IN THIS SKIN BY SIMON CLARK i The Critics Rave about Simon Clark! ”I'm going to seek out and read everything Clark writes. He's a true talent.” -Bentley Little, Hellnotes ”Not since I discovered Clive Barker have I enjoyed horror so much.” -Nightfall ”A master of eerie thrills.” -Richard Laymon, author of Body Rides ”Clark has the ability to keep the reader looking over his shoulder to make sure that sudden noise is just the summer night breeze rattling the window.” - CNN.com ”Simon Clark is one of the most exciting British horror writers around.” -SFX ”Clark may be the single most important writer to emerge on the British horror scene in the '90s.” -The Dark Side \ ”Watch this man climb to Horror Heaven!” -Deathrealm ii SIMON CLARK Simon Clark is the author of such highly regarded horror novels as Blood Crazy, Darker, Vampyrrhic and The Fall, while his short stories have been collected in Blood & Grit and Salt Snake & Other Bloody Cuts. He has also written prose material for the internationally famous rock band U2. Raised in a family of storytellers-family legend told of a stolen human skull buried beneath the Clark garage-he sold his first ghost story to a radio station in his teens. Before becoming a fulltime writer he held a variety of day jobs that have involved strawberry picking, supermarket shelf stocking, office work, and scripting video promos. He lives on the edge of Robin Hood country in England with his wife and two children. You can visit his website at: www.bbr-online.com/nailed. iii Other Leisure books by Simon Clark: STRANGER VAMPYRRHIC DARKER | DARKNESS DEMANDS BLOOD CRAZY NAILED BY THE HEART iv LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY 1 A LEISURE BOOK ®l^^^^^^^^l June 2004 Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as ”unsold and destroyed”to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this ”stripped book.” Copyright ©2004 by Simon Clark All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN 0-8439-5157-5 The name ”Leisure Books”and the stylized ”L”with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. Printed in the United States of America. Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com. 2 Not quite hell and certainly not heaven, purgatory is believed by some to be the state in which souls are purified after death by suffering. Only when they have suffered enough might they rise to heaven. And there are others who believe that this life we live is a form of purgatory. Many a drug vendor, psychologist, loan shark and guru would agree. Indeed, more than one bluesman has sung, ”If it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.” A visionary by the name of John Henry Newman wrote what he thought it would be like to make that fatal transition from the world of the living to purgatory in The Dream of Gerontius: And I drop from out the universal frame, Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss That utter nothingness of which I came. How many of us worry about heaven, hell and purgatory? And how many believe that while we're in this skin we should boldly prove not that there is life after death, but that there is life before.... As the man said: ”It's your call.” 3 Foreshadowed We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been. . . . Robyn first met Ellery before they were born. It's not possible to know how or why... or in what kind of world it was, this place where nascent minds originate. They were there, just as we are here now. When they met again in this strange state of affairs we call life they somehow knew they'd met before. Only they didn't know where, any more than they knew they'd brought more than their naked bodies into this world at birth. Invisible, but hanging on to their proverbial heels, as they slid from their mothers' panting bodies during labor, was an invisible stowaway with a revenant's heart. We learn because it is a matter of life and death. We learn how to safely cross a road. We learn not to put our hands in fire. We learn not to drink bleach, not to step off the edge of an abyss, or walk alone at night where we know the streets are meanest. Your future happiness and survival depend on knowing the truth. And it doesn't matter 4 whether it's something you learn from a magazine, or from life, or from a book that you think is fiction. You know there are people who want to exploit you and control you. They will sneer that there is nothing important about novels-that a ”made-up-story has no purpose- but that's where some of the greatest truths are concealed. Waiting for you to find them. To unlock their rich secrets. And only you can decide if the story contains a masked truth or not. It's important you know. What you learn today might save a life. Yours. We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been. Ellery Hann had read the lines a full month ago but they