Voices From The Other Side

by Brandon Massey

  “I’ll try your steak, rare, baked potato with sour cream and butter, and a piece of raspberry pie.”

  “No vegetable?”

  “No vegetable. I’ll have a bottle of local beer.”

  “I hear that you’re Harrison Snyder’s grandson.”

  “Yep. Just here to clear out his business affairs and sell the house. Do you know of anyone looking for a nice sturdy old home?”

  “Nope, but some summer folks—a couple—will probably buy it. We can’t seem to keep young men on the island. Seems like just when a nice-looking young man starts getting interested in property or a business, he changes his mind and takes off in the middle of the night. Not your grandfather, though. He stayed a long time. I miss him. He’d come in at least once a week for either lunch or an early supper. Not many black folks on Thorne Island. I think there’s a family or two up on the eastern side of the island. Some said your grandfather was an excellent lawyer for them that needed one. Me, I never needed an attorney. You’re not going to take over the business?”

  “No. Actually, there’s not much of a business to take over. Grandfather had sent most of his clients to friends off the island. He represented only the Parks women for the past few years. I guess I’ll have to find someone to take care of them.” Dottie didn’t recommend anyone. A little later, she brought my supper, which I ate with an appetite I thought I had lost. Everything tasted new, delicious and nourishing. By the time I walked home, I was too tired to look for any papers Grandfather might have stashed in the house. After a long, hot shower, I fell into bed. And dreamed.

  I dreamed the most erotic dreams, which involved Mrs. Lily Parks. We made love like wild cats, clawing and nibbling one another. I ran my hands over her muscular, smooth body, and she answered each of my strokes with a cry like something out of the jungle of Kenya. Hers was not the body of a woman older than twenty-five. The wonderful creature of my dreams resembled Mrs. Parks but could not be her. I awoke more spent than I had been in years. I inhaled. Mrs. Parks’s perfume saturated my bedroom; a pale yellow, gauzy nightgown was bunched at the foot of my bed. The woman in my dreams had briefly worn a nightgown similar to the one that lay at my feet. I got up slowly and rubbed my face, feeling a small scratch on my neck that my dream woman had left.

  I showered, dressed, made coffee and began searching Grandfather’s home for clues about the Parks women.

  Rose—May

  I spent the next four days going through every book, ledger and bank statement that I could find of Grandfather’s. I flipped through all the books in his library; I went through the glove compartments and trunks of both cars. I called my father, my sister, my distant cousin—anyone who had spent any time on Thorne Island—for help in finding out anything about the Parks Family. No one knew anything about their business with Grandfather. It was as Simon had said: The natives couldn’t remember when they had not been on the Island, and no one knew where their winter home was.

  The Parks women had always been just the same: mysteriously beautiful creatures who kept to themselves and who arrived in late April and left in early September. They were rarely seen in town. Simon purchased their groceries. They didn’t receive mail, except the usual junk mail that every summer visitor received.

  On the fifth day of May, when the Island folks decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I was once again summoned to the Parks’s estate. I was delirious to see the women in the flesh again, and terrified that they would somehow know that I dreamed of their mother every night. Every morning, I awoke exhausted, confused and spent.

  The nightgown was missing when I returned home after that first morning, and since then, nothing remained of Lily Parks’s night visits to my bed but her scent. Also, after that first night, I apparently began sleepwalking, or to be more accurate, sleep-driving, because my car would be in a different spot from the previous evening and ten miles would be added to the mileage. It was exactly ten miles to and from the Parks’s estate. But why would I drive there and not remember? Were my dreams real? Was I actually sleeping with Lily Parks? No, I couldn’t be. Besides, I remembered nothing of where I’d been during my night outings. I only remembered the sex.

  “Good morning, Simon,” I said as I pulled my car to the massive iron gate. “I believe that Mrs. Lily Parks is expecting me.”

  “Yes, sir,” he whispered, and opened the gate. I again followed him to the spot where I had first met Mrs. Lily Parks.

