(I)
“Yeah, I’m sorry but this was last-minute,” Paul’s voice relayed over the phone. “Jess and I have to grab a commuter flight to Boston in two hours. Big accreditation conference in the morning, and there’s no way out of it. We won’t be back till tomorrow after six.”
“That’s okay,” Cristina told him. “If you have to go, you have to go.”
“It’s this license-renewal stuff that we have to have because of a lot of our clients. But it’s only one night.”
Cristina winced to herself when the implication finally set. I’ll have to spend the night here by myself, she thought. But just as quickly Paul added, “Britt’s coming over, though, so you won’t be by yourself.”
“Oh, okay. That’s great,” she said in a repressed relief.
“And, remember, we’re still on for tomorrow night with Jess and Britt, but don’t worry about anything. We’ll pick the carryout up on our way back from the airport. But grab some plum wine at the store, okay? And a couple six-packs of this beer called Tsing Tao. It’s really good with Chinese food.”
She didn’t balk at his mention of alcohol. He only gets over the top when he’s drinking liquor. And, besides, it was a very busy day he’d be winding down from. “Sure, honey. Have a safe trip, and call me when you get in.” Then she half-joked, “And don’t be letting Jess drag you to any of those strip-joint places. Promise?”
Paul chuckled over the line. “Of course, I promise. What do I need to go to a strip joint for when I’ve got a hot number like you waiting for me?”
Cristina blushed at the crude flattery. “Good answer, so the minute you get home, I’ll give you a lap dance you’ll never forget,” she assured, and then they exchanged their “I love you”s and hung up.
Cristina gritted her teeth when she flexed her shoulders back. Every muscle in her body continued to ache. She popped two Advils just as the knocks sounded at the door.
“Hi!” Britt greeted at the threshold. “Your overnight guest has arrived, and—” Thunder rumbled overhead. A light drizzle had just accelerated to heavy rain.
“Come in!” Cristina urged and stepped back. “I hadn’t even noticed that a storm was coming.” When Britt rushed in, Cristina peered down the street and watched late afternoon grow darker in fast increments. She began to close the door but paused when she thought she noticed a curtain flutter in a sidelight window across the street. The church, she thought. Then her eyes darted right; wet footsteps slapped down the sidewalk as two unkempt women ran, giggling, to escape the rain. Cristina watched after them but they disappeared quickly amid the torrential sheets. I wonder if it was those girls I saw. She came off her heels an inch when a crack of lightning roared. Cristina slammed the door and locked it.
“You don’t hear that a whole lot,” Britt called. “Jeez, like a bomb going off.” She’d set down her small overnight bag, plus a grocery bag, and was already in the bathroom drying her hair off.
Cristina meandered back. “No, you don’t.” She stopped at the spacious kitchen counter, looking at the bag. “I just don’t like the idea of Paul and Jess flying somewhere when there’s bad weather.”
“Little sister, a flight from here to Boston is so fast the stewardesses barely have time to get the complimentary drinks out before they’re landing. And if there’s lightning, they’ll delay the flight a little while till it’s gone. Relax. They’re big boys.”
Cristina nodded to herself, peeking into the grocery bag.
“And we’ll have fun!” Britt continued. “We can watch movies and get smashed!”
“I’m still a little wobbly from all that booze the other night with Bruno.” Cristina pulled some things out of the bag, including a bottle of teriyaki marinade. “What did you bring?”
“Dinner. You ever have skate filets? There’s delicious with teriyaki, taste just like sea scallops. Plus some fresh soybeans. The Japanese say that skate is a big aphrodisiac.” Britt laughed. “Too bad the boys are away, huh?”
“Great,” Cristina said. “You’re cooking this stuff, right? I can’t cook.”
“Leave it to me. You stick with weirdo art, I’ll do the cooking. And I can’t wait till tomorrow night. That’ll be even more fun.”
Cristina guessed she was right. The thunder rumbling kept her off-track. Britt bounced back out, having changed into shorts and a tank top. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving so let’s give this to-die-for kitchen of yours a workout. You do the soybeans, I’ll do the skate, okay?”
