Five Stories for the Dark Months (7 page)

She led him a long and silent way,
through streets and alleys Paul had never seen before. She walked
without speaking, and her long hair veiled her face. She seemed to
have forgotten he was there. From time to time he tried to make
conversation, but everything he thought of to say fell to pieces on
his tongue before he could say it. It had to have been more than
ten minutes already, he thought soon, but there was no way of
saying that that wouldn’t have sounded petty. In the end, he walked
as quietly as she did.

At last Helen stopped on a quiet
street lined with brownstone buildings. Most of these were dark,
but the one she’d stopped by had a number of lit windows. By their
light Paul could see that the building was covered with small
embellishments: blooming flower boxes, small flags, old lace
curtains. Soft jazz music floated from an upstairs
window.

“Here we are,” said Helen, taking
off her bag. “Wait a second—I’ll find my keys.”

Now that they were
here, Paul felt extraneous, as if he’d walked onto the set of a
play he wasn’t acting in. He looked up at the house. It had to date
back at least to the early 20
^th
century, he thought. A plaque
near the door suggested it was a historical site, though it was too
dark for Paul to read why

“You look lost,” Helen said,
stepping toward him with her keys in her hand. “Is something
wrong?”

“I… no.” His phone buzzed.
“I…”

“Perhaps you should check your
messages.” Her voice, which before had been so gentle, was low and
throaty now—hoarse, teasing. Paul found himself getting
hard.

“Uh… uh… yeah, sorry.” He fumbled
the phone from the pocket of his tightening jeans. “Just a
second…”

He could
practically read Wendy’s anger from her text.
Where are u?!!!
Scrolling up, he saw
that it was only the latest in a long string of similar messages,
though he’d never heard the alerts from any of them.
We can’t go to Mom’s now! She’s going to bed.
What the fuck, Paul???

I forgot the
milk
, he typed quickly.
Back soon.

NO FUCKING WAY!!!! PAUL, IT HAS
BEEN 2 HOURS!!!!!

He didn’t know what to do. After a
second, he put the phone back in his pocket. “I’m sorry,” he said
again, though he didn’t know why he was apologizing to Helen of all
people.

She moved closer. “No apology is
necessary. Would you like to come upstairs? Have some coffee,
perhaps?” She laid her hand on his arm.

A chill shot through his body. Paul
groaned. “Ah, no. No, I—” He was hot, confused—his heart was
racing. His jeans were unbearably tight. “I’m sorry, I—” He gasped,
and tried to pull away, but failed. “I really shouldn’t. I need to
get home.”

His phone began to ring again. As
the Sugar Plum Fairy tripped her erratic way up and down the scale,
Paul stared into Helen’s cold dark eyes and wondered why he was
here. At last, without really thinking about it, he pulled the
phone out again and turned it off. “I have to go,” he said
again.

“Of course.” Helen stepped
backward, swaying like a cobra. “It was so very lovely to meet you,
Paul. I think perhaps we will not meet again. But you should go
home—go and see your wife. See your son.”

Something terrible was happening,
he thought. A glorious opportunity was slipping by, and for the
life of him he couldn’t tell why he wasn’t taking it.
“I…”

“But are you sure you won’t come
upstairs, only for a little while?” Her eyes glinted yellow in the
glow of the porch lights. There was something mesmerizing about her
voice—it hissed and throbbed, burrowing deep into his head. “I
think you’ll feel much better.”

Paul swallowed around a throat gone
suddenly dry. “I really shouldn’t.” His voice was
hoarse.

“You could take a taxi home.”
Reaching out again, she laid her hand against his chest. He drew a
sharp, painful breath. “You’d be there in no time, that way. What’s
ten minutes, more or less, if you’re already so late?”

“My wife is going to kill me.”
Despite his words, his hand rose up and closed around Helen’s
small, cold one. “She’s going to skin me alive.”

“Then why are you in such a hurry
to see her?”

