"These are the sensors we attach to the sides of her jaw, to monitor the electrical impulses in her temporomandibular joint muscles. Emily, we're going to put this on your head, then I'm going to strap the helmet in place, to secure it, and attach the sensors to different areas around your mouth. There's a recorder in the unit that will log the electrical pulses in your lower face. That's going to tell us what's wrong with you."
Emily's big blue eyes moved from the nurse to the helmet, to Ben. A tear rolled out of her left eye.
"You want us to figure out why you can't open your mouth, right?"
Ben and the nurse working together, they lowered the helmet around her head. Emily raised her small hand in an initial panic, but she controlled it. Lowered her hand.
"That's a good girl. This is no fun, huh? But it's going to give us important information about you. To get you better!"
"You okay, baby?"
The helmet nodded.
"She's a real sport. I'll tell you that."
The nurse bent her knees, maneuvering the circular discs one by one up under the helmet. Attaching their sticky underpads to different areas of Emily's lower face.
"There! Now I can strap her in."
Separating the wide canvas straps that dangled from the bottom of the helmet. Criss-crossing them across her shoulder blades, under her armpits. Having Emily lean forward on the sofa, so she could cinch the straps in place at the center of her back.
"Now, nurse, she won't be able to release those straps on her own, since they're behind her back. What if she needs to get the helmet off her head?"
"We don't want her to do that. She has to leave it on. If she tries to pull it off, she'll dislodge the sensors, and we have to start all over again."
"How long does she have to wear it on her head?"
The nurse stood back, showing her palms. "That's up to doctor." She put her right hand on top of the hard plastic helmet. Waggled the top. It barely moved. "Okay." Bent down, smiling sympathetically at Emily. "Are you comfortable?"
Emily, within the helmet, opened her mouth as far as she could. "Not really. I can feel the air-conditioning on my hands, but inside the helmet it's really humid."
"I'm so sorry, Hon. But your boyfriend's gonna take real good care of you, and before you know it, you'll likely be back to normal." The nurse turned to Ben. "Now before I leave, let me show you how to feed her."
"You were supposed to watch over me!"
Ben rolled over in their bed, facing the helmet on the pillow next to him. "I'm sorry. I really, truly am. But how could I have anticipated this?" He brushed a fly off her shoulder. It spiraled up, landed back down, on her throat. Her hand swatted at it, but somehow missed. Swatted again.
"Get this bug off me!"
Index fingernail against the upper pad of his thumb, he flicked the fly to the nearby wall. "Maybe you should try getting some sleep."
"You just don't want to talk to me!"
"It's not that. I don't want us to argue. Especially when you're not feeling well."
He heard her crying inside the helmet. Wished he could hold her face. Kiss her. Wanted to rip the helmet off her head, to see her again. But knew he couldn't. "Let me heat you some soup. Do you want the TV on?"
"Fine."
"I'm really sorry, Emily. Chicken and noodle? I bought a whole bunch of cans."
"You haven't made love to me since I got the helmet." The helmet turned on the pillow in his direction. "It's been three days."
He scrunched up his shoulders. "I could. We could make love after you have your soup. It's just, you know. A little unusual with you wearing a helmet over your head. But why don't we?"
"I don't think I can eat chicken and noodles. The noodles are probably too long."
"Chicken and rice?"
"All right." Her hand fumbled across the bed sheet. Found his wrist. Squeezed it. "Whenever we do have a child, let's not tell her about this, okay?"
He got off the bed. "Coming right up."
On his way out, he turned on the TV, handed her the remote.
He added only half a can of water to the concentrated soup in the pan, to give it more flavor.
Sadness.
Him standing in their kitchen, his back to the bedroom where she lay with the helmet on her head.
The soup in the pot looked hot. He stirred his wooden spoon. The liquid making that hiss sound as it sloshed against the curved stainless steel sides of the pot.
The front doorbell rang, a whole bunch of times.
Originally, they had planned on giving out candy. Their first Halloween. But with the circumstances being what they were, he had decided he'd just ignore the front door.
