Cauchemar

by Alexandra Grigorescu

  “I’m not tired anymore,” she said, holding his gaze.

  “It’s really too bad,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “That we met like we did. The things I would do, otherwise.”

  Hannah’s breath sped up. The sense of being on the verge of something inevitable was almost pleasurable. “What would you do?” she asked in a small voice.

  His face was an anchor, holding the spinning room in place. She saw desire in his dilated eyes, and unexpectedly, it made her feel powerful. “I’d like to say that I’d hold your hand, make you breakfast, pick up a handful of wildflowers,” he said, smiling. “And truth is, I’d like that. But those are daytime things, and we can still rightly call this night.”

  “And what would you do, with this rightly called bit of night?”

  “I’d lay you down,” he said, his eyes suddenly serious. He leaned in over her and his tongue touched her like a butterfly’s, tracing nectar along the inside of her arm toward her shoulders.

  She’d so rarely allowed anyone to come this close to her, because she’d learned early that after the initial burst of pleasure came pain, and doubt, and regret.

  She hesitated but didn’t move away.

  He slid down the straps of her dress. She moved instinctively to cover herself but he blocked her gently. His tongue flicked along her clavicle, down the subtle dip between her breasts.

  “I think I’d let you,” she said.

  He pulled away to strip off his jeans, smiling, and she felt rudderless on the plush couch. He tugged at the bottom of her dress and she felt it slide down from beneath her. Inch by inch, her body was revealed, its hills and valleys. A terrain she hadn’t had cause to examine for years was suddenly exposed. She sought his eyes for some sign of how she measured up, but they moved up and down her legs, her belly, and her shoulders like he was sating some thirst.

  Slowly, he ran his hand over the pale peach cotton of her underwear. “Is this okay?” he breathed.

  “I don’t do this,” she said. “I haven’t done this in a very long time. But yes.” She studied his body in the faint light. When she was seventeen, she’d had a brief flirtation with a boy from town. Toby, whose skin glistened in his parents’ bed. His full lips and precious smile, his brown eyes peering expectantly up at her from between her thighs. That was before his parents had discovered them kissing in their boat. His mother’s face had changed from confusion to anger to pure fury in seconds, and she’d chased Hannah down the street in bare feet. “You stay away from our boy!” she’d screamed. That was before Mae had discovered the condoms, and sat heavily, speechless, in a chair. Mae’s arms crossed so tightly over her chest that her shoulders seemed to tremble with effort.

  Hannah’s legs wrapped loosely around Callum’s waist. He pressed his thumb into her, and it felt firm and as sure as ringing a doorbell. Slowly, he pulled out his finger and licked it.

  And then he moved into position and thrust, with a humming growl that elucidated every blues riff she’d ever heard. It rose to a fever pitch as she dug her short nails into his back. He answered by hoisting forward, his hand fitting against her neck. She let out a cry, suddenly panicked.

  In that moment, she heard every nook and cranny of her windpipe. She thought again of feathers tangling in her trachea, and shadows began to stir at the edges of her sight, crowding in. Something flashed in the mirror, milk-white even in the room’s red glow.

  She tried to sit up, just as the creature disappeared behind the couch. “Callum,” she breathed, and thought she saw a chalky claw stretch toward Callum’s foot. How had it found her?

  “Something’s wrong,” she tried to say as his fingers mapped the long cords of her neck, but a low vibrato started in her pelvis. He shoveled deeper, a steady spade. And then it happened. He struck ore, and they both wailed. An interminable note that made up for her many years of silence.

  He stayed there, his arms trembling, gazing down into her eyes. With a tender smile, he licked her lips as she wheezed herself back to earth. Then he toppled to his side and nuzzled into her breasts, wrapping himself around her body. Beyond him, the room was empty.

  “I’m going to hurt tomorrow,” she said.

  His wide eyes turned to her, sheepish. With hair matted in scrolls to his forehead, he looked impossibly young. He looked wholly himself. “I don’t know what came over me. I got swept up in the moment, I guess.”