Her logic was
impeccable.

“Ten minutes,” Helen whispered,
holding his gaze.

Paul shivered. He opened his mouth
to refuse, and nodded. “All right,” he said. “Ten
minutes.”

He woke to silence. Thin grey light
flowed through an open window, along with a chilly breeze that
shivered the white gauze curtains.

Paul stirred, frowning. Had Wendy
changed the curtains? But she loved the blue ones, and she was
always talking about saving money…

The bed was different, too, he
realized slowly: a circular mattress on the floor by the window,
covered by a white duvet—down, he thought, scented with herbs. He
was naked beneath it—they must have made love last night. Dimly, he
began to remember…

…the taste of her salty skin
between his teeth, her hands against his throat as he moved into
her—the sharp, dry scent of her body, and the shape of her small,
dark nipples—the brush of her tangled hair against his—

Gasping, Paul turned over and
reached for Wendy. “Mmm… hey, babe, I—”

His hand, beneath the covers, fell
on a taut, curved waist—much smaller than Wendy’s had ever been,
even before the baby. Its owner sighed softly, nuzzling
closer.

A tremor of fear ran through Paul’s
bones. “Wendy?” he whispered. He reached for the edge of the
duvet—then stopped, afraid to see what lay beneath.

“Mmm… who is Wendy?” The voice was
low and hoarse with sleep—and nothing like his wife’s.

He watched, mute and frozen, as the
covers fell and Helen sat up. Nude, she was exquisite. Her bones
were delicate, her breasts high, her skin flawless. Her back was to
the window, and the dim gray light of morning set her face in
shadow, making black pools of her eyes. Her dark hair fell to her
waist, cloaking her shoulders and covering her nipples, obscenely
demure.

She looked younger now, thought
Paul, in the small part of his head that wasn’t paralyzed with
horror. She could have been eighteen, where before she’d looked
almost thirty. Her waist and hips were narrow, her breasts small
and pointed, her belly flat. Her skin was as smooth as glass. She
looked like an angel, or perhaps a fairy.

She watched him stare for a moment,
then smiled. “Good morning, Paul,” she said.

He couldn’t think of a word to
say.

“Did you sleep well?” Helen cocked
her head, birdlike. “We’ve had a long night together.” With a sly
half-smile, she ran her fingertips down Paul’s chest. “But perhaps
you are ready for a second round?”

“No.” He shook his head, finally
realizing what had happened. “No, no, no. This can’t be right.” He
staggered from the bed, and saw his phone abandoned in the center
of the hardwood floor. He picked it up, but its screen was thick
with dust, the battery long dead.

“No—you didn’t sleep well?” Her
voice was mocking. Following him from her nest, she twined herself
around him as he searched for his clothes. Her fingers trailed down
between his legs and began to toy with him. He moaned.

“Or,” she
whispered, pressing the words against his throat with lips and
teeth and tongue, “perhaps you mean that you—”
(squeeze)
“—don’t want to try
again?”

As Paul sank to the floor,
collapsing around himself in a miserable lust-soaked heap, Helen
laughed. “Pity,” she said, stepping away with a little kick to
Paul’s side. “I had thought you rather enjoyed
yourself.”

Paul’s face was slick with tears as
he stared up at her. “Please,” he said. His voice was small and
hopeless. “I need to go home.”

“Home? All right, but you must
know you may not have one anymore. A night can pass so quickly,
sometimes—hours feel like minutes, and years—well, they feel like
hours.”

She turned away, and began to pace
around the room, clearly waiting for him to go. They were in a
small studio, he thought—a round, bright room that felt like the
inside of a tower. After a minute, not knowing what else to do,
Paul took a few deep breaths and began pulling on his
clothes.

As he found his
shoes behind a row of potted plants, he began to wonder what he
might say to Wendy. An hour could be explained—even two or three,
if he were very careful—but an entire
night?
And what had he been
thinking—what had ever possessed him to go home with a total
stranger? He felt like some dark, unknown part of himself had been
in control the night before—surely he’d never have done… what he
had done… of his own volition?

