Axis of Aaron

by Johnny B. Truant

  “Hmm. I needed it.” Spoken with playful lechery. With each passing second, Ebon was finding he needed it now too.

  “We have fun, don’t we?”

  Ebon moved to cup a breast before answering in the affirmative. Holly took his hand and held it with more innocent flesh.

  “Well, if we’re going to keep having fun,” she said, “I guess that makes us a couple. And couples should — ”

  Again, there was a tremendous booming from outside. This time, several knickknacks tipped sideways on the dresser across the room. Holly’s water glass, beside her on an end table, shook enough to spill a glut onto the table’s lacquered surface. Deeper in the apartment, picture frames clattered against the walls.

  Ebon held his eyes to Holly’s face as it happened. She didn’t stop speaking or acknowledge the disturbance. She finished her thought, undeterred, but Ebon didn’t hear it.

  “What the hell is that?” Again he flexed to rise, but Holly put a hand on his shoulder to hold him in place.

  “Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

  “I can’t hear anything while someone is trying to knock the building down!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The fact that the whole goddamn apartment is shaking! Jesus, Holly!”

  “I didn’t feel any shaking.”

  A long, black crack began to snake across the ceiling, starting in one corner and making its way over the bed. Boards and nails and sheetrock parted with a noise too large for what Ebon was seeing. It sounded as if the world were tearing at the seams. Plaster dust sifted down onto them, turning Holly’s tan skin white in a fuzzy line. Still, her eyes never left his.

  “Are you hearing me, Ebon?”

  In one motion, the apartment’s entire far wall fell inward as if kicked from outside. Two-by-fours splintered; plaster broke into crumbles and dust. The girders that framed the apartments in neat cubbies showed themselves as seams ripped, standing tall while the wall’s detritus showered them with splinters and dust. Ebon held his hands up to shield himself, then tried to hold the sheet to shield Holly. But she pushed it down and began to speak, angry, adamant.

  “You know, I can be more than — ”

  The apartment above collapsed at its outer rim, someone else’s furniture and belongings falling into the space at the bed’s foot. Nails and screws pelted them, and Ebon felt the building seeming to come loose at its foundation. It would tip over any second now. If he were standing, he’d have trouble getting his footing. As it was, lying down, Ebon felt the world almost seeming to spin. He waited, gripping the sheets, unable to think about Holly as she continued to speak as if nothing unusual was happening at all, waiting for the whole works to topple.

  Ebon wanted to hold Holly tight, to protect her and be her rock as he always had, because she’d always been the flighty one, the one who thought only about fun and parties and pleasure and joy, who had no filter but no fucking adult common sense either. The walls were crumbling while Holly kept blabbing, forcing Ebon, as always, into being the responsible, sensible one. In a hot flash, he felt her frivolity as a burden. She’d always been like this. Up for a good time, but crumbling when it came time to grow up and do what had to be done — for herself, for him, for their lives together, for her career, for the world.

  But before Ebon could take her and hold her tight as the floor before them gave way (tossing their belongings onto the space at the foot of someone else’s bed below), Holly pushed him away, her eyes suddenly full of rage. The emotion looked fake — nothing like the anger he’d seen simmering a moment ago. This was almost a caricature. It was like fury played by a bad actor, or written by a bad screenwriter.

  “I want to fuck other men!” she yelled. “It’s how I am! It’s how I’m wired! If you want to be with me, I’ll fuck you too!” Holly reached out and seized Ebon’s flagging member and began tugging with sexual malice, as if unsure how it worked. “I’ll fuck you all day and all night, but if you’re not enough for me — and let’s face it, how could you possibly be? — then I’ll do what I need to do!”

  “Holly, what are you … ”

  Outside, bright day became night in a blink. The blink corresponded perfectly with Holly reaching toward him with another strange snap of demeanor. Ebon flinched, but this touch was kind; her anger departed as if it had never existed. The building continued to shift. A dresser fell, cheap wood exposing its contents like spilled intestines.

  “I have my own painful past,” she said.