stuck in his mind as deeply as if they'd been machined into the oozing red stuff of his brain. Ellery murmured the words on his lips; they were like the lines of one of those songs that become a narcotic in your blood. You can't get enough. They go 'round and around through your veins. There's no dislodging them. We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams ... It was his nineteenth birthday. April nineteenth. He'd just stepped off the El that clattered along its track in the direction of downtown Chicago. In the Windy City tonight hot air breezed along the streets as if a furnace door had opened. Just yesterday it had been snowing. Now the crazy switch in weather had brought the kind of heat that made it hard to breathe and caused your skin to itch. In Ellery's imagination the face of the city had broken open to allow the hot winds of hell to blow through. Ellery Hann left the station as another train roared onto the platform behind him. He wished he'd not left so late to return home. Darkness had already crept up through the roads and alleyways with all the sinister stealth of a tide from a ghost sea. Damn, he'd promised himself he'd get home earlier. He'd taken the train out to 5 O'Hare to see Lain off on the Denver flight. His sister had lived there two years now and recently when she visited home there was always the rest of the family filling the apartment so he never got a chance to enjoy the kind of conversations they used to have. And when you've got a devil of a kink in your tongue it's hard to compete when brothers, parents, cousins and neighbors are all speaking, too. Of course, he'd burned up the afternoon talking and talking until her flight had been called. Now it was too late. The sun had slipped away It was as dark as it was going to get, and Ellery faced a fifteen-minute walk through a neighborhood of discount stores, used furniture warehouses and yeah... no bones about it... monsters with human faces. And speaking of monsters ... ”Hey Ellery Where'd you get the shirt?” ”That's no shirt, Logan. That's a blouse. A woman's blouse.” Keep walking: ignore them. ”Yeah, you can see his brassiere through it. Guess he's trying to turn us on, boys.” Ellery wasn't wearing any brassiere; that's the way this kind of intimidation started. He'd gone to school with three of the guys who blocked his way. There was a fourth guy he didn't recognize. He looked around fifteen with wispy blond hair on his lip and a pointed chin that bubbled red acne. This fourth member of the gang looked suddenly interested. ”Hey, this is Ellery Hann?” ”Sure,”Logan said, with a grin all over his beer reddened face. ”It's Ellery with a crick-crick-cricket in his mouth.”He laughed. The youth with the acne stepped aside on the sidewalk as if to let Ellery by Logan put up his hands, indicating his beer buddy had made a big mistake. ”Whoa, Joe. You forgetting the deal?” 6 ”No, but-”The acne kid looked suddenly uneasy. Logan stared the kid in the eye but nodded in the direction of Ellery ”We all thought we had a deal. You want to hang out with us, you got to prove yourself.” The kid stretched his arms downward, loosening the muscles. ”Sure.” Logan turned to Ellery. ”When we were at school you always knew what kids had to do to prove themselves, didn't you, Ellery?” ”I-l-I... The-the ... ss n-no ... need anymore. S ... S-School... S ... S ... S ...” ”Shit.”The kid called Joe stared, wide-eyed. ”Does he always talk like this?”He gave a whooping cry. ”Man, oh shit! He sounds like a snake!” Logan smirked. ”Ellery here's never said ten words straight in his life, have you, old buddy?”He shook his head in disgust. ”And we've known the poor fuck since kindergarten.” ”S ... Fff... It's not ffff...” Logan tilted his head, listening to Ellery. ”Not what, buddy? Not fair? Not funny? Not fucking fantastic?”He spat into the gutter. ”No, not for you it isn't. Okay, Joe, what the hell are you waiting for?” Ellery knew the score. He let his arms go limp at his sides. Even trying to speak was pointless. Not that the devil's own twist in his tongue would allow him. Ever. Joe didn't have to be prompted twice. He lunged forward, punched Ellery in the side of the head, then tried to get an uppercut under his jaw to cleanly knock him out. More strength than style. The punch ripped into Ellery's nose rather than chin. The gush of blood flicked up into Ellery's eyes, smearing the world crimson outside his head. Instead, it was the third punch to his cheekbone that knocked Ellery down. At times like this Ellery retreated inside his skull, to a place so deep the fists cracking open his face didn't hurt so much. In 7 there, he could tell himself it was happening to someone else, not him. It was there Ellery found those haunting words again. We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been. ”What's that you're