by Edward Lee
Holly took another sip of her Dewar’s. “You mean to meet men,” she said rather than asked.
“No, no, I mean just to go out. Didn’t you just tell me the other day what a beautiful world it is?”
“Yes,” Holly said. “Yes, I did.” But the words felt like pits in her throat. Alice’s comment only served to remind her of men, and the thought of men reminded her of Jim or George or whatever his name was, the plumber who’d had his little fling with Alice. Am I jealous? she asked herself.
Yes, she answered.
How could she not be? Some goddamn redneck plumber, she thought in shameful disgust. She knew she shouldn’t be jealous, but she couldn’t help it. The very idea…
Some plumber with his hands all over her, kissing her…fucking her…
Holly could’ve screamed.
“Well, we can do that sometime,” she said. “Just say when.”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t mean anytime soon,” Alice replied. “Just sometime down the road.”
Down the road, Holly thought. She took another sip, then another, and then the glass was empty. That’s where her life felt right now, all her hopes and dreams and aspirations—
Down the road.
“Another Dewar’s, miss?” the barkeep asked, appearing as if by magic and pointing at her empty glass.
No, she thought. That first one was an impulse, a mistake. I will never drink again.
“Yes. Please,” she said.
Holly couldn’t help but notice Alice raising a subtle brow. To hell with it, she thought. All of a sudden it felt like a great time to drink. She’d been an alcoholic once, and she’d been in hell. But maybe a little taste of the past was what she needed. Just a little taste of hell.
“I’m worried about you,” Alice said.
“Why?”
“Well, this isn’t like you, is it? We haven’t been here ten minutes and you’ve ordered a second drink.”
For some reason Holly felt like exploding just then, spilling it all, just saying to hell with it and letting all the things she felt pour from her heart like a spigot. But—
Don’t, she warned herself. That would only make things worse.
“I just feel like having a few drinks, that’s all,” she said. “It’s hot out.”
Alice shrugged.
The oysters arrived, two large plates of them, with sides of cocktail sauce, lemon wedges, and horseradish. Alice dressed hers with enthusiasm, devouring two before Holly was even aware of it; she seemed more interested in her Dewar’s.
“Oh, aren’t these delicious?” Alice said. She retired her cocktail fork and slurped a third oyster right out of its shell. Holly watched, repressing the shock of the image: Alice’s full mouth slowly opening, the tip of her tongue coming out. Oh, Christ… The oyster was sucked in whole, a trickle of its fresh juices on Alice’s lips. The fantasy extended; Holly imagined herself just then leaning over, caressing Alice’s closest breast and licking the juice off with her tongue.
Right, Holly. In your dreams.
Alice devoured yet another one. “These are great.” Then she grinned almost wickedly. “They make me feel, well—you know.”
“What?”
“They make me feel sexy. I guess that old wives’ tale about oysters is true.”
Sexy, Holly thought. Sex. Suddenly she couldn’t get her mind off the topic. But not just sex. The word, and its implication, seemed mechanical. She didn’t want to have sex. She wanted to make love.
She wanted to make love to Alice.
She wanted to strip her naked. She wanted to cup her bare breasts in her hands, cup her sex, glide her finger through it, into it. She wanted to kiss her…everywhere. She wanted to taste the victuals of her arousal, consume them. She wanted to do anything that would make Alice feel good, anything at all, to prove her love…
And with the thought, she felt her own sex dampen right there where she sat. Ordinarily Holly kept such implicit sexual fantasies at bay, particularly in the proximity of a patient. She’d treated many female patients who were attractive and desirable, and not once had she ever even come close to allowing such imagery to obscure her professional obligations or to corrupt her sense of ethics.
Not once, she thought, until now.
But was it really that? Obscurity? Corruption? I love her! she thought crazily. Love wasn’t corrupt, was it? Could love—real love—be adulterated, fraudulent?