Loud knocks on the outside of the door, from small knuckles.
Maybe next year.
"Do I have a bug on my arm?"
She was tottering across the living room, swatting at her left forearm.
He could see from the kitchen something small and dark on her forearm.
Came over.
Cockroach.
"What is it?"
"A beetle. Let me get it." Hit it to the carpet, where it ran back towards her bare feet. He stepped on it. Had to step extra hard, to crush it against the soft pile.
"I can't brush insects off me anymore."
In fact, she did have some other bugs crawling on her. He knocked them off.
"Are they all over me?"
"No. Just a few. We'll have to spray."
"Is there one on my elbow?"
Another cockroach.
"Try brushing it off. Do you want me to guide your hand to where it is?"
"I can feel where it is." She hit at it. It didn't budge. Hit again. Stayed where it was, big, brown and ugly. He saw it bend its erector set legs, ready to take off in five directions. He didn't doubt a cockroach could outwit a dog.
The front doorbell rang again, more poundings against the wood.
His phone rang.
"Ben, where are you? You have to come over to my Halloween party! Are you in your car?"
He brought his front teeth down on his lower lip, mouthing, to Emily, 'Vickie'.
Her helmet shook side to side, in disbelief.
"I thought you understood that with Emily's medical condition, we–"
"You have to come over here! There are no excuses! I sponsor you! I want my hot little race car driver here at my party! Are you in your car yet?"
"Vickie, I–"
"Don't tell me any excuses! Get over here! We're having a party!"
"I don't want to–"
"I want you over here, mister! I didn't spend all this money on you for you to abandon me on party night!"
"Just go."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I know I haven't been good company lately. And I don't want you to jeopardize her sponsorship."
"I…I know we've been going through some rough times lately. But…" He looked at her helmet. "I really appreciate this."
He pulled into Vickie's driveway. Kids in Halloween costumes, clutching pillow cases, making their way to her front door.
He got in line behind the bunch. The little girl directly in front of him, dressed like a princess, swiveled her mask to look behind her. And up, at his face.
Vickie (or more probably someone who worked for her) had draped black bed sheets across the hedges flanking her walk. Had used clothespins to create a ceiling of black sheets overhead from the stand of hedges on the left to the stand of hedges on the right. So that approaching the front door was like walking through a dark tunnel. He had to wait with his group of kids outside the entrance to the tunnel as an earlier group carried their pillow cases up to the front door. From deep within the tunnel he heard the kids banging on the door, shouts of Trick or Treat!
Silence.
Creak of the front door opening.
Silence.
Shrieks. Not of kids having fun, but kids terrified. A short blonde-haired hobo with burnt black cork on his face to mimic a beard and
mustache came fleeing out of the tunnel. Banging off Ben's hip, spinning to the grass.
After a minute, the other kids inside the tunnel stumbled out, arms shaking.
The kids he was with, waiting in line, exchanged looks. From the eyeholes of their masks. A space alien asked him, "Would you go first?"
"No problem."
He pushed past the kids, entering the tunnel. Inside the black bed sheets, it was quite dark. He could see how that might work on a kid's imagination.
When he reached the tall front door, kids behind colliding into him, he rapped once.
"Do you guys want to shout Trick or–"
The door swung open.
Santa Claus jumped out. Lifting a long, blood-dripping knife.
All the kids screamed. Feet pounding up and down in place, wanting to run but too frightened. Hands up to the sides of their faces.
Santa stood with the knife still raised. "Who wants candy?"
Little eyes checking to see how Ben was acting. When they saw he wasn't scared, nearly all of them took a bar.
Santa watched them leave.
"Vickie?"
"Come on in."
As he followed her inside, she clicked off the front porch light. "So we won't be disturbed."
She led him in her Santa costume to the living room.
Fire in the fireplace.
Russell was on his hands and knees on the carpet. Wearing nothing but his white underpants. Avoiding Ben's eyes.
"He's being punished. Eat your dog food!"
Twisting her head to one side, she pulled off her white Santa beard. "Ouch! Ow!"
"Do you need any help?"
