Whatever the Impulse

by Tina Amiri

  He couldn’t believe it either.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but I thought about you a lot.”

  “I think about you all the time.”

  She always looked amused when he tried to be serious, but her focus left him to flit around the property before it came to rest on an abandoned pile of logs near her car. “Do you chop the wood?”

  He nodded. It had been his job since childhood to keep the home and work fireplaces burning.

  “Maybe you can cut some for me later?” She turned to look over her shoulder as though the ocean had just called her by name.

  Night showed her the beach, and the window above a vine covered rock-cut that happened to be the view from his room. She winked and, once again, her eyes went in search of a new distraction. She reminded him of the capricious winds on the bay; each moment carried her boldly in a different direction. Her loose, fiery hair danced in the wind to the beat of her full beige skirt as she flung off her shoes and teetered along the edge of the breaking waves. Likely with numbed feet, she returned and looked up at him. She contorted her hands in an effort to say something.

  He squinted at her attempt.

  “I’ve been practicing,” she announced. “Don’t you understand? …I guess I’m not very good.”

  Guilt and resentment caused his shoulders and every feature in his face to fall.

  “What’s wrong, Night? You don’t think it matters to me that you can’t hear, do you? It really doesn’t matter to me. I know we haven’t spent much time together, but I already like everything about you. I love what I see. I love the way you move, the way your hands move, and how you sometimes throw your hair while you’re working…” She tossed her head in an effort to imitate him. “You wouldn’t believe how that makes me hot. And I love the way you smile, even though you don’t do it often—but I have seen you do it. And I don’t know if you know this, but when you speak, you have a nice voice. I love being around you, and how you make me feel… It’s chemistry. Do you get what I’m saying? Do you understand me?”

  Night nodded in a daze. He noticed but didn’t care that Daphne seemed to be testing him with increasingly elaborate speech.

  “Night, I want you…as much as on that first day when I went to see you at the restaurant and my friends thought you were nothing more than a challenge to me. Well, you’re a challenge for sure, but you’re way more than that. Please tell me…do you feel anywhere near the same?”

  The kiss that followed sent his mind whirling. He closed his eyes and concentrated on every motion of her lips. He sensed exactly how much they parted, and how often, and how her head shifted, and for what purpose, and he mimicked her. Before he knew it, he was leading. His tongue traced lightly across her candy-flavored lip gloss, and then between her gentle teeth. He’d now experienced her through all his five senses and he enjoyed every one of them. Inside the cold air, he was burning up. The salt in the breeze seasoning her skin—his too, apparently—and she began tasting it on his fingers until he felt like he was going to faint. On a blanket of dryer sand, she sank down over him, never letting their lips part. Her skirt billowed clear from under her and she straddled his right hip, letting the hardness he sustained beneath his zipper push up into the burrow beneath her thin underpants. Bracing her ankles beneath his legs, she pressed down on him and stirred, and he found out that he could intensify the effect by joining in. His kisses became hungrier and she eagerly fed them. His restless hands searched for a way to get between their bodies so he could free his pleading parts. Just then, a rogue wave collapsed behind them and Daphne shrieked as she bore the brunt of the icy shower. She scrambled off him and rolled her head onto his firm upper arm.

  “Next time, my love,” she voiced lightly, through a sigh.

  As he stared at the clouds, devastated, Daphne reactivated. She turned toward him and draped one knee over his thighs; then she opened his pants. Far surpassing any of his own past efforts, she used her hands and raised him like dominos to topple dynamically through her prolonged and mind-bending course. He’d never savored every moment quite like this…delivered by hands from a dream, from the sky, from beauty and benevolence itself. What was she promising him…next time?

  She’d taken him on a trip, without ever leaving the beach, but she took him other places too—physical places—by means of her car. At a roadside lookout, he snatched the binoculars from Daphne when she offered him a turn.

  “What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen sea lions before?”

  Night took another look. “I’ve never seen so many in one place.”

  On a day peppered with firsts, he yielded to one more when they returned to the car and Daphne pressed keys into his hand. In the driver’s seat, Night gripped the wheel hard and pretended to watch Daphne’s lips for instruction.

  As they drove along the seaboard, he glanced at her often, and each time she answered him the same way: “You’re doing great.”

  Daphne reached forward and snapped on her car radio, which made his eyes flash across the dashboard.

  The instant the music came on, something sparked from his nightly tribulations like kismet—something he couldn’t explain and far less dismiss. It struck him as yet another link between his nightmares and his unspecified destiny. He absorbed as much as he could, all the while trying not to tap his fingers.

  Not far from their turn, Daphne lowered the volume and, after one hypnotic minute, Night reached for the dial and turned the music back up. He realized his mistake instantly. Daphne’s wide stare brushed up his arm, to his face. Her mouth opened, but she simply sat back in her seat and let the music play.

  Night racked his mind for a defense, but he couldn’t think of anything to say, even as he parked the compact car in the clearing where his father typically brought his own great beast to rest. The pile of logs that greeted them again saved him temporarily.

