The Fifth Circle (11 page)

I finished the order I was working on, threw my gloves in the trash, and muttered angrily under my breath as I began knotting up the trash bag next to the prep table.

“What? I didn’t hear you?” Jake stood next to me with his arms crossed in front of him.

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

“No. You said something. Look, if you don’t like working here, go look for another job. Otherwise, shape up. You need to learn to respect authority.” Jake turned from me and squinted up at the screen that displayed the next order in line.

I fought back rage as I finished changing the trash. I couldn’t believe Jake actually thought of himself as an authority figure. He was just an ex-jock who had to support a girlfriend and two kids on a shift-manager salary. He probably drank and smoked most of his paycheck away.
Why did I always have to change the trash? Did he think he was too good to do it?

“One of these days…” I muttered as I dragged the last bulging, smelly trash bag to the dumpster. “One day that motherfucker will be sorry.”

By the time I took my fifteen minute break, I could hardly control my fury. Nothing else had really happened since the confrontation with Jake, but the more I thought about the unfairness of the situation, the angrier I became. My body felt stiff and sore with pent-up rage by the time I went outside to my truck.

I turned on the heat to try and combat the twenty-degree chill
, and as I leaned over to pull my cell phone from the glove box, my breath fogged the windows of the truck. With frigid, trembling hands I dialed Alex’s number. I needed to hear her voice—to remind myself why I put up with my job. It was all for her. Everything was for her.

After five rings,
the call went to voice mail. I called her again. And again. I felt my fifteen minute break slipping away, and with each ignored call, my rage increased exponentially. After the first five minutes, I figured she was in the bathroom or something, but after ten, her phone stopped ringing and went directly to voice mail. I could only come to one conclusion--she was avoiding me.

I tried to sooth
e my dark, churning emotions by thinking of logical reasons why she may not have heard her phone. She was in the shower. She went shopping with her mom and left her phone in the car. She lost her phone. She fell asleep. Then, I tried to think of logical reasons why her phone would be turned off. It died. Her dad went on a rampage and broke it. She was on the other line with Chelsea and didn’t want to switch over. She was on the phone with another guy. She was in love with someone else and was going to break up with me, but didn’t want to do it over the phone.

Paranoia pushed mere insecurity out of the way and took over the command-center in my brain. I was almost in tears by the time I went back inside the restaurant, and by the time I left work two hours later, I’d completely convinced myself I’d lost her. Torn between desolation and thoughts of revenge, I drove fifteen miles over the speed limit until I reached my house.

Both her parents’ cars sat side by side in the driveway. If she wasn’t there, it could only mean one thing: she was with another man. I pulled my phone out of the glove box and stormed inside. My mom tried to ask me how my day was, but I strode past her and into my room, slamming the door behind me.

I stripped off my reeking pizza shirt and threw it in a corner. I kicked my shoes and pants under the bed. Sitting at the edge of
the mattress in nothing but my underwear, I had to take several deep, calming breaths before I could even call her.

“Hey,” she said when she answered on the second ring. “How was work?”

Oh, so that’s how she was going to play it. While I slaved over a hot pizza oven trying to save money for our future, she was out screwing around with other guys. And, now she was going to lie about it.

“I tried calling you,” I said in a monotone.

“Did you?” I hated her at that moment
—hated that she could be so cold-hearted. “Guess what?” She paused, presumably so I could play her stupid guessing game. I was in no mood for games.

“What?” I snapped.

“I got a new phone! That’s probably why I didn’t answer you when you called before. You know, they were loading my contacts and pictures and …”

I tuned her out. Something broke loose inside my chest and I could breathe again. New phone? Was it true? Is that why she didn’t answer? Maybe she wasn’t ignoring me and she wasn’t with another guy and everything was still
okay between us.

“Can you come over? Please?” I begged. I had to see this new phone for myself. I had to see rock-solid proof that she wasn’t just ignoring me, that she really did have an excuse for not answering, that she was still my girlfriend.

“I think I can. My dad’s totally drunk and passed out, so I could probably have a parade through the house and he wouldn’t hear,” she giggled.

Five minutes later, I hugged her desperately on my front porch, kissed her until she was gasping for breath, and dragged
her to my room. My hands shook as I checked out her new phone, reviewed her contacts under the guise of checking out the cool features, and fought back tears of joy that no male names were listed in her phone. I quickly scanned her pictures, and after reviewing an exorbitant number of snapshots of Chelsea’s new kitten, placed the phone on my computer desk and pulled Alex into my arms.

As I pulled her shirt over her head, I thought about how lucky I was. When I unbuttoned her jeans, I
reveled in the joy of knowing she was mine. I gazed upon her beauty: her breasts straining to spill from the constraints of her bra, the slight curve of her soft stomach, her voluptuous thighs, her thick hair.

“I’m not working Saturday, baby,” I whispered. “We can spend the whole day together.”

“I’m taking the ACT in the morning, remember?” she asked.

“Can’t you reschedule?”

“Not really.”

I skillfully unhooked her bra, eased it from her shoulders, and
lowered my mouth to taste her nipple. When she was naked on the bed and I began to remove my own clothing, the insecurity and the rage came back to play. Maybe she didn’t want to reschedule her ACT. Maybe she wasn’t even taking the test, but was merely using it as an excuse to go out with someone else. I thought about those heart-wrenching hours earlier in the evening when I’d believed we were through. Saturday would just be a repeat—the worry, the torture.

I squeezed her breast possessively.
“Ow, Sean, you’re hurting me,” she whined.

