13

 

 

Dierdre went back to her apartment and sat waiting in the living room, on the same large sofa upholstered in a fabric of yellow wildflowers to which she had retreated as a neglected child. She sat with her legs tucked under her, feeling invisible and safe within herself.

She still feared the strength she had discovered within herself on that morning two years ago, when she had awakened between cold sheets to see her lover’s brains lying like a monstrous red flower on the snowy cotton pillow.

At first she had not connected the warm bleeding mass with his body, remembering only that she had fallen asleep, exhausted after their lovemaking, thinking when she awoke that it was some kind of joke on Ricardo’s part—except that he rarely showed any sense of humor. He lay rigidly on his back, his eyes open to some fatal horror beyond the ceiling, his ears plugged with drying blood.

Her cat Atalanta had crept into the bedroom and begun sniffing around the blood-soaked bed. Dierdre had rolled off the bed and crawled to cower in the armchair across the room, shaking and still hoping to wake up from the nightmare. She had watched the feline’s explorations, sharing the animal’s sense of danger and confusion. Someone had done this to Ricardo, an enemy in his business, who might still be lurking nearby.

Then, when Atalanta started to lick the mess on the pillow, an uncontrollable fury erased the shock of Ricardo’s death, and she plucked the cat’s brain from its body, dropping the animal to its belly on the bed as its organ struck the headboard, stuck for a moment and then rolled down next to Ricardo’s brains.

Even then, staring at it, Dierdre had resisted the reality, unable to accept that she had somehow caused the event. Stunned, slowly realizing that she had somehow killed Ricardo in her dreams, she had dragged his body down into the second level cellar under the building, where a few of the rooms still had earthen floors, and buried him along with Atalanta in the same grave. She had thrown their brains into the oil furnace, where the organs had hissed for a few moments and she had feared that the burner might be damaged by the heat surge.

She had cried for Atalanta, demanding her return. If she had one unreasonable power, Dierdre had told herself, then raising a dead cat might not be impossible. She had chanted her plea to the nameless devils beyond her sight, but nothing had answered her, and she knew that nothing ever would.

Ricardo, a small-time money collector and enforcer from Avenue D, had been her lover for only a month, and she would not miss him as much as she would Atalanta. She had gone to bed with him partly because he had extorted protection money from her, freelancing, she had learned, rather than for his bosses; but mostly she had accepted him because his toughness had aroused her. She had also gained some protection. He had a wife and small child, with another on the way, and so was vulnerable to exposure, but he seemed unconcerned as long as he could have her on some regular basis, and said that he would make up his lost earnings elsewhere. His disappearance seemed to have silenced his masters. No one had come looking for him after his disappearance, but she knew what she would do if they tried to resume his collections from her. The alley tomcat who had come yowling for Atalanta she had silenced by splattering his brains against the tall fence in the backyard. The dark blotch was still there, and no one would notice or ever guess what had made it, or even wonder about it. Ricardo and the tomcat had been alike in some ways, independent but serving her needs.

Now, as she looked over her shoulder and down into the yard where she had played as a girl, she remembered how tall the wooden fences had seemed, rattling when she tried to climb them. She had cried with glee when her hands had slipped, bringing a rush of excitement as her feet hit the paving. Once in a while someone had thrown down hot dishwater and screamed for her to be quiet. Steam would rise from the wet slate, carrying with it a dusty smell. Her earliest memory was of being angry at people and wishing them dead.

It became her game to catch the screamer who lived on the top floor of her family’s building by calling up to her, to fool the old woman into leaning out far enough to fall out. But she never looked out, and had sometimes thrown out smelly old soup and bones.

Dierdre had become a fortress of helpless rage and sudden fevers as her family and their friends forced her to do their will—compelling her to go with them to the park, the beach, the movies, and to concerts that she was told were good for her, without ever asking if she was interested or wanted to go, with no regard for her separateness from them. She was their property, to do with as they pleased, no more apart from them than their hands or eyes. It had become an intolerable tyranny, with no way for her to strike back, much less topple it. She had even enjoyed some of the outings, but not being forced to go.

Why did there have to be other people at all? She was a world unto itself, and could imagine the others better than the realities they seemed to hold so dear. Perhaps they did not exist, except for the fact that they fought her. Alone, she would not have warred with herself.

“Why don’t you ask me what I want!” she had shouted.

Her mother would blink and smile. “It’s good for you to come with us, dear.”

