Chapter 11

Harry washed his face, relishing the feel of warm water on his skin. He was so glad it was over now between him and Angie. Oh, he knew that even though the paperwork was filed, the divorce wouldn't be finalized for quite some time, but it was over, nevertheless. It was a relief that it was going so well. In the week since that night, nothing else had.

He walked out of the bathroom to see Carol finishing packing her little bag, the one she'd arrived with. She and Margo stood there looking at him sadly.

"Ready to go so soon?" he asked.

"Yeah Harry, I'm ready to go. Don't bother to call; I doubt there's anything you can say I'd want to hear."

Margo and Carol left. He hoped at least one of them would come back but he really doubted it. As Margo's car went out of sight, he whispered "I love you".

Kelly and Eddy had changed their phone numbers and he really couldn't blame them. Even Karen wasn't talking to him anymore after she heard what had gone down.

He had no problem accepting it, no problem understanding it. What he had done to Angie was vile; no matter what she had done to him or anyone else, he had lowered himself past her level and now it was time to reap what he had sown.

Harry went back to the bathroom and drew himself a bath.

As he slid into the hot water he saw Carol's last present to him, proof she still cared.

He took the straight razor, opened it and drew it down the insides of his arms.

He was so glad it was all over now.

In his sleep Harry curled into a tight little ball, tucked himself into the fetal position, trying to protect himself from himself.

Harry woke up to a soaking wet bed, a thick coppery smell in the air. He turned his head to stare into Carol's glassy, dead eyes, her mouth below them frozen in the rictus of a scream. Someone had cut her open and his beloved had bled out all over the bed.

He clambered out of the bed, his breath rapid and shallow. A sound from the living room drew his attention and he crawled towards the door, peering out into the room, trying to see what had caused the disturbance.

He saw nothing so, crouching, he moved further out into the room. As he was busy looking around for someone he nudged something on the floor, almost fell over it.

Looking down he saw it was Eddy, gutted like Carol. He fell forward, his knees coming to rest in Eddy's abdomen and he continued to fall, catching himself on his hands, his head inches above Kelly's corpse.

"Harry..."

He turned towards the voice and saw her shadow, dancing along the wall. He got to his feet.

"What do you want?"

"Time for a little lesson in the realities of hunting, Harry."

The large knife tore through his skin like it was paper. He looked down, uncomprehendingly, as his entrails fell out on the floor with a splattering, plopping sound.

Then there she was, her emaciated form covered in the blood of his friends, his family. She held the knife proudly, moving it back and forth, watching it glisten redly in the light.

He fell to his knees, the strength draining out of him.

"Never wound a predator and leave them. You either should've killed me or left me alone. Bet you won't make that mistake again, will you Harry?"

"At... least... you... didn't... get..."

"Your precious Margo?"

She held up Margo's severed head and kissed it tenderly on the lips as the light faded from Harry's eyes.

Harry's eyes shot open. For a moment he lay still except for the fingers he was pinching himself with, trying to insure it wasn't another nightmare.

When he was sure he was really awake, he looked next to him in bed. Carol to his right. Margo to his left, he wished he could say he was sorry she was there, but he couldn't. He was sorry that Carol had called her, but he definitely was not sorry she was there. He was in fact so glad he almost burst into tears.

He carefully got out of bed, crawling off the end, and walked out into the living room.

Eddy lay on the floor, asleep, his giant frame an incongruous sight when viewed next to the peaceful, almost child-like expression on his face. Sitting next to him was Kelly, sipping on a glass of water.

"Hail Arthur," she whispered, "rough night, my liege."

"Yes," he answered sadly, "rough night indeed."

He walked past her into the kitchen and out onto the back deck where he came to rest on the steps.

Kelly joined him a moment later.

"My lord, what brings you forth from Guinevere and Merlin's sweet embraces?"

Harry smiled, "My dreams plague me, Lady Kay, and make my sleep a horrid thing, best avoided. Why sleep you not?"

