Mother's Milk

by Charles Atkins

  Several men and women had started to nod in agreement, as Barrett forged ahead into what had always been a hot topic in theoretical psychology. ‘Without a stable parent, the child never creates that hugely important bond. He never sees the reflection in his mother’s eyes that lets him know things are going to be OK, and equally important the underpinnings of empathy and compassion will not form. Without those, without understanding that hitting Mommy makes her feel bad and in turn makes you feel bad, the building blocks of what we consider morals are gone.’ As she spoke, she thought of Max and how little time she got to spend with him; she was also acutely aware that Chase was staring at her. ‘Without those the child’s behavior as he grows up is pretty much guided by making himself feel good, regardless of the feelings of others – “I like your Game Boy, I want your Game Boy, I’m going to take your Game Boy, and if you get in my way I’m going to hit you.” While some may be able to model socially appropriate behavior by watching and learning from others, it will be applied externally, almost like putting on a suit of clothes. Underneath there will be no true compassion or ability for empathy. This doesn’t mean one hundred percent that the kid is going to grow up to be a sociopath, but we’ve certainly laid the groundwork.’

  ‘If what you’re saying is accurate,’ Monica said, ‘and judging by the expressions I see around the room, I suspect you’ve hit the nail on the head, then wouldn’t it be true that where we can have the most impact is with the very young?’ And she turned her attention to a balding man in khakis and a polo shirt who was the director of a safe home where children who had just been removed from their parents’ custody were put until a more permanent solution was found.

  To Chase, Barrett’s words had the effect of a light switched on. Yes, he’d heard this before and studied Attachment Theory in the psych courses he’d taken, but that had just been theory. She was talking about him and his childhood; it made sense, and gave him a queer feeling of being exposed. She missed one or two vital points, but that could be forgiven. She didn’t realize how his total lack of empathy gave him power and detachment. It made him strong, like a cat that feels no sadness for the prey it toys with and then kills.

  He whispered, ‘OK, beautiful and brilliant … please tell me you’ll have lunch with me.’ Janice was frantic for him to finish the Jerod thing; it wouldn’t be hard to find out what Barrett knew, and if necessary have her meet with an unfortunate accident. If it involved the boy, that would be best – he’d already barged into her office with a loaded firearm, it wouldn’t be a stretch for crazy boy to do something … well, crazy. At this point he knew Jerod was with Marky, probably doped to the gills; it wouldn’t be hard to stage something and get them both out of the way. Although the more time he spent with the beautiful psychiatrist, the more that kind of plan seemed wrong.

  ‘I can’t, I’m booked.’

  ‘A date?’ he whispered, seeing in Dr. Barrett Conyors an exquisite possibility. Women like her were rare, and despite her beauty and intelligence she carried the scent of self-doubt; women like that, once under his thrall, could be controlled. As a doctor, even one employed by the state, she had to be making close to a couple hundred grand a year – it could be enough.

  ‘Hardly.’

  He knew she was attracted; it was just a matter of gently reeling in. ‘Another time?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Dinner … tonight?’ He smiled, and saw the slight intake of her breath, how her pulse had quickened.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘OK, you two,’ Monica said, her expression one of mock exasperation, ‘I have exceptionally good hearing, and while I do love a good shipboard romance, please save it for the break.’

  Barrett blushed. Chase grinned, knowing he’d not been wrong. An older woman seated to her right whispered, ‘For God’s sake, go to dinner with him. If not for you, do it for me.’

  THIRTEEN

  Janice felt Chase’s breath hot on the back of her neck, his strong arms circling around her front. His fingers deftly unclasped her lace under-wired bra. She needed this, and hated that she did. His face nestled in the back of her hair, his hands cupped her full breasts that with each passing day sagged a bit more.

  ‘Nice,’ he growled, pressing his hardness into the small of her back.

