Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  "I still have it."

  "Why . . . ?" Anne's upper lip with its pronounced cleft had begun to tremble slightly. She bit it, tossed her hair back, then stood up very straight, spoke in an even tone. "Why couldn't you at least have called to let me know you were all right? Didn't you think I'd be worried?"

  "Yes. I was afraid."

  Anne frowned slightly, cocked her head to one side. "Afraid of what?"

  "Of you, Anne. I feel too much for you, and I don't know what to do with that feeling; not only does it distract me, but until I find out more about just who it is that's feeling these things, I'm not sure I have the right . . ." He let his voice trail off, looked away and shrugged. Suddenly he had a lump in his throat, and he swallowed hard. "It wasn't that I didn't want to call you, Anne; I didn't call because I felt I wanted to too much. It was thoughtless of me, and I apologize."

  He waited, but there was no reply. When he looked back at Anne, he was startled to find her grinning, her hazel eyes very bright.

  "All right!" Anne said, and thumped him playfully on the chest with both her fists. "Now we're getting somewhere!"

  Bone smiled back. "Uh . . . did I manage to say the right thing?"

  "You said the perfect thing; your head may be all screwed up, but your tongue works just fine. How about lunch? I'll spring for hot dogs."

  Without waiting for a reply, Anne walked back to the van and spoke to the young man behind the wheel. The man nodded, and then drove away. Anne took Bone's hand, led him across Broadway to the corner where a Sabrett vendor was selling hot dogs from his cart."

  "I haven't forgotten the money I owe you," Bone said.

  "It never occurred to me that you had. How do you like your hot dogs?"

  "With everything."

  Anne bought two hot dogs for Bone, one for herself and two Cokes. Then they walked back to the traffic island in the center of Times Square, where people were lining up at the TKTS booth waiting for theater tickets for the evening's performances. They sat down on a bench, started eating.

  "This is pretty rich fare for me," Bone said, picking a strand of sauerkraut off his lower lip. "I was just getting ready to head for a soup kitchen."

  "Jesus Christ," Anne said around a mouthful of hot dog. She swallowed, took a sip of her Coke. "You are stubborn."

  "There's another reason I didn't call you," Bone said seriously. "It's still not proven that I'm not the serial killer. Until I find out the truth about myself, I don't feel I have the right to . . . involve myself too much with other people."

  "Bullshit," Anne said easily. "You're no killer. Even that police lieutenant doesn't believe it."

  "You're wrong about that, Anne; he believes it."

  Anne shrugged. "He touched base with me a few times after you walked out of the shelter; he wanted to know if I'd heard from you. I know he likes and respects you—and that bothers him. Hell, it's hard not to like and respect you." She paused, looked at him and grinned once again. "I know all about that."

  "Even if I'm not the killer, Anne, the murders could somehow have something to do with me; they occur when I'm on the streets."

  Anne's grin faded, and she shook her head slightly. "Strange; I'd never thought about it in that way. I just didn't believe you were the killer. But how could they be connected to you?"

  "I don't know. If—when—I get my memory back, maybe I'll have the answer."

  They finished their hot dogs and soda. Bone took their papers to a trash can, then came back to the bench and again sat down beside Anne.

  "That wasn't Barry driving the van," Bone continued carefully. "Is Barry sick?"

  "No. He's working with another unit up in the Bronx. That's my new partner—a very nice young man by the name of Hector. I should have introduced you, but I had other things on my mind." She paused, then reached out and gripped Bone's hand. "I didn't know how much yelling and screaming I was going to have to do before you realized that all the very nice chemistry going on between us is a very rare and very wonderful thing—especially in this city. Bone, I'm just too old, and I've experienced and seen too much misery, to be coy. I like you enormously. In fact, I'm probably in love with you—and that's that. When you live as close to death and suffering as I—as we—do every day, it tends to make you want to cut out all the bullshit in personal relationships."

  Bone looked into the woman's hazel eyes, smiled. "You're very direct."

