Deadweight

by Robert Devereaux

  Wolf leaped up at the snap of his fingers, sniffing at the pelt, laying his jaw on it, feeling Nona’s warmth. Danny took Wolf’s front paws, walked him up the bed until he covered the woman, furry underbelly against Queenie’s fur, snout buried in Nona’s confusing platinum hair. Not confusing enough, however, to cancel the signal that came to him from the pelt and his position. Danny helped him find Nona’s anus, got him started with a handful of spit and some manual guidance.

  Then he slid under Nona’s body, his legs bracketing his dog’s, Nona’s bracketing his. She was dry and tight as a healed wound going in; would have abraded him before he died (yes, fuck it, he’d been dead), but now, with his new strength, she parted like knifed butter. Her breasts hung tantalizingly less than an inch above his chest, her nipples tight with terror. Her eyes, changed nearly past recognizing, widened down at him. A tear splashed at his lips, salty and fine.

  “Having fun, Nona?” he said. He ran his fingers over her face, lightly at first, then more roughly, but more in control now, careful not to get carried away, not to reach endgame too soon. “Too bad about your mouth. I’d love to do all sorts of things with your sweet mouth.” Retrieving her shoes, he fixed on the tapered pink heels, the sliver-thin tips, reinforced, had to be. “So maybe we’ll just go a different way in. I wanted to watch you suck on these heels like you made me do once, remember?” She made no acknowledgment, her head bobbing like a dashboard doll’s, out of synch with the reaming Wolf now shuddered into her from below.

  Danny touched the tips of the heels to her cheeks, dimpled them there, deepened the dimples, broke through the skin, slid them into the punctures past new rivulets of blood until they met wadded wet nylon socks between her tongue and palate. He pulled them out, pink gone red and dripping. “You made ’em all wet, Nona.” Danny drew red trails up past her temples, played her outer ears like a mirrored needle running through record grooves, a maverick needle not honoring label boundaries, headed for the small dark hole in the center. He deafened her then, watching her eyes widen further, holding himself back from shoving them in all the way. He let go of the shoes for a moment, saw Nona as a gagged, lop-eared rabbit, felt the enormity of what he was doing. He was amazed at the distance he’d traveled, while underground, from where he’d been. Sure, he’d beaten up on Karin, tied her up, made Wolf lick gravy off her breasts, even gotten hard once watching an out-of-her-skull-with-terror Mexican whore buy the bloody farm in a snuff flick. But he would never have done then—never even conceived of—what he was doing now. The mutilation, the murder, these came to him naturally, one outrage upon another.

  He uneared the heels, outlined her eyes in gore, Nona trying to arch out of his way but not having much room for it. The heels eased in, just at the lashes. She bucked and thrashed, cheek holes wheezing blood from her stifled screams. A high yip sounded behind her. Wolf was on his way to doggy heaven. Danny was hard inside her and gently moving every now and then, but nowhere near to coming. He tossed Nona’s shoes aside and grabbed the carving knife, a deep cut, so deep he felt backbone resist blade, bathing his face in neck blood, nearly choking on the hot outgush as it washed down on him. Wolf, who bounded off, watched from the floor.

  Danny uncunted himself and hustled out from beneath her shuddering body, gripping her chin and wrenching her head over—crack of spine like wet kindling—so that it lay back against fur, staring up eyeless at the ceiling. He knelt between her arms, a tight fit, his feet against the wall, his knees pooled in blood. Two holes hungered for him, two neckholes like snapped graphite in the halves of a pencil, one leading to the brain, the other to the belly. The first was too short, too inactive, and he had no great craving to fuck fat old Clarence’s socks. The second wheezed like wet lips spewing liquid vomit and gasping for air. That one he filled up, his head on fire with the inhumanity of his act, wallowing in it, suffering for it, yet with one new spark of horror in him, Karin his salvation, but the thought of being beholden to Karin trebled his rage and he thrust into Nona’s throathole with renewed violence, her hot blood gushing like vampire puke against his groin. He made to bend over her body but the head got in his way. He wrenched it off—a flap of flesh peeling between her shoulder blades like a torn cuticle—and hurled it with a fisted rap against the bedroom door, blood and platinum curls sawblading end over end. Wolf chased after it, a tossed Frisbee, almost brought it back, then sat down by Queenie’s corpse and dug into it like a stew bone. He huffed once like he’d done near nap time in the old days.

