Catskinner's Book (The Book Of Lost Doors) (11 page)

“Ohh,” Godiva breathed.

Alice looked at her sharply. “You've seen nestlings, then?”

Godiva nodded. “Dr. Klein used them to build the salon.”

Alice sat back. “Interesting,” she said slowly. “I didn't know that. That would have been, what, a year ago?”

Godiva shook her head. “No, not the first time. I mean when she got the place next door and rebuilt. Maybe six months ago?”

“Morgan's been dealing with the Manchester nest longer than I thought.” Alice was half talking to herself. “I wonder if he deals with the others.”

“Dr. Klein said that all the nests bought from him. How many are there?”

“Five that I know about,” Alice said, “Did she say what they bought?”

I tried to remember. “Nettle junk, I think she said. But that might have been what she was buying.”

Alice shook her head. “No, that's a hypnoteratogenic. Nests wouldn't have any use for it.”

She abruptly stood. “It's late. It's been a busy day. How about we continue this at breakfast tomorrow?”

I stood. “Can I drop you off somewhere?”

“I've got a room reserved at your motel.”  

That was convenient. Wait a second—

“How do you know where I'm staying?”

She gave me a sideways look just short of an eyeroll. “You checked in with a credit card in your own name.”

“Is it really that easy to find people like that? I thought that was just on TV.”

She shrugged. “Easy? It's doable. You need to know the right people.”

Godiva was standing next to me. “Can I stay with you tonight?” She was very close.

Catskinner was closer, a warm weight on my skin. “I don't think that's a good idea,” I said. “I'll get you a room.”

She nodded and turned away. She looked hurt and I felt for her. I felt for me, too. She was soft and warm and lovely and I very much wanted her to stay with me. I didn't know exactly what she had meant, what she offered, and I never would. Soft and warm and lovely were things that didn't happen to something like me.

I headed to the door. Alice and Godiva followed.

you want her.

Yes.

she's not human.

Neither am I.

she could be dangerous.

So am I.

When we got to the parking lot my body stopped and turned to Godiva.

“james wants you to stay with him. i do not forbid it.”
Beautiful. Catskinner's guide to picking up chicks.

Catskinner poured out of my face and I added, “Please.”

Godiva smiled brilliantly, “I won't hurt you, I promise.”

“That's not what I'm worried about.”

She stepped closer and took my arm, looked up at me. Her glasses reflected my face. “I'm not afraid of you.”

That was what I was worried about. She wasn't afraid of me, and she should have been.

Alice was standing nearby, looking around the parking lot like it was her idea to stand there and there was nothing awkward going on at all. I started walking again. Godiva kept a hold on my arm and fell into step with me. She twisted and then my arm was around her shoulders. She felt good there, warm, and she smelled good.

Chapter Ten

“the purpose of life is to expand. each worm intends to engulf the universe.”

As I opened the door to my little motel suite I realized that I hadn't found time to do any shopping for food to stock the kitchenette. For some reason that really bothered me. I felt like I should have something to offer Godiva. Beer, pretzels, mini pizzas made from English muffins and spaghetti sauce—something. Wasn't that what people did when they invited someone into their home?  I wasn't real clear on the etiquette.  

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I don't have much here.”

She didn't seem to mind, though. She sat her shopping bag on the little round table under the hanging lamp and flopped down in one of the green vinyl and wood chairs that flanked it. She smiled and slipped off her shoes.

“So...”  I wasn't sure what to say.

Godiva looked up at me expectantly.

“Alice Mason. Do you figure that's her real name?”

“Real enough.” she shrugged. “It's something to call her, anyway.”

I nodded. I figured names weren't really important, so long as you had something to call people other than “hey, you!” I couldn't quite put my finger on what was important, though. Loyalty? Fealty, maybe? I was used to thinking in terms of me against the world, the idea that there might be sides and that I might be on the same side as someone else was hard to wrap my head around. “Can I trust her, do you think?”

