The Penalty Box (21 page)

Slowly, deliberately, she drew her feet up, planting them on the bed. Then she let her legs fall open in casual, playful invitation. She had never done this before, acted the wanton seductress in full daylight. She watched as a change came over Paul's face, transforming him from man to devouring beast, his gaze on her so hungry, so greedy, that she shuddered. Teasing, Katie tried to clasp her legs back together, but Paul dropped down on the bed, prying them apart. Grasping her hands and holding them fast above her head, he drove into her full force. Katie screamed, pain and pleasure mingling as they began their frenzied coupling.

He loosened his grip on her hands, and Katie instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips, her nails clawing at him.

“Now” she yelled, her hands beating out her frustration on his back.
“Now!”

“You make me wild,” Paul rasped, teeth tearing at her throat as he increased his tempo. He was pounding in and out of her with such force Katie could feel herself being slammed into a whole other dimension. Pain was pleasure, pleasure pain as he drove into her again and again, their screams mounting as they vaulted from mere mortality to unbound ecstasy.
Yes!
Katie thought, feeling closer to him than she ever had to any human being in her life. This was certainly
not
high school.

Katie sprang up, clutching the bed sheet to her chest. What the hell was her mother doing home? She was supposed to be away all day with her church ladies! Why was it that Mina could do half the high school football team on her lunch hour and no one was ever the wiser? So much for the good girl being bad. . . . Katie flew across the room, locking her bedroom door just as her mother reached the other side, jiggling the knob.

“Katie? Are you all right?”

“I—I'm sick, Ma.” Paul, propped up on one elbow in her narrow bed, was watching her with an amused smile. Katie scowled. This wasn't funny!

“Honey, why is the door locked?”

Katie pressed her eyes shut. She'd have more privacy in a women's prison.

“Katie?” Her mother tried the door again.

“Just a minute, Ma. You woke me up.”

She gestured for Paul to get into the closet. He feigned not understanding. Katie shook her fist at him. Taking the hint, Paul swung his legs over the side of the bed and sauntered over to her closet, quietly closing the door behind him.

Katie sprang into action, kicking their clothing under the bed, opening the window a crack to rid the room of the pungent aroma of sex, and giving herself a quick spritz of perfume
down there
. Then she threw on her robe. “Coming, Ma.” Putting on what she hoped was a listless expression, she unlocked the door.

“Oh, Katie.” Her mother charged inside, eyes brimming with concern. “Just look at you. Pupils dilated, face flushed”—she put her hand to Katie's forehead—“and burning up with a sweaty fever to boot. I'm calling Dr. Vreeland.”

“Mom, I'm fine.”
Was that Paul laughing?
“What are you doing home so early?” Katie asked loudly. “I thought you were spending the day in Hartford.”

“We had to come back. Mrs. Simon had the runs.” She smiled at Katie. “You remember Mrs. Simon, don't you? She babysat for you when you were small.”

“Sure I remember: she thought a six-year-old would want borscht as an after-school snack. How could I forget?” Wrapping an arm around her mother's shoulders, Katie steered her toward the door. “No offense, Mom, but I really need to lie down.” She added a fake cough for good measure.

“I'm sorry to have disturbed you, sweetie. But I heard you moaning—”

“I was having a nightmare.”

“My poor baby. How about I make you some tea?”

Katie stalled. “Tea . . . might be . . . nice.” She looked around, trapped. Would that be enough time for Paul to climb out the window? It would have to be.

“Good.” Her mother seemed happy to be able to pamper her. “Tea it is!”

Smiling wanly, Katie escorted her mother out onto the upstairs landing, watching as she made her way downstairs. As soon as she heard the tap running in the kitchen she dashed back into her room, closing the door.

“The coast is clear,” she whispered. She waited. Inch by inch the closet door slowly opened and Paul emerged, swiping at his eyes. Katie was right: he'd been laughing himself silly.

