The Empty Chair

we’re going to go fast. That all right with you?” she asked Sachs, who had no problem momentarily yielding command to the deputy.
    “You bet it is.”

. . . chapter fifteen
    Lydia had seen this look in men’s eyes a hundred times.
    A need. A desire. A hunger.
    Sometimes, a pointless itch. Sometimes, an inept expression of love.
    This big girl, with stringy hair, a spotted face in her teens and a pocked face now, believed she had little to offer men. But she knew too that they would, for a few years at least, ask one thing from her and she’d decided long ago that to get by in the world she would have to exploit the little power that she had. And so Lydia Johansson was now on a playing field that was very familiar to her.
    They were back in the mill, in the dark office once again. Garrett was standing over her, his scalp glistening with sweat through the patchy crew cut. His erection was obvious through his slacks.
    His eyes slid over her chest, where her soaked, translucent uniform had ripped open in her fall down the sluice (or had he done it when he grabbed her on the trail?), her bra strap snapped (or had he torn it?).
    Lydia eased away from him, wincing at the pain in her ankle. Pressing against the wall, sitting, legs splayed, as she studied that look in the boy’s eyes. Feeling a cold, spidery repulsion.
    And yet she thought: Should I let him?
    He was young. He’d come instantly and it would be over with. Maybe afterward he’d fall asleep and she could find that knife of his and cut her hands free. Then knock him out and tape him up.
    But those red bony hands of his, his welty face next to her cheek, his disgusting breath and body stench. . . . How could she face it? Lydia closed her eyes momentarily. Uttered a prayer as insubstantial as her Blue Sunset eye shadow. Yes or no?
    But any angels in the vicinity remained silent on this particular decision.
    All she’d have to do was smile at him. He’d be inside her in a minute. Or she could take him into her mouth. . . . It wouldn’t mean anything.
    Fuck me fast then let’s watch a movie. . . . A joke between her boyfriend and her. She’d greet him at the door, in the red teddy she’d bought mail-order from Sears. She’d throw her arms around his shoulders and whisper those words to him.
    You do this, she thought to herself, and you might be able to escape.
    But I can’t!
    Garrett’s eyes were locked on to her. Coursing over her body. His prick couldn’t violate her any more thoroughly than his red eyes were doing right now. Jesus, he wasn’t just an insect—he was a mutation out of one of Lydia’s horror books, something that Dean Koontz or Stephen King could have made up.
    Fingernails clicking.
    He was examining her legs now, round and smooth—her best feature, she believed.
    Garrett snapped, “Why’re you crying? It’s your faultyou hurt yourself. You shouldn’t’ve run. Let me see it.” Nodding toward her swollen ankle.
    “It’s okay,” Lydia said quickly but then, almost involuntarily, she held her foot out to him.
    “Some assholes at school pushed me down the hill behind the Mobil station last year,” he said. “Sprained my ankle. Looked like that. Hurt like a bitch.”
    Get it over with, she told herself. You’ll be that much closer to home.
    Fuck me fast . . .
    No!
    But she didn’t pull away when Garrett sat down in front of her. He took her leg. His long fingers—God, they were huge—were gripping her around the calf, then around the ankle. He was trembling. Looking at the holes in her white pantyhose, where her pink flesh ballooned out. He studied her foot.
    “It’s not cut. But it’s all black. What’s that all about?”
    “Might be broken.”
    He didn’t respond, didn’t seem sympathetic. It was as if her pain was meaningless to him. As if he couldn’t understand that a human being might be suffering. His concern was just an excuse to touch her.
    She extended her leg farther, her muscles quivering from the effort of elevating the limb. Her foot touched Garrett’s body near his groin.
    His eyelids lowered. His breathing was fast.
    Lydia swallowed.
    He moved her foot. It brushed against his penis through the wet cloth. He was hard as the wooden paddle of the waterwheel that she’d smacked trying to escape.
    Garrett slid his hand farther up her leg. She felt his nails snag her pantyhose.
    No . . .
    Yes . . .
    Then he froze.
    His head tilted back and his nostrils flared. He inhaled