Touching Strangers

by Stacey Madden

  She tossed the jar onto the coffee table and sat bolt uprightwith her legs crossed. The jar spun and spun like a coin, and f inally settled when Aaron walked through the door. She heard him kick off his shoes and drop his keys in the glass tray. Was itless suspicious if she were lying down? Flipping channels? He relocked the doors and padded into the living room. There was notime to move or do anything. She stared at the TV.

  He flopped down on the easy chair beside the couch andsniffed. “Tomato soup?”

  She was calm. “I heated up a tin for dinner.” So she was going to lie.

  Aaron just grunted and didn’t press any further. She couldfeel him looking at her, but when she turned her head, he wasstaring at the TV.

  “My boss is sick,” he said. “Really sick, apparently.”

  “With what?”

  He shrugged, then nodded at the open jar of cream on thetable. “Rash?”

  “Just sore from earlier. I was going to . . .”

  Aaron laughed. “Go ahead, I don’t mind. I’m starving anyway.” He stood up and went to the kitchen, moving swiftly likean animal or some kind of performer. He always seemed to haveenergy to burn.

  Samantha hooked her arms around her knees and said,“What are you making? I’m kind of hungry too.”

  “I thought you had soup.”

  “It was just soup. Hours ago.”

  Aaron opened the fridge, closed it, and opened the freezer.“There’s a vegetarian pizza.”

  Samantha turned back to the TV. “Whatever you want.”She felt normal. This was all normal.

  As he removed the frozen pizza from the packaging, he said,“Dr. Zilber wants to send me to a skin specialist in Guelph.About the thing on my foreskin.”

  Samantha stopped breathing. “What?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Really? Why?”

  Aaron folded the pizza box in half and stuffed it in the recycling bin under the sink. “I guess he thinks it’s worth checkingout.”

  Samantha swallowed. Her saliva tasted like bile. “But he d oesn’t think it’s anything, right? It’s just a precaution.”

  Aaron was opening and closing cupboards. “I don’t know.Where’s the pizza tray? The circular one, with the holes.”

  “Under the oven.” She stared at him for a few momentswhile he opened and sipped on a bottle of coconut water, thensaid, “I told you not to go to the doctor. They always find something.”

  He swallowed. “Let’s not get into this again. Not now.”

  She looked away and fought the urge to argue. Anyway, hewas right. If there was something seriously wrong, it was betterhe get it checked out, catch it early. Now she fought the urge tocry. When it passed, she said, “When?”

  His back was turned. He was looking for the oven mitt. “Hmm?”

  “When would you have to go?”

  “He said he could get me an appointment for next week. I’dhave to book myself off work, though, which might be tricky ifMr. V’s still sick.”

  Samantha grabbed a bunch of her hair and played with it. Forthe first time in her life it felt heavy on her head; a burden.Annoying and messy. She said, “Come sit with me.”

  The oven hadn’t fully pre-heated yet, but he put the pizza inanyway and obeyed. He made to sit on the easy chair, butSamantha patted the cushion beside her, and he joined her on thecouch. She tried to straddle him, but he grabbed her arm andblocked her.

  “Sam, what are you doing?”

  “What?” She pulled her arm out of his grip and attempted tostraddle him again.

  He laughed nervously. “Are you horny again?”

  She didn’t answer; she just leaned forward and kissed hisneck. She could feel his penis swelling under her bum.

  He said, “I did a bit of research, you know. Hypersexualityis a sign of bipolar disorder.”

  She ignored him and ground her crotch into his lap. She wasstill sore down there, but her horniness seemed to act as apainkiller of sorts.

  He tried to push her off. “Sam, there’s—”

  “Come on.”

  “No, Sam, you have to look at this.”

  His tone was stern. Reluctantly, she slid off him and turnedto look at the TV.

