by Edward Lee
Paul nodded but it was half-dismal. “I guess I just think too much. That was some pretty awful shit they had to go through.”
“Sure. Giving barbs to little kids, and God knows what else, and molestation, I presume.”
Paul looked up, puzzled. “You presume? Didn’t Britt—”
“She told me some of it but none of the details,” Jess said. “She’s a strong chick, both of them are.” A pause over his beer. “You mean Cristina told you everything?”
Paul reeled a bit in the posh seat. “Well, yeah, pretty much. The Goldfarbs drugged them up all the time, and had them doing everything to each other.”
Jess squinted at the unpleasant revelation. “Each other? I thought it was just Andre, you know…”
“No, no, man,” Paul corrected, smirking as though the scotch were lemon juice. “Andre and his wife were switching off between the two of them and the foster brother, and they made them all…do…each other. They even had their friends over. The psychos were putting those kids in orgies.”
Jess looked shell-shocked. “I—I had no idea. Britt never got into that much detail.”
“It was some sick shit. And the brother never made it—he’s in an institution, all fucked-up. It was a fuckin’ kiddie porn club the Goldfarbs had going. They took thousands of pictures and sold the shit to their little network of perverts. I petitioned the prosecutor’s office to let me see the post-trial evidence, but I’ll tell ya, I wish I never had. I actually threw up once I got back to my car. You wouldn’t believe what those scumbags were doing to Britt and Cristina in those pics, and you can tell, even though they were just kids.” Paul gulped. “You can tell by their faces that it was Cristina and Britt.”
Jess just stared, his mouth sagging open.
A black aura seemed to settle over each man’s head. Paul cleared his throat—“But like you said, all that matters is that they both shook it off and landed on their feet in spite of it. Most girls who go through the wringer like that don’t. Neither of them are fucked-up at all…Well, maybe Cristina is a little sometimes—Christ, look at those dolls she designs, but the shrink she saw in Stamford said it was a constructive therapeutic outlet. And you wouldn’t believe the money she made last year from those things.”
“I know. Britt told me,” Jess said. He was trying to shake off the shock of the bombshell that had just been dropped on him. “Britt doesn’t make a whole lot of money herself but she is doing a whole lot of good. She told me that that’s her therapy. But I didn’t know about all that other shit. I’ll think twice whenever I give her a hard time about some piddly bullshit like forgetting to take my fuckin’ suits to the cleaners. Christ.”
“Yeah, and I drink too much,” Paul said, and raised his glass. “We’re both attorneys so I guess that means we’re both assholes.”
“Yeah, but at least we’re rich attorneys, so that’s got to count for something,” Jess tried to joke. “Ultimately, there’s a lot of really sick scumbags in the world, and we’ve got to do everything we can to protect our girls from them.”
“Tell me about it. There’s evil everywhere—it’s a sick, sick world, all right.” Paul seemed to ruminate on something. “I know this guy who does legal consultations for the cops, he’s always up at the Forensic Investigations Division in Queens. I ran into him today at Joseph’s Steak-house, and you know what he told me?”
Jess looked physically pummeled by everything he’d already heard in the last few minutes. “Do I want to know?”
“They managed to keep it out of the papers so far but he said the cops found a woman murdered yesterday by impalement.”
Jess gaped. “Impalement? What the hell is—”
“Somebody sharpened the end of a broomstick or something and pushed it up this woman’s snatch till it was in her mouth. And she was alive when they did it.” Paul clinked the ice in his glass, his eyes off-focus. “How’s that for a sick world?”
(II)
Sandrine laughed, munching the macadamia nuts she’d shoplifted dirtied-handed from the bulk foods section of a Gristede’s Supermarket. “It’s sort of like a Christmas tree. We should get lights!”
“There’s no electricity here, you dope,” Francy reminded her.
“Oh. Yeah. But still, it would be cool, wouldn’t it?”
She and Francy both looked with satisfaction at Doke, propped up now and quite dead on the sharpened wooden pike. He just hung there, his feet a few inches off the ground.
