Author's Note: This is the story of Rachel and Louis and what came 'before.'
Before their wedding.
Before Ludlow.
Before death.
We get quite a number of significant and captivating hints of that life in Pet Sematary, the roots if you will, of what could be a fascinating story .
In particular, the ongoing conflict between Louis Creed and his father-in-law has always intrigued me.
This story covers the lives of Rachel and Louis Creed from their first meeting to the birth of Gage. It also blends elements from the book with the 1989 film.
Like the source, it is my goal to weave a story with elements of horror, romance, family drama, and dark humour. It explores the relationship between Rachel and Louis, Louis and his in-laws, Rachel's relationship with her childhood trauma, and the seemingly supernatural relationship the Creeds (including Ellie) have with what lies beyond the veil.
This will be a long, multi-chapter fic encompassing Rachel and Louis's relationship up through the birth of Gage.
It is slightly canon divergent (and noted where necessary). For example, in this fic, the infamous checkbook fight comes on the heels of months of tension between Louis and Irwin. Their relationship, fraught with conflict, provides much of the basis for this story.
A note on the timeline:
Pet Sematary is arguably one of my favourite and most frustrating books.
I start all my stories by building a timeline to avoid plot holes in dates and ages. Unfortunately, the timeline in Pet Sematary is inconsistent. Dates, ages, and events frequently contradict one another.
For example, Louis's age is given as both thirty-one and thirty-five at different points.
We're told Irwin's blowup after Louis and Rachel's engagement occurred ten years ago. That scene is set in Autumn 1983, meaning Louis and Rachel were engaged by Autumn 1973.
However, the book also notes Rachel was eight when Zelda died in 1965 – making her fourteen or fifteen at the time of her engagement to Louis (who was by then in med school).
I attempt to rectify this. In doing so, some portions of this fic are not canon compliant for the sake of creating a timeline that is both consistent and rational.
I humbly ask for your leeway in changing some of the dates so that I may avoid writing Louis as a time travelling predator.
For the purposes of this story, The Ramones's debut album Ramones was launched in 1972 instead of 1976.
September | 1977
Louis Creed was out of breath by the time he reached the top of the staircase. He paused just long enough to catch a short breath before pushing on.
He closed his eyes and sighed in frustration as he rounded the corner.
"Ah, ah, ah!" Louis hissed.
He dropped the box labelled 'kitchen utensils' and rushed over to the corner of the room.
"Get down," Louis ordered.
Rachel, six months pregnant and recently recovered from a bout of dizziness, was standing atop a step ladder. She was trying to put away a series of small knickknacks they almost never looked at onto the top of a built-in corner shelf.
The glass figurines were a gift from Rachel's ailing grandmother.
Louis didn't think she was going to make it to Yom Kippur. She'd been failing since the summer and Louis just knew there would be more glass figurines and knitted tchotchkes in his future.
In Louis's opinion, the only thing they were good for was collecting dust. But Rachel was terribly close to her grandmother and treasured them.
"I'm fine. Just a little sore," Rachel assured him.
"Your arse is going to be sore in a minute if you don't get down off that ladder," Louis said.
Rachel shot him a look over her shoulder. Then she rolled her eyes and turned back to arranging the figurines.
Louis cupped her backside.
"You wouldn't dare," Rachel scoffed.
"Don't tempt me, woman," Louis warned. "I'm tired and sweaty and ready to blow."
This of course was both a jest and the truth.
Moving was hard enough. Rachel's pristine sense of order and decorative taste only made things more difficult. Add to that the fact that Rachel was six months pregnant, and Louis was coming off a twelve-hour shift at the Cook County Medical Centre where Louis occasionnaly picked up extra work—and it was enough to make them both want to call it a day.
Unfortunately, they were less than halfway done moving their belongings into their new flat.
They couldn't afford movers.
Louis was balancing med school and a part time job. Rachel was the primary breadwinner in a job that relied on commission.
They were drowning in debt with a baby on the way.
Louis had borrowed a pickup from his friend – but had to get it back by 9:00p before Tony went on duty delivering pizzas at the all-night joint in Englewood.
Tony was a childhood friend. Louis had known him since the early days of racing their bikes and chasing skirts.
Irwin and Dory Goldman had not turned out to help their beloved daughter move (not that they'd asked).
Louis thought it was for the best.
Because if the Goldmans had taken one look at Tony's pickup – or Tony himself – Louis was certain that Dory Goldman would faint.
Irwin would probably try to drag Rachel into his perfectly waxed 1974 Cadillac Coupe DeVille and demand she return to their pristine, museum-like home in Forest Lake.
Louis had never ridden in the car. Irwin Goldman was beyond compulsive about keeping the leather clean. He had refused to drive it to Rachel & Louis's old flat in Fuller Park.
To say that Louis's relationship with his in-laws was tense would be an understatement.
Irwin and Dory Goldman couldn't stand Louis Creed.
They thought he was a good-for-nothing scamp from the wrong side of Chicago that had somehow lured their perfect angel of a daughter into a sham marriage—trapping her in the horrible, pedestrian domestic life of the working class.
The Goldmans eagerly waited for it to end in failure. They were certain the next phone call would be their sobbing daughter, begging daddy to come save her.
