by C. V. Hunt
After a brief silence I said, “Sucks.”
I refused to look at him. I knew the memory of trying to contact Mom and not getting a response and having to make the long drive while filled with worry only to discover Mom hadn’t suddenly succumbed to the cancer she was battling but to a heart attack when we constantly insisted she needed to stay with Phillip so someone could care for her was running through his mind. She’d stubbornly refused and said once she wasn’t able to take care of herself she would move in with Phillip and not a day before then would she abandon the one home she’d ever owned. It was one memory he didn’t want to rehash and neither did I. I took a seat at the kitchen table. Phillip continued to stand. We both sipped our coffee.
“I’ve got a dumb question for you,” I said.
He took a sip of his coffee and said, “What’s that?”
“Did I ever sleepwalk when I was a kid?”
His face screwed up in thought. “I don’t think so. Why? Have you been sleepwalking?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been having strange dreams.” I didn’t want to tell him about the cuts or the beetle. I was afraid he would think I was going crazy or coming down with cabin fever or something.
“You probably need more sleep.”
I nodded. “Probably.”
“Well.” He knocked back the last of his coffee. “We should get started if we want to get this done today.”
14
I had the cabinets and countertop installed within a week and the newly freed storage beneath the cabin was nice. I decided to move the photographs and shipping supplies down there to keep the cabin from appearing cluttered. I had kept an eye on the moisture in the garage. It was surprisingly dry even after a good bout of rain.
Moving the larger prints without banging the frames on the deck was challenging. I held the last large print in front of me and stretched my neck to see around it as I made my way down the steps and into the garage. I stepped on something semi-firm as I was about to set the frame down and a loud screech startled me so bad I screamed and almost dropped the expensive frame. I instinctively stumbled backward. A shadow darted to the side of the dryer and began furiously licking its paw before looking at me indignantly. My heart hammered as the black cat returned its attention to the paw I’d most likely stepped on.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”
I set the frame with the others, away from the water heater and dryer, in a corner that appeared to be the best place to keep the prints unmolested. The cat shook its paw before placing it on the ground and standing. The cat wasn’t wearing a collar and didn’t seem skittish. It had plenty of opportunity to bolt out the open overhead door or attack me but only stood watching me.
I squatted on my haunches and extended my hand to it. “Hey, cat. I’m sorry, buddy.”
The cat took a couple of hesitant steps toward me. I cooed to it and encouraged it to come closer. It was slow going but the cat finally got close enough to smell my fingers and eventually decided to rub its face against my hand. I carefully began to stroke its head and lightly scratch behind its ears. The cat purred and rubbed its side against my leg.
“Lonely, huh?” I stood and rubbed the cat’s hair from my hands. “Do you want something to eat?”
The cat stared at me and purred.
“Come on.” I stepped out of the garage and turned back to see the cat who hadn’t moved. I waved my hand to beckon it. “Come on. If you follow me you’ll get a free meal.” I made my way up the stairs and kept looking back as the cat moseyed along behind me.
I held the screen door open and tried to coax the cat inside but it stopped reluctantly a few feet from the door and sat and stared at me. I gave up after a few minutes and retreated to the kitchen. I hunted around in the cupboards until I collected two bowls and a can of tuna. I opened the tuna and dumped it into one bowl and filled the other with water.
The cat was still sitting patiently in the same spot when I returned with the two bowls. It ate the handout greedily. I sat in my chair and watched it. When the bowl was empty the cat strode toward me, and without hesitation, jumped onto my lap and curled up to sleep. I petted the creature for a few minutes before I gently moved its tail to find his furry balls.
“Just us guys out here, huh, cat?”
I let him sleep for what felt like a half hour before gently picking him up. He was groggy and let me set him in the chair to continue sleeping. I retreated down to the garage and closed the door and double checked to make sure I hadn’t inherited any more creatures. The cat didn’t stir when I climbed the stairs and slipped into the cabin.
I wasn’t inside for more than a few minutes when my laptop emitted a soft ding—announcing I’d received an email—from its home on the coffee table. I sat on the sofa and checked the message. The email was from a woman named Rachel Lee who’d stumbled across my photographs online. She’d discovered from my website we were both located in the same state and wanted to know if I was interested in photographing her hands. She went on to describe she had polydactyly of the hands and included a picture. I opened the attachment and viewed the crude photograph with harsh lighting someone had taken for her. It was a close up of two slender hands. At first I thought the portion of the photo containing her left hand had been doctored to look like an optical illusion. But I studied it closely and counted the fingers a couple of times, touching the screen to make sure I hadn’t double counted. Her left hand contained six fully formed fingers and was absent of a thumb. Her right hand contained a more common form of the abnormality. A second but smaller digit protruded from the joint of her thumb.
I responded to Rachel’s email and told her I would love to photograph her. I told her we could either do the session at my place—I included my address—or if she wasn’t comfortable with that arrangement I could travel to her. I attached the model release form and asked her to read it over and to ask me any questions she may have.
