Me and My Manny (19 page)

Tempting a Demon

An analysis of the techniques of my exorcism revealed that something was missing. The day after my attempt at the practice, I began to see what. Part of Wolf’s attraction was his indifference to sex. But, as everyone knows, demons are obsessed with it. The way I saw it, exposing the demonic freeloader to some hot action would cause it to become so frustrated that it would vacate to wherever exiled demons hang out.

To test my theory, I needed to go shopping, but not alone, not to that hellhole neighborhood that I had in mind. So I removed Wolf’s sackcloth and bundled his naked body in Harry’s black slicker and matching hat.

Early that afternoon, we drove out of the garage and heavy rain clouds roiled in the sky. Though not pressed for time—Harry wouldn’t be home till after five—I hurried, excited by the thought of returning my hubby to his former self, and possibly salvaging the notion of Manny, Inc. while at it.

A short while later, in the district host to strip clubs, junkies, and hookers, I parked in front of a neon-lit porn shop, advertising triple X-rated DVDs, and left Wolf strapped upright in the passenger seat.

Inside the aptly named Hot Spot, I selected four DVDs, each featuring different orientations, heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and the demonic all time favorite, bestiality. I paid cash for my items and carried them out in a plain brown paper bag. As I suspected might happen, a creepy-looking man who’d been browsing the shelves in the shop followed me to the curb where I’d parked my Volvo.

I unlocked the car and opened the passenger door wide enough to give the would-be masher a clear view of Wolf.

“I got what you wanted, honey,” I said, placing the bag in the manny’s upturned hands at rest on his knees.

One look at the nude dummy in a black slicker and the masher took off like a shot. Whatever I was into, the stranger clearly wanted no part of it.

Back at the apartment, I situated Wolf in a wing-back chair close to the entertainment center. With a porn DVD chosen from the stack, I placed it in the machine and pressed play on the remote. Odd music full of flutes and drums poured through the speakers. I turned down the volume and stared at the screen, fascinated by the contorted positions and nimble gyrations. Soon enough, I turned away. Though disgusted, I was convinced that if anything could draw the demon out, this would.

And when it does, what will I do? The thing can’t be tangible. How could I trap it?

Outside, the windblown rain struck the building like buckshot. I jerked from my musings and looked at Wolf who appeared riveted to the action before him. I thought to turn the movie off and stop this process, but the remote lay on top of the DVD player, and I couldn’t bring myself to wedge between the manny and the TV.

My apprehension mounting, I cleared Wolf’s chair and headed for the wall behind the entertainment center. I reached for the plug to the TV when I heard a quiet thump at my back. I swung around, half expecting to see the hideous face of an angry demon coming out of nowhere. Instead, the front door swung open and Harry dressed in street clothes strode in with a stack of mail in his hand.

“Oh, you’re home,” I cried, relieved to see him.

“I took off early to catch up on some paperwork.” He dropped the mail on the console, slipped off his leather jacket, and hung it in the closet. “I left you a message.”

I had just now noticed the message indicator on the answering machine. “Well, at least you beat the traffic. It’s pouring out there.” I rushed forward and threw my arms around his neck.

“Hey, whoa, you missed me or something?”

Before I could answer, he glanced at the action on the TV then shifted his eyes to Wolf, sitting erect only inches from the screen. “How low can you get?” He pulled my arms away and stepped back.

I glanced at an outrageous anal maneuver on the TV. “Harry, I know this doesn’t look good, but you’ve got to hear me out. It’s not Wolf that’s been doing things, being bad and all. It’s something inside him. I’m doing this for you. I’m acting on your behalf. Wolfs been infected by something foul.”

“Tell me about it.”

“That’s just it, Har. You can’t know because you’re not aware of it. But believe me; what’s got hold of him is up to no good.”

Frowning, Harry scanned the room. “The only one around here up to no good is you.”

“Please, listen to me. Right now the demon is small and weak. I… we’ve got to send it on its way before it gets stronger. That’s all I was doing. I was tempting it in the hope of driving it mad with lust.”

Harry stood, distracted by the performance captured on the TV. “Is that a goat?” he asked, squinting.

“Uh-huh.” I pointed to the picture on the DVD jacket. “See, it’s like the Devil, hooves, pointy horns, and a tail.”

“Holy crap.” He again looked at the screen showing an orgy with animals. “Who the hell makes this crap?”

“It’s not for us. It’s for Wolf’s demon.”

“Him?” Harry fired a glance at the manny. “What’s he doing naked in a raincoat?”

“He couldn’t wear his sackcloth out in this downpour.” Though concerned to see blood rise in Harry’s cheeks, I ventured on. “I was saving that for his exorcism. But demons don’t just show up, breathing fire and farting smoke. So I couldn’t really measure my success.”

“Yep, uh-huh, makes sense.” Harry nodded with a cynical expression. “Is this about body-snatching again?”

“Exactly. You see, Wolf really is deaf, dumb, and blind. But don’t let that façade fool you. I vowed to stick with
you
for better or worse, not a demon.”

After a long meditative moment, Harry pushed the manny away from the entertainment center and switched off the power. “You may be right. I’ll give you this. Maybe in some abstract way I have behaved like the manny.”

“Oh, Har, this isn’t your fault.”

“Somewhat, it might be.”

“Well, hell, if you want to take the blame.”

He examined the boxes of the other DVDs. “Tell you what. Trash the animal farm and later on we’ll take a peek at one or two of these.”

“They’re pretty raw. I should trash them all.”

He shrugged then retrieved a letter from the console and waved it under his chin. “I applied for a job with the Coast Guard.” A broad grin brightened his face. “Seems they’re interested.”

“That’s awesome. Congratulations.” Stupid as I felt standing there with my best-laid plans gone awry, I was glad to change the subject. “You’re for sure qualified.”

