She timed her return home so that the Pear-shaped Man would be away on his morning run to Santino’s Market when she arrived. The house was empty. Angela had already gone to work, leaving the living room windows open again. Jessie closed them, locked them, and pulled the drapes. With luck, the Pear-shaped Man would never know that she’d come home.
Already the day outside was swelteringly hot. It was going to be a real scorcher. Jessie felt sweaty and soiled. She stripped, dumped her clothing into the wicker hamper in her bedroom, and immersed herself in a long, cold shower. The icy water hurt, but it was a good clean kind of hurting, and it left her feeling invigorated. She dried her hair and wrapped herself in a huge, fluffy blue towel, then padded back to her bedroom, leaving wet footprints on the bare wood floors.
A halter top and a pair of cutoffs would be all she’d need in this heat, Jessie decided. She had a plan for the day firmly in mind. She’d get dressed, do a little work in her studio, and after that she could read or watch some soaps or something. She wouldn’t go outside; she wouldn’t even look out the window. If the Pear-shaped Man was at his vigil, it would be a long, hot, boring afternoon for him.
Jessie laid out her cutoffs and a white halter top on the bed, draped the wet towel over a bedpost, and went to her dresser for a fresh pair of panties. She ought to do laundry soon, she thought absently as she snatched up a pair of pink bikini briefs.
A Cheez Doodle fell out.
Jessie recoiled, shuddering. It had been inside, she thought wildly, it had been inside the briefs. The powdery cheese had left a yellow stain on the fabric. The Cheez Doodle lay where it had fallen, in the open drawer on top of her underwear. Something like terror took hold of her. She balled the bikini briefs up in her fist and tossed them away with revulsion. She grabbed another pair of panties, shook them, and another Cheez Doodle leapt out. And then another. Another. She began to make a thin, hysterical sound, but she kept on. Five pairs, six, nine, that was all, but that was enough. Someone had opened her drawer and taken out every pair of panties and carefully wrapped a Cheez Doodle in each and put them all back.
It was a ghastly joke, she thought. Angela, it had to be Angela who’d done it, maybe she and Donald together. They thought this whole thing about the Pear-shaped Man was a big laugh, so they decided to see if they could really freak her out.
Except it hadn’t been Angela. She knew it hadn’t been Angela.
Jessie began to sob uncontrollably. She threw her balled-up panties to the floor and ran from the room, crushing Cheez Doodles into the carpet.
Out in the living room, she didn’t know where to turn. She couldn’t go back to her bedroom, couldn’t, not just now, not until Angela got back, and she didn’t want to go to the windows, even with the drapes closed. He was out there, Jessie could feel it, could feel him staring up at the windows. She grew suddenly aware of her nakedness and covered herself with her hands. She backed away from the windows, step by uncertain step, and retreated to her studio.
Inside she found a big square package leaning up against the door, with a note from Angela taped to it. “Jess, this came for you last evening,” signed with Angie’s big winged A. Jessie stared at the package, uncomprehending. It was from Pirouette. It was her painting, the cover she’d rushed to redo for them. Adrian had sent it back. Why?
She didn’t want to know. She had to know.
Wildly, Jessie ripped at the brown paper wrappings, tore them away in long, ragged strips, baring the cover she’d painted. Adrian had written on the mat; she recognized his hand. “Not funny, kid,” he’d scrawled. “Forget it.”
“No,” Jessie whimpered, backing off.
There it was, her painting, the familiar background, the trite embrace, the period costumes researched so carefully, but no, she hadn’t done that, someone had changed it, it wasn’t her work, the woman was her, her, her, slender and strong with sandy blond hair and green eyes full of rapture, and he was crushing her to him, to him, the wet lips and white skin, and he had a blue ink stain on his ruffled lace shirtfront and dandruff on his velvet jacket and his head was pointed and his hair was greasy and the fingers wrapped in her locks were stained yellow, and he was smiling thinly and pulling her to him and her mouth was open and her eyes half closed and it was him and it was her, and there was her own signature, there, down at the bottom.