“Who does the little bitch think she is,” her father said.

“She’s a little lady,” her mother answered, smiling again, “so don’t be crude, Emilio. It sets a bad example for young ears. She won’t make friends easily if she learns to talk that way. Not to worry, she’ll learn better.”

“Yeah, she’s a little landlady in training,” her father whispered. “In the butcher business we didn’t squeeze people.”

“You gave short weight and short change just like everybody else,” her mother said.

“I never did—ever.”

Her father had quickly grown to hate owning the building, which he had bought with his brother on a winning lottery ticket as the down payment. Rents paid the mortgage, but there had never been any surplus, and repairs kept becoming more expensive. A year after the partnership, his brother had died in a car crash after drinking all night, leaving Dierdre’s parents as sole owners of the brownstone.

No one had ever asked her if she wanted to be a landlady. When she had come back from college—where the professors and students had also failed to make her into something like themselves—to take possession and run the brownstone, she had been grateful when the old tenants had moved out, one by one, as if dubious of the change in management, to be replaced by new ones. Only the water thrower, now an even older woman who refused to die, had stayed.

Dierdre remembered the stillness that had come into her during that first year, the peace of being almost no one at all, because the past had fallen away from her and it seemed to her that she was now waiting to become someone else; there was no one left to make her into what they wanted her to be, what they imagined she was.

But the past had started filtering back into her, reminding her that she had not been able to go very far from home, only as far as Michigan. And her parents had fought with her even about that: her mother had struggled to hang on to her only child, and her father had complained that his daughter was getting above herself; having a scholarship only proved to him that she had fooled someone into giving it to her.

She turned from the window and remembered the fearful thrill of those first few weeks after her discovery, when she had tried out her ability. It had helped her forget Atalanta, for whom she had wept so foolishly, unable for a while to control her tears at unpredictable moments. She practiced her skill because she could. That was the first lesson she had learned. Just like piano practice, except that she could see her talent working, becoming stronger, less tiring. It would defend her fortress self.

It was not unlike the special, quick movement she had learned in bringing herself to orgasm, either alone or with a man. Alone it was a twitch of her wrist; with a man it was a short jerk of her hips, a sudden twist of her will, a quirky way of emptying things that were full, of letting things… fall away from her grasp. And it worked best during orgasm, leaving her breathless with the wonder of moving something alive from one place to another in a sudden wild jump that separated cells from each other, severed veins and arteries, leaving an empty space in the head. Of course, use during orgasm would not always be practical.

Edwina Foster, the dishwater thrower, Dierdre had let live on the top floor. She was unfinished business that Dierdre had saved up.

“You might come and get the rent from me yourself, young lady,” the old hag had said every time, “and not make me suffer up and down four flights.” Every time, the exact same words and wrinkled grimaces.

The old woman had never answered her door at rent time, always paying late, at her whim, without minding the stairs, when she knew that Dierdre’s annoyance at her delay would peak.

“I have to pay the bills for this house on time,” Dierdre had told her. “Where do you think I get it? I would appreciate the rent before the tenth of the month if you want to go on living here.”

“That’s your problem, dearie, not mine.” The old woman had smiled. “I’m sure you have enough to manage, sweetie.”

Edwina Foster was well aware that running the building was costing more each year, and that Dierdre needed the rent on time to avoid out of pocket expenses. She had raised rents twice in three years, making the possible loss of a tenant a greater difficulty. A month or two break in the cash flow, if a tenant died or moved, would be a loss of a month or more of income. Edwina knew that she could not be evicted except for non-payment; the dishwater and smelly old soup were all in the past, and could not be brought as a legal complaint today. Any other valid reason for eviction would be a long court case and cost more than it was worth.

She paid in cash, and never talked about money. She seemed to have more than enough. Did she keep it in her apartment?

 

The old woman went out one hot summer day and left her door open. Dierdre stepped inside and was appalled by the dirty clothing heaped on chairs, the filthy floor, dusty stuffed animals, old photographs in broken glass frames on the walls, the putrid urine smell from an unflushed toilet that would not flush, about which the old woman had not complained. Dierdre lifted the tank cover and a disconnected lever rod, which she reattached, flushed, then worried for some days that the old witch would notice that she had been visited, but Edwina Foster said nothing. Dierdre had been ready with the excuse that the toilet had posed a danger, to justify what had been her illegal entry into the apartment, since no one had complained of hearing water running.

