Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

ATROCITIES Lucy Taylor

Derek Mosby, you're a no-good son-of-a-bitch. A bad, bad boy. But it's over now. For good. Radell is out of your life.

The Piedmont jet banked on its approach into the Richmond Airport, giving Derek Mosby a view of checkered farmlands lightly dusted with snow between rows of winter-blasted trees and the frozen gray ribbon of I-95 heading into the city and beyond, toward Derek's suburban home. He knew he'd done the right thing, breaking it off with Radell, and that he should be pleased with himself, but the old, did tapes of his father's voice — bad boy, Derek, cheating on your math test, bad boy to forget your mother's birthday, bad, bad, BAD — the ancient, bitter scoldings drowned out the marshmallow-sweet voice of the stewardess telling passengers to buckle their seat belts.

It was late afternoon on Saturday. He'd called Jess from New York the day before to tell her he was cutting short his business trip and coming home. A slightly embellished version of the truth, to be sure, but one tailored to Jess's capacity for reality and his own sometimes limited courage.

The truth was he'd planned to stay another two nights with Radell, seeing the Apple (Radell had never been to New York and he had planned to take her to the Oak Room at the Plaza for drinks, then on to Maxime's for dinner), but it was no good. Radell was marriage-minded. The more seriously she talked about their future together, the more he thought of his family. And when Radell asked in the middle of their coupling, "So when are you going to tell your wife we're in love?" he'd felt as if someone spilled ice water between his legs.

In love with Radell? In lust, sure, but how had passion made the treacherous transition to permanence this fast? How had occasional desktop sex with his redheaded dental hygienist led, seemingly inexorably as summer into fall, to talk of his divorce and their marriage? He'd wanted only to forget his problems — the kids, his age (forty-three in February), Jess's overfondness for brandy Alexanders — not overturn his life.

He was a parent, after all. Divorce might come when the kids were grown and on their own, but not before. His own father, for all his pious words and reprimands, had taken off when Derek was barely nine. Even now Derek still had moments of insecurity and loneliness, when he felt no older than when his father left, when that part of him that Brenner, the therapist in the office next to Derek's, called his inner child shrieked out for nurturing. It was during such a time of want that Derek had imagined — incorrectly — that peace and bliss and orgasms everlasting could be found between Radell's thighs. So what the hell — he had no idea how to parent himself, he could still do right by his own kids.

Did Jess suspect? Probably, if she wasn't too bombed. The kids? No, impossible. Blair was barely thirteen, preoccupied with clothes and pop stars and Madonna makeup. Fifteen-year-old Woody was a rising star on JFK High's baseball team and a downright prude in some ways — Derek had heard him once vigorously denounce a neighborhood convenience store for selling Playboy.

They were both good kids, more naive than they were willing to let on, kids who remembered not only Jess's and his birthday but Mother's and Father's Day as well. Old-fashioned kids, actually. They valued family.

And they deserve a helluva lot better than you, Derek Mosby.

He told the paternal voice in his head to go fuck itself and resisted the urge to slip his business card to a pretty stewardess as he exited the plane.

He drove home slowly, mindful of the icy edges of the road and the badly aligned front wheels of the Chrysler. No time for accidents now. He was almost home.

Blanketed with snow, the two-story brick house at the back of the cul-de-sac looked somehow smaller, like a faded dowager huddled frail and bony inside an ermine coat. He fumbled his way, feeling slightly miffed that no one came to greet him. As he stepped inside the hallway, though, the comforting aromas of dinner cooking entered his nostrils, did a fragrant twirling little dance along his nasal passages, and brought a rush of well-being that he hadn't felt since he and Jess first married.

Home, yes! Wasn't this what it was all about?

He started to call out, but a pang of something — guilt, fear? — silenced him as effectively as a hand across the mouth. Dread swamped him. For one fierce, irrational moment the thought came to him that maybe it wasn't too late yet to undo the actions of the past twenty-four hours, to tiptoe quietly out of the house, suitcase in hand, catch the next flight back to New York and hope to God Radell had taken him up on his offer to enjoy the City on her own in the paid-for hotel room, that she'd sympathize with his confession of terminal wimphood and welcome him back. So that he'd never, ever have to walk into this house again and smell dinner cooking and feel seduced by all the homey, Father-Knows-Best-ness of it all.

