The Ice Age

by Kirsten Reed

  But I’m reasonably certain Gunther doesn’t see it that way. I guess Gunther has done a lot of touching in his time, and now he doesn’t want to touch anything else. Or anything else to touch him.

  I said ‘Hmmm’ again to Delilah. She puffed a puff of smoke at me, cast a smile in my direction.

  Gunther came and sat down on my other side. Delilah started singing ‘Blue Velvet’.

  I muttered, ‘Sorry about last night,’ with a touch of sarcasm Gunther failed to detect.

  He said, ‘No need to apologize! We were all so drunk.’

  ‘…Yeah.’

  ‘What’s that, Chookums?’ Delilah gave me another look of amusement as she struggled to her feet and ambled down the hall toward the kitchen. We followed suit.

  I said, ‘I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t have. I think you’ll find I’m very inventful.’ Then she added, ‘Gotta do something to pass the time around here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t get that one past your editor, would you?’ asked Gunther.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  We ate fried eggs and ham. Then Gunther and I said thanks, bye, and headed off. We didn’t drive very far that day. In fact, we only drove a half day. I think Gunther was pretty hungover. He checked us into a hotel and ran a bath in what was, by his standards, a very unhygienic bathtub. I sat on the bed and watched TV, one of those chair-smashing, shit-yelling talk shows.

  Now, all those finger-pointing loonies that go on those shows are all the same. They all want love and approval from the very same people they’re leveling flaming accusations at, the same people they’re calling evil. Although maybe they’re only evil because they can’t love these finger-pointers.

  A lady in the audience was saying, ‘Usually when a man says he doesn’t know what he wants, he doesn’t know who he wants.’

  This got my head spinning in ways I don’t need it to. I have enough pressing concerns. Now it’s got me pondering the unexplained absences all over again. Jeez, was Gunther out there doing the Potential Female Sampler? Have I been a damn fool all this time? That would certainly account for all his hesitation and mixed emotion. His failure to commit to me, to us. Why the hell should I be competing with nothing? And coming out second best, I might add. I must be competing with something.

  Gunther came out and sprawled on the bed to take a nap. It was no good watching him lie there with no chance of curling up next to him. I had to get out of there.

  I gravitated to the center of town, and wandered the streets looking at all the people. Seemed like a lot of people looked vaguely lonely. It certainly wasn’t just me. I passed a dorky-looking guy with a glassy stare and big headphones on. He’d certainly pre-prepared himself for a solitary walk.

  As I walked, and passed all those other bodies, it didn’t seem to matter if I lived or died. I cursed the day Cupid, that fat little fuck, that aimless archer, shot me. (God, I’ve always hated cherubs.) Shot me through the heart and made me love Gunther, the jaded nomadic hermit, instead of all the other guys who look at me with lust in their eyes and bouquets in their hearts.

  I’ve been opened. I’m out here in the world, like a lidless jar, filling with urges and desire. I don’t know where to put it all. It courses through me. I need someone now. I need anyone. It doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t love me like I love him.

  Now there was this guy walking toward me who looked like Benicio del Toro circa Fear and Loathing, in a sweaty tank top. I felt like pushing this fella to the ground and riding him bucking bronco style.

  Darkness fell, and I propeled myself through the doors of a bar. I was settled on a stool in an instant, tapping the Formica impatiently.

  The bartender eyed me over. ‘Bit young, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but I bet you like ’em that way,’ I said dryly.

  He snorted out a single laugh and raised his eyebrows at me expectantly.

  ‘Whiskey and Coke,’ I said.

  He said, ‘On the house.’ And poured about three shots of whiskey into my glass. ‘Probably watered down, anyway,’ I thought.

  There were a few guys around. And they weren’t ignoring me. When I finished my drink and made to order another, there was quite a competition as to who was going to get me my next one. I’ve always found it funny guys think this signifies something. To us girls it mostly just signifies a free drink, as far as I know. But then, there are those who say nothing comes free.

