. . . and that's when it began to turn: the thrashing becoming less like loveplay and more like a genuine battle of wills. Nora's left hand broke free, made a grab for the packet a split second after Syd closed his fist around it.
"Gimme that," she demanded.
"No way. It's the last one."
"Good," she replied. She tried to peel his fingers open, couldn't; as he resisted he felt her movements become frenetic, almost ugly in their intensity.
"Shit, Nora . . ." She continued to struggle, started wrenching his fingers painfully apart. A sudden wave of anger roiled up inside him.
"Goddammit, I said cut it out!'
He yanked his hand back and away, fist raised up and out of her reach. For a moment it hovered there, looking almost as if he were ready to slug her. Nora's eyes flashed, brightly expectant; as he lowered his hand the light faded, and she pushed him away.
Syd slid off of her and to the side, where they lay panting and staring at the ceiling, as the heat of the encounter ebbed away, left a frigid vacuum in its wake. Syd was monumentally pissed, and more than a little confused. He lay in stilted silence, listening to the sound of their breathing and wondering if she was actually going to say anything, explain the sudden lunge into irrationality. Apparently not. The air space between them remained charged, awkward, tense.
Finally, he could take it no longer. "So," he said, as gently as he could manage, "you wanna tell me what this is all about?"
"Nothing," she said flatly. There was a cryptic pause, then more softly: "I hate those fucking things."
"Well, I'm not wild about 'em myself," Syd offered, trying to ameliorate the weirdness. "But they are kind of a necessary evil."
"You didn't need one last night."
"Yeah, well, I was blasted out of my skull last night."
"But you still didn't use one."
"Yeah, I guess," he said warily, again wishing he could remember more than shreds and fragments.
"So what do you suddenly need one for?" she asked, her tone interrogatory, bristling. Syd looked at her as if she were joking, saw only deadly earnest intent.
"Oh, gee, I don't know, lemme see . . ." he replied, rolling his eyes, ". . . there's accidental pregnancies, incurable diseases . . ."
"So you think I'm diseased?"
'Wo! Jesus, Nora, I'm just—"
"I don't have time for this shit," she spat, sitting up and sliding to the edge of the bed. Syd groaned; this was getting way out of hand. Nora began rooting through the clothing on the floor, found her T-shirt, pulled it on.
"Nora, c'mon," Syd said, trying to end-run the escalating weirdness. "Don't be like that. . . ." He reached out to her; as he touched her back Nora whirled and slapped his hand away.
"Get the fuck away from me," she growled. She glared at him, furious . . .
. . . and for the second time in as many days, Syd got a whiff of genuine threat off of her. As if things could tip at any moment, veer clear from uncomfortable into downright dangerous. He flashed back to last night, the incident with the bottle, Jules's low-key backdoor interrogation. Are you sure you know what you're doing? If you haven't figured out that there's an element of risk here . . .
"Whoa," he said. His hand froze in space, backed off very, very slowly. Nora found her panties, angrily slipped into them. He closed his eyes and slumped back on the bed, horrified, the countdown to meltdown already ticking off in his head. Next would come the jeans, then the boots, one by one. Then an angry stalk across the room as she grabbed her jacket, perhaps punctuated by a choice last taunt or two. Then into the living room. Out the front door.
And out of his life.
Forever . . .
As visions went, it was incredibly clear, like fast-forwarding reality. The resulting depression blew through him like a pre-flash of impending disaster, setting off all his internal damage-control alarms. Syd was already bracing himself emotionally by the time the words even left his lips.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, the ache in his voice heartfelt, genuine. "I just don't understand . . ."
His words trailed off. The room went still. Syd opened his eyes. Nora was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into the shadows. Her hair obscured her profile; she shuddered, and in the dim light it looked as though she might be crying. She took a deep, halting breath.
