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Lucy touched Pitr's lips. First with her fingernails. Then with her mouth, as her hands began to undress him. Still performing.
Martin hit pause on the tape. When he closed his eyes, he could still hear their sounds come through the walls. He could still smell the candles that Lucy had burned.
Blankets rustled, a foot bumped against the wall. Lucy tossed, mumbling in her delirium. He stroked her leg once.
Scooting forward to the edge of his seat, he hit the forward button. On the tape, Lucy straddled Pitr, her favorite position, but he grabbed her arms and flipped her over, forcing himself on top of her, roaring as he bulled away between her legs. Neither she nor Martin minded the roughness. Martin had parted his bathrobe and taken his cock in hand by then, watching everything on the little camcorder screen-it was an old camera, one they had used for years.
Lucy, still performing, bit into Pitr's dark, hairless chest.
Martin liked to see her hurt the other men. But this time something went beyond the normal rough play. Grabbing her arms and pi
He had sat there, then, in the closet, still holding himself loosely, frozen with the thought of viruses; they'd been exposed before and escaped okay-
Pitr pounded away until he groaned and pulled away. Lucy rolled over on her side, spitting out the blood, scrubbing her mouth with the sheets. Pitr stepped back from the bed, out of view of the camera, and spoke to her in some language that didn't sound like Czech to Martin, but something far older, harsher. He slammed the closet door.
Martin snatched up the remote and hit pause.
A full-length mirror hung on the closet door. When Pitr stepped in front of it, there was no sign of his bare flesh, only a vague, indefinite mist.
Rewind, play, pause. Again. Martin watched it over and over, frame by frame, but there was never anything there but the mist. Finally he clicked forward.
Pitr stepped away from the mirror. Lucy leaned back, bare-breasted chest heaving like a B-movie diva. Pitr grew to the height of the room, cackling at her, wiping blood from the wound on his chest with clawed fingers and anointing her like a priest at a baptism. She screamed.
Blankets rustled. "What are you doing?" Lucy asked in a weak, sleepy voice.
"Nothing," Martin said. He hit the eject button. Yanking the tape out of the cassette, he piled it at his feet until the reels were empty. Then he carried it downstairs and burned it all in the fireplace.
Martin stood at the kitchen counter, making soup for Lucy when he saw the rat outside on the rocks. It crawled all around the pumphouse, trying to scale the sides. Martin went out to the screened-in porch to watch it.
Finally the rat fell exhausted, lethargic.
Martin went out and picked up a large, flat rock from the herb garden beside the foundation. He crept slowly out to the pumphouse, expecting the rat to bolt away at any minute. But it crouched there, on the concrete base, facing the blank wall. Martin slammed down the rock.
There was a wet crunch as it co
A ferocious tapping, faint but unmistakable, came from inside the pumphouse. Martin cupped his hands to the stone.
"Shut up, Pitr!" he shouted.
Then he went back inside.
It was late afternoon before Martin gathered the courage to find a pair of gloves and a shovel. He went back to the pumphouse, and tossed the bloody stone among the other boulders piled up where the waves licked the shore. Then he buried the rat. He covered the bloodstain on the concrete with dirt, and scuffed it in as well as he could with his deck shoes.
When he was done, he cupped his hands to the stone. "How do I make her well again, Pitr?" He leaned his ear to the concrete to hear the answer.
"Let me to come out and I will tell you," the voice croaked, so faint Martin could barely make it out. "She is burning, with the fire. Only I can help her."
"Fuck you, Pitr."
"I am come out and you can do that do." Laughter. Or choking. Martin rather hoped it was choking. "You want young again, Martin?" the voice cracked through the stone. "I can give you the young again."
"Yeah, you and Viagra. Go to hell, Pitr."
Something hard pounded on the inside wall. "You ca
Martin lifted his ear from the concrete and heard nothing except the sound of the waves and the cries of a few gulls.
The sky was the color of faded jeans. Jet contrails seamed the blue, taking other people to some point far away. Martin walked wearily back to the house.
Lucy sat up in bed. The blankets were shoved against the footboard, but she was wrapped in a kimono. The glow inside her lit it up like a Japanese lantern.
"You upset him," she said, her voice cold.
He grabbed his wallet from the dresser, and started changing his clothes. "You know, he was already pissed. Something about being hit on the head while you were su-"
"No, I mean it." Her cold voice shattered with panic like ice in the sun. "He's going to hurt me, Martin. You promised you wouldn't let him hurt me."
"He's not going to hurt you." He pulled on clean pants.
"Where are you going?"
"Into town for a drink."
She grabbed the lamp on the bedside table and shoved it onto the floor. The base cracked. "Are you going to go see Kate? Are you going to go
fuck Kate? Is that it, Martin?"
"I don't even like Kate," he said softly. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then pushed her gently onto the bed. "If it makes you any happier, I'll go to the IceHouse. Won't even see her."
"I'm sorry, Martin. I didn't mean that. It's just-"
"I know." Rising, he took their bank deposit bag from its hiding place and emptied the cash into his pocket. Then he took the rest of their bills and did the same.
She clutched at his sleeve. "You're ru
"I just need time to think," he said.
He pried her fingers loose and left the house before he lost his nerve.
It was after midnight before he returned, driving down the long dirt driveway through the woods to their house. He was drunk. Two other trucks followed his.
Lucy waited for him on the porch, in the papa-san chair, sitting directly under the one bright light.
The trucks pulled up and parked beside him. Martin lifted the case of beer off the front seat and carried it over to the picnic table. "I'm going to go get some ice to keep this cold, guys," he shouted over his shoulder, staggering to the porch.
Doors slammed in the dark. "Ain't go
Lucy rose and pressed herself against the screen. Insects pinged against it, trying to reach her. Bats screeched through the air, feasting.
"Is that really you, Martin? Who are those men?"
"Just some guys who work, from the quarry," he said, his tongue thick in his mouth. "I ran into down at the Ice Cellar. They're good guys. We had a few, a few beers."
"What are they doing, Martin?"
"Shhh." His forefinger smashed his lips. "They're doing us a l'il favor."
Her nostrils flared. Her mouth flattened out in a ruby O against the screen as she strained to see what they were doing. She took a step toward the door and sank to her knees, too weak to go any further.
A stocky, bearded man walked stiffly over to the porch. "Howdy, Missus Van Wyk," he said, sounding a little more sober than Martin. "Your husband told us 'bout the problem with the water stagnating in the pumphouse, making you sick and all'a that. Well, this ought to take care of it."