Sacrifice

by Edward Lee

  Her climax eventually dissipated. The night air revived her, whereas before it seemed to smother her in her need, and she slithered down off the rail into his arms, where they both fell back against the flat planks of the deck. She kissed him immediately, tasting the clean, salty tang of herself on his lips. His hands reached up almost as if startled by this new furor so soon after her orgasm. She could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and his hips squirmed in assistance as she pulled his slacks the rest of the way down, then the briefs, which she flailed aside.

  He lay spread out on his back, Alice kneeling over him as a priestess over an altar. Her heavy breasts swayed in the moonlight, her grin slatternly. Micah, she saw, was a man as physically endowed as he was endowed of character. She gripped his penis, and what protruded was more than most men possessed plainly. He throbbed with dense, meaty heat, and when Alice squeezed, an ingot of anticipatory drool appeared at once at the tiny slit of the gorged dome. She squeezed it again, fascinated, coaxing out more jewel-like drops of fluid. Then she stroked it, at first very gently, then much more firmly. Then—

  Alice sighed.

  —she took it, in wet increments, into her mouth.

  When Micah recaptured his breath after ejaculating he looked nearly shamed and, as if in excuse, rambled, “I—gee, I don’t know what happened. I mean, I never come that fast.”

  Alice just smiled, her hand gently cupping his spent testicles. He was acting as though it were all over now, but this was only the beginning.

  — | — | —

  18

  (Alice?)

  Alice turned in bed, sleepily opened her eyes on the mantel clock.

  The dim, aquamarine numerals read 3:15.

  (Alice…)

  Dreaming, she thought. Her leg slid idly under the sheet, touched another leg. Micah’s. The man she’d met tonight at Griffin’s. The man she’d taken home and—

  He lay sound asleep beside her. Starlight blazed through the French door’s panes, strangely bright at first, as her eyes acclimated, a wild impressionistic canvas, then dimming. Darkness drenched the rest of the room, and with it a caul of pleasant silence.

  She wasn’t even startled to see the sleek, pretty figure standing nude at the bedside; in fact, somehow, she had almost expected it.

  Dessamona, she thought.

  The soft hand touched her upper arm, stroked her bare shoulder. Alice couldn’t see Dessamona’s face, but in the smeary starlight the woman’s body seemed grainy with detail, like glitter: the flat, trim abdomen, the curved hips and long, slim legs, the firm, protruding breasts and large, distended nipples. The phantom leaned over, her nightshade hair fragrantly brushing Alice’s cheeks and shoulder.

  (Don’t you feel better now?) the soft voice said. (Don’t you feel good?)

  Alice smiled, her eyelids growing heavy.

  Dreaming, she thought again, then fell lushly and happily back to sleep.

  ««—»»

  Seeing you. Ah, yes. So much for me to see.

  Everything…

  You do it all for me, my fair one.

  Ministering to me in your passion and your zeal.

  Ours is a bond locked now in infinity.

  Under all the weight of the ages.

  Rapture onto one another, hand in hand. You are my sister, my lover, my twin. Take me through the shadows now, take me through the lovely seams and darkness of your world. I see what you see, feel what you touch. Such a joy to be alive again.

  Your flesh is my flesh. Through your nose I breathe deep and inhale the delicious fetors of this filthy, despairing abode of yours. Yes, the loveliest scents: hatred and contradiction, fear and deceit, treachery and betrayal, and the rich, rich rot of death.

