Untitled.FR11 (22 page)

Conner’s eyes widened. His munching slowed. “Fine,” he said, putting a spin on it that asked, And

what sort of yuckiness is this bizarre behavior the prelude to?

“Sherry and I are going out for dinner and then up to Lyra’s cabin for a few hours. I’ll fix you a Le Menu, the chopped sirloin, mushroom, and green bean kind.”

He cocked his head in a Marcus gesture, and Katt felt' a surge of anxiety which she managed to hide.

“No problem,” Conner said. “I’ll do it.”

Katt haggled, but she was pleased to see him take the initiative, and she quickly gave in. The house felt large again and brighter, as she showered and dried and dressed, a simple jeans and blouse combo. Tennis shoes over socks. Three small beaded necklaces, colorful, casual, that broke at the third button completed the picture. They’d look so nice and sexy, they’d feel that way, when she wore nothing else and bent to massage her friend, beaded stones lightly clicking at her breasts.

Downstairs she grabbed her son from behind, snatching him out of his hypnotic reverie. “Mo-om!” he protested, a hand tugging at her arm.

“Have a good ’un,” she said, releasing him. Although she feigned closeness, there was distance, a barrier. She wondered if it might always exist between them. She hoped with all her heart it would eventually disappear.

“When’ll you be back?” he asked.

“Late’s my guess. Elevenish. Don’t wait up.”

“Will Sherry be staying over?”

“Dunno,” said Katt. “My guess is she’ll sleep at her own place tonight.” God knew they could use (he rest.

“’Kay. Have fun.” The tube claimed his eyes, sucked up the whole of his attendon.

Six on the dot, Katt arrived at Alfalfa’s, a down-to-earth health-food supermarket located just off College on Horsetooth. Wasn’t as large as the one in Boulder—which, along with Pearl Street Mall, she’d made a point of visiting soon after her arrival in Colorado—but the people who worked there were wonderful and it invariably buoyed her spirits to stop in, even if a browse was all she had in mind.

She scoped the aisles, the tables in front, the juice bar. Took all of two minutes. No Sherry.

Somebody came up to her, her mouth wide around Katt’s name in a small screech of recognition. Skeleton eyes big in a radiant face. Judy Ger-rard, her first massage client in Fort Collins, though she’d discontinued after the third session. A young man over by the chips, handsome, vaguely familiar, looked up at Judy’s exclamation. Katt nodded at Judy’s words, exchanged pleasantries. Then she could feel the woman drawing away from the babble she’d created. She promised to call, set up another massage session. One day next week. They both knew she was lying. Judy clamped an affectionate squeeze on Katt’s arm, then held her hand and moved past her with a wave and a blessed-be.

The aisle was empty.

More scoping. A cluster of people had carts and kids over by the dried fruits and grain bins, bagging what they found, marking weight and price per pound on white tags.

Still no Sherry.

Katt checked her watch. Five minutes past. What 222

the heck. Let Sherry find her. She snaked over to the island of salad bar items, snagged a wide black bowl, started her scavenge of the exotica—a spoonful of spud salad, seaweed something, trail mix, sunflower seeds, a perfect eggplant-tomato-squash casserole.

“Starting without me, I see.” Sherry, wearing a low-cut blouse with eyeholes and laced leather thongs at the U of her bodice, smiled broadly.

“That’s right,” Katt replied. “You’re gonna stand me up, you’re on your own.”

“So what looks good?”

“Everything.”

“And where are we headed?”

Katt looked at her. Deadpanned: “I thought we’d sit at the tables in front.”

“Tease.”

Katt was pleased with herself. She asked if Sher-ry’d go for a salad too.

“I think I’ll have them make a smoked turkey on whole wheat. Grab us a table. I’ll join you in a sec.” Funny how good hearing Sherry’s voice, seeing the control in her lovely face as her lips moved, made Katt feel. Here was a woman who’d gone through her personal hell and come out on the other side— whole, content, complete.

“Okay,” Katt said, heading for the front of the store and catching a glimpse of the handsome guy studying canned soup near the salad bar. His hands were empty and no cart stood beside him.

She drew a cappuccino, paid for it and her salad, sat at a table near the dusky window. The small din-ing area’s dozen or more tables were sparsely oc-

cupied, a few student types reading textbooks, friends and couples in quiet talk over tea. Maneuvering among the closely packed tables was hard but not impossible.

When Sherry arrived, hips swaying to avoid bumping an empty chair, she commented, “Crowded tonight.”

“It’s just a small space is all,” said Katt.

