Page 2 of At Her Pleasure

“How does that feel, you fucking bitch? How does it feel to you?”

He topped a crest and paused next to one of the crooked trees. The scene ahead was backlit by the city’s grayish night sky and the cemetery’s dirty post lights, planted along the walking paths.

He’d seen a lot of things, and took most of them in stride. This was different—not the act, but the tone, and the woman doing it. He stood motionless, unnoticed.

She was grinding herself against a headstone. Not for pleasure. She shoved against it, hips working like a man thrusting into a female, as brutally as possible, while hitting the top of the stone with her clenched fist. He marked the broken beer bottle clutched in her other hand. She brandished the jagged weapon at the grave.

“You should have a spiked dick shoved up your ass every damn day you’re in hell, you useless, piece of shit cunt.” She gave the stone one more vigorous thrust, then stepped back. “Get up out of that box. Bring me another beer, bitch.”

Her harsh laugh held despair. Dropping the broken bottle, she walked over to a cardboard six-pack of cheap brew. Three were left. Her jeans and T-shirt were baggy, but when she bent and twisted, her body was a lean wire, underfed but tough muscle. The flannel shirt open over the T-shirt was too light for the chill in the air.

Clutching the new beer, she collapsed next to a smaller headstone. As she twisted off the top and tipped the bottle to take a big swallow, she slid her arm around the stone, like it was a person. “You’re so stupid,” she informed the marker, tapping the top of it. The bottle made a light clink. “You don’t have to kill yourself to disappear. You just have to not matter to anyone. At least not more than their own fucked-up lives. Then you can disappear into yourself. The soul has no bottom, Cissy. It goes straight fucking down. All the way to hell. It’s warm there. Quiet, I think. Quiet.”

Her voice was young. Not much over eighteen, but age was only a physical distinction. Most kids here had cynical eyes that had seen too much. Even so, their youth had a heartbreaking way of resurfacing under the right circumstances.

Not this one. What he heard in her voice slid up his spine like sharp nails, followed by teeth set to his throat.

The witches of Fate, those beautiful sadists gathered around their cauldron, had taken a man with an overdeveloped urge to fix a fucked-up world, and given him other, murkier needs.

The older guys ribbed him, asking Mick if he had any chest hair, just because he was still in his twenties, but he suspected they teased him as a concerned reminder he wasn’t a hundred years old. Their shrewd cop eyes saw some of the same troubling things he saw in his own mirror.

The dangerous, unhelpful thought came to him that the woman humping a headstone could handle his darkness. Maybe better than her own.

Damn it, he knew better than to let himself go there on the job. But apparently it was a night for doing stupid things.

Resting her temple on the gravestone, she propped the beer on her knee and rocked the bottle back and forth. He noted the small headstone had no weeds and was edged by a little pile of smooth rocks. The same couldn’t be said about the bigger one. Trash was mounded around it.

She took a thoughtful sip of the beer. “I pissed on her grave, Cissy. I want it to stink like that stairwell we hid under that one time. You remember? If I ever have money, I’ll pay a hundred drunks to shit on her every day. I’ll buy you the best skateboard in the world. I’ll put it down there with your bones. You tell ToyBoy to decorate it, like he did his. You two ride them wherever you want. Heaven or hell. No limits.”

She started up abruptly and threw the bottle at the other stone. It shattered, spraying beer. “You goddamned bitch. Didn’t we hurt enough for you? I should have fucking eaten my way out of your womb. Torn you apart from the inside out. Suckled my first and last milk from your tit while you bled out.”

When she went after the gravestone again with her fists, Mick saw she’d cut herself. Or was beating her fists bloody.

Fuck. Okay, show over. Time to break up the volatile family reunion. As he advanced, he clicked on his flashlight again, capturing her attention.

People startled by the police reacted in a variety of ways. Fear, confusion, apprehension. She whipped her head around and bared her teeth.

“Fuck off,” she snarled.

Or that.

As he weighed his options—de-escalation, subduing the suspect, calling for backup—another reaction sat down in the middle of that debate and just stared. Goddamn. He’d seen her face before. In a mural, painted under the 10th Street overpass.

The graffiti artist had put blocky purple lettering alongside it. Artemis, Mistress of the Hunt.

Jet-colored eyes caught the flashlight beam and reflected gold sparks. She had thick lashes, prominent cheekbones and a jaw like a feral cat. The dark brown hair pressed down by her watch cap was a rebellion of curls reaching her jutting shoulders.

The artist had been killed four months ago, shot against that mural while he was adding to it. Flecks of his blood would forever be mixed with the paint.

A few drops of rust-colored beer were on the girl’s cheek.

In the painting, Artemis had her bow raised and aimed at the viewer. Whenever Mick looked at it, he felt anticipation. The eager hounds clustered around her long, slim legs had emaciated bodies. Not from lack of food, but because he imagined every spare calorie went toward the Hunt.

Her eyes bored into a man’s soul. They challenged him, asked if he had the balls to hunt her, see what it was like, two predators matching wits. If he caught her, what kind of fight would it be?

The girl’s proud mouth curled in derision. He wanted to kiss that mouth when it was snarling, wanted to feel the snap of her teeth.

He yanked himself away from the weird melding of art, myth and female. He shouldn’t be fixating on a drunk young woman in a cemetery, one who’d barely hit twenty, if at all. One who was in obvious pain. But as soon as he met her eyes, Mick knew she held the nourishment he craved.

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