“Think of someone hateful. That usually helps with the first one. Someone you’d like to stab.”
Rose was hungry. She had to pee. Her hand felt as if a great weight were lying upon it: an immense slab of steel, vibrating slightly.
“Come on, Girl. Everyone hates someone.”
A terribly cold slab of steel—or maybe terribly hot? Rose couldn’t decide which; she knew only that it was one extreme or another. And not vibrating: it was bouncing. Or no, not bouncing either: it was hammering. Her painkillers were in her purse, and her purse was on the far side of the room. She stared at it, trying to will it closer, but it didn’t work.
“If you can’t think of someone hateful, think of someone weak.”
The room was dark when Rose finally forced herself into a sitting position. It was almost eight o’clock. From sitting to standing, from standing to walking—each transition posed its own challenges. She brought her purse into the kitchen and filled a glass of water at the tap and drank the water, swallowing another painkiller in the process. She was only supposed to have one pill every twelve hours, and this was already her fourth. She supposed it was probably a bad idea, but she also knew this wasn’t the worst thing happening in her life right now. She wished it were.
If she didn’t do anything to stop them, the dogs were going to attack her again that night. Rose was certain of this.
She ate a peanut butter sandwich and drank a glass of milk and changed her clothes, and by the time she left the apartment, a little after nine, she had something almost like a plan in mind—or no, maybe not a plan, but a destination at least, which felt like the next best thing.
* * *
Rose had gone through a six-month stretch, just after she turned eighteen, when she’d thought she might like girls as much as boys. While exploring this question, she’d stumbled into an on-again, off-again entanglement with a friend of hers named Rhonda. And it was Rhonda who had first taken her to a lesbian bar called the Cubbyhole, down in the village.
Even without her wounded hand, Rose had worried about bringing a guy home. She wasn’t strong—she was skinny, and physically timid—and the idea of engaging in a life-or-death struggle with a man filled her with dread. She’d have the knife, of course, and she’d have the element of surprise, but it still didn’t seem like enough to guarantee success. So her plan, if you could call it that, was to sit in the Cubbyhole, and hope a woman would decide to pick her up—a petite woman, preferably—the smaller, the better.
If you can’t think of someone hateful, think of someone weak.
Rose sat on a stool at the bar, sipping a tequila-and-soda, which started out seeming like a brilliant choice, but then began to feel more and more misguided with every sip, and twenty-five minutes passed in a slow drip, and she thought to herself: This isn’t going to work. She’d go back to the apartment unaccompanied, and Zeus would rape her again, and Jack would bite off another finger, and Millie would scurry about on the bedroom floor, licking up the blood, and Dr. Cheema would stare at her with those tired eyes and purse her lips and cluck her tongue and stitch her back up again, and Bo would be waiting in the park—
“Is this stool taken?”
The baited hook, the cast line, the long, drowsy wait… and then that sudden thrill when the fish strikes.
Her name was Amber. She was too tall, too lean, too fit—a beautiful girl, in her early twenties, with a full mouth, and green eyes, and red hair down to the middle of her back. She was dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a sky blue hoodie. She had a tiny stud in her nose—it looked like a diamond—and Rose had to will herself consciously not to stare at it.
When Amber asked about her bandaged hand, Rose told her she’d caught it in a car door. Amber winced and leaned forward to touch Rose’s wrist. “You poor thing,” she said, and she was looking at Rose, truly looking. Rose tried to remember the last time someone had offered her this gift. The doctor hadn’t looked at her, not really, and her Craigslist dates had never ventured it, and her mother—
“Another round?” the bartender asked.
Rose didn’t resist when Amber offered to pay. She twisted on her stool to get a better look at this stranger. Amber’s hair wasn’t just red, it was thick and curly; maybe it had something to do with the painkillers and the tequila, but Rose wanted to touch it, wanted to take big handfuls of it and press them against her face. The two of them held eyes for a long moment, and then Amber started to laugh. “You’re an odd one, aren’t you?” she asked.