“Sure,” Cristina said. She cumbersomely began popping the small beans out of their pods while Britt flopped two big triangles of pale fish into a bowl and added the marinade.
Skate, Cristina thought with some doubt. I didn’t even know people ate it.
Britt grabbed a large fry pan off the rack. “So how have you been since the big Mold Mystery was solved?”
“Fine,” Cristina said but winced again at the nagging aches in her arms and back. “But a contractor came out and said the mold wasn’t the toxic kind.”
“You’re kidding me?” Britt shrugged. “Forget about it. Whether it is or isn’t, let Paul get the basement pressure-washed anyway. It can’t hurt. Besides, I’d trust the doctor’s opinion over some punk contractor.”
Good point, Cristina surmised. “I just basically took it easy today.”
“Good. Rich doll designers have that luxury.” Now Britt prepared some cooking oil and spices. “And speaking of luxury, I’m off till Monday so how about getting me a drink? A rum and Coke would do quite nicely, and do me a favor and pour yourself one.”
“How is me drinking doing you a favor?”
“Then I won’t feel like a lush!”
Cristina smiled and walked around to the bar. “I’m not in the mood myself. Maybe later.” At the bar, though, she noticed the basement door opened a crack. I’m sure that was closed earlier, she thought but stalled. At least I think it was. She closed it and got Britt’s drink.
“What’s on your mind?” Britt asked after a sip of her drink. “You don’t seem yourself.”
Snap out of it! I always do this! I bring other people down with my moods! “No, no,” she half-lied and got right back to the soybeans. “I’m fine, and I’m really excited about the new line.”
“The first four figures are in stores when?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“That’s great. All the more reason to celebrate. Actually we’ll celebrate twice. Tonight and tomorrow night. I haven’t had Shun Lee carryout in ages. Tell Paul to be sure and get an order of the ostrich.”
“Ostrich?” Cristina exclaimed. “Skate, ostrich, cuttlefish—you’re really into some off-the-wall food.”
“Not just food,” she giggled but didn’t comment further.
As Cristina popped more soybeans out, she noticed that even her fingers were inexplicably sore. “I’ve had these outrageous muscle aches all day,” she said.
“Too much sex,” Britt laughed. “But I wish I had muscle aches for the same reason.”
Cristina frowned. “It could be, considering how much we’ve been doing lately. I feel like I’ve been digging ditches all day.”
“I love it! Sex equates to digging ditches!”
“That’s not what I meant. I just…ache.”
“Trust me. It’s from sex, and that’s a good thing.” Britt grinned wolfishly. “Come on. How often do you and Paul do it?”
A pang of embarrassment flared. “Two or three times a night, I guess. Sometimes more.”
Britt squealed.
“And I guess it’s more me than him,” Cristina admitted next. “I’m just…insatiable sometimes, and Paul’s always ready to accommodate me.”
“I’m so jealous, girl!” Britt had the pan heated up now, and was sliding in the skate. “Jess only gets that way on weekends so during the week I give him his treat at bedtime and just let him go to sleep. Then I let Mr. Rabbit out of his hutch.”
She’s something, Cristina thought and smiled.
The bizarre dinner turned out to be excellent, and over the course of the evening, Cristina did indeed begin to unwind. Paul called briefly to let her know they’d arrived safely at their hotel, after which Cristina felt awash with relief. At ten she fixed herself a drink while preparing Britt her fourth. They lolled on the wraparound couch watching old movies and found themselves mainly laughing at antiquated hair-and dress-styles.