“Are you quite finished?” Helen
was waiting by the door, looking impatient. “I have things to do
today, so I think you should be going.”

Paul advanced on
her, suddenly furious. “What the hell did you do to me?”
Remembering the strange, sweet drink she’d given him, he said,
“What was in that cup? Did you
drug
me?”

“I gave you nothing, my dear fool,
that you did not ask for first.” Helen batted her lashes and made
her face stupid. “Oh, miss, may I try it, please? Let me walk you
home?”

He raised his arms, and for a
second was sure he would strangle her—but Helen stepped between his
hands and laid a chaste kiss against the corner of his mouth.
Immediately, his anger left him.

“Why?” he said sadly, lowering his
arms.

“That’s enough now,” said Helen
gently. “It’s time for you to go.”

Paul let her lead him to the door,
like a tired child being taken off to bed. He felt as if the world
were ending. What would he do when he went outside? How could he go
back to Wendy, after what he’d done? How could he approach her,
with the scent of another woman’s body on his skin—with the prints
of Helen’s nails across his back?

“Let me stay with you,” he said,
suddenly grabbing her hand. “Please. I’ll do whatever you want—just
let me stay for a while!”

She laughed. “A man who would
betray his wife and child, and go home with a stranger? Please be
serious, Paul—I’d never be able to trust you.”

He was opening his mouth to
protest—though what he’d say, he didn’t know—when he saw his
reflection in a mirror that hung beside the door.

The man behind the glass was a
gaunt, weary, ugly stranger. He looked a bit like Paul, if Paul
were ten years older and had lost most of his health and vitality.
His back was hunched, his face creased and drawn. His hair was thin
and graying, and his clothing looked about to fall apart from the
buttons outward.

Paul swallowed. “Who is—” Then his
voice dried out, like the last water falling from a dusty
pump.

“Time slips by so
quickly, you see.” Helen looked vaguely sheepish, as if she’d left
a window open or forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning. “I only
meant to take a few months, but I got too carried away… You
were
very
enthusiastic, you know.” She flashed him the conspiratorial
smile that had so engaged him at the café… had it been the night
before? Or a decade ago? “And I get so
hungry
,” she went on wistfully. “You
have no idea how hard it is—finding someone who’ll come along
willingly, then stopping before too much time has gone. Sometimes I
just get…” she shrugged girlishly, “lost in
time.”

Giving Paul’s shoulder an
encouraging pat, she opened the door. The hall beyond was blank and
anonymous—they might have been anywhere in the city. “I think your
odds are good, though. In the grand scheme of things, ten years
really isn’t that that long—I’m sure your wife will still remember
you, if she’s here.” She gave him a little push, and he stumbled
out into the hallway. “Even if you can’t find your family again,
don’t worry—there’s a place for you somewhere. You’ve got all the
time in the world.”

Then she closed the door, and Paul
was left alone.

~}*{~

Over
the River

October 2012

Table of Contents

Sabrina couldn’t sleep with the
moonlight shining in her eyes.

Her friends were having no such
trouble. Jenny and Mark were sound asleep, cuddled up in their
zipped-together sleeping bags. Brian had been snoring for half an
hour. But Sabrina, pressed against him, was as alert as
ever.

She’d tried snuggling closer to
Brian, and moving farther away. She’d unzipped the bag for a breath
of air, and zipped it back up when she’d gotten too cold. She’d
rolled over, covered her eyes, counted sheep, and tried to
meditate. But wherever she turned, the halogen light of the full
white moon shone through her eyelids, keeping her wide
awake.

At last she couldn’t take it any
more. She eased herself out of the doubled sleeping bag she shared
with Brian, patting his shoulder when he whimpered in his sleep.
Shoving her feet into her old yellow Crocs, she walked to the edge
of the woods.