“He’ll start to-start to-start to stink soon,” Stutty commented, her wan face shifting in the candlelight.
“So what?” Francy kept looking at the corpse. Even after they’d propped him up, it had taken him a few minutes to die. She enjoyed the way he sort of quivered on the pike. “The New Mother said that our Prince liked the smell so much he kept impaled bodies in the room where he ate his meals.”
“Gross,” Sandrine offered.
“It was a different time, Sandrine.”
Sandrine shuffled idly to the corner where they kept a pile of canned food and candy bars they stole. She knelt before the several dolls she’d stood up on the floor, but…
She’d had three. Only two stood there now.
She wiped her smudged hands off on her pink sweatpants. “Who ripped off my doll?” She examined the remaining two, one a cutesy little girl who was blue and frosted, the other a smiling girl with black bangs who looked like she was rotting. Sandrine couldn’t really read but if she could she would’ve seen the names on the bottoms of each figurine: HYPOTHERMIA HARRIET and LEPROSY LINDA. “I had three here, but now one’s missing!” she complained, glaring at her associates with suspicion. “The boy with the bloody belly is gone.”
“We don’t steal, except the way our Prince did,” Francy reminded her. “Like the New Mother said. You only steal from those who steal from others.”
“But the boy with the bloody belly was the coolest one!”
“Where-where did you get them?” Stutty asked with a grin.
“Well, I ripped ’em off from the lady’s house, but…I wasn’t really stealing. I was gonna take ’em back.”
“That’s all right,” Francy bid as if forgiveness was hers to dole out. “She’s not in the convent. But you know none of us stole it. We’re your sisters now.”
“Virginia stole it, probably-probably-probably—”
“Be quiet!”
Sandrine fumed. “It figures. She was a shitty bitch anyway—”
Francy chuckled. “And she won’t be stealing anything now.”
“Yuh-yuh-yeah!” Stutty guffawed.
Sandrine cooled off, and put the two figurines in her pocket. “I hope the New Mother comes to night.”
“She will, unless we haven’t been faithful enough.”
Stutty frowned at a can of anchovies. “We should-we should-we sh—”
“Be quiet!” Francy yelled.
“We should what?” Sandrine asked, bored now.
Stutty concentrated, her fists clenched. “We should get something good to eat tonight. I’m sick of these gross anan-anchovies.”
“We can do that,” Francy approved. “We have some money now, and the New Mother says it’s okay if the money comes from the faithless.”
“Let’s go to McDonald’s and get good stuff,” Sandrine enthused.
“I’d ruh-ruh-ruh—” Stutty ground her wobbly teeth. “I’d rather get a meatball sub at the Subway next to the health food store.”
“We can get what ever we want,” Francy told them. “Let’s go now.”
More than $500 comprised Doke’s till; these were high times. Thank God for the New Mother, Francy thought with a smile full of holes. But a scrabbling caused them all to look toward the narrow entrance.
“It’s probably Scab,” someone said. “I haven’t seen her all day.”
“Oh,” Francy said.
It was another homeless woman, whose name was Crazy because that’s what she was.
“Not her!” Sandrine com
plained.
“You can’t-can’t-can’t come here!” Stutty yelled. “This is our house.”
Crazy wore a pair of plaid men’s shorts she’d found in the garbage, and a black blouse with torn-off sleeves. Her black hair looked electrocuted, and one eye constantly looked to the left. She was barefoot and pallid as cream.
“Ruthie Mooseface and Blinda told me you lived here,” Crazy said, scratching lice. When she started coming closer, Francy blocked her; she didn’t want Crazy to see the impaled drug dealer stuck benhind the stack of boxes. Ruthie Mooseface and Blinda, huh? “Hi, Crazy. Yeah, we’ve lived here for nine months. That’s how long the place has been empty, and no workmen have come yet. But don’t tell anyone else we’re here, okay?”
Crazy stood like someone who’d had a bad stroke, which was actually true. “The Z-Men said they’d kill me, they’ve been looking for me. Can I stay here a while?”
“No!” Sandrine snapped.
