DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
thatcraftykid
track three // “BREATHE”
LEAVE / BUT DON’T LEAVE ME
“Kiss won’t kill me,” he murmurs. Have her like any other woman,
he tells himself, and he won’t feel so much like a molester.
– Logan –
Logan doesn’t get out of bed until he hears the screen door clank shut and her footsteps, sliding slightly on dewy grass, fade into the forest. A muggy breeze has been blowing through his window since before dawn, making the sheet stick to his back as he sits up and throws his legs over the side.
Snow’s been melting steadily the last two weeks or so, but temperatures haven’t gotten nearly this high. It’s as if the Chinook wind decided to disregard nature and migrate north just to mark a difference between last night and this morning. An especially obnoxious metaphor.
Still decompressing, he rubs the sleeplessness from his face. As he stands, his narrowed eyes go straight for the thin leather gloves balled up on his nightstand.
How had something so premeditated, so inevitable turned out so fucked up?
A bitter mix of her frustration and fear lingers. Nothing at all like the heady scent of reckless lust that hit his room before Marie even reached his doorway last night, wearing nothing but satin and hard-won flannel. He wore socks and drawstring pants with an open front. The gloves he’d bought were in the drawer with the condoms.
So premeditated.
“Can’t sleep after all, sugar,” she said, toes sliding up her ankle. Fanned out the cards. “Wanna finish our game?” All they did, day and night, was play games. Lively games over arbitrary spoils. Them-vs.-it games, her-vs.-him games. Teasing games with pointed words and arched looks. Cat and mouse games from taunting proximities. Look but don’t touch games. Just an hour before, Texas Hold ’Em in front of a fireplace Marie complained was too hot. She stripped her shirt and added it to the pot.
So inevitable.
No need to keep score, he told her, since she was standing in his doorway. He’d won. Marie let the deck fly as she padded to his bed. He sat back, letting her crawl on top. “Still can’t touch,” she replied, a warning and a challenge. In the clear light of day, Logan can pinpoint that as the moment when sass and daring faltered.
He liked her in the lead; he liked the way her scent kaleidoscoped as she felt out the angles, what exactly she could get away with. A part of him recognized her seduction as an act. It never occurred to him that she wouldn’t eventually be able to bluff her way through the real thing. Yet, for all her enthusiasm, her pace was uncertain, her groping hesitant. Even he, to whom self-denial is a particular sort of pleasure, couldn’t take the fumbling. It aged him.
When he had her on her back, awkwardly rubbing against his leather-encased fingers, he traced a nipple through cotton, slid his shirt to the side. He bent his head, his breath just a whisper against the skin of her breast.
And she flinched. An accusatory, condemnatory full-body flinch.
“Don’t – Just don’t touch me,” she groaned, trying to bring back the rhythm. A half-hearted and futile attempt. Nothing to do but back away, because this time he couldn’t get past taking it personal. Her breathless apologies were on behalf of her skin. The hands clutching his button-down closed to the collar, though, that couldn’t be aimed at anyone but him.
Stumbling out of his bed, Marie made the defeated walk back up her loft. Leaving Logan alone with a slicken pair of gloves and a hard-on that hadn’t waned despite stomach-turning rejection. Even under the spray of cold water, he had to finish himself off. Marie wasn’t a new subject of his masturbatory fantasies, but this was…
So fucked up.
Fallen cards mock him with unfulfilled possibilities as he shoves himself into his jeans and buttons up his shirts.
Biscuits and gravy, saran-wrapped to keep warm, are set out on the kitchen table for him, along with a note telling him Marie’s gone for a morning walk, wants him to enjoy his breakfast, and has something special planned for dinner if he doesn’t mind running into town for her. Her loopy handwriting is cheerful and the biscuits are extra fluffy.
Logan reads between the lines – last night never happened.
Marie hasn’t returned by the time he finishes breakfast, not unusual. If he’s a little grateful, a little quick to grab his keys, he won’t acknowledge it to himself.
