House of Cabal Volume One: Eden

by Wesley McCraw

  I remove the lid on the box and give the key another look. It doesn’t provide any revelations. I pull out the note.

  =>8<=

  The first test was yours to win or lose,

  But in the end there’ll only be one we choose.

  For now, take pride

  At least you tried.

  You have no choice but freedom plenty,

  That is the paradox of a life so empty.

  “Like steak?” Thomas says.

  I leave the note behind and go into the kitchen. “Actually, I’m vegetarian. But it looks like there’ll be plenty to eat.”

  He holds out a knife. “Here, help make the salad.”

  I slice into a red bell pepper with the incredibly sharp blade. The seed-covered heart has some rot, but the rest looks good.

  With his bare hands, he lays out the steaks in a preheated cast-iron skillet.

  “So, what do you do?” I immediately think, Why did I say that? He probably gets disability and doesn’t have a job.

  “I’m Indiana Jones.”

  “What?”

  He laughs. “My father was in the oil business. I did that until I burned out. It’s not the most ethical business; I’m too much of a bleeding heart. Anyway, Dana and I have been using some of my old contacts to be amateur archaeologists.”

  He searches the drawers for something. Should I help him, or would that be insulting?

  “That sounds cool,” I say.

  “Just a sec.”

  He finally finds a fork in the last drawer at the end of the counter. He rolls back to the stove and turns over the sizzling steak.

  “It is cool. We’ve been in contact with these Muslim gnostics. A lot of their traditions go back centuries. They have given us some pretty fascinating leads.”

  “Like what?”

  “We’ve been searching for Sumer texts. Sumerian is the oldest language yet discovered. The gnostics say they’ve heard of a religious cuneiform tablet hidden away in Iraqi that predates the Pyramid texts, but they won’t give us any more details unless we meet them face-to-face. Which means a trip to Egypt.”

  “Egypt?”

  “I know. It’s a long way for a rumor, but the women of the sect sent a photo of the box it’s supposed to be kept in.” He puts the cutting board on the counter, gets out his wallet, and hands me a folded piece of paper. “We have contacts in the Iraqi Museum that enthusiastically disagree with the gnostics, which makes us suspicious. If the text has religious significance, they could be keeping it under wraps because it contradicts Islam somehow.”

  It’s a photocopy of what looks like a photograph of a rectangular wooden box. The box has a symbol carved into the lid: two arrows pointing at an eight.

  I recognize it.

  “I’ll be right back. You’re not going to believe this.” I get my note from the table.

  My note has the same symbol as the box.

  “Is that the note you found in the newspapers? Can I see?”

  “Yeah.” I hand it to him. He examines both sides. “Do you know what that symbol means?” I ask him.

  He takes a potholder, moves the cast-iron pan off the burner, and holds the note over the gas flame.

  “What are you doing?!”

  He lowers the paper to the heat. The text “At least you tried” blackens.

  “Don’t!”

  “Calm down. The symbol means eternal flame.”

  The black fills in to create the shape of a key. He moves the paper back and forth over the heat and other words fill in around the writing.

  “Dana! Thomas figured it out!”

  “Call me Tom.” He continues to heat the paper, revealing more and more invisible ink.

  “Dana!”

  She comes rushing in.

  All the words have formed.

  “Let me see?” I take it from him.

  Dana crowds in behind me. “Do you mind reading it out loud?”

  I clear my throat and read the newly revealed message.

  =>8<=

  The first test was yours to win or lose,

  But in the end there’ll only be one we choose.

  For now, take pride in a riddle solved well

  And progress to where your soul will dwell.

  (There is now a key symbol here.)

  This key unlocks a lecherous man, woman, and saint.

  Are we pure or is there taint?

  Arrive the nineteenth and find the question to your answer:

  The death of man or the cure to cancer?

  You have no choice but freedom plenty,

  That is the paradox of a life so empty.

