With a motion that had the sharp precision of practice, he yanked her onto her side and refastened the cuffs on either side of the ankle-iron chain so that she was now bound with her hands at her feet, forced by her constraints into the fetal position.
"There," he said, obviously pleased with himself.
"Oh, neat," she said.
"Comfortable?"
"Personally, I love this. Wouldn't you like to join me, sugar? We could share these cuffs."
"I have already joined you," he said. "I'll never leave you again."
He knelt in front of her so that he could see her face.
"Will you lead us in prayer?" he asked.
"I tell you what," she said. "Why don't you have the first go at it?
I'll catch up with you the second time around.
"I'd think you'd want to pray," he said.
"Sugar, there are lots of things I'd like to do right now, but you know, you just can't do everything all at once.
I'm so excited about what you and me are going to be doing together here with me trussed up like a turkey that I can't think of anything else."
"Everyone always wants to pray now," he said, baffled.
"Everyone?"
"The others."
"You mean you've had other girls? Well, now, that does it. You just cut me loose and take me home right this second."
"You'll pray later," Swann decided.
"I'm a professional prayer. Get me an audience and I'll be happy to say a few-"
"Sweet Jesus," he intoned, cutting her off, "give us both the strength to get through the terrible ordeal that is about to come. Give this girl the courage and fortitude to survive for as long as she possibly can.
And give me the patience not to rush things, let me proceed with the care and attention that she deserves. In Jesus' name, Amen."
"Nice sentiment," said Aural. She felt a cold chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature in the cave.
"You're a little frightened now, aren't you? I can tell."
Aural refused to give it to him, but didn't trust herself to speak.
"It's all right to be afraid," he said. "I'm always nervous myself before I begin. It's good, though, it helps to heighten the sensations."
Not a word, Aural vowed to herself From here on, no matter what he did, she wouldn't cry out, she wouldn't speak, she wouldn't so much as grunt for him. Whatever he had in mind, he would have to do it by himself, she would not help him.
He was rummaging through the leather sack, taking out the candles and a carton of cigarettes. Suddenly he clamped his hand to his swollen eye and bared his teeth as he groaned in pain and confusion. Aural watched him squeeze his good eye shut and sway back and forth on his knees.
He dropped one hand to the ground and continued to moan, hanging his head like a sick dog. When he straightened up at last, Aural could see tears on his face and he looked frightened, but whatever it was, it had passed. He sat back on his heels for a moment, gathering himself, then ripped open the carton of cigarettes.
Swann put a candle at Aural's head and another at her feet and a third behind her, then lit them. Like some kind of altar, she thought. And she was the sacrifice.
He turned off the lantern, and the shadows in the cave went crazy, dancing wildly in the flickering of the candles.
The darkness closed in around them and Aural could no longer make out the ceiling or the walls. There was only her, only Swann, only the gyrating shadows to bear witness. Aural's world had shrunk to a little fold of light in the universal blackness and she was at the center of the earth.
Swann lit a cigarette and coughed. "Filthy things," he said. "I don't understand why anybody smokes them.
Don't they know cigarettes can kill you?" He giggled as if he had suddenly realized what he had said. He looked her in the face and grinned. "They do kill, you know.
Eventually."
Aural tried to study him, to keep her eyes on his eyes and to ignore whatever else he was doing. She wanted to kill her imagination, to keep it from killing her. Whatever would happen would happen anyway, and anticipation would only make it worse. She stared at the asshole, whose eyes were dancing gleefully. He's insane, she thought. He knows exactly what he's doing, but he's as mad as he can be.
Swann puffed on the cigarette several times until he was contented with the glowing ember.
"Shall we begin?" he asked.
"Shit, yes, let's get on with it," Aural said, forgetting her vow of silence already.
"I usually like to start with the legs," he said, stroking her shin.
Aural jerked away but he held her tightly, giving her a stern look of reprimand. When she stopped resisting, he ran his fingers over her calf like an acupuncturist seeking just the right spot.
He found the spot, then held the cigarette over her skin, just close enough so that she could feel the heat.
Fuck you, Aural thought wildly. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You want me to beg, you want me to cry, you want me to piss myself out of fear.
Well, fuck you, you get none of it, none of it.
He pressed the cigarette into her flesh and she screamed. She realized very soon that she would give him everything he wanted.
Hatcher came announced this time, without pretense. He called and asked Becker for an appointment, and when he arrived he was accompanied by Karen and Gold and an agent from the Behavioral Sciences group whose purview included serial killers. Becker vaguely recognized the man.
Becker met them in his front yard, golf club in hand.
He'd been hitting plastic golf balls over the roof of the house and into the backyard with a pitching wedge.
As Hatcher and the others stepped out of the car, Becker lofted a perfect shot over the house, then he turned and thrust the golf club into Hatcher's hands before allowing him to speak.
"Try one," Becker said. "Aim just left of the chimney."
Hatcher did not demur. He knew Becker wanted to make him look foolish and he was willing to oblige if that was the price to get what he wanted. He knew he would probably have to debase himself further before he was finished.
Becker teed a ball into position and Hatcher dutifully il@ swiped at it, swinging stiffly in his suit. He missed the ball completely the first time, and tried again immediately as if the first attempt had been just for practice, hoping that his flub was not as obvious to the others as it was to him.
On his second swing, Hatcher buried the head of the club in turf, disconnecting a sizable chunk of sod "So sorry," Hatcher said, staring at the clod of dirt and grass that he had just unearthed. It looked like a bad toupee unaccountably dyed green.
He looked at Karen. "So very sorry."
"It's not your game," Becker said in a tone that implied that he was intent on continuing to humiliate Hatcher until he discovered the game that was his.
"I seem to have-" Hatcher bent over, thinking to retrieve and replace the severed turf, then stopped, wondering if calling further attention to it only made matters worse. Gold and the Behavioral Sciences man moved away from the lawn towards the porch, trying to disassociate themselves from the incident entirely.
"Jack does things like that all the time," Becker said.
Gold thought he sounded enormously pleased. He removed the club from Hatcher's hands as if taking a dangerous toy from a child. It was not lost on Hatcher that Jack was only ten years old.
They proceeded into the house and arranged themselves in a living room that could comfortably seat only four. As if seeking the supplicant's chair, Hatcher sat on a leathercovered footstool that was a reproduction of a cobbler's seat, a piece of furniture used more for decoration than utility. The footstool forced Hatcher's knees higher than his waist, so that he looked like an adult at parents' night at grade school, sitting uncomfortably at the desk of his child.