"I, my lord, was thinking how best to implore Merlin's aid in finding a woman for the brave Sir Edward. He is a good and true knight"

"None finer."

"-and I know that he suffers greatly for lack of someone to love him. I am afeared he might take my hours with him tonight as a sign I might want something more of him than a few brief hours pleasure and I do not, although his friendship I would not spurn."

"Worry not, Lady Kay, methinks Merlin already doth work on such a project, although perhaps she herself knows it not as yet."

"Ah, then I shall rest easy for if Merlin put her mind to it, he is already paired and loved, we just know it not."

Harry turned and looked at Kelly and smiled.

"You realize you're crazier than a shit-house rat, don't you?"

"Oh yeah, Harry, not a doubt in my mind." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "How are you doing, other than the nightmares?"

"Real shaky."

"C'mon then, follow Auntie Kelly, let's go inside and talk."

Harry followed her in, grabbed a large bottle of water from the fridge and then on into the guest bedroom where he waited while she brought in the water pipe and loaded it.

They sat and smoked awhile, lying on the bed, side by side. When the bowl was finished, Kelly sat up and had Harry put his head in her lap.

"Now Harry, what's got you so freakedfrom what happened earlier tonight?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Harry, you need to say it. Now, go ahead."

"How can I live with myself after treating Angie that way? How can they live with me? How can any of you stand to be in the same goddamn room with me?"

"Because she deserved every second of it and more... because the first thing that happened after she called me a 'nigger' was you hit the bitch so hard she ended up on her ass four feet away. Because I feel safe with you knowing that you'll never do to me what you did to her because I'll never give you a reason to. Because when it came time to do the dirty work of getting physical with that slut you spared me and sent the woman you love."

"Huh?"

"You heard me, Harry. You've got to get your head out of Self-Loathing Land and come back here where the rest of us are. Yeah, you got rough with the slut. Number one, she bought that E-Ticket ride; number two, I saw your face... you stopped when you had enough to do the job, when you couldn't take it anymore... you didn't keep going out of some sick perverse need to torture her... you stopped. With what you had on that whore you could have degraded and humiliated her all night long, done a lot more damage to her than Carol did... you didn't. You stopped. Don't be telling me what an evil motherfucker you are. I know better."

"What did Carol do?"

"Nothing much... slapped her around some, broke her nose, made her believe she was gonna die so she pissed and shit herself."

Harry smiled, "That's my girl."

Kelly looked at him angrily. "And that's the kind of shit that'll make me crazy for real. She does this shit, you're proud, you do much less nasty shit and you're Charlie Manson's younger brother. What the fuck is up with that?"

"Because I let the bitch do it to me... she just stumbled on the wreckage Angie left behind... she didn't help Angie make it."

"Alright, I can buy that. But what are you afraid of, Harry? You gave her a dose of her own medicine, treated her better than she deserved, and that's coming from a relatively objective source, she's gone, you're free, the good guys have won, let's give out some medals and fuck!"

"I'm afraid that Carol and Margo won't be able to forgive me."

"Bullshit Harry! You know as well as I do that you could've killed the bitch and fucked her still warm corpse, then ground her up and fed her to school kids and they would forgive you without a second's hesitation. They love you Harry, just like you love them;so much it's scary. So now we know that's bullshit, what? You believe in God Harry? Well, if you do, it's pretty much certain God would forgive you; he forgives much worse, if you read the press handouts. You were afraid that Eddy and I wouldn't forgive you? I told you earlier how I felt. Eddy? He's still wondering, seriously, why she's still alive. I like Eddy a lot but he does sometimes have a real simplistic view of how to solve personality conflicts. So who, out of tonight's little psycho-drama, is left?

"You and Angie.

"Do you want Angie's forgiveness, Harry?"

"No, I don't want anything from her but what she agreed to tonight."

"Alrighty then, now we're getting somewhere. So who's left to forgive you, Harry? Who?"

"Me."

