After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  Even while they made love, he thought he was witnessing the last minutes of her life tick away. In the midst of it he came to realize it was not her encroaching death he watched but her discovery of life itself. His hand, moments from her throat, fell away. Freddy could not destroy this. He wanted to keep it close. He wanted to be part of it, part of her. He needed it and he knew that he did.

  Freddy watched her as night settled over the house. Orange faded to red to deeper purple and indigo only to grow black with darkness. Soon he could not see her as more than a vague shape in the gloom. A soft groan escaped her and she stretched like a cat. Her open palm whispered across the bed sheets.

  She was looking for him but he did not speak. “Freddy?” Her voice was soft and uncertain.

  He could have enjoyed the silence a moment longer but a gentle violence would hold that moment like no other. “I’m here,” he said. The guilt he felt faded into a flutter of excitement. He did not want to leave her out in the dark for long.

  “I thought you left me. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “I’m right here. It’s okay. Do you want the light on?”

  “No. Not yet. Could you come here and cuddle with me?”

  Freddy slipped through the darkness and eased his large frame beneath the sheets.

  Stacy nestled against him and her body started to warm him almost instantly. “Geeze, were you just standing there nude? You’re ice cold!”

  “I wanted to watch you. I’m sorry if that sounds creepy.”

  “It isn’t,” she said and winced, sucking air. “Is it normal to be so sore … down there?”

  “I don’t know,” Freddy replied and kissed her neck. “I don’t have one of those … down there.”

  She poked his ribs. “I’m serious.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. It’ll be fine in a little while. It’s perfectly normal.”

  “Will it always be sore after?”

  Freddy shook his head. “Not usually. It depends. I can be sore afterward too if that makes you feel better.”

  Stacy breathed laughter. “Suppose it does.” She ran a hand over the smooth, hairless skin of his stomach. “You want to talk about creepy? This is creepy,” she decided as her hand found his bald groin. She held his penis until it began to swell it her hand. “Why do you shave everything?”

  Freddy chuckled. He maneuvered her hand back onto him. Gently he made her stroke his fresh erection. When he took his hand away, she did not stop. “That’s another story – something of another life. I think I can let it grow back now.”

  Stacy didn’t say anything. She was focused on his erection, becoming aware of the pleasure her touch was giving him.

  Freddy pulled back the sheets to expose himself in the faint glow of distant street lights. “Use your mouth now,” he coaxed.

  “I’ve never done that before,” she told him, but slid down the bed willingly.

  Freddy propped himself up on pillows and watched her. It had been a very long time since he had been with someone of so little experience but the old frustration did not return. He guided her, coaxed her when he needed to and encouraged her when he had to. He was discovering this with her.

  The heat grew in his loins. His orgasm grew close. When he came, Freddy pulled her aside but kept her close. His fluids erupted in a foot-high fountain and splashed back on his belly. He laughed when she flinched back with a little squawk.

  “Was that okay?” she asked as she watched him.

  Freddy nodded and closed his eyes while his breath returned.

  He felt her finger trace swirls in the semen cooling on his stomach and he opened his eyes to look at her.

  “This stuff is funny,” Stacy murmured. She touched her finger to her tongue to taste it and went back to drawing shapes on his skin.

  “I’ve never heard it described quite that way before.”

  She licked her finger again.

  “Do you like it?”

  A third time Stacy tasted her dampened finger. “It’s never going to replace ketchup on my fries.”

  Freddy chuckled and pulled her close. His kissed her. “And you call me different.” He thought about that other thing, the final secret she might give to him in time. She was curious and truly confident and he wanted to please her. He needed to please her. Something like that might scare her or bring her close. He did not know which but he knew he would never hurt her like the others. He could never hurt her.

  This was a gossamer thing he knew. It was silken but silk could be powerfully strong. He would not let it fray. It was a beautiful thing. It was perfect. She was perfect.