She chewed her lip. Still a cute gesture. “I think she's honest about what she wants.”

“What's that?”

“She wants people free from the Outsiders. Free from their influence. She used to do some kind of anti-cult counseling. You know, deprogramming. I guess she found out some cults have real spirit voices running them.”

I thought about that. Yeah, it made sense. “I can't be free of Catskinner. He's part of me. He's all I've got.”

“I know.” She looked down at the floor. “What I can't understand is what Catskinner wants.”

I opened my mouth to say something—I'm not sure what—and I felt him speaking through me. “
continuity of existence. rationality of environment. silence.
”

“Safety?” suggested Godiva.

My body nodded. “
safety. food, water, air, integrity of circulatory system. sleep without vigilance for james. body of motion, body of light in parallel.
”

“What happens to you if James dies?” she asked softly.

“
unweaving.
”

“You die? You don't go back . . .  someplace?”

“
there are no places, only patterns.
”

“You can only exist as long as James' . . .  pattern is safe, then. Only as long as he's alive.”

“
yes.
”

“And you'll do whatever you have to do to keep him alive.”

“
yes.
”

“And what about keeping him happy?”

Silence from Catskinner. “I don't think he understands the question.” I said. “Happiness isn't something he can quantify.”

“He doesn't have to quantify it,” Godiva scowled. “He just has to respect it.”

“
i respect that james requires environmental elements that i do not perceive directly. is that happiness?
”

A blank look, then a chuckle from Godiva. “Yeah, I think that'll do as a working definition for now.”  

“
then i will do what will keep james happy.
”

“Even if it means going against your own kind?”

“
i have no kind.
”

“Other outsiders, I mean.”

“
i have no kind.
”

Godiva considered that. “Are you saying that you're unique. Sui generis?”

“
yes.
”

Godiva leaned forward, looking up at my face. “Did you,” she spoke slowly, considering each word, “Catskinner, did you . . . exist prior to James?”

“
no.
”

She leaned back. “Huh. Now that's interesting.”

She pulled out a napkin wrapped bundle from her shopping bag. The rest of the pizza. I hadn't seen her grab it.

As I looked at her I realized that what she had in that little bag was all she had in the world.  I knew what that felt like. She was sitting there with a brave little grin and my heart went out to her.

“We'll go shopping tomorrow,” I promised her. “Get you some more clothes.”  

She tugged on the hem of her T-shirt. “Yeah, this is kind of blah.”

Then, in case she was waiting for me to say something,  I said, “Go on, I won't watch.”  

I turned away to the little kitchenette. There were fresh glasses wrapped in plastic. I unwrapped two, filled them with cold water. I could hear her behind me, eating. I sipped water.

Along with my sympathy for her there grew an anger—no, a rage—that was as old to me as life. Someone made her into something rich and strange, something that I didn't understand and I wasn't sure that she understood. That same person left her at the mercy of a world that I knew from bitter experience was merciless.

“Do you want me to kill Dr. Klein?” I asked. It just popped out.

She didn't say anything, so I turned around, slowly. “I can still find her, probably.”

She looked over at me, seriously. Our eyes, or rather my eyes and her sunglasses, met for a long moment and she said, “No. It doesn't matter.”

I wanted to help her, wanted to make her feel better. Was that all I had to offer, death? Again that rage, at those who had made me a monster.

“I just—” I shrugged. “I just don't know what to do.” I turned away. I had nothing to offer Godiva except a place to rest. She'd said it herself, the dragon doesn't rescue the princess.

“James?” her voice was soft. I looked back at her.

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” I stared at her, wondering, “Sorry for what?”

“I'm weak,” she looked down, seeming to curl into herself. “I can't do, I can't be . . . what you are.”

Tears waited heavy behind my eyes. “Being what I am,” I said softly, “isn't a good thing.”

“You saved me,” her voice was breathless, high, full of emotion.

“Only by accident,” I told her. “I was trying to save myself. You just got in the way. Collateral damage.”  

