Daughter of Regals (44 page)

“All right,” she said
after a while. “You treat me like you don’t care what I think or how I feel.”

“I do it the way I know
how,” he protested. “If it feels good for me, it’s supposed to feel good for
you.”

“I’m not just talking
about sex. I’m talking about the way you treat me. The way you talk to me. The
way you assume I have to like everything you like and can’t like anything you
don’t like. The way you think my whole life is supposed to revolve around you.”

“Then why did you marry
me? Did it take you two years to find out you don’t really want to be my wife?”

She stretched her legs
out in front of her. Her nightie covered them to the knees. “I married you
because I loved you. Not because I want to be treated like an object for the
rest of my natural life. I need friends. People I can share things with. People
who care what I’m thinking. I almost went to grad school because I wanted to
study Baudelaire. We’ve been married for two years, and you still don’t know
who Baudelaire is. The only people I ever meet are your drinking buddies. Or
the people who work for your company.”

He started to say
something, but she kept going. “And I need freedom. I need to make my own
decisions—my own choices. I need to have my own life.”

Again, he tried to say
something.

And I need to be
cherished. You use me like I’m less  interesting than your precious poolcue.”

“It’s broken,” he said
flatly.

“I know it’s broken,”
she said. “I don’t care. This is more important. I’m more important.”

In the same tone, he
said, “You said you loved me. You don’t love me anymore.”

“God, you’re dense.
Think
about it. What on earth do you ever do to make me feel like
you
love
me?”

He shifted the bottle to
his left hand again. “You’ve been sleeping around. You probably screw every
sonofabitch you can get into the sack. That’s why you don’t love me anymore.
They probably do all kinds of dirty things to you I don’t do. And you’re hooked
on it. You’re bored with me because I’m just not exciting enough.”

She dropped her arms
onto the pillows beside her. “Creel, that’s
sick.
You’re
sick.”

Disturbed by her
movement, the centipede crawled out between the pillows onto her left arm. It
waved its poison claws while it tasted her skin with its antennae, looking for
the best place to bite in.

This time, she did
scream. Wildly, she flung up her arm. The centipede was thrown into the air.

 It hit the ceiling and
came down on her bare leg.

It was angry now. Its
thick legs swarmed to take hold of her and attack.

With his free hand, he
struck a backhand blow down the length of her leg that slapped the centipede
off her.

As the centipede hit the
wall, he pitched his bottle at it, trying to smash it. But it had already
vanished into the gloom around the bed. A shower of glass and tequila covered
the bedspread.

She bounced off the bed,
hid behind him. “I can’t take any more of this. I’m leaving.”

“It’s only a centipede,”
he panted as he wrenched the brass frame off the foot of the bed. Holding the
frame in one hand for a club, he braced his other arm under the bed and heaved
it off its legs. He looked strong enough to crush one centipede. “What’re you
afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of you. I’m
afraid of the way your mind works.”

As he turned the bed
over, he knocked down one of the Tiffany lamps. The room became even darker.
When he flipped on the overhead light, he couldn’t see the centipede
anywhere.

The whole room stank of
tequila.

The living room again.

The sofa sits where
Creel left it. The endtable lies on its side, surrounded by wilting flowers.
The water from the vase has left a stain that looks like another shadow on the
rug. But in other ways the room is unchanged. The lights are on. Their
brightness emphasizes all the places they don’t reach.

Creel and Vi are
there. He sits in one of the armchairs and watches her while she rummages
around in a large closet that opens into the room. She is hunting for things to
take with her and a suitcase to carry them in. She is wearing a shapeless dress
with no belt. For some reason, it makes her look younger. He seems more awkward
than usual without a drink in his hands.

“I get the impression
you’re enjoying this,” he said.

“Of course,” she said. “You’ve
been right about everything else. Why shouldn’t you be right now? I haven’t
had so much fun since I dislocated my knee in high school.”

“How about our wedding
night? That was one of the highlights of your life.”

She stopped what she was
doing to glare at him. “If you keep this up, I’m going to puke right here in
front of you.”

“You made me feel like a
complete shit.”

“Right again. You’re
absolutely brilliant tonight.”

“Well, you look like you’re
enjoying yourself. I haven’t seen you this excited for years. You’ve probably
been hunting for a chance to do this ever since you first started sleeping
around.”

She threw a vanity case
across the room and went on rummaging through the closet.

“I’m curious about that
first time,” he said. “Did he seduce you? I bet you’re the one who seduced him.
I bet you begged him into bed so he could teach you all the dirty tricks he
knew.”

“Shut up,” she muttered
from inside the closet. “Just shut up. I’m not listening.”

“Then you found out he
was too normal for you. All he wanted was a straight screw. So you dropped the
poor bastard and went looking for something fancier. By now, you must be pretty
good at talking men into your panties.”

She came out of the
closet holding one of his old baseball bats. “Damn you, Creel. If you don’t
stop this, so help me God, I’m going to beat your putrid brains out.”

He laughed humorlessly. “You
can’t do that. They don’t punish infidelity, but they’ll put you in jail for
killing your husband.”

Slamming the bat back
into the closet, she returned to her search.

He couldn’t take his
eyes off her. Every time she came out of the closet, he studied everything she
did. After a while, he said, “You shouldn’t let a centipede upset you like this”

She ignored him.

“I can take care of it,”
he went on. “I’ve never let anything hurt you. I know I keep missing it. I’ve
let you down. But I’ll take care of it. I’ll call an exterminator in the
morning. Hell, I’ll call ten exterminators. You don’t have to go.”

She continued ignoring
him.

For a minute, he covered
his face with his hands. Then he dropped them into his lap. His expression
changed.