  I downed one after the other of these free drinks. The guys just kept them coming. And there was laughter all ’round. But I wouldn’t say I was in good spirits. I found myself sitting in this circle of leering admirers, wishing Gunther had turned me into a vampire, like I’d fantasized all those times. I wished I could lure them into an alley somewhere and turn them into my unwitting feast. Wished I could spend my nights in these towns biting the boys, then going back and wrapping myself in Gunther’s arms (and maybe something velvet).

  It came up to closing time, and we got kicked out onto the street. There was a bit of discussion about what I was doing now, and with whom. I said I should probably get going back to the hotel. Two guys won the privilege of walking me. Two guys seemed safe enough. They were both average looking, normally dressed, middle-of-the-road types. Some women probably would have found them good looking, but there’s me: I have odd tastes, and I can only carry one torch at a time. Hell knows that torch for Gunther burns pretty bright…I thought about him back there at the hotel, and knew coming home to him would be a mixed blessing. I am always too glad to see him.

  These two were jostling for dibs on me the whole time we walked. Then I got an idea.

  I said, ‘No need to fight over me.’

  They both looked at me like all their Christmases had come at once. We headed across a parking lot, through a field and over to some old sheds. Those guys both started unzipping—talk about a hurry; Gunther always likes to take his time. The one in the plaid shirt grabbed my head and started kissing me. The other, in the football jersey, just watched for now. It had occurred to me that having the attention of two guys might be kind of thrilling, sort of gratifying.

  They both started fumbling with my clothes. Plaid got my shirt off and started squishing my breasts around. Football dropped his pants to his ankles, and did the same to me, undies and all. Before I knew it, Plaid was inside me, pumping away. I hadn’t considered which orifices they planned on utilizing. I figured they’d just take turns. God, I am such a baby. Football grabbed me from behind, and started poking around back there. In the spirit of the moment, I just let him. I’m not one to shy away from trying new things. Then I felt the searing pain. I tried not to moan. And then I tried not to scream. It hurt so much I felt like I was losing consciousness. I heard myself screaming. Someone clapped a hand over my mouth. It didn’t seem like the pain would ever stop. The hand left my mouth and was replaced by a penis. They let go of me. I heard zippers, footsteps, then slid to the ground and just lay there.

  I’d read about this girl in Australia. She was raped and left to die in a farmer’s field. The farmer had driven out in the morning, and noticed his cows standing in an inward-facing circle. When he got home that evening, they were still standing there, staring at something. He got out of the car and walked over to see what they’d been looking at all day. It was the body of the girl.

  That was nearly how I felt; how broken my body felt. I felt I should be lying in a circle of cows. But I wasn’t. I was just sitting there dully on the asphalt. Everything burned. I was sure I was bleeding. And this was all my fucking fault.

  I closed my eyes. I opened them to a loud wailing. The sun was up. There was a small crowd around me. I was being loaded into an ambulance.

  People drifted in and out of my hospital room, asking me what had happened, and/or poking at various sore bits. I kept saying nothing, just a drunken orgy with two guys. Most of them said it didn’t look like a party to them. None of them were Gunther. They were no good
to me. Then finally he came.

  He looked positively haunted. He collapsed into the bedside chair. He’d obviously been briefed, because he was hell-bent on delivering these guys to justice.

  ‘No, Gunther. Gunther, it was my idea,’ I cried.

  ‘No it…’ He grimaced. ‘No it wasn’t.’

  ‘I thought it would be an interesting experience. You’ve done all that sort of thing…lots of people.’

  He looked utterly aghast. ‘You don’t have to try to impress me.’

  I thought of the art galleries, the reading, the mind-expanding drugs and deep conversations, and said, a touch brightly for the circumstances, ‘But impressing you is making me a better person.’

  He just stared.

  I added, ‘A more…learned person.’

  ‘Oh god.’ He threw his arms around me and held me, much the same way he had Stephanie, when she woefully tried to seduce him.

  Jeez, I never wanted his pity.

