Poppy Z. Brite - 1992 - Lost Souls (18 page)

 
          
She
felt it thrusting through her dryness up into the unwilling heart of her womb,
and most of her did not want it there—but it was Steve, and he had always fit
inside her so damn well, and almost before she realized it she was coming.
Coming against her will, coming in pain and humiliation, but coming hard
nonetheless.

 
          
Steve
mistook the throes of her orgasm for struggles and thrust her arms back against
the mattress. His big hands were like vises around her wrists. Ann felt
delicate bones grinding together; in a moment she thought they might snap. She
threw her head to the side and sank her teeth into the ball of his thumb until
she tasted blood. Now he was pounding into her so hard that he didn’t seem to
notice the pain—but his grip loosened a little, and then he was shuddering to
his own violent orgasm, and the rape was over.

 
          
“There,”
he breathed, lifting his head to stare into her stricken face. “There.

 
          
See
how you like fucking your new boyfriend now.”

 
          
After
he had stormed out and roared away in his car, she wondered why she felt so
dirty.

 
          
That
had happened more than a month ago, and it was the last time she had seen
Steve.

 
          
She
knew he had tried to call a couple of times-or someone had called at 3:00 A.M.
and hung up when she answered—but she did not care, could not care. She made
Eliot her refuge, her sanctuary. He was
se
good to
her that she grew impatient with him, then completely sick of him. But she
could not let go. She was afraid of that empty space in her life. She was
afraid she might let Steve fill it again, and that would kill her shaky
serf-respect forever.

 
          
She
nestled deeper into her pillows and contemplated going back to sleep. These
days it was not unusual for her to sleep fourteen or fifteen hours at a
stretch. She was just drifting off again when the doorbell rang. She tried to
ignore it. The sound lingered in her ears, made her heart pound. “Go away,” she
whispered.

 
          
The
bell rang again. Ann swore, and as if in response it rang a third time. She
swung her legs over the side of the bed, fought off a
headrush
that made the room spin giddily around her, and went with great reluctance to
see who was at her door.

 
          
The
boards of the old wooden porch shined uneasily under Ghost’s feet. The
Bransby
house was a Victorian monstrosity gone to seed, its
paint peeling, its edges softening. He had not called before riding his bike
over here because he was afraid Ann might refuse to see him, but he knew by her
beat-up little car in the driveway that she was home. He also knew that her
father was gone, probably to an AA meeting or to the library over in Corinth,
the only places he ever went that anyone knew about. That was good. Ghost had
always been a little scared of Simon
Bransby
.

 
          
He
was trying to decide whether to leave or ring the bell again when he beard
steps inside the house -slow, dragging steps, in no hurry to reach the door.
Eventually Ghost heard Ann fumbling with the chain. Then the tumblers of the
lock slid back, and she stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, her
face half obscured in the gloom of the foyer.

 
          
At
first Ghost thought Ann had two black eyes. But as she blinked at him, he
realized it was only her makeup, smeared around her eyes as if she had slept in
it. In fact, though it was two in the afternoon, she looked as if she might
have just woken up.

 
          
Her
long autumn-colored hair was tangled. Her black dress was rumpled and hastily
buttoned.

 
          
For
a long moment Ann stared at Ghost, his rainbow-painted bicycle beside him on
the porch, the colored streamers tied to the brim of his old straw hat. She
looked as if she might burst out crying or slam the door in his face. But at
last she moved aside and said, “Come on in.”

 
          
Without
another word, she turned and walked back down the hall, away from him.

 
          
Ghost
shut the door behind him and followed. To the left was the dusty parlor, where
several weeks’ worth of newspapers were strewn about the floor and heavy
draperies were closed against the day. Ghost wondered who had drawn them-Simon?
Or had it been Ann, who used to keep the house sunny and clean?

 
          
To
the right was the half-open door of Simon’s laboratory. Ghost tried not to
look, but the dull gleam of sunlight on glass caught his eye-the test tubes,
the aquariums, the vials of weird fluid. He’d been in there a couple of times
with Steve, though Ann’s friends were not supposed to go in the room. The
contents of the aquariums were innocuous enough —toads and mice—but the
laboratory felt like a place of pain. And there was a big refrigerator with a
chain and padlock on it. Even Ann didn’t know what was in there.

 
          
Ann
reached the kitchen table and propped herself against it for a moment, then
collapsed into a chair. “Make some coffee, would you,” she said. Ann’s voice
was hoarser than usual, nearly toneless. She curled her bare toes around the
rung of her chair. Her red toenail polish was chipped and faded, as though she had
not redone it for weeks.

 
          
Ghost
found the coffee in the freezer and started making it. He used only his
grandmother’s old
Corningware
drip pot at home, and
he had already put water on to boil before he realized that the
Bransby
kitchen had an automatic coffee maker. It took him
several minutes to figure out where the coffee went and where to pour the cold
water in.

 
          
“You’re
not a part of the machine age, Ghost,” said Ann. She lit a Camel and narrowed
her eyes at him through the smoke. At last she asked, “Why did you come over?”

 
          
“I
just wanted to see how you were doing.”

 
          
“Oh?
And how am I doing?”

 
          
“You
look bad.”

 
          
Ann
gazed levelly at him. “Thanks. You look a little spooky yourself.”