  She laughed, and pressed him against her shoulder. “Baby,” she murmured. The dizziness had left her, but already she knew she would never again be painless.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  When she returned to her house several days later, she found a letter from a New Orleans estate lawyer who claimed to have been hired by Mae. He said there was a will.

  Callum bundled her into his boat, her body sluggish with anti-nausea medication to weather the rocky trip, and by the time they arrived on the outskirts of New Orleans, Hannah’s eyes were at half-mast.

  They rented a car and Callum drove them down the highway into the city proper. Hannah noticed the blurry landscape in flashes: squat palm trees in the shade of construction cranes were overtaken by streetlights crowned in iron fleur-de-lis. White wooden crosses lined the road, fenced in by miniature American flags.

  New windows sat inside weathered brick, and Hannah craned her neck to peer inside homes as they drove past. She saw courtyards filled with lush plants, slow-moving streetcars, and above it all office towers glinting against the clouds. Hannah watched the parade of high-heeled women in fitted blazers heading home from work and caught a glimpse of a very different life.

  The lawyer’s office was down an alleyway near Frenchmen Street. Callum paused in front of the door as the energetic beat of a big band tune drifted down the street. “That’s a beautiful sound,” he said, smiling. “Joyful music on a Tuesday afternoon.”

  Hannah tugged the short hairs of his beard. “Let’s go have a listen. The lawyer said his whole afternoon was open.”

  A dog barked from a balcony above them and was quieted in French.

  “I tried it here, before. I tried hard and it didn’t work, so why torture myself with it,” Callum said. A measure of regret hung in his voice, and Hannah realized she wasn’t yet privy to its cause. “You’re just avoiding this. Go on. I’ll wait out here,” Callum said, and knocked on the thick wooden door. “Good luck, sweets.”

  The lawyer was a short man in a seersucker suit and white socks, his graying hair combed over an obvious bald spot. He explained the inheritance that run-in-the-stockings Mae had left for her.

  “The contents of her bank accounts will pass to you. The house, she says, is not hers to give, but she is certain that its owner would grant it to you. She did make one note,” he frowned as he rifled through the file. “Well, in any case, it was a short note. She urged you to sell the house and purchase elsewhere. Somewhere out of state. As for the house’s contents, they are yours to do with as you please.” He raised his eyebrows. “Is that satisfactory?”

  Hannah nodded. She signed the papers in a daze and backed out of his office, declining offers of sweet tea as she went.

  Callum was outside, perched on a fire hydrant. It was the magic hour before dusk, the fading light spilled its long shadows down the streets. She hung back for a moment, letting Mae’s final gift to her sink in. She couldn’t help feeling that Callum, absentmindedly tearing petals off a flower, was in some way also a gift.

  She tapped him on the shoulder.

  He grinned when he saw her. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  As she told him the details, he put his arms around her waist. After she fell silent, they listened together to the children’s laughter that echoed down the street. For the first time since Mae had passed, Hannah came face to face with the breadth of possibility.

  Musicians were beginning to tune their inst
ruments in one of the bars, and Callum whispered in her ear, “Let’s buy something ridiculous.”

  They strolled along, hand in hand, pausing to peer into antique shop windows.

  Thinking to tease him, she pulled him into a sex shop. She found herself giggling at his mystified smile as they walked through the racks of polyester underwear and padded cuffs. Her laugh caught in her throat as they reached the back of the store. Dim bulbs lit black leather masks, and they reached in unison for a beautifully sculpted, lace-trimmed mask.

  “Will this do?” she asked in a small voice, holding it up to her face.

  The black leather mask sat wrapped in pink tissue on Hannah’s lap as Callum steered them back along the water, between forked trees that bore blackberries. She raised the collar of her jacket against the chill.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, recognizing the succession of clearings.

  “Back to my apartment,” he said. “Why? Where do you want to go?”