Dierdre followed her one day, and learned that they used the same bank on Fourteenth Street. The old woman kept a safety deposit box there, where Dierdre also had the box she had taken over from her parents.

One day, when the old woman was inside the safety deposit vault, Dierdre went in after her and slipped into the adjoining cubicle. When the attendant brought her own long box to her, Dierdre thanked her, waited a moment, then put it on the floor next to the partition, stepped up onto her chair, and looked down into the next cubicle. Edwina Foster was sitting with her open box, resting. After a few moments she began to rummage in her box. She seemed very sad as she brought old photos up close to her eyes and then put the pictures back in the small metal coffin of her past. It seemed that she was trying to remember people.

Dierdre slipped back down and waited. The attendant, a young woman in a silly tight skirt, came back and asked the old woman if she needed any help. Dierdre peered over the partition and saw Edwina Foster shake her head. Her trembling hand shook as she held an old picture. The attendant left quickly.

Dierdre twitched and emptied the old woman onto the table next to the box and then hurried around to the cubicle. She scooped up the brain with a large handkerchief, wiped the table carefully, and put the mess in her handbag, later dropping the bundle in a street wastebasket on the way home. She had taken only the packets of money, leaving the jewelry and personal items untouched, then put the money in her own box and replaced it in the wall.

The old woman’s family doctor, who seemed to be trembling at the edge of his own grave, signed the death certificate without examining the body. The well-dressed daughter and son-in-law drove in from Far Rockaway to clear out the apartment and arrange the funeral. They took away a few choice pieces of old furniture. Dierdre overheard them complaining that the old woman, the wife’s mother, had left no money in the deposit box and not enough in her bank account to clean out her apartment and bury her. They were slow in emptying the rooms, and grudgingly paid an additional month’s rent. The daughter seemed relieved when she came back alone to return the key to Dierdre, and had apologized for the odors that might still be lurking.

“I’ve opened the windows,” she said, “so you’ll want to close them before it gets too cold.” Possible odors seemed to distress her most of all.

 

The old woman’s money had cushioned the running of the building. Dierdre left the apartment empty for a few months, and let any rent raises slide until the following year. An aging policeman finally took the apartment for his uncomplaining mother, whom he visited regularly, and Dierdre felt that Edwina Foster had departed much too easily.

Dierdre lay down on the sofa, closed her eyes, and remembered her high school years, when she had come to hate people she knew only by sight, or very slightly, because they acted as if they knew something she didn’t. They wanted people to believe that they had a plan, in the way they talked and dressed, but their plan seemed to be only to look like they had a plan.

No matter how much she studied them and tried to imitate them, her clothes were always not quite right, her hair the wrong style, her attempts at wit awkwardly delivered, or just misunderstood. Almost everyone around her behaved as if they had something no one else could get, and she hated them for it, because it seemed that there was only a limited supply of things to do and have, and they were planning to get them all for themselves, leaving nothing for her. They had made her feel that she had nothing and would never grow up to be anything.

In college she had learned that a scholarship and good grades did not trump the faint mustache she had to have removed by electrolysis, that she had no special academic gifts beyond being a good student, and that she lacked the confidence and poise of the other students, who went out to movies and concerts and football games and beer blasts and parties, where the men seemed to want only to use her. Lonely nights in the dorm had taught her to think of herself as a failure in a world of faces, torsos, thighs, tits, and asses.

“Dierdre.” She still remembered the way Ken Raskin had said her name and how the other boys with him had snickered during her first year in high school. Walking down hallways, she had heard them braying, “Deeer-dra.” She had made a collection of their remarks about her uncoolness and lack of tits, all filed under Ken Raskin’s sneer, “Deeer-dra.” She had sometimes hoped to become a “Dee” or “DeeDee,” but she had never achieved the acceptance, much less the love, that went with a nickname. Something evil had simply made her unlovable.

People, she had quickly learned, were only examples of a clique, never themselves. In high school, there had been the black rappers, the tough Latinos, the diligent and studious Asians, the working-class ethnics, a few bewildered-looking white kids whose old Sixties radical parents wanted them in a multiracial public school, the gangs and the dropouts, and a mixed group of popular kids who dominated most of the activities, and whose females flirted with the dangerous kids to annoy their boyfriends. There had been one blond college-bound boy, a lone bewildered intellectual type who had told her that he felt like a god reincarnated in the body of a beast and forced to run with them. “Only quoting Nietzsche,” he had said, but what could citing some dead philosopher mean? It was how someone felt about living that counted; one had only to feel hunger, to sweat, to smell one’s own body and that of others, or look into a toilet bowl to feel that the beast was alive and well.