Rose took a swallow from her drink, draining half of it, and then she leaned forward and kissed Amber, and Amber didn’t flinch: Amber kissed her back. Her mouth tasted of cinnamon. Rose buried her un-bandaged hand into that luscious red hair; she grabbed a fistful and held on tight, feeling lonely and frightened and sad. She never would’ve imagined herself to be a terrible person, but it turned out that she was, because just look at the unforgivable thing she was about to do. This girl wasn’t hateful. And she probably wasn’t weak. But she was kind—and Rose despised herself for sensing that this might be enough.
She pulled away from the kiss, leaned to whisper into Amber’s ear: “Will you come home with me?”
* * *
The gray door, the three locks, the panting, whimpering dogs…
“Holy shit,” Amber said. “Look at these guys! You didn’t tell me you had dogs. I love dogs.” She crouched to pet them, bending to let Millie lick her face.
“Oh, Girl,” Jack said. “She’s perfect. We knew you’d come through.”
Rose remembered Daniel, his sense of urgency that night, his nerves, the way he’d hurried her down the hallway to the bedroom, just like she was hurrying Amber now, kicking free of her shoes, pulling off her clothes, tumbling the girl onto the bed. Amber laughed: “Easy there, hustler.”
It wasn’t just her mouth that tasted of cinnamon; her skin did, too. Her vagina was freshly waxed, and for a moment Rose couldn’t stop herself from thinking of the dolls she’d owned as a child, the hairless fold between the legs. She was drunk, and overmedicated, and she only half-knew what she was attempting—just enough to be certain that she was being too rough, and too fast, doing everything to Amber that she’d hated when guys had done it to her, and Amber kept grabbing her hand and trying to guide her, and Millie was right beside the bed, panting and pacing, and saying: “Fuck her! Fuck her good! Use your mouth!”
“Is she okay?” Amber asked.
Rose stopped what she was doing, lifted her head: “What do you mean?”
“That panting and pacing. Is she hungry? That’s what my sister’s dog does when she’s really hungry.”
Rose heard Jack give a little laugh. He and Zeus were in the doorway to the room, watching. “She’s all right,” Rose said. “She’s always like that.”
“Stop talking!” Millie’s voice had taken on a pleading, whining quality inside Rose’s head. “Keep fucking. Fuck the bitch! Fuck her good!”
Afterward, once Amber had come, maybe for real, and Rose had done her best to fake it, and they were lying there in each other’s arms, Rose arrived at a decision: she couldn’t do it—she wouldn’t do it. Her hand had stopped hurting for a bit, but now it was making up for this dereliction with a compensatory vengeance. Rose plucked the pill bottle off the night table, took another painkiller.
“What are those?” Amber asked.
“Oxy,” Rose said. “For the pain.” And she held out the bottle. “Mi casa, su casa.”
Amber laughed again—she had a pretty laugh. “I knew I liked you.” She presented her palm, and Rose tapped a pill into it.
This had been part of Rose’s almost-a-plan, which she was now certain—or nearly certain—she couldn’t (wouldn’t) follow through on.
They turned out the light.
Rose counted to sixty in her head, and then she told Amber that she needed to use the bathroom. This, too, had been part of the plan that she couldn’t (wouldn’t) follow through on: she would go to the bathroom and wai
t for the girl to fall asleep, and when she came back, she’d quietly ease open the night table drawer, lift out the knife, and do what needed to be done.
Rose tiptoed from the darkened room and headed down the hall. Millie followed her, panting ever more heavily: “Where are you going? Get the knife! Stab her! Cut her up!”
Rose shut the bathroom door on the little dog. She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and tried not to feel the pain in her hand, tried not to feel anything at all, in fact, thinking couldn’t and wouldn’t, and can’t and won’t. At some point, she began to lose track of time. Her head kept dipping—she’d drunk too much tequila, swallowed too many pills. It seemed as if she must’ve waited long enough by now: Amber ought to be asleep. Not that this mattered, of course (because of couldn’t and wouldn’t, because of can’t and won’t).
