The first lock clicked loudly. God, how satisfying that sound was. The restraint fell open and she gently pulled it off his wrist and began working on the next. In moments she had it and the ones on his ankles off and tossed them-
CLANK!
-to a small pile in the corner. “How does that feel?” she asked.
“Good,” was all he could answer. The skin on his wrists was purple all around and chafing off in dry little flakes. He rubbed at them, feeling the strange nakedness of it.
“I bet it does,” she said. “Well, you’ve earned it. Go on, stand up straight. Maybe stretch your arms a bit, huh?” He was glad she’d said that. He hadn’t thought of it and knew instantly that if he had he would have been afraid to ask.
It was painful to straighten his back. He couldn’t do it at all on the first try, but the effort still popped his spine in multiple places and felt so damned good. Afterward there was pain, and he had to slouch again and breathe carefully. His expanding lungs seemed to press against his sore spine. He loved it.
Inhaling slowly and closing his eyes against the bright light and mist, he straightened again, all the way this time, and added a full extension of both arms as well. His elbows snapped and his back popped some more then crinkled away an unsuspected tightness. He worked through a painful grunt and sigh that helped complete his relief. “Uhhhhhhhh!”
“There, now,” the woman said. “That must feel wonderful.”
“Yes,” he said. “So good.”
“Well, it’s about time, don’t you think?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. But he wasn’t thinking. Not at all. He was just answering truthfully like he’d been taught.
“Well, if you think that was something, how would you like a nice, hot shower?” At first he didn’t understand, but then he saw the thin, white mist again and heard the hissing, and it all came back to him like a hammer blow.
“Shower!” he nearly shouted. It wasn’t a question, but the woman took it as one. For a strange, flash of a moment, an image came that he was sure had something to do with his brother. Had his brother bought him a shower? Had his brother eaten a shower? What was a shower again? His brother would know.
Lining lining silver lining, his mind began to chant. He held his tongue steady. The women knew about his little litany, of course, because the women knew everything. But he didn’t think they knew how much he liked it. He didn’t want to be sent to his box, so he made sure this woman didn’t see his mouth betraying him with the soothing words.
“Sure,” she said. “With all the hot water and soap you want. We’ll even let you do it all by yourself. And you can take as long as you want.”
Oh! he thought. A shower is water and soap. I remember now!
“God, yes!” he said aloud. He didn’t want to sound so desperate, but the woman knew everything anyway, so hiding his true feelings made no sense.
“Right this way, then,” she said, and she led him around a corner and down another hallway. On either side were white, cotton curtains hanging at the front of shower stalls. Some of them were already going, pouring out the toasty water all over some other man-pig. “I’m sure you’re a bit confused,” the woman said. “We’ll explain more later, but for now all you need to know is that this is a reward. Consider it something like a graduation present.”
“Okay,” he said, and again, as he’d been suspecting over the last few days, he felt the love of the women and their pride in how good he’d been. At last, the recognition wasn’t just suggested or hidden in a softer push or three seconds more of lavatory time. At last, the recognition was straightforward and real.
“Your name is Obe, right?” she asked.
“Yes. Obe. O.B.E. Obe like robe and strobe and especially probe!”
She laughed the most delightful laugh and smiled the most delightful smile. “Well, she said, stopping at a stall and opening the heavy cotton curtain, “this is yours, then.” Inside there was a small room with a bench and another of those curtains. On the bench was a pile of green fabric.
“Take your time, honey. There’s soap and shampoo.” He saw them on a corner rack in the shower. “And here’s a razor to shave with. Sorry, but we don’t have any shaving cream, but you can probably make do with the soap, yes?” He nodded emphatically, eyes wide, and took the little disposable razor she offered him.
“Again, take as long as you need and enjoy yourself. He looked at the razor. They were trusting him to touch something sharp? Surely they knew this, and somehow it meant almost more to him than taking off the shackles or even the shower. Almost.
“When you’re done, you can put this jumpsuit on and go down that way.” She pointed to the far end of the room. “We’ll be waiting for you there to explain the rest.”
“Th… thank you,” he said. “I’ll come right over.”
She laughed again, and it was a beautiful, clean laugh that lightened his dirty soul, if only for a moment. “No, no,” she said. “Don’t rush yourself. Remember, this is a reward. You should take the time to enjoy it. Truly.”
He knew the women never lied, so repeating herself was purely for his own peace of mind. She was being kind, too.
Still smiling from the laugh, she pulled the outer curtain closed and walked away, and for the first time in… was it years?… or was it only months?… he had time to himself that wasn’t shackled and lying hunched over in a dark, cold, hard box under the pecking, repetitious Voice of God in the corner.
4
Hours had passed and Obe wandered the hills of the blue sector, avoiding the few men he saw in the darkness and allowing his mind to wander back to that day of his release. When the sun finally broke its line of gold across the horizon, he found the hiding place he’d instinctually been seeking. It was the space under the little wooden bridge where he had once escaped from the world’s largest woman, earned a horrible cut down the center of his face, and even eaten a tomato.
