Ariel

by Steven R. Boyett

  “For?”

  “Weapons. Bows, arrows, knives, anything we can find to make life easier for us in New York.” He stopped walking. “Look, Pete, this is none of my business, but—”

  “McGee,” I said.

  “Well, yes.” We were out on the front steps now, blinking in the sunlight.

  “Look, Mac, you don’t have to be diplomatic. If you don’t want me to see her, I won’t. I mean, if she’s one of your prospects, don’t worry about me. I’m … spoken for.”

  He made a sour face. “It’s not—Ah, hell. She’s not a prospect. I’ve known her since I’ve been here, but … she’s—” He broke off. “Never mind,” he finished. “It’s none of my business.” He went down the steps ahead of me.

  I stared at his back, confused. “Hey,” I breathed. Then louder. “Hey, wait up!” He turned around and I caught up.

  *

  Riding wasn’t so bad this time, or perhaps my nerve endings had gone on strike. For hours we searched every department store, pawn shop, and sporting goods shop on the outskirts of Washington proper. Our efforts yielded little; previous scavenger parties had been thorough. I made Mac detour on the way back to the Smithsonian and we headed west until we reached the east bank of the Potomac. I tied my horse to a guardrail, threw off my clothes, and cannonballed in with a huge splash. The water felt fine.

  I scrubbed myself all over with a bar of soap acquired during our foraging, swimming underwater to rinse off, and scrubbed myself again.

  “What are you looking impatient about?” I asked Mac as I soaped my hair. “Why don’t you jump in, too? Or do you think you smell like Chanel No. 5?”

  His tone was rawthuh snotty. “For your information, I had a bath three no, four days ago.”

  “All right, I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

  “Take your time. I’ll appreciate it as much as you will.”

  “Up yours.”

  I took a deep breath and went under, frog-kicking toward the center. I surfaced, wiping my eyes.

  I was bathing in a lake when I saw the unicorn … .

  I swam back to the bank.

  “What’s wrong, Pete?” asked Mac when I reached him and began wiping myself dry with the blade of my hand.

  “What? Oh, nothing. The water just irritates my eyes, that’s all.” I remained nude until I dried off, then got another set of clothes from a store along the way.

  *

  judith ray, announced the sign on the door. a.p.b.s.c. I knocked tentatively, wondering what the letters stood for. I waited three seconds. Oh, well, she’s not in. Guess I’ll—

  The door opened.

  “Well, hello there, stranger,” said McGee. “Come to get your ears lowered?”

  “Just a little off the top, thanks.”

  “Sure you want me to stop when I reach scalp?” She opened the door wider. “Come into my parlor.”

  I walked in and looked around. A rumpled bed, a huge poster of Beethoven, an Early American dresser, the inevitable chamber pot, candles, oil lamps, and a straight-backed wooden chair in the middle of the floor.

  “Have a seat.”

  Fred clacked against the back leg of the chair when I sat down, and she gave a small smile. “You can put your sword in the corner, if you like. Here, I’ll do it.” She reached for my sword and I pulled it away protectively. She laughed. “You men and your swords. Heavens to Freud.”

  I colored and handed Fred to her. She took it as a lowering of my guard—which I guess it was—and brightened as she accepted it and leaned it carefully in the corner. She got on her knees and reached under her bed, pulling out a box. The denim stretched nicely where she bent. “And what would monsieur prefer?” she asked, straightening. “Zee cue ball, perhaps?”

  “How about just evening it up and getting it out of my eyes?”

  She pursed her lips. “Oui.” She opened the box and removed the scissors and a black, large-toothed comb. I sat straight while she arranged a white towel around my neck and half into my shirt collar so the hair wouldn’t fall down it. She played with my hair a minute, seeing which way it fell naturally, then leaned forward and sniffed gently beside my neck. “Somebody smells much nicer,” she said. Her voice was low.

  Mentioning my smell made me sharply aware of her own: a light, fragile odor, with a soft overtone of musk. The clammy feeling was in my palms again. I clenched them.

  “You aren’t nervous, are you?” she continued before I could reply. “I haven’t lost a patient with these yet.” She snipped the scissors.