Within an hour, Cristina was huddling close to Britt, as if for solace from the storm. Sheets and sheets of rain teemed against the house; that and the lightning flashes seemed hypnotic. All the while, the alcohol lulled her further. She nodded in and out, and at one point when she roused, she found Britt fast asleep beside her. The TV was still on but the sound turned down silent, the house still all around. The rain had stopped; lightning continued to flash in the windows but noiselessly now. We should go to bed now, Cristina thought groggily but before she could drag Britt or herself up, she fell fast asleep herself—
—only to be dropped right into the middle of her recurring dream and all its accoutrements…
Moisture trickles over the damp stone dappled by candlelight as she squirms in the clenching plea sure. She’s so familiar now with these cryptic surroundings that she feels at home in them while the warm hands and bodies incite her nerves. A haze sweeps across the scape of her vision, like looking through a veil, and she sees the other faces moving this way and that—faces that are smiling with the same lust that’s making her cringe on the warm stone floor. She feels blanketed by moving hands that explore every inch of her body. Two wet-lipped mouths descend through the dark haze to lick her neck, tongues circling in corkscrew shapes until they find their way to her nipples. Another mouth toys with her navel, then licks up and down her sweating belly, the wet tip inching ever so slowly down …
Now her lust is as much a haze as her vision. She knows that something else is occurring around her but the crush of sensations prevents her from concentrating. She’s seen all this before but now she senses she hasn’t seen it all. She tries to focus but then her attendants press down. The blanket of hands and mouths has now become a blanket of hot, squirming bodies, and the firelight changes into the furious illumined lines of black, green, and red shifting snakelike on the stone walls. She cranes her neck even as her phantom lovers take her, and she glimpses the stone slab beyond and the angled shadow that grows more resolute with her stare: the nun.
“Kanesae…,” the voice—a man’s voice—croaks, and that’s when she notices the man on the slab in heavy leather, boots, and chain mail. He’s quivering on the slab, a deep gash at the side of his throat. To his side sits the decanter you remember from before, and you sense that it’s full of blood but when you glance at the nun again, she shows you the fangs amid her grin and lowers the bowl she’s just filled. “Singele lui traieste,” she whispers, and then she grabs the man’s wrists and with little effort pulls him off the slab and begins to drag him up crude stone steps.
The colors churn. A dog barks. Her body goes tense and she releases one echoic shriek after the next as her climaxes break and her lovers titter and giggle and grin down at her, all showing needlelike fangs….
Cristina felt in a trance as cognizance returned. Her mouth pressed forward while smooth thighs vised her cheeks. What am I …Her thoughts began to trickle through. She felt fingers ranging through her hair. What am I doing? Another thought told her it must still be that nasty dream but eventually, as her lips continued in their task, she knew this was too real to be a dream.
I have no idea where I am or what I’m doing…
Her mouth inched back—
“Cristina!” a voice complained. The fingers in her hair urged her face back down. “You can’t just stop!”
But Cristina did stop. Only her confusion felt sharper than the sudden acknowledgment that something was wrong. She struggled back, rose up on her knees and looked down.
It was Britt who lay splayed and naked beneath her.
“Oh, my God! What—”
“What are you stopping for?” Britt snapped but then as she looked around herself, she appeared just as confused as Cristina. They were both naked, yes, and there could be no denying what they’d been doing. No dream. Reality. And they weren’t in the bedroom nor on the couch.
They were both on the brick floor of the basement.
Britt jumped up to her feet, covering herself. She was only partly visible in the feeble sunlight from the back windows. “Jesus Christ! How did we get down here? I thought we were in the bedroom!”
Cristina had no response. Her heart fluttered. “Let’s get out of here!” And she, too, jumped up. They both stampeded up the stairs.
Neither of them spoke as they clamored to pull on robes in the bedroom. Cristina looked appalled at the nightstand clock: it was 8:30 in the morning.
“All right,” Britt said after composing herself. “What just happened?”
Cristina sat on the bed, hands in her lap. She shook her head.
“What were we doing down there?” Britt asked. “I mean, besides getting it on?”
“I don’t remember going down there,” Cristina’s voice ground. “And I can’t imagine why we would anyway. And…I don’t remember…how the other stuff happened.”
“Well, I remember the ‘other stuff,’ Cristina.” Britt sat down next to her. She seemed more annoyed than bewildered now. “Let’s not hedge the issue. We were having sex, for God’s sake. And I don’t even remember who started it.”