Maybe it’s just lust, she posed, as if to excuse all of these thoughts. What do I know about love? I’ve never been in love in my life.
Wouldn’t that be easy? If that were the actual answer? Lust. Non-emotive physical desire? Yes, and Holly could dismiss it all then, put it all in a file somewhere, like a diagnosis, like some cold, clinical definition. But the harder she tried to consider this, the more she knew it wasn’t true.
Not even close…
“What’s wrong?”
Holly glanced up. “Oh, nothing.”
“You look depressed or something.”
Yeah, or something. “I’m fine,” she lied. “I’m just thinking about things.”
“What kind of things?”
Holly felt as though she were foundering in a mire, in a morass of mud or quicksand. She was going down. I’m thinking about how much I love you, and about how I can never tell you that…
“What did you mean,” she began, “the other day when you said something—”
“Holly, aren’t you going to eat your oysters?” Alice interrupted.
“Oh. Yes. But what did you mean when you asked me something the other day about guardian angels?”
Alice tossed her head lightly, made a small laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. I was pretty scramble-brained at the time, remember? I was being silly. It was just some dream I had.”
I had a dream, too, Holly reminded herself sarcastically. But it wasn’t about any guardian angels. It was about you, Alice. I was in bed with you, making love to you—
Alice continued to laugh softly, finishing the last of her oysters. “I dreamed that some woman came to me and promised to help me. Oh, and you want to hear something funny? She was naked!”
Holly raised one brow.
“See, I told you it was silly. Jeeze, dreams about naked women. Next you’ll probably be suspecting that I’m a closet lesbian!” Then Alice laughed again, chuckled.
Holly couldn’t help but use the opportunity to make a clinical posit. “Well, dreams are very intricate and meaningful sometimes. Uncognative symbologies reflective of certain behavioral and personality features. Sometimes— often, even—dreams function as an effective infrastructure-stage of undisclosed aspects of our sub—”
“Oh, gee, look at the time,” Alice suddenly remarked, glancing at her watch. “There’s an antique bazaar over at Sign of the Whale, probably lots of stuff that would be great in my house. Want to go?”
“I—” Actually, Holly did want to go, not because she had an interest in antiques but because she wanted to do anything to be close to Alice. But going to a bazaar would only make her feel more outcast in Alice’s life, a third wheel tagging along.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll finish my oysters and get back to the office. I have a few more patients today,” she lied.
“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you soon,” Alice cheerily said, standing up from her stool. She put money down to pay the tab before Holly had time to object. “And I promise not to forget my next appointment.”
Holly smiled. “See ya.”
Alice left. A faint perfume lingered in the air next to Holly, taunting her. Her confusion, and her despair, seemed to be cresting now, a steeple over her head, about to collapse.
“Another Dewar’s and water, miss?” inquired the hatchet-visaged bartender.
Holly pushed her oysters away. No, she thought. I used to be an alcoholic. I will never drink again.
“Yes,” she said. “Please.”
“Very good, miss.”
««—»»
Who says I
don’t have an interest in the news, Steve thought at the kitchen table, the newspaper spread before him. He sipped a Pepsi, flipping through the pages. The late papers were best, because they reported on last night’s events, things that the morning dailies couldn’t get.
Like, for instance, the city police blotter.
Oh, wow, check this out, he thought before he even got to the local section, rapper arraigned for murder, rape, read a column headline. Jesus, Steve thought. What great fuel for his racism. Rap music star Sixpac Makur was arrested yesterday for shooting two off-duty Georgia policemen and for premeditated sexual assault, just two weeks after fellow rap artist Dog Snoopy Snoop was charged with accessory murder in Los Angeles, the article read. Mr. Makur, star of the hit movie, Crack, recently released a new album, F**K The Pigs!, which immediately went triple platinum.
Christ, Steve thought, skimming the piece. This guy Makur had not only popped two cops, he and some buddies gang-banged a woman—“anal-rape,” the article specified—in a Manhattan hotel. Now he was out of jail on $1 million bond, and his record company paid! Can you believe this shit? Steve thought.