“No,” she said again. She backed away, tripped over an easel, and fell. She curled up into a little ball on the floor and lay there sobbing, and that was how Angela found her, hours later.
Angela laid her out on the couch and made a cold compress and pressed it to her forehead. Donald stood in the doorway between the living room and the studio, frowning, glancing first at Jessie and then in at the painting and then at Jessie again. Angela said soothing things and held Jessie’s hand and got her a cup of tea; little by little her hysteria began to ebb. Donald crossed his arms and scowled. Finally, when Jessie had dried the last of her tears, he said, “This obsession of yours has gone too far.”
“Don, don’t,” Angela said. “She’s terrified.”
“I can see that,” Donald said. “That’s why something has to be done. She’s doing it to herself, honey.”
Jessie had a hot cup of Morning Thunder halfway to her mouth. She stopped dead still. “I’m doing it to myself?” she repeated incredulously.
“Certainly,” Donald said.
The complacency in his tone made Jessie suddenly, blazingly angry. “You stupid, ignorant, callous son of a bitch,” she roared. “I’m doing it to myself, I’m doing it, I’m doing it, how dare you say that I’m doing it.” She flung the teacup across the room, aiming for his fat head. Donald ducked; the cup shattered and the tea sent three long brown fingers running down the off-white wall.
“Go on, let out your anger,” he said. “I know you’re upset. When you calm down, we can discuss this rationally, maybe get to the root of your problem.”
Angela took her arm, but Jessie shook off the grip and stood, her hands balled into fists. “Go into my bedroom, you jerk, go in there right now and look around and come back and tell me what you see.”
“If you’d like,” Donald said. He walked over to the bedroom door, vanished, reemerged several moments later. “All right,” he said patiently.
“Well?” Jessie demanded.
Donald shrugged. “It’s a mess,” he said. “Underpants all over the floor, lots of crushed cheese curls. Tell me what you think it means.”
“He broke in here!” Jessie said.
“The Pear-shaped Man?” Donald queried pleasantly.
“Of course it was the Pear-shaped Man,” Jessie screamed. “He snuck in here while we were all gone and he went into my bedroom and pawed through all my things and put Cheez Doodles in my underwear. He was here! He was touching my stuff.”
Donald wore an expression of patient, compassionate wisdom. “Jessie, dear, I want you to think about what you just told us.”
“There’s nothing to think about!”
“Of course there is,” he said. “Let’s think it through together. The Pear-shaped Man was here, you think?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To do … to do what he did. It’s disgusting. He’s disgusting.”
“Hmmm,” Don said. “How, then? The locks were changed, remember? He can’t even get in the building. He’s never had a key to this apartment. There was no sign of forced entry. How did he get in with his bag of cheese curls?”
Jessie had him there. “Angela left the living room windows open,” she said.
Angela looked stricken. “I did,” she admitted. “Oh, Jessie, honey, I’m so sorry. It was hot. I just wanted to get a breeze, I didn’t mean …”
“The windows are too high to reach from the sidewalk,” Donald pointed out. “He’d have needed a ladder or something to stand on. He’d have needed to do it in broad daylight, from a busy street, with people coming and going all the time. He’d have had to have left the same way. There�
�s the problem of the screens. He doesn’t look like a very athletic sort, either.”
“He did it,” Jessie insisted. “He was here, wasn’t he?”
“I know you think so, and I’m not trying to deny your feelings, just explore them. Has this Pear-shaped Man ever been invited into the apartment?”
“Of course not!” Jessie said. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing, Jess. Just consider. He climbs in through the windows with these cheese curls he intends to secret in your drawers. Fine. How does he know which room is yours?”
Jessie frowned. “He … I don’t know … he searched around, I guess.”
“And found what clue? You’ve got three bedrooms here, one a studio, two full of women’s clothing. How’d he pick the right one?”
“Maybe he did it in both.”
“Angela, would you go check your bedroom, please?” Donald asked.
Angela rose hesitantly. “Well,” she said, “okay.” Jessie and Donald stared at each other until she returned a minute or so later. “All clean,” she said.
