by Meg Howrey
I was glad that I hadn’t gone off the pill, but it did seem like a condom should be used. I hurried into Gwen’s bedroom and checked the nightstand drawer. There were no contraceptives in there.
There was a rope.
A rope with one end knotted in a noose. Not expertly knotted. Would it have worked, even?
I greeted this object with resignation. I had been wondering where it was, actually.
I didn’t touch it. It was lying by itself, not covered up or anything. There was nothing else in the drawer. Klaus was buzzing the intercom. I shut the drawer slowly and walked, quite sedately, over to the buzzer. Well, then, I said. Possibly out loud. I took a sip of wine. Things were beginning to feel a little fuzzy.
I showed Klaus into the living room, not really sure what to do with him or where to put him, or myself.
“Nice place,” said Klaus.
“It’s my sister’s,” I said. “My, um, I was living with my ex and we broke up so I’m sort of …”
“Couch surfing?”
“Well, no,” I said. “There’s like … a bed.”
“That’s good,” Klaus said, taking off his jacket.
It became clear to me that there was a bad-idea component to the evening. On the other hand, if I sent Klaus away then it would just be me and the rope.
“So Klaus,” I said.
“Kate.”
“So,” I said.
“Yes?”
This seemed like it could go on indefinitely.
“I’m not really sure if—” I began, but Klaus advanced, grabbed me by the back of the head, and pulled me to his mouth. I was reminded of something Andrew once said. “For a guy, sex is always something that’s in front of you. I don’t mean in the future. I mean physically in front of you.”
There is no future. There is only what is physically in front of you.
Klaus picked me up and carried me to the bedroom. It was possible, I thought, that other drawers contained other weapons. Gwen could have the entire arsenal of the Clue game hidden. A candlestick. A lead pipe. A revolver.
Klaus took off my shirt, then his. Well, bare skin always feels good against bare skin, and Klaus was a very good kisser. No strange techniques or excessive saliva. As he worked his way down, his belt buckle dug in between my legs for a moment and this felt very good, so I held on to his shoulders, pinioning him against me. Opening my eyes, I watched him struggling to kick off his boots, but they were cowboy boots (of course they were) and they really required two hands.
Probably not a gun. Gwen wouldn’t have a gun. New York isn’t like Louisiana or something where you can just walk into any old Walmart and pick up an assault rifle. We don’t even have a Walmart. You’d have to go to like, Hoboken or something. Staten Island? And it’s not like guns come with instruction manuals.
Do they?
I slid out from under Klaus and scootched down to the end of the bed to pull off his boots. Underneath them, he was wearing white tube socks. Little-boy socks. I pulled them off. His feet were very cold. Klaus undid his belt buckle and unzipped his jeans. The top of his cock became visible. I brought myself into the plank position over him. My wet hair fell past my shoulders on either side of his face.
“You smell good,” he said.
“Aveda,” I explained. “Shampoo for blondes.”
“But you’re not a blonde,” he murmured, sliding the yoga pants off my hips. I buried my face in his neck. Even without the leather jacket, Klaus smelled very good. We must use compatible products.
I couldn’t picture Gwen purchasing the rope. I couldn’t picture her forming it into a noose. Don’t you need to make a special kind of knot? I wondered if Gwen had a secret stash of pills anywhere, and how much Vicodin you had to take for it to knock you off. Would you just throw up all over yourself and start to suffocate or would the ickiness of that make you struggle and try to save yourself. A gun would be the best way. There’s probably only a moment of pain. What’s one tiny little moment?
Klaus rolled me off him and stood up by the side of the bed in order to pull off his jeans. I kicked the covers down with my feet and propped myself up on one elbow to watch him. Klaus touched his erection proudly. It’s a great-looking cock, I’ll give him that. It was just, at that particular moment, I couldn’t see that it had anything to do with me, other than being physically in front of me. Klaus climbed back into bed and attacked what was in front of him, which was, coincidentally, me. He pinned my hands above my head and sucked hard at my neck, my armpit, my breast. He flipped me on my side and shoved his cock against my ass, moaning. He brought one of my hands down in between my legs and, covering it with his own, rubbed both our hands against me.
