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James isn't a prude, really. He's no Bible-thumper or God-freak or anything like that, he just has simple tastes: he's got no problem with sex with the lights off, under the covers. In fact he finds it endearing when Mary lies down next to him in a flannel nightgown, face and hands smelling of cold cream or baby powder; when she touches him, tentative at first, hands soft and white and clean as soap.
All in all he's just a vanilla sort of guy. In fact he's so much so that his coworkers make fun of him—they like to egg him on, talking about the best tits on the big screen, whether legs or asses are better; or worse, their wives and girlfriends, their hot little red mouths, on their backs in seamed stockings or corsets.
How can they think that way about the women they love? He and Mary don't need any of that. No racy lingerie, no cherry-flavoured this or that; no whips, no handcuffs, no chains. Sometimes she wears pearls to bed for the housewife fantasy, and that's all.
Like fucking through a hole in a sheet, his co-workers would say, but they're crude, and probably not very happy. He likes to think he's nothing like them.
He had liked to bring Mary flowers, at first. Roses, daisies, baby's breath, anything to spruce up the place—daffodils were her favourite, the wholesome colour of runny egg yolk. She had cooked such eggs before now, eggs with firm whites and crisp edges; in fact, they'd been her specialty. They would eat them together in the mornings, with a red-checked tablecloth and a vase of similar flowers; these ones were fake, and had to have the dust shaken off of them before company arrived.
He's since stopped such wasted romantic gestures. The flowers died too quick, and began to smell, loamy at first and then rotten. The last thing I need is it stinking like a compost heap in here, she'd said the last time. I'm sorry, I'm just so tired.
Today he sits on a chair next to her bed, and a nurse brings Mary her lunch on a tray: underdone eggs, a pale-coloured apple, dry cereal in a packet. Mary sighs and begins to unwrap the cutlery, but James's attention is on the nurse. He finds himself wishing she were wearing one of the old-style uniforms, the kind with shorter skirts, sheer stockings, a cap; a lurid pornographic fantasy, a made-up image. He wishes at the very least her scrubs were cut lower—a little cleavage would be nice.
As he thinks this his mouth fills with saliva, as it does before vomiting; the nurse smiles at him, healthiness radiates from her, from every plump wet cell. Sumptuous is the word, like a fruit, firm on the outside and juicy on the inside. Tits on her like grapefruits, ass like two halves of a peach.
He's no God-freak, but he finds himself reminded of Bible quotes, picked up from who-knows-where: ye shall know them by their fruits. Be fruitful and multiply.
"I'm gonna grab a coffee," he says. "I won't be long."
And he does, sitting in the lobby with both hands on the cardboard cup, nursing at it; it tastes burnt, metallic. When he returns to Mary's room the nurse has left, and Mary has eaten only half of her meal. The eggs have left a film of oily water on the plate, the sight of which makes his stomach cramp.
"I could go for a steak right about now," she says, attempting to sound hearty.
The next time he visits, the same nurse corners him at the end of a hallway; he recognizes her by her mouth, which is lush, a ripe pink. She puts her hand on the crook of his elbow, and her fingernails are short but painted a pearly innocuous shade, the colour of a silk slip. He wonders if her toes are painted also. He wonders what perfume she would wear off-duty, how she would smell under this antiseptic, clean-floor scent. Citrus, something perky.
"I see this happen all the time, honey," she says, gripping his bicep through his shirt. "You're so young, she must have been so beautiful," stroking her hand along his flank.
He steps back. "You should be ashamed of yourself."
To his surprise she smiles at him again. "It's okay," she says. "You don't have to pretend."
Later he drives to the nearest liquor store, by now a familiar habit. A few times Mary's said she can smell it on his breath when he's bent to kiss her—have you been drinking once, you smell like a rubby-dub another—so he confines this to after he's seen her, never before. Not that it matters, he doesn't get close enough for her to smell him much nowadays. He's dispensed with cologne and aftershave and other similar courtship trappings too. Why bother with all those imitation pheromones?
He pulls a bottle of wine off the shelf: pinot grigio from some rich family or another's château, stamped with a picture of trailing grape leaves. He and Mary had never been big drinkers; he remembers, not too long ago, asking the clerks for suggestions, what wines to pair with which foods, which ones were mildest, and so on. He remembers sitting on the back porch, trailing bare feet in the grass, clinking their glasses together. The fizz is going to my head, laughing behind her hands.
He puts it back and brings a bottle of scotch to the counter. He'll drink it neat—he wants to taste it as much as possible.
He parks the car in his (or is it still their?) driveway, and sits drinking in the driver's seat until he's good and buzzed. He can't stand the thought of going into that empty house sober; the thought makes the spot between his shoulderblades itch. He fumbles with his keys and lets himself in, and once he's had three-quarters of the bottle, nearly seeing double, he unzips his jeans and sits at the computer. His cock feels like a brick, like a weapon made for blunt force trauma.
He searches, typing slowly: nurses with their tits pushed up to their chins, sucking on syringes, legs in stirrups; trapeze-artist types, flat and sinuous and in platform heels, with their legs curled over their own shoulders; he settles, stroking himself, on girls tied to poles, gagged or with masks on and with things inside them: fingers, dicks.
He's too drunk, though. He wants to fuck something, anything, but he can't come, already he's going soft. Instead he makes his way into the shower, and sits on the floor, letting cold water wash over him until he prickles with gooseflesh.
The monster lifts him into the air by the neck. He can feel the blood rushing to his dick, thudding in his ears; he can almost see it traveling through his own body like water through a stem, though downwards, not upwards. It would smell too of old flowers, past their prime—a compost heap. He's so hard he can barely stand it.
His back is against a wall now, the monster holds him in place and his breath wheezes; with convulsive motions it spreads his legs and pushes three fingers inside him. He wants to say don't but it comes out as a strangled moan, crackling in his throat; his arms and back and legs ache, trembling with effort. Oh god, he thinks. His vision is fading around the edges, his cock leaks against his stomach. Oh god. Just make me come.
He wakes on top of his covers, last night's clothes sticking to him with sweat.
He's no God-freak, but he'd believed in God once—the one with a capital G, yes, but also an abstract force. Not a kindly paterfamilias or a tyrant who lived in the clouds, but something formless, which usually exercised its will for good.
He still does believe in God—a god of sorts, anyway—but it's one of questionable motives, and one with enough form as to be heavy. This god is a millstone around his neck.