He took a deep breath. The moment — thank God — passed. It had felt for a second like his heart was careening loose inside his chest; now it was in place, steady.

Just the little kid inside me, he thought, the little boy feeling scared 'cause he knows he's been bad, that he's cheated. But it's all right now, because I fixed it. I did the right thing.

"Daddy! You're home."

Blair galloped to meet him, her black hair swept back in a glossy horsetail, an apron knotted about her middle. In spite of her plump hips and conspicuous breasts, her gait seemed still little-girlish — a bouncing child.

"We missed you, Daddy. How was the dental convention?"

"Boring. Like all of them." He kissed her flushed cheek and was immediately aware of the heat from her, the smell of chocolate somewhere in her hair, the smudges of flour on her fingertips, transferred now to the jacket of his suit.

"You helping Mom with supper?"

"No, Daddy." She reached up, gave him a quick, sweet peck on the jaw. "I'm fixing it by myself."

"Where's Mom?"

Blair either didn't hear the question or chose to ignore it. He followed her dark, chocolate-scented hair into the kitchen, where his nose told him a roast was basting in the oven. "I asked where's your mother?"

"She said she was going over to Linda's to watch an exercise video."

"I see."

What the transaction really meant was this: Has Mom been drinking again, and, yes, she's getting tanked over at her girlfriend's and will be back when she arrives. But such words were never said explicitly. Disappointment seethed in his guts like termites. He'd left the scented hollows of Radell, her quick, inventive mouth — for this?

But, of course, he had, for Blair and for Woody. They needed a father. Moreover, he needed to be a father.

"Where's your brother?"

"Dressing for dinner. He helped me with the layer cake."

"Woody? Our Woody?" To this point in his life, Woody's crowning domestic achievement had been learning to operate the microwave so he could thaw out burritos at 7-Elevens. "Woody's into baking now? Amazing!"

Blair smiled serenely and stirred a pot of gravy on the back burner. Lima beans were bubbling in a pot on the front.

"Go wash up, Daddy. I'll be ready soon."

The phone in the living room sounded. Blair dashed past him, seized the receiver and listened less than a second before slamming it down.

"Who was that?"

"Just this boy at school. He's been bothering me for a date. A real nerd."

"Just the same, Blair, that was rude. Even nerds deserve some consideration." I was a nerd myself in high school, he started to say, but decided not all confessions, especially to a thirteen-year-old daughter who still thought Daddy was a hero, were good for the soul.

She pouted at him prettily, her mother's expression. He'd never seen much resemblance in Blair to either him or to Jess, but today her face seemed more womanly, its heart-shaped mouth set in an expression of wifely efficiency.

Then he realized that the illusion of similarity to Jess was heightened by what Blair wore beneath the apron — Jess's black woolen skirt with the elastic waist and a white knit top. Strands of Jess's malachite beads cascaded down the front; matching malachite clips were affixed to her ears. Even her lipstick was Jess's favorite shade, a rich plum much too dark for her age and skin.

"Did your mother tell you you could wear her things?"

"She doesn't care."

"It's not as becoming on you as your own clothes, you know."

She did a saucy pirouette, basting spoon in hand, a look both coy and defiant on her face. "I think I look nice. Very nice. I think I look better than I ever have."

He started to reply with a rebuke, something like he didn't appreciate having a daughter dressed like she was thirteen going on thirty, but decided this time to let it pass. It was all too rare that he heard Blair say something good about herself. More often, she bemoaned her oily hair or the twenty pounds she vowed to begin dieting away right after one last Almond Joy. To hear Blair defend her appearance was both encouraging (maybe she was at last outgrowing the pity-pot stage) and at the same time a little jarring. How fast they change, thought Derek, and he felt his age dragging him down.

The phone rang again. Blair was taking the roast out of the oven and lost time setting it down. She ran, but he beat her to it.

Radell's voice was a tight, bitter crackle.

"Listen, you little bitch, don't hang up on me again or —»

"Hello!"

There was a small gasp. "So you're home already, babe. Fast flight."