They would turn up their noses if they knew Rachel and Louis spent every Sunday night clipping coupons and planning just how to stretch their food budget enough to sneak in a pack of brewskis or Chinese takeaway.
The Goldmans had always encouraged Rachel to marry a doctor. They had high hopes she would wed one of the fine young men from their country club.
At the very least, they had hoped she would settle down with a nice Jewish boy. Rachel would keep working for her father's furniture empire and spend her afternoons with her mother at the club. She was supposed to have two children and they would live in a beautiful house in the likes of Skokie or Highland Park.
They would live someplace where the Goldmans wouldn't mind driving down to visit their daughter and beloved grandchildren.
Rachel and Louis's new flat in Logan Square was a historic Greystone that had been repurposed and split into two units.
When Rachel had shown her parents the photos, Dory Goldman's mouth had gone so thin it nearly disappeared. Irwin's moustache had twitched in fury.
It was a big step up from the dingy little slum they'd called home in Chicago's Fuller Park neighbourhood – but not enough to impress the Goldmans.
Louis could have bought the Palace of Versailles for Rachel and the Goldmans would still sneer.
Suddenly, Rachel hissed. She carefully clutched the side of her growing belly.
"Rachel?" Louis prompted.
"It's alright. Baby's just a little excited to be here I think," Rachel said.
Louis reached for her hand and guided Rachel down the stepladder. He breathed a sigh of relief now that her feet were firmly planted on the floor.
Louis snaked his arms around his wife, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"Don't do that again. Doctor's orders," he whispered, nibbling at the shell of her ear.
Rachel chuckled.
"You're not a doctor," she threw back.
"Yet," Louis argued.
Rachel keened as Louis gently massaged her swollen womb. He knew how to apply just the right amount of pressure so that his touch was comfortable.
"Mmmm, let's unpack later," Rachel suggested.
She squeezed Louis's hands to wordlessly convey her intentions.
"We have to break the bedroom in."
"Baby, I've got to finish getting everything over here and get the truck back to Tony before 9," Louis protested.
They had to be out of their old place by Friday. That left less than forty-eight hours to complete the move and there was only so much they could fit in their hatchback Pinto.
"I'm not superman," Louis said.
"I beg to differ," Rachel murmured in a low voice.
Louis nuzzled against her shoulder. He would love to slough off for the remainder of the afternoon. Hell, Louis didn't care if it took them the next six months to finish unpacking.
But they couldn't afford to wait.
"I've still got to make another trip, Rachel. And I can't do that and watch you if you're going to keep climbing on that damn ladder to rearrange your figurines."
Rachel whipped around and gasped with mock indignation.
"You leave them out of this," she ordered.
Louis smirked and captured her lips in a tender kiss. He grinned against her lips as they broke apart.
"I have to keep working," he said.
"I know," Rachel replied.
Neither of them wanted to part.
For all the stress and strain that school and debt and the Goldmans had put on their marriage, Rachel and Louis had never quite left the honeymoon phase.
"I gotta go down and bring up the next box," Louis said in a soft voice.
"Remember to bend with your knees, Doc," Rachel replied.
They shared a quick peck and then another one.
"Go," Rachel whispered.
Louis didn't move. He closed his eyes and moved in for another kiss.
"I'll be here when you get back. Promise," Rachel said.
Louis clutched the nape of Rachel's neck. He worked his fingers into the back of her hair. After one final, lingering kiss, Louis scrambled off to the door.. He was grinning like an idiot as he shuffled to the door.
He stopped just shy of the doorframe and then turned back around.
For a moment, Louis said nothing as he watched Rachel. She had put away the step ladder and turned her attention to a box of books.
Rachel would probably rearrange them three more times before she was happy.
And Louis wouldn't have it any other way.
Rachel stopped. She set down a stack of mystery novels and studied the shelf. She put her hands on her hips and frowned.
Rachel had always talked about wanting a full wall of built-in shelves for her books. If she'd married a boy from her father's country club she would probably have that along with a white fence and manicured yard.
It was far cry from the split Greystone Louis could offer her.
Rachel caught sight of Louis watching her and stopped.
"What?" she asked.
Louis stepped over, closing the distance between them. He cupped her face. He held her gaze as he brushed his thumb across Rachel's cheek.
"Is this what you imagined marriage would look like?" Louis asked.
Rachel didn't answer as she eyed Louis with heavy scepticism.
"When I asked you to dance," Louis clarified.
"You didn't ask me to dance, you big oaf. You asked me what I was doing for the rest of my life – or the next thirty minutes," Rachel replied as she playfully smacked him on the chest.
Louis captured her hand and pulled it to his lips.
"I mean when you were a little girl and you dreamed of growing up. Is this what you thought it would be like?" Louis pressed.
"No," Rachel replied without hesitation.
Louis smiled and nodded. But there was a brief flash of disappointment in his eyes before he turned and made an excuse about getting on with the work.
Rachel caught his face, forcing Louis to look back in her direction.
"That doesn't mean it's a bad thing," she assured him.
Louis returned the truck at 9:08.
