The Dwelling: A Novel (11 page)

I’ve never heard of them.

They’re small. They do graphic novels.

(Snort.)

She would be happy, once she figured it out. She loved that he was an artist. Or used to. He had had a show in college that made her cream, made her his virtual slave for weeks. When he and his partner won the award at Starmon, she’d cooked every night for a month. And he’d never had to ask for it.
It would be fine.

He worked frames until he got as far as the moment when the Headhunter is in the crowd at the subway station. It’s rush hour, early morning. A New Yorky scene. The crowd is surging forward into the train. The Headhunter, in his Truthsuit, hears something. It is Hanus and Malicia (whom he’s never seen) not far away. They are sketched into the crowd, full-frontal. The reader sees them. The Headhunter only senses danger.

In profile, he looks for them; looks for what he knows is there, but cannot see.

Dan glanced up at the wall in front of him for the profile sketch of the Headhunter. And it was gone. The wall is somehow different. He runs his eyes over it.

Marching along the wall are only sketches of the Reporter.

Maggie.

Huh?

She stared back at him, innocent, knowing, smirking, breasts pressing out against her little sweater, nipples (when had he drawn those? Had he given her
nipples?)
pushed out against the coarse fabric of her top. Eyes longing, wide-spaced.

All the other sketches were gone.

He looked on the floor, leaning up over his drawing board. Nothing was there. He looked up again. She stared back.

Dan backed away from the drawing board, into the table where he kept his pens and ink, his pencils and small smudgers, the pastels, the nibs for pens, his straight edge, compass set that his dad had given him. He spun around, as though he’d tripped over (a body) something.

In a tidy pile on the table were the other sketches. On top was the Headhunter, the full-frontal sketch, coat blowing in a dark night wind, like wings, around his body.

I took them down.

He stared at them from his ungainly position, half leaning into the table, his buttocks pressing against it.

I took them down. Of course I did I was obsessed with getting her right yesterday I took the others down to focus.

Self-consciously, he turned slowly and pawed through them, leaving the pile as untidy as it had been tidy, digging out the profile sketch that he needed. He did not tape it to the wall with the others, but propped it on the lip of the drawing board and went back to work.

The breathing that he heard was his own. Consciously, he put a new CD on the stereo when the other ran out. Loud. He played it loud and jumped, sometimes at shadows.

In the night, there were sounds.

Dan woke up at three. He did not, at first, search out the clock. Instead he raised his head and looked around the room. Everything was as it should have been: the room was lit with the streetlight that shone just outside the window.
I have to ask her where the curtains are this room needs a set of curtains.
Regular breathing came from Becca’s side of the bed. He realized he was naked, except for shorts. He looked down at his wife. The sheet was tangled around her again.
She’s getting to be a real cover thief,
he thought, anything to drown out the sound that was coming next, and he knew what it would be. He dropped his head and pulled the pillow over it, pushing it close to his head on either side.

Outside, a car pulled to a stop.
I don’t hear this.
The door opened and closed.

Footsteps up the concrete walk.
I don’t I don’t hear this.

The front door opened, boldly. And was shut.

I don’t
do not
hear this.

Tiny heeled steps down the hall. A door opens and closes.

Before the music started, Dan was out of bed and at the top of the stairs.
This is a dream.

Come in.

He crept down with utter silence, his feet nothing more than fleshy pads on bare wood. The stairs did not creak. Upstairs he thought he heard movement and paused briefly. It was not coming from the bedroom (Becca), but from somewhere else. The attic. Mice.

Dan stepped down off the last stair. All had been quiet until he reached the floor. Then, as though whoever (what) knew he was coming, the first strains of music began.

Lilting, hesitant, jazzy; tinny like from a record player that wasn’t very good.

He heard it clearly. He must have heard it many times before that night, because he knew the next verse and could have sung along with it, but did not.

Dan inched his way down the hall, strangely calm, the only giveaway his dry mouth. He moved carefully, so as not to bang anything, not to step on a creaky board, the one by the phone—he passed the phone easily, not reaching to pick it up.

He simply did not think about what he would find.

The door was open a crack. Light spilled out into the dark hall in an arc, as he knew it would.

He stood in front of it and reached out with his whole hand. He pressed his fingers against the cool wood of the door and pushed. It protested for a moment, a slight
squeak
on old, unoiled hinges; he pushed it all the way open. As it swung forward, the smell of flowers—maybe lilac—filled his nose, a sweet, pungent scent that lasted only a moment, the sort of smell, not entirely pleasant, that you got off the sweaters of old ladies at funerals. Too sweet. The door caught, not caught, but paused like a breath, and Dan saw that the bed was down. The light in the room was from candles. Shadows danced with the opening of the door, flickering everything in shadow.

In the middle of the room, as though waiting, was a woman.