Cristina gulped, memory struggling. “I guess…I did. And I’ve got no idea why.” She put her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Britt! I don’t know what to say…”
Britt fumbled for a cigarette, squinting. “Don’t worry about it, Cristina. I guess it was just one of those things that happen sometimes. I guess we were drunk but…” Britt kept shaking her head. “But we weren’t that drunk, were we? I had three or four drinks but, Christ, that’s not enough to make me black out.”
“I only had one,” Cristina added. “I don’t think we were drunk. And there was no reason for us to go into the basement.”
Britt paused through more thoughts, spewing smoke. “This is really fucked-up.”
Cristina looked at her. “And I had the dream again, with—you know—the lesbian stuff like I told you the other day. Maybe when I woke up…I thought it was still the dream, so I…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Britt sputtered to herself. “Let’s try to take this apart. You had a blackout the other day, and woke up in the basement. And what happens to night? We both have a blackout—”
“In the basement.”
“Right, so we don’t have to be Sherlock Fucking Holmes to see the common denominator, huh? The damn basement.” Britt stood up abruptly but winced. “Damn. My arms and legs ache, and—” She looked at her hands. They had some small scuffs and cuts on them. Then she pointed to her knees, which were scuffed as well. “What the hell?”
Cristina showed similar scrapes on her own hands and knees.
“Come on!” Britt ordered and stomped out of the room.
At the basement door Cristina stalled. “Britt, wait. Maybe we shouldn’t go down there. Maybe it is toxic mold.”
Britt wouldn’t hear of it. “The doctor says it’s toxic, the contractor says it isn’t—Jesus, Cristina. I don’t give a shit. I’ve been in the basement before and nothing happened to me. We’re not hallucinating now, are we?”
“No, but—” Cristina looked at the door. “I don’t want to go.”
Britt grabbed her hand. “It’s just a basement. Come on!”
Cristina followed her down.
“What are all these damn boxes?” Britt complained. She began shoving some out of the way.
“Stuff the church left,” Cristina peeped.
Britt strode to the back and opened the windows. “Whether we remember it or not, we came down here for a reason.” She began visually combing the aisles between the clutter. Cristina stood aside, rubbing her arms. She didn’t have a clue what to do.
Cristina came around to peer at that cement patch with the odd symbol imprinted in it but now the patch was webbed with cracks.
“It’s all broken up,” Britt said. “It wasn’t like that a few days ago.”
“I know. The contractor only mentioned one crack.”
Britt looked at her scuffed hands again. “It’s not too hard to put two and two together, little sister. We did this.”
“But with what? We don’t have any tools to break cement.”
Britt pushed two stacks of boxes apart. She pointed. “Oh, yeah?”
In the gap lay two small sledgehammers and some chisels.
Britt gave a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, I guess we must’ve been drunk last night.”
Cristina contemplated the remark but just couldn’t believe it. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Neither does us coming down here in the middle of a friggin’ thunderstorm to get it on, but we did anyway. Something must’ve prompted us to do this, and if we were drunk it was probably pretty stupid. Shit, we probably thought there was treasure buried under there or something.”
Cristina frowned. “Britt, I really don’t think we were that—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Britt began to think logically. “We did it for a reason but as we can both see, we didn’t finish the job. Maybe we’ll remember the reason if we do finish the job.”
“Britt, that’s absurd. You don’t mean—”
Britt grabbed Cristina’s hand again, urged her toward the steps. “Come on. We have to get dressed and go.”
“Go where?”
“To the nearest store that sells work gloves and shovels,” Britt told her.
(II)
What a sucker I am, George Gemser berated himself. I always fall for it, don’t I? He nearly collapsed when he withdrew and let Laura unwrap her coltish legs from around his back. She’ll start shitting on me all over again now. Guaranteed. From where Laura lay on the couch, she grinned up like a cat that had just fed, her pants off, her security blouse open.
“Now that’s how I like to end a twelve-hour shift,” she said, and she just lay there, not moving—deliberately, Gemser felt sure—just to let the image of her svelte body dig deeper into his brain.
