The Keeper by Sarah Langan

them?) Or how shitty it must be to have nobody to take care of you when you get sick. How incredibly shitty it is to be set adrift at eighteen with no place to go. What an exquisitely rare and unforgivable thing had been done to her. A thing that could never be fixed, no matter how bad he felt right now. Well, maybe he was thinking about these things. Maybe just a little bit. He took another swig.
    “Shit,” he said. He buried his head in his hands. Nope. No better. Not feeling much better right now, thanks. She got up and pulled her dress over her head. It dropped to the floor, and he saw her naked body. She was so thin he caught his breath. Impossibly sharp bones jutted out against pale skin. The sight of her made him understand why he’d lost his faith in God.
    She touched his cheek very gently. She caressed him. It was a painful kind of touch. It reminded him of the first time he had been with her. That feeling of being swallowed. The pleasure of your own downfall, knowing that it would be hard to fall any further. She was just a kid even now. Twenty-three years old.
    She curled herself around him and he could feel her warmth, the beat of her pulse. She bent down and unbuckled his belt. He was horrified to discover that he was hard. In one of the mirrors, he could see the two of them. A lanky man with bloated cheeks and a naked woman who no longer looked like a woman. Maybe he did this to end that image. To change the story. To curl it into something of beauty. To affirm that he was still a man. Maybe he was just drunk. He kissed her cold lips. She returned that kiss. He did not like himself for thinking this but he knew it was true. It did not matter what they did. If what he was doing was wrong, it did not matter. He imagined that most of the men she brought here had thought the same thing.
    He carried her to the bed. She was as light as dry bones. He fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, and she took his hands away and moved them to the outsides of her thighs. It was a pantomime, he knew, of wanting him so badly that she could not wait for him to undress. It was just as false as his desire for her. Had they ever meant this for real?
    He pushed down his pants and leaned over her, shoes still on, and she pulled him down. There was a mirror over her head. Though he knew he would not like what he would see, he couldn’t help but look at it. He did not see his own reflection. He saw Susan’s face. It was gaunt. Black wires weaved their way down her neck, and blood trickled along the side of her face, and he knew that if he made love to this woman, something very bad would happen.
    He blinked and the image was gone. He saw only his own drunken face staring back at him. She pulled on him, placing him inside her in a way that made him feel disconnected from his own body. Violated, in some indefinable way. What they did after that could not have been characterized as making love. There was too little touching. She felt…cold. She felt dead.
    He didn’t think that he would come. He did not even try. He found himself wishing, even during the act, that it would be over. That it could be taken back. He pulled back but she stopped him. She stroked him. He waited. He held her thin arms, felt the bones of her legs, and it excited him, the frailty of her. He came looking into her wild eyes.
    When he finished, not even out of breath, he zipped his pants and stood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go. I’ll be back. I just have to go right now.”
    She didn’t answer. Her head was bent, and he couldn’t see her face. Crying probably, over what he had done to her. He fought the urge to leave. He wanted to leave very badly. It was a rush of adrenaline. It was what every instinct tells you to do when your life is in danger. A trait only the higher species possesses: not exactly fight or flight, just guilt.
    She raised her head and when she did, she was smiling. It was a happy smile. He had never seen her happy. It