  “. . . officials say there’s no reason to panic, but encourage the publicto take precaution, and to avoid close contact with anyone who may besick. Anyone who is exhibiting flu-like symptoms is encouraged to stayhome from work or school and contact a doctor as soon as possible. Again,dozens of healthy males between the ages of twenty-five and fifty havebeen isolated in hospitals throughout the city, infected with what somepeople are calling ‘Buzzard flu’, a highly contagious strain of avian fluthat, if not contained, could cause an outbreak. In a statement, ChiefMedical Officer Rosamund Sedgwick said that symptoms include nausea,high fever, cough, vomiting, dizziness and confusion, a rash on the chestand neck area, swelling of the tissue beneath the fingernails, and eventualloss of consciousness. If you or anyone you know has any of these symptoms, please call

  STAGE 5: BUZZARD BOMB

  Zack Pike woke up with a boner as hard as concrete. Heswept his hand blindly across the upturned milk crate besidehis mattress and knocked over last night’s half-drunk can of Colt45. Beer foamed out onto his crusty rug. He ignored the spill andhis hand found what he was looking for: the peeled-off beer labelon which Claire had jotted down her cell number, punctuatedwith a little ‘x’ to dot the i.

  He picked up his phone and dialled, only to have someoneshouting Korean in his ear. He hung up and tried again. Thistime a soft, raspy voice said, “Hey.”

  “Hey, yo, is this Claire?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Hey, yo, this is Zack. The white boy. We met yesterday.”

  “Mmhmm, I remember.”

  “Hey, yo, so listen. You chillin’ with Ugbo today, or what?”

  She giggled. “Odane’s at the hospital. He’s really sick.”

  “For real?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “He was pretty fucked up yesterday, but damn. The hospital? Some crazy-ass flu be goin’ around or some shit.”

  “I know, right? That’s twice now I’ve fucked a sick guy.Creeps me out a little.” She laughed, then said, “So what are youdoing today?”

  “Just chillin’. You working today or what?”

  “Maybe. I gotta move out of this apartment, though. It’s gross.”

  “True, true. You need help with that?”

  “Yeah, I really do. Maybe you could come over, help memove some stuff. You got a place I could crash?”

  Zack wrapped his hand around his cock. It was hot to thetouch, a freshly wrought shaft of iron. “Yeah, you can set upshop here. S’all good, yo.”

  “Awesome. That’s sweet of you. Come pick me up in an hour.”

  Forty minutes later he stepped off the streetcar at Coxwelland Gerrard. He’d brought along an empty backpack—a gentlemanly gesture that he hoped would score him some primedeepthroating. The door that led to Ugbo’s apartment was open,so he went up the stairs. The door on the landing was open aswell. He could hear grunting, along with what sounded likesomeone pounding away on a punching bag.

  He walked through the door and saw Claire sitting on top ofa large black suitcase, struggling to zip it closed. She was wearingthe same pair of cut-off jean shorts he’d seen before, and a thinshred of white fabric for a top. She was panting, the tendonsthrobbing in her wrist-thin neck.

  She made a pouty face. “I can’t get it closed.”

  He went over, zipped it up easily, then stood back and sniffed.

  Claire giggled from her perch atop the luggage. “Thanks.”

  Zack glanced quickly at the gun on the coffee table, thennodded at Claire’s suitcase. “What you got in there, anyway?”

  She stood up and dusted off her knees. “Outfits, mostly.Makeup and shit.”
She smiled and added, “Some of Odane’sstash.”

  Her top was like a piece of gauze. He could see her nipples,and the small spider tattoo on her breastbone. Would she expecthim to pay, or was his accommodation enough? He wonderedwhat kind of arrangement she’d had with Ugbo. He stared at herass as she walked off into the bedroom to grab who knows whatelse.

  Zack coughed, then beat-boxed for a few seconds andglanced around the apartment. Like his own place, it was prettybare: a TV on the floor, random piles of bootleg DVDs, a smallpotted cactus on a shelf amongst some bongs and pipes. Whitewalls, grey carpet, dim lamp lighting. The only window wascompletely covered with a Riff Raff poster.

  Finally he said, “Are you sick? I mean, if whatever Ugbo gotis contagious . . .”

  Claire came out of the bedroom with a Ziploc baggie full ofjewellery in one hand and about a dozen pieces of thong underwear dangling off the wrist of the other.

  “I don’t think it is,” she said. “I’d be sick by now. I feel fine.”

  Zack nodded. “Cool.”

