When Dez finally tottered into the kitchen, Iris glanced at him over her shoulder and said, “Don’t get used to me cooking for you.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mending
Dez slept without dreams. When he awoke, he figured it was nearly dawn, or even the following evening, but Iris, kneeling at his bedside, said, “It’s midnight.”
Though it was dark in the bedroom – he was pretty sure he was upstairs, though he hardly remembered the climb up here after gorging himself with turkey – he could make out Iris’s form well enough. Her arms were folded, her chin resting on her forearms, her face only a foot and a half from his. Self-conscious about his breath, he drew back a little, propped himself on his elbows, winced at the freshet of pain the movement brought on.
“I’ll get a bath ready,” she said.
Dez listened for a generator, heard nothing but the gentle sighing of the night breeze.
“I filled it up for myself earlier,” she explained. “The stove’s set up to run on a propane tank. We used it to heat water for both tubs, one downstairs, one up here.”
Dez frowned at her.
“Michael’s still asleep,” she went on. “Levi took a bath downstairs. I carried water up here little by little in a bucket. I’ll go heat some more to add to what’s in the tub.”
When Dez didn’t speak, Iris smiled wryly. “You don’t mind bathing after me, do you?”
“Uh-uh.”
She patted his arm. “Rest a little more. It’ll take several buckets to heat the tub.”
Dez watched her go. She’d traded in her khaki pants and navy-blue sweatshirt for a light gray tank top that didn’t quite reach the waistband of her gray athletic shorts. The effect was mind-blowing.
Dez slipped into a contented stasis. He felt slightly guilty watching Iris reappear with a fresh bucket every couple minutes, but the sound of her dumping the water into the tub was something he felt in his bones. Each time he heard the water sloshing, a wave of warm tingling steamrolled through him, and each time he watched Iris emerge from the bathroom with the empty bucket, he imagined she was communicating a message to him with her green eyes. It brought to mind that old Disney cartoon with Mickey and the deranged broomsticks, but he decided not to mention that to Iris.
At some point, she began to hum a soft, melancholy tune, and Dez experienced the oddest sensation. Like he was being drawn toward the sound, a rudderless barque sucked into a whirpool.
Iris came in, saw the look on his face, and stopped humming. She turned away quickly, her expression troubled.
What the hell? he thought.
She resumed filling the bathtub. After she’d emptied the bucket he didn’t know how many times, she set it down outside the bathroom and moved over to where he lay.
“Come on,” she said, and helped him out of bed.
On the way into the bathroom he couldn’t help notice how the gray shorts hugged her rear end, how the slender shirt straps accentuated her unblemished skin. In a world where the majority of survivors looked haggard and far older than their actual age, Iris could have stepped right off a magazine cover. If there were still magazines.
There were candles burning on the sink, windowsill, and the edge of the clawfoot tub, the bathroom smelling like a combination of pine needles and cucumber melon.
“That jacket stank like a rotting carcass,” she said. “I can still smell it on you.”
“How do you know that’s not my natural musk?”
“You didn’t smell like that before. Here, the t-shirt first.”
She helped him out of his t-shirt, but not without a great deal of discomfort. There were wounds on his shoulders and back of which he’d been unaware, but the scraping of Keaton’s shirt over his skin enflamed them, recalling the harrowing night at the Four Winds.
“Brush your teeth,” she said.
He found a toothbrush, dry but gently used, and a half-full tube of Crest. He brushed his teeth, taking his time about it. She’d even placed a glass of water on the sink edge, which he used to swish the paste out of his mouth.
“I count three spots that need stitches,” she said, studying him.
They stood very close in the bathroom, which was relatively tight to begin with. Iris’s skin seemed tawnier in the candlelight. She seemed shorter too, without her boots.
“The belt,” she said, and he started to unbuckle it. Was she going to stay in the room while he bathed? The notion excited and alarmed him. He hadn’t been naked with a woman – being semi-naked and strung up by chains didn’t count, he decided – since Susan.
“Need help?” Iris asked.
Dez shook his head, realized he’d paused with a hand on his belt. He continued unclasping the buckle of Keaton’s belt and unzipping Keaton’s jeans.
Keaton was a good deal broader than Dez, and because of this the jeans slid down his legs on their own.
“Lean on the sink,” Iris said, and bent to help him step out of the jeans. She stood erect, Keaton’s jeans in her hands. “We don’t need these anymore. The farmer who lived here was about your size.”
The fact that she’d been searching for new clothes for him scarcely registered. Because the only thing on his mind was his impending nudity. And Iris.
“Something wrong?” Iris asked.
“You’re staying?”
“That tub was a bitch to fill, and it’s not getting any warmer. You stink, and you’ve got multiple cuts that need stitching. Now unless you’re more limber than you’re letting on, you need me in here to wash your wounds. So quit acting like a shy little boy.”
