The Dark Descends (17 page)

Perhaps if she looked fight through him he would go away. It wasn't fair. It simply wasn't fair. After she had refrained from having that first martini until the sun had really and truly set, after she had unearthed a good place—dark and smoky and full of the kind of people who never spoke to each other—it wasn't fair that she should be accosted.

Damned hard work, looking through somebody. Particularly when he had the light behind him. She had to squint against the glare, and had the happy inspiration of screwing up her features in a grimace. There. That ought to send him a message.

He didn't seem to be getting it. He continued to stand there, propped up against the side of the booth like a caryatid. No, telamon—the male of the species. He looked like something of marble, come to think of it, his skin was so white against the blackness of his hair. Drugs? Illness? He was emaciated as well as pale.

"How's tricks, doll?"

Good God, had she heard correctly? Had he really and truly uttered that bit of obsolete patter?

"Go away," she said imperiously.

He slid onto the bench beside her. "Jesus, doll, the way you come on, anybody would think you'd never been picked up before."

An insult, clearly. "I've been picked up before." Cold. The tone was just right. Couldn't have been better. But then a hiccup ruined everything. Completely. Damn and blast.

"Relax. I'm not going to bite you." He swung his legs apart, ramming his knee against hers. A leer exposed teeth of disgusting yellowness. "Not yet."

"I don't know when I've last heard a remark so gallant." Cold and scornful, and this time there was no hiccup to mar the effect.

"You better believe it. I'm a walking Sir Galahad. Why, every time I see a lost, lonely chick soaking it up the way you're doing, I feel it's my duty to offer my services."

"I'm overwhelmed." Ironic. Too ironic, probably. But what would be the use of subtlety with the likes of him? "Just what do those services consist of?."

"Well, first off I listen to the story of your life. And then—"

"Don't tell me, let me guess. Then I listen to the story of yours."

"Not a chance!" He looked positively outraged. "What do you think I am? I don't tell the story of my life to broads!"

"Don't you? It's obvious you have your virtues, Sunshine." Joyce picked up her glass and drained it in one swallow. Back it went to the table with a smart click. "They wouldn't extend to buying a lady a drink, would they?"

"I've got a better idea." His hand descended, as straight and swift as the blade of a tomahawk, between the knees of her slacks, sliced its way up to her thighs. "How about you coming home with me?"

"
Your
coming home with me. It's a gerund."

"Oh, a clever chick. I'm crazy about clever chicks." His fingers began to knead her flesh as though it were something inanimate. Clay. Or putty.

"Cut it out!" She pressed her thighs together, stopping the movement of his hand.

He leaned over and bit her ear gently. "You're not being very cooperative, are you, doll?" A second tomahawk stroke, and both his hands were between her thighs. The fingers began to play with her crotch. Poking. Pinching.

Oh, God, it was awful to be touched where she didn't want to be touched. She felt she was being violated to her depths. The shame of it, the shame. Suddenly sober, she longed to tear at his hair, to scratch his eyes out, to throttle him. But she forced herself to fold her hands on the table. "Congratulations, Sunshine," she said quietly. "You win the test of strength. If I had a lollipop at hand I'd give it to you. Or should it be cotton candy?"

"Aw, shit!" He jerked his hands away from her. Heaving himself to his feet, he stomped toward the bar.

Joyce let her muscles go slack. But her legs refused to relax; the flesh of her thighs was still throbbing, as though the agitation of his hands had been transferred osmotically. Or was that a hallucination induced by all those martinis? How many had there been? She couldn't remember. She hadn't been counting, merely trying to unwind in a place that seemed congenial. Until he showed up. Well, she wouldn't set foot in here again in a hurry.

She slid to the edge of the bench and saw that he was on his way back to the booth, carrying a mug of beer in one hand and—wonder of wonders—a martini in the other.

He set the martini down in front of her. The mug went in front of the seat opposite, and he slid in behind it, his eyes sending her a full load of defiance. "I suppose you expect an apology."

"No, an apology is about the last thing I would expect." Joyce reached for the martini. "This is better than any apology. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Boy, you sure do lap it up, don't you?" He looked down at the table, and his forefinger began tracing the obscenity someone had carved into the wood. "I guess I was kind of crude."