“I don’t know how he figured out which damned room was mine,” Jessie said. “All I know is that he did. He had to. How else can you explain what happened, huh? Do you think I did it myself?”
Donald shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said calmly. He glanced over his shoulder into the studio. “Funny, though. That painting in there, him and you, he must have done that some other time, after you finished it but before you sent it to Pirouette. It’s good work, too. Almost as good as yours.”
Jessie had been trying very hard not to think about the painting. She opened her mouth to throw something back at him, but nothing flew out. She closed her mouth. Tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. She suddenly felt weary, confused, and very alone. Angela had walked over to stand beside Donald. They were both looking at her. Jessie looked down at her hands helplessly and said, “What am I going to do? God. What am I going to do?”
God did not answer; Donald did. “Only one thing to do,” he said briskly. “Face up to your fears. Exorcise them. Go down there and talk to the man, get to know him. By the time you come back up, you may pity him or have contempt for him or dislike him, but you won’t fear him any longer; you’ll see that he’s only a human being and a rather sad one.”
“Are you sure, Don?” Angela asked him.
“Completely. Confront this obsession of yours, Jessie. That’s the only way you’ll ever be free of it. Go down to the basement and visit with the Pear-shaped Man.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Angela told her again.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Look, Jess, the minute you’re inside, Don and I will come out and sit on the stoop. We’ll be just an earshot away. All you’ll have to do is let out the teeniest little yell and we’ll come rushing right down. So you won’t be alone, not really. And you’ve still got that knife in your purse, right?”
Jessie nodded.
“Come on, then, remember the time that purse snatcher tried to grab your shoulder bag? You decked him good. If this Pear-shaped Man tries anything, you’re quick enough. Stab him. Run away. Yell for us. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jessie said with a small sigh. They were right. She knew it. It didn’t make any sense. He was a dirty, foul-smelling, unattractive man, maybe a little retarded, but nothing she couldn’t handle, nothing she had to be afraid of, she didn’t want to be crazy, she was letting this ridiculous obsession eat her alive and it had to end now, Donald was perfectly correct, she’d been doing it to herself all along and now she was going to take hold of it and stop it, certainly, it all made perfect sense and there was nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of, what could the Pear-shaped Man do to her, after all, what could he possibly do to her that was so terrifying? Nothing. Nothing.
Angela patted her on the back. Jessie took a deep breath, took the doorknob firmly in hand, and stepped out of the building into the hot, damp evening air. Everything was under control.
So why was she so scared?
Night was falling, but down under the stairs it had fallen already. Down under the stairs it was always night. The stoop cut off the morning sun, and the building itself blocked the afternoon light. It was dark, so dark. She stumbled over a crack in the cement, and her foot rang off the side of a metal garbage can. Jessie shuddered, imagining flies and maggots and other, worse things moving and breeding back there where the sun never shone. No, mustn’t think about that, it was only garbage, rotting and festering in the warm, humid dark, mustn’t dwell on it. She was at the door.
She raised her hand to knock, and then the fear took hold of her again. She could not move. Nothing to be frightened of, she told herself, nothing at all. What could he possibly do to her? Yet still she could not bring herself to knock. She stood before his door with her hand raised, her breath raw in her throat. It was so hot, so suffocatingly hot. She had to breathe. She had to get out from under the stoop, get back to where she could breathe.
A thin vertical crack of yellow light split the darkness. No, Jessie thought, oh, please no.
The door was opening.
Why did it have to open so slowly? Slowly, like in her dreams. Why did it have to open at all?
The light was so bright in there. As the door opened, Jessie found herself squinting.
The Pear-shaped Man stood smiling at her.
“I,” Jessie began, “I, uh, I …”
“There she is,” the Pear-shaped Man said in his tinny little squeak.
“What do you want from me?” Jessie blurted.
“I knew she’d come,” he said, as though she wasn’t there. “I knew she’d come for my things.”
“No,” Jessie said. She wanted to run away, but her feet would not move.