Come in.
She smiled, lips parted. Tiny white teeth showed through, like pearls.

Come in.
She was naked. Beautiful. Her smile, her mouth was of pleasures, secret things he would like to know. Candlelight flickered off the glow of her skin, smooth, supple, inviting. Blood pounded in his ears. The music played, in the back of something. He could no more have moved than not. A standstill. Stalemate. His erection—there, always—kindled, pulsed. The woman’s eyes glanced casually down at it; her smile deepened, a red smile
(was it really red?),
something knowing.

Come in.

He must. He did.

Time went somewhere, but he did not follow it.

Dan lay on his back on the Murphy bed. In his hands were the buttocks of a woman, round and soft and full. Dan was buried deep inside her heat. She threw her head back in pleasure and tightened muscles that he should know, but at the moment couldn’t name; he could not think, but only respond. He responded by pulling his body up, tightening his own muscles, the ones in his abdomen, and a groan escaped his lips. He felt her move under his hands, and he gripped her, pressing his fingers into the soft flesh there as presented. His leg was caught under the sheet at the bottom of the bed, confining him, restricting him. It added, in some way, to the pleasure. He tried to move a foot, and gave up. He was caught.

Briefly then,
This is real I can feel it I am caught.

When he opened his eyes, her breasts, perfect and high, bounced delicately in front of him with each upward motion. His hands reached out to grasp
round beautiful firm soft
them and she leaned forward to accommodate him. She rode him, powerful thighs tensing and releasing in turn against his own tensed thighs. He wanted to swing her off, drop on top of her, pound himself inside her, but he was beyond such physical control by then.

“Ah ah ah ah ah,” he said, gasps barely coming out of him. Just air. He squeezed her breasts, under his palms he felt her nipples, hot, hard little lumps of separated flesh, standing out in lurid detail; he thought if he looked he would see the pink-brown flesh puckered around them. They would taste of soap and rouge. He worked one thumb over to a sweet hard bud to
play—

Just as it brushed the pad of his thumb, just as he was thinking about how it would
taste feel
in his mouth he went over the edge into sweet, black darkness, pressed his eyes shut tightly and—

Red, everywhere. Then nothing.

Dan woke to Becca talking on the phone.

He sat up suddenly on the Murphy bed. He’d been sleeping, splayed across the bare mattress, legs akimbo, arms up over his head. He felt vulnerable, waking up. He covered himself, oddly, with his arms for a moment. The door was wide open. Light in the hall. Morning.

She was mumbling (whispering?) something into the phone. He heard it click onto the cradle. The sound of disconnection. All around.

Quickly, very quickly, he sat up. He heard her move into the kitchen. Water ran. The clink of glass on the counter. He heard the fridge open. Heels clicked on the tile floor as she moved around. She was dressed for work. The fridge door
whooshed
shut, nearly silent. He heard it.

Memory flooded. He swung his head around. The room was in shadow, but silent. Empty.

Dan jumped, literally, out of the bed. It bounced on the floor.

“Becca?” he called. There was no answer. He stepped (very fast) out of the studio, glancing just once over his shoulder at the bed, laid out, sheetless. Blameless. The black, empty space behind it yawned lazily at him.

“
Bec—”
he said. He rounded the corner into the kitchen to his wife.

“Why did you sleep down here?” she said, not concerned, but mildly annoyed, like being left out of the joke.

He blanked. Blinked. “You were restless,” he said. “Kicking up the sheets.” She was. He remembered the tangled sheet. Or was that something else?

“Coffee’s on,” she said. That was enough of an explanation.

He stared, still blank. Still wandering. “You look nice,” he said.

She looked up quickly, blushing, guilty? Thinking, searching his face, for something missed. “Thank you,” she said finally. “Did you sleep well?” she asked. The coffee chugged. She sipped from a glass of orange juice.

He sat down on the stool by the counter. “I don’t know,” he said. She wasn’t listening. She watched the coffee pour into the pot with the distant look, the Sunday-morning stare. The room smelled like coffee.

“I guess I’m getting in the shower,” he said, tried to make it cheery, discountable, when in fact he felt filthy, sweat-stained. Then she looked at him. Looked him over.

“You should. Doesn’t look like you had a restful night, either,” she said. She indicated his head, sticking out her chin in its direction. “Bed head.”

And he smelled. A sweet smell, like perfume, gone over.

Gordon Huff had called. Asked for a meeting. Ten-thirty. No, she didn’t have to check her book, she was free. His voice had been light, different. An equality? He’d called her Rebecca. Was she a good girl?

In the shower, under the stream, his head hung low, water pouring over his neck and shoulders, he realized he had to go in there at least once more. He would get his shit out and work in the dining room. The light was better in there anyway. In and out. And when he was finished with the stuff for Friday, he would set up in the attic, or the little room upstairs that Becca wasn’t using. And then whatever went on in that room
just bad dreams
could go on without him.

