The Hinky Bearskin Rug

by Jennifer Stevenson

  But she found herself holding her breath, listening for shouting. Why would her mother put up with that?

  The answer popped through her mental guard.

  She’s holding him in her office so I have time to get away.

  And he was screaming in her face.

  Lena slapped Steven’s desk.

  For that, he would pay.

  She leaped up, slammed open the door, and nearly marched smack into Steven, who indeed looked dark with fury.

  He bounced off her as if he’d hit a wall. All the color drained out of his face.

  “Hello, Steven,” she cooed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mademoiselle Heiss, Corncob Building I, on the Chicago River, Jewel read in Randy’s beautifully loopy handwriting. She put the envelope down. The letter was handwritten on sheets torn from a yellow legal pad, closely covered with the same loopy writing. A phrase caught her eye, in your strong buttocks and she stood up straight as a shiver passed down her spine.

  She realized she still had her phone open in her other hand. She shut it.

  She sat down to read.

  My dearest Jewel, the letter began.

  What did he mean, his dearest Jewel? Her heart was pounding so loudly she couldn’t hear the yellow sheets rustle in her fingers.

  She squinted, heart thundering. He’s never spoken this many words to me, ever. And, I wonder what he wants to tell me, although that was a lie, she already knew, or she knew what she hoped, anyway.

  o0o

  My dearest Jewel,

  I am brushing your hair. The brush travels down your back, brushing your skin as well as your hair. Tense muscles ease in your back. You arch against me, then away from me, so that the brush can touch more bare skin. The brush moves lower, smoothing away the hot angry day in your strong buttocks, your right thigh, down the back of your right knee, tickling your achilles tendon at the ankle. The brush passes over the sole of your right foot, tickling, then soothing. Your toes curl.

  And again from the scalp downward, this time on the left side. You lie face down on the bed, smelling sunshine on the sheets, and feel the brush sweep slowly down your body in long, soft, upward-flicking strokes. Stroke by stroke, the brush sweeps away distress. You feel lighter.

  The backs of your knees relax. Your aching feet and ankles give up their pain, until your skin tingles, as if it was once dark and now glows. You arch your feet. You are ready to turn over.

  The brush returns to your beautiful bottom. Your life is packed into this part of you, although you are only sometimes aware of it. Tremendous power lies dormant here. You begin to feel it stirring as the brush passes over your bottom, stimulating your skin, bringing up the fine down, making you tingle. Deep inside, your inside is growing bigger than your outside.

  You are ready to turn over. I place one hand on the back of your neck and the other hand at the base of your spine. Lie still.

  You lie still.

  Deep in your flesh, something like a belt of emeralds dangles from your hipbones down into the curls below your navel, the girdle of Venus. Although you lie perfectly still, this girdle moves inside you like a sleepy snake. Your right buttock clenches, then your left. You relax them but the emerald snake still moves. You feel my hands, hot on the base of your neck, hot on your tailbone, pressing down. Ever so slowly, the snake turns over. You want to turn over.

  The brush begins its slow stroke again while my hands hold firm. From the crown of your head down your neck, your shoulders, lightly along the backs of your arms, into your palms, the brush raises a tingle on your smooth skin. One hand, then the other. Thus you can focus, anticipate.

  Your right hand commands, so the brush dips into the hollow of your right palm, teasing the fingertips, making your hand lie still and yet filling it with a fizzing lightness.

  Your left hand receives. It is the vulnerable hand. The brush moves slower over your left palm, drawing the need from your belly up into your sensitive fingers, sending a message into deep places: Lie still.

  You lie heavier on the bed, while bits of you become light.

  Deep inside, the girdle of Venus writhes.

  o0o

  He really does know how it feels. Jewel squirmed a little. He doesn’t know how I’m reacting to this.

  He can’t. Can he?