  My perfume…

  I see the new pig stretched out long and tight…

  The sweat on your beautiful skin glimmers in the holy candlelight, and it drips down onto the pig’s heaving chest like plips of sesame oil. In your eyes burns the fire of primeval eons, and in your dutiful smile shines all the splendor of hell. Your naked body is a feast of vision, your spun-silk hair, your pearlescent skin, your bosom so large and so full of beating blood. Even the tiny cleft, shadowed by soft downy fur, at the cup of your sex— all so wondrous. A queen you are, a queen of the abyss. Your tiny hands, like fragile birds, so steadfast as they grip the knife and raise it high for all the minions to see in this precious chasm of death-black stone. The knife’s crude metal, too, glimmers in the candlelight like your flawless damp skin, like the hell shine of your smile, and down it comes then, a silver bolt of truth. My succor. Gliding through primitive bone, the knife sinks hilt deep in the pig’s squirming heart. Hot blood geysers, spraying your white belly, your breasts. You coo in sheer reverence, cradling the shriveled cock and balls as the blood spews out in body spasms, a dying bald chick in your soothing hand. But before the man-pig expires, you are taking up the knife again, listening to the precious sound as it comes unprized from the hot meat of the still-beating heart, and next his belly parts in a gaping divide. He is opened at last, and lying there agape, offering to your eyes the wares of his gut. Oh, so lovely, these wares, these pretty gifts! And next your hands descend into the warm, slippery mass of meat. Your fingers rove, playing with each strange shape. There is no other feeling like it, is there, my love?

  ««—»»

  Tick

  That was all the sound it made when Steve popped the taped circle of glass out of the backslider. The suction cup and compassed glasscutter had worked perfectly, as always. Just before, he’d cut a quick tear through the screen door and unlocked it—a cinch—and now he was carefully removing the round of glass with his jersey-gloved hands. The night hid him well, and the small town-house lot had a seven-foot weave fence around the patio. Sometimes it seemed as though people went out of their way to accommodate burglars. He could do jumping-jacks back here and no one would be the wiser. He could cook weenies on the brick barbecue, tap a keg of Heineken, and have a fucking party.

  In another ten seconds, if that, he’d reached into the newly cut hole and unlocked the slider’s latch.

  Soundless footfalls took him inside. This sensation of trespass, of sheer and heedless violation, exhilarated him. The dark red lens of his flashlight quickly scoured the downstairs. Nice joint, Commodore, he thought. The Navy must lay some serious bread on you, huh? A Pentium computer bus in the den—that alone would bring in a grand from Charlie, maybe more. Lots of framed and autographed pictures on the wall, Commodore Laurel standing with admirals and generals and shit, and Casper Weinberger and Colin Powell. Important dude, Steve figured. But he didn’t give a shit about the pictures. The gold nautical clock on the desk, though—now that was something to care about, and the Monte Blanc pen set— shit, those fucking writing sticks ran $250 apiece in the stores. Plenty of nice carriable silver in the dining room, too.

  But he’d get all that later.

  On his way out.

  He had Mrs. Laurel to tend to first.

  — | — | —

  19

  Maybe she was worrying for nothing.

  She had no business, after all, keeping tabs on a patient—at least in a sense. The psychiatrist’s job was to monitor the overall behavior of the patient, true.

  But what about when the psychiatrist is in love with the patient? Holly asked herself logically.

  That might be deemed a bit different.

  When Alice hadn’t shown up for her appointment Holly had grown alarmed immediately. She’d called several times, but there was no answer. She’d left several messages.

  Several times also, then, she’d driven by Alice’s house, suspecting she was home and either asleep—she’d been exhibiting odd sleeping patterns lately—or…

  Or just not answering, Holly, in her own paranoia, guessed.

  But why would Alice do that? Certainly, anyone had the right to not pick up their phone when they didn’t feel like it. But Alice, after all, had an appointment. In addition, she’d h
ad a very uncharacteristic hypersexual episode, not to mention making a suicide attempt a few days earlier. Holly would be negligent not to investigate.

  She was worried.

  Worried about a lot of things.

  She idled the Maserati through the City Dock. The hot, cloudless day seemed to have sprung the masses; the dock was jammed. Kids mostly, or at least what Holly could only think of as kids: couples in their early twenties, walking the docks, the Market House, the posh Harbour Centre Mall. Holly wasn’t jealous or envious of the younger set. She had her own goals, her own priorities. More power to them, she thought as the droves sauntered by, boys and girls in shorts, hand in hand…

  But would there ever be a day when Holly would walk as such? Hand in hand with Alice?