New Year's Eve | 1972
Louis Creed, who at twenty-five had never had anything more serious than a string of short, failed romances culminating in a tumble in the backseat of his mum's used Cutlass, never expected to meet his wife as he walked into the basement of that fateful party.
But that was exactly how it happened that New Year's Eve night in 1972.
Louis hadn't been looking.
He was in his third year of med school and working twenty hours a week while juggling clinicals. Louis had largely given up on dating. He didn't have much time for it. In any case, it was never long before his girlfriends inevitably grew frustrated by Louis's wild schedule, lack of time, and pitiful finances.
No, Louis wasn't looking but he couldn't help himself from glancing back to watch the blonde in the corner.
She was sipping on a beer and chatting with friends.
She was head taller than her two companions. Louis suspected she was wearing those ridiculous new wedge shoes all the young, fashionable people on campus seemed to be wearing.
But as he glanced down at their feet, Louis realised all the three of them were wearing high wedged shoes and that 'Legs' (as he had decided to call her) was, in fact, just that much taller.
In her flared trousers and tight turtleneck sweater, she couldn't have looked more out of place in the basement of that Chicago bungalow.
But then again—so did Louis.
The house was owned by a friend of a friend.
Louis couldn't remember the last time he'd ever had New Year's Eve off.
Was it 1961? Or perhaps '62?
Louis had to have been fourteen or fifteen at the time. He was always working – part time for his uncle, weekends and nights at the pizza joint, or slinging hash Saturday mornings at the diner on the corner.
When he wasn't in school, Louis was working. Since age fourteen, Louis had spent every summer hanging siding or landscaping for beautiful homes in the affluent, gentrified neighbourhoods of a city that was changing.
Louis and his mother lived in a rundown foursquare on a tight lot in Chicago's Englewood neighbourhood.
The family had occupied the home ever since Louis's grandfather bought it in 1927.
Like his mother's house, Louis's wardrobe was a relic of a bygone era.
It was a complete fluke Louis had New Year's off. He'd been working a seasonal job for the holidays in the maintenance and packing department at Marshall Fields. He'd worked a double shift—sixteen hours—on Christmas Eve before pulling an all-day shift at clinicals.
Louis was practically dead on his feet by the end of the week.
The scheduling gods had taken pity on Louis Creed.
And as Louis realised 'Legs' had caught him staring, he thought the gods must have indeed blessed him. Because instead of scowling or telling him off, she gave him a once over before flashing Louis a grin.
He couldn't tell if she was being serious or simply messing with him.
Louis never had a penny to his name.
His clothes were hardly on par with the rest of the students at the party.
Louis had attended UIC on scholarship, having graduated with honours in May of 1970. Louis would have preferred to take a year off and work to save up before launching into med school. He'd waited to start his undergrad programme, working full-time for a year before starting university.
But he was concerned about his number coming up in the draft lottery.
Louis's aversion to Vietnam wasn't exactly political, though he did find the war abhorrent, nor was it as simplistic as the natural fear of such violence.
Louis Creed was a practical man.
And in his mind, he could find no logical reason why he would give up everything to travel halfway across the world to patch up kids fighting in a pointless war.
Louis helped financially support his mother. They'd been on their own since Louis's father had died more than twenty years earlier.
The widowed Mrs Creed had never remarried. She was far too busy putting in extra shifts at the meatpacking plant and taking on odd jobs to support her son and his education.
Betty Creed sewed christening gowns and wedding dresses, she made cream cheese mints and cakes for parties, and worked as a housekeeper for cash.
Even with Louis working since the time he was fourteen, they barely made ends meet.
It was fluke Louis had been accepted into the prestigious Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
Mrs Creed had taken out a second mortgage on her home. Louis worked full-time on top of school, nearly killing himself in the process and was so heavily in debt on his student loans that, even with a doctor's salary, he might pay them off sometime in the mid-1990s.
Louis's financial difficulties could not have seemed more obvious (in his own mind) as he stood in that basement.
He was surrounded by fellow students. They were a mix of undergrads and other peers from the medical programme and the crowd itself reflected the changing nature and culture war that was America in 1972.
A melange of trendy undergrads in their pastel, wide-brimmed collars mingled with the 'freaks' (as they preferred to be known) in their Gunne Sax dresses and fringed leather jackets.
Hendrix's Electric Ladyland was blasting out of the Hi-Fi as they passed around a suspicously thick blunt.
And there was Louis wearing a tight turtleneck under a suit coat from 1965. His mother had purchased it for his high school graduation.
When the guys from his internal medicine rotation had extended an invitation to a party, Louis had run a comb through his hair, thrown on his jacket, and dusted off his boogie shoes.
Hey-ho, let's go!
Louis was certain that the grin from 'Legs' must have been amusement. She was probably whispering to her friends about what a pitiful sight Louis was—old, tired, and hopelessly out of touch.
She looked more like one of the preppy undergrads with their ivy-league wannabe style of chinos and sweaters.
Louis told himself that she must have come just to slum it for the evening, a break from her posh boyfriend that was probably majoring in finance or advertising. He was probably at some wild party with his fraternity brothers.
One of her friends must have said something funny, because 'Legs' chuckled. As she raised her hand to tuck her straight, blonde hair back behind her ear, Louis caught sight of a sleek gold bracelet on her wrist.
