The n-Body Problem (11 page)

“He’s checking the barn. We can kill a cow. How long are we here?”

Dixon pushes the remaining letters to the floor. He opens the fridge and gas erupts from rotting food. He gags and closes the door.

“I dunno. WasteCorph is gonna be looking for me to check in. They’re gonna have lots to say aphout Pheeton.”

The doctor has been washing her hands for ten minutes.

“Beeton was fine.”

She swipes a cloth from the oven door and pats dry her hands.

“I have no problem with Beeton.”

Dixon slumps a bit. She has cheated him. The doctor stares at me for a long minute. She takes in a sharp breath and looks at Dixon.

“I would like to have sex. Can you?”

Dixon laughs with his loose face.

“Nophe.”

The doctor is disgusted.

“Oh, that’s right. You only fuck parts of people.”

Dixon stretches his neck as if that will change how he appears to her.

“Go fuck the phoy. He can. I think.”

The doctor drops the cloth into a silver trash can.

“I will. Thank you.”

The dog proves to be a nuisance. It circles the house in the tall grass waiting for us to come out. It grabbed Y again and he managed to gouge out an eye before it rolled off him. Dixon doesn’t seem overly worried. I think it’s a game he likes. He likes to send Y out. The doctor spends a lot of time upstairs alone. She showers several times a day. They eat beets and jam and beans. For a while the doctor tried to breast feed me but no milk came. I eat bean juice. There is lots of time to think here. The days are slow. If a car goes by on the road it’s a major event. We hide and shout and sit in the dark. Dixon is thinking more than anyone. He sits and stares at things. Or he finds things in the house to read. He reads grocery lists. Recipes. He hunts for journals and diaries but finds none. He sits with a receipt in his hand and thinks. He rubs and curls the receipt until it’s a ball in the palm of his hand, then he drops it. I know what he’s doing. He wants to show the relic that he cares about these people’s lives. I know he doesn’t. I know he would do obscene things to them after they were destroyed. He has been looking at me differently. This slow world is revolving us. Y comes in with the dog. It is draped across his shoulders. Headless.

“Would we eat dog?”

Dixon pushes back his chair and rises.

“Phut it on the phicnic table. We’ll clean it there.”

Y stands for a moment.

“Don’t I get a hurray or something?”

Dixon seems drunk.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

Y holds the base of the tail at his shoulder and wags it.

“I slew the beast!”

Y looks to me. I am not that type of person anymore. You don’t look me in the eyes. Methusela Syndrome. That’s what you got. Accelerated aging.

“Okay. I’ll get some knives.”

I can only see the tops of their heads gathered around the picnic table. They are skinning it. Gutting it. Seems to me I’ve seen cows in fields around here. Surely we could snatch one at night. Y holds the dog’s head up. Gore slaps his forehead. They’re doing this because it keeps them in touch with the mission. The doctor has taken to roaming the house topless. It arouses me but I have no penis. Some veins throb in my anus. That’s my limit. She is washing her hands at the sink. Her back is broad and white. It’s a cooling sight. They are hammering Rottweiler hide to a sheet of plywood. They want to dry it in the sun. The sun is a joke. Nothing dries in the sun. Maybe the wind. The cold, wet wind. The doctor pulls the window pane to the side. She tries to close it in a single swipe but it jams and she gives up.

“I’m not eating a fucking dog.”

The doctor dries her hands, points at me then leaves, climbing the stairs to her room.

Dixon and Y spend the afternoon outside butchering the dog and digging a fire pit. Y finds an iron pole to skewer it. I can see they are laughing. They toss guts and skin and legs and head into a barrel, then sticks. They pour gasoline in. It flares out in a massive ghost ball then dies out. They give up.

The doctor runs down the stairs and out the door. Something’s up. I wish they wouldn’t close my case. I wish they’d let me in. I can see Dixon’s serious face as he listens to the doctor. Y is bent down, probably turning the dog.

Dixon comes in first and goes up the stairs. The doctor follows him. Y tries to come in but Dixon sends him back.

“You stay outside.”

Y takes a step back but stays. Listening.

There is a small piece of glass missing now at the top of my case. In the right conditions I can make out what people say.

In time Dixon comes down. He walks in heavy steps. He is perspiring. He speaks close to the doctor and I can’t hear. She listens, then bends back to spot Y.

“Well, Dixon. It’s okay. We do our work.”

Dixon nods severely. He raps the wall once and comes over to me. He pulls the black bag over my case. I am a thin black wisp of hair. I am black crayon on a black sky. My knees buckle and I go down.

I sleep because I haven’t slept. I sleep in a closed-off dreamless airless box.

A band of light wakes me. Someone has cut an almond-shaped hole in the bag. Someone cuts another hole. These are eyeholes. They want me to see. I feel a rush of hopefulness. They are including my care. I am to be given light. Not to keep me alive. But to bring me comfort. The thought makes me dizzy. I feel my knees again. I look out one of the eye holes. The doctor’s shoulder. I can see her and she cannot see me. A vein in my anus fills and rolls on its side. The light makes a perfect cone over my eye. We are going upstairs. We are going upstairs. The topless doctor is taking me to her room. The case is tipped against the wall while she opens the door. I see the top of her breast rise under her turning arm. It’s an achingly soft surface. The breast drops from view as the door opens. She points me forward to a curtained window. Drops me on the sill and turns me. There is a wide unmade bed. The doctor removes her skirt. She rolls her pantyhose down, then drops them from her toes. She walks toward me. Her large black-grey bush is inches from my nose. I can see the lips of her vagina. The slow separation of tissues relaxing. She is hanging her hose on the rail above me. She can’t see me while I cling to the details of her hole. My lower half is bunched. Veins an open confusion. I can feel my cock springing to life on a wall. On the ground. She turns and walks to the bed, bending over to pick up her clothes. Light touches her asshole for a second then she stands again. My bottom shatters. I am filling something with something. A spasm. I feel warmth. I must be shitting. I push at it hard. I want to feel it come out. I want to feel my body express itself. I want it out.

