"I'd like that."
And he knew, then. Knew why he'd stopped for her, knew why he'd brought her here.
He leaned close as if to nuzzle her. His hands came up quickly, and found her throat with criminal ease.
"Oh, God!" she shouted there in the clearing, in the night, in the heat. "Oh, God!"
And he thought of jism and the pink lips of her pussy and of her dark moist pubic hair.
And he thought of her blood intermingled with his come.
And he pressed his hands tighter, tighter about her throat.
And the birds of this vast night watched, and a distant dog barked as if in protest, and from his pocket he took the knife he'd found in the tower, and he put it deep into her chest, brought it down, down, and as it ripped low he felt himself ejaculate, a blind moment of pleasure he'd never known before, and again he dreamed of his jism flowing with her blood, and he ripped all the more.
And then, as she fell in what seemed to be slow motion from his grasp, he thought:
Oh my God.
Oh. My. God.
What have I done?
And, my God, why?
Why have I done this?
And he thought of the tower and of the coiling snake inside him.
He stood as if naked on the very curve of the earth, here alone in frail starlight, and for the first time he knew there was some other reality, some more important one, than the homely truth of the every day.
She was not quite dead, still struggling and vomiting up blood, and he knew now there was time, and he took his sex in his hand and let the jism flow into the blood of her throat and chest, and he cried out to the stars like an animal betrayed.
And when he was finished, he ran. Through whipsaw undergrowth that ripped up his face and arms, running, running, the very breath of him hot and stale in his lungs, until he fell down next to a small creek where he washed from his hands and face the blood of her.
And then, helpless and unrelenting, he began to cry and knew then he was changed forever.
An hour and a half later he stood in the dust and darkness of the tower. He had not set a match to the candle tonight for he did not want to see the snake leave him. He had too many nightmares already of the snake.
And then, as if choking, he bent over and felt the cold slithering serpent begin to unwind in his belly and slide wriggling up his oesophagus and escape, hissing now, its tongue flicking, from his open mouth.
3
From the cafeteria door to the table where Marie Fane usually sat was twenty-eight steps. She knew this because she counted them every once in a while. Between the door and the table was an open space where anybody who was interested could get a clear look at her and her foot. Most of the kids in school always thought of her the same way, as 'the pretty girl who's crippled.'
They meant nothing malicious by this; it's just the way human beings remember each other, kind of like name tags-big noses or crossed eyes or skin discoloration. Most people didn't know what had caused her foot to be this way, to be angled so that she jerked a little bit every time she stepped down, only that it was a shame that a girl so fetching and quiet and dignified had to be crippled. They didn't know about the car running a kerb and smashing into her when she was five, about the four operations that came after, about the nightmares she had of kids watching her and pointing when she crossed the empty space between the doorway and the cafeteria table where she sat every day. She wasn't poor-she and her mother were reasonably well off actually-but her friends were mostly the poor kids in school. And the oddballs; oh, yes, the oddballs.
As always, she put her head down when she walked to the table. She hated it when people called her name or drew any attention to her at all. She just wanted to get to her seat and sit down and be forgotten about utterly. This was why she always carried a sack lunch that she packed every night before school. Standing in the cafeteria line just gave more people a chance to see that she was crippled.
"Hey! Beauty!"
She didn't have to wonder who it was: Tommy Powell, an obese kid who spent most of his time in comic book stores and who proved that being an outsider didn't necessarily make you sensitive to other people. Marie had asked Tommy many times not to call out to her this way but he did it anyway. Tommy had this terrible crush on her (it was probably just as painful for her as it was for him) and he could only seem to express it in the most obnoxious and childish ways.
"Hey! Beauty!" he called again.
Then he started-another typical Tommy move-singing the words to There She Is, Miss America, pushing out from the table and standing up in his Batman T-shirt, lime-green pants, and scuffed white Reeboks on which a variety of people had inscribed obscenities.
Lucy Carnes started tugging on his sleeve and whispering for him to sit down. Lucy knew how self conscious Marie got. Lucy had this big purple birthmark all over her left cheek so she knew all about the eyes of strangers.
The third person at the table was Richie Beck. He was a nice looking seventeen year old who had transferred this term from somewhere upstate. His appearance, his manners, and his general bearing said that he should have been with the popular kids but for some reason he'd elected to run with Tommy's group. Marie, who was interested in Rich but too shy to tell him so, suspected that he had a secret, something he was ashamed of, which was why he hung out with the group.
When she reached the table and set down her lunch sack, Tommy said, "You pack any Twinkies today?" He always tried to cadge her dessert.
She wanted to tell him how much he'd embarrassed her by singing that stupid Miss America song but Tommy was hopeless. Like a surprising number of kids who were socially ostracised, Tommy took his bitterness and loneliness and anger out on others.
"How're you doing?" Lucy said, smiling up at Marie and pulling her chair out for her.
"Oh, pretty good."
Lucy leaned in and said, "Sorry about Tommy."
Marie smiled, grateful for the friendship.
She sat down next to Lucy and looked closely at her friend. Lucy was beautiful. Not just pretty the way Marie was but truly and classically beautiful. With her long but perfectly formed nose, her striking blue eyes, her soft and friendly mouth, Lucy was just about ideal. Many times Marie found herself envying Lucy her looks, which only made it all the more curious when
Lucy told nervous little jokes about herself- 'blotch face' as she many times referred to herself. Lucy didn't seem to know how beautiful she was no matter how many times Marie told her-because of the birthmark, Lucy saw herself as a freak.
"Have to work tonight?" Lucy asked.
Marie nodded.
"I'd come over and visit you except that I have to work tonight, too." Lucy worked at a Baskin-Robbins. Many nights, she'd bring sandwiches and come over to the bookstore where Marie worked and they'd have a great time.
"Too bad," Marie said.
"Maybe next week."
Marie worked two nights a week and Saturdays at a bookstore next to the university. She liked the job but her mother worried about it. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the store was only four blocks from the university, it was located in a transitional neighbourhood, so that in addition to students and professors, you also got occasional derelicts and perverts.
"If you had any comics, I'd come over," Tommy said. "All you got there is novels."
Marie smiled at his intolerance. While most people weren't interested in middle aged men who jumped around in the somewhat goofy costumes of most comic book super heroes, Tommy saw the real squares as Marie's customers.
"Anyway, I've got some studying to do. I've got to get at least a B in trig to graduate," Tommy said.