He ran a hand through his hair. When he pulled it away, a sweaty, sawdusty paste covered his fingers. He wiped the hand on the back of his jeans and sighed. It had been 6:30 when he left for work that morning. Although he didn’t wear a watch, the half-set sun told him it was at least 8:00 now.
Two more days, he thought. Finish those walls by Thursday and take a three-day weekend.
He shook his head. The sorry fact was that even if he did finish the walls by Thursday, he’d have to work Friday and Saturday and maybe even Sunday. He was at least three weeks behind schedule. A month of rain and the ensuing mud had not been his friends.
He crossed the small side yard and shuffled up the steps to the porch. A bundle of mail jutted from the mailbox. He took the envelopes and circulars out but didn’t bother sorting through them. That would be a job for after his shower and two or three beers.
Inside, he flicked on the lights, dropped the keys and the mail on a side table, and got out of his muddy work boots. His feet stunk something awful. He lifted one closer to his face, took a big whiff, and shivered.
Shower first. Then beer.
He crossed the living room—only barely resisting the urge to drop his grungy self onto the couch—and called for Sel.
“Sel?” He made kissing sounds and called for the cat again. If she wasn’t waiting for him dog-like at the door, it usually meant she’d curled up somewhere for a nap. He tried one more time: “Here, kitty kitty.”
Very manly, he thought. You are the epitome of a manly man.
He chuckled and made a few more kissy noises. When she still didn’t come, he shrugged.
She’ll be waiting for you after your shower. And will probably appreciate the lack of that nostril-searing stench.
In the bathroom, he took the t-shirt off his shoulder, stripped out of his jeans, undies, and socks, and dropped the wad of dirty clothes in the hamper beside the toilet. He turned on the shower and stood naked before the mirror while the water warmed.
He’d cut his back on a protruding nail earlier in the day. The cut wasn’t bad, but he thought he probably ought to put some ointment on it anyway. No sense risking infection just to prove how tough he was and make up for the fact that he made kissing sounds at his cat. He stood with his back to the mirror, looking over his shoulder at the cut. Not bad at all. Just a nick. After the shower, he’d hunt down some anti-biotic cream. He looked into his reflected eyes. They shone out from amid the streaks of mud and sweaty sawdust. Blue. With a speckling of green. There had been women who referred to them as beautiful, mysterious, sexy, magical, and (his personal favorite) intoxicating.
Steam wafted out from behind the shower curtain. Bruce slid the plastic sheet aside and stepped in.
He stood beneath the spray, watching the grime sluice down his body and swirl toward the sucking drain, and thought (as he often did in the shower) of Eileen. The two of them had made a habit of showering together at night: him washing her back, her washing his, and then (more often than not) the washing leading to steamy bouts of lovemaking. Even now, he could still smell her shampooed hair, remember the taste of her just-soaped body, feel her wet legs around his waist and her pebbly nipples against his chest. Six month’s worth of dust there might be on her side of the vanity, but those shower memories were still fresh, vivid. By the time he’d washed away most of the day’s dirt and sweat, he was rock hard.
His erection jutted from his pubic thatch, throbbed. He wrapped his fingers around the shaft and gave it what it wanted. Gave himself what he wanted.
It didn’t take long.
When the convulsions came, thick wads of semen erupted from his penis. Some of the fluid splattered against the wall and oozed down to the edge of the tub. The rest dripped to the bathmat between his feet and stuck there despite the surrounding currents of water. He continued stroking for just a little bit longer, closed his eyes, braced himself against the wall, and waited for his shivering body to settle. The fuzzy current of pleasure electrified his mind, replaced his thoughts with an incoherent jumble. Things cleared (eventually), and he opened his eyes.
He used the side of his foot to slide the dollop of sperm from the bathmat to the drain. Then he reached down to pull the clinging streamers from between his toes. These bits he flicked in the drain’s general direction. The shower would wash it all down. Let the water do its job. When he had finished the clean-up, he stopped and listened for a moment.
Sucking. Was that sucking he heard?
He eyed the tub’s drain, thought the water seemed to swirl around it a little more quickly than usual, thought the sound of the water slipping into the plumbing below had intensified somehow, become a sucking, slurping sound. A strand of semen came unstuck from the tub’s floor and spun into the black, guzzling hole.
You’re insane, he thought. And of course that was true. Had to be. His aunt, upon catching him in the act in her guest bathroom during a family picnic one summer, had told him he’d go crazy if he touched himself too often. Maybe she’d been right.
He lathered his entire body with soapy layers of Irish Spring, rinsed off, repeated, and repeated again. Sawdust could be a bitch to get off. If he didn’t overshower, he’d be tossing and turning in bed all night, too hot and sweaty and gross feeling to get any kind of decent sleep.
He washed both his skin and his hair with the bar of soap. There’d been shampoo once upon a time, but he hadn’t bothered to replace the last empty. Shampoo had been Eileen’s thing. As far as he was concerned, Irish Spring did the job just fine.
Finished, clean, he shut off the water and stepped out of the shower amid a billowing cloud of steam. His reflection, obscure in the steam, shadowy, floated across the mirror over the sink when he moved. He grabbed a used towel from the hook beside the shower and used it to dry himself.
The antibiotic ointment he found in the medicine cabinet had expired, but he slathered a little bit on his cut anyway and slapped on a sports band-aid.
With the damp towel wrapped around his waist, he went in search of his cat again.
“Selly?”
He went into the bedroom and looked beneath the comforter, stepped into the little-used office and checked the desk’s kneehole. When he didn’t find Selina in either of her favorite spots, he called to her again.
No response.
In the utility room, he found her empty water bowl. He also smelled out the yellow puddle in the laundry basket and sighed. Selina wasn’t the finickiest of cats, but if she got upset about something, she’d pee on the first inappropriate thing she could find.
He dumped the soiled clothes back into the washer, threw in some detergent, and set the machine going. He took the laundry basket to the back patio for a later washing. It had gone full dark outside. He noticed lights on in some of the neighboring houses and held his towel shut in case one of them happened to glance out the window during an untimely gust of wind.
Inside, he refilled the cat’s water and checked her litter box. Dry. And empty.
Where is she?
He didn’t think he’d left a door or window open but guessed it was possible. He checked the house and found nothing but closed, locked exits. Could she have gotten out when he came home? He thought he would have seen her, but he’d been more than a little brain dead when he arrived, and she could be sneaky when she wanted. He stuck his head out the front door, still clutching the towel’s loose knot.
“Sel? Here, kitty kitty.”
He quieted for a minute and listened for her familiar meow.