  So choose to use the iron key,

  If not, things will be as they used to be,

  And we know you want nothing of the kind

  For you are not satisfied with your betrothed

  Or with your endless daily grind.

  I’m now sure the key in the box is the key to Dana’s body. The newly revealed message says as much. Thomas is giving his key to me. They are the “lecherous man, woman,” in the riddle and I’m the “saint” who is supposed to help them.

  “Do you know what it means?” she says.

  I lean in. “I think so.”

  I kiss her lower lip. She kisses back, her fingers run through my still-damp hair, the tips of our tongues touch, I pull her against me, and she opens her mouth wider. I wanted to be a man again, and I am with her against me. I could conquer the world. I kiss her jaw and her earlobe and her tender neck.

  She whispers, “I’ve missed you inside me.”

  I’m supposed to play the part of Thomas. I prefer that; I can be someone else. I’m already wearing his clothes. I can be an adventurer who travels the world with a gorgeous wife, living off my oil fortune.

  I lead her down the hall by the hand.

  “Tell me which one’s the bedroom.” I sound confident, and I don’t know if it’s an act or not.

  “There.”

  I go into a dark bedroom.

  Before I know what’s happening, we’re kissing and she unbuttons my shirt. My erection strains against my fly, the tip painfully sensitive from hitting the brick wall earlier.

  This isn’t Carrie I’m kissing.

  I’m shaking as I drop my pants and pull down my underwear. I want to tell Dana I was attacked in the street and that I’ve only had sex with one other woman. I was baptized in the rain. Now I want my confession.

  The hallway light shining through the open door creates a rectangle spotlight on the bedspread.

  “Get on the bed,” she orders.

  I do as I’m told.

  “Get on your knees.”

  I sit on my heels. I don’t want her to see my scrapped feet.

  She’s not looking at my feet. She’s focused on my jutting erection. She hikes up her dress to mid thigh and kneels on the bed in front of me. In the light, I’m naked and exposed while she still has on her dress.

  “Thomas.” She touches my cheek and gazes into my eyes as if looking for Thomas’s spirit inside of me.

  I whisper that I love her. It’s easier to feel love when I’m someone else.

  I lean in, but she holds me back.

  “Wait.”

  Her husband rolls into the room. This isn’t for me. This is for Dana and Thomas. I’m here to express their love.

  “I love you,” I say. It’s all an act, but it feels more genuine than any time with Carrie.

  Dana touches my cheek. “I love you too.”

  I lean in. “You’ve been so patient.” I kiss her. “I want you to have everything. You deserve everything.”

  She whispers in my ear. “You are going to come so hard tonight.”

  Thomas grabs the pants from the floor, searches the pockets, and hands her a condom. She gives the condom back.

  “I want you to put it on.”

  She looks to see my reaction, and I’m not sure what she means, and then suddenly I understand. She wants Thomas to put the condom on my p
ainfully erect dick.

  I’ve passed over to some unknown, alien place. I don’t know them. More importantly, I don’t know myself.

  He rips the condom open with his hands. Carrie always uses her teeth, and I often worry during sex that she tore the latex and that she’ll become pregnant, despite the fact she’s on the pill.

  I keep eye contact with Dana as Thomas rolls the condom down. My stomach flutters. He is careful to get it rolled all the way down to the base.

  I pant, heat rising in my upper torso and in my face. The lust scares me. I want Dana more than I’ve ever wanted Carrie. Dana’s lips are parted and full from our kissing, her skin flushed, and I hear her ragged breaths mirroring my own. She’s trembling too. Everything is alive and out of control.

  She leans in, and I might have a heart attack, and I bounce off the bed.

  “I have a fiancé!”

  I grab the clothes off the floor, almost headbutting the wheelchair, and I cover my condom-sheathed dick with the bunched up clothes and rush back to the bathroom before the couple has a chance to say anything.

  Morals my ass; I’m a chicken shit. That’s why I don’t sin.