Steve’s racism was unique. The crime infuriated him, but at no time did he see any correlation between it and his own even more heinous crimes. Then Steve howled, reading further. Makur was a multimillionaire, yet his mother remained on welfare. And Steve thought this without any conscious acknowledgment that he himself did not pay taxes. He was a thief.
Then another headline: BASKETBALL STAR MICHAEL THOMAS RETIRES!
And yet another headline: FOUR KILLED, A DOZEN INJURED IN TRAIN SHOOTOUT. Steve was appalled. A mentally unstable black man opened fire on a commuter train with a 15-shot Ruger automatic pistol, targeting only whites because he claimed to feel “oppressed” by the white race, and blamed the availability of handguns for inciting the crime.
Steve was quite at home with his hatred. It made him feel warm inside. But as far as gun-control went, Steve was all for it. Let them have all the fifteen-day waiting periods and background checks and ammo taxes they want. That’s fine with me, assholes. Steve had several guns and, like most career criminals, he hadn’t bought them through legal channels; he’d bought them on the black market. He hoped with all his heart that the President’s Omnibus Crime Bill passed. The more restriction of legal gun-ownership, the better. That would only lower the likelihood that Steve would get popped by a law-abiding citizen when he was cleaning out their house one night. Yeah, come on Congress, he thought. Outlaw guns, so only outlaws will have guns. Make people even more vulnerable to me when I’m taking them down.
But all this black stuff; it riled him. It burned him up. He believed that higher crime rates among minorities were because minorities were inferior, not because white oppression of said societies cultivated a criminal endeavor. Not in a million years would he consider that three hundred years of slavery and prejudice could have anything to do with it.
And that got him thinking, didn’t it? Oh, yes.
The next job I pull, he resolved, will be at a nigger’s house.
But he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. He flipped through a few more pages. Then, staring him right in the face off the front page of the county section, were these headlines:
LOCAL NAVAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICER’ S WIFE RAPED, MURDERED.
Steve read the article with pride. I did this, he thought. This is my work, right here in the newspaper! I’m famous!
He read the police-blotter account and fondly recalled every step of the crime. He’d snuck upstairs, and, Mrs. Laurel had been sleeping like a baby right there in her big, Sealy bed. He’d whacked her out before she’d even awakened…
Then tied her up, gagged her, and threw cold water in her face to bring her back. Turned on the bedroom light— shit, who would see? The curtains were drawn. And this was necessary, wasn’t it? Steve liked to see. He needed to.
Short, dark hair, so dark it was nearly black. Nice figure, too, nice legs. But Steve almost popped a nut when he got the nightgown off. He’d cut it off very slowly— even lovingly—with a razor blade from the bathroom, unwrapping her like a present.
He gazed down through the eyeholes of his mask. Christ, what a piece! It was so beautiful, the chick just lying there all creamy white like a big, sugary Christmas cake.
Here she was: Mrs. Laurel, buck-naked and ready. She was probably pushing fifty, but she was in great shape; no flab, all big tits, curves and long legs, and a great big beautiful snatch right in the middle of it all, like the cherry on top of a sundae. Just for me, he thought.
“Boy, you are one hot prize, Mrs. Laurel,” he said through his mouth hole. “I’ll bet your hubby’s proud when he takes you to the Officer’s Club, huh? Bet all the other captains and admirals and shit think about you when they get home and lay dick on their old, wrinkled wives. Bet they jerk off, thinking about your big creamy tits. But it’s a darn shame, ain’t it? That big, bad hubby’s off in Connecticut inspecting submarines. Shame on him for leaving you home all alone!”
Steve had raped her twice. Hard. Listening to her squeals through the black-stocking gag. “Have some cream for your kitty, Mrs. Laurel,” he’d whispered, humping her. “Have some grease for your skillet.” He’d bagged her jewelry chest after the second pop.