“Be quiet, Sandrine,” Francy said more calmly. “Of course she can stay here. She can even join the convent. The New Mother said we have to help our sisters.”
Crazy didn’t even question the bizarre statement.
“But to join,” Francy told her, “you have to die—”
CRACK!
It was Stutty who’d brought the brick down on Crazy’s head from behind.
“Take her clothes off,” Francy ordered the two girls. She smiled. “I’ll get a stick.”
(III)
Cristina awoke just as the clock struck one in the morning. She lay still, thinking. Why am I…wide awake? She should be exhausted. Paul had come home from work later than usual but he’d scarcely stepped through the front door before they’d been wrapped up in one another. Cristina could tell by his breath that he’d been drinking yet the day’s rising desire melted any disfavor she might normally feel. She had his ocher-hued dress shirt off and on the foyer floor before his brain could register the act; just as fast she practically tore open his pants. Paul hadn’t had to bother removing Cristina’s clothes for she’d greeted him at the door nude.
She had felt desperate for the gluttonous sensations that only a man could provide—there’d be no waiting to get to the bedroom. “Here, here,” she panted, her breasts pressed against his chest. Her sex seemed to pulse along with her heart. “Right here.” And then she brought him down to the handwoven Ersari carpet. Paul was about to speak but Cristina began sucking his tongue before he got the chance. Frenzy sunk her crotch right down, taking him all the way. It didn’t seem that his previous imbibing had hindered his ability, as it had the night before. Cristina’s eyes rolled upward with each stroke. “Harder, my God,” her voice gushed. “Do it as hard as you can—” And when he did she squealed half in shock and half in delight. She felt gored now, and pommeled, but that was how she needed to feel. Her lust made her blood feel thick. Paul’s groin continued to bludgeon her most private place, and all she wanted was more. Each thrust only added more heat to her yearning, which now seemed primitive, more than human. She cringed as he climaxed and filled her sex with a flood of slickened heat. Cristina continued to ride him fast until he turned limp. Paul half-gasped his apology, “Aw, honey, I’m sorry I didn’t last long en—”
Her mind reeled, all her thoughts a stew of lust. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” she panted. Still straddling him, she grabbed his hands and forced them to her breasts, which now felt so full of blood and desire that they seemed alien to her, twice the size they should be. “Squeeze them, squeeze hard,” she pleaded. When she tensed her thighs, the well of semen drained out of her. She intricately plied her sex in unison with his kneading fingers, then shrieked again and climaxed. The series of spasms first clenched every muscle in her body, then collapsed her to the floor, wracked. Her own sexual fluids had seemed to pour out of her.
“Oh, baby,” he groaned when he got enough breath back to talk. “You’re an animal …but of course I mean that in a good way.”
She lay limp against him, one thigh draped over his stomach. “Well, this animal has been thinking about you all day long…even when I was still hungover. Her thigh nudged his spent genitals. “And, don’t worry, I’ll be taking advantage of you again before long.”
Paul chuckled. “Honey, you’re gonna kill me but…so what?”
When Cristina felt more of him trickle out of her, she suddenly lurched. “Oh my God! The carpet!”
“Probably the biggest wet spot of all time,” Paul laughed, still flattened.
“It’s from Uzbekistan!” she exclaimed. “You paid thousands for it.” She started to jump up, to grab some carpet cleaner and rags, but Paul just pulled her back next to him.
“Cristina. I’ll buy another one. Let’s just…lie here a while…”
Cristina relaxed. I wore him out, all right. But in truth she only felt half-sated even after her own orgasm. He appeared to be drifting off to sleep right now. “Honey? Honey?” she said, gently jostling him. “You’re falling asleep on the floor.”
“Mmm,” he replied, then blinked back some alertness. “Since you’re responsible for completely immobilizing me…how about some coffee?”
Cristina giggled and kissed him quick, then slipped off to the kitchen. She made coffee and puttered in the kitchen a bit, not even really mindful of the fact that she was still naked. She felt brimming in sensations, her nipples still buzzing, and the soft afterglow between her legs working its way through the rest of her. “How was work?” she called out.