  "Yep. Bother you?"

  "No. You've known all along how I felt, haven't you?"

  "Yes. And I was pretty sure I understood your reasons for not contacting me. But I was still pissed."

  Bone squeezed Anne's hand. "Thank you."

  "Thank you."

  Bone lowered his gaze. "The fact that you're not working with Barry any longer has something to do with me, doesn't it?"

  "Not really. Considering the circumstances.; it was probably inevitable that Barry and I wouldn't be able to work together much longer. Barry has a wonderful heart when it comes to humanity as a whole, but he doesn't know much about women; I don't think he's had much experience with them. Maybe it was all the years he spent preparing for the priesthood. Anyway, he seems perfectly content now with his new assignment. We talk on the telephone, and he sounds just fine. Actually, I think he's kind of secretly relieved to be away from me."

  "Next time you talk to him, tell him I said hello."

  "I will. Now I think it's time you told me what you've been up to." She paused, frowned slightly. "Are you making any progress?"

  Bone shrugged. "Some. I think."

  "You're remembering?"

  "I'm feeling things."

  "Why did you walk out of the shelter in the middle of the night?"

  "Actually, I didn't exactly walk out; I was thrown out. But I was ready to leave anyway. The city has some very nasty and corrupt people working in its shelters. I—" He stopped speaking when Anne put her hand over his mouth.

  "It's going to take you some time to tell me about it," Anne said quietly, "and I want to hear everything. But not here."

  "Where?"

  In response, Anne rose from the bench, stepped to the curb and raised her hand to signal for a taxi.

  (iii)

  The moment they reached Anne's apartment they flowed over and into each other's body, like two streams drawn together by the gravity of passion to form a surging river of longing and need. They stripped off their clothes and left them in piles on the floor, clung to each other, lips, tongues and hands already exploring the flesh of the other as they fell onto the bed, kissing, stroking, exploring. When Anne finally rolled over on her back, spread her legs and drew back her knees and guided him into her warm, passion-slick center, Bone felt he must come immediately. But he did not. He did not want to ejaculate—not yet; not for a long time. Not only did he want to totally satisfy Anne, but he enjoyed teetering on the cliff edge of passion, and wanted this exquisitely painful feeling of explosive fullness just before orgasm to last indefinitely. He found he could control this tide in him by stopping movement just before the beginning of an ejaculation spasm and pressing down on Anne's body, holding her buttocks to prevent her from moving.

  "Come, come, come," Anne murmured in a kind of incantatory chant. "I want to feel it."

  Then, very slowly, he would begin to move again, once more riding the wave of his passion just below its foaming crest. With Anne's slender yet strong legs wrapped around his waist and with his member deep inside her, he would press forward and knead her soft breasts, cup them as he licked and kissed' her firm nipples with their large, dark brown aureolas. Then he would kiss her lips, probe her eager, open mouth with his tongue as Anne fought back against his weight, matching his passion with her own, writhing under him, thrusting up her hips to meet his.

  He rose higher on the wave, closer to the crest . . .

  "I want you to come now," Anne gasped, locking her knees against his ribs, reaching around and under him to cup his testicles with her left hand. "I know you're holding b
ack. I started coming in the taxi on the way over here, so you don't have to worry about me. Come in me, Bone. Then we can start all over again."

  And finally he did, bursting with an orgasm that made his whole body shudder, carrying out of his body with his semen his tension, loneliness, fear, so much weight . . . During the course of this new life it was the first time he had been free of tension, loneliness and anxiety, the first time he had felt happy, and for a moment he thought he would begin to cry. Instead he collapsed into Anne's arms, reveling in the sensation of Anne's vaginal lips spasmodically contracting around his penis, the warm slick of juices from both their bodies on his thighs and belly.

  After a few minutes he sighed deeply, rolled off. Then he wrapped his arms around Anne's sweat-smooth body, buried his face in her thick brown hair, rested his lips against the musky-smelling flesh of her neck.

