Chapter 307: Patty XXXVI—Were You Scared?
“You were awesome today.”
Patrick sighed. “I let in six.”
Stephane smiled. His eyes twinkled. He had Dad’s twinkle, and none of Mom’s temper. How his brother never lost his temper was beyond him. Patience seemed to be the base foundation upon which Stephane was built. “You let in six, true but you still made sixty seven saves. Still an accomplishment eh?”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “I’d rather win.”
Stephane cracked open a beer and he sat down next to Patrick on the couch. Patrick stared at the television as Stephane spoke to him. “We suck, Pat, I don’t think you should hold your breath for a win every night.”
Truth as Stephane saw it, he never tried to go out of his way to fix some things but he always spoke with awareness of them. Sick of being lonely, of only speaking with his parents over the phone, with Stephane over the phone, he had gone to the coaching staff of the Bisons and every day he had dropped Stephane’s name to them, bragged about his skills as a winger, his quickness and yes he was young but he had a work ethic that would be really great for a team, say, this team. After only a few weeks, Patrick’s efforts came to fruition when he had received an excited call from Mom telling him that Stephane had just been traded to the Bisons.
Always likeable, Stephane quickly fit onto the team and the locker room, and Patrick could hardly bear to be separated from his brother otherwise. Relief, relief, that was all Patrick could think of. He barely paid attention to the rest of the team, the toxic air that came from them, and he felt more comfortable. With Stephane, everything was better. Unfortunately, the quality of the team didn’t improve. They still gave up loose chances, outright chances, they couldn’t score but they could make it easier for their opponents to break through.
Patrick knew why that was.
Pauline.
Mrs. Danceny still held a stranglehold on his teammates’ cocks and it showed. They just couldn’t pay attention to hockey. As for Mr. Danceny? Patrick didn’t know how she was able to constantly hold court over them without her husband finding out, or did he know and approve, and if he did how perverted was that? Fortunately, although Stephane knew about her from the gossip, he did not seem to have fallen under her spell. As far as Patrick could tell, Stephane had never expressed much interest in her. He had told Patrick how idiotic he thought the entire team was to go silly for a married woman. That being the case, Patrick had not told Stephane that he too had briefly been under her enchantment.
Only once. Patrick had been with Pauline only once, for five minutes, perhaps less than that. Her dilated green eyes, her breathy voice, her vapid mental fumbling disturbed him so much so that the night he had first touched her, he had terrible nightmares and had awakened ill and covered with a crawling feeling on his flesh. The woman was toxic, like the drugs she used, whatever they were and he pushed from his lusts the next morning. But inwardly, he had the taste of her on his mouth, and his skin still felt her slick throbbing warmth, she was different alright. He could see how others could get addicted to her.
Instead, Patrick had filled his time with Stephane and he had even left off prowling for groupies and street whores. Stephane had picked up a girlfriend, a local girl, Anna-Marie and she had a friend Patrick really liked. Anna-Marie wasn’t a groupie either, her family had a good name, she had a good reputation and Stephane couldn’t wait until he could introduce her to Mom and Dad. Her friend, Sophie, had a dark gypsy like beauty that Patrick couldn’t get enough of. Living was clean now. He couldn’t believe how relaxing it was to simply be clean and unfettered with pleasure seeking.
“How much would it cost you to love me?”
Patrick squinted into the darkness. It was after a practice that had run late. Stephane had gone off with Anna-Marie, and Patrick was just planning on going to his billeting family’s house and perhaps have dinner with them. Her voice unmistakeable.
“What do you want Pauline? Isn’t everyone else enough?”
Pauline stepped forward under a street light now. “Mr. Danceny is on another trip. I’m alone for tonight.” Her beauty stunned him in the light, unearthly, she looked like an angel or a ghost. Sweet smelling, softly sweet. Sophie would not be calling him tonight, she had homework to do, and he really wasn’t hungry. Seeing as there wasn’t anything better to do, Patrick followed her.
The moon shone bright and full through the open curtains and it fell across Pauline’s bare back as she lay next to him on the bed. He wondered if he should leave her now as she slept. He had to leave her now; he closed his eyes and ran his tongue over his teeth. This time, she had tasted better, there was no stink from his teammates, no rushed urgency, she had been all his. He wanted to roll her over and kiss her soft flesh and lose himself in her large breasts, his Pauline. He could pretend she belonged to him.
He pulled the comforter over her body and she stirred awake, he touched her cheek and kissed her. The kiss reinvigorated him and he forgot completely about leaving as he rolled on top of her, and felt her smooth, long legs around his waist.
“You’re the only one who never came back. Why?” she asked.
