Earth Angel (10 page)

“This way,” he said, taking my hand and leading me down the hallway.

His bedroom surprised me, so clean and neat, yet somehow monastic in its barrenness. I was used to Tim’s obsessive tidiness,
the shirts arranged in the closet according to color, the shoes spit-polished and standing in a perfect line on the floor
of the closet, like troops awaiting a command. Daryl was also organized, but there were pockets of turbulence: his desk was
scattered with papers and open books of poetry. In the middle was a sheet of notebook paper with one stanza of a poem written
in pencil. Half the words were scratched out with replacements written in the margins and arrows indicating where they would
go. For some reason it reminded me of the Asian men sketching in our waiting room the night Tim killed them. I stopped to
look at it, thinking for a moment it actually was that sketch. Daryl tugged my hand, pulling me away. “It’s not done,” he
muttered.

There was no art on the wall, no posters or paintings, nothing. A bookcase dominated one wall, with comic books on one shelf
and a mixture of paperback and hardbound books on all the others. The bed had a red wool blanket over it in some sort of Native
American pattern. On the bedside table stood an open can of Dr Pepper; next to it the empty wrapper from Reese’s peanut butter
cups. A book was spreadeagled beside the alarm clock:
Age of Grief
, by Jane Smiley.

“Cheery title,” I said.

“Short stories,” he said. “She’s very good. I’m thinking of trying some stories myself. Maybe even a novel.”

“I can’t remember the last novel I read. I guess I read mostly medical journals or nonfiction. History, sometimes. Biographies
of famous men.”

“Not women?”

I hadn’t thought about it before, but I couldn’t remember any women biographies. There was no mysterious reason, though. Just
random chance. “I just pick out what’s in the drugstore or new arrivals in the library.”

He nodded, but like someone who is acknowledging some secret insight. That bugged me and whatever romantic inclinations I
had felt shriveled instantly.

“Maybe I should go,” I announced.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. He looked hurt and my anger vanished as abruptly as it had come. I couldn’t seem to hold on
to any emotion.

He came over and finished unbuttoning my blouse. I didn’t know what to do next. Take off my blouse? Unbutton his shirt or
undo his belt buckle? Tim and I had long ago stopped undressing each other. When we wanted sex we just took off our clothes
and did it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, holding my shoulders.

“Fine.”

“We don’t have to do this,” he said. “There’s always Scrabble.”

I laughed. “Maybe this would go better if we just got undressed and got into bed. I’m not too good at romantic foreplay.”

We both stripped quickly and climbed under the covers. He rolled over onto his side and pulled me into his arms. We kissed
for quite a while. It felt nice. I kept my eyes closed while we kissed, trying to picture Tim. I wasn’t sure whether that
meant I was only in bed with Daryl because I wanted to imagine Tim, or whether I was imagining Tim because I felt guilty about
being in bed with Daryl. Whatever the reason, conjuring Tim’s image was not helping; all I could see was his confused and
guilty face as he lay dying in my arms.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one having troubles. I could feel Daryl’s penis pinned against my thigh. It was barely erect.
I began to speculate on the reasons, the possible
medical ailments that might cause this. I reached down and took hold of it, squeezing gently. No effect. I slid my fingers
lower and cupped his scrotum. He moaned with pleasure and writhed against me, but his penis didn’t engorge the way it should
have. Blood should have been soaking into the erectile tissue, enlarging it.

Suddenly Daryl was sliding down my body, his tongue slicking a cool trail across my nipples, down my stomach, and into the
pubic thicket. With his head still burrowing there, he swung the rest of his body around so that he was half hanging off the
edge of the bed. He lifted my buttocks with one hand and slid a pillow beneath them. He nudged my legs apart and hooked them
over his shoulders. Then he really went to work.

His tongue prodded and pampered, slid and spun. It was like an Olympic ice skater mastering the surface, carving it into submission
with each pirouette. I reached back and grabbed the headboard, arching my back, pushing myself harder against his mouth. I
could feel the blood evacuating my limbs, rushing toward my vagina where all the action was. My clitoris felt enormously swollen,
something that could be floated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade right next to Goofy.

