Handsome Devil: Stories of Sin and Seduction

by Richard Bowes

  “There’s no band,” she said.

  “Something good will come on the radio in a minute.” He paused and tilted his ear up, and sure enough, the next track was “Tumbling Dice.” “There you go.”

  Sandy stood up and let Caleb take her hand. He actually knew how to three-step; she had to watch his feet. Sure, she’d had a lot to drink, but his boots seemed to be different sizes.

  “Motorcycle accident,” he said when he caught her staring. “Lost all the toes off the left one.”

  “You don’t limp.”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  When the song was over he squeezed her hand for an extra beat before he returned to the table. Jake was rolling a cigarette, and the two went outside to smoke.

  “Well, it looks like your drought is over,” Fluffy said, pouring the last of the pitcher into Sandy’s glass.

  “I don’t know. Seems cocky. Can I trust him?”

  “Oh, he can be a little bit of an asshole but he’s basically good shit.”

  The bar had nearly emptied out, and Janie, the bartender, was giving them that look that meant she wanted stragglers gone so she could close up early. Sandy was almost ready to give in to that look—in the long run, keeping a bartender happy was more important than getting laid—when Caleb finally came back in, alone.

  “Where’s Jake?”

  “Someone left a chow dog tied up to the bike rack. It freaked out when it saw me and he’s been trying to calm it down so he can get it untangled ever since.”

  “Weird.”

  “Dogs don’t like me. I guess I smell strange to them or something.”

  “It’s eye contact,” Fluffy said. “They hate that thing you do where you try to stare them down.”

  Caleb shrugged, turned towards the door.

  “Wait,” Sandy said. “We’ll go out the back way. Fluffy, you tell Jake we’re leaving.”

  Fluffy nodded, and flashed her a thumbs-up when Caleb turned toward the back door.

  Outside, a light drizzle had started to fall. Caleb had produced another cigarette while she wasn’t looking, and she moved upwind of him. He slipped his free arm around her waist. He was warm, and she decided to go with it.

  “Do you want to go back to my place?” Caleb asked. “We can just cuddle if you want.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Over on Front Street.”

  It wouldn’t be too hard to get home from there, she decided.

  “Holy crap,” she said, as they walked down his driveway, just as the rain was getting worse. “We’re neighbors. I live right over there.”

  Sure enough, her apartment was visible across the back yard from his. She’d left the porch light on. Worse came to worst, the fence was low and not too sharp. This was better than she’d expected, honestly.

  And the more she looked at him, the hotter he got. His hair was red-blond to complement his fox face, redder now that it was damp, and just shaggy enough. As he opened the door and flicked on the light, she stared at his back and decided that aside from the asymmetrical boots his figure was pretty great—she liked them on the thin side, but he wasn’t scrawny, and true he didn’t have much of an ass but men didn’t these days. That wasn’t really a handicap.

  Just cuddle indeed.

  As she stepped inside, the biggest cat she’d ever seen rose from a battered armchair and came to meet them, thumping audibly as he jumped to the floor. He was orange, and just looking she assumed he was mostly fluff, but when she reached down to pet him she discovered herself stroking a solid, muscular creature almost the size of a bobcat.

  “Hey, Monster,” Caleb said, and the cat began rubbing ecstatically around his shins.

  “I think I might have figured out why dogs don’t like the smell of you,” Sandy said, stripping off her damp coat and slinging it over the doorknob.

  “Want another beer?” The fridge was in the near-right corner, the bed to the far left, and in between, aside from Monster’s chair and a card table with a folding chair on either side, everything was boxes.

  “Moving out?” Here we go again.

  “Nope, moving in. I just got finished with a job in Atlanta and I wanted a complete change of pace. Fluffy’s the first guy I met in town. About that beer … ”

  “Nah,” she said, and stepped to the left. “I’ll take those cuddles you mentioned, though.”

  She woke up with the sensation she could hardly breathe, thrashed, and knocked Monster off her back as she turned over.

