by Edward Lee
Then he put on his navy-blue ski mask.
He had a good burgling getup: blue jeans, black jersey gloves, and the mask. It made him invisible. He also had a dark-blue windbreaker that was reversible, white on the other side. If somebody got a line on him and called the cops with his description, he could run and reverse the jacket. The cops wouldn’t be looking for someone wearing white.
He also carried a knife, a pretty little Al Mar, and a Beretta .25, in case something went wrong.
Time to get to work.
He disembarked, then quietly traipsed up between the houses. He approached his mark from the rear. There were French doors on the back, a cinch. He’d gandered the family a few times during his stakeouts, a man and a woman, early forties they looked like, and a teenage daughter. He knew they’d be going on vacation soon when he saw the old man readying the boat in the yard a few evenings in a row. He drove one of the cheaper BMWs; wifey had a station wagon. And there were no signs of pets.
Steve had several strips of duct tape all ready, stuck to the inside of his jacket. He crossed the back fieldstone patio. The moon was perfect, slanting over the trees that surrounded the backyard. He knelt, quickly affixed the duct tape to one pane of the French doors, then popped at the window with his gloved fist. The tape kept the glass from shattering, and there was barely any sound at all. Within two minutes of leaving his car, he was reaching in, unlocking the door, and entering the house.
So far, so good…
A quick peek into the brightly lit family room verified what he already knew. The timer could be seen behind the lamp on an end table. There was a nice big 35” Sony Trinitron in an oak entertainment center, but Steve left it. Too big to get out. Instead, his black two-C-cell flashlight with a red lens showed him into the dark dining room. A crystal carriage clock and a lot of good silver went right into his black sack, probably a good five-hundred-dollars’ worth, and he’d only been in the house for about a minute.
Upstairs next. Good carpet, wall art, some custom carpentry. Nice joint, Steve thought behind his mask. He found the master bedroom as if by some burglar’s precognition. Moments later his dark-red flash found the jackpot: wifey’s jewelry box. A lot of good 18-karat gold chains, some bracelets, and a couple of diamond pendants, plus what looked like a twenty-inch pearl necklace. Rack up another grand or two for old Steve, he thought. Hubby buys his wife some nice gear. It all went into the bag.
Then—
A squeak. A steady rumble. And a faint light roved across the bedroom’s back wall.
Holy motherfucking shit!
Steve peeked out the window. A car had just pulled into the driveway, its headlights glaring. And—
Thunk!
—someone was getting out of the car!
He heard shrill voices. “’Bye! See you tomorrow!” something like that. Another quick peek, and he realized what had happened. It was the daughter, he saw. Wifey and Dad must’ve gone on their boat trip without her, left the kid to look after the house. Probably her friends who just dropped her off.
The car pulled out, drove away. Steve swallowed hard as he heard the front door open.
Don’t panic; it’s no big deal. But then he calmed and thought, Well, maybe it’s all for the better.
Sure enough, footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. Then the hall light snapped on. Steve stayed glued to the bedroom wall like a shadow. The faintest scents reached the nose hole of his mask: perfume, alcohol. Out drinking with her friends. Good. Maybe she was shitfaced.
That would make it easier.
Seconds ticked by like full minutes. Steve was sweating. Click, he heard. The door to the next bedroom was pulled open; the girl’s footsteps padded in. But Steve didn’t hear the door close. Probably getting ready for bed.
He pocketed his flashlight and opened the knife. Then he crept out into the hall.
Careful, careful.
Keeping his back to the wall, he silently sidestepped to the next room. The girl was humming. When Steve leaned forward he could see that the door remained ajar, four, maybe five inches. He pressed his face to the wall, slowly sliding to the right, until one eyehole met the gap.
The girl’s back to the door. Long honey-blond hair hanging almost to her ass. She was already stripped down to bra and panties: frilly, blushing-pink stuff. Slim and trim, all long legs and fresh skin, looked about eighteen or nineteen, but, Christ, these days who could tell? Had a little gold chain around one of her ankles, pretty, painted toes. Then she reached back and unsnapped the bra, shrugged it off. Steve caught a hot side shot of her perky little breasts.