It’s a solid forty-five minutes to the nearest grocery store, and in that time he decides there are only two ways to defend himself against a twenty-one-year-old vixen with a mean streak and a heavy load of baggage. He can either go back to countering her teasing with gruffness, or he can go on the offensive. Former’s the honorable thing, latter’s the more appealing. There’s a simpler third option, of course, only he’s not in the mood for the road.
Quagmire preoccupies him as he walks through Palmer’s, crowded for this time of the morning, and starts shopping.
Too easily aggravated, Logan stares down at the plastic bottles in his hands. Hell if he knows the difference between extra-virgin and virgin olive oil, and this week’s grocery list of demands, usually so gallingly specific, offers no illumination.
A middle-aged woman in a t-shirt that emblazons “Hockey Mom” across her weighty chest putters around the condiments. For a second, he thinks to ask for her help; then he scowls at himself and slams the extra-virgin back onto the shelf – on principle, he’s never been a fan of anything virginal, much less in excess. Hockey Mom gives him a startled once-over and scuttles over to the next aisle to leer at him from a safer distance.
He makes a noise halfway between a growl and a sigh. Six more items. Marie might as well be running a bed and breakfast, way she makes a production out of every meal for two. Calls it practice.
Logan puts a tally in the “appealing” category, remembering the way she winked, longneck Molson Dry dangling from satin-covered fingertips, and told him she was using him as much for his stomach as his wallet. When he asked her if that was all, her lips took on a curve that was wicked in contrast to her wide-eyed expression: “I think of any other use for you, sugar, I’ll let you know straight away.”
Unrepentant tease.
Boneless chicken breasts are the last thing he picks up before hauling his basket to the checkout line. While Logan has long been an admirer of quality breasts, legs, and thighs, lately it’s turned into a preoccupation. Makes it so he can’t see straight. Tally for the “honorable” category, questionable motives aside –
“…runaway from the states.” A cop just shy of elderly stands at the till, holding up a photograph to the store owner, Mac Palmer.
Logan can only see the back of the picture, but his blood runs cold so he knows. All this time, not a mention in any newspaper, not a blip on any radar – but he knows.
“Name’s Anna Marie D’Ancanto. Would’ve had a Southern accent. She might’ve passed through here just over three weeks ago. Held up a bar in Laughlin City, took two grand.”
“Two grand?” Mac whistles lowly.
Twenty-two hundred, Marie might’ve corrected, if she were here. But she hasn’t left his property since he brought her there. She can’t be recognized. He has to repeat that to himself.
“What makes you think she made her way through High Level?”
“Girl was seen heading west in a blue and white truck with man in his thirties the morning after the incident.”
Another low whistle. “Little girls and old bastards, no good ever came of that. No sign of ’em?”
“Truck was found burning on the highway just east of here, no remains.” The officer’s responses so far sound like he’s memorized the police blotter, but there’s more personal interest in his tone when he pushes the picture forward. “Take a good look. This girl ran away from a clinic. She’s a mutant and she’s dangerous.”
Mac shakes his head slowly. “No, like I said, doesn’t look familiar.”
“All right, Mr. Palmer. I got flyers, mind if I leave ’em for you to hang?”
“Sure, sure. Mm. What a business.”
Logan watches the officer out of the store, trying to guess where he’ll go next and how far the search has spread. If the law’s just now getting around to checking in High Level, seems likely that the clinic got word and is applying pressure. That means Marie has a shrinking window of opportunity to get to the western edge of Canada and across the boarder into Alaska without being seen.
None of the usual chitchat from Mac as he rings up Logan’s groceries, owing to the grimace etched deep in his face.
Dollars to donuts, the officer has his name, too, only he forgot to mention it. Next place, he might not forget, and a certain few people around town are in a position to put “Wolverine” together with “blue and white truck” and come up with general directions to his cabin. Marie could hide, maybe, but it’s better if she goes. No call for her getting anymore attached to an old bastard like him.