"I can't get pregnant," she said bitterly, still staring straight ahead. "Okay? So you can relax. You don't have anything to worry about." Her voice was hoarse, laced with the pain of confession. She brought one hand up to wipe away an unseen tear, then shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I shouldn't have said that. . . ."
Syd sat up, moved toward her. As he got close she held perfectly still, quite literally ready for anything. Syd went to take her in his arms and she started to pull away. But when he persisted, she suddenly gave in.
And that was when the walls came tumbling down.
Nora turned, embracing him with a quiet fury, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder and hugging him fiercely.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, as one hand came up to stroke her hair. He kissed the crown of her head and a little sound escaped her, the merest wisp of despair welling up from some desperately lonely place. She curled deeper into him, clinging to him like a rock in a raging current. The gesture struck a deeply protective chord in his soul, something beyond the simple understanding that he had found someone with damage greater even than his own.
He felt torn: one side of him saying run away, this woman has too many problems, she's emotionally unstable . . ., the other saying she's hurting, she needs you, she's the most passionate, intense creature you've ever met in your life, and you're crazy if you let her walk out that door. . . .
Syd held out a heartbeat longer, weighing his conflicting emotions. Then Nora spoke again: her voice achingly vulnerable, filled with longing.
"I just wanted to feel you inside me," she said. "I didn't want anything between us."
She took another halting breath, and Syd's heart started to glow like a roadside flare as the balance of his inner scales tipped at last. "I know," he whispered. "It's okay."
And it was true. He knew when it came right down to it, he wasn't really worried about catching something from her, and in the heat of the moment all the safe-sex lectures in the world were completely overridden by the fact that he wanted to feel her, too: unobstructed or unhindered in any way, and as intensely as possible. Maybe it was stupid: a foolish, even life-threatening risk. He didn't care.
All he cared about was her.
It was a revelation, a pure flash of emotion as yet unbound by the complications of relationship or the fact that she was still mostly a mystery, and it frankly surprised the hell out of him. You can't fix her problems, a voice in his head warned. You can't even fix your own.
It was the voice of experience. It didn't matter. She was here in his arms, and she was in pain. He wanted to make the pain go away. She was here in his arms, and she felt alone. He wanted to show her that she wasn't. She was here in his arms, and she was afraid.
He wanted to make her feel safe.
And that was perhaps the most amazing thing: that simply by being this close to her, he felt like he could. She made him feel strong. She made him feel like he could do anything.
He gave her a reassuring squeeze. She nuzzled him in response, her head resting on his breast. Her lips found his left nipple, began to kiss it. As her tongue grazed its surface—a completely sensual yet strangely nonsexual gesture, more the way a child suckles for comfort—it awakened within Syd a powerful, almost maternal impulse.
Then her teeth came into play, and his arousal returned a thousandfold. And this time, the lovemaking was slow and sweet and tender, an act more of profound healing than animal abandon. As he slipped naked inside her, Syd's last rational thought was that he had never felt this close to another living being.
Nora began to move, setting the rhythm of their union. Syd responded in kind. He felt
their flesh merge, as they fed each other's need.
And he was not afraid.
14
AFTERWARD THEY NAPPED, awoke ravenous. When Nora decided to make food, Syd was happy to let her. He was amazed at her energy reserves, that she seemed to be unstoppable, immune from fatigue; if anything, she was even more vibrant than before.
It was more than he could say for himself. Syd was spent; it was all he could do to load a CD into the player and then drag himself to the table. Robert Johnson's "Come Into My Kitchen" seemed only too appropriate. Music filled the air, mingling with the cooking smells.
Syd watched her work, fascinated. Nora prepared food with a fluid, offhand grace: a chaotic culinary whirlwind creating an incredible mess, from which emerged a truly splendid meal. She had gone out of her way to get the freshest possible cuts of meat: and though she cooked them far rarer than Syd was accustomed to, he had to admit that she was a phenomenal chef.
