Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (112 page)

My
hat!

The
gasps went up immediately. He saw them all staring at him with a mixture of
shock, revulsion and then pity. He knew what they saw—a mostly bald head
covered in a few strands of long greasy hair. He knew what they were thinking.

What’s
he got? Is it contagious? Oh the poor man.

The
big man backed away in shock. Terry didn’t care. He got back to his feet and
raised his fists on his skinny little arms.

“Come
on!” he cried, voice rasping with defiance.

The
big man almost did. He was drunk enough for the primal instinct to fight to
nearly overwhelm the common sense dictated by Terry’s appearance. If his
friends hadn’t been there he’d have probably hit Terry again.

“Don’t
be a tool, Neil!” one of his friends yelled in his ear as they tried to hold
him back. “Can’t you see he’s on chemo?”

Neil
blinked and took a proper look at the man standing in front of him. He backed
down with an expression of sheepish embarrassment on his face. He couldn’t look
Terry in the eye, instead staring all around him, anywhere but at Terry
directly.

“No.
Fight me!” Terry said, still waving his fists with his stick-thin arms.

The
man and his friends melted back into the crowd of onlookers, the man still
refusing to meet Terry’s eyes.

“Fight
me!” Terry yelled after them. “Fight me,” he said, slumping forward as hot
tears welled up in his eyes.

They
came then, as they always did, clucking and cooing like concerned mother hens,
crowding him, mothering him, always with that stifling pity that sucked all the
oxygen from his lungs and left him weak-kneed and helpless. He pushed them off,
loathing himself for shoving them away even though they meant well, and
loathing them for making him loath himself.

Why
couldn’t they treat him like everyone else?

Blood
was streaming from his split lip as he sat at a table by the wall. His mouth
ached, like biting down on a razor. One of the barmaids had given him a tissue.
He pressed it into his mouth to try and stem the bleeding. One of his teeth
ached with a dull throb. It felt loose.

Nicole
joined him.

“I
found your hat,” she said.

Terry
took it and put it back on his head, hiding his ravaged skull from staring
eyes. Too late, they knew now and those eyes would follow him everywhere, eyes
filled with pity. At least he didn’t get to see that with Nicole, but with
those sunglasses he didn’t see anything at all.

Terry’s
tooth was more than loose. He nudged it with his tongue and it fell out of the
socket. He spat it out into a tissue and stared at the blood-smudged white
enamel as if it was a trophy.

“Still
having fun?” Terry asked, looking up at Nicole and smiling. He dreaded to think
what that smile looked like now. Gap-toothed and bloody, he must make for an
even worse sight than usual.

Nicole
didn’t seem to mind. She smiled right back at him.

“Yes,
you?” she replied.

“Loving
it,” Terry laughed, specks of dried blood still staining his chin. He felt
exhilarated, alive.

“What
about your tooth?” Nicole asked.

“Don’t
worry about it,” Terry said. He stared at the trophy in his hands with a
mixture of both pride and revulsion. “The rest will all be falling out soon
anyway.”

Nicole
put her arms around him and leant against him, her head resting on his
shoulder.

“I
suppose that’s the end of any kissing this evening,” Terry said.

Nicole
surprised him by lapping a spot of blood off his chin with a dainty little lick
of her tongue.

“Don’t
tell anyone, but I’m really quite a kinky little bitch,” she whispered in his
ear, her voice husky and dripping with so much lust Terry felt his cock stir in
his pants.

They
leant against each other in comfortable silence and watched the party swing and
flow around them. It had turned into a perfect summer night, warm without being
sweaty. Being here, with an absolutely gorgeous woman, Terry felt truly alive
for the first time in his life.

Unfortunately
it didn’t take long for the fly in the ointment to return. The big guy, Neil,
came back and stood on the other side of the table. His eyes were apologetic
and his whole stance radiated contrition, albeit with a hefty amount of alcohol
induced instability.

“I
want to apologize,” Neil said. “I was out of order back there. That was the
booze talking. I didn’t mean to belt you like that, especially on account of
you being...you know...”

