This whole exchange had taken place in the awkward space between a low brick wall and a wooden fence that ran out to the street in front of the coffeehouse. As people made their way in and out of the door, Dawn had to keep herself as small as possible.
The whole time that Carmen had talked, Mr. Jay listened and nodded and spoke and before long she invited him back to her apartment. Mr. Jay said it was on their way anyway so why not.
As she sat under the stairs and waited for the grownups to finish their thing in the rooms above, Dawn remembered the first time she had recognized a change in Mr. Jay’s voice when he spoke to women. She rarely spoke to other people, so her knowledge of Mr. Jay’s voice was intimate. It was the third or fourth time that he had used this voice that she asked him about it. He smiled.
“You’ve got to give me something,” Mr. Jay said blushing. He picked at the ragged hem of his coat and twirled his dirty top hat. “I’m not much more than a beggar without it… And as much as I trust these women’s hearts-their eyes, well they are another matter.”
Dawn pressed the issue: “Is it a trick?”
Again Mr. Jay blessed her with his secret smile. “Not like a card trick or some sort of illusion that confuses the senses. It’s really just listening.” Her friend pondered the point for a little. “In fact, it’s mostly listening. You have to hear past the words to feel the emotion behind them.” Then he laughed. “And there might be more to the process. It’s hard to tell; but who would blame me if there were. I was too duty bound in my former life.” He squinted in a villainous way. “But, I’ve always had a thing for women.”
The forever girl drifted back to where she hid under the stairs like a troll. Carmen was nice to her during their walk to the apartment, but upon their arrival Mr. Jay had insisted that his friend, Mojo wait for them on the main floor-somewhere out of the way. He pointed with his walking stick. “My associate has had a terrible time learning a certain few card tricks. I must implore him to use the time practicing. We shan’t be long, Mojo.” He handed Dawn his pack, and the pair walked up the stairs to Carmen’s apartment. The building was very old, like it was built just after the Change. Stairs at the end of the hall leading down suggested that the building protruded through the Level they were on. It was an old structure so Dawn had no trouble finding a place to hide behind some trashcans under the stairs.
While she scooted around for comfort, Dawn wondered what was going on up there. She remembered Kevin’s magazine and felt like puking about what that crazy boy said. But she was curious just the same.
Mr. Jay’s descriptions of what actually took place were vague and misleading. “We had tea…” Was the one he tried at first, until he realized that Dawn could have tea too, so he added quickly, “And talked about things that grown ups have to talk about. Adult communication, Dawn.”
Dawn brooded on her backpack chair and picked at her sticky beard. Mr. Jay would soon come skipping and whistling his way down the stairs very soon, but she couldn’t shake the anxious thoughts just the same. She knew it was sex up there or something like it, but she couldn’t understand its attraction. Usually after these adult communications, Mr. Jay would call her out of hiding, and the pair of them would make their way back to wherever their hideout was. As she stewed, her mind turned to dark imaginings.
What if Mr. Jay stayed up there all night? Or worse, what if Mr. Jay fell in love with this Carmen. Real love, not just the love he felt for them all. Dawn knew that sex and love were sometimes talked about like they were the same thing, but she didn’t know what either was really. And as always it was while keeping these sad obsessive thoughts from her mind that she most had to fight the urge that inevitably sprang into being. I have to go get Mr. Jay! Make sure he’s okay!
Only once, not long after she had first taken up with Mr. Jay, had she found that urge impossible to resist. That time, she was hiding in a backyard garden shed while Mr. Jay was busy having adult communications in the house with a big breasted woman who had really liked their act. They entertained that night at an inn Mr. Jay described as something from Henry Fielding but with rain. An old gas station he said less imaginatively, later.
Dawn only knew that it was in one of the dirty little villages that had cropped up after the Change-at a crossroads in the wild lands far to the north and west of any of the bigger cities and the highways. But as Dawn hid herself in this garden shed she struggled with this fear and the urge. What if Mr. Jay was tired of her company? It was only two years since her mother disappeared and a year since she found Mr. Jay.
The fear became too much, and leaping from her hiding place she ran into the woman’s house-hot tears pouring over her round cheeks. Dawn felt terrible replaying that particular memory, but the shame always kept her dangerous urge at bay. She wasn’t embarrassed surprising Mr. Jay naked in bed on top of the yellow-haired woman-also naked-not then, and not now. It was what Mr. Jay said after that made her cheeks flush red.
He had followed her back out to the shed when she ran. A light rain gave the grass a shushing sound as his boots slipped through it. Orange light from a lamp jumped in front of him. At first she had thought she would be punished, but even then, she couldn’t imagine Mr. Jay punishing her. Instead of that, when he found her cowering on some tarps in the far corner of the shed, he had gently called her out. Dawn could remember the look on his face, he was sad not angry.
And he said: “I am sorry that things have to be the way they are, but they do. The open world is not safe for you, and yet I must live my life too. I will not deny it. Dawn, all I want you to do is trust me, have faith in me. I will never lie to you.”
And he never had, as far as she could tell. But the memory always calmed her down, made waiting more fruitful than fearful. Mr. Jay would return, he always did. Hugging that hope to her chest she started dozing. But a thought brought her back. Why did those men chase them?
15 – Night Creature
Sister Cawood climbed out of the taxi. The driver stared in the rearview as she threw one, then another leg out the door. His eyes flashed wide when her spandex miniskirt rolled up her thighs. Outside the cab she paused to wriggle it back into place. Feeling his eyes staring at her every action caused pleasurable impulses to ripple over her skin. She bent at the window to pay him. His face held a look of passionate disbelief and desire.
“What?” She threw money in his lap. “You never see a girl without her panties before.” Cawood didn’t wait for an answer. A succulent and abhorrent realization tugged at the corners of her mouth as she wondered what he would have thought had he known she was a nun.
Orgasmic tremors ran down her legs at the thought. To look at her that way, had he known-especially if he was Catholic. The notion sent a pulse of pleasure over her abdomen and up her spine. She turned from the cab, pulling the purple and pink miniskirt over her butt. In addition to this provocative gear she wore a lavender plastic jacket and white cotton tube top. She had bound her hair on top of her head with a pink scarf. Purple pumps and matching rubber hoop earrings completed the picture. From a small belt purse she pulled a compact and cosmetics clutch. She touched up the bright lipstick without catching her gaze in the mirror.
Mary, Mother of God we confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil.
The music pounded out of time to the rhythmic flicker of the neon sign. The sound, like all sound in the City came out distorted and strange as it bounced first off the buildings around and across from it, then as it returned from its echo off the solid Level above. Hissing car noises came from everywhere, echoing and reverberating among the City’s many facets. A light mist fell on a dark and noisome breeze. The pavement sparkled with the same pink as the neon sign across from her.