  Nona’s throat clutched hot about him. He leaned over the stapled pelt, hands on her breasts, feet pressed back against the wall below the sill, stretching her arms with every thrust, dislocating her shoulders with the force of his passion. Then it was on him, riding him, riding her: the monster drive inside him, the need to love by hurting, the dark expression of pain, pumping his pain into any hot victim, getting rid of it, shooting the rapids of his seed into her, and it came, it came, out of him it came, fierce as jungle beasts lunging, and Nona became dead flesh under him as he died inside her.

  The air escaped him. Deep lungsful he needed. Then it rushed back in, calming him. And with it came fatigue like he’d never known. He saw Wolf lying beside the head of Queenie’s mistress, Danny’s mistress. Eyes in and out of focus. Sudden panic took him, but not far. There was a blanket of wool slowly enfolding his mind. His body was shutting down. Wolf had already collapsed. Was he dead? Deep terror welled up, but everything was cotton candy in his head. Spirits of sleep dragged him down, no power in his limbs suddenly, and he knew for certain that it was over, that he’d never wake up, never have the pleasure of doing to Karin what he’d done to Nona. Nona: all furry under him, her buttocks still warm beneath his hands, her deep throat flexing around him in the afterglow of their love. Karin’s face hovered over candlelight as he fell, hovered and gloated and taunted.

  Winked out.

  ***

  Six-twelve by the clock in his car. Jimmy was nearly home, Quint having agreed to cover for him the last hour or two at work.

  “Want to sneak off and, you know, grab a piece on the side,” he’d said. “Look, I’ll owe you one.”

  To which Quint had joked, “I don’t know, Jimmy. Wife like yours? If it was me, it’d have to be an awful snazzy little piece to get me up off Nona.”

  “Angel food, Quint. A slice of heaven on earth. And she lets me do whatever I want, strip her, whatever.”

  “Gee, maybe Nona’d like some company while you’re at this other piece. Maybe—”

  “Maybe you’d better shut your fucking mouth,” he’d snapped at Quint, then they’d had harsh words there in the lobby, pausing while some deadline-driven nerd signed out, patching it up after he left.

  Jimmy turned off Sunrise onto Whitney. “Yeah, Quint, long’s I’m working the guard desk beside you, you sure as hell better stay away from Nona.” Was one thing to let your wife fuck the odd cock or two, a whole nother ball of wax working beside him for eight hours straight, a sidearm at your waist just itching to rise out of its holster like a cobra and zap the fucker between the eyes.

  He took a drag on his Camel, let the fumes spiral out his nose. Karin’d looked real sweet in her garden, tender skin of her breast on his lips. His brain was firing off rockets just recalling her passivity, transposing it into her bedroom, him yanking those white shorts off her pretty butt, exposing the cleft, working those thighs open, her a tad trembly, saying no but doing jackshit to stop him. It wasn’t rape if the voice said one thing and the body said another, just your traditional token resistance, good girl not wanting to seem a slut. What a wacko notion that was. Kept American women low on the world senso-meter far as he was concerned. Not like the Dutch, the Swedes, hell, the fucking Brits, come to that.

  He considered parking on Midas, cutting through the undeveloped lot behind Karin’s house, vaulting the fence there. Fuck that noise, he thought, Nona’ll be asleep or humping her latest catch. None of her business what I do anyway. I’ll just hit
the garage door opener, give her a jolt of hubby-home-early in case she’s got it spread wide for some normal-dicked geek, then break the fuck into the neighbor’s house and try his wife on for sighs.

  Checked the clock, six-nineteen. Another ten minutes and Frank would be out the door, a half-hour commute into Sacramento. With luck, Jimmy’d be inside Frank’s sweetie, jazzing her before Frank reached Business-80. Be still my beating hard-on.

