I woke up at my usual time, made myself a cup of coffee, shaved, and headed for the baths. The air temperature was in the sixties, but a thick mantle of fog hung over Satori.
The baths were located at the southern end of the campus, perched on a cliff overlooking a rocky cove. I walked for ten minutes and got to the bath house as the maintenance crew was finishing their work. I stripped, showered, grabbed a towel, and headed for the most remote tub, where I would be alone. As I submerged my body in the 104-degree water and the heat loosened my muscles. I drifted across the tub and came to the edge that overlooked the ocean. Twenty-one years ago, I met Fiona in this tub. Fiona loved Satori; it was her safe space.
Thinking of Fiona didn’t hurt anymore; it warmed my heart. Kate is different from Fiona but smart, independent, funny. They would like each other.
As I contemplated this, a gaunt man from the workshop entered the adjacent tub. He knelt at the edge of his tub and bowed his head in prayer. I looked away.
In a few minutes my meditation was interrupted by the splash of another two people entering my tub. Although they were at the other end, I could hear their conversation.
“No matter what the police say, I don’t believe it was an accident,” the man muttered. “Malcolm had too many enemies. Think of all the women he wounded. He hurt you.”
“I hurt myself,” the woman said. “I knew what kind of person Malcolm was and still I let myself be lured into his web.” She laughed. “I wanted his validation that I was worthy.”
“What was his appeal?” the man asked. “I never got it.”
“Obviously, he was handsome. And when he focused on you, he made you feel that you were the only woman in the world. Everyone else was a pebble and you had been elevated to be a diamond.”
“For one night.”
“For one night.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up and knew I had been used.”
“And you felt how?”
“All the feelings you expect: shame and sorrow and anger.”
“Angry enough to kill him?”
“Not that angry. Angry enough to cut his balls off.” The woman laughed.