When I was finished sending the email I logged into my bank account to double check my balance. I had enough funds to pay Rachel for modeling but unless I sold a few photographs soon I was going to be broke. Especially if she chose for me to travel to her and I had to spend money on gas.
I stared at the computer screen and stroked my beard while contemplating a way to boost my sales. I sighed as I logged onto the site I operated my store through and spent an hour figuring out how to make a discount code. Once I successfully generated a code giving the customer twenty percent off their purchase I visited the two social networking sites I rarely had anything to do with. I tried to recall the last time I visited either site and was certain it was when I still lived with Naomi. Interacting through email was my preferred method of communicating with customers and models. I didn’t like the format of social networking and the empty throwaway conversations and time suck it created. But Naomi suggested I try to use it as a free platform to advertise my photography. I reluctantly signed up for two of the major social networking sites but didn’t have much success in creating fans because I had no idea where to start or what to do. Taking a photograph and capturing what someone would want to study . . . I knew how to do that. Rallying people to fawn over said photos? That was a crapshoot. You had to know the right people. Or know the right indirect line of people. You had to strike the fancy of one person who would talk to a certain friend and then their friend would talk to another person, maybe a coworker, who would relay the right amount of enthusiasm to the next person and so on and so forth until it reached the one specific person who could pull the right strings and shove you into the dim limelight for your fifteen seconds of mediocre fame. And once it was over and you fell back into the nobody category you would be lucky if in six months someone you’d never met had a conversation with a friend and said ‘whatever happened to that guy’. I knew art was in its death throes but I still refused to admit it aloud and I was going to fight it until I was forced to take up wha
t Naomi referred to as ‘a real job’.
The first site I logged onto was sad. There weren’t any notifications from the few followers I’d obtained when I first opened the account. I went ahead and constructed a post announcing the sale and providing the code. I knew it wouldn’t generate much interest but I was hopeful maybe I could eke out one sale even though I never interacted with anyone.
Once I was finished I moved onto the other site. I was surprised to find a dozen friend requests and even more surprised one was from a Rachel Lee. I clicked on her profile and looked at the self-taken photograph of an extremely pretty woman with tawny shoulder-length hair and gray eyes. Her profile information indicated she lived in the same location as the Rachel Lee who’d emailed me. It also informed me she was a painter and a sometime singer and she was twenty-five. I still wasn’t convinced it was the same Rachel who’d contacted me about having her photograph taken so I began scrolling through her scant amount of photos, none revealing her hands, until I discovered a photograph of her in a bikini lying on a beach towel with a couple of other women near her age. She was laughing and holding her one hand up in a manner suggesting she wanted to take the camera away from the photographer. And there in the photograph was the unmistakable double thumb. Her other hand was on her towel and hidden by one of the other women’s hips. I stared at the hand briefly but I couldn’t help but ogle what the photograph revealed. Rachel was attractive. And the more I stared at the photo the more I became aroused by the smooth curves and soft lines of her lightly tanned flesh.
Under normal circumstances I wasn’t an uncontrollable deviant who masturbated to family photos of women enjoying a vacation on the beach. But I was lonely. Sexual release was maintenance to keep me sane and keep me from becoming an insufferable and cranky cunt when I did interact with people. The thought of such an attractive girl even acknowledging I existed sparked sexual feelings within me that wouldn’t be quenched or fulfilled until I followed through. With no shame I unfastened my pants and pushed them and my underwear down just far enough to expose my fully erect cock. I pulled up my shirt, lubed my hand with some precome, and began to masturbate. I stared at the shadowed skin of Rachel’s cleavage as I stroked my penis and tried to imagine what her nipples would look like and envisioned her with a hairless pink pussy. I closed my eyes and conjured an image of Rachel masturbating with her left hand and sliding her six fingers over her wet cunt and slipping a couple of her fingers inside her pussy right before I came on my lower stomach.
I pulled my shirt off and used it to clean myself before tucking my cock back into my underwear and refastening my pants. I closed the photo of Rachel and accepted her friend request along with the other requests. I proceeded to construct a post about the sale and added it to the stream of social media. I sat the laptop on the coffee table and proceeded to throw my shirt in the dirty clothes and wash my hands.
The computer dinged again and I checked it. It was a response email from Rachel. She informed me she had always wanted to visit the area where I lived and check out the park and was willing to drive to my place for the photos. She asked if I was available the upcoming weekend. I replied to her email and told her I was available and any time she chose was fine. I included my address and gave some helpful landmark indicators to help her and sent the email. I had another browser window still open to the social networking site and noticed a notification had appeared. I clicked on it and realized Rachel had shared my post about the sale and gleefully boasted she was going to have her photo taken by me. My computer made a queer noise and a small window popped up in the lower right hand corner of my screen. It was a chat box from the social networking site and it was a message from Rachel. She asked if noon on Saturday was fine and she followed it with a second brief message apologizing for using the chat format but she stated it was quicker than sending an email thread back and forth. I typed noon on Saturday was fine and hit send. Three bouncing dots appeared and disappeared and then the word ‘cool’ appeared. The bouncing dots came and went and another message took their place asking if it was okay she had shared my post. I carefully typed I appreciated the share and hoped it generated a sale. A smiley face appeared in the chat box, sent from Rachel. I waited for another response or bouncing dots. Nothing happened. I wasn’t sure if I should respond with a goodbye but after a length of time passed I was certain no response was needed.