  In the bathroom, I peel off the condom—it’s already wet from seminal fluid—and I have nowhere to throw it.

  I pace, my erection bobbing. I could sneak to a phone and call a cab but I don’t have any money on me. No matter how embarrassing, I have to face them again.

  At least I have clothes to wear. I get dressed again in Thomas’s clothes.

  I know I’m not supposed to throw condoms in the toilet, and so I shove it into my pants pocket.

  They’ll find someone else.

  My chastity makes regret swell inside me. It’s a relief compared to the embarrassment, which floods back whenever I think of jumping from the bed like some frightened teenager. I’m sick of this. Why did I run? I wanted her like nothing I’ve ever wanted before.

  Oh, I know. Because it would’ve been a disaster.

  I would have prematurely ejaculated, or halfway through I would have thought about Thomas watching and lost my erection, or guilt from cheating on Carrie would have ruined it. Or maybe Dana would have asked me to do something too kinky, something I’m not comfortable with, though right now I feel I would have done whatever she asked. Fantasy is one thing, real sex is something else.

  My shoulder joint hurts. I need time to recover from everything that has happened to me. I was sexually assaulted in a back alley, for God’s sake. It’s too soon to have sex with anyone. My erection still hasn’t gone down.

  No matter how I angle it, my rationales for fleeing are just excuses. I’m a coward. It’s not my apartment or my girlfriend or my job that makes me feel trapped. It’s me and my stupid brain. I’m moral because I’m too scared to be anything else.

  My only option is to talk with them and tell Dana to take me home. I need to make things right with Carrie. By now, she must be worried sick.

  I go to dinner.

  Seeing the front room again, it hits me: They have an upstairs. Thomas can’t use half of the house. He can’t even locate the silverware drawer. There are no photographs. The bathroom looks like it has never been used. This is not their house.

  But why?

  Dana and Thomas, in the bright kitchen, make the final preparations for dinner.

  The riddle is back with the box on the dinning table. One of them must have put it there. I sit down.

  When Thomas showed me the eternal flame symbol, he proved they orchestrated all this. But I didn’t have time to think it over. How did they pull it off? Dana saw me at my health club working out. That makes sense. That’s why she seemed so familiar out in the rain. She must’ve overheard me talking to Rod. That’s how they knew I liked puzzles.

  I read over the note again and a part stands out and gives me a tingling sensation down my neck.

  For you are not satisfied with your betrothed

  This is more than overhearing me. Only Carrie knows about the engagement. We haven’t made a formal announcement, and even she doesn’t know about my doubts, or more precisely that I’m settling, even though I’m certain we shouldn’t be together. Dana and Thomas would’ve had to have been spying on me. Hacked my email, tapped my phone, maybe even bugged my house.

  “Is everything okay?” Thomas says from the kitchen.

  Progress to where your soul will dwell.

  Could that be a euphemism for death? This must be paranoia. There has to be another explanation.

  “You guys don’t live here,” I venture.

  Dana enters the dining room like a femme fatale, draped in her red dress and holding the butcher knife, the one I used to cut the bell pepper.

  “Why do you say that?” Thomas wheels in with a bowl of potatoes on his lap. “I thought this place convincing enough. It came fully furnished. Didn’t the apple cider make it feel homey?”

  The butcher knife gleams. Dana’s expression is hard to read, maybe devious enjoyment. If I ask her to put the knife down, will she thrust it into my chest? Their welcoming nature now feels like a trap. I know they’re deviants, but how far that deviation goes, I’m not sure.

  Thomas and Dana didn’t use their real identities when they rented this house. When the police discover my corpse, the investigation will find a dead end. Not that anyone will find me in rural nowhere. No one knows I’m here. That’s why they used the riddle. It hides my tracks to the location of my murder.

  Thomas and Dana want to fuck me and then kill me.

  Can they see the fear on my face or am I successfully neutral?

  Get out of here, you tell me. Get out now.

