The 37th mandala : a novel (25 page)

But if his debate on the truth about hypnosis had lacked a climax, it had at least impressed and intrigued May, who began to question him about what the hypnotic state was like—a question he couldn't answer, since no one had ever been able to hypnotize Derek himself. He'd let other kids in the trailer park read the inductions from the book, playing the part of hypnotist, but Derek was not susceptible to suggestion. He wanted desperately to go into trances, to have the wild mental adventures he dreamed up for the other kids, but no. He was always the one in control, the wide-awake logical one, concocting dreams but never involved in them. He was able to put himself into mild self-hypnotic states, where he felt adrift and sleepy, but it wasn't the same as delivering yourself into the hands of a guide.

For weeks May hinted, shyly, that she might like to be hypnotized. They ghosted around the trailer park together, holding hands in the warm evenings, seeking shade in the hot afternoons—often settling down beneath the unfinished freeway to look out over the hot valley, the trailers, the traffic. And one day, recently, they had kissed—tentative, gentle kisses that made Derek feel as if his insides were melting and his skin were tingling all over and he just wanted to somehow pull May inside him or climb into her skin with her, to be closer than their bodies allowed. And that was when, looking at him through slit lids, May had whispered for the first time, "I want you to hypnotize me. ..."

"I do want it," she said now. "I'm ready."

He took her by the hand and brought her over to the towel he'd spread out. She sat with her back to the cool cement of the pylon, and he sat down facing her. They were completely alone on the hillside that seemed to blur up into the empty beige sky, the trailer park and the highway all hidden from view. The immense gray bulk of the freeway seemed to float weightless overhead. He could hear bees and the wind rustling scrub and the distant hum of traffic, but all that would help May go under.

"Close your eyes," he said.

She gave him a smile and a sly look, then did as he said. When he began speaking, telling her to relax, the smile continued to flicker about her lips. Then there came a moment when he saw her let go, and the nervous smile washed away, and she took a deep, sighing breath and seemed to sag a little. May was in a trance.

Next he told her that her right arm was growing lighter than air, floating up like a helium balloon. May's rose from her lap, drifting up until it was level with her face. When he told her the arm had turned to lead, it fell as abruptly as a metal weight, crashing down on her legs. Now the arm was completely numb, lacking all sensation. He scooted next to her and pinched the back of her hand so hard it left nailmarks in the skin. She didn't flinch.

Derek didn't know quite where to go from here. He crouched next to her, listening to the throbbing of insects in the heat, the warm murmur of the wind, feeling suddenly alone and afraid—as if May were no longer here. Waiting for inspiration, he took her hand and stroked it softly, smoothing away the white crescents left by his nails.

"May," he whispered, "can you hear me?"

She nodded very slowly.

He leaned close to her ear, as if to whisper a secret that even she shouldn't hear. And indeed it was a secret, something he had never dared tell her:

"I love you," he said.

She showed no reaction, no more than when he had pinched her.

"I love you, May," he said again, and this time he thought he saw her smile returning, but from very far away.

He took a deep breath before continuing. "Do ... do you love me?" And waited in suspense for her reply. When she made no sound, no move, he quickly added, "You don't have to answer unless you want to."

She nodded, but he wasn't sure what it meant. That she loved him, or that she understood she didn't have to answer?

"I was afraid to tell you," he said. "I thought if I told you now, and it made you mad or upset, I could tell you to forget it when you woke up. But you aren't mad, are you? May?"

She shook her head. He began to sweat with relief; it was like a fever breaking.

He still had hold of her hand. Now he put it to his mouth and kissed her fingers, her wrist, her forearm, the inside of her elbow. Every kiss felt electric; if felt as if she were the one kissing him. She loved him!

"May, I want—I want you to hold me," he said. Her arms went out. He sank down clumsily beside her. She shifted around with her eyes still closed until she had both arms around him. They lay down together on the towel. He had worked quite awhile to clear the ground of pebbles and stickers, but he could still feel rocks poking through the cloth, digging into his flesh. Considerately, he suggested to May that she not feel these things. "We're lying on a cloud," he said. "Can you feel it, soft and fluffy underneath us? Isn't it wonderful?"

