The Admirer

by Karelia Stetz-Waters

  “Dad!” He called as he ran toward Drummond. “Dad, help.” He dropped to his knees in front of his father. “Dad, it was awful.” There were tears on his cheeks. “You have to come. You have to see it.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Ricky led them across the Barrow Creek, past the Pittock House, and along the wooded trail that skirted the asylum. The breeze that had riffled the leaves in the courtyard now turned into angry gusts. Trees swayed in the wind. A storm approached, chilling the air. A few drops of rain splattered Helen’s face.

  When they arrived at the spot Ricky indicated, they found Hornsby and a young officer Helen did not recognize. The two men were wrestling a plastic privacy tarp into place. The young man was trying to stake it at one end, while Hornsby held the flapping plastic from blowing away. Hornsby was yelling at the rookie, berating him for announcing their position on the radio. The young man was holding his ground.

  “Police use radios,” he yelled over the sound of the plastic tarp whipping in the wind. “If you want to do everything on the down low, you’ll have to tell me.”

  “Use some common sense, boy!”

  Several reporters were already at the scene, alerted by the rookie’s radio broadcast. When they saw Helen and Drummond, they rushed forward.

  “Are you Helen Ivers?”

  “Does the body belong to a student?”

  “The body?” For a moment Helen was speechless. Then, a few feet away, she heard another reporter speaking to his camera.

  “Alerted that well springs around the asylum might cause a drowning hazard, DOT workers were securing the area when they discovered what appears to be a human torso…”

  Helen straightened her lapels. Behind the reporters, the police officers still wrestled with the tarp. The smell of putrefaction wafted away from the scene.

  “Do you know why it has taken so long to uncover the body?” a reporter asked.

  “Do you think this is a serial killer?”

  Thunder exploded in the sky above. Helen felt it shake the ground.

  “Should students on campus be worried?”

  “Has enrollment dropped?”

  Behind the reporters, Hornsby lost his grip on the tarp. The younger man let go of the stake in order to catch the plastic. It flew back at him, and he raised an arm to protect his face. The reporters turned. Hornsby barked at them to get back.

  For an instant, the tarp flew up and Helen saw the body. The woman’s mouth was open in a scream. Her eyes bulged. The lips were bared, the face black and bloated. Helen realized they had drawn the body from the well into which she had fallen. She had drunk that water, breathed it, swallowed it. That water had touched the corneas of her open eyes. That bright water that had fallen from Wilson’s body, as if from Poseidon’s shoulders. That water had steeped the body of Carrie Brown like a sick, dark tea. That water was in Helen even now, molecules of that tragedy corrupting her body like cancer.

  The young officer got control of the tarp to hide the body. It did not disappear from Helen’s vision. Those seconds the corpse had been visible were burned into Helen’s memory, melding with Eliza’s image. Eliza with her black stare. Carrie with her mouth open. Helen blinked. The image stayed superimposed on the real world, on the faces of the reporters, the bark of a tree. The face was everywhere. Screaming. Bleeding.

  The rain broke with a crash of thunder, and Helen ran. She had lost track of Drummond and Ricky but didn’t care. She did not care if the reporters saw her flee. She had to escape Eliza’s face.

  ****

  Back at the Pittock house, Helen cowered by the kitchen sink. In the corner, by the broom closet, Eliza stood motionless like a cardboard cutout, her mouth fixed in Carrie’s scream. She’s not there. She’s not there. Helen deliberately looked at Eliza, as if a direct stare would dispel the apparition. The hallucination remained in place.

  Helen’s phone rang. Drummond.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I had to collect myself.”

  “You take all the time you need. I’ll handle things over here. Get some rest.”

  Helen turned toward the entrance to the hallway. Silently, instantly, in the time between breaths, Eliza’s figure shifted to the doorway. She’s not there. Taking a deep breath, Helen stepped past the mirage. She sat down in front of the TV. Her own face greeted her, looking poised and controlled in the glare of the camera.