Rose pulled open the door, stepped quietly into the hall. Millie was gone; she’d returned to the bedroom. The light was on in there again, and Amber—inexplicably—was still wideawake, sitting against the headboard, staring at Rose, who stood in the doorway, hesitating. Millie was dozing in the armchair. Zeus was asleep at the base of the bed. Jack was beside him, his head on his paws, his eyes shut. It was odd: the dogs were never all asleep—not out here, at least, away from the back room, especially not Zeus.
Thinking this, Rose knew what was about to happen.
She should’ve turned and sprinted for the door. It was all reflex from this point on, though, and Rose’s reflexes had never been the best part of her.
The dogs began to bark even before she was in motion.
She was running for the bedside drawer.
But Amber—kind, green-eyed Amber, with her long red curls, her cinnamon-flavored skin, her Barbie doll vagina— Amber, that lovely girl… she got there first.
IN STONE
by
TIM LEBBON
Several weeks following the death of a close friend, I started walking alone at night. I was having trouble sleeping, and I think it was a way of trying to reclaim that time for myself. Instead of lying in the darkness remembering Nigel, feeling regret that we’d let the time between meetings stretch further each year, I took to the streets. There was nothing worse than staring at the ceiling and seeing all the bad parts of my life mapped there in cracks, spider webs and the trails of a paint brush. I thought perhaps walking in the dark might help me really think.
On the fifth night of wandering the streets, I saw the woman.
I was close to the centre of town. It was raining, and the few working streetlights cast speckled, splashed patterns across the pavement, giving the impression that nothing was still in the silent night. Over the past hour I’d seen several people. One was a night worker––a nurse or fireman, perhaps––hurrying along the street wearing a backpack and with a definite destination in mind. A couple were youths, so drunk that they could barely walk or talk. One was a homeless woman I’d seen before. Two dogs accompanied her like shadows, and she muttered to herself too quietly for me to hear.
They all saw me. The worker veered around me slightly, the youths muttered and giggled, and the homeless woman’s dogs paused and sniffed in my direction.
But the new woman didn’t look or act like everyone else. At three or four in the morning, anyone left out in the streets wanted to be alone. Closeness was avoided, and other than perhaps a curt nod, no contact was made. It was as if darkness brought out mysteries and hidden stories in people and made them solid, and that suited me just fine. I wasn’t out there to speak to anyone else; I was attempting to talk to myself.
There was something about her that immediately caught my attention. Walking in a world of her own, she followed no obvious route through the heavy rain, moving back and forth across the silent main street, sometimes walking on the sidewalk and sometimes the road. The weather did not appear to concern her. Even though it was summer, the rain was cool and the night cooler, but she walked without a coat or jacket of any kind. She wore loose trousers and a vest top, and I really shouldn’t have followed her.
But Nigel told me to. It was his voice I heard in my head saying, Wonder what she’s up to? He had always been curious and interested in other people, the one most likely to get chatting to strangers if we went for a drink. Last time I’d seen him he’d been more garrulous than ever, and I wondered if that was a way of hiding his deeper problems and fears. He could say so much, but still didn’t know how to ask for help.
The woman drifted from the main street to a narrower road between shops, and I followed. I held back a little––I had no wish to frighten or trouble her––but tried to make sure I kept her in sight. The rain was falling heavier now, and I had to throw up my hood to shield my eyes and face. The side street was not lit. Rain blanketed the night, making everything even darker and giving a constant shimmer to reality. Her movements were nebulous and fluid, slipping in and out of the darkness like a porpoise dancing through waves.
To my left and right, large spaces opened up. These were the service yards of big shops, covered delivery and storage areas that I barely noticed if walking these streets during the day. Now, they were pitch black burrows where anything might exist, and I was pleased when the woman passed them by.