  She turned to the next page.

  o0o

  It’s no use, I can’t make love to you without my own voice. Yet all I would do is give back to you what you have given me: yourself, a single remarkable star in the night of my long life. To your courage I can only bring endurance, not brave endurance, but the endurance of a dog at the spit, chained forever, running within smell of the roast. Your honesty I answer with reticence, bred into me from birth, for the earl was not taught to tell his love nor had much love to tell, and the incubus has held his tongue for two centuries. You must know that you are brave and honest. These are your duties as an officer of the law.

  But do you know how your imagination has set me free? In my dark prison, I hungered for flight, and you gave it me. For another woman I could be a priest, a long-dead lover, a stableful of lusty grooms, but only you could make me a Pegasus, a dragon, a swan, a lightning bolt.

  In the dark, below the edge of your awareness, I hold congress with your fancy. You endow me with powers I could never invent for myself. If I have known you, it is because you are honest enough to stand naked before me; if I have flown you to paradise, it was you who gave me wings; if I am ever to do these things again, as my heart hungers to do, it will be because you are honest enough to want me and brave enough to come for me.

  Any man would want you for your beauty.

  But who would carry you shrieking into the stormy sky, cradle you in cloud, tickle you with rain, soak you with sunbeams?

  Come for me, bright Jewel.

  o0o

  Breathless, she turned the page. The folded paper rattled, and something shiny fell out and tinkled to the floor. She picked it up. It was a key.

  She looked at the next page.

  o0o

  Again I must struggle to match your honesty.

  I have many wants I do not speak of.

  I want to be free. I want to restore my name and style. Also to regain my property. Also to pursue my enemy, for I haven’t forgotten the woman who damned me merely for being bad in bed. These are ungenerous wants, but they have kept me sane, years in which there was no light, no occupant in my bed. For all I want only your pleasure when prone, perpendicular I am a selfish creature.

  Thus the importance of being prone with you so often. Sex may be a poor tool, but it is all I have to woo you with.

  I should tell you more truths. But what?

  That I have felt lucky to be sharing your life. I shared many unhappy, bitter lives, many of them near their ending by the time I found them. Whereas you are happy and brave and young enough that I have time to give you everything I have and know. Thank God you are young. I have your lifetime to repay you for your gifts: drive your oily chariot under the sun, load the dishwasher with my own two hands, scold and be scolded in the grateful daily bickering of lovers. For these simple things I would give up your gift to me of flight.

  To be human again, I would give up... much.

  I should confess that I respect your lustiness. To perdition with all my criticisms; they are only my jealousy, ill-cloaked. In truth I treasure how deeply desire wells in you. Not only does your fire please me, but it is good for your health, your life expectancy, and, I believe, your honesty and courage. Only someone who has found her own life-source, burning white-hot like the heart of a smoking mountain, can stand as you stand, strong but not hard, sweet but not weak, in the face of this city, this world, this century.

  If I have said otherwise, I take shame.

  I should say that I would change the past for you if I could. I would make up for all the nightmares I have witnessed in your sleep: grant you sunshine in place of night, warm skin for snow, happiness, n
ot dread.

  Let me pretend I can give you a dream now.

  Are you ready?

  o0o

  That was all on that page. She read it twice, and then stopped because her throat was tight.

  She turned to the next sheet.

  o0o

  You turn over in your sleep and smell your own hair, freshly washed, on the pillow. Your body is clean and sweet from the bath. The sheets smell of sunshine.

  You slip into a dream that you are younger, although you know this cannot be. In your dream you are walking along the river at university, feeling young and safe and foolish, and the sun pours a path of gold before you, gold on the glittering river beside you, gold on the greensward at your feet, the fragrant, gilded trees arching overhead like the bones of a cathedral. Behind you come clouds like years, full of regret, but although you know they await you, for this moment you are free. In this moment you walk on sunshine.

  I know this.

  I stand among those clouds, holding them by their leashes.

  I want to walk on that sunshine with you.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Steven’s eyes bugged out at Lena. “You!” Behind him stood a gathering crowd of office girls.

  “Me.”

  “What are you doing here?” he sneered. “A slut who spreads her legs for the world?”

  Lena looked around at the girls. “Did you hear what he called me? I think that constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace. I can sue this firm into the ground for that.”