  Cassette Tape Seven:

  Steak Dinner for Three

  Dana sets her butcher knife down on the table too far away for me to reach and places a hand on my shoulder, either to connect with me or keep me from standing up. “Where is this place, and are you going to go?”

  My mind races, yet it’s hard to think with her standing over me. Her other hand is casually spread out on the table beside my plate, blocking my access to the steak knife.

  I’m at the head of the table with Thomas to my left. My back is straight, my breaths confined to my chest. Panicking could be the end of me.

  I force words through my dry throat. “I like the puzzle touch.” They nod and don’t say anything. “You guys know me too well.”

  He looks to her, communicating something unsaid, and then back to me.

  I’m acutely aware of my muscles’ readiness to spring me from my chair. A serving dish, if thrown properly, could give me time to escape. Dana might get a slice in, but a person can survive lots of cuts and stab wounds. I could run, at least until I lost too much blood.

  “We didn’t write this,” Thomas says.

  “So it was a coincidence that Dana was by the newspapers?”

  “We only wrote the note in the bathroom.” Dana laughs uncomfortably. “I had met with a sex surrogate. We didn’t click. I was walking back to my car when I saw you. I thought things were looking up.”

  “You wanted me to open the box.”

  “I was curious.” She gives her husband a worried glance.

  “But everything fits with the letter.” They look at me as if I’m crazy. “The lecherous man and woman.” I pick up the key and show them. “The key is Thomas’s key to your body but not to your heart. You wrote that. You signed it.” I hold out the riddle from the box. “And look, it has your symbol. The eternal flame.”

  “That key isn’t from us,” Dana says.

  “The eternal flame isn’t our symbol. We found out about the symbol two days ago. We haven’t even had a chance to really talk with the gnostics about it.”

  Dana blushes. “Maybe it’s about a literal house. And not my body.”

  “I guess that would make more sense, wouldn’t it?” I deflate. Instead of relief, I feel disappointed, as if I wanted them to be killers.

  “Now that you know it’s not from us, do you have any other theorie
s? Can I see?” Thomas takes the riddle. “This whole thing is wild.”

  That’s one way to put it.

  “It’s a crazy coincidence,” he says. “That symbol isn’t exactly common. It says to ‘arrive the nineteenth.’ But where?”

  “I’m not sure.” I don’t dare tell them I thought that they were obsessed sex murderers. If Dana hadn’t been blocking me, I might have grabbed my steak knife and stabbed one of them.

  It was because of my attack. Because I was almost raped.

  Dana puts her hand back on my shoulder to comfort me. “You jumped to a conclusion. It happens. You okay?”

  “Out of curiosity, why are you guys renting this place? Why pretend to live here?”

  “We aren’t pretending,” Thomas says. “We like Portland. We are always staying in hotels. We were thinking about buying this place if we found a sex surrogate we liked.”

  “So I take it you’re declining our offer.”

  Yeah, that’s why I freaking jumped off your bed and ran. I feel my face turning crimson.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  I can’t look at them. “I have a girlfriend. I wouldn’t feel—”

  “No need to explain.” Thomas dishes potatoes onto his plate and passes the bowl to Dana.

  “I can drive you home if you’d like. We would understand.” She looks up at me through her eyelashes.

  “And waste this wonderful dinner? I’m happy to stay. It just can’t be anything more than dinner is all.”

  She takes my flattery with a smile. “You should tell us more about yourself. Maybe we can figure out who is behind the riddles. Maybe it is someone you know.”

  With the box on the floor at my feet, we fill our plates. They seem happy to have me here even though sex is off the table, and their enthusiasm for the simple pleasure of eating a meal together makes me jealous. They savor every moment and demonstrate what I’m missing in my own relationship. I don’t love Carrie and doubt she loves me. I need to tell her it’s over. Other people think we’re an attractive couple, and so we keep up pretenses. We’ve forgotten what real love looks like, that it means to actually enjoy the other person’s company and not just tolerate it.