Old money. Louis thought.
Daddy was probably paying for 'Legs' to go to Northwestern. And he'd probably blow a gasket if he knew his little angel was in the basement of a house shared by four such free-love freaks where the air was filled with the sounds of Bowie and The Who and the smell of good dope.
Yes, daddy would probably drop dead of a sudden myocardial infarction if he saw his daughter sipping on Schlitz beer and sharing a joint with two of her girlfriends.
She didn't look like the kind of girl that listened to the New York Dolls or The Velvet Underground.
She's probably never worked a day in her life. Louis thought.
Even if Louis had wanted to ask her name, he knew he could never afford to take her out.
"Here," Peter said as he shoved a bottle of beer into Louis's hands.
Peter and Louis had been fast friends since the earliest days of their med school journey.
Peter had a cushy private practice job waiting for him back home upon graduation and the eventual conclusion of his residence.
One day, Peter would take over his father's private practice and spend his days writing prescriptions for little old ladies and advising men at the country club to cut back on the heavy food and ease off the smoking.
Louis didn't know how Peter did it. Because when they weren't in clinicals or classes, Peter was working part time, volunteering, or organising any number of anti-war, save the wetland, or equal pay rallies.
Peter had more drive than anyone. Louis would sell his soul just for an ounce of that same boundless energy if it meant he could keep his eyes open during class.
More days than not, Louis felt like he'd been driving on empty for the better part of the last decade.
"Thanks," Louis said as he accepted that first beer.
It went down easily.
By the time Louis finished the bottle, he closed his eyes and let the warm sensation fill his body as the alcohol began to take effect.
Louis had skipped dinner. Lunch had been a piece of sausage pizza with extra mushrooms that Louis had hastily snagged before it was binned at work toward the end of his morning shift.
He should have eaten something before coming to the party.
But Louis had been so thrilled at the prospect of kicking back and being around other people that dinner was the last thing on his mind as he dabbed musky cologne on his neck – not that Louis had any high expectations for the evening.
He'd be lucky to get three beers in him before he collapsed from exhaustion.
"Come on, I'll introduce you to Indigo Quest," Peter said, gripping Louis by the elbow of Louis's and pulling him toward a beaded curtain.
"Indigo Quest?" Louis asked.
Peter laughed.
"His real name's Ezra Kaplan, but you know... it's a whole vibe," Peter explained. "Trust me. You'll love him."
By 10:30 that night the party was in full swing.
Indigo Quest and his old lady (and her girlfriend who went by Moonbeam or Moonflower—Louis hadn't quite caught her name) were holding court in a room choked by the stench of marijuana and patchouli incense.
Sheer fabric had been draped over the lamps and chunky macrame art hung from every available inch of space along with wood panel walls.
The Hi-Fi was in the corner.
Louis had always found solace in music. It was the thing that kept him going during his long shifts. He didn't have the money to buy new albums, so the radio was his refuge.
During his high school days, Louis had earned the nickname 'the Rock-n-Roll Animal' for his frequent drumming during his shifts. Louis could keep pace with the best of them from Keith Moon to Charlie Watts.
As the beer took over, Louis slipped away into the psychedelic sound of the music and let his natural instincts take over.
He was drumming against his abdomen with his thumbs. His eyes were closed as he nodded along with the song, mumbling the lyrics under his breath.
This would have earned him teasing if he'd done it on his shift or while waiting on campus. But in this place, this setting, it looked perfectly natural.
Louis forgot about his aching feet and the burn on his left forearm after he'd seared it on a hot oven. Bills and deadlines and final notices slipped away from his mind with ease.
Hell, he'd even managed to forget about how uncomfortable he felt.
Louis knew he shouldn't have had another beer—nor the one after that.
And by the time Peter dragged him into a drinking game, Louis was just drunk enough to dance. He'd reached the point where he was comfortably intoxicated enough to leave his inhibitions at the door though Louis retained enough control to avoid stumbling or slurring.
There had to be close to fifty people crammed into the basement, all clamouring for a chance to get close to Indigo Quest.
Peter and Louis pushed past the crowd of desperate, self-proclaimed counterculture disciples all fighting for the attention of a local guru.
There was a smaller group in the main room of the basement crammed around a low coffee table. They were playing some sort of dice game that involved a series of dares and drinking challenges. Louis didn't much understand nor care about the rules.
In his mind, all of these silly party games served the same purpose—consumption of alcohol.
Louis, Peter, and two of their friends from the med programme had joined a few people Peter knew from his ERA Now! club.
That included 'Legs' and her two friends.
It occurred to Louis that he could never, ever tell this willowy blonde that she would forever be known as 'Legs' in his mind.
He had a feeling she would be irritated, perhaps even irate, to know Louis had given her such a crude nickname without so much as an introduction.
As the night wore on and midnight and the reality of 1973 drew closer, Louis realised that he had misjudged 'Legs.'
Louis had trouble reconciling his cynical first impression against the sarcastic, witty, woman that gave as good as she got.
She'd gone toe-to-toe with Peter in downing their beers on a dare and didn't shy away when Jimmy Brown had dared anyone with ink to slam a shot of vodka so cheap it could strip paint.
