Rapture

She sat on the toilet cover and awkwardly got the ridiculous bullets into the little gun, not at all sure she would need it or even be able to use it. Something to keep her busy while she tried to think. Maybe it was all her fault for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, for thinking of her daughter when she should have been in tune with the man making love to her. Maybe. But then, maybe not .. .

She couldn't stay in the bathroom forever. If Jeff had moved, he hadn't made a sound. She put the gun in her handbag. She put on sneakers, jeans, and a light blouse. Her face in the mirror looked a wreck, but she couldn't do anything about it now. She just wanted to leave. What if he wouldn't let her?

When she opened the bathroom door, Jeff was in his robe, sitting on the bed. He gave her a pathetic smile, then sucked nervously op a cigarette. Twice he looked like he was going to say something, but he couldn't get it out.

"I'd like to go," Georgianne said quietly.

You don't have to."

"I really think I should."

.Hey. ..*

"I'm sorry, Jeff. It's my fault. But I just don't think this is a good idea. Any of it."

"All right. Well ... that doesn't mean-"

"I'll call Jan. She'll come and get me."

"No, don't bother." He got off the bed, as if to intercept her, but she hadn't moved from the bathroom doorway. "I'll run you up to Santa Barbara ... if you really want to go."

"Thanks." She looked away from him. "I do."

"Okay. Well." He moved indecisively, toward his room, toward her, then stopped. "Georgianne."

There it was. She had to look at him.

"Yes?"

"You ... don't ... love ... me?"

He sounded so weak and defeated that she despised herself for letting the situation get to this point. What had she been thinking? She felt nothing for Jeff, but that didn't alter the fact that she had behaved badly- or so she thought. When he was like this, it was impossible to imagine him hurting anyone, except possibly himself.

"I don't love anyone," she said. "Maybe I can't any more."

Jeff appeared to consider that for a couple of seconds, his face the picture of desolation. Then he nodded once and left the room.

Maybe that was worse than shooting him, Georgianne thought. Somehow the two of them had conspired to do nothing, and yet she felt dirty.

In his room, Jeff stood trembling so violently he wondered if his body was literally coming apart. His teeth bit together painfully, and he seemed to be sweating from his forehead to his crotch. He forced himself to sit down and swallow huge gulps of air. A few minutes later, he felt calm, maybe even serene.

There followed a ghastly interlude-leaving the condo, carrying her suitcase, getting in the car and starting out-that was like walking underwater, or trying to get out from under a dome of silence.

But when they reached the street, Jeff began to feel better. He could accommodate all the bitterness and frustration. He could bear the pain of final rejection. He could even fight off the nausea he felt when he thought of how she had cut him off, physically and psychically, just before the moment of penetration. A kind of castration-that was the only word for it. He could take it all, he could take anything. Shit on me, it doesn't matter. Because he knew what he was doing and where they were going.

He spun the wheel, and the car turned smoothly to the right. Then he slammed his foot down, and they accelerated sharply, streaking north into Topo Canyon on a road that went nowhere.

Georgianne knew immediately that something was wrong. The road looked wrong, the direction felt wrong, and the expression on Jeff's face frightened her.

"Where are we going?"

"A slight detour."

"Detour? Where?" No response. "Why? Jeff."

"Relax," he said sarcastically. "I just want to get a look at the fire. That's all."

"I don't want to."

"There's a good vantage point I know."

"Jeff, I don't want to go anywhere near the fires. Please, let's turn around."

"It's not dangerous. Really."

Just then Georgianne spotted an unmanned barricade a couple of hundred yards in front of them. The road was closed. But before she had a chance to breathe easier, the Ferrari swerved off the asphalt into high grass and hardly lost any speed as it bounced along a rutted, partially overgrown trail. Branches whipped the windshield, scratched the roof, and raked the sides of the car.

"Jeff! What are you doing?"

He laughed, as if genuinely amused.

"They closed Topo Canyon Road, but there are a lot of these dirt tracks up into the hills," he said. "Bikers come here and roar around the countryside when they have nothing better to do."

"Jeff, please take me out of here."

"Yeah, yeah, in a minute."

"If the road is closed, it can't be safe. The fire must be close to this area."

"It is." Jeff laughed again. "The fire's in this area. I want to get a look at it."

There was no point trying to talk to him. Georgianne reached into the handbag on her lap and closed her fingers around the gun. She held it there, waiting.

Then she gasped as she noticed the sky. It was a black wall just ahead of them.