Ugly Behavior

by Steve Rasnic Tem

  She jerked her head around, searching for the next escape. A staircase led downward. She hobbled over and stumbled down the steps.

  Animal teeth scattered on the floor, rats in the corners, nesting. A Polaroid of a sliced eyeball had been nailed to the wall beneath a precisely mounted spotlight. Below this was the body it had been taken from: she thought she recognized him as the man who had sold her a comb earlier that day.

  Another body lay at the end of the short, subterranean hallway: maggots had blunted the sharp planes of the face and made a curlicue border along the dark hair line, but it still bore a startling resemblance to a woman who used to sell tickets at the movie theatre.

  In a small, clean room she found another woman’s body, razor blades embedded in cheeks and neck tendons. A scratching at the small window near the ceiling made her turn her head. The glass broke, as if in slow motion, across her face. It showered down before her like frozen, glittering, magical tears.

  First arms, then a head, burst through the rainbow-sheened glass. The man from the restaurant grinned at her through the blood washing over his face. He looked down at the cement floor, where he had dropped his knife.

  She stooped and picked up the knife off the floor. She stroked its smooth handle. She imagined using it, slipping it through clothing into flesh and beyond. She imagined making love to the man’s body with it, kissing him all over with it, until he cried. It made her feel strange, imagining a man’s tears, imagining a man’s submission.

  Maxwell stared at his lover through a dull red filter. Her constant screams of passion had receded as they blended with the loud music in his head, until eventually he could not distinguish the two melodies. He desperately wanted her to join him with the knife, to make of them one creature, to blend their blood streams until they were, finally, one single, gaping wound.

  But then he found himself falling the rest of the way through the basement window, glass and blood descending with him as he flew away to regions of dream.

  Only when her voice finally gave out into a raw, bleeding whisper did she realize she had been screaming constantly since her discovery of the first body. The scream joined the frantic music which still filled her head.

  She struck out against him even as he crashed into her, but in the course of their struggles dropped the knife. She was surprised to find him naked but for his bright red uniform of blood—at some point he had stripped away all pretension. His toenails felt like metal against her body, but his fingernails were so sharp she did not feel them at all when they slid beneath the surface of her skin.

  He brought the edge of his hand down on her cheekbone, filling her vision with bright, blinding flashes of light. He grinned at her, and dipped his finger into the blood covering his face, and drew a bright red line across her neck.

  She rose onto her knees and rolled, and he rolled with her, his teeth biting her ear as he whispered her name. They crashed into the door, closing it firmly on the hall and the little light it had provided.

  A glint in the dark, a flat surface catching any available light. His hand was on it, and raising it high above her head.

  The knife passed through her hand, nailing it to the door. She spat into his face and he pulled the knife out and thrust it at her again. The point passed through the surface of her right cheek. She stretched out her arms to ward off the blows: the blade bit at the fleshy areas of her palms, her fingers, releasing exclamations of blood. She jerked forward, catching him off-guard, jamming the webbing of her damaged hand into his throat. He fell back and she was on her feet again, slamming open the door and running back into the hall. She turned and scrambled up a pile of crates to a screened window, her hands leaving red prints on everything she touched.

  Then he was behind her, pushing her face roughly into the large squares of wire mesh. She could feel the checkerboard pattern etching into her soft skin. Getting her feet beneath her, she pushed back against a crate launching them both backward through the air. She could feel something breaking beneath her, something in the man’s body, as they slammed into the floor. But he simply groaned and said, “Darling.”

  Across the hall there was the open door to a dingy bathroom. She crawled up off the man and scrambled through the door on her hands and knees, locking it behind her. She stood up. The bathroom was brightly lit by six huge incandescent bulbs mounted in the ceiling. Judging from the heat they gave off, she imagined they had been burning for some time. Blood like red greasepaint smeared the fixtures. On the other side of the door a high-pitched man’s voice—imitating a woman—began chanting her name.

