Page 24 of Contention

Not even a downpour and painful heels.

The only sound in the car is the sound of rain. The windows are blurry with water, lights from cars spreading like star lights. The drive is slow, but the ride itself is smooth. The car seems to glide over the asphalt.

He doesn’t talk to her, which gets her hackles up even more. She feels like a child, like she’s in the car with her father. Then again, that isn’t completely accurate; it wouldn’t have been this tense, fueled by an undercurrent of…

She shakes her head, abandoning her thoughts. “Just drop me off on the corner, up here.” Kara points to the intersection.

Kara needs to get out. Her eyes drift over to his form, noting the relaxed way he has his legs spread, left hand on the wheel, right elbow resting against the center armrest. Anytime he shifts position, the scent of him grows stronger.

As much as she hates to admit it, her mouth salivates. The gourmand cologne is everything she generally loves. Just not on him.

She’s sweating. Is it hot in his car? Is he sweating? No. He looks fine. Cool even. In control. Always distant and in control. A perfect picture of power. Kara feels like a mouse, trapped in a room with no exit with a cat sitting, waiting nearby.

He makes a noise, something derisive. “In front of the coffee shop? This isn’t like, a second job or something, is it? Derrick must be paying poor these days.”

“I don’t feel safe with you knowing where I live,” she utters, hating the way her voice quivers on the last note. “This is close enough.”

She doesn’t want to seem weak or afraid. Kara’s tougher than that, made of tougher shit. But, she can’t deny what he so easily did to her. He’d taken advantage of her…and it didn’t matter that he had been sure she was a hooker at the time.

That didn’t excuse him of anything. It wasn’t like she was going to tell him he could go say ten Hail Mary’s and call it a day. Or whatever Catholic boys do for forgiveness. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, deciding he looks like a Catholic sort of boy.

Her family had considered themselves Protestant and rarely ever went to church when she was a girl. She figured they’d decided on Protestant because there was no way her daddy was getting in a confessional booth in the lovely Catholic church up the street from her childhood home.

Her father could do no wrong, after all. What would he ever need to confess? It would probably be something like-I punched my wife and backhanded my eleven-year-old daughter, so what, theydeserved it,didn’t they? The house wasn’t clean enough, the casserole was slightly burnt, and my parents were visiting; didn’t they realize how embarrassing that was for me?Kara shudders, almost hearing his extremely persuasive voice in her head.

Calais turns his head to look at her momentarily before pulling over to the curb. “I really have no interest in where you live. Don’t you think I have better things to do than worry about where angry little girls spend their time brooding? If I cared that much, there are other ways of finding that information.”

Nervously, yet feeling suddenly foolish, Kara places her hand on the handle of the car door, ready to scoot out. “You wondered whether I would tell the police…what you did. What if you planned on sending someone to shut me up to make sure that never happens?”

Seriously, she’s been thinking about it.

He gives a sharp bark of laughter and he turns his head to look at her, his face transforming with mirth. “Send someone to shut you up? Is that what you’re worried about? I’m not going to hire anyone to hurt you. Not over a little misunderstanding. I have money and know all the right people to make it worth your while tonottalk. You wouldn’t win in court, even if you did.”

Giving him a hard glower, Kara feels her upper lip curl like a rabid dog’s. “I wouldn’t call what happened a ‘misunderstanding’. Regardless of if I were a girl working the street or not, I was under the influence and you were…rough.”

The expression on his face freezes before slowly becoming cynical. “See, that’s the thing. A lot of those…girls…know my friends and I. Most know I like it when they say ‘no’ and pretend to not like it. They know the routine.”

Okay, so those types of men are always in fiction, not in real life. Kara explodes. “That’s awful, you goddamn pervert! What a fucking terrible reputation to have. ‘Oh, the ladies know me, I like it when they say no’.” Kara cackles mirthlessly. “Well, I wasn’t one of them. I was in trouble before you even found me! I needed help, not to be grabbed like a piece of candy!You scare me. I don’t want to be in this car. My feet hurt- I’m using you. This is me, usingyoufor a fucking ride.It’s my turntouse you.”

Kara’s breathing heavily in the aftermath of her furious tirade. Calais blinks those tropical storm eyes, as if shocked by her vehemence. Good.

No one speaks or moves, aside from the sound of Kara’s harsh breathing. He swallows and her eyes follow the line of his throat as he does so. Then, his voice is a soft rumble, “The gas didn’t cost me all that much to drive over here.”

She grits her teeth. “I beg your pardon,” she hisses mockingly, playing off his words from earlier. What is he on about now? Why can’t he ever make any sense?

Calais shifts, reaches his left arm in front of him sharply to check his watch as his suit coat slides back a bit. He’s got strong wrists, not that Kara is noticing. “If this was your idea of using me, it certainly didn’t cost that much. This? This is nothing. You can pick something else, is all I’m trying to say.”

He shifts, and his legs are still spread. He doesn’t elaborate anything, just leaves it completely open for interpretation, like he already knows that she wants control back, that she wants to be the user, the one with the power and Kara-

Kara feels her mouth dry and she swallows uselessly, meeting his eyes, dark in the shadowy car. His shape seems so large, too overpowering and the words are making sense in all the wrong ways. Everything she’s feeling is wrong and alarm bells are ringing in her head. “I’m going now,” she says numbly.

He shifts to face forward, dismissing her, his left hand going to the wheel while the other rests on the shift. “Suit yourself,” he replies calmly, looking like a sleek predator in his driver seat.

Already distant, like the moon.

Feeling her lower jaw slacken as she stares at his side profile in a distant sort of horror, perhaps disbelief, Kara clutches her work tote to her chest as she twists to exit the low-profile car. Inelegantly, she stumbles out; not like in the movies where hot babes glide out of exotic cars. Oh no. She tries, but ultimately fails at making a smooth escape.

Even though the rain is still falling from the sky in droves, she waits stiffly until the car pulls away. It was bad enough that she let him drive her back to her neighborhood, it would be far worse for him to see her building.

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