  “Are you going to cut some wood for me or not?” she asked, hoisting herself onto the hood of her car and crossing her legs over a headlight.

  After a loose shrug, he grasped the long handle of the weathered axe and tensed his fingers around it. Daphne placed her fists together at her throat and smiled as she mimed taking off her top. A soundless giggle escaped Night as it dawned on him that this was a playful demand.

  “You’re laughing! Is that an actual laugh?”

  The blush that invaded him made him oblivious to the cool spring air that blew through his short-sleeve undershirt as he lifted the axe. He experimented with showing off as he smashed the blade down, exploding the log in half.

  Her head wiggled like she could hardly stand a repeat of the scene and she sprang off the hood, stepped up on the weathered tree stump, and kissed him until he dropped the axe.

  “Bye, Night—my knight. I have to go,” she announced abruptly. “I’m taking care of my daughter in a bit. My parents are going out.”

  Night tried hard to comprehend that someone younger than himself could be a parent.

  “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’ve learned…or we both would have gotten exactly what we wanted today.”

  She returned his troubled gaze.

  “I’ll come back…”

  “Come when I’m alone.”

  She started to smile but froze when Night latched onto her arms.

  “What’s wrong? Your father doesn’t like me? I did get that impression.”

  “He doesn’t like people coming here.” His grip tightened on her arm.

  Her voice now trembled. “I don’t understand…”

  Night dropped his hands and looked the other way, but Daphne gave him a push and a pull and reset his focus on her face.

  “I know you can hear,” she blurted. “I mean, why else would you turn up my radio? You can hear at least a little bit, can’t you?”

  Denying it would only make her more suspicious. He nodded and she skipped forward to kiss him, like in congratulations, but it was also goodbye.

  ****

  In the
kitchen, he picked at some desserts that had come home from the restaurant. He only stopped when Andrew and Lila pranced into the house.

  His father’ acknowledged him dryly. “Hello, Night. Have you had a busy day? I see that you managed to cut one whole piece of wood. I guess that would explain your appetite. Lila wanted to greet you this morning but you locked yourself in your room, at least until we left. Don’t worry about what happened… We all make mistakes.”

  Night didn’t pull his dead stare off his father fast enough to avoid another question.

  “So, what did you actually do today?”

  Night signed his response with a barbed edge. “Not a lot. I chopped a piece of wood.”

  Andrew flinched, but he didn’t say another word.

  ****

  Night stayed awake long after he’d turned off the lights, acutely aware of the proverbial presence hanging around him. It nagged him like a dripping faucet while he stared at the ceiling. The moment he tuned it out and drifted off, it had him—or something did.

  With no prior negotiation, its invisible fingers latched onto his throat. His lungs raced for a breath, but they didn’t make it and the slaughtering began. He thrashed against the shadow in the void, but the crushing intensified, which had a paralyzing impact. He would never have imagined that he had bones there, but he could feel them breaking, sending the illusion of a sickening sound to his brain.

  He perceived a time-lapse and arms closed tight around him, he sensed protectively, but at the same time like a parasite. A voice from beyond his nightmare hurled him back into consciousness where real hands grasped him and sent his whole being into a violent spin.

  “It’s all right,” Andrew repeated, with what struck Night as genuine affection. “It’s just another one of your ridiculous nightmares.”

  Reality returned as fast as his spirit could re-inhabit his body. “Why do they never go away?”

  Andrew truly looked troubled. “I don’t know. But they’re just dreams. Nothing can ever happen to you in real life as long as you trust me.”

  With open eyes, Night waited until Andrew went away, but the questions lingered. Was it just a coincidence that he would have such a potent dream right after the torrent of transgressions he’d committed today? Did he, in fact, need to respect his father’s every word and warning?

  Chapter Six

  “I’ve seen you before,” blurted a guest at the restaurant before he even reached the counter. “Didn’t I see you on the 101 the other day, at that lookout?”

  Night rolled his eyes. He was still very much on trial on his first day back and, to boot, his father had decided to park himself, with Lila, at the counter for the entire evening.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen Night,” Andrew intervened in the silence. His eyes revealed a shimmer of forty-proof liquid amusement. “You’ve been here before, and everyone remembers our bartender.”

  Night prevented the man from arguing when he spilled the cognac bottle from his double grip, groped along the bar, and bee-lined for the washrooms.

  Andrew came in, seconds later. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t know,” Night groaned into the sink. The water kept spiraling, escalating his vertigo.

  “Did your thirst for new things possibly have you slipping a few drinks behind the counter this evening?”

  Night’s sneer flashed in the mirror. “I didn’t drink anything…not even water.”

  “How can you be sick when you’ve gone nowhere for weeks?”

  Night retched into the sink.

  “Terrific. Fine. I suppose Lila can take us home now, but try to pull yourself together or she might also come to the wrong conclusion.”

  But as they settled themselves into Lila’s car, only Andrew had trouble composing himself. “I can’t understand this, Lila. He’s never been drunk before.”

  “Andrew, it’s pretty clear that you’re the one who’s drunk.”

