Husk (6 page)

The little lab rat’s advice nags me the whole cab ride home. He knows damn well there’s no way to be more careful. I don’t pick my clients, don’t actually do any work. I’m just the latest model for rent, the first-class deluxe edition available for test drives.
Drop the car off, leave the keys, address the damage after the ride. My work goes into the detailing. Put some spit and polish on the body, wax it up, and change the oil before I’m back out on the showroom floor. With all my bookings in recent weeks, adequate time to recover has become elusive. Tweek’s right. If I don’t find a way to be more careful …

You don’t want to think about it.

Riding
through the streets of Manhattan, I stare out of the window. Nothing memorable out there, just more of the island’s inhabitants constantly on the go, scuttling from point A to B with heads down, crowding the bases of buildings with their bodies as they suck enough fume-laden oxygen to convince themselves they’re in perpetual motion. None of them realize their lives are in limbo, a mass state of arrested
development. At a red light I witness a nicely dressed woman take a hot dog from a vendor and bolt up the street without paying for it. The vendor gives chase until he tackles her to the ground.
They writhe on the sidewalk, shouts and shrieks rising. A crowd gathers around them while other pedestrians ransack the hot dog cart during the commotion. Even this kind of thing doesn’t faze me these
days. It makes me wonder if the meaning of life is simply the challenge of living.

I’m so lost in my thoughts when I walk through my front door I don’t realize Craig is in the apartment, let alone talking to me.

‘Huh? Sorry, what did you say?’

Craig is still lying in the same position on the sofa, playing his video game. There are bags under his eyes, but he looks the opposite of tired. Two
energy drink cans lie crumpled on the coffee table. A busted bag of potato chips lies on his lap.

‘I said I can’t stop playing this damn game,’ he says. ‘The developers did such a great job on it.’

Makes me think of what Tweek said. I look around the apartment. Pizza boxes and takeaway containers litter the kitchen counter, beer bottles scattered among them. Dishes haven’t been done. A series
of gunshots and explosions erupt from the HG, causing Craig to whoop with excitement.

‘Graphics are freakin’ insane, man, so good that you’d think it was real life. This HG is the greatest thing ever.’

I glance at the game as I grab a beer from the fridge. Craig’s right, the graphics are something else. It’s nice to see my roommate immersed in something other than porno for once.

‘Have you
been to work at all?’ I ask.

Craig crams a handful of chips into his mouth and shakes his head. ‘Took a little time off, but I’ve got a bartending shift tonight at the Rochester.’

I drink the beer quickly as I watch Craig lead and kill some players with well-timed headshots through a sniper scope.

‘Nice shooting, dead-eye.’

‘The noobs are easy pickings,’ Craig says with a chuckle. ‘What are
you up to tonight, dude?’

‘No plans.’

‘Well, grab that girlfriend of yours and come down to the bar.’

‘Ryoko’s not my girlfriend.’

Craig rolls his eyes. ‘Whatever.’

‘She’s not.’

‘If she’s still dating you when you’re Husking, I’d call that pretty serious. Women have dumped my ass for a lot fucking less.’

His comment annoys me, but only because he’s right. God knows where my dick has been
over the last few years. Christ knows who my tongue has licked. What Craig doesn’t know is that Ryoko Husks too. I figured he would have put two and two together by now, but he’s not always the sharpest tool in the shed. Jesus, what other kind of girl would ever have me?

‘I’m hitting the hay for a while, dude,’ I say, finishing my beer and waving a hand toward the kitchen. ‘Do me a favour and
clean this pigsty up a bit.’

‘I’m on it,’ he replies, but doesn’t move.

‘Oh, and one more thing, man … Please don’t leave
your Glock lying out on the coffee table. Keep the firearms stowed away, okay?’

Craig grunts in agreement as he horrifically obliterates another player on the HG with a handheld prototype weapon I’ve seen before in the real world, an advance in science that has been misappropriated
by the military. The thought of it makes me shiver.

