Scenes From the Second Storey

by Mark S. Deniz

  Yes. Of course there is. Because he still believes it. His dream keeps it alive for both of them.

  "I do love you."

  He coughs, his stomach jerking to the clicks of her claws.

  "I love you too, Kurt. More than you'll ever understand. I've had six other lovers in my life. I didn't love any of them the way I love you. None of them lasted more than a few weeks and here we still are after all these months."

  Still? So did that mean—

  "The trouble is love changes and we can't keep up. We refuse to change. Until now, that is. Now people can become anything. I chose that aspect of the AnthropomorphoMass that most accurately represents me. I changed, Kurt. I've done what lovers never do and because of that at least part of our dream remains intact."

  Kurt's mind is slow with fever and fear. But the things she's saying are breaking through to him. Six other lovers? Had they been the other prisoners in this lair of hers? No one had escaped, that was certain. The crawling sounds he'd heard were Stacy leaving him alone after hours of her click-song serenade. Maybe she'd become human again for a while before returning. He could imagine the rocks and thorn bushes at the mouth of this burrow cutting her soft human skin like tissue paper.

  Had she just said their dream was still alive?

  "What do you mean?"

  He was going to say What do you mean, Stacy but he couldn't use her name, not for this creature. The scorpion was not Stacy Sickler. It was merely how she saw herself.

  Oh Dear God, please let me have the opportunity to prove that to her.

  "We're going to be a family, Kurt."

  We're going to what?

  The clicking accelerated. The twitching in his guts answered its beat.

  "None of the others loved me the way you do, Kurt. None of them had the opportunity to come this far with me."

  And now, by the growing light, he could see each chamber, specially dug and worked by those pincers and by her claw-like mouthparts, and how she'd produced some tough insect resin within which to seal and restrain each man. How, when they'd failed her love tests out in the world, she had brought them here because they had not loved her enough. The burst open barriers were not forced from the inside. No man had that strength. Stacy had first torn open the barriers and then torn open her lovers. And, Kurt was now absolutely certain, she had eaten them. Right here in her den.

  Even as he thought this, the hooked barb that was her sting appeared over her back and extended through the mesh into his chamber. He scrabbled to get away, scraping his skin open in many places, but there was nowhere to go.

  "Please, Stacy. Please, don't poison me."

  "You mustn't struggle, Kurt. You might hurt them."

  Hurt them?

  Finally, the glamour around her is gone. Was this what it took? All this? Christ, how could he have been so self-deluding? Stacy didn't love him. She never had. Stacy wasn't capable of love. She was only capable of damage. To herself and to others. He could see that now. Down here in this pit that would see out his final moments. Even now she was looking right through him to what it was she wanted. And that had nothing to do with love.

  The sting extended towards his face and he twisted away from it. Slinging a handful of his wet shit through the barrier had no effect. There had to be something else he could do, some other way of stopping her. The sting jabbed, piercing his neck and silencing him in the same instant. Burning and numbness spread into his head and body.

  He pointed a finger at her and whispered one more word.

  "Liar."

  The numbness never reached his abdomen. His stomach bulged and spasmed. He felt every tear as the hundreds of members of their infant family ripped their way out of him with needle fine pincers, eating their father frantically as they came, stinging him further in their frenzy of hunger and inexperience. Their tiny discordant shrieks were, like their mother's, inhuman. Their cries filled his head as his children filled their own insectoid mouths with the meat of him, with the substance, the true substance of Kurt Dunne's love.

  Purity

  T. A. Moore

  London, 2010

  Cameras flashed the minute they stepped out of the theatre. Voices yelled for them to look this way, pose, give us a smile, luv. The little blonde bit clung to Malcolm's arm like she was afraid she'd be washed away if she released her grip. Natalie allowed herself a sharp, cynical off-camera smile. It probably was a danger. The girl was size zero, all Bratz doll head and bones like axe blades, and looked like a strong wind would blow her away. It was amazing that she'd not broken to smithereens like a china doll under Malcolm's weight. He'd always been more enthusiastic than tender, and ever since—

  "Mrs Damas," someone yelled. Natalie looked in the direction of the voice but she couldn't see who it was through the disco strobe flashes from the wall of photographers. "Did you like the film?"

