Sitting in his car down the street from Alison’s house, Tony and Sasha watched Alison hug and kiss the handsome young stranger. And Tony felt a part of him die inside. But this part, as it died, didn’t cease to hurt. It just rotted, and in the few seconds that Alison hugged the other guy the filth of it spread through his whole body until he could hardly breathe. Sasha sat silently beside him in the dark. If she knew he was in agony, she gave no sign of it. Tony had to close his eyes. His grief lay on top of him like a boulder, and his anger rocked his soul to its very foundation. That cheating bitch! How long had this been going on? Probably from the time he had first said hello to her. He opened his eyes and watched as the guy walked back to his car. He wondered if the guy had given his girl a feel while his eyes had been shut.
My girl. She’s everybody’s girl. Whoever wants her can have her.
The guy drove away without noticing them. Tony made a mental note of the guy’s car—a red Honda Civic. He had a sinking feeling he’d see that car again. He reached for the key in his ignition.
“I should take you home,” he muttered.
Sasha stopped him. “I didn’t know we’d see this.”
“But you wanted to come here.” The streetlight beside them was burned out. He stared at her in the dark. They hadn’t sat there long before Alison returned with her date. “Why?”
Her green eyes were on him. “Sometimes a girl gets a feeling about someone just by hearing about her. I had a feeling about Alison.”
“What do you feel about her now?”
“That she’s a whore.”
Tony nodded and started the car. “My sentiment exactly.”
The drive back to Sasha’s apartment seemed to take an eternity. Had Tony been alone, he might have driven off the road, or into the oncoming traffic. Yeah, better to go out in a ball of fire and take a few others with him. Then, at least, he’d get himself on the front page of the paper. His devastation felt complete. He didn’t want to live. He didn’t want to breathe.
But he did want to get back at Alison.
Sasha invited him up to her apartment. He begged off, pleading exhaustion, but she insisted. Soon he was sitting on her couch, drinking coffee beside her. He took it scalding black, like her, and felt it burn as it went down. He sat staring at the carpet on her floor. It was gray—the color of his universe. He could think of absolutely nothing to say. Sasha reached over and rubbed his shoulder.
“I think it’s time for that massage I promised you,” she said.
“It’s too late. Another time.”
Her fingers worked into his muscles for a moment, then she stood. “You need it now. I’ll get my table. I’ll set it up out here.”
He let her do what she wanted. She had a mind of her own, that was for sure. That goddamn Alison—all this time she’d been pretending to love him, when really he was just another body to jump on. She had made him feel like a piece of meat. She had probably screwed a dozen different guys since they’d started going out. It made him want to vomit to think about it.
Sasha came back with her massage table and began to unfold the legs. “I bought this table especially to work on people,” she said. “It cost me four hundred dollars. But it was worth it. You can fall asleep on it if you want, it’s so comfortable. Why don’t you take off your clothes?”
He looked up. “What?”
“Take off your clothes. I can’t give you a massage with them on. I use oil.”
He glanced at his watch. It was two-thirty in the morning. “Do I have to take them all off?”
She was enjoying herself. “If you want me to do all of you. Don’t be shy. I’ll get you a towel to cover yourself.”
She left the room and returned with a towel, and then went into the bathroom. He decided if he was going to undress, now was the time. He took off everything except his underwear. Then he lay facedown on the table and covered his lower body with the towel, his bare feet sticking out the bottom. The apartment was warm, and he was as comfortable as a man with a broken heart and a slut for a girlfriend could be. He glanced up as Sasha returned to the living room wearing a white nightgown and no shoes or socks. She carried an unlabeled bottle of lavender-colored oil in her right hand.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine.” He lay down again. He heard her pour out a little oil and rub it briskly between her palms. She laid her hands gently on his back, and her touch was soft and greasy. He sighed involuntarily with pleasure. She began to rub the oil into his skin.
“Does that feel good?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you still thinking about Alison?”
“No,” he lied.
“You’re lying. That’s OK. You won’t be thinking about her soon.” Her hands shifted under the towel, and before he could stop her, she had pulled off his underwear and then re-covered him.
“Hey,” he protested.
“You’re too uptight,” she said, returning to her exquisite massaging of the muscles along his spine. As her fingers probed deeper, he realized just how tight he was. His back was one huge spastic muscle. It was funny how Alison had never offered to rub his back before. There were a lot of things she had never done for him that Sasha was already doing. Like being a friend when times were tough, rather than a cheating bitch. He just couldn’t get that phrase out of his head.
Cheating bitch. Cheating bitch. Goddamn bitch.
Swear words had been invented for times like this.
“I appreciate this,” he mumbled.
