They got into the car.
“So how do you want to do this?” he asked her.
The doctor had given her a small chance to delay it. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve lost a lot of blood. You should call me when you’re feeling up to it.”
Mitch laughed and crossed his arms. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“The doctor said you need to rest for a few days.”
“Your concern is super touching, lady. Seriously. But I feel awesome.”
“I have to get the blood home before it congeals.”
“It’s freezing in this car. It’ll keep. Come on, you’re wasting time.”
“You’re not being—”
He frowned. “Now or never, lady. Make up your mind. Yes or no.”
There was no way she was taking him home with her or going to his place. She looked at the parking lot. She’d parked near the far edge. Not quite out of sight, but if she did it fast, nobody would see.
She sighed and pulled off her gloves. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. “Fine. Take it out.”
“Holy shit,” he said with another laugh. He unzipped his fly.
If you do this, girl, you will hate yourself forever.
She did it anyway. She took him in her hand and played with it to make him hard.
“You can’t even get it up,” she said.
“Your hand’s cold,” he complained.
“This isn’t going to work.”
“It’s going to be awesome. I hear if you come while your brain isn’t getting enough air, it’s like doing a couple lines of coke. It’s supposed to be this incredible rush.”
She recoiled in disgust. “Let me just give you the money.”
“No way. Warm up your hand.”
Let me just get this over with.
She rubbed her hands together and breathed on them. Went back to work.
He reclined in his seat and closed his eyes. “Yeah.”
She stroked him until her arm got tired. She was breathing hard from oxygen starvation, which she hoped he took for excitement. The windows fogged up.
Time for the big finish, guy. Let’s have it.
She stroked harder. She gave it everything she had, trying to bring him to climax.
“Kiss me,” he said.
“That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Do it, and you get the blood and go home.”
She did, while continuing to pump him fast and hard. He pulled back; she kissed him again, but he turned away, practically spitting her out.
“What the hell?” she asked him.
“Not on the lips. I want you to kiss me there.”
She winced. “No way.”
“Do it, and you get everything.”
She hated him now. Hated his sneering face, his long stringy hair, his jeans with the holes in the knees, his long-john shirt, his black leather jacket. Hated the power he wielded over her.
But she did it. Almost gagged before she even went near it.
“Make it last,” he whispered. “I want it to last.”
She hated him almost as much as she hated herself.
Think about something else. Think about anything else.
She tried to imagine doing it to Ross, but it didn’t work. Instead, she pictured hurting Mitch. Killing him. She’d hit him with the car.
“Make it last, and you get your blood. Make it—”
She yanked as hard as she could while she worked him with her mouth, but the rough treatment only excited him. He howled as he came.
“Holy shit.” He laughed. “You are so good at giving head.”
Ramona pulled away, opened her door, and spit the mess onto the asphalt.
“At least my blood’s good enough for you,” he said.
“Shut up,” she gasped. Then she began retching.
His door opened. She spit one final time and turned back, but he was already gone. The bag containing his blood rested on the front seat.
“I’m still going to kill you,” she said. She started the car. She ran her hand across the inside of the windshield to clear their breath from the glass.
Mitch was gone.
She opened her door and threw up instead.
You did it for Josh. You’re keeping him alive. You should be proud.
She looked again at the bag of blood on the front seat. The rich, sweet blood of a young diabetic.
You promised you’d do anything to help him. You kept your promise.
Ramona rolled down the windows as she drove to let in the cold air. She squeezed the bag. Mitch’s blood rolled between her fingers. Three hours. Three hours of life for Josh.
Once home, she placed the bag in the refrigerator, stripped, and stepped into the shower with a toothbrush, making the water as hot as she could stand it. She felt diseased. Covered in slime.
After stepping out of the shower, she checked the time. Ross was coming for dinner at six. It would be their first time together without Josh since her boy had returned. Just the two of them. It was going to be a real date.
She wanted to cancel, but she needed this. He made her feel human.
Instead, she got busy in the kitchen, whipping dinner into shape in time to spend a few minutes fussing over her appearance.
She stared into her hollow eyes reflected in the mirror as she applied lipstick to cover the bluish pallor of her lips. It only made her look paler. Like dolling up a corpse.
You sucked a kid’s dick with these lips today.
She felt an urge to break the mirror. She wanted to break every mirror in the house. She brushed her teeth for the fourth time instead.
The doorbell rang. She hurried to let Ross in.
“I brought a bottle of wine,” he said as he entered the house and removed his coat.
“And I feel like getting drunk.”
He eyed her. “Everything okay?”
“Nothing I feel like talking about. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Ross followed her into the kitchen. “Smells good, whatever it is.”
“It’s nothing special. The supermarkets don’t have much in the way of selection these days.”
“Tell me about it. I filled up my tank on the way over here. Seven dollars a gallon.”
Ramona enjoyed the small talk. It almost felt like a real date.
