Let's get the obvious out of the way. Being a PI sucks. It's
not what you think. It's pretty much harassing women. Men hire pis to
go harass their wives and girlfriends. Once in a blue moon you get asked
to find a missing dog or to harass a man instead. But that's it,
really. Sometimes I'm looking for hard evidence of infidelity, but a lot
of the time my clients just want to rattle the soon to be x to
make them paranoid and jittery and less reliable in a courtroom, or less likely
to pay attention to the small print agreements. That's stiff them out of the
holiday home. So that's my job. I'm a pawn, and it is
almost always on behalf of the kind of men who think women reading a book
in public are secretly looking for male attention. I don't have an office.
I did for a while, but things are tough, as I'm sure many
of you know, and PI work isn't exactly lucrative. I don't know why
I'm still doing this job except to say I'm my own boss and it's not
easy out there. I went into this with vastly different expectations. If anyone
wants to hire someone who's convicted of insurance fraud or training to be a police
officer. Let me know. Otherwise, I'm on my own, following people
in cars and sleeping in dingy motels. So when someone reached out looking for
a guide to stalk them, I just figured it was a fetish thing.
I got a nephew who went to art school and makes big bugs, painting
cartoon characters doing messed up stuff. He ain't painting the Sistine Chapel, but
he pays the bills and looks after his family. I figured if that work
is good enough for him, it's good enough for me. So I met
the woman and was surprised at how normal she looked. It was in a
public place, a park, with a nice bench, and even though it
was starting to rain a little, we didn't let it bother us either.
We sat there, two tape recorders running, and hashed it out. She
said she liked me. If she hadn't, she would have gotten out of
a car. That was flattering coming from her. Good looking woman professional.
I didn't know at the time, but I quickly figured out she was a
forensic accountant. Anyway, we got talking. She never gave me her motivation,
but I would later come to understand her as an amateur narcissist. She
was new at loving herself. She was smart, accomplished, and she was
actually rather beautiful, provided he didn't spend a great deal of time agonizing over
things like symmetry or eyebrows, and instead paid attention to how a smile reaches
the eyes or how laughter sounds when it catches some one by surprise. But
she grew up dirt poor and spent a teen years unable to visit the dentist
or access to jim, or even eat home cooked food that wasn't microwaved.
Plump frame, lotchy skin, hair kept short with a pair of scissors because
her and her mother relied on the shampoo and soap they stole from the motel
where they shared cleaning shifts. When she fumbled all good questions at some of
the better looking boys in her class, she rarely met with success. That's
not to say she was an outcast either. She had a social life.
It's just or kids have to grow up early. Prom is a luxury.
Eating isn't if you know you know, Otherwise you might be surprised by how
tough it can be for some kids in this country. Anyway, she got
out of that hole, fought tooth and nail, got an education, a
good job, and by the time she finished the victory lap and took stock
of her life, she was thirty five years old, in a thousand miles
from the trailer she was raised in, and she looked good. The woman
in the mirror was a stranger that she wanted to get to know. I
think hiring me was an act of self love. I think if she could
have, she would have sat in a car and watched herself get a cup
of coffee, spying closely at the professional looking woman doing a little half run,
half skiff to get out of the rain. The way she stood in
line, rocking back and forth on her heels to the music in her AirPods,
thinking no one would notice. She wanted to admire herself, but unable
to time travel or clone herself, she instead resorted to hiring me as a
kind of proxy. I had my own boundaries, of course, they covered
anything that was going to get me in trouble. The gist of the contract,
after a nice week spent meeting after work and talking was that I was
the follower as often as I could and just observer photos, videos, secret
recordings, occasionally a little bit more nothing physical. For example, one time
I inventored a handbag after she left it in a taxi by accident. I'm
not a photographer, but something about all those knick knacks laid out on a
motel bed, snapped with black and white polaroid. It looked good, like
something you'd see in a fancy gallery, avant gard as my nephew would say.
She loved it, paid me a bonus for it and everything. Anyway.
This carried on like this for about six months. There were interesting times,
tailing across train stations, racing across open parking lots to install a tracker
and a car, standing on a bridge and dropping an air tag in a
bag as she walked past. It was a little bit like being a spy.
