baby—the toughest.”
“Good. Because I can be macho too you know. I can belch or fart or punch an animal if you want.”
“Please don’t.” She pulled away and took hold of his arm to start lap number two.
They strolled a good twenty yards more, periodically glancing left at the lit cabins before shifting their gaze east to become entranced once more by the lake’s reflection of the moon.
“Beautiful night for a walk,” a male voice said to their left.
They stopped. Patrick smiled and said, “Sure is.”
Amy squinted and leaned forward towards the voice. When her eyes settled she recoiled as if a bug had flown in her face. She spun into Patrick.
“It’s him,” she said.
Patrick looked down at his wife, then up at the wooden porch from where the man had greeted them. The porch was roughly ten feet away, three small stairs leading up to it. The man who had addressed them was leaning against a banister and periodically flicking a metal wind chime that hung just above and in front of his face. The man’s head was shaved and he was leering, not smiling, at the couple.
“Who?” Patrick asked.
“Him from the store. From Giant. From the fucking window in our bedroom!”
Patrick stared at his wife in disbelief. The man flicked the wind chime again, the ding lifting Patrick’s head towards him once more. He spoke to Amy but kept his eyes on the man on the porch. “What? Are you sure?”
Amy held on to Patrick’s hand with a death-grip and stepped forward, her husband’s arm like a rope while scaling down a mountain. She squinted again. The man with the shaved took a step forward, took a bow, and blew her a kiss.
Motherfucker.
Patrick ripped his arm away from Amy and charged the porch, only to stop instantly on the first step. The man had drawn a gun, Patrick’s head the target. Patrick stood frozen in mid-stride, like a child playing a game of Red light, Green light.
“Whoa, easy there, stud,” the man with the shaved head said. “You’ve got an awfully mean look in your eyes. I’d hate to have to shoot them out.”
Patrick remained still. Amy’s heavy breathing could be heard behind his back. The man with the gun shifted his head to the left and looked past Patrick, towards the heavy breathing.
“Hey, lover,” the man said to Amy. “I take it you remember me then?”
Amy said nothing. She had chosen, like her husband, to stay frozen and silent while the gun was still up and pointed in their direction.
“Of course you do,” the man continued. “I mean a woman who gets that worked up over a few harmless words in a supermarket isn’t likely to forget so easily.” The man kept the gun up, turned his head and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. He’d started to salivate. “But if you ask me, that was nothing to how worked up you were last night when this stud right here was pumpin’ away between those sexy little legs of yours.”
Patrick clenched his jaw. His body was twitching now, begging to let his common sense disappear so he could rush forward at all costs. The man with the shaved head cocked the gun’s trigger, his leer becoming a laugh.
“Am I pissin’ you off, big man? Is it pissin’ you off that I saw your slutty little wife riding your pole, her beautiful titties bouncing up and down like—” He moaned. “—like two scoops of fuck yeah?” He wiped his mouth again, continued leering. “Because I know it would piss me off. I mean if some guy hit on my woman in a supermarket, then returned later that night to watch her get fucked? Jeeeesus would I be pissed.”
Patrick, slow and deliberate, took two steps backwards and stood upright. He paused, then chanced a few more steps until he was beside his wife. He maneuvered Amy behind him to shield her.
“Well maybe you’re not so pissed after all,” the man said after Patrick backed off. “Me? I would have ran up on this porch and taught me a lesson.”
The words were out of Patrick’s mouth before he could snatch them back. “Put that gun down and I’ll show you how pissed off I am.”
The man with the shaved head held the gun up to his face, gave it a curious look and said, “What? This? Is this the reason you won’t grow a pair and come on up to defend your wife’s honor?”
Patrick said nothing.
“You’re thinking I’d shoot you if