  “We have been working closely with the police to affect an immediate resolution to this tragic and troubling situation.”

  It was like listening to a stranger. She flipped through the channels. Finally she settled on an inane and brightly-colored children’s show. The actors bounced around the set, grinning and singing. Helen kept her eyes fixed on the screen, aware of Eliza’s form in her peripheral vision. Eliza’s face behind her closed eyelids. Eliza’s features blended with Carrie’s scream.

  She was not sure how long she sat in the living room. When she finally moved, her legs were stiff and the room was dark, except for the television. A documentary on bears had replaced the children’s show. She was not sure if the shows had followed each other directly or if there had been a show in between. Or a hundred shows in between. She felt like she was living inside someone else’s body, as if the real Helen was on television speaking in calm, modulated tones, while she was trapped in the house with her phantasms. Trapped like Eliza had been trapped. In madness.

  The thought was even more terrifying than Eliza’s apparition. Her heart pounded. Her body shook. Her breath came in gasps. She looked around the room, desperate for some comfort. She focused on her phone. Who could she call? What could she say? And if she did explain, what would be left for her in the world? There was no place for the mad. Eliza knew that. The empty asylum knew that. The well knew. Carrie knew.

  Helen looked out the window. The storm had cleared and the moon was high. A row of lights was visible, high above the trees, in the Ventmore theater, where Wilson kept her office.

  ****

  The theater was empty when Helen entered, illuminated only by emergency lighting and a light high above the stage. In the darkness, Helen could make out Wilson sitting near the front. She turned as Helen approached.

  “Ms. President,” she said with a slight smile.

  “What are you doing?” Helen asked.

  “I’m waiting for you. I saw you come across the bridge.”

  Helen stumbled into a seat behind Wilson. “It was Carrie,” she whispered. “I saw her.”

  “I know.”

  “Why would someone do that to her?”

  “Because he was evil,” Wilson said. “Because she was weak.”

  For a moment, Helen stared at Wilson. Her arms were covered in blood. Helen’s body registered terror, before she blinked and saw it was just the pattern inked on the fabric of Wilson’s sleeves. Helen reached out to touch the fabric, to differentiate between fiber and flesh, to figure out what was real. Wilson placed her hand over Helen’s.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I can’t stop seeing her.” The words came out in a sob. “Carrie. She’s everywhere. It was awful. Her face was so… tortured. Now she’s in my house. She’s in my mind. She’s stuck on other people’s faces.” It was impossible to explain. “Like a film. I look at the TV, and I see her screaming. I look in the mirror, and I see her. I see her on my own face.”

  Wilson took the back of Helen’s head in her hand.

  “Do you see her now?”

  Despite the militant haircut and the smear of lipstick dotting the center of Wilson’s lips, there was something unaffected about her, a kind of simplicity, as though all the world’s cheap trappings fell away before the clarity of her gaze.

  “No,” Helen whispered.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I want to forget.”

  Almost without volition, Helen followed Wilson down the aisle, up onto the stage, and into the forest of dark, velvet curtains. Wilson stepp
ed closer.

  “The theater is locked with the master key. No one can come in,” she said.

  “But I just came in.”

  “I propped the door. You closed it. I was waiting for you.”

  Wilson stood so close that Helen could feel her breath. Helen leaned against the curtains, afraid her weight might pull them down. Then Wilson’s tongue was in her mouth, her kiss driving Helen back. Through the material of Wilson’s jeans, Helen felt a hard prostheses. When Wilson withdrew her kiss, Helen gasped.

  “I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to open you, and for one minute…” Wilson drew in her breath and kissed Helen’s temple so lightly that she wasn’t sure she felt it. “For one minute you are going to forget all of this.”

  Helen only half heard, aware of the weight of Wilson’s body against hers. Wilson spoke again, this time in an even quieter voice.

  “Say ‘yes.’”

