by Curtis, Greg
“That's all right.”
Laurel smiled at him from the lounge as if they were friends. Were they friends? He wouldn't have thought so. When she'd dumped him so cruelly not a month before he'd wanted nothing more than to hurt her as she'd hurt him. To beat her senseless for her betrayal. While he'd controlled his anger, he had still hated her more than he had ever hated anyone else in his life. They were surely enemies if anything. But something had apparently changed since then. He didn't know when, save that he hadn't really thought about her in ages. He hadn't seen her in nearly a month. And he hadn't planned on seeing her ever again. He'd figured that it was best that way. Move on. Forget her. Forget his pain.
Laurel obviously had other ideas. He'd gathered that when she'd shown up at his door that morning with a strange smile and a pathetic apology for hurting him. And why he wondered was she wearing that outfit? That tight woollen top that showed all her curves so clearly and the skin tight jeans? Her make up on and her hair down? She was dressed to kill, and he had a strange feeling he was the prey. It made him nervous.
She was even saying nice things. Complementing him on his sun tan. Telling him he looked fit and healthy. It was almost as though she was flirting with him again. Despite the fact that a month ago she'd dumped him like yesterday's news and told him he was boring and a pathetic loser with no future.
Of course a lot had happened since then. Maybe this was all in his mind. After all other things seemed to be. The nightmares which were always the same and never ending. They seemed to have become less terrifying of late, but as if to make up for that they'd started happening while he was awake. When he was simply day dreaming. And to add to that there was something strange with the world around him. He didn't quite know what. But every so often he seemed to see the world around him differently. Not with his eyes, but with his mind. As if he was understanding things in a whole new way. He didn't like that. And he didn't like this either.
Will brought the mugs through and handed her the one with the sugar in it, before collapsing back into the worn out chair opposite. The lounge was fairly typical for a student flat. The carpet was threadbare, the furniture worn out, the wallpaper hanging off the walls in places. But none of them had much money and the landlord had offered them a good deal on rent if they mowed the lawns and didn't complain. They'd taken it naturally enough.
“So you're here all alone now?” She took a sip of her coffee.
“Mark's gone back to his family and Richard's gone travelling as he heads home. He might come back.” But Will was pretty sure he wouldn't. Neither of them would. Los Angeles was the place everyone wanted to leave these days, and he couldn't blame people for that. It was after all a disaster area.
Half the city was in ruins. The national guard were patrolling the streets, keeping order. Looting was rampant and at night too often he could hear the sound of gunfire. It wasn't that distant. In fact it had replaced the missing traffic noise. He didn't go out at night for obvious reasons. The only food they could get was what FEMA's trucks brought in, most of which was canned or dried and probably designed to last a thousand years. And though he had a pantry full of it, he didn't want to eat it. It tasted like cardboard. Still, he couldn't really complain about it when it was charity.
Worst of all was the news. According to the little wind up radio he'd been provided with, the death count had risen to over twenty thousand as the inspections of the houses continued and more bodies were pulled out. And it would keep rising. Everyone knew that. There simply weren't enough people to inspect all the buildings yet. Sometimes he wished the damned thing would play some music, but it was only tuned to one station – the emergency broadcast channel. They didn't provide entertainment, just continual announcements.
“And you?”
“A few more months. I've just got to finish up and then I'll go back home.”
Finishing up though would be difficult. The university was still closed, the library included. There was no power and few students or lecturers. His supervisor was in the wind like half the city, dead or fled as they said. His laptop was in a sink hole and his desk top didn't run without power leaving him with pen and paper to write on. He was just lucky he had a bike and could ride to an internet café a mere eight miles away where there was power and he could access e-mail and a printer.
“You?” He asked though he didn't really want to know. He really just wanted her to go away and leave him in peace. But for some reason the manners drilled into him since childhood kept forcing him to say things he didn't mean.
“Another year and a half to go. Hopefully we'll have power back by then.”
She was only half joking he realised. Already two weeks after the ice storm there was no sign of the return of electricity. The substations and the lines had been all but destroyed and according to the radio it might be months before the services were working again. It might be even longer.
“At least the flat's in good shape. Better than this.” Laurel managed to give his flat a disdainful glance, something that briefly annoyed him. The flat didn't deserve her scorn. Not when it kept him dry and a little warmer than outside. It was doing the best it could after it had been nearly destroyed. But mostly he just didn't like seeing that look on her face when she dismissed it. It was much the same look she'd given him when she'd kicked him to the curb. As if he wasn't good enough.
