Hemlock Grove (23 page)

“What’s wrong?” she said.

He lowered his head and did not meet her eyes. The candle flickered over the hard geometry of his face. She noticed the stain of red under the bandage on his cheek.

“Roman, what happened?”

He was staring blankly and his cheeks gleamed because he was crying.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, hey.” She went and sat next to him and took his hand.

“Hey.”

He did not raise his head.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” she said. “Maybe you should talk about it.”

He shut his eyes and bunched his face into a hard ugly fist. He relaxed it.

“Roman,” she said.

“I’m ugly,” he said.

“What?” she said.

“I’m ugly. I’m an ugly person.”

“Roman!” she said.

“I have an ugliness it’s impossible to love,” he said.

He withdrew his hand from hers and he put his face into his hands and he wept. The comforter fell away and his scapulae showed through the robe in sharp relief, racking up and down as though he was trying to fly.

*   *   *

Soon enough one thing led to another and Roman took one of Ashley’s hands and guided it through the bars of the bed frame, followed by the other. He pulled the sash free from the kimono he was still wearing and tied it around her wrists in an elaborate and apparently practiced knot. She said he was crazy, did he know that? He kissed along the hem of her panties, and in her mind she said,
Finally …
She said he ought to be locked up.

He pulled her panties off. Her heart hammered and her wrists jerked, but wherever he had learned that knot, it wasn’t for show—resistance only strengthened its hold. He knelt over her and the folds of the robe opened and his torso was like a tightly braided rope. He parted her legs and lowered his head. The headboard rattled. After a few minutes he pulled away and she caught her breath.

“Your turn,” she said.

He looked at her. There was something childish about the wetness on his face, and with his disheveled blond hair it gave him the momentary appearance of a Renaissance cherub.

“Your turn,” she said again.

He stood and stripped off his Jockey shorts. Her tongue thrilled at his hardness.

“Untie me,” she said.

Roman ignored her and took her ankles and flipped them purposefully, but because of her hands she could not turn all the way and ended up with her legs scissored unintuitively, and suddenly things were different. Ashley had heard girls tell stories of getting into situations and changing their minds as though this made them victims of what happened next, like that was how it worked, that you got so far and it switched off just like that and they were not themselves to blame for being little sluts and cock teases in the first place. But now she understood: it was not like that. Changing your mind was not the thing that happened at all, what changed was your body telling you what was right and what was wrong and before now she had never known the way things can just like that go all wrong. She worked at the knot but it held her tight.

“Roman,” she said.

A quality of thereness was missing from his face, his green eyes were windows to nothing. He was mercurial.

“Roman, please untie me,” she said. “I don’t like this, Roman.”

He braced her hip with a firm grip and slipped himself into her. She was very wet from her own arousal and his saliva and there was something uniquely horrible about the ease of this violation.

“Roman. Roman, hold on.” Maintaining the remote hope he was just getting carried away as boys would from time to time. But that was not what she saw in his eyes: something had gone away to she didn’t know where.

He thrust his hips hard and fast. She tried to twist her legs to force him out but he clamped a hand hard on her thigh.

“Roman,
stop
!”

The scariest part was, he could have at least looked like he wanted to do what he was doing.

Part of her broke off and felt unconnected with this hateful thing that was happening to her body but the headboard kept time with the violence, reminding her. She felt too terrified for speech but heard herself regardless, she heard herself crying and resisting and sounding exactly like the sort of hysterical female who would get herself hit or cut or whatever it would turn out a person capable of this was capable of. Be quiet, she communicated to her body. Whatever he needs for that, do not give it to him.

But her body did not cooperate. She heard it continue to fight him and beg him and reject that allowing this to happen until it was done was the best thing. It refused to accept this use of the flesh. And she resigned herself to the fact: her stupid body wasn’t wrong.

Roman stopped then. He leaned forward and brought his face close to hers. Whatever he was capable of, now it was coming. He looked into her eyes. His eyes were windows to nothing. And then there were no windows, there was only the nothing.

“Want it,” he said.