  He glared at the girls. “Nobody says anything.” His face radiated heat.

  She wouldn’t look away. “Let’s vote, shall we? All in favor of shutting up for Steven, say aye.”

  Stony silence from behind her.

  “All in favor of blowing the whistle?”

  Sharisse’s voice called out, “Aye.”

  “Fuck him,” said a voice far in back.

  “Been there, done that,” said Geri’s voice, and Tonia laughed her braying laugh.

  Now what was she supposed to do? Oh, yes, Onika’s wacky idea. Lena pulled the ikon out of her skirt pocket and held it face-up in her palm. Supposedly it would make Steven crazy.

  He looked down and did a double take. A weird gurgle escaped his throat, like a coffeepot sucking up the last drop of water in the reservoir.

  Lena raised her voice. “Let’s hear ’em all together. All in favor of blowing the whistle on Steven?”

  “Aye!” said many voices.

  Lena shouted, “I can’t hear you!”

  “Aye!” A chorus of laughter followed.

  “Shut up!” Steven screamed. He looked past Lena, his eyes rolling. “I have something on every one of you. Pictures. Nasty, slutty pictures. You’re all in my power.” He was dark red, weaving on his feet, his chest heaving, his fists opening and closing at his sides, foam flecking his lips and shirt. He threw his head back and howled, “I’m covered, and you bitches are toast!”

  “Thanks for the confession,” Lena purred. Yikes, that ikon really worked.

  Steven laughed long and nasty. “They’ll keep quiet. So will you, for your mother’s sake.”

  “There’s the recording.” Lena tapped her chest and winked.

  Steven’s face turned purple. He reached out, grabbed the front of her blouse, and ripped it off, exposing the wire she had taped between her breasts.

  Lena was ready. She leaped backward. There was lots of room between her and the crowd, now.

  Steven lunged.

  She kneed him hard in the groin.

  He went down, retching.

  “Don’t hurt me, my dear,” said a voice behind her. Lena flinched, still full of adrenaline, and turned.

  Hugh Boncil was watching.

  The senior surviving partner stood over Steven’s retching body and said with sorrow, “I’m very disappointed in you, Steven. This is not acceptable behavior. I’m afraid you may have irreparably prejudiced your chances of staying on in the firm.”

  “Who’s — augh — gonna — uhv — stop me — aughughgh—”

  Lena backed away. Now for the rest of Onika’s plan. She glanced at the ikon. Ikon, shmikon. It’s a nekkid girlie playing card. On the card-back, Wilma was painted with her hands on her dimpled knees and a smooch on her lips.

  Lena shook her head. This is crazy, but okay.

  She pressed the card to her forehead. Wilma, Wilma, come to me, come to me, Wilma, Wilma, help me, help me, Wilma, Wilma, he’s gonna kick my ass if he ever stops throwing up — That wasn’t in the script, but it was heartfelt.

  Hugh offered his hand to Steven to help him stand.

  Steven was a mess. His tie was half-undone. Drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

  “You’re nothing,” he said hoarsely. “You prance around, fucking in front of everybody in that hellhole building, and you’re nothing. I’m gonna have that place gutted.” His hands made fists.

  Lena pressed harder on the card. Wilma, Wilma, come to me, come to me, Wilma, Wilma, help me — eek!

  o0o

  Clay came to himself slowly, hearing Wilma’s voice.

  “I have an avatar now. Like it?”

  He felt himself stand and pirouette, and a weaselly, nasal male voice said, “What the fuck? Who are you, lady?”

  “I’m Wilma. You prayed to me, remember?” her voice said cheerily. The voice came out of Clay’s own mouth.

  The room swam into focus. It was small and smelly and oddly familiar. Tatty curtains. Ratty sofa. Naughty posters thumbtacked to the wallpaper. Stacks and stacks of magazines piled four, five, six feet high against the walls.

  And against one of those walls, his eyes rolling in his little ferret face, stood a total stranger with his pants down around his ankles and panic in his voice. “Don’t come any closer!”

