Castle Danger--Woman on Ice

by Anthony Neil Smith

  I stuck to my sister’s magazines for a while after my dad complained about getting spam emails for porn sites. I think he knew roughly what I was doing — though not exactly which perversions I was up to — and that was his way of warning me.

  Lots of things made sense, suddenly. Lots of things stopped making sense, too.

  When my sister caught me, she was pissed.

  It wasn’t my first time, no way. Maybe … the fifth, or eighth, as I was getting a bit more brazen. Thinking about the women in my sister’s magazines. The men, too. Of what it might feel like to be a woman, how they might, just might, feel sex differently than a man did.

  I didn’t know what it was like to fuck a pussy yet. That would come later.

  Anyway, Marcia was pissed, and not as understanding as I suggested earlier. Panicked. Hissed at me through her teeth. I was on my bed, on my back, legs spread and toes pointed, and just collapsed like a house of cards. I covered my face and fetal-curled on the bed.

  “Oh god oh god oh god.”

  Marcia: “What the fuck? Jesus! What the fuck!”

  When she got that out of her system and both of us trailed off to half-angry, half-frightened breathing, she said — I’ll never forget — she said, “What are you?”

  I didn’t get what she was asking at first.

  “I’m just, just, playing. That’s all. Just playing.”

  I didn’t have the capacity to know what she was really asking. I couldn’t answer. She couldn’t figure it out. Neither of us could. Not then.

  When she calmed down, she told me to keep the underwear. She didn’t ask if I’d used it before, but she didn’t need to. The look on her face as she stared at it was enough.

  “Keep it. God knows it’s better than you getting arrested for stealing something in the mall. Don’t do that.” Said as if she had experience. I tried to remember any whispered discussions between Mom and Marcia over the past couple of years, sudden doctor’s trips — no, they wouldn’t tell me about that. Sudden trips anywhere? Marcia acting differently? It was hard to think after your sister caught you masturbating in her underwear.

  I sniffed. I felt like I was going to puke. “I’m sorry.”

  “Listen. Look at me.”

  She flicked her thumb under my chin to make me look. A Mom-trick. I flinched, but then turned my head. Hard to look into her eyes. I kept darting back right, but eventually I looked.

  “You need to meet some girls. It’s hard. But you need to meet one. You need to go on a date. You need to kiss her and feel her up. She won’t look like the girls in porn. She won’t act like them. And you’d better not act that way, either.”

  I nodded. I promised.

  “Promise? Like, this fucking weekend promise?”

  “How am I—”

  “Promise.”

  I did.

  And, well … I didn’t get a date that weekend. I didn’t get one the next three.

  It was the fifth weekend. The girl liked me a lot, I’d known a while. I kinda liked her but figured, you know, people would laugh. Goddamn, was I nervous. I was as nervous as a priest in a playground.

  It was a good date, though. It was a movie and Taco Bell. It was giving her a shoulder rub. It was a kiss where our teeth bumped and then another, and then us taking turns sticking our tongues in each other’s mouths. We went out on a few dates. Then we ran out of things to talk about, and that made both of us mad at each other, so we didn’t want to kiss anymore.

  But I did get my fingers under her bra. I felt her nipple.

  A few weeks later I got rid of the bra and panties. Not because I didn’t want to feel that anymore, but because I couldn’t wear them without thinking of my sister finding me like that.

  So, I had never danced with a man before. Yet within the space of a few songs, I’d danced with three of them. Closer each time. Intimate. Thinking back to those secret teenage days in my sister’s underwear, wishing these guys could see that side of me before remembering they preferred me like this.

  Maybe I hadn’t just been “experimenting” back then. Maybe my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. Whatever this was, it felt … all right.

  7

  Someone had handed me a drink. A beer in a bottle. Golden Light. I drank it without thinking. I was hot, like hot — sweating and suffocating under the lights, among the bodies — and the beer was cold and I didn’t want to pass out. I didn’t want to stop.