She stood then, barefoot and unarmored, clad in a thin gray T-shirt that clung to her curves and a denim skirt and her hips slid towards me with each step and it was my turn to flinch, to run from what I wanted and what she was and her eyes behind mirrored lenses pinned me, saw me for what I was and I turned away.

“Wait,” she said and I stopped. I was helpless. Catskinner could have killed her in a heartbeat, and for a moment I envied his purity. In contrast, I was a mess. I couldn't do anything except watch as she came closer to me.

“What do you want?” I snapped at her.

“I just want to make you happy.” Her smile was bright and innocent and pure. Nothing that had anything to do with me.

“Why?” I asked. Before she could speak Catskinner answered me.

because she wants something from you. because she wants to use you.

I couldn't know that he was wrong and so I turned away again. I didn't look at her when she answered me.

“I want a world where everyone is happy. I want to live without fear that someone stronger than me will take what I have. I can't give everyone what they need—”

Her small, slim body pressed against mine. Her face was against my side, her voice muffled, but I could hear every word.

“I can give you what you need. Right now. Tonight.”

Hating myself was a habit. It scarcely even hurt anymore, it was more like scratching an itch, peeling away a scab on infected flesh. “And what do
you
need?”

A pause. She pulled back, looked up at my face. “Do you want the truth?”

“Yes.”

She pulled her sunglasses off. Her strange eyes, green in green, looked up at me. I met her gaze. I could learn to read the story in those eyes, given time.

“I need you,” she breathed. Coy and tempting, the voice of all that I had never had, all the women that I had never loved, and my hands moved of their own accord, not Catskinner, but me, my own hunger, up into her hair to grasp and claim and turn her face to mine and I pressed my mouth to hers and I felt the fear then, the fear of the monster within me, and her hands, so small, so soft upon mine, telling me without words that she was not afraid—

And I kissed her. Her mouth tasted like spiced rum, sugar and cinnamon and something more exotic, intoxicating. Her lips opened and her tongue brushed mine.

It was all that I have ever wanted, her body against mine, her breasts, full and loose beneath her shirt against my chest lower than I had imagined it, my hands wanting and so afraid to touch her there, her hands against mine, guiding me, taking control, and it was too much, all too much, too soon, too late, and maybe I was crying, I don't remember.

It was too big, too much, me wanting her, her offering herself to me, and somehow she knew that. Without moving away from me she let me go, let me turn away from her and into myself and her body against mine became comfortable instead of insistent. She kissed me again, and it was different, simple human warmth, still so strange to me, but not frightening, not frightening at all.

Against the skin of my neck she whispered, “I understand.”  

I was glad that someone did.

She held me that night, lay against me in that rented bed, asking for nothing from me but the touch of my body. She was soft and warm and alive and she occupied the space next to my skin, a place that no one had ever been in before, and something that has always been empty in me was filled.

I slept, and she slept, and Catskinner never spoke, never moved. Not that night.

Chapter Eleven

“spiderwebs are not built for comfort.”

In the morning we walked together from the room to the hotel restaurant, where Alice was waiting for us, coffee steaming in her cup. She watched us walk in together, Godiva close by my side.

When Alice looked up at me—at us—I felt another emptiness that I had not realized was there being filled. I could see her seeing not just one person and one person, but two people. A couple. A pair of monsters, perhaps, but a pair. The feeling made me put my arm around Godiva's shoulders and some feeling—perhaps the same one—made Godiva lean into me, mold herself against me. Together we took seats at the table.

Alice smiled and nodded, just as Godiva and I were the most natural things in the world, and then a young waiter came by and wrote down what we wanted to eat, which in my case was nearly everything.

Busy last night? I asked Catskinner.

watching and waiting.

Once I'd ordered I couldn't think of anything to say. Catskinner could, though.

“what happens now?”

Alice seemed able to switch gears between talking to me and talking to Catskinner without a hitch. Even Victor hadn't caught on that quick.