by Neil Mcmahon
Far away above him, he heard three soft cries, oh, oh, oh.
For half a minute longer, they stayed still, with his cheek pressed against her warm belly while her fingers stroked his hair. Then she sank to her knees.
"Now you," she said. Together, they tugged off his clothes. She pushed him back down onto the rock and fastened her mouth on him, liquid fire, quickly sucking him rigid. Then she slipped her arms around his neck and straddled his thighs. Monks slid slowly into delicious softness that went on and on, and oh, man, holy angels, this was it, this was what being born was all about-
"Can you feel my womb?" she whispered.
Whoa, she was at it again, picking his brain, but could he ever feel it, a sweet soft rub right where it counted, rubadubdub-
"It can feel you"
Well, that was just wonderful, that was how it was supposed to be, yep, the way it was all engineered, he understood that now like he never had. He was leaning back on his hands, sharp bits of gravel biting into his palms and buttocks like the teeth of unseen watchers, goading him on, gleefully whispering unintelligible words. She settled into a slow swaying of her hips, coaxing pleasure from him until there was no longer a point where he stopped and she started, with those wonderful breasts bouncing against his chest, oh my god I am heartily sorry for anything bad I ever said about silicone. The black scarf was looped around her throat, tumbling down her back, and abruptly, a razor-edged vision flashed into his mind of the night he had almost strangled Alison Chapley with a black scarf just like it. And he remembered that Gwen had picked that out of his head.
"The scarf," he said thickly.
"Yes?" she panted.
"It's – how could you know-?"
"That it's special to you?"
"Not special," he managed. "Scary."
She quickened her movements, fingernails digging into his back. Her eyes were aglow, her mouth open, laughing, joining her voice to the invisible chortling chorus-
"Come in me!" she cried, and he did, in shuddering waves, roaring with the unendurable raw sensation.
Monks fell back onto the rock, pulse hammering, arms sprawled at his sides. He was drained, his soul as empty as his loins, nothing left of him but a sensory apparatus. She rose and stood over him, majestic, imperious, the insides of her thighs glistening with her conquest.
"Now I can heal you," she said. "What you're afraid of – I'll make it go away."
He wanted to point out that he did not really mind being afraid, that in some ways he much preferred it to being brave. But before he could find the words, she loosened the scarf from her neck and dangled it over him, as if teasing a cat.
"Take hold," she said.
He reached up and gripped it. It was silk, sending little electric shocks through his fingertips. She tugged, stepping backward, urging him upright, then to his feet. When she got to the pool, she stepped in, disappearing with barely a splash. She was still holding her end of the scarf, and its tension jerked him to the pool's edge. A few seconds later, the white column of her body appeared again, her head breaking the surface. The scarf was stretched taut between them.
She tugged. Monks resisted, listening to the voices in the night's gentle wind. They seemed to be promising that this was what every instant of his life had been leading to.
She pulled again, harder. Whether she forced him or he yielded, he was not sure. The water was cool, a harsh shock to his skin, and it was deep. His feet did not touch bottom, and his motions to swim were awkward, his body not reacting with its usual coordination. It was alarming, a sudden forceful reminder of how out of control he was. He let the scarf go, struggled to the pool's rocky edge, and clung there. He spent a few seconds catching his breath, then started hauling his torso onto dry land.
Gwen breaststroked easily over to him. Her movements were graceful, and she shimmered with strength, her body all lissome toned muscle.
"Not yet," she said. "You haven't given it a chance." She gripped his ankle and tugged playfully, pulling him back in. He was not prepared for it, and he sank below the surface again, thrashing, gulping water. He came up hacking, groping for the rim.
"I can't" – he coughed – "do this."
"Oh, yes. It's what you've always wanted."
She disappeared in a smooth swift surface dive. He felt her hands at his right ankle again. This time, when she came back up, something was looped around it.
The something tugged, pulling him toward the pool's center.
