Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six(35)

He already knew that the couple had stripped the bed.

He’d watched them.

He’d watched them cook last night. Make love on the porch in front of the fire. He’d watched the wife in the shower, her body soft but pretty, youthful and full. She’d hummed, contentedly soaping herself, eyes blank and peaceful. He’d watched them sleep, curled around each other.

Earlier, he’d watched Liza shower. Leaning her delicate body against the tiles, she wept. He’d wanted to race up there and comfort her, fix whatever had been broken to make her cry so inconsolably. But that was a boundary he couldn’t cross. When she was done, she’d vomited in the toilet. Carefully wiped it down when she was done.

He’d been thinking of her ever since. Her fragility. Her vulnerability. The boundary between them. What would it take to cross over that? To hold her? To have her?

They belonged to him while they were in his houses, didn’t they? He never tired of people and all their different ways. Their voices and gestures, their conversations, the way they were with each other, what they did when they thought no one was watching. He kept their secrets, though. He kept his distance. Usually.

“They left you a six-pack of craft beer in the fridge. From Tall Elk Brewery in town,” May said. “With a sweet thank-you note.”

That was a bit of surprise. People didn’t usually offer thanks or leave gifts. Never in the big house. Entitlement. That’s what he saw in most of his guests. They’d paid and expected to be served, maybe rightly so.

Privilege. A word that suddenly inspired jealousy, resentment, rage. Some people were born with it—that beautiful ease, that aura of never worrying about making it, surviving. Some stood on the other side of the glass, watching. Even if tireless effort or extraordinary achievement opened the door to that shining universe, it always felt like a mirage. People born to privilege just didn’t know there was anything else. People born without it knew what awaited if the destroyer came to call. And the destroyer was always waiting, wasn’t he?

“Want one?” he asked. He took two from the fridge and held one up to her.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m just about done. Can’t drink on the job, you know. My boss is a real dick.”

She gave him a wink.

He nodded solemnly. “I’d heard that.”

He walked out to the porch and sat down on the couch, the two beers sweating in their bottles on the table. After a while, May came and sat in the rocker beside him. The warm evening air hummed with the sound of insects, punctuated by the trills of birds in the trees. The light wind whispered in the trees.

He took a deep drag of the cold beer, and May did the same.

She had a thoughtful gaze on him.

“Come for dinner tonight?” she asked. Her eyes were hazel, almost amber. And he liked the way she looked at him. They’d slept together three times. She had a young daughter, Leilani, a precocious ten-year-old who was half-time with May, and half-time with May’s ex, Leilani’s dad. It was an amicable arrangement, most of the time. Leilani was a sweet kid with a little bit of a learning issue.

“With Leilani?” he asked. It was fine if Leilani was around. But it was better if she wasn’t.

“Leilani’s with her dad tonight.” She looked at him, bit on her lip a little.

It was easy with May. He could be himself; she didn’t seem to have any expectations of him or want him to be any one certain way. He didn’t do well with people usually—found them confusing, their cues difficult to understand. But he was okay with May.

“Sure. What time?”

“Eight? I have a chili in the Crock-Pot, made some cornbread early this morning.”

She was a good cook; he’d been astounded by that. He’d never known anyone who could cook well.

“I’ll bring the wine.” Though he rarely drank he had a pantry full of bottles left behind by guests who had brought way too much. They wouldn’t take it at the food pantry, but he wound up giving the bottles as gifts so that they wouldn’t go to waste.

She nodded, finished off her beer. “Oh,” she said, standing. “I found this. I’m not sure what it is? It was in the master shower.”

She pulled something from her pocket and handed it to him. He pretended to inspect it. “Huh.”

“No idea what it is,” she said again. “But maybe they’ll call for it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Strange.”

“See you later,” she said, tossing back an inviting smile and he felt something stir inside him, a tug, a longing.

He recalled the feel of her, the taste of her. He doubted they’d do much eating. As he made love to her, maybe he’d be thinking of Liza.

When she was inside, he looked at the item in his hand. It was the tiny lens encased in black plastic from one of his pinhole cameras. It must have fallen from the showerhead. Shit.

He looked back at May, who was gathering her things inside. If she knew what she’d found, it didn’t show. She caught him looking and gave him a wave, and then she was gone.

What would she think of him if she knew what he did? How much time he spent watching the people he rented his cabins to? What did it make him? A stalker? A Peeping Tom?

The gloaming settled and the night was a silvery blue. He sat for a while, letting the stillness wash over him. After a bit, he took out his phone and opened the camera app. His big group at Overlook was just sitting down to dinner.