  “Miss Rose will be with you shortly,” Simon said as he disappeared into the house. I heard a screen door bang shut and turned, but no one was on the porch with me. I got up, opened the door and entered the dining room. The room was large and airy, with sturdy oak furniture and elaborate runners on the dining room table and buffet. Both pieces of furniture held enormous bouquets of artificial flowers. Odd. I would have to remember to ask about the flowers, since so many beautiful wild ones grew in the garden.

  Then I saw her coming down the stairs toward me. Rose. She was even lovelier that day than on the first day I’d met her. She wore a sleeveless orange gauze dress that complemented her dark skin. Her curly black hair was pulled on top of her head and fastened with a string of orange beads that were a shade lighter than her dress. She was barefooted. Her dress flowed around her knees, and blew and billowed when she walked, so every once in a while I saw a glimpse of her thigh. She had very long legs.

  “Mr. Snyder,” she whispered. I’d nearly forgotten the breathless manner in which she spoke.

  “Call me Paolo.”

  “Paolo,” she replied, and I wanted her then and there, in her mother’s house, on her mother’s dining room table. I forgot her age. I forgot that just that morning, I had awakened lusting for her mother. No woman had ever said my name the way she had, not even the Mrs. Lily Parks of my dreams.

  She smiled and walked outside to the porch. She sat down in one of the rattan chairs, crossed her legs, smoothed her dress and poured a cup of tea.

  “Uh . . .” I had worn a light, open-necked cotton shirt. I pulled at the throat, gasping for air. “No tea for me,” I managed to strangle out.

  “You look uncomfortable, Paolo. Have some water or lemonade. It has been extremely warm today.” She took out a small wooden fan and waved it in front of her face. The fan gave off the scent of cedar. Then she poured a tall glass of lemonade. She took a sip of it, then handed it to me. Her pale orange lipstick left a faint mark on the glass. I drank from the same spot.

  “I asked you here because it is time for me to make out my will. I’m not getting any younger.” Rose laughed, then she leaned forward and I smelled the perfume in her hair.

  “I’m sure . . . I’m sure that we have plenty of time for a will,” I managed to say, and then I poured myself a glass of water. I could still taste her lipstick on my mouth. It had the same seductive properties as the tea that I’d drunk with her mother.

  “This was the year that all of us were going to write out our wills for your grandfather. He was such a dear man. We loved him immensely. He will be missed.” Rose sat back in her chair as a droplet of sweat, which reminded me of fresh dew, rolled down her chin and into the hollow of her throat. This time, she did not wave her fan, but let the droplet pool. I watched as her pulse beat pumped the droplet. I wish I could take that next second back, but I couldn’t help myself, and before I knew what was happening, I had leaned over and licked the drop from her throat.

  “Mr. Snyder,” she yelled in what would normally have been an average tone. But it was a shout from her. “I thought you were here for Mama. Isn’t she the one in your dreams?”

  I was stunned that she mentioned my dreams. Was I that obvious?

  “You will have to choose which of us you want. I do not compete with Mama. Here, have something to drink. You will feel better.” She handed me a glass of lemonade and watched as I drank all of it. I should have known that the Parks women were not ordinary women, but I was blinded by lust.

  I hadn’t been with a real woman since the Febr
uary prior to coming to Thorne Island. I was somehow satisfied with my dreams of Lily.

  “Perhaps you can stay for supper. I hear that you eat meat. We also are carnivores. We will prepare something for supper. It is Cinco de Mayo, so we will have tacos and beer. Then you can tell me what to put in my will. You will see Mama. I think she likes you, and you can choose which of us you want to stay with tonight.”

  “We also are carnivores” was an odd way of stating that they ate meat. But I didn’t ask the question that formed in my mind. What I asked instead was, “No salad?”

  “We don’t eat plant life,” Rose replied, and shuddered as if the idea of eating fruit and vegetables was the most disgusting thing imaginable. I thought about Rose, whom I wanted desperately right then, but found myself sipping lemonade and listening to her make plans for supper. How could I awake in lust for the mother and not five hours later want the daughter? It took every ounce of my willpower not to rip her clothes off and take her on the porch in much the same manner I had thought about with the mother during our first meeting. There had to be something in the lemonade. I had to excuse myself and return to the village, where I could think. Here at the Parks’s, my mind was too clouded to think things through clearly.

