The Reckoning (7 page)

He awoke, hips jacking furiously.

On his stomach, floating, in an infrared oven, all of his body weight settled in his furrowing, heat-seeking penis. A sharp pain in his distended bladder—

Royce rolled, whipped a sweat-soaked down comforter off him. His right leg, immobilized, was snug in a cool pocket.

Shit. Monica was face to face with him, thankfully still asleep. But she’d wrapped her muscular thighs around his leg in a groin clench. He rolled his left wrist. His new Seiko read 11:05, whether that was a.m. or p.m. he did not know for sure. The room was lighted with red bulbs, like a darkroom.

And that cloying heat. She must have had the waterbed heater turned up to max.

“No,” he moaned softly. What was happening to him lately? He vowed to get it all back under control.

Tenderly, he touched Monica’s left thigh to lift it. The skin was slick with some kind of oil, strangely cool, the limb heavy with rigid muscle. He freed the leg and Monica rolled, jumbo breasts shifting, onto her back. The bed roiled, but Monica did not stir, her right arm—showing a respectable bicep—crooked above her head. The woman was in shape. Must have aerobicized her ass off, he figured. He wished Les would start an exercise program.

He admired Monica’s piled-high mounds. And he wished Les…it was a nasty thought.

Sleeping Beauty. Please, don’t waken until I’m long gone.

He waited until the bed stopped sloshing before gingerly rolling over to his left. When his butt lifted off, the bed heaved again.

Damn waterbeds. They should be outlawed.

He checked on Monica again. The lady was one deep sleeper. Now to quickly locate his clothes. He found them strewn about on the carpeting around the bed. As he bent over for his underpants, his lower stomach collided with something that was trying to burrow into his belly button. Wincing, he took notice of the longest, fattest, hardest erection he’d experienced in years. The hard-on pulsated with sensitivity.

He thrust his left foot through the leg opening of the shorts, then his right, only to have the big toe of his right foot get caught up. Royce hopped twice and fell ass first, breaking the impact with his palms.

Christ almighty. Staying on the carpet, he shimmied the jockey shorts on. His peewee hinged up to lay along his lower stomach. The waistband snapped and he gasped. The raw glands poked ridiculously out of the elastic, expelled a droplet of ejaculate. Suddenly he had a fear of AIDS.

Back on his feet, he finished dressing, forgoing his necktie and stuffing it in his suit coat pocket. He rolled one wool knit argyle sock on but couldn’t find the other. Crawling, he peeked under the bed and searched the perimeter to no avail.
Fuck
. A gift from Les, last Christmas. Finally, he slipped his tasseled Florsheim loafers on, the right on a bare foot, and patted his right buttock. Good, wallet still there.

He would have gotten out of that dreadful room right then if he hadn’t had to pee so badly. He located a bathroom just off the sleeping chamber. More of those hellish red light bulbs around the vanity mirror. His face looked puffy, dissipated, like shit. The banjo countertop was jammed with cosmetics, body oils of various colors, plus several bottles of a perfume named “Poison.” The way the entire place reeked of the stuff, Monica must have gone through it by the gallon. Also, bizarrely, there were two tubes of silicone glue, one of them opened and squeezed.

Royce raised the toilet seat (he had not yet zipped up his pants) and pulled his shorts down. His erection horned out. He took hold of it with his right hand and tried unsuccessfully to bend it down so he could spray into the bowl.

Damn. He couldn’t do anything with it in its present state. The organ was intractable, willing to transport semen but not urine, which left him with the agonizing dilemma of not being able to relieve himself. He gritted his teeth, hitched his shorts up.

Then he saw them. Floating in the stool were two spent prophylactics that looked like translucent, entwining intestine. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a sick grin. Well, he thought, at least safe sex was practiced.

He zipped up and buckled, went back into the other room. Still fast sleep, Monica floated on the waterbed. Her oiled breasts defied gravity, maintaining their tempting shape without flattening across her chest.

One close look. That’s all he wanted. Then he would leave.

The freckles looked like cracklings in milk gravy. The skin glistened. A very faint marbling spider webbed from the dark, pencil eraser shaped nipples, networked down across her flat stomach to her pubic area, which had been shaved. Between the breasts were traces of a milky liquid.
His semen?

He leaned closer, the stench of her perfume flared his nostrils. Her nude, wine-colored labia gaped open puffy and moist. Christ, he could see all the way up inside her.

Okay, you’ve had your look. Now get the hell out.

One little touch, that’s all he wanted. Then he’d leave for sure.