  We didn’t tell each other our names. We talked about the grooves. We talked about how we felt — Ecstatic! Otherworldly! Out-of-body! — and we huddled shoulder to shoulder, back to back, palms to cheeks, palms to chests. We moved from the bar to the dance floor. It felt like pulling away from the side of the pool as a kid, out where my feet didn’t touch. The groove kept grooving.

  The beat dropped.

  Snake-charmer riff.

  We got low. I took cues. I didn’t know these new-fangled moves, these kids. Most of the music I listened to was a lone voice and a guitar and maybe another voice joined in. Contemplative, not participatory. But I’m in here. I’m watching. I’m learning. I’m having a good time.

  I just didn’t feel gay, that was all. But no way was I going to tell them that. I didn’t feel bad either, so there you go.

  Once I got over the freak out, the doggy-paddle desperation to keep my head above water, I relaxed. I held my breath, let my muscles go loosey-goosey and slipped under, where it was clear and the bass was a feeling more than a sound. I reveled in it. Another drink, this one glowing under the black lights and strobes. This one sweet and strong like mu-tha-fuck-ah! Then the first guy was back, holding a pill between his teeth. He leaned in. He kissed me. He pressed the pill into my mouth. I pulled back. He handed me a bottle of water. “Drink it! Drink all of it!”

  When in Rome …

  I guzzled the water and let it take the pill down down down, and it wasn’t long before a vapor trail of light swirled around everyone. Time slowed down, and I could see other dimensions, could feel the sorts of textures that had no names.

  This was how I fit in. This was how I was going to get what I needed.

  What I didn’t need was to see a face that sent me back to the surface in a panic, kicking and screaming towards the side of the pool.

  Floppy 80’s hair, glasses, Kevin Smith goatee, the horror fan from the last bar. No shy glances this time. This was a dead-stare until he knew I saw him. He lifted his chin and then gave me a four-finger Come here, back to the bar.

  Then he walked back through the door. Just like that. Like he knew I was going to follow.

  He was right.

  The colors flashed and throbbed like I was squeezing my eyes too tightly. I stumbled out of the pool of glitz and sweat and back into the slightly quieter bar, back into darkness. Once I closed the door to the dance floor, I waited for my eyes to adjust, as I stood there getting jostled out of the way. I found a wall to lean against until my breathing returned to normal. My senses were still in overdrive.

  I can’t say it was unpleasant.

  But once I could see again, the colors still pulsing to my heartbeat, there was my stalker at the bar, watching me. Waiting patiently. Drinking a Black Ale like I had earlier. I got a better look at him now. Maybe a little overweight, maybe a little unkempt, maybe a little stuck-in-time in the long black trench coat and old-school Reeboks.

  I pushed the barstool next to him out of the way and stood too close. Intimidation. “How did you find me?”

  He pointed to the live feed of the dance floor. “You were the main event. Intense.”

  Then he looked at my left hand, on the bar, crushing the empty plastic water bottle. The bartender sat another next to it and pulled the first one from my grip.

  “You really a cop?”

  I nodded. I was breathing hard. Not wasting a word.

  “Can I see that photo you showed Geoff?”

  What was the harm? I reached into my back pocket, now soaked in sweat. I pulled out the pic, unfolded
it. Colors bled through, paper limp, but she was still recognizable. Mr. 80’s took it in both hands, held it close. Then nodded.

  “You were asking about Hannah, then?”

  “That’s her name? You know her?”

  He took a sip of beer, watched the dancers on the screen for a moment. “I think I do.”

  (At this point, I hadn’t put her together with Hans yet, but hearing “Hannah”, yeah, that started wheels turning. It wouldn’t be long now.)

  “I mean, all I need is an ID. Just a place to start. Nobody has to get involved if they don’t want to.”

  Another sip of beer. Another long moment staring at the dancers. I couldn’t tell if he was really thinking or just enjoying the drama. I had ignored how dry I was till that point. Could barely swallow. I death-gripped my water bottle, unscrewed it and watched a glug erupt out and splash all over the bar, then picked it up and downed most of its twenty ounces in one long pull.

