Cat People (22 page)

Irena crossed the room and turned out a second lamp, leaving only one soft light in the room.

"It's working now," Oliver said distractedly.

Slowly, her eyes never leaving him, Irena began to undo the buttons of her blouse.

"It's Irena," Alice said over the phone. "She followed me tonight, Oliver. There's something wrong with her. Something dangerous. Oliver? Do you hear me?"

Irena slipped the blouse back off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She wore no brassiere. Her pale breasts were firm and high. They seemed to glow in the soft light.

"I hear you," Oliver said into the mouthpiece.

Irena opened the single button at the side of her skirt and slid the zipper down. Oliver's mouth was dry as he watched her push the skirt down her slim legs. She stood up, wearing only a pair of lacy panties, and looked at him with a challenging smile.

"She may come to your place," Alice continued. "Maybe you should get out of the house."

Irena's body was slim and smoothly muscled. She ran her hands down over her breasts, across her stomach. Oliver swallowed hard.

"I'll be all right," he said.

"Do you want me to come over there?" Alice asked.

Slowly Irena turned away and walked toward the stairs. She moved with a liquid grace.

"No, I think it's best that you stay where you are," Oliver said into the phone.

Irena started up the stairs.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Look, I'll call you back, Alice."

He hung up the phone and looked toward the stairway, where Irena had disappeared. Then he went after her.

She was lying in his bed, covered by a single sheet. The lacy panties lay on the floor. Irena smiled up at him, an impossible combination of innocence and depravity. She turned down the sheet beside her, inviting him. One pale breast was exposed, the dark nipple like an eye watching him.

Oliver stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, not moving.

"What's the matter?" she said. "Are you afraid of me?"

He hesitated, then said, "Yes, I think I am."

She threw off the rest of the sheet and lay naked before him. "Don't be afraid, my Oliver. I want us to belong to each other."

He unbelted the robe and shrugged it to the floor. Underneath he wore only the bottoms of his pajamas. He pushed them down and stood before her as she ran her eyes over his body.

Irena propped herself up on one elbow. Gently she touched his scars with the tips of her fingers.

"My poor Oliver. Does it hurt much?"

"Not much," he said.

"Come down here with me."

He sat on the edge of the bed. Irena raised herself to a sitting position beside him. He lightly touched her hair, her face, her lips.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he said.

"Yes. This is our time, Oliver."

He kissed her. Her bare arms went around his back and pressed him close against her. Irena's mouth opened hungrily and she took his tongue.

Oliver kissed her chin, the hollow of her throat. She lay back on the bed. His lips moved to her breast. She moaned as he sucked at her nipple. She pushed it firmly into his mouth. The resilience of her flesh against his teeth aroused him ferociously.

He moved his head down the center of her body, tasting the sweet-salt of her flat stomach, the fluff of her pubic hair. Irena squirmed on the bed, her fingers locked behind his head. Oliver nuzzled her soft mons, kissed the warmth between her legs. He tasted her, probing with his tongue.

Suddenly Irena sat up. She drew Oliver's face up to hers and kissed his mouth, still wet from her body's juices. Her hand strayed down his body, found his erect penis, stroked him.

She pulled back her head and looked him in the eye. There was a wildness about her that Oliver found agonizingly desirable.

"Now," she said in a hoarse whisper. "There is no going back for us."

She guided him gently over on his back, then knelt above him, her legs straddling his body. She bent down and kissed him, licking his face. Bit by bit she lowered herself upon him. She touched his erection, then took him inside of her a centimeter at a time. She began to ride up and down, slowly at first, then more vigorously. She cried out softly as the barrier gave way, then abandoned herself to the lovemaking.

They clung to each other, lunging and walloping on the bed, breathing hard through open mouths. Finally the climax burst upon them, and they laughed aloud with the sheer joy of fulfillment.

They subsided slowly and at last lay quietly in each other's arms. For a long time they stayed like that, not wanting to break the contact made by their bodies. Irena was the first to pull away.

She sat up in the bed. "Look at me, Oliver."

He raised himself on his elbows and smiled at her.