She even paid me to buy high end equipment, crazy stuff. One
camera. I could sit to my balcony and read the texts on a phone
from a block away. Occasionally there were days where I couldn't or wouldn't keep
up the required intensity. Stalking requires a lot of cardio. When that happened
and I didn't feel like following her into a crowded place or sprinting half way
around town following her car. I do research. I'd investigate who this woman
had once been. I created fake Facebook profiles and tracked down old school friends,
spoke to former teachers, lovers, all of that. The whole job
was a matter of mapping her out. That she was a country, you
know, and a country isn't just hills and rivers and borders. Countries have
history. She was happy with my initiative. The text she sent me when
I showed her the research folder was a glowing commendation, first one I'd had
in a long time. It was nice someone telling me good job. She
had a real way of making me feel like a kid getting a gold star.
I didn't realize at the time, but I was putty in her hands,
head over heels. Bless my stupid heart. Of course, I didn't
know what I was getting into, but I'd had just enough time to grow
over confident. I made the mistake of thinking that I wasn't going to find
anything in the past that it give me trouble. Sleeping boy, did I
get that one damn wrong. Her mother. That's where things took an odd
turn. Now I knew from news reports the mother died in their trailer while
her daughter was off staying at some boyfriend's place for a few days. Natural
causes, it read. I wanted to know a little more about what natural
causes there were. Figured if there was some congenital thing, it seemed like
maybe I ought to know. You'd think the way the trailer park owner reacted
to me asking about it, I tried asking the Russian government for proof of
a democratic elect thin, reedy little woman who gave me hell the moment I
mentioned a name. What do you want to know that for? Who's asking?
Who's paying you? Why do you want to dig this up? Now?
She ripped me to pieces. I put it down to the natural sprinkling
of crazies in the standard population, and took a different act. Started calling
up the older folks in the park residents. Every single one of them put
the phone down on me the second I mentioned the name, well, all
of them except one. Some people want to talk, and this ord bugger
was one of them. He had a lot to say about everything from the
president to social media, and I let him ramble on before starting to press
my point. Told him at the start I was a historian looking into the
local area. That made it so wasn't too suspicious when I began asking about
this and that, slowly making my way to the death of a fifty three
year old woman a couple of trailers down from him some years ago. Again,
soon as I mentioned a name, there was a change in the air,
even over the phone. For a second I thought this old guy was
going to hang up, just like the others. Could hear him smacking his
dry lips as he molded over forran scene. Didn't deserve what happened to her,
he said after a while. She was a good woman. Didn't treat
the daughter too good neither, but didn't deserve what happened. Maybe if they'd
found her earlier, some of those fellows in white coats could have got more
evidence. But that little wretch of hers away, But from what I understand,
weren't much left of her at all. Then he hung up, leaving
me with a whole lot of questions. This frustrated me. I had until
now had a fair bit of luck at this new profession of mine. They
say, be careful what you get good at. Sad truth was, I
was getting good at stalking, and this was my first real roadblock. I
remembered the way I felt when she told me good job, and it bothered
me. I couldn't really say much about this critical part of her life.
That, and well, maybe I still got a chip on my shoulder about
being a failed policeman. If you give me a problem, I can sometimes
drive myself crazy looking for a fix. So I hopped in my car and
drove to the trailer park down near on the other side of the country.
Don't know what I was hoping to find. No way, the trailer was
still there, and it wasn't. But what I found odd was the lot
hadn't been replaced. There was a hole in the ground about the right size,
and nothing else, just an empty spot where the trailer had once stood.
And the trailers on either side weren't occupied either. I could tell by
politely and legally looking through the windows. Most of them were cleared out,
but a few weren't. They still had plates and other knick knacks left hanging
around, like the owners had left without bothering to pack. You shouldn't hang
around here, mister. The girl who appeared stood a good twenty feet away,
shouting over the wind so as to be heard. Smell can make you
awful sick. I wrangled my nose, aware of the odor she was talking
about, had been since I approached the empty lot, A faint, musty
smell that made me think of an exotic pet shop. What do you mean
the smell makes you sick? She said it like it was self explanatory.
Woman who died there left behind an awful stench, made the neighbors sick,
and the neighbors neighbors, and so on. For a couple of trailers in
a row, no one likes to live there now, still can't. Had
a couple move in a year or two back, and they got sick too.