Yeah, she’s on summer break from school, he figured. Daddy’s probably paying her way to the university, or maybe that art-fag college downtown. Left in charge of the house, but since Mommy and Daddy are away, she decides she’ll go out at night and be a bad girl, probably drinking like a fish with a phony I.D., smoking pot, maybe even out trolling for some cock. Well…
More sweat began to accumulate beneath the mask, but not the sweat of panic. Steve’s groin began to swell with his thoughts. What the hell? He knew it wasn’t wise; he’d only done it a few times. But—
A nice haul and a quick piece of ass, he realized. The silver knife turned in his hand.
Now she was bending over, slipping out of those frilly panties. And Steve got a dead-solid-perfect shot of her ass. Yeah, he decided beyond a doubt now. I’m gonna have to do this girl a big favor…
Suddenly she turned, then strode nude for the bathroom. Closed the door. Turned on the shower.
Steve walked brazenly into the girl’s bedroom. That’s a good girl, he thought. Get nice and clean for Mr. Mask, your friendly neighborhood burglar. Shit, she probably hasn’t had a good fuck in her life, just a bunch of art-fag college punks with earrings and clove cigarettes. The guys probably come in two seconds. Probably fucks spooks, too, and rednecks.
The scent of her perfume lingered in the room as the shower hissed; Steve’s erection struggled in his jeans. She’d be in there at least a couple of minutes. Smiling behind the mask then, he began to go through her dresser drawers. He needed a couple of stockings, so he could gag her and tie her up.
««—»»
Alice never remembered being this tired. The day, and then the night, seemed to pass in blurred snippets. She’d wound up sleeping for hours on Holly’s couch. Then her psychiatrist had taken her home, with a new antidepressant prescription and carry-out Chinese food. Alice hadn’t been able to eat anything but the won-ton soup. “I’m just so tired,” she complained at the table. “I’ve slept all day long, but all I want to do right now is go back to sleep.”
“It’s normal,” Holly told her, unwrapping Crispy Spring Rolls and crab rangoon. “Fatigue is a major symptom of clinical depression.”
Clinical depression, Alice thought. She didn’t like the sound of it. But, actually, she didn’t feel depressed at all, and this seemed strange, considering. Considering what? she asked herself snidely. Considering I tried to kill myself last night. A person ought to be depressed after something like that. But all she really felt now was tired.
And all through their light carry-out dinner, something kept nagging at her. She didn’t even know how to begin, so she started, instead, with complete absurdity.
“Do you believe in guardian angels?” she asked.
Holly looked up oddly from her General Tso’s chicken, her chopsticks poised. “What?”
“I mean, you know, the concept—that there’s something watching over some of us? Something spiritual or…ethereal?”
“Damn these chopsticks,” Holly muttered, then picked up a fork. “No, Alice,” she eventually answered. “I don’t believe in any such thing. I don’t believe in God, either, or Santa Claus. Our only guardian angels are ourselves.”
Alice should’ve expected as much; Holly was a psychiatrist, an objectivist. Everything in life was the solid world, and the solid world was all there was. But Alice wasn’t even sure herself, nor was she
sure what she meant to say.
The dream, she remembered. The death dream. It had been so strange of itself. Once she’d poised the razor, cut her wrist, and passed out…
That black, churchlike chamber. The stone altar and stone pews. And the figure in the black hood and cassock, calling her name. A woman, Alice felt sure. A woman’s voice.
And the same voice yet again, when the dream had taken her back to her own bedroom, her own bed. The beautiful nude woman, sweet-voiced, haloed with concern for her.
Dessamona, Alice remembered. That’s what the dream woman had said her name was: Dessamona.
And though the end of the dream had brought a nightmare image—that of her severed leg—Alice couldn’t recall being horrified or even repelled.
And what was it Dessamona had said? She had promised Alice something, hadn’t she?
