by Edward Lee
She had indeed lost weight. Probably ten pounds since the last time she’d made an effort to take note. In the past, of course, she’d rarely made that effort—it was too depressing; she’d always had a minor weight problem and preferred not to remind herself of it. Now, though—
This is just…wonderful…
Gone was what her mother had always called the “baby fat,” the “pleasing plumpness.” I’m slim, she thought, marveling. Not skinny, not at all. But trim, healthy, vital. Just losing those ten or so pounds seemed to have given her a new body, a new skin, instead of a telltale “crash-diet” body. No pallor, no stretch marks, no dark circles under the eyes. Generally there was a price to pay when large-bosomed women in particular lost weight quickly: The breasts sagged, dragged down by gravity against their sudden reduction of tissue. But there was none of that in the vivacious, smiling woman who faced her in the mirror. Her white skin seemed vivid in wholesomeness; her once chubby arms and thighs now looked toned. No more saddlebags, no more discreet roll at the midriff. Even her shortish blond hair seemed to possess a gloss that was entirely new to her.
New, she thought, her eyes locked, her astounded smile sparkling back at her.
That’s what she was. New.
A new woman…
««—»»
Later, on something of a lark, she gently masturbated on her bed. The brilliant summer dusk showed its strata in the watch room’s glass panes. The pinkened burnt-orange of sundown, pastel-like slate blues, then twinkling twilight. She wasn’t quite sure what thought or notion would’ve so suddenly compelled her to want to lie down and touch herself; she recalled no particular feelings of arousal, no sexual anxiety really, no horniness. Nor did she feel indulgent or perverse, as she often did on her all-too-rare experiments with masturbation in the past. This may, in fact, have been the first time in years.
What prompted it?
Maybe it was simply because she was happy tonight. Or, no—it was more than simple happiness; she was exuberant. She’d felt absolutely buoyant in joy, and the next thing she knew, regardless of the frenetic sexual bouts she’d had last night and the night before, Alice was prostrate and nude on her bed, gently squirming at the sensations of her self-caresses. Her hands became separate entities, a loving phantom’s, perhaps. Yes, they felt separately alive, and so did the other physical aspects of herself: her arms and legs, her belly and breasts, her sex —uniquely individual sensory components all just as uniquely integrated via the conduits of her spirit. She felt like a live wire of sensations, of feelings, the current of her jubilation humming softly through her veins and across her skin. She tried to pick an image as she proceeded, attach persona to memory. First she thought of George the plumber, then Micah; then she saw Micah’s head on George’s body and vice versa, conglomerating them as her fingers caressed her breasts and teased the tender egress of her sex. But these images seemed facile, even feeble, now. Perhaps no image was necessary at all, or perhaps—
Her pleasure stepped up; she purred in her throat. Now it was not some other lover she thought of, it was herself. She imagined her twin, her sexual doppelganger, lying breast to breast atop her, her lips kissing her own lips, probed and embraced by her own hands, her sex rubbing her own sex right there amid the twists of satin bed sheets. Was this perverse? She didn’t think so—why should it be? She was making love to herself, so why shouldn’t she fantasize as such? It seemed harmless, even healthy. Her masturbation, after all, was a celebration of herself, of the new woman she felt that she had so recently become. Her juices flowed, nipples hardening to pink digits. She imagined that if she looked down right now, right this instant, she would see her own face tasting the charged spot between her legs, her own clear blue eyes looking back up at her in ecstatic love…
An exciting amusement, yes, but still not quite enough. What was missing? Her hands were shivering now, one cupping her breast, the other her sex. She was on the brink of climax, but, but—
She couldn’t bring herself over.
Then—
(Alice?)
She imagined hearing the voice of the dream woman, of Dessamona…
And then she imagined…
Ohhhh…
It was Dessamona who filled her imagination now, Dessamona in bed with her, Dessamona touching and kissing and licking her all over.
Alice’s eyes squeezed shut, and somehow she could see it even more clearly, flesh and passion all at once gleaming like glints off shards of glass.
“Dessamona,” Alice whispered.
(Alice?)
