"Perhaps I'll no longer have to sleep on that seedy couch of mine?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
At first Megan looked confused. Her eyes focused on his before she answered. "It's been silly. Why shouldn't I share the bed with you?"
Carl could hear the unhappiness in her nonchalant reply. He might still need her if something had gone wrong with the film, so he relented and kissed Megan on the lips, allowing her tongue to brush against his in an imitation of love.
25 - Father
That night Megan lay with eyes open and breath hushed in order not to awaken the sleeping body next to her. Prior to retiring they had made love, or fornicated, depending on each lover's viewpoint. Carl didn't love Megan; she sensed that when she groped for his mouth or when she whispered his name and received no response other than the lumping of his lips. Yet he needed this connection with her, not from pure animal instinct, she concluded, but to retain his hold on life. His mother had told her that he was ill, a life-threatening diseasesomething he had never bothered to reveal to Megan. Why had she permitted this sexual encounter without protection? What if she were pregnantor worse, caught the same disease he had?
Megan raised her hands to her face and sobbed. She rubbed the palms deep into her eyelids, trying to press away the tension behind them.
Carl rolled onto his back. Megan stopped breathing, but he was not awake, apparently only dreaming as he muttered unrecognizable words in a slow, sleepy drawl. Megan lowered her hands to cover her mouth, stifling the little cries that wanted to issue forth. In the morning, she would ask him about his health. No! She would tell him she knew he was sick and wanted to know what disease he had.
She glanced over at Carl. He looked so healthy in the dimness of the moonlight. Hell, he looked healthy under the starkness of daylight. What could be wrong with him? Oh, great, Megan, you're worried what might be wrong with him when you should be figuring out why your head's so screwed up that you've taken no precautions to protect yourself.
Megan rolled to her side to face Carl. Maybe she should wake him and confront him with what she knew. Right, and maybe you would start raving like a lunatic, about how he should have made sure he had a condom, and what if you're pregnant, and on and on. It's your own carelessness, Megan, not his.
With a light touch Megan reached out and drew back a few strands of golden-white hair that lay upon his temple. He appeared so strong, but so had her father until the final weeks before he died, and he hadn't told her about his illness either. The last few years of his life Megan had taken her father for granted. He would always be there after she was finished with the football games, the basketball games, the parties, the outings, the summer camps, but Megan was never there for him. Not there when he first learned of his cancer, not there when he was struggling through his therapy. She hadn't even paid any attention to the progressive loss of weight, the hardy complexion turning sallow. She never asked questions and was told nothing until the hospitalization, but then it was too late. Her father quickly fell into a coma, and it was impossible to make up for the times when she had ignored him. All she could do was sit by the bed and talk to the fragile husk that once had been her father.
Megan slid closer to Carl's body. The solidity of his frame and the heat rising from his skin comforted her. There may be a reason why he can't love, she thought, a reason that has to do with the hyacinth woman or his illness. But she knew Carl would not open up to her; he would not share his weakness with a young woman. She would have to return to Carl's mother for more information. He had kept even her existence a secret. Did he think she would pity the circumstances under which he lived? He mentioned that he would be alone for the winter. Alone to watch his mother die, alone perhaps to have his own health fail, or worse, to die himself. Alone. No one would miss him.
Careful not to awaken him, Megan reached over and clasped his hand. Even in sleep, his grasp tightened and he spoke somnolent words that didn't form clear sentences. It didn't matter, because she would stay with him, allowing him to feel the love she felt for him.
26 - Spl-a-t
Such a helpful young woman, Beverly thought as she sat on the garden swing. Ah! And Megan was a young woman, not a child. A woman who cared a great deal for a man, a son, someone's son, though certainly not Beverly's.
A sly chuckle came from in Beverly's throat.
"Son, indeed. I have more pride than to bed my own flesh and blood," she chattered. "I, too, have opened to this man, Megan, presenting to him my softest, sweetest charms. Even now, he desires me. He couldn't wait the other day to be captured between my fetid thighs." A guttural snort intruded on the soliloquy. ''And what will you do, Megan, when he comes back to me again? Give him back to me or try to hold him? But you're too delicate, too fresh and clean for him. He prefers his women rotting and cold, without the ability to respond, because he must have it all. He doesn't share even his orgasm. No, he spills and splits." Beverly's hoarse laugh shook her black-draped body. "Yet there may be things we can do for each other. I can take the man and give you life. And that's exactly what will happen."
Beverly looked around the garden at hyacinths and roses stretching their slender necks up into the night, pushing through the stifling air of summer, blossoming into rainbow colors while their leaves yellowed and browned along the stem.
The bush behind the swing rustled; however, the rat therein remained unseen. The quiet onslaught of the undertaker, who cleans by feeding on decaying waste, had begun.