  She gave a practised smile, knowing the emptiness in her eyes wouldn't show up on camera.

  "Of course," she said. "Scorched Espresso was my baby too. Mal and I have been trying to get the funding to make it for years."

  "It's why we got married," Malcolm interjected. He stepped towards her, the blonde bit stuttering along on her heels beside him, and slung an arm around Natalie's shoulders. The cameras went mad. All three of them tilted their heads together and smiled into the glare. "So we wouldn't have to stop working to go home."

  Laughter rippled. Natalie bit the inside of her lip hard to stop her smile from tightening and betraying her. She tasted blood. Malcolm charmed like he breathed — but his charm had a half-life. After a night's sleep, or even if there was a traffic jam on the way back to the office tonight, it would have worn off. And the headlines tomorrow would be...Malcolm Damas in Loveless Marriage Claims or Damas Marriage Under Siege.

  Natalie cut a quick look over Malcolm's chest at the little starlet mugging like she was Marilyn for the cameras.

  Second Mrs Damas in the Wings, maybe.

  She should be so lucky.

  "Mrs Damas. Natalie." The same voice. "Wasn't the role of Tiffany Foster originally meant for you?"

  Despite herself Natalie stiffened. From the corner of her eye she saw Malcolm's smile deepen, calling up the dimples his fans venerated.

  "Originally," Natalie said. Her voice sounded dry, but she could work with that. "Ten years ago. It seems a little desperate to keep trying to pass for a teenager."

  Lights flashed, Malcolm's arm lay hot and heavy on her shoulders and a migraine hooked its spines into her brain.

  London, 2000

  Natalie threw the passenger door open and jumped out of the car before Malcolm had stopped at the curve. Her shoes, all gem-studded straps and spike heels, dangled from one hand and her faux-fur from the other. The concrete was bitterly cold under her bare feet as she stomped up the steps and hammered on the door, her heels scarring the paintwork. After a couple of seconds the au pair opened the door, jabbering anxiously about something in German. Natalie didn't care what. She pushed past the girl into the hall — upstairs Pyskie wailed like a banshee — and turned to slam the door shut in Malcolm's face. He got his foot into the gap just in time and cursed as she crushed it.

  "Serves you right," she spat.

  He shouldered the door open and limped into the hall, kicking it shut behind him. Curtains would be twitching along the street. This would be all over the newspapers tomorrow. Not first page, it had happened too many times before, but at least in the first seven.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" Malcolm demanded.

  The au pair scampered away upstairs, out of the line of fire. Natalie threw her shoes down into the corner and stalked into the kitchen.

  "Me?" she tossed over her shoulder. "What's wrong with you? We've been looking for someone to bankroll our production for a year. I finally get talking—"

  "Is that what you call it?"

  "—to someone who might be willing to help and you have to act like a Neanderthal."

  "You were in his
fucking lap"

  Natalie got the vodka out of the fridge and took a swig straight from the bottle, making Malcolm grimace and look away. Moralistic bastard, like he'd never touched a drop. It used to be she was the one telling him to slow down. Upstairs Pysk's wails quieted. At last, about time the au pair did her job.

  The vodka bit at her throat and soured in her stomach. She flicked strands of titian hair out of her face with perfectly polished fingers. The colour was still — mostly — natural.

  "You catch more flies with honey," she said. "Rich flies at that."

  Malcolm stared at her, all the expression drained from his face. The usually mobile features were slack, hanging off the bone, and his eyes looked like bruises.

  "You'd have gone through with it," he said. "If I'd not caught you, you'd have screwed that fat git for the money."

  The disgust in his voice stung, catching Natalie on the raw, and she took another drink of vodka to clean the wound. She shrugged with elaborate callousness, the spaghetti strap of her top slipping off the curve of her shoulder.

  "So?" she said. "We need him. It's just sex — no different from that threesome with Cindy we had."

