The woman was lying on the bed. Her name was Melodic, he'd been told (though he doubted any woman who sold her body for this kind of purpose used the name they'd been brought with to God). There she lay, under a sheet, perfectly still, her eyes closed. There were a dozen white and yellow lilies on the pillow around her head; a nice funereal touch, courtesy of the man who arranged these scenarios for Garrison, Fred Platt. The smell of the flowers was not strong enough to compete with the other scent in the room however: that of disinfectant. Again, one of Plan's felicities, this piney scent; one which Garrison had been a little unsettled by at first, pressing his fantasies as it did still closer to grim reality. But Platt knew Garrison's psyche welclass="underline" that first time with the disinfectant stinging the sinuses had been an erotic revelation. Now the scent was an indispensable part of the fantasy.
He approached the bed, and stood at the end of it, looking down at the woman, studying her body for some sign of a shudder. But he could see only the very slightest tremor, which clearly the woman was doing her best to suppress. Good for her, he thought; she was a professional. He admired professionalism in all matters: in the trading of stocks, in the cooking of food, in the imitation of death. If it was worth doing, as Loretta was fond of saying, then it was worth doing properly.
He reached down and plucked at the sheet, sliding it out from beneath Melodie's hands, which were crossed on her breasts. She was naked beneath the sheet, her body made up with a pale pancake, then dusted down, to lend her a cadaverous hue.
"Lovely," he said, without a trace of irony.
She was indeed a pretty sight: her breasts small, her nipples alert with cold, and long. Her pubic hair was neatly trimmed, so as to offer him a glimpse of her intricately-made labia. He would lick there soon.
But first, the feet. He pulled the sheet off her completely, and let it drop to the floor. Then he went down on his knees at the end of the bed and applied his lips to the woman's flesh. She was cold: the consequence of lying on a bed of ice sealed in plastic. He kissed her toes, and then the soles of her feet, slipping his hands around her slim ankles while he did so. Now that he had his skin against hers he could feel the tremors deep in her tissue, but they weren't violent enough to distract him from the illusion. He could believe she was dead with very little difficulty. Dead and cold and unresisting.
I won't go on with the description; there's no need. For those of you who wish to picture Garrison Geary pleasuring himself with a woman playing dead, you have all the information you need to conjure it; go to it if you wish. For the rest of us, enough to know that this was his special pleasure, his most-anticipated bliss. I can't tell you why. I don't know what strange twist his psyche took that made this ritual so arousing to him: or who put it there. But there it was; and there I'll leave him, covering the pseudo-corpse with kisses in preparation for the so-called act of love.
For his part, Mitchell had decided to go back to the apartment to sleep. Rachel would come back there, tonight, he thought, and all would be forgiven. He'd hear a sound in the bedroom, and open his eyes to see her silhouette against the starry sky (he hated to sleep with the drapes closed; it made him dream smothering dreams), and she'd shed her clothes, and say she was sorry, so sorry, then slip into bed beside him. Perhaps they'd make love, but probably not. Probably she'd just put her head in the crook of his arm, and lay her hand on his chest, and they'd fall asleep that way, as they had when they'd first shared a bed.
But his romantic expectations were dashed. She didn't come home that night. He slept alone in the huge bed; at least he slept for the first hour or so, before waking with a stabbing ache in his lower abdomen, so sharp it made him want to cry like a baby. Cursing Garrison and his damnable Mr. Ko, he staggered, bent nearly double, into the bathroom, and dug through the medications there for something to soothe the pain. His sight was blurred with agony, and his hands shaking. It took him fully two or three minutes to locate the appropriate bottle of tablets and he'd no sooner fingered a couple of them onto his tongue than he felt a crippling spasm in his bowels, and only just reached the toilet in time before expelling a watery stream of foul-smelling feces. When the expulsion came to an end he stayed put, knowing the respite was only temporary. The ache in his belly had not been mellowed at all; he still felt as though his bowels were being pierced with needles.
He began to cry while he sat there, the tears coming haltingly at first, then as a flow he could not halt. He put his hands over his face, which was burning hot, sobbing behind his palms. It seemed he could not imagine misery profounder than the misery he felt now: abandoned, sick, confused. What had he done to deserve this? Nothing. He'd lived the best life he knew how to live. So why was he sitting here like a damned soul, smelling his own stench rising all around him, tormented by the predictions Garrison had whispered in his ear? And why didn't he know where his wife was tonight? Why wasn't she here to comfort him, waiting in the bed to hold him in her arms once the spasms had passed; her touch cool, her voice full of love? Why was he alone?
Oh Lord, why was he alone?
Across town. Garrison returned from the bedroom where he had lately shot his seed. The icy recipient of his love had been admirably inert throughout his plugging of her body; not once had she grunted or cried out, even when his ministrations had become less than gentlemanly. Sometimes, not satisfied with his vaginal explorations, he liked to roll the "corpses" over and take them anally.
Tonight had been one of those times, and once again Mr. Platt had planned for the eventuality. When Garrison had rolled the girl over and parted her fesses, he'd found the back passage already lubricated for him. In he'd gone, eschewing the protection that most would think advisable when screwing with this class of woman, and had discharged inside her.
Then he'd got up, wiped himself on the sheet, and zipping up his pants (which he had not even dropped to mid-thigh during this whole business), left the room. As he exited he said: "It's over. You can get up," and was curiously comforted to see that the woman made a move to rise from the bed before he departed the room. It was all just a game, wasn't it? There was no harm in it. Look, she was resurrected! Stretching, yawning, looking for her envelope of cash, which Garrison had placed on the bedside table, as always. She would go on her way without even knowing who her violator was (or so Garrison liked to imagine. The women were instructed to keep their eyes closed throughout the game. If they peeped, Platt could be cruel).
Garrison went straight down into the street, to his car, and drove away. Anyone catching sight of him in the driver's seat would have thought: there goes a man happy with his lot in life.
As I said earlier, it wouldn't last. He would get up tomorrow feeling thoroughly disgusted with himself; but the self-disgust would last twenty-four hours-forty-eight at most-and then the desire he'd quenched tonight would flicker into life again, and grow in strength over a period of a week or two, until at last he couldn't resist it any longer, and he'd be on the phone to Platt in a kind of trance, saying that he needed one of his "special nights," just as soon as possible. And the whole ritual would be repeated.