  "My God," Anne gasped, letting her right hand fall with a hard slap across his firm buttocks. "I think it's absolutely safe to say that you've done this kind of thing before, and your stranger does it exceptionally well. You're incredible."

  "Yeah," Bone murmured, his lips trembling against Anne's neck, hot tears welling from his eyes to mix with her sweat.

  "Bone," Anne said softly, "you're crying."

  "Yeah. It seems so, doesn't it?"

  Anne gently but firmly turned his head so that she could see into his face. Tears continued to well in Bone's deep blue eyes; they rolled down his cheeks, dripped off his chin. Through the mist of his tears, Bone gazed back at her.

  "Are you all right, Bone?"

  "Oh, yeah," he said, stroking the back of Anne's hand as she gently wiped at his tears. "I don't know why I'm crying, Anne. I just feel . . . very full; so full that it pushes out tears."

  "Your stranger was very lonely," Anne whispered as she kissed both his cheeks. "He had to be. Your stranger is an incredibly strong man."

  Bone kissed Anne's cheeks, her lips, her hands, then held her close to him. "I knew I was lonely," he whispered in her ear. "I guess I just didn't realize how lonely. Thank you for filling me up, for giving me you."

  "Everybody needs somebody, Bone. And you . . . I can't understand where you found the strength to hold yourself together as long as you did."

  "Yeah," Bone said, and laughed. "We can both see how strong I am right now; I'm crying like a baby."

  "I'm not sure the rest of us can even begin to guess at the terror you must have felt when you woke up in that field, in the rain and mud, and didn't know the first thing about who you were, where you came from or what you'd been doing. Then you were accused of being a killer, and locked away. You've been living on the streets, sleeping only God knows where and eating only God knows what. I know something of what you've seen and experienced, Bone. Is it any wonder that you might just feel a little needy?"

  "I can't afford to be weak, Anne. Not now. If I am, I could end up just another one of those broken people out on the streets."

  "I don't believe you could ever end up just a broken person on the streets."

  "That's what I was."

  "No." Anne paused, gently stroked his cheek, then continued in a voice just above a whisper: "Do you believe I've weakened you, Bone?"

  He rolled over to face her. His eyes were dry now, his voice firm. "No. You'd made me feel stronger. I told you; you've filled me.

  "Good," Anne said, and smiled. "And now that we've taken care of the most important business, at least for the time being, you can tell me what you've been up to."

  He did, beginning from the time he had left the van to enter the Men's Shelter, his odyssey to Central Park, his still-fruitless search for his identity and the two men who might provide information that could help him find it—Zulu and Lobo.

  Through it all, Anne had listened in silence, but with a growing sense of both wonder and unease. Now she leaned her head on Bone's chest, stroked his heavily muscled thighs.

  "I don't know what could have happened to Zulu," she said, and shook her head slightly. "He's at St. Thomas nearly every day, rain or shine—at least in the morning. I hope he's not sick. As far as Lobo is concerned, you have to stay away from him. He'll kill you."

  "He probably thinks he has good reason; it seems I put his eye out. But I still have to find him."

  "You need a safe place to stay, and a base of operations. You'll stay here, with me."

  Bone laughed. "Barry was right; you spend too much time on me. You're going to get yourself fired."

  Anne didn't smile. "I spent a year on you, Bone-man. I got you back, and I find that I like you very, very much. Living in this city teaches you that you really have no time to play around; life goes by too fast, and it can end in the blink of an eye. I want you staying with me because I enjoy having you around—but also because I'm not about to let you get yourself killed before we find out who you really are. Do you need money?"

  "I need a job."

  "I'll work on that. Will you accept my offer to put you up?"

  "No," Bone replied evenly. He bent over to kiss Anne, but she pulled away.

  "Why not?"

  "Because it might be dangerous for you."

  "Lobo isn't going to find out that you're here, and he wouldn't come around here even if he did. He's a street punk. And I'm a big girl who doesn't really care what people think or say."