And then she found herself back in herself, in this room, in this bed, being fucked by Roman. His body clashed with hers like a wreck replaying on a loop: thin, hard veins ridged his neck and arms, the kimono fluttered wraith and ethereal behind him—and she wanted it more than having it could satisfy.

He looked into her eyes and told her to tell him he was ugly and she did. He made her repeat it again and again. It hurt him just the same every time. He looked into her eyes.

“Come,” he said.

She shrieked as this command swept through her most inviolate regions of self.

*   *   *

Roman collected his clothes from the dryer and returned to her room and worked the knot of the sash and untied her. He pulled her panties up her legs and then a pair of pajama pants. He lifted her arms and pulled a T-shirt over her head. He pulled her comforter to her chin and took her hand and held it. He looked into her eyes.

“I was never here,” he said. “Dream about something nice.”

You Are Not on Solid Ground

The air was damp and smelled like mud and the bright sun baked bloated worms into the walk, causing Roman to deliberately place his steps on his approach to the White Tower. He stopped and produced a small vial of coke from his blazer pocket, feeling on balance pretty good about the limitless opportunities of this new morning. On balance all this goddamn pussyfooting was against his genetic disposition, and if there was any lesson to be taken from his lineage it was that history’s great murderer of clarity was always other people. Jacob Godfrey once said that the one thing that others could be reliably depended to provide was gastrointestinal distress, and this had never been so poignant to Roman before now. But it was a Godfrey who had built this town, so it was only fitting that it would be a Godfrey to save it from itself. He didn’t need them. They could suck each other’s dicks. He didn’t need anyone. He did a bump into each nostril and wiped his nose. The sun glinted off the side of the Tower and he found himself fixating on it, the light pulling itself to the center of his mind’s eye as shadow found the fringes …

He shook his head. Not now.

“Goddamn pussyfooting,” he said. He resumed his steps.

“They can suck each other’s dicks,” he said.

He entered the building and the sterile air enveloped him and he strode with decision to Reception, where a slight man glanced up from the newspaper horoscopes.

“May I help you?” he said.

“I want to see Dr. Pryce,” said Roman.

“Is Dr. Pryce expecting us?” said the receptionist.

“No. But he’ll see me.”

“And may I inquire our business?”

Roman put his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “What’s your name?” he said.

The man made a God-give-me-strength face. “My name is—”

Roman cut him off. “I really don’t give a shit. My name is Roman Godfrey. And I’m here to see Dr. Pryce.”

The receptionist was quiet, then picked up the phone. So there you had it. How things got done around here.

Waiting, he paced the floor with restless coke legs. The overhead lights were jellyfish on the marble floor.

“Hey,” said the receptionist, flagging his attention. “What’s your sign?”

“Aries,” said Roman.

The man looked at the newspaper. “‘Senses will lie as dreams wake. You are not on solid ground. Don’t look down.’”

“Is that a haiku?” said Roman.

The man started counting syllables on his fingers as Dr. Pryce emerged from the elevator and came forward. Any perturbation he may have felt at the interruption or what the boy might be doing here independent of his mother, at whose side he was as good as surgically attached at the public functions where their interaction was almost entirely localized, was not evident.

“The big man,” said Pryce, shaking his hand. “Isn’t this a nice surprise? What brings you our way?”

Roman returned his smile. “Project Ouroboros,” he said.

Pryce pursed his lips, nonplussed. “Well, I can’t imagine you’d find it very interesting,” he said.

“Suppose I do,” said Roman.

They looked at each other. Several lab techs entered and passed through the mezzanine, glancing at this unusual impasse of lord and vassal. Finally Pryce shrugged and gestured for Roman to follow. He conducted Roman to the Herpetology Lab and repeated the same performance he had given Norman.

“Oh, wait, no,” said the lab tech. “There’s the decimal.”

Pryce made a conciliatory face for Roman. “Not a thrill a minute, I suppose, but I hope it’s what you need. If you want, we can drop by Prosthetics—there’s a robot arm you can make play Nintendo with your own motor cortex.”