I smothered her mouth with my own to shut her up and spread her legs, slamming into
her roughly. She cried out a little with that initial thrust and tensed up underneath me. I could smell her fear and I felt strong, empowered, invincible. Two more thrusts, and it was over. I collapsed against her.

“Sean,” she whispered. “You forgot to put on a condom again.”

I snuggled against her and smiled into the hollow of her shoulder. I didn’t forget a thing.

             
                                                        ***

Alex was perfect in every way
—almost. She had one loathsome trait and I was determined to do everything in my power to help her overcome it. Her lack of gratitude often confused and annoyed me.

Most girls loved getting jewelry, or so I thought.
I’d always believed it was a woman’s greatest wish to become engaged, so imagine my dismay when I presented her with a ring for Christmas, only to be rebuffed. At first, I thought she was disappointed by the quality of the ring, but she claimed it was fear that made her reluctant to wear it.

“It’s beautiful, Sean, but I told you not to spend a lot of money on me,” she said.

“You’re worth it, and besides, you’re the whole reason I got a job. Starting next paycheck, I’m saving up for us to get a place after graduation.” I waited for her to throw herself into my arms and declare me her savior.

She avoided making eye contact when she stammered, “But, well…I love it, but…my dad’s gonna flip out. Do you really think it’s a good idea to get engaged while we’re still in high school
and I’m living at home?”

“If I didn’t think it was a good idea, I wouldn’t have bo
ught you a ring. I thought you’d be happy. I thought you wanted to marry me, but I guess I was wrong.” I started to turn away from her before I snapped.

“I want to marry you. You know I do. Just not yet. Look, you know how my dad is,” she said. I turned back to face her and saw the tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Do you want to marry me? You don’t act like it,” I snapped.

She narrowed
her eyes and I saw something in them I rarely saw: self-righteous anger. I didn’t like it.

“Fine. I’ll wear it home. Maybe my father will be so overcome with the Spirit of Christmas, he won’t notice it. Or, maybe he’ll congratulate me and invite you to move in. Better hope he’s had enough to drink, Sean, because if he’s only half-way drunk, I don’t think he’ll take the new
s of my engagement too well.” She threw open my bedroom door and started down the hallway.

“Stop. You’re right, Alex. Come back.” I grabbed her arm before she reached the front door and pulled her back. “I’m sorry, baby. Let’s talk about this first.”

“What’s there to talk about? You want me to broadcast my love for you to the whole world? Well, there’s no time like the present.” Her blue eyes flashed with fury and never had she looked more beautiful than she did at that moment. Sure I wanted her to tell everyone she loved me, but not at the expense of having her dad beat her senseless.

I led her back to my room and shut the door behind us. Her anger made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t resist her at that moment. I didn’t want to waste another moment arguing, so I relented. It didn’t hurt to let her win the occasional shouting match, and besides, there were other ways I could show my dominance
—ways she couldn’t resist.                            

That Christmas night, I hoped to give her the ultimate gift
—a gift that would link us in an indisputable and permanent way. Once again, I left the condoms wrapped and in the dresser drawer when I seduced her. Once Alex was pregnant, she’d have to marry me. Then we’d be together forever.

Chapter
11- Alex

We came upon a still more cruel throng

(Canto XI, line 3)

I was relieved to see the end of
Winter Break. In the past, I’d cherished every precious second of my beloved break from school, but this year, stress and drama marred the holiday season. Sean’s work schedule offered some reprieve, but not nearly enough.

It wasn’t fair to blame all my problems on Sean. My father and sister nearly pushed me over the edge
with their bickering. Actually, it wasn’t their arguments that bothered me as much as their tendency to turn their frustration on me once they finished with each other. Without work to break the monotony of his drinking, my father stayed drunk almost continuously.

My dad picked at my sister the whole time she was home, but as New Year
’s Eve drew close, his drunken ranting escalated. Claire had a boyfriend—her first real one—and she was spending New Year’s in Colorado with his family.

The evening before she left, my mother insisted we eat at the kitchen table as a family. She made Claire’s favorite
—orange chicken—and tried to pretend we were a normal family capable of conversing over a wholesome home-cooked meal. We weren’t.

 
“Get off my back, Dad.” The fact that she didn’t live with us full-time had made her brave. Claire glared at our father as he downed his fifteenth beer. His complaints were slurred and he was well on his way to becoming good and trashed.

“You
’re too young to get too serious…” he slurred. “I’m not gonna pay for your college if you don’t abide by my rules.”

Fear flashed in Claire’s eyes
. Though she had a scholarship and didn’t need help with tuition, my parents paid for her car insurance and sent her a pittance every month. She glanced sideways at me and I knew what she was about to do. I shook my head ever so slightly, but she’d already turned from me. In a final display of sisterly affection, she threw me under the bus.

“At least
my
boyfriend is doing something with his life. Kevin is going to be an architect. What is Sean doing after graduation?” Everyone turned to me.

“That son of a bitch prob
ably ain’t doin’ nothin’. I’m sick of you spending all your time with him, Alex. Leave it to
your
stupid ass to hook up with the town psycho. I don’t want to be the talk of the neighborhood,” he slurred.

I bit back a giggle and he narrowed
his eyes at me. It was too late. My family already was a topic of neighborhood gossip. In a normal town, we would have been the white trash of the subdivision, but in our neighborhood, we blended. People talked shit on us when the police came to break up a fight between my parents, but only because it made them feel better about their own messed up lives. Everyone had issues with the cops from time to time. It’s just how it was.