Death Trap Read Free

along comes an Alister Landy who can stand at point C and look at the same idea. It is only genius which is capable of the unique viewpoint. And the observations of genius give us our chance of seeing old ideas in new depth. This can stretch your mind, and it is a frightening thing.
    Afterwards I talked to Vicky about him. “Now you do see what I mean, Hugh.”
    “I think so. But he’s a monster. Forgive me for saying that.”
    “I want you to be frank. But you’re wrong. You see all the defenses. They irritate me, but not as much as they do you, because I can see underneath. I can see the frightened boy. He’s almost alone in the world. He’s never been able to gain social acceptance or approval. When he was little he fought hard for that approval, playing games that bored him, fighting other little boys even though he thought it was childish. But he always said the wrong thing and they set him apart and finally he decided to stay apart from them—and from all of us. He wants so desperately to be loved that he goes at it in all the wrong ways. I sensed he wanted your approval. He’s a rebel, a barbarian. Already he is thoroughly disliked by the student body and most of the faculty.”
    “But can’t they see that he’s really got something special?”
    She smiled slowly and the smile turned into a grin, wrinkling an ivory nose, “Now who is defending him?”
    She was what I had.
    It didn’t take long to ruin it.
    Not when my basic and instinctive reaction to the female was to attempt to rack up a score, add a pelt to the trophy shelf. I sensed it wouldn’t be easy. So I went at it very carefully. And without conscience. Why should I have felt any twinge of conscience? She was of age. She was willing to go out with me. So she was taking her own chances. Plenty of others had taken their chances too, and, to the gratification of my male ego, most of them had lost the game. I didn’t want to have to classify Vicky as one of the ones who got away. So I moved very carefully.
    There are rules. Some people don’t follow them. When you don’t follow the rules, you can’t rack up a legitimate score. You’ve cheated. The rules say that you cannot promise marriage, hint at an engagement, or even use the word love.
    When I first kissed her I anticipated a tepid response, a response which would be another implied obstacle in the way. But from way back, from the groves and hillsides and yellow sun of her mother’s people, came a response that was sudden and vivid and alive, like the tart-sweet taste of a good red wine. Her arms were tight and then convulsively tight, and her mouth was something soft and broken. Then she flung herself aside, moving away from me. The moon slanted down through the car window on her side, shining into her lap where her lean hands kept twisting and knotting, pulling at each other. I heard the deepness of her breathing, saw the flower-heaviness of her head, her half-closed long-lashed eyes. I knew that it would be easy then, and I was pleased and excited.
    Why not? I was a construction bum. There were girls in every land. This was more special than most, but that merely made her a more desirable target. She was of age. She took her chances. And nobody had said anything about love.
    I spoiled it. I worked entrapment. I moved cautiously. I betrayed her with her own deep sensuality, and at the end I closed my ears to her protests, to her fright, to her pleading. My answer was not in her voice, but in the physical indications of a passion she could not quell without my help. I did not help her.
    It ended three weeks after the first kiss. It ended at midnight in a shabby room in a shabby motel on the far side of Warrentown. I lay in the darkness and smoked a cigarette. She was crying almost soundlessly beside me. I felt uneasy and uncomfortable. It was not the way it should have been.
    “Why are you crying?”
    She did not answer me. After what seemed a long time she stopped crying. I felt the bed