  “Jesus Christ, Holly! We have to get out of here!” Finally, belatedly, Ebon sat up on the bed, dragging Holly with him, pulling them both into squats amid the piled-up pillows, slinking back away from the sloughing pit along the building’s failing side. He inched toward the bedroom door, trying not to see the blackness outside. Forget that the sun had left the sky in a blink. Forget that even allowing for the shadows, Ebon felt certain there was nothing out there now at all — no pedestrians walking, no playground filled with kids. No stars, no sky.

  “I don’t like to think about it, but — ” she began. But then Holly stopped, and Ebon didn’t know why until he turned to look, wondering if she’d seen a new crisis his panicked attention had missed. When he did, he saw that she no longer had a mouth. Her eyes were still animated, two tiny emerald animals trapped in cages as she tried uselessly to speak.

  “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” Ebon yelled, unable to help himself.

  He began to drag her. Holly left the bed like a corpse, hitting the floor at its side with the dull thud of meat onto a butcher’s block. She was too heavy, as if her thin form had doubled in mass, as if she’d swallowed her weight in lead as part of a dumb party stunt. He yanked as hard as he could, but she barely budged. He felt like he could only dislocate her arm, but he’d never make her move. And now, above, the roof was leaving the building, all floors above theirs peeling away like a lid from a pull-tab can. Looking up, he saw more of that unfathomable, featureless blackness and then looked away again, staring back at Holly.

  But now she wasn’t helpless and bound at the mouth. Her lips had cracked into a wide, cruelly seductive grin, her legs spread, her free hand between them, furiously rubbing.

  “Give me what I need, Ebon,” she said. “Here, now, while the world ends.”

  “Get up! We have to go!”

  “Responsible, predictable husband of mine,” Holly purred. “Always wanting to fight the losing battle, just because it’s what seems safe.” She moved the hand away from herself, licked her fingers, then drew a wet line on Ebon’s tugging arm. “Come on, baby. Live a little. Haven’t you ever wanted to fuck while the world ends?”

  “Goddammit, Holly, get on your feet! Get up and — ”

  She was on all fours in an instant, moving toward him, unseating Ebon as he pulled. His grip came free, and she was above him in the corner, a hollow wind now pulling at the room’s decimated edge, the sound of nothingness made real. But she wasn’t wanton; she’d flipped again, and this time she slapped him across the face, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “I want to be — ” she began.

  The floor shook, then dropped three inches. Ebon felt his stomach unseat, then felt fear boil as Holly, ignoring her environment, crawled forward and slapped him again.

  “It’s you who — ”

  The floor dropped another three inches. The wind picked up, and Ebon felt the building tip toward the room’s empty side, toward what had become an eternal pit.

  “Holly, we have to go! You have to work with me!”

  “Ebon, honey,” she said, “I’m trying.”

  The entire building seemed to fall off whatever eternal plinth had held it, and Ebon felt himself tumbling into nothing. All around him was darkness and the remains of his bedroom, Holly free falling before him with her hair spread out in the breeze. Her face wore a wry look, and in spite of the moment’s horror Ebon felt her expression yank him into a strange sort of calm where it was just the two of them. They could
have been sitting in a cafe, sipping tea. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t. Despite having fully functioning equipment, Ebon felt as if something were holding him fast, telling him not to speak as if he were the one missing a mouth.

  “Fine,” Holly said. “Have it your way.”

  Then it was over.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Baby

  “HOLLY.”

  THE WORD LEFT IN A gasp. Ebon lay collapsed as if at the end of a race, but he was on a hardwood floor covered with a fine rug rather than at a finish line, and the woman above him wasn’t Holly.

  “I’m Vicky.”

  Ebon looked around, confused. He remembered Vicky fine, but recalled Holly just as vividly. He felt caught between two realities, both equally true. That conversation with Holly had happened years ago, and yet it felt as fresh as wet paint, his cheek still prickling from her touch. Although, as Ebon’s fingers wandered absently to the spot where she’d touched him, he almost seemed to recall a slap. But Holly hadn’t slapped him. Not then or ever.

  “Why am I on the floor?”

  “You passed out.”