"What do you see?"

"I see a beautiful, sensual, very loving woman."

"There's nothing ... different about me?"

"Your hair's messed up."

"I'm serious. There is nothing ... strange?"

"Absolutely," he said.

She began to cry, but there was a little smile on her lips. "I was so afraid ..."

Oliver pulled her back down beside him. "There was nothing to be afraid of."

"I thought something might happen."

"Something did," he said softly.

"I mean ... something terrible."

"Mmmm." Oliver's voice trailed off, his eyes closed, and he slept.

Irena smiled down at him tenderly. In a little while she disengaged herself from his arms and eased out of bed, being careful not to wake him. She went into the bathroom, turned on the light, and stood back from the mirror to examine herself.

Everything seemed to be as it should be. She touched her skin. It was smooth and warm. And firm. She felt the dampness between her legs and put her hand down there. Her fingers came up bloody.

The sight of her own blood on her hand frightened her at first, then fascinated her. She turned on the water tap in the sink and held her fingers in the stream. The pinkish water swirled around the bowl and down the drain.

She got into the shower then and adjusted the water temperature as hot as she could stand. She soaped her body thoroughly and rubbed herself with a rough washcloth. Then she soaped all over again and rinsed. Finally she turned the water all the way to cold and forced herself to stand under the needle spray until her teeth chattered.

She stepped out of the shower, toweled herself pink, and again examined her body in the mirror. Nothing there but a naked young woman who had just been very well taken care of by the man she loved. Irena smiied in vast relief.

Before leaving the bathroom Irena brushed her teeth, working up a minty foam in her mouth, rinsing, and spitting into the sink. She cut off the water and wondered at the deep bubbling sound that continued after all the water had run down the drain. When she left the bathroom she could still hear it—a kind of liquid throbbing that left her vaguely troubled.

She returned to the bedroom, where Oliver still slept peacefully. The boiling sound was still in her ears, now with a growing drumlike beat.

Did all women hear this secret sound after they made love? Irena wondered. Or was it only the first time? She crawled into bed beside the sleeping Oliver and pulled the covers up to her chin.

The rumbling sound continued. It grew louder. Somehow Irena was reminded of the woods out by the jetty house. She saw also another, denser forest. One where she had never been. Irena began to fear that the bubbling rumble would wake Oliver.

Her hands began to itch.

She brought her hands out from under the covers and held them before her eyes. Something strange was happening to them.

Irena sat up in bed, her back braced against the headboard, staring at her hands. The skin on her fingers and palms began to wither and crack. Her fingers shrank back and grew thicker. The fingernails loosened and dropped out like dead flower petals. Thick, curved talons broke through the flesh beneath them.

Her mouth fell open in a grimace of pain and shock. Her gums burned as her teeth, bloody at the roots, loosened and fell out, pushed by the fangs coming up from below.

She tried to speak, but managed only a moaning howl.

Oliver awoke with a start. He sat up and turned at once to Irena, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from him. She was hunched over, shudders wracking her body.

He reached out to touch her but snatched his hand back. Beneath her skin he had felt the vertebrae shifting and snapping.

"My God, what's happening?" he cried.

Slowly, with things still squirming under her skin, Irena turned to face him. Oliver stared in naked horror at the fangs that protruded from her mouth. Her cheeks caved in and her nose began to widen. It was the face she had drawn in her sketchbook.

Irena screamed. The voice was no longer human. She reached for her eyes with clubby, clawed hands, and as Oliver watched, horrified, pulled them out.

Behind the pulpy balls of her human eyes glowed the amber eyes of the leopard. They blinked at Oliver as he scrambled away, trying to disentangle himself from the bedclothes.

One of Irena's disfigured hands grabbed his arm, the talons pinning him where he was. He was forced to watch as the woman's flesh began to split, first on the forehead, then over her entire body. It made a soft tearing sound.

