***
The air felt light around them. All the darkness pushed down the hallway where the sound of Tab’s and James’s laughter permeated the walls; a thin, muted reminder that he was not missed. That he was expendable. Or at least that’s what he thought as this insipid whore’s endless moaning grated his nerves like the pluck and twang of an untuned string. He grabbed her chin in his hand.
“Would you shut the hell up,” he said between clenched teeth.
He pawed viciously at her breasts, her thighs. He felt liquid fire, blood tinged bile, lick at the back of his throat. Forget, it said, forget. He punished away all thought and thrust at her like a rag doll. Her face pinched in pain as he bit into her neck and his rhythm slammed her shoulders against the bed frame. Nothing.
Disgusted, he threw her away and stumbled over to the French doors which led outside, clutching its smooth, cool frame to steady himself, longing for the hollow night wind. Forget, it said, forget her. The blithe echo of laughter crept underneath the door again. It pointed its accusatory finger at him. He plowed his hands roughly through his hair and let them fall, wearily, over his face. He didn’t want to be here anymore. Here was never what he wanted anymore.
What did that mean? It was changing him and it left him feeling powerless. Former things pass away, she would say. She was right. They pass whether you want it, desire it, or not. But he felt foreign in this new skin; didn’t trust the cadence of his stride. He loathed this feeling of being pulled-a heavy moon pull- towards her, towards Tabitha. The senseless, brutal act of flesh and more flesh had left it to fall away. But now his prowl and bloodthirst would not quell it. She had become a most painful addiction, making him feel old and sore inside a heart that long ago relinquished any such measures of idiocy to lesser men. Her hurt like sweet pleasure ringing through empty corridors. He hated and loved it.
Ginger was back. She had risen off the bed and come to him, whispering filth in his ear, the things he liked to hear. But tonight…tonight it made him want to bash her skull in.
“Get out,” he demanded, shaking free of her.
Ginger stood, puzzled, moving ever so slightly towards him again.
“Naw, I mean it, get the hell out. Here…”
He pulled out his wallet and threw a few bills at her. Cab money. The bills landed like paper fans on the walnut floor. She gathered them up, stunned. He unlocked the French doors and flung one open.
“Go out this way.”
Ginger stared at him, incredulously, retrieving her purse and heels with trembling hands. She pitched towards the bedroom door, daring him to stop her.
“Fuck you”, she screamed.
Her absence was blissful, the silence like a nuclear dead calm stinging the night air. He went to the bathroom sink, leaving the light off, and ran the coldest water over his face and hands. He brushed his teeth furiously, ridding himself of her taste. Purposefully, he lathered and scrubbed and tried to erase any scent that was left of her. His reflection shone back in the mirror-pallid, reckless, and fearsome; he did not want to see himself.
Meanwhile, Ginger stumbled, all loose arms and drunken feet, through the narrow hallway. She forged a determined path towards the front door, ignoring the two baffled pairs of eyes following her movement from the leather sofa as she wiped away her stains of indignation. Tabs and James said nothing as she swept by, slamming the door in her wake after trying several times to open it before succeeding. They sat silent for several minutes in the reverberation of her fury.
“What the hell happened?” James asked in hushed tones.
“Hhmm, who knows,” Tabs replied, sinking deeper into James embrace.
They often lay together like this; an old, married couple. It was lovely, the not having sex complicate things. Why can’t this just be enough, always? she thought to herself. If only there was a button to switch our desire on and off. If only it were that simple; the enough.
They were just beginning to recapture the lightheartedness of the movie when another fateful slam announced his presence encroaching. He marched passed them into the kitchen, peeling back cupboard doors and willfully (if not violently) forcing food onto his plate from the warmers. He heaped it two plates high and settled with a resounding clink next to them on the floor. He shoveled the food into his mouth, not caring whether he tasted it, although the sumptuousness of the flavors mixing on his tongue had already begun to quell the pulse and grind of his rage.
“So you decided to join us after all, huh?” James asked.
“Mmmm.”
Tabs said nothing. James reached for her hand, curled around his side. She held onto it as an anchor and prayed for a quiet storm. When he had finished cleaning his plate, he climbed onto the couch. His gaze poured over her. She was acutely aware of her feet, just centimeters from his hands. She felt that moon pull on her, and held closely to James. She would not come to him. Let him ask why.
Wordlessly, for that was always his way, he took her under the arms and pulled her away from James and into his lap. He wrapped around her, held her protectively to him. Somewhere deep inside the animal that had been clawing up amber liquid and ash was soothed, a cool milk pouring into his soul. Quiet. He stroked her hair, kissed her temple.
James glanced at her, viciously stuffing down his own shit; trying not to hate her for that look on her face. In truth, he felt for her, watching her holding so still, trying nonchalantly to crush tears with her fingertips before they fell-you make me feel alive and dead inside.
Why does she let him do this, James thought. I’d like to beat the shit out of em’ both.
The rest of the evening was torture. The movie ended, and James made his quickest and most convenient escape out into the hot, Los Angeles air, where the madness made more sense to him than the chaste, twisted aura of repression that emanated from these two like a heavy, dank perfume.
“Gotta go,” he said.
“But,” she replied, “we didn’t watch your movie.” James saw the expression she bore and the implication behind it. Stay.
“Next time. It’s been a long day; I think we should call it quits, huh,” he said, all the while thinking, this is your mess. I’m done with it tonight.
James reached down to kiss her goodbye, which was awkward because he was still holding her to him, as possessive as a predator with his kill.
“Okay. Bye James,” she said, kissing his cheek.
“Later, darlin.”
The room was silent. Neither spoke as he ran his hands through her hair, gently, like stroking a child. They could set for hours like this. Neither of them saying what hung in the air, as obvious as a broken clock that chimed the wrong hour in sour notes. His scent was heavy and his body warm against her. She leaned into him, allowing the rhythmic curve of his hands over her neck to lull away her consciousness. Her head leaned back, and her lips parted slightly. She felt numb and warm and safe, almost able to put out of her mind the earlier night, and all the other nights before that. He brought his hand around to rest on her stomach.
“Stay with me tonight,” he whispered. “I need you. Stay with me.”
“You know I won’t,” she replied. “You know why.”
“I’m not talkin’ about that. Just come to bed with me; just to sleep. Please.”
She hesitated. But she wouldn’t say no. “Alright.”
He lifted her with ease and carried her back to his room. He threw off the tainted sheets and replaced them with fresh ones. She watched like it was some beautiful, ancient ritual that she was privy to, because to her, everything he did was beautiful. Being in his room was like entering a foreign country. Every time she gazed around mesmerized, amazed that she should find herself here, that all of this was real. The room smelled of his musk and sweat and of the faint, tinged smell the woman had left behind. He pushed the French doors open, and the crickets’ call tinkered through the cool breeze that came off the water from the sea, not far from the house. Somewhere far away, a siren was cal
ling, and the lights from passing automobiles painted streaks of shadow and light against the wall as his muted silhouette reached for her, pulling her down with him into darkness.
Here, they would pass another night with legs intertwined, her face buried in his chest and his lips resting on her forehead, like twin souls in the womb. Here, her head would swim, intoxicated with a feeling of death or something like it, and would pretend not to notice his shuddering in the night, and the dampness of the sheets. Here everything and nothing would pass between them. Here it was all a lie.