 
          
“You
know that’s not what I mean.” Ghost pulled the coffeepot out from under the
drip-spout too soon. Hot coffee hissed against the burner, and he hurriedly put
the pot back.

 
          
“You’re
beautiful, Ann. But you look sad. Twitchy. You look like those kids you used to
make fun of at the Sacred Yew—black clothes, black eyes, dead white skin. What
are you doing?”

 
          
“I’m
in mourning,” she said. “I’m mourning the death of a relationship.” She got up
and pushed him away from the coffee maker, expertly slid the pot out, and
poured them each a cup.

 
          
Ghost
put lots of milk and sugar in his. Ann left hers black, which meant she was
doing some kind of penance. Ghost knew she hated black coffee.

 
          
“Steve
told me he hadn’t seen you for over a month,” he said. She flinched at the
name, but he made himself go on. “Things must not be too good with your new guy
if you’re still in mourning.” It was out: he had crossed over into territory
that was officially None of His Business.

 
          
“Look,
Ghost.” Ann swung around in her chair, faced him. “I worked last night, okay? I
was at that shitty restaurant until midnight. Then I drove out to Corinth to
see Eliot—more precisely, to fuck Eliot. We fucked until four in the morning
because that’s about all we can do together anymore. Then I had to drive back
here because Simon usually wakes up around six, and he gets crazy if I’m not
home. So I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours doing two things you don’t know
much about—working and fucking. I’m tired. Now lay off me.”

 
          
“Okay,”
Ghost said quietly. The attack on his areas of ignorance didn’t sting much, but
the reference to fucking Eliot did, because he knew it would drive Steve up the
wall. “I’ll leave if that’s what you want. I brought you something, though.” He
put a cassette on the table next to Ann’s coffee cup. The words LOST SOULS?
Were printed in multicolored crayon on the liner.

 
          
Ann
stared at the tape, then up at him. Her tough composure wavered. Her carefully
arranged expression began to crumble. “Oh, Ghost…” She picked up the tape and
pressed it to her lips. A couple of stray tears made crystal tracks through the
smudged black makeup. “I miss you.

 
          
I
even miss Steve. But I can’t go back.”

 
          
“I
know.” He knew some of what had happened between them, not all. Steve hadn’t
told him everything, but most of it got through anyway. And the rest—well, he
guessed he could see it now, in Ann’s deathly pale face, in her smudgy, haunted
eyes.

 
          
She
and Steve had always been stormy together. Steve had blithely dated his way
through high school, getting laid but never quite getting involved. His tastes
were diverse. The only girls he couldn’t stomach were the ones who seemed to
make themselves up according to some redneck template, with the bleached-blond
bubble hairdo, the feverish streak of blush across the cheeks, and the
eyeshadow
of colors never seen in nature. He had casual
girlfriends of all other types: hippies who liked to get stoned with him,
preppies who thought him wild and slightly dangerous, smart girls who
appreciated his compulsive reading habit.

 
          
But
Ann was the first one he had fallen for. In her way, Ann loved Steve as
fiercely as she loved her weird father, and Steve wanted her more than he had
wanted anything since he had learned to play the guitar. But one of the first
things that had drawn them to each other was also one of the first things to
start tearing them apart.

 
          
They
both pretended to be so tough and cynical that there was no room left to give
each other the gentleness they both really needed. Steve had always been like
that, and Ghost knew his way around it; there was an honesty between them that
surpassed any facade Steve could put up. But Ann wouldn’t play that game.

 
          
Ghost
took a sip of his coffee. It was cold and too sweet even for him. He drank more
of it anyway, because he didn’t want to ask the question that had come into his
head. But it wouldn’t go away; it had worried him ever since Steve had come
home that night, his shirt
untucked
and his eyes wild
and a bite mark on his hand. So finally he spoke again. “That was a shitty
thing Steve did to you. You could have called the cops on him—or told your
father. What stopped you?”

 
          
Ann
laughed. It was a humorless sound. “Right, Ghost. The cops. ‘Officer, my
boyfriend—the one I’ve been sleeping with for four years—he raped me.” She made
her voice deeper and spoke in an exaggerated redneck drawl. “‘Sure, little
lady, we understand. You been
givin
’ it away, and now
you want to take it back. Why don’t you come on down to the station and maybe
you can show us exactly what he did to you.” I don’t think they would have been
too sympathetic. And Simon—well ” The bitter smoke from her cigarette swirled
around her head, obscuring her eyes. “Simon would have killed him.”

 
          
Ghost
believed her. But she still hadn’t told him what he really wanted to know.

 
          
“How
come you did it, Ann? You loved Steve. Maybe you still do. How come you wanted
to go running to that guy over in Corinth?”

 
          
For
a moment Ann only looked at him with something flickering far back in her eyes,
and Ghost thought she might throw her cup at his head. But then she looked at her
burning cigarette as if she had just realized it was there in her hand, and she
sucked smoke deep into her lungs, coughed a little, and answered him. Her voice
was hoarser than usual. “I believe in whatever gets you through the night,” she
said. “Night is the hardest time to be alive. For me, anyway. It lasts so long,
and four A.M. knows all my secrets. And when I was lying in bed next to Steve
feeling like I was about to fly apart and he wouldn’t hold me because we’d been
arguing about some damn stupid thing—well, I went looking for something to get
me through the night a little bit better.”