Prey by Bill Tope

Prey by Bill Tope

1

“I had a strange dream last night, Luke,” said Rob, the owner of the restaurant where Luke worked. Luke looked up from the flat griddle where he was preparing bacon and sausages and breakfast steaks and eggs and various other foods as part of the morning rush.

“Strange how?” he inquired. Rob was 32, or 3 years older than Luke, and had owned the diner since long before Luke had ever worked there. Luke did a double take; was Rob blushing?

“I dreamed I was gay,” confided the manager, his skin florid through his salt and pepper beard.

Luke flipped some eggs, rolled up an omelet and placed a press atop several rashers of bacon. He chuckled, then instantly regretted it when Rob cast a troubled look his way.

“What do you think it means?” asked Rob. This was not unexpected, given that Luke, in spite of his present employment as a weekend cook, was half-way to completing his Master’s in Psychology.

Luke shrugged. “I dunno, Rob. Could be a lot of things.” Then he said with a smirk, “I haven’t studied sexual deviance yet.” And he laughed. At Rob’s stricken look, Luke felt contrite. “No, listen Rob, it probably doesn’t mean anything; you know, your subconscious, fears of inadequacy, and…” He stopped himself and drew a great breath. “Really, man, dreams are just that — dreams. It’s like Freud said: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Doesn’t mean anything.”

Rob nodded uncertainly and frowning, left the kitchen through the back door. Luke shrugged again and went back to work.

2

That evening, Luke pored over a textbook on interpretation of dreams. He wanted to find some explanation for the nocturnal ruminations of Rob, who was not only his boss, but his friend as well.

“What are you studying so intently?” asked Cathy, Luke’s live-in girlfriend, who was likewise a student. Luke explained.

Cathy laughed hoarsely and unpleasantly. “That’s rich!” she chortled.

“It’s got Rob a little bothered,” remarked Luke.

“You like that sonofabitch, don’t you?”

“I’ve known him for ten years,” said Luke. “Rob’s a little rough, but he’s stand-up.”

“Rob doesn’t like women very much, does he?” she asked pointedly.

“Hey, the guy gets laid more than any….”

“I never said he didn’t like having sex with women,” Cathy pointed out. “I said, he doesn’t like — regard, appreciate, respect — women very much.”

Luke blew out a breath. Cathy had a point, he had to admit. Rob was the town’s resident cocksman, always on the make. Rumor had it that he actually had a wooden bedpost on which he whittled a hash mark for each new “relationship.”

“I have to admit, though,” Cathy went on, as though testing the waters, “that he ain’t bad.”

“Hmm?” Luke regarded her with speculative eyes.

“I mean, I’d do him,” she admitted, then hurried on with, “If I didn’t have you, baby!” She grinned, showing off her large, perfect white teeth. She laughed, but whether it was to reassure him or to keep him off balance, he was never sure.

Shaking his head, he returned to his reading.

3

That Saturday night, following a long day at the restaurant, Luke took his woman to the tavern where all the college crowd hung out. He remembered that it was almost one year ago to the day — ten days before Christmas — when he first met Cathy here. She was then in the company of Glen, one of Luke’s chums. Cathy had put the moves on him with a purpose, telling him she was growing tired of Glen, and would he take her home? Never one to poach a woman from a friend, Luke had demurred until at length, he watched as Glen exited the bar in the company of another female. Assuming that anything goes, he let Cathy buy him drinks until well into the night and then took her home; two weeks later they were living together. He and Glen had not spoken since.

“Gimme a rum and Coke, babe,” said Cathy, excusing herself to the ladies’ room, where Luke knew she would be tooting up some blow. She was besties with the lover of a coke dealer and got loaded for free, so there wasn’t much that Luke felt he could say about it, as long as Lainie was footing the bill. Luke eschewed illegals, judging them to be a long, bumpy road to nowhere. It was one of many bones of contention that had risen between the lovers. Cathy hadn’t been involved with the drugs, to his knowledge, when they’d first hooked up.

Two hours later, Luke looked up to find Rob ensconced in a corner with a strikingly attractive, raven-haired woman named Amelia, one of Rob’s regulars. Rob had his hand on her plump ass and was playfully grinding his pelvis into hers. She nibbled on his upper lip. Rob suddenly looked Luke’s way and flashed a thumb’s up. Luke smiled back and shook his head.

At the end of a long evening, Luke gathered a coked-up Cathy from the bar and they proceeded to the Highway Cafe, a late-night destination for those party animals who had drunk or snorted their way through their weekly wages. Cathy was so tooted up that she was practically worthless and sat idly running a finger through her plate of biscuits and gravy. She kept drawing heavy breaths and exhaling.

“What’s on your mind, Cat?” asked Luke at last. She said nothing. “You alright? Get ahold of some bad white? Been stepped on?” he asked. Although her best friend was hooked up to a man who dealt in the shit, Cathy wasn’t the most discriminating user Luke had ever known. “What…” he began anew.