But he also knew that she had a point. He'd done his best. The patches he'd painted on the roof were holding and were actually water tight, while inside he'd cleaned away as much of the debris as possible. He'd even nailed a few cross braces into the roof hoping to make it more solid. But still the damage from the ice bombs was extensive, and everywhere you looked there were huge holes in ceilings and floors. The house creaked alarmingly in the wind and sometimes seemed to sway as well. At night in the dark if he had to go to the bathroom he had to walk very slowly and carefully down the hall, not wanting to fall down into one of the holes. When he had the money and the hardware store was open he was thinking about boarding them up. At least the ones on the ground floor. The landlord wouldn't object he figured. Not when he like so many others was simply missing.
“You know, there's room for you there. And it'd be warm.”
Laurel caught him completely by surprise with her offer and for a few long seconds Will didn't understand what she was saying. That she wanted him back. That she wanted a flatmate. Which? Why? And how could she even think he'd accept after she'd tossed him aside so brutally? Did she think he was that pathetic? And then it finally clicked.
“Martin's gone hasn't he?”
Of course he had. And suddenly having kicked out her old flatmate to move her boyfriend in she was finding herself alone. She didn't like being alone. Plus, if her landlord was still among the living and in the city, she was probably being hit with the full rent for her little flat, and she needed to share costs. Mr. Moneybags wasn't paying his share any more.
“He ran back to Montana. He says the ice they get there is in the lakes not the sky.” She sounded upset but not devastated. But then he guessed it was her pride that had been hurt not her heart. And suddenly he understood that she was a woman of pride not love. Pride in being beautiful. Pride in being able to wrap men around her fingers and use them as she wanted. It was never about love for her. It never had been.
Why hadn't he seen that before? But he knew the answer, embarrassing as it was. She had a pretty face underneath her honey blonde curls, and he'd thrown away his judgement because of it. Two long years wasted because he'd had all the intelligence of a teenage boy just learning about girls. He wasn't sure whether to laugh at his stupidity or mourn for the wasted emotion.
“I'll stay here thanks.”
It was the only thing to do. He knew that. It wasn't just about pride and hurt feelings, it was about the fact that he didn't want to be near her. But she didn't understand rejection. Laurel wasn’t someone who was used to that – least of all from him. And he watched the shock growing and
the wheels turning behind her eyes as she tried to work out what had happened. What she should do. He sipped at his coffee as he waited for her to say something.
“Don't be like that.” She flashed her white teeth at him a few seconds later and a trace of what he had once felt for her returned. But only a trace. That bothered him, though he didn't quite know why. “I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. We were good together. But really, it was just a stupid mistake. Things were getting so serious and I was scared.”
She was lying. He knew that. Just as he also knew that he should be falling for her lies as he had every time before. But he wasn't. Somewhere along the way she seemed to have lost her power over him. Had she hurt him that terribly? At the time he'd thought so. But not now surely? Instead he'd hardly thought of her at all as he'd battled with his own problems. And now that she was here he still didn't want to think of her.
“But now you're ready?” Will couldn't keep the sarcasm and disbelief out of his voice. But she either didn't hear it or didn't want to.
“Yes.” She smiled at him, her face full of tears and innocence – full of lies. “You don't know how ready. How miserable I've been without you. I made a mistake but I'll make it up to you. I promise.”
“In fact -” Her eyes turned to the couch, “- right here, right now.”
“No.” He could have shouted it at her. Maybe he should have. But in the end he not only wasn't interested, he just didn't care. And Laurel didn't understand. He wasn't even sure she'd heard him as she kept teasing him. With her pouting lips, breasts stuck out as far as she could and tummy sucked in, she was really trying to work him. And it left him completely cold.
“Please. I know I've done wrong but it was only because I was afraid. You know that I love you. I always have. That's why I took up with such a loser. Martin wasn't half the man you are. You have nothing to be jealous of. I promise you.”
Unfortunately for her she was right; he wasn't jealous. He was just disappointed – in himself. How could he have ever fallen for her? Her lies were so transparent.
“And you aren't a tenth the woman I thought you were.”
The words slipped out almost by themselves, he certainly didn't plan them, and yet he knew they were exactly the ones he'd wanted. The ones he should have said long ago. Of course when the coffee cup came flying at him he knew that they weren't the ones Laurel had wanted to hear.
“You bastard!”
She yelled at him angrily like a mad woman while he dried his face off on his sleeve. In fact she was screaming her head off. But still it meant nothing to him. Why? He didn't understand that. But in the end he simply couldn't be bothered listening to her. He just didn’t care She could yell and scream all she wanted. He wasn't completely sure why he didn't care, and he was sure he should. But her outburst still didn’t make any impression on him. None at all. That seemed wrong to him somehow. Not that long ago he would have done anything for her. Taken her shopping. Bought her presents he couldn't afford. Escorted her to all the parties she wanted to attend. Been the attentive boyfriend. He had done all of those things and more. But for the life of him he couldn't think why he'd been that way. She wasn't even that pretty.