The fingers of his outreaching right hand trembled as they drew nearer to Monica’s left breast. Royce held his breath and lightly pressed the fingertips against the firm hillock. The boob swelled under his touch. As it expanded, faint furrows showed through the skin. Just as he’d figured—implants.

But they were good implants, done by a maestro of mammaries, probably in Dallas or Beverly Hills, the boob job capitals of the world.

Then something with the feel of setting Jell-O enveloped his fingers to the first joint. Royce gasped and aborted a cry by clenching his teeth.

He withdrew the fingers (foamy flesh sucking at the retreating digits) and left the tit in a vandalized state.

Now look what you’ve done, asshole.

Suddenly Monica’s eyes opened like a doll’s, one blue, the other brown. She must have lost a contact lens.

“I…” he started to say, then he shuddered when his eyes locked with hers. Something he saw in her inanimate face. “Sorry.”

Royce frantically wogged down the hall, carefully parted the beaded curtain with his hands to silence it and passed through. His briefcase, gloves and overcoat were still on the love seat where he’d left them.

He managed the front door without any trouble, stepping out into snow-flecked darkness. The sweat on his face went to glaze. Shivering, he crunched through the snow to his car. Those red lights in there were a boon in helping his eyes adjust to the night. He immediately spotted a half-buried, yellow parking ticket under a frozen windshield wiper. His poor Cavalier was snowed under and shoehorned between two parked SUVs. Cursing, he cautiously stepped into the street.

Yeeeow! His right foot, the foot without the sock, had sunk ankle deep in the gutter. Stinging cold arced up his leg. Hobbling, he reached the Chevy’s driver’s side.

He reached into his right topcoat pocket.

Attention, Brain Central. That’s a flaming fucking negative on those car keys.

5

TGIF

The driver threw the red handle on the meter.

“Crappy night, eh?”

Royce hunkered forward from the back seat, yawned his wallet wide.

“Yeah,” he agreed, exhausted. The cab’s windshield wipers, even with the defroster going full blast, dragged noisily over pitted ice instead of glass.

“It’s nine ninety-five on the meter, sir.”

“Uh-huh,” Royce agreed, and jammed his right hand into an empty right pocket for the third time. All he had was a ten, and he’d known that for the last five agonizing minutes of watching the meter crank higher.

The cabby said, “I want you to be careful out there. That sidewalk looks slicker than hot snot.”

“Yeah, I sure will.” He pressed the bill into the driver’s palm. “Sorry. All I’ve got.” Royce was out the door and slip-sliding up the walk.

“Hope you fall and break your ass, you cheap fuck!”

“Yeah,” he had to agree.

By the time he reached the porch, “the story” was hard-wired into his brain. The porch light and a light in the living room were burning, so he assumed Leslie, it being nearly half-past midnight, would be in bed. Not having a key, he had no alternative but to punch the doorbell. Before he did, though, he yanked his right pant leg down to cover his sockless foot.

She answered the door almost immediately, which meant she was waiting up. Damn.

“Royce. Where have you been?” There was more worry than fury in her voice. Her eyes were red, puffy.

He entered his home, stomped his feet on the rug (tender with the right).

“Burr,” she said, closing the door behind him. She was wearing the heaviest-grade flannel nightgown that she owned.

“I had to take one of my clients to the airport,” he explained. “It was a zoo out there. His plane was delayed, so I didn’t know what else to do but stay with him. Then, when I finally got him off, my car wouldn’t start in the lot.” He gulped, out of breath.

“You didn’t call.”

He followed her into the kitchen, continuing his case presentation: “Well, I spent most of my time in that lot trying to get the car started. A good Samaritan tried to jump it for me, but something went wrong with the cables, and I think I did some damage to the electrical system.” He inhaled, heart hammering in his ears. “It—it was a real bitch, Les.”

His wife sat at the kitchen table. Good god, she had started to smoke again. Next to a brown-stained cocoa cup was a pack of Vantage. She caught the look of shock on his face.

“Les!” he exclaimed, so glad to have something to reprimand her for.

“No, not yet!” she cried, thrusting the cigs into his hands. “I trudged through the snow to Seven-Eleven when I couldn’t reach you. But it’s okay now. You can check. I didn’t open them.”

“Well, I’m glad about that.”

“I couldn’t find you. Your answering service didn’t know where you were. Finally, I called Brenda at home.”

“And?” He couldn’t mask the apprehension in his voice.

“And she said you went to meet a client.”

“Like I said. Everything that could go wrong did tonight.”

“If this family could afford to come out of the Dark Ages and get cellular service, this wouldn’t happen,” she said, pitching him a slight dig.