“Rob fucked me,” she said shortly.

This drew Luke up short. His head still heavy from an evening of pot and booze, he shook it a little and said, “What?”

“Your boss man,” she replied. “He fucked me on the floor of the women’s restroom tonight. In front of half the bar,” she added with seeming relish.

“You mean that he raped you?” he ventured. What else could it be?

Cathy seemed to turn this over in his mind for a moment before she replied, “No, I’d just gone down on Glen and was on my hands and knees and Rob came up behind me and pulled my jeans down and did it to me. I wanted him to.” She stared at him brazenly, as if daring him to challenge her.

Luke stared at her face, but it was utterly unreadable.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said bruskly, and tossed some bills onto the table. They stumbled to their feet and exited the little diner. The December air outside was cold. Cathy tried to draw close, but he shrugged her off.

Into Sunday morning, Luke sat at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and nursing a bottle of cognac he’d been saving for a special occasion. I’ll never have a more special occasion than this, he told himself bleakly.

4

By noon, after Cathy had spent the night alone in bed, she appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, still clad in her pajamas. “I waited for you to come to bed,” she murmured quietly, stepping forward and looking demure. Luke didn’t look at her.

“How long are you going to punish me, Luke?” she asked a little peevishly. Taking up the empty bottle of brandy, he dashed it to the floor, where it exploded in a shower of shards. Cathy flinched.

“Do you have any more questions?” he inquired softly. She withdrew, got dressed and left without another word.

That Friday, working his regular weekend shift, Luke stood at the stove, mindlessly stirring a huge pot of sausage gravy. He’d been preoccupied with his studies all week, but now all he could think about was last Saturday at the tavern and his star-crossed lover. He secretly fantasized about what he’d do to Rob in vengeance for what he did to Cathy. But again, what did he actually do to Luke’s girlfriend? Some literary genius — Vonnegut? Hunter Thompson? — had once opined that you couldn’t ruin a pussy with too much screwing. In spite of himself, Luke laughed at the absurdity.

“What’s funny, Luke?” asked Rob, peeping his bearded face through the kitchen door in the back. Luke’s smile instantly vanished. He said nothing.
“What do you know for sure?” asked Rob, a smile on his face.

Luke gazed at the face, briefly considered pasting it one with the flat edge of his metal spatula. What the hell was tickling his boss now? Was he laughing at Luke?

“Had any more dreams, Rob?” inquired Luke slyly.

If Luke were expecting an anxious reaction to this question, he was disappointed.

“No,” answered Rob, smiling even broader. “I got my mind right, last Saturday — you know Amelia, don’t you?” he asked. “You won’t believe what happened.”

“I’ve studied satyriasis,” said Luke cryptically, leaving Rob with a blank expression. “Lemme ask you something, Rob,” he continued. Rob looked up. “Is there any girl you wouldn’t lay?” At Rob’s inquiring look, Luke went on, “you know, for philosophical reasons?”

Fleetingly, Luke imagined Rob, six feet one inch and 200 pounds, buff and chiseled and with the toned, red-fleshed physique of a porn star, with his hands on Cathy. Luke’s face burned.

Rob seemed to turn the question over in his mind for a moment, then he answered. “Yes,” he said, suddenly serious. “I wouldn’t touch the girl of a friend of mine.”

“What friend?”

“Any friend,” replied Rob. “Listen, Luke, there are billions of girls out there; you don’t need to pilfer off your buds, you know what I mean?”

Briefly, Luke remembered his own pilfering of his friend Glen’s woman and Luke felt abject remorse. He’d never really come to terms with the guilt.

“Rob,” said Luke, balancing the spoon on the rim of the pot, “Cathy told me you did her at the tavern last Saturday.”

Rob grew very quiet. Then he spoke in his deep voice, “Luke, I don’t know what kind of a relationship you have with your girlfriend, but if she told you that I had sex with her, then she lied.”

This was not what Luke had expected. Rob was always loud, a boaster, a cocksman. Luke half expected his boss to crow about it.

“I know you’re studying Psych in college,” Rob went on, “but you don’t learn everything out of a book, my man.” Luke stared at him. “I know Glen and I knew Cathy when they were together. When you two hooked up, I told Amelia, and you can ask her, that I didn’t see anything good coming from it. Cathy is bad news, Luke.”

“What do you mean?” asked the other man. This conversation wasn’t going the way he’d imagined it would.

“Cathy is an emasculator,” explained Rob. “She is so untrustworthy and insecure that in order to prevent a man from cheating on her and then kicking her to the curb, she’ll preemptively do exactly the same thing to him. She’s been in this town for eight, nine years, and every year she does the same damn thing.”

“You mean she….” said Luke.