An embroidered throw pillow in the oven, ribbons of blood unfurling in a bathtub. I never really believed Gwen was going to kill herself. Even when she was standing before me in the posture of one who was about to kill herself, I did not believe her. I didn’t call Dad because I thought she was going to kill herself. I called Dad because I wanted to get rid of her.
“Are you on the pill?” Klaus whispered, rolling me onto my back and bringing my knees to my chest. I nodded, but Klaus’s eyes were shut. His blond hair was streaked with sweat.
“I am,” I said. “But shouldn’t we—”
“It’s okay,” he said into my thighs, biting them. “Don’t worry. I’ll be safe.”
I wanted to laugh. “Oh, really,” I could have said. “While you lick my pussy I could reach out with one arm and pull a gun out of the bedside table. I could aim for one of the masking-tape Xs on the wall opposite the bed. I could aim for my own head.” Then I remembered that it was a rope in the bedside table, not a gun. What a stupid thing a rope is. Couldn’t you have left me something a little better, Gwen?
Klaus was inside me then.
It’s chemical. An imbalance. Mine is spiked with Vicodin, what do you have, Gwen? Mom wants you to get off drugs altogether. You could have more electrolytes or antioxidants or oxidants or antitoxins or octogenarians or toxic orangutans. That would be funny, wouldn’t it? If you turned out to be just fine.
I wondered what I could do that would make Klaus spend the night. I really didn’t want to be left alone with the rope and Gwen hovering just outside my peripheral vision, daring me to prove how much stronger I am. Or am not.
“You’re going to make me come,” I told Klaus, who shook his head, tried to stop himself from orgasm, failed, caught it midway and enjoyed it, fell down on one elbow, shuddered, but theatrically, for the sensation of it.
After a minute I gently tipped him off, putting his chest between me and the nightstand.
Fall asleep, I willed him. Fall asleep and don’t wake up till it’s morning.
“I’m falling asleep,” Klaus said after a few minutes. “I should get up.”
“Okay.”
His feet were still cold. I thought of his tube socks on the floor at the foot of the bed. I didn’t want to watch him look for his socks.
“I’m going to get some water,” I said. “Do you want?”
The kitchen tiles were very cold under my feet and the edge of the glass felt very hard under my teeth. Klaus’s arms, when he hugged me good-bye, were still a little sweaty.
“Hey,” he said. “Just between you and me, right? I don’t want any drama at work.”
“Of course,” I said. “No drama.”
I smiled and shut the door. I heard him walk down the hall, cowboy boots on thin carpet. I imagined I could hear the creak of his leather jacket as he pushed the elevator-door button. I heard the soft ding, the uneven rumble of the doors sliding open. The doors sliding shut. That little ca-chung sound that signals descent has begun.
“Well,” I said, turning around in the darkness. “I guess it’s just you and me.”
26.
I stood against the door for a long time last night. Eventually I sat down. I think I must have slept a little, at one point. I woke up thinking, It won’t ever end. I got up, went into t
he bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror. Looked at us. How could it end? Here we are, forever clasped, like two boxers staggering around the ring. Too tired to let go of each other, eyes shut. Clinging to each other’s sweaty backs, mouths open against each other’s shoulders. We will die this way, neither submitting. But neither of us is dying.
It’s Wendy who’s dying. And it’s Wendy I went to see, because that’s what you are supposed to do. You are supposed to just go until there’s nothing left to go to.
Karine let me in, as before.
“Does she know I’m here?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell her,” Karine said. “Sometimes people change their mind and do not come, so I think it is better not, for sick person, to be waiting. She will be happy to see you.” Karine patted my shoulder.
“I give her morphine now,” Karine said. “So she might fade a little, but she might want to talk. Her friend was here yesterday. They have nice talk. Sometimes, it’s very bad, the going, but this will not be bad.”