Chastened, he peeled off his boxer briefs and turned toward the tub. He felt less self-conscious with his back to Iris, but he wondered what she’d thought of his private parts. Or if she’d even noticed them.
He eased down into the tub, which was fizzing, he realized, with some sort of powder Iris had shaken in. The water wasn’t hot – he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a hot bath – but it was warm, and that alone sent pleasurable shivers scurrying up and down his spine.
Dez hissed as his injured butt cheek met water.
“Toughen up,” she said, half-smiling.
“Says the woman without a bullet in her butt.”
“It’s a superficial wound,” she said. “You got grazed pretty good, but there’s no bullet in there. I could see that before you got into the tub.”
Feeling a trifle foolish, Dez reached down, fingered the scratch on his buttock. Touching it made him wince, but upon further inspection, he decided she was right.
“The box said ‘aroma therapy’,” Iris explained, taking a seat on the toilet beside the tub. “It’s supposed to be mint eucalyptus or something.” She dipped a washcloth into the water, wrung it out. “I’m sure there’s no medicinal value, but it felt good to pretend I was back in the old world again.”
It did indeed feel good. Dez leaned back in the tub, but when his right shoulder met porcelain, he cringed.
“That’s a bad one,” she said. “Here.” And she gently massaged the wound on his shoulder blade with the washcloth. She dipped it in the water, caressed the wound some more, and though it still hurt like a bitch, the fact that she might be preventing an infection went a long way toward helping him manage the pain.
“Lean forward,” she directed. “There’s one on your lower back I’m worried about.”
He did as he was bidden, clasping his arms around his knees and peering at the tiled wall, the wallpapered section above that. Red apples with green stems and leaves, a background of checkered cream. The quintessential country bathroom.
“Damn,” she said.
“What?”
“There’s a good one right here.”
He waited, felt a pinching sensation near his spine. He bit his tongue against the discomfort. “What are you doing to
me?”
“You’ve got some fantastic blackheads.”
He pulled away, glared back at her. “You’re squeezing zits?”
She smiled unabashedly. “I’ve always been obsessed with them.”
“Could we maybe focus on my injuries?”
“It’s my fee for helping you. Now turn around.”
Sighing, he did. She puttered around back there for a good three minutes, probing and pinching.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s all I can find. Let’s wash out those wounds.”
He shook his head, but he couldn’t suppress a grin.
“Hold on.” She stood, her body throwing shadows on the candlelit walls, then came back with something silver and shiny in one hand. Tweezers.
“There’s something still in there,” she said.
That sounds ominous, he thought. The tweezers prodded his skin, the object embedded in his lower back shifting, and though he tried not to seem weak, he couldn’t help hissing and uttering a curse.
“I liked the zit-popping better,” he said.
She ignored that. “I think it’s….” A sharp pain. “Yep. It’s a piece of glass. Hold on. I…there it comes.”
She brought the bloody shard around for him to see. It was three quarters of an inch long, slightly curved. Blood dripped from it. The tweezers were smeared with his blood.
Dez looked away.
“Don’t tell me you’re squeamish,” she said. He heard her drop the shard into a wastebasket and place the tweezers on the sink. “After what I watched you do last night? All the blood you spilled?”
He swallowed. “It’s different when it’s your own.”
“Soap’s over there,” she said. “Shampoo too. Wash your hair.”
He did, taking his time about it. When he’d finished lowering his head into the tub and rinsing out the shampoo, the water had cooled considerably. But it was still warmer than any he’d enjoyed since God knew when.
“Make sure to get your privates,” she instructed.
He glanced up at her. “You mind?”
“For such a tough guy,” she said, half-turning toward the door, “you’re awfully delicate.”
He washed his nether regions.
“Done?” she asked, fingers drumming on her elbows.
“It’s a sizable job.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
“Can you hand me that towel?” he asked.
She slid a thick white towel off the metal towel rack. He stood to take it from her and only when the frigid air breathed over his privates did he realize he was semi-erect. Iris had her hands on his sides to help him up, but her eyes lowered, and he thought her skin reddened a little. With the candlelight, it was difficult to be sure.
She cleared her throat. “I laid out some clothes in there,” she said, gesturing toward the bedroom.
“Might just sleep naked,” he said.
“At least put underpants on,” she said. “I need you to help me with something.”
He paused, the towel cinched around his waist. “Help you with what?”
She waved a hand at him. “Oh, put on your underwear.”
He grunted laughter. She remained in the bathroom while he dried off in the bedroom and slid on the Jockey shorts. They weren’t boxer briefs, like he preferred, but they fit.
“What are you doing in there,” Iris called from the bathroom, “admiring yourself in the mirror?”
Dez saw there was indeed an old-fashioned body-length mirror on a stand, and when he saw himself reflected there, he was pleasantly surprised. He needed to eat more, that much was plain. And with only one candle in here his reflection was slightly murky. Yet he could see how his muscles stood out, was stunned at the prominence of his abdominals. They’d been nonexistent before the bombs, but now, through the combination of deprivation and exercise, they stood out in knobby ripples.