  Ebon tried to stand, but Vicky knelt beside him and gently pushed him back down, until his head was again on the rug.

  “Don’t get up. You fainted because your brain needed blood. Let it have its fill.”

  “What are you, a doctor?”

  “Everyone knows that. You faint, you take your time getting up.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Trust me,” said Vicky, a kind smile on her broad red lips. She was still wearing the same white dress she’d been wearing earlier, but Ebon could only spot it from the corner of his eye. He had a strange sense of seeing the world as if it were on a screen, devoid of the usual crisp sensory immersion that made reality feel real. The fading impression of that old memory with Holly, right here and now, still felt more real than this. It had been rich and vibrant, full of color, scents, and sounds filling his senses in a panorama, whereas he was seeing Vicky almost like a broadcast. But even as Ebon lay on her polished floor and fluffy rug, he could feel the earlier scenario’s veracity spilling over into this one. He was forgetting the old memory’s vividness the way he’d lose a dream on waking, and found himself sad to see it go. It was long gone, seemingly an eon ago. It had been of a time when they’d been fresh, when Holly had been all excitement and pleasure. Before the cheating. Before she’d turned into a snake and revealed her true colors.

  Why did it hurt so much to see the memory leave? Ebon wanted to hold it tight, and clutch it to his chest. But it was like gripping loose sand, and little by little — as blood returned to his needing brain, probably — Ebon felt reality sharpening and felt the memory departing to its proper place, the edges for some reason not quite fitting as neatly as they had before. Something was wrong with the memory. But what?

  “How about now?” said Vicky.

  “Better.”

  “Sit up, if you can.”

  Ebon could, quite easily. He made his way to Vicky’s plush designer divan over some mumbled, overprotective protests and sank back into the cushions. Only once he was settled did Vicky’s hands lower to her sides. She still looked poised and perfect, her red hair up without a wayward strand. She pulled a small chair slowly forward and sat opposite Ebon, her knees pressed together, the dress’s bright fabric stretched tight across her pale thighs.

  “I passed out,” said Ebon.

  “Yes.”

  “How embarrassing.”

  “It was a long walk, and it’s cold. I imagine you’re just exhausted.”

  That might have been true. If he was remembering correctly — and after the odd memory of Holly (strange for a reason he couldn’t quite finger), Ebon wasn’t sure he was remembering correctly — then before coming here he’d motored out into a storming December ocean, crashed, then walked here dazed and hypothermic. But according to the story he’d told Vicky, he’d simply walked up the coast. It wasn’t far, and certainly no reason to assume dehydration and exhaustion. She must be trying to make him feel better, because that’s what she did. What she always did.

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t feel bad. I once passed out in church.”

  “You go to church?” Another thing he didn’t know about her. It was strange that the person who brought him comfort was such a stranger.

  “I did when I was younger.”

  “How young?”

  “The time I passed out, I was ten or eleven.”

  “Ten or eleven,” he scoffed. “I’m over thirty.”

  “You can pass out at any age.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Do you want me to get you something hot?”

  She meant it literally, but Ebon felt like he was sixteen years old. He looked down at Vicky’s swelling, porcelain cleavage and resisted a powerful urge to make an immature joke, perhaps agreeing emphatically that he wanted something hot, all right.

  “Like a branding iron?”

  “I was thinking coffee or tea.”

  Ebon said, “Sure.” Why hadn’t he had coffee as soon as he’d arrived? Or failing that, why not with dinner? He’d been freezing. Coffee would have been like liquid invigoration. Like coming in from the cold to a cup of …

  “I also have hot chocolate.”

  “You read my mind.”

  “So … hot chocolate.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Vicky stood then leaned down, giving Ebon an eyeful of that delightful cleavage. She planted a kiss on his cheek and pulled a brown afghan over him while she walked away, backside swaying as her heels clacked the floor.

  “How’s your head?” she asked, returning, setting an elegant-looking mug on the coffee table, slipping a stone coaster beneath it.

  “My head?”

  “Before you passed out, you seemed …” she trailed off.

