The Game

By Skye Cotton

A novel about a man who is bored and finds pleasure in manipulating people and the naive young woman who is snared in his trap. Through their contentious experiences together they discover that this is a situation which has few solutions and the probable outcome for one of them is death. They need to come to an understanding to find a positive outcome to outwit fate and karma.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483548883

Book preview

17

CHAPTER 1

She waited in line for three or four minutes, her boots growing wetter in the frozen slush. The cold rain dripped off her hat while those in the front of the line boarded. He observed that she appeared preoccupied. Like robots, people moved forward, then back again to check their luggage before stepping up into the bus. Blasted by hot jets of air in the doorway, she pulled herself aboard and made her way down the aisle to a vacant spot by the window. Tugging off her wet coat, she hastily stuffed her bag and packages into the overhead and dropped into her seat. She smiled, looking forward to the ride north, a good transition from the city’s fast pace back to that of her comfortable college town.

This Friday had been an exhilarating and exhausting day. She had planned to work on her paper at the Museum in Boston on Saturday, but Thursday evening found her pacing in her small single dormitory room, anxious to begin. She sat on her bed and considered her obligations for Friday. Two classes - one she could skip and make up later, and one for which she would have to borrow notes.

Friday morning she woke early, showered before the usual din of alarms sounded, and quietly left the dorm without signing out. Normally responsible, she chose not to sign out, a major transgression in her housemother’s eyes. She was confident she would be back by curfew and not missed or penalized. She walked briskly to the center of the village, frosty vapor escaping her lips as she whispered a quiet whistle on the way to the bus stop. Only one other person waited, so there would still be ample seating. The next bus at 9:00 would be packed with the out-of-state students leaving for home for the weekend. She’d have extra time in Boston and would enjoy going to the Muffin House for a little breakfast, a luxury her student’s budget could hardly bear. She enjoyed being alone in the crowds, part of the bustle, absorbing the smells of the subway and sounds of the wooden escalator steps.

Returning now, reboarding the bus, she settled into her seat, closed her weary eyes and reflected. Boston had been a relief, a fascination, and an exhaustion again. Her mind raced. How impossible to analytically make contrasts and comparisons for her term paper on the Egyptian statue of Nofret and Rahotep that was housed in the Museum. Contrasts and comparisons were totally inappropriate to her experience of this statue, which spoke to her of a mystical partnership immortalized thousands of years ago in granite by some anonymous sculptor. She pulled in a long breath. The king and queen were mortally vulnerable but spiritually powerful entities, both individually and as a unit. She pulled out a postcard picture of the two and wondered how they had first come together. Surely the woman had had no choice about being the king’s consort. Like him, the queen may have been destined for her role since birth. Slowly tracing their forms on the card, she was captivated by the messages in their physical postures. The king with his arms at his sides, appeared to be leading, moving steadfastly forward. The queen, with her arms on either side of him walked half a step behind, yet seemed to guide him. Rather than two, they were a single symbiotic unit. Closing her eyes, she drifted from concept to concept until a stinging truth burned into her thoughts. These two souls had been linked then and had striven to be connected in all the single points that total the perceived sequentiality of time. With a start, she quickly opened her eyes. Staring out her bus window, she gradually lost focus on the changing landscapes outside. With the image of the Egyptian pair returning to her mind, she wondered if it were that way for all men and women or only a select immortal few.

After boarding the late afternoon bus in Boston, the businessman who had observed her in line, followed and sat down next to her. He read The Globe and a letter with a foreign stamp. She looked across the aisle past him, collecting details about him, yet not getting caught staring. Perhaps fifteen years her senior, he was hatless, yet wearing a business suit and overcoat, was slightly heavy in build, and had an unusual nose, even for a New Englander. In the window seat across the aisle from them slept a rather good-looking flaxen-haired fellow, she guessed frat-material or perhaps a wholesome plant science major. He woke briefly to catch her assessing glance and shyly smiled in return, then turned away back to his dreams. The aisle seat next to the frat guy was empty.

The businessman leaned across the aisle and shoved his paper down on the empty seat. He suddenly turned back to look out her window. He caught her staring at him and responded, Hi! She nodded an embarrassed silent hello with a polite smile, tucked her postcard away, and retreating, turned back to look out her window. She knew buses and trains had odd social atmospheres. Last time it had been a senior derelict millionaire who had wanted to unload some of his monetary and social burden on her and had asked for her name and phone number. The memory of the effort needed to get away from that guy made her squirm. Perhaps by association, she felt uneasy about this businessman’s intentions too. His presence suddenly seemed overwhelmingly invasive. Lord knows what he wanted to unload.

He was a foreigner. She had heard it in his single word. An accent always fascinated her. She wondered where he came from and what had brought him to this time and place. She watched his reflection in her window.

He knew. He looked out her window again and making eye contact with her reflection, asked, Tonight, do you think it will rain or snow?

Without turning, she answered simply. Probably snow here.

He persisted, Do you ski?

No.

Too bad.

She felt irked at his obviously pompous superior attitude. Turning finally to meet his eyes, she jumped at him with her reply. Do you? She could not imagine this man in a parka and ski pants.

He was curt. Yes.

This irked her more. He had begun the discussion, and now he wasn’t participating. She pursued the conversation out of peevishness with feigned cordiality; she really did not care too much about his answer. When did you begin and where are you skiing now?

Filled with satisfaction and contained anticipation, he visually examined her and very matter-of-factly responded, I learned as a child, and ski now in Vermont, sometimes Colorado, or Alps. I learned there.

The polite question had to follow. Are you Swiss? He was pleased with himself; he had drawn her out. Intuitively sensing her latent fear, he instinctively had used her curiosity to break her reserve and had manipulated her to do something he knew she was reluctant to do. This was indeed a pleasant pastime for him.

