Untitled (38 page)

  "Is everything alright?" his mother whispers from outside the closed bedroom door. "Is anybody hun – "

  "We're fine! Just go to bed!" he yells.

  The baby snorts, hiccups into an incredible wail. Nasal and distressed.

  "Listen, it's me who has to breastfeed her, me who's getting up every two hours to have my nipples lacerated and sucked on 'til they bleed while you just snore away. You haven't even got up once in the middle of the night to change her goddamn diaper even as a token fucking gesture of support, so don't you tell me what I should do with my breasts. There's nothing wrong with formula. I was raised on formula. You were raised on formula. Our whole generation was raised on formula, and we're fine. So just shut up about it. Just shut up. Because this isn't about you. This is me!"

  "If I could breastfeed, I would do it gladly!" he hisses. Flings the blankets back and stomps to the crib.

  And I laugh. I laugh because the sucker said the words out loud.

It is 3:27 A.M. The baby has woken up. Your breasts are heavy with milk, but you supplement her with formula. 5:15. You supplement her again, and your breasts are so full, so tight, that they lie like marble on your chest. They are ready.

  You change the baby's diapers and put her into the crib. In the low glow of the baby light, you can see her lips pursed around an imaginary nipple. She even sucks in her sleep. You sit on the bed, beside your partner, and unsnap the catches of the nursing bra. The pads are soaked, and, once the nipples are exposed, they spurt with sweet milk. The skin around your breasts are stretched tighter than a drum, so tight that all you need is one little slice for the skin to part. Like a pressured zipper, it tears, spreading across the surface of your chest, directed by your fingers, it tears in a complete circle around the entire breast. There is no blood.

  You lean slightly forward, and the breast falls gently into your cupped hands. The flesh is a deep red, and you wonder at its beauty, how flesh becomes food without you asking or even wanting it. You set the breast on your lap and slice your other breast. Two pulsing orbs still spurting breastmilk. You gently tug the blankets down from the softly clenched fingers of your partner's sleep, unbutton his pajamas and fold them back so his chest is exposed. You stroke the hairless skin then lift one breast, then the other, to lie on top of his flat penny nipples. The flesh of your breasts seeps into his skin, soft whisper of cells joining cells, your skin into his, tissue to tissue, the intimate melding before your eyes, your mouth an O of wonder and delight.

The unfamiliar weight of engorged breasts makes him stir, restless, a soft moan between parted lips. They are no longer spurting with milk, but they drip evenly, runnels down his sides. The cooling wet becomes uncomfortable, and his eyelids flutter. Open. He focuses on my face peering down and blinks rapidly.

  "What's wrong?" he asks, voice dry with sleep.

  "Nothing. Not a thing. How do you feel?"

  "Funny," he answers, perplexed. "My chest feels funny. I feel all achy. Maybe I'm coming down with something. My chest is wet! I'm bleeding!"

  "Shhhhh. You'll wake the baby," I caution. Gently press my forefinger over his lips.

  He was groggy with sleep, but he is wide-awake now. Sitting up. Looks down at his chest, his two engorged breasts. He looks at my face. Then back at his breasts.

  "Oh my god," he moans.

  "It's okay," I nurture him. "Don't worry. Everything is fine. Just do what comes naturally."

  A sudden look of shock slams into his face, and he reaches, panicked, with his hands to touch himself between his legs. When he feels himself intact, relief flits his eyes to be permanently replaced by bewilderment.

  I smile. Beam in the dim glow of light. Turn on to my side and sleep sweetly, soundly.

Pissing warily but with immense somatic relief in one of the illmaintained and rather frightening restrooms at Penn Station. And Corso Fairfield blissfully directs his golden urine into the commodious porcelain basin. Distilled from several cups of tedious Amtrak coffee. While trying not to eyeball the spectacle around him. Motivated not by antihomosexual anxiety. Certainly not a prejudice found in Corso's liberal soul. But rather a discretionary maneuver directed at the homeless men. Who throng the room, with its scatter of smudged wet paper towels across the tiled floor. Washing their feet in the sink. And other even less savory parts.

  Corso finishes his own noisy voiding. And replackets his penis. Certainly nothing special, and in no wise superior to the members of the surrounding indigents. But indisputably all his own. Yet regrettably not likely to be shared with any female. Since his wife Jenny left him. Running away with his exceptional car mechanic. Jack Spanner. A double loss. And hard to quantify the ratio of injury between bedroom and garage.

  But his lonely penis is now safe. Behind the sturdy zipper of his best pants. Donned this morning back home, several hundred miles northward. With a white shirt and camphor-smelling wool jacket suitable for meeting editors. And agents. And bosom pal Malachi Stiltjack. That rich bastard. And also an ensemble entitling one to enter fine restaurants. For expense-account meals. Moreover and finally, pride-enhancing when encountering with unfeigned glee any of one's public. Adoring public. Who should chance to recognize one from dustjacket photos. However unlikely. Granted his small and undemonstrative readership. Which, one must forever believe, is always just on the verge of growing exponentially.

  The problem of washing one's hands. When bums barricade the sinks. Corso hesitates, shifting his soft modern satchel from hand to socially unsanctioned postmicturating hand. When one of the mendicants departs. Leaving the taps running. So that one does not even have to touch them. Saving one from contact with numerous New York mutated germs too vile to mention.

