The Sleeping Doll

you. About how you said no one understands you and blames you for bad things you didn’t do, how hard that’s got to be. They don’t see into you, they don’t see the truth. Not like I do. You would never say it because your modest but they don’t see what a perfect human being you are .
    I stopped the car, I couldn’t help myself, I was touching myself all over, you know doing what (I’ll bet you do, you dirty boy!) We made love there, you and me, watching the stars, I say “we” because you were there with me in spirit. I’d do anything for you, Daniel . . . .
    It was such letters—reflecting her total lack of self-control and extraordinary gullibility—that had made Pell decide on her for the escape.
    He now asked, “You were careful about everything, weren’t you? Nobody can trace the T-bird?”
    “No. I stole it from a restaurant. There was this guy I went out with a couple years ago. I mean, we didn’t sleep together or anything.” She added this too fast, and he supposed they’d spent plenty of time humping like clueless little bunnies. Not that he cared. She continued, “He worked there and when I’d hang out I saw that nobody paid any attention to the valet-parking key box. So Friday I took the bus over there and waited across the street. When the valets were busy I got the keys. I picked the Thunderbird because this couple had just went inside so they’d be there for a while. I was on the One-oh-one in, like, ten minutes.”
    “You drive straight through?”
    “No, I spent the night in San Luis Obispo—but I paid cash, like you said.”
    “And you burned all the emails, right? Before you left?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Good. You have the maps?”
    “Yep, I do.” She patted her purse.
    He looked over her body. The small swell of her chest, the thin legs and butt. Her long blond hair. Women let you know right up front the kind of license you have, and Pell knew he could touch her whenever and wherever he wanted. He put his hand on the nape of her neck; how thin, fragile. She made a sound that was actually purring.
    The swelling within him continued to grow.
    The purring too.
    He waited as long as he could.
    But the bubble won.
    “Pull over there, baby.” He pointed toward a road under a grove of oak trees. It seemed to be a driveway to an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of an overgrown field.
    She hit the brakes and turned down the road. Pell looked around. Not a soul he could see.
    “Here?”
    “This’s good.”
    His hand slid from her neck down the front of her pink blouse. It looked new. She’d bought it just for him, he understood.
    Pell lifted her face and pressed his lips against hers softly, not opening his mouth. He kissed her lightly, then backed away, making her come to him. She grew more and more frantic, the more he teased.
    “I want you in me,” she whispered, reaching into the back, where he heard the crinkle of a bag. A Trojan appeared in her hand.
    “We don’t have much time, baby. They’re looking for us.”
    She got the message.
    However innocent they look, girls who love bad boys know what they’re doing (and Jennie Marston didn’t look all that innocent). She unbuttoned her blouse and leaned over to the passenger seat, rubbing the padded bra against his crotch. “Lie back, sweetie. Close your eyes.”
    “No.”
    She hesitated.
    “I want to watch you,” he whispered. Never give them more power than you have to.
    More purring.
    She unzipped his shorts and bent down.
    Only a few minutes later he was finished. She was as talented as he’d expected—Jennie didn’t have many resources but she exploited the ones she had—and the event was fine, though when they got into the privacy of a motel room he’d up the ante considerably. But for now, this would do. And as for her, Pell knew his explosive, voluminous completion was satisfaction enough.
    He turned his eyes to hers. “You’re wonderful, lovely. That was so special.”
    She was so drunk on emotion that even this trite porn-movie dialogue would have sounded to her like a declaration of love out of an old-time novel.
    “Oh, Daniel.”
    He sat back and reassembled his clothes.
    Jennie buttoned the blouse. Pell looked at the pink cloth, the embroidery, the metal tips on the collar.
    She noticed him. “You like?”
    “It’s nice.” He glanced out the window and studied the fields around them. Not worried about police, more intent on her. Aware she was studying the blouse.
    Hesitantly Jennie