Ill.
Sick. Weak. Pathetic. Which word would you prefer? Terry thought. Why did
people have to be so awkward about it? It wasn’t as if it was their fault, or
they could do anything about it.

“Let
me buy you a drink. Make it up to you,” Neil said. He held out a hand.

“Sure,”
Terry said.

The
apology was appreciated, but after fetching them new drinks Neil didn’t leave.
Instead he squeezed onto the seat next to Terry and didn’t show any inclination
of leaving any time soon. His presence brought an awkward silence to the table.
He stared at Nicole as if he couldn’t take his eyes off her. There was
something dangerous there, a spark bordering on obsession.

Terry
wasn’t sure what to do about him. He’d dearly like to tell him to fuck off, but
he suspected that would only make the big man violent again. They could move
away, but there was no guarantee he wouldn’t just follow them. Instead they
tried to ignore him. It was difficult for Terry as he found the other man’s
presence stifling. Nicole had no such problems though and was adept enough to
divert Terry’s thoughts away from their unwelcome visitor. In the company of a
girl as beguiling as Nicole it really wasn’t that hard to tune out the rest of
the world.

“How
much?” Neil said, suddenly slapping a couple of crisp notes onto the table.

They
were hundred pound notes, Terry realized. Neil held his hand over them, showing
off a solid gold watch that must have cost several grand. He stared at Nicole,
eyes flecked with steely determination.

Terry
looked at her with a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t
hope to match that kind of money. Nicole was as still as the flawless sculpture
she resembled. She dabbed her vivid red lips with her tongue.

“I’ve
been watching you all night,” Neil said to Nicole. “There’s no way you’d be
here with him unless he’d paid you.”

Neil
turned to Terry. “Not that I blame you for doing it. Makes perfect sense given
your...condition. You’re playing in the big leagues now though.”

He
turned back to Nicole.

“So
how much to forget this guy and leave with me right now?”

There
was a pause. Terry glanced from Nicole to Neil and then back again. Neil’s face
was determined, Nicole’s impassive. She was going to leave with him, Terry
thought, a sickening feeling growing in his stomach.

Nicole
leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take
care of this. I won’t take too long, I promise. Then we can get back to our
enjoyable little evening.”

She
reached into Terry’s lap and gave him a cheeky little squeeze. Then she got up,
took Neil’s hand and walked away. As they walked away Neil turned back and
flashed Terry a nasty little wink.

Asshole,
Terry thought.

She
wasn’t going to come back, he thought, toying with a beermat.

As
he watched her walk away his eyes played strange tricks on him. For a moment
her form seemed to shimmer and Terry thought he saw black wings, leathery like
a bat’s, coming out of her back and a long black tail, tipped with an arrow point
like a demon’s, swishing behind her. He blinked and the image was gone.

He
tried not to think about what that might mean. Instead he stared down into his
beer, no longer in the mood to carry on drinking.

“Here
are some more tissues.”

Terry
looked up and saw one of the barmaids—a pretty girl with curly blonde
hair—with a handful of white tissues.

“Thanks,”
Terry said, taking a handful and replacing the sodden wad pressed against his
mouth.

“He’s
a giant prick,” the barmaid said, looking over to where Neil had disappeared.
“He always was an arrogant bastard, but now he’s got that high flying job in
the city he’s far worse.”

She
leant closer and put her hand next to her mouth.

“There’s
nothing between his legs worth bragging about,” she whispered.

“Not
so much a giant prick in that department then.” Terry said.

“Very
much a little prick,” the barmaid whispered.

They
both chuckled.

“Of
course, it’d be funnier if I hadn’t found out first hand,” she said, her face
twisting in disgust. “Are you Terry Gaiman?” she asked.

“Yeah,”
he replied, wondering how she knew him.

“My
little sister, Sheila, spoke very highly of you. She said you used to read her
stories at night.”

“Sheila?
I remember her. It was such a shame, I’m sorry.”

“Your...”
she said. “It’s not...”

Terry
was used to that look, when people felt the need to say something but they
weren’t really sure what.

