Bereavements by Richard Lortz

believed and believable, raging, outraged, “Leggo!”
    “Cookies!” the man said. “More like ass, a piece of fancy, high-talkin’ ass! Am I right? You foolin’ aroun’ your age? Got y’finger into somthin’ nice?”
    But all this with more pleasure than anger or even interest, desiring only to taunt the boy as much as Angel did him. “Lemme see! Lemme smell that fuckin’ finger t’see where it’s been!”
    And now he had the boy’s arm in his, so twisted and anchored in an eveloping armor of hardened muscle that to move at all was to break it, while, laughing, and Angel too, though with pretended, exaggerated pain, the man literally sniffed at, half-nuzzled Angel’s hand.
    “I can’t tell,” he concluded, wet mouth searching. “Chocolate sure as shit, maybe perfume! Gotta taste!” and to Angel’s swooning horror and joy, the man was licking and sucking on his fingers, a joke like no other in the world, for fingers would never do. The man’s wild, irresistible mouth suddenly covered the boy’s, moved quickly to neck, shoulders—the clothes shredded from his body.
    A wet smothered heat against each small nipple, a tongue’s width of spit sliding down to the navel, then the crotch where, spewing already, Angel felt himself disappear, exploding under the pressure of an immense cavernous seizure.

    Rose appeared, quite suddenly, and without a sound, all but tiptoeing.
    Mrs. Evans glanced up from her vanity and, seeing the girl’s white face, supposed she must have been helping Cook with the baking—bread no doubt, which is sometimes messy, dusting herself with an accident of flour. Then she perceived that the color, or lack of it, was natural, or rather unnatural.
    “What on earth is the matter?” And without waiting for an answer, “Do you like these earrings? Or are they too much—with the pearls. They are! Oh! I can’t seem to do anything right today!” Now what is it? You seem determined to irritate me. I ask a question and you don’t reply.”
    “The young . . . man has arrived. Mr. Carlson-Wade.”
    Mrs. Evans stood. “Oh?” She dusted her shoulders, put the last touch of a comb to her hair. “Has he?” She picked up a bottle of perfume, considered, replaced it without use. “And from the look of you, I thought it might be Count Dracula. Where did you put him?”
    “Put him?”
    “Yes. It’s a question. In a language known as English.”
    “I didn’t put him anywhere. I mean . . . he sat himself down. In the hall. On a bench. Next to the umbrella rack. So I left him there.”
    Mrs. Evans had taken a valium or two. Or maybe not. Rose couldn’t decide. The woman was such an actress, determined to play out her moods, that it was difficult to know whether chemistry or the theatre was the order of the day. Frequently, it was both, and probably was so now—quite as if the lights had darkened and the curtain gone up.
    The woman gave a half turn, glanced at herself in the vanity, and then looked gravely at the girl.
    “Rose.” A lovely censorial gesture. “Wasn’t that a strange thing to do?”
    Determined not to be upstaged, the maid placed herself between Mrs. Evans and the mirror.
    “What, ma’am?”
    “Next to the umbrella stand. In the hall!”
    Rose decided to make the most of her few lines.
    “May I remind madam —” (she never used the word) “—that the elevator is stuck. Again. The door won’t bulge. So I couldn’t take him upstairs. And I didn’t know whether you’d want him in the living room or not.”
    “Not want him! But of course I want him! In the living room. Go! Instantly!”
    “But—”
    “No buts! None!”
    It wasn’t a curtain, or a blackout, but certainly an exit-cue—for Rose.

    The canny, or perhaps uncanny, girl hadn’t been wrong: two Valiums, ten milligrams each, really too much for the occasion as they were soon embarrassingly to prove, the blue chemical already at work soothing “nerves,” bringing back to normal both rapid