This Body (26 page)

She loved his pectorals and his rib cage and stomach, and she kneaded them into submission, fighting his hands at her buttocks
as he tried to direct her thrusts.
No
. He let go and cupped her breasts. She slid farther up his stomach and ground against him.
Ah, there's the rub
. She laughed. He moaned.

They fucked again on her bed. This time he pinned her down while he went at her, the compressed air popping like flatulence
between their bodies. She bit at his hands, his wrists, drawing blood in numerous places. She sucked at the swelling wounds,
feeding on him.

He flipped her over and entered her from behind. He had her in a half nelson with his right arm, pinning her head down sideways
on the bed. She struggled and butted back at him, coming twice this way before he did, his other hand cupped over her pubic
bone as if to stifle a scream.

Katharine awoke groggily when a silhouette leaned over her and stroked her down the length of her side. “I left you a job.
I'll call you.” The silhouette straightened and moved away. From a distance, Katharine thought she heard it say, “I love you,”
though it was barely audible, as if the speaker were unsure whether he wanted it heard or not.

The front door closed. A moan of protest escaped from her body, and with a sudden fear that she had OD'd again, she took inventory
and realized that although this body was sore — incredibly sore — the stomach, the innards were clean. She felt as if she
had been Rolfed, massaged so deeply that every muscle felt separated and reamed. And then she remembered. Sort of. It was
filtered through a smog-colored gel, but it was clear enough to inspire a gasp of horror, which when expelled, hung above
her like a cartoon bubble. The rising sun illuminated the bed, and the covers were twisted and clumped.
Last night … was it only last night
? She played it back in her mind, the tracking on the screen jerky. She winced.
I couldn't have done that. It must have been someone else. A body double. I'm incapable of doing something like that. I couldn't
have liked it. It was so … so … It hurts too much afterward
.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood up —
how can the soles of my feet hurt
? — and hobbled into the bathroom. A smell clung to her, the pheromones burred into her skin like Velcro.
My offence is so rank, it smells to heaven
. She stepped into the shower, and urine ran hot and stinging down a leg into the drain. She turned the water on as hard and
as hot as she could possibly stand it. She expected some sort of chemical reaction, purpled bruises like images developing
from an emulsion bath spreading across her skin.

I lost it. I goddamned lost it. No control
.

She tried to patch herself back up and soaped and scrubbed with the washcloth until her skin felt raw.

I'm acting like I've been raped and trying to scrub it away.

And exactly whose act of rape are you trying to obliterate
?

Feeling scourged, Katharine walked gingerly into the kitchen. She had a cup of coffee in her hand before she noticed the brown
wrapped package the size of a loaf pan on the counter. She frowned and poked a finger at it. She lifted it — it felt like
a bag of flour — then dropped it as if it had bitten her. A napkin that had been under the package drifted lazily to the floor.
She picked it up and made herself concentrate on the leaden lines that someone had written on it. There was an address — a
number and street name in Bel Air — and underneath was scribbled, “After the delivery, meet me at Potters at 9.” She scrunched
the napkin in her hand.
Messages on napkins. I get more like Thisby every day
. She took a knife, flipped the package over cautiously, again as if it might attack her, and slit the tape on the underbelly.
Inside was a plastic bag of white powder.

“I've got a job for you.” Isn't that what he said? Isn't it? Now I've got the big picture. This is how Thisby made her money.
She was a goddamned drug runner
.

She stabbed the package with the knife, and it stuck there like a quivering arrow shaft.

Oh, great. Get mad and stab the damn drugs. Now what are you going to do?

I'll tape up the goddamn bag. Like I give a shit
.

Yeah, but Hooker's gonna give you more than shit when you give him back the package with a hole in it
.

“Shit,” Katharine swore as she found some Band-Aids and pulled the knife out very gently and quickly covered the wound. She
replaced the wrapper and flipped the package on its back to keep the seams together. “Shit.”

I gotta get this back to him. I gotta tell him I can't do this. There's probably a time limit on this kind of thing. He'll
come after me when the client calls him and says the stuff didn't show up
.

“Shit.”

. . .

At exactly nine o'clock she arrived at Potters, a downtown bar on a long skinny corner lot. Hooker's package was in an oversized
shoulder bag; she didn't dare leave it in Thisby's car with that flimsy canvas top. It was a hot night, but she had soaked
through her clothes with fear, not heat. The smell of her kept her thinking that she was standing next to a stranger, and
it wasn't hard to imagine the feel of Hooker's blade running across her own throat.

It had been the longest day. She couldn't concentrate and keep the voice that whispered quiet. She prowled the apartment,
trying to outdistance her own smell, and took three long showers and paced again — the voice that whispered incessantly murmuring
in her ear. She had gone to the store as early as possible to buy packing tape, to patch up the knife wound. She expected
the police to come barging in her door any second. And Quince? Was this her day to come? She couldn't remember. Would Quince
let herself in with her key, hurt and then furious at the sight of her seemingly strung-out sister and a loaf of drugs on
the kitchen counter?

When she taped the hole and a bit of the powder dusted her fingertips, she swore they tingled as if they were having an allergic
reaction.

Just lick it off your fingers
, the whispery voice cooed.
What's the big deal? Hooker's not gonna know, and it's so little, it can't hurt you
.

She had her fingers up to her tongue before she curled them back into her palm, marking her skin with her nails. She washed
the cocaine off, and a fleshburn dotted the tips of her fingers.

She left the house at eight, strung so tight, she thought she might snap. And all day she had not allowed herself to hear
that other voice again, that voice that floated across the room like a poltergeist, “I love you.”

He was playing pool and looked like a hustler; he had just missed what looked like an easy shot. When he saw her, he smiled,
and Katharine felt her chest ease a bit. He walked her over to the opposite wall.

“It go okay?”

She opened the bag that she had put the drugs in and held it up to him so he could see inside. He closed it quickly, a frown
on his face. “Shit, Thiz, whaddya doin' bringing it here?.” He looked around quickly and took her back into a storeroom filled
with cases of beer and hard liquor. “What's wrong? I gave you the address, didn't I?”

“Yes, it's not that.” Her throat felt dry, and she wanted to guzzle the entire contents of the room. “I can't do it. I can't
be your runner.” She suddenly needed breathing lessons. “I can't do it ever again. I'm out.”

He looked surprised, and then his eyelids narrowed. He grabbed her wrist, and she struggled but couldn't release herself.
“What's gotten into you? First you disappear for a month, then you treat me like shit, then you jump my bones, now I'm shit
again. What gives?”

“Last night was a mistake. I meant what I said”—
and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful … my God, stop it
—“I meant what I said last week. I'm clean, and I want you to leave me alone.”

Hooker let go of her and just stood there. Then his whole body seemed to coil up and tense. “Are you dumping me?”

It was Katharine's turn to look surprised. He'd said it in such a way that it sounded like, Was she really giving back his
frat pin? “It's not as if we were engaged or anything,” she said, and then flinched at the look on his face.
Were we
?

Katharine suddenly had a vision of Thisby and Hooker, in perhaps a rare quiet moment, curled up on Thisby's couch. She's snuggled
against his chest, her head tucked up under his chin. “My parents would have a shitfit if I married you,” she says to his
collarbone. His voice comes to her softly from above. “My parents wouldn't be so pleased either, but that wouldn't be the
reason I'd marry you.”

Hooker's body shifted, and Katharine jumped back, slamming her hipbone into a corner of shelving. She straightened slowly
and, gently taking out the package, put in on a stack of J & B cases. “Here. You'll need to rewrap it. There's a hole in it.”

He stepped toward her, but she moved out of striking distance and said hurriedly, “I didn't take any. I swear. Weigh it or
whatever you do. I stabbed the package with a knife when I realized what you had left me.”

He smiled, and chuckled. Katharine relaxed. He did have a way about him. “That's my Thisby. Come on back into the bar, and
I'll buy you a beer, and we'll talk.”

Is he the voice that whispers? He sounds so reasonable but … but they're not the same
. “No, I can't. I mean it. I'm out. I'm sorry.”
Why am I sorry
? He closed in on her. “No, don't touch me.” She slid around to the door. The skin around her wrist tingled and sang. Then
she was sorry.
In more ways than one
.

She stumbled through the door and out of the bar, limping slightly. He followed her out but didn't cross the street where
her car was parked. Her hands shook crazily as she tried to open the door, watching him watch her. He put his hands on the
roof of a white Lexus two-door, and a mechanical voice spoke loudly from the automobile, “Please step away from car.” Hooker
pressed the entire length of his body against the passenger door, stretching his arms across the moonroof. “You have three
seconds to step away from the car before the security system is engaged,” the voice monotoned.

Katharine got the door open but watched him in fascination until the shrill horn blew. A group of well-dressed people on the
corner turned toward the sound, and some came running. She swung herself into the seat, locking the door behind her. As she
drove past Hooker, he followed her with mild, confident eyes, ignoring the protestations of the car's nervous yuppie owner
trying to get him to back off the paint job.

Act 3, Scene 4

What, must I hold a candle to my shames?

— J
ESSICA
,
The Merchant of Venice
, 2.6.41

She knocked on Goodfellow's door, and his voice called out from inside, “Who is it?”

“It's me. Thisby.”

“Come on in. I'm on the phone with True.”

He was standing in the kitchen with a towel tucked around his waist, holding the phone. He wasn't dripping, but his hair was
damp and his chest had a soft, moist look to it. Katharine tried to look elsewhere, but the look of his newly showered body
kept drawing her back. The towel was slung low on his hips; she could see the tan line from his shorts. He and Hooker were
about the same size, and although Hooker spent more time in the gym (had, no doubt, more time to spend in the gym) she liked
the shape of Goodfellow's torso, which was slim and —
what am I talking about? I can't believe I was so petrified that I had to get out of the apartment, and now I'm calmly comparing
their gross anatomy
.

She had come over ostensibly to bring him the new set of keys to her apartment and her unlisted phone number, but it was the
idea of spending another night alone that had really made her visit him unannounced. She sat at the dining-room table and
traced his profile against the backdrop of the cabinet doors.

“I'll ask her.” Puck dropped the end of the receiver away from his mouth and spoke to her. “True's inviting us over this Saturday
afternoon to his parents' house in Long Beach. He was going to call you after he called me, but since you're here … Can you
go?”

Her heart thumped erratically, but then her mood lightened.
Emily and Hank
. Yes, she could handle them. She could even get them to talk.
Well, Hank anyway
. She hadn't known what she should do next about her family and had been feeling guilty because she had been so inept, so
waffling, so undecided. But now she was back on track. She felt calmer, more at ease about them than she had in days. She
nodded her assent.

When Puck turned to hang up the receiver, the cord, which had gotten hooked under a corner of the towel, pulled free the tuck
at his waist. He grabbed at his hip and managed to catch one side of the towel, but the other dropped down, exposing his right
buttock and the port wine stain that was slanted across his skin, from low to high. It looked like a cattle brand; it was
elongated with symmetrical curves and had …
a divet
. It was as if he had been seared by a bright-red pair of lips.