Beverly had opened her robe earlier that night when she first ventured into the garden to inspect the work Megan had done. The tools rested beside Beverly on the seat. They were coated with soil. Beverly spread the robe wide, offering her body to the moon, which, with the passing of a cloud, seemed to shut its eyes on what it saw.
Megan would come back again to save Carl, although Beverly knew that Megan would really be rescuing herself. She was not a very intelligent woman. Beverly caught these words passing through her thoughts. Who are you to talk, "mother"? Your "son" leaves you here to rot slowly, and you accuse Megan of stupidity. I'll take him with me to hell. I'll see to it that every flame licks his body and blackens the silver of his hair. He'll be tarnished and wrinkled, with no one to visit him and desire the pungent smell of his charred skin. I've found the way, Carl. Megan is my way. And you've handed her to me. Therefore, you must want the end, no?
Confused, Beverly touched her barren pate, an ethereal contact with her right hand, the palm not quite resting against her skull. The sleeve of the robe fell back onto the bone where the skin of her elbow used to be. A joint protruded instead. Stillness settled upon the figure. Washed again in the moon's incandescence, her skin, bloated and open, shimmered with a liquid glow.
Her mind empty, her soul poised, the body fragile in its decay, no sound of bird, beast, or brush shaking the timber of her world. All blissful in the emptiness.
A jolt charged through her brain. Was she already dead? Had she lost Carl forever? Another snap of electric charge crashed the remaining synapses. If she were dead, why was she still here? Why hadn't that cliché of a light led her forth into pleasure or, at the very least, oblivion? A current of pain wavered in and out of her memory. No, she wasn't finished; that was real, the vague trembling of neurons.
Beverly looked down at her right thigh and saw a small, dark brown rat chewing and swallowing. Nosing its head into her thigh, its fangs ripped into the shredding skin.
Ah! You brought me back to life, she pronounced silently.
And her hand descended, casting hardly a shadow on nature's creature enveloped in his professional task, doing his best for ecology. Not until it was too late did he realize he had clocked in too soon, for the hand gathered him up, allowing his fur to squeeze between digits. The rat snarled and flashed its fangs; no retreat here, only brutal combat with his prey.
Beverly's hand closed tighter around nature's living sweeper, hearing the joints go in and out of the sockets, the quiescent popping of tiny bo
nes and cartilage. From where did she get the madness of her strength? Fascinated, Beverly compressed the wriggling animal tighter.
"Spl-a-t," she pronounced as the goo from her right hand dripped down on the gaping hole of her thigh.
27 - Purloined Sketch Pads
Heated by the sun, the two naked bodies slept on the bed, but neither stirred. The female kept one hand resting on the hirsute chest of the male, as if feeling, one would suppose, for a heartbeat. The male lay with arms stretched above his head, his hands matted into his silvery-golden hair. Their top cover lay in a wrinkled ball at the foot of the bed, allowing the warm breath of the summer morning to float across their bodies through the glassless window.
Carl raised his arms and pressed his palms against the red mahogany of the headboard. His eyes opened, then shut immediately against the daylight glare. Megan, awakened by his movement, lay watching him, shaded by the bulk of his body. Slowly her fingers drew small circles around the areola of his nipple.
Carl rolled over atop Megan and took her quickly, inconsiderately. Megan didn't respond or protest; instead, she accepted his weight, confused and alarmed at her lack of willpower.
"Great way to begin the morning," he said once the act was completed.
Megan felt their sticky bodies peel apart, smelled his maleness coming from inside her, a sour odor that overwhelmed the perfume of the hyacinths, and she wondered at his remote expression so soon after their intimacy.
Kneeling before her on the mattress, Carl stretched his arms wide, his pectorals rising as his stomach and abdomen flattened into perfection.
"Come lie next to me for a while, Carl."
"What?" He placed his fists on his waist. "You still tired or horny? Which is it?"
"I want to talk to you."
Carl's face turned taciturn. Obviously, he'd had many talks with women in bed and didn't want to have another, at least not that morning.
"I've got to finish some work today. Can't we talk at the breakfast table?"
"No!"
There was silence before Carl moved backward on the mattress, grabbing Megan's ankles as his feet touched the floor. With a strong yank, he pulled Megan's bottom to the edge of the bed. Laughing, he scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom.
"A cold shower is what you need, my little nymphomaniac."
Megan's slim body slid down Carl's taut muscles until her feet touched the cool white tiles. Reaching past her, Carl turned on the faucets, then lifted her pliant body into the tub, settling her directly under the spray of the showerhead.
The water was tepid. Megan felt Carl step in behind her.
"A little more hot, or would you prefer cold?" he asked, blowing his words into her ear.
"I wanted to talk, Carl."