  “‘Yet,’” I observed. Damn—my voice broke.

  “I give haircuts all the time. Don’t worry.” She dunked a towel into a pail of water, twisted it to drain some of the water off, and stepped behind me. “Lean your head back. I can work with your hair better if it’s wet.” I leaned back until I looked at the ceiling, feeling skin pull from chin to larynx. She rubbed the damp towel through my hair, briskly at first, then more and more gently. I was sorry when she stopped. I became conscious of my own increased heartbeat. She started pulling the comb through my hair.

  “Ow, shit!”

  “Sorry. But it’s very tangled and I have to comb it out.”

  “Sure. I’ll bite a bullet or something. It’s been a long time since my hair was combed, but I do brush my teeth on occasion, if it’s any consolation.”

  She chuckled and went back to work with her comb, trying to be gentle, separating tangled strands of hair with her long nails, grabbing my hair with one hand and pulling hard on the comb with the other when gentleness wouldn’t work. Eventually she could run the comb through my long hair unhampered. “Forward a little,” she ordered, nudging the back of my head softly. I nodded forward. My thigh muscles bunched as my hands attempted to cover my erection. My breath caught, but she gave no notice. Hair fell in front of my eyes, landing on my lap. I brushed it away. She noticed me brushing and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Let me get you another towel.” She removed a thick, white towel from a stack atop her dresser. I reached for it as she unfolded it, but she ignored me and spread it across my lap, smoothing it over my thighs. My breath was ragged. An obvious lump showed beneath the towel. She appeared not to notice and walked behind me again. The snipping of scissors resumed. Two-inch lengths of hair fell to the towel.

  My legs echoed where she had touched them. Her touch lingered on my skin like a sweeping whisper of distant bells. A drop of water from my hair fell onto the back of my left arm, spreading goosebumps for ripples.

  “Are you cold?” she asked.

  I could only shake my head slowly. The snipping resumed. Her body heat warmed my neck as she lifted the hair and began to even it up. “There you are,” she said, a few age-long minutes later.

  “Finished so soon?” I stood and turned to face her, plucking the towel with one hand as it dropped. I held it in front of me. She only comes up to my chest, I thought.

  She blinked. “If it were six years ago I’d blow-dry it, but the best you can do now is ride a horse fast. It was just a trim cut, no big deal. Want a lollipop?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” She opened the first drawer of her dresser and pulled out a green lollipop, the round candy part covered in square cellophane.

  “Got a red one?”

  She smiled. “Ingrate.” She fished around and finally brought up a red one. I accepted it, grinning like an idiot. When had I last had a lollipop? “McGee,” I began, putting it into a back pocket for later, “thanks a lot. Really. I don’t—” I stopped. She was looking at me funny—looking at my mouth?

  “Would you like a shave?” she asked.

  “Uh—” I was about to tell her I needed to go eat dinner because it would be dark soon—was already beginning to grow dark—and I didn’t want to go hunting up food in the dark, but she was already removing a bright steel razor and shaving soap from her wooden box. I sat down in the chair without another word, holding the towel the way Linus used to hold his blanket.


  “Not there,” she said. “On the bed. I have all my close shaves there.”

  I rose uncertainly. She opened a window—her room was along the edge of one wing—and shook out the towel she’d put across my lap, then shut the window and spread the towel over the pillows and part of her cot. “I shave men better if they’re lying down,” she explained. “They’re less likely to move unexpectedly.”

  “Oh.” I lay down self-consciously. McGee set the pail of water beside me on the floor. She rubbed the lower half of my face with a damp cloth, then applied shaving soap with an antiquated, horse-hair shaving brush with an ivory handle. “Supposedly,” she said conversationally, stroking my jaw softly with the brush, “this once belonged to Abe Lincoln, though I have my doubts.”

  “I’ll pretend it did and maybe it’ll make me feel important.”

  “You seem pretty important now. To us, anyway.” My face lathered, she rinsed the brush off and put it and the soap away. She unfolded the straight razor.

  “You ever read A Clockwork Orange?” I asked nervously.