I retreat to my room, the gun playing on my mind. My thoughts turn to Winslade and his stock in that particular weapons technology. My client, the gun, Tweek’s advice, it all makes me want to go to bed and forget about things for a while. As I lie on my mattress and drift off, the gun invades my dreams, showing me over and over in horrible detail
what it is capable of doing to a human body.

The gun isn’t the only thing that sneaks into my sleep. There is blood too, flowing from a source unknown, running red and thick. It turns into ketchup, the kind I always wanted at the dinner table, in a squeezable bottle like the other kids got, not in the self-serve packets that my parents habitually stole by the handful from fast-food restaurants
along with mustard, relish, sugar, salt and pepper. Cheap hot dogs on my plate again, wrapped in slices of stale white bread, surrounded by these condiments packaged in small rectangular white. Baked beans and Mac’n’cheese make an appearance, reminiscent of tough times long ago. I’m a kid, eating them by the bowlful, aware of how frequently they are being served for supper with money so tight.

My parents sit at the far ends of the dinner table, heads
down, refusing to speak to each other. My sisters are quiet opposite me. Closing one eye, I look at their refracted images through the pitcher of tap water between us, making adjustments, trying to get the distortion to put smiles on their faces that aren’t there. I try to say words that will brighten the mood, but no one acknowledges anything
that leaves my mouth. I know all too well why my younger sister looks so unhappy, but I’ll never breathe a word to anyone about it. She picks at her food and I stretch my legs under the table, trying to touch my feet against hers, never connecting, never comforting. My toes touch something else, cool and alien. We hear grunts from somewhere below and freeze. I can feel a monster crawling under
the table, brushing my shins, moving away from me and toward my sister. I watch in horror as a hulking shadow rises from the floor behind her chair and looms over her small body. None of my family sees it, their eyes all cast down, staring at their plates. My sister, however, crumples in her seat. I yell, trying to warn her, watching as my shrill voice splinters and cleaves the table between us.
It collapses inward, pulling everyone around it into the centre like a drain to be sucked down. In the increasing vacuum, suffocating, wondering where I’ll end up, I manage one deep breath and hold it for as long as possible.

Suddenly I’m breaking the surface of a new dream. I can breathe again, and find myself drifting through my college days. The days and nights are a blur as I absorb lectures
and care too much about classes taught in the bowels of a concrete jungle, convinced the education will earn me some kind of job security, some kind of
respectable future if I just stick with it. Sitting in my graduation robes, I’m surrounded by screens of rejection notices while my ear is pressed to a phone, listening to a message that says over and over again: ‘We’re very sorry.’ The phone gets
hijacked by credit and collection agencies, legitimate loan sharks. Outstanding debts growl through the receiver, grilling me for my late or failed or nonexistent payments. Fancy paper in a broken frame lies at my feet, a degree majoring in compliance with a minor in gullibility. Fear grips me, fear of ending up like my parents, one foot in the gutter and one foot kicking the dirt out of some
shallow grave.

Miller stands in the dark corners of my dream, silent and still. I know it’s him by his height and stance, though I can’t see his face. We were similar growing up, both from homes that bordered on broken. Most conversations we shared were about our poor commonalities. Miller watches knowingly, breathing in the dead air I expel. I want him to intervene and end this anxious reliving
of the past. He reaches toward me, threatening to step out of the shadows. Before he can his figure fades, collected by the dark, his presence required elsewhere.

I wake to gentle hands gliding over my abdominal muscles, suckling mouth enveloping my dick that is quickly becoming an erection. A soft, playful tongue licks every inch of it as fingernails dig into my skin, scratching the surface
of me in long lines. The naked body that writhes against my legs is warm and smooth, supple breasts pressed to my thighs, hard stomach brushing against my shins. I know the familiarity of this erotic touch before I open my eyes.

‘Baby,’ I groan.