"I rented a scary movie for us. I thought we could talk about your sponsorship while we watch it. Isn't that a great idea? Do you like scary movies?"
"Vick, Emily is really having a lot of–"
The long face turned towards him. "I don't want to hear about her! This is Halloween!"
He sat next to her on the sofa.
Still in her Santa suit, she pointed the remote at the large projection screen on the wall.
The movie started right up. No credits.
A naked woman was tied down on her back. To what looked like a bus stop bench.
"What did you want to talk about?"
"I made us some microwave popcorn." She transferred the black bowl of popcorn from the table on her side of the sofa to the narrow space between their hips. "Eat some."
"I'm not that hungry. Really, I–"
"I poured a stick of melted butter on it! Eat it!"
He put a small cluster of popcorn in his mouth. Chewed.
"Russell! Where did popcorn come from?"
Russell, on his hands and knees on the carpet, hung his head. "Japanese shrimpers smuggled it into the United States in the seventeen hundreds inside giant paper Mache heads of carp."
"He's so smart! Too smart. Keep eating!"
On the projection screen, torsos torn apart, red, more red within the red, purple, yellow.
Her hand touched his as they both reached into the black bowl. She giggled. Halfway through his next cluster, biting down hurt.
Embarrassed, he spit the chewed-up popcorn into his palm. Amid the mess, a tooth.
Tongue checking his teeth. But none of them were missing.
"What's wrong?" Her irritated face.
"I have to use the bathroom."
"Well, go then! You're missing the best part."
He stood up off the sofa.
Instead of walking forward, he walked sideways, he fell over.
He rolled over in bed, but it was a white carpet, it was Vickie's carpet. He was in Vickie's home, in her living room. He was lying in front of her sofa, taste of popcorn and butter in his mouth.
Vickie, in her Santa suit, was on her haunches beside him. Face above him. Her blue eyes.
"I pinched your ear to revive you. I hope you don't mind I touched you."
On his knees, on the carpet, shaking his head. Looking at his right hand, flexing the fingers.
"You probably passed out because it's so hot in here. Why is it so hot? I'm burning up in this Santa suit."
Confusion in his head.
"Here, let me help my big bad boy get up."
Felt her hands under his armpits. So intimate, a woman's hands up in your armpits.
With her assist, he rose sideways to his feet.
"Oops!" She pressed the front of her Santa suit against him. Through the red fabric, he felt the softness of her body against his.
She giggled. "Oops!"
Lifting his elbows and knees, our marionette sat down on the sofa.
Standing in front of him, she waved a hand by the left side of her face. Eyes rolled up. "It's so hot in here! Should I take my Santa suit off? What do you think, Ben?"
Confusion in his head, his eyes. Looking up at Vickie standing in front of him in her red Santa suit, one hip cocked. Realized he had an erection. An incredibly tall, hard erection.
"What do you say, Ben? Should I take this hot Santa suit off?" Glared down at him. Turning her face to profile, tossing her dyed blonde hair, so he could look at her.
He raised his dark eyebrows, blinking. Looking around. "Yeah."
"All right!" Still standing in front of him, doing a sideways dance a woman her age normally wouldn't, she pulled the top of her Santa suit up over her head. Blue bra, bare stomach. Waist thinner than Emily's. Giggling, she dropped her baggy red pants. Stepped delicately out of them. Muscle tone flexing in her long bare thighs. Nothing underneath but tiny pink panties. He couldn't get over how clean the panties looked.
"Oh! Caught you looking at my pussy!"
Felt like he was somewhere else. Didn't know where. "Do you shave it?"
"I don't know! Wanna see?"
"Wait. Let me just–"
"You already went this far. Might as well go all the way." Swiveled her hips, to get his confused attention back on her pussy.
"Yeah."
He had known her for years. Always thought of her as this older woman, bossy and unfair, always getting her own way. Tried never to show his resentment. Because then, she'd win. But as she peeled down the tiny pink triangle of her panties, his breath got short. His eyes went wide. And when her plump little pussy landed on his lips, his hands went up obediently to cup her shapely bare ass. His lips parted gratefully. To let his tongue slide out. And finally get to taste Vickie's delicious little cunt.