“You can come in,” he said. He raised his hand, moved it toward her face. He touched her. Five fat white maggots crawled across her cheek and wriggled through her hair. His fingers smelled like cheese curls. His pinkie touched her ear and tried to burrow inside. She hadn’t seen his other hand move until she felt it grip her upper arm, pulling, pulling. His flesh felt damp and cold. Jessie whimpered.
“Come in and see my things,” he said. “You have to. You know you have to.” And somehow she was inside then, and the door was closing behind her, and she was there, inside, alone with the Pear-shaped Man.
Jessie tried to get a grip on herself. Nothing to be afraid of, she repeated to herself, a litany, a charm, a chant, nothing to be afraid of, what could he do to you, what could he do? The room was L-shaped, low ceilinged, filthy. The sickly sweet smell was overwhelming. Four naked lightbulbs burned in the fixture above, and along one wall was a row of old lamps without shades, bare bulbs blazing away. A three-legged card table stood against the opposite wall, its fourth corner propped up by a broken TV set with wires dangling through the shattered glass of its picture tube. On top of the card table was a big bowl of Cheez Doodles. Jessie looked away, feeling sick. She tried to step backward, and her foot hit an empty plastic Coke bottle. She almost fell. But the Pear-shaped Man caught her in his soft, damp grip and held her upright.
Jessie yanked herself free of him and backed away. Her hand went into her purse and closed around the knife. It made her feel better, stronger. She moved close to the boarded-up window. Outside she could make out Donald and Angela talking. The sound of their voices, so close at hand—that helped, too. She tried to summon up all of her strength. “How do you live like this?” she asked him. “Do you need help cleaning up the place? Are you sick?” It was so hard to force out the words.
“Sick,” the Pear-shaped Man repeated. “Did they tell you I was sick? They lie about me. They lie about me all the time. Somebody should make them stop.” If only he would stop smiling. His lips were so wet. But he never stopped smiling. “I knew you would come. Here. This is for you.” He pulled it from a pocket, held it out.
“No,” said Jessie. “I’
m not hungry. Really.” But she was hungry, she realized. She was famished. She found herself staring at the thick orange twist between his fingers, and suddenly she wanted it desperately. “No,” she said again, but her voice was weaker now, barely more than a whisper, and the cheese curl was very close.
Her mouth sagged open. She felt it on her tongue, the roughness of the powdery cheese, the sweetness of it. It crunched softly between her teeth. She swallowed and licked the last orange flakes from her lower lip. She wanted more.
“I knew it was you,” said the Pear-shaped Man. “Now your things are mine.” Jessie stared at him. It was like in her nightmare. The Pear-shaped Man reached up and began to undo the little white plastic buttons on his shirt. She struggled to find her voice. He shrugged out of the shirt. His undershirt was yellow, with huge damp circles under his arms. He peeled it off, dropped it. He moved closer, and heavy white breasts flopped against his chest. The right one was covered by a wide blue smear. A dark little tongue slid between his lips. Fat white fingers worked at his belt like a team of dancing slugs. “These are for you,” he said.
Jessie’s knuckles were white around the hilt of the knife. “Stop,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
His pants settled to the floor.
She couldn’t take it. No more, no more. She pulled the knife free of her bag, raised it over her head. “Stop!”
“Ahh,” said the Pear-shaped Man, “there it is.”
She stabbed him.
The blade went in right to the hilt, plunged deep into his soft, white skin. She wrenched it down and out. The skin parted, a huge, meaty gash. The Pear-shaped Man was smiling his little smile. There was no blood, no blood at all. His flesh was soft and thick, all pale dead meat.
He moved closer, and Jessie stabbed him again. This time he reached up and knocked her hand away. The knife was embedded in his neck. The hilt wobbled back and forth as he padded toward her. His dead, white arms reached out and she pushed against him and her hand sank into his body like he was made of wet, rotten bread. “Oh,” he said, “oh, oh, oh.” Jessie opened her mouth to scream, and the Pear-shaped Man pressed those heavy wet lips to her own and swallowed at her sound. His pale eyes sucked at her. She felt his tongue darting forward, and it was round and black and oily, and then it was snaking down inside her, touching, tasting, feeling all her things. She was drowning in a sea of soft, damp flesh.
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