  “Sorry,” Caleb mumbled, sitting up. “He likes to cuddle too.”

  The wool blanket fell away from his chest, and in the morning light she was pleased to see that the beer goggles hadn’t lied too baldly. He was an odd combination of thin but cut that she’d seen only a few times before, on a couple of the farm boys from around Ames in her youth, and on a man she’d met out in Eugene who trimmed branches around electric lines for a living, hauling a chainsaw up and down trees all day. He had stamina like them too. He hadn’t said what he did for a living. She doubted he was climbing trees with that foot.

  He stood up and walked naked across the floor to an open box, opened it and pulled out what looked to be an old leather-bound book. When he flipped it open, though, it turned out to be a laptop.

  Monster sniffed at her and put a cautious foot on her stomach. She decided it was time to get up. Wrapping the acrylic afghan they’d kicked to the foot of the bed around herself, she went and peered over his shoulder.

  Tarot cards dotted the screen. He opened a new tab and grabbed her hand. “Here. Shuffle.”

  She clicked a few times, running the cards through an animation where the deck split and came together again. Then they danced out across the screen in a classic Celtic cross. They didn’t mean a thing to her; she’d seen a reader at a street fair once, but that was years ago and she had been drunk.

  Caleb seemed to like what he was seeing, though. She waited for him to explain it to her, but he just tapped the one in the middle, the Tower with its lightning and little falling figures, and said, “That’s good, that’s a good one.” Then he snapped the laptop shut. “Wanna get some breakfast?”

  In the afternoon, she met Jake at the dog park. The chow hadn’t been wearing a collar so it was his now, unless someone responded to the Craigslist ad he had posted.

  “I wish you hadn’t left with him,” Jake said before she was even done scratching the dog’s ears. “If animals hate a guy, he’s bad news.”

  “Animals don’t hate him, this one dog hates him. He has a great cat.”

  Jake clicked his teeth. The dog’s ears went erect and she sat down, looking at him expectantly until he handed her a treat. Sandy had to admit, she seemed like a pretty smart dog.

  “Anyway, what are you calling her?”

  “Cassandra, because it will be way more subtle than just saying I told you so when this guy turns out to be a creep.”

  “Jeez, let it go. I can take care of myself. Anyway, Fluffy says he’s good shit.”

  “How the hell would Fluffy know? He met the dude on Thursday, I was there.”

  “I’ll be fine.” The dog whined, looking up at Jake with yearning. He had that kind of effect on animals. “I think you should call her Perdita.”

  “That’s a Dalmatian name. I was thinking maybe Penelope.”

  “Penny’s a good nickname. She is sort of copper-colored.”

  “We’ll see. When the time is right the dog tells you her name.”

  Caleb called her on Thursday and invited her out to dinner. When she got over to his place, he was reading the tarot again.

  “I was thinking Chinese,”

  “Is that what … ” she peered at the screen “ … the Ace of Cups told you?”

  “Something like that,” he said, closing the laptop.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Post-dinner they stopped at the Silver Dollar, where a Johnny Cash cover band was playing, but after a round Caleb seemed antsy.

&nb
sp; “It’s nice out, let’s go start a fire.”

  “A fire?”

  “There’s a fire pit out back of my place.”

  The band was bad, and since Caleb had brought her a Fireball again the heartburn was setting in. “Okay. But if the cops show up, you can be the one to pretend you have a burn permit.”

  “But of course.”

  Tonight the sky was clear, and the moon was full. From the fence line between her house and Caleb’s, Sandy could see bats looping in the sky, swerving below the branches and ducking down low over the river. Watching all this, she was a little surprised when Caleb was no longer beside her; even more surprised when he reappeared with an armload of split wood that he shoved at her, but she held onto it as he ducked back into the yard on the other side and returned with another armful.

  “Who lives over there?” she asked as they stacked the wood into the fire barrel that someone had built from an old washing machine’s innards.

  “Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t met them yet.” He flashed those teeth at her again. “You just helped me steal.”

