the walls, but there was no give there. Finally I forced my-24
self to sit down. I was shaking and wondering in spite of 25
the situation how much of the shakes came from whiskey.
26
Then I saw the door. It was down and unlocked, but the S 27
fit was snug and I had to push pretty hard to get out.
R 28
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When I crawled out of the cage, the shakes got even 2
worse. Cold and nauseous, I couldn’t rise from my knees.
3
It came to me that I had never known real fear before, 4
that I had lived a whole lifetime in complete safety. But 5
there was no solace in that knowledge. I rolled up into a 6
fetal ball and began to moan. Salty sweat trickled down 7
between my lips. The shuddering music of a mothlike 8
throbbing played along the nerves of my neck.
9
I don’t know how long I stayed like that. It may have 10
been an hour or more. But when the fear subsided, I ex-11
perienced a release so profound that even breath was an 12
ecstasy of incredible joy.
13
It was dark outside. The evening was cool and clear. I got 14
into my car and drove out to the beach past Bridgehampton 15
and parked. I walked for hours down along the shore. The 16
ocean played its music and the moon cast shadows through 17
the clouds. My feet were bare and the wet sand was cold, 18
but this was a good thing. I needed sensation in my body to 19
counteract the fear that had not left but simply subsided.
20
Many miles down from my car, I came to an empty 21
parking lot. It was 2:30 in the morning. There was a 22
phone booth in the lot. Information gave up Bethany’s 23
number, and she answered on the fourth ring.
24
“Hello?”
25
“Bethany?”
26
“Hi, Charles,” she said, suddenly awake and happy.
27 S
I told her about the lot and she knew where it was. She 28 R
didn’t ask how I got there or what I wanted.
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The Man in My Basement
“I’ll be right there,” she said.
1
I sat on the ground next to the phone and waited.
2
After nearly half an hour, a pair of headlights came 3
down the long path from the road. A fog had rolled in by 4
then. This softened the beams and tinged them with yel-5
low. I stood up and began waving at the same time, won-6
dering whether or not this late-night motorist was Bethany.
7
The car veered toward me and I felt a catch in my lungs, 8
fear that I was alone in the dark.
9
“Charles!” Bethany yelled out the window. “Charles!”
10
She applied the brakes, making the car squeal and slide 11
on the gravelly asphalt. It was right out of an old movie, 12
where the star-crossed lovers finally come together after 13
war and famine and other cruel twists of fate.
14
A short black dress with no hose, lips a deep red, and 15
every hair in place — that was Bethany.
16
“Baby,” she said. And then she took me in her arms.
17
“What’s wrong?”
18
“I don’t know,” I said and it wasn’t a lie. “I need to take 19
a bath.”
20
It only took ten minutes to get back to her place. She 21
kept asking what had happened, what was wrong, but I 22
said I couldn’t talk yet. My teeth were chattering and I 23
blamed the cold. She accepted my excuse. Maybe that 24
really was why I couldn’t talk.
25
“My roommate’s gone back to Baltimore for the week,”
26
she told me as she gave me a big towel.
S 27
I spent a long time under the shower. I washed com-R 28
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Walter Mosley
1
pletely, even brushed my teeth with a blue brush I found 2
on the sink.
3
When I came out, draped in the towel, I was ready to 4
talk but the time for talking was over for a while.
5
We kissed more than I had kissed in my whole life. Long 6
wet osculations with hungry little grunts punctuating our 7
pleasure. I kissed her breasts and her toes, the round crack 8
of her buttocks and spaces behind her thighs. I massaged 9
her shoulders while licking the back of her neck. When she 10
moved back to watch me, I kissed the blankets on her bed.
11
After we had made love, I held tight.
12
“Charles,” she said. “Hold me.”
13
The hugging went on into the morning. It led to many 14
more bouts of passion. I was making up for a starvation 15
diet, broken in a fit of fear.
16
The next day I asked Bethany to take me back to my car.
17
“When will I see you?” she asked.
18
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll call you when all of this is over.”
19
“All of what?”
20
“I don’t know what, okay? I don’t know.”
21
She drove me without asking anything else. At the car 22
she said, “Charles?” and hesitated. “Charles, I want to see 23
you again.”
24
“Me too,” I said.
25
I left her feeling no shred of the love we’d shared the 26
night before.
27 S
28 R
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1
2
3
4
13
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
After that night with Bethany, the days passed quickly.
C 14
I spent most of the time reading sci-fi novels, but I un-15
packed the rest of Bennet’s boxes too. There I found three 16
tin plates, each broken into different-size segments like a 17
TV-dinner tray, and a portable toilet unit that was to be 18
connected by rubber tubing to a canister designed to 19
empty the contents of the toilet. There was a box of books 20
and various elastic exercising devices. A cigar box held 21
three pens and two pencils with a dozen cream-colored 22
envelopes along with a small ream of blank sheets of 23
notepaper.
24
It seemed as if Anniston Bennet had everything he 25
needed to live in that hole for a very long time.
26
The books were all hardback. The Wealth of Nations, The S 27
Prince, the complete collection of Will and Ariel Durant’s R 28
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Story of Civilization. Maybe ninety books in all. About fif-2
teen of these were nonfiction (not including the Durants’
3
eleven volumes), and most of these were economic texts 4
and not titles that I knew. The fiction and poetry was of a 5
high quality, for the most part. I recognized The Alexan-6
dria Quartet by Durrell and The Adventures of Huckleberry 7
Finn. He had the collected works of the poet Philip Larkin 8
and Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. Moby Dick was there and 9
a book called Vineland. He also had the Bible and Koran.
10
He had one very large atlas that didn’t have any publica-11