Finally, there were the women.
“All women have their own beauty, if you look at them long enough,” Jacob observed, fascinated by the way one, who looked like a librarian, moved her hands in fluttery gestures. Next to her was a buxom blond matron in a hat. Obviously an official’s wife, Jacob thought, assessing her body with the practice of a connoisseur. “Or how about the virgin aching for experience?” he murmured, gazing at the gauche schoolgirl in the short skirt who rubbed her legs together like a restless colt.
“Gals, I’m here for you. I am everyman. I will fulfill your every fantasy while none of you, not one, will ever be able to move me.” Hesmiled painfully. “I am as arid as the land I’ve come to liberate.” The declaration made his heart suddenly ache.
He pulled the shutters down, overwhelmed by an exhaustion that was spiritual rather than physical, and leaned wearily against the wall of the trailer. Stuck to the refrigerator were photographs of his four exwives and an article torn from
Life
magazine about a horrific British murder involving a vegetable root. Jacob had a fascination for bizarre murders and the description of the Welsh spinster murderess had captivated him. One day he was going to meet her. Smiling at the thought, his eyes wandered to a pink garter embroidered with the name
Charlene
that hung on the fridge door handle.
Jacob pulled it off and sniffed it. Sometimes he wondered whether he had a heart at all. He’d reached his midforties without ever being affected by anyone. It wasn’t that he was shallow—at least he didn’t think so—it was just that he had a constant sense of emotional distance, as if he were experiencing the world from the bottom of a deep clear well. The women he’d been involved with—and there had been hundreds of them—all fell in love with the idea of rescuing him from the shimmering depths of his aloofness. They would caress him, nurture him, lie down for him, dance, weep, shout and moan, but he remained untouched by any of them. And now, nearly half a century old, Jacob had abandoned the idea of love altogether. The best he could hope for was the secure feeling of being wrapped up tight, losing himself in yet another sexual conquest. The sensation made him forget his mortality, his loneliness and fears. But the feeling inevitably passed the moment he reached orgasm and then the remoteness would rush in, stronger than before.
He sat down at the foldout Formica table and poured himself a whiskey. He then pulled out a stopwatch and pushed down the tiny knob at the top. Ten minutes, he thought, and then they’ll come knocking.
Cheri Winchester, the mayor’s wife, still sported her hair rollers. The sun had dried her curls into stiff rivulets but she was too distracted to notice. “Applefort called in a rainmaker after three years of drought and they say that it worked a treat,” she remarked to her best friend,Rebecca, who ran the local cultural center, which consisted of a sole dusty exhibition dating back to 1954 when Sandridge won the prize for the cleanest town in the southwest.
Rebecca stepped closer and peered at the caravan across the fence. “Dangerous voodoo. Dreams destroy people’s lives, you mark my words.” She pursed her lips, remembering her own broken hopes—a fiancé who died in the first Gulf War and with him any chance of Rebecca escaping spinsterhood.
“Oh, Becs,” Cheri ventured, “you know I believe in collective hope.” Rebecca squinted at her; sometimes Cheri’s quirky ideas irritated her intensely.
“Surely if we all pray together we can make a little rain fall?” Cheri blushed, the boldness of her statement leaving her on shaky ground.
“Amen.” Stefan Kaufmann, one of the six handsome brothers, smiled sexily at her. Cheri smiled back, then to her dismay heard her husband’s car approaching.
Chad’s silver Lexus skidded to a halt. The crowd swung around. The mayor, perspiration already staining the
“All women have their own beauty, if you look at them long enough,” Jacob observed, fascinated by the way one, who looked like a librarian, moved her hands in fluttery gestures. Next to her was a buxom blond matron in a hat. Obviously an official’s wife, Jacob thought, assessing her body with the practice of a connoisseur. “Or how about the virgin aching for experience?” he murmured, gazing at the gauche schoolgirl in the short skirt who rubbed her legs together like a restless colt.
“Gals, I’m here for you. I am everyman. I will fulfill your every fantasy while none of you, not one, will ever be able to move me.” Hesmiled painfully. “I am as arid as the land I’ve come to liberate.” The declaration made his heart suddenly ache.
He pulled the shutters down, overwhelmed by an exhaustion that was spiritual rather than physical, and leaned wearily against the wall of the trailer. Stuck to the refrigerator were photographs of his four exwives and an article torn from
Life
magazine about a horrific British murder involving a vegetable root. Jacob had a fascination for bizarre murders and the description of the Welsh spinster murderess had captivated him. One day he was going to meet her. Smiling at the thought, his eyes wandered to a pink garter embroidered with the name
Charlene
that hung on the fridge door handle.
Jacob pulled it off and sniffed it. Sometimes he wondered whether he had a heart at all. He’d reached his midforties without ever being affected by anyone. It wasn’t that he was shallow—at least he didn’t think so—it was just that he had a constant sense of emotional distance, as if he were experiencing the world from the bottom of a deep clear well. The women he’d been involved with—and there had been hundreds of them—all fell in love with the idea of rescuing him from the shimmering depths of his aloofness. They would caress him, nurture him, lie down for him, dance, weep, shout and moan, but he remained untouched by any of them. And now, nearly half a century old, Jacob had abandoned the idea of love altogether. The best he could hope for was the secure feeling of being wrapped up tight, losing himself in yet another sexual conquest. The sensation made him forget his mortality, his loneliness and fears. But the feeling inevitably passed the moment he reached orgasm and then the remoteness would rush in, stronger than before.
He sat down at the foldout Formica table and poured himself a whiskey. He then pulled out a stopwatch and pushed down the tiny knob at the top. Ten minutes, he thought, and then they’ll come knocking.
Cheri Winchester, the mayor’s wife, still sported her hair rollers. The sun had dried her curls into stiff rivulets but she was too distracted to notice. “Applefort called in a rainmaker after three years of drought and they say that it worked a treat,” she remarked to her best friend,Rebecca, who ran the local cultural center, which consisted of a sole dusty exhibition dating back to 1954 when Sandridge won the prize for the cleanest town in the southwest.
Rebecca stepped closer and peered at the caravan across the fence. “Dangerous voodoo. Dreams destroy people’s lives, you mark my words.” She pursed her lips, remembering her own broken hopes—a fiancé who died in the first Gulf War and with him any chance of Rebecca escaping spinsterhood.
“Oh, Becs,” Cheri ventured, “you know I believe in collective hope.” Rebecca squinted at her; sometimes Cheri’s quirky ideas irritated her intensely.
“Surely if we all pray together we can make a little rain fall?” Cheri blushed, the boldness of her statement leaving her on shaky ground.
“Amen.” Stefan Kaufmann, one of the six handsome brothers, smiled sexily at her. Cheri smiled back, then to her dismay heard her husband’s car approaching.
Chad’s silver Lexus skidded to a halt. The crowd swung around. The mayor, perspiration already staining the
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