Sitting at the desk again, Ahriman savored the candy, making it last, while he thoughtfully studied the jar. Although he didn’t hurry through the snack, he had gained not a scintilla of new insight from his father’s eyes by the time he finished the final crumbs of chocolate.
Hazel, they were, but with a milky film over the irises. The whites were no longer white, but pale yellow faintly marbled with pastel green. They were suspended in formaldehyde, in the vacuum sealed jar, sometimes peering through the curved glass with a wistful expression and sometimes with what seemed to be unbearable sorrow.
Ahriman had been studying these eyes all his life, both when they had been seated in his father’s skull and after they had been cut out. They held secrets that he wished to know, but they were, as ever, all but impossible to read.
Due to the lingering effects of three caplets of the sleep aid, Martie appeared to be unable to work herself into a state of panic, even after she was freed from the neckties, out of bed, and on her feet.
Her hands trembled almost nonstop, however, and she became alarmed when Dusty got too close to her. She still believed that she might suddenly claw out his eyes, chew off his nose, bite off his lips, and have a thoroughly unconventional breakfast.
Undressing to shower she had an agreeably heavy-eyed, pouty look, which Dusty found appealing as he watched her from a distance that she deemed just barely safe. “Very erotic, smoldering. With that look, you could make a guy run barefoot across a tack-covered football field.”
“I don’t feel erotic,” she said, her voice husky. She pouted without calculation but with powerful effect. “I feel like birdshit.”
“Curious.”
“Not me.”
“What?”
Skinning out of her underwear, she said, “I don’t want to go the way of the cat.”
“No,” he said, “I meant your choice of words. So you feel like birdshit — why in particular
She yawned. “Is that what I said?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I feel like I’ve dropped a long way and splattered all over everything.”
She didn’t want to be alone to shower.
Dusty watched from the bathroom doorway while Martie spread the bath mat, opened the door of the shower stall, and adjusted the water. When she stepped into the stall, he moved into the room and sat on the closed lid of the toilet.
As Martie began to soap herself, Dusty said, “We’ve been married three years, but I feel like I’m at a peep show.”
A bar of soap, a squeeze bottle of shampoo, and a tube of cream conditioner were objects so lacking in lethal potential that she was able to finish bathing without being seized by terror.
Dusty got the hair dryer out of a vanity drawer, plugged it in for her, and then retreated to the doorway once more.
Martie balked at using the hair dryer. “I’ll just towel it a little and let it dry naturally.”
“Then it’ll just fizz up, and you’ll hate the way it looks, and you’ll bitch all day.”
“I don’t bitch.”
“Well, you certainly don’t whine.”
“Damn right I don’t.”
“Complain?” he suggested.
“All right. I’ll admit to that.”
“You’ll complain all day. Why don’t you want to use the hair dryer? It’s not dangerous.”
“I don’t know. It sort of looks like a gun.”
“It’s not a gun.”
“I didn’t claim any of this was
“I promise if you turn it up to maximum power and try to blow-dry me to death, I won’t stand still for it.”
“Bastard.”
“You knew that when you married me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Calling you a bastard.”
He shrugged. “Hey, call me anything you want, as long as you don’t kill me.”
Gas flames weren’t as blue as her eyes when anger brightened them. “That’s not funny.”
“I refuse to be afraid of you.”
“You’ve got to be,” she said plaintively.
“Nope.”
“You stupid, stupid… man.”
“Man. Ow. The ultimate insult. Listen, if you ever call me a man again… I don’t know, it could mean we’re through.”
She glared at him, finally reached for the hair dryer, but then snatched her hand back. She tried again, recoiled again, and began to shake not with fear as much as with frustration and quiet anguish.
Dusty was afraid she might cry. Last night, the sight of her in tears had knotted his guts.
Approaching her, he said, “Let me do it.”
She shrank from him. “Stay away.”
He plucked a towel off the rack and offered it to her. “Do you agree this wouldn’t be any homicidal maniac’s weapon of choice?”
Her gaze actually traveled the length of the towel as though she were warily calculating its murderous potential.
“Grip it in both hands,” he explained. “Pull it taut, hold it tight, concentrate and keep your grip on it. As long as your hands are occupied, you can’t hurt me.”
Accepting the towel, she looked skeptical.
“No, really,” he said. “What could you do except snap my ass with it?”
“There’d be some satisfaction in that.”
“But there’s at least a fifty-percent chance I’d survive.” When she seemed hesitant, he said, “Besides, I’ve got the hair dryer. You try anything, I’ll give you a case of chapped lips you won’t forget.”
“I feel like such a schiump.”
“You’re not.”