An extra stop before he heads back up to the cabin. The fake redhead behind the counter at the drug store glares at him over her magazine as he comes in through the automatic doors. First and last time he beds a woman in a town he actually plans to be seen in more than once a decade. He glances toward the bulletin board. No flyer yet.
The hair dye takes up four shelves on the back wall. He’s drawn to the shades of red, but Pauline’s brown-to-maroon fiasco makes him think twice. He goes for blonde instead, a honey tone he thinks might be pretty on Marie. He grabs her shampoo and conditioner and throws in a razor, just so his purchase is less noticeable.
Pauline’s register is the only one open. He nods as he sets down Marie’s stuff.
No two ways about it, from the plunging neckline to the paste-on nails, Pauline is stripper-by-night trashy. Logan’s entertained enough trash to be an expert at recognizing it. Only sort of woman he ever seems to attract.
She flips over the razor to find the barcode. “How’s the little thing you got secluded up in the mountains?”
He sets his jaw. Pauline worked when he bought things for Marie before. She made a crack about her being young because of some acne-fighting face wash, though, from the looks of it, Pauline could use some herself. Logan’s no good at guessing ages, but she’s got to have at least a decade on Marie. Probably more, now that it’s on his mind.
“Can’t be doin’ well. Roots’re showin’ through.” She rings up the hair dye with savage delight, then pauses at the shampoo. “You know this is for brunettes? Says it right here on the label. I’m happy to read it for you, since I know you can’t. Or maybe you just can’t read numbers.”
Logan’s only half-listening to her digs. Shit. That cop is going to walk through this door eventually, and Pauline is going to make his case.
He thinks of doing something drastic. Decides it won’t accomplish anything useful, personal satisfaction aside.
“Just ring it up.”
“No cause to be rude.” Pauline finishes the transaction with her trap closed, and Logan takes the plastic bag out to his black GMC and drops it on top of the groceries.
As he’s driving out of town he sees a cop car parked outside Sam’s, a garage he once ordered parts for his old truck through. If the shit hasn’t already hit the fan, it will soon. But there’s time, the afternoon at least. If they know Marie, then they know they’ll need plenty of reinforcements.
On the drive back to the cabin, his mind is occupied by escape routes. Marie could take the pickup, but he’s got two choppers left and either one would be less recognizable. He taught her to ride his ’53 Harley-Davidson Panhead and was impressed with how quick she took to it. She laughed – fair enough, motorcycles are easier to drive than jets. She can handle it on the open road. Put her in that helmet he never uses, and she’ll be about as inconspicuous as she can get.
A tree right on the edge of the dirt road to his cabin gives him an idea. Pulling the pickup into park, he pops out his claws and walks over. Five hard, pressure-releasing swipes and he’s whittled the base enough that he can topple the tree over and onto the road with a shove of his foot.
He gets back into his pickup. That should buy Marie a little time. Ground’s hard enough that she can off-road with the Harley until she gets to the back roads, and if there’s water left in the creek she can fly the damn thing across it.
Logan runs a hand through his hair. The lumberjacking helped, but anxiety’s got him again by the time he stops outside the cabin. Marie’s in there, and he has to tell her to leave. Twenty-five days ago, he wouldn’t have recognized the feeling at the pit of his stomach. Now he can name it: regret.
Nothing for it.
Hanging the grocery bags from his arms, Logan makes his way up the porch. The second he has the door open, he breathes in the smells of wood varnish, pond water, and Marie. He catches himself off guard by wondering how long it’ll take for the Marie smell to fade and how long he’ll be sniffing around for it after it’s gone.
He can’t break the news, thinking like that. Shouldn’t be thinking like that, regardless. Logan’s never had any designs on her future beyond the very near present.