The steaks were heavily marinated; the greens strangely spiced, slightly bitter. When Syd wrinkled his nose she insisted that it wouldn't kill him, playfully promised him gross bodily injury if he didn't eat. Syd shrugged and drowned the salad in dressing, ultimately wolfing his portion down with a vigor that belied his misgivings.
They dined by candlelight, huddled around the tiny kitchen table. As they ate, they drank. Nora had already started the first bottle of burgundy while she was cooking, cracked the second before they were halfway done. Syd opted for beer, pulling a cold can from his dwindling stock in the fridge.
And as they ate and drank, they talked. Or more, he talked. Nora, it turned out, was a lot more interested in knowing about him than in revealing much of her own intimate history.
Her listening skills, on the other hand, were extraordinary: her attention rapt, her questions thoughtful and penetrating. She had that rare talent to make him feel that he was genuinely fascinating, the most interesting person she'd ever met. She could hang on every word without seeming to fawn, laugh without appearing facile. By the end of the meal she had inspired him to disgorge great hunks of the story of his life: his childhood and the lost years of his youth, the symbolic significance of his upcoming birthday, his feelings of frustration at how life never seemed to work out the way it should.
The death of his marriage fascinated her; the sordid saga of Vaughn Restal, in particular. Indeed, Nora resisted his every impulse to short-form the events, pressing him to recount every gory blow-by-blow, in near-forensic detail. It felt odd, at first; it had been a while since Syd had felt comfortable talking with others about his past, even longer since he'd found a sympathetic ear not already deafened by repeated exposure.
But as he finally reached the end of the meal and the story, replete with the obligatory shrug and sigh and lighting of cigarette, her eyes were brightly attentive: taking in every nuance of feeling, searching his every expression for hidden meaning.
"So why didn't you do it?" she asked.
"Do what?"
"Kill him," she replied.
Syd looked at her, surprised. She said it as if it were the most natural thought in the world, as if questioning it were crazy. It was a first. "Well . . ." he began, then stopped.
She looked at him; he took a drag off his cigarette, shrugged. "I don't know. It wasn't worth ruining my life over, I guess."
"But your life was already ruined."
"Yeah," he agreed. "But he was just an asshole, and if she was dumb enough to go with him, then fuck her, too." He said the last part with as much conviction as he could muster, hoped like hell it would fly.
One glance at her told him it didn't. Nora's gaze went right through him, pinning his soul like a searchlight on an escaping convict. "That's bullshit," she said, "and it's not the point."
"Yeah? Well, exactly what is the point? I mean, he wasn't the problem," Syd argued. "He was a symptom—"
"He was an intruder," she interrupted. "He snuck in and stole something that was yours, and you let him get away with it."
"Karen wasn't mine," he objected. "Christ, you talk about her like she was my property or something."
"Not property," Nora corrected, "but yours, nonetheless. Just like you were hers. You made a deal, you gave yourselves to each other . . ." She paused, added softly, ". . . it was a covenant."
"And she broke it. . . ."
"Yeah, she did. And what did you do?"
Syd opened his mouth, stopped short again. Nora's eyes were bright and searching. "I don't think . . ."
"Don't think. Feel.
I wanna know how you felt that night," she said. "I wanna know what you wanted to do about it."
Syd looked at her, looked away. "I wanted to kill him," he said at last. "I wanted to tear his stupid fucking face off."
"Better," she said. "At least that's honest." She leaned across the table.
"So why didn't you?"
The question hung in the air like an indictment. Syd took a swig off his beer. Nora watched him intently. Her eyes were inescapable; in the soft glow of the candles they looked hypnotic, otherworldly.
"I don't know," he said. "The cops came, and it felt like the moment had come and gone. I missed the window." He sighed resignedly.
"After that, I would periodically get this feeling, like I wanted to go hurt him again. Like beating him up just wasn't enough. It was like, he hadn't suffered enough yet; I was still hurting, my life was still fucked, but he just got to skate away as if nothing ever happened. But whenever I talked about it, everyone would tell me how wrong they thought that was, like I was some kind of psycho or something. . . ."
