Shocking Pink

She was bad. This was bad. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined her face on Mrs. X’s body, the man’s hands, the rope slithering over her skin.

Andie had been right. They never should have come here. This was wrong. She was going to burn in hell, just as her father said.

“We have to go,” she whispered. “Raven, please.” She reached up and caught her friend’s hand and tugged. “Please, Rave. Please.”

Raven met her eyes, the expression in them strange, almost feverish. She gazed at Julie a moment, almost as if she didn’t know her, then nodded, not speaking again until they reached Julie’s door.

Raven touched Julie’s cheek. “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered. “I’ll make sure of that.”

Julie held her friend’s gaze a moment, then nodded and slipped inside, not at all certain of that fact. In fact, Julie had a horrible feeling that nothing was ever going to be all right again.

14

The next week passed in a disjointed, confusing blur for Julie. Her days were spent pretending to be a good daughter and a normal fifteen-year-old. Her nights were spent peering through the window of number twelve Mockingbird Lane, watching acts that alternately shocked, horrified and aroused her.

Julie lived in fear that her father would discover what she was doing; she struggled to deal with what she saw. One time Mr. X would be tender, even loving with Mrs. X, making love with her in the traditional way. The way Julie had dreamed of being made love to. The next he would be cruel. He would torment her with his indifference, he would make her crawl or beg. Those times, he would take her in whatever way or position he chose, no matter how painful.

He was the devil, Julie decided. She was watching the devil himself.

And he was seducing her.

Julie lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, too frightened to close her eyes. She feared if she did, her subconscious would take over and she would be once again transformed into Mrs. X.

She didn’t want to be Mrs. X. She didn’t want to enjoy … that.

But she did enjoy it. It was sick, yet she watched in fascination. She hated it, yet she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She couldn’t understand why Mrs. X allowed the man to treat her that way, yet she did understand.

Maybe that was what frightened her most.

Julie rolled onto her side, then her back once more. The sheets twisted around her legs, binding them, trapping her. She began to sweat, her heart to pound. She was afraid.

Something terrible was happening to her. Had happened to her. She bit her bottom lip. She wasn’t the same person she had been before the window and Mr. and Mrs. X. Her life wasn’t the same.

She knew things now. She was afraid for her future.

She was afraid she was like Mrs. X.

A cry bubbled up to her throat. She wanted to go back. She didn’t want to know what she knew. She didn’t want him to be in her brain anymore. She pressed her face to the pillow. She wanted to make it all go away.

And she was afraid, too, for Mrs. X. Tonight, Mr. X had been brutal. He had all but raped Mrs. X, then left her bound, gagged and blindfolded. Alone in the dark.

He had gone to the garage and his car, and he’d driven off.

She and Raven had waited thirty minutes; he hadn’t returned. Julie had suggested they go inside and free Mrs. X; Raven had scoffed. It was all part of their game, she had said. Julie worried too much.

Did she worry too much? Julie wondered. Or was Mrs. X still there? Now, hours later? Had he left her to die alone in that house, bound and blinded by the silk scarf? Had he left her that way and gone to get a weapon to kill her?

The dark, her fears, pressed in on her. Julie reached across to the bedside table and switched on her light, squinting against the sudden brightness. Next to the light, in a pretty flowered frame, was a picture of her, Andie and Raven. Julie reached for her glasses and slipped them on, then took the framed photo into her hands and gazed at it. The picture had been snapped last summer, when Andie’s folks had taken them all camping. They had their arms around each other, they were smiling.

Now, she could hardly look Andie in the eyes. Now, she and Raven hardly spoke. It was as if there was a glass wall separating the three of them; they could see one another but not touch, not connect. They didn’t laugh together, they didn’t whisper together, sharing their deepest, darkest secrets.

Now, they kept those secrets all to themselves.

It was tearing them apart. Tearing her apart. But as much as she longed to, Julie didn’t know how to stop it.

15

Andie couldn’t put Mr. and Mrs. X out of her mind, no matter how she tried. She threw herself into her friends and summer activities, but still the image of the woman on her knees before the man haunted her.

If only she understood what drove the couple, if only she could fathom why the woman allowed herself to be treated that way. If she understood, she decided, she would be able to let it go and move on.

If she didn’t, she feared she would go crazy.

She remembered that Julie had said she’d read something in a psychology book about this; sexual deviation, she had called it. Andie decided a trip to the Thistledown Public Library would do the trick.

Andie found a limited amount of information there. It was frustrating, because she needed to ask the librarian for help but couldn’t. Thistledown was a small town; the librarian knew her. But more important, she knew her mom and dad.

No sooner would the question be out of her mouth than the librarian would be on the phone to Andie’s mom.

Andie didn’t consider that an option, so, knowing that her mother wouldn’t miss her, she made the two-hour bus trek to Columbia and the University of Missouri. In the sprawling, book-filled building that housed the library she found more information than she would have time to read before she had to catch the bus back home. The librarian didn’t even blink at Andie’s request and directed her to the psychology section. She explained how to use the microfiche and how to find the bound periodicals.

Sexual deviation, Andie learned, was a behavior that varied from what a society or people called “normal.” She learned that some people enjoyed being dominated during sex, others punishing or being punished. She learned that they found the pain, the humiliation and powerlessness exciting. Some could achieve sexual gratification in no other way.

The experts rarely agreed on why these people found dominance, submission or pain pleasurable—their theories ranged from traumatic childhood experiences to environmental influences to genetics. They did agree, however, that sexual deviance had been a part of every culture, back as far as there were records to study.

No closer to understanding, but slightly reassured by the sheer volume of information, Andie checked her watch. She had time for one more article before she left. Her head already swimming with what she’d learned, she thought about passing on the article and going for a Coke instead, then took a deep breath. She had come all this way, she might as well get as much information as she could.

She would just skim it, she decided, looking longingly at the front doors, then back at the scientific journal. Then she still might have time for that Coke.

She flipped open the journal and began to read quickly. A sentence jumped out at her. She stopped, her world tipping on its axis.

Sometimes, death provides the ultimate sexual thrill.

She struggled to calm herself, to catch hold of the fear racing through her. With forced calm, Andie went back and carefully read the entire article. It went on to explain that such instances were rare, though quite a number had been documented. One man had actually killed four partners over the course of three years, before he was caught. During his pretrial psychiatric evaluation, he had insisted that his partners had been willing victims, that they had helped plan the tableau that had been their last and that they had received as much pleasure in the act as he. A half-dozen or so graphic photographs were included.

Andie gazed at the images, stomach lurching up to her throat. She had been right to be afraid for Mrs. X, she knew now. The woman was in real danger.

A sense of urgency pressing at her, Andie snatched up the journal, and went in search of a copier. She found one, dug in her pocket for change, then began photocopying the article, pictures and all. She had to make Raven and Julie understand; had to get them to see the danger Mrs. X was in. She had to make them as certain as she of what they had to do.

They had to go to their parents. They had to.

16

The minute Andie got home, she called her friends. She told them to meet her at the toolshed, a.s.a.p. It was an emergency, she told them. They had to talk; they couldn’t chance being overheard.

Within twenty minutes the three of them were sitting cross-legged on the shed floor. Julie looked guilty and nervous, Raven curious. Seeing them now, Andie realized she had hardly spoken to them in two days.

Without waiting for their questions, Andie launched into the reason she had called them together. She told them how she had gone by bus to Columbia and the university library, describing in detail what she had discovered there, finishing with the last, most devastating piece of information.