“Nightmare?” he hooted.

“Shut up!” Katie shushed at him. “We don't have much time.”

“For what?”

“You to climb out the window.”

Paul's jollity faded.
“What?”

“The window, the window,” Katie repeated, gesturing wildly at it as if he might not know what she was referring to. She threw the sash open wide, peering below. “You can shimmy down the trellis.”

Paul joined her at the window, surveying the situation. “That trellis doesn't look like it'd support a rosebush, never mind a full grown man.”

“Do you enjoy giving the neighborhood a show?”

“What? Oh.” Paul covered himself and backed away. “Good catch.”

“Mina used to climb down this trellis all the time. You'll be fine,” Katie insisted, as she fixed him with a pleading stare. “You don't have a choice.”

“Yeah, I do,” Paul snorted. “I can put on my clothes, walk downstairs, say hi to your mom, and leave.”

“You can't,” Katie insisted. “Then she'll
know
.”

“Know what? You sleep over my house all the time!”

“She'll know—you know—that we've done it—
here
.”

Paul looked perplexed. “Yeah? And?”

“You don't know my mother. It would shatter her if she thought I was being immoral under her roof. I'm the good one, remember?”

“We're all adults, Katie. I'm sure your mother has seen and heard a lot worse.”

“That's my point,” said Katie, dropping to her knees to pull their crumpled clothing out from under the bed. “I don't want her thinking I'm like Mina.”

“She won't think that.”

Katie thrust his clothes at him. “Please, Paul. I swear I'll never ask you to do anything like this again. Just please go out the window.”

“You need help, you know?” Paul muttered, stepping into his briefs. “Seriously.”

Katie nodded fervently. She'd agree to anything he said, as long as he put his clothes on and disappeared before her mother returned. She popped her head out the window again. He could just crawl down the trellis, walk up the street and drive off in his car.

Paul was dressed. “What about my coat?” he asked. “And my boots? You want me to climb down into the snow in my
socks
?”

“I'll bring them to you later today, okay?”

“You owe me, lady.” He drew her into his arms. “You realize that, don't you?”

“Yes, yes,” Katie said quickly, kissing his nose. “Go! She'll be back any minute!”

“Relax,” said Paul, swinging his legs over the windowsill.

“Tea's on the way,” Katie's mother called up the stairs.

“Oh, God.” Katie wrung her hands. “Go, go. GO!”

One minute Paul was on the windowsill. The next there was the sound of cracking wood, followed by a strangulated scream. Katie thrust her head out the window: the trellis had ripped away from the side of the house. Paul lay beneath it on her mother's snow-covered driveway, writhing in agony as he clutched his left ankle.

“Aahhhhhh! SONAFABITCH! Ahhhhhh!”

“Shit,” Katie whispered. She hustled down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Her mother stood there with a steaming cup of tea in her right hand looking astonished. “Katie? Why is Paul van Dorn lying in our driveway screaming?”

 

 

“So much for
those cha cha lessons I was planning on this week.”

Katie shot Paul a sidelong glance, unsure if he was kidding or angry. It was hard to tell; his face was screwed up with concentration as he hobbled to her car on the crutches they'd just been forced to rent in the emergency room. His left foot was encased in an air cast. It was badly sprained, but not broken.
Thank God.

“I don't know what to say,” Katie murmured feebly, unlocking the car.

“You do realize this is the second time you're responsible for sending me to the emergency room, don't you?” Paul pointed out as he threw his crutches into the backseat.

“The first time was your own fault,” Katie replied, glancing away so he wouldn't see her wincing as he hopped two steps on one leg and maneuvered himself into the passenger seat.

“If your reflexes were faster you wouldn't have hit me,” Paul countered sweetly, closing the car door.

Katie smushed her face up against the window. “If you weren't such a retard, you wouldn't have run in front of my car in the first place,” she said. She marched over to her side of the car and slid behind the wheel. She'd already put the car into drive and was wheeling out of the hospital parking lot when she noticed Paul grinning at her.