  He cruised past the Georges’ house, old man Kinski’s perfect lawn, ugly Alice Brown’s ugly brown place (bratty son, husband who’d wised up and left), then Tanner’s house (pale light spilling into the front room off the kitchen, shadows moving, her shadow maybe, a whole shitload of vines and flowers everywhere, talk about obsessed!). He juiced the opener, heard it nit-nit-nit-nit, heard the rumble of his garage door as he shone headlights on its rising panels and drove forward when it had risen high enough to clear his roof.

  House was quiet. Smelled weird, like Queenie’d lost it, taken a dump somewhere. Speaking of dumps. He went into the hall bathroom, dragged on the Camel, dropped it into the can, took a huge quick shit on it, the excited kind like just before the big exam. Finished up. Guest room, traded his uniform for a pair of workpants and an old shirt. Jesus Christ, he needed a shot of something. Minimal lights on, he felt like a fucking burglar in his own house. Didn’t want the neighbors remembering a lot of activity in case she cried rape. Yeah, right, dummy, so you rumble into the garage at six in the morning, no one’s going to notice, old Flora Larchmont across the way, biddy never sleeps, time enough for that when she was dead, and none too soon for that neither. Fridge open, friendly old Johnny Walker tipping his hat, poured a big one, sloshed on the counter, felt tight and frantic going down, like a chocoholic shoveling in a layer of Whitman’s to stave off loneliness. Put it away. Slid the collapsible stepping stool—dirt clods still on it from his earlier vault—out from between the fridge and the counter with the toaster oven, crumbs scattered about. Neglectful Nona. Speaking of neglect: Sheer nightwear on the floor, torn up, the kitchen table askew. Odd. No come stains on the table. Jesus, sliding door unlocked. Have to talk to her about that in the morning after the stud she’d snagged tonight got the fuck out of their house.

  But right now, he had other things on his mind. Sun on bare breasts, wide-brimmed straw hat on Karin Tanner’s little-girl head, those perfect legs, the tight hug of her shorts. These were a few of his favorite things. Stool in hand, he slid the door shut behind him, stepped off the patio, his throat dry, liquor fumes in his nose. He crept along the back of his house, past the chimney, wasp nests and black widows in the eaves in past summers, wondering where they’d show this year. Bottles of shampoo dark on the shower ledge. Then their bedroom window, blinds down and dark, no candle flicker. Must have exhausted the poor bastard, no staying power, not like him, he could stay up forever. Nona would come around, once she got used to the idea. Go off with her on a cruise, spend it all in their cabin, worshiping his eternal hardness. Hell, maybe take Karin along too, if she asked real nice. Start off with two acolytes, then build his harem from there.

  Jimmy uncollapsed the stool by the fence, carefully, so as to minimize the noise. Peered through a knothole. The spill of light from blind slats in their kitchen made Karin’s garden a diorama of vegetation. But it lacked its goddess. The night was pulling away. The sky had given up black for deep purple. Jimmy heard a garage door open. Frank Tanner’s, no question. When it shuddered to a stop, he heard Frank’s Honda reversing onto the street, pausing, driving off. Garage door started again, on its downward track.

  He felt like he had to take another shit, he was so excited about what lay ahead. He’d steal into their yard, sneak around to the side door to the garage, get the key under the funnel (trusted neighbor indeed), haul himself out and pump up, surprise Karin in her bathrobe, ease it off her shoulders and away. By God he was going to have her, minutes from now, and she would love it. He climbed the steps and gripped the top of the fence, hoisting his body up and over, landing this time between bushes, no noise, none.

  The pre-dawn garden lay open before him.

  ***

  She’d gotten up as usual, dressed, made Frank an egg breakfast. Habit left over from her life with Danny, one she enjoyed.

  It had been a mistake.

  They usually didn’t say much in the morning. Usually it was a nice easy time to be together. Calm, relaxed, a chance to feel the fresh energy of awakening to a new day. Today her stomach had tightened up when he walked into the kitchen, fully clothed except for his coat and tie. He’d taken longer to dress, eaten less than usual, made a point of avoiding her eyes. She was glad to have it over, glad to take his token kiss on the cheek (lingered there a hair longer than he had to) and hear the rote series of sounds that went with his departure: the vigorous toothbrushing, the snap of his briefcase, the opening and closing of the garage door.