“Oh
no,” Terry said. “The chemotherapy’s a bitch but the doctors reckon I’ve got a
good chance of pulling through.”

“That’s
good,” the barmaid said, her face brightening. She noticed a man waving at her
from the bar and turned to go back to work. “I’m Amanda,” she said. “Maybe I’ll
see you around some time.”

Terry
watched her go, alone in his own dark shroud. It was better this way. Life was
too short and too precious to be tainted with reminders of how fleeting it
really was.

He
was still glumly contemplating the surface of his pint when he was enfolded in
a familiar perfume. An arm went around his back and a soft body leaned against
him.

“It’s
too beautiful a night to wear an expression like that,” Nicole whispered in his
ear.

“I
thought you’d left with him for sure,” Terry said, surprised.

Nicole
put on an expression of exaggerated hurt. “Don’t be silly,” she said.

“But
his money.”

“Darling,
I’m not a good to be auctioned to the highest bidder,” Nicole said. “My
appointment tonight is with you, just you, for the whole night. For my business
it’s important to have a good reputation. Can you imagine what would happen to
that if I made a habit of running out every time another man flashed his wallet
at me?”

She
put a pale hand over Terry’s hand.

“I’m
really sorry for allowing the cruder aspects of my business to intrude on your
perfect evening. He would have pestered us all night if I hadn’t. I made him
understand the situation and he was much more amenable once I mentioned I had
an opening later in the week.”

“So
you made an appointment with him?”

“It’s
what I do,” Nicole said, her face enigmatic.

“Does
it ever bother you?” Terry asked.

“The
men are all different,” Nicole said. “Sometimes they’re wonderful, charming,
fun men like you, and I feel terribly guilty for taking their money. Other
times they’re rude, obnoxious and unpleasant.”

“Not
so much guilt over taking their money,” Terry said.

Nicole
flashed him a smile that verged on the predatory. “Oh, I enjoy taking them for
everything they’ve got.”

They
stayed at the dance a little while longer. The air cooled as night deepened
outside and the revelers started to make their ways back home. Terry summoned
up the energy for one last dance and would have kept going in Nicole’s arms
until his heart popped from his chest and his legs fell out under him, but
there were no more songs, it was time for the DJ to pack up. The last remaining
couples abandoned the dance floor until all that remained were slowly deflating
balloons, soggy colored streamers and the occasional empty bottle.

“Time
to go home,” Nicole whispered in his ear, her voice dripping with lascivious
suggestion.

Terry
paused once they got back to his front door. He knew what they were about to go
inside and do. Nicole’s real business. What he’d paid for.

He
wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted.

Nicole
noticed his hesitancy. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she asked, her
luscious red lips turned up in an amused smile.

Terry
fumbled with the key and led her into the corridor. He paused again at the door
to his bedroom.

He
wanted to, he really wanted to. She was fun and really really sexy, but he knew
this was her job and this part of it was probably something she didn’t enjoy
too much. She wouldn’t tell him that, she was too professional. No doubt she’d
act as if she was enjoying it just as much as he was. He looked at her, tried
to gauge what she might be thinking, but she was as unreadable as the perfect marble
sculpture she resembled.

“I’ve
had a lovely evening,” Terry said.

“It’s
not finished yet,” Nicole said, adding a seductive pout.

“What
I’m trying to say is you don’t have to, not if you don’t want to. The whole
date has been perfect enough already.”

Nicole
looked at him and laughed.

“Tsk.
Why is it the men I really look forward to having sex with always have these
crises of conscience. All this silly guilt and morality over a perfectly
natural act. Terry, you’re a lovely sweet young man and your concern for my
feelings is very touching, but right now we’re going to fuck and keep on
fucking until the sun comes up.”

She
took off her sunglasses and Terry realized they weren’t there to protect her
eyes because she didn’t have any to protect. In their place were two deep,
black pools. Terry stared at her face in shock and then his fear mounted as he
realized he couldn’t stare away. Her eyes, those empty black portals, snared
his gaze and reeled him into Stygian depths.