“I brought some flowers,” I said, unnecessarily, clutching them. “Is that stupid? Should I?”
“Yes. You go on now. Bring them to her and I will find a vase.”
I watched my feet walk down the hallway.
“Wendy?”
Wendy’s bedroom was bright, the curtains drawn back, all the lights on. I was expecting something somber, but rooms have no sense of occasion. They just go on being rooms no matter what happens in them.
Her bedroom had also gotten more crowded. Paintings leaned against the walls. A bookcase had been moved in, and stacks of other books were in piles on the floor. There was also, it must be said, a smell. I walked into it, trying not to flinch. Wendy’s bed was angled into a half-sitting position, but her eyes were closed. I put the flowers at the end of her bed, in between the little mounds of her feet under the blanket.
“Oh goodness, Kate dear.” Wendy licked her lips. Her head was covered with a silk scarf, yellow, with white daisies. It was sheer enough that I could see the pink of her scalp below it. Her skin still had that strange pearl-like sheen. But she looked smaller. She had been such a tall woman. Was. Was almost, still. Would soon be not.
“What time is it?” she looked worried.
“Eleven.”
“Eleven in the morning?” Wendy looked at the window. I took her hand. I’m not sure that I ever held her hand before. It was cold, but her fingers moved in mine, gripped them. “Another morning,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But you dance tonight,” Wendy said, with surprising energy. She sat up a little. “You dance Titania tonight. You should be preparing.”
“Oh, you know,” I said, leaning against the bed. “There’s plenty of … I’m ready. I’m not. Don’t worry about that.”
“We were going to have it broadcasted on the radio,” she said, shutting her eyes again and smiling. “Remember?”
“Like a baseball game,” I said. “That’s right.”
“What do you think of my new decor?” she said. “Karine and I have been redecorating.”
I looked around at the haphazard piles. Some things I recognized. The big oil painting from the library had replaced the one that used to hang opposite her bed.
“I always loved that painting,” I said.
“Theseus,” Wendy said. “I always thought that could make an interesting ballet. Theseus celebrating his triumph over the Minotaur. You remember the story.”
“Right. King Minos and the Athenian youth who were collected and sacrificed to the Minotaur every year. And there was a labyrinth,” I said, looking at the painting, which was not strictly representational. It was hard to look at Wendy and I couldn’t just hover over her, staring at her, too obviously trying to commit every detail of her face to memory. “What’s-her-name, King Minos’s daughter, told Theseus how to navigate the labyrinth so he could slay the Minotaur. And she gave him a ball of string so he could follow the thread back out.”
“Ariadne,” corrected Wendy. “The string was called a clue.”
“Right. Ariadne. Theseus dumps her on an island, right? After she saves his life, he sails away with her and then just leaves her somewhere. Naxos?” I looked over my shoulder.
“According to Hesiod, yes,” Wendy said. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling. “Homer says that Theseus slew her, possibly because he learned she was already married to Dionysus. But we needn’t feel too sorry for Ariadne. By most other accounts, Dionysus found her on Naxos, and married her, and she bore him children. So, things could have gone much worse for her, and you know they generally did for women, so it’s really almost a sweet tale. Until Perseus shows up and slays her, although accounts differ there too. Some say she hanged herself. Tilt me up, dear? There’s a button, I think? Some sort of control thing on the side of the bed?”
I bent over the side of the bed. I saw the little control device, hanging from a curly wire. There was a stick-figure man stenciled on it, his differing posture indicating what button to hit to adjust the bed. I couldn’t operate it. I could barely see.
“I’ll call Karine,” Wendy said.
“No, no, here it is. I’ve got it.” I can’t do this, I thought. I thought it over quickly several times and then tilted Wendy a few degrees upright.
“Glasses?” Wendy murmured, reaching a hand out to the tray next to her bed. “Kate, would you?”
She took them from me and perched them on the end of her nose, looking at the painting, not at me. Which meant I could look at her for a moment. There was a thin blue vein underneath her ear, tracing its way into the collar of the nubby sweater she had on.