The volume of the music coming from the back porch increases, and Marie’s voice, rich and jazzy, if off-key, fills the cabin in bursts of enthusiasm that trail off into hums: “‘Mississippi, in the middle of a dry spell. Jimmy Rogers, hm, hm, hmhm, up high …’”
Logan lets her serenade him while he deals with the groceries. Normally, he’d have her do it so she could earn the five bucks, but game’s up and he’s stalling for time. Food he’ll probably end up throwing out later put away, he sets aside the box of hair dye and heads to the porch.
“Marie – ”
The rest of his words die in his throat. The screen door hits against his arm. She’s wearing nothing but a pink bra and panties, still damp, so he can watch the crack of her ass as she shakes it to the beat of the guitar solo. Seems Marie’s cheerfulness isn’t about pretending last night never happened; she’s bound and determined to get another shot at him.
“Just a minute, sugar,” she says without turning around, dipping her brush into the bucket. “I just want to finish this one spot around the molding.” With that, she stretches to her tip-toes, lengthening her legs and lifting her ass.
Unrepentant tease, he thinks again, this time with a new apprehension. The girl in front of him will do a lot of things for money, and he can’t help but wonder what she’ll fall back on when waitressing doesn’t let her put away the savings she’ll need.
Marie sways as she paints, belting out, “‘Black velvet and that little boy’s smile. Black velvet in that slow, Southern style.’’” She spins on the canvas and drops to the balls of her feet, flecking clear varnish and bringing the handle of the paintbrush up like a microphone. “‘A new religion that’ll bring ’em to your knees. Black velvet – ’” Eyes scrunched closed, index finger up like Aretha Franklin, she pauses.
Logan remembers a girl covered neck to toe as he tries to figure how much he can blame himself for this transformation and whether or not she’ll remember him fondly for it.
“‘If you please,’” Marie croons, bringing her body down with her finger so that gravity almost forces her breasts from her see-through bra. With a flourish, she snaps back up, posing and grinning at him like a gymnast who just stuck the landing for a gold.
He’s leaned back against the doorframe, scowl in place. “Ain’t you supposed to have a pole for that kinda dance?”
Marie drops her hands to her hips and pretends to pout. “If you didn’t like the show, you can at least appreciate that your porch is finally getting weather-proofed. That’ll bring my total to one thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven dollars.” Pout turns into a grin. “And forty-two cents.”
“Uh-huh. Eight cents if you can tell me why you’re weather-proofin’ naked and have it make sense.”
“I’m not naked, Logan.” She hooks her thumb under the string of her panties. “No different than a bathing suit. See?”
“I’m seein’ plenty.”
She tugs at the end of her long, brown ponytail, straightening out the wet waves. “Anythin’ you like?”
He trails his eyes up and down flawlessly creamy, agonizingly untouchable skin. Calf to crown, a flush spreads where his eyes touch. The uneven rise and fall of her breasts is particularly compelling. Lust quickly replaces varnish as the dominant smell in the room.
Marie clears her throat delicately. The curve of her mouth turns from sweet to smug.
“You’re gettin’ fat,” he says, lying through his teeth. The leanness he attributed to the road has persisted, forcing him to wonder if that means she still has a time to go before she fills out.
Her smile widens, and she gives him a new angle of her breasts. “Thanks for noticing, sugar.”
She bends down to turn off the radio, and his eyes go straight to the juncture between her thighs, then drop to the wide strips of scar tissue that run down the upper portion of both her legs. Surgical, Marie admitted, though she refused to say more. Southaven, obviously. Doctors might not have laid their actual hands on her, even so, they left their marks plain enough.
She needs to go.
“I’ll have you know, I wasn’t lying in wait.” Tone casual now, she straightens and explains, “I just got out of the pond and figured I’d jump right back in to wash off when I’m done. Completely logical, so don’t you try to accuse me of any scheming – and I want my eight cents.”
“Marie, get dressed.”
The playfulness vanishes from her face. “Why?”