  I was in hospital a few days. Gunther’s calls for blood went nowhere. It turns out one of them, I don’t even know which, was the police chief ’s son. Half the town was calling me a whore, and I wasn’t doing much to defend myself. Gunther said they had no right to hurt me, to take advantage of me like that. I kept telling him it was my idea. He kept telling me it wasn’t.

  On the third night they put a junkie in the bed next to mine. It was pleasant when it was just the two of us in our room. His name was Elliot. We were having all kinds of dreamy conversations. He asked me if I was on morphine. I said yeah, I thought I was. I said I’d always had a feeling I’d like opiates.

  Gunther’s tried every kind of drug there is to try. I’ve always been partial to the notion of trying heroin, because I’ve always gotten along like a house on fire with junkies. I like that day-dreamy state. Gunther told me not to try that one. So did Elliot, now.

  But even as he said that, I felt the lure of its warmth and protection. I could see he was wrapped in bliss. And I liked talking to him, liked his gentle calm. We talked about a lot of things. We spent a long, lingering while hovering on every subject, like two pixies jumping from cloud to cloud.

  I told him about the artist, Egon Schiele, saying art is eternal. I asked him if he thought love was like that. Because what’s acceptable and what’s not changes throughout the ages. Hell, people used to get married at twelve. And do anything with anyone. It wasn’t always love, but some of it was. We tried it out: ‘Love cannot be modern: love is eternal.’ Elliot said this several times to himself, slowly. Then he said, ‘Well, yeah…of course that’s true.’

  I said, ‘…Yeah.’

  We both lay back in our Posturepedic beds and smiled. I knew we were on the same cloud. He nodded off.

  Gunther came in to check me out. He said his attempts to get those two ‘rough studs’ arrested and charged had grossly backfired. Not only was this one of those creepy rural communities that abided by its own rules; they were hosting a town fair in a month. They were expecting ‘tourists’ from neighboring counties, and didn’t want the bad press. They didn’t want ‘no slut’ hurting their economy, or trying to send their promising young lads to jail. We were practically chased out of town.

  There was nowhere to go, so we headed back to Delilah’s. I mean, we could have kept motoring, but we needed to regroup. Gunther and I, we’re kind of shaken.

  Delilah took the news with all the calm of a fucking banshee. She ranted and raved, punctuating nearly every sentence with ‘What were you thinking?’ directed at one or both of us.

  Gunther said he didn’t know I’d even left the room; he was out cold.

  She said, ‘Can’t handle your liquor anymore.’

  I said, ‘I didn’t know it would hurt so much.’

  Delilah is clearly one of those people who shows they care by acting like everything’s someone’s fault. She stood out there on her patch of dirt, in the blazing sun, arms and tousled eccentric-person hair flapping frantically. I don’t know how anyone can take themselves seriously with a name like Delilah. It’ll be a long time before I head behind some shacks for some back door lovin’ with a couple of hicks again. But this was just one of those unforeseeable mishaps.

  She didn’t think so at all. She said I’m young and should take care with myself; and others should take care with me, too. This was directed pointedly at Gunther, who looked like a dog caught peeing on the carpet. On a priceless Persian rug.

  Gunther and I sat on the couch, drinking herbal tea. There were still a few door beads on the floor, here and there. He was sitting very close to me, with a heavy hand on my forearm, staring blankly at the floorboards. He’s taking this a lot harder than I am. I just feel sore and kind of…stupid.

  We had some dinner. Eggs on toast. I took a bath. Delilah hadn’t wound down much. I decided to go to sleep. You could say it’d been a long day. Gunther came in and dropped the typewriter and some paper onto my cot. He still isn’t saying much. He’s a zombie, she’s a banshee.

  They were hollering at each other when I woke up. The sun was peeping through the tiny window, bright yellow. Everything was still tender. I got up to take a shower. There I was again, in the bathroom mirror. On top of everything else, I had beard rash. It didn’t hurt or anything, just completed the picture. Man, I’m a damn seedy mess.