Patrick let go of her legs, and he didn’t push into her like he had been preparing to do. He sighed and relaxed onto her body. He cushioned his cheek on her breast. “I have a girlfriend,” Patrick replied.
“So do the others.”
He kissed the side of her breast. “And there are the others, I don’t like touching a woman whose been with every male I know.”
He felt her fingers in his hair in a motherly like touch that stirred him. Leaning up on one elbow, he kissed her deeply. “I’m clean now,” she whispered, “I haven’t touched any drugs or alcohol for months now, not since the last time I saw you.”
“It’s a start,” Patrick whispered. “You should get rid of everything else too, you know, before you’re harmed beyond repair.”
He could see her smile in the moonlight, her dark lips, luscious, kissable lips. “You’re such a sweet boy, a sweet little man. Where do you and your brother get it from? Both of you have the same eyes.”
A jolt worse than electricity, Patrick sat bolt upright. “What do you know about my brother?” He imagined Stephane in here, led by the nose, defiled and destroyed, impossible!
“He seems as sweet as you.” Pauline whispered in a high girlish voice. “That’s all. I don’t know him very well, but I’ve seen him.”
He wanted her again, right now; his body too stirred up now to just walk away. Warm flesh under his own, a union tight and trembling, quick, smooth, a rocking that blinded him with even more pleasure than the first time. The talent had to be hers, she grew sweeter and sweeter with each touch, kiss, cry of pleasure, and he couldn’t fill her enough. It ended with a kiss, her fingers in his throat, tightening until she released him and he felt tears fall when he finished and let her go.
“Get rid of them,” Patrick breathed. “All of them get rid of them before they rot you away.”
“I will.”
Patrick sat up and he pulled her up with him, her pressed his hand around her throat, not squeezing but a little threatening. “Promise.”
Pauline seemed unafraid, she blinked. “I don’t need to promise, I will have to.”
“I don’t understand.”
Pauline grabbed his hand and pushed it into her soft belly. “I’m pregnant.”
Patrick’s throat tightened. “How far along?”
“Recent, so recent.”
I was with her in October, Patrick thought, was it October? For certain it was last year, months ago, there isn’t a chance it’s mine if she just conceived last week or last month.
“How recent? Less than two months?”
“Yes.”
“Less than one?”
“Oh yes, certainly.”
He didn’t try to hide his sigh of relief. As long as the responsibility wasn’t his. “Are you happy about it? This is good for you.” He imagined her with a baby, growing fat with one, nursing one, wiping its face. She would become a fat housewife; she would care about none of these nights anymore, none of these boys. “I thought you couldn’t have babies, you said so.”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “The doctors said I would never conceive, but I will accept it for what it is, a miracle. A blessing. God’s gift to me to distract me from my vices. Patrick, He has answered my prayers you beautiful boy, he has answered them. I have been given an escape, an excuse to break away from this sinful decadence and I am so happy that He has let me tell you first. You understand me, I think.”
“Are you scared?” Patrick asked, “At all?”
She nodded. “Yes, she will be tainted I am afraid. I will have to treasure her closer to me than anything I’ve ever loved. Maybe I can make her different than I am. She will be God’s gift to me, I am COMPELLED to make her different.”
I don’t understand you at all, Patrick thought. And I don’t want anymore part of you. “I’m happy for you,” Patrick said. “And when it’s born, why don’t you name it after a Saint to thank God for His gift to you.” She would be just insane enough to do that, he thought with some manipulative amusement. He pitied her baby already, whatever it would be.
“Anna-Marie tells me that you haven’t returned any of Sophie’s calls,” Stephane said, breaking the silence that had been between them in the car the next evening. They weren’t in Patrick’s car, it belonged to the family he billeted with, it was one of their “extra” cars and they encouraged him to use it whenever he wanted. Patrick never shied from using the vehicle, tonight he and Stephane had taken it out into the town.
“I haven’t had time,” Patrick replied, the feel of Pauline’s skin still tickled on his teeth. His time had been more than filled, she belonged to him now, completely, and she had cast away the rest of the boys. “And what do you care? Are you the older one rink-rat?”
Stephane laughed. “If you don’t like her tell her, it’s none of my business I guess.”
“Yeah it’s none of your business,” Patrick said. “And I do like her, she’s too nice though. I feel guilty with her sometimes.”
“Guilty?” Stephane asked.
“She reminds me of our sister.”
“Fuck that!” Stephane exclaimed. He broke into peals of laughter, his voice cracking. “You’ve stayed with Sophie this long and you’re thinking of Alex? That smells worse than Jacques’ bitch Patrick.”