Then there had been the college jocks, the sorority girls, the frat boys, more pretentious intellectuals, the future doctors and lawyers, the party animals, the politicians, the one-of-a-kind individuals who belonged to nothing, and the sturdy farm kids. She had never fit in with any of them, and wished now that she been able to use her power to thin out the herd…

She steadied herself. A child or adolescent with such power, combined with the hormonal rages of youth, would have given herself away early. Better that her gift had flowered in her in adulthood, as had her good looks, giving her a chance to see through people. Today, none of her detractors would know her; she would have to explain too much, if they remembered her at all.

But one of them had come to her—like a gift from the angels.

“Is there an apartment for rent?” the woman had asked meekly.

“Yes, there is,” Dierdre replied, recognizing the short, redheaded woman. She was fatter, and tired, in a gray business suit that did not quite fit, with a white blouse and low black heels. She clutched a small black purse in her left hand.

“Your name?” Dierdre asked.

“Ivy… Young,” she said.

So she had married, Dierdre thought as she recognized Ivy what’s-her-face from college, the girl in the next dorm room. She had once given Dierdre three dresses as a present and told her that she had bought them for three dollars each. “You’ll look much better in these,” she had said, oblivious to her insult. Dierdre had accepted the dresses with a smile, had endured Ivy’s nagging to wear them during the next two semesters, but had thrown the dresses away when Ivy had finally transferred to a more prestigious university, bragging that she was now going to attend a “real college.”

Despite Dierdre’s stare, the apartment hunter had not recognized her, and Dierdre realized that no one knew that Ivy was here. Such a moment would not come again.

Dierdre had read somewhere that people had better things to do than seek revenge. But who had ever had her ability, or the sudden chance to use it against an old enemy? This was Ivy Reed—yes, that had been her name—come here to be punished of her own free will. More of an annoyance than an enemy, but close enough.

Dierdre said, “I was about to have coffee. Maybe you’d like some before I show you the apartment. You look tired out.”

“Do I look very bad?” she asked.

“Yes, you do,” Dierdre said.

Ivy flinched. “Thanks. Maybe I do need the coffee,” she said. “I’ve been looking all day, and have to find something today.” It was obvious that she was unable to afford the agented rentals, and had taken a chance on the cheaper classifieds and window signs.

“It’s on the top floor,” Dierdre told her.

“Is there an elevator?”

“No.”

“Oh, then perhaps I shouldn’t even look.” But Dierdre felt that she needed to look, that she couldn’t afford much more but felt she had to sound as though she could refuse.

“We plan on putting one in, up the back of the house,” Dierdre lied. “Please, do come in, for the coffee, at least.”

Dierdre led her through the living room into the kitchen, facing away from her as much as possible to avoid being recognized.

“Sit down,” Dierdre said, turning to face her as Ivy lowered herself clumsily into one of the two chairs by the old red table and placed her purse near the edge.

Dierdre was enjoying the encounter; this was not a cat, or stupid Ricardo; this was someone with a past that chained them together.

“Why here?” Dierdre asked, standing on the other side of the table.

“I’ll be working nearby,” Ivy said.

“May I ask where?”

“As… an administrator in the grade school on the corner two blocks up.”

More likely in the cafeteria, Dierdre thought, but Ivy might be telling the truth.

“Will you trust me for the rent until I get my first paycheck?”

“Of course,” Dierdre said because it wouldn’t make any difference.

After a moment, Ivy became very still. “Do I know you?” she asked, looking up at Dierdre.

“I’m Dierdre Matera.”

Ivy had looked puzzled as Dierdre sat down.

“Oh!” she said almost happily. “From… that college, the one I transferred from.”

“Yes,” Dierdre had said softly.

“I bought you some nice dresses, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“That was you?”

“Yes, you made me feel awful. Cheap dresses were good enough for somebody with my bad taste.”

“Oh.” Ivy’s face grew puzzled again. “Maybe I’m misremembering…”

“You were mean,” Dierdre said. “You didn’t want to be seen with anyone like me, but you liked impressing me. I remember how you used to go on about that sorority you joined, the one that wouldn’t even invite me to a pledge party.”

Ivy sighed. “Well, look at you now—you’re pretty. I guess I taught you something, if you’re the one I recall. Do you own this place, or just manage?”

