universal gesture for "save it." She left me there to wash, and I scrubbed at my face. God how I hated myself. Look in the mirror, you dumbshit.
I looked at my hand.
Half-dollar hole. At least.
There are no words to tell how I felt at that particular moment. I used up the rest of the gauze, quick and clumsy, found Nakota making instant coffee. She stopped to watch as I dressed, goose bumps and my cold legs stepping like a nervous dance, and then she was beside me, motioning my clothing away and down, unbuttoning with sure fingers her own baggy dress.
Warm skin beneath the comforter and the heating motions of her flesh, Hps against my throat, teeth tugging at the hair on my chest, nipping a line down my belly and then taking me, still half-soft, into her ovaled mouth. I rubbed with one tender fingertip the skin around her lips, my eyes closing in pleasure and dumb-animal relief, and held her head against me gently, gently till I came. In silence then I lay beside her as she used my left hand, my thumb, to come herself, then lay in that silence with me, her head almost on my shoulder.
Finally into my near-placid near sleep, her in-sectile voice: "Randy said you melted his sculpture."
I didn't answer.
"It's steel, Nicholas. Do you know what the melting point of steel is?"
Wearily, I knew what was coming: "No, Mrs. Science, but I bet you do."
"Three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Give or take a degree."
Well.
"He said you levitated again. With your arm in the Funhole."
I didn't speak. I had nothing to say. "Nicholas," urgent, sitting up, and I saw the cold wash stippling down her skin, she didn't notice, "there's something so big happening to you, why do you have to get fucked up to let it happen? I wish it was me," and that, of course, was the whole camp follower's crux. Which made everything she said suspect, not that it wasn't suspect enough, but then again at least she wasn't running screaming away from the freak I was becoming, at least she could still blow me for old time's sake or why ever the hell she did it. Not love. Probably wanted to suck off the hole in my hand but was too shy to ask.
"I'd know what to do with it."
Ah, God. And I had almost gone in headfirst to save her. I put my right hand deliberately on her face, squeezed with my painful fingertips her bony cat's chin.
"I.don't want any of this to be happening," I said.
"It's a little late for that."
"I want it," as deliberately, "to go away."
"The Funhole's not going anywhere," and the way she said it, the calm gloat of her gaze, gave me an intense urge to smash her face straight through to the back of her skull and horrified, I almost jumped out of bed, somehow feeling the way her skin would split, her caving nose and lips blown back by the force of my fist, my right fist. "Leave it alone," I said. My voice was shaking.
"You can—"
"I said leave it alone!" and without wanting or meaning to I had her by the hair, pulling her face close to mine like a caricature of a bully, "Leave it alone!" and I watched her face go careful and blank and I cried out, wrapped both arms around her and held her tight, tight, saying over and over into her hair, "I don't want to go crazy, I don't want to go crazy, Nakota. I don't."
"You're not," she said. "This is really happening."
Of course Randy had his own interpretation of the whole circus, none of which I was interested in hearing, but there he was at quitting time, tow truck idling as I counted out my drawer, his whole manner so eerily respectful that seeing him was worse than listening to Nakota's coldhearted rant. He stood, one arm on the counter, the other jingling his keys. Blink, blink, those pale gray eyes.
"Sorry I had to leave the other morning, man."
"No problem."
"I had to get to work, you know? Otherwise—"
"Randy, really, it's no problem." I lost my place and had to start counting again, out loud, keep your conversation to yourself. Patient, yeah, with my impatience, waiting me out.
"Hey
I looked at my hand.
Half-dollar hole. At least.
There are no words to tell how I felt at that particular moment. I used up the rest of the gauze, quick and clumsy, found Nakota making instant coffee. She stopped to watch as I dressed, goose bumps and my cold legs stepping like a nervous dance, and then she was beside me, motioning my clothing away and down, unbuttoning with sure fingers her own baggy dress.
Warm skin beneath the comforter and the heating motions of her flesh, Hps against my throat, teeth tugging at the hair on my chest, nipping a line down my belly and then taking me, still half-soft, into her ovaled mouth. I rubbed with one tender fingertip the skin around her lips, my eyes closing in pleasure and dumb-animal relief, and held her head against me gently, gently till I came. In silence then I lay beside her as she used my left hand, my thumb, to come herself, then lay in that silence with me, her head almost on my shoulder.
Finally into my near-placid near sleep, her in-sectile voice: "Randy said you melted his sculpture."
I didn't answer.
"It's steel, Nicholas. Do you know what the melting point of steel is?"
Wearily, I knew what was coming: "No, Mrs. Science, but I bet you do."
"Three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Give or take a degree."
Well.
"He said you levitated again. With your arm in the Funhole."
I didn't speak. I had nothing to say. "Nicholas," urgent, sitting up, and I saw the cold wash stippling down her skin, she didn't notice, "there's something so big happening to you, why do you have to get fucked up to let it happen? I wish it was me," and that, of course, was the whole camp follower's crux. Which made everything she said suspect, not that it wasn't suspect enough, but then again at least she wasn't running screaming away from the freak I was becoming, at least she could still blow me for old time's sake or why ever the hell she did it. Not love. Probably wanted to suck off the hole in my hand but was too shy to ask.
"I'd know what to do with it."
Ah, God. And I had almost gone in headfirst to save her. I put my right hand deliberately on her face, squeezed with my painful fingertips her bony cat's chin.
"I.don't want any of this to be happening," I said.
"It's a little late for that."
"I want it," as deliberately, "to go away."
"The Funhole's not going anywhere," and the way she said it, the calm gloat of her gaze, gave me an intense urge to smash her face straight through to the back of her skull and horrified, I almost jumped out of bed, somehow feeling the way her skin would split, her caving nose and lips blown back by the force of my fist, my right fist. "Leave it alone," I said. My voice was shaking.
"You can—"
"I said leave it alone!" and without wanting or meaning to I had her by the hair, pulling her face close to mine like a caricature of a bully, "Leave it alone!" and I watched her face go careful and blank and I cried out, wrapped both arms around her and held her tight, tight, saying over and over into her hair, "I don't want to go crazy, I don't want to go crazy, Nakota. I don't."
"You're not," she said. "This is really happening."
Of course Randy had his own interpretation of the whole circus, none of which I was interested in hearing, but there he was at quitting time, tow truck idling as I counted out my drawer, his whole manner so eerily respectful that seeing him was worse than listening to Nakota's coldhearted rant. He stood, one arm on the counter, the other jingling his keys. Blink, blink, those pale gray eyes.
"Sorry I had to leave the other morning, man."
"No problem."
"I had to get to work, you know? Otherwise—"
"Randy, really, it's no problem." I lost my place and had to start counting again, out loud, keep your conversation to yourself. Patient, yeah, with my impatience, waiting me out.
"Hey
Similar Books
The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire
Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus
