“Do you want anything?” my wife’s voice is asking.
I swallow but do not open my eyes. I try to get up but find I cannot. Someone is brushing their hand across my face. I try to open my eyes but find they will not open.
“Someone is holding down my eyelids,” I say. My voice sounds blurred, incomplete. I do not know how much I have actually managed to say.
“Don’t speak,” my wife says. “Don’t try.”
I flutter my eyelids. They will not open.
“No,” she says. “Please.”
I hear her speak further, then fade away. A door opens and shuts. My body refuses to be my body. I lie still.
I feel some weight against my kneecap, and then on one side of my chest. I get my eyes cracked open enough to see Bloody-Head above me, riding my body, leaning his face in. He presses his face against mine, his lips against my lips. I try to turn my head to one side but he brings his hands up, holds my head still. He pushes his tongue into my mouth, runs it across my teeth. He brings his thumbs away from my ears, turns them downward to rest on my throat just beneath the chin. He pushes down until all air is blocked.
“You are doing great now,” he says. “Keep it up.”
He eases his thumbs off. I gasp.
“Where did you learn to kiss?” he asks. “Can’t you do better than that?”
He pushes the tips of his thumbs in at the backs of the cheeks, just behind the teeth, until my jaw loosens and draws slightly open. He pushes his tongue through my teeth, strokes the roof of my mouth, leaves his tongue pushing against the back of my throat, wriggling.
I bite down hard, feel the blood slick its way down my throat, choking me. By the time I realize he is pushing up on my chin with his fist, helping me to bite the tongue off, it is too late to stop.
He pulls his head away, the forepart of his tongue tearing free behind my teeth, the last bits stringing through his gums. He keeps holding my chin shut.
“Swallow it,” he says, blood dripping from his lips, his voice clear despite the missing portion of his tongue.
I am shaking my head, trying to get it away. The slit tongue slips around my mouth, wriggling.
“Swallow,” he says.
He brings his head down and begins to massage my throat with his lips. He turns his head sideways and brings his teeth against either side of my windpipe, bites down until I can no longer breathe.
And then lets go.
“You can’t know all you’ve done for me,” he says. “Not truly.” He says, “Swallow or I will kill you.”
I awake in my bed, the taste in my mouth gone, my body sweat drenched and awkward. I try to move, find that the room springs up around me in slow motion.
“Darling,” my wife says. “Lie down.”
I let her push my head softly back onto the cushions. She stands and leaves, her heels ringing against the parquet until she reaches the carpeting of the hall. I stay staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks to the light and back. I close my eyes, see the dull afterimages behind my lids.
There is the sound of my wife’s footsteps returning, coming to the side of the bed. The sound of her breathing, a slight stir of the air.
“Drink this.”
She puts her hand under my neck, lifts my head, puts something cold against my lips. I drink feebly, feel the water trickle from the sides of my mouth, until the cup is taken away.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
“What was it?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “You fell down with your muscles locked up. A seizure of some sort.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.”
I open my eyes long enough to see her face, the soft lines of it, the way she leans over me as she does the children when they are sick. She stays that way until she notices I am looking at her, then pulls herself back, folds her arms.
“There is something I would like to talk about when you feel better,” she says.
“What?”
“Not now. You need to rest.”
“I am feeling a little better,” I suggest.
She stays looking at me, clutching herself in her arms, blowing air out.
“Don’t bring it up if you aren’t going to talk,” I say.
“Your secretary Allen came to me at church, asked me if we’d managed to get the telephone line fixed. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said you had been having problems with it when you had called him the night the girl died. ‘You mean when you called us,’ I said to him, ‘to tell him about his appointment that night.’ ‘Appointment?’ he said. ‘There was no appointment that night. The schedule was free.’”
She stops talking, looks at me. “I want to know what that is all about,” she says.
I just shake my head.
“Where did you go that night?”
“I went out,” I say. “Nothing serious.”
“Where?”
“I’m exhausted. We’ll talk it over later.”
“No,” she says. “Now.”
I close my eyes, keep them closed. She reaches out, touches me.
“Trust me,” I say.
“If I find out you had anything at all to do with that girl’s death . . .” she says. I just lie there, ignoring the rest of it, already thinking through what I can tell her.
“Those two boys,” she says. “I know you did that.”
“What boys?”
“You know who,” she says. “The ones whose mothers have been after you. I know what you did. I can forgive that as a slip if you swear never to do it again.”
“What did I do?”
“Don’t make me say it,” she says. “If I have to face it, I don’t think I can forgive you.”
I just close my eyes.
“We will think of that as a slip,” she says. “A reversion. Your brother told me all about you when we were getting married. I thought you’d changed, that you’d given all that up when you grew up. I didn’t want to believe it, but still I knew. So it was my fault.”
I am willing to let her take whatever blame she chooses. I will accept her collaboration.
“But you can’t do it anymore,” she says. “Promise me you won’t do it again.”
What do I have to lose? Of course I promise her.
“Swear it before God.”
I swear without hesitation. This seems to satisfy her. She leaves me alone.
“Do you love me?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. She lifts our youngest out of the high chair, puts her into the crib.
“I love you,” I say. “I love you more than anything.”
“I guess I do,” she says wearily. “I’m still with you, aren’t I?”
“You’ve done the right thing,” I say.
I come close to kiss her, but she won’t face me. I go back to the table, eat the scraps of toast the children have left scattered. I carry the plates over to the counter, past it to the sink.
“Besides,” she says, “the children need a father.”
“I’ll be a good father to them.”
I go upstairs and get my briefcase, come down again.
“We’ll be together now and we’ll be together in heaven,” I tell her. “We’ll be together always.”
“Not heaven. Not after what you did to those boys,” she says.
“Nonsense,” I say. “It will work out. You’ll see.”
When I get to the office, I telephone the area rector. I tell him about the women on Sunday, about how they have been causing trouble and leading others astray. I tell him that they might go to the press and cause the Church a great deal of trouble. He perks right up.
“We don’t want anything to happen that could damage the Church’s name,” he says.
“No,” I say.
“When will they go to the press?”
“I don’t know. We have a few days maybe.”
“We’ll talk to them. We’ll resolve the matter as quickly as possible. We’ll catch them spinning so fast they won’t know what hit them.”