“I know. After Christmas, I promise.”

“We’ve got a serious problem, Royce.”

Here it came. The fan. The shit.

“Yes,” he said, not quite making it a question.

“Royce, we’ve got to make Craig come out of the closet.”

“Oh.” He took a seat.

“Were you aware Craig has been hiding out in his closet?”

“No. Well, sort of. I mean, last night I saw him in there.”

“You should have told me.”

He nodded. “I know. I thought it was just a thing he was going through.”

“His thing, or whatever it is, has gotten out of hand. The school called me this afternoon at the bank and said Craig never came in off the playground after lunch. I went crazy, Royce. I did.” Her eyes filmed. “I tried to call you but couldn’t get hold of you. I told the school I wanted the police called in, but Mr. Chalmers, the vice principal, urged me to wait and see if Craig had gone home. I called, got no answer, and drove home as fast as I could. That was a scary drive, Royce. With the snow, I almost cracked up a couple times.”

He patted her hand, realizing for the first time how much she really loved her son. He felt a tinge of jealousy, saying, “Yes, I know it must have been awful. I’m sorry. But is Craig safe? Where is he?”

Leslie nodded, crying now. “I got home, called for him. If I hadn’t taken the time to thoroughly search the house, I would have thought he’d been kidnapped, or that he was with you for some reason.”

“But you found him.”

“In the closet.”

He rose to her side, encircling her in a papa bear hug.

“My son was just sitting in there,” she sobbed. “Like some kind of frightened animal in a cage. At first I was really embarrassed, that maybe he was masturbating. He’s too young to masturbate, isn’t he?”

Royce shrugged. “I think so.”

“Anyway, he refused to come out while I was in the room. It was scary.”

“Yes, scary,” he agreed.

“Mr. Chalmers wants to meet with us Monday. They may have to run some tests on Craig. A child psychologist with the school district. They need our permission first.”

“If you think that’s best.”

“What do you think, Royce? That’s what I need to know.”

“Maybe you should call Tom.”

“Fuck Tom! He doesn’t give a shit. About Craig. About me!”

He hushed her. “Craig might hear.”

“I hope he does,” she spat. “He almost killed me today with fright. Yet it’s always Tom this, Tom that with that boy. I was the one who cleaned the shit out of his diapers, sat up with him when he had a fever of a hundred and three. Tom wasn’t anywhere around—out golfing, kissing some client’s ass or fucking some secretary with big tits.”

Shocked by this rare outburst from her, he told his wife to clam down, that it wouldn’t do any good to get upset.

She pushed her husband away. “You know what would really help me?” she snapped.

“What? Please tell me.”

“If for once you’d get upset. About something. Anything. I worry that you don’t really give a damn.”

He pumped the old sincerity glands. “Oh, but I do care, a lot. I do. It’s just not my style to lose my head. I learned that early on, when I was involved with sales. You lose your head, you lose the sale. That’s all.”

Leslie seemed satisfied with that, for now.

“Listen, Les, I agree with Mr. Chalmers. I think we should let them test Craig. And if Craig needs help, we, you and I, should do all we can to help him.”

They finally settled that part of it; they would both meet with Chalmers first thing Monday morning and find out about the testing. Shortly after 1:30, they made it to bed.

It was a night for snuggling, not sex, which suited Royce just fine. Configured in their customary spoon fashion, her flanneled keister was tucked into the groin of his pajamas.

At this moment his dink was a mere ghost of its former self, having retreated to about the size of a Vienna Sausage. He winced, then smiled as he recalled how he’d barged into that Italian restaurant, a raging hard-on under his coat, no sock on one foot, pleading for a phone. The place was closing, but the bartender took pity on him, said he was free to stay in the lounge until the taxi arrived, even poured him a Cognac with coffee chaser on the house.

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” the bartender told him.

Royce remembered saying something like, “Tell me about it,” and that he couldn’t stop shuddering, not from cold but from fear.

He now drew his wife closer to him. It was a nightmare, had to have been. Maybe some kind of hallucinogen in the tea. Monica’s weird inhuman face, her boob. It couldn’t be.

“Mr. R?”

“Yes?”

“What’s that smell?”

He pulled his right hand from her chest and sniffed his fingers. Jesus, he should have taken a shower and scrubbed the perfume off.

“Gotta give up that cheap aftershave,” he lied.

“Maybe you should ask Santa for something better.”

He laughed. “Good idea.” The smile instantly disappeared from his face as he wondered what Monica Pleshette was up to this evening.