  The vision crumbled. Then her paranoias came home for a ravenous feast. She’s on to me, Holly fretted, parked and idling in front of an oyster bar. She figured it out, I gave it away—something. I blew it. Alice knows I love her…

  Why else would she have missed her appointment and not called? Why else would she have left her house when she knew she had someplace to be?

  She’s avoiding me now. She knows, and she’s avoiding me, keeping away—

  My God…

  Holly shut off the sports car’s engine and lowered the window. She hoped that the fresh air would clear her head of all this clutter. Why couldn’t she be her own patient just once, and realize the incredulity of what she was thinking? She knew she was being paranoid. Insecure. Wary. These were not promising traits for a clinical psychiatrist to harbor. Sit a minute; clear your mind, she thought. Get a hold of yourself.

  The fresh air, however, did anything but clear her head. Instead, it stifled her. It was hot, humid, draining. There was nothing like the fresh salt-scent of the bay, but when it was this hot that scent turned to something akin to a briny stench, bringing images of dead fish belly up in the water, floating garbage, pollution. Holly nearly gagged.

  “Hi.”

  She looked up, so off guard she almost flinched. A sunstruck shadow seemed to blaze, standing just outside the open passenger window.

  Then Holly’s heart bloomed.

  It was Alice.

  “Hi, Alice,” she almost stammered. “I was just—”

  Alice, interrupting, quickly brought a hand to her forehead. “Oh, jeeze, I’m sorry. We had a session today, didn’t we?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “I completely forgot. It’s such a beautiful day, I mean, you know, I—”

  Holly fought not to wilt. What you mean, she thought, is it’s such a beautiful day, the idea of seeing your psychiatrist is out of the question…

  But, no, there she went again, being paranoid, being insecure.

  “I was a little worried, that’s all,” she said instead, coming to a finer grip with herself. “So, what, you’re just moseying around?”

  “Pretty much,” Alice said. “I thought I’d walk down to the dock, look around, get something to eat.” Then she paused, leaned over with a smile, and invited, “Come on, let’s get some oysters.”

  ”Uh, okay,” Holly agreed, now even more off guard.

  She got out, locked the car. The sun blazed in her face, but suddenly it was no longer possessed of the stultifying heat and glare she’d reckoned with just moments before. Suddenly it was everything Alice had just commented upon. A beautiful day…

  “I have to confess,” Holly said, “I guess I was more than just a little worried. I even drove by your house a few times a little while ago.”

  “Oh, I’m really sorry for forgetting my appointment. For some reason I’m sleeping late these days. I guess you were really going apeshit, wondering why your suicide case didn’t show.”

  Alice had said this with mirth; Holly didn’t know quite how to react. “You’re not a suicide case, Alice,” she pointed out. “You’re just a little unraveled sometimes; a little, shall we say, irrational.”

  Alice laughed.

  They walked across Compromise Street to Pinkney, then looked up the lane. “Where do you want to go?” Holly asked.

  “Anywhere. You choose.”

  Holly led her patient back into McGuffy’s, the seafood bar they’d come to last week, where the barkeep had been gawping at Holly’s breasts. She’d asked for it, she supposed, neglecting to include a bra in her wardrobe for the day. She was wearing one now, though—a bit out of character for her—and she couldn’t help but notice that Alice was not. Her friend’s large, high breasts seemed to ride freely beneath the chiffon blouse, and Holly’s fantasies flashed back for a moment: the two of them together in bed, Holly’s face, blushed in afterglow, cradled against that same beautiful bosom…

  A fantasy, yes. And a lie.

  It’ll never happen, she thought just then, and the thought hit her in the head like a dropped flowerpot. I must be out of my mind thinking this woman could ever love me…

  Walking into McGuffy’s brought a drastic transposition; they’d stepped into another cosmic realm, from blazing bright heat to cool darkness. Alice immediately pulled up an upholstered stool at the end of the bar. Holly did the same.