reading ... Robyn?” ”Uhm? Sorry?” ”I asked what you were reading.” Robyn Vincent glanced across the living room to where Noel stood rubbing his glistening black hair with a towel. Another short towel barely clung to his hips. She did a double take of his flat muscled stomach and bulging arms. She smiled back. ”It's a book of short stories.” ”Must be absorbing. You never even noticed me.” ”But I'm noticing you're half naked. And your mom'll notice too when she comes through that door.” ”She called when I was in the bedroom. She had to pick Louis up from football. He's missed the bus again.”Shaking his head, he grinned that handsome grin of his. ”And you never even heard her call, Robyn? That must be a good story.” She held the book open as he came across to stand behind where she sat on the arm of the sofa. ”One of the writers used a quotation by Charles Lamb.” ”Charles who?” He was teasing. ”I read the quote a couple of weeks ago and somehow I can't get it out of my head.” ”So it's got to be dirty then.” ”It's not.”She laughed. ”Stop jumping to conclusions about me.” ”Go on then, shoot.” ”Shoot what?” ”Read me the quotation. I want to know why it makes you forget everything that's happening around you.” Robyn didn't have to read it. She knew it by heart. 8 ”We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been.” ”Sounds nihilistic to me.” ”But haunting somehow. As if human beings have taken the wrong path, and that we're not achieving our true potential. That what we've become is just a-Noel! Your mom'll be back soon.” ”Plenty of time. Plenty ...” She felt his mouth on hers as he pushed her back on the sofa, then rolled her onto the floor. The scent of shampoo and his shower-warmed body filled her nose. She loved that smell, and when fresh perspiration broke through clean skin? That sent her... wow!... into outer space. But it was too risky here, even with the drapes closed. His mom and brother might walk in any moment. Besides, there was something else. It was preying on her mind. ”Noel... Noel...” He took that as a signal of her arousal. Within a moment he'd slid his hands up her short skirt, up her thighs, up over her hips, gripped her panties and drawn them down. ”Noel, you're going-” Then his mouth closed over hers. She felt with her hands and knew his towel had gone. Uh ... God, he was so hungry for her. She'd barely felt the pressure between her legs and suddenly he pushed into her. This time his lovemaking was different. The sensation had altered entirely and although it didn't hurt, it frightened her. For all the world she could have been a flimsy membrane stretched tight around his penis. She wanted to cry out to him to stop but his mouth was on hers; he could have been sucking the breath from her body until she shrank even more tightly. All she could feel was his presence filling her belly. His cock grew inside of her, pushing into her in a way that became so frightening 9 9 and invasive, as if it had become a predatory creature hunting for something concealed inside her skin. That one-eyed snake, she thought, trying to be flippant, but her heart beat hard with fear. There was such a sense of impending disaster running through her. A bad thing was going to happen soon. She felt it loom over her. Like a thug coming toward her, ready to beat her with his fists. This doesn't make sense, she thought. Noel's one of the gentlest lovers I've ever had. He doesn't bite. Not even in a playful love way When he thrust into her he made sure he restrained himself from using the power contained within that muscular torso of his. He didn't pinch her nipples. Instead he preferred to kiss them or stroke the darkening tips. But now it seemed to her that her body tried to expel him. Her muscles tensed around his penis, crushing. ”Oh, wow, oh wow”He panted in surprise. ”God, can you grip, Robyn.” It's because of what's on my mind, she told herself. I've got a secret. I should be telling Noel what it is. But I don't dare. Now Robyn's stomach muscles cramped into hard knots. She panted, trying not to whimper with the hurt. Tears ran from her eyes. She wanted desperately to hide how much this was hurting her. Because now the pain had started. She had to conceal it just as she desperately, desperately wanted to hide the truth from him. She clenched her fists, trying not to imagine his penis as some violent probe hunting what lay hidden inside of her. As her fingers contracted, the nails on her left hand failed to dig into her palm. Then she knew why. She still had the book in her hand. No sooner had she realized that than the words of the man called Lamb, who was dust in his grave now, came to her more vividly and powerfully than ever: ”We are 10 nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been.” Robin and Ellery met each other before they were born. Next week they're going to meet