Things were happening. My head was dizzy. I was breathing hard through my mouth because my allergies were acting up, closing
the sinuses in my nose. Probably just the dust we raised from thrashing around in his bed. His hands slid up my ribs, grabbed
my breasts. His fingers pinched my nipples, not too hard, but enough to cause an involuntary clamping of my thighs around
his head. That only encouraged him more. He began a series of tongue flickings that revved my heart to a high idle. Within
a minute or so I was coming in spasms, bumping my pubic mound against his chin, his front teeth, his nose, until he pulled
away in self-protection.

I pulled the pillow out from under my butt and lay back
staring at the ceiling. In the swirls of the cottage cheese ceiling I picked out Tim’s face looking down at me. His face was
a little flat, like a newborn’s. But he was smiling at me. Was that a sign of approval that I was getting on with my life,
or a sad smile of disappointment? The ceiling swirls were unclear.

Daryl wriggled up beside me and kissed me. I could taste myself on his lips and I had to admit it was not a bad taste at all.
If you went into the woods, randomly yanked some leaves from various plants, and brewed them as a tea, that’s what it would
taste like. Certainly better than the salty concoction the consistency of snot men were always expecting us to swallow and
then comment on the deliciousness, as if they were gourmet chefs who’d just whipped up a batch in the kitchen.

“That was very nice,” I said.

“I aim to please.”

“Your aim is very good.”

He lifted himself onto one elbow. “We’re not done, are we?”

I could still feel his semierect penis against my leg. Perhaps this was as hard as it got and I’d only assumed there was a
problem. “I’m ready. Send me in, Coach.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry, it’ll perk up. I always have trouble the first time with someone.”

“Why?”

“Beats me. I think maybe because I feel guilty, as if I think the woman is expecting more than I can possibly give her, not
in bed necessarily, but in a relationship. So I already figure I’m having sex under false pretenses.”

“Do you promise them anything, lead them on?”

“Of course not. But you can tell a woman right to her face that this is nothing but sex with no possibility of anything more
and she’ll say, ‘Yeah, sure, that’s what I want too,’ and the next thing you know you’re being called immature and an emotional
cripple because you don’t
want to open a joint bank account or shop for engagement rings.”

“No problem there,” I said and held up my left hand. Tim’s engagement ring was still there. Odd that I had never thought about
taking it off.

“Jesus,” Daryl said, flopping onto his back. “Now I feel guilty about Tim.”

I lay back and stared up at the ceiling again. Tim was gone. Instead, Loni Anderson was eating a bagel. I put my hand on Daryl’s.
“What is it you remember about me from med school? You never got around to telling me.”

“It’s nothing. No big deal.”

“C’mon, tell me.”

He smiled. “The Christmas party at Dr. Shute’s house, remember?”

“Well, I remember the party. I don’t remember anything much happening. We ate a lot, drank moderately so Dr. Shute wouldn’t
think we were alcoholics, and left early. It was boring.”

“Right. But you had this camera that your folks had sent you because they wanted pictures of all your friends.”

I nodded. “Right. My mom always expected me to bring some of the med students home for vacations, as I had when I was in college.”

“You spent the whole party taking pictures, gathering everyone in groups, posing people just right.” He laughed. “You even
got Shute to pose holding that stupid dog of his.”

“Zeno. That was the dog’s name. Some kind of mutant poodle.”

“Zeno liked to fart, I remember that much about him. He ran around everybody’s legs, yipping like a maniac, and farting like
a motorcycle.”

I laughed. “Thank God that’s not how you remember me.”

“No, what I remember about you is that after two hours
of taking photographs, you handed me the camera because you couldn’t figure out how many shots you had left. Remember now?”

I shook my head.

“Turned out you didn’t have any film in the camera. It was empty.”

Weird how I’d forgotten that. Even as he was telling the story I pictured myself sending the developed photographs to my parents.
But Daryl was right, there hadn’t been any film in the camera. Part of my ongoing struggle with gadgets. VCR’s never recorded
the time or station I wanted. Some years I couldn’t wear watches because they stopped. Didn’t matter the brand or type, once
I strapped it on, within a week it wouldn’t work.