"Well, to be candid, your technique could stand a bit of polishing."

"That's what they all say." His fingers continued to trace FUCK YOU over and over again; his gaunt, pallid face, the face of an El Greco grandee deprived of scissors and comb, looked intent, as though he found the activity all-absorbing. Then, pushing a loud sigh, he said, "It's a hard life."

"Am I expected to offer condolences?"

"Hell, no. All I want from you, doll, is one thing." He raised his forefinger and dropped it down on FUCK. Hard. "Are you coming home with me or not?"

"You know, with gallantry like yours—''

"Stuff the palaver. Yes or no?"

"What's home like?"

"A fleabag."

Joyce laughed. A tactical error. In a flash, she was on her feet, in the process of being towed to the door. She tried to resist by planting her feet firmly on the floor, but the floor was too slippery.

"Hey, Sunshine, slow down!"

"What for?"

What for indeed?

One glance at the attic roost at the top of four flights of winding, creaking stairs was sufficient to tell her that it had not been maligned. It was a tiny room, the walls painted red and plastered with large colored posters of naked glamour girls and naked rock musicians and a uniformed Mickey Mantle. Furniture consisted of a mattress, a few orange crates, and a hot plate. The only light was an un-shaded bulb suspended from the ceiling.

One glance was all Joyce got, for the instant the door was closed he went to work on her, peeling off her clothes adroitly and shoving her down on the mattress. Then he was on top of her, panting, already hard. He entered her without delay, pumped for a moment or two, and, while she was still waiting for something to happen, her thighs received a shower of semen. Disappointment swept over her. "Like a child's popgun," a voice in her head prompted. She had to bite her lip to keep from uttering it aloud.

He pushed up and off her, plopped down on the mattress on his belly, and gave a groan of exhaustion. "Not very responsive, are you?"

Responsive to what? Once again she had to bite her lip. "I guess I wasn't ready."

"Stuff it, doll. Who are you trying to kid?"

It was bitter. Probably he knew his limitations. Probably other women had taken pains to point them out to him. Poor guy.

"Listen, Sunshine, it didn't mean anything one way or the other. I simply wasn't—"

"Alibis, alibis." He slapped her crotch, gestured thumb down. "It would take a gang bang to turn you on, doll."

"You have a nerve! I must say you have a hell of a—"

"Aw, stuff it, will you? What's to argue? Frigid is frigid."

"You couldn't be more wrong."

"A man's never wrong about a thing like that." He rolled over on his side, turning his back on her. "Switch off the light when you go, will you?"

"Does that mean I'm dismissed?"

He yawned noisily. "Well, doll, the floor show's over. There isn't anything else to hang around for, is there?"

"I suppose not." Propping herself up on her elbow, she examined his back. It looked skeletal, with the vertebrae poking through the pale skin. "You wouldn't care to try again, would you? A little more slowly this time?"

"I'm tired, doll." He yawned again, with even more noise.

She ran her index finger down over his backbone. Up. Left branch. Right branch. Left. Right. A child's drawing of a tree.

"Hey, cut it out. I'm ticklish." But his flesh didn't shrink from her touch, the way ticklish flesh does. It was contented flesh. Very contented. Pretty soon he purred.

He mounted her again, and again he was ready immediately. This time, though, he delayed to caress her—hasty, perfunctory movements of his hands over her breasts, stomach, flanks, genitals. This time he entered her slowly and remained on the job until she came, too. But when he pulled out, once more she felt disappointment at the little pop-pop and the wetness trickling down her legs.

He rolled off her, panting and groaning as though he had just fought through a blizzard. For a long time she lay still, staring at the light. Her flesh tingled, its hunger un-allayed. Then she looked at him, through glare-blinded eyes only gradually recovering the ability to see. All at once they saw clearly. Much too clearly. Saw the long hair stringy with grease, the blackness embedded in the scaly flesh of his elbows and heels. Deep within her, revulsion began. Now her olfactory organs were awakening. She could smell the rank staleness of the air. Rank? It was worse than rank, it was—

She scrambled to her feet and began extricating her clothes from the heap on the floor. Slacks. Sweater. Jacket. She didn't take time to put on underwear, merely crumpled it into the pocket of her jacket. To be burned later. Everything would be burned. Including shoes, so it didn't matter that she was breaking the backs in her hurry to get into them.