Somehow, his clothes had come off. What the fuck? Somehow, Vickie was sitting on his lap, facing him. His cock up deep inside her. Her left hand gripping the back of his neck. Those greedy blue eyes staring right down into his. As he told her he loved her. As the most painful, most pleasurable orgasm he ever had in his life. Erupted up inside her warm, milking cunt.
After he came, his back fell against the padded rear of the sofa. She dismounted him, smug look on her face. "Bet that worthless bitch Emily never gave you that. Did she? Did she?"
Overwhelmed with guilt, and horror, and sadness, he nonetheless shook his head. Side to side.
"I put all my pennies on Russell. But he's just a dirty, filthy dog. It's you and me now."
He put his palms on either side of his cushion. "I have to leave."
Naked in front of him, hands on her hips, Ben hating himself, but unable to not look at Vickie's bare body, she smirked. "You'll come back. You'll go through a lot of agony. And anger. But you'll come back. Yeah. Because Vickie fucks better."
His ride home was frightening. He had to spin his steering wheel twenty or thirty revolutions to turn down his side street.
Red and blue lights, flickering against his neighbors' Jack o' lanterns.
The fuck?
Got out of his car. Feeling more like himself.
When he willed himself to flex his right hand, it flexed right away.
What did he do?
Him and Vickie. Her naked body–His cock up inside her–Licking her cunt–Did he really do that?
A cop
standing on his lawn walked over towards him, holding a notepad. "Mr. Greerson?"
"What's going on?"
His neighbors on the sidewalk, some still in Halloween costumes. Two white-clothed orderlies going through his front door, into his home, with a stretcher.
He ran up his driveway, bumped his way past a blue-uniformed cop talking on the radio.
Strangers in his living room.
Someone in his kitchen, making coffee.
The lit doorway to his bedroom loomed larger and larger as he approached it.
Walked through.
Men and women around their bed.
And then, getting closer, crying. Emily on their bed, on her back. One knee up. Frozen hands wrapped around the bottom of her helmet. Trying to lift it off when she died.
Bugs crawling across the front of her nightgown.
Blood on the bed sheet.
"Who are you?"
"I'm her boyfriend. She lived with me."
A woman wearing a stethoscope directed two cops as they lifted Emily's shoulders up off the bed. While one of them held the helmeted head up, the other reached behind her. Undid the straps behind her shoulders.
The helmet no longer fastened to Emily's head, the woman with the stethoscope hanging from around her neck eased her medical gloves under the bottom rim of the helmet. Pulled it up off Emily's head.
Completely surrounding Emily's face, in a mold that matched the interior of the helmet, a mass of insects. In furious activity.
The woman dropped the big helmet. Reeled back, threw up. Stethoscope sliding off her neck.
That helmet. It must have felt like she was in a tunnel, all alone, underground.
Three strong men held Ben from behind.
The two cops, wearing leather gloves, gagging, curling their five fingers, had the task of scooping the activity off his girlfriend's face.
Everyone else stayed a good five feet from the bed. Cockroaches, silverfish, beetles, spiders, centipedes and God knows what else scurrying up the walls. Looking for cracks to hide.
New Year's Eve it snowed.
He was sitting in the late afternoon silence of his living room. Listening to Johnny Mathis' song 99 Miles From L.A. He never knew the song existed. Coming back from Emily's funeral, which Vickie paid for against his future earnings, he heard it on his car radio. By now, he had probably listened to the song five hundred times, or maybe five thousand times. Maybe more. It was melancholy enough, and hummable enough, that it became a cloud stuck in his head. Floating inside his skull wherever he went, whether it was inside the rooms of his house, or the aisles of the supermarket, or past the grave stones in the cemetery. He had needed a song that plays constantly in his mind, blocking out almost all other thoughts. And this had turned out to be that song. He didn't know what he would have done, or become, if the song hadn't found him. Her gift, from the other side?
You Can Never Spit It All Out Page 15