"And how did that make you feel?"
"I thought—" He stopped, corrected himself. "It felt like it was the only right thing in the whole sick fucking situation. Like if I didn't stop him—even if I had to kill him to do it—then nothing else in the rest of my life would ever mean a goddam thing."
He paused; Nora nodded thoughtfully. "There's a word to describe the reaction of everybody you talked to," she said. "It's called theriophobia."
"Come again?"
"Theriophobia. It means fear of the beast. It's like a projection, a kind of self-hatred. Fear of the violent, irrational side of your nature. Most people are scared to death of it."
For the first time in the conversation, her eyes looked away, out the window to the street below, as though searching the shadows. "They spend their whole lives running away from it, and punishing anyone who doesn't. They tell you it's crazy to feel things like that, like you're a monster for even having such thoughts, much less doing something about it."
"Yeah, but it's funny," he said, almost wistfully, "while it was happening, it was the cleanest feeling I'd ever known. It wasn't so much irrational as something that transcended reason. There was no doubt, or guilt, or second-guessing myself. I had no idea what was going to happen next, or how things would play out, and it didn't even matter. I just knew what I had to do. . . ."
"But in the end, you weren't true to it," she said. "I mean, he's still alive, right? He still slinks among us." Syd looked down, nodded.
"Yeah, he hangs out down at Fifty-Five South and all the local yuppie watering holes. But at least he pisses himself at the mention of my name."
"Uh-huh."
She didn't say anything else, just uh-huh. She didn't have to. It was uncanny, her knack for nailing him: in the space of a second she had reduced the wild, bestial side of Syd that had so terrified his friends and acquaintances to a toothless, yapping lapdog. Her tone of voice was neutral, utterly without malice or judgment, but no less deadly for it.
Syd swished his beer, drained the dregs. It was the last one in the house. He glanced at the little pile of cans before him, checked his watch. Twelve-fifteen.
"Helluva time to run out of beer," he sighed.
Nora watched him a moment longer, then stood, blew out the candles, crossed around to his side of the table.
"So c'mon," she said.
"Where are we going?"
&nbs
p; She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, then whispered in his ear.
"Out," she said.
15
THEY WERE HALFWAY to Chameleon's when Nora had a change of heart.
They were high up on the Mt. Haversford Road, Tom Waits's moody "Bone Machine" playing low on the stereo. For the last twenty minutes Nora had been lost in thought, preoccupied: she stared out the window, watching the shifting shapes just outside the headlights' glare. When they passed a sign that read rest area 1 MILE, Nora turned.
"Pull over up there," she said.
Syd looked at where she was pointing, shook his head. He was feeling kind of weird, and he wanted a beer to calm his nerves. "I don't know," he protested. "It's gettin' kinda late. . . ."
"Just for a minute," Nora said. "Please . . ."
She placed her hand on his thigh, squeezed. Syd sighed and slowed, wheeling the car off the road and into the parking area. It was dark, utterly deserted, just a wide barren strip of asphalt, butt up against the rim of the forest. A few picnic tables dotted its perimeter, empty and forlorn. Syd pulled into a slot, left the engine running, the lights on.
"Okay," he said. "Now what."
Nora reached over and shut the engine off, then sat back, admiring the night.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" she sighed. "I love it up here."
"Yeah, me, too," Syd said. He looked around, distracted, then checked his watch. Twelve forty-five. "We should really go," he warned. "The bar's gonna close soon."
"Mmmm." She paused, nodded thoughtfully. "I've got a better idea."
Nora leaned over and kissed him, and as she pulled away Syd heard a click . . .
. . . and then she was throwing the door open, stepping outside. Syd looked first at Nora, then at the ignition.
The keys were gone.
"Aw, shit," he groaned, annoyed. "Nora!"
But Nora just ignored him, moving away from the car and into the trees, the headlights casting giant shadow-puppets before her.
Animals Page 11