“I own,” Dierdre said.

“Good for you!”

“Please don’t shout. Gives me a headache.” Ivy had always shouted, and was as cheerfully stupid as ever, but it seemed a shame to finish her off too quickly, before she knew why she was going to die.

“Coffee?” Dierdre asked.

“Sure! I mean, yes, thanks. Let bygones… be gone?”

Dierdre got up, quietly poured out two cups from the coffeemaker, placed one before Ivy, then sat down again.

Ivy sipped and smiled. “Can you give me a deal on the apartment?” she asked. “I mean, given there’s no elevator… and that we’re such old… friends.”

“There will be an elevator,” Dierdre said, enjoying Ivy’s emotional contortion. “But we were never friends,” she had added.

“Well, then you can raise the rent when there is one,” Ivy said.

“Of course,” Dierdre said, looking down into her coffee. The headache was growing worse. “You’ll have a place here,” she added. There was more than enough room under the dirt floor at the back of the basement.

“Thanks,” Ivy said, taking another sip and pushing the cup aside. “How much, if I like it, of course.”

“I don’t think you’ll have a chance of disliking it,” Dierdre said.

Ivy put both her hands on the table and smiled. “So how much?”

Dierdre reached over and grasped her hands. Ivy looked puzzled again, but still tried to smile.

“You’re going to die here,” Dierdre said, grasping Ivy’s wrists.

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be here that long,” Ivy said, still smiling. “But… it must be a great apartment for you to say that.”

“You hurt me,” Dierdre said, squeezing her wrists and hoping to make her brains come out slowly.

Ivy struggled to pull her hands free. “Please, my head hurts. Coffee in late afternoon doesn’t agree with me.”

“It’s not the coffee,” Dierdre said, glaring at her, wanting her to be conscious for as long as possible.

“What are you doing to me!” Ivy shouted, and their eyes had locked. Ivy was breathing with difficulty.

“It’s me,” Dierdre said, feeling her headache flare. “You’re dying, Ivy.”

“What?” Ivy tried to look away from her.

“Dying,” Dierdre repeated. Legend had it that guillotined heads were able, for an instant, to look back at their bodies from the catch basket.

Ivy screamed.

It had ended too soon. Ivy had tried to push her chair back and stand up, but fell forward onto the table. Her mouth opened as her brains came out like toothpaste from a tube. It seemed that she was vomiting as her brains slid across the table toward Dierdre and stopped.

Dierdre let go of Ivy’s wrists. Her own nose had started to bleed on the table. The blood was darker than the red surface, she noticed as she reached for a blue cloth napkin and stopped the flow. Ivy lay there, eyes open, like a pig waiting for its apple.

When Dierdre’s nose stopped bleeding, her headache had faded. She mopped up her blood and threw the wet napkin over the brain in the center of the table. Then she opened the purse and found twenty dollars in cash, a non-driver’s ID, and a few cosmetic items. Nothing else, not even a set of keys to a car or an apartment.

The ID she had burned; the purse and its contents went into the trash. The brain could never be found with an empty body. She had to remember to keep them well apart.

 

There had been mornings, in the first few weeks after her true beginning, as she now thought of it, when it seemed that her power was a delusion; but she had now tried it often enough to know that it was real and to trust it. Soon she would learn what to do with it. She often thought of it as a jewel set deep within her, teaching her about herself, telling her that she had been a wolf raised as a sheep believing in the goodness of people while all the time the world of wolves had insisted on hurting her. Her father had died from a heart attack during her first year in college, and her mother was dying from lung cancer by the time Dierdre had graduated. She had come home to care for her mother, who died three months later, and to take over the building. Dierdre had felt more for her mother than for her father, and not that much for either of them, but she hated the world for wrenching away the only two people who had ever cared about her.

She was alone now, to do with her life as she pleased. At twenty-five, she was the most powerful human being alive, but almost no one else knew it; there was no need for anyone to know it yet, or ever.

She might be like her grandmother. People had feared the old woman and had gone out of their way to avoid her, and her parents had never spoken about her after her death. Dierdre had been only seven when her grandmother died, but her mother had not seemed very grief-stricken over losing her. People had whispered about the old woman. “Don’t cross the old lady. She’s got the evil eye.” One of the neighborhood kids had asked Dierdre why so many cats seemed to disappear near the building owned by the Materas.

Perhaps her grandmother had possessed the same power, and used it against cats when they annoyed her. Maybe she had used it against people.