  "It isn't Lobo I'm worried about."

  "Then who, or what?"

  Bone did not reply.

  "You?" Anne continued. "I thought we were both agreed that you're not the killer."

  "Dr. Hakim says it's possible that I have a multiple personality, maybe as a result of my head injury; it's possible that there are times when I become someone else without being aware of it."

  "Ali believes that?"

  "He says it's possible. That's enough. Until I can find all the answers I need, I have to stay alone."

  Anne's response was to grasp both his hands. She gently kneaded the backs and palms, then the crooked, gnarled fingers. "You still have no memory of what you did to your hands?"

  "I have no real memory of anything—only impressions, sensations."

  "But nothing about your hands?"

  "No. Maybe I was a manual laborer or machinist and had an accident."

  "You didn't get these hands by doing manual labor; an accident, maybe."

  "Why not manual labor?"

  "You've got small scars all over your body. I'm no expert, but some of them look older than others."

  Bone's only response was a shrug; he had found that it was useless to try to force memories. He would need to recapture the experience before he could recapture the memory, somehow relive pieces of his past before he would remember it.

  "You are going to stay with me, of course," Anne continued.

  Bone raised his eyebrows slightly. "I thought we'd been over that."

  "No; you just thought we had. I know this dreadful and magnificent city as well as anybody—and a hell of a lot better than most. I have a relationship with Zulu—not a good one, but at least he knows and trusts me. He might not even talk to you; with Zulu, you never know. I know you're not a killer, and you know you're not a killer. There's just no reason for you to eat in soup kitchens and sleep in Central Park anymore; you've had that experience, and there's nothing more to be gained from doing those things. Hey, Bone, I like you a lot, but I'm not asking you to marry me. We'll work together, when I'm off duty, on helping you to get your memory back. I'll help you find a job. Then, when you do get your memory back, you can do what you want. I'm doing what I want. I say you're going to accept my offer because you're no fool. It's time to take the pressure off yourself, and I say you'll make more progress now if you have a safe, warm and dry base of operations to work out of. I'll bet Ali would agree with me. He's your shrink; check with him to see what he thinks."

  She had already weakened him, Bone thought. She had filled him up, brought him in from the cold—and now he didn't want to go back. At least not all the time. Anne was rig
ht about the experience; he had found that the stranger was comfortable and could take care of himself out-of-doors. But the stranger had not lived in Central Park; he was sure of that now too.

  "All right," he said at last. "Thank you, Anne."

  "You're welcome, you silly man. Don't you know how much pleasure this gives me? Now I don't have to be constantly distracted wondering if you're all right."

  "I do need a job so I can pay you back, and so I can pay my way." He did not add that he was becoming increasingly discouraged at the slowness of his progress, the realization that it might indeed be a very long time before he recovered his memory. And he might not recover it at all.

  "I'll see what's around when I go in to work tomorrow. I have good contacts."

  "I have to get my stuff," Bone said, starting to rise from the bed. "It's the femur I really need; I still believe that's the key to what happened to me."

  Ann reached out, gently but firmly pulled him back onto the bed. "That'll wait; after all, it's not going to walk away by itself, and you said your camp is well hidden. Later, we'll both get dressed and go get it. In the meantime, I'm using up half a vacation day, so I think there's something else we should take care of first."

  "What's that?"

  "This," Anne said, and reached between his thighs. Then she bent forward.

  (iv)

  With Anne beside him, Bone stood at the side of the stream, beneath the bridge, and stared at the area that had been his campsite. The brush mats he had so carefully woven had been torn away from the depression in the ground where he had slept, and the garbage bag containing his belongings was gone.

  "Oh, Bone," Anne said softly, "I'm sorry."

  Bone said nothing. He was filled with a very strong sense of foreboding that was completely out of proportion to the value of the things he had lost. Only the femur meant anything to him, and that value lay in the fact that it was the only physical link he had to the year he had spent on the streets. But its loss was not what made him uneasy.