Alice moaned, wrapped her legs around the fantasy. Behind her closed eyes she could see the chaperon of her dreams so vividly now. They embraced and loved in a variety of positions, using each other’s bodies as a terrain of exploratory sensations, hands kneading buttocks and breasts, heated moans sounding nearly in unison, famished tongues traveling intricate maps of warm skin, until eventually they each lay mouth to sex, a single fetal-shaped form with two backs, licking each other into frenzy. Alice’s face burrowed into Dessamona’s plot of nearly black sexual hair, her tongue laving the salty flavors, her nostrils filled with the heady, natural perfume of this most private and wondrous place, this blazon of womanhood. All the while, Dessamona tended identically until both Alice’s physical body and spiritual self were melded into a single thrumming wave of pleasure.
Then the pleasure broke—
Alice orgasmed in gentle, blissful pulses, sighing and nearly in tears, and her dream suitor did the same. Their sexual juices flowed, a private wine, just as their moans of love and transport flowed from their throats and eddied through the dark, twilit room, and when their pleasures ebbed they rearranged themselves, cuddling in each other’s arms, stroking each other’s skin, gingerly kissing the remnants of their love off each other’s lips. Alice, in the warm sphere of this fantasy, never felt so beautiful in her life.
When she opened her eyes, of course, she lay alone in the tousled bed, her own hand, which had made the muse incarnate, still wet from its self-touchings. She lay in her own afterglow, which seemed all the more beautiful, as full dark had now come over the watch room.
Her happiness cocooned her, her body lulled, and she drifted off into a contented sleep.
And she never noticed the spume of darkness, shaped as a curvaceous, beautiful woman, standing in the corner, smiling down at her.
— | — | —
21
“Man, you are one badass mover this month,” Charlie said over a mug of Bud. “Christ, you’ve hauled six or seven large, and that’s just this week.”
“Hey, there’s a recession,” Steve said. “I gotta make it just like the next guy. You know, plan for my future and all that, save up a nest egg and a little something on the side to send the kids to college. And it’s always nice to be able to give to a couple of charities, you know.”
Charlie laughed, displaying teeth that would impel an oral hygienist to flee.
The two shared a back booth at the Furnace Branch Lounge, about as redneck a dive as you’d ever want to find, if indeed you’d ever really want to find such a place to drink in. You practically had to have a pickup truck with a shotgun rack in the back window just to dare to park in the outside gravel lot, and a mouthful of chewing tobacco, too. This place was a real prize. Peanut shells carpeted the dusty wood-slat floor. Country music twanged from a corner juke. A genuine rube barkeep, complete with Elvis sideburns, grimaced behind the bar, with tufts of wiry hair like matted steel wool protruding from the rims of his sleeveless T-shirt, try burning this FLAG, motherfucker, the T-shirt proclaimed, emblazoned on a stark, bright Confederate flag. Foul language was not sparse among the erudite clientele (Steve would bet that the majority hadn’t even finished junior high school), nor were tattoos. Girls, on the chubby side for the most part, sat in the booths or at the bar, garbed in typical redneck summer dress: flip-flops, halters, and very short shorts. Meanwhile, their boyfriends, in jeans and T-shirts, shot pool at the beaten
tables, making liberal use of expletives. Steve wondered what the politically correct term for redneck was. Hmm. Americus White-Trashus? They could all drop dead for all he cared. They were layabouts, louts. Steve wished a tornado would come along and suck their trailer parks and pickup trucks straight up into the sky. No loss. White niggers. Only difference between this trash and regular niggers is this trash gets sunburned. As always, Steve’s racism socked home, and it was never particular. He hated anyone who didn’t serve some utility for him.
He liked Charlie, however. Redneck, sure. White trash, indubitably.
Charlie looked like, well—he looked like what he was: scum. A PCP-burned-out fence. Long greasy hair, stooped shoulders, dowelrod-thin. But he was a homey kind of ’neck, happy-go-lucky, a free spirit. Plus, he was a loner, and that was a trait Steve could admire. Charlie fenced his goods all the way to Jersey—smart—making runs every week or so, and he always paid good scratch up front. He’d never been stung, which meant he was careful, and he’d never spun on anyone who didn’t deserve it.
