After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  Ch5. Some Call It Murder

  Some Call it Murder

  Carrie called him on Wednesday. This would be the second Wednesday of August and two or three days after her fifteenth birthday. They talked a few times a week, but rarely for more than a few minutes under threat of being handed the long-distance bill to split between themselves. The few minutes suited Freddy. He was never one for long, drawn-out conversations just for the sake of having them. The few minutes were long enough for Freddy to be kept up to speed on her aunt’s steady decline.

  I could empathize with Carrie and her family. I could share their pain. I could well imagine the sense of hopelessness they must have felt watching a loved-one sicken, knowing death was inevitable. It twisted my guts until I felt almost like crying. I would hide in the bathroom, the tears close, feeling sorrow for the pain of a woman I would never meet, feeling sorrow for the girl who would never know I loved her.

  Freddy did not empathize. He did not know beyond the book definition the meaning of the human emotion of grief. He could not share their loss. Mostly, when the talk turned to this, he would listen. He became a shoulder for Carrie without even realizing it. He confessed to me – and I quote – ‘I wish the old bitch would just hurry up and die!’ He wanted Carrie back. His plans were in a holding pattern until she returned. To him Çin was something – but she was also something else, something that could never enter the conquest column.

  On that Wednesday when Carrie called his wish was answered. She was not crying but sounded as though she had been. “Aunt Liz is dead,” she told him in a tightly controlled voice.

  “When?” Freddy asked her. He felt a sense of awe being connected even so remotely to the loss of someone’s life. Knowing this woman, a woman he had never met had died was more powerful to him than the death of the mongrel in the alley – his first sacrifice. As Carrie spoke, he grew more aware of his own heartbeat, his own life flowing through him. For him it was a truly awesome experience.

  “This morning,” Carrie told him. “They brought her home to die – tried to make her more comfortable, I guess. In the end I don’t know if it mattered. My mother was with her when she went. She said Aunt Liz smiled at her and then just sort of … drifted off.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Freddy whispered into the receiver.

  Carrie believed he empathized. I wish she could have known the truth of how he really felt. She breathed soft laughter into the phone. “Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t have been here.” She sounded older, wiser somehow. She left Prince William Falls a child. She would be returning a woman.

  “When are you coming back?” Freddy asked, quickly adding, “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too, Freddy.” He could tell she was smiling but was not sure why. “Liz’s funeral is on Saturday and we’ll be home Monday some time.”

  Freddy was silent. He didn’t know what to say. What could he say? In his mind he was calculating whether or not he and Çin would be able to keep up their exchanges or if he should end it. When she left, Carrie was eager for their next encounter. Much had changed since then. Freddy was not certain she would still be into it. Either way he had grown accustomed to his nearly daily – sometimes twice daily – trips to Çin’s house. He did not believe Carrie would be willing to match that.

  “Freddy?” Carrie asked after the silence had stretched out.

  “I’m still here.”

  “Look. There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”

  Freddy felt cold knuckles of dread dig their way into his gut. She was about to dump him. “I’m listening,” he managed, keeping his voice neutral.

  “Well,” she began and paused. “I just wanted to tell you that,” again she paused.

  “Just say it,” he urged her gently. Silently he screamed at her to spit it out, to get it over with. He couldn’t believe she was going to dump him over the phone. Freddy began to run through the mental roster of eligible girls he knew in an effort to decide who to pursue in her place. There was always Çin. He could keep with her. They hadn’t had sex yet – real sex that is. But they were close. Çin was a girl but he really couldn’t count her as one. Freddy was also beginning to find her personality somewhat grating. But no matter what he couldn’t lose Carrie entirely. They must remain friends. Without her he would have no access to her mother.

  “I love you, Freddy,” she told him softly, nearly whispering to avoid being overheard.

  Again, with the love. Freddy laughed. He was unable to stop himself.

  Carrie gasped. “Freddy!”