  -

  They had been dating for five months when Claire’s body was discovered. She was alone in the foothills. She was alone everywhere. Freddy had not killed since. I let myself feel the first pale twinges of real hope. That part of his life might truly be behind him.

  I decided I could let it go. I could let it end and gladly. All my talk of bringing him down, all my sleepless nights and endless days spent watching him were for naught. I was fine with that so long as it ended.

  But I never did end my vigil. I no longer waited for my moment to lay him low but I still watched him. I had always lived my life in his shadow, blissfully obscure, blissfully ignored by the passage of the world. I was fine with that because it was what I knew.

  There had been some hurdles to overcome in their relationship. The first one was Freddy’s lifestyle. He was no longer interested in the mindless sex of the past decade. Claire reminded him of something far better. Now Stacy embodied it. He told her a few things but she was uncomfortable with that aspect of his life.

  Stacy asked him the same question Jason Flynn asked him in November. She wanted to know how many women he had slept with. It was a question he could not easily answer. He had spent time thinking about it and he could give her a number but he didn’t want to. Freddy told her a lot. He saw the line of worry marring her brow and he kissed it away. He told her she did not have to worry about measuring up. He told her she was beyond measure.

  She would never be entirely comfortable with his past but he was faithful to her. More importantly he was focused on her. His eyes never strayed when a pretty girl walked through the room. She knew he was devoted to her and that was more than she had ever hoped for.

  The second hurdle was a beast of an entirely different nature. Freddy kept their relationship discrete and he needed to separate their life together from their life at school. When one of her papers came to him for grading, he passed it off to the professor who was teaching the class. He showed her no favoritism and while on campus they kept their displays of affection to a minimum.

  Ryan Childress learned of their relationship from Ezra Lewis. She assured him Freddy was not compromising the department’s integrity. She said he was actually reinforcing it. Still she had her concerns and Ryan was the one to speak to. She liked Freddy but she had her concerns. It seemed everyone liked Freddy. They knew he had a promising future.

  The dean brought it up one evening when Freddy was over for dinner. Elsie was in the kitchen. As usual she had refused Freddy’s offer to help clean up and shooed them off to their brandy and cigars. She always said that and Ryan would inevitably chuckle, kiss her cheek and lead Freddy off to his den. They had an old pre-war bungalow in the regentrified Erlton neighborhood in the Beltline. The den was in the basement. Freddy had to duck to make his way under the barely six-foot-high ceilings.

  They sat in Ryan’s den. There was brandy in a cut crystal decanter on the sideboard and a selection of Cuban and Honduran cigars in his little table top humidor. Ryan always offered but Freddy rarely indulged. He watched his friend pour himself a drink and clip and light a cigar before settling behind his unfathomably large walnut desk.

  Ryan had known he was dating someone but he never asked for details. The invitation to bring her to dinner had always been out there but each time Freddy made his apologies and came alone. After his conversation with Ezra, Ryan ha
d made some discrete inquiries and he learned more about his young protégé’s personal life than he had ever wanted to know.

  Freddy sensed his discomfort. He noticed it at dinner and he was waiting for something to come out. He suspected it was about Stacy. He knew it was coming but he decided to let the dean bring it up.

  Ryan cleared his throat. He swirled the glittering amber liquid around in his snifter. “I had a talk with Ezra the other day,” he started. Usually they talked shop or talked about cars or movies. The way he began confirmed Freddy’s suspicion. Ezra knew because he had to confide in someone and she was always easy to talk to.

  “This is about Ms. Emerson, isn’t it?” Freddy asked. He could hear the base from Chelsea’s bedroom stereo filtering down from upstairs. She was doing her homework. At twelve she was already promising both her mother’s beauty and her father’s brilliance.

  Ryan smiled. “I forget who I’m talking to. Yes, it is. But do you call her Ms. Emerson when you two are alone together?”