  He helped her pack the rest of her shit, then they went outside to hail a cab. At the bottom of the stairs, Zack said, “Onesec,” and ran back up to the apartment. He grabbed the gun andexamined it. There was a large black cylinder attached to the barrel that was almost the size of the gun itself. A silencer, Zackassumed. He put the weapon in his backpack amongst Claire’scolourful array of panties and hurried back downstairs. His newprize jostled around in his bag, heavy and important, like anancient artifact or dinosaur bone.

  On the street, Claire was hoisting her suitcase into the trunkof a busted-up Crown taxi. He slipped into the front seat withthe driver; Claire slammed the trunk closed and got into theback. He saw the Indian driver leering at her tits in rear-viewmirror, and behind her, on the street, he saw a cop car rolling upbehind them.

  Quickly he said to the driver, “Wardian Trust Arms. Knowwhere that is?”

  “Yes, yes. I know, I know.”

  “Go!”

  The driver put the car into gear and drove away slowly.Claire blew a bubble in the backseat. Zack’s hands were clenchedinto fists. His cock was still hard. The cop car didn’t follow them.

  *

  Aaron balanced two garbage bags full of laundry in his armsand walked carefully toward the elevator. Most of the dirtyclothes were his. Two weeks’ worth. Only a third of one bagcontained Samantha’s laundry, which was mostly baby-T’s, pyjama pants, and underwear.

  He pressed the down button for the elevator, and the doorsopened right away. One by one he threw the bags into the lift, then stepped inside himself. The laundry facility was located inthe basement. He prayed to sweet Jesus that nobody else wasdown there. It didn’t get much worse than having to make smalltalk with your fellow tenants while loading the ancient, rustymachines with smelly socks and boxer shorts—especially now,when anyone whose path you crossed was a potential mucusfilled vessel harbouring Buzzard Flu germs.

  The elevator arrived at the basement, the doors opened, andAaron crept out with his bags into an empty room. He wasrelieved nobody was there, but the silence bothered him. Hewalked over to the little plastic radio Mr. Böröcz had installed inthe corner and turned it on.

  As he loaded his clothes into the washing machine, he listened to the smoky male voice on The T.O. Ticker 2210 saysomething about there now being dozens of confirmed cases ofBuzzard Flu in the greater Toronto area. His voice vibrated withsinister gusto, as though he were narrating a movie trailer.

  Aaron sighed. He didn’t need Mr. Two-Packs-a-Day to tellhim what he already knew—that a plague of biblical proportionswas at hand and everyone was doomed. He and Samantha hadgathered as much after watching the news the night before.They’d been preparing for this sort of disaster for decades—formost of their lives, in fact. The truth was, they were better prepared to fend off an epidemic than anyone, but at the same time,they knew there was no stopping nature’s mightiest and mostsacred form of population control—pestilence. Staring at thescreen together, they almost felt vindicated, like the emergenceof Buzzard Flu justified their lifestyle.

  They were afraid, sure. Extremely afraid. But twisted up inthat fear was the same kind of perverted satisfaction you mightget out of watching a reckless toddler get hit by a car after continuously warning his parents not to let him play in traffic.

  When the broadcast was over, they’d looked at each other,and their expressions communicated more between them thanwords ever could. We were right.

  Samantha ended up getting what she wanted. They fuckedon the couch, holding each other tightly, stiffly, so that Aaron was barely thrusting, they were simply connected, locked together like zipper teeth, kissing and squeezing and not letting go. Hecame inside her. They had a shower together afterwards. Aaron’sfrozen pizza burned black, but it didn’t matter. They weretogether. They’d somehow found each other in this bizarre, dangerous, and fucked-up universe, and they’d trudge on throughthis epidemic, this Buzzard Flu shit storm, together.

  Aaron had slept soundly and woken up reassured. Now herehe was doing their laundry. He and Samantha would be togetherand happy while the rest of the world melted into zombies.

  He dumped an armful of shirts into the machine, stompedback over to the radio, and turned the dial until he came tosomething he could stomach. Finally he landed on a station playing Simon and Garfunkel’s I Am a Rock. He left it there, pulledhis mask off his mouth, and sang along cheerfully.