"I can't believe you called me at home. I thought you understood —»

"Oh, I understand fine. Your daughter and I had a nice little talk. She's pretty smart, you know. You sure she's yours? She tells me I'm not the first one. She says you've turned your wife into an alkie, that the whole family knows what a scumbag you are."

She broke off into braying laughter. Half cackle, half sob. A sound that made his heart go cold and thunderous. He slammed down the phone, bent quickly and yanked it out of the plug.

Blair watched from the doorway. She held a red mixing bowl full of chocolate icing tucked into one arm and she was stirring with a wooden spoon, slowly, with Zenlike ease. She might have been a stranger, so fixed, so coolly placid was her tiny smile. Mona Lisa with the mixing bowl, thought Derek, and realized, even as it dawned on him how little he really knew her, how much he loved her, too.

"Who was that, Daddy?"

He managed an embarrassed laugh. "You were right. A nerd. Let's have some peace. Don't answer the phone for a while."

"Your hands are shaking."

"1 guess the trip wore me out worse than I thought."

He went to the sink and rummaged under it until he located one of the bottles in Jess's stash, a pint of Johnnie Walker behind the Windex and the Lemon Pledge.

Taking a glass down from the cabinet, he poured an inch, then doubled that for good measure. Christ, his hands shook like there were battery-powered vibrators in each finger.

"You can't drink that, Daddy."

"What?"

Blair's little-girl face set in a prim, cold stare. "Woody and I made a rule. No drinking in the house. I thought I got all the bottles, but I guess I missed that one."

"Well, sweetheart, don't forget you and Woody don't make the rules here. I'm damned near frozen from the cold. I need something to get my juices flowing."

He raised the glass.

"I told you you can't do that!"

Blair's hand swept out, plucked the glass away, and flung it at the back wall. Glass shattered and dark whiskey streamed along the patterned wallpaper.

"What the hell's got into you!"

"I told you, Daddy!"

"Goddammit, Blair, I won't have this!"

"No drinking!"

They glared at each other. Blair raised the mixing spoon as though prepared to deliver a blow. It was Derek who broke eye contact. He sat down heavily at the kitchen table, massaging a lightning-bolt-shaped pain in his temples. Blair put a consoling hand on the back of his neck and he felt again — unpleasantly — how very moist and warm her flesh was, how floral her perfume. Jess's perfume. That Estee Lauder scent he hated.

"I'm sorry I did that, Daddy. Only, you were being bad."

He started laughing. Who, indeed, was the parent here? With wives out boozing and ex-lovers on the phone? Good God, how had things gotten this out of control?

"Daddy, don't worry. We'll make things all right."

Astonishingly, she picked up the pint bottle and fetched him a new glass. She poured two golden jiggers. "This is an exception, Daddy. Because you're upset and because that crazy woman called. Just this once."

He gulped the drink gratefully, felt it loosen and warm him. A hot dark glow blazed in his belly, and his rage receded. Outside, snow was again pelting the window. Icicles fanged the sill, but here he sat cocooned in the smells of good food and warmth. To hell with Radell and her deranged mistress act. The truth was, in spite of Blair's temper tantrum, he felt safer, more relaxed here at home than in the steamy clinch of Radell's greedy embrace.

"You look so tired, Daddy."

"It was a long trip home."

"We waited for you."

Blair slid her small, soft hands with their unvarnished, badly bitten nails around his neck. He stood up and she nuzzled into him. She smelled of cinnamon and chocolate and Estee Lauder lilac, a luxuriant profusion of scents. Her closeness dizzied him. But when she began to undulate her hips in ever-narrower figure-eights, he jumped back as though she were on fire. Her bright lips fastened to his, her tongue warm and chocolaty. He was inundated with her various perfumes and sickened by the sudden, alarming realization that, incest taboo be damned, his lower portions hadn't heard of it and were firming up accordingly. Shame scoured him. He shoved her away and cracked an open palm with more force than he'd intended across her face.

She reeled back, nearly falling, then righted herself and glared at him with venomous contempt.

"Blair, wait, I —»

"I hate you," she whispered and ran out of the kitchen. As she fled past the table, her hand shot out long enough to collide with the roast and send it careening in a greasy arc, an oiled football, across the floor.