“I bought it at the gallery I love,” Wendy said. “In Prague. It’s by a Greek artist, not well known. I don’t suppose it’s an important piece, but I just love it.”
“Me too,” I said. “It looks like Theseus is dancing, sort of.”
“He is.” Wendy took off her glasses and closed her eyes. She began to recite:
Now Theseus, in his return from Crete, put in at Delos, and having sacrificed to the god of the island, dedicated to the temple the image of Venus which Ariadne had given him, and danced with the young Athenians a dance that, in memory of him, they say is still preserved among the inhabitants of Delos, consisting in certain measured turnings and returnings, imitative of the windings and twistings of the labyrinth. And this dance is called among the Delians, the Crane Dance.
“Wow,” I said. “Why did they call it the Crane Dance, though? Why not the Labyrinth Dance? Or the Hey, I Slew the Minotaur Dance?”
Wendy smiled, which was what I was hoping for, but then she looked worried.
“I can’t remember the Greek word for ‘crane,’ ” she said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You just recited Homer. You’re the only person I know who can do that.”
Everything you say to a person who is dying feels like slightly the wrong thing. It’s amazing how loaded our vocabulary is with words that can go wrong. Soon I wouldn’t know anyone who could recite Homer.
“Plutarch,” Wendy corrected. “Not Homer. But the word for ‘crane.’ I can’t remember. It’s … oh, this is really … this is very …”
“You’ll remember it,” I told her. “You’ll be thinking of something else and you’ll remember it.”
“When?” she asked. “When will I remember it? I need to know it now, Kate. Oh, what is it? Why can’t I remember?”
Her eyes weren’t quite focused, because of the morphine, maybe. Maybe because she needed more morphine. She reached out for my hand, and I could feel that she wanted to grip it, but she wasn’t strong enough. The feebleness of her grip seemed to make both of us panic.
“It’s okay,” I said. She shook her head.
“It’s in the library,” she said. “A Greek dictionary. Not the modern Greek. The ancient Greek.”
“Okay. Ancient Greek dictionary. I’m on it.”
“You won’t be able to find it,” Wendy said. Her breathing changed. “Oh,
why can’t I get up?”
“You should rest,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
“You won’t find it.” Wendy tried to swallow. The effort it took her made it seem as if she were swallowing a boulder.
“I’ll find it,” I said. “Or wait, my phone. I can look it up. Look, here’s my phone.”
“Kate.” I didn’t know if she was crying or her eyes were watering.
“I know, just one second. See: ancient Greek crane. Oh crap, that’s just mechanical cranes. Okay, ancient Greek dictionary. Do you want me to call Karine? Do you need something for the pain?”
Wendy nodded a child’s nod, her eyes locked on mine. I didn’t want to let go of her hand. I tried to think of something to say. Something that wouldn’t hurt.
“Kate, did you find it? I need to know the word. I can’t remember it.”
I looked down at my phone. Ancient Greek dictionary. I typed the word “crane” with my free thumb, hit the search button.
“I’ll go get Karine,” I said.
Wendy nodded again, but her weak fingers threaded through mine.
“Okay, here it is,” I said. “Oh. Oh, it’s in … the Greek alphabet. Here, you can read it.” I held the phone out, but Wendy shook her head.
“Oh, your glasses,” I said. But my hands were full. Wendy half turned on her side, pulling her legs slightly toward her body, trying, I think, to curl into a ball. There was a portable intercom on Wendy’s bedside table, but I didn’t know how it worked. Did I need to push a button?
“Karine?” I said. And then, louder, “Karine!”
“Just describe the letters,” Wendy said.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I held up the phone. The letters were so small.
“What does the first one look like?”
Karine came in, not running, but moving swiftly.
“All right now,” she said.
“She’s in pain,” I said.
“She’s not in pain,” Karine said, placing a large hand on Wendy’s shoulder. “Are you in pain, Mrs. Hedges?”