And today, he’d skip the pot.

He put off going in for as long as possible, doing the supper dishes and sweeping the kitchen floor with extra caution, the way Becca did before she washed it. He carted some empty boxes out of the bedroom and stuck them by the back door. He opened them up and laid them flat. He gathered some laundry and then thought better of throwing it into the washer: the machine was in the cloakroom, just a few paces from the studio. He wasn’t ready to go in there yet.

Max called. He wanted to know how it was going and could he drop by after work and see anything? Dan gave him a brief on the work he’d done the day before (giddily thinking about saying
and then
but ultimately not saying a thing, not betraying himself by word or tone, and as for thinking the penultimate
who who
he did not even go there). It had been good work. The conversation turned long. Some of Dan’s anxiety started to drop away as they talked about the work. The prospects.

When they hung up, he geared up. But even as he approached, sweat dotted his upper lip and around his hairline. Close to the door, he could smell her. His erection rose, a mind of its own.

Becca watched the clock nervously, in a way she hadn’t since her college-years job at Starbucks. Little work was accomplished, mostly papers were shuffled from one side of her desk to another. Her computer glared at her, figures without meaning.

When she knocked on Gordon Huff’s door at ten-thirty her hands were not shaking nearly as badly as they had been that first time. She took it as a sign.

She knocked and went in, poking her head with false concern around its corner before pushing it all the way open, “Mr. Huff?” she said, wishing she had called him Gordon. “It’s ten-thirty.”

He waved her in; he was on the phone. His face was a frown when he nodded a greeting to her and motioned to a chair. He put his hand over the receiver companionably and, like a conspirator, mouthed the words,
This won’t take a minute.
She nodded her acquiescence, fitting her hands into her lap and crossing her legs at the ankle. She breathed deeply and hoped he didn’t notice. He finished his call and hung up, pulling his chair closer to his edge of the desk and flopping his arms across it with that same companionability.

“You wanted to see me,” she said, a statement, not a question.

He sighed and looked off into space for a moment, as though gathering thoughts. “Well, Rebecca, I thought I would let you know that Don Geisbrecht has expressed some interest.” For a moment she didn’t understand. Expressed interest in what? In
her?
In the hiring process?

“In the position,” Huff added, noting her confusion.

“But he’s from outside,” she said.

Huff nodded. “He’s a good candidate.” A scowl she couldn’t control marred her features. Her stomach twisted and she wished she’d had breakfast. She thought it might rumble. She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn’t sure what to say.

Mr. Huff said, “I’m not sure how the board is going to look at this—he hasn’t applied, of course. But I understand he’s been talking to Ben King.” She nodded with growing understanding and a small sinking feeling. There was a long pause between the two of them.

Finally she said, firmly, although her voice wanted to shake, “I think I am a good candidate for the job. I’ve worked in this department for six years. With this company. I hope that you will recommend me to the board. I appreciate the information, Mr. Huff. Thank you.” She rose to leave, her mind going in a million directions at once. He had wanted to see her to prepare her. It was as good as saying she didn’t have the job. She was angry, and embarrassed.

“Rebecca,” he said, from behind her. She turned halfway around. “I enjoyed our lunch yesterday very much,” he said, watching her face. She met his eyes. In the pause, she turned and faced him fully.

So here it is. This is the part where he tells me what he wants.

“I was hoping we could have dinner sometime,” he said. The words were spoken carefully. He leaned back in his chair.
Bastard prick bastard.
Even as she thought it, she knew what she would say.

She blinked twice. Thinking and not. Sleepily, she said, “That would be nice.”

He nodded, half smiling. “Monday evening?”

“All right,” she said. She slid to the door and turned the knob, her heart thudding so hard that it was hurting her ears, or maybe it was another headache. She did not turn and look back at him, and did not say good-bye. It seemed unnecessary;
uncompanionable.
And, anyway, she would see him later.

In her head, the cocktail party sprang to life.
I’m Director of Patient Services at the Center for Improved Health,
she said.

Oh, my. And how did you get that?

I earned it.
Diamonds twinkled discreetly on her ears. She wore Armani. Her shoes were Prada. Somewhere, distantly in the background, Gordon Huff stood with his wife.

The door was open, the light off. The bed was down.
I slept in it that’s why it’s down.
A small patch of light from the hall filtered in, no farther than the end of the bed. Through the shadows he could just make out the chrome legs of the drawing board, the stool.

He leaned in through the doorway and flicked on the light.

Hello, big boy.