“What?”

“You called me a ‘retard,' ” he said tenderly. “Does this mean you care?”

“Bite me, van Dorn.”

“Again?”

Heat flashed though Katie's body. “You're bad.”

“I try.”

They drove in silence for a few blocks. Finally Katie burst. “Okay, I'm sorry! It was nuts to make you climb out the window!”

“Ah, the things we do for love,” Paul mused.

Katie nearly smashed into the car in front of her. That word. The
L
word, as unexpected as a snowstorm in June. Did he mean it? Or was he just using the expression as a figure of speech? Probably the latter, but what if he meant it? That would be . . . not good. Because if he loved her, he'd expect her to love him back, and while she did,
just a little bit
, she was still leaving. She was outta Tinytown in eight more months and no one was going to interfere with that—

“Can I point something out?” Paul asked, oblivious to the tempest he'd created inside her.

Katie swallowed. “What's that?”

“Well, thanks to the wonders of gravity, your mother found out about our little sexcapade anyway. So my climbing out the window was all for nothing.”

“If the trellis hadn't pulled away from the house, she'd be none the wiser.”

Paul leveled her with a stare. “Despite my jacket and boots in the coat closet?”

He had a point.

“Maybe I'll sue you,” he murmured, gazing out the passenger window.

“Feel free.”

He turned back to her. “At least I wasn't naked. If this were a sitcom, I would have been naked.”

Katie laughed. “Yeah, and there would have been an old woman outside pruning her flowers who would have fainted.”

“I love it when you laugh,” Paul confessed. “It's like your whole being lights up. I know that sounds lame, but it's true.”

“Thank you,” Katie managed, trying to ignore the burning sensation that came to her cheeks. How was it possible for her to bask in his praise,
adore
it even, yet at the same time wish it away?

Paul was right: she needed help.

 

 

Bitsy had barely
slid into their usual booth at Tabitha's before, ”Okay, what happened to Paul?” shot out of her mouth. All of Didsbury knew their local hero had hurt his ankle. Luckily for Katie, no one knew
how
, which was a minor miracle.

Katie clutched her coffee mug. “He twisted it on the ice. Coaching.”

Bitsy and Denise exchanged glances.

“Honey, don't ever think of going to Hollywood,” said Denise, patting Katie's hand. “You can't act worth a damn.”

“
C'mon
,” Bitsy whined. “We're your
friends
. Spill it.”

Katie sighed. “He was climbing out of my bedroom window and was supposed to shinny down the trellis, but the trellis broke and he plunged to the ground below.”

Bitsy stared hard into her drink. “I see.”

“Go ahead and laugh. I know you want to.”

Bitsy threw back her head and howled.

Katie turned to Denise. “Go on. Don't you want to laugh?”

Denise feigned offense, splaying her manicured, man-sized hands over her heart. “Laugh at another's misfortune? Never. Though I am curious as to why he had to climb out your bedroom window.”

“My mother came home.”

“So?”

“I didn't want her to know we'd been fooling around,” Katie mumbled.

Denise pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Are you saying your mommy doesn't know you've been playing ‘Poke the Rutabaga' with Paul?”

Katie reddened. “It's a long story.”

“I'll bet it is.”

“Actually, Denise, maybe you can help me with something.”

“At your service,” said Denise, breaking off a piece of brownie.

“Well, after Paul was released from the hospital”—this sent Bitsy into a fresh gale of laughter that no glare from Katie could stop—“I apologized for what happened and he said, ‘Oh, the things we do for love.' ”

“Uh huh.” Denise looked blank.

“Well, do you think he meant it?” Katie asked. “Or do you think it was just a figure of speech?”

Denise looked confused. “Why are you asking me?”

“Well, you used to be a man.”

“A man trapped in a woman's body,” Denise pointed out emphatically. “There's a difference.”