Bad Desire Read Free Page B

where he had last seen them, he pulled into the alley, quickly backed out and resumed his search. The sun was going down; the sidewalks, lined with palms, were nearly deserted. Slater knew he shouldn’t stay here. Every minute had its own risk. And yet, as he looked for her, all his other preoccupations left him.
    They were coming out of Sweeney’s, a café the juniors and seniors used as a hangout. Two of the girls sauntered out first, followed by the others, boys and girls straggling out together. And there she was—her proud head, the cascade of her tawny hair, the way her clothes clung to her as if she wore nothing underneath. Keeping his distance, Slater pulled to the curb.
    She looked tall. It was only on those occasions when he stood close to her that he realized, all over again, that she wasn’t. At about five six, she was a little taller than the other girls in her class, but she was so well proportioned, her body so lush and overripe, that she seemed to rob them of light. Now she draped her arms lazily behind her head, lifting her white-gold hair and fanning the back of her neck, and then letting her hair slide and uncoil through her fingers. His stomach tightened into a hard knot.
    The boys were flirting with her, obviously paying court to her. One of them bounced a soccer ball against his forehead, keeping it alive in the air. Another, a good-looking kid about her age, put his arm around her and slipped his hand into the hip pocket of her jeans. Outwardly, she went on talking and laughing with the others, but her fingers came back behind her, closed on the boy’s wrist and withdrew his hand.
    Slater couldn’t take his eyes off her.
    There was a period of confusion when the boys separated themselves from the girls, saying so long, wandering out across the street, tossing the ball. But then, before anything else could happen, she, too, was breaking away from her friends, waving good-bye.
    The old red and brown station wagon whisked by Slater’s side window. Rachel Buchanan. Slater glimpsed her as she drove past and his face went pale and hard with hate. He slid lower in the seat, his knees rising on either side of the steering wheel.
    He felt lacerated by her arrival. Now, even the air stank of danger. She had been threatening to expose him for several weeks now. She claimed she had found something he had given the girl, that she knew what he was trying to do. All he could think about was seeing her dead. There’s no other way, he told himself. She’ll go to the newspapers; the girl had just turned seventeen. The scandal would annihilate him. “She’ll tell,” he muttered to himself. “ Goddamn her , I know she will.” She’d tell his wife and destroy his marriage such as it was, ending all his plans. No doubt about it: Rachel would smear him with rumors that no amount of explaining would ever erase.
    Slater started the engine. I want this over with, he thought. Just get it done. Then everything would go on as planned.
    The girl stepped over the gutter into the street. Idling, the station wagon sat double-parked, waiting for her. The girl reached for the door handle, and as she grasped it, something rushed out of him. She turned suddenly. It was as if he had called to her and she had heard him. Her body twisted; she looked over her shoulder, and the shape of her back changed, the curves drawing in—the thrust of her breasts and her buttocks held for a heartbeat in sheer voluptuous power. Her hand came up, touching her hair, surreptitiously shading her eyes—she was looking directly at him. With her glance, he lost all thought.
    For as long as it lasted, his eyes burned over her.
    The moment evaporated like a bubble. She slipped into the station wagon and was gone. He watched the red taillights shrink in the darkening air. Now, there were five teenaged girls, careless and supple, walking away from him but there was no longer any excitement, no