  80’s guy watched me. Little Mona Lisa grin. Then he glanced over his shoulder, before facing me again. “You ever see Invasion of the Body Snatchers? With Donald Sutherland?”

  “No, but I know that thing he did.” I opened my mouth wide and pointed accusingly. “That thing.”

  “But you don’t know the story?”

  “I mean, I know about the body snatchers, replacing bodies. I know that part.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Never mind.”

  “Is that important?”

  “No, never mind. Just something we were talking about a little while ago.” He made like he was going to stand up. “If you want, I can take you to meet some other people who knew Hannah better than me. I don’t even know if they know she’s gone.”

  “Right now? Take me now?” It was after midnight, and despite the scene in this club, Duluth was a sleepy town, especially in the winter, late March sometimes bringing in wetter, heavier snow.

  He shrugged. “I just talked to them. Let’s go.” He dug in his trench coat pocket, pulled out a ten and a five and tossed it onto the bar. “I’ve got the water, too.”

  Not for fifteen, you don’t. “Cool. Thanks.”

  He hopped off the stool. He was half-a-foot shorter than me, wider than me, and he parted a Red Sea of people as he led us out of the bar.

  I headed for my car, told him I’d follow, but he said, “I’ll bring you back. Just ride with me.” He pointed his bob at a Volkswagen hatch. Chirp chirp, lights bleeped. And I shrugged and followed.

  The X, see, the X. Everything was a revelation in sight and sound and all I wanted was new shit. New experiences. Cop training, not even there. Tunnel-vision forwards. Caution was like “Fuck this” and left for home hours ago.

  Every wave of blown snow excited my skin, and I giggled. Outright giggled. I climbed into Mr. 80’s car — no, now I remember, he told me his name was Titus, very fucking likely — so, Titus’s car for the ride out to, well, wherever.

  He kept the radio low, some growl death metal I couldn’t make sense of. He asked, “Have you seen It Follows?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “How about, um, Drag Me to Hell?”

  I shook my head. I cracked the window a little, as he eased out of the parking lot, because I wanted more snow on my skin. “Horror isn’t my thing. I don’t like the music, you know? When they want to scare you, it’s always with that music. Just, no.”

  “There’s better than that out there. You’re watching the wrong ones.”

  “Just not my thing.”

  “I bet you don’t know that. You’re covering your ears, like, See no evil, or something. I bet if you—”

  “You don’t even know me, man. Seriously. Is this what you do? Just go around telling people they’ll like horror movies if they watch the right ones?”

  He squirmed. “I just have a feeling about you.”

  I took a deep breath, inhaled some snow and loved the sensation. I laughed and said, “Wow,” but the overwhelming spectacle of nature’s majesty was evidently lost on this connoisseur of splatter movies, because all he had to say was “Roll the window up already, please?”

  Fine. I did. Mockingly. Then I drank the rest of my water and immediately wanted more.

  He said, “Horror isn’t about gore or easy scares. Stephen King says the highest level of horror is ‘terror,’ which is sublime fear. It gets down to your soul.”

  “That’s supposed to be fun?”

  “It’s art, man. It’s something meaningful.”

  “One guy’s art, another guy’s garbage.”

  “Jesus, you’re ignorant.”

  “I like Survivor. I like Cops. I like documentaries. You want to rethink that?”

  Instead, he kept pushing his fanboy shit. Explained plots of movies I’d never seen, then analyzed them, too, which was more boring than a poetry reading at a coffee bar. Whitney loved poetry readings at coffee bars.

  I tried to keep better track of where we were headed, but the lights were sorcery, the radio noise was becoming an ancient chant of Forward to the new, forward to the new, and my skin felt as if Jesus had cracked a box of olive oil over my head in blessing. But I knew it was West. We were going to Hermantown.

  Ha. My namesake.

  Hermantown is pretty much right on Duluth’s shoulder. Kinda suburban, but still country. Methy. Lots of broken-down farm equipment and some convenience stores that make you happy you can pay for gas at the pump. It’s a schizophrenic town. The way I was feeling in Titus’s car, yeah, even the snow on the ground seemed to be whispering a warning.