The trio behind Sherry rose from their table, cleared it, and left. Sherry settled in, her eyes boring into her friend’s, coming at her again with the question. Refusing to let her gaze be caught that way, Katt equivocated, fork at her salad, teasing, eyes roaming the room. The guy was skirting tables over yonder, coffee cup in hand. He fixed on the next table over and slid in behind Sherry, the back of his chair nearly touching hers.

Maddening, being unable to place him.

Sherry snapped her fingers face-high. “Hey Galloway, I’m talking to you.”

“And I’m listening. Barely.” A sly smile.

“I’m gonna ask one more time. Then if I don’t get an answer, I just may withhold my affections.” Sherry teased like a pro. “Where—other than to bed of course—were you planning to take me?” She bit on her pickle spear, daring Katt with a glare to put her off one more time.

“Hey, not so loud,” Katt said. “This isn’t Boulder.”

“ You’re the one with the loud voice,” Sherry said, “a voice that so far hasn’t said a whole heck of a lot.”

Katt smiled, finding a forkful of trail mix. “Lyra’s cabin.” Looking superior, she closed her mouth around the tines. Behind Sherry, the guy had unfolded paper from his shirt pocket, uncapped a pen, hunched to sip coffee.

“Crazy Lyra’s place?”

“Be nice.”

“She having a party?”

“Nope. Just the two of us.”

Sherry smirked. “How cozy.” Then she softened, took Katt’s hand momentarily. “Really, that sounds wonderful.”

“There’s a skylight,” Katt said. “Full moon. Raging fire in the fireplace. Turns toasty warm real quick.”

“So I get to sample the amazing energy vortex?” “Oh ye of litde faith.” Katt laughed. “I haven’t a clue, really. But it’s there. Or something’s there. You tell me—when we get there and settle in—whether you feel anything or not.”

Sherry looked at Katt. “I’m feeling something pretty intense right now, to tell the truth.”

“Time enough for truth later.”

“And I intend to give you plenty of it.” “Likewise,” Katt said. “Hours on end.”

Over by the silverware, a young family rose and left, a slumbering moist-haired infant Snuggli’d on its father’s chest. The salad was good, every bite, and that much more delicious for Sherry’s company.

“So how,” her friend asked, “do I find this place?”

“Just follow my car.”

“I can handle that. But what if we’re separated?” “It’s easy to find,” Katt said. “You have a piece of paper? I’ll draw you a map.”

Sherry rummaged in her purse, found a wrinkled scrap, a Razor Point pen. “This do?”

“Yep. We’re gonna continue west on Horsetooth toward the reservoir.” She talked it out as she drew, left here, right here, so many traffic lights. Wasn’t very involved. For the remoteness of Lyra’s cabin, getting there was easy and the route pretty straightforward. As she drew the box that represented the cabin, she imagined being able to see down into it, to see herself and Sherry caught in coziness and love, there on the sheepskin rug by the fire. She put a finger on it, brushed it lighdy, so lighdy that no one but herself noticed.

Thank God for glass. He’d had a clear smoky shot at both of them, a slight twist of the head, made it seem as if he were gazing out into the dimly lit parking lot, but there they were, etched in onyx, all the details dark and shiny, their movements maddeningly suggestive. The glass also slighdy amplified their voices, especially the less appealing one—not that he needed the boost, she spoke so clearly. Gave superb direcuons too.

He’d had his eye on the flower girl, past the recipe board by the entrance—cool spiritual type, long yankable brown hair down past the shoulderblades. She’d be savage when aerated. Spiritual meant spirited, a sweadng filly all steamed up, tugging at her reins, trying to rouse him by the natural movements of her flesh. Then the once-sad breeder had come in, looking tighter than he’d remembered her. Prettier, bouncier. He’d idled along, checking her out. When the redhead with the devastating curves joined her, a drillable splash of dream-flesh swooping below her neck, his heart leapt up. Her glance had skewered him in the Student Center, highly observant; here he didn’t want her noticing him. And fortunately, unnatural sex acts on her mind, her eyes and ears were fixed on her short-haired friend. A cabin, up yonder in the foothills. Isolation. He wouldn’t have to coax anybody. Just surprise the shit out of them, clonk ’em, fasten their fascinating slicked-with-sin bodies to a tree, and wait for them to revive.

He paused. He pondered. This situation could use a little thinking about: These two were lezzies, that much was clear. They weren’t about to drop any babies, and if he killed them, maybe the papers would get it wrong, warp his message maybe. Ah, but it wasn’t the newspapers that mattered; what mattered were the antennas he drilled into the be-hind-handers; what mattered were the backstage ties they had to one another worldwide. And as for being safe if sorry little lezzies, these days even dykes went ahead and puffed up—artificial insemination had done its worst with them or they let some gay buddy poke his seeder into their parts and shoot his shit-laden seed up inside them. Besides, maybe they were bi. That was all the rage these days and they didn’t seem like manhaters. Not these two.