I sat up in bed. The rush of air against my breasts gave me goosebumps, but I didn’t cover myself. It felt good to be able
to talk this way with someone, naked and uninhibited. “Daryl, did you know we were going to have sex tonight?”

“I figured there was a good chance.”

“When? When did you decide that? At what point in the evening.” I wasn’t angry, just curious. I’d had no idea this would happen.

“Technically, we haven’t actually slept together, since the euphemism refers to actual intercourse.”

I gave him the finger.

He laughed. “That cop from the station called me right before you did. He told me he was giving you my number, asked if that
was okay. To act surprised when you called.”

“The bastard called you first? Jesus, I’m not some lost little girl.”

“I guess he was concerned about lawsuits in case you did anything crazy to me. Anyway, he told me about you trying to give
the fifty grand to the kid and mother.” He stopped, took a deep breath. “Look, it’s not as if I was scheming or anything,
figuring how to get you into bed.”

“I know that.”

“It’s just that part of me remembered how attracted to you I had always been. I figured you must be pretty shaken by Tim’s
death to try a stunt like giving away all that money. So, I guess I thought maybe you might feel the need for intimacy. It
wasn’t as sleazy in my mind as it sounds when said aloud.”

I leaned over and kissed him. My sinuses were pretty closed, so I had to break frequently to breathe through my mouth. But
we managed okay. His penis began to harden, but never fully, then it softened again.

“What do you usually do when this happens?” I asked.

“Feign a heart attack.”

I pinched his nose closed. “You can tell me, I’m a doctor.”

“Dat’s not why I’m in bed wit you.”

“Think of it as a bonus.”

I released his nose and he pulled me back down on top of him. “Let’s just continue what we’re doing. If it happens, good.
If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.”

We kissed some more, rubbing our bodies against each other, but it was difficult to enjoy myself because I kept feeling that
semierect penis nudging me here and there. I held it, squeezed it, stroked it—nothing. It made me feel like a negligent parent,
ignoring the cries for help. Finally, I straddled Daryl’s knees and lowered my mouth onto his penis. I had to take a deep
breath because breathing through my stuffy nose was so difficult. Even semierect it was fairly large, so I concentrated on
the head. I cupped his balls in one hand and stroked his penis with the other as I bobbed up and down on it. Occasionally
I would stop to take a breath, but generally I kept the pace up and he seemed to be enjoying himself. Still, his penis did
not respond.

He reached out and grabbed my head, stopping my movement. “It’s not going to happen,” he said.

“You don’t have to have an erection to achieve orgasm,” I said.

“Thank you, Doctor, but I know my own body.”

I sat up, my hands still holding him by the balls and penis. I didn’t want to give up, though I wasn’t sure whether for Daryl’s
sake or my own. I’d already tried to help one family and ended up arrested. Now I was fulfilling Daryl’s med-school fantasy,
yet I wasn’t arousing him enough to complete it. I started this trip as a quest away from my failures, my failure to save
Tim, my mediocrity as a doctor. So far, my flight from failure was a failure.

“There must be something we can do,” I said. “We’re both trained in medicine, we know the human body. Is there something you
want me to wear? You have a garter belt or something lying around?”

He gave me a look. “No, I don’t have any women’s clothing hidden away.”

“I’m not judging, Daryl. I just want to help.”

“I don’t have any fetishes that I’m aware of. Except overbites. I like a little overbite.”

I stuck my upper teeth out. “How’s that?”

He laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“You want me to talk dirty?”

“You already do.” He shook his head. “It’s not that big of a deal, Season. Really. I’m happy with what we’re doing.”

I wasn’t ready to give up. I didn’t want to leave Chicago with two strikes against me already. “Have you tried papaverine?
One shot relaxes arterial muscles, allowing the blood to flow into and harden the penis.”

He scowled. “I’m not taking any fucking drugs.”

“You want me to watch you masturbate? Or do you want to watch me?”

“Of course I do. Yes to both. But not if you’re acting as my doctor trying to cure me. I’m okay with this. Like I said, it
only happens the first time I’m with someone. Come back tomorrow and you’ll think I’m wearing a cast on it.”