She fled from the room, letting the door slam behind her.

"Hey, doll, you forgot the light!"

The shout caught her at the third-floor landing, brought her to a halt. She cowered against the railing, offering up a silent prayer: Please, God, don't let anybody open a door and see me. Please, God. Please, please, please.

God listened. No door opened. Afraid to push her luck, Joyce crept down the creaking stairs on tiptoe. No sooner was she out of the building than a wave of nausea swept over her. She could feel again his hands moving over her body. Those mechanical caresses. Those hands. Hands without identity, without personality. Dirty hands, probably. Were they dirty hands?

And now the flesh between her legs began to contract, as though something were crawling over it. There was a trash basket on the comer. She sprinted over to it, gripped the sides with both hands, bent over, and vomited—vomited until there was nothing left inside her to cast up.

As she lifted her head, she spotted two men in lumber jackets standing under the street lamp a few yards away, watching her with fervid, fascinated eyes. Observed, they affected an air of nonchalance and sauntered off without a backward glance.

Weeping silently, Joyce dragged herself home.

...

Odd how the image of the tall crystal pitcher haunted her mind's eye as she made her rounds. Employment agency after employment agency. Personnel department after personnel department. "A bad time for job-hunting," she was told everywhere. "People hang on for the Christmas bonus. Try again after New Year's." Each day she gave up a little sooner, found herself a little earlier at the cupboard shelf where the pitcher stood behind a stack of soup bowls, hidden from view. She always remembered to tuck it away the last thing at night, no matter what shape she was in. Hadn't missed yet. She was bound to forget one of these nights, though. That would be a point of no return. An awe-inspiring phrase, but she was learning to take points of no return in stride. Nonetheless, the drama of approaching them still got her. Like the day she telephoned the liquor store to order the case of gin, all for herself alone. It had taken ages to nerve herself up to dial, but once she got on the wire nothing could have been easier. And why not? She was ordering medicine, wasn't she? Medicine to help her sleep. It really worked, too. She slept like a log.

One night she dreamed she was running along a corridor. It was a long corridor, and the door at the end of it was only a speck in the distance. She was running because there was something behind her, crowding her, spurring her on. She felt annoyed at the something for crowding her, annoyed at herself for letting herself be crowded. But what the hell, the pressure wasn't all that great. She was running at a canter, not a gallop. There was no danger, no urgency. Why worry?

The bright blue walls of the corridor were lined with doors, and they were all open on rooms full of people. The faces she passed looked familiar, each and every one of them, and yet she couldn't place them, couldn't make a single identification. Peculiar. Very peculiar. She was usually death on faces.

But perhaps it was the pace that prevented her from getting a really good look at any of them. Her speed seemed to have accelerated in the last few minutes. Or was that imagination? No, it wasn't, because her breath was coming in gasps and she was beginning to get a stitch in her side. A real cause for complaint, being compelled to maintain a pace like this. She turned her head, prepared to give an argument to whatever it was that was crowding her, and saw, without surprise, that there was nothing at all behind her. She was running for no reason at all. So why not stop? Easier said than done. She couldn't stop.

It was awful. Awful. She was running so fast that all the faces she passed were blurring before her eyes. Everybody she had ever known, reduced to a blur. Everybody. But suppose she decided not to accept that? Suppose she veered and ran through that door on the right? No, it was shutting in her face. On the left? That door was shutting, too. All the doors were shutting now. She had no choice but to run straight on, toward the door at the end of the corridor. That door was shut, too. It was nothing but a white rectangle against the blue of the walls, looming larger and larger as she came closer and closer. Now she could see the diagonal scar cutting across the whiteness. In a minute she would crash if she didn't stop. Stop. Stop. She couldn't stop, she was going to crash. But now the door was opening, and she ran on through into—