again. They're not going to recognize each other yet. But the shadows they cast even on the darkest of nights will know what they might have been. And what, God willing, they will be. Chapter One i One Benedict West pulled into the empty car lot. The Luxor Dance Hall stood there with all the brooding presence of a monument to the dead. The car's headlights lit the white face of the building with its Egyptian-styled columns. Benedict had not been inside there for five years but he knew every inch of it. ”I thought you were taking me to your place.”His date sounded far from pleased. ”I am.” ”Well, this can't be it.” ”No, it's the Luxor Dance Hall. Ever heard of it?” ”No, should I?” ”A lot of top acts played here right through from Jolson to B.B. King, to Little Richard, Buddy Holly the Four Tops, Black Sabbath, The Ramones, REM....” ”It looks derelict.” ”Closed down ten years ago.” Benedict realized the woman eyeballed him nervously now. ”Why did you want me to see it, Benedict?” 11 12 Simon Clark ”I like to check it out every couple of days.” ”What, you mean like you own it or something?” ”No. Call it academic interest.” ”You're funny” ”Really?”He smiled. ”Not funny ha-ha.”She shrugged. ”Different. I don't think I've ever met a guy like you.” ”Yeah, you're probably right.” ”Your smile ... you've got a real nice smile, don't get me wrong.”She rested her hand on his knee. ”But you've got such sad eyes.” He shrugged. ”You're not sad now?” ”No. I'm happy to be with you...”He grimaced. ”Sorry?” ”You're forgetful, too. I'm Jessica. We met in The Light Out blues bar in-” ”I remember that.” ”And you drink apple juice on the rocks and nothing else. ...” She leaned close to him. Benedict felt her warm breath touch the side of his neck and smelled beer on her lips. He liked beer, too, when he didn't have to drive, but the tang of it in the confines of the car made him flinch. She ran her fingers up his leg. ”Time we went home, Benedict.” ”Sure,”he told her. ”Or did you want to do something here in the lot with me?”Her eyes were large in the gloom of the car. In this light her lips were nearer to black than the red gloss he remembered in the bar. Hell, he didn't even know this woman. What had made him pick her up in the first place? Okay, she looked great in that short black leather skirt and tiny top that revealed a creamy V of cleavage. But suddenly it seemed so cheesy to chat her up, then bundle her into the car as soon as he could. But he knew it was because of tonight. April nineteenth. The 13 13 tenth anniversary of his fiancée, Mariah Lee, walking into the Luxor and never walking out again. So he still pulled into the lot every couple of days. Stared at the shuttered doors for twenty minutes, then went home. But always, always staring into the rearview mirror, convinced that as he drove away he'd glimpse Mariah skipping lightly from the building, her blond hair catching the streetlights. ”Benedict?” ”Hmm?” ”You want to do this?” ”Huh?” ”Do you want me to come back to your place?” ”Sure I do.”He smiled. ”It's just that you seem to have something on your mind.” ”Oh, don't worry about me ...”He nearly called her Mariah, but barely missing a beat added, ”Jessica.” He gunned the engine and turned the car in the vast wasteland of the lot, the lights sweeping into the distance to fall on derelict factories behind razor wire. ”I know what it is.”She spoke gently. ”You've just split up with someone. You're on the rebound, aren't you?” Don't stare in the rearview, Benedict; just drive away. ”The rebound?” ”Yep,”she said. ”She dumped you-or you dumped her, but anyway you're feeling all chewed up inside. Am I wrong?” He glanced in the rearview. A figure ran through the near darkness in front of the Luxor, then threw itself down on the steps as if worshipping there. The white marble made the figure stand out. He could have been praying to the Egyptian art-deco jackals that adorned slabs over the entrance door. ”Am I right or am I wrong?”Jessica persisted. ”You've 14 Simon Clark just split with a girlfriend? Or is it a wife? Hey! What's wrong with you?” ”Stay here.”He stopped the car hard, throwing the girl forward; the seatbelt dug between her full breasts. ”Benedict, what's happening?”Now she did sound scared. ”Where are you going?” He turned off the engine, then, unbuckling his seatbelt, he bailed out through the door and ran back to the Luxor, which gleamed whitely in the starlight just fifty yards away. Christ knew he wasn't thinking straight. He saw the figure on the steps as Mariah Lee. He could see her blond hair catching the distant streetlights. Where the hell had she been these last ten years? But this did make a weird kind of sense; there's symmetry here. Logic-a weird logic at that-told him that if Mariah was going to return it would be one decade to the day after she had vanished. He started