He slept fitfully, his rest coming in short bursts and interrupted by a series of short, all-new nightmares. In each of them, he was either watching the life ebb from Tick’s contorted face, or Obe himself was the one being strangled by Deek’s huge hands. In one, he watched himself slowly die from his little cover of grass. In another, Lace pushed his face into the stream and he’d drowned instead. In the final dream, it was Obe’s faceless brother who died before him. He woke from this one with a scream, and he scanned the area around the bridge for anyone who may have heard.
When the afternoon light faded into the twilight of another coming night, Obe fought his growing hunger and stayed in his protective hollow. That night he was plagued by insomnia instead of dreams, and the Orion constellation and almost all of the other stars was blocked by a gray cloud that stretched across the entire sky. He tried desperately to make some kind of picture from the massive ashen thing, but all he could see in it was a tidal wave or a flood or a swamp filled with angry dead creatures.
When morning finally came, he was exhausted, weak, and starving. Yet he did not venture forth this day. He spent its entirety hiding from the many men and women who would have him dead. His sleep, once again fitful and filled with disturbing dreams, left him no more rested than when he’d first taken shelter.
It wasn’t until that night- two full days since his banishment and Tick’s murder- when Obe finally crawled out into the world and sought a solution to the yawning growl in his belly. His feet took him south toward the green sector, and he was both surprised and afraid to realize he had little strength in his legs.
He met with a car before he ever met with a man in green from whom he might steal food. The car, its green paint chipped and scratched from so many rough exchanges of sneakers and elbows and skulls, had either not seen him or had already chosen a greater prey. For despite being a man in blue walking the streets of the green sector, it did not change course and had zoomed in and out of his life in mere seconds.
The last time he’d been in these streets, he’d been searching for his b
rother, and while he did find men that night, none of them had a scar coming down from the center of his forehead, and every one of them was already void of any food. He hadn’t realized it was already several days since the last grocery day. These men wouldn’t have food until the following morning.
One man had still had two swallows of water, which Obe took from him without comment. He drank them both where he stood and tossed the plastic bottle back to the man in green. Then he left and made a slow, painful return to his secret hideaway. By the time he got there his legs seemed to barely support him. He believed sleep and sleep alone would give him the strength to try again the following night.
But once again, Obe’s sleep that day was broken and disturbed. Once, the black car drove directly over him, its treads visible in the gaps between the slats of his makeshift roof. Somehow, Obe didn’t react. It was as if he already knew he had become as unseen as an old home’s supposed apparition. He did not leave his sanctuary until the moon was high in the sky and his stomach seemed to be ripping his body in two.
5
On the fourth day, it seemed Obe could track his own decline by the hour. When he woke at dusk, his sparse urine had been pale but tinted beige and his legs still supported him fully. When he’d trickled a few drops again the following dawn, however, it was as clear as the water that had gone down his throat and by then he’d stumbled several times.
He’d gone back to the green sector but had been even less successful than he’d been the day before. The men in green ran from him, and they were so much faster than he was now. Less and less often could he even get a good look at their faces or the spot of skin high on their foreheads. It was impossible to rule out some of them as his faceless brother.
He came upon them behind dumpsters, against walls, and once wrapped mysteriously around the upper bar of a rusted, leaning traffic pole. He startled them all, waking or shocking them into their ludicrous pronouncements of their names and spellings. Yet when he tried to speak, to beg for food, his voice always came as a ragged growl which scared them even more. They ran then, each of them, and Obe knew he looked as insane and helpless as the crazy man in black who’d accosted him in his first days as a blue. What had been his name? Obe couldn’t remember, though the men of the Family had certainly known.
“Jain said it,” he mumbled to himself. Yes, it had been Jain who had yelled at him in front of all the others when he’d not given the old man a bite of bread. But Obe had had no bread that day, and he had no bread now. “And Jain is dead,” he said. “And I’m next.”
Twice that night he’d seen the green car and from a distance on his return to his home he’d even seen the black one. Pure luck had kept him alive, however. All three times the women inside hadn’t seen him, and by morning he’d begun to joke that the reason was a simple one.
“I’m already dead,” he said. “I’m a ghost.” No one was there to disagree with him, and for a little while the idea festered in his mind as a possibility.
The fifth and sixth days passed in the same manner. He slept by day and ventured to the green sector at dusk. But the men in green still outran him, and the cars didn’t see him at all. His only sustenance was morning dew that he licked from a thousand blades of grass as he trudged slowly back to his little bridge. By the time he’d collapsed in a heap of bones and depression on the morning of the sixth day, his tongue was a mass of so many paper cuts and blood.
Now, more than a week from the time he’d been banished, his legs trembled when he walked, and he sat down often. He knew if he was chased by even one car, he would be killed. Running was out of the question and time seemed to evade his sense of understanding. His only security was the haven under the wooden bridge.
He had begun collecting small rocks and lining them along the small beam that supported the roof over his head. One for each day. And it seemed that each day he returned he was surprised to see how many he’d collected.