One of her friends gasped.
"Rach," she said, stunned.
Rachel.
Her name was Rachel.
"If you tell me father, I'll never let you borrow Alice Cooper again," Rachel warned.
Louis was drunk enough that he couldn't cover his snort of laughter at the comment.
"Something funny, Doc?" Rachel asked.
Louis blanched her piercing gaze, he suddenly felt small.
"What was your name?" Rachel pressed.
Louis cleared his throat, muttering his name as he turned his attention back to the dice on the table.
"Lou Creed?" Rachel asked to confirm.
"Nobody calls me Lou," Louis said, snapping his head up in surprise.
Not even his mother called him 'Lou.'
Cool as a cucumber, Rachel cocked her head to the side.
"Oh," she replied innocently. "Are you saying I'm nobody?"
Louis stammered for an answer. His mouth went dry. And his turtleneck felt tight.
Legs—
Louis caught himself.
Rachel had left him flustered without even so much as a 'hi, how are ya?'
"Relax, doc," Rachel said, poking him with her foot under the table.
Smooth, Louis. Real smooth.
"Boy am I terrible at introductions," Peter said.
He'd forgotten that Louis wasn't a regular. His obligations to work, school, and his mother left little time for casual socialisation.
He didn't have the time nor money to indulge in any kind of fun college experience save for the rare occasions when he was both lucky enough to snag an invite to a private party and had the night off.
Three years into med school and Louis could count on one hand the number of times the planets had aligned in his favour.
Louis told himself it was for the best.
The sleeve cuffs of his suit coat had been mended and turned over so many times that it wouldn't be possible to turn them again without turning them into three-quarter length sleeves.
He was lousy at conversation and his naturally cynical attitude wasn't necessarily charming.
"This is Sam, Oliver, Joan, Rachel, Lori, and Frank," Peter said as he went around the circle.
It was evident the rest of them all knew one another.
Peter threw his arm around Louis.
"And this here is Louis Creed, the Rock-n-Roll Animal," Peter said.
Louis felt like an idiot.
"Oh? You're into music," Lori asked.
Her question sounded more like forced politeness than a genuine inquiry.
"Louis saw the Stones this summer," Peter said.
Peter always knew how to put the right spin on things.
Lori perked up.
"Which show? We were there," Lori said, nudging Rachel.
"Both," Peter answered for Louis.
Louis tried to ignore the small look of surprise on Rachel's face.
The Rolling Stones had indeed played two nights in Chi-town in June. It had been one of the hottest events of the summer. Tickets were hard to come by and thousands of forged tickets had turned into a media circus.
"We were lucky to get tickets at all," Lori said.
"I didn't uh... I wasn't actually there to watch. I worked the concerts," Louis said.
From time to time, Louis picked up extra hours and odd jobs working concerts or events for extra cash. It was a great way for Louis to listen to big shows as different artists toured through the Midwest.
So, while Stevie Wonder opened for the Stones, Louis had been cleaning the toilets. And when the Ziggy Stardust tour had graced the city in October, Louis had worked until 4:00 in the morning picking up trash before heading off to his shift at Cook County Medical.
"Louis, it's your turn," Peter said as he picked up the dice.
He deposited them in Louis's hand who stared at the dice for a moment before he clutched his hand in a fist.
Louis shrugged and gave them a roll.
What's the worst that could happen? Louis thought.
In all likelihood, his roll of the dice would either end in him having to drink or reveal an embarrassing secret. And Louis's life was so dull that he didn't have any particularly juicy stories or secrets.
"Seven!" Peter hollered, slapping Louis on the back.
The collective round of 'ooo's and ahhh's' that ran through the circle gave Louis pause.
"Did... did I win?" Louis asked.
Peter snorted into his beer.
"I suppose that's a matter of perspective," Peter replied.
Louis didn't follow.
Peter leaned in close and threw his arm around Louis.
"You, my friend, have just won seven minutes in heaven," Peter said.
Louis nodded slowly.
"Look, I've got an evening shift tomorrow. I really can't—"
"No, no, no," Peter interjected.
In his naivety about party games, Louis assumed this was euphemism for drugs.
"Do you see that closet?" Peter asked, pointing at a wooden door in the far corner.
"Uh... yeah," Louis replied.
Peter polished off his beer and set the bottle down on the table.
"Oh, come on," Louis said, catching on.
"It's just a party game," Peter said.
"Are you afraid?" Rachel asked.
A small nervous laugh escaped Louis's throat.
"No! It's just... dumb," Louis concluded.
They were adults, academics, students that spent their evenings and weekends organising around environmental and social justice issues.
Everyone waited patiently for Louis to explain.
"I mean... spin the bottle doesn't really seem to align with—"
Louis stopped himself.
"With what?" Rachel pressed.
Louis cleared his throat. To avoid answering that question, he opted to spin the bottle.
It took nine seconds to stop spinning.
Louis prayed it would land on anyone but Frank (who was particularly fragrant and looked as if he'd last seen soap in 1963).
The bottle slowed and eventually stopped. When it did, Louis froze.
Rachel, who had previously been the most vocal in teasing him, fell silent.