"Damn straight. You. So why can't you forgive you, Harry? Are you going to tell me you sank to her level? Bullshit! To do that you'd have to marry her for money alone and live three years in the marriage, fucking everything that had two legs and a slit between them. Are you going to tell me you can't forgive yourself for wanting to kill her? 'Wanting's not a sin, Harry, no matter what the Catholic Church says. Hell, I'd have been amazed if you hadn't wanted to kill the unsavory slut. The woman was a head game surrounded by a mind fuck wrapped up with a psycho-bitch-bow on top! Are you going to tell me you failed your self-image of yourself? You didn't live up to your own standards? You failed you?

"If that's what it is Harry, then quit torturing yourself for something you'd forgive any one of us for without thinking. You're human. You momentarily didn't live up to your potential. Ruffle your hair, tell yourself to do better next time and let yourself off the hook. No one here thinks any less of you and I know one of us," she smiled at him, "thinks even more highly of you than she did before."

She slid down beside him and held him, kissing him gently all over his face.

"Harry, I don't mean, in any way, to belittle how you feel. Tonight was rough, harder on you than on any of us, by orders of magnitude. Just don't make it any harder on yourself than it already is."

"Kelly, thank you, not just for the talk, but for everything tonight. You were magnificent with Angie and I appreciate it. I'll keep on appreciating it too, but there was something special I wantto do to show my appreciation. It's crude but reasonably effective."

She twitched her hips at him. "Why Arthur, how crude are you planning to be?"

"Nothing like that... at least not right now. How much more do you need to save for your next term of college?"

"I'm a little ahead of my schedule, I need about another thirty-five hundred dollars. Why?"

"You don't need that money anymore. Later today I'm writing you a check for five thousand. Like I said, it's crude, but it's a gift to express my gratitude for your help last night. You went so far above and beyond the call... words fail me."

"Harry, you can't!"

"Yes I can and if I have to I'll get Carol to argue you into accepting, so you know you've lost, just say yes now."

She kissed him. "Yes now, go to bed. You have two lovers to wake up between. I think, being newly wealthy, that I'm calling in sick today. I'm going to see Eddy off at some point and then don't be surprised if I come charging in that bedroom and rape you, Harry!"

He snuggled his body close to hers, his erection poking her thighs.

"Can't rape the willing, dear."

Harry carefully got into bed between the women he adored. They stirred a bit but both were deeply enough asleep to remain so through his comings and goings.

He lay in bed and thought about what Kelly had told him. She was right and he knew it. He was holding himself to a standard that he would have considered foolish in anyone else. Had anyone else slipped as he had, he would forgive them without thinking twice. Why then was he so hard on himself? He wasn't sure but he would work on easing up a bit. Or at least shoving his issues out of the way until he had the time to deal with them.

It was time to get some more sleep. Saturday proper was going to be a busy day.

Harry woke up again, scarcely three hours later. No further nightmares had plagued his sleep but he was restless. He got out of bed, softly padded through the living room where Kelly and Eddy slept and went into the kitchen. His answering machine's message light was flashing furiously and he had a good idea who it was. He had calls to make before returning that call.

He picked up the phone and dialed Karen's number.

"Hello, Karen? Yes, I do know what time it is... no, no I wasn't aware that this was 'cuddle with Patricia' time, hold the phone up to her ear... sorry Patricia, let me take y'all to supper to make up for it? Good, that'll work... Karen? Okay, that's settled, wouldn't want to get in trouble with the lady of the house... Sappho, you still suck at housecleaning? Yeah, I didn't figure you'd gotten any better... I know of an excellent housekeeper, just became available four days a week and really needs the work... yeah, Anna, been working for my family eighteen years... two days a week, Monday and Thursday? Okay, we can shift me to Tuesdays and Fridays... how high you willing to go? She's really good, worth a lot... you'd go five hundred a week for two days? How about seven-fifty? C'mon Sappho, I know you've got the money... you won't go seven-fifty but you'll go six hundred? Perfect, Karen... you realize I've talked you into paying her way more than you should? Okay... don't worry, you negotiated me down to what I'm paying her. Yeah, we're both saints... alright how does seven this evening at Chez Bubba's sound for supper? No I'm not going to take you out someplace horribly pretentious... every time I do, you get bored and start making a scene... alright, see you then... the two of you lick each other in really naughty places for me... love you, Sappho, until tonight."