Nine days, he thought one morning upon his arrival. It was a weak reflection, as anemic and faint as his body now felt. So long, he marveled. And yet, not even two weeks. This was more than a simple musing. It was part of the acceptance of his fate. By then his legs were so much closer to full ruination. He had resorted to crawling the last dozen yards, knowing nobody ever came near his little enclosure of a home. I’m dying, he allowed his mind to finish.
There was no more and no need for more, for he was dying just as slowly and pathetically as Doov had no doubt intended and as the women would have cherished to see. He hadn’t eaten a single crumb of stale bread or fleck of orange rind since his banishment, and this was of course killing him physically. But his will had begun to die as well over the last few days, and this was undoubtedly worse. He realized with a cramping pain that he hadn’t searched for his brother’s face for several days. His only goal had been food.
That evening he stumbled down an outskirting hill of the green sector. It was a Sunday, though he had lost track of the days, and the men there who still lived and ran and screamed had recently received fresh bags of food.
He’d never known hunger like this. The dew kept him alive but the grinding rocks in his stomach was non-stop now, a pain that didn’t hurt so much as it wormed fear into the depths of his heart.
He finally reached the city streets and the first of the buildings. He leaned against the corner of a brick wall, panting. His legs shook a constant vibrato of music and fear from the exertion he’d given them. What had once been a half-hour’s walk had taken him several hours to achieve. His legs yelled at him to sit down now, just for a little bit. He’d reached a milestone in his little journey, and he deserved to rest. But Obe knew doing so would be beyond foolish. Once down, he was unlikely to rise again for many minutes, and if a car happened by or even another man wearing blue…
He pushed off from the wall, locked his knees, and began an ugly but serviceable hobble down the street. He came across a trio of men discussing… well, probably their names and how to spell them, he had no doubt. They all looked so strong, so virile. His stomach ground out some kind of an agreement. It’s eating itself, he thought. It’s eating me.
He shambled toward them and got no closer than a dozen yards before one of them saw and all three were soon jogging away in three directions.
“No!” Obe yelled in a weakened breath. But the men were gone and their food went with them. It took him all night to return to the confinement of roof and walls that had become the only safety he still knew.
6
He slept in his typical, fitful bursts and tortured by his typical, harrowing nightmares. Nestled among them, however, was a single dream of peace. It was this dream he remembered when he woke. It was another memory from the fortress, and it was the happiest time he’d ever had on the island.
He stepped over a low cement separator on the floor and into the shower, already naked. He wanted to turn on the water and feel the heat of it run down his back, but the bar of soap called to him. He picked it up, held it to his nose, and inhaled. Fresh, solid cleanliness raced up his nostrils. He’d forgotten what soap smelled like. It was so good, so rewarding.
He reached up and turned the knob on the wall. Instantly water rained on him, but it was gentle and light. So different from the hose, he almost couldn’t feel it. He lifted the soap to the falling water and allowed it to saturate and lather, slowing rolling it in his hand until it spun freely. The lather formed and foamed over his fingers and ran over the grime on his arm to the elbow.
Where’s the hot water? he thought. Did they trick me after all?
No, of course not. He just didn’t turn the knob far enough. He’d forgotten how they worked. He reached up and twisted it all the way. At first there was no change. Then he felt the heat on him, pushing a front of warmth down his body. It grew hot quickly, flowing down his head and neck and back… all the way to his ankles and feet. He shuddered a deep sigh. There was nothing in the world like it, ever. Soon the heat went so high it scalded his back. He arche
d away from it but didn’t want to leave it completely. He held his breath and pushed back into the falling water. The heat hit him and burned his neck and back, but he easily stood strong and… and tall!… until the pain subsided. This was nothing compared to the pain he’d already learned to endure and hold in.
Then he smelled the soap again and saw the steam, the thin mist, and understood how good he must have been to deserve this. Yes, he had been good. It was right to get something in return. This was more than he’d expected, but still, it felt right.
He rubbed the soap on his arms and chest. The bar turned dark, almost black, in seconds. He turned and let the hot water rinse the dirt down his legs. He washed again, getting more of it off, and rinsed. A third time with some careful scrubbing and the skin finally looked and felt clean.
Slowly, carefully, and consciously trying to enjoy every second, he washed other parts of his body. His face. His legs. His back. His feet. He used shampoo liberally and cleaned his hair. It took not just one repeat, like the bottle said- and he was almost surprised to learn he still knew how to read- but four lathers and rinses before the hair felt like hair again. When it was clean it was so slippery he played with it like a child. He hadn’t felt anything that soft in so long.
Then, the moment he had been secretly dreading finally came. He had to do it. The women would be mad if they had given him a shower and he didn’t clean all of himself.
He reached tentatively between his legs and rubbed the lather of soap on his penis. He was careful not to touch it too long. But it didn’t matter. The heat, the lubrication, the touch of his hand… it felt so very good.
A brilliant pain shot through the lowest inch of him. He knew that pain. It was supposed to happen only when he was the most bad, the most scum, the times when he proved he hadn’t learned anything and would never go home.
Woman Scorned Page 32