“Because I need to talk to you, and I can’t do it with you lookin’ like that.” He leaves the porch. She’s behind him before the door can close.
“Talk to me about what? Logan, what happened?”
“Get dressed.”
“Close your eyes, if you can’t talk to me like an adult. It’s not like you haven’t seen it.”
She’s right at his back, anger making her forget to keep her distance. Turning, his hands go to her head. He lets down her hair and arranges it over her shoulders. Lust turns to nervousness as he knew it would, because Marie can’t watch his bare hands moving behind her head.
Logan tilts her head back, gently. Bends down so they’re breathing the same air. “Kiss won’t kill me,” he murmurs. Have her like any other woman, he tells himself, and he won’t feel so much like a molester.
Tentatively, she raises fingernails to his beard, lightly brushing where the hair is thickest. “You still don’t believe me. I’ll take from you, Logan, and you’ll hate me for it.”
“Don’t – ”
She stops him with a frustrated noise. “You’re not getting it. My skin is literally pulling me toward you. It wants me to touch you. I can’t control it, if I do. I know what I’m talking about. You’ll hate me,” she repeats, brown eyes searching his.
“What I will or won’t do is up to me, darlin’.” The endearment sounds harsh even to his ears.
Her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I’ve told you, I’m a terrible tease. I just – I…like being with you.”
Back to feeling like that old bastard again. Carefully, he pulls her in so that her face is pressed against his flannel shirt. She doesn’t relax but she doesn’t flinch away, either.
“Listen, there’s somethin’ I have to tell you.” Logan rubs her hair as soothingly as he can manage. “A cop came into Palmer’s today with a picture of you.” He tightens his grip as she sucks in a gasp. “He had flyers to put up, and he was askin’ a lot of questions. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna recognize my description, and he’ll be up here lookin’ for you.” She tries to pull away, already knows what’s coming. “Marie. Stop, Marie. Listen to me – Marie, you have to go. You have to go now.”
“Okay!” She shoves away from him. “You don’t have to be so mean about it.”
Logan isn’t being mean, and he thinks she knows. But she’s crying already and trying to cover it up with anger. She stands in front of him in her underwear, hair hanging down in a tangle, palm over her mouth. “What – what do I do?”
“Take the Panhead. I blocked the road comin’ up here, so you’ll have to go through the back way. In my closet, there’s a pack you can put the essentials in. I got twenty-five hundred dollars handy, plus what I already paid you. It’s yours. Get on the road, drive north, then cut west. Ditch the bike, fly if you have to. Just get across that border.”
Marie nods stiffly, eyes on the walls she sanded and refinished. “And you…You’re staying here.”
“I can buy you a lot of time if I let them take me in. Tell them you’re headed to Toronto or somethin’.”
Another stiff nod.
“Look it, I’ll come find you in Anchorage, once it’s safe. Make sure you’re on your feet. I pr – ”
“No. No promises.” She’s looking him square in the eye now. “I don’t keep mine, so how can I expect you to keep yours?”
Logan’s answer is a growl: “You can damn well trust me, that’s how.”
But she doesn’t trust him; it’s written all over her face. Not when it comes to her skin and not when it comes to her future.
“I’ll see you if I see you. I can’t trust much more than that.”
“Kid – ”
Marie laughs incredulously, gesturing down at herself. “We’re back to that, are we?” She throws up her hands to stave off his retort. “Sorry, sorry. I’m…going to get dressed and packed. When I come back out, I’ll be properly thankful to you.”
“I’m not lookin’ for any big show of gratitude,” he grumbles.
“I know you’re not. But you’re giving me a lot when you owe me nothing. I may be young, but I do have a sense of proportion.” She thumps down the hallway. “Under five minutes, you watch. I’m good at running, sugar.”
A lump rises at the base of Logan’s throat and it takes an effort to swallow it back. Hell. He thinks perversely, Marie has to leave sometime – better now with a purpose than later with a grudge.
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