  Needed more water. I smacked my lips, tried to work up some spit.

  “Next time, try orange juice,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “With the X next time. Orange juice.”

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  We pulled into a long driveway flanked by a long line of trees on either side, almost like a fortress to hide the gently rolling acreage and warm glow of the lights from the country-home with a wraparound front porch, and on the other side of the yard, a barn straight out of a 1940’s musical. In Technicolor. We passed a wooden sign, mostly snowed over, but I could make out Something Farm and some small letters, like hours of operation, maybe, and a square block hanging underneath telling us they were CLOSED FOR SEASON. But that didn’t explain the two rows of cars starting halfway down the driveway and leading to the Thomas Kinkade-looking barn.

  “What’s this, now?”

  Titus finally turned off the goddamned radio and said, softly — the sort of tone you use to get someone to pay very close attention to you — “A B&B during the summer and fall. Right now, the owners have a lounge of sorts set up in the barn, which is usually the dining hall.”

  Much like my own family’s hobby farm, a little piece of the old country tucked away from the methiness or suburbaness of Hermantown, depending on which way you drive here. I didn’t see anything advertising the place along the way, not even at the driveway. No sign on the mailbox, no arrow pointing towards the barn, no balloons tied to a branch.

  “Like a speakeasy? Something secret?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Very private.”

  “Could you speak up? My ears are roaring with harmonic wind right now. Louder, please.”

  “A pri-vate. Club.” With emphasis and pops and extra hissing. “Can you HEAR me NOW?”

  Fuck that. He’d barely rolled to a stop, when I had the door open, got out, and started towards the barn. The wind, the cold, the caution to avoid slipping on the hard-pack, it cleared my brain fog some. Not a lot. I was a good fifteen feet ahead by the time he put the car in park, climbed out, and started running, crunchy, stumbly all the way. “You need me to get in!”

  Flashed him my shield. “Figured this would do.”

  “No, no, stop.” He made a lunge and grabbed my wrist, before I could knock on the door. “It’ll ruin everything. Just, please, let me. Jesus.”

  I took one dramatic step to the side and presented the door to him. The glass panes h
ad somehow been blocked out from the inside, leaving only strips of light along the bottom of the door and the sides of the heavily-curtained windows to the left and right. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill animal hotel. Titus caught his breath and said, “Thank you,” in that quiet voice again. I wanted to shove him.

  Knock. Knock knock. Knock knock knock.

  Ten seconds, maybe more, but then the door opened a wedge, the light inside blocked by Frankenstein’s monster. Titus mumbled something about some party, and the beast stepped aside and opened the door wide. Titus stepped past him. I followed, spotted the bar and brushed past him in a beeline instead of taking in the place first.

  Half of the stools were full. I took one a few spaces down from a couple, and waved for the bartender — no details yet. It was all a blur to me. He was a college kid, I guessed. I wasn’t good with ages. No one looked their age anymore, right?

  “Orange juice,” I ordered. “And ice water, too.”

  “Mixed?”

  “No, no,” I laid my hands flat on the bar, a foot apart. “Two drinks.”

  While he went to get those, Titus took the stool beside me and said, “Remind me to hate you.”

  “I’m thirsty, man.”

  “You have no idea, do you? Have you looked around?”

  Of course I hadn’t. Wasn’t he paying attention? I rotated on the stool, elbows on the bar behind me, and noticed a few extra eyes on me, but mainly just an old-fashioned martini lounge, notable only for being in a barn. Lots of red velvet and leather. Lots of lights shaded by amber covers or thin silk scarves, all sorts of dark colors and paisleys. The music had barely registered with me. The X made me think it was the soundtrack to my own personal movie, but there in the back corner on a small riser was a band. Guys playing keyboards and drums, a woman playing guitar, wearing a sparkly evening gown and Uggs. The song, “Sweetest Taboo.”