  “Thank you for the dinner offer, but I need to get back to town. I have to have time to complete your requests.” I got up and raced to the gate.

  Simon stood by the open gate.

  “Have a good afternoon,” he whispered. A praying mantis walked between the gate’s rails and disappeared into the hedge. It was one of the few insects that I’d noticed in the garden. I looked more carefully. Ladybugs and tiny translucent snails hid among the fresh fern and healthy loam near the gate. The garden was in balance.

  “Simon, your garden looks very healthy,” I said as I stepped onto the street.

  “Thank you. I talk to the flowers and the weeds. It makes them happy to know that someone cares for them.” He smiled as if thinking of something I would never understand.

  Violet—June

  Rose invited me back to the house to sign some final papers. We were, as always, seated on the porch, drinking lemonade. A tea service was on the table, although I had not drunk tea since my first day at the Parks’s home.

  “I’m Violet. We haven’t met,” were the first words she said to me as I finished a glass of lemonade. When I stood up, I accidentally knocked over a teacup, breaking it. Shards of glass bounced along the porch. Violet stopped and picked up the broken cup, cutting her index finger. She extended her right hand while licking blood off her left. For a second, it appeared that her blood was clear, then turned a dark, healthy red as the drop was sucked into her mouth. She smiled, watching me watching her.

  “I’m sorry about the cup. I think I might have suffered from a momentary flash of heat stroke.” The sun was in the west, high in the sky, and the table and chairs where Rose and I sat were bathed in sunlight. My shirt was drenched, and my linen slacks were wrinkled and bunched at the crotch.

  “That happens to folks occasionally—heat stroke. Perhaps you two should move inside. The library is much cooler, and you can finish your business in there. No one will disturb you. Mama said that you remind her of your grandfather. I don’t see the resemblance.” Violet looked like a girl of seventeen or eighteen. She wore a muted-blue cotton blouse and a multicolored skirt that swayed around her midthigh. She was the first Park woman I’d met who wore jewelry somewhere other than in her hair. Her ears were pierced six, no seven, times and sported tiny golden hoops. She also wore golden bracelets on both wrists and an ornate golden symbol of the sun around her neck.

  As always when I was at the Parks’s estate, I found myself lusting for one of the daughters. Just before Violet arrived, I had been daydreaming about Rose.

  “I need to apologize to your sister.” All of my lust had evaporated when the cup fell. I felt like a stupid child caught trying to make out with my best friend’s mother.

  “Why? Rose is very—how should I say it—beautiful, in a fragile way, aren’t you, sis?” She bent over and kissed Rose on her left cheek. I had now met three of the Parks women, and all were enchanting. Violet smiled again, then walked into the house. A butterfly followed her to the door. She let it land on her injured finger for a second and then shook it away. The red and angry cut looked instantly healed. Violet turned and went inside.

  Daisy and Daphne often waved at me and whomever I was with on the porch as they rushed to the lake or ran into the house. Neither had much to say to me. All of the women seemed to crave water, and swam and danced in the lake during much of the day. Of course, my curiosity grew each time one of them was within sight.

  My dreams about Lily and Rose continued. Time moved quickly. I sold Grandfather’s home the first week of June. I remember sitting on the Parks’s porch, which had become my unofficial office, during the second week of June. That particular afternoon, I was joined by Violet. I had not seen her in nearly a month.

  “There’s plenty of room here,” she said during a lull in our conversation.

  “What?”

  “I said, there’s plenty of room here. Your grandfather’s home is sold, and you can stay in the guesthouse while we complete our paperwork for this summer.”

  “Guesthouse?” I had spent a lot of time at the Parks’s yet I had seen very little of their grounds. Simon seemed to be weeding or cultivating a new patch of flowers whenever I was near, yet I never saw cut flowers in any of the vases on the porch.

  Mostly, I worked at one of the tables on the porch. I had observed the iron fence in back of the house near the cliffs. It was old and rusty-looking, and didn’t appear strong enough to keep out a determined intruder.

