BODY SCISSORS
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12:30
A.M.—1610 Confederate Avenue
From
where I stood in her living room, by the front door, I
noticed that Virginia Key, sitting inside the kitchen
window, didn't lift her head as the EMTs outside wheeled
her son's stretcher up into the ambulance and climbed
in after it, or as the ME's people slid her daughter's
small body into their station wagon. They'd wiped the
sweat off Mrs. Key's face. From her profile I could see
she was a slender, petite, attractive woman, in spite
of the shock, with straightened hair and refined features
like a magazine model. Torbett absently buttoned his jacket
as he approached her.
I've
heard theories of yin and yang, of images and fantasies.
When I first met Rachel years ago, my panner's wife, bells
rang. She was the answer to all questions, the fulfillment
of all dreams. Or, shrinks might argue, she was the exact
shape left by the void of my parents' love, my mother
who took off when I was ten, my missing pieces. The harmony
created when two people's neuroses neatly complement each
other's. And the skies open and the angels sing and the
messiah has arrived. Or maybe the devil, the symptoms
are the same.
And
that's what I saw, or thought I saw, the moment James
Torbett's and Virginia Key's eyes met each other's and
locked.
12:45
A.M.—Mount Bonnell Overlook
Glen
Bass blew tenderly into Andrea's ear, saw no effect, and
tried kissing her neck instead.
That
he'd managed to get her pants off again meant nothing.
They'd been there a dozen times. Like the asymptote, the
curved line that gets closer and closer to the axis without
ever touching, their sex life progressed without ever
paying off. Each day brought greater torture and greater
shame in the eyes of his frat brothers, as Glen reached
a point four months from a college degree without ever
getting laid.
"No,
no..."
"It's
okay," he said, which seemed to be the right response.
Andrea,
the blondest and the palest girl he'd ever met, nearly
albino, was also the dumbest. That, and his father's money,
and his BMW, didn't add up to much. But he guessed she
was smart enough to be parlaying all this into marriage.
He hit on a brainstorm, froze, then climbed off her and
pulled his pants up. "Forget it," he said.
"I'm
sorry," she said. "I don't feel well."
"You
always don't feel well. What is it, your period?"
"No,
I'm sick."
"I
can't do this. I'm a man. I have needs."
Finally
she lay back. "Okay."
Glen
blinked. "You mean it?"
"I
mean it. Go ahead."
Suddenly
and for the first time in memory, Glen found himself flaccid.
He called up the memories of a dozen nights just like
this, a thousand centerfolds, entire sororities getting
it on on the Fiji House pool table, rubbed himself against
her and finally...
Sweet,
sweet heaven. The Truth. The Big Reality. Conquest and
manhood at once. But for a tiny yelp she was quiet, but
Glen held off, had read about spots and angles, leaned
himself the way articles had specified. Andrea began to
hum.
"Yes,"
he said. "Yes. Baby."
She trembled, lightly at first, then shuddering and moaning.
Glen let the restraint go, picked up steam, slammed away
and finally burst into a cloud of bliss and helplessness.
Then he settled down, his face against her neck.
It
was then he noticed that Andrea had stopped moving.
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