  At the sink. Satchel secured between pincered knees. Pumping some opalescent soap the shade of cheap rosé wine into a palm. Lathering up. While one's elflock-bearded, multishirted neighbor to the right is balanced on one bare foot. The other unshod appendage embasined. Caked absolutely black with street grime. Causing Corso to flinch inwardly. But his initial reaction is mild. Compared to the emotions that flood him as the foot comes clean. For the foot is not human. By any stretch of even Corso's trained imagination.

  Putrid water runnels down the trap. Depriving the scrubbed foot, like a fish stick denuded of crust, of its concealing coating. Revealing something that looks like an ostrich's appendage. Hard yellow ringed bony digits. Terminating in claws. That could disembowel with a kick. And a spur above the ankle. Also potentially lethal.

  Falling back from the sink. Dripping soapy water on one's best pants. Knock-kneed as one strives valiantly to prevent the satchel from dropping to the contaminated floor. And now the bum with the avian foot taking umbrage. At such evident revulsion. So ungentlemanly expressed.

  "Hey dude what's your problem."

  Corso seeking suitable words for a polite response. But unable to link any placatory syllables together in his confusion. So as finally to mutter bluntly only, "Your foot."

  The bum regarding his elevated foot, sunk still below Corso's new line of sight in the fount. So recently laved of its dirt disguise. To reveal the underlying otherness. "Okay, so it ain't pretty. But Jesus you'd think I was some kinda alien, way you jumped."

  Which of course is the exact dilemma. Only it is no longer. A dilemma.

  For the homeless stranger has removed his foot from its bath. And now the instrument of Corso's disconcertment is revealed to be fully anthropomorphic. Scabbed, cracked, and horny-nailed, yes. But otherwise unremarkable.

  Corso recovers. As best as possible. "I am exceedingly sorry. Please accept this donation toward the future care and refreshment of your foot."

  Corso tenders a five-dollar bill. Retrieved from pants pocket. The retrieval having somewhat dried at least one hand. In a manner most unbecoming to his best pants. Which now exhibit a damp stain. Much too close to the groin.

  "Gee thanks pal."

  "Think nothing of it."

  Paper towels from the dispenser complete Corso's ablutions. Although some slight stickiness of soap remains. Not wholly rinsed in the confusion. He turns to depart. Cannot resist one last backward glance. And sees the bum redonning a tattered sock. Which piece of clothing features a hole strategically placed. To allow a spur to protrude.

  Corso shakes his head. He should have expected some visitation of this nature. For this is not the first time reality has played the deceitful trull with him.

  Then came the adolescent dream. Forgotten circumstances of its birth. Lost in the mists of his SF-besotted youth. But quickly becoming an omnipresent urge. To write what he loved. Despite no one inviting him to do so. In fact barring the gates. With shotguns cradled across the chests of the genre guardians. The hard years of apprenticeship. Hundreds of thousands of words. Laboriously composed. Read and rejected. By hard-hearted editors. Who emitted the mustard gas of their dreadful intelligence. To paraphrase Ginsberg. And proving Corso Fairfield could quote. From someone other than Asimov, Bradbury, or Clarke. The ABCs of the genre. Superseded by newer names, surely. Yet still talismanic to ignorant outsiders.

  Improvement by microdegrees. Understanding himself better. And what made a story. Tools honed. Finally his first sale. Ecstasy soon replaced by despair. At the realization of how hard this path was going to be. Yet not relenting. Further sales. To better markets. Then a book contract. For a novel titled
Cosmocopia.
Which allowed him to leave the day job. Managing an independent bookstore-cum-Bavarian-beercellar. Named with dire whimsy. CHAPTER AND WURST.

  And Jenny so supportive throughout. Married straight out of college. Ever faithful. Rejoicing in his eventual success. Even attending various conventions. Unlike most SF spouses. Who would all rather undergo tracheotomies with spoons. Than meet the odd-shaped and weirdly intelligent readers whose necessary and even lovable support underpinned the books. Not to mention encountering disgruntled and jaded peers. Deep in their cups. Looking up from below the liquor with the hapless expressions of drowning victims.

  And a future that seemed to stretch ahead fairly brightly, albeit labor intensively. Until Corso's recent blockage. Due to massive failure of suspension of authorial disbelief. In one's own conceptions. And vision. And even chosen medium. And the advance for the overdue project already long spent. On septic tank replacement, a trip to Bermuda, and a new transmission. Putting some of Corso's unearned future royalties for
The Black Hole Gun
directly into the pockets of the treacherous Jack Spanner. Who had been eagerly present to rescue Jenny when she jumped the
Federation Starship Corso Fairfield.
When it was beset by the mind-parasites of Dementia VII.

  The first hallucination occurred at the supermarket. A watermelon developed a face. A jolly face, but nonetheless unnerving. And began talking to Corso. Who failed to heed the import of the melon's speech. So fixated was he on the way that parallel rows of black seeds formed the teeth in the pulpy mouth. Doubtlessly the melon had had much to say. Words that might have given Corso some guidance. During future outbreaks.