  “No,” he tried. “I’m sorry. I thought you were gonna dump me.”

  It was Carrie’s turn to laugh. She was happy, excited and relieved.

  Freddy shared her relief. As for being happy or excited – not particularly. He was reminded of how tedious a relationship could be. At first, he was not sure what to make of her revelation and for a moment he thought it might have been better if she had dumped him. He could have then pursued someone else, someone a little more vapid and a lot less emotional. Odd, as annoying as she was, Çin was exactly that – a little more vapid and a lot less emotional. For everyone concerned I know it would have been better if they had gone separate ways. What that would have meant for his infatuation with Nancy – I just don’t know.

  “It feels good to say it,” Carrie decided. “I’ve wanted to tell you for weeks now – ever since you told me about your dad – you know.”

  Freddy was further stunned: Vulnerability made women love you. Why should it? Why should the display of a weakness in one generate a weakness in another? Freddy knew little about love – very little indeed – but he did consider it a weakness. He had only look at his own parents for proof. It caused a person to lower their guard, to leave themselves open for an attack. He only had to consider his mother to find evidence of this very thing. Maggie loved John and as a result she was powerless against him. She was his thrall, his slave, his object. Freddy’s own display of weakness had left his throat bare to Carrie, but instead of taking advantage of him, she responded in kind.

  A weakness or not, Freddy now knew she loved him. She would be more inclined to continue and possibly expand their sexual intimacy. She may be willing to satisfy his needs – all his needs – and Çin could be let go. But in a way he had grown accustomed to Çin, to her ways. She was good in that she was not hesitant or self-conscious. She did him the way he needed and told him what she wanted.

  Freddy became aware of an expectant silence seeming to ooze over the thousands of miles of telephone cable connecting them. Carrie was waiting. She was waiting and she was hoping he would reciprocate. “I love you too,” he told her easily. Love might have been a weakness in his mind. Then again so too was love a kind of need. Freddy did need her. If indeed love was a need, he could say it. It may not have been the same concept of love that she felt but it worked for him.

  “Don’t say it unless you mean it,” she told him quickly. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

  “I’m not,” he said truthfully. The sense of desire, of insatiable need was real enough and it would serve him as love for now. “I guess I’ve loved you for years. I just didn’t realize it until now.” And yes, he was telling the truth. For him love was something primal, carnal and basic. Love was an orgasm, felt and forgotten, recalled only when the urge returned.

  Carrie replied with what could only be termed a reserved squeal. “It’s the same with me, I guess. You’ve been in my life for so long I can’t remember not loving you.”

  To a teenager, four and a half years is an eternity. So much happens in the span of a half decade that each moment stretches beyond its brief time into a lifetime by itself. I believe a child is unable to look to tomorrow, to step out of the now and see the span of years behind or ahead. A child lives in the moment and that moment, that instant is, until it ends, all that exists. Only later in life, perhaps when we become achingly aware of our
own mortality, does the pace of our lives quicken. Then we may look at the passing of years and even decades as a blur. The moments are forgotten. Instead we recall only an impression of them, a sense of what has changed in our little worlds.

  At fifteen Carrie was ancient in her own mind. Her adolescence spanned seeming centuries. In the dim reaches of her memories she could recall entering junior high school, of the Christmas when she was twelve and got a computer for her bedroom. She could see each day in its entirety. Her fifteen years was the sum of her experiences, the entire universe to her. It is likely a universal human failing that we assume what we know is everything and like Carrie at fifteen we are loath to accept anything more.

  Freddy chose to butter the bread a little more. “It’s nice to hear you say that,” he told her. He laughed lightly. “It’s funny how time apart makes us realize these things.”

  “Yeah,” she breathed.

  Silence again. Freddy hated the silence. It made him think there was something he should be saying but for the life of him he could never figure out what it was.

  “Okay,” Carrie sighed, “I better go. I’m starting to get looks.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as we get back.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.”

  Silence again.

  “I love you, Freddy.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Okay, bye.” She giggled into the phone. The years dropped away. Carrie was once again only fifteen. It would have been so much better if she was sixteen then. Sixteen is a number. It resonates. It’s one we know and understand. Fifteen is only an age.

  -

  Carrie was primed and ready. Freddy knew this with utmost certainty. He recalled the afternoon back in June and the events leading up to his father’s unexpected arrival – unexpected and unwanted. For a moment he tasted renewed rage at John for his interference. The moment passed and his thoughts centered again on Carrie. At that point, prior to their separation and her admission of love, Carrie was not prepared to have sex but she was more than willing to part her legs for other things. He could feel a certain tension from her even over the phone. Her reservations had changed. Her inhibitions were gone. He would not be surprised if she quite literally pounced on him the first moment they were alone together.

  With a slow smile Freddy recounted the events of that day in June to me. He spoke only of events and occurrences – physical happenings. Not once did Freddy speak of his feelings or his thoughts. It seemed to me once his mind had sunk into this realm of purely physical perversions corrupting him, everything else was forgotten.

  Again, he fooled me. For a moment – admittedly a brief moment – I had a hope. When he spoke of love as a need, a need he could understand I thought perhaps there was a chance of believing it was something more. I was wrong of course. Freddy twisted the words into something that suited him. Ultimately it came down to semantics.

  Freddy merely substituted love for desire, a craving he felt, a need to possess Carrie in order to satisfy those desires. I must accept that it was nothing more than that. For the moment he did have Cindy Macpherson but he said their arrangement was little better than masturbation. It must have been better or otherwise Freddy never would have continued it. He found no attraction in Çin. He did not find her face or her body appealing in any way sexually the way he did Carrie or any physically beautiful woman. Çin was Çin – her own in her own way. To him Çin was merely a convenience, a ready outlet for some portion of his sexual appetite. She was nothing more. In truth he confessed to me the deal he had with Çin did little to actually satisfy him. Their exchanges were like a never-ending string of hors d’oeuvres before an entrée long overdue. Freddy’s entrée was now on its way. It would arrive soon and just in time. He was growing ravenous. But until then he could see nothing wrong with having another snack. Or two.

  Çin claimed to be gay. She said she was a lesbian and we bought it. I didn’t doubt she had inclinations to the fairer sex but she was not gay. She played what we called ‘Ironman Football’ and she preferred defense. Analogies are so much less painful than the real thing.

  The crunch came during that week before Carrie returned. Çin proposed an escalation to their exchanges. They had exchanged – to a point. It was all kept on a strict oral diet. She upped the ante and proposed real sex. Freddy, who was preparing to begin his side of the obligations, froze.

  Çin had her hands on him. “What’s the problem?” She asked. She was ready for a while now – she had been since day one, I think. Only Freddy’s reservations about Carrie had held them back.

  “This is a bit of a step up.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Çin replied. She seemed almost desperate, needy even. “You got a problem with fucking me?”

  Freddy was stunned. This was something close to an OhmyGod moment. The difference was he felt like he had a say in it.

  “I wanna.” He knew he sounded like he was whining. I think he didn’t want to look bad. He didn’t want to look the know-nothing chump. With Carrie it was different – Carrie and him weren’t supposed to know anything to begin with.

  “You’re gonna like it, you know,” Çin cajoled. “You’ve tasted it. Imagine what it’ll feel like to be inside it. I can’t wait.”

  Freddy thought about his childhood. He thought about what his mother said the first time she put something other than hot dogs on the table in front of him. ‘You won’t know until you try it, Honey,’ she chided him as he stared at a salmon steak with something close to disgust marring his still-plump six-year-old baby-face. As he recalled the salmon had been quite good, as were the other seemingly alien meals she prepared for the family in the subsequent years. Freddy enjoyed a variety in his diet. He liked duck and lamb. He liked sushi and bison. He liked venison and rabbit thanks to John’s hunting. He wasn’t quite as fond of liver but then again how many kids were ever fond of liver?

  Maybe Çin was right. Maybe he should try it with her first. Not to put too fine a point on it, a pussy was a pussy. That’s what she said and she did have one of those. Freddy stood there, his hands on his belt buckle. “So, how’s this supposed to work?”

  -

  Sex – doing ‘it’ – was odd he said. Çin didn’t feel right. She didn’t feel … like it was sex. He was not very gentle with her that first time. She wanted him from behind and he obliged. After a few awkward moments she took over and guided him into her. This was not her first time he realized. That only made him angry. He hated her for it but he was hardly about to stop. Every thrust became an attack to even up a score he felt needed evening. He did not touch her, instead keeping his hands at his sides. His eyes were closed and he thought of the dog. Freddy imagined having the length of pipe now, beating her with it. The sudden surge of rage he felt very nearly overwhelmed him. It was like some sick drug. The more his rage built, the more viciously he thrust, consciously trying to hurt her. So consumed was he that he barely noticed Çin’s rasping moans. This was what she wanted. She was enjoying it.

  In turn Freddy’s rage only grew, culminating in a feral snarl as he climaxed. A red film descended over his vision. His ears rang with it. For a moment he prepared to strike. He was ready to strike, to kill. If he had a knife, he would have driven it into her back without hesitation. The compulsion was more than he could resist. Had Çin turned around then, she would have seen the bloodlust in Freddy’s eyes I’m sure. She would have felt terror instead of ecstasy.

  The orgasm was powerful, terrific, wonderful and whatever other adjective one cares to insert. But it was not satisfying. It felt good but it was not complete. The fire may have gone out but his veins were still full of gasoline, easily ignited again. I feared he already knew what would complete it. He did not stop at one but took her again and a third time. He did not want to but he couldn’t stop. The power flowed out of him while he took her, drained from him as though she was a vampire sucking the life from him with eve
ry thrust.

  His final orgasm echoed off the living room’s vaulted ceiling. Freddy flopped down on the couch beside her, sweat streaming down his cheeks and chest in rivulets. He felt dead. His heart slowed to a steady, hollow rhythm, his breathing became shallow and measured. But it was not right. Just then he needed to be away from this place, to leave and never come back.

  “Jesus Christ, Freddy!” Çin gasped, her thin boyish chest heaving. She was grinning at him almost foolishly. “That was surreal!” She dropped to the floor and rolled on her side. Her upper body rested languidly on the sofa cushions. “I mean – holy shit – you went fucking animal on me or something! If I had only known you could do that…” she left it hanging.

  Freddy suppressed a shudder. “We’re not doing that again,” his mind tried to drift away and his eyes were closed. He did not see the hurt twist Çin’s face away from the warm glow I had often seen in her eyes when she looked at Freddy. The few times after that I did see them together Çin’s expression was guarded, uncertain and like Carrie’s that afternoon back in June more than a little afraid.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Freddy held a finger up to silence her. “I don’t want to talk about it. We can still trade the oral shit but not that ever again. No fucking way. It’s just not right.” Freddy loved it but he was scared just the same. He knew even then what would complete it. I think that scared him just a little. But he would come to embrace what he felt and all too soon.

  -

  This was the same day Carrie phoned to say she was coming home. The very evening. And in less than a week she would be home. Freddy was about to find himself in the middle of a bazaar love triangle that should not have existed. He knew he had to exclude Çin somehow. The circumstances had changed – Çin had managed to ruin it in a way he had not seen coming. She had grown emotional about their relationship. Freddy was still not convinced that she was cool with it but he was afraid what would happen if she wasn’t. To Freddy the whole thing was an arrangement of convenience but to Çin it had clearly progressed beyond that into an affair, a relationship. Freddy was appalled at the notion of reciprocating.