He punched 'Play' on the answering machine. As he suspected, it was a stream of almost incoherent apologies and warnings from Anna about her slip to Angie regarding him and Carol. Nowhere in it did Anna say a word about Angie firing her. It figured, Harry thought. He dialed Anna's number.

"Hello, is Anna there? It's Harry Grimes... well hello Galena, how are you? Good, how's school? You're doing much better than I ever did... Gracias... Anna... no... no, you have nothing to apologize for... no you don't... no you don't... alright, even if you do, I forgive you, Carol forgives you... she'll say it in person next time you see her... yes, really... yes Angie showed up here... it was very ugly but it turned out very well for me and very badly for her... well, I'm sure God will forgive you for that... and that... even for that... so, I understand you've got some more free time on your hands... yes, He'll even forgive you for calling her that and I'll remember it to use later... so, how would you like to work here Tuesdays and Fridays, for my partner Ms. Karen on Mondays and Thursdays, six hundred a week from each of us? Yes, six hundred each... I know Angie was only paying you a hundred dollars a day... yes, if it'll make you feel better, bring Galena along to help... well if she wants to that's fine, she can take care of the pool, she can use the pool, soon as its put in... yeah, I'm excited about it too... alright, you've got the new schedule, here's Karen's address and phone number, 8459 Great Hills Trails #188, yes, that's up near Creekwood... 555-4178... alright, Carol will see you and Galena Tuesday... that's right, no more Ms. Angie for either of us, ever. Goodbye Anna."

He got up and went into the laundry room and grabbed a pair of shorts. Slipping them on, he started a pot of coffee. When it was through he poured himself a hefty mug three-quarters full, doctored it liberally with blackberry brandy and added milk and sugar. Taking his coffee, he walked out onto the deck and sat in the shade, enjoying the morning before the sun made it a sweltering hell.

As he sat there, listening to the birds, picturing the back yard as it would be, he heard the door open and close behind him. Carol walked up, rubbing her eyes with one hand, pulling on a t-shirt with the other.

She knelt beside him on the deck and put her head on his leg. Harry looked down at her, straight into her best 'big-pleading-puppy-dog-eyes' with a touch of a quivering lip, glancing briefly every so often at the coffee cup.

Harry laughed and Carol laughed with him. She reached over, took a healthy slug of his coffee.

"Day-um Harry, you didn't tell me you were having special coffee this morning."

"After last night, I deserve it. Hell, after last night, all of us deserve it."

She reached for the cup again.

"Hey, get your own damn coffee!"

She took the cup from him.

"Don't worry Harry," she said, finishing his cup, "I'll go get you another cup, make me a cup and start another pot... looked like Kelly was showing signs of stirring when I came through. No signs of life from Margo or Eddy though."

As she was heading for the door, Kelly came through wearing an almost non-existent thong and Eddy's shirt from the night before.

"Carol, Merlin, Mistress... if I promised to spend an hour licking you wherever and however you asked would you please bring me a cup of Caffiena's Blessing?"

Carol kissed her. "I won't charge you for coffee, although I won't turn down freely offered attentions. Would you like it leaded or unleaded?"

"Oh, leaded with whatever you choose to lead it with. Howdy Harry, how're you feeling this morning?"

"Much better, thanks to our talk last night. I'm still not back to normal, but I'm much better than I was."

They kissed each other good morning and Kelly sat down on a bench next to Harry's Adirondack chair.

Carol returned, handed Harry his coffee and took her cup over to Kelly.

"Sorry, just enough left for one but I'll share it with you. Of course, that'll involve you 'baby-birding' it to me while I lay with my head in your lap."