She moved backward, treading water, holding the scarf's other end, towing him. She was smiling.
"Give in to the embryonic fluid that surrounds you," she whispered. "You're being reborn."
"I'm drowning," Monks gasped.
He tried to eggbeater kick, but the scarf held his right leg useless, and the left just flailed. He paddled furiously with his arms, but they barely kept him afloat, and were tiring fast. The voices cawed in triumph now, like ravenous prisoners finally about to tear into a meal.
He understood, with terrible clarity, that the scarf linking him to Alison Chapley had returned now like a vengeful snake to strike back at him.
He thrashed toward Gwen, but she eluded him easily. She dove again, becoming a silvery shape flitting in the water's blackness. The scarf yanked at his ankle, hard this time, pulling him under. Monks fought his way back up, sucking air in shrieking gulps – understanding that this was the last time.
"Now ask yourself, was Eden really worth it?" he heard her say behind him.
Monks inhaled one more lungful of air, then plunged his face down into the water, doubling over to grip his ankle. The scarf was wet, tightened into a knot his fingers could not undo.
She yanked again, pulling his ankle from his hands. He found it once more, hooked his thumbs inside the loop, and pushed down with everything he had. The loop caught for a second on his heel, but then slipped free.
He broke the surface, clawing for the pool's rim, kicking back to keep her away. He felt her hands on his leg again, felt the tightening loop of the scarf. He lashed out savagely, a hard thrust with his heel. It connected, with a shocking impact, with her flesh. Then he was free.
He scrabbled out of the water on his belly, suddenly aware of a raging presence around him that wanted furiously to hold him back. The rocks' sharp teeth tore at his flesh as he rolled to his feet. He crashed into the woods and ran headlong, branches and twigs underfoot stabbing and slashing him, voices howling in his head. He missed a step on the steep hillside, stumbled, missed another, and fell rolling downward, the hard earth beating the breath from his lungs and clawing more skin from his flesh. He kept himself rolling, over and over, tumbling down until he crashed against a rotted fallen log. He dragged himself over it, into its lee, and huddled there, fighting to get his breath back.
After a minute or so, he heard her.
"Carroll," she called. "What's the matter, darling? I was only playing!" Her voice was sweet, anxious, concerned.
Monks raised his face just enough to glimpse over the log. She was standing on the hilltop at the edge of the woods, a silvery magnificent vision. Her hair was loose now, a wild, wet stream down her back and shoulders, shimmering as her head turned slowly to overlook the moonlit landscape.
"Are you hurt? Tell me, I'll come help you." She took a few tentative steps forward, brush crackling under her feet. Monks tensed, ready to flee again. But she hissed in pain and bent suddenly to grip her foot, then backed away, limping a little. He closed his eyes in thanks. The same sharp branches and stones that had fought him were his protectors now.
But the sense of menace was still thick around him.
"You can't stay out till morning – you'll freeze! Come to me, love. I want you again."
Monks waited.
Suddenly, in screeching fury: "You kicked me, you bastard!"
He bowed his head again and hugged himself, shivering. He had never heard a voice like that – it was the furious presence he felt, speaking through her.
"Do I scare you because I'm not a cripple, is that it?"
He closed his eyes. She had found that in him too, not just Alison now, but Martine. Vengeance was descending for all that he had and had not done.
"I know you hear me," she called, voice low with wrath. "I can feel you. Go ahead and hide, but I've got you in me now. You're miner
He opened his eyes in time to see her stalking away, her white shape fading into darkness.
Monks lay there trembling in his cold rebirth. Around him, the night creatures moved with tiny rustlings, stealthy, timid with fear or fierce with readiness to pounce. In the distance, an owl hooted, whuh oo-ooo. The presence hovered around him, electric with menace: Hecate, queen of the night, mistress of spellcasters. They had powered their magic with effluvia from the victim's body, believed to contain the vital essence – hair, nail clippings, menstrual blood. Semen.