  Now, having adjusted the blinds in the kitchen and the TV room so they still kept out the world while letting in some light, she settled into Frank’s corner—her corner come six-thirty—of the L-shaped couch, one arm resting on its arm, and savored her solitude. She liked to watch the quality of the light change, plum to nectarine to peach to yellow-skinned apple, imagining each individual flower in her garden waking to it, watching the subdued spectrum of green in the stems and leaves of her houseplants shift and intensify with the light.

  Thoughts of Frank distracted her this morning. This simply couldn’t be happening to them. It felt all wrong. She loved him. He loved her. But they just didn’t seem to fit together. He—

  His key in the lock.

  He’d come back to sweep her into his arms, batter her face with kisses, tell her to put away all her silly ideas about breaking up because he intended to stay with her and love her forever. But wait. He’d driven off, she’d heard him. Car problems. Damned Honda had conked out again two or three houses down the block—Hondas Forever indeed—and he was coming back in to tell her he had to take the truck to work. But why would he use the alcove door instead of the front door? He’d have to go through the redwood gate, reaching up and over for the latch, then use the side door into the garage—a whole lot of needless bother. Made no sense, none at all.

  Rising to her feet, she heard the door close behind him. She began to call his name, then heard the footsteps not his footsteps on the tile floor past the washer and dryer. She held her breath, saw the alien shape hove into view, take space that did not belong to it. It moved down the hallway, a tight smile on its Jimmy’s! face. No, it couldn’t be, this wasn’t happening. Get out of here, she thought. Get out of here, you bastard. But nothing came out of her mouth, and the will was draining from her like always, and Jimmy was moving toward her, holding something below his waist, holding oh God his penis, red and jutting and erect, and Karin’s head throbbed, struggling against a lifetime of helplessness.

  EIGHT

  A DUBIOUS RESCUE

  Jimmy’d never been so jazzed in all his life. So this was the rush the bad man felt, this the high you got breaking and entering. No wonder cops were needed in such numbers. No wonder security guards like him never had to worry about being canned. He’d been in the house before, sure, during Danny’s time and once or twice since. But to steal in just before dawn, to cross through the garden and run your hand along the siding where it turned corners out of the backyard, to slip into a garage still oily with the fumes of the owner’s vanished car, to open the alcove door with your dick unzipped and out, knowing the prize at the center of this transformed wonderland was just around the corner—now that was a trip and a half! Three cheers for owning stuff, and three more for screwing the owner out of what he owned while his back was turned.

  Layout was like his house. More plants though, even more than the last time he’d dropped in. Walking down the hall toward Karin was like hacking out a jungle path, all the hanging planters above and whole shitloads of potted plants making the hallway narrower. The lady had plants on the
brain. But it was obvious from the way she stared at him coming toward her that she weren’t thinking about no damned plants now, nosirree.

  “Well,” he said, sounding different here, quavery and dark, hopped-up marauder’s voice. “Hello there. Hope you don’t mind my popping in like this, but I’ve got something here I wanted to share with you.” Hand on his penis; he’d be scared into limpness probably without his pump, but now he was stiff as stiff could be, balls and hair like backup men spilling out of the zipper-toothed vulva at the front of his pants, his prick ramrod thick and tall in his hand.

  She stood there, not in her bathrobe, dressed in some simple white blouse tucked into a reddish skirt that broke above the knees. She was blonde and beautiful, not flashy like Nona but simple and churchy almost, a dainty goldfish waiting to be netted, waiting for him to expose her animal parts, to strip and fuck her, to celebrate the lascivious side of her that called to him from beneath that innocent exterior whenever he watched her through the fence.

  It seemed at any second she’d bolt. But no. He came nearer and she just stood there, body tense. All part of the game. Pretend to be troubled, maybe even buy into it herself, all the time craving what both of them wanted so much: the bed, the flesh, the spillway.

  “You are so pretty,” he said, and it was true. Only natural light here, no hum of kitchen fluorescents. His hand, the one not clutching below, rose to touch her face.

  She gave a whimper, eyes wincing but not looking away from him, not breaking the gaze. Her chin arched up as if she were cornered prey baring its neck.

  He touched her cheek.