“You just relax and go on appreciating it. Go to sleep if you want. Alison’s nothing. Forget her. She’s already forgotten you.”
“I want to forget her,” Tony whispered. He let her touch travel all over his skin, the scented oil sinking deeper into his pores. Every now and then she’d lightly scratch him, making the nerves at the base of his spine moan with pleasure. But he didn’t get sexually aroused. He was too exhausted. It occurred to him, just before he passed out that the oil smelled like the rest of the apartment. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant odor. He figured she must have got it at the hospital. He’d have to tell her to use something else—next time.
Tony went to sleep.
The nightmare started where it had left off.
· · ·
He was back in the vast abyss of despair. The place of red and purple lights, foul smells, and far-off cries. The pit of loud thunder and watchful eyes. He was approaching the huge dark wall, and this time he could see it clearly. It seemed to divide the very universe in two. But what a universe it was. On one side was pain. On the other was only more pain. What choice could he make? All he knew was he didn’t want to join the tortured people. He knew they were trapped for eternity.
As he closed in on the wall, he saw that it was riddled with black portals or holes. There was no wind, yet he felt himself being sucked toward one of them, and he was unable to stop himself. His panic grew as the narrow opening swelled into a maw capable of swallowing a battleship. He drifted inside, and the lights and thunder were lost behind him. He was in a vacuum of blackness. Yet the sulfuric fumes had thickened. He felt himself smothering and prayed for it to end, but even as he did so he knew he was in a place where prayers were no longer heard.
But was that true? Or was it just another of their lies?
Them. The Caretakers.
Suddenly, in the black void, he could see into a bedroom lit by moonlight flooding into rectangular windows. He saw the place as a slice of reality cut out of his space of nonexistence. But the slice grew as he moved toward it, and soon he was inside the bedroom, although he could still sense the void behind him, waiting for him to return. On the bed lay his friend Kipp, snoring peacefully.
“Kipp,” Tony said softly. “Can you hear me? Wake up. Where am I?”
His friend stirred and sat up. “Hello? Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Kipp. Tony. I’m right here.”
Kipp didn’t hear him. But he heard something. “Hello? Mary Lou?” Kipp climbed out of the bed in his underwear and walked to the bedroom door, passing right by Tony. Kipp peeked out into the hallway. It was then Tony noticed the noise that had awakened Kipp. He had to assume Kipp hadn’t heard him since he didn’t seem able to see him.
Am I a ghost? Am I dead?
The noise was coming from downstairs. Kipp started to call out to his aunt again—Tony remembered that Kipp’s aunt’s name was Mary Lou—when he decided to go investigate the noise himself. Tony didn’t like that idea. He ran after Kipp as he made his way down the stairs.
“Don’t go outside,” Tony said. “One of the Caretakers might be out there. Kipp! Listen to me!”
But Kipp wasn’t listening. Still in his underwear, he walked to the front door and opened it and peeked outside. The noise appeared to be coming from the garage. It sounded like someone scratching a rake across the hood of a car.
“Who’s there?” Kipp called.
“It’s one of them!” Tony pleaded, standing at his friend’s side. “Don’t go out there.”
“Hello?” Kipp called again. He went outside. Tony tried to grab hold of his arms, but he could have been trying to grab his own reflection in a mirror. Kipp strode across the overgrown lawn and entered the garage through a side door.
“Oh, God, stop!” Tony cried.
The raking noise inside the garage had stopped. Kipp fumbled for a light, but when he threw the switch, the garage remained dark. Kipp frowned. His eyes grew wide when he noticed that the paint on one side of his aunt’s car had been largely scratched away.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tony hissed. “Get out of here.”
Kipp heard a sound coming from the bowels of the garage. Brave fool that he was, he walked toward it. “Hello?” Kipp said.
A wave of liquid came flying out of the dark directly at Kipp. In a moment he was drenched, and a metal bucket clamored to the concrete floor in front of him. Kipp hardly had a second to register what was happening before a wooden match flared to life, scraped along the side of the ruined car by a figure wrapped in black shadow. Tony’s nose was working fine, and the air stunk of gasoline.
“Kipp!” Tony screamed even though Kipp couldn’t hear his words.
The shadowy figure tossed the burning match toward Kipp. It bounced harmlessly off his chest without igniting the gasoline, but it landed in the puddle at his feet. Kipp stared down at the tiny orange flame, amazed, but only for a second before he was transformed into a human torch. The flames whipped up his legs all the way to his hair, and the scream that poured out of Kipp’s throat rent Tony’s heart. Kipp thrashed up and down like a demented scarecrow for several seconds in the worst imaginable pain a human being could experience.