She is gone. I stop holding my breath. I smell gas. I haven’t shit. I have farted. A wonderful changing and calming fart.

I sit in this box for hours. Maybe longer. I hear a car door close outside and a man’s voice. People down below. Must be WasteCorp. They want an account of Beeton. Probably needed to bring in a clean-up crew. I’ve been on them. Different company, different war. The doctor came in once and took something she’d stashed inside her pillow. I see you, Doctor. I know you’re in trouble. SSRIs in the pillowcase. I decide that because I am non-human, a deity of some kind, that I should be able to close my eyes and see great things, visit exotic places. Even if this isn’t true, shouldn’t the mind provide? Can’t I just go completely mad and leave this? Go so far inward that I’m a new thing? I close my eyes and wait. I try to picture simple things. A shoe. A bottle. A tree. I can only manage fleeting lines and shadows.

The door opens. The doctor enters. She is fully clothed. Her bosses are here. She comes over to me and turns the box. I see the yard clearly through my hole. There are two black vans parked up the driveway. So that’s WasteCorp, I guess. Guys dressed like milkmen from another century. Smart blue capos and white piping on the legs. Not tough guys, that’s for sure. Dixon and Y are up by one of the old maples. A bald man in a black suit is showing Dix something on a wide unfolded sheet. Plans have been drawn up. Things are being done differently. Beeton shook them up, bad. The milkmen unroll a wide mesh mat. It reaches all the way to Dix and the tree. Size of a football field. Milkmen attach cables at each corner. No more coaxing folks to toe the line. No more people running off or letting go too soon. They’re going to sit them down for the show, then just burn ’em all where they sit. Y and Dixon are walking the perimeter. I can tell by the way Dixon walks, with a repressed swagger, that he doesn’t like something. He doesn’t like seeing his bosses. Doesn’t like them being here. Don’t fuckin’ tell me how to do my job. Dixon and Y have walked up into the house. The milkmen straighten out any creases in the mat, like old women showing off patchwork at the fall fair.

The doctor turns me around. I see her naked thigh through the hole. I feel my anus drop then pull in. She drags the black bag up. Her tits are fat against the glass. She opens the door. Her breasts smell like change room. I look up and she looks down. I am brought out to the bed. She lies me near the bottom then drops her legs on either side of me. I watch as she pushes against her vagina with three fingers. She pumps it then slides her fingers back and forth quickly. With her other hand she tugs her nipple, lifting her large breast then letting it fall. It is a mesmerizing and mechanical sequence of actions. No hurry. I am to watch this. She wanted an audience. She wants me to stare at her pussy. Her heavy tits. She slides a finger in deeply. A clear fluid runs down her wrist. She makes a sound. She draws her knees up slowly and reaches under. Now she has a finger in her asshole and three in her pussy. She works the two holes at different speeds. The vagina is occasionally pulled and the finger in her anus drops out and turns briefly on her sphincter. She looks up from time to time to see if I’m watching. No smile, nothing, just a check. I feel a buzzing near my bottom. Peripheral neuropathy. My anus feels as if hard beads are vibrating in it. She points a wet finger at me and curls it. She wants me there. I rock slowly, moving on my corners.

Her pussy meets my face and I feel her hands on the back of my head. I cannot breathe. She holds my head tight against her. I feel my lung climbing into my throat. My lung is my tongue. I panic and shake my face. Her thighs start to close, then she shoves me back hard. I breathe quickly. I can smell her pussy. Rainwater and salt. Below that, the heavy sugar of her asshole. She pulls me in again. This time I suck. I take her entire vagina into my mouth and suck. I can breathe through one nostril. She pulls me in tighter to seal it. I lose consciousness for a brief second. When I come up, I’m gasping. I hear my buttonhole whistle and she shakes. The doctor reaches down on my body and lifts my back end. She lays me on her belly so my face hangs down over her lips. I flick. The sensation of her tongue on my anus makes me jump. She twirls around slipping the tip in and out. I feel that if this is to proceed much longer I may die. I don’t have the body to withstand this. Maybe that’s what she wants. She wants to kill me with her tongue up my ass. Before I reach whatever it is that could happen, she pushes me down. My tongue slips from her pussy to her anus and I try to breath normally as I do to her what she did to me.

There is someone else in the room. I feel the bed dip. I try to raise my head to see but can’t. The bedsprings twang under the weight of three. I feel the doctor’s finger in my ass. Deeper. Bigger. It’s not a finger. Its a cock. Someone is sitting on her face and sliding his cock into my flat, featureless body. I hear her slurping and suck his ass and balls. Her pussy rises under my chin. I am supposed to suck, too. I draw her clit in while she flips fingers inside. The cock is now fully in me and has begun to pump. The tissue in my hole is banging and open. The doctor starts to come first. She clamps my cheeks with her thighs and starts to buck. The cock in me reaches deeper and faster. I feel the fat tip punching through me into the mattress. A series of sensations run up and down my entire body, like hoops across a levitated showgirl. The hoops multiply and crash, meeting in my back then plunging dramatically into my anus. I can’t tell who is moving now. No one maybe. The air is glittery and colour is thick. Her legs fall. The cock dives forward once then slips back and out. I turn my head so my ear shell is on her pudenda. I see a tee shirt on a chair. Brown not orange.