“Or we can keep it for a
pet. We can train it to wake us up in the morning. Bring in the paper. Make
coffee. We won’t need an alarm clock anymore.”

She lugged a large
suitcase out of the closet. Swinging it onto the sofa, she opened it and began
stuffing things into it.

He said, “We can call
him Baudelaire.”

She looked nauseated.

“Baudelaire the Butler.
He can meet people at the door for us. Answer the phone. Make the beds. As long
as we don’t let him get the wrong idea, he can probably help you choose what
you’re going to wear.

“No, I’ve got a better
idea. You can wear
him.
Put him around your neck and use him for a ruff.
He’ll be the latest thing in sexy clothes. Then you’ll be able to get fucked as
much as you want.”

Biting her lip to keep
from crying. Vi went back into the closet to get a sweater off one of the upper
shelves.

When she pulled the
sweater down from the shelf, the centipede landed on the top of her head.

Her instinctive flinch
carried her out into the room. Creel had a perfect view of what was happening
as the centipede dropped to her shoulder and squirmed inside the collar of her
dress.

She froze. All the blood
drained out of her face. Her eyes stared wildly.

“Creel,” she breathed. “Oh
my God. Help me.” The shape of the centipede showed through her dress as it
crawled over her breasts.

“Creel.”

At the sight, he heaved
himself out of his armchair and sprang toward her. Then he jerked to a stop.

“I can’t hit it,” he
said. “I’ll hurt you. It’ll sting you. If I try to lift your dress to get at
it, it might sting you.”

She couldn’t speak. The
sensation of the centipede creeping across her skin paralyzed her.

For a moment, he looked
completely helpless. “I don’t know what to do.” His hands were empty.

Suddenly, his face lit
up.

“I’ll get a knife.”

Turning, he ran out of
the room toward the kitchen.

Vi squeezed her eyes
shut and clenched her fists. Whimpering sounds came between her lips, but she
didn’t move.

Slowly, the centipede
crossed her belly. Its antennae explored her navel. All the rest of her body
flinched, but she kept the muscles of her stomach rigid.

Then the centipede found
the warm place between her legs.

For some reason, it didn’t
stop. It crawled onto her left thigh and continued downward.

She opened her eyes and
watched as the centipede showed itself below the hem of her dress.

Searching her skin every
inch of the way, the centipede crept down her shin to her ankle. There it
stopped until she looked like she wasn’t going to be able to keep herself from
screaming. Then it moved again.

As soon as it reached
the floor, she jumped away from it. She let herself scream, but she didn’t let
that slow her down. As fast as she could, she dashed to the front door, threw
it open, and left the house.

The centipede was in no
hurry. It looked ready and confident as its thick legs carried it under the
sofa.

A second later, Creel
came back from the kitchen. He carried a carving knife with a long, wicked
blade.

“Vi?” he shouted. “Vi?”

Then he saw the open
door.

At once, a snarl twisted
his face. “You bastard,” he whispered. “Oh you
bastard.
Now you’ve done
it to me.”

He dropped into a
crouch. His eyes searched the rug. He held the knife poised in front of him.

“I’m going to get you
for this. I’m going to find you. You can bet I’m going to find you. And when I
do, I’m going to cut you to pieces. I’m going to cut you into little, tiny
pieces. I’m going to cut all your legs off, one at a time. Then I’m going to
flush you down the disposal.”

Stalking around behind
the sofa, he reached the place where the end table lay on its side, surrounded
by dead flowers.

“You utter bastard. She
was my wife.”

But he didn’t see the
centipede. It was hiding in the dark waterstain beside the vase. He nearly
stepped on it.

In a flash, it shot onto
his shoe and disappeared up the leg of his pants.

He didn’t know the
centipede had him until he felt it climb over his knee.

Looking down, he saw the
long bulge in his pants work its way toward his groin.

Before he realized what
he was doing…

THE PROSPECT OF A TALE FROM SER VISAL DREW
us as a flame draws moths, though only the most timid good-woman—or the most
rigorous Templeman—would claim that there was any danger in stories. And we
were young, the Sons of men of station throughout the region. Naturally, we
scoffed at danger. The thought that we might hear something profane or even
blasphemous—something that would never cross our hearing in the Temple or in
the bosoms of our generally cautious families—only made the attraction more
compelling. When the inns reopened between nones and vespers, we gathered, as
eager as boys, in the public room of the Hound and Whip and opened our purses
to provide Ser Visal with the lubrication his tongue required. The keeper of
the Hound and Whip had the particular virtue of being as deaf as iron; he
responded only to the vibrations he felt when we stamped our boots upon the
boards, and he served us whatever wines God or inattention advised. For our
part, we made certain that there were no tattlers among us in the public room
before we urged Ser Visal to begin.

“Disorderly louts!” he
responded, glaring around at us with a vexation which we knew to be feigned. He
relished our enthusiasm for his stories. “Our God is a God of order. Confusion
is abominable. Good King Traktus himself worships in the Temple of God. Twice a
day he meets with High Templeman Crossus Hught to study and pray, that Heaven
may defend us from evil. Have you nothing better to do with your time than to
gaggle around me like puppies and loosen a fat old man’s tongue with wine?”

One of our fellows
giggled unfortunately at this brief jape of the Temple’s teachings. But an elbow
in the ribs silenced him before Ser Visal was diverted into a lecture on piety.
He was prone to such digressions, perhaps thinking that they would whet our
attention for his stories— and we dared not interrupt him, for fear that he
would grow vexed in truth and refuse to continue. He demanded a rapt audience,
and we sought to satisfy him.