calling, ”Mariah ... Mariah?” Then the figure turned to glare at him, half crouching in an ape posture on the steps. Benedict stopped. His stomach muscles hurt like someone had rammed a fist into him. He could hardly breathe. The figure opened its mouth and cried out. A raw animal sound that turned Benedict's blood cold. ”Wh-war-wuu-or! I! I-I-I!” The figure wasn't Mariah. Didn't even look like Mariah. There on the steps, dripping blood onto white marble, was a young guy A young guy who'd taken a hell of a beating. His nose had become a bloody mass. His lips and eyebrows were cut. One eye had closed up into a glistening strip that sickened Benedict to even look at it. The guy lacked the energy to climb to his feet. Benedict leaned forward, his hands out at either side to show that he meant no harm. ”Wha! N-n ... doh-don't! I-I-I can't t-take any m-more. Y-y-you ... M-m-wurrrr-” 15 15 The guy's stammer had the rapidity and violence of a machine gun-fragments of words exploded from his bloodied lips. The guy was a wreck; panting, trembling, hands shaking. And that stammer? There was a brittle energy that made you think it would rise into a wailing scream. ”Hey, take it easy, buddy. You need someone to take a look at those cuts.” The guy put his hands up over his face as if to protect himself from a fresh assault. ”My name's Benedict. My car's just across there. I can take you to-” ”Sh-shur-rayyy!!” Benedict reeled back as the guy twisted around to scramble on all fours up the steps before rising to two feet. He ran with a furious energy, arms working as if to claw himself through the air with his hands. ”Hey wait!”Benedict called but the man was gone, running down the side of the Luxor and into bushes that choked the bank of the river as it cut a glistening line behind the building. He listened for a moment, but the crash of bushes as the guy pelted through them soon dwindled to silence. Benedict stood alone in silence on the old Luxor steps. The implacable face of the building stared him down. Above, the night sky burned with stars. The breeze that played across his face was unseasonably warm; it did nothing to ease the sick sensation oozing up from his belly. Who could beat a guy until his face looked like raw beef like that? Even to recall the appearance of the man's grossly swollen eye tightened Benedicts throat. Shit. Like you could guarantee the stars to shine at night, you could guarantee man's inhumanity to man. Benedict shook his head. He had taken three paces in the direction of where his Ford stood on the blacktop, 16 its rear lights still burning, when he noticed the engine was running. ”I switched it off; I know I did. ...”His heart sank. ”Hey!”he called. ”Jessica, it's cool. Don't-” All he got was the perfect view of rear tires spinning as the girl he'd met just two hours ago took off in his one and only car. ”Damn.”Suddenly it was as if his knees could no longer hold him upright. Walking back to the marble steps, he chose one that hadn't taken a spattering of the boy's blood, sat down, and stayed there as he shook his head and marveled at how a night he knew would be painful had just gotten a whole lot crappier. Two For a whole quarter of an hour Ellery clung to the trunk of a willow at the river's edge. Night birds called across the water. The stars burned over downtown Chicago; he could hear the hum of the city from here. Mostly his face emitted a numb, dead sensation, as if it had become a thick rubber mask. If anything, it was his neck that ached where full-blooded punches had whipped his head from side to side with such severity the muscles were strained. As he waited there his upper teeth came to the pain party, too. He pushed the double molars with his tongue. They were still there but loose. When he rocked them with his tongue his mouth filled with blood. At school Ellery had been on the first rung of the gang ladder. If you beat him up you'd be promoted from just a regular school kid to junior gang member. Now it looked as if his school days had just come back to haunt him. He couldn't even bear it when the guy had tried to help him back there on the steps. All he needed right now was to hide away. Humanity sucked. Spitting blood into a river that rolled by like grease, he 17 17 walked back to the white building. Painted on its flanks were the words Luxor in letters six feet high. Moving quietly as a cat, he reached the door marked artistes entrance. The bottom door panel could be slid aside a few inches, just enough to allow his body (his scrawny body, his brother would taunt him) into the building. This was the place he could be alone. It was also the place where he could unleash his dreams. Three After a few moments Benedict had to confront reality. Jessica's not coming back with the car, he thought. And you've got a long walk home. Standing, he brushed dirt from