Stacking in Rivertown Read Online Free Page A

of my “year,” as I call it, when I began counting up chits and thinking about a different type of suicide, the kind where you end up free, in a new life that you yourself decide.
    Holding the IDs in my hand and having my recurring problem with memory, I picked up my phone to call Ben. He was the only person I knew that could get me a batch of new IDs.
    And it’s funny how you forget the important things. How the bad stuff just falls right out of your head and you remember a whole ten years of your life with a man like Ben, thinking that everything that happened was only natural and not all that terrible when you get right down to it.
    So at that moment, for some crazy reason, I was thinking that Ben was the one to help me.
    It turned out to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

2
    Weekend Number One
    Ben’s message machine drones on. I almost hang up, but then say fast, “It’s Beth, Ben. I’ll call back.”
    I pack my pistol into my bag and make reservations at an Italian place Jeremy likes. Then I work on my new plan. It’s like making up a story. First you get the general idea. Then you embroider, working the details. You search for the tragedy and irony. If you’re lucky, you’re surprised by unexpected twists and a satisfying ending.
    Kat taught me Shakespeare when I was at Ben’s. She’d been with Ben the longest, and was almost twenty-five when I first came. Ben didn’t usually have players that old, but Kat was different. I guess she spent a year in college somewhere. That seemed weird. She kept a whole collection of Shakespeare on a shelf.
    Sigh no more, I’d say to her.
    We’d hang our heads and lie back on her bed. Sigh no more. I got a real appetite for Bill, or B.S., as we called him. We even acted out some of the plays. I practically knew
Romeo and Julie
by heart. But for me, nothing could be better than
The Tempest
. All that forgiveness at the end, the blessedness.
    I want to write a story like that.
    Kat took care of the rest of us. After our plays, we’d bathe, worn out but flush with arousal and fear. She’d check us over, tending to any bruises or open cuts. We’d sleep past noon, then Kat would cook breakfast.
    The evening hours could be the hardest as we waited for the plays to begin. Ben never told us what to expect. It added to the show as far as he was concerned.
    The scare worked its way into me. That’s when Kat would sit me down with a book. I thought it was dumb at first, but Kat was insistent. And once she got me hooked, I couldn’t get enough.
    Kat guided me. Whenever she returned from a shopping trip, she dropped another book in my lap. Later on, she’d get me sitting right next to her. We’d talk about what I was reading. Kat taught me more about everything than any teacher I ever had.
    The morning after my failed suicide, I go jogging. About a mile down the road, a limo with black windows wheels up and stops a little ahead. The back window slides down as I come alongside. It’s Ben.
    He smiles that awful smile that he gets just before something bad, and I decide that maybe I don’t want to see Ben after all. The driver jumps out and opens a door for me.
    “Hop in,” Ben says.
    I look around, not a soul in sight. I sigh and slide in, sitting across from him.
    “You took your time,” Ben says as the limo pulls away from the curb. “You’re what, thirty-one now? That’s too old.”
    “I just need some IDs,” I say. “I’ll pay.”
    “We’ll see,” he says. “Strip for me.”
    This isn’t what I had in mind at all, but I don’t see that I have too many choices, so I take off my clothes.
    When I’m done, he says, “Bring up your knees. Spread.”
    He checks me over.
    “Crouch. Good. Now hands and knees.” He feels my sides, runs his hands over my rump. “Head up.” He pokes my thighs. “You’re clean and fresh,” he says. “Like new. Jeremy’s been taking good care of you. You don’t look a day over twenty-five.”
    “I just need IDs,” I