  Freddy shook his head. “Stacy,” he said. “I call her Stacy. We haven’t come up with pet names yet.”

  Ryan looked at him. “Please don’t do that.”

  “Sorry. But we are behaving. You need to know that. And I did check – there isn’t anything in the bylaws prohibiting fraternization between faculty and students.”

  “And thank God for that.” Ryan frowned. He sipped his drink and puffed on his cigar. “I’d wager half the chairs would be emptied if there was.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Freddy asked mildly.

  Ryan shook his head. “It’s not a problem – not yet. My interest is more of a concern. That’s all. I have the department to worry about. I also worry about you, my boy.”

  Ryan always called him that – my boy. Freddy didn’t mind. “She is a student but I don’t grade her work. I don’t treat her any better or any worse than any of the other students. And we behave ourselves.”

  “Are you two sleeping together?” He said it like he had to chew on the words.

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Ryan leaned back in his chair. His face was jowly but not so much so that Freddy couldn’t see the clench of his jaw. “Did you meet her at one of these … parties … the others tell me about?”

  “Christ, no!” Freddy felt a wash of hot rage flush his cheeks. Quieter, almost a murmur, “she’s not like that.”

  Ryan stared at him for a long time. He could do that. He was the only person who could – mostly because Freddy let him. “Do you love her?” He asked finally.

  Freddy groaned. He ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair and blew out an explosive breath. The curtains of tobacco smoke over Ryan’s desk wavered, parted and peeled away. “I don’t know. We haven’t been going out quite that long.”

  “But you’re sleeping with her?” The dean halted Freddy’s response with an upraised palm. “You don’t need to answer that. I’m from a different generation.”

  “I think I can love her,” Freddy decided. He smiled. “Yeah, I think I’m going to.”

  “Things are far more complicated for you kids these days – more so than they were for me in my time. Either that or I’ve grown simple.” Ryan rose and crossed to the sideboard. He refilled his drink and poured a second one for Freddy. “You’re drinking this,” he commanded.

  “You’re the boss,” Freddy accepted the glass and humored him with a small sip. He knew he could learn to like brandy just as he had come to enjoy the occasional glass of his stepfather’s Leacock’s.

  Ryan slipped back behind his desk but he didn’t sit down. Brandy snifter in hand, he turned and split the blinds and stared out at the darkened street beyond the narrow slit of a window.

  Freddy let his eyes roam. He knew the room quite well but it always seemed new. The furnishings were all antiques – the walnut wardrobe, the desk and sideboard of the same. The veneer was a classic burl that bloomed to orange and rose before fading to deeper tones of linear black. The book-lined shelves had been saved from a condemned office building downtown. The burgundy leather couch and wingback with their heavy brass hobnails and hand-cut oak feet had come from an estate sale in Connecticut. And there was the gun cabinet from New Orleans. Childress was something of an avid target shooter and he saved the cabinet from Katrina without even knowing it. Ryan was embarrassed to admit how much his furnishings had cost but Freddy had an idea.

  “Are you aware of how I met Elsie? No, you wouldn’t be.” Ryan spun and faced Freddy and the blinds snapped shut behind him. “She was a student and I was her teacher – just as you and your young Stacy. But I was ten years older than you when we met. Elsie was twenty-one. We received our fair share of criticism but our love prevailed. We waited until she graduated before I proposed and it was nearly that long before we were intimate. We worshipped each other in a special kind of way that I don’t think anyone will ever understand.” He paused to relight his cigar. “But I think you understand because you two have that same sort of love growing between you. You can understand the beauty of one – the one – weighed against the possible beauty of many. Love like that is not made in a mold. Thus, I understand and I cannot sit in judgment of you. Elsie saved me from a far darker shade of myself. She made me human and I believe Stacy is doing the same for you.” Ryan fixed him with a knowing look.

  Freddy doubted he really knew. He couldn’t know. Knowing would undo everything – should undo everything. But what if he did; what if he knew? To think I should be the only one who has ever been able to live with his truth, the only one who suffers it.

