A Whisper of Blood

by Ellen Datlow

  Right, he said, humoring her. Whatever you say. I’m your first. Best in the world. Anything for a hump. He backed against a chair, crouched, fell into the cushions, stared at her from that angle, looking upward intently, checking out her crotch, then the high angle of her breasts, pulled upward within the brassiere, arching. He muttered something she could not hear and raised a hand.

  What is it? she said. What do you want? Come here. I want you to come here right now. Tell me why.

  I don’t want games, he said. We’ll have time for that later. You want to fool around, play with yourself. Come over here. Move it.

  Can’t you be a little kinder? I told you, I’ve never done anything like this before.

  You want a commendation? he said. A Congressional Medal of Honor? He cleared his throat, looked at her with an odd and exacting impatience. Everybody has to have a first time, he said. Even I did once. I got through it. You’ll get through it too. But you have to close your eyes and jump. Move it over here now.

  This isn’t the way I thought it would be, she said.

  How did you think it would be? Flowers and wine? Tchaikovsky on the turntable? White Russians with straws? This is the setup, he said, this is what a nooner feels like. You don’t hang out in bars midday if you’re not looking for a nooner.

  She looked at him, almost as if for the first time, noting the age spots on his arms, the fine, dense wrinkling around the eyes, which she had not noticed in the bar. Could she back out now? No, she thought, she couldn’t. This was not the way it was done. That was all behind her now. I’m on the forty-eighth floor and that’s all there is to it and no one in the world except this man knows I’m here. Not the kids, not Harry, not the cops. Okay, she said, I’m coming. She went toward him, trying to make her stockings glide, trying to move the way they moved in this kind of scene on Dallas. Maybe she could break him on the anvil of desire. Maybe she could quit him. Maybe—

  There was a pounding on the door. Open up, someone in the hall said, open it! Open it now! The voice was huge, insistent. For God’s sake, she said, who is that?

  He was trembling. I don’t know, he said, what have you put us into? Detectives? Photographers? You got me into this, bitch. He backed away from her. His lips moved but there was no sound.

  The noises in the hall were enormous, like nothing she had ever heard. The hammering was regular, once every three or four seconds now, an avid panting just beyond earshot. Like fucking, that’s how it sounded. Last chance, the voice said, you open that goddamned door or we break it down.

  What have you done? she said to the man. Stunned, absolutely without response, he ran his hands over his clothing, looked stupidly at the belt. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she said. This wasn’t part of it. Who

  is out there?

  Nothing. He had nothing to say. He brought his clothing against him helplessly in the thin off-light in which she had so recently posed. She heard the sound of keys in the hallway. They were going to open the door.

  An hour earlier in the bar she had said, Let’s go now. I have a room in the Lenox around the corner.

  Fast mover, he had said. His briefcase was on his lap, concealing an erection she supposed, one elbow draped over it awkwardly, clutching the briefcase there, the other hand running up and down her bare arm. She could feel the tremor in his fingers. He wanted her. Well, that was his problem.

  I can be fast when I want, she said. Other times I can be slow. Whatever you say, big boy, I’m on your side. Who can believe these lines? she thought. This is what it’s come to now.

  Okay, he said. Just let me finish this drink. He raised the cocktail glass. I paid for it, he said, it’s mine, I ought to have it.

  She pressed his arm. You only think you’re paying, she said. I’m paying. All the way, up and down the line. In his face she could see the pallor of acknowledgment, a blush of realization. I’ve got a hot one here, that face was saying. Well, that’s the idea all right.

  Let’s go, friend, she said. She pushed away her own glass, clung to him for an instant, then pulled him upright. Let’s see how fast you are where it counts. Out in the clean fresh air and then forty-eight stories up, that’s the right place to put it.

  He released her, yanked upright from the stool, took out a twenty, and put it on the bar. We’ll see how fast I am, he said. He took the briefcase against his side, gripped the handle. Now, he said. The lust on his face seemed to struggle for just a moment with doubt, then faded to a kind of bleakness as she reached out again and stroked him. Now and now. He rose gravely to her touch. For God’s sake, he said. For God’s sake—

  Now, she said.

  They struggled toward the door. The man on the stool nearest the entrance looked up at them, his glasses dazzling in the strobe and said, You too? Every one of you?

  She stared. She had never seen this man in her life. Of course, she reminded herself, the salesman with the briefcase was new also. Two strangers, one maybe as good as the other when she had walked in but the salesman was the one she had picked and in whom the time had been invested. No looking back. She said nothing, started toward the door.

  Fornicators, the seated man said, infidels. Desolate lost angels of the Lord. Have you no shame? No hope?

  Out on the street, the salesman said, Another bar, another crazy. They’re all over the place. This city—

  I don’t want to hear about the city, she said. Please. Just take me to the hotel. Right now. She was appalled by the thought that the man at the bar would come after them. The thought was crazy but there it was. To the hotel, she said. I’m burning up, can’t you tell. She yanked at his wrist. Now, she said, let’s go.