It was a stupid party game and nothing more.
And yet Louis couldn't stop the rising sense of panic that threatened to overwhelm him.
Why, oh why had he eaten pizza for lunch?
Though Louis had polished his teeth before going out, he was concerned about the possibility of lingering garlic on his breath.
Louis had drunk five beers.
Or was it six?
If his antisocial, brooding demeanour wasn't enough to put her off, Louis was certain the combination of bad breath and body odour was sure to do the trick.
"Do you need an instruction manual, Doc?" Peter teased. "I know you're used to working on cold bodies, but the parts are all the same."
Louis tried to clear his mind and think about anything other than the woman across from him and her 'parts.'
He thought of his undergrad economic lectures and the dragging, nasally voice of the professor. Louis remembered the arduous task of laying concrete and the sweltering summer heat.
He recalled working for his uncle as an undertaker's assistant and the scent of attar of roses they used in the funeral home to ward off the smell of death and formaldehyde.
And dammit why did Rachel's hair have to smell the same—and why did it seem so lovely on her?
"Well, go on," Lori said, giving Rachel a little nudge.
Rachel didn't move.
Her face had drained of colour.
She's cursing herself. Wondering why she got stuck with me. Louis thought.
"Are you afraid?" Louis asked, throwing her own words back at her. "It's just a dumb game."
Louis felt awful the moment the words left his mouth.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly.
Louis dropped his voice to a much softer tone.
"Once we're inside, it's not like anyone will know. You don't have to kiss me," he whispered.
He was concerned Rachel was uncomfortable and wanted to assure Rachel that it was perfectly alright to say no.
"Louis might just work himself to death this holiday season," Peter said. "He could die a happy man if you—"
"Nobody's dying," Rachel interjected.
Her voice was terse. Louis assumed this was annoyance at the whole ridiculous situation. He had no idea about Rachel's phobia of death, the morbid, or any related subject matter.
Rachel swiped a bottle of whisky right out from under Lori's nose. With the bottle in hand, she strolled over to the closet.
Rachel looked back over her shoulder.
"Coming, Doc?" she asked.
Hey-ho, let's go.
The closet door clicked shut. It was followed by a giggle and then the sound of something heavy being pulled across the carpet.
Great. Louis thought.
In his infinite wisdom (and with some encouragement from Lori) Peter had slid a bookcase in front of the door to prevent Rachel and Louis from escaping.
Louis slid down and sat against the door.
Rachel was in the corner. She took a swig from the bottle of whisky and then offered it to Louis.
"No thanks," he said.
He'd had more than enough for one night. He had to go on duty tomorrow night and didn't want to spend the day nursing a hangover.
"Suit yourself," Rachel replied.
They fell silent.
Louis began drumming on his knees, tapping along with the music as he bobbed his head in time.
"Do you always do that?" Rachel asked.
Louis stopped.
"I didn't mean to stop you," Rachel clarified.
"Oh," Louis replied simply.
Once more, silence descended between them.
There wasn't much space—just enough for them to sit opposite each other between the mishmash of heavy wool coats and various items and abandoned hobbies that sat collecting dust.
It was too dark for Louis to check the time on his watch, and he didn't want Rachel to think he was bored.
But the silence was unbearable.
"Look, I'm sorry about this," Louis said. "I didn't know."
Rachel quirked an eyebrow in his direction.
"It's just a game. You can't control the dice... or spin that is to say," Rachel replied.
She paused and took another swig of whisky.
"It's just fate," Rachel said.
Louis Creed didn't believe in things like fate. He liked to joke about things like fate and destiny. But when it came right down to it, Louis firmly felt that he was an insignificant speck of dust—one in a billion—in a universe that had thousands of ways to kill you and zero regard for your plans.
His own father had died suddenly, killed in 1950 during an industrial accident.
Louis had no memories of his father. But he assumed Eddie Creed was a man with plans and dreams and hope.
Somehow Edward 'Eddie' Creed had managed to survive the Second World War. He'd seen action in the Pacific Theatre. He made it through three years and eight months without so much as a flesh wound.
He'd returned home to Chicago and his wife with his gold striped service medal and the hope of starting a family. Mr Creed would never live to experience the post-war boom or take advantage of the GI Bill.
Eddie Creed had survived eighty-two long days in the Battle of Okinawa only to be killed while pulling another employee to safety.
Louis's father had managed to grab someone before a machine caught their arm.
Unfortunately, there was no safety rail behind him. Eddie Creed fell fifteen feet to his death.
They say it's not the fall that kills you.
As a medical student, Louis knew this was true. In the case of his father, it was the way Eddie Creed had hit his head on a metal strut with enough force to make his brain jiggle inside his skull like JELL-O.
And now, Louis briefly wondered if his own brain had turned to JELL-O as he stared at the blonde across from him.
Rachel.
"I really don't want to make you uneasy," Louis said.
Rachel chuckled.
"I'm fine," she assured him.
"I can't move any further to the right or I would—'
"It's fine," Rachel repeated.
"And I don't want to feel pressured or uncomfortable," Louis went on.
He didn't know what else to say.
Louis was lousy at small talk. He couldn't possibly have anything in common with Rachel.
