Page 22 of Fated

I hold the pillow like a shield in front of me. “Don’t come near me.”

The man holds up his hand. “If this is about the party, we don’t have to ...”

He stands as he talks, making his way around the bed, inching past the clothesline. With every word he comes closer. Every naked inch of him.

The tiny room is even tinier with him moving through it. Standing. Coming closer.

“I said don’t come near me.” I shake the pillow at him.

I wonder, is he talking about the birthday party my mum threw? Is that the party he means?

“Do you know my mum?”

Without looking he grabs a pair of shorts from the clothesline and shoves his legs through them. “What kind of question is that? You feeling all right?”

He takes another step forward. Only the smallest space separates us. He reaches out, as if he’s going to feel my head for a fever.

I fling the pillow at him. “Stay back!”

He snaps the pillow from the air, catching it before it can hit him, and then casually drops it to the floor.

“Maybe you should come back to bed,” he says, his expression one of concern.

Yeah. Right.

I’ll get back into bed with him when hell freezes over.

Hopefully, he hasn’t locked the bedroom door.

“I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is, you aren’t going to get it.”

He frowns.

“And, you have a wife.” I point at the wedding picture. “What kind of immoral psychopath are you? What would she say?”

He gives me a funny look. “I imagine she’d say we should go back to bed. She’d probably ask for coffee. You want some?”

Oh my word.

He’s out of his mind.

“I’m going to leave, and if you try to stop me, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

His forehead wrinkles and his mouth falls slightly open as if he has no clue what I’m talking about.

I take advantage of his momentary confusion. I dart forward and kick him in the shin. When he bends over in surprise I shove him, pushing him back. He stumbles and trips backward over the bed. He grabs at the air, his arms pinwheeling. His arm catches on the clothesline and the clothes fall on top of him.

While he’s buried in a pile of worn-out beach-bum wear, I grab the dress on top and fling open the bedroom door.

Thank goodness it wasn’t locked.

I clutch the dress and run into the hall.

I look in both directions. I have maybe five seconds before the man climbs out of the clothing avalanche and is on my heels.

To the right there’s a closed door with a handwritten “Keep Out” sign on it and a tiny bathroom with a gray tile floor and a shower drain, a rusty toilet, a soup-bowl-sized chipped sink, and a rusty shower head over the toilet.

To the left, down the short hallway, there’s a small kitchen with a pint-size refrigerator, a two-burner stove, and a three-foot-long wooden counter with a bowl of fruit on top, a bag of bread, and a drying rack full of baby bottles. There’s also a round four-seater kitchen table and a small living room where a rattan loveseat with a tropical leaf print and two rattan chairs surround a glass coffee table.

---