  She began to tug at him, he broke into a small trot. Hey, he said, hey look, it’s all right. We’ve got all afternoon. I’m not going anywhere, we have hours. We have—

  I’m afraid he’s following us, she said. There, it was out, be done with it. I’m afraid he’s going to come after us.

  Who? The guy from the bar?

  His footsteps, she said, I know them. He’s coming up behind us. She turned and pointed, ready for a confrontation right there but of course there was nothing. A couple of secretaries giggling, a man with a dog, a beggar with a sign saying I AM BLIND, that was all. Quickly, she said, before he finds us. I know he’s on the way.

  She moved rapidly then, dropping her grip, striding out, making the salesman race. Let him struggle, she thought. Let him chase her a little. She was afraid of the man in the bar whether or not he was coming. Desolate lost angels of the Lord. Fornicators, she thought. We’re all fornicators but some of us know more than others. There was something to come to terms with in this but she simply could not. All she wanted to do was get to the forty-eighth floor of the Hotel Lenox, take him into that room, get it over with, take him as deep as her brains. Make it happen, make it done. Get it into her. She was burning. Burning.

  That morning in the kitchen he had said, I don’t know how late I’ll be. There’s a conference midday and then I have to go out with the accounts exec again. I could be tied up till midnight with this guy, he’s a professional drunk. If that’s it I’ll just get a room in the city and sleep in.

  That’s nice, she said. That’s the third time I’ve heard that this month. Why bother coming home at all?

  Hey, he said, his head tilting to attention, you think I’m lying? You think this is some kind of crap here, that I’m making up a story? Then just say it.

  I didn’t say a thing.

  You think I’m running around? he said. I’m knocking my brains out to keep us in this $250,000 house we can’t afford and can’t sell and you’re running tabs on me? Maybe we ought to have a discussion about that.

  We’re not going to have a discussion about anything, she said. He looks forty, she thought, and his gut is starting to swell. The sideburns are ragged and at night, the nights that he’s next to me, he breathes like an old man, a sob in his throat. He’s not going to last but who lasts? What stays? Ten years ago we mad
e plans and every one of them worked out. I’m having trouble getting wet. AIDS is crossing the Huguenot line. The kids are no longer an excuse. We moved here expecting the usual, who was to know the joke was on us? I’m entitled to something too, she said, just think of that.

  What does that mean? he said indifferently. He stood, gathered papers, stacked them, and leaned to open his briefcase. You trying to tell me something?

  Nothing, she said, nothing at all. Make of it what you will.

  Because if that’s the deal, two can play you know. I don’t have to get a heart attack at forty-two to keep you in a place like this. I can just let it go.

  Forget it, she said. I didn’t mean anything. It was just an expression. Pushing it, she thought. We’re starting to push it now. It used to be easier; now we’ve got to get closer and closer to the bull.

  Everything’s an expression, he said. He opened the briefcase, inserted the papers, closed it with a snap. There’s no time to discuss this now, he said, maybe later we ought to settle a few goddamned things. Maybe we’ll sit down this weekend and talk.

  I’ll make an appointment, she said.

  Enough, he said, enough of this. I’m out the door. You got something to say, maybe you write it down in words of one syllable, we fix it so a simple guy like me can see this. We’re practical in the sales department, we only know what’s in front of us. You got to spell it out.

  Me and my imaginary friend, she said.

  Imaginary friend? Is that what you call him now?

  You’ll be late for the bus, she said. You’ll miss your connections and what will happen midday? He stared at her. You’ve got a schedule to meet, I mean, she said. In four years he won’t be able to come, she thought. He’ll be a heavy, barking lump next to me and I’ll be counting the heartbeats, waiting for the hammer. That’s what’s going to happen. You bet it would have to be imaginary, she said.

  He laughed, a strangulated groan. Too much, he said, you’re too much for me. Always were. Always ahead of me. He leaned forward, kissed her cheek, his eyes flicking down indifferently, taking in her body, then moving away, all of him moving away, arching toward the wall and then the door. Keep it going, he said, just take a tip from me and keep it going. He reached toward the door.

  Just like I do, he said and with a wink was gone.

  She followed him, closed the heavy service door, sat on the stool, ran her feet in and around her slippers, looking at the clock. In her mind she ran the day forward, spun the hours, turned it until it was one in the afternoon and she would be in the Lenox waiting to be taken. She had worked it all out. But that still left hours, even figuring in the time at the bar and the arrangements to be made there. Too much time altogether. She thought of that.

  She thought of it for a long time and of other things, the kids off at school, the difficult arc of the morning already getting passed. What do you think? she said to herself, what do you really think of this? Does it make any sense at all? Is this what we wanted?

  Desolation, a voice said. That isn’t what you wanted, that’s what you’ve got. So you do the best you can. You make it up as you go along. That’s the suburban way of life.

  Well, there was nothing to say to that. There almost never was. What she could say would destroy the game. She kicked off her slippers and moved toward the stairs, ready to get dressed, ready to pull herself together. Again. Playing it out.

  Two years before that, a Thursday in summer she had said, I can’t go on this way anymore, Harry. Can you understand that? It’s too much for me, it’s not enough for me, it’s a greyness, a vastness, I can’t take it. I need something else. I can’t die this way. She had run her hand on his thigh, felt the cooling, deadly torment of his inanition.

