Part 10 (1/2)
In the parking lot he heard from a distance, ”Hey, there's that Prince of Beer guy with that drunk girl!”
s.h.i.+t! He fumbled at the pa.s.senger door.
”Let's go ask him for an autograph!” a woman's voice shrilled.
”Get in!” He dropped Lottie in the car like a couple of grocery bags, then huffed around, a.s.sed into the driver's seat, and sped off. He thunked over a curb-Idiot!-then realized he hadn't put his lights on. He thunked over another curb, then almost hit a corner mailbox searching for the headlights k.n.o.b. This f.u.c.kin' car! Finally he snapped them on and veered onto Penelope Street.
Thank G.o.d it's not far...He could see the Gast House all alight at the top of the hill. Nice and slow, he thought, settling down. Just another quarter mile- Suddenly Collier couldn't see. His heart shouted in his chest when the wheel slipped, and he felt the vehicle go off the hardtop.
Fwap! Fwap! Fwap! Fwap!
He was mowing down bushes on the roadside. All he could see now were Lottie's bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his face. She'd dropped her shoulder straps and was trying to straddle him in the driver's seat- ”Lottie, for s.h.i.+t's sake!”
One of her hands clamped his crotch and squeezed.
”You're going to get us killed!” He shoved her back, and- Thud!
She slid across the dash and fell into the pa.s.sengerside foot well, flat on her back. Then- No movement.
Collier had managed to stop the car a yard short of the largest oak tree in the front court. He backed up slowly, then realized this: That's the tree Harwood Gast hanged himself from...
He pulled his eyes off the sprawling tree, then idled to the parking lot.
No lights lit the half-filled lot; only moonlight traced into the car. Collier let his heart settle down again. In the moonlight, he found both of Lottie's bare feet in his lap...
He put his hands on them, paused, then moved them off.
She wasn't moving. Christ, with my luck she broke her neck when she fell! He leaned down and felt her throat. Thank G.o.d. There was a steady pulse.
Feeling weird, he looked closer at her, then gulped when he realized that one bare breast was exposed, its nipple dark and pointed like a Hershey's Kiss. Man...
The toned legs seemed radiant in the moonlight. Then he looked at her face: serene and peaceful.
The silly ditz is out cold.
Then...
Would it be, like, s.e.xual misconduct if I...
He couldn't believe what he'd considered. I wanted to feel her breast...An UNCONSCIOUS girl's breast...
He didn't think about it, or at least tried not to, but then that other voice-the alter ego, the id-seemed to whisper, Go ahead. What's the big deal?
His hand reached down without any guidance from his mind...
He pulled it back.
What a wuss! Go ahead! Cop a feel! Any REAL man would!
He ground his fists together.
Come on! She'll never know!
It troubled Collier more than significantly: the amount of time it took to decide not to. I'm REALLY screwed up...
But then...something else occurred to him as the memory flashed: his keyhole this afternoon, and the immaculate, hairless pubis displayed in it, and the unique freckle.
It was probably Lottie, and...judging by her behavior tonight, I'd say there's a 99 percent chance.
More curiosity, then.
He already knew that she wore no panties beneath the tight, diaphanous dress...
I'm just seeing if it was her, that's all, he thought as if to offer an excuse.
He raised her motionless leg, angled it away...
The moonlight didn't reach that low so, very briefly, he turned on the dome light-thought, Pervert!-and glanced down between her legs.
Wrong again.
There was quite a bit of pubic hair down there, a veritable pie wedge-shaped tuft of it.
He took a breath, clicked the light back off...and found himself shaking slightly.
The other voice again: s.h.i.+t, she only weighs a hundred pounds. Take her in the woods and have a go. Who's going to know?
Collier could imagine the headlines. TV BEER GURU RECEIVES TEN YEARS FOR DATE RAPE.
His mind swam. He was mortified that the idea had even occurred to him. Got to get her back in the house. Now.
Eventually he got her shoulder strap back up, hauled her out of the car, and was trudging toward the front steps.
Jesus...
After twenty paces, gravity turned this hundred-pound ”pipe cleaner” into an armful of cinder blocks. Collier wasn't in the best physical shape, and being drunk only compounded his effort. I wish I could just leave her on the d.a.m.n steps and go to bed. He was tempted. But, no, he'd already been enough of a sc.u.mbag tonight.
He opened the front door- Oops.
-with her head and muscled through the vestibule. A very agape Mrs. Butler sprang up from the desk and came briskly forward.
”Mrs. Butler, this isn't what you think,” he started. ”She-”
”Oh, that silly daughter'a mine,” snapped the now-familiar drawl. ”She got drunk is what she did.”
”Yes, ma'am. And only on one beer.”
”Lottie! What am I gonna do with you!” she bellowed at the unconscious woman. ”You've embarra.s.sed Mr. Collier!”
”Oh, no, Mrs. Butler, it wasn't much of a problem-”