  Home, she thought, but said nothing. She looked over her shoulder at the tangle of trees that receded.

  The swamp should have been frightening in the dark. There were too many creatures that slept in the sun suddenly clamoring for food, but the small lamp that winked above the boat’s rudder turned the night into an intimate passage. The screaming birds and rustling reptiles fell silent in its beam.

  Callum tied up the boat at the dock near his apartment. “Would you rather head home?” he asked her between puffs of his cigarette.

  Hannah studied the grave moon above. “I’m not sure that’s my home anymore,” she answered honestly. “Home should be four familiar walls, but I’m starting to think it’s made more by the people who share it with you.”

  Callum looked sad for a moment as he reached out and cupped her face. “You miss her,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. Her throat felt tight with tears.

  Callum’s bedroom was moonlit as he undressed her. Hannah glimpsed her pallor in the bathroom mirror as he tied the mask around her head, and saw herself transformed into a craved creature. She felt somber as she knelt before him, his moans something serious. Hannah could almost taste the guilt at her happiness, sharp and sour as a mandarin.

  The next day, she went back to the house by the water, and saw that it was gathering dust. Graydon greeted her with wild, accusatory meows. Eventually, he settled into an uneasy sleep on her lap, and she drifted off on the couch. She dreamt of stairs without end, her feet wearying then bloodying on the eternal ascent.

  On the nights without Callum, she felt her loneliness like something wresting inside her. She stalked the house and barely ate. She wondered whether it was her imagination that the wallpaper seemed to have lost its color, that the spices seemed to have gone stale in their jars.

  Whenever she saw Callum, it was as though life rushed back into her body. She ate heartily and laughed loudly.

  Their Christmas was modest, and as she watched Callum light a candle at either end of his table, she thought of her Christmases with Mae, making pecan pie and pralines and listening to carols on the radio. How Martha would often stop in, with a covered dish full of steaming crab claws.

  Callum and Hannah watched the faithful head to Midnight Mass from the fire escape, and she said a clumsy prayer for Mae, not quite knowing what words would claim the attention of whatever was listening. She admitted to herself that despite the wealth of loss, she was in the grips of a happiness much greater than she’d ever thought possible.

  January’s chill came and went, but it barely seemed to touch them. Even the tips of their ears were warm with the constant blush of what Hannah was still reluctant to call love.

  One night, they arrived back at his apartment after a night of drinking. Hannah kicked off her shoes and collapsed onto the couch. “You’re mighty comfortable here, aren’t you?” Callum asked, teasingly.

  Hannah sat up, blushing. “Sorry,” she stuttered. “I don’t mean—I just thought—”

  His laugh interrupted her. “No, no. I like it. In fact, I think it’s high time I gave you this. I’m miserable as a wet cat when you’re not here.” He held up something shimmering.

  Hannah walked over to him and plucked the key from his hands. “Are you sure about this?”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, and moved into his arms. “Nobody has ever given me a key to their house before.” She held the key as though it were a precious gem rather than metal. “I’ll get you a key to my house, too.”

  Callum flicked her under the chin. “No, silly. I want you to live here. With me.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. She couldn’t imagine leaving her home. Who would stoke the memories that still lingered there? How could she move into the town that had so viciously exiled her as a child? She worked her thumbnail over the knotted copper bracelet.

  “That’s a lot of thoughts that just rushed through your head,” Callum said, studying her.

  “It’s a lot to think about.” Hannah saw a lightning-quick expression of hurt rush across Callum’s face and tried to explain. “I’m still tied to that house. Besides, this town hasn’t been very welcoming to my family.”

  Callum’s brow creased. “Who hasn’t been welcoming?”

  Hannah searched his eyes. He’d more than earned her trust several times over, and yet she still hesitated to tell him about her history. Would he understand the townspeople’s reaction, perhaps a bit too well?

  “It all happened a lifetime ago. Let’s just say folks on this side of the river don’t take to people who are different from them.”