Tony tried to grab him, to hold him, to do something for him. But he couldn’t, and it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late. Kipp fell to his blackened knees, and his screams began to die as the flesh surrounding his mouth was peeled away in crisp layers. Yet the screams didn’t stop for Tony. After he watched his friend slowly die, he was suddenly back in the black portal that ran between the two hells. And the screams of those on the far side of the wall were no longer so distant, no longer so different from human wails. In fact, they sounded very much the same as Kipp did as he passed out of the world of the living. Filled with anguish, devoid of hope, forever forsaken. . . .
· · ·
Tony opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a strange ceiling. At first he hadn’t the slightest idea where he was. Nor did he care. He was just happy the nightmare was over. Never in his worst dreams had he experienced anything so terrible.
Tony moved his head to the side and saw Sasha curled up in a sleeping ball on the couch. The entire evening came back to him in a flash. The relief of waking from the nightmare faded as he remembered Alison’s betrayal. How could she have been kissing another man when she said she still loved him? She was worse than the Harlot of Babylon. She was a whore. Sasha had said it right.
Tony sat up and shivered. Except for the towel around his waist, he was naked. He couldn’t imagine how Sasha had managed to turn him over without waking him. But he’d been under a lot of stress lately. He was exhausted. He had to get home and into bed.
The images from his nightmare wouldn’t leave him, though. Watching Kipp burn had seemed so real. Tony wondered why he had dreamed Kipp was at his aunt’s house, although it would be a logical place for Kipp to run. Kipp had not told anyone where he was going. Hugging the towel around his waist, Tony slipped off the massage table and tiptoed into the kitchen with his phone. He was being silly, he knew, but it couldn’t hurt to give Kipp a call and see how he was doing. Tony dialed, and a moment later he had Kipp on the phone. It sounded as if he had woken his friend up. Made sense—it was the middle of the night. Tony didn’t mind. It was such a relief to hear Kipp’s voice.
“Yeah, what is it, Tony?” Kipp mumbled.
“I wanted to see if you were all right.”
Kipp yawned. “I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep. Call you in a couple of days.”
“Everything cool there?”
“Everything’s cool,” Tony told him. “Good night. You got your night-light on?” It was a reference to a remark Kipp had made just before Neil had kidnapped him. Kipp laughed quietly.
“Sure do,” Kipp said. “Happy dreams, buddy.”
Tony set the phone down. He walked back into the living room, still clutching his towel, and found Sasha sitting on the couch. A tunnel of moonlight cut through a nearby window and landed on her legs. But her face remained dark. Her green eyes—he could hardly see them.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.” He reached for his pants.
“You must be going somewhere.” She stood and smoothed her nightgown over her sleek hips. “You’re getting dressed.”
“I have to go home.” He couldn’t find his underwear. What had she done with it? She strode across the room and put her hands on his shoulders, interrupting his search.
“Why?” she asked.
“You don’t want me staying the night.”
In response she reached up and kissed him on the lips. A hard wet kiss. And he kissed her back, and her hand went around the back of his neck, into his hair, and began to pull at his blond strands until they hurt. He yanked away from her and took a breath. She mocked him with a naughty smile.
“Why can’t you stay?” she asked again.
Her lips had tasted like pure pleasure. Suddenly he couldn’t think of a single reason. “All right,” he said. “But I’ve been told I snore.”
She took his hand and led him toward her bedroom. “Who told you that? Alison?”
He hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Is that who you were calling?”
“No. I was calling a friend of mine—Kipp Coughlan. He’s staying with his aunt in Santa Barbara for a few days.”
“Why?”
“There’s some trouble that he’s trying to stay out of. It’s a long story.”
They entered her bedroom, and she let go of his hand and pulled back the covers. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He was about to make love to a girl other than Alison. He should have felt no guilt, after what he had seen that night. But he did—plenty of guilt. He felt scared, too, and he didn’t know why. Sasha took his hand again and pulled him onto the bed and kissed him some more. These kisses were softer, slower, like the strokes of her massaging fingers when they were not probing deep into his sore body. She scratched her fingernails across his hard belly.
“Tell me your long story,” she whispered.
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“But I do. It’s on your mind. I want to put your mind at ease.” She nibbled on his ear with her wet teeth. “I want to make you happy.”
Tony began to talk. He didn’t know why. Maybe because he was exhausted. Maybe because he was in the arms of a beautiful girl. He talked a lot. He told her about Neil and the original chain letters. He even told her about the new Caretaker, and the horrible nightmares he’d been having. Sasha listened silently between caresses and kisses. When he was done, she just nodded and touched him all over, and kissed him so deep he felt as if he were being swallowed whole. But she didn’t let him make love to her. She kept her nightgown on the entire night and eventually he fell asleep and dreamed no more.