focused and directed their conversation towards things that really mattered…he was about to say something.

  “May I kiss you, Marion?”

  Fresh tears sprouted, but she nodded in a kind of wonder.

  “Yes, Albert.” She cuddled in his arms and he held her close as their lips met.

  She closed her eyes and the world went all dark again, but it was a warm and fuzzy sort of darkness, a wet and warm and squirmy sort of darkness as well, where all sorts of good things might happen—if only a person had the courage to let them.

  Thank God one of them had some guts.

  When he pulled away, she was smiling, giggling at herself, both of them even.

  “What?” He lifted a wet chin and took a good look at her.

  “I can see the headlines now: Judge seduces former convict…pays for sex with cookies and muffins…”

  He gave her another kiss.

  “That seems about right.” He looked into her eyes for a while, just looking.

  “Albert.”

  “Yes, Marion?”

  “There’s a pair of scissors in the far, left-hand kitchen drawer.”

  “Ah. And what would the nice, criminal-court, judge-type lady have me do with these alleged scissors?”

  “Well, you could start by cutting this damned girdle off of me…” Take your time, Albert and cut these damned inhuman grey slacks off me too. “You know. I might try to escape or something…”

  And we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?

  Their lips met again, and there was humour in his eyes.

  He kissed her over and over, pulling her head back to take a look and also to let her have a look from time to time as she kept pulling him in, pulling him back down.

  Finally, it seemed, he had made his decision.

  “I think you may be trying to trick me.”

  She nodded, eyes shining.

  “But if it is a trap. Albert…?”

  “Well. There’s only one way to find out.” His eyes went up and down her.

  He released Marion.

  Carefully squirming out of his lap and up onto her feet, she spoke.

  “I’ll just go and get them for you.” He gave her an appraising look, as if not quite trusting her—after all, it really could be a trick—scissors were a weapon, after all—and then he smiled into her eyes.

  He nodded calmly, even looking away, as if seeing the room for the very first time. He put his feet up on the coffee table.

  “I think there might be some wine in the fridge.” She stood there waiting for his word.

  “Okay.”

  Walking carefully, with her legs hobbled and wondering just where in the hell she had put the corkscrew, Marion left the room, conscious of her great good fortune in finding one such as Albert.

  Imagine the nerve. Imagine taking that kind of a risk. She dried her tears with a tea-towel.

  He must have been pretty sure of her, which was a fair enough assessment she supposed.

  She really had gone and done it, hadn’t she?

  Whew.

  “Lover?”

  “Yes?” His voice, coming from the other room, was calm, deep and self-assured.

  A man with a voice like that had a lot going for him, something she’d noticed right from the start—perhaps one reason she didn’t just give him thirty days in the county bucket and a three-hundred-dollar fine. Something must have guided her, her subconscious desires perhaps, a miracle, or a guardian angel maybe.

  “White or red?”

  “Ah…white, I think.”

  She felt a lot better about things all of a sudden.

  “Albert.”

  “Yes, Marion?”

  “I don’t have to be at work until ten o’clock Monday morning.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

&nb
sp; She snickered a bit at the sheer, unmitigated confidence of him, and bit her lip, trying to focus on the task at hand through misty eyes.

  Taking down two of her lovely, cut-crystal, long-stem glasses was one thing, but, where was that bloody cork-screw? Her mind had gone all scatter-brained all of a sudden. She cussed and fussed and hobbled about in the kitchen, putting ice in the bucket, and finding an ashtray for the man.

  Now, what else?

  Food, yes, but that could come later.

  Oh. And she mustn’t forget the scissors, either.

  End

  About the Author

  Constance ‘Dusty’ Miller has written fiction, non-fiction and worked for newspapers and magazines, even working for a brief stint as sports editor of a small-town weekly. She likes to make people laugh as well as think. Her erotica has strong qualities of literary romance. Out of work and recovering from a life-threatening illness, someone suggested writing erotica which she initially rejected for lack of confidence. But love makes the world go around, and Dusty can no longer deny its pull. Dusty squeezes a little writing in between raising a daughter and building up her business.