  “Like I said, you’re the one who gets to talk to the cops.” Sandy took a sip from her to-go cup, nonplussed, as Caleb crouched and began working with his lighter. Despite the residual spring damp and the lack of kindling, the fire was going strong in minutes.

  “You’re good at that.”

  “I am. Want another beer?”

  “Sure.”

  Caleb returned in minutes with two Fat Tires and Monster, who stalked up to the flames and began pouncing on falling bits of ash.

  “Is that safe?” Sandy didn’t want to be the worrywart, but Monster honestly looked like he’d turn into a blaze of Great White proportions if a spark landed on him.

  “Oh, of course. He’s flame retardant.”

  The wind shifted and smoke blew into her face, so she shifted in turn until she was almost pressed against Caleb’s side. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. “Sweetheart. We’re going to have adventures together. You could help me set the world on fire.”

  They killed the six-pack around one in the morning. Just as Sandy was about to suggest they run to the gas station for another, Fluffy’s blue Ford Taurus came rattling down the driveway.

  “Hey, man.” Fluffy stepped out of the truck, then fished a case of Pabst from the back. Sandy was surprised at the flare of irritation she felt when Caleb dropped her hand and went to take the beer from Fluffy. She’d wanted more beer. She liked Fluffy.

  Monster made one figure eight around Fluffy’s boots and then came over to Sandy, sitting at her feet. The night was turning chilly enough that she was grateful for the extra insulation over her toes.

  “How’s it going?” Fluffy said, nodding at her and coming over to claim the camp chair Caleb had vacated.

  “It’s going.”

  “Today has been a real shit show. At one point we had like seventy people in the Break and all of them wanted fancy lattes and shit.”

  “Poor you.”

  “Sounds like you need another beer, Miss Crankypants.”

  She did.

  Caleb came back with another camp chair, which he parked on the other side of Fluffy, and enough beer to cheer Sandy up for a bit. He raised his hand as if for a high five, but when Fluffy responded, laced his fingers through his hand. “And you, my friend. What are you doing with your life? Do you want to help me set the world on fire?”

  Sandy had only thought the phrase weird, earlier. Now she was abruptly sick of it.

  Fluffy didn’t pull his hand back, though he wasn’t normally the touchy kind. “Of course I do. So long as I don’t have to sling lattes anymore.”

  “And what about you, sweetheart?”

  “I’m fine with my lies.”

  “Your lies? Little stories. Worthless.”

  “Have you even read any of them?”

  “If they’re any good, you should just be able to tell them to me. They’re not important. Come do something important.”

  “Not important? A parable is the original mind control.”

  Caleb was still grinning, but the corner of his mouth twitched in a way that Sandy was pretty sure was deliberate and supposed to look spontaneous. “You’re afraid.”

  “The hell you say.” She picked up her beer and stood up, tumbling Monster onto his back. Then she headed for the fence.

  “Sandy!” someone said behind her, but it was Fluffy’s voice, not Caleb’s, and she tossed the beer over her shoulder so she would have both hands free as she scrambled over the fence.

  She woke up with no sense of the geography around her, and realized that she’d fallen asleep on the couch with her shoes still on. It was still black night out, and something was tapping against her window.

  She sat up and switched off the light. No sense making it easy for whoever it was.

  The tapping came again. It was very quiet, more of a bump than a tap. It shouldn’t have woken her up. But here she was.

  As her eyes adjusted, she was able to make out Monster, perched on her windowsill and head-butting the glass.

  “What do you want,” she muttered. He kept on head-butting.

  “Okay, okay.” She stood up, opened the window. He thumped to the floor immediately and then jumped onto the futon.

  “Well, at least now he’ll have to talk with me when he’s sober,” she added as she shut the window. “You might be more comfortable on the bed, big guy. I know I will.”

  Monster followed her into the bedroom, leaped onto the pillow.

  “Don’t smother me in my sleep, okay? I’ve got it hard enough already.”

