by Joel Arnold
"I said, where's Em?"
"She's not here."
With a grunt, Hector reached out for the aluminum handicap bar Natalie had installed, and held himself an inch above the toilet. Natalie slid off his boxer shorts.
"Let's get you in the tub." Natalie struggled to ease Hector into the bath. A great deal of effort was needed to keep him from slipping on the slick porcelain and banging his head on the faucet. Natalie cursed herself for forgetting the textured adhesive strips for the floor and sides of the tub last time she was in town.
"She was supposed to be here for supper, but she's not here.”
"I know, Dad." Natalie squirted shampoo onto the horseshoe of Hector's pepper gray hair. She massaged it in, taking her time, knowing Hector liked this. She ran her fingers soothingly over his bald spot.
"She was supposed to be here for supper. Where is she?"
"I don't know, Dad." She worked up a lather on his back, then scooped up water in a plastic pail and poured it over him. She handed him a bar of soap.
"You do the rest," she said.
Hector sat still, resting his back against the end of the tub. "Emma? That you?"
"No, Dad. It's Natalie. Nat. Your daughter."
The soap slipped out of his hands. Natalie fished in the water for it, trying not to get her blouse wet, grabbed hold, and placed it back in Hector's hand.
"C'mon. Gotta get cleaned up."
Hector slowly rubbed the bar across his thighs. He struggled to reach his calves.
"Don't worry about that. I'll get 'em when you're finished with the rest of it."
"I'm not a goddamn baby," Hector said. He scrubbed his chest, the soap producing a dull lather on his graying chest hair. He scrubbed without enthusiasm, without vigor, as if in a stupor.
"C'mon," Natalie said. "You're almost done."
He finished, scrubbing the gray mound of hair between his legs. "Emma was supposed to be here for supper."
"I know." Natalie took the bar of soap from him and washed his calves and feet, being careful of the corns and the sores on his ankles and toes.
"Oww. Goddamn it, watch my toes!"
"I'm trying, Dad."
Natalie toweled Hector dry and returned him to his wheelchair in a fresh t-shirt and boxer shorts.
"Feel better?"
"Goddamn it, where's Em? Where is she off to now?" Hector shifted in his chair. "She said she'd be back by supper and it's been past supper for a long time."
Natalie sighed. She thought she'd never be able to get used to this. She had hoped and hoped it was only temporary, prayed it was just a short-term side effect of the stroke, but two months had passed and it wasn't getting any better.
"Em?" Hector called. "Em? Get in here! Where are ya, Em?" He held onto the wheels, making it almost impossible for Natalie to roll him down the hallway to his room.
"Em's not here. Let go of the wheels. It's bed time."
"You don't tell me when it's bed time. I tell you. Who the hell are you anyways? Goddamn nurse? Who told you to come to my house, anyways?"
"It's me, Dad. Natalie."
"Let go of my goddamn chair!"
"It's time for bed now. You have to get to sleep."
"Says who?"
"Says me. Now let go of the wheels."
"Where's Em? Em! Em? Where's my goddamn wife?"
"She's not here, Dad."
"Where is she?"
"She died thirty-six years ago."
He didn't seem to hear. "Goddamn it, where is she?" His face grew red. He put more pressure on the wheels.
"Let go of the wheels, Dad. I'm Natalie. Your daughter. Mom's dead, okay? Thirty-six years ago. Can't you remember?"
"Em, come here! Some goddamn crazy woman's kidnapped me. Em?"
"She's dead, Dad."
"Em?"
"Let go of the wheels."
"Emma?"
"She's dead, Dad." Natalie knew it was best to be patient. It was hard, of course. Sometimes she wanted to shout at him, to yell, She’s dead, Dad, goddammit! But she knew it was best to stay calm, be patient.
"She's dead, Dad." Her voice gentle. Relaxed.
Hector's arms went limp, and his head sank to his chest. It had come back to him. For a brief moment, the present had come back. Natalie rolled him to his room. She gave him a pill. This one was for his blood pressure. She gave him a second one. This one to control his mood swings.
"That Mae still alive?" he asked. There was sweat on his forehead, but the color in his cheeks had faded. "She still around?"
"Yes, Dad. She's right next door. She's doing fine."
"Goddamn bitch killed my wife."
Natalie didn't say anything. She wiped the sweat off of Hector's forehead.
"That goddamn bitch killed my wife, I said!"
"Settle down."