the seat of his pants. Once more his eyes were drawn back to the drops of blood spilled by the stammering teen. The round spots revealed themselves like a scattering of coins on the steps. Poor kid. He'd really soaked up someone's aggression tonight. Probably a tough guy didn't like the sound of the stammer. Yeah, this was the world where shit grew legs and walked and talked like a man, but it was still shit on the inside through and through. The hour's walk in front of him focused his mind now. There was no point in standing here gazing at the drops of blood on the steps, especially when there'd ... Now. He hadn't noticed that before. At the far end of the step amid the round splotches sat a dark, square object. He picked it up. The kid's wallet. It had to be his. It hadn't been dumped earlier by a thief because dollar bills, credit card and driver's license were still there. He checked the name in the wallet. Ellery Hann. So the kid with the pounded face and the stammer had a name now. A slip of card showed a pale edge against the compartment for credit cards. An address maybe. Benedict checked. 18 Simon Clark Nope. A neatly handwritten line. A proverb maybe? Benedict angled the card so it would catch the faint streetlight. We are nothing. Less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been. The words haunted Benedict West all the way home. Chapter Two One At the same time Ellery Hann slunk into the Luxor Dance Hall and Benedict West headed back to his apartment on foot, Robyn Vincent took a midnight shower. Normally she loved to sleep with Noel's semen inside of her, its warmth nourishing her contentment. They'd been together for almost a year, and they trusted each other, so she'd been the first to tell Noel that she planned to take the pill. Those rubbers might only be a few microns thick but when they made love there might have been a brick wall between them rather than a sheer membrane of latex. For the last few weeks she'd return home from making love with Noel and she'd curl up in bed feeling his come warm inside her, its heat spreading through her stomach to the tips of her fingers. Now was different. Robyn wanted it out of her. She'd taken the jets of water from the shower as hot as she could bear. It turned her skin red. Her back burned. She'd soaped herself between her legs with such force the lips of her vagina felt too tender to even touch. Get that come out, Robyn told herself as she showered. I want it out of me. Its smell sickens me. I don't like the slippery feel of Noel's semen on my thighs or my fingertips. 19 19 ”Get out, get out, get out,”she repeated as she burned her skin under the blazing jets. But what's gone wrong with the relationship? Nothing. I love Noel more than ever, but... but-God, it's crazy really-I don't want him to fuck me. As simple as that. She ached to hold his hand, or feel his lips touch her cheek. But the prospect of his cock inside her made her want to scream out loud in disgust. But why? Why? The question rolled around inside Robyn Vincent's head with a ferocity that nauseated her. Her sudden change of feelings toward physical love bewildered her. Noel had said nothing to upset her. Certainly he'd done nothing. He was as sweet and as considerate as ever. Today Noel had even bought her a delicate pewter bowl in the shape of a rose that he'd found at an antique fair. He'd watched her fiddling with a cruddy plastic box that she'd used for hairpins and silently filed the information in his mind to buy her something both pretty and useful. So why the sudden revulsion over him making love to me? Switching off the shower, she stepped out of the stall to walk through the billowing steam to the bathroom mirror, where she wiped away the condensation. ”OK,”she told her reflection. ”Take stock. You're nineteen years old. You're solvent. So the office closed down under you last week, crap happens, but you're starting a new job at the end of the month. You've got twenty-twenty vision, you're in good health, all your own hair and body parts, and it's been six days since I even saw a zit or a blackhead on that face ... a face I'm learning to live with at long last.” She forced a smile. It was a good face, after all. Even though she'd hated it in her early teens. It had been too angular. The shape of a triangle. Back then her eyes seemed too far apart as well, as if they were trying to put as much distance from her nose as possible. She used to stare at her eyes in the mirror and murmur gloomily, 20 ”Those damn things are going to fall off the side of my head one day Of course, she'd grown from a gawky bag o' bones kid into an adult. A little more muscle upholstered those bones now. The awkward skinniness gone, to be replaced by womanly curves. Although her eyes were widely spaced they fit in well with a face that had lost its peculiar geometric