  "That was before we were married," Malcolm said. He just sounded tired now. "Before we had a daughter. We can't keep doing this, Nat. We're not spoilt kids with more money than sense any more. We have responsibilities."

  That was what she loved about vodka. Whiskey and gin worked too, but nothing gave her that lovely self-righteous glow like vodka. Natalie slammed the bottle down on the table.

  "Responsibilities? Like keeping this over-priced roof over our heads and Ella to take care of Pysk? Those responsibilities? Because you haven't been contributing much towards that recently, so don't look at me like I'm some slapper because I'm doing what I have to."

  Malcolm's hands tightened into fists and his jaw clenched until the muscle throbbed in his cheek. It looked like one of his terrible rages was brewing. Natalie braced herself for what he'd throw — bottle, or table.

  Instead he flattened his hands out.

  "No," he said. "Not we, I. I can't do this anymore."

  He got up and walked out of the kitchen, ignoring the fish-wife insults she screeched at his back. After a minute, feeling shabby and cheap and alone, Natalie went quiet and sat down at the kitchen table, throat working around the hot, dry need to cry and her inability to do so.

  London, 2010

  Natalie closed the door to the bedroom and stepped out of her shoes. Slim arms twisted around to unzip the back of her dress and she sloughed the glittering fabric like a second skin. She left it puddled on the floor and walked over to the window in her bra and panties. The cold that leaked through the glass made her skin goose-pimple.

  The blonde was sobbing like a child, great, racking hysterical sobs that left no room for breathing. Like a child. She was a child, near enough. Seventeen? Eighteen? Malcolm had told her, but Natalie rarely bothered to remember such details. She'd be legal — he was careful about that, but he did like to get them young.

  "You're making a show of yourself," Malcolm said coldly. "Again."

  "B…but I don't understand."

  "Just how thick are you? You embarrassed me, and yourself. Rubbing yourself all over me like you were in heat when my wife was standing right beside me. I know you've the morals of an alley cat, but at least try and show some class."

  "Your wife? Since when do you care about that old hag? You said you loved me, that you'd…"

  Malcolm's laughter made Natalie shiver more than the cold.

  "Don't believe everything someone tells you to get you into bed," he said. "Now get out of here. You're on GMTV in the morning and we want you to look fresh-faced and innocent. So try and wear something you didn't buy off a streetwalker."

  He poured the girl and her sobs into the car. The driver, used to this by now, drove off the grounds.

  Show over.

  Natalie went into the bathroom to wash her make-up off. It took longer than it had when she was younger, one of these days she'd need a pick to chisel the filler out of her wrinkles. She stared at her face in the mirror, tight skin at the corner of her eyes and the few wrinkles around her mouth, the hair that was mostly dye these days.

  The door to the bedroom opened and closed. Malcolm was humming to himself. It had been a good night for him. Natalie finished washing her face and went out to see him. He sat on the end of the bed, pulling his shoes off. The newspapers all said she looked good for her age, but when they said he'd gotten better with age they weren't lying. Even his receeding hairline just made him look distinguished.

  "If she tops herself," she said, "Eamon'll not be happy."

  He laughed and slipped his cufflinks free, tossing the silver ornaments in his hand like dice. She'd given them to him for his birthday. Then she'd told him she was pregnant. He'd been so…happy, not what she'd expected at all.

  "She'll be fine," he said. "I know what I'm doing. You look like hell. Old. Maybe you should call Dr Samuels again."

  It hurt, not because of the insult but because she knew it was meant to wound. Her fingers still found their way to her face and smoothed out the lines.

  "It's her birthday tomorrow," she said. "Pysk."

  He stared at her and there was nothing in his eyes she could touch.

  London, 2000

  Their picture had made the first page. Malcolm and his new girlfriend at the beach with Pysk, all bright swimsuits and lotion shiny smiles over a sandcastle. He'd put on weight, a roll of fat hanging over his trunks, and her hair was a mess. They looked like a family. Natalie folded the paper, hiding them under the crease, and threw it down on the table. Her agent, Jessica, set her coffee cup down on top of it. Coffee drips blurred the edges of the C in Concorde.

