Mean Streak
“I don’t mean to.”
“But you do anyway.”
“Why? I’m not going to hurt you.”
“If that’s true, then let me call my husband—”
“No.”
“—and tell him that I’m al
l right.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been through this. I’m tired of talking about it. I’m also tired of going outside to pee against a damn tree, which I’ve been doing all afternoon so I wouldn’t disturb your rest. But now I’m going into the bathroom to use the commode and grab a shower. Make yourself at home. Snoop to your heart’s content,” he said, spreading his arms wide at his sides. “The place is all yours.”
He collapsed the screen with several loud claps of wood against wood and set it in its original position against the wall. “It stays here.”
At the door of the bathroom, he switched on the light, but before going in, he turned back. “You wouldn’t make it ten yards beyond the door before getting lost, and I don’t feel like going after you tonight. So deep-six any plans you have to bolt.”
Then he went into the bathroom.
As soon as he’d closed the door behind him, she retrieved the laptop from the sofa, where he’d placed it when he set the table for their supper. She sat down with it at the dining table, raised the top, woke it up, and placed the cursor in the box for the password.
Her fingers settled on the home keys. And stayed there. How could she possibly guess what his password was when she knew absolutely nothing about the man? Not his name, birthday, hometown, occupation, hobby. Nothing.
She tried dozens of combinations anyway, some with military themes, most of them ridiculous, but, as expected, none was successful in unlocking the computer.
“Damn it!”
“No luck?”
Startled, she turned around in the seat of the chair, not having heard him leave the bathroom. He was wearing only his jeans and was carrying his boots, socks, and sweater. If she’d thought he was intimidating before, he was even more so like this. Damp hair. Barefoot. Bare-chested.
Flustered, she turned back to the laptop, none too gently lowered the cover, and stood up. “Go to hell.”
“You said that already.”
“And I meant it.”
She walked around him and headed for the bathroom.
“I saved you some hot water.”
She slammed the door and went to flip the lock, only to discover there wasn’t one.
Longing for a shower, lured by the clean smell of his soap and shampoo but afraid of being naked, she settled for washing out of the basin with one of his damned neatly folded washcloths. She dabbed it against her blood-matted hair, but it did little to break up the scab and, besides, it hurt.
Hanging on a hook on the back of the door was the flannel shirt she’d slept in last night. She’d changed back into her running clothes before he’d returned that morning, but now she couldn’t resist replacing them with the shirt.
She also yielded to the temptation of using his hairbrush on the parts of her head not affected by the sore goose egg and scab. However, the intimacy implied by that was unsettling. She cleaned her teeth with her index finger.
She switched out the light before opening the door. He was sitting in the recliner, reading a paperback book by the light of the lamp. In her absence, he’d put on a plain white T-shirt and white socks. He didn’t raise his head or otherwise acknowledge that she was there.
She slipped between the sheets and removed her tights, then rolled onto her side to face the wall.