  Helen’s yes was her mouth seeking Wilson’s, her hands struggling with Wilson’s jeans, pushing Wilson away just long enough to wrestle with the button. She no longer feared that the curtains could give way; she did not care if the whole curtain fell on them in a pile of smothering velvet. Their crushing weight would be a relief.

  Quickly, Wilson pulled down Helen’s pants, her underwear. In the dark, Helen could feel the curtains against her naked flesh. Wilson slipped deftly out of her jeans and a pair of men’s briefs. In the darkness, Helen saw the silhouette of the enormous prostheses. She clasped Wilson’s buttocks, grabbing the leather straps that secured the dildo.

  Wilson slid her hand between Helen’s legs. Helen closed her eyes. Wilson parted Helen’s labia and ran her finger twice around the opening of Helen’s vagina. Helen could feel her body’s lubrication run down her leg. Wilson guided the top of the dildo inside her. The folds of her outer labia caught on the rubber and pulled painfully inward, then the dampness of her sex released them. Wilson plunged her hips forward, as she pulled Helen toward her. For a moment everything that Helen had ever been dropped away.

  The dildo was too large, far bigger than any real man. Helen felt the elastic ring of her vagina stretch as though to breaking, and was certain she would bleed. She opened her eyes and saw only red dust motes, floating in the light beyond Wilson’s back. Then she felt Wilson’s arms around her shoulders, holding her. Her head leaned against Wilson’s shoulder as she gasped. Slowly Wilson moved her hands from Helen’s shoulders to her hips. She pulled Helen closer, rocking her hips back and forth just a millimeter, and where that millimeter gave way, pain became searing pleasure. When Helen came, she heard her own voice ring out in the acoustics of the theater, a piercing cry, full of grief. She opened her eyes and saw only the blue light above the stage.

  ****

  As soon as the orgasm subsided, Helen regained her sense of propriety. The theater was huge, and from where she leaned against the curtains, she could see a hundred dark corners where anyone could be watching. She struggled out of Wilson’s embrace and into her clothing, her heart pounding.

  “This didn’t happen,” Helen said lamely. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  Wilson stopped her, her hands on Helen’s shoulders. “This did happen. Relax, Helen. I understand. I’m not going to tell anyone. You’re the president of the college. Of course I’m not going to say anything, but don’t go.”

  Wilson threw her arms around Helen’s waist. She was much stronger than Helen realized as she tried to break free.

  “Come back to my apartment.” Wilson spoke into Helen’s hair. “Let me make you something to eat, get you a drink. Come and spend the night with me. Let me take you home.”

  Helen felt her muscles release as she sank into Wilson’s embrace. There were a hundred dark corners in the theater, but nowhere did Helen see Eliza’s face or Carrie’s. Wilson dispelled the hallucinations. Perhaps her mind could only accommodate one madness at a time.

  “All right,” she said.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Wilson’s apartment occupied the top story of the Grandville Hotel in downtown Pittock. When Wilson opened the door, Helen caught her breath. The space was set like the stage for an elegant and understated play. Long scrolls hung from the twenty–foot ceiling. Tall windows opened onto balconies. A spiral staircase led up to a loft, and the rest of the floor plan was open, filled with an arrangement of pale blue leather sofas and white ottomans. Wilson touched a light switch near the door, and several table lamps illuminated the space with a rosy glow.

  “Sit down.” Wilson gestured to a sofa. “I’ll get you a drink.”

  Helen sat. To her surprise, an enormous dog rose from its place on a white, shag rug. She looked at the creature’s flat, black face. The nose almost disappeared into the wrinkles around the dog’s eyes. The dog snorted at her.

  Wilson returned with two martinis. She put them on the table and nodded toward the dog. “That’s Ulysses.”

  Ulysses ambled over, putting his large, wrinkly, black face on the edge of the sofa.

  “I’m going to take him outside for a pee.” Wilson patted the dog’s head and headed for the spiral staircase that led up to the loft.

  “Where are you going?” Helen asked.

  “There’s a roof top garden.”