Monks forced himself to rise. Getting out of here was what mattered most in the world. He could see the lights of the house downhill and steered himself by them, crashing naked through the brush, barking in pain from his tormented bare feet. The invisible fury fought him like a headwind, while the voices chittered in his brain.
The parking area was deserted. He trotted in a crouch to the Bronco, pausing to peer in the windows, to make sure it was empty, then dropped to the ground and pulled himself under the rear end. His fingers found the set of spare keys he kept wired there, hidden by a carefully applied clump of mud. He got in and shuddered with relief when the big engine caught.
He found the narrow road and piloted the vehicle like a grandmother, hardly faster than a crawl, hands clenching the wheel at ten and three, staring wide-eyed through the windshield in the desperate effort to keep that winding line of pavement between the front tires. The overwhelming sense was that he and the Bronco were staying still. Everything else was moving, in a fluid shifting tapestry that obeyed no rules of physical order.
It got quickly unendurable. His panicked gaze searched for a place to hide, and spotted the moonlit tall tops of a eucalyptus grove across a field. He aimed for it, jarring his bones over ruts and hummocks, and finally pulled in behind the trees.
Little by little, the fury around him eased and the voices in his head receded. Awareness of cold seeped back in, and his body responded to meet its need, rummaging in the Bronco's rear for jeans and a sweatshirt. He went teary-eyed at their delicious warmth. He was feeling pain again now, too, from his cuts and bruises. Dark blood seeped from his flesh where the branches had slashed. But he knew that the healing had already begun – that invisible forces, like brownies in a fairy tale, were gathering to rebuild the torn tissue and replace the lost fluids. It was a marvel, this fleshly system that carried him around. As a physician, he was only a clumsy mechanic, able to guide the process a little. But the real work was taken care of on a molecular level, by some mysterious organic instinct that knew exactly what it was doing.
For a time he could not measure, he huddled in the front seat, drifting off into fantastic inner landscapes, getting hints of insights that seemed to have stupendous importance, then snapping back into watchful fear.
At last, he could feel that the drug was wearing off. The moon was near the horizon now. He guessed that four or five hours had passed since he had first arrived at the house. He got out and walked around for a minute to clear his head, then started the engine again. This time, things around him stayed put. He drove carefully, still a little shaky, but all right on the predawn back country roads.
Monks's mind was already filling with doubt. Had any of it really happened? Had she actually tried to drown him – or was that only a drug-induced fantasy, generated by a compounding of his fear, suspicions, and long-buried guilt about Alison? Had he imagined the words he thought she had screamed?
Or was he only being allowed to escape because of a deeper and far more fearsome truth?
It had not only happened, but she was right.
He was hers now.
Chapter 27
Gwen Bricknell stalked into the big house through Julia's studio, avoiding the party still going on out front, and quickly climbed the back stairs to her apartment. She had put her skirt and blouse back on, but she was wet, and pale with cold and rage. When she threw open the door, her trembling gaze landed on a vase of a dozen glorious red roses on her vanity. She had brought them up earlier, from the flowers delivered for the party, to celebrate. But now they mocked her.
She yanked off the garments and stuffed them in the trash, then grabbed a pair of scissors and hacked at the scarf, ripping it into shreds. It had failed her. She had had Monks so close. Everyone had seen him stoned. He would have been found in the spring, tomorrow morning, where he had wandered and fallen in. And that would have been the end of the prying.
Then her hands fell to her sides, dropping the scissors and scarf. The truth was, something in her had not wanted him dead. She had failed herself.
But she could not afford that weakness again.
She put on a fluffy terry robe, kept warm on an electrically heated rack, and started hot water running in the Jacuzzi. Then she laid out a long line of finely powdered cocaine on a china plate. She inhaled it sharply, standing quiet while its sweet energy mushroomed in her brain. When the tub was half full, she added a few drops of Rigaud bath oil and stepped in. She sank back, eyes closing, feeling the steaming warmth recharging her cells. There was nothing for that like hot water, but one had to be careful. Water was not friendly to the skin.