  Those two were still yelling when I finally ventured into the kitchen. They stopped and looked at me innocently. As if hushing up when I crossed the threshhold could conceal the fact they’d locked horns for the past half hour plus. The perfect crime. And damn it if it didn’t look like they both had tears in their eyes. I bet no one got this upset when Gunther slutted himself around. But then, as far as I know, Gunther’s never needed stitches in his ass.

  Delilah flumped down on a kitchen chair across from Gunther (next to me), and said, ‘Well, I’m going to do what I can. Not turning a blind eye.’

  Gunther just blinked at her and sighed. Earlier I’d heard him yell, ‘She’s not your poster child, you maddening bitch!’

  It seems Delilah is going to write an exposé on those guys, that town, the whole cover-up of a teenage rape and its witless victim. Apparently this is what I’ve been diminished to, by the words themselves.

  Her editor loved it, of course. Who doesn’t love kiddie porn? They wanted a picture of me but I said no. They named the town, fingered everyone. There was even a picture of the bar. Hell, there were pictures of the shacks behind the parking lot. They interviewed the ambulance driver, who described my wounds and their whereabouts. It couldn’t have been more mortifying if they’d snapped a picture of me taking a dump and stuck it on a billboard. That’s what I felt like doing to Delilah. She hadn’t actually found the time to talk to me in the breakneck flurry of activity that surrounded the championing of my cause.

  Gunther was still spitting mad. He burst into the living room early one afternoon and said, ‘Are you feeling a little better?’

  I said, ‘Yes.’

  He said, ‘Good, because I’m getting you out of here.’ He’d packed the car in a very haphazard, obviously hasty and irate fashion. He grabbed me by the wrist and deposited me in the passenger seat. He shut my door, and sped off in cloud of dirt.

  We had to pass back through the offending piece of countryside to get to New York. I mean, pass much too close to that town for comfort. Gunther said we were only crossing the outer edge of the county.

  I said, ‘Gunther, I think we should go around.’

  We were both kind of exhausted by this point, though. Nearing a destination, being able to stop, held a new appeal. So we stayed on track for now, and checked into a crappy motel just inside county lines. Or at least, we started to.

  When we got up to the front desk, the clerk was reading the paper. When he saw us, he gave a snooty look of surprise, and mock pleasure. He snapped the paper up off the counter, completely concealing himself behind it, and continued reading it. This exposed us to the front page. It was us. I don’t even know how they got a pictur
e of us. We were driving, but it was still a pretty clear shot through the car window. The headline read, Pedophile at Large.

  I scanned down the article. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was too compelling. It would appear the good township had launched a counter-attack, alleging Gunther had kidnapped me and had been whisking me around the country having his wicked way with me since I was fourteen. (They didn’t indulge in any punctuation, so why should I?)

  Gunther turned on his heels. I followed him into the parking lot.

  He said, ‘I want to get out of here.’

  I said, ‘So do I.’

  We drove half the night and ended up nowhere. We just slept in the car. The back seat was loaded up so we slept on the front seats, sitting up, holding hands.

  I’m surprised I slept at all. But I did, and it was a pretty morning when I woke up. All soft blue sky, with wispy clouds, and birds singing in the trees. We were parked next to a weeping willow.

  I told myself it couldn’t be too bad. We’d be out of this layer of hell soon, this boil on the backside of the country. ( Jeez, they were practically shaking pitchforks at us.) Surely not everyone had seen the paper. And of those that had, odds were high on most of them being illiterate.

  We pulled into a doughnut shop for breakfast. No sooner had we got through the door than some freckle-faced hillbilly teen with shoulder length brown hair pointed at us and blurted, ‘Hey. It’s that guy. Dad, look—and that kidnapped girl.’

  His dad turned on his stool slightly. ‘Well, heck, so it is.’ His ass crack was showing.

  Gunther turned on his heels again. We sped outta there. We were half expecting them to make chase. In a pick-up truck. They shouted something as we left. I couldn’t quite make it out; Gunther had already fired up the motor. I guess they had doughnuts to finish.

  We found somewhere with a drive-through window and ordered some random crap, just to fill our tummies. I had fries with mine. And secret sauce.