The kitchen timer chimed. She put on a pair of oven mittens and slid the hot pan out. She placed it on the stovetop to cool.
“Macaroni and cheese with chopped bacon and caramelized onions. It’s got a few things in it to spice it up. Paprika, some parsley. A little hot pepper sauce.”
“It sounds amazing.” He popped the cork on the wine bottle and poured two tall glasses for them. He raised one. “Well, cheers.”
Their glasses connected, and she drank. It was sweet and cold and fizzed in her brain.
She waved him away. “Go, sit. Everything’s on the table. I’ll serve.”
They ate in silence for a while. Ramona picked at her meal. Every time she looked across the table, she saw Mitch’s sneering face. She drank most of the bottle of wine, determined to have some fun, but it only made her feel worse. She opened another bottle and drank most of that too.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked.
“The company wants to know when you’re coming back.”
“What are you even still doing there?”
“That new job I had lined up didn’t pan out. The company went under. Because, you know . . .” He gestured at the house. The world around him.
“But you were terminated.”
Ross frowned. “Yeah, I remember. They brought me back. They want you back too. Bereavement leave only lasted a week. It’s like a ghost town. A skeleton crew is running the place. You did too good a job in HR, Ramona. The benefits attracted a lot of workers with families. Now those people are at home with their kids. The company’s offering vouchers to people who come back. The vouchers are good for discounts at any of the company’s stores. You know
how expensive groceries are right now.” He looked at her. “So?”
“So what?”
“How about it? Do you want your old job back?”
She poured another glass of wine. “I’m a stay-at-home mom now.”
“What about money?”
Ramona laughed. She remembered when she used to care about things like working hard, promotions, raises. None of it mattered anymore. Money would eventually become a problem for her, but not now. She had much bigger fish to fry.
He said something else, but she didn’t catch it. She was thinking about a zit on Mitch’s forehead. A whitehead near his right eyebrow. At a distance, it had hardly been noticeable, but as she’d leaned forward to kiss him, she’d gotten a good look at it. The mother in her had wanted to reach over and pop it for him. In her memory, the pimple dominated the boy’s face. It was his face. Something to be stabbed and drained.
Ramona set her fork on her plate. She’d made herself nauseous. It didn’t matter; she had no appetite anyway. Ross was telling her how he’d spent most of his twenties living in California as a beach bum chasing the perfect wave. Then his mother had gotten sick, and he’d come back home to take care of her until she died. It had been a real wake-up call for him; it was time for him to grow up and get his act together.
A touching story. It explained much about him, but she couldn’t focus on it.
Do you know what a MILF is, Ramona?
Mitch had asked her that on the way to the clinic. She’d pretended not to hear. They’d gone into the clinic, told their lie, and walked out with his blood in a bag. They’d gotten back into her car, and she’d worked his ropey cock with her hand. It was like jerking off a snake. Later she’d put it in her mouth, and it had spit burning gobs of venom against the back of her throat.
Holy shit! You are so good at giving head!
She’d opened her door, leaned out, and coughed his sperm onto the ground. After that she puked up her guts. She’d been forced into it. She’d had no choice, not really. She imagined he’d held a knife to her throat. The two memories merged into one. He had come puke into her mouth, and it had gushed back out.
At least my blood’s good enough for you.
Ross finished speaking. She smiled politely, but he didn’t seem to notice; he appeared distracted himself now. She drained her glass and poured the last bit of wine into it. The evening was officially a bust.
“I’m sorry I’m so out of it,” she said. “I had a crazy day.”
Ross nodded as if this obvious piece of information finished some puzzle he was working on in his head. “Right. Of course you did. Like all the rest.”
She bristled. “Something wrong with that?”
“To be honest, I was really hoping somehow that tonight would be different. That you could let go of it all for a while. I had to at least try that. I was stupid.”
“I don’t understand. What did you expect? Josh needs a hundred percent of me. That doesn’t stop just because he’s sleeping. I’m in the middle of this thing. I’m trying to hold it together.”
“Well, there you have it.”
“There you have what? You’re my friend, Ross.”
“Right.” He exhaled and took another deep breath. “This is kind of hard to say, so I’ll just say it.” He looked her in the eye. “This is going to be the last time we see each other.”
Ramona felt nothing at first. Then she winced at the first stab of regret. Her mouth went dry. “But why? I don’t understand.”
“The main thing is there’s no future in it.”
“I told you we’re a package deal.”
“You did. Yes, you did.”
“You knew that. So what’s the problem? What did I do?”
Ross frowned. He appeared to be struggling to find the right words. “It’s not any one big thing. It’s all the little things. It’s all of it. Adding up to one big thing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She tried to smile. “Come on.”
But he meant it. She saw it in his eyes. He wanted to end it.
The truth of this world is people love you, and then they leave.
He said quietly, “It was a hard month.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Ramona snapped. “I’m the one trying to keep Josh alive every fucking day. What the hell, Ross?”
