The smell of the unfinished food and the warm air from the heating vent felt like a caress, and her nipples got harder, her pubic hair more wet. Her eyes wandered lazily, sexually around the room and noticed the furniture; the way the fabric on the couch fit its plaid shapes together so perfectly, each cushion like the next. It made her shut her eyes in exquisite torture. She opened them and caught a glimpse of the ballpoint pen which the hotel provided on the bedside table. Its red color pleased her and she groaned happily. Her eyes drifted on. The ashtray on the floor, filled with crippled cigarettes and gum wrappers excited her, its smells and patterns making her think of making love, of the man entering her and…
She suddenly realized what was happening and noticed an article on the front page section of the paper about a grotesque murder that had occurred the night before. A family had been gunned down by two men in ski masks and as she imagined it, her fingers moved over her body, searching wildly, uncontrollably. Scratching, squeezing. Shivering. She didn’t understand the sexual storm her body felt as her mind filled with images of bullets shredding skin, faces twisting in horror, bodies slumping.
The tensing percussion.
The shudder.
She began to come again.
She couldn’t stop the orgasm and it drenched her like a toxic wave that rose high and fainted; collapsing, then rising again.
Her body was wet with sweat and her teeth bit into her bottom lip, making it bleed. She squeezed herself so hard she began to bruise, more bluish ponds growing under her skin. Her arms drew back to the bedposts and grabbed tightly to either as if crucified, fingers white; desperate. She screamed louder and louder, flailing, coming again and again, not able to stop the flood of sights, sounds; tactile impressions.
She saw her children and began to cry.
Then, in her mind, she could see the man’s face. His easy smile. The way he touched her.
The
She passed out for a few moments but the sound of maids beginning to vacuum and cars honking outside awoke her and she couldn’t stop her body from starting to respond again.
Enabling.
The smile that watches.
The hand that reassures.
The enabler passes no judgment.
Doesn’t deal in permission or sanction.
Only indulgence; assistance.
Yet in taking no position, it is a criminal, however unbloodied.
It poisons with a helping gesture.
And it becomes the pallbearer before we are gone.
It stands by and watches a houseful of screaming frailties burn to death.
This is a story about enabling.
About dreams bringing crucifixion.
And about those who allow us to dream.
Lewis Shiner’s books include the award-winning
THERE’S A STANDARD RAT BEHAVIOR they call the Coolidge Effect. Back when I was a psych major, before I met Richard, before we got married, long before I had Emily, I worked in the lab fifteen hours a week. I cleaned rat cages and typed data into the computer. The Coolidge Effect was one of those experiments that everybody had heard of but nobody had actually performed.
It seems if you put a new female in a male’s cage, they mate a few times and go on with their business. If you keep replacing the female, though, it’s a different story. The male will literally screw himself to death.
Someone supposedly told all this to Mrs. Calvin Coolidge. She said, “Sounds just like my husband.”
It started in June, a few days after Emily’s first birthday. I remember it was a Sunday night; Richard had to teach in the morning. I woke up to Richard moaning. It was a kind of humming sound, up and down the scale. It was a noise he made during sex.
I sat up in bed. As usual all the blankets were piled on my side. Richard was naked under a single sheet, despite the air-conditioning. We’d fought about something that afternoon. I was still angry enough that I could find satisfaction in watching his nightmare.