She nodded, giggling. "Like cotton candy," she volunteered, more herself now.

"Yeah ..."

He held very still for a long time, wishing the rocky ground felt like cotton candy to him as well; but there was no one to soften things for Derek. He tried to cushion her weight, pulling May against him; then he kissed her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids; he nuzzled her ears through the fall of soft black hair. He kissed her neck and the hollow place in her throat.

It was all wonderful, but it wasn't enough.

He propped himself on an elbow, gazing down on her, watching her sleep. "May," he said, "please ... will you kiss me? Touch me?"

Instantly she pulled him to her and began to kiss him—not timidly, as he had done, but voraciously, opening her mouth, drawing in his tongue, slithering her own between his lips as if drinking him in. Even as he tasted her sweetness, something in him drew back in fear; what if this wasn't all May's doing? What if she was doing this only because she was hypnotized? What if, despite what all the books said, Mary Baker Eddy was right and she was somehow enslaved to him? Then these kisses were not born of her own free will. She might not really love him at all, but he wouldn't know until she came out of her trance and they talked about everything. Suddenly he hated himself for his ploy, his weakness, his lack of courage. But May was kissing him, and things were rushing along with a life of their own, as if he'd become caught in her trance and his own will was itself compromised. He held her face in his fingers; but as she continued to kiss him, his hands moved down her body. May responded by clutching him fiercely, drawing him to her. She was moaning, and the sound made him moan, half in dread, because he knew he should stop but he couldn't.

"I love you," he said again, and she said nothing. He was afraid to tell her to speak because it would mean less if it came at his prompting. He was desperate for confirmation, but he had already taken things past the point where he could be certain of anything. Meanwhile, he knew May must be able to feel his erection unless she was numb to everything. And to be sure that she felt him, feeling as if he must share this with her honestly, he guided her hand to the place and said, "May, I love you so much!"

She grabbed his penis through his pants, and he pushed against her hand, his own fingers now brushing at the fabric of her dress, trying to feel her nipples through the cloth. Her flesh was very soft and spongy, and he was afraid to squeeze or try working his fingers under the fabric, afraid to unbutton her or do anything she might not have wanted him doing if she weren't hypnotized. He mustn't touch her, mustn't do anything to her, not that he could have gotten her pregnant or anything like that. He knew from books what was supposed to happen, but he wasn't old enough yet. He had never ejaculated.

But as always with May, his thoughts ran on one track, his body on another. "Yes," he was saying, "oh, May, yes. There." He unzipped himself for her, so her hands could get through to him. The sensation he felt when she touched his flesh was almost unbearable. Heat and cold ran through him. He lay back on the towel, afraid to touch her now, afraid of what he might do to her. He saw her slit eyes above him, her face so serious and distant, hair mussed and mouth wet. He looked down at himself and saw her hand still holding him. It was like looking at something happening to someone else. And he sounded like someone else when he said, "Kiss me there, May. Please ... put your mouth on me."

Her face hovered above him for a moment, gentle and sweet, and then she drifted away and he closed his eyes, thinking No! No!

But when her mouth touched him, enveloping him in liquid and warmth, all his inner voices went silent and still and he lay in a quiet hush of anticipation, waiting for something he could not name, something unknown and yet familiar, which he had imagined but never felt....

It came as a hot rush of uncoiling flame, a tingling knot of fire from his groin, burning unexpectedly in a place where he had never felt anything but the merest hint of this sensation.

Recognizing it too late for what it was, uncontained and uncontrollable, he sat up gasping and embarrassed, shouting "Stop!"

May drew back from him, a wet hand at her mouth, thick whitish liquid dripping from her lips and chin. Her eyes were wide and stunned. She jumped up choking and spitting, gagging as he scrambled to his feet, trying to contain himself, his guts already in knots.

"May," he said, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean—"

She made a retching noise, stumbling back from the column, and vomited in the dirt. He stuffed himself back into his pants, rushed to put a hand on her shoulder.