She’d spent the entire month pushing him away, telling herself she didn’t need a boyfriend. He didn’t have a child, and so he didn’t get what had happened, not really. He wasn’t in the club. So she’d treated him as an outsider.
But she did need him. She needed him a lot. She was realizing this now, just as he was slipping through her fingers.
And then they leave.
“Yes,” Ross said firmly, “it was hard. And it’s going to get even harder. For you, Ramona. Bringing Josh back an hour a day for the next month is going to take fifteen pints of medicine. Where are you going to get it?”
“Not from you, obviously,” she shot back.
“That’s not fair, and you know it. If giving blood would keep Josh from dying, I’d do it in a second.” He glared at her. “In a second. But it wouldn’t. It’d bring him back for an hour, maybe two, tops. At first, I couldn’t do it because it was . . . horrible. The idea of him drinking my blood was . . . yeah, horrible. But now it’s because it’s just pointless.”
“Pointless,” she echoed. A second later, she burst into tears. Ross reached out, but she slapped his hand away. They weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of rage. She could barely speak. “You think I could simply let him die? You think dying would be best for him?”
“Ramona, look at you. How much more of this can you take?”
She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
But she knew.
You sucked a kid’s cock with these lips today.
“How much more can he take?” Ross said. “He has no real choices. No friends. Just an hour or two terrified this time will be the last time. It’s changing him. Something is. His personality is completely different now. Can’t you see that? He’s angry all the time. He’s actually violent.”
Josh was getting violent. The fact that Ross was right about that too only made it worse.
“This isn’t about Josh or me,” Ramona lashed back. “This is about you running away when things get rough.”
Like every other goddamn man in her life.
“You don’t understand. I really care about you and—”
“And this is how you show it? By running away? You could have had everything. You could have had me.” Her voice jumped in pitch as she watched him stand. “So that’s it? You’re leaving me?”
Ross closed his eyes. “I just can’t do this anymore.”
It was too much for him. Of course it was.
“Don’t go,” she said. Despite her anger, she still wanted him. “Please.”
“There’s really nothing more to talk about. I’m sorry.”
She stood up. She wanted to stop him. Bar the door with her body if necessary. The alcohol and the usual head rush sent her toppling against the table, scattering dishes.
“Jeez, are you okay?” he said.
She stumbled against him and held on. “Please stay. I’ll do whatever you want. Anything.”
She tried to kiss him. He gripped her arms and held her at arm’s length.
“No, Ramona. God!”
She cried harder. He looked at her as if she were a stranger. As if she were dirt. Like Mitch had.
“You have no idea what I’ve done for Josh!” she screamed. “And what I would do. I would do anything. Anything. I would give the same to you, but you don’t want it!”
“God, listen to yourself!” he shouted back at her. His volume stunned her into silence. He regained his composure by rubbing his face with his hands.“You’re slowly killing yourself, and if I stay, I’d end up right there with you. You’re out of blood, Ramona. Out of friends, out of money. Anything, huh? What’s next? Wou
ld you sell your house? Live on the street? Prostitute yourself—”
“I would never do that!”
Ross stared at her face. “I can’t believe it. Oh my God.”
“I said I wouldn’t!”
“Whoa. You already have. Haven’t you?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
He started for the door. “It doesn’t matter.”
She followed. “Don’t you dare look down on me. If you’d given me even a single pint, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s your fault!”
He shook his head in disgust. “I don’t want to hear any more. You’re crazy. I have to get out of here right now before I do something I’ll regret later.”
She grabbed at him again. “No, no, please. I’m sorry—”
Her head snapped to the side from the force of the slap. She rubbed her stinging cheek and stared at him in amazement.
He backed away, looking scared. “Oh my God. Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. But just . . . just please stay away from me.”
Ramona saw him walk toward the front door. He moved slowly, as if carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Poor Ross. Poor Mitch. They use me and throw me away and feel sorry for themselves. She followed close behind.
If looks could kill, he would have been dead already.
“I’m not crazy.”
He turned, surprised to see her there.
The wine bottle caught him on the side of the head with a hollow thud. He staggered but didn’t fall. Not good enough.
She swung again and missed. His backhand caught her on the chin and sent her reeling. The world spun as she stumbled against the dining room table.
Ross fell to his knees, cupping his head in his hands. He groaned.
She’d dropped the bottle. It was gone. She went into the kitchen and picked up the cast iron skillet in which she’d fried the bacon and prepared the cheese sauce. It felt heavy in her hand. It was still warm.
Then she returned to the living room. Ross was back on his feet.
“Look,” he said in a daze. “This is ridiculous—”
His eyes shifted to the skillet in her hand and flashed with alarm. As she raised her arm, he came at her and shoved her against the wall. Pictures of Josh toppled off their hooks and fell to the floor. The momentum made him stagger. She took another step toward him, and this time he slapped her again. She staggered back with a yelp. For several seconds, they stood with their hands on their knees and tried to regain their senses.
Suffer the Children Page 25