  Thrown over the back of a chair was a blue nylon windbreaker with Inspectional Services printed on the left breast in white, and Zachariah on the right breast in red. Ah-hah, Clay thought.

  Wilma pouted. “Don’t you recognize me?” Clay felt his hands slide over his own chest and waist, and he realized that the body he occupied was female. As in, va-va-voom female.

  Evidently, when Wilma took over, she redesigned.

  “C’mon, sugar. You wanted it.” Wilma squirmed and posed and flung out her hands. “Come and get it.”

  “Uh.” Ferret-faced Guy tried to back away but he was already against the wall. His eyes got bigger.

  “You prayed to me and I came. So what’s on your mind?”

  Wilma cozied up to the guy until her breasts — Clay’s — no, he wouldn’t call those things his. They were all Wilma. Wow.

  “What were you thinking about when I manifested?” She laid her hand on the guy’s forehead. His eyes fluttered and he slid down the wall.

  “Uh-bah-uh-bah—

  She murmured, “Tell me.”

  “Just how I’m gettin’ screwed out of my cut.”

  “Your cut?” Kinky, she thought.

  Clay heard her thought. Apparently now it was the opposite of how it was when he had the body and she was just a passenger. He could hear her thinking. But could she hear him?

  Clay said, silently because he was trapped inside her head, He’s a criminal. His accomplices are cheating him out of money. Can I have my body back, please?

  Not until I answer his prayer, Wilma thought. Silently, Clay groaned.

  She laid a hand tenderly on the guy’s unzipped crotch.

  Euw! Clay protested in vain.

  “Those bastards,” Ferret Face said dreamily. “I do the heavy work. They get the money and blow me off. Broke my back luggin’ magazines. For chicken feed! They made millions!”

  Darn it, you’re right, Wilma said silently to Clay. I never know what to do about these requests for money. What’s money compared with a good fuck, or true love, or a reliable boner? Doesn’t he even pay attention who he’s praying to?

  Let me talk to him, Clay suggested. To his relief, Wilma quit fo
ndling the guy and her own amazing attributes and retreated enough for Clay to pilot her — his — no, still her body.

  He looked around the depressing room and spoke to Zachariah. “Do you think they might double-cross you? Uh, sugar?” Boy, it felt funny, hearing Wilma’s high, girlish voice when he talked.

  Zachariah nodded. “In a heartbeat. One of ’em’s with the city and the other fucker’s in real estate. He tried to hide his identity from me but I followed him and I found out. But what can I do? I’m in it deeper than them. People saw my face.”

  Clay examined the piles of magazines. Yup. Artistic Publishing product. So he kept it all. “You sneaked the porn into the houses. Then you inspected and found the pocket zones and threw a scare into the owners.”

  “You know everything,” Zachariah said, not sounding particularly surprised.

  “I’m a goddess,” Clay said curtly. “You’re screwed, all right, buddy.”

  “I could probably handle sex now,” Zachariah said faintly.

  Clay put a pink forefinger on Zachariah’s lips and pressed, and Zachariah slid farther down the wall, smiling, his eyes rolling up in his head.

  Clay hunkered down beside him. “I bet you could, sweetie,” he felt his mouth saying. His hand reached out on its own to pet Zachariah on his greasy little face. Am I handling this or are you? he said furiously inside his — Wilma’s — head. To Zachariah he said, “You’d better move quick if you don’t want to be left holding the bag.”

  Zachariah opened his eyes. “You think?”

  “There’s a city team on your trail right now. Your friends will hang you out to dry. Your only hope is to turn state’s evidence and get out from under, before you become the fall guy.” Clay took a ballpoint pen out of the windbreaker pocket and picked up Zachariah’s hand. “Call this number.” Clay wrote his own cell number on the palm. “Do it first thing tomorrow. Tell him everything. He’ll set you up with protection.”

  And now, Wilma said, get out of my way. She took control of Clay’s body and reached for her worshipper’s crotch.

  Clay tried to shut his eyes. No luck. They were Wilma’s eyes, now.