Daddy says, it's a bad one. Not even the rats go near
that hole. The smell wasn't pretty, But this trailer park will go to
the kind of place where hubcaps went missing regularly. Figured they would have been
used to bad smells. What made this one so special? I looked over
at the girl, Where is your dad? A few minutes later I stood
outside a trailer, waiting pensively. The little girl had disappeared inside to fetch
her father. And since then I've been sat listening to the quietest trailer park
in the whole world crickets and silence, traffic and a distant highway place was
dying. That much was clear. When the father finally made an appearance,
he said nothing for the first few minutes. Lit a cigarette offered me one.
I refused, an account of having quit some time back. After a
while, he spoke up, I'd invite you in, bun. You've been
hanging around that old lot. Not sure, I won't you inside my home.
No offense, none taken, I replied. Sally says you're a historian.
The man wasn't terribly old, mid thirties at a guess, but he
looked me up and down like I was a teenager caught thrown eggs at his
house. What are you really p a? I replied, Ah, now
that makes sense. Some relative looking for answers her. The Henderson's had a
sister with money. That's exactly it, I lied. She didn't buy the
official story, nor should she, he replied. Henderson was fitness a fiddle
day he moved in. Were no justice in what happened to those who got
sick? And poor friend scene. They say she died of natural causes.
Man, Even back then, I knew it was nonsense. And I was
just a little kid. The smell alone. I think it's bad now,
but at the time before they came in with a crane to lift the trailer
up hole and move it to the dump, it was something awful. There
was talk of moving the whole park. Of course, no one gave enough
of a damn to give us the go ahead and actually do it. What
did she die of? Don't know. Only thing I'm sure of is that
Earl of Francine's lide said her mother was live and well when she left before
the weekend, and there was always on good terms. But that was nonsense.
We heard him fighting four weeks before, for one, and of course
the body stated was in ain't no way he'd been rotten for just a few
days. He offered me another cigarette. I refused. He lit it up
instead, second one, and what felt like just a few minutes made me
itchy, just to see. I wanted to say something, anything, to
get a little bit more, but I told a big lie, pretending to
be there on someone else's behalf, and didn't want to catch myself out,
so I just sat and listened to the quiet buzz of his little patio light.
After the second cigarette, was done. He reached into his back pocket
and took out an old photo. I hope you find justice for Henderson and
the rest of them, he said, only real bit of proof I ever
had of something fishy going on. He handed me the picture. Was it
easy to see what I was looking at? Pile of old leaves, maybe
mulch. I squinted at it for a good few seconds, but couldn't make
heads or tails out of it. What took that? The day they arrived
to get rid of the trailer, had to stand on my friend's shoulders just
to reach What is it? I asked, my skin starting to crawl as
I picked out details whatever I was looking at. He was slumped on the
sofa with floral wallpaper in the background. It was about the size of a
man, but riddled with holes and cavities the size of golf balls. In
my whole life, I'd never seen something that like that. Why that's friend
sine, he said, or at least what was left of her. He
let me keep the photo, and I guess that was the only interesting thing
that had ever happened to that man, and he'd been waiting to share it
with someone. All I had to do was give him an excuse. He
seemed to take some pleasure in passing it on. Suddenly found my reaction to
be amusing. I must have gone pale as I grappled with thoughts of what
had happened to make a body go bad like that? Back in the hotel
under a good light, I checked that picture again and again. Something about
it made me deeply uncomfortable, knowing a woman was under all that. All
those holes and crevices must have been made in a flesh, And what had
happened to a skin that had turned in such a funny texture looked for like
the kind of thing that grows on top I've a long forgotten cup of coffee.
A part of me considered asking my client about this, but I knew
that wasn't the way to go. First, she probably wouldn't tell me good
job if I had to ask. She hired me to do a certain thing,
and that didn't involve politely requesting information right from the sauce. Second,
well, i'd read the police reports or was publicly available anyway, and she'd
made it clear she'd left on the Friday and came home on the Monday,
And well, what if that guy was right? Did she really leave a
mother alive? And well, I mean people kill, not just psychos,
people like you and me. We'd do it every day, and sometimes we
even pull it off. Only half of us murders get solved. That's a
fact. If anyone could be the right half of that equation, it'd be
her. She was smart as hell, my client, Even at seventeen,
she would have been a clever one, clever enough that she might easily have
been able to cover her tracks, gone over to some boyfriend, twisted his
arm into giving her an alibi. Sure, I could see that. I
just needed to figure out what the hell was going on with that crime scene
in the trailer. Thankfully, I got some friends still on the force,
one of which I even have a bit of leverage on. At first,
he couldn't find much on the actual mother, but then I asked him to
see if he could take the photo. I had show it around and see
if anyone had seen something like it before. That proved a lot more fruitful.
