Free The Blood Red Indian Summer by David Handler

was too late.”
    “What didn’t, June?”
    “That she felt all wrong, smelled all wrong. I turned on the bedside light and it was Bonita who was naked in bed with me, her big blue eyes gleaming…” He shot a guilty look at Mitch. “Has anything like that ever happened to you?”
    “You mean waking up inside of the wrong woman? No, I’ve been Jewish my whole life. Not to mention a very light sleeper. You’re telling me you honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the two of them?”
    June let out a distraught sigh. “Maybe I did know. Maybe I was just beyond the point of caring. It’s not something I want to think about too much. But I can’t sugarcoat it, Mitch. I had freaky sex with my stepmother. I-I jumped out of bed, totally wigged out. Bonita was, like, ‘Chill out, hon, we’re cool.’ She was real drunk. And unbelievably horny. Told me my dad hasn’t been able to get it up for months. Not since they took away his Hummer franchise.”
    “So there is a connection.”
    “Bonita thanked me, Mitch. She said she can’t step out on him because people would find out. It’s awful hard to hide an affair in Dorset.”
    “It’s impossible,” said Mitch, whose own relationship with Des had become hot news all over town before either of them knew what hit them.
    “Next morning I couldn’t look my dad in the eye. Or Bonita. And for damned sure not Callie, who is such a genuine, sensitive person. She’ll never understand. I figure our relationship’s toast if she finds out. I moved out of my room and onto the Calliope that day so I wouldn’t be right down the hall from Bonita. Callie had a late class that night. Didn’t come over. I locked the Calliope down good and tight and went to bed early. I thought I’d be safe out there. I was wrong. At three o’clock in the morning Bonita’s out on deck pounding on the hatch cover and calling out my name. I let her in so she wouldn’t wake up my dad. Right away she was all over me again. I stopped her. I said that what happened last night was never, ever going to happen again. Bonita is … gorgeous. And she can be real persuasive. I totally wanted her again even though I knew it was wrong. I wanted her so bad that I went nuts and shoved her the hell off me. She cracked her head on the corner of a bookcase. Then she started screaming at me so loud she woke up my dad. Lights came on all over the house. She ran back inside and intercepted him. Made up some lame story about hitting her head in the kitchen. Told him she’d been awake because she was afraid there’d be a drive-by shooting next door. Just a bunch of paranoid, racist crap. But he totally bought it because he’s wired that way.” June broke off, swallowing. “This can’t go on, Mitch. Any day now the crazy bitch will lose it and tell him what really happened. I humiliated her. You don’t do that to Bonita. And she’ll mess up my thing with Callie for sure. I totally love that girl. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. But we’ve got to get out of this place right away or it’ll destroy us. Destroy Bonita, too.”
    “Destroy her how?”
    “My dad will beat the crap out of her. He used to beat up my mom. That’s why she left him.”
    “I thought Bonita split them apart.”
    “Everyone does. But my mom told me their marriage was over long before Bonita came along—because of his temper. He has no control over himself, Mitch. Like father, like son.”
    Mitch kept his eyes on the road. “You’re not your father, June.”
    “Yeah, I am,” he said bitterly. “Deep down inside I’m no good. I want to do what’s right. Go far, far away with Callie. I just don’t know if it’ll ever be the same between us after this. People who love each other don’t keep secrets. But what am I supposed to tell her—that my stepmother sort of raped me and that I sort of went along with it because she’s a real bunny in the sack?”
    “Yeah, I don’t think I’d phrase it quite that