Yes. Holding the severed leg, she’d said, I can give this back to you.
But, of course, there were no guardian angels. The scenario had been an abstraction, her mind dreaming in wishful symbols. Dessamona offering to give Alice’s leg back was just a symbol of Alice’s desire to be attractive to men.
It was all just a screwy dream, she knew, made screwier by the stress of trying to commit suicide.
That’s exactly what Holly would contend, cognitive-behavioralist that she was.
“But why on earth would you even ask such a thing?” Holly finally inquired, pecking at a fried scallion cake.
Alice decided it was best not to mention any more. She’ll think I’m crazy…if she doesn’t already. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said instead. “Just some stray thoughts.”
Holly had left later in the evening. She had seemed to be hanging around, looking for excuses. Alice knew why. She wants to make sure I’m all right before she goes home. She’s right, I’m an embarrassment as a patient, a “suicidal.” It’s like being a mechanic and having a customer’s engine blow up the day after an oil change.
“Look, I could stay if that would make you feel more comfortable,” Holly suggested at the door. “I could sleep in your guest room.”
“No, really, Holly, thanks. It’s not necessary. I’m all right.”
“I’m just not too keen on you being here alone this soon after—”
She didn’t need to finish. “I’m fine, really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Well,” Holly stalled, glancing down at the polished gray slate in the foyer. “If you need anything, or if you get upset or anxious or something, call me immediately. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Promise.”
Alice nearly laughed. “I promise, Holly. You’d better go home now. I’ve used up almost your entire day.” Then Alice kissed her on the cheek, and Holly was going out the door.
“And lock your door, right now,” Holly added, turning on the short slate walk to the street. Her Maserati waited at the curb like a dumb mascot. “There’s been a rash of burglaries; rapes too.”
“I will. Good night.” Alice closed and locked the door after Holly got in her car and drove off. Honestly, that woman worries more than a room full of grandmothers.
It was peculiar, though, wasn’t it? The way Holly looked at her sometimes. Something seemed to peek through that cold psychiatrist’s veneer of hers. But what was it? It was almost a doleful look, something pining behind her eyes. Alice couldn’t quite figure it.
But she was too tired now to figure anything. “I’m going to bed,” she told herself aloud. She turned out the lights along the way. Burglars, schmurglars, she thought. She had good locks on all the doors, and an ABC Systems alarm. If somebody breaks in, I’ll probably sleep right through it. In sluggish, sleepy movements, she changed into her nightgown, unconsciously frowning at her prosthesis, and turned out the watch room’s last light.
She lay back in bed, drifting off at once. The beautiful moonlight shimmered in the windows; the moon’s reflection off the bay lulled her like foxfire in a nighted forest.
Alice was asleep in less than a minute.
Asleep, yes, and dreaming—
(Alice? Alice?)
—when the gentle, white hand touched her shoulder.
— | — | —
14
Holly was dreaming as well, later, in her own bed. And a hand touched her shoulder, too. A symbol of her desires, yes, but it was no “guardian angel.”
It was Alice.
Holly squirmed, moaning. The cool sheet was pulled away. Warm hands slipped over her breasts.
“Do you want me to stop?” Alice asked. “I’ll stop if you want me to.”
“N-no,” Holly exhaled.
“I mean, I’m not really sure how you feel about this. You’re my psychiatrist, and I’m your patient, and here we are in bed together. Are you sure this is okay? Is this cool with you?”
God, what a question! Of course it’s not okay, Holly thought. Of course it’s not cool. It’s a breach of every professional ethic I’ve ever been taught. Shrinks lose their licenses for things like this, they get sued, sometimes they get put in jail. But—
But…what?
It’s only a dream, so—
“Make love to me,” Holly breathed.
