Carolina Moon

the blinds shut. “Mongo. What did you do with Mongo?”
    “You don’t think I’d hurt a nice, friendly dog like that, do you?” The power of the moment cruised through him, spread, made him hard and hot and invincible. “He’s just taking a quiet nap. Don’t you worry about your dog, honey. Don’t you worry about a thing. This is going to be good. This is going to be just what you want.”
    He shoved her belly down on the bed, put his knee in the small of her back and added weight. He’d brought precautions. A man had to be prepared, even for a whore. Especially for a whore.
    After a while, they screamed no matter what. And he didn’t want to use the knife. Not when he was so good with his hands. He took the bandanna from his pocket, gagged her.
    When she began to stir, when she began to struggle, he was in heaven.
    She wasn’t weak. She kept the body she liked to flaunt and tease men with in good shape. It only excited him to have her struggle. The first time he hit her, the thrill of it slammed into him like sex. He hit her again so they both understood who was in charge.
    He tied her hands behind her back. He couldn’t afford those nails with their sluttish pink polish scraping any of his skin.
    Quietly, he walked over to shut the curtain and close them into the dark.
    She was moaning against the gag, dazed from the blows. The sound of it made him tremble so that he nicked her skin a little as he used the knife to cut her clothes away. She tried to roll, tried to buck, but when he put the point of the blade just under her eye, pressed, she went very still.
    “This is what you want.” He unzipped, then flipped her onto her back and straddled her. “It’s what you asked for. What you all ask for.”
    When it was done, he wept. Tears of self-pity ran down his face. She wasn’t the one, but what else could he do? She’d put herself in his path, she’d given him no choice.
    It wasn’t perfect! He’d done everything he’d wanted and still it wasn’t perfect.
    Her eyes were glazed and empty as he took off the gag, kissed her cheeks. He cut the cord from her wrists, stuffed it back in his pockets.
    He turned her music off, and left the way he’d come in.
    “I can’t come to Beaux Reves.”
    Tory sat on the front porch in the soft night air. She couldn’t face going back inside quite yet, wasn’t yet prepared to deal with the mess left by her father and compounded by the police.
    Cade contemplated the cigar he’d lighted to ease his own nerves, wished fleetingly he had a whiskey to go with it. “You’re going to have to tell me why. Staying here the way things are doesn’t make any sense, and you’re a sensible woman.”
    “Most of the time,” she agreed. “Being sensible cuts down on complications and saves energy. You were right about calling the police, I realize that now. I wasn’t being sensible. It was pure raw emotion. He frightens me, and embarrasses me. By trying to keep it contained, as always, I thought I’d limit the fear and humiliation. It’s hateful to be a victim, Cade. Makes you feel exposed and angry and somehow guilty at the same time.”
    “I won’t argue with that, even though you’re smart enough to know that guilt has no part in what you should be feeling.”
    “Smart enough to know it, but not clever enough to figure out how not to feel it. It’ll be easier once I put the house back to rights and get rid of what he left behind in it. But I’ll still remember the way Chief Russ sat writing in his little book and watching my face, how my father intimidated me today, how he’s done so all my life.”
    “There’s no cause for your pride to be wounded over this, Tory.”
    “‘Pride goeth before a fall.’ My father reminded me of that this morning. He does love to use the Bible to hammer his point home.”
    “They’ll find him. There are police in two counties looking for him now.”
    “The world’s a lot bigger than two counties. Hell, South Carolina’s a lot bigger than two counties. Swamps and mountains and glades. Lots and lots of places to hide.” She rocked restlessly, needing movement. “If he finds a way to contact my mother, she’ll help him. Out of love and out of duty.”
    “That being the case, it just makes my point about you coming with me to Beaux Reves.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    “Why?”
    “A number of reasons. First, your mother would object.”
    “My mother has nothing to say about it.”
    “Oh, don’t say that,