“And that’s how I like to start them…” He got up and began to get dressed, feigning so much. Act like it’s no big deal, just another notch on the gun, he pleaded with himself, but he knew he was failing. For George Gemser, this girl was a big deal, even after all the smugness and cold shoulders, after all the hard-to-get cat-and-mouse games she liked to play—even after all the times she’d have sex with him one day and stand him up the next. He knew she lived on those head games, but Gemser also knew that he secretly lived for her. Every time he tried to break it off and retain some self-respect, she was right back in his face with that unfathomable body and Mona Lisa smile. Hauls my ashes and thinks she’s got me wrapped around her finger again. And she’s right, he thought.
Again, he pleaded with himself. Don’t be a wuss. Be a man. He strapped on his belt. “I gotta clock in and get on my rounds. See ya.”
“See ya?” she questioned and was on her feet in a blink. “Oh, so you’re gonna be Mr. Asshole now?”
He looked back at her. My God, I love you, you-you-you bitch. “Ain’t no big deal, right? Sport-fucking? You’re the one who wants it that way.”
She remained pants-less, blouse still open to reveal pert lemon-sized breasts and stomach as flat as the floor. “How do you know I don’t want it the other way?”
George’s resolve was bending. “Hey, I tried it the other way, remember, and got shit on.”
She traipsed over on the balls of her feet, to maximize the tone of her legs. She smacked a crude, wet kiss and pressed against him. “Forget about anything that happened in the past. Things change, you know? Maybe I have, too.”
George was wilting. He could melt in her arms right like this. The heat from her perfect body seeped right through his uniform to his heart. Then she broke away, and began to get dressed.
“You want to know something, Gemser?” she asked in a neutral voice. “And I don’t even care if you believe it.”
“What?”
“The only guy in the world I want to date, and the only guy in the world I want to fuck…is you.” She collected her things and shrugged. “Don’t believe me? Then there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess if you call me, then I’ll know it’s still on with us, and if you don’t…”
All that shining, long black hair billowed when she walked out the door of the old employees’ lounge.
Gemser stood there, shaking. She’s leading you on again! Don’t believe her! And DON’T run after her like a pussy!
Gemser blinked…and ran after her.
“Hey! I’ll call you!”
She paused at the glass front doors. Turned. Smiled. “That’ll make me very happy…”
Gemser gulped.
“Have a good shift,” she said, and pushed open the doors. “Oh, and see if you can find the keys to that door behind the boxes. It’s in my log. The blueprints say it’s an inactive boiler room but it’s not on the site map.”
“Uh—yeah, I will—”
Then she was gone.
Jesus, please us, he thought.
The smell of her hair and perfume was all over him as he made his first round of the building. It proved a maddening distraction. Gemser knew she’d set the hook again. Or maybe—maybe—she’s for real now …He punched his clock in every empty room, checked every window and every door, thinking about her every step of the way. He wouldn’t see her again for twelve more hours, and knowing this would make the shift seem twice as long. But after tomorrow they both had two days off in a row. Then we’ll be able to go on a real date—like regular people, he realized, suddenly giddy.
But he’d caught the entry on her log sheet, about the door not on the site map. A door no one had ever noticed, not even the developers who’d bought the place. They’d never noticed it in the lounge due to the boxes. Gemser went back in and looked at it. Steel frame, metal door face, but what looked like an older lock. An old disk tumbler, he recognized. Gemser knew locks; ten years in private security had taught him much. I’ll bet that lock’s been on there for forty years. And I’ll bet I could open it in forty seconds…Gemser reached in his pocket, fingered his set of HPC lock picks, then withdrew his hand. Better not. What do I care? It’s in the log. If the boss wants to see what’s behind it, he can get the keys from the property owner. Why risk getting in hot water when he didn’t have to?
Still, he thought he better check for an alternate entry. Gemser didn’t like assuming security responsibilities while not having access to every door. Could be paint back there, or faulty wiring. A firetrap. He made some notes about it in his own shift log, then made a foot patrol outside.
He cut through the side alley and walked down. The alley stood relatively clean—a surprise for this city. Several old garbage cans lined part of the building’s back wall. The old loading dock’s bay door was chained and locked shut, and when he checked it for tampering he found no signs. An exit door which they did have keys to remained secure as well. But there was nothing else.
