The Haunter of the Threshold (6 page)

“I
love
it! Not only are you a somnophiliac, you’re also a macrogenitagliac! Arousal to large male sex organs.”

“Well, come on, every woman has that,” Sonia supposed.

“Not really. Some women—
micro
genitagliacs are turned on by guys with small penises. And then there’s endovulvism: men who’re attracted to girls with overly large vaginal folds.”

Sonia’s mouth hung open in disbelief.

“And I hate to tell you this,” Hazel kept pedantizing, “There’s also lactaphily—”

“Attraction to lactating women?”

Hazel nodded. “And—are you ready? Cyesolagnia: men turned on by
pregnant
women.”

“Oh, that’s good to know!”

Hazel leaned over, lowering her voice. “Can I ask a personal question?”

Sonia’s face scrinched. “I don’t know!” she laughed. “This conversation is getting pretty gritty!”

“Since you’re now a confirmed somnophiliac...do you ever jerk Frank off in his sleep?”

“I’m not telling!”

“Of course, you have,” Hazel felt sure. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. Everybody’s got some little sexual quirk. At least you’re not an
idrophrodiac.
”

“Hazel, I
don’t
want to know–”

“Someone who’s aroused by the smell of unwashed genitals.”

“Shut up! No more!” Sonia’s laughter pealed. “We’re
changing
the subject!”

It was too funny. “Since you
are
my boss, I guess I can go along with that.” She’d already turned off onto the Providence outer loop and was suddenly navigating the small car amid rows of weaving traffic. “Wait a minute! Which way to New Hampshire? I’ve never been there.”

“This exit here, get on I-95 north. It’s a shame you’ve never been to New Hampshire. The place is absolutely
beautiful.
”

Hazel caught the ramp. “It’s the
Granite
state, isn’t it? Granite doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Eighty-percent of the state is under forest cover, and wait’ll you see the lakes region, where we’re going. I’ve never been to the cabin, but I’ve driven through many times. You’ve never seen the Great Outdoors like this.”

“But...Laconia,” Hazel wondered. “Isn’t that a ritzy lakefront area full of rich snobs with multi-million-dollar yachts?”

“Yes, but we’re going west of there, to a place called”—Sonia pulled her Mapquest sheets out of her purse. “Bosset’s Way. Frank says it’s like Hooterville New England-style.”

“
Hooter
ville? Sounds like a guy-place: lots of women with big breasts.”

“No! Didn’t you ever watch
Petticoat Junction
when you were little?” Sonia rolled her eyes through a pause. “Oh, of course not. You’re too young.”

“I guess so.” Hazel put the car on cruise-control. Deep down she brimmed with an obscure expiation.
See, I’m not the only one with
sexual kinks. Even Sonia’s got one...

Or was this simply more rationalization?

It summoned every effort not to take side-glances at Sonia, who sat contentedly in the passenger seat, reading over school notes. Her sturdy legs crossed at the ankles, the heavy but firm bosom jiggling minutely atop the life-filled belly. Hazel’s lip trembled in the hijacking fantasy: they stood together, nude, caressing each other, their hands exploring every inch of the other’s body. Hazel dribbled baby oil into her hands, then adoringly glazed Sonia’s skin with it, gently kneading the swollen breasts, smoothing the oil over the even more swollen abdomen, then the arms, legs, and back, until Sonia shined like a beautiful human gem...

“Are you day-dreaming?” Sonia asked with some alarm. Hazel’s muse had distracted her to the extent that the tires crossed the shoulder’s outer line. She righted it at once, thinking,
Pay attention!
“Sorry. I’m just happy to—” she wanted to say how happy she was to be with Sonia, but that wouldn’t do. “I’m happy to be getting out of town. I still have papers to grade from our classics class, but it’ll just be so nice to do it in a log cabin in the middle of the woods instead of my dreary little apartment.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Sonia said. “It’s not a
log
cabin, though. It’s called a slant cabin. Frank showed me pictures; it looks pretty cool–very Henry David Thoreau, so English junkies like us will appreciate it more. And the water supply comes from a real underground spring.”

“Sounds pretty rustic.” Hazel’s ponderings lengthened. “There
is
electricity, isn’t there?”

“Oh, sure. It’s not
total
boondocks.”

“What compelled Frank to rent this particular cabin just for a mid-summer break?”

“Nothing,” Sonia said. “The cabin is owned by Professor Henry Wilmarth. I told you he and Frank were colleagues, right?”

Professor Henry...
Hazel’s eyes held on the road.

“Or I should say, the cabin
was
owned by him,” Sonia corrected.

“I remember talking to him a few times. The man who committed suicide a few days ago,” Hazel droned.

“Last Saturday night to be exact. I’m sure you’ve seen stuff about him on the news since last May.”

The man who walked out of ground-zero of the Mother’s Day
Storm.
“This is too much of a coincidence, Sonia. Just last night, when they said on the news his official cause of death was suicide, Ashton couldn’t believe it when I told him where we were going. We thought it was just a fluke that his place of death was in the same vicinity to where you and I were going.”

Sonia tossed her head. “I didn’t think it necessary to tell you
all
the details.” She errantly touched Hazel’s bare shoulder. “Then you might not have come along.”

The comment ambushed Hazel.
She was thinking of ME. She
really wanted ME to go with her...

“Wilmarth and Frank were working together on some side project for years,” Sonia said. “Originally Frank’s father was working on it too.”