She rose and patted herself dry with deliciously soft towels, like the robe, kept electrically warm. She studied herself at her full-length mirror. Most of the flaws – the tiny crow's-feet developing at the corners of her eyes, the slight slackness in her jaw-line, the softening of flesh where no amount of exercise would tighten it – could be artfully concealed. Her skin was supple with the oil. But it was not what it once had been. It was losing elasticity, that smooth tautness over the muscles. There was even evidence of checking, and traces of cellulite on her buttocks and thighs.
In spite of all the exercising, the vitamins, the skin care, she was losing ground at the age of forty-one. There was no longer any denying it.
The days when men with cameras had adored her, when the phone never stopped ringing and all the good things in the world were hers to pick and choose, were long gone. She had stretched them by going to work for D' Anton – becoming the prime example of his art, a living sculpture that women envied and men were still awed by. But she had nearly lost that, too. She shivered, and dressed quickly in jeans and a sweater.
Then she stepped to the vanity and picked up the vase of roses that no admirer had sent, and threw it, with a hnnhh of exploding breath, against the mirror. The vase shattered and the mirror cracked in all directions, like a giant spiderweb with spreading fingers.
Chapter 28
Coffee Trenette is alone when you find her, curled up on a couch in a darkened side room, watching the poolside party through the windows. She's high from smoking junk.
You knew where she'd be. You've been watching her tonight, getting all this together in your head.
Monks was here, searching for you. And Coffee was talking to him.
She doesn't say a word as you walk up – just watches you. She's the queen of cool, with a way of looking at you that puts you right down under her shoes. Like the others, she thinks she knows what you are.
You kneel on the floor beside her, like you're nervous about approaching her.
"What you want?" she says, but her tone isn't too tough. She senses that you're here to offer something.
You keep your voice very quiet. "Here it is, straight. I've got a bottle of pharmaceutical Demerol. Hundred-milligram, the strong stuff."
She stays cool, watching you with that heavy-lidded look. But she's already made up her mind. Smoke is fine, but the needle is the real thing, and there are twenty or thirty shots in a bottle.
"You going to just give it to me?" she says.
&nb
sp; You smile timidly. "I've always had a thing for you."
Her lips twist, just a little. She nods and rises unsteadily.
"It's out in my car," you say. "Come on."
You lead her out the back way, to where you've parked, in the shadows. She stands beside the car, rubbing her upper arms like she's cold. You reach across and pop open the passenger door.
She hesitates a moment longer, then slides in beside you.
Chapter 29
In the hours between midnight and dawn, the world was still and without distractions, even of daylight itself. D' Anton sat in the darkened waiting room of his clinic, surrounded by the images of his women. It was something he did frequently. It soothed him – softened the hard sharp edge he lived on. His mind was usually a clear pool at these times, and his thinking was pure and undisturbed. He had trained himself since childhood not to need more than four or five hours of sleep per night. He had used this predawn time to form himself into a master surgeon – first, for study, then for practice, and ultimately, to envision the creations he would render. To see the potential beauty of a woman, and then to be able to render it – to wield the scalpel as it delicately parted the skin, to reshape precisely her living flesh, to take her down to the bone and bring her back transformed – this was a power to which nothing else compared.
But there was no soothing in it tonight. He had made an appearance at the party, put on a good face. He did not want the world to know what Eden's loss meant to him.
Even worse than that – the grotesque fear that he had managed to bury deep in his mind was coming to the surface.
And he was not alone. Monks had spoken the name, Roberta Massey. How in the hell had he found out about her!
A glow appeared on the room's far wall. It brightened, swung in an arc, then disappeared. He realized that it came from headlights shining through the curtains – a vehicle pulling into the clinic's parking lot. D'Anton looked at his watch. It was 12:43. No one had any business here. He got to his feet and went to a window.
