Read Online The Taint by Patricia Wallace - Free Book Online

hands flew up and covered his ears, and a tortured soundless scream, the veins standing out in his neck, the awful silence.
    He collapsed back on the bed.
    She could hear them running down the hall toward the room, and again, the sound of him sleeping.
    They put the leather restraints on Tyler and cleared the room of objects which might be used as weapons. They positioned the bed so that it was observable through the small window in the door.
    When she gave Nora Samuels her medication, the woman whispered to her: “He has seen.” And later, when she was alone, she stood at his door and watched him sleep.
     
     
     
     
     

EIGHTEEN
     
    Something was wrong.
    Candy Burroughs walked determinedly toward the campground restrooms, her filmy robe billowing behind her, the satin high-heeled bedroom slippers digging into the loose topsoil.
    Married less than twelve hours and already he was taking her for granted. She was beginning to think that she had made a mistake.
    She knew a lot about being taken for granted, having learned it at her mother’s knee. It was dangerously close to being mistaken for the furniture . . .
    She hadn’t expected it from David.
    But the signs were all there. Married half a day and he was asleep in the tent, dead to the world, and there she was in her forty-five dollar negligee, reeking of Chanel No. 5.
    She knew she shouldn’t have slept with him before she had a wedding ring on her finger. Her mother had told her.
    Of course, there was the way he looked in tight jeans, and the way his body moved when they danced. He was something to look at. And this fiasco was getting worse every minute. Pretend you like the same things he does, they told her. Be a good sport.
    Well, she was a good sport, and look where it got her; in the middle of nowhere, sleeping, and only sleeping, on a thin air mattress in a smelly old tent. No water bed, no adult movies, no champagne. And . . . no David.
    How could he go to sleep like that?
    She stumbled over a rock, twisting her ankle, and she stopped, taking off the heels. The dirt was cool and squished through her toes.
    Well, he wasn’t likely to want to kiss her feet tonight, anyway.
    The restrooms were well-lit and she went into the ladies section. Her mother had taught her how to use a public restroom without ever sitting down, something she was grateful for, especially now that they said that the disease germs probably lived longer on the toilet tissue than anywhere else. Maybe she’d take a wad of it to the tent and shove it into his pants.
    The mirrors above the sinks were uniformly warped and there were no paper towels to dry her hands. She had only brought enough tissues to take care of number one. She stood, waving her hands in the air.
    Back outside, she sat on the wooden bench which ran along the front of the building, examining her sore ankle. No swelling. Too bad. It might have made him sorry.
    That was her mother’s trick as well. Mother had a lot of them, and she’d had a lot of husbands to try them on. Mother would probably know what to do.
    She sighed, and began brushing the dust from the satin slippers.
    What she really wanted to do was go back to the tent, wake him up, tease him and then tell him to go to hell.
    No, what she really, really wanted was his hot little body. All night long.
    “David,” she said, standing up, “you are going to get it.”
    She didn’t remember this turn in the road, or the grove of trees. She slowed her pace, trying to find a familiar shape in the dark. A faint light shone in the distance but it seemed too far to be the guidepost. She had been walking for a long time.
    She pulled the robe around her, holding the front together at the neck, and stopped walking. If she was going in the wrong direction she would only make it worse by continuing on. She turned around.
    The restroom lights were not visible.
    A whisper. She held her breath, listening hard. It was the wind in the trees.
    She started back the way she had