He’d quickly strangled her with one of her husband’s dress ties. He could’ve cut her up with the Al-Mar, but that seemed too perverse, too sick. Best just to choke her out, send her to Officer’s Club Heaven. That way she’d look good at the wake, and, after all, Mrs. Laurel was one pretty woman.
Then he’d left. Easy as pie.
The take had copped him three large at Charlie’s, but by now the money didn’t even matter. Shit, he could make a great living just pulling two or three jobs a month. Two or three a week was just more sugar…
There was one more article, but Steve didn’t bother reading it past the first few lines. Another murder, some white kid, big deal.
It was a piece of work, though, judging from the little he’d read. Found some dead guy in a dumpster behind the new T.G.I.F.’s off Route 2. Said he’d been “eviscerated.” How do you like that? Steve thought. They cut the guy’s guts out and threw them in the dumpster, too.
Steve chuckled, then folded up the paper.
Yeah, there sure were a lot of sick fucks out there.
The headline had read:
LOCAL CARTOONIST FOUND DEAD.
— | — | —
20
What could she have said?
Alice considered this, just stepping out of the cool shower, dripping liberally onto the white throw rug. She grabbed a terry towel.
Right. Tell my psychiatrist that I had another sexual marathon with a guy I’d just met in a bar? The day after I did the same thing with the plumber?
No way.
Her night of physical bliss with the young, charismatic cartoonist hadn’t been regrettable in the least. If anything, in fact, the experience had exceeded her pleasures with George the plumber. Both men were quite unalike, with different personalities, different backgrounds, different bodies and charms.
And different ideas about the ministration of bed-pleasures.
George, big and nearly primitive, hairy, muscled, even brutal in a caring way. Micah was much more intricate and precise, more intense and more focused on Alice’s pleasure than she’d ever imagined a man could be. Yes, they were different, yet Alice found an undeniable wonder in that difference.
On both of these occasions she’d made love long and hard into the night, never sated, sheer exhaustion the only thing stopping them. Like George, Micah had departed on his own as Alice lay asleep, leaving a note on her dresser that he wanted to see her again, and that he would surely call in the near future. Fine, she thought. If he calls, fine. And if he doesn’t…
She didn’t really care. Because these sexual experiences had shown her something that she’d never realized:
For all her self-denial and complacency, they had
proved to her that she was vastly more than the unattractive frump she’d always thought of herself as. These two men, quite attractive in their own rights, had burned for her, had alighted with desire for her.
And there were many more men where they came from…
Alice knew her psychiatrist would frown upon her liaison with Micah, especially so soon after the interlude with George. She would consider it compulsive behavior, irrational, and would probably have some clinical, mumbo-jumbo term to throw in her face, to suggest that allowing herself to fall into these sexual scenarios so actively was just some aberrant reaction to her depression and her suicide attempt.
And besides, Alice didn’t feel right about telling Holly for another, simpler reason. Her sex life was her business, not Holly’s. And there was something else she didn’t feel right about, either—
What do I even need a psychiatrist for? she asked herself. I feel fine. I feel wonderful.
And as for those meds she’d dumped in the toilet? What did she need those for either? She didn’t feel depressed at all. And if I don’t feel depressed, why on earth would I need to be taking antidepressants?
Alice supported her decision. What were drugs anyway? What were medicines when you got right down to it?
Chemicals.
Her body, and her brain, didn’t need chemicals. They needed life. And right now, right in the middle of this moment of stark-naked self-analysis, she felt she was thriving on exactly that—
Life.
She dried off some more, then hung up the towel on the brass rung. Her image glinted at her in the wide mirror. It seemed surreally bright, robust in health and well-being. Holly had said she looked good, hadn’t she? At the oyster bar, earlier this afternoon?
I do look good, she told herself, looking at herself.
And Holly had said she’d lost weight.
Alice stared back at the reflection, beaming.