"Right. Go ahead. I can do two things at once." Immediately he started to lather the soap in his hands. Then, with one hand, he held the soap while the other slid beneath the arch of her breast.
"Well, I . . . I . . ."
After lathering up again, Carl plopped the soap back into its dish, then started sudsing every curve of her figure.
Suddenly the heat of her body exploded into four simple words. "I have no protection."
"What?"
"I discontinued my birth-control pills after I broke up with my boyfriend."
"You think you might be pregnant?"
Megan had expected him to be annoyed. Instead, he leaned farther into her, stroking her body more lasciviously than before. Could he actually want her to be pregnant? she wondered. Was this the desperate need of man to continue his life through his progeny? Against the cheeks of her behind, Megan could feel his powerful excitement pressing into her. Willingly, Megan bent forward, bracing her hands against the yellowing tiles. Mildew crawled through the ancient grout. Water splashed against her neck, then slid down her collarbone and over her breast, heightening her sensitivity.
The pairing was long and lustful, finally satisfying Megan's physical desires but not her emotional ones. She knew so little about this man.
Megan lingered in the shower, listening to Carl's towel flap across his skin.
"I'll start breakfast," he said. And he was gone.
Later, after drying off and dressing, Megan followed the invisible, but sharp, pungent trail of coffee into the kitchen. Carl was scrambling some eggs; bacon was already draining into a paper towel, and toast was piled up on a plate on the center of the table. Megan took a slice, noticing that the underside had already been buttered.
"Shall I pour some juice?"
With a smile lifting up the corners of his mouth, Carl nodded. His eyes were bright, the blue majestically emboldened by the white surrounding it.
"Are you working at home today?"
"No, I'm going into town, still have to get that windowpane."
Megan wiggled her nose. Should she bother to ask?
"May I join you? I'm an excellent rower. Could save up some of your energy that way."
"For what?" he asked lustily.
Megan flushed; she hadn't meant it the way he had taken it.
"I'd like to see the town, and besides, wouldn't it be better to have company? The other day while you were working on the house down the river, I could have helped." She was testing him. Would he admit that he hadn't been alone?
"When I start working on the house, I don't notice anything around me. Besides, you're a guest. I'm not going to put you to work. That would make me an ungracious host, would it not?"
"Gracious hosts don't abandon their guests for long periods of time, Carl. Also, if I'm staying, I'd like to get some condoms."
"Why?"
"So I don't get pregnant."
"You're not going to get pregnant by me, Megan. I'm sterile. You also don't have to worry about catching anything. I had a physical examination shortly before you arrived."
"You got a clean bill of health from the doctor?"
"Although I have no certificate to prove it, I can assure you that I have nothing that you can catch from direct contact with me."
So whatever he had wasn't contagious, but he wasn't saying that his health was perfect. Megan pondered this, wondering whether he could be ill with cancer, a bad heart. It could be any number of ailments.
"Eggs?"
Megan looked down at the plate Carl held out to her.
"They're a little runny."
"I don't like my eggs overdone. If you want, I can throw yours back in for a few more minutes."
She took the plate and walked to the table, ignoring his question.
"I guess not," she heard him mutter.
"Oh, they're fine. My roommate at school used to cook eggs until they started turning brown. Thought she was cooking away all the salmonella."
"Ugh!"
Megan bent her left leg across the chair and sagged down upon it while centering her plate on the watermelon-colored mat.
"It would be much faster if I went alone, Megan. I still need to do some more work for my project, and I don't want to waste time hanging around that old town."
Maybe he has a doctor's appointment, Megan guessed. Of course, he wouldn't want her to tag along, waiting in some dreary, brown office while he was being examined.
"Okay, I'll catch up on my reading while you're gone, but first tell me what you had planned for dinner."
''Dinner? Megan, we haven't even finished breakfast, and you're thinking about dinner?"
"So I can have it ready when you come back."
He laughed. "I won't be gone that long."
"You were gone quite a while the other day, and if you have to wait . . . I mean, wait to have the glass cut."
"David is hardly ever busy. He sits and reads most of the day; I don't know how he even pays' his rent."
"What if there's an emergency, and he's away replacing a houseful of broken windowpanes?"
"Megan, this is the middle of the summer. People appreciate the flow of a cool breeze."
"What if they have air-conditioning?"
"Hardly anyone around here could afford that luxury. But if hordes of neighbors should delay me on the street to ask how I am, unlikely as it might be, then you can throw together whatever you find that's still edible in the refrigerator."
"Do you have friends locally?" Megan asked after swallowing a particularly runny piece of egg.
"I keep to myself."
"Why?"
"Because I'm very private and don't like to have to answer too many questions."
Heeding the message, Megan changed the direction of the conversation.
"Is book two of your journal in the office?"
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