  Ebon was beginning to remember that too — him “seeming” some awkward way toward her moments before going down. He couldn’t recall what he’d done or said specifically, but the sense of discomfort was there. With it came gratitude. He’d done dumb, immature things around Vicky before, and she always saw past them. Whatever oddity his head was still groping to recall had unsettled her before it had unsettled him. But then again, he’d been about to faint at the time. That surely had to excuse whatever idiocy he’d spewed.

  “I’m coming around.”

  “I thought you were having an episode.”

  “Hopefully it was an episode of something funny.”

  Vicky ignored the aside. “Your eyes got all swimmy. It was like … ”

  “Like an episode of Sanford and Son.”

  She paused, then resumed, “ … like you didn’t know me at all. I was … a little frightened.”

  “I’m not frightening.”

  “You weren’t. The situation was frightening, I mean.”

  Ebon thought she might be being kind. “Frightening” had rung a bell in his mind, and he wondered what he might have said or done. Somehow, in at least a small way, he — Ebon, as himself — had frightened her, all right.

  “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “As long as you’re better now.”

  Ebon sat up, took a few short sips of the hot chocolate, then nodded slowly, making sure his words were true before they left him. “Yes. I feel better now.”

  “You were just exhausted.”

  “I was. I am.”

  “Do you want to go to bed?”

  Ebon sighed. What he wanted was to have dinner with Vicky, then slip that white dress off her shoulders and down the length of her body and do what naturally followed. But as tough as he was trying to be, the truth was nudging its way to the front: he’d been spilled into a near-winter ocean; he’d barely survived a deadly storm. The fact that nobody knew those things didn’t change their toll on his body.

  “I suppose,” he said. “But I’ll finish my hot chocolate before I leave.”

  “Leave?”

&n
bsp; Ebon looked at Vicky. “Oh, you meant for me to sleep here.”

  Vicky looked embarrassed. “I was just thinking you might not want to make the walk again if you’re tired and beat. But will she worry if … ?”

  Watching Vicky trail off expectantly, Ebon remembered just how far into uncharted waters he was. He’d skirted the issue of Vicky with Aimee, and he’d skirted the issue of Aimee with Vicky. But Vicky had mentioned Aimee, meaning that she knew. But what did she know? And what, if anything, did Aimee know? He’d lied to her at least once about staying over at Vicky’s. So did Aimee even know Vicky existed? What had he told each woman about his relationship with the other, and had it been the truth? For that matter, what was the truth? And did it make a difference? Why would he keep secrets? There was too much unknown. Treading those grounds was asking to step on a buried mine.

  “It’s fine. I’d planned to stay here anyway.”

  Vicky’s face seemed momentarily perplexed. “Why would you plan to stay here?”

  “Oh. I just meant that usually … I mean, in the past, we’d … ” Ebon had no idea how to end any of those sentences.

  “You wanted sex.”

  The statement was a splash of cold water. Yes, Ebon supposed he’d wanted sex. And, given the precedent that seemed to exist between them (he’d woken up nude in her bed, after all), he supposed it wasn’t an unreasonable expectation. But hearing it so baldly was disarming. Even Holly had usually been more discreet.

  “Well … sure?” He didn’t want to say no, thinking it might sound like rejection.

  “So you just assumed.”

  “Well, I figured that … ”

  “I don’t live here, Ebon. This is my weekend home. And I’ve told you over and over how much I value being alone. How much I need that time to recharge.”

  “But you’ve been coming here this late in the year to see me.”

  Vicky put her hands on her hips. Three strikes in a row.

  “Oh, really.”

  “That’s what you told me,” said Ebon sheepishly.

  “Look, I liked having sex with you. I’d definitely do it again. But …” Vicky sighed, seeming to realize that she might be overreacting, trying to dial down. Softer, she said, “I just don’t do dependence well. You can’t go asking me for a dedicated drawer, assuming without being asked that you’ll sleep over, all that.” Still trying to dim what was clearly an honest and important set of statements, she stepped closer and ran her hand down his arm. “It’s just how I am. Yes, I’d love it if you’d stay over tonight. But … ”