  She screamed back at him, “What did I do? I’m a nice person!” Then she laughed huskily, the laughter bringing bile up her raw throat.

  A knife blade slipped through a crack in the door panel, moving back and forth first in a sawing motion, then a chiseling one. She grabbed a piece of broken pipe off the floor and started swinging at the blade, finally snapping it off. She released a strained whoop of victory. “What kind of lover would you be?” she screamed through the door.

  “I loved you!” the man shouted on the other side.

  Jane collapsed into bleating laughter. The loud music faded from her head, exhausting her. “No one can make love to me,” she said, finally, quietly. “I am too afraid of all these sharp edges.”

  A thundering on the other side of the door, and then the door disintegrated in rage around her. Clouds of dust floated in brilliant crimson light.

  Maxwell saw himself in the bathroom’s mirrored, blood-stained wall. Jane’s face floated at his knees, gazing up at his reflection in a way which resembled longing, but which he knew might be any emotion at all. He realized, now, that he could never know what Jane really felt about anything. With a scream he plunged the blade into his own belly. He looked down at what he had done to himself, examining the knife handle curiously, as if it were his umbilical cord suddenly reappeared after all these years.

  He sank to his knees behind her, touching her torn shoulder with one hand.

  “I am too afraid,” she said.

  “We’re all afraid,” he said.

  “Am I going to die now?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied, gazing down at the blood seeping from his belly. She did not move away. He would always be thankful for that, as he closed his eyes, and in his long dream carried her back upstairs and into his bed.

  Wet Kisses in the Dark

  I let myself in with the key she had given me and tried the light switch by the door. Nothing. I stepped into the living room, outlined in the yellow neon that seeped through the windows from the fast food place across the street. Paper crinkled under my shoes and there was a sharp crunch now and then like she’d left cracker crumbs or bits of pretzel all over the floor. And sharp smells like cheese and liquor and bad perfume, but then Liz had always been a lousy housekeeper. I could never have lived with her, myself.

  I tried the light switch by the dining room. Still nothing. Now I figured it was a fuse problem. The whole circuit was out.

  The rhythmic shush of the cars out on the wet pavement was so loud they sounded like they were in the next room. The fractured reflections of their headlights washed the dining room walls in waves. Dark patches spotted the walls. Even with that stingy bit of light, I could see that bowls of food had been turned upside down on the table.

  Somewhere in the apartment there was a snuffling sound, then a wet whimper. “Liz?” I moved toward the bedroom.

  She was sitting on the floor, down in the shadows by the bed. “You’re a little late…” she said softly, with the hint of a slur. I figured she’d started drinking when I didn’t show up on time. I really couldn’t complain, however; I’d had five or six gin and tonics and a couple of beers myself before coming over. They’d filled up the spaces, and these days I felt like I had a lot of spaces.

  “Honey, I’m sorry. It was hard to get away.”

  “It’s always hard to get away. So what? You still gotta do it.”

&n
bsp; “You’ve been drinking.”

  She laughed. “I’ve never been more sober. Come sit beside me, lover.”

  So I went over and I sat down. The carpet there was damp. In the dim light I couldn’t see her expression, just a white sliver of teeth, the blue cast in one of her eyes. “So why the dark? You didn’t pay your bill?”

  She laughed again. “That’s just like you, lover. Everybody knows it’s more romantic in the dark.”

  “I don’t know from romance, but I like to see what it is I’m getting into.”

  She laughed again, leaned over, and gave me a big, sloppy kiss. Her lips were wet and salty, like those pretzels maybe, and smeared with something sweet and heavy. A sauce or a chili, I couldn’t tell; the liquor had killed my taste buds. Then I thought about the spilled food in the dining room. “What’s all the mess out there? I take it Walter didn’t like dinner again? That why you invited me over?”

  She chuckled wetly. “Walter never liked my cooking. We had a fight, that’s all. Now come here and taste some more of me. That’s what you came for, isn’t it? Not to criticize my housekeeping.”