No, they’d be prime victims, of that he was sure.

His coffee grew cold. He pretended to sip it, paper before him, doodling air-spirals along the edges.

In the center, the map was taking form. He’d driven up that way before, knew vaguely the locale, blessed Katt—the sexier one had dropped her name—for being so helpful. At their rising, he turned inward to the window, propping his face on his left palm, concealing it, watching walking shadows, clear the eadng area, then glide past the chocolates and onward through an empty checkout line. He folded the map and jammed it into a jeans pocket, leaving the coffee cup where it was.

Sherry’d been expecting something rustic, tiny little back-to-the-earth place, a wood-burning stove, an unevenly carpented oak floor that caught at stool legs. The cabin, brighdy bathed in moonlight, asserted itself smardy when Katt’s assured driving at last brought it into view. None of that rustic crap for me, it proclaimed.

“I like it,” Sherry said into the warmth of the night air, twin pings echoing in her head from their doorslams.

“It’s likable,” Katt joked, key in hand.

The inside was spodess, a clever blend of rich woods in the cabinetry and furniture, with the steel and tile of modern fixtures. A single room, but what a room! It felt spacious yet cozy, uncluttered but with the correct number of chairs and couches casually contrivedly scattered about here and there. Chopped cords of wood were stacked by the fireplace. As Katt tended to them, Sherry walked about in awe of the place, trying to sense the fabled energy vortex but just feeling good about the quiet and the solitude and being here with Katt. The cabin air,

starting to glow now with the first feeble flames, was lightly redolent with an ineffable hint of woodbased incense. Katt snapped out the light by the door and Sherry focused for the first time on the skylight, a tepee of moonshine aslant upon the flocked off-white carpet. “Someone lucked out,” she said.

“Lyra and Joseph are pretty special.”

“Must be. I’m impressed.”

Crackles from the fire and a reaching out of heat and light. Katt approached her, merged with her. Her embrace was so gentle, so firm, so right.

Sherry asked, “So is this place supercharging

you?”

“Something is,” Katt joked. Then more seriously: “I think so. But there’s only one way to find out. You need to take off your clothes and lie down over here.”

“So serious,” she said. “And in such a hurry. Like most of the men I’ve met and bedded.”

“No hurry. It’s just that being naked here feels so good, and I think it’ll feel even better tonight.” There was more to it than that, Sherry sensed, but let it go.

“Oh dear,” she said. “There’s one small problem.”

“What problem?” asked Katt.

“I seem to have forgotten how to take my clothes off. I’m afraid you’re going to have to do it for me.”

Katt smiled. “With pleasure,” she said.

There’d been no need, really, to keep them in view.

In fact, he’d lost them at once, traffic on 229

r

Horsetooth being what it was outside of Alfalfa’s. Anxiety tightened his stomach. Absurd. The map lay beside him in the truck, and Katt’s words had burned the route into memory. Female guidance, in a voice he’d later drill up to the top of its scale, coated the night highway. A mommy’s coaxings. The easy byplay of their conversation had been mere prelude to the duet they’d weave under his blandishments, taut, thick with agony, skirling up into the moonlit sky. Surely, the race of tempters would hear the message in their bones and end, as one, the hipsnakings, the coy flashings of exposed flesh, the endless upthrusting and implanting and adorning of eye-achers, all intended to lure out seed and baby-make unendingly. True shame would hold sway at last. Cosmetic lies gone, they’d show their ugliness. Pussycravers would droop their seeders down. No more brats, ever. Clear the pipeline. Watch the last brood of kickers and pourers age and die. Give the planet a big long rest.

Three miles on, with the traffic thinning, he saw two cars he guessed were theirs—like a tailgated slowpoke but without the anxiety and rage he usually felt from watching such a duo form. He held back, pleased to see them follow the directions in his brain. Cars were few enough and the nightroad unlit so that he could track them about the dips and curves by mere residues of backlight. When, up ahead, they turned off onto a dirt road, his anxiety revived. He drove past the dirt road, glimpsing receding pairs of red glowlights dancing on the road’s uneven surface. Then he swung out and U-turned, taking his time. She’d said the cabin was exactly a mile off the highway. He’d need to stop a quarter mile in; kill his engine before they killed theirs, so they wouldn’t hear anything behind them; grab a wrench, the drill, his bag of tricks, and set out on foot.