“I was just kidding. You can’t go.”
The monster held Billy upside down by his leg while it dropped the quarter into the little metal box on the nightstand.
Billy flailed in the air, screaming and clawing at the demon, ripping his fingernails against its scales. The monster took Billy into its arms like a teddy bear and lay back on the bed. Its feet hung off the end and nearly touched the dresser on the opposite wall.
Billy could not scream; there was no breath for a scream. The monster let go with one arm and placed one long claw at Billy’s ear.
“Don’t you just love Magic Fingers?” it said. Then it drove the claw though Billy’s brain.
18
RACHEL
After Merle died and Rachel observed a respectable period of mourning, which was precisely the same amount of time it took the courts to transfer Merle’s property to her, she sold the Cessna and the trailer, bought herself a Volkswagen van, and on the advice of the women at the shelter, headed for Berkeley. In Berkeley, they insisted, she would find a community of women who could help her stay off the wheel of abuse. They were right.
The women in Berkeley welcomed Rachel with open arms. They helped her find a place to live, enrolled her in exercise and self-actualization courses, taught her to defend herself, nurture herself, and most important, to respect herself. She lost weight and grew strong. She thrived.
Within a year she took the remainder of her inheritance and bought a lease on a small studio adjacent to the University of California campus and began teaching high-intensity aerobics. She soon gained a reputation as a tough, domineering bitch of an instructor. There was a waiting list to get into her classes. The fat little girl had come into her own as a beautiful and powerful woman.
Rachel taught six classes a day, putting herself through the rigors of each workout along with her students. After a few months of that regimen, she fell ill, waking one morning to find that she had just enough strength to call the women in her classes to cancel, and no more. One of her students, a statuesque, gray-haired woman in her forties named Bella, appeared at Rachel’s door a few hours later.
Once through the door Bella began giving orders. “Take off your clothes and get back in bed. I’ll bring you some tea in a moment.” Her voice was deep and strong, yet somehow soothing. Rachel did as she was told. “I don’t know what you think you’ve done to deserve the punishment you are giving yourself, Rachel,” Bella said, “but it has to stop.”
Bella sat on the edge of Rachel’s bed and watched while Rachel drank the tea. “Now lie on your stomach and relax.”
Bella applied fragrant oil to Rachel’s back and began rubbing, first with long, slow strokes that spread the oil, then gradually digging her fingers into the muscles until Rachel thought she would cry out in pain. When the message was finished, Rachel felt even more exhausted than before. She fell into a deep sleep.
When Rachel awoke, Bella repeated the process, forcing Rachel to drink the bitter tea, then kneading her muscles until they ached. Again, Rachel slept.
When Rachel awoke the fourth time, Bella again served her the tea, but this time she had Rachel lie on her back to receive her massage. Bella’s hands played gently over her body, lingering between her legs and on her breasts. Through the drugged haze of the tea, Rachel noticed that the older woman was almost naked and had rubbed her own body with the same fragrant oils that she used on Rachel.
It didn’t occur to Rachel to resist. Since Bella had come through the door, she had been giving orders and Rachel had obeyed. In the dim light of Rachel’s little apartment they became lovers. It had been two years since Rachel had been with a man. Trading soft caresses with Bella, she didn’t care if she was ever again.
When Rachel was back on her feet, Bella introduced her to a group of women who met at Bella’s house once a week to perform ceremonies and rituals. Among these women Rachel learned about a new power she carried within herself, the power of the Goddess. Bella tutored her in the machinations of white magic and soon Rachel was leading the coven in rituals, while Bella looked on like a proud mother.
“Modulate your voice,” Bella told her. “No matter what you are saying it should sound like a chant to the Goddess. The coven should be taken with the chant. That is the meaning of enchantment, my dear.”
Rachel gave up her apartment and moved into Bella’s restored Victorian house near the U.C. campus. For the first time in her life, she felt truly happy. Of course, it didn’t last.
One afternoon she came home to find Bella in bed with a bald and bewhiskered professor of music. Rachel was livid. She threatened the professor with a fireplace poker and chased him, half-naked, into the street. He exited clutching his tweed jacket and corduroy slacks in front of him.
“You said you loved me!” Rachel screamed at Bella.
“I do love you, dear.” Bella did not seem the least bit upset. Her voice was deep and modulated like a chant. “This was about power, not love.”
“If I wasn’t filling your needs, you should have said something.”
“You are the most wonderful lover I have known, dear Rachel. But Dr. Mendenhall holds the mortgage on our house. That loan is interest free, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“You whore!”
“Aren’t we all, dear?”
“I’m not.”
“You are. I am. The Goddess is. We all have our price. Be it love, or money, or power, Rachel. Why do you think the women in your exercise classes put themselves through so much pain?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Answer me,” Bella demanded. “Why?”
“They want a sound body. They want a strong vessel to carry a strong spirit.”
“They don’t give a rat’s ass about a strong spirit. They want a tight ass so men will want them. They will deny it to the death, but it’s true. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will realize your own power.”
“You’re sick. This goes against everything you’ve ever taught me.”
“This is the most important thing I ever will teach you, so listen! Know your price, Rachel.”
“No.”
“You think I’m some cheap slut, do you? You think you’re above selling yourself? How much rent have you ever paid here?”
“I offered. You said it didn’t matter. I loved you.”
“That’s your price, then.”
“It’s not. It’s love.”
“Sold!” Bella climbed out of bed and strode across the room, her long gray hair flying behind her. She took her robe from the closet, threw it around herself, and tied the sash. “Love me for what I am, Rachel. Just as I love you for what you are. Nothing has changed. Dr. Mendenhall will be back, whimpering like a puppy. If it will make you feel better, you can be the one that takes him. Maybe we can do it together.”
“You’re sick. How could you even suggest such a thing?”
“Rachel, as long as you see men as human beings, we are going to have a problem. They are inferior beings, incapable of love. How could a few moments of animal friction with a subhuman affect us? What we have between us?”
“You sound like a man caught with his pants down.”
Bella sighed. “I don’t want you around the others until you calm down. There’s some money in my jewelry box. Why don’t you take it and go down to Esalen for a week or so. Think this over. You’ll feel better when you get back.”
“What about the others?” Rachel asked. “How do you think they’ll feel when they find out that all the magic, all the spiritualism you preach, is just so much bullshit?”
“Everything is true. They follow me because they admire my power. This is part of that power. I haven’t betrayed anyone.”