  The place was empty today, perhaps because of the hour. Holly spotted only one other patron, the same thin, balding man she’d seen last week, today reading a fat hardcover book called Cult of Freaks. “Good afternoon, ladies,” greeted the bartender, appearing suddenly out of the plush darkness. Not the same bartender Holly remembered, but a gaunt man, thin, with a face so chiseled, it seemed incised. A white frilled shirt and an absurdly proverbial black bow tie. “What’ll it be?”

  “I’ll have a Dewar’s and water, rocks,” Holly said.

  Alice leaned over, squinting. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

  “Well—” Holly’s thought evaporated. What could she say? I love you, and you don’t even know it, so I feel like having a drink? No, that wouldn’t work at all. “I drink on rare occasions,” she said in place of the truth.

  “But you were the one who told me last week that alcohol corrupted the feminine spirit, right?”

  “Maybe I was exaggerating.”

  Alice backed off, smiling. “Soda water and lime,” she ordered.

  “Very good,” intoned the barkeep. “Coming right up.”

  Alice neglecting to order a real drink only depressed Holly further. It made her feel she was losing some aspect of control over herself, giving away the discipline she had developed over so many years. Only then, though, did it occur to Holly at all: I-I just ordered myself a drink. I haven’t done that in over a decade…

  “I just don’t understand it,” Alice said, fiddling with a straw, bending it into a bizarre shape.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m staying up much later than I ever have, and getting up much later. It’s not like me; I’ve always been an early riser. But I have to tell you—since you’re my shrink—I feel a lot better. In fact, I can’t think of a time when I’ve ever felt quite this good.”

  “You look good, too,” Holly said, then immediately retreated into herself. What a dumbass thing to say! But it had just slipped out, an unconscious observation, perhaps. “What I mean,” she hastened to add, “is that you look very vibrant today, more so than I’ve ever noticed. And you’ve lost some weight.” Yet again, she recoiled at her choice of words. “Er, I didn’t mean that you needed to lose weight, I just meant—”

  “Oh, Holly, you’re so sweet,” Alice offered. “Stop trying to be so kind. I’ve lost some weight and I’m pretty damn happy about it. I used to be so fat. This pair of pants I’m wearing?” Alice’s hand gestured to the white slacks. “I haven’t been able to get into them for ages.”

  Ordinarily, a patient’s disclosure of a sudden weight loss would’ve alarmed Holly. Cessation of appetite was a clear sign of any number of aberrant behavioral patterns. But all she could focus on just then was what Alice had first said:

  You’re so sweet…

  How she longed to hear those same words in an
other scenario, not nonchalantly in an oyster bar but with genuine meaning, in bed…

  Next, Alice was craning upward, raising a finger to the gaunt bartender. “Oh, and sir? Could we get two dozen oysters on the half, please?”

  “Very good, miss.”

  “Wait a minute,” Holly said. “The other day when we were in here you said you hated raw oysters.”

  “You’re right,” Alice admitted, “but I guess I changed my mind. I don’t know; I guess I’m being weird today.”

  You, or me? Holly thought, slouching on the stool. In all her harping about Alice not breaking out of her shell, who was really in the shell now? Not her, she thought. Not Alice.

  The drinks came, and not a minute too soon. This was the first alcohol Holly had brought to her lips in so long… Her toes curled in her high heels at the first luscious sip.

  After two sips she had a buzz.

  “We should go out sometime,” Alice said then, quite on the spur of the moment.

  Holly nearly spat out her drink. “What?”

  “I mean, you know, like we did the other night, when we went to the Undercroft.”

  “I thought you were terrified of the place,” Holly said without giving it much thought. “I thought you were afraid of running into Steve.”

  “Oh, to hell with him,” Alice said, and laughed. “Why should I let that little asshole dictate to me where I can and can’t go? I’ll go wherever I want.”

  “That’s a healthy attitude, Alice. I agree that you should shed your reservations about him, not let him inhibit your social freedom. But I’m curious. Exactly why do you want to go to the Undercroft?”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean we should go there specifically. I meant anywhere. Go out someplace. Have some fun.”