"May, you—you're still in a trance," he said, forcing himself to be calm, wondering what he could do to make things okay, whether he could tell her to forget it, if he could make her remember nothing of this when she awoke. Or if instead he should wake her up instantly. "Deep, deep in a trance," he insisted, as if he could salvage everything that way. She didn't look like a person in a trance. Her face was red, her eyes full of tears, and she was still coughing and choking.

"May, I love you," he said desperately. "Everything's okay! You're safe, May. May! I didn't know that would happen. Are you okay? Please, May!"

She got to her feet unsteadily, her eyes sleepy and distant again, although now she was weeping. She pushed past him, coughing, still making gagging sounds. He followed her past the cement leg of the freeway, clutching at her hand but letting it drop when she didn't squeeze his fingers in return. Was she in trance or awake now? He couldn't tell. He didn't know what he had done.

Passing from the shadow of the unfinished freeway, she lit up as if the sun had set her on fire. She became one with the burning landscape, too bright to look at. He shaded his eyes and stood waiting for the sobs he felt building in his chest, watching her hurry down the hill through brush and rocks and cactus. Would she tell on him? Could he stop her somehow? He covered his eyes completely and whisper-howled her name.

As if in reply, she started screaming.

He bared his eyes, saw her standing halfway down the hillside between the freeway and the trailer park, beating at the air. She stood rooted to one spot, her hands making thrashing motions as if she were trying to swim straight up. Then she began to leap and dance around, brushing at her dress, her hair, jerking and twitching. She took a few steps one way, then another, and then she toppled.

The air around her was blurred with bees; they closed on her face in a swarming ball.

Derek ran, jumping over rocks and cactus, plowing through bushes, straight for the spot. He had no particular fear of bees; he knew if you were calm they wouldn't sting you, and in fact he'd never been stung. But he had never seen so many at once, rising in a pall over the spot where May had fallen. The swarm darted away, thinning out, and then he saw her blue dress down in the sagebrush between some cracked slabs of rock that had tumbled here during the freeway's construction. He swatted at the air, still hung with bees like drops of solid fury, and jumped down beside her.

May lay curled in a ball, her hands covering her head, her head tucked in toward her chest. There were red welts on her arms and hands, on the back of her neck and her calves. She was sobbing, choking, as he put his arms around her middle and tried to pull her up. "May, May, it's all right! I'll help you!"

She started to rise, then crumpled again, landing on her side with her head twisted up to him. Her mouth was still smeared and wet, and now caked with dirt; he wiped it with a hand, careful around her swelling lips. She had been stung on her eyelids, on her cheeks and chin.

"May, please, let's go—we've got to get help. Can you walk? I can't leave you here."

She didn't answer except to sob, and then she started screaming again.

Desperate, he pulled her to her feet, bent and took her weight on his shoulder, then started off downhill toward the trailers, hardly able to keep his footing but knowing he must not falter. "You feel no pain," he told her insistently as they went, as if he could somehow redeem the hypnotic state for her. Since he had sent her sleepwalking into the hive, the least he could do was relieve her pain. In fact her cries began to soften as they went.

May's screams had already brought Derek's neighbors into the open. These were mainly old men and women, retired, living alone in their trailers. Some of them started up the hill to meet Derek, but most stood around on the road at the edge of the park, waiting for him to come down. Someone must have called May's mother, because he could see her hurrying up the road.

By the time Derek reached the trailers, a crowd had gathered; they'd come so quickly that they might have been waiting impatiently for something like this to happen. Dr. Grand, a lanky old man who made model ships, slipped May from Derek's shoulder and laid her on a chaise longue in a bit of shade. When he saw her face, he gasped. "My God, someone call an ambulance!"

"She—she walked right into a hive," Derek said.

Dr. Grand leaned over her. "May? May, dear, tell me how you're feeling."

May's eyes were completely swollen shut. She opened her mouth as if to scream, but no sound came out except a ghastly rattle, a wretched moan that made Derek think for a horrible moment she was choking on what she had swallowed. May's mother was calling out now, harsh birdlike cries as she came running.