Rob nodded. “She sabotages what passes for any relationship she’s in at the time, and screws around, usually with her old man’s best friend. It’s like she’s saying, ‘There, I screwed you over first, so now you can’t screw me over’. I’m sorry, Luke, but some lessons, like I said, aren’t in books; you just have to learn them first hand.”

Wow, thought Luke, Rob seemed so positive. At length, Luke explained what Cathy had told him about last Saturday. Rob seemed disgusted.

“I’d never do that to you, Luke,” averred Rob. “You know I love women,” he said expansively, and Luke considered what Cathy had said about his boss. “But, you are not only a valued employee, but a friend as well! What is it my dad used to say?” Rob went on, referencing the original owner of the diner. ” ‘You don’t mix pecker with payroll,’ ” he proclaimed sagely. Luke wondered wildly if Rob had that stitched onto a sampler, then discarded the thought. “Besides,” concluded Rob, if I’d heard anything about a scene in the restroom at the tavern, I would’ve told you. I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that.”

Luke nodded. “How’re things going with Amelia?” he asked.

Rob grinned. “My friend, I think she may be the one.”

Luke nodded.

“Are we good, then?” asked Rob. Luke smiled, nodded again.

5

That night, Luke decided to stop at the tavern for a beer, before journeying home to confront the lies of his girlfriend. He needed to get his thoughts together. As much as he’d grown to love Cathy, he recognized how toxic the relationship had become. As he sat at the bar and sipped, his thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Hey, Luke.”

Luke turned and saw Glen, Cathy’s previous boyfriend, and Luke’s one-time friend, sitting astride the next stool.

“What do you say, Glen?” he managed to ask, feeling instantly embarrassed.

“How’re you and Cathy?” asked the other man, cutting right to the chase.

“Why?” asked Luke. “What’d you hear?”

Glen chuckled. “I ain’t heard nothin’. That’s why I asked.” Luke regarded his erstwhile friend, wondered at the angst Glen had experienced because of the indiscreet behavior of Luke and Cathy. “She sure lookin’ good, man,” said Glen. Luke scanned the other’s face, but could discern no malevolence. He made no reply. “I seen her, couple of weeks ago, an’ she looked pretty together for a committed cokehead.”

Acting impulsively, Luke said, “Look, Glen, I’m sorry for the way things turned out for you and Cathy…” He felt his face burn.

“It’s okay, Luke,” said the other man easily. “Cathy and me wasn’t workin’ out and it was time to go. Too much blow,” he remembered. “Hey, that rhymes. Now I got me a sweet little woman — remember that Grand Funk tune? — ‘an she knows how to treat me right.”

Together they laughed with an old familiarity.

“I just wanted you to know,” Luke went on, “that I never intended for it to turn out like it did.” Luke still felt remorse.

“It wasn’t you, Luke,” Glen assured him. “Cathy always know what she wants. You were the prey, bro’, not the predator. You know what I mean? I missed you, Luke; Cathy not so much. Tell you what, look me an’ Tulip up after Cathy make the next change, and we’ll hang out.” Luke smiled weakly as Glen rose to his feet, clapped Luke on the shoulder and exited the bar.

That night, as Luke and Cathy made love for what would be the last time, Luke’s mind was awhirl. He looked down at Cathy’s perfect, sexy body and performed as if everything were normal. Cathy breathed heavily and then sighed loudly as she came, the way she always did.

“Take me from behind,” Cathy told her lover. She always wanted Luke to do this after she climaxed. Although Luke had never considered it before, he now saw it as her wanting to put some distance between their intimacy. She turned over on her stomach. He slipped inside her.

As Luke performed, Cathy murmured, “Your boss man wants to take me out.” Luke’s eyes widened and he wished he hadn’t smoked that dope before they went to bed. “I think he’s got a thing for me,” she suggested a little tipsily. Cathy had been into the blow again.

“I know,” replied Luke, picking up the tempo of his strokes. “He told me.” He wondered where these words were coming from.

“Huh?”

“And I told him it’s alright.”

“What?” Cathy’s body stiffened.

“Rob said he wouldn’t forget me,” Luke added. “Said he’d give me a raise and that on the nights he takes you out, Amelia could come home with me. That we might even do a foursome,” he said, really getting into the fantastical lies he was telling. But Cathy was buying it. “I did her after work tonight. Seemed only fair.” With a moan, Luke came.

Next morning, before dawn, Luke was awakened by the sound of suitcases banging against the door jam. Walking into the living room, he asked Cathy, “What’s up?”

“I’m going to Lainie’s for a few days,” she told him. “I’ll be back,” she promised. Luke nodded. “I’ll call you,” she said, and was swiftly out the door.

Luke padded back into the bedroom and then into the bathroom, and saw that everything that Cathy owned had been swept away. The next day, Luke changed the locks. He wondered: did Amelia have a sister?

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Bill Tope 2025