As the pink human skin peeled away, the dark form inside struggled to free itself. The head shook vigorously back and forth, ripping free of the damp membrane that had enclosed it. The thing emerged black, and glistening wet as a newborn baby. It tore with its teeth at the fleshy covering, pulling it away, chewing it up, swallowing it. In minutes there was only a thick pinkish pool of residue where the woman Irena had been. In her place was the cat.

The leopard threw back its head and rejoiced in the triumph of its freedom. The roar thundered through the house.

Left alone for a moment, Oliver started to edge off the bed. The leopard struck faster than the eye could follow, slamming a heavy black paw down on either side of him, pinning him flat on the bed. The terrible black face moved down close to his own. He could feel the fur of the cat's belly against his bare skin.

Oliver's heart hammered in uncontrolled fear. The cat's breath was a blast of heat in his face. He rolled his head from side to side, searching vainly for some way to escape.

The leopard raised one massive paw and put it down flat on his chest. Oliver watched the claws slide out of their sheaths and prick his flesh.

"Irena!" he cried, the breath blasted from his lungs.

The cat lifted the heavy paw. Oliver sucked in air as the leopard began to lick him. The rasplike tongue tore away the scabs and lacerated the flesh.

Oliver tensed, waited for the powerful jaws to crush his bones. The leopard raised its head and looked into his eyes with an almost casual curiosity. Oliver turned his head away, and the cat imitated his movement.

Then, playfully, the leopard butted his chin with its broad forehead. The blows were solid, and they hurt.

"Don't," Oliver said. He raised a hand tentatively to the face of the cat. Before he could pull it back, the jaws clamped down on his wrist. He could feel the knife-sharp teeth against his fleeh, but the leopard did not bite down. It gave his arm a couple of gentle tugs, then released him. The fangs left little dents, but had not broken the skin.

My God, Oliver thought, the thing is playing with me.

He was beyond panic now, just numb. He felt almost detached as the cat opened its great mouth and took most of his head inside. Oliver lay paralyzed. He felt the rush of the cat's hot breath, the roughness of its tongue, the hard points of its teeth. Abruptly the beast pulled back and looked at him again, its head cocked to one side.

"Damn it, let me go!" Oliver shouted, surprised at the sudden strength of his anger.

The leopard growled and raised one massive paw, claws bared. Oliver braced for the stunning blow he expected. The paw shot out toward his face. Two, three, half a dozen times it struck before he could blink. The pillow beneath his head was shredded, the sheet that covered him destroyed, the mattress deeply ripped on both sides of where he lay. As the attack ended, Oliver opened his eyes to find himself miraculously untouched.

The bed shook as the leopard leaped from it to the floor. At the window the beast turned back to look at him. In that instant Oliver saw the soul of the woman reflected deep in the amber eyes of the cat.

"Wait!" he cried, but the cat turned from him and, in a single graceful bound, glided out through the window.

Oliver heard the rush of leaves as the leopard landed in the tree outside. Then a thump as it dropped to the turf below, and padded footfalls dwindling into the night.

"Be careful," he said to the darkness. "Oh, my darling, be careful."

When Alice Moore arrived at Oliver's house, a city police car was standing at the curb. Its flashing red light threw an intermittent glow onto the trees out in front. She hurried to the front door, found it open, and went in without bothering to knock.

Oliver was sitting on the couch. He was wearing khaki pants and an open shirt that revealed the angry scars on his chest from the leopard's claws. Standing in front of him was Detective Sergeant Brant. Both men turned to look at Alice as she entered.

"Irena has been here, hasn't she," Alice said. It was not a question.

Oliver nodded. He was having trouble meeting her eyes.

"We've got more serious things to worry about than that," said Brant.

Alice raised her eyebrows.

"Unbelievable as it may seem," Brant continued, "we've got another black leopard on the loose."

"You're sure that's what it is?" Oliver said.

"Not a doubt in the world. We've got it hemmed in now on the causeway. I thought you might like to be there at the finish."

Oliver got painfully to his feet. "Yes, I definitely would. Could you drive the truck, Alice? I'm a little stiff."

"Sure, if you want me to." Alice glanced at the bookcase, where the rifle had been replaced behind the broken glass doors. "Are you going to take that?"