  Andrew appeared to sober up instantly. “I have something to confess. You’re right. I may have done things…wrong. That’s why I need you, Lila. You can tell me when I’m not seeing straight.”

  Cringing through his mounting symptoms, Night listened in disbelief.

  “Oh, Andrew, you’ve done well for yourself, and Night, but let’s not discuss this in front of him like this.”

  “You’re so right,” he said, leaning back blissfully. “See, you’re going to be good for both of us.”

  Even Night spotted Lila’s opportunity to fish at this moment.

  “Tell me a bit about his mother. What was her name?”

  “Her name was Brigitte Morgen.” Andrew spoke as though his former wife’s name had been waiting to leap off his tongue, all evening. “Morgen, like the German word for tomorrow or morning. And she was quite the morning person.”

  That was the first time Night had heard his mother’s name—this woman who had taken so many secrets with her.

  “I’m sorry. You must miss her…”

  Even intoxicated, Andrew retained his ability to change a topic quickly under duress. “So, do they have you working the graveyard shift all week?”

  ****

  The evening’s steady rain had graduated to a monsoon by the time they reached the house. Lila simply dropped her passengers off and continued on to work.

  Night didn’t bother to wash up or even look at the book that his new teacher had left with him on her last visit. Now feverish as well as nauseous, he stripped off his stylish work clothes on his way through his room and fell into bed. Everything from his blue sheets to his black boxers turned wet in no time. On the plus side, his illness left him immune to the nuisance entity that liked to show up at bedtime. He was almost asleep when Andrew appeared at his bedside.

  “Night, forgive me for this evening. I wasn’t in control of myself…something I cannot excuse and will never repeat. I didn’t know what I was saying and I embarrassed both of us.”

  Night didn’t have the strength or desire to entertain his father’s petty woe. “I’m sorry too,” he offered listlessly.

  The weighty silence intensified as Andrew’s eyes narrowed at a chair in the corner of the room. Night witnessed how purposefully his father walked over to it and lifted the sweater from the backrest, and how gingerly he picked off a long red hair that clung to the edge of the knitted fabric. He held it up high and stared at it in horror, as did Night.

  His father dropped both and turned. “You let that bitch into my house and I’m apologizing to you! How many trysts have you had while I went to work? And the answer you gave me when I asked you about the wood…you were blatantly mocking me!”

  Night struggled to sit up, wishing he could just vanish in the way of his nightly caller. “She was only here once…”

  “Do you think this is nothing? Do you think there’ll be no consequences for trusting that filthy little bitch with your life!”

  For the first time ever, he blocked Andrew’s punitive hand. Their sightlines clashed as hard as the thunder outside and Night savored the full second of his victory before he dove forward and launched off the foot of the bed. Through his condition, he sprinted to the ground floor, but with no plan, no destination in mind, he made himself easy prey at the front door.

  Andrew latched onto an arm, and the door handle.

  “It isn’t wrong, Daddy…she’s a really nice person.”

  “Oh, I feel so much better now!”

  Night tripped onto the veranda.

  “You wanted to go somewhere, Night?” Andrew kept him from falling, only to thrust him clear of the wooden steps, onto raw ground.

  On skinned forearms, Night lifted himself off the rocky soil and Andrew hauled him upright, just so he could drive him another few feet, onto the broad tree stump that served as their chopping block.

  Rain pelted the earth as Andrew plunged one knee and all of his weight over Night’s back and pressed his left-hand flat against the deeply scarred wood. He ripped the axe from the edge of the stump
while Night battled to curl his fingers under his palm. His frenzied breaths couldn’t break through the clamor of the downpour assailing the forest around them.

  “I hope this is memorable for you,” Andrew pronounced over the chaos, “…every time you think of telling me another lie!” He raised the axe to the unfamiliar sound of Night screaming.

  The deed was done in a split second, but in the absence of pain Night realized that the blade hadn’t sliced through any part of him; instead, Andrew had buried it deep into the wood within an inch of his knuckles.

  “Your insolent little response…not so amusing now, is it?” Andrew released the pressure from Night’s spine and stumbled backward. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Andrew’s footsteps fled across the veranda and ceased with the slamming of the door. Lightning hammered the bay, followed by bleak darkness as the veranda’s lights went out.

  Night suffered the molten anger that swirled through him. He swiped a rock from the ground like he’d always known its location and pitched it at the living room window. Not only did he miss, but this action also caused the ground to tilt until he folded back over the tree stump.

  With enough rage still circulating to ignite his last reserve of strength, he dislodged the axe and hurled it straight through the colonial-grill picture window.

  This brought back the light at the door, and undoubtedly, the grief he’d just invited was not far behind. But he wouldn’t have to face it tonight. He’d gone off like a firecracker, and short-lived as such, he now felt himself disintegrating…plummeting through blackness.

  ****

  Night’s stark eyes opened to a fire. With his head on the floor, he sensed his father nearby through the shifting pressure in the hardwood. He instinctively peered at the sunlit window and saw that it was covered with plastic.