  She had a point. I edged closer, then stopped. Something about the way she smelled. “How long you been sitting here? You hurt or something?”

  Liz laughed so hard she started coughing, coughing so hard I thought she was going to choke on it. “No, lover. Way past hurt.”

  I felt awkward sitting there beside her, especially with the funny way she smelled, so I got up and sat on the edge of her bed. Their bed. Walter’s and hers. “So is he coming back anytime soon? You guys have a big fight?”

  She snorted. “And you’re horny, right? You want to get something going before he gets back? Well, get back down here on the floor. I don’t want to mess up the bed.”

  I was mad, and I was getting disgusted. I didn’t like being around Liz when she was drunk. And the way she smelled—I was beginning to think that maybe’d she’d wet herself. “I was just showing my concern, Liz. If you weren’t such a mess you’d see that. Christ… at least you could straighten things up around here. What’d you two do, have a food fight or something?”

  “Is that what you tell your wife? You tell her she should be cleaning the house better? Is that your excuse for going out and finding something on the side? Something like me?”

  I held my breath, thinking fast, but having no real place to go, the thinking just running around in circles. So I stopped thinking. “How’d you find out?”

  “Walter told me all about it. He explained things real good.”

  “So Walter found out about us? Or did you just go and tell him? Dammit, Liz.”

  “Walter wasn’t stupid. Not like me. I guess he knew for a long time. He said you were just playing with me. He laughed a lot when he told me that. I always used to hate it when Walter laughed at me like that. Like I was the dumbest person he’d ever heard of. And maybe I was.”

  Right then I knew I was supposed to correct her. No, hon. You’re one smart lady, you are. Don’t let him put you down. He just doesn’t understand you. That had always been my role. But I just couldn’t do it. Maybe it was because she smelled so bad. How could you tell a woman she was smart when there was crap all over the walls and the floor and she smelled so bad? “You better get yourself cleaned up.” It was all I could think of to say. “Maybe I can help you.” I prayed she’d say no. I was trying to figure out a good exit line. I wasn’t liking being alone in the dark with her, even though before that night I’d wanted it all the time. You and me in the dark, hon. And then she’d be kissing me all over, her lips wet, her teeth scraping just enough to excite me. Wet kisses in the dark. She’d been so good at that. Who cared that she was a lousy housekeeper? I wasn’t her husband.

  “I can’t get clean. Not this time. No, not going to work this time.”

  “C’mon, Liz. How much you have to drink, anyway? He’ll be back. Probably bring you some candy and roses. Walter’s got no spine. You told me that yourself.”

  She started laughing again, and I just wanted to leave. I couldn’t stand being in that room. I thought I was going to be sick. “No, not this time, lover,” she said. “You’re lying about that one. And you were always so good at lying. Guess you’re losing your touch.” She clamped her lips over my mouth then, and stuck that thick, salty tongue of hers inside me, and then I was so full of the sad smell of her I couldn’t breathe anymore. I started to choke and I pushed her away. My hands came away from her shoulders warm and sticky.

  “Christ! What is this stuff? You throw up on yourself, Liz? Jesus! It’s like you’ve been swimming in garbage!”

  “Oh, I have, lover. You and me… pure garbage. Walter knew that, too. My Walter wasn’t such a dumb man after all. He knew garbage when he smelled it. That’s more than I can say for you, lover.”

  “I don’t need this crap.”

  “Oh? You get this ‘crap’ at home, lover? Is that why you’re with me three nights a week? Not enough crap at home?”

  “I’m outta here.” I pushed myself off the damp carpet and leaned onto the edge of the bed. That’s when she grabbed my ankle and twisted, trying to pull me back down. I jerked myself away from her and sprawled across the bed. On top of somebody else.

  A hand caught in the lining of my coat. Trying to unsnag myself I rolled over a face. The lips were wet, smearing across me. The chest was wet. Liquid had pooled in the hollow of the belly.