  There were people shouting somewhere outside. She looked at the clock. Sure enough, closing time.

  It was two in the afternoon before she woke up again, and then only because Monster had knocked over the garbage can.

  “Do you like eggs?” she asked him, and though he ignored this suggestion to keep pawing at an empty taco wrapper, she threw an extra one into the frying pan anyway. Her head felt like someone had wrapped giant rubber bands around it in her sleep. No more Fireball, she decided. Not worth it to be polite.

  Monster was just finishing his egg, served on her second-best plate because there was no third-best plate, when she happened to glance out the living-room window.

  The old apartment building over the fence was blackened and broken, roof caved in, windows shattered.

  “Jesus Christ, you fucking idiots!” She grabbed for her phone and dialed Fluffy’s number. It kicked directly to voicemail.

  It seemed to take a long time to get Jake’s number pulled up from her contacts.

  “Are you at the Break right now?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong? You sound freaked.”

  “Is Fluffy there this morning?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “I think something really bad might have happened. Grab a newspaper.”

  There was a moment’s rustling and rearranging. “Oh fuck. Is that the old Victorian right by your apartment?”

  “That burned down? Yeah. Caleb lives there, and I know for a fact that Fluffy was over last night.”

  Jake’s long exhale was almost, but not quite, a moan.

  “What does it say? When did the fire start? I looked out there at like two and didn’t see anything at all, but I heard some noise.”

  “Let’s see … shit, you might want to talk to the cops.”

  “Not if it’s going to get Fluffy in trouble.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for him.”

  “Shit. Shit shit shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How? What the hell happened?”

  “They found him on the first floor, rearmost apartment. Which looks to be the one where the fire started.”

  “Yeah, that’s Caleb’s place.”

  “Says here it had been unoccupied for a couple months.”

  Monster jumped onto the couch beside her and began eating the eggs off h
er plate. “Jake, I think you should call the dog Cassandra.”

  Jake said something, but it came out more like a sob.

  “And this cat,” she said, realizing it would make no sense but Jake wasn’t listening anyway, “I’m going to call the cat Fluffy Jr.”

  Catherine and the Satyr

  Theodora Goss

  “You’ve come back,” said the satyr.

  Where was he? Somewhere in the shadows. She could identify him only by the intolerable stench.

  “I have an ostrich,” said the Earl of Aberdeen. “An ostrich from Africa, that von Plettemberg sent me. Packed it in the crate he used to ship his port. Damned animal smelled of port for a month. I have an orang-outang, looks as intelligent as the boy here. I bought him off a sailor on an East Indiaman. His name is Ram—Ramnath—some long damned nuisance of a name. I just call him boy. Used to get pelicans from India, Buffon would send them to me. Delicate creatures, pelicans, they never live long. Everyone used to go to Buffon, even William of Orange. He always got the best shipments. Have you read his Histoire Naturelle? Got one in the library here, and one in London. Damned expensive book. But since the war, you can’t get a thing from France. Now, here’s my wolf. He came from America. Damn the Americans, since the war I can’t even get decent brandy.”

  “And the price of stockings! Shocking, I call it,” said Miss Montrose. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Kemble? Mr. Kemble knows all about the price of silk stockings, I assure you, Mrs. Byron.” She tapped Mr. Kemble playfully with her fan.

  “Looks a bit mangy now,” said the earl. “Did you feed him those lamb shanks I gave you, eh, boy? He’s frightened of the wolf, doesn’t want to go near him. What do you think I bought you for, you rascal? To sit on your arse all day in the sun? Get the zebra some water. If Georgie were interested, I’d give him one of my gazelles. But all Georgie cares about is politics. What kind of life is that, for a son of mine? What I want, of course, is an elephant. Not even King Louis, damn the French, has an elephant. But I’ve got something—I think you’ll agree, Kemble, that you won’t see anything like this in London, or Paris or Amsterdam either. Now don’t get too close. The beast can spit.”