After that of course things went predictably downhill. Laurel calmed down a little and then thought she could try to charm him again. It didn't work. And when he told her not to try she got angry again. There was more name calling, shouting and tears as she went through her entire repertoire of skills, none of which had the slightest effect on him. They didn't hurt him. They didn't make him sad. They didn't make him angry either. He'd turned a corner in his life. He didn't know when exactly. But she had no power over him any longer and he just kept telling her to leave until finally she did.
That should have been a good thing. But as he watched her stomp down the hall and then out the front door and down the street, he knew it wasn't. She was beautiful and dressed to kill. A honey blonde honey trap in high heels. She had almost thrown herself at him. And it had meant nothing to him. Nothing at all. Once he would have fallen at her feet. In fact every time. Now he could barely even be bothered watching her leave.
It was the changes that were happening to him. He finally realised that after he'd shut the door and returned to his coffee soaked chair in the lounge. They were still happening and it wasn't just his body hair. There were new changes. Ones he hadn't even realised were happening. But they had been and he simply hadn't noticed, caught up as he had been with everything else.
He'd hoped that the changes would start and end with the loss of his body hair. That the nightmares and the daydreams would go away. When he'd finally found the Pastor at the church he'd almost been convinced of it. But they hadn't ended there. They'd kept going. But so slowly and subtly that he barely noticed them. And when he had he'd always been able to put it down to other things. His body hair had been joined by his facial hair, and now what was left of his normal stubble was thin and wispy at best. He scarcely needed to shave, and soon he knew he wouldn't. But that he'd told himself was simply the same thing. Body hair and facial hair, it wasn't really any different.
The dreams were more worrying but still, he seemed to be coping with them. And as for the occasional mental lapses where he sometimes saw the world through a stranger's eyes, they were just odd. He hadn’t yet lost his grip on reality.
He was also trimming down, not that he'd been fat before. But he'd told himself that that had something to do with his diet. Since there were no supermarkets operating he had had to rely on what he had in the pantry and what the military could provide. So there was no more chocolate and no more beer for him. And it might also have had something to do with the fact that meat repelled him for some reason. But that he'd told himself was simply because he couldn't really cook as well as he once had without a proper stove. And the inability to cook could also have something to do with his continual stomach upsets, which in turn could be nerves. It had all seemed so reasonable.
His skin was changing colour. Darkening slightly, but more than that, it had developed a slightly translucent quality. He didn't know what that was about. Only that in certain lights he almost seemed to glow a little. Laurel had called it a sun tan, and he'd tried to think of it the same way. Just the effect of being out in the sun a lot more these days rather than stuck in a library or in his room bent over a computer.
Everything else could be explained away. He had explained it away. But not this.
Now he could add one more change to his list, and it was a bad one. The worst so far. He was losing his sex drive. That was why she had no power over him. That was why he no longer felt hurt or angry. She no longer mattered to him. It wasn't that he was too busy with the rest of the disaster that was his life and his world. It was that he simply didn't care about that sort of thing any more.
He was losing what it was to be a man.
Will felt a cloud descend on him as he sat there. A weight of despair and anxiety that he'd been steadily trying to ward off for weeks. He'd been lying to himself. Trying to pretend that what was happening to him was minor. That it was mostly in his head or related to his lifestyle. But this wasn't minor, it had nothing to do with the changes in his lifestyle, and it wasn't in his head.
Of course the moment he added this new change to the rest, he could see a pattern. He understood how some of what was happening to him could be connected to other changes. He'd done some pre-med classes and he knew there was a common denominator. A lot of it had to be directly related to his hormones. Specifically his male sex hormones. His body hair and facial hair were vanishing. His sex drive was failing. His skin was becoming milky smooth again. It was as though he was becoming a boy again. Heading backwards through puberty. It was exactly what he would expect if he had run out of testosterone.
And maybe that could explain other things. His changes in diet, the fact that he no longer liked meat and was losing weight. Hormonal changes in women were known to cause all those sorts of things. Maybe it was the same for men? Then
again maybe he just wanted to believe that rather than the alternative – that there was something else going wrong with him. He had no way of knowing.
But even if he was right and it was hormonal, knowing the answer didn't help him fix it. And he needed to get this fixed. If he was already suffering these symptoms after two or three weeks, what would he be like in another few weeks? Would all his masculinity go? His balls – would they undrop? Would his voice become higher pitched? Would he become completely sexless? A eunuch?
It was a terrible thought. To no longer be a man. To be nothing. Because the one thing he had always known – that every man knew – was that he was a man. It ran to the very core of his being. He couldn't take that. What man could? And yet what choice did he have?