shape. Its structure had softened. By the time she'd hit her seventeenth, boys were taking a close interest in her. She saw how their eyes were drawn to her face. There was something about it they liked. Her lips were fuller, too. With a touch of lipstick they became devastating. By the time she was eighteen she was in love with Noel. So what had gone wrong now? Robyn couldn't figure out why she suddenly hated him making love to her. She studied her face as if half expecting it to erupt tentacles or something. It was as if a circuit had burned out inside her head. Whereas before she'd sizzled, hornier than a timber wolf, for sex, now lovemaking repulsed her. Jesus... maybe it was just some hormonal glitch. She hoped so. Quickly Robyn dried herself, then wrapped a towel around her head. What she craved now was to vanish into bed and sleep. Maybe everything would be fine in the morning. She slipped on a robe, opened the door, and ... ”Mom?” Her mom stood there on the landing in a glamorous purple silk gown. Her blond hair rolled in extravagant waves down her shoulders. There was hardness in her eyes. ”Robyn? Do you know what time it is?” ”It's Friday, Mom.” ”I know it's Friday, but what made you take a shower? It's past midnight.” ”It turned so warm today I feel kinda-” ”It might be the weekend for you, Robyn, but Emerson has to be at the office by six in the morning. There's 21 21 a shareholder meeting. He's been working for weeks toward this. They're planning to merge with a company that tried to buy him out last year. Emerson needs to be able to get a good night's sleep before he-” ”OK, OK, Mom. I get the picture. I'm sorry Good night.” Her mother looked her up and down as if suddenly noticing some change in her appearance. ”Robyn.”The irritable edge left her mother's voice. ”Robyn?” ”Mom?” ”Anything you want to tell me, Robyn?” ”No.”Robyn shrugged, genuinely puzzled. ”Like what?” ”You haven't argued with Noel?” ”No.” ”There's nothing else the matter?”Her mother looked at her in that sidelong way as if she were sighting a target along the barrel of a gun. ”You wouldn't keep it to yourself if something was troubling you?” ”Of course not. Everything's fine, Mom.” ”Hmmm ...”Her mother looked her in the eye as if reading hidden messages there. ”OK, if you want to keep it to yourself...” ”There's nothing bothering me. I'm OK. I'm happy.”Robyn heard the exasperation seeping through her own voice. Jeez, what does Mom want me to admit? ”Obviously I can't drag it out of you, Robyn. Perhaps you'll tell me in your own good time. Sleep well.” ”Good night.” With that her mother swept back to her bedroom, no doubt to stroke Emerson's troubled brow. Robyn went to her own room. There she lay on her bed. It was too warm to pull over covers. Switching off the light, she lay looking up at the play of shadows on the ceiling. So there's food for thought, she told herself. Her mother had seen something different in her. A ”something”that she thought Robyn was deliberately hiding. But could her mother have sensed a sudden aversion to 22 sex with Noel? That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? Those kinds of things don't change the expression on your face, do they? It's not as if she suddenly wore a sign on her forehead in big shouting letters: no more fucking, PLEASE. Jesus, this is weird Maybe I should see a psychotherapist? Or would it be a sex therapist? ”Good morning, Doctor. I can't take it up me anymore.” She murmured the words aloud, trying to be flippant. As if rendering the problem into verbal sounds would somehow magically expel this weirdly inexplicable aversion from her body She stroked her stomach. The muscles fluttered in the way her eyelid did when she was over-tired or stressed. It felt strange. Almost as if the muscles would go into a spasm but stopped short of a cramp. And with her period more than two weeks away, the sensation couldn't be attributed to that. So what else could have changed inside of her? She hadn't altered her diet. She hadn't taken to snacking on narcotics or downing bottles of vodka. If it was a hormonal glitch what would ... ”Oh, God no.” The sounds coming through her wall were the last ones she wanted to hear tonight. Emerson was playing hide the wiener with Mom. ”Oh, shit, shit, shit...” Not that Mom didn't deserve a healthy love life. She had just turned fifty-five. She'd remarried. Maybe it's me. I should get a place of my own and give those two lovebirds some privacy. ... But it's just that... agh, dear God, I don't even want to think the words ... the images it puts into my mind of plump little Emerson making whoopee with Mom. Could Mom take her eyes off that absurd hair weave thatched to his head? And Emerson made it so clear to her (probably to neighbors, too) what lit his flame. Emerson and her mother slept on a waterbed, so it wasn't a creak