  "He's getting the high ground, Nat," Jessica said. She tapped a bitten fingernail against the paper. "Family values. Family holidays. Even the girlfriend looks like prime mommy material with those hips. You need to do something."

  Natalie slouched back. Through the lenses of her sunglasses everything was tinted a rather bilious shade of green, it made her hangover feel at home.

  "Oh please," she said. "They're at Blackpool. Pull the focus back a bit and you'll see the meth heads in the background."

  Disapproval furrowed Jessica's face, deepening the lines. She was five years older than Natalie and didn't bother to try and hide it — her hair was an un-dyed magpie nest of black and white and she didn't even wear makeup half the time. That was one of the benefits of being behind the throne, she claimed.

  "People like him," she said.

  "Five years ago they had a dead pool on whether he'd die from an overdose or in a car accident."

  Jessica shook her head and stubbed out a cigarette in the ashtray, slipping another from the packet and lighting it. She inhaled and pursed her lips, breathing out a mist of blue-grey smoke.

  "Yeah, and now he's cleaned up his act. He's looking like the good guy in this break-up Natalie, and you can't afford that."

  Natalie grimaced sourly.

  "He's not the man I married," she said. "He abandoned me."

  Jessica sighed and stood up, gathering her paper and shopping and a bulging hand-bag. She dropped a wrinkled twenty on her plate, weighting it down with the crust of the sandwich she didn't eat.

  "People change," she said.

  Natalie pouted up at her. "I didn't."

  Another shrug and Jessica was gone too. Two or three more meetings like this and Natalie figured she'd get a Dear Client letter in the post. Jessica had a rat's survival instincts where drowning careers were concerned. Natalie picked up the metal napkin holder and stared at her reflection in the dented, smudged surface. There was lipstick on her front teeth, she licked a finger and rubbed it away.

  "I can help," a man said.

  Natalie sighed and pressed a finger to her temple. "Not today, ok," she said. "I'm too sick to fuck."

  He sat down opposite her anyhow, pushing the remnants of Je
ssica's meal out of his way. Natalie licked her lips and thought about reconsidering that statement. She slid her glasses down her nose and studied him without the green tint. A bit old for her usual tastes — his hair was charcoal coloured and pulled back in a metal-roadie ponytail — but his face was tight and his body taut with muscle.

  "I didn't mean that," he said. "I can help with your husband."

  For a minute she thought he was some sort of assassin for hire. He turned out to be something else entirely.

  London, 2010

  It wasn't the same house. They'd moved shortly after it happened — to heal, he'd told the press, and regroup. He'd brought it all with him though, from her favourite teddy bear to the scuffed shoes she'd nearly out-grown. The walls were even painted the same shade of lilac that Pyskie had picked out herself. No-one else ever saw the room, only the two of them.

  Anyone else and she'd have called it a shrine, but that wasn't Malcolm. He'd wept in public but been dry-eyed in private.

  Maybe he was still waiting to feel something.

  Natalie sat down on the edge of the pink princess castle bed and pulled a fluffy pink rug around her bare shoulders. She fancied she could still, if she held her breath and closed her eyes, smell the faded, ghost scent of raspberry shampoo and little girl on it.

  Maybe he kept it to punish her.

  The floor creaked but Natalie didn't open her eyes.

  "Go back to bed," Malcolm told her. "It's too late for this."

  "It's her tenth birthday," she said.

  "No," he corrected her. "It would have been her tenth birthday, but our daughter's dead, Natalie. You know that. After all, you're the one that killed her."

  Natalie made a choked sound and wished that she could cry.

  London, 2000

  "…going to be a surprisingly nice day after the storms we had—"

  Natalie flicked the radio off, silencing the weather man, and glanced across the car at Malcolm in the passenger seat. You could have cut the atmosphere in the car with a knife. They'd agreed to put their differences aside today, for Pysk's birthday, and take her out for a picnic. It hadn't exactly gone to plan. He'd been angry when Natalie refused to let his girlfriend in the car and she'd been furious when he told the reporters there was no way they were getting back together.