"What the hell do you mean, settle down? That fucking bitch killed my wife. She killed my wife, goddammit! Why the hell should I settle down?"
“It's your pills talking.”
“My pills aren't doing shit! If it wasn't for these goddamn pills, I would've been over there a long time ago, and, and - " Hector held the sides of his wheelchair as Natalie tried hoisting him into his bed.
"Let go, Dad."
"And where's her bitch sister? Where is she?"
"Let go, Dad."
"What was her name? They got no right being alive, those two. Where is she? Where's her sister?"
"I don't know, Dad. Let go."
His grip loosened. He flexed his hands. His head lolled slowly from side to side. He closed his eyes. "Where's Emma?"
"Emma's dead," Natalie whispered as she pulled the covers from the bed and tucked them around his chest. She placed the nurse's buzzer next to his hand.
"I love you," she said as he drifted off to sleep.
Of course, there were times when Natalie thought Hector belonged in a nursing home. Times when he'd scratch at her and strike at her while she tried to bathe and dress him. Times when he wouldn't eat, when he wouldn't take his pills. But there was all that time he had spent taking care of her, all that time he had spent raising her. All alone. She owed him for that, didn't she? She owed him.
And it wasn't like she had never been away from home. Hell, she was thirty-eight years old. She'd seen plenty of the world. Plenty. And taking care of Dad wasn't much different than a full-time job at the hospital. Just that now she was on call twenty-four hours a day. Longer breaks, usually, though no real vacation time. But what she got out of it, what she gained from it, was knowing that she was helping her dad, helping him through his suffering, his turmoil. Because hadn't he brought her into this world? Hadn't he done it despite all the pain and grief suffered from the loss of Emma, his beautiful wife Emma? Natalie's mother? The mother she never knew.
Natalie grew up thinking she died from complications during birth. That's what Hector told her throughout her childhood. "Died in the delivery room," he'd say with that faraway look in his eyes.
Then one night, when she was nineteen, packing her things, boxes, suitcases, getting ready to move away, to move off and attend school, she heard him talking to himself. He was drunk. Talking to himself.
Natalie had never seen her father actually drunk before that night. But now that she was leaving, he'd gotten out a twelve-pack and started drinking.
"Now don't blame me if you wake up with a hangover tomorrow morning," she'd joked. "I want you to be up bright and early to see me off."
He only nodded and opened another can.
Later, as Hector lay on the floor, on his side staring at the snow on the television screen, Natalie lifted a half empty beer can from his hands and set it on the floor next to him. He mumbled something she didn't catch, then he looked up at her with bloodshot eyes, and said, "That you, Em?"
Natalie swallowed, caught by surprise at the question.
"It's Nat, Dad."
Recognition floated back in his eyes. "Oh, Jesus. Sorry." He rolled over on his stomach, letting out
a belch. He mumbled something to the floor.
"What?" Nat asked.
"She killed her," he said. "The bitch next door - she killed her, Nat."
Natalie patted Hector on the back of his head. "What?"
He let out a drunken laugh, slow, unsure of himself. "You know, when they were girls."
"Dad - "
"They killed her. They killed my Em."
"Dad, I'm leaving tomorrow. Going to school. I want you up tomorrow to see me off. You oughta get to bed. You're tired."
"Damn right I'm tired." He belched. Cleared his throat. "They killed her, girl. They killed my Em." Hector's eyes clouded over. He fell asleep.
Natalie had trouble falling asleep that night. Why would he say something like that? Why now? She had known leaving would be hard on the man. She knew it, and had been waiting for this day not only with excitement - excitement to finally be off on her own - but also with dread.
He's drunk, she thought. Drunk and trying to make me feel guilty at the last moment. Make me think something's wrong. It was a last ditch effort, and it wouldn't work.
Hector did get out of bed the next day to see her off, somewhat cranky, but he made no more mention of Emma. Didn't mention her again for another fifteen years.
SIXTEEN
Nighttime again.
Andy lay in bed, eyes wide open. He felt bad dreams coming. Felt it in the rattle of the house under the strain of the wind. Felt it in the way he gripped the blanket a bit tighter than usual. Felt it in his testicles, the skin stretched tight like the skin of a drum.
Think of Natalie. Think about Natalie, he thought.
He'd never had a big problem with dreams before. With nightmares. When he did have them, they'd been sporadic and far apart. Never amounted to a whole lot, just a bunch of B-grade horror flicks going on in his head. But here - here - they had been suffocating, taking his breath away, drying up his throat, choking him. Maybe it was the unfamiliar setting. Maybe his body wasn't used to sleeping alone, not having Cathy's warmth to cling to. Maybe it was something in the metallic tasting water.