  It’s not just you, she said. It’s everything. It’s everybody.

  We can work it out, he said. There are things we can do.

  We can’t do anything. I’ve thought it through. It’s just the situation and it’s too much. It’s not enough, it’s—

  It’s not just the two of us, he said. There are things to be done.

  No shrinks, she said. No counselors. We’ve had enough of them. We’re not getting anywhere.

  I don’t mean that, he said. There are other things. Things we can do on our own, things that will change.

  Oh, Harry, she said, Harry, you have answers, but there are no answers, there are only plagues out there and darkness.

  So we’ll do something, he said, practically. He was a practical man. Because of the plagues, the risks. No one goes out there now if they can help it. I don’t want to go out there and neither do you. So we have to work something out.

  What? she said. What do you want? What’s the answer? He clutched her hand. We know all about it in the sales game, he said, and I can teach you. Teach me what? Masks, he said. Masks? Halloween?

  Repertory theater, he said. That’s what we’re going to have here. A little repertory theater. So get ready for the roles of your life.

  Once she had loved him, she supposed. She must have loved him a lot. In deference to that, then, she laid back in the bed wide-eyed, listened to the tempo of his breathing as it picked up, touched him.

  Okay, she said. Tell me more. I’m listening.

  Yes, he said. Yes.

  In the darkness, as he spoke, it was as if there were now another presence heaped under the bedclothes, an imaginary friend maybe, her imaginary friend listening.

  He told her what he had in mind.

  He sold her on it.

  On the forty-eighth floor, she backed against the high window in the hotel room, her eyes fixed on the door, listening to the sound of the key turning. No, she said, no.

  The man hobbling toward the door, half-dressed, turned, stared. No what? he said.

  No more of this, she said. There’s someone out there, she said. There’s someone really out there with the key in the lock. We’re in over our heads.

  She could hear the key turning, turning. It encountered an obstruction, then suddenly it didn’t and it was through. The door was moving.

  The terror was clambering within her like an animal. He looks forty, she thought, and his gut is starting to swell. He’s breathing like an old man. Over our heads, she said. I don’t know what to do.

  He looked at her, speechless. Wait a minute, he said. Now just wait—

  The door was open. The man from the bar was there smiling, holding a gun now, pointing it. Fornicators, he said, I knew what you were up to. I have the key and I followed you here. Now you’re going to pay. You disgust me.

  She moved toward the window. Harry was rooted in place. She looked at the priestly little man with the gun and sadly she looked at her husband, waiting now for whatever would happen. Curtain, Harry, she said.

  There’s a passage in Higgins’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle on marriage. “I got nothing to say about it,” the guy says, “there’s no way you can understand it unless you’ve been married; there’s no way to explain it.” Well, yes, there probably is—my metaphor of fifteen years ago was repertory theater, the donning of masks, the same old reliable faces beneath the inconstant, swooning trappings, but I got bored with this as explanation just about the time that this particular thread of insight seemed to unravel and here is the faithful editor, this book, and this tremulous story to give me a better idea: marriage as psychic vampirism. Of course.

  But then again, of course (one hastens to say against the anticipated misunderstandings) everything is psychic vampirism, symbiosis, mutual exploitation; life is a form of psychic vampirism; we give unto and take back in different measure and sometimes are unwilling to admit the transaction, call it something else. But then again—and unless you been there, Eddie—there’s no way that you can understand this, just no way that you are going to be able to grasp the issue.

  “Folly for Three” in an earlier and murkier draft was written in tribute to Cornell Woolrich, whom I knew toward the end of his life and about whom too much has now been written (after man
y years of too little; “too much” is worse, speaking of vampirism); the story did not, in its Woolrichian mode, make a great deal of sense. Ellen Datlow’s services in extracting from the murk the story that this wanted to be were remarkable and (old too late and too late smart) an education. Mutual dependency yet again, Eddie old pal.

  Barry N. Malzberg

  THE IMPALER IN LOVE

  Rick Wilber

  Here’s an honest-to-God traditional-type vampire—with a very untraditional urge.

  I

  Did we frighten your effete God

  with that first fevered embrace

  that so fed my need that I left you mortal?

  You cried for me with pleading hands,

  you sought my sudden entrance—

  no coy flirtation, no shuttered portal,

  there was only a hunger and your firm commands

  until I filled your cup, accepted your innocence,

  and repaid you with your life.

  II

  But now, but now—

  the sun dies into a cobalt sea,

  a reflected spear of its demise

  aimed across horizon miles

  to beach-edging pines where we stand

  as small waves lap a tired shore.

  An owl flies overhead on silent, death-hunt wings

  to arrow across the narrow beach and bring

  shell-stabbing talons to a scuttling crab—

  the hermit’s claw a feeble gesture of damned—

  defiance before it is consumed.

  You turn and sweetly smile and say:

  “We can still be friends, I’m sure of it,”

  and I can only nod and sigh

  for what you cannot know of my demands.

  I loved you, fragile thing,

  and nearly shared it all.

  Nearly.

  III

  I am blessed hard,