Finally, the throbbing is too much to bear. He’s been lying awake for hours, staring at the ceiling in the dark. There will be a full sleepless night of it ahead of him if he doesn’t do something about it. In a controlled rush of motion he swings his feet and gets out of bed. He puts on a sweatshirt over his pajamas, and slippers. That’s when Margaret rolls over.
“What’s wrong, dear?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“Where are you going?”
“Think I might’ve left my soldering iron plugged in out in the workshop,” he lies. “Gonna go check.”
“You and your projects.”
His wife rolls back over and goes to sleep. He looks at her sleeping form. What does she know? She’s not a bright woman. Or is she, but keeping it to herself?
He moves off through the darkened house and makes his way downstairs. He is in a hurry now, as he exits out the kitchen door, steps briefly through the cold night air, and lets himself into the garage. He closes the door behind him and stands there in the dark, sensing her, his mind traveling back to the moment a day before …
He’d clicked on the light on his workbench, then slapped Cinnamon lightly on the cheek. She’d been crying and had passed out, but she roused, looking up at him through wet eyes. The tears had caused her makeup to run into black smudges on the tops of her cheeks. He was naked, and her eyes took in his body. He interpreted what he saw in them, and it was horror.
“I’ll take the tape off if you don’t make any noise, Danielle,” he offered. Danielle Crawley. That was Cinnamon’s name. Her driver’s license said so. He savored this basic piece of information.
After a moment she nodded. He took a few steps toward the radio on the back corner of the utility table and turned it on. It was tuned to a classic rock station, and “Magic Carpet Ride” played loudly. He’d used egg-crate foam, insulation, and other baffling materials when he’d fitted out the garage, so it wasn’t really necessary, but he didn’t mind the music when he worked and he’d been through it enough times to know how likely it was that she’d scream when he removed the tape.
Danielle Crawley didn’t though. She just looked at him, breathing panicky breaths through lips that were reddened from the adhesive. He kneeled near her, the concrete floor cold, hard, and rough against his skin.
“How are we doing, Danielle?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“I said, ‘How are we doing?’ ” he repeated.
“Please let me go,” she said.
“Ahh,” he said in response. He put his hand on her flank, and felt her shudder and inch away as much as she could despite the binding. His eyes roved over her body, pallid, white, and unmarked except for a cluster of moles at her abdomen, and a tiny faded shamrock tattoo on her right calf.
“The ropes are hurting my wrists and ankles,” she said.
“No one is exempt from pain and suffering. Nothing is,” he explained.
How had he come to know this?
He thought back to when he was young. All he’d wanted then was to know God, to touch His existence. The desire had pulsed inside him. But he’d sit in the church between Grandfather and Mother and nothing would happen. He’d listen and speak and kneel and sing, but he knew he was being ignored, for he was alone. He knew that He existed, because everyone else around him seemed to be able to touch Him or at least believe. As a boy he would try it in his room too, kneeling and praying, but He who had caused everything to be wasn’t there either.
So he’d gone out on his own and tried to master life, in the woods behind his house. He had set snares and caught things. Squirrels, chipmunks, birds, stray cats. But he had failed miserably in his labors, and only succeeded in bringing death. Whitening bones, and skins tacked to pieces of bark and drying under rock salt, were all that remained. He was being mocked for his efforts. A jealousy rose inside him over His power and it consumed him. Day by day he learned the eternal truth: that everything had a miserable end.
The final form of the lesson was a robin chick that had fallen from its nest. Seized of an idea, he’d bolted to the shed and retrieved a yellow can of Ronsonol. The little bird burned in a glowing ball of blue. He’d hardly call them flames. The tiny creature’s beak triangled open, calling out with barely any sound, not so much in pain but indignation. That won him over. He had a momentary pang and wondered about extinguishing the fire, seeing if the chick survived, or at least ending its pain with his heel or a rock. But instead he stood there and watched for another two or three minutes, transfixed, while the fire advanced and the bird’s downy feathers and delicate skin, then bones and organs broke down, until the thing was just a loose gelatinous ball. Eventually he’d kicked it off the trail under some low brush and never went back to look at it again and came away knowing he did have a power, the power to govern that end, to administer it and to feel the clarity that came along with it.
That’s when the song on the radio had changed to a British band from the eighties, and it brought him back from his reverie. He looked at Cinnamon again.
“Tell me about this,” he said, touching the tattoo of the shamrock.
“Just something stupid I did when I was in school,” she said. He thought about that for a while, as she looked at him. It seemed they were both considering all of the moments and events in her life that had brought her here.
“You must mean everything to someone,” he said, with appreciation.
“No,” she said, some pleading in her voice.
“To your family. Someone …”
“Not really.” The calm they could show was admirable.
“Well, you mean everything to me. Now.”
“Thank you.”
He took off his glasses and set them aside.
“You’re nervous. Are you wet?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
He reached out and pulled the panties away and felt between her legs as her body shook and recoiled.
“Ah, you are.”
“Let me go, motherfucker,” she said, low. There was strength in her voice, but it was thwarted and futile.
His gaze came to rest on her nakedness. He took in the light hair at her crotch that just touched the place of opening, of confusion and mystery, that tabernacle of life. When he was no longer a boy, he knew he was capable of bringing life, together with a woman. But to what end? It wouldn’t get him any closer to God. He felt the love and hate surge inside him.
“What are those?” she asked, looking up at the hooks, connected to an iron bar, suspended from the ceiling.
“It’s called a gambrel. You don’t need to worry about that,” he assured her.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her ability to control herself diminishing. “Why did you take me?”
“It’s not something to cry about, it’s just something that happened,” he said.
He picked up a wooden-handled steel awl and ran it down her sternum to the soft skin of her belly and began pressing.
“You’re hurting me,” she said.
“I know.”
Then he put his mouth on hers. She didn’t resist, but merely submitted. It wasn’t remotely satisfactory.
“That kiss wasn’t sincere.”
“Please,” she said.
He put his mouth back on hers, cutting off her words, but this time he bit down and yanked his face away without letting go. He spit out pulpy chunks of her flesh. She was screaming now, but the sound was wet and indistinct, on account of her lips being gone …
He can’t wait anymore and flicks on the lights and sees it there, resting on a plate on the corner of his workbench: Cinnamon’s head. Her eyes, lids hanging open, eyeballs beginning to go soft, mouth fleshy, the remainders of her torn lips pursed, and that streaked blond hair still shining, though it is starting to fall out.
He feels the urgency in his pajama pants anew and loosens the drawstring, letting them slide down to his thighs, and then he moves toward her head in order to relieve it.
Later, he slips back into bed. Margaret is sleeping heavily and doesn’t move. He stares up into the darkness and knows he’ll be looking for a new project in no time.