Their eyes locked. Alice, nude, was kneeling on the bed. Holly felt damp and shivery in the warm room. Yes, this was a dream, all right—her ultimate dream—and this is the closest I’ll ever get to being with Alice, she realized. In a dream…
Alice’s hands smoothed up and down Holly’s body, gliding through sweat. Slowly. Meticulously. Up and down the fine, damp skin. Then the love touches grew more ardent; they were nearly feral. Was Alice as desperate for this as Holly? Were her longings just as strong? They must be, Holly thought. Alice’s hands smoothed her out as something to be finely inspected, to be reveled in. The room’s darkness held Holly down as surely as fetters. Her breasts were squeezed, her legs stroked, her nipples plucked until they were hard and deliciously sore. Suddenly her blood seemed to distill down to a fine, hot oil coursing through her veins, fit to ignite.
Two fingers filled her up, while the thumb rubbed wide circles about her clitoris, working into the moist cup of the hood. Then the circles tightened, the pressure increased. Holly felt warm juices first seeping, then flowing from her. Every muscle in her body was as taut as steel wires. It didn’t take long, and why should it? This was a dream of her greatest fantasy. Her first orgasm seemed to break out of her, a bull in a china shop, followed by a series of smaller climaxes.
Only now, in the sedate aftermath, did Alice kiss her. They embraced, belly to belly, their bare bosoms pressing. Suddenly they were witches exchanging all the human secrets of history; they were arcane shadows suffusing, they were animals in the most delirious heat. Holly rejoiced in this celebration of flesh; her skin felt like damp static, her sex a drenched well full of sexual honey, aching for succor. They went wild in each other’s taste and touchings and eventually were turned around in a sprawl of flesh, limbs askew. Holly was oblivious to the fact that one of Alice’s limbs was in part artificial—she didn’t care. The intimacy of this precious passion was her only focal point, her only care. Her mouth pressed into the blond spread of her lover’s private hair, her tongue parting the tender lips. When Alice did the same Holly began to come again. The spasms did not abate; they only quickened to a state that was nearly perpetual. They were one quivering body now, Siamese sisters, joined in lust and love via mouth to sex…
Afterward they lay exhausted amid the damp sheets, Alice cuddling her from behind, her arm draped and her hand idly playing with her breast. This was what Holly wanted, this bliss every night, this love.
It was real love, she knew. Something she’d never had, something she’d waited for her entire life.
“I love you, Alice,” she whispered to the warm room and the dark, secret hour.
“I know,” Alice whispered back.
Holly, now, truly had what she wanted—if only for a moment in a
dream—
And then the dream turned…hideous.
Holly shrieked. What was wrong? Suddenly the hand so lovingly caressing her breast was clawed, arthritic. Fat blue veins moved beneath the hand’s wrinkled skin. Holly seized up in a rigor of terror.
The voice behind her no longer belonged to Alice. Instead it fluttered as a decayed rumble, phlegm rattling in an infirm chest when it said, “And all this time I thought you were a good student. What was the very first thing I taught you, Holly?”
The most noxious stench rose. When Holly turned the old skin on the draping arm peeled away, revealing bone. Holly stared down; a mottled, fungus-ridden erection pointed at her.
Then she looked up at the face of the person who lay behind her. Not Alice’s face; no, but the face of her long-dead psych professor.
The eyeless corpse grinned, showing black teeth through split lips, its nostrils clotted with fly larvae.
“Don’t you remember, Holly?” the corpse inquired. “You must remember what I taught you. Never get involved with a patient.”
Holly awoke with a shriek on her lips. She lurched out of her bed, madly switched on the lights, then leaned back against the wall in a crashing relief.
Only a dream. Only a nightmare.
But, God—what a nightmare! She felt so uneasy that she quickly shed her panties and rushed to shower.
She closed her eyes under the cool spray. She didn’t even have to wonder; finally she had the opportunity to redirect her therapeutic skills to herself.
The nightmare was a guilt dream, of course, her professional ethics at odds with her personal feelings. Psychiatrists have feelings, too, she thought tritely. It would make a good bumper sticker. She could run ads in the American Psychiatric Journal, make a mint! But it was no laughing matter. Her untold love for Alice was in complete violation of all professional medical ethics. Just as the corpse of Professor Saul had said, never get involved with a patient…