A few days later he came back with a strange one, but straight
away I saw the connection. I'll spare the details. Old man was found
in a tub, all sorts of messed up in some old apartment building.
It had since been condemned on account of the body, which is fairly weird
since bodies don't usually cause that much fuss, but less weird when you realize
that said body was in such a bad state it made three people sick and
caused long lasting structural damage. Whatever happened to this guy. It ate through
the tub he'd been lying in and seeped into the floors and walls below,
turned plaster boor to mulch, and apparently even caused some trouble for the sturdier
elements like steel and concrete. I don't know how that works exactly, but
that's what the file said, and going by the photos, I didn't feel
like anyone was lying. As for the photos, why can I say,
may my skin crawl? No blurry little polaroid snapped by a kid. These
were professional crime scene pictures that showed something in a tub that didn't register as
human until my eyes went looking for details. He looked like a hairy paper
wasp's nest, only there were fingers and nipples and other little things that made
it clear it had been built using a person as the framework. No face,
though, just a head like a pile of used paper plates. Looking
at those photos made me learn a new word just to describe how I felt.
Trip of phobia wasn't just one guy. Either building was linked to the
disappearance of the groundful tenant, some computer geek. I didn't worry about him
too much, for what did catch my eye was there was only one woman
living in the whole place, second floor apartment. The registered name was somewhat
familiar, close enough to a certain someone's that it raised the hairs of my
neck. Please said the scene managed to get a photo of her, and
sure enough, there she was, my client, going by a different name.
Clearly something fishy was going on or else? Why the pseudonym? I
figured it possible she'd maybe after her own mother. Parents and spouses make the
most common victims. But what connection was there to that second corpse, and
what about the missing guy. It was like a horror movie was following her
around and she was just blissfully unaware. Condemned buildings investering trailers made for a
far cry from the professional accountant who enjoyed oat milk lattes the new sweetener instead
of sugar to spare her teeth. But there was no denying that she was
connected. There was photographic proof she lived in that building, and if I
wanted to get ahead of this, to really understand what was going on,
I had to figure out what had happened to those bodies. I had pretty
much exhausted my favors with the police, and truth was, they didn't know
any more than I did. But it turned out the building was still standing
condemned, but they hadn't demolished it, partly because no one wanted to take
responsibility. But I reckon it might have had something to do with the bio
hazard warnings slapped on every single window and door. Good thing I brought a
cast mask. I waited for sunset, geared up, and entered through the
unlocked door. First thing that hit me the door sung open was the smell
similar to the trailer park, but full pelt and hot as well. Made
me think of lizards and poorly kept terrariums, strong enough to make my eyes
water even through the mask. One thing was clear as they took a look
around the hallway. The building was diseased, not just run down or decrepit
like the usual urban decay. This was something else, look like the inside
of a clogged pipe. You know how lime scale fills it up. It
was a bit like that. This oily, rusty colored fluid had seeped down
the walls and left them glistening and soft. Roby stalactites of the stuff hung
down from the ceiling like old party banners, and I edged around them,
afraid of what might happen if one touched. The best guess was that stuff
was digesting the place. Anything soft or organic was going or gone. Old
umbrella frames were left standing in one corner, the fabric burnt or dissolved away.
The carpet was reduced to just a few patches no bigger than my hand,
and a bunch of old cardboard boxes piled up under the stairs had turned
squat and half liquid, almost flowing down and around each other. The worst
came when I took a look around the back room, more of a broom
closet. I guess wouldn't have gone in, but something caught my eye,
a well worn shoe that wasn't covered in oily stuff, sign of recent activity.
That and the way the door was a jar, just raised my suspicions,
so I took a lock. Even now, the timeline eludes me,
but someone, a vagrant, most likely, given the way they were dressed,
died a nasty death in their chemical burns come to mind. They were
bailed up in one corner, eyeless, looking up at me as I pushed
the door open to take a close look. Pink flesh threaded with red blood,
vessels, yellow bones poking through here and there. From the looks of
things they've been trying to work the door open, you could see a history
of their escape attempts, left by bleeding hands. Rust colored fingerstreaks ran all
along the door's edges. Special attention paid to the hinges, and he'd broken
the only window and tried hauling himself up there, only to realize it was
bar from the other side. The jagged glass that still clung to the frame
was covered in old blood. His palms must have looked like grated cheese.