Patrick felt his cheeks burn. “I haven’t done anything with her!” he exclaimed in his own defense. “I like her too much, I don’t want to do that with her, but if she feels that way about me I don’t want to look like a chicken in front of her, you understand?”
“You’re a chicken, Humpty Dumpty, admit it,” Stephane taunted.
“Shut up!”
“Shit!”
The car almost swerved off the road as Patrick spun the wheel and then stomped on the brakes to avoid hitting a prone human form on the road. The car spun backwards and stopped, Patrick felt his heart pounding and he stared at the man on the road, his brain flashing everything he had seen in the split second that it had happened. Yes, there was a man laying there but..
“…another man,” Stephane gasped. “Patrick there was another man, he had a gun. Did he shoot him?”
The other man had dodged the car; he had been standing over the body, a gun pointed at it. If he had any common sense then he ran into the trees, he’s gone now. “I’m going to see if he’s alive.”
“What about the other man? The one with the gun eh?”
Patrick looked at Stephane, his face was pale and a small trickle of blood came from the corner of his lip. A smudge of blood ran down the glass of the passenger window. “You can stay in here if you’re scared.”
Stephane’s blue eyes narrowed. The words were the trigger to a game they had played since they were tiny boys, words that invoked the bravery to play in the woods after dark, or do something that would get them in trouble with Dad. You can stay here if you’re scared. Stephane wiped at the blood on his forehead and he opened the door on his side. Patrick kept his eyes on the man lying on the road. His chest moved up and down with his breath, alive.
“Are you alive?” he asked loudly.
“He’s breathing you idiot,” Stephane snapped.
Patrick glared at his brother and muttered a curse as he walked more swiftly to the incapacitated man. He had brown eyes, dark hair, his cheek blackened and split open, blood ran from his mouth, he blinked. “You’re safe now.” The trees looked taller, thicker, hiding someone in there, someone who could be waiting with a gun, Patrick didn’t trust trees. They hid things.
The man said something, but not in French. Patrick understood that it was English. “I do not… speak English,” Patrick stumbled with the English words.
“Is he gone?” the man asked in French, he closed his eyes and sighed.
“As far as we know,” Stephane said and he knelt next to the man. “How badly are you hurt Mister? What happened?”
“I’m not that bad, he only got a punch onto me, the sight of the gun is what had me immobilized. He said if I moved he’d kill me. I think he would have done it anyway.” The man sat up with a loud groan. Patrick went to his other side and pressed his hand to his sweaty back. He and Stephane helped him to his feet and they noticed a car smoking, nose first into a tree.
“Is that your car?”
“No,” the man replied, “It’s his, he had me driving at gunpoint and I ran it into the tree.”
Patrick swallowed and looked at the tree; splinters of wood stained the snow. “What was going on?”
“It’s a long story,” the man said, “Can you drive me into town?”
“Of course!” Stephane replied.
The man sighed loudly and reclined into the backseat of the car, he closed his eyes. “It’s nice to have rest,” he muttered.
“Who was that?” Stephane asked.
“An angry husband.”
Patrick groaned inwardly. A forbidden love match then? “You sleep with his wife?”
“No,” the man replied. “I was rescuing her; he was abusing her and his children horribly. I helped her leave him, and he took me hostage last night, he wanted to scare me into giving up her whereabouts. Possessive jerks like him can get quite violent.”
“Were you a friend of the woman?” Stephane asked in a curious voice.
Patrick grinned. He could already tell his brother had it in mind to make himself a new and interesting friend in this person.
“No I barely knew her but a friend contacted me about her, I’ve done this before, help women and girls out of these situations. I’ve never been this close to a jilted spouse before, however. That was a first for me.”
“Are you a policeman?” Patrick asked.
“No I’m a
priest actually,” the man replied. “Father Andrew Sullivan, I’m out of
“Well I’m Stephane Roy, and this is my brother Patrick, nice to meet you.”
Patrick glanced briefly at Stephane as his brother reached over the seat to shake Father Sullivan’s hand. Stephane’s white smile huge and inviting, Patrick turned his attention back to the road. “Nice to meet you Father.”
“Would you boys mind terribly if we went to the police station?” Father Sullivan asked. “This man is dangerous; I don’t want him hurting anyone else.”
Patrick assured Father Sullivan that they would.
“Hey Father can I ask you something?” Stephane asked.
“Yes?”
“What was it like having a gun pointed at you? Were you scared?”
Patrick rolled his eyes.
“No not particularly. If God wanted me then, He would have taken me, we do not need to fear death my son.”
Then why did you lie on the road and give up your dignity when the man told you to do it, Patrick thought. But of course he didn’t say it.