It didn't matter. He lay there and braced himself for an onslaught.
Try not to think about it, he told himself. He remembered being told once to always think of good things before going to bed. The thoughts were supposed to linger in the mind and mix with any dreams that came.
Think about Natalie.
Something to stay in his mind and temper his dreams.
God. He had trouble believing it, believing it actually happened. He played it over and over in his mind, each time Natalie looking down at him in super slow motion. And that look on her face, intensified by the shadows the darkness threw on her. He didn't notice it before, but now, thinking about it - that look. It was her grin, her teeth reflecting the darkness back into his eyes. That grin, eager, fulfilled. For a moment, for just a moment, it reminded him of the grin on a cat as it gorged on its prey.
He shivered. Why think of that? The rest had been beautiful. Why think of that?
Think of the hair. God, her hair. How could he ever forget that? The moon playing on it like a halo, making it glow fiery red, shooting warmth into him. Her blouse open, the edges of material framing her breasts as they slowly shook as she rocked, bounced on top of him, as if her motion sent waves through them, gently rolling, gently rippling through her entire body.
He conjured up her voice. So clear and lusty. It echoed in his head, warming up his brain cells, filling up the space with its rich vibrato and resonance.
Make love to me, Andy.
His eyes grew heavy and began to close.
Make love to me, Andy.
He smelled her, the smell of apple and honey and sweat, years of sweat. A sweat so sweet, and - animal-like.
His body relaxed. His testicles loosened. His eyes closed. On the backs of his eyelids, he watched Natalie bounce slowly up and down, making love to him. The image lingered for an eternity as he lost touch with the cold concrete of reality and slipped into sleep.
Sleep. The healer. The pacifier.
And Natalie was still on top. Bouncing.
Only now they were in bed. This bed. And she was bouncing.
Bouncing - until suddenly she began to grow. Natalie Plant started growing up and up and up towards the ceiling. She was growing, and - no. No, it was Andy who grew. He felt himself get bigger and bigger inside of her, his blood pouring from all his veins into his growing cock.
It lifted Natalie higher, to the ceiling, he felt himself so hard, up to the ceiling. Natalie flailed her legs, ducking, pounding on the ceiling, impaled on his cock, its flesh pulsing violently. Natalie had to bend over, double over as she rose higher, as Andy's cock rose higher, pushing her against the ceiling.
Crushing her.
Andy's muscles tightened, all of his muscles, as the snap of Natalie's bones vibrated against his hardness. First her skull and neck crunching. Then her ribs, each one's CRACK sending another vibration to his groin. Andy grabbed onto his cock, a pulsating log of flesh, grabbed onto it with both hands, squeezing it, the width of a sprinter's thigh, undulating, Andy trying to control it, to stop it.
jesus oh christ oh jesus
His buttocks shook, his whole body shook, his soul, as Natalie's thigh bones splintered against the ceiling, the fucking ceiling, covered with her blood and entrails, as his cock pushed further, and he shook and began to spasm, his hands overflowing with his own flesh, pulsating, shaking his hands like an engine. He was reaching heaven, reaching horror, reaching the ceiling, he had pushed clear through Natalie and could feel - feel - the fucking ceiling with the tip of his cock.
He began to ejaculate. He felt the first blast begin at his forehead and travel like a bolt of lightening to his groin, as he became lost in the intense euphoria? Pain?
And he came, the semen exploding out of his cock against the ceiling, ricocheting back down, thick and viscous, covering him with its stickiness, covering him with Natalie's blood.
oh jesus oh fuck oh christ
Another bolt shot through him, his hands trying to gain control as another torrent of semen, and another, spewed down on him like lava, as his cock, six feet tall, pushing against the ceiling, the goddamn ceiling, vibrated like a jackhammer.
The semen poured down in buckets, the spasms that pushed it out never stopping. It poured down on Andy, poured in his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears, his asshole. He choked on it, was drowning in it, sucking it down into his lungs, where it regenerated and shot out again.
Buckets. Barrels of it.
A fucking ocean.
SEVENTEEN
Mae came into the bedroom early, throwing open the curtains. "Rise and shine! I've got breakfast cooking."