"And you get to decide what makes me uncomfortable?" Rachel asked.
Fuck. Louis thought.
He had walked right into it. The curl of Rachel's wry smirk indicated she was only teasing – well, half-teasing—because she could tell it made Louis hot and uncomfortable himself.
Rachel normally didn't relish in that sort of thing. Though she rather liked setting this Louis Creed on edge.
It gave her a little thrill and he seemed amiable enough.
"Unless you're uncomfortable, Mr Creed?" Rachel pressed, twisting the knife.
Louis shook his head back and forth.
"N—no. No."
It wasn't clear whether Louis was trying to convince her or himself.
"So, you're a med student?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah," Louis replied.
Rachel was only trying to make conversation. She asked where he was from and what it was like in the medical programme.
Louis was like a clam.
His one-and two-word answers provided little to work with.
He didn't mean to come across as rude, but the more they talked, the more it became obvious they had little in common.
"I'm from Chicago too," Rachel said. "Well, Lake Forest actually."
It was an affluent neighbourhood on the North Shore and nothing like the diverse, working-class home of Louis's childhood.
"Peter mentioned you were lucky to get tonight off," Rachel went on. "Me too—though I didn't picture spending it in a closet."
"You work?" Louis asked, surprised.
Rachel nodded. Louis couldn't tell if Rachel hadn't picked up on his obvious surprise at that statement or if she'd chosen to simply ignore the implication.
"My father always hosts a big end of the year party for his colleagues and some of his bigger clients. It's all a big snooze fest in my opinion," Rachel said.
Ah. That explains it. Louis thought, masking his smug sense of satisfaction.
Daddy owned a business.
It reaffirmed everything Louis had initially thought.
"Is something funny?" Rachel asked.
"No," Louis said.
Slightly inebriated, Louis hadn't been nearly as subtle as he thought.
"Out with it," Rachel pressed.
Louis averted his eyes and took a slow breath.
"I just... when I saw you I knew you were a rich girl from some—"
"Nothing like that," Rachel interjected with a small laugh.
She wasn't angry.
"My father owns a business and I do work there. We've been very fortunate financially in recent years. But it wasn't always that way. I'm no rich girl. Not like what you think," Rachel insisted.
Louis wasn't buying it.
Lake Forest.
The gold bracelet on her wrist.
Daddy's company.
"Are your parents in a country club?" Louis asked.
"Well, yes. But—"
"And this is real, isn't it? A gift? Probably from your father?" Louis asked as he eyed her bracelet.
Rachel instinctively clutched her wrist close to her chest.
"Yes. But—"
"Are they paying for you to go to school here?" Louis went on.
Rachel fell silent.
For the first time all night, Rachel looked genuinely uncomfortable.
And Louis felt like an arse.
"I'm sorry. That wasn't fair," Louis said.
Rachel dropped her gaze to her lap. She was picking at her fingernails.
"Like I said, my family's been very fortunate financially the last few years," Rachel said in a small voice.
She lifted her head, frowning.
"But it's not like you can just buy your way into school," Rachel said, her voice rising a little. "I had to work hard to get here. And it's not like my parents are just paying for me to be here."
Rachel had poured herself into her academic and extracurricular activities.
"They help—a lot," Rachel acknowledged. "But I'm here because of me."
His seven minutes in heaven was more like an eternity in hell.
Only Louis Creed would find himself locked in a closet with a hot blonde and manage to fuck it up royally with his smart mouth.
Louis ran a trembling hand back through his hair and sighed.
"I'm not the Rock-n-Roll King. I'm the King of should have kept my fucking mouth shut," Louis muttered.
Rachel laughed through her hands—a gesture Louis found oddly endearing.
"You're not very good at this," Rachel teased.
"I don't get out much," Louis confessed.
"I don't either," Rachel threw back.
Between the demands of her class schedule, work, and volunteering, Rachel had little free time.
Louis was desperate for an escape. He glanced down at the watch on his wrist. It was too dark to properly see the hands, but that didn't matter.
"It has to be almost midnight by now," Louis said.
As if on cue, someone started shouting on the opposite side of the door. The music cut out.
"Ten, nine, eight—"
Louis flashed Rachel a sympathetic look.
Great. She's stuck in here with me. He thought.
It wasn't a great way to start the new year.
"Three, two, one."
A loud cheer erupted. The tell-tale pop of a champagne cork followed, and everyone was signing.
It took Louis a minute to register the warm, soft lips pressed against his own. And by the time he realised that Rachel had kissed him, she pulled away.
"Happy New Year, Doc," she said.
Rachel offered him the bottle of whisky – shaking it in front of him as if to entice Louis to take a swig to start the year off.
Louis dove.
His right hand found the bottle and set it down against the wall. His left cupped Rachel's face.
Instead of pushing him off, Rachel deepened the kiss. She clutched the front of Louis's shirt and pulled him close.
There was no good angle.
Louis didn't care.
He was utterly captivated by this woman and the way she made him flustered and shy and desirable all at once.
Louis didn't complain when she took charge. He simply shrank back into the wall as Rachel crawled toward him like a predator.