“You are admiring yourself,” Iris said from the doorway.
Dez couldn’t suppress an embarrassed laugh. He followed her into the bathroom, where she surprised him by saying, “Let’s get this over with,” and sliding off her gray shorts.
The underwear beneath was magenta, low-rise, and skimpy in back, so that very little of her rear end was covered. Dez stood there, heart thumping. Remember Susan, he told himself.
She turned her back to him. “Do you see it?”
His mouth was open.
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” she muttered. “Sit on the toilet seat.”
He did as he was told.
“Here,” she said, pointing to a spot just under her right buttock, where the inner thigh began. “It needs to be sewn up. After you do mine, I’ll get all yours. Hopefully, they’ll be dry by then.”
He nodded, attempted to don a professional demeanor, but it was difficult with Iris’s glorious, half-naked buttocks a foot from his face.
He turned, retrieved the black thread and needle she’d prepared from the sink edge, then faced Iris again, this time doing his best to block out the fact that the low-rise underwear didn’t conceal the cleft at the top of her buttocks, or the shadowy region between her legs that the semi-translucent underwear didn’t totally obscure.
Dez brought the needle nearer the cut, which wasn’t long but appeared pretty deep, and paused. “You sure you want me doing this? I typically use Crazy Glue when I get one.”
“I’ve tried that,” she said, showing him the side of her wrist. “It leaves too big a scar.”
Shoddy stitches leave scars too, he thought.
“I’ve only done this once,” he said, “and I wasn’t very good—”
“Just sew,” she said. “Didn’t you ever take Home-Ec?”
“We didn’t call it that, but yeah, I did.” He reached up again, his hands trembling slightly. “Don’t you want a shot of something? I’m sure they have liquor—”
“They don’t. Levi and I checked.”
“Maybe an ice cube to numb it?”
She glowered down at him.
“Right,” he said. “Could you…I don’t know, lean forward or something?”
“Like what, put my hands on my knees?”
The image made his head swim. “It’s just…sort of an awkward spot. Difficult for me to reach.”
She had her back turned, but he could hear the humor in her voice. “I’ll bend over if you want.”
He swallowed. “Okay.”
She did, and though it made getting to the cut much easier, it stretched tight the magenta material, making it almost sheer against her rear end and her sex.
Dez’s hands trembled, his throat burning with his need.
Focus, he told himself. You’re not a goddamned high schooler anymore. Focus.
She twitched when the needle entered her skin, but the steel was slender enough to pass smoothly through the edges of the cut and form the first stitch. She’d tied the bottom of the eight-inch thread in a fat knot, so there was no question of pulling the thread too far. His fingers were still shaking slightly, but he threaded the needle through her skin again, this one better, a trifle shallower. Only once during the operation did he sink the needle too deep, but Iris only sucked in breath, her strong hamstrings flexing, and waited for him to finish. When he’d done, there were seven stitches, too close together, but otherwise a passable job. He snipped the string and, with a bit of fuss and cursing, finally managed to tie a knot at the end.
Iris went out and came back a few moments later. “Not bad,” she said. She reached down, opened the cabinet beneath the sink, and came out with a first aid kit. “Now you.”
Dez stood, noting as he did that she hadn’t put her shorts back on.
Remember Susan! the voice in his head shouted.
“This is going to tug a little,” she said, and without further delay she began t
o stitch up the wound in his lower back. She was done in less than a minute.
“Underwear down,” she directed.
He slid the Jockey shorts down, blushed furiously while she stitched up his ass cheek.
“Now sit,” she said. He did, wincing. She went to work on his shoulder blade. This one hurt a good deal more because there was no padding over the bone. He forced himself to remain still, knowing she’d tease him if he showed signs of discomfort.
“There,” she said. “Keep them dry for a couple days.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said, following her into the bedroom.
She turned to face him and crossed her arms.
“I can’t sleep with you,” Iris said.
He stood there, completely at a loss.
She watched him, her eyes frank, the pupils dilated from the lack of light.
“I can’t have sex with you,” she said.
Though his thoughts spun, he nodded. “That’s understandable. We just met last night, after all.” Plus, he mentally added, I’m in love with someone else.
Her lips pressed together, her expression pained. She looked like she was about to say something; then she turned and walked out.
Dez watched after her. He estimated it was well after one in the morning. He climbed into the bed, amazed at how good it felt. He thought of Iris’s backside, her pubic hair beneath the gauzy magenta fabric, and the force of his arousal surprised him. He was even more surprised when sleep snowed him under.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Iris’s Song
It was still dark and he was lying on his side when he felt the shape in bed behind him. Kneecaps nudged his hamstrings. What felt like knuckles nested against his spine.
“I hope that’s you, Iris,” he whispered.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said.
He wanted to turn in bed and face her, but he didn’t. Not yet.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
The Raven Page 27