  With Wilson gone, Helen took the opportunity to examine the apartment. On an end table beneath a lamp, Helen spotted Wilson’s cubic zirconium studs. She picked them up. It was odd to see this fragment of Wilson’s private life, this hint that, behind the bravado and the strange, beautiful face, there was a real woman with earrings and key chains and, presumably, a drawer full of mismatched socks. Just like everyone else. Or not.

  Helen held one of the earrings up to the light. White fire sparkled at its center, its brilliance unmistakable. Nonetheless, Helen walked to the window and, in a corner where no one could see, she scraped the jewel along the glass. It left a fine line on the windowpane. A diamond. Helen replaced the earrings on the table.

  Wilson returned a minute later.

  When they were both seated on the blue sofa, Helen said, “You really shouldn’t have done that to my house. You didn’t have a right to come into my space like that.”

  “I always get it wrong.”

  Wilson looked so crestfallen, Helen wished she could take the words back. Why had she even brought it up? It didn’t matter. Space, privacy, rules: what did those mean when a woman’s blood had soaked the forest floor, when Eliza’s blood had soaked the floor?

  “Patrick says I always go overboard. I forget it’s supposed to be a gift basket. Was that right?” Wilson’s brow furrowed like a student reading bad handwriting in a classmate’s notes. “Or flowers.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Helen said. She leaned back against the sofa, her head touching Wilson’s shoulder.

  Nearby, the dog shook its massive head, distributing flecks of foamy drool across an ottoman. Wilson sat up and wiped it with the sleeve of her shirt. Then she knelt down and put her arm around the dog’s neck.

  “You’re a mess,” she said to the beast.

  “I’m surprised your landlord lets you have dogs.”

  As soon as she spoke, she realized how ridiculous it sounded. Ten thousand dollars (or more) worth of diamonds rested on an end table where other people dropped their keys. The painting Wilson had hung above Helen’s mantle probably cost twice that.

  “The landlord is very lenient.” Wilson smiled and looked away. “I own the building.”

  “You own the Grandville Hotel?” Helen asked.

  “It was a present from my family.”

  Wilson dropped onto one of the sofas and motioned for Helen to sit next to her. “On paper, my family owns it. My dad and my three brothers are all in real estate speculation. That’s what rich land barons do when their baby sister gets a job in the wilds of Western Mass. They buy her a hotel.” She was neither apologetic nor boastful.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “New Hampshire. I’m the youngest. By the time I c
ame around, my father already had three boys groomed for the family business. They figured I would marry one of my brothers’ friends, help out behind the scenes, manipulate the wives.”

  Helen could not help but smile. “How did that work out for you?”

  “I manipulated the wives.” Wilson winked, but then her face grew serious. “They’re good people, my brothers, my folks. When I came out at seventeen, they had no idea what I could do with my life. They could not imagine a life outside marriage and the business. They’re very savvy, but they’re not modern. They actually had a family conference—just the men, of course—to figure out how much it would cost to support me until death. They figured out life expectancy, ran the actuarial tables, plotted out life insurance plans and divided the cost evenly between my father and my three brothers. They were willing to keep me at home, like back in the 1800s when you had a spinster aunt. Or they offered to get me a flat in Paris. That’s where they thought lesbians went.”

  “And what did you do?”

  Wilson’s fingers stroked her arm, and Helen relaxed into the touch, listening to the story. It all sounded preposterous, but she was too tired to be skeptical.

  “I ran away to the circus.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Really. I went into theater off Broadway and then on Broadway. Eventually, I realized I liked teaching more, so I went back to school, got the credentials, and ended up here. How about you? How did you get to be a college president by what… forty?”

  “Forty–five,” Helen said.

  “So? How did you get here?”

  Helen gave Wilson a summary of her resume: A BA from Iowa State, a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard, and then a fortuitous teaching assistantship at Harvard that led to a post with the U.S. Commissioner, followed by an assistant deanship at Ohio State. From there, a vice provost at Vandusen was an easy acquisition.