Page 149 of The Bet
“It will be here sooner than we know it,” she told him. For some reason, he wouldn’t let her touch him and it was making her even crazier for him.
Maybe she needed to let him know the thing he had once been curious about. She sat back, and contemplated telling him. He’d dropped so many hints along the way, and she never gave up the name, but if they were starting something new, she wanted to get the dirt off her chest.
“That guy, the one I worked for in the summer. The creep…”
He sat up, even under the faint light of the streetlamps she could tell his face was somber.
“I want to tell you, because I don't want it to be a thing between us, getting in the way.”
“Go on,”
And then she told him how it started, how that first time she’d caught her former employer staring down the front of her blouse while she had been on her hands and knees picking up pasta shapes from the floor.
“But I wasn’t sure,” she said, at the end.
“You weren’t sure?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like I didn’t want it to be true. I thought maybe I was imagining it. So I tried to push the thought away.”
“Even though he’d been staring down your blouse?” Something in his tone told her he was already pissed.
“Yes. Like I said, you don’t want it to be true, so you give the guy the benefit of the doubt. But then it happened again, a few weeks later.” And she told him about that second occasion when her employer’s wife was away and the children were playing in their play room, and she was tidying up, and he walked by, having looked like he'd just stepped out of the shower. He had been toweling himself dry and was completely naked, his belly hanging out like an enlarged balloon.
“Son of a bitch,” hissed Xavier. “What did he say?”
“He said, 'Ah, Isabel, I didn't see you there,' and he stood there, facing me, showing me everything.”
“What did you do?”
“I turned around, looked the other way and I told him to leave.”
It hadn’t registered until much later that it was late afternoon, and the master bedroom was at the opposite end of the apartment. He had apologized, saying something about the heat being too much, but his sudden shocking nude appearance had been like a punch to her gut. She couldn't breathe, or think, or do anything until long after he had left. She'd rushed to the door, and a jammed herself against it, only coming out when the children shouted out for her.
“He had a hard-on,” she said, the memory filling her mind with disgust.
“Did you tell anyone?”
“It took me a few days to tell Cara.”
“And that was when you left?”
“No. Not then.” Telling him, hearing herself explain, it sounded ludicrous that she had stayed on, even then.
“I left a few weeks later. We came back from the park and the children had been playing in the sand pit, so their clothes were sprinkled with sand. I showered them, and took their dirty clothes to the laundry room and again, it was at a time when Cassia, his wife, was away. And ...” She paused, uneasy with having to dredge up that memory again.
“And what?”
“And I was putting the clothes into the machine, so I didn't hear him walk in. But he came up behind me and grabbed my breast, and pressed himself into me.”
“The fucker.”
“And I froze, because... because you just do, I suppose. You can't believe this is happening, and I froze for a few seconds. And then his hand reached down and grabbed me between my legs. And then I told him to fuck off, but he didn't. He had me pinned against the washing machine in front and him behind. I kind of poked him in the ribs with my elbow, and he moved away. I turned around, but he came for me again, reaching out to touch me. And I lost it. I fought back. Kneed him in his balls, the moment his hand reached for my chest. He was a strong man, 6 ft. something, and he towered over me, and I was afraid that in that laundry room he could have done anything, and I might not have been able to defend myself. So I kicked him hard, and rushed out. I grabbed my bag, and I ran out of the house, feeling guilty that I hadn't even been able to say bye to the children.”
“The fucking scumbag,” he raged. Then, leaning forward and cupping her face, he said, “Hey,” and thumbed her chin. “He did all that to you, and you’re worried you didn’tsay goodbye to his kids?”
“They’re just kids. They don’t know why I left. They just know I left without a word.”
“They don’t know what their fucking father did.”