Eventually he'd given up and laid down in that mess, and the thoughts of
it made my chest feel heavy and tight. I'd only been in the building
a few minutes and that stuff was already eating through my shoes. I could
hear the thick rubber soul sizzle and pop with each step. But that guy,
I'd been forced to sit down in an inch deep bottle of the stuff,
likely because exhaustion had left him no choice but to tough it out.
So how long had he tried to stay upright? Hours, days, weeks?
Him getting stuck in there had to be deliberate. I was sure of
it, a feeling in my Someone had locked the door behind him and left
him to die slowly. God only knows why. But did that mean there
was still hanging around and waiting for a chance to get to me? Looking
around, I sure didn't feel safe for a loan. The shadows seemed too
deep, and the steady drip, drip drip of that rancid oil oozing out
of every surface was too monotonous. Someone or something lived in that filth,
and chances were they'd been responsible for that poor vagrance agonizing death. That meant
getting out of that hell hole was a priority. So I made for the
stairs and started to climb. If there were any answers in that place.
It had been the apartment where the old man died. The crime scene tape
was still hanging off the door frame when I found it, and the TV
and sofa or what remained of them stood in the same place as in the
photos. Back in the day, the old man had been a order,
and it was surprised crime scene hadn't cleared all that stuff out. It was
all still there. Only what had once been a chest tim maze of papers
and magazines was now just kind of hardened pulp, almost like magma dried mid
flow. A whole damn place was covered in the stuff, like coral reef
growing up the walls and even patches of the ceiling. Looked a hell of
a lot like a wasp's nest, and it looked to be the source of
that oily looking fluid. You could see it sweating out of every crease and
fold in that strange hive. It was almost hypnotic to look at glistening amber
beads oozing out of papery sheets that flowed like rock strata. There was a
gentle, barely perceptible rhythm, hypnotic. I don't know why, but I
reached out and ran the tip of my finger as gently as I could along
the surface. It felt like the underside of a mushroom, all those papery
gills, gossamer, thin, soft and inviting. I wore no gloves,
and the brief moments of contact had deposited a single bead of that strange syrup
on my fingertip. It caused the tingling sensation that was not entirely unpleasant.
Even the blood had trickled down My knuckle felt warm and wet, like testing
a hot bath with your hand. I liked it, and I wanted more.
I went to reach out and push my arm into the nest when a
hand burst out of the nest and gripped my wrist. I was so surprised
I didn't even make a noise, but instead wordlessly fell back as the hand
pushed me away from the nest. A nearly skinless forearm followed, and soon
after her face emerged from the papery nest like a grime covered nightmare, black
eyes and her lipless mouth. It was a man that could have passed for
a corpse, like a half digested piece of meat. Terrified and struggled to
my feet and realized that this person had broken down near every bone in my
wrist with that single grip. Your meat smells raw, he growled, before
heaving himself out of the nest in a disgusting parody of childbirth. My sanity
flickered, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground floor,
with bleeding eyes and both hands frantically pulling at the door handle. My
mind returned and peace. I blinked red tears away, but didn't stop trying
to open the door. I felt it that urgent need to leave, like
a suffocating man feels the need to breathe. But I'd missed up bad.
I'd sniffed out of the closet and saw the trap laid there, but hadn't
seen the larger one set for me. There was only one way in and
out of that building, and I hadn't jammed the door open. Now it
was shut, and nothing I did could get it open. With more time,
maybe I could have pried the jamb or even kicked it down. But
my heart was raising and my vision was blurring. I wanted out of that
place, a hot, primal need to get the hell out. The air
was too hot, my mask too stifling. Sweat condensed on the inner plastic
and made it damn near. I possible to see, and the pain in
my wrist was a throbbing explosion that made sensible thought impossible. I'd realized early
on into my little fray that I was underprepared for the scale of what that
meant. Eluded me until I was there, wrestling with thoughts of exposure and
contagion and disease, fumbling at a greasy doorknob with a broken hand while suppressing
thoughts of what might be crawling up my leg or back or neck. Panic
threatened to consume me. The world and all the normality it represented, was
right down there. I could hear it, the distant hum of traffic,
the amberglow of street light that lit up the biohazard posters. Not thirty minutes
ago, i'd been there, safe and far away from this waking nightmare.