“Frank’s father?”

“Yeah, he’d known Wilmarth long before Frank met him. But several years ago, Frank’s father got some disease and lost his sight.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“But, anyway, that’s why Frank invited us up. Wilmarth had a lot of papers stored at the cabin, so Frank’s collecting it all. The gross part is Wilmarth was pretty deliberate in his intentions. See, early last week he asked Frank to come up to work on some stuff, he told Frank to arrive on Sunday.”

“But you said Wilmarth killed himself Saturday,” Hazel remembered.

“Yeah. So it’s pretty clear Wilmarth orchestrated the invitation only to make sure that his body was discovered promptly. It was Frank who found it.”

Hazel ground her teeth. “Oh, that
is
gross.”

“Must’ve been quite a shock. Frank walked in there thinking he was going to see his old friend, but his old friend was dead.”

“Wait a minute,” the idea flashed in Hazel’s head. “So you’re telling me that Henry Wilmarth killed himself in the same cabin we’re going to be staying in?”

Sonia nodded with some reluctance. “I...guess I should’ve told you that too—”

Hazel was astonished. “Yeah, well, maybe that might’ve been nice!”

“But then you wouldn’t have come...”

Yes, I would’ve,
Hazel knew.

“You’re a teaching assistant at an Ivy League college, Hazel,” Sonia justified her neglect with information. She cast Hazel another beaming grin. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

“No! But at least tell me he didn’t off himself in the bed
I’ll
be sleeping in!”

Sonia laughed light-heartedly. “No. He hanged himself. In his den. If anyone needs to be concerned about ghosts, it’s Frank ‘cos the den’s where all Wilmarth’s papers are.”

Great. I’m staying in a cabin out in the boondocks where a guy
croaked!
Hazel liked surprises of a
sexual
nature but not surprises such as this. However, her irritation melted away when Sonia, next, patted Hazel’s knee, and assured, “We’re going to have a lot of fun, just you wait.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Hazel said.

“And Frank says there are some neat, out-of-the-way places to eat. Authentic regional cuisine.”

“Oh, granite burgers, right?”

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

“Actually, I pretty much eat anything,” Hazel said. “When I eat rock crabs or lobster, I even eat the guts.”

“Thanks for sharing that with me,” Sonia said and made a face.

“When I was in junior high, my father took me to Phoenix—he had some kind of minister’s convention—and I ate roasted iguana, and—yes—it tasted like chicken.”

“Yuck. Cold-blooded animals should be in a terrarium, not on the dinner table.”

Yeah, I eat anything, all right,
Hazel’s dirty thoughts kicked in.
And I’d sell my soul to eat YOU,
but then the cross about her neck seemed to heat up as if in outrage.
My soul?
She could’ve laughed.
Who am I kidding?
With the shit in my head, and all the sins I’ve
committed, my soul’s worth about a buck. In Monopoly money.

Exits for Framingham, Waltham, and Boston swooshed by on the overhead green road signs; even in this little time, they’d already penetrated Massachusetts. Suddenly Hazel felt a pang of despair. Time tended to fly when she was enjoying herself, and she feared this trip would be over before she knew it. It would be the most time she’d spent with Sonia in the two years she’d known her.
She MUST know I have feelings for her. I KNOW she does.
Hazel could only hope that circumstance—and perhaps a little attraction on Sonia’s part–might leave the older woman with her guard down.
Just one
night, just one hour...Please...

Her mind was running circles again; it always did when her obsessions encroached.
Find something to talk about!
She fished for small-talk ideas, then settled for, “You said Frank and Wilmarth were working on a side project?”

“Yes, for years, along with Frank’s dad.”

“What kind of project?”

“Just boring math shit. They’re all eggheads. In fact, a long time ago, Frank’s father was the dean of Princeton’s school for applied mathematics.”

“Wow. I guess Frank inherited dear ole dad’s smarts.”

Sonia giggled. “And his looks, too. One time I saw an old picture of his father and he was the spitting image of Errol Flynn.”

“Errol.... Oh, is he the guy with the mullet on
American Idol?
”

Sonia stared. “You really are a kid, Hazel. But I guess that’s my point: smarts
and
looks run in the family. It’s funny, the thing I’m most attracted to in Frank is his personality, but it also helps that he’s handsome as hell.”

Hazel kept her hands steady on the wheel. She knew she had to say something in response but she also knew how careful she must be.
She’d hate me if she ever found out...
“Personality? I don’t really know him that well but, yeah, sure, he’s got a good personality.”

Several moments of silence followed, which seemed strange, but when Hazel glanced over she noticed Sonia grinning at her some more, only the grin was widening to the point she feared her friend was about to burst out laughing.

“Sonia, why are you grinning at me?”

“Oh, nothing. I shouldn’t play with you like that.”

“
What?
”

“Oh for goodness sake, Hazel. Whenever you and I are talking and Frank’s name comes up, you act like you’re on pins and needles. It’s
okay.
”

Dread began to slide into Hazel’s spirit.

“I
know
about your little get-it-on session with Frank last summer,” Sonia added.

Now it felt like ice-water had flooded Hazel’s gut. She gulped, then suddenly had tears in her eyes. “You—you
do?
”

“Yes, honey, and don’t worry.” Another pat on the knee. “It’s okay.”

“I...I—Oh, Jesus, Sonia!”

Sonia laughed. “He told me about that the day after it happened.”