Thirty Below. Harry Groome

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      Jake stared back at her, smiling broadly, something Carrie thought definitely didn’t fit the situation. She stood motionless, her hands still resting on the basin and struggled to regain her composure. She waited a moment and then said, as calmly as she could, “Jake, please, be nice and let go of me. We agreed we were through with all this. Why can’t we just be friends?”

      “Because that’s not the way I’m wired.” The smile left his face as quickly as it had appeared. “I don’t give up that easily; certainly not to some son of a bitch you haven’t even met.” He bit her earlobe. “One more time, Carrie, to see what you’ll be missing,” he said, and promised that he’d make it fun, more fun than she’d have in Alaska.

      “Jake, listen to me.” She slapped her hands on the edges of the basin. “This is not my idea of fun! Besides, Hannah’s due home any minute.”

      “Nice try, big girl, but she’s worked Saturdays ever since I’ve known you.”

      She said Hannah had the day off.

      “I’ll take my chances,” he said and began to run his free hand back and forth across her belly and then moved his fingers between her legs.

      Carrie screamed, “No!” and grabbed for his hand only to find her hand in his grip, and again she thought he had almost superhuman strength. “Jake,” she pleaded, “please take me seriously. I’m asking you to take your hands off me and leave. This has gone far enough, so out and out now. Please, before Hannah comes home. Before this goes any further.”

      The phone rang. “I’ve got to get that. I’m expecting a call from my mom.”

      It rang a second time. “She’s sick.”

      Jake laughed. “She can leave a message.”

      The phone rang again.

      “Please, I have to talk to her,” Carrie said.

      Jake forced Carrie’s hand with his between her legs. “Later,” he said, and the phone rang once more and Carrie pressed her thighs together and the phone stopped ringing and she started to cry. “Damn you,” she sobbed. “God damn you. It’s this type of thing that finished us. Now please, if you really care about me, let go of me and get out of here.”

      For a moment there wasn’t a sound in the apartment other than Carrie’s quiet sobs, and then Hannah’s voice, amplified through the answering machine, broke the silence. “Carrie? Where are you? Call me when you get a chance. I have to stay after five and need a favor of you.”

      “So Hannah got the day off?” Jake said, squeezing Carrie’s hand tighter as he began to rub his fist between her legs. “And it wasn’t Mom after all.” He pressed his mouth over her ear and whispered, “Stop stalling and give Jake Hornbeck a chance to change your life.”

      Carrie thought if only he could, but this wasn’t what she had in mind. As she began to tell him no he let go of her hand and she heard the sound of his zipper. “What are you doing?” she screamed.

      “Enjoy the moment,” he said. “It’ll beat the hell out of internet dating. You’ll see.”

      Carrie looked at Jake’s face in the mirror. His eyes were narrow and dark and bright. The man with the angular face and large brown eyes that she’d found so handsome the first time she met him now looked like a giant rat. Again she told him to leave, that he was out of control, that she hated him, that he wasn’t the kind of man she’d thought he was, but his arm seemed to tighten even more across her chest and his fingers dug into her rib cage like some gigantic claw.

      She forced out, “Please, I can’t breathe.”

      “Nice and easy,” he said, and she felt him press himself between her legs.

      She tried to scream for him to stop but his free hand closed over her mouth before she could say anything. She felt as if she were suffocating, the pressure on her chest and his hand over her mouth making it difficult for her to draw anything but short, quick breaths through her nose and then she felt him press hard against her as he moved up between her buttocks.

      “Oh, my God, no!” she screamed and reached in the sink, grabbed the blow dryer and whipped it back over her shoulder with all her strength, its oval open end hitting him above the eye with a loud crack.

      “You cunt!” he yelled and covered his eye with his hands.

      Carrie turned and pushed him backward, relieved to be free of his grasp. Jake took his hands from his eye and looked at the blood on them. “You’re just like all the rest,” he said. “Want it on your terms, or not at all.” He dangled his arms and bent forward at the waist, blood dripping down his cheek to the floor. The crazed smile returned to his face. “Well, I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.” He began nodding as though he was agreeing with some internal voice. “Run off to Alaska with some stranger if you must, but no bitch like you turns Jake Hornbeck down.” And he came at her, bent at the waist, his pants sliding to his ankles, his penis erect.

      Carrie swung the hair dryer at him but he blocked the blow with his forearm, jolting the dryer free from her grasp, sending it caroming across the floor. He smiled, straightened slightly and grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against him.

      For an instant Carrie’s mind went blank, giving in to a blackness of despair. Instinctively she brought her knee up between his legs and felt it make contact with him, felt his grip loosen on her shoulders and watched as he took a step backward and then a second, clutching himself, and dropped to his knees and fall to his side on the bathroom floor and kick his bare feet, his blue jeans and skivvies knotted around one ankle.

      Carrie reached down and pulled her towel from beneath his legs. She could hear him groaning and muttering, “You cunt. You fucking cunt.”

      She ran to her bedroom and wrapped the towel around her and crossed her arms across her bruised chest to warm herself and grabbed her cell phone and dialed and cupped her hand around the phone and whispered, “Hannah Hall, please.”

      When Hannah finally got on the line, Carrie was sobbing.

      “Who’s calling, please?” Hannah said.

      Carrie tried to muffle her cries.

      “Hello? Who’s calling please?” Hannah asked again.

      Carrie sucked in a breath and let it out and struggled to be understood. “It’s me.”

      “Jesus, are you all right?”

      “Come home, Hannah.”

      “Okay, Carrie, calm down. What’s the matter?”

      “He tried to have his way with me.”

      “Who’s he?”

      “Jake.”

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