I clench my buttocks and feel her giggle against the base of my shaft as she presses wet lips against me. The sensation makes my back arch. Grogginess
slips from me all at once and I want to fuck her in the worst way. My hands reach down and grip her hair, lifting her face up from my lap so I can look into her eyes. A click behind my ear is heard, or maybe just felt.

‘Ry—’

Except it isn’t Ryoko looking back at me. Glassy blue eyes between handfuls of blonde hair regard me blankly. I stifle a cry of shock as I scramble backwards, kicking the
sheets off the bed.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ryoko says, wiping her mouth as she rises.

I try to catch my breath, scanning her unblemished skin, her ultra-fit body, making sure it really is her. Another vision, another memory I can’t hold on to slips away, despite the seeming importance of it. Ryoko, naked in the afternoon light except for a tight blue T-shirt hiked up over her breasts, recaptures my
full attention.

‘Bad dream,’ I mutter, rubbing my eyes.

Ryoko crawls across the bed and slides on top of me, her dark hair falling over my face as she bites my bottom lip. Hard nipples brush against mine, sending a buzz coursing the length of my body.

‘How’bout I give you a wet dream instead?’

‘You are my wet dream.’

‘That was the right answer,’ Ryoko says, straddling me.

She shifts her
hips a little and I’m past her tightness,
thrusting inside heavenly warmth, skin to skin, no contraception needed. Ryoko can’t have kids, and we take full advantage of this fact. My moans are muffled against her breasts, but hers are loud and growing. She bucks on my lap with a series of submissive whimpers until I lift her off and flip her over. We don’t last long. The force of my riding pushes
her body down further and further until she is lying on her stomach. Stretched out on top, I grind her ass into the mattress. She squirms with pleasure as I lick her skin slick with perspiration. I entwine her hair in my fist and pull, lifting her head so I can whisper in her ear as I drive myself into her as far as I will go.

‘I love you,’ I pant. ‘I fucking love you.’

‘I know, I know,’ she
says between short, desperate breaths.

This is the only control I ever have over a woman who could otherwise own me if she wanted. We slip into a heavy rhythm until we come one after another. I collapse on top of her, sliding on the cool sweat from our bodies.

‘Welcome back, baby,’ she says.

I pull out and kiss her before rolling off. ‘Not for long.’

‘Another gig?’

‘Gigs,’ I say. ‘Baxter
roped me into two local sessions over the next couple days, and then I’m off to London to cover one of Clive’s clients.’

‘Pity.’

‘We still got tonight.’

Ryoko glides her fingers over the bruises on my chest. ‘That we do.’

We lay there for a minute until she makes the mistake of asking me if I’m all spent. I grab her by the wrists and lead her from the bed to the bathroom, where I throw her
into a warm mist. Pressing her naked body up against the glass partition, I take her for another round and think about how much I simply want to stay with her and forget all the work lined up. For now she’s mine and mine alone, the real thing, soft around the edges, but sharp enough to see through the bullshit of bad art and love songs. Our connection is on a level most don’t register. I wish there
was a simpler deal between us. I wish she would tell me she loves me too. Wish to God she was my girl, but Ryoko is nobody’s girl really. She’ll have me over and over again though and I guess that’s good enough.

Back in my room I watch her pull on her panties and jeans. All I can think is how much I want to tug them off and throw her on the bed again.

‘What time is your gig tomorrow?’ Ryoko
asks, zipping her fly.

‘Scheduled for a noon start.’

I’m about to ask what her schedule is when I remember she wanted a hiatus. It’s then that I realize that Ryoko hasn’t been into Solace Strategies lately, hasn’t heard about Miller. She seems so content right now. I don’t know how to break it to her. Waiting for the right time seems pertinent, so I say nothing. Ryoko roots through my dresser
and puts on an old CBGB T-shirt of mine, knowing how much I love the look of my clothes on her. Behind my dresser is a long crack in the wall that Ryoko inspects.

‘Tell me again why you live here when you can afford better?’