Steve had nothing much to do tonight, so he figured he’d touch base, meet his fence for a couple of drinks. He wanted to feel Charlie out a little, find out if he knew…
“So how’s business otherwise?”
“Not bad,” Charlie replied. “I don’t work with a lot of people. The more people you work with, the bigger chance ya got of someone getting rapped and burning you.”
Steve nodded approvingly and ordered another beer.
“Technology, man,” Charlie went on. “It’s a kick in the ass. Invisible ID-numbers, invisible dyes, silent alarms, interstate databases for pinched goods. Shit, the cops pay stools five hundred bucks a week these days. They got ’em wearin’ wires that look like cigarette lighters.”
“Sucks, man. Fuckin’ cops got the heat turned up everywhere, especially our county.” Steve paused, if only to let his words sink in. “And let me tell you, those city district cops are the worst. Crime rate’s so bad in the city, they got cops all over the place. Makes my job that much harder.”
“The niggers, man,” Charlie proposed.
“Damn straight.”
“Rapin’ people, killin’. Robbin’ any liquor store that has the balls to open—”
“Damn straight.”
“Drive-by shootings, turnin’ white girls into junkies to turn tricks, sellin’ crack to nine-year-olds on the playground. The fuckin’ ’gers’ll shoot ten innocent people on the street just to pop one bad bagman. Just makes things that much harder for good clean crooks like us.”
“You can say that again,” Steve offered. He liked Charlie’s way of thinking. “Gives us all a bad name.”
Charlie pushed his empty beer away, ordered another. “I mean, shit, we rip people off, we take stuff, sure. But we don’t rape the people to boot. We don’t fuckin’ kill ’em.”
What do you mean, we? Steve thought and almost smiled. But the nonsensical, contradictory, and ultimately racist conversation served its purpose; it told Steve what he’d come here to find out. Charlie probably couldn’t read a stop sign, much less a newspaper. And way out here in redneck land he wasn’t likely to hear about any major crimes in the city.
In other words, Charlie obviously didn’t have a clue that the stolen goods Steve had sold him from those last two jobs were actually connected to homicides. And that’s all he wanted to know.
Fine, Steve thought. Perfect.
“I’ll probably be pulling a few more jobs this month, maybe even in the next couple of days,” he informed his associate.
Charlie gawked, slack-jawed. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“Naw,” Steve said. “I’ve got a couple of good places already staked, and the time to move is now.”
Charlie shrugged, an amused smile on his lips. “Well, everything you’ve brought me so far has been easy-fence. Just be careful. You know what they say about biting off more than you can chew.”
“I gotta big mouth, Charlie.”
They both busted out laughing then, after which, Steve added, “And you’ll love this, man. First house on the list are rich niggers.”
Charlie slapped his thighs. “All right, man! You rip some rich niggers and I’ll pay you an extra ten percent on the shit you bring in.”
Steve grinned, wagging his head at the bar. What he didn’t tell his colleague, of course, was this: And I’ll be really socking it to the chocolate mamma. ’Cos hubby’s away, and when hubby’s away, Steve will play. He’d already scoped a rich one, a county councilman who lived in Arnold. The newspapers said he was traveling to some convention in Chicago with the county exec. Had a wife but no kids. And the guy’s address was right in the local phone book.
“Time to beat it,” Charlie said. “Gotta run to make tonight.”
Steve paid the tab, tipped the fat ’keep a couple of bucks. Treat yourself to a shave, blimp.
“And stop on by after you hit those niggers,” Charlie said. “Bring me some good loot to fence.”
“Count on it.”
They left the bar and walked outside into the lot.
««—»»
The next day Holly awoke with a wrenching hangover. It felt as though whole segments of her brain were corroding, synapses gone to aching, throbbing rot. The inside of her mouth tasted like rank chalk.
She doubted that she’d ever been so disappointed with herself.