  “Yes. See, it’s right there.” She pointed to a small log cabin that I had failed to notice previously. “Let’s go look at it.” I followed her, observing her long dark legs and the green, cotton sunsuit that resembled old-fashioned tennis shorts from the twenties. Her skin glowed, and her eyes sparkled as she clapped her hands together like a child opening a new present. Both Violet and Rose were taller than their mother, and the younger women had very long legs. Violet enjoyed wearing shorts that showed hers off.

  She opened the door, and we entered a large room that contained a stone fireplace and a sofa. The room opened onto a small kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. I ran my fingers over the flower-print fabric of the sofa. The bedroom was just large enough for the iron double bed and a tiny wooden nightstand.

  A handmade quilt covered the bed. “This is very beautiful. Wonderful workmanship,” I said. It resembled some of the outsider art that I’d seen elderly women making in the Carolinas.

  “Thank you. I made it. The design is the ‘Wedding Rehearsal.’ I’m pleased that you like it.”

  The bathroom had an old, white, claw-footed tub, a pedestal basin and a pull-chain toilet. The cabin looked very old and lived in, yet brand new and virginal at the same time.

  “I’m sure that you would be happy here during your short stay,” Violet said. There was a hint of something just behind her eyes. I felt a chill, but dismissed it, and we walked back outside. “I’ll have Simon bring your things to the cabin while we have supper.”

  All of my dinners at the Parks’s had consisted of elaborate meals with appropriate wine or beer and coffee. The women had healthy appetites and ate as if they tasted food for the first time. I loved watching them eat and drink. I had assumed that women that healthy would also eat healthy, but they ate only meat, fish and a few dried nuts. After supper, the four of us would retire to the library, where we would have a glass of brandy, then I would leave for Grandfather’s home, where I would dream of one of the sisters. Daisy and Daphne always had plans and were never home for supper. Yet I yearned for them also.

  Last June was Violet’s turn to wind her way into my night thoughts. I wanted her in a manner different from her mother and Rose. She played the cello, and I dreamed of being the instrument on which she practiced. I wanted her lean, t
an, compact body. I wanted to drink in her dark blue eyes and run my fingers through her blue-black hair, which she wore long and straight, like an Indian princess. This daughter was bolder and earthier than her mother or her sister Rose.

  Violet was a tease. I knew that if I ever slept with her, I would not go back to her mother or Rose. Even in my dreams, she was aloof, her own person. I never got her to bed. I’d kiss her, and she’d laugh and find something to talk about that was so fascinating, I fell asleep on the sofa only to awake to an empty house. What would happen once I was living on the estate? Perhaps she was waiting for me in the guesthouse, on the iron bed, under the “Wedding Rehearsal” quilt.

  Daisy—July

  “She’s just like Mama, only taller. They even dress alike. Isn’t that silly? She’s my twin.” I looked up as Daisy walked out of the house and onto the porch. It was my first evening staying in the guesthouse. Daisy was Violet’s identical twin. However, they were very easy to tell apart. While Violet wore clothing suited to her name—blues, blacks, greens—Daisy was fond of white. Both women wore yellow like no woman I’d ever noticed previously. I was completely under their spells.

  “So we finally meet, Mr. Snyder,” Daisy said, holding out her hand in the same manner that Violet had a month earlier.

  “Call me Paolo. Your sisters do.”

  “Paolo? Odd name for a black man. Portuguese?”

  “No. My mother loved to travel, and my sister, ChiNa, and I have names that remind Mom of exotic places.”

  “I don’t think that we need to discuss my will. I’ll have the same thing as Violet and Daphne.” I watched as Daisy walked away. I noticed her long legs. There was something wrong. I looked at her again. Yes, there was a greenish hue to them. Then just as quickly, as if she’d noticed me looking, her legs were tan, strong and healthy.

  Why was Daisy so aloof? She seemed to resent my presence, yet I had just met her. It was she I saw burying the flowers I brought the first day. Surely, she couldn’t have resented a gift of flowers. Perhaps it was that she suspected I’d mentally slept with her mother, older sister and, hopefully, twin?