Her grandmother had lived in this house for two years before her death, in an apartment on the second floor. Dierdre remembered her parents arguing about letting her have the apartment at no charge. “What do you mean, we have no choice?” her father had shouted, and Dierdre had been puzzled and afraid. “She may be your mother, but I don’t see why she can’t at least cover her expenses—”

“She has to have it,” Dierdre’s mother had replied, “and for nothing, no matter what it costs us.” Her mother’s voice had been low but fierce.

Events that she had not understood as a child now seemed to make sense. She had been playing on the stairs. Her grandmother had come out and glared at her for making so much noise. The old woman had trembled and closed her eyes, retreating back into her apartment. Dierdre remembered watching her shut her door halfway. Then she had heard her scream as if in pain; after a moment the old woman had wept, muttering to herself.

She had come out later to sit with Dierdre on the landing. “I’m so sorry,” she had said, stroking Dierdre’s hair. “I’m so sorry.” And she had hugged Dierdre, holding her close and kissing her face unpleasantly. No one had ever shown her so much caring, for so little in return.

Dierdre believed that in time she would discover what she should do with her skill to gain wealth and power. Her grandmother must have feared herself, and used her power only when she could not help herself. But Dierdre knew that the only way to learn about her skill was to use it, in as many different ways as possible, to find its limits, to learn what it would take from her to use it. Robbing Edwina Foster’s safety deposit box had been only the beginning.

She thought again of the priest, and the nonsense about goodness he had been spouting. She had been on her way home after her walk, and had gone into the church merely to sit down for a few minutes. Just her luck to walk in as the sermon was starting. It had infuriated her, and she had reached out impulsively, unable to stop the spasm, and had exhausted herself. The same thing had happened to her at the river. She had gone through the park in the late afternoon, and had found the derelict sitting on the bench she had known since childhood. What right did he have to enjoy the evening? He had been sitting there, bathing his face in the warm sun, and had opened his eyes when she came by. He had smiled at her. That sudden effort of rage had cost her three days in bed, and had taught her to be careful about overdoing it, at least until she became stronger. And she was growing stronger.

No one had seen her, but it became obvious to her that it wouldn’t have mattered; they wouldn’t have understood what they were seeing. The only way anyone could ever be able to interpret what they were seeing would be if she gave a public demonstration and explained it, as she had done with Benek, and even he still doubted. What was she going to do about him? What could he ever do to her?

Increasingly, in the last few weeks, she had felt a deep frustration in her body, as she began to fear the fatigue that came upon her after each exertion, that the weakness might only increase with more frequent use and with age, and that no amount of strengthening would be enough. She had to have a daughter to teach, just in case; by then she might know what to do, unless she was like a chess piece—good for only one kind of move—and her child would also be condemned to a life of frustration. What if her skill could not be passed on? What if it had nothing to do with inheritance?

One thing at a time, she told herself sternly; the immediate goal was pregnancy, and to learn more about her power by exercising it. Imprisoning the man was the only way to be certain of complete privacy. Having a child was the only way to find out if her power could be passed on; her suspicions about her grandmother indicated that passing it on was possible. A pity not to try. Benek was reasonably attractive and seemed healthy. She knew that she could not have invited a complete stranger off the street, or risked a battery of questions from medical personnel that would leave a record of artificial insemination. She was being careful and selective, she told herself, even if she didn’t completely understand why she had chosen Benek. Maybe she even liked him. No matter. At worst, she would get rid of him and start over.

One thing at a time.

But she felt sorry for Benek as she pictured his dark wavy hair and puzzled expression. He was attractive in his blue suit, and she wondered if he had been a poor boy who had learned to dress well. She imagined his stocky body standing up naked before her and wondered how he might take her from behind; he had not been very pleasant when restrained on his back. Now his image stood transfixed, unable to reach out to her as she touched herself, hoping that if she had a child by him, her power might be passed on. Wind rattled the wooden fences below, and she felt a stab of fear mixed with pleasure. Cats screeched, and she opened her eyes. The sky flashed without thunder as her wrist twitched. Rain washed across the windows and she surrendered to her orgasm.

 

Later, she dialed Benek’s number, sure that he had gone home.

“There’s no one to help you now,” she said, disappointed that he had not come after her. “Gibney’s dead. No one knows. No one will care what you say.” She hung up before he could speak, wondering what kind of father he would make. The chassis was okay, but the brain was cowardly.