  “Shh. You can’t talk once I start.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  She folded her legs beneath her, sitting Japanese style, and began gently shaving the softer skin beneath my chin with the bright steel. I remembered the griffin rider’s sword twitching before my eyes and tried not to swallow. The blade was a gruff whisper across my skin. I felt the heat rising again.

  “You know, you have a nice jawline.” Her voice was a half whisper.

  If it was a question, I couldn’t answer. But no, I didn’t know I had a nice jawline. Suddenly conscious of my breathing, I felt it was an awkward process, an action I had to constantly control. Don’t turn your head, Garey. She’ll cut your throat. Oh, wouldn’t that be fantastic—come all the way from Atlanta, get away from New York, and have some pretty woman accidentally slit your throat while shaving you. It was just ironic enough to seem likely.

  And yet—there was something strangely … erotic … about the gentle, skillful way she held the potentially deadly instrument. I dared not move my head. My erection strained harder against my underwear. The lollipop in my pocket pressed against my butt. I had to leave it that way.

  McGee finished the left side of my face, dipped the razor in the water to clean it, turned my head to face her, and leaned forward slightly to start on the other side. Her breasts pressed against my shoulder and elbow. The delicate musk of her filled my nostrils. I felt strangely annoyed. I closed my eyes. Worse—it made me more aware of my erection, of her warmth against me, of her smell, the soft push of her against my arm. I wanted to sit upright and push her away, but I couldn’t. And something underneath felt differently, didn’t want to push her away at all.

  I was only dimly aware of her folding the razor. Her long hair tickled my throat, moving as she moved.

  It was so gradual: wiping my face dry with a soft cloth, continuing the motion with her hands long after my face was no longer wet. Her cheek replaced one hand, brushing back and forth until her lips slid like silk scarves across my own, then paused, making the motion halt to become a kiss. Something caught in my throat when her lips parted and my own followed after the barest hesitation. Her tongue found mine and danced wetly around it.

  I slit open my eyes when the kiss broke; she breathed my name and her breath filled my mouth. Her hand rested lightly on my chest, feeling my heart pound, making her smile. Her other palm was cool against my cheek. My hips pressed into her. The hand on my chest slid slowly down, long nails rasping faintly on my shirt; then the hand stroked my erection through the corduroy. Her breath trembled with her hands, her skilled fingers.

  Trembled—

  I sat up. She had to grab the edge of the cot to keep her balance. “What—Pete, what’s wrong?”

  I stood. Looked … at the walls, through the walls, anywhere. “No,” I breathed. “No!” I looked at her blue eyes, framed by her brown hair. They were very bright. “Ariel,” I whispered. The name rode unevenly on my choppy breath. Confused, I looked down at myself. “I—” Eyes slammed shut. A great roaring in my ears. Hands clenched. “No.” A flat statement this time. My eyes opened. They stung. They didn’t want to focus. I stepped forward. Stopped. Confused.

  Then I ran from the room.

  Twenty-One

  All of these goddamn theoretical analyses are taking the humanity out of warfare.

  —Unidentified admiral,

  responding to a Center for Naval Analyses lecture

  I wandered around in a dull fog as darkness fell. I was confused and trying not to cry.

  Something crackled as I walked. I patted my back pocket and pulled out the red lollipop. I looked at it a full minute, then heaved it away from me as hard as I could. It clacked onto the street a few seconds later.

  My testicles ached dully, a mild, underlying tug of pain like a bruised shin, a feeling I didn’t understand. They felt heavy. I craved a cigarette. My knees trembled as I walked, looking down at the dark pavement sliding aimlessly beneath me. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

  Somebody passed me. I barely looked at him as I asked if he knew where I could find a cigarette. He led me indoors and got one from someone else. I grabbed it without thanking either of them, went into the hall, and lit it from a Japanese lantern on the floor. The man I’d followed stood in the open doorway, silent as I drew in a deep lungful of smoke and breathed it out in a wispy cloud tinged by the flame’s light. I grew annoyed at him watching me and looked at him to say thanks, but get lost.

  Malachi Lee.

  Somehow that was worse than him being a stranger. I stared dumbly. He stared back. I dropped my gaze, turned, and left, almost running. I smoked the entire cigarette as I walked briskly, no destination in mind. The smoke made me cough. My lungs felt scratchy. I liked it.