At the end of the building, he thought he heard…
What the hell’s that?
He followed his ear, noticing the muffled yet distinct sound of metal clinking metal, but…
His ear led on, past the actual boundary of the Banana Republic building. Now he was standing behind the building next to it, like an old brownstone but without the same style. Mark Funari, their boss, had told them the place used to be an annex house for the church across the street, but now some people lived in it. The place obviously had a basement because as he walked farther he saw several street-level windows complete with decorative security bars. Now the clinking sound was louder. The owners must have some construction going on in the basement, that’s all, he realized. Then he left the alley.
Back inside, he returned to the employees’ lounge and kicked back on the couch. The Detex clock told him he had thirty more minutes before his next round, and in spite of his post-lovemaking excitement he found his eyelids drooping. Laura, he thought in a semi-dream, and the tighter he closed his eyes the more vividly he saw her: the sweep of shining black hair, the dark eyes aglitter, the seductive slopes of her body. The dream beckoned him deeper, and here they were again, naked and pressed together, ravening each other’s senses. “Suck these now,” she panted, sliding upward to let her breasts blare in his face. Her nipples felt like hot coins beneath Gemser’s tongue, which he was soon sucking in adoration. They swelled in his mouth. Then he licked her cleavage and could feel the hot blood vessels in each breast beating as the rest of her lissome body squirmed against him. Gemser’s eyes bulged in the crush of sensations.
Now it was her turn; her mouth trailed all the way down his chest and stomach, and when it drifted even lower, he groaned and turned his head aside. It was a daydream, yes, a fantasy—this he knew, so why would this ecstatic muse place him in such an odd location?
A dank room of stone bricks that looked like a dungeon.
Gemser didn’t care; it wasn’t real, it only felt real. Were those figures he spotted half-formed in the shadows? One of them a nun? He heard water trickling, and ticking as of a dog’s nails pacing the stone-block floor…
Laura’s mouth worked fervently, causing Gemser’s body to tense as the sensations continued to point and encroach his groin. He was about to—
“Not just yet,” she giggled and slid back up to him. “We’ve got forever.”
Gemser didn’t get it, and he didn’t understand why the muse heightened its weirdness by showing him the other end of the dripping room and an elevated stone slab.
Was there blood on the slab?
Gemser blinked. This is just a dream, but when he tried to open his eyes, he couldn’t. He could only continue to see behind them as Laura angled up with lust in her eyes and drool on her lips, and then her mouth opened wide to show glistening fangs, which tore into his throat and began to suck—
Holy shit! Gemser jerked himself back to full wakefulness, caught his breath, then laughed. I guess my subconscious doesn’t like Laura, he reckoned. The fantasy had taken its own course to merge her voluptuousness with a symbol of predation.
Get off your ass, he commanded himself and got up. With my luck, Funari would waltz in here and fire me for loafing. Still, the edges of the daydream nipped at him. He slung the Detex clock back over his shoulder but before he could exit the lounge he heard:
scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch
The sound came so faintly he couldn’t even be sure he’d heard it. Scratching or something. Very slowly, he looked to the other door.
Rats. I’ll bet that’s what it is. But before he put it on his log sheet he wanted to be absolutely sure. He slipped out his lock picks, isolated a “double-ball” as well as the tiny tension wrench. He got to work.
All he had to do was tease the pick along the top, then the bottom of the keyway while exerting the most minimal rightward pressure against the wrench, and—
click.
—the cylinder turned.
Gemser opened the door to almost be shoved backward by the stench of urine, garbage, and something he couldn’t really have known was decomposing human flesh. The scritching sound stopped; then he swore he heard someone say, “It’s the guard.”
Gemser got past the gagging and commanded in a stout voice, “Who’s in there? I’m calling the cops. This is private property.” Probably a bunch of bums living in there all this time and no one knew, he realized, sliding out his aluminum flashlight and stepping into the doorway.
A woman’s voice said the strangest word: “Salut…” And just as Gemser proceeded and before he could turn his flashlight on, many hands grabbed him and hauled him into the darkness. Then the door slammed shut.