  “Whaaa… !”

  Liz’s damp chuckle stopped me before I could get all the way off the bed. Then she had her hands around my ankles again. “You like threesomes, lover? Walter’s not gonna mind.”

  I cried out and tried to kick her but it only made me lose my balance. Before I knew it the dark came up and slammed me in the face. The fuse blew. And I was out.

  I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Probably not all that long, but long enough for Liz to crawl up on top of me, pinning me to the floor. She was a small woman, but right then she felt like she weighed three hundred pounds. Her clothes were soggy, heavy against my skin. She’d gotten my coat off. And my shirt. My pants were unzipped and something cold, something metal, was rubbing up against me down there.

  “Liz…” I knew it came out like a hiss, like I was all excited. It scared me, that was all. I couldn’t help it.

  “Make love to me, lover. That’s what you do. Love me, now. Garbage against garbage.”

  “Liz.” I sucked air. She’d jabbed the cold metal hard into me.

  She laughed, then she moaned, like the noises I was making excited her. But I couldn’t help it. “Shut up and kiss me,” she said, and her wet lips moved across my face and found my mouth, and then I recognized that taste. Maybe I’d recognized that taste all along and just couldn’t admit it. That warm, salty, metal taste. That coppery smell.

  I turned my head away. “No.”

  She slapped me across the face and jabbed harder with the cool steel. Something thick dripped off her head onto my nose, into my eyes. She bent down and she kissed me. She forced my lips open with her teeth and she bit them. “Walter likes to watch,” she said. “We’re going to let him watch now. Usually he does it from the closet, in the dark. He told me all about it. We had no idea; Walter’s not so dumb. But watching us from the bed is better. That way he won’t miss anything.”

  “Liz…” My throat hurt; she’d clogged it with her own blood. “I cared about you.”

  “Liar!” She tried to scream it but she couldn’t. “Walter told me all about it while he was using the knife on me, the one that was lying by the roast beef just waiting for him. I always tried to get him dinner on time. He told me how he’d watched you with your wife and kids, how happy you looked, how you kissed her every morning. The way she smiled. Walter knew all about men, he told me all about men. How they’re always looking for something on the side. And how it isn’t personal. How it isn’t personal at all.”

  “Liz, please…” I started to choke. Then I started to cry.

  �
��Please yourself, lover. Make love to me. Make love to me with my husband watching us. Make it good because it’s the last time. Walter saw to that. He’s hurt me bad.”

  She jabbed the gun into my groin. “Oh, Jesus, don’t hurt me!”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, just slip out of these pants. I’ll help you, if you help me. Take your pants off.” Wiggling, squirming in panic, I did. “Good. Good. I won’t hurt you. Just make love to me and I won’t hurt you. I won’t shoot you. I promise. You’ll have a good time. Make love to me while Walter watches from the bed. I’m dying, lover. I’m dying hard. Make love to me hard. Do it right and all the time you won’t be able to tell if I’m still alive, or if I’m dead yet. You won’t be able to tell.”

  She was right. I couldn’t.

  The Stench

  It is the smell of the body laboring for survival. It is the stink of fear. It is the odor of cooking and cleaning and the lingering aroma of sex in darkened rooms. It is the reek of poverty and the sharp tang of desperation. It is the sour bouquet of bodies aging into death, the whiff of illness and the fragrance of failing organs. It is the scent and the sense of sadness that comes with realizations hard won. It is the stench.

  Riley had no use for uncleanliness. He’d been raised by grandparents who by the end of their lives had lost their sense of smell. They did not know how unpleasant the odors from their bodies had become, although he thought his grandmother sometimes guessed, judging by her periodic and frantic binges of scrubbing and scouring on hands and knees as if praying before some ferocious god. But these spells would pass and when next he was in her proximity his nose would hum and his eyes water from the smell of her dying in the small rooms of their farmhouse.