  At least she still aroused him, although she never quite knew what went on between his ears. Even now as he pulled her playfully toward his massive modernist leather bed, raised up on two steps – like a stage – in the middle of his TriBeCa loft, she wished her thoughts would shut up. Surrender, don’t think about the age difference, or the spider veins in your legs, or how goddamn handsome he is. Or how when you looked out from the podium you saw him flirting with Barrett Conyors – you told him to do that. A groan escaped her lips as his tongue slid down the side of her neck and circled the soft flesh of her earlobe. Her back arched. ‘Hurry,’ she whispered, knowing there wasn’t much time in the conference lunch break.

  ‘You want this?’ His teeth pulled at her ear, balancing shades of intense pleasure and the beginnings of pain as he nipped playfully at her diamond studs.

  ‘Hurry.’ She turned into him and threw her arms over the rolling muscles of his back, letting them slide down to the firm mounds of his ass. She needed him inside of her, his hardness, the proof that he was hers, that she was still attractive, that she could have a man as gorgeous as Chase.

  He did not disappoint; he never did. From his rock-hard cock to the way he stroked her body, whispering the words that let her know he found her desirable and exciting.

  ‘So beautiful,’ he said as the last rolling wave of pleasure coursed from her toes to a tingling at the roots of her hair.

  She lay back, savoring the moment of post-coital quiet, of having her mind be at peace, even though it wouldn’t last. She watched the ceiling fan overhead as it lazily spun against the zinc-patterned ceiling of this former warehouse that had been converted into large, trendy, and expensive lofts – far more expensive than what an agency counselor could afford. The air was softly scented with citrus zest. His furniture was leather-upholstered modern Italian chairs and couches, with frames of welded nickel that had cost their previous owner thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars. ‘Dom had beautiful taste,’ she said, remembering her long-time friend who had succumbed to the ravages of AIDS three years ago.

  ‘Yes,’ Chase said, rising up in bed, his muscled torso glittering with a sheen of sweat. ‘And he was very good to me. You both were.’

  Janice kept quiet, the topic of the arrangement she’d set up with Chase and her sick friend, the architect Dominic Hilliard, had been one of urgency and convenience on all parts. Dominic had needed live-in care and Chase, who was about to be discharged from the department, albeit with a full scholarship, needed a place to live. ‘You took good care of him,’ she said. ‘Even at the end. And then when his family swooped down.’

  Chase’s tone darkened. ‘They wanted nothing to do with him when he was alive, but they all became real interested in what he had. I’m lucky to have come away with this; he wanted me to have more; he’d said so. Which reminds me, my cut from the girl we sold?’

  Janice wished he’d turn away as she retrieved her bra and panties, and dressed carefully. She caught her reflection in a massive nickel-framed mirror that ran lengthwise over the black granite in the open kitchen. It was like some horrible ultra-realist painting, her hair in disarray, the lace of her bra visible through her unbuttoned blouse, Chase like some naked god rising from the sheets in the background, and there on a red-leather chair – part of a furniture line that Dom had designed – was her pocketbook filled with a wad of hundred-dollar bills in an envelope. Quickly doing up her blouse and smoothing back her hair with her fingers, she retrieved the bag and pulled out the envelope.

  ‘Thanks.’ Chase came up beside her, still naked, the smells of their lovemaking – and citrus – pulsing from his warm, hard body. She couldn’t help but watch as he weighed it in the palm o
f his hand, and then opened it. ‘Is this all?’

  ‘It’s fifteen grand,’ she said, her tone neutral, bracing herself for his petulance and anger.

  ‘The girl went for one forty; I need more. I deserve more.’

  Janice turned away, hating this. ‘What’s the status of the boy? And Dr. Conyors? This was fun,’ she said for malicious effect, ‘but you were supposed to find out the extent of the damage and fix it.’

  ‘It’s being taken care of,’ Chase replied, coolly.

  ‘That’s what you said before, and look at the mess.’ She again saw her reflection. Damn Dom and his love of glass and mirrors. Almost like he wanted to see the progression of his flesh as it decayed. She didn’t want to risk looking at Chase, knowing that when he was angry or frustrated his face became a blank mask, and what lay beneath was scary and beautiful and cruel.