I was being reduced to a prey animal. Even in the moment, I
could scent it happening to me, being made into something lesser. But it
was like my actions were no longer my own. When I finally gave up
on that front door, I turned around and saw the shadows way back at
the hallway begin to shift as something descended the stairwell. There was no other
way out, no door, no window, just me, a long corridor
and a nightmare coming right at me. Something inside me gave up. I
don't know how to describe it. I'm still not sure if it was that
building and that strange fluid that seemed to walk my own thoughts, or maybe
there's just too much one person can go through. But I could practically hear
the thin membrane of my sanity tear as I fell backwards into the door and
slid down breathlessly, awaiting my terrible fate. I almost contump, turning off
my light, but by then he was too late. I could see him
coming towards me. He was legless, nothing from the waist down except black
and viscera trailing up the stairs behind him. He pulled himself towards hand over
hand with hungry eyes. Before I knew it, he was on top of
me, one hand gripping my mouth with a salty palm, the other stroking
my hair, And then, in an instant, his demeanor changed. He
bawled back with a terrified cry and scrambled away like had just struck him with
a blade. No no, no, no, no, no, he
muttered, No no, you should have said, you should have said.
I didn't know. I thought you were another one. I didn't know.
I thought you were here for me. I didn't know you are hearse.
He cowered away, peddling on both hands, back or keeping his eyes fixed
on me. Tell her I did not know you were hers. I could
not smell until I was close, very close. If I hurt you,
I am sorry. Tell her, I am sorry. I did not mean
to hurt you. It is just I do not get to eat often,
and I'm always hungry. With a rabbit gesture, he threw the key for
the door at me. It skittered across the floor and fell just short at
my feet. Tell her I did not know. What are you, I
stammered. He looked at me curiously, stopping his retreat only briefly to cage
my expression. She likes to be seen what I looked without asking, and
I got what I deserve. Who are you talking about, I asked.
He very nearly laughed, but with such deformities, it was mostly a drooling
goffer. You know, he gasped. Don't be stupid. You're in love
with her, just like me, but different. You got permission. I
didn't, But she was good. She left me an old nest to live
in, and I've permission to eat anything I kill or trap myself hard now
that people know to stay away, But sometimes I get lucky. His eyes
flicked at the closet with sickening hunger. What has this got to do with
her? I asked, what color are her eyes? He replied, almost
manic with excitement, and sir, Hans, Sir, tell me, tell
me what color her eyes? I stopped. The word felt wrong in my
mouth. Blue rap, No, no, he chattered, none of those.
Seemingly excited but afraid. He raced forward momentarily and gripped my lapels with
twisted glee. Compound, he hissed, with such forbidden pleasure. Her eyes
are compound. She's jealous of us, you know, jealous. We get
to love her. And then he disappeared into the darkness, and something inside
me gave way entirely, and I passed out. I don't know much of
what came after exactly. I was found a few hours later in my car,
idling had a traffic light. I'd made some effort at getting away on
my own, but didn't get very far. No surprise here, but I
got sick as a dog going in that place, A deep chest infection,
the kind that scares everyone at least once in their life. Only fair,
given how stupid I was, Well, forgive me. I hadn't anticipated nightmares
beyond human comprehension. I challenge anybody to think that far ahead. You think
chunkies, you think flies, squatters. But that guy, that man slipping
out of the nest and barreling towards me on two hands, My mind going
sizzle pop, along with the soles of my boots. In real life,
things like that always sneak up on you. So I paid the price.
Six months, geez, six long months. I got every fever you can
think of, sepsis, kidney failure, liver failure, month after month,
drowning in my own fluids, coughing up stuff that made the nurses gag and
leave. I asked the doctor what the long term effects will be, and
he winced before reading a list of things that didn't leave much hope for a
happy retirement. And if it was hard on my body, it was even
worse on my mind. Those fevered dreams, Doctor, say what I remember
in that building? That was all just part of the sickness. Say,
I spent a good three days in a coma and strange dreams of the norm,
which I might accept if it weren't the damn skin craft still healing in
my right hand. No one can explain that my client visited just the once.
There are universally sad moments in life, and one of them is realizing
someone you have a lot of affection for doesn't have it back. They have
some, just not the same amount. It was always one way, though,
wasn't it. I saw her every single day, but if I was
doing my job right, she only saw me once a month for our meetings.
