The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [82]
Eyes on her, he slowly got down on his hands and knees. Her nostrils flared, watching. There was a sense that he was obliging her, like a father does a child. Is he a little jaded? He’s too old for this. Or is that precisely the point? He’s sensing this will be his last round of fun.
She stepped nearer, was standing over him. The surge of power, she the survivor standing over her victim, this at least still captivated her.
“Okay,” she said, “now we’re going to tie you up.”
He started to stand, but she pressed him down with her foot.
“Get some rope,” she said to me.“Hey, Daddy, where’s the rope?”
I found some rope, under the sink. He let himself be tied. I had worked on boats for a summer, so knew how to tie a knot. I did it well, his hands behind his back, his knees and ankles together.
He was down on his knees tied up before her. “At least let me suck you,” he said in that marvelous voice.
I didn’t think she was going to do it, but she slowly undid her pants, lowered her purple flowered underwear.
We left him tied up there. I didn’t care at the time. I felt nauseous, like I’d had an overdose of something. On the street, Leonarda and I parted somewhat brusquely. The truth was I wanted to get away from her. I was thinking how lovely it would be to meet up with some nice girl or boy and go out for an ice cream or dance a slow dance in my kitchen.
But a few days later, I started to wonder about Miguel, tied up there. Another day passed. I checked the Internet to see how long you could survive without water. I knew how good those knots were.
On the evening of the fourth day, I decided to go over to his house, just to reassure myself. I took a taxi. Dusk was falling. We passed a police car on the way. Suddenly, I had an image of his building surrounded by police cars.
But when I got there, there were no police cars. The building was quiet. I went in, nodding to the doorman as I passed. It was the chubby one with bristly hair, he knew me. I rang Miguel’s bell and waited. No answer, no sound. I rang again. Nothing.
Instead of leaving the premises, I slipped through the door at the far end of the lobby into the night garden. There was the smell of the jasmine, woozily strong. But then another smell too, putrid. I crept nearer to his windows. They were dark and closed. But the smell was stronger here. We had chased down the prey, caught and tied him up, and then allowed him to rot. The prey? What was I thinking, using this language? He was a man, with whom I had talked, shared meals. He’d actually been quite kind to me.
It was all coming back. The way Leonarda had turned out the lights before leaving. Also the gag at the last minute. She had handed me her scarf and told me to gag him. Thinking now, it seemed like madness.
I had been keeping a journal about our adventures from the beginning. I had written about our hunting games. And about my jealousy. Suddenly it occurred to me—they would find my journal and use it as evidence. Leonarda had also been writing things down. I could never decipher what they said because of her crabbed writing, but surely they were even more incriminating.
I slipped back out of the garden, left the building and began walking away fast. For some reason, as I walked, I started thinking about the house I’d grown up in, in Seattle, the little yard, playing out there on the swings. I was a nice girl, a good girl. Had always been. There was no way to explain what I had just done. Coercion? But I hadn’t been coerced. Brainwashed, colonized? I imagined a court case here in Buenos Aires. Next I saw the look of bewilderment on my mother’s face.
But we were just playing, I imagined telling my mother.
My age made it all the more bizarre. If I’d been twenty, it would have been different. But thirty-five? The age when you turn a corner one way or the other. What corner had I turned? Murder, incarceration. I’d be lucky if I got off with thirty, forty