She showered and changed, barely made it to her office in time for her first appointment. She groaned to herself when she glanced into her compact mirror; the eyes gazing back looked more like a street person’s: dull, bloodshot. The few patients she had scheduled today would surely notice…
Her first appointment was Matt, one of her twice-monthly voyeurs. A businessman, a self-made millionaire. Refined, articulate, early fifties. Very well-respected in the local business community. But—
Matt owned several waterview condos off the bay. His thing was peeping in windows and masturbating. Twice he’d been caught by his own security guards, and once by the city district police, who’d witnessed him spying on an apartment full of coeds from the art college, rich girls. He’d been arrested, charged, and convicted. But this had been quite a while ago, and his therapy had gone well. Matt hadn’t “peeped” in two years now, until—
“I—I—” Matt’s eyes locked to the floor.
“What is it, Matt?” Holly asked, trying to ignore her hangover’s raging at her temples. This was not something easily ignored. The pain felt like pinchers…
“I-I-”
“Yes?”
Tears sprang from Matt’s eyes. It looked so odd seeing a man cry at all, and odder still when the man was a millionaire, sitting here before her in what was more than likely a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit of clothes.
“Matt?” Holly urged.
“I did it again!” he finally blurted. “Last night! I couldn’t help it!”
Holly’s lips pursed. “Where, Matt?”
“One of my, one of the condos I own. But I didn’t go there for that, I swear. I was just meeting with the resident manager, just to see how things are going. And when I left—when I left I saw a nu-nu-nude woman in a window, and-and-and—”
“I can assume the rest, Matt.”
But here was another oddity, as well as a discrepancy with her typical work ethic. For the entirety of Matt’s confession, most of Holly’s awareness was elsewhere, redirected at herself. I got drunk yesterday and I drank all night, she told herself in sweeping vilification. I haven’t done that in years…
All this time she’d believed her alcoholism was behind her, proudly defeated. So what had brought it back? What had recalled this ghost? Of course, she knew. It was her love for Alice…
The love I can never speak—
Then her mind raced for excuses:
I was upset; I was depressed. I had a slip, that’s all. I had a relapse. I must forgive myself…
But this was ever the more shameful. Had she ever let her diligence str
ay this far? Had she ever failed so utterly in her professional responsibilities? The answer could only be no. Here was Matt, a patient in long-standing, trusting her for guidance and help, paying her for her therapeutic expertise, and she was barely listening to him.
Holly’s vision refocused on her patient. Matt was sobbing now, his fine, graying head between his knees.
“Matt? Listen to me, okay? Are you listening?”
The top of his head nodded, amid wet, choking sounds.
“What you did was wrong, Matt. What you did was contrary to everything we’ve been working on since the first day you came to me, and more important than that, it’s contrary to the way you want your life to be. If you go back to the way you were before, you’re lost. You’ll get caught again, Matt, and you’ll go to jail—you’ll be ruined. But you’re already well aware of all this…”
“Oh, God,” Matt croaked. “I’m so ashamed. I’m so sorry.”
“Of course you are, Matt. But listen to me. You had a slip, that’s all. You had a relapse. But you must forgive yourself.”
Stifled sobs hung in the air. “How can I ever forgive myself for this…perversion?”
“This is how it works, Matt: We all have problems, and we all do bad things sometimes. It’s all part of being human. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to do these things—it’s not. And when we do these things, we always promise ourselves that we’ll never do them again. And what happens?”
“We do them again anyway,” Matt sobbed into his hands.
“And that’s because we don’t forgive ourselves before we resolve to stop. You haven’t done that yet, Matt. Before anyone can ever forgive you for what you’ve done, including God Himself, you have to forgive yourself. If you don’t forgive yourself, you’ll go right out and do it again. Are you listening to me, Matt?”
The head nodded again. The sobs began to abate.
“If you don’t forgive yourself,” Holly went on, “you’re merely reinforcing the idea to your subconscious that you’re a bad person. But you’re not a bad person, Matt. If you were a bad person, you wouldn’t be here, would you? You just have a problem. And there’s a big difference between being a bad person and having a problem, and that difference is why you’re here.”