Helltown - Jeremy Bates Page 0,64

do that, I didn’t hurt you, so don’t cry, don’t do that.”

“I wanna…go home,” she said between sobs, throwing herself on his mercy.

“I can’t let you go, I’d get in trouble, I’d get in real trouble, my brother would be madder than...he’d be really mad.”

He was still patting her head. It was driving her crazy.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Stop touching me!”

“Hey!” he said, recoiling from her. “I didn’t hurt you, I was just petting you, there’s nothing wrong with petting, I’m allowed to do that.”

Cherry forced herself to calm down. The crying was making her lungs heave inside the iron maiden. She half expected to begin vomiting blood at any moment.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Earl grumbled, getting to his feet.

“Wait…” she said. “Wait…”

He frowned down at her.

“I need…the bathroom…”

“You gotta hold it in until my brother gets here.”

“I can’t.”

“You gotta.”

“Please?”

Earl twisted his mouth indecisively. “A deal?” he said. “Okay? I let you go, I let you use the bathroom, you let me kiss you, that’s the deal. Okay?”

Cherry didn’t know if he was joking or not.

“Okay?” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

Grinning hideously, he bent over, gripped her beneath the arms, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing.

She resisted the urge to cry out; she didn’t want to scare him off.

“I can kiss you?” he said.

“After…I go.”

“I wanna kiss you now.” Without waiting for her to answer he knelt before her, tilted her chin upward with his hand—on his knees he was still taller than she—and pressed his lips against hers. They were wet with beer. The stubble around them prickled her skin. She kept her mouth squeezed shut until he pulled away. He grinned at her proudly.

“Bathroom?” she said.

“Can we do it again? Can I kiss you again? Just one more time, real quick, can I?”

“After I go to the bathroom,” she said.

“Okay, after you go, but you promised, you promised I can kiss you again.” He heaved himself to his feet and got all the way to his armchair before realizing she wasn’t following him. He glared at her. “What’s wrong? The bathroom’s this way.”

“I can’t walk,” she told him. “You need to untie my feet.”

“I can’t do that, I’m not allowed, but you can hop, like a rabbit.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I gotta carry you, is what I gotta do, I gotta carry you, that okay?”

“No!” she said, and began to penguin-walk. When she waddled past Earl, he placed his hand on her shoulder, gently, the way one might guide a young child, or a blind person.

They left the living room this way, the captured leading the dumb, and followed a hallway barren of pictures or any other décor. A 1960s-looking kitchen opened to the right. The bathroom was across from it. The hall ended another ten feet or so farther on at a windowless door she hoped led outside.

Cherry extended her arms in front of her so Earl could untie the rope. He stared at her.

“You need to untie my hands,” she told him. It felt as though she were speaking between sausages instead of lips. Even so, she was feeling better, stronger, more clearheaded. She suspected the adrenaline coursing through her veins had something to do with that.

Earl shook his head. “I told you, don’t you listen, I said I can’t untie you, not your feet, not your hands, I’m not allowed.”

“How am I supposed to use the toilet?”

“You can still use your hands, they’re just stuck together, that’s all. You can still pull up your skirt. Look.” He demonstrated, pressing his wrists together, as if they were handcuffed, and groping for her skirt.

“Stop it!” she told him, alarmed. She shuffled into the bathroom and elbowed the door closed. “Don’t look.”

Earl stuck his foot between the door and the jamb. The door bounced off his boot. “I have to watch,” he said. “My brother, he said tie her up and don’t let her outta your sight, so I can’t let you outta my sight, I gotta watch.”

“I need privacy.”

“My brother said—”

“I won’t kiss you again. Not if you watch me.”

For a brief moment it was as though a black veil had lowered in front of Earl’s face, and she feared he was going to strike her. But then the veil lifted and he said, “If I don’t look, you’ll kiss me?”

“Yes.”

“Two times?”

“Once.”

“Two times?”

“Fine.”

Earl removed his foot. Cherry elbowed the door closed again. To her dismay she discovered there was no lock. She voiced this.

“So?” Earl’s voice came back.

“Don’t peek! If you peek, I’m not kissing you.”

“You promised!” He tried