  ‘Marky picked up Jerod last night. By the end of the day we’ll know everything he told Barrett – Dr. Conyors, we’ll know where the cell phones are. She started to talk about him; she’s worried about him, seems to really care.’

  ‘Good,’ Janice said, putting on her jacket. ‘And then no more Jerod? And if you think she suspects anything … we can’t risk that. You’ll have to take care of her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Chase said, ‘and that should all be worth something.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Get dressed, we have to go back to the conference … Do you think she’s pretty?’

  ‘Extremely,’ Chase said, ‘and not the type to advertise it either. Almost no makeup and a haircut that looks like it was done at a barber shop. It’s hard to believe she has a new baby; it’s clear that she’s in amazing shape.’

  Janice wondered if Chase were deliberately hitting her soft spots. Her own struggles with infertility, the endless visits to the specialists, Avery’s obvious disappointment at her not being able to give him his own children. ‘What does she know?’

  ‘Too early to tell. I’m going to try and get her to have dinner tonight. We’ll see what we see.’

  Janice felt her anger boil as she stared at Chase and his flawless body. ‘Do you plan to fuck her? Is that it?’

  Chase met Janice’s gaze, his expression blank, almost peaceful. ‘Janice,’ he cocked an eyebrow, ‘we both know that it’s not about what I want.’

  She took a step back and nearly stumbled on her heels.

  He didn’t break his gaze. ‘What I do want, what I need from you, is more money. I’ll take care of the Jerod business and find out just how much the lovely Barrett knows. You will compensate me for that.’

  ‘I told you, we’ll see.’ She turned, her breath caught in her throat. At the door she looked back at him, he’d walked to the kitchen and was selecting an orange from out of the blue glass bowl. She fled into the hallway and toward the industrial elevator; her insides jumbled. Why didn’t she just give him more money? She knew that the taxes and monthly upkeep and common fees on his loft were staggering. Dom had left him the place free and clear, transferring the title well before his death, all of the legal work had been ironclad. But the money Dom had wanted Chase to have he never got, his family had seen to that. They’d contested the will and drawn Chase as little more than a prostitute taking advantage of a dying man.

  Janice couldn’t tear her thoughts from Chase as the elevator carried her down. Out on the street she hailed a cab to take her back to the conference. She knew that she could have, and possibly should have, given Chase a bigger cut. She also knew why she hadn’t. She thought of one of the many conversations she’d had with Dom about Chase. She’d known when she had hooked the two of them up that there was the strongest of possibilities Dom would try to seduce Chase. What she hadn’t counted on was the bond that had developed between the two men. Chase had cared for Dom, patiently ferrying him through the endless doctors’ appointments, staying by his side during his three last hospitalizations for pneumocystis pneumonia, and the scare when they thought a parasite had infected his brain. But one conversation in particular stuck with her. It had been near the end. Dom had wanted to hang on at least until Chase’s college graduation, and knew that it was unlikely. He’d asked Janice to keep an eye on him. ‘You don’t think it to look at him, and I do like to look at him,’ Dom had wheezed through the oxygen tubing he was forced to wear. ‘He’s like a baby that desperately needs to be held and fed … just not too much.’ At the time Janice had taken it with several grains of salt, just the ramblings of a dying man. ‘But you know about that,’ he’d added. ‘You’re the mother in Mother’s Milk, feeding all those kids, trying to wean them off the tit. That’s what we are, giant tits filled with beautiful milk. But if you give them too much … they just up and leave.’