  “I am not going to forbid you from seeing her. That I cannot do. But I am watching.” Ryan gestured at him with his diminishing cigar. “And no more parties. That I will not abide.”

  “That part of my life is over,” Freddy told him truthfully.

  “Good,” Ryan smiled and seated himself. “And next time you come over for dinner you will bring her.”

  -

  Two hurdles were overcome. Five months went by. They were happy and I think Freddy was actually falling in love. I’ve said this about him before and each time I thought I meant it. This time I knew. He was beginning to let me go as well. He no longer needed me and I decided I was fine with that. He was growing into someone I could accept as a stranger in my life. That was when the police came for him.

  On the evening news they reported finding human remains in a remote area west of the city. My interest peaked because I knew about Claire. Freddy had told me about her that night he killed her during my midnight lunch break. He told me where he put her. It was an area he had gone off-roading in a few times and he knew how remote it was. Part of me didn’t think she would ever be found but I knew better than that. Later, when I saw him with Stacy, I hoped she never would be found.

  Claire was identified from her dental records. This would have been about the twentieth of April that year – oh-six. Two days later, the police announced they had detained a man for questioning. No charges had been filed. Fredrick Cartwright – I think they felt awkward calling him Freddy – was merely a person of interest in the case.

  They held him for only eight hours. Freddy cooperated. He did not retain council. He said he didn’t think he needed to. He told his interviewers he would be willing to answer their questions to the best of his ability. He said he wanted to help. No, he was never officially charged with any crime but more than a few members of the law-enforcement community sat up and took notice of him. But he was free when they finished with him. Lieutenant Alberts of the Violent Crimes Unit shook Freddy’s hand as he was escorted out in front of local media. They had taken notice of him but for the wrong reasons.

  -

  Freddy was at home. It was Saturday afternoon and he was beginning his preparations for a meal with Stacy that evening. With the help of Elsie Childress, he was becoming quite the gourmet.

  Stacy was nearly a vegetarian which made things more interesting. I say nearly because she did eat fish and she was
known to have chicken if it was boneless and prepared certain ways. Freddy had yet to convince her to try his blue-rare steak.

  It was shortly after two. The peppers and the eggplant were sliced and soaking. That would help keep them crisp once they were cooked. He had found fresh sea bass fillets and they would be seasoned with rosemary and dill from his own window-box garden. He even bought a Chilean cabernet sauvignon that was supposed to go perfectly with the fish.

  Freddy’s anti-drinking days were over. Between Tim Irwin and Ryan Childress, he had begun to appreciate the value of a good drink every so often. He would never be his father. John’s attitude about drinking had always been cheap and lots. Freddy was back to the days of quality over quantity. That has often been his motto but until recently he never knew what quality was.

  The fish would need to marinate in olive oil and the herbs for two or three hours and he was just preparing that when the knock came at the door. It was a polite knock but it was also firm and commanding. It was a cop knock.

  Freddy went to the door. He was not surprised to see the police. He knew Claire had been found. He had actually called the police when she was discovered and suggested they check the remains against her dental records. He was transferred to Constable Glynn – the same Constable Glynn who had come out to see him in December after her initial disappearance. He assured Freddy they were doing everything they could.

  When he opened his door and saw that Glynn was one of the two officers, he knew they were indeed doing everything. “Good afternoon, Constables,” Freddy greeted them with a reserved expression. He couldn’t ever truly prepare himself for these encounters but still he was relaxed and ready to perform.

  “To you, Dr. Cartwright,” Constable Glynn replied. Both cops had their hats in hand. “I have some bad news I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”

  Freddy nodded. “It’s her, isn’t it? I knew it would be.”

  The two cops exchanged looks. “Yes, it is,” Glynn replied. “I’m sorry. Because of the condition of her remains you understand we-”