  “Trust me, it’s not just this town. It’s a global epidemic. You can’t just run from it, though. You’ve got to work to change their minds. And who wouldn’t love you?” He brushed her hair away from her face, his fingers lingering. “Give it some thought,” he urged. “There’s a lot that could be done with the money you’d get from the house. And you have a home here, whenever you want it.”

  After Callum fell asleep that night, she stared fixedly at the foreign ceiling that had somehow become familiar. She tried to match her own jagged breathing to Callum’s steady breath. There was an immense amount of comfort in something as minute as that sound. Tentatively, she touched Callum’s bare back. She faded into a dreamless sleep with the sensation of his warmth against her palm.

  Hannah itemized the things she couldn’t live without and sent Callum to retrieve them from the house by the water—certain books, spices, and Graydon, who mewled and hissed as soon as he was deposited in Callum’s apartment. She was surprised by how small the list was. Her love for the house didn’t live in its contents.

  In return, Hannah tossed out bags full of take-out containers from Callum’s apartment, and she grilled whole fish, then sat straight-backed with excitement as he moaned his approval.

  While he was practicing music or out on his boat, she composed recipes. Mae’s dominance of the kitchen had been so assured that Hannah had assumed there’d be more recipe books, but there were just a few notebooks with handwritten scrawls, mostly for teas, broths, and suggested pairings of ingredients.

  When Callum was overworked, she fed him chicken and okra gumbo, sensing instinctively that the smoked andouille and celery-infused chicken would revive him. Persillade, a simple mixture of parsley, garlic, and olive oil, scented his breath as he sang to her on his small balcony. If she squinted just so, the colored Christmas lights still wound around the fire escape became a galaxy, wreathing them.

  Hannah discovered the effects of ground cayenne and paprika for herself. The giggles, the pervasive good mood. The wetness that welled inside her. She doused the apartment with heady fumes of Scotch bonnet peppers, dark roux, and salted pork, and paced the apartment until Callum came home. He learned to recognize the smell, as sure as a pair of red garters dangling from the doorknob.

  The night she prepared sarigue in ore
gano and hot sauce, she left moist handprints on every wooden surface. He bent her over and she angled herself by straining on tiptoes. They awoke the next afternoon, limbs sore.

  Her life before Callum was beginning to take on the quality of a dream, until she found a photograph of her and Sarah Anne in an old, water-stained copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales that Callum had retrieved for her. The terrorizing sweetness of first friendship was written all over Hannah’s face. Shame closed the back of her throat.

  They’d met at Sunday school, one of the few activities in town that Mae had readily permitted as Hannah entered her teen years.

  Sarah Anne had once been as saccharine as her name, all blonde hair, pale lashes, and limpid blue eyes. She had moved through the congregation in a cloud of white lace and curls, and although she was new in town, the townspeople took to her instantly.

  Beside her, Hannah was plain and awkward, with dull hair that couldn’t commit fully to either blonde or red and eyes the color of a half-laundered grass stain. The congregation stiffened their backs and cast suspicious sideways glances at her.

  In the middle of a lesson, something about suffering little children and lambs, Sarah Anne had passed her a neatly folded note. “Hi Hannah,” it said, and when she looked up, Sarah Anne flashed her a radiant smile.

  By that point, Hannah already knew about the cruelty of other children. How they’d snare her with false sympathy only to trip her or throw rotten eggs at her feet. Hannah tossed the paper to the ground.

  Sarah Anne watched the paper fall with an eerily adult expression. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth, like the tail of a lazy house-cat. “I’ve heard what they call you in town,” Sarah Anne whispered. “And let them talk, I honestly don’t care. I think it’s interesting. I’d like to be your friend.”

  There was not much to say to that.

  After the class ended, Hannah kicked at the marshy ferns that grew by the side of the water, watching Sarah Anne’s dress eddy around her thin tanned legs as she walked. Hannah’s arms remained crossed in mistrust.