Derek rushed after her, trying as he did to find a way to put the blame on Jess, Radell, on anyone but himself, for his daughter's concupiscence. Maybe Blair really had talked to Radell and concluded that if Jess had failed at holding on to Daddy's sexual interest, the task now fell to her. A frightening possibility, but less mortifying than the fact that he'd actually gotten a hard-on, that while disgust was registering in his brain, the neurons in his groin were firing to a different drummer.

At the top of the stairs he stopped, caught his breath. The heat there was oppressive, stifling. The thermostat must be turned to ninety. Dust motes rotated slowly in the air, mimicking the patterns of the snowflakes outside the windows.

"Blair?" For once the house was absolutely quiet. Woody's stereo, normally ablast, was silent. No showers ran, no doors slammed. The effect was of expectant waiting, of inheld breath. He moved quietly, furtive as a prowler, until he came to Blair's door and tapped.

"Blair? Honey, I'm so sorry."

He knocked again, then waited a few seconds and tried the knob. To his surprise, it was unlocked. The door opened easily.

She was in bed, the covers tugged up over her, one arm thrown out as if to ward him off. The exposed hand was small and pink with smooth red-lacquered nails — Jess's hand.

His flesh went cold and crawly. He flung back the sheet, and Jess regarded him, her lips dark blue, her eyes rolled up into the whites. She was dressed in Blair's Farmer Johns and red pullover, and, bizarrely, someone had pierced her ears — a quick and brutal job, to judge from the way the lobes were gouged so that a pair of Blair's gold hoops could be driven through. From the angle of her broken neck, he figured she had hung herself. The kids must have found her, taken her down.

He touched his wife's dead face: eyelids, cheeks, chin. Her skin felt like warm putty, as though it might adhere to his fingertips and pull away like flesh taffy when he removed his hand.

"Don't touch her! You'll wake her up."

Blair stalked into the room. She kept her eyes fixed on the twirling snow outside the window, not looking at the contents of the bed.

"I told her she could take a nap till dinner, then do her homework. You can help her with her algebra."

"Christ Jesus, what —?"

"We have to raise her right, you know. Do the right thing. Parenting isn't easy."

The words were achingly familiar. He'd uttered them himself or some pious variation in the late-night conferences with Jess before the two of them stopped speaking in any meaningful way, before Radell and Johnnie Walker became the official consorts.

"Jesus, what's happened? Why didn't you tell me?"

"She probably didn't think you'd give a fuck," said Woody, stepping into the room beside his sister. He was wearing Derek's gabardine suit — much too big for him — and the paisley tie Blair had given Derek last Father's Day. In one hand, he held the wooden bat that had hit the winning home run against Martin Luther High the spring before.

Blair looked her brother fondly up and down and made a little tie-straightening gesture, which Woody ignored.

"Goddammit, Woody, what's happened?"

"We found her last night. She'd been on the phone with your girlfriend. I listened in on the extension for a while. Your bitch was telling Mom about the time you picked her up and carried her around the hotel room, fucking all the way —»

"Stop it."

" — and how you have this favorite thing she does to you with high heels —»

"Stop!"

" — and how you keep your stash of porno locked up in a briefcase in —»

"Nooo!"

He lurched up from Jess's body, screaming in his agony, and saw, an instant before he felt it, the worse and coming agony as Woody raised the bat and swung it. Crack! A brutal, lancing pain slashed up his arm, deadening it to the elbow. The next blow pulverized his kneecap, the third broke ribs. And still the muscled arms were coming up, again and again. The shadow of the bat loomed on the ceiling…

"It's good the children are asleep now," said Blair as she put dinner on the table.

"Blair, come out of it," said Woody. "It's Mom and Dad up there. They're dead. We killed them both. You gotta hold on to reality."

"You mustn't say such awful things, even kidding. No one's dead. The children are just tired." She spooned lima beans onto his plate. "Do you think we'll be good parents? I hope we will. Maybe we should have another child."

She moved to where her brother stood gazing out at the deepening snow and snuggled up against him, cooing sounds of comfort both maternal and seductive. "Woody?" she whispered finally. "We're all we have now. Please?"

Her brother gave a little sigh, took her in his arms and kissed her. The snow fell and they were all alone.