Roman did not look at the lab tech. “Get out,” he said.

The lab tech looked at Pryce.

“Did you just try to touch my dick?” Roman said to the lab tech.

The lab tech was alarmed.

“I’m calling the CFO right now and telling him you tried to touch my dick,” said Roman.

Pryce gave the lab tech a nod and he exited.

Pryce was amiable. “Your dad was a real pistol too,” he said.

“Show me what I came for,” said Roman. “Project Ouroboros. The real one. It’s underground and I’d like you to take me to it.”

Pryce laughed. “If there’s some secret underground experiment, I’d sure like to see it too.”

“Do not fucking laugh at me,” said Roman.

Pryce stopped laughing. He gestured for Roman to have a seat. Roman did not. They looked at each other.

“Relax,” said Pryce.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, Johann?” said Roman. He had never called Dr. Pryce by his first name before. He loved today. Yesterday and every day before he had allowed that greasy faggot to call the shots, but now look who was the warrior.

Pryce took a pen from his shirt pocket and twiddled it between his fingers.

“Of course,” he said. “There is no presumption quite so infuriating as to be treated like the boy you were and not the man you’ve become. So. What can I do for you, young man?”

“I don’t think I need to be clearer,” said Roman.

“There is, however, a consequence to stepping into your father’s shoes,” said Pryce. “Or rather, a great number of them, compounding in interest until the day you die. It has been my experience—”

“Did I say, Talk to me like a little cunt?” said Roman. So down to business.

He looked Pryce in the eye. “Tell me—” said Roman.

Pryce clicked his pen three times in succession.
clickclickclick.
It cut Roman’s focus off at the knees. Three. Atonal, asymmetrical, amoral. Bad luck’s favorite number, its association with the divine the devil’s hat trick. Roman sputtered, trying to expel this emissary of the dark place.

Pryce waited.

Roman shook it off and recovered, looking Pryce in the eye with renewed intensity.

“Tell me—”

clickclickclick

Roman sputtered again and then was still and ominously quiet.

Pryce watched him with concern now. “Do you need a glass of water?” he said.

Roman blinked rapidly and glared, willing his anger into a penetrating focus.

“Tell me—”

clickclickclick

“GODDAMMIT!” Roman roared and seized the pen from Pryce’s hand and hurled it across the room. It bounced to no great effect off a cage, causing its inhabitant to languidly raise its head, find nothing going on of interest, and return to its meditation.

Roman fell into the chair previously offered him and wheeled it facing in the other direction from Pryce. His eyes had filled with useless water and the clicking echoed in his brain like the abyss in tap shoes.

Pryce stood over him and gently kneaded the boy’s neck.

“Inch by inch,” said Pryce.

Roman breathed and allowed the tension to release under the gentle hands behind him; he’d pissed away too much dignity to have any option left but submission.

“It has been my experience,” said Pryce, as though he had never been interrupted, “that being a man consists in large part of accepting how little of it is getting what you want when you want it.”

*   *   *

Outside, Roman headed back down the walk. His shoulders were clenched and his cheeks were as hot as though they’d been slapped, and so acute was his annoyance and embarrassment over this failure that he very nearly, without even thinking about it, stepped on a crack, catching his foot just at the last moment. He looked down appalled at this averted catastrophe.

“Fucking Peter!” he said. “Fucking goddamn Peter!”

On the next square of the walk an earthworm writhed speckled with little black ants, and Roman stomped on the entire squalid spectacle. He resumed his step.

clickclickclick

Roman whirled, eyes darting wildly, but no one was there.

“Breathe,” Roman said. “Breathe.”

He felt the ground under his feet. This was here. He took out his mint container and tapped out the rest of his coke on the back of his hand and sucked it with both nostrils, grinding his nose into it. This was really here. He wiped his nose with his sleeves and once more started walking.

clickclickclick

Roman froze. His blood went cold. Oh no. It had gotten in him. It had gotten in him and taken up a small chisel and
clickclickclick clickclickclick clickclickclick
it worked away at him. It worked away with purpose. It wanted something.