  I stopped and flicked the still burning cigarette from my fingers, staring at a dark building without even realizing it was a building. It was just a shape to me, a pattern my brain hadn’t taken the effort to label.

  What did she do, Garey? I asked myself. Really, what did she do that was so wrong?

  Nothing. It’s me. She couldn’t have known. I was making a big deal out of nothing.

  No—it wasn’t nothing.

  True. But it wasn’t her fault, either.

  Mine, then. Was I so naive? It would seem so. I just didn’t understand. It all happened so fast.

  It felt good.

  Face tightening, I stepped forward and brought my foot down hard on the glowing cigarette and ground it satisfyingly beneath my heel. “Fuck sex,” I said aloud. That made me laugh, but mirthlessly. I turned back around to regard the building before me. The National Air and Space Museum. “I suppose that’s where they keep all the national air and space,” I muttered.

  A dry laugh from behind startled me. I spun, hands groping for a non-present Fred. Shit—I’d left it in her room.

  The oversized form of Tom Pert resolved from the darkness. “And the National Hot Air Museum is just down the road a piece,” he added. “Better known by its branch names: the Capitol and the White House.” He wore a heavy one-handed broadsword at his side. Malachi had told me that, like himself, Tom Pert had had his sword long before the Change.

  He came closer. “Malachi said you had headed this way. Want some company?”

  I wanted to say no, that he had no right to be here, but realized he was only trying to help. “Everybody’s trying to help,” I said, not realizing I’d spoken aloud until he answered.

  “That’s because you’re helping us.”

  “I want my magic back,” I said accusingly. “Can you understand that?”

  “I can recognize it.” Something in his voice made it seem like a compromise, an incompleteness on his part. “I can try to help you get it back. I want to try. So does Malachi. And Mac. And that young woman who’s in love with you. Shaughnessy.”

  Well, there it was. Out there on the floor for the cat to sniff at for the first time. “I can�
��t help what anyone feels,” I said heavily. “I can’t help how I feel, either. And I don’t want to.” I looked up at him. “Is that selfish?”

  “Yes. But we’re all entitled to some selfishness. But I won’t lecture you, Pete. I think you want someone to tell you that what you’re doing is okay, someone who’ll advise you because you don’t want to commit yourself. I won’t do it, nor would anyone who saw your predicament. I don’t understand it and I wouldn’t pretend to. I’m a little jealous of you for your unicorn. Most of us are, a bit. But I wouldn’t be in your shoes for the world.”

  I nodded. Yeah, I guess I could understand that.

  He touched my shoulder. “Come inside.”

  The door was open. I followed him in.

  Da Vinci would have died content had he been able to see this place. All the ways human beings had ever flown were represented here in full scale. Near one wall the dark, ghostly shapes of two biplanes engaged in a permanent dogfight. Ahead sat the stubby cone of a Gemini capsule. We almost had that, I thought as we walked past it. Those points of light were at fingertips’ edge, then snatched away. Our footsteps clattered eerily as we walked.

  “I like to come here,” said Tom. “I don’t exactly know why; it depresses the hell out of me.”

  Because there’s poetry here, I thought; melancholy remnants of the crowning achievements of a civilization rested here, wasting away. Nevermore to grace the night—where had I heard that before?

  I stroked the dark wing of a mock-up of Pappy Boyington’s F4U Corsair, the terror of World War Two. Tom and I stared wistfully at a model of the Apollo-Soyuz docking. The Starship Enterprise hung mournfully, a reminder of broken dreams. A half-scale mock-up of the Shuttle Enterprise stood beside it in mute testimony.

  It made you sad, this place, and threatened to provoke anger by taunting you, yet it drew you in, eager to satisfy your morbid curiosity. It was so dark in there we barely saw where to walk, but we took our time and felt out the shapes of the useless aerial silhouettes like blind men tugging at an elephant.

  I was crying again and couldn’t help it. Tom respected me by saying nothing, doing nothing, until it passed, and the last of my sobs had stopped echoing in the dark and my eyes had dried, and then we walked on.