  The cab quickly traveled the short distance back to the conference. Up ahead she spotted the tall, lean figure of Dr. Conyors, and her heart raced. The woman was nothing but trouble, too smart and too curious. This Jerod thing was way too close for comfort, and this awful sense of dread. Everything she’d worked so hard to achieve would come undone. It would be so much easier to be rid of her and have someone like Hugh in charge of the forensic center. She clicked open her bag and gave a twenty to the cabbie. While she waited for her change and receipt, she checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. She put on a blank smile, and hoped she didn’t look like a woman who’d just had a roll in the hay with her much younger lover. She told herself that if Chase handled Jerod and got rid of Dr. Conyors she’d give him another fifteen, but not more than that, just enough to keep him fed and to keep him coming back.

  Chase stood naked in the shaded window, one hand holding the orange firm as the other sliced through the skin with a stainless-steel peeler. He watched Janice get into the cab. How old she looks. Not that it mattered, except she’d brought him only enough money to make it through the month; he was sick of it. He looked down at the perfect piece of fruit in his hand and then at the rind, which he’d deftly opened flowerlike into six even sections. He slowed his breath, not wanting to give in to the mounting anger that could rob him of reason. His rage simmered as he threw out the fruit and grabbed a sealed pre-threaded suture from a kitchen drawer. Cupping the peel together in the palm of his left hand, he let the curved surgical needle enter the fleshy rind at the top, where all of the sections had once connected. He was practicing purse-string stitches, a technique that could pull together a complex open wound. If drawn too tight, the patient would be left with an angry pink scar, if done to perfection the skin would knit together as though it had never been damaged. The peacefulness of the act, of focusing on holding the right tension, eyeballing the edges of the cut, making certain they were aligned just so. The needle entered the flesh, curving in and out of the petal-shaped wedges, weaving together the purse string and then pulling it slowly together until the rind resumed its original shape. He then grabbed a second fresh suture and needle and worked a whipstitch down the sides. Each time he entered the skin he went through a pore of the dimpled surface, knowing that on human flesh there would be no residual scar. He replayed the long-ago conversation with Dr. Avery Fleet at that restaurant with Janice. Dr. Fleet had told him how as a medical student he’d known that he always wanted to be a surgeon, to be the very best, and about how he’d practice tying knots with citrus rind. The next day, Chase had swiped three oranges from the kitchen of his group home, got a small sewing kit, and started a practice that he would do each day, at least one orange a day, sometimes half a dozen. It helped him, made him not think, got the screams that sometimes rose inside of him to shut up, just focus on the needle, the thread, and the flesh. He used to throw them out when he was done, but Dom asked him to keep them, he liked to watch the way the skin dried and they became like shriveled heads, filling the air with orange tang. He needed to calm himself, to not hate Janice and want to hurt her, to get back to the conference and to Barrett … not that much older than he was, successful, had a child, she was a doctor. She could help him with so many things, and they
had so much in common; they would look good together. He liked the way men tried to catch her eye, a couple even doing double-takes, checking out her face, and the lithe body she kept hidden under her conservative suit and button-down blouse.

  His fingers flew down the seams of the skin; he’d finish one more piece, and get dressed. His cell rang. He tied off the suture and picked up. It was Marky.

  ‘What does he know?’ Chase asked. ‘What has he told the cops and that shrink?’

  Marky sounded nervous. ‘He says he didn’t tell them anything, but they asked lots of questions about where the dope came from. He swore he’d given no names. He said they had the phones. I’m so sorry, Chase. He said something else that didn’t make any sense.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He said there was a video of a naked girl on one of the phones. I didn’t know what he was talking about … He said it was Carly, the girl who used to hang out with Bobby and Ashley. He kept asking me where she was, like I knew anything about it. He was crying and said she was his girlfriend and that he had to find her.’

  Chase felt his stomach lurch. He pictured the girl – Carly Sloan, eighteen years old. She’d been one of his patients and he’d given her Janice’s number when she’d faced the terrifying prospect of having to leave her group home, with no money, no family that gave a shit about her, no place to go … nothing. ‘What did he tell them about her?’ Chase asked, trying to think how this could be traced back to him or to Janice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marky said. ‘Do you want me to find out? I just gave him three bags and he’s nodded out. Just tell me what you want me to do, Chase.’