Paul answered groggily. “Not as good as after work but not bad. Jess landed a retainer renewal worth about two-point five mil, and I just closed a deal worth about half that.”
Good Lord! “You call that ‘not bad’? Paul, that’s fantastic…”
“It’s all this great sex you’re wearing me ragged with,” he replied. “It’s good luck. It’s an Oriental thing: sexual harmony brings prosperity.”
“I suppose you read that in a fortune cookie,” Cristina joked.
“I’m just…very lucky,” he muttered but kept glimpsing a slice of her nakedness in the kitchen. “Uh, you know it’s great having a gorgeous fiancée make me coffee buck-naked but make sure those blinds are closed all the way. Wouldn’t that be a riot if there was an evening service letting out of the church and they all looked over here?”
Good idea, she realized. The blinds were opened slightly but she knew no one street level could see in. “Father Rollin told me he doesn’t even have a congregation anymore,” she explained, darting into the bedroom to select a robe. “Said the church is mainly used for special occasions and meetings.” She pulled on a caramel-brown robe but momentarily shivered when the soft silk slipped across her nipples. I can’t believe this. I’m charged up like a battery tonight. “He said he’s going to come over sometime for coffee so he can introduce himself to you.”
“You can bet he was just being polite,” Paul said tiredly from the living room. “I doubt that he wants to meet the shifty attorney who clipped the New York Diocese out of a couple million bucks because they didn’t bother to find out how much the property was worth in the long term.”
“You didn’t really clip them, did you?” Cristina asked, but she was still distracted by the robe’s silkiness.
“Technically, no,” Paul chuckled. “I was just doing my job better than their guy. Rule Number One in real estate law. One man’s carelessness is another man’s fortune.”
Cristina was grateful for a career that didn’t involve such tactics. She was about to come back to the kitchen, though, when—
“Serveste pe domnul …”
Cristina froze in the short hallway. Had she really heard the bizarre utterance? It sounded foreign and…muffled.
Then she heard a creak of some sort. She stood right beside the door to the basement. Cristina opened the door and looked down…
“Honey?” Movement in the other room, and hushed footsteps. “Where’d you go?”
Cristina looked over, concerned. Pau
l came forward, pants back on but belt buckle and shirt still undone. “I could’ve sworn I heard a voice, and—I’m not sure—but I think it came from down here.” At once the obscure fear she’d expressed to Britt slammed back: that someone else was in the house.
Paul rolled his eyes. “I heard the same thing the other night, only upstairs. It’s the people in the condos next door. They’re all retired and hard of hearing; they turn their TVs up.” His arm touched her shoulder. “Relax. It’s nothing.”
Cristina remained poised, eyes wide on the open doorway.
“Just to set your mind at ease,” Paul said and snapped on the light switch, “I’ll go look.”
“Oh, please,” she mumbled. “It was just so strange. It sounded foreign.”
“So, they watch foreign shows next door. A lot of those old people are immigrants who made a lot of money starting businesses in the fifties.” But Paul descended the basement stairs just the same.
What if, Cristina fretted, someone really is down there?
What would she do? And what if she really were right in what Britt dismissed as paranoia and overreaction, that last night in her stupor someone else had scrawled on her breasts and stomach?
For a moment, all the invisible blonde hairs on her arms stood straight up like filings under a magnet.
“Nothin’ there, baby,” Paul said, trudging back up.
“It just sounded so—”
He put a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry your little heart about something that’s impossible anyway. Every single exterior door and window in this house has not one but two alarm triggers.” He snapped off the light and closed the door. “Come on.” He put his arm around her and returned to the kitchen. “Now where’s that coffee?”
Cristina poured him a cup, sluffing the incident off. “Sorry I’m such a nut today.” She couldn’t even begin to tell him everything else. “It’s late. Have you even had dinner yet? Let me fix you something.”
“Actually, with all the excitement at the office today, I’m not the least bit hungry, and besides”—Paul yawned—“I’m exhausted now, thanks to you. I’ll have something delivered for you. Grace’s delivers.”