As she neared a smaller street, she paused. I also stopped, tucking in close to a wall. I suddenly felt uncomfortable following her. I was no threat, but no one else would believe that. If people saw me stalking the woman, they might think the worst. If she saw me, I might frighten her.
I was about to turn and walk back the way I’d come when something gave me pause.
The street ahead was a place I knew well, home to a series of smaller, independent shops, a couple of nice pubs, and a few restaurants. Nigel and I had eaten and drunk there, and I’d walked that way more times than I could recall. In the stormy night, it glowed with reflected neon from shop windows. A rush of memories washed over me, and I gasped.
The woman seemed to hear. She tilted her head slightly, then walked out into this narrower road. I followed. I had the sudden sense that I was witnessing something secret. I felt like an intruder, emerging from my safe, warm home to stroll dark streets I knew nothing about.
During the day, this place was a bustling centre of commerce and fun. Now it was a whole new world.
By the time I moved out onto the street, the woman had paused beside a series of bronze sculptures on plinths. They’d been placed fifteen years before as part of the millennium celebrations, and I hardly ever noticed them. Seeing them at night, flowing with water that shimmered and reflected weak light, gave them a strange form of life.
The woman was staring past the sculptures and into the mouth of a narrow alley. I knew the place. It was a dead-end passageway between a fast-food joint and a newsagent’s. I’d stumbled down there once years ago, drunk, a young woman holding onto my arm as if I could be more stable than her. I had vague memories of what we’d done. Shambolic, clumsy sex amongst split bags of refuse and broken bottles did not make me particularly proud, and I’d only ever spoken of that moment with Nigel.
As I wondered what her interest might be in that grubby place, and just what it was about her that troubled me, she began to take off her clothes.
I caught my breath and pulled back around the corner. I felt unaccountably guilty witnessing the woman’s shedding of clothing, even though she was doing it in the middle of the street. Her shoes came off first, then her vest and trousers. Naked, she stretched her arms to the air and let the rain run across her body. She might have been beautiful.
Rain flowed into my eyes. I wiped them and looked again. There was something wrong.
The woman was moving past the bronze statues and heading towards the entrance to the alley. Her motion seemed strange. She drifted rather than walked, limbs swinging slightly out of time, her movements not quite human. Her pale skin grew darker. Her hair became a more solid cap around her head. She slowed before the alley––hesitant, or relishing the moment–– then stepped into its shadows.
As she passed out of sight, I had the very real sense that she was no longer there.
I ran into the night.
* * *
“And you ran all the way home?”
“Yeah.”
“Dude. You. Running.”
I laughed. “Who’d have thunk it?”
Ashley licked her finger and used it to pick up cake crumbs from her plate. Finger still in her mouth, she caught my attention and raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes. Ash had been my best friend since we were both babies, and although I couldn’t help but acknowledge her beauty, I’d never been drawn to her in that way.
“Still not sleeping?” she asked.
“No. Not well at all.”
“Hence the walking at night.”
I nodded.
“You’re very, very weird.”
We both sipped at our coffees, comfortable in our silence. The cafe around was filled with conversation and soft music, merging into a background noise that kept our own chat private.
“Maybe she was a prostitute.”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“So you’d recognise one?” She had that cheeky glint in her eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile. Ashley called herself shallow, but I knew that wasn’t true at all. She was simply someone who knew how to regulate her depths. She’d been a levelling force in my life forever, and never more than since Nigel stepped from that ledge.
“It’s only around the corner,” I said. “Will you come with me?”
“And search for the mysterious vanishing woman? You bet!”
We left the cafe. It had stopped raining and the town was alive with lunchtime buzz. Ash and I met for lunch at least once each week, working within ten minutes of each other making it easy. I dreaded her leaving to work elsewhere. She’d mentioned it once or twice, and I knew that she’d had a couple of interviews. It was only a matter of time. Ash was not someone that life held back, and the world was calling.
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