My attention was distracted from Rachel when the email indicator sounded. I found an email for an order in my inbox. I retreated outside to retrieve the photograph and shipping materials. The cat looked up at me when I opened the door. He had made himself comfortable in my chair. I knew I should probably buy a bag of cat food when I dropped the photograph off at the post office. And I wondered if Rachel liked cats.
15
Time dragged the few days leading up to Rachel’s scheduled shoot. I became excited and nervous and filled with an anticipation I hadn’t experienced since I first started dating Naomi. At first I ignored it, and even though there was no one around to witness it, I tried to remain cool and calm and told myself it was a business affair and I had to remain neutral and professional. But I recognized the feeling of wanting and desire as soon as I closed my laptop after the chat with Rachel. But I didn’t admit it to myself until the next day when I shaved my beard off. My face felt exposed and sensitive afterward and I recognized my soul and emotional wellbeing were in the same state. I tried to tell myself Rachel already had a boyfriend, even though there was no information in her relationship status, and was too pretty and smart to be interested in dating a deadbeat photographer. She would come, have her photo taken, and vanish into the unattainable monster of life and time and never be seen or heard from on my end ever again.
I nitpicked things around the cabin. I cleaned the place daily and became even more finicky when the cat decided he wanted to follow me inside after I fed him some cat food. I designated an extra throw pillow from the sofa as his bed and threw it on the floor. I picked him up and sat him on the pillow. He kneaded it with his front paws immediately and eventually curled up on it. I didn’t want him on the sofa or bed because I had an irrational fear Rachel might be allergic to cats. He would paw at the door when he wanted out and luckily didn’t decide to mark the cabin as his own by urinating on the floor. The screen door to the deck was spring loaded and never latched properly without giving the door a firm push against the frame. The cat quickly figured out he could let himself out by pushing on the door, which I left unlatched most of the time, but a couple of hours later he would return and yowl until I let him in.
I was keyed up and anxious and slept fitfully each night even after having a couple of beers as a sleep aid. The night before Rachel’s photo shoot I dreamed an unseen force beckoned me into an unknown darkness. I couldn’t see anything in the dream and an unknown energy whispered things to me and told me it had knowledge of my destiny and said I was part of a bigger plan and it needed me.
The sentence it spoke was delivered menacingly. It said, “Everything will be fine if you just let me in.” The thing then tried to shove its large, clawed hands down my throat.
I awoke to find myself lying on my back on the cool forest floor, naked. The sun had barely risen and the trees were looming gray shadows in the civil twilight. The confusion of waking up in a strange place without clothes set me into a panic. I sat up and found the cat sitting a few feet from me by a cluster of small trees, staring at me.
I stood and said, “What the hell, cat?” I looked around, hoping I was within eyeshot of the cabin but all I could see were trees. I looked down at my naked flesh and felt my damp skin in some ridiculous gesture as if I were checking to make sure I was real.
I turned back to the cat. What I originally thought was a cluster of trees the cat sat beside was something entirely different. Each of the tree trunks was approximately two to three inches in diameter. The trees were interwoven with each other and twisted at such severe angles it was impossible the thing could have grown
into the design naturally. The base of the first cluster of trees formed the first enormous foot and continued into a well-muscled calf and thigh. A short distance from the first foot there was another foot comprised of the same type of gnarled and twisted trees. The two legs connected and formed a muscular torso with two elongated arms. The fingers were made of thorny branches and nearly twelve inches in length. The head was elongated and misshapen and whoever constructed the thing had managed to render the thin branches into a terrifying expression on the thing. The whole thing stood close to eight feet tall. I was equally frightened and intrigued by it. If I had my camera I would’ve taken several photos.
The cat stood and began to trot off. I had no idea where he was headed but all I could do was follow him and hope he would lead me home. I had to jog to keep up with the cat, which proved to be difficult without shoes. I kept my hand over my penis. I had no idea where I was or how close I was to any hiking trails. The last thing I wanted was to be arrested for indecent exposure. I grew winded as I tried to keep up with the cat and scraped the bottom of my foot on something sharp. I ignored the pain and tried not to think about the possibility of having an open cut on the bottom of my foot and the wound was getting packed full of dirt and leaves and whatever other debris lay on the forest floor. The sky lightened as I struggled to keep up with the cat. After what felt like an hour I was exhausted and sweaty and breathing heavily and had developed a stitch in my side. I finally spotted a break in the trees. I recognized my cabin and slowed down to catch my breath and walked the rest of the way, careful not to step on anything that would damage my feet further.