  Just as he was accompanying Paul Simon in his declaration ofbuilding a fortress deep and mighty that none may penetrate, heheard the sound of shuffling footsteps behind him. He turnedaround as casually as he could manage and saw a tall, scruffy guyin a black T-shirt and torn, dirty jeans, holding a basket full ofother black T-shirts and more pairs of dirty jeans. He nodded atAaron and said, “Hey,” as though they’d met before.

  Aaron grunted, put his mask back over his mouth, and setthe machine to ‘super-cycle’.

  The guy said, “You’re Aaron, right?”

  *

  Samantha was in her bedroom, dancing naked to the thumping rhythm of Marilyn Manson’s version of Personal Jesus. Herhair played in the air like live wires.

  When going to bed the night before, she’d felt sick with guiltfor what she’d done, especially with Aaron sprawled out besideher on the bed, unaware that his head was resting on the very pillow she’d propped under her belly while Luca fucked her frombehind. She prayed she’d die in her sleep as punishment for hertransgressions; had even dreamed about being chained to a float ing piece of rock in a sea of lava, forced to suck Satan’s horn likea penis.

  When she woke up, she felt electrified. Full of nervous energy. She’d opened her eyes, turned to Aaron and said, “If one ofus catches Buzzard Flu, let’s have a suicide pact.”

  He just nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Now Aaron was in the basement, doing their laundry.Samantha stood with her hand on the open closet door, movingher hips and trying to decide if she felt like wearing clothes today;wondering if she’d get sick today; if she’d die today; if she’d seeLuca today.

  The urge to confess what she’d done was so strong it wasperverse. It wasn’t that she wanted to hurt Aaron. She wanted theopposite. She loved him. But she wanted to share this feeling ofpassion and danger that had been awoken inside her, and Aaronwas her other self. She wanted him to know what she’d done,and she wanted him to be as excited about it as she was.

  She mouthed the words, “I will deliver, you know I’m a forgiver,” as she slammed the closet door and spun on the balls ofher feet.

  She’d go naked.

  The hardwood floor was cold on her feet as she padded herway down the hall to the bathroom and the medicine cabinet.Goosebumps sprouted their way up her legs and back, finishingon her shoulders and causing her scalp to tingle as she looked atherself in the mirror.

  Ugly, she thought. She was pale as chal
k, her hair a mane ofcoarse black twine. Droopy, heavy-lidded eyes with irises thecolour of swamp water. Tits like pears, nipples too small. Deep,vacuous belly button surrounded by tummy flab. She’d been skinny once. Thank God she couldn’t see her hips from this angle.

  She opened the cabinet quickly to banish her hideous reflection, and popped her daily multivitamins, a ginger pill, two AdvilLiqui-Gels, and washed it all down with a swig of cough syrup. Gagged once, but kept it all down.

  On her way to the kitchen, the phone rang. The noise startled her. She didn’t know what it was at first. People rarely called them. She continued about her business and poured herself a glassof organic cranberry juice. The phone continued to ring. Shestood with her bum against the counter, gulping down her juiceand staring scornfully at the telephone on the window ledge.Ring—silence—ring—silence—ring. It wouldn’t shut up!

  She finished her juice, slammed the glass down on thecounter, stomped over to the phone and yanked it off its cradle.“Yeah?”

  “Oh, hi, is this Samantha? It’s Nicole from Faucet Fountain.Is Aaron there?”

  Samantha swallowed and pictured Nicole’s clownishlymade-up face. “Oh. Uh, he’s not here.”

  “Sorry, I can’t—I can’t hear you. The music.”

  Samantha rolled her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and walkedslowly to the bedroom. She leaned in front of the speakers andallowed Marilyn Manson to screech into Nicole’s ear for a fewseconds before stopping the CD player.

  “Thanks, that’s better,” Nicole said. “Can I speak to Aaronplease? It’s urgent.”

  With her pinkie fingernail in her teeth, Samantha said, “Itold you, he’s not here.”

  “Is he on his way to the store, then?”

  “No, he’s doing laundry.”

  Nicole sighed into the receiver, and Samantha felt she couldalmost smell her disgusting cigarette breath. “He was supposed toopen the store today but he never showed. When he gets back,could you tell him to come in please?”