Andy lay there blinking, letting his eyes adjust to the light. He felt embarrassed, realizing he had on only underwear beneath the sheets. His hair was all mussed up, and he wondered if she could smell his breath from there.
Mae opened the window a quarter of the way up, letting a chilly breeze race through the room. Andy shivered. Mae shut the window, and said, "That should help bring you around. You can take your shower, then come downstairs to the kitchen. We'll get a hot meal in you yet."
The smell of fatty bacon and hash browns drifted up to Andy's nose. He felt like one of Pavlov's dogs, his mouth filling itself with saliva. He swallowed, hoping it wasn't too late to prevent any drool from escaping and landing on he plateful of food Mae set down.
"I feel like I've been neglecting my duties as a host," Mae said. "I hope you'll forgive me." She sat down on the kitchen table across from Andy.
"This looks great," Andy said, working on his hash browns. Then he remembered last night, and set his fork down.
"Mae," he said. "You've been great. A great host. A great aunt. Thanks for letting me stay here. You don't even know me."
"Well, I'm working on that one. Besides - you're family. I told you -"
"I know. And another thing - sorry I didn't make it for dinner last ni
ght. You went through all that trouble. Thank you. Really. If anyone's been neglecting their duties, it's been me. As a guest."
"I'm just glad you're here, Andy. It's nice to talk to someone. I haven't had the chance for so long."
"What about the neighbors?"
Mae shook her head. "No. We don't get along so well."
"How come?"
Mae sighed. "That's a long story. One I'd rather not get into over breakfast."
They were silent for a while, eating bacon and hash browns, fidgeting with their forks.
When they were done, Mae stood up and took their dishes to the sink. She came back to the table and sat. Watched Andy for a moment. Reached out and put her hands over his. "It's good to have someone to talk to again. I hope you don't mind."
"Of course not."
"Good. Because it's beneficial to the soul. To unburden yourself. It's something I learned in therapy. From the institution." She smiled weakly. "God, Andy. I sat there for days - for weeks. Not knowing what to do. What to think. I just sat there, in the corner of the ward, staring at my knees, staring all day at my knees. I didn't know what to think. I didn't want to think.
"The doctors and nurses were like insects. They'd poke and prod all day long, sticking me with needles. They wouldn't leave me alone. Insects. So many." Mae closed her eyes as she remembered.
"I got to where I could use the needle marks as a calendar. The marks in my arms represented days. The ones in my legs were weeks. And the one's in my ass - they were every two weeks. And I sat there, my life floating by in a haze. The haze the color of the pajamas I wore.
"Doctors would talk to me. They'd talk to me all day long. But all their talk and coaxing, trying to get me to talk, was just a drone to me. Insects. Mosquitoes. Ready to dip into my veins and insert their poison."
Mae opened her eyes and grinned. "I was pretty fucked up." She turned her eyes to the table.
"Eventually my eyes grew tired of the dull blue of my pajamas. They ached for something else to look at. And that poison the doctors injected made me grow tired and disoriented." Mae shrugged. "As if I hadn't been, already. They made me want to give up my struggle with them, with myself. I didn't want to resist any more. So one day, after maybe - oh, I don't know - eight or nine months - my eyes began to wander. They slowly drifted away from that haze, that dull blue haze, and began to travel across the floor. I remember noticing how rich the tiles looked - the black and white checkered tiles. Plain black and white, Andy. Can you believe it? But that day, those tiles were such a relief to my eyes, to my system, that my vision raced back and forth across the floor, savoring the freedom from that blue haze. My eyes regained their focus and other images in the room became sharp. I realized there were other people there, Andy. For the first time in all those months, there were other people, aside from the doctors and nurses. For all that time, I thought it had been only me, tucked away in the corner of my own world. But after the haze cleared, and I started seeing other people around me, hearing their voices - only then did I realize that the world hadn't ended with me. It still revolved. No matter what I had gone through, the world still rotated on its axis, the sun still heated the atmosphere, plants still grew. In short, Andy, I realized that life still went on. And to realize that brought such a great relief to me. The doctors and nurses became real people. I began to notice their voices, how kind some of them were to me, how real. The droning and buzzing stopped. These were kind people for the most part, talking to me, trying to soothe me with gentle words. Then, when I started to talk, telling them all I could, the memories came flooding back. I went through hell all over again. But at least this time it was a hell that was memory. Not a living, breathing hell as it had once been. And as my hell gushed out at these doctors and nurses through my voice, my words, I began to feel an even greater relief. I began to recover."