He didn't care if he was some quick snog in a closet. He knew he was nothing to her—a way to pass the time, a wild night, or even a way to get back at her boyfriend.
They were locked in and there was nothing either of them could do about it. Peter and their friends were too drunk and preoccupied to remember their comrades trapped behind the bookcase.
Louis cursed the changes in modern fashion. In his undergrad days, most of the coeds wore dresses from stylish boutiques or the ever-appealing miniskirt.
Louis's hands started to roam—travelling down over Rachel's waist and her thighs. Polyester pants hardly did the same thing as a miniskirt.
Louis didn't want to stop.
But he also knew that things were going to end only one way if they didn't. Louis wasn't the type of man to carry a condom in his wallet and he knew from his medical studies that the pill had only just become available for unmarried women.
Rachel's disappointment was obvious when Louis pulled away.
"I'm sure Peter will be back any moment," he said.
"I think it's safe to say that they've forgotten all about us," Rachel said.
She reached up to tuck her long blonde hair back behind her ear. Then she crawled close and eyed Louis like she wanted to eat him.
"Doc," she whispered.
"I don't have a condom," Louis confessed.
Rachel chuckled as she nibbled at his jawline.
"Who said anything about sex?" she asked.
Louis cringed.
"Only teasing," Rachel assured him.
Then she sat back in Louis's lap and traced his lower lip with her thumb.
"Pity," she said while running her eyes over Louis's body.
Louis gulped.
"Pity?" he asked.
Rachel smirked.
"I think I would have enjoyed it," Rachel said.
Louis threw his head back and laughed until it hurt. Rachel didn't follow.
"Forgive me," he said. "I just... I've been working so many hours lately and I really don't get out much. And here you are—quite literally in my lap—and we can't even—"
Rachel shushed him with a kiss.
"How about a raincheck?"
She suggested Louis give her his number and they could try it on another night.
"Sure. When your boyfriend isn't there to take you out or cancels or—"
"I don't date," Rachel said bluntly.
Louis didn't buy that.
"No really. I don't date," Rachel explained. "I don't have much time. And it's just easier to enjoy the sex without all the pressure of dating."
Now Louis was doubly sorry he hadn't come prepared.
"And my father can be overbearing."
"I'm sure he'd just love me," Louis quipped.
Louis could just picture himself sitting down to dinner and being asked to explain how they met.
Why yes, I'm the one that fucked your daughter in a closet at a party. Could you pass the salt?
"Give me your number. I've got the third Friday off this month," Rachel said.
Louis wanted to say yes. But it was a complete fluke he'd managed to snag a single night off this month.
It would be another two or three months before that possibility might occur again.
He was staring at Rachel with a funny look in his eyes.
They shared a slow, lingering kiss.
When they pulled away, Louis paused to caress Rachel's cheek with his thumb before flashing her a wan smile.
"I'm never going to see you again," he said sadly.
"In your dreams," Rachel teased, hovering an inch from his face.
His fingers twisted into the back of her hair. Rachel closed the distance between them.
"In your dreams, Doc," she murmured as Louis nipped at her neck.
Louis did.
Three days later he was lying in bed after a sixteen-hour shift, and he couldn't stop thinking about her.
It had been nearly two in the morning when Peter finally remembered Rachel and Louis were locked in the closet.
The door had flung open, and an embarrassed Rachel and Louis had stumbled out.
The game had long since passed. Peter had wanted to introduce Louis to another med student and Rachel had gone back to her friends.
In that moment, a look of understanding passed between them.
They had shared something in that closet. There was a connection between them, a chemistry that Louis couldn't quite explain.
It was like they both knew that moment wouldn't come again—but oh, did they both want it to.
The party had wound down in the wee hours of the morning.
Louis was ready to crash, and exhaustion took over. He had sobered up and still had to drive home.
Between the concern for getting home on the icy roads and his fatigue, Louis hadn't even bothered to catch Rachel's full name.
Peter had flown out the following morning back to Saint Paul to spend some time with his family before the new term.
Louis could ask Peter when he got back.
He shook away the thought as quickly as it came.
Louis simply didn't have the time. He was genuinely attracted to Rachel in a way he'd never felt before. She seemed interested in him too.
And Louis didn't want to get her hopes up only to break her heart—even if she'd made clear she was only looking for sex.
She didn't need somebody with a wild schedule and no energy. Rachel didn't deserve that.
It was freezing outside. The new year had arrived with frigid temperatures.
Louis rented a small flat off campus in Chicago's Fuller Park neighbourhood. It was an old building, and the large windows did little in the way of insulation.
Louis shivered against the cold.
He had exactly six hours before he had to work. That left just enough for a four-hour sleep, a quick shower, and then it was back on the L and out into the cold.
His bed had been cold for far too long.
And Rachel and her fucking legs had been running circles in his mind all day.
Louis desperately needed to sleep—a task made difficult by the rather prominent, aching problem between his legs.
Louis groaned and flopped onto his back. He wanted to go back to a time before he had walked through that veil of beads into that stupid party.
He wouldn't be able to sleep, and it was far too chilly for a cold shower.
Louis took hold of himself. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought back to that night as he thrust into his fist.
Hey-ho, let's go.