He began the narration of his autobiography. He was Serbian, a Yugoslavian. His family was nobility before the World War II. She recalled something of the monarchy there being assassinated. Although she still felt irritated and uneasy, she was curious and somewhat more relaxed since he was talking about himself.

What do you do now?

I am administrative chemist with pharmaceutical company. I like to play with little molecules to see what they will do. He looked directly into her eyes and smiled. I like to play with people too. They are like little atoms." Silence.

She felt like one of his molecules, pulled into this conversation as if lured into a trap. He had wanted her to feel this. He released her, easing the tension by continuing his narration. During the war, when I was boy, I would hide and then jump out at soldiers to see if they would be scared and shoot me! They never did! As he laughed at his own joke, she felt scorn for that kind of bravado, which she saw as borderline stupidity having little respect for life. However, she also felt an incredulous admiration as well. He continued, enjoying his own story. I would find mines in fields and bring them home. Mother finally found them under my bed! Again his quiet laughter; again the implausible story. He talked at length about his boyhood: his parents, their seductive maid, his excelling in his education and his disinterest in excelling. Noticing her waning interest in listening, he concluded, I was even once champion of wrestling for my country and am now ten years in states. How about you? What do you study?

Of course she looked like a student! How appalling! But she was serious and one can’t help being as old as one is. Interested, he learned something about her. Her folks lived several hundred miles away. She grew up on a farm. She was a loner (he concluded). And, she wasn’t certain what she could do with a fine arts degree. He gathered information from her delivery as well. She seemed reticent, yet was not insecure and she also was not properly cautious. He was amused. Enjoying the success of his mind games, he wanted to play more with her, if only for just a few additional minutes. He was confident her curiosity would trap her again. Her confusion would be his gain. Her restraint would make his game challenging. In her quiet naive way, she felt to him, very formidable, and for him, formidable was not synonymous with impossible. It was a challenge that fed an addiction and was a pleasure.

The bus had only a few miles to go before her stop. She silently began gathering her things together and pulling on her coat. He had made a minor victory; however his opponent was leaving the field. He wanted to play for more. He asked her to dinner for that night. She laughed nervously, relieved to be getting back to the privacy of herself, and declined. He returned, Why not? Deceptively friendly, he returned her laugh.

She hesitated. I’ve enjoyed the conversation, but I don’t really think it would be right. She was aware that she felt uneasy about him, but didn’t understand that it was because she had been the object of his successful manipulation. She did know her up-bringing had taught her to be cautious about being picked up. She wondered if she would have much in common with a three-piece suit type of person. He had talked with her adult-to-adult. At twenty and a student, few non-peers had talked to her as if she had something worthwhile to offer. While she did not like being picked up and she was uncomfortably apprehensive, her mind concluded it was probably more just the learned social warning. She felt oddly fascinated by him. He had made her feel attractive. Seeing so many sides, she could not see a definite resolution. False reasoning and curiosity won over intuition.

Surmising her reservations, he avoided them, applying salesmanship instead, saying, If you do not have jealous boyfriend, allow me to buy you a nice dinner and find out why you come here to be student. I can meet you where you choose and after, we can each go home. Laughing, he continued, Do you want free meal?

She felt embarrassed to say no. He seemed to have offered her all good choices. She reluctantly agreed, rationalizing that there was only one restaurant in the town that served anything beside pizza, believing it would be a treat to talk to a non-collegiate person and to eat something more upscale. He appeared to be easily able to afford their dinners. By not accepting her No, he had created a yes. She quickly calculated the amount of time she would need to prepare, then wrote the name of the restaurant and the meeting time on a slip of paper and handed it to him. Is that O.K.?

He glanced briefly at the paper, and then slipped it into his pocket. Fine. See you later. That was all he said. She looked back at him through the other exiting students as she made her way down the aisle to disembark the bus. He had picked up his newspaper and appeared to be deeply involved. She had thought to make some sort of further good-by. He never looked up, and she got off the bus feeling oddly as if she had been dismissed. He knew exactly what he had achieved with her and smiled to himself in anticipation. The game would go on.

In the face of a more bitter breeze, she wearily backtracked uphill to her dorm. Feeling slightly guilty, she sneaked past her dorm mother’s office, and on up the stairs to her room. The dorm was deserted. About a fourth of the girls had left for home, some had left with their dates by now, some already were entrenched in their rooms with their dates, and a few solitary girls had been watching television in the first floor lounge. Nobody knew she was back, and she needed all the time left before her dinner date to get dressed and find a way to coax her long deep brown hair into a suitable style. She had no time for chitchatting.

Feeling a bit guilty about having a date with an older man she really knew nothing about, she hurried clandestinely from the dorm. By now too many explanations would have to be given, and she wasn’t prepared to do that. Making her way back to the restaurant in the village, she reflected that she didn’t even know his name, or he hers. With knots in her stomach, she wondered why the haste to be with someone who made her so nervous. In the cloakroom, she was fumbling with replacing her boots with her heels when she noticed him entering through the restaurant doors. She had dressed for dinner in one of the two dress-up dresses she owned. Her mother would have called it attractive. He had come more casually, looking great in a ski sweater and soft brown suede jacket. As yet unobserved, she surveyed him as he waited in the foyer for her. He was heavy and solid, but not fat. He had a wrestler’s body and carried himself confidently. Probably between thirty and thirty-five, his thick light brown hair made him appear youthful, but not young. A fresh, young twenty, she wished she could wear maturity like her heels and dress.

He greeted her warmly, then had the hostess take them to a secluded table. Without a word, he seated her, seated himself, then handed her a menu. Without further small talk, he turned his attention to his own menu, and considered the options thoroughly. Although