The words weren’t said, not out loud, but he heard them, as though they were coming from inside his own head.
Hello, big boy.
Said with a twinkle; a grin. There was no direction in which to look, but he spun his head around—nowhere to hide. The room was empty. He walked in, the room scented with lilac and sweat, warm. His breathing became shallow and he went to his drawing board without conviction.

Movement behind him. He turned.

She was on the bed. She lay on her side, the curve of her hip inviting, the smile on her face promising, her skin white and smooth, breasts, hips, thighs, curves that undulated like a mountain road. The door swung shut lazily, closed. He jumped in a slow, delayed reaction.

“I have to work,” he said weakly. She wiggled her hips playfully.

His penis tented the front of his jeans, pressing painfully against the seam there. It throbbed like it hadn’t since high school.

I have to work.
Even as he walked to the bed. Even touching her, inside he recoiled, something curling up as though burned. Even as he slid his pants down over his hips, even as she leaned forward, her red, painted mouth opening, light glancing off little teeth like pearls, even as he slid into the darkness of her throat, even as he closed his eyes and let her swallow him, he retreated inside, breathing through his mouth so he didn’t have to smell what persisted under the sweetness of something rotten.

Intermittently, he opened his eyes from one world into the next. He would be standing, naked, at the drawing board, charcoal or pencil in hand, fingers poised as though to swoop. The overhead light would sometimes be flickering like candlelight, but filling the room and he would blink against it, as though the light shed itself on things he’d just as soon not see. At those times, the room would be still and silent, like a room should be. Unable to help himself, his eyes would sneak around it, lighting on items and ticking them off mentally in their normality. Drawing board, table, books, wall. His hair would be corkscrewed around his head, his eyes heavily lidded as though he had just woken (or been crying). His penis would lie limply, in retreat, against his leg, hardly rising to bob with the movements of his body.

Pencil to paper, he worked. On the wall in front of him, his pictures of the Reporter stared back. Subtly, they looked different, as though someone had come inside in the night and altered them. The heart-shaped face was rounder; the hair a little longer, less coiffed. Some of the intelligence had been replaced in her eyes with a
come hither
stare. He took note of all of these things.

But he worked.

He drew quickly, and well. He fell deeply into the paper, so deeply, the flesh over his top lip grew moist, as did the band of skin around his hairline, sweating with the force of his concentration. He did not notice when cool air climbed his back, stroking up from the small hollow, as high as the place where he broadened across the shoulders, and rested there for a moment.

He did not notice, but he welcomed it.

Time slipped around itself like a snake swallowing its tail. He thought that when he realized that he was not separating the day very well. He was here again, spread open on his back and she rode him. The light was off sometimes and candles burned. Sometimes the light was on. When the candles burned, unfamiliar shapes appeared just beyond his sight, in the flickering darkness that yielded randomly, like a woman.

A phonograph in the corner. A tall lamp. An overstuffed chair piled high with silks or scarves or the sort of filmy night things that women wore. A hat hung on a hook. All of these were just beyond his sight and they appeared and disappeared with disarming frequency: the hat became books stacked in rows; chair became table; lamp became stool. He preferred, after a while, not to look.

He grabbed her hips and pulled her down on himself hard, felt bone through flesh and that was both better and worse. He squeezed and pinched, felt her wriggle and tremble on him, felt her heat, the sweat that trickled down her back and that was both better and worse—

Because sometimes he held only air.

His cock pointing up to a white corked ceiling, hands above him, muscles tightening against nothing. His head became light and he would close his eyes and, slowly, pleasure would take him past thought, and if then he opened his eyes again he would have forgotten the moment before when he held nothing, and the room smelled stale, like yeast and old fruit.

Becca took off early, claiming a headache, and headed for the mall on the outskirts of the city. She rarely ventured to that particular mall. It was very, very expensive. The last time was to buy the pair of shoes that she had worn yesterday to her lunch with Mr. Huff. They had cost three hundred dollars, and were not the most expensive pair that she had tried on; in fact, they had been a compromise. Three hundred dollars for a soft little pair of pumps. There was about two thousand dollars in checking. She had both her Visa and the AmEx with her. If all went well, in a couple of months’ time, she would have a little gold company card and this day would be a memory.

Becca drove slowly past Beemers, Jags, softly tinted subdued little Mercedes, and lots of other Volvos. Her older, but well-cared for Volvo was still okay among the cars in the lot.

She found a parking space near the entrance. She decided that it was a sign. Divine approval for the line of attack, while shopping for body armor.

At very least, she would have to have a new outfit for dinner. And shoes. Probably underwear. It was unseemly to expect her to appear at dinner as the fatted calf in underwear the previous farmer had already pulled off her body, wasn’t it? And the outfit had to be spectacular, something that spoke of her lofty grounds for execution. Something spectacular, in fabric so expensive and fine that it would raise her up by its very perfection above the dirty little engagement that instigated its purchase. And shoes to match.