“With some more training.”

“That should be easy for you.” I ran my eyes across his solid physique, admiring his dedication to keeping fit.

“Well, I gotta get started,” he said, rotating toward my desk in the alcove.

At that moment, I could only think of disposing the DVDs and anticipating them banging down the metal trash chute.

Yet as the unfortunate case too much of the time, I met the unsupervised Spike in the hall. “Don’t you dare,” I said, holding the four boxes above my head. “Get down. No,” I shouted when he reared on his hinds legs and snatched one of the boxes from my hand. “Give it back. Give it—” As if in a game of keep-away, he dashed through the opened door of the fire escape and descended the enclosed stairs. I shrugged off that Psycho Dog had taken the box with that horrid goat pictured on the front. I felt certain it’d be chewed to pieces in no time.

Now, upon the good riddance of bad rubbish, my mind reverted back to Harry. His leniency toward the DVD incident, as well as his willingness to accept blame, had astounded me. But for whatever reason and the time being, I was grateful that he was not quite himself.

Averting Disaster

Again in my apartment, I accepted that Wolf’s exorcism was a flop and that I needed to try something else. Harry was adjusting to his new identity, maybe even enjoying it somewhat, but not me.

With Harry now in the shower, I worked fast to set the scene with seduction props. Then when he, dressed in his skivvies, entered the room, I was in bed wearing a red nightie that barely covered the thong up the crack of my ass.

Wolf still naked and in a black slicker was sitting in the chair across from us. Though buried in the shadows to keep Harry from tossing a sheet over him, his merry face was in plain sight because his hat was off, tied to a string attached to the raincoat’s collar. I had positioned him there as part of my scheme to finally put an end to Harry’s reassignment.

“Here,” I said to Harry, handing him a flute of champagne.

He sipped from the glass with a look of delight and nibbled on a hunk of mozzarella I’d brought in from the kitchen.

“Darn. I forgot my glass.”

Harry held his glass out for me but I’d already leaped from the bed and headed for the kitchen. There, I snatched the rope I’d set out earlier, returned to the bedroom’s double doors, and casually pulled them closed.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be in here?” Harry asked.

“I’ll be there in a minute, honey,” I said from the other side of the door.

In less time than that, I tied the levers to the double doors together. For further security, I added another loop to the handles, pulled the rope taut, and tied the opposite end to the leg of a side table off the entryway. The bedroom doors opened inward, so if Harry pulled, separating them by even an inch, he could get a razor from the bathroom, cut the rope, and free himself.

“Judy,” he called, pounding on the door. “Let me out. You hear me? Open this door.”

“I can’t, Harry.”

“I’m afraid to ask why.”

I hesitated. “It’s like in that old movie when the wolf man changes. Even a man who is pure at heart / And says his prayers at night / May turn to wood when the dogwood blooms / And the moon is full and bright.” I’d invented my own version of the ditty on the spot. “You have to be confined so you don’t hurt anybody when you transform.” I didn’t bother to explain that I’d locked Wolf in with him for the same reason.

For a long time, Harry was quiet. He then said, “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.”

His overly compliant response again disturbed me. Then I worried that when I opened the doors, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

I pressed my ear to the door and was met with a terrible silence.

I stood there, confounded, and then heard a car horn beeping outside. Glancing down from the living room sliders, I recognized the handyman’s battered red pickup parked across the street. But I couldn’t figure why its spotlight aimed at the balcony off our bedroom window. We hardly used that area. Nothing was out there, other than Wolf’s purloined shopping cart.

I opened the sliders and stepped into the frosty November air, my bare flesh struck by the icy chill. I looked at the adjacent balcony, shocked to see Wolf illuminated by the spotlight.

Harry had evidently placed him on the railing that surrounded the balcony. He was perched vicariously with his naked wooden body visible through the black slicker opened in the front.

“Hey, it’s a jumper,” someone on the street yelled. A series of voices rose from the small, gathering crowd. “Don’t jump! Hold on! Don’t do it!”

A vision of Harry in splinters on the sidewalk exploded in my brain as I turned back into the apartment. I hurried to the bedroom door and struggled to unknot the rope.

“Harry, don’t do anything rash,” I cried, rushing for a butcher knife in the kitchen.

Back at the door, I cut the rope in several places, yanked the pieces away, and worked the door handle. The door was locked from the inside.

“Open the door, honey.” I thumped it with my fist. “Please, the moon isn’t even out, let alone full and bright. So just stop playing games.”

“I will, if you will,” Harry said in a distant voice as if moving away from the door.

“Get Wolf off the railing. Okay?”

I heard the slider in the bedroom open. A few minutes later, the spotlight went out and the street below grew quiet. I felt shaky; my skin kept switching from hot to cold. A disaster had been averted. Yet, as the bedroom door creaked open, and Harry emerged, holding Wolf by the waist, I felt my hand tighten around the butcher knife.

I knew that I was looking at Harry and that he now had the advantage. Was this all part of it? But someone knocked at our apartment door before I could make sense of the situation, and I moved to answer it.

“It’s the manager,” I called to Harry in a cheery voice. I stood in the doorway, freezing in my skimpy nightie and holding the butcher knife behind me.

“Lisa, what brings you up here so late,” I said, seeing she was bundled in a quilted robe.

“Is Harry all right? He’s not depressed or anything like that, is he?”

“Oh, you know Harry when he’s had a few. We were just goofing around.” Cripes, the whole building must think my husband just tried to commit suicide.

Lisa lingered, gazing into the dimness behind me. “Well, okay. Long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. I appreciate your concern though.”

I closed the door, the word
suicide
resounding in my brain. Maybe Wolf was the one who’d gotten the upper hand. If so, the action on that nasty goat DVD—that’s the kind of thing I could be in for.