Our arrangement ended not long after, so I hope anyway. She left
me like it was nothing but me. Ah geez. It felt like someone
excavating my heart right out, even after what she told me why she was
there, Even after what I did, I could barely stand up straight.
I was so heart broken. There were times after that I wished the sickness
would just take me. Maybe that defeatism is why it got so bad.
Who knows. She came to me looking for a recommendation of all things.
She wasn't cold, far from it, but there was a sense of disappointment
as she sat beside me and eyed me up. I liked the initiative,
she said after a while, but the results leave me unimpressed. What the
hell happened in that place? I asked, and even though I could barely
hear my own voice, she seemed like she heard every word. For a
moment, the way she contemplated it, I thought I was going to get
a straight answer. You know, my mother said, men don't see ugly
women. They know they exist, but they just proved them right out of
their mind, like a magic trick. She said, we worked better being
a little plain, good enough to take home for a night. Anymore,
and we'd start to leave problems everywhere we go. That guy was a problem.
Sue was trying to warm me about the dangers of attention, but silly
me, I went and got addicted. I hoped with you there might be
a degree of separation infatuation on a contractual basis. Yes, she took a
deep breath, like she'd had a long, hard day. I don't know.
Maybe Mom was right. It's ridiculous. I suppose the fly shouldn't admire
the spider. He either sees it and fears it, or doesn't know what's
coming until it's too late. I think Mom was telling me to go for
the latter. It's no fun being invisible, though you spent all that time
looking at me, following me. What did you see. I looked at
her until my eyes watered and something throbbed in my skull. I don't know.
I tried to lie, be honest. She looked right at me,
and something in the air changed. I don't know what. Hot geese.
It was hot, like looking at the sun. I remember the heart rate,
MANU are going nuts. And then then I remember gossamer wings and serrated
kiting, a tick on the side of your cheek, a leech on your
tongue, a horse hair worm that won't leave the skin. And then an
instant later, my eyes refocused and there was just a normal woman in front
of me, someone I could have loved, I answered, unable to stop
the words spilling like vomit. Someone who I thought deserved love. See,
she said, who wouldn't like your version better? I was crying again,
heart racing, world like butter, going soft to the edges. Whatever she
did, it was like undergoing brain surgery in real time. I'd like a
recommendation, she said, after another minute or two of silence. I'd like
to say, I see myself. I look in the mirror and I don't
see what you do. I'd like an artist to paint me a version of
me. At least it won't be easy on them. All this time.
You've probably looked directly at me for no more than five ten minutes in total,
just didn't realize it. Always the back of my head or my hair
obscuring. Just so that won't do. I want to portrait. I want
to know what you see. What will you do? Then? I won't
do anything, not intentionally. But if you ask someone to paint the sun,
expect them to go blind. Whoever paints me will be painting the sun
in their living room, going blind. Here's the least of their problems.
Now, firs up. You know someone? You mentioned them once in passing,
a cousin, maybe an artist in need of cash. I'm sure of
it. Why would I tell you anything? Because you loved me, she
said, And because despite everything, you will get better and you will come
back to me year or two. I think you are adamant I have no
hold on you, and you will think that for a long time. In
this period of freedom. You'll enjoy it only by my good grace and mercy.
You did a good job, better than anyone before. I've read your
notes and reports over and over, and seeing details of myself I didn't even
know whether it's a thing of beauty what you did. And one day soon
you'll come back to me with some excuse for why you want the contract to
continue. I tried to spit the word never, but managed at best a
weak shake of the head, something that put a most peculiar smile on her
face. It doesn't work like that. It'd be like trying to brute force
your way through Alzheimer's. He'll be back, even now. You're mine,
all mine. I'm just being gentle, and you're going to give me the
name and number of that artist, because even though you know I could no
more love you than a spider loves the fly, you are desperate to please
me. Because when I broke the man in that apartment building, when I
tore him in two and told him that he would live there for as long
as I desired, writhing without every years and years, drowning and sickly,
fluid and trapped helplessly in a hive, he's determined to maintain. Even though
I wouldn't be caught dead going back there. He was grateful, and with
time, you'll be grateful too. She put a pen in my hand.
She smiled, mouthed the word good boy and God help me. I gave
her my nephew's number,