Down the Drain

somewhere? Maybe he was letting it get to him more than he should have, but to feel nothing would have been...dysfunctional. Soulless even.

So he thought about the cat, worried about her, and he screwed up his work. He’d started the day three weeks behind and ended it three weeks and two days behind. Hard to believe that staying home and sulking could sometimes be the productive thing to do. No three-, two-, or even one-day weekend for him this week. He’d have to come in at sunrise and work until dark every day until the following Saturday at least.

Need to get yourself some help. Couple of kids who’ll work for seven bucks an hour and do all the grunt work.

No, that would be a bad idea. A cheap solution on paper, but in reality he’d end up worse off. He’d hired help before and found that the kind of people who will work for the money he had to offer, if they showed up at all, would do more damage than good. They’d bust their butts for a couple of hours, but then they’d sneak off into the woods for a smoke (or a meth) break and come back two hours later ready to call it a day. Or they’d accidentally knock down a brace and send a whole series of walls dominoing into one another and shattering into worthless kindling. Or they’d knock the Sawzall out a window and bend the blade. Or they’d sword fight with their loaner tape measures and knock each other out a window. Bruce had seen it all once or twice. All those things and stupider. He was better off working on his own. Behind or not. Preoccupied or not.

By the time he got home that night, it was long past dark. His muscles screamed, the sawdust in his nose half suffocated him, and all he wanted to do was get in bed. Instead, he searched the house again.

Bedroom: empty. Bathroom: nada. Office: catless. Utility room: no Selly.

He opened a can of tuna and left it on the porch, hoping the scent might draw her home if she was anywhere in the vicinity. More likely, some stray would end up with the snack, but it didn’t hurt to try.

He brought a beer into the bathroom and turned on the shower. By the time he’d gotten out of his filthy work clothes, he’d changed his mind and decided maybe tonight should be a bath night. His aching muscles could use a soak. He reached past the shower curtain, shut off the water to deactivate the showerhead, turned it back to hot, and plugged the drain.

While the tub filled, he checked the tuna on the porch and found an empty can but no Selina. He went into the kitchen for a second beer.

Maybe you can actually drink both this time.

He’d left his second beer on the coffee table when he fell asleep the night before. He'd awakened to find a nasty water ring he’d either have to ignore or sand out when he had the time. Which, if this week was any indication, would be never.

He found some of Eileen’s old bubble bath under the sink and thought, what the hell.

He poured a few capfuls into the bathwater; the surface frothed and bubbled like the concoction in a witch’s cauldron. It smelled sweet, coconuty. He set his bottles on the tub’s edge and lowered himself into the suds.

This time, he fell asleep before he opened even one of the beers.

FIVE

When he opened his eyes, the water had cooled to room temperature and he had another erection.

Had he been dreaming of Eileen? Of something else?

He couldn’t remember. He blinked, a little disoriented but mostly just tired. He used his foot to turn on the hot water and decided to ignore his hard on.

He splashed soapy water into his face and through his hair before reaching for one of the beers and twisting off the cap. His penis bobbed in the water, buoy like. The water warmed, and the alcohol worked its way into his system; he started to doze again. He was half asleep when the tub moved beneath him.

He opened his eyes and blinked, more disoriented now than ever.

What was that?

He still held the beer and had almost spilled it in the water. He set it on the ledge beside its twin and rubbed at his drooping eyelids.

It happened again. The floor shifted beneath him.

His first thought was that one of the joists beneath the bath had given out, rotted and split, and that the tub might crash through the floorboards and into the crawlspace beneath the house at any moment. He started to push himself up and out of the water, but then the floor rippled again and he lost his balance. His elbow smacked the side of the tub. He heard a crack and wondered if it had come from the basin or one of his bones. The beer bottles wobbled—two little drunkards—and fell to the floor. The open bottle didn’t break but spilled its innards across the tiles. The other shattered; a beer geyser sprayed everything from the toilet to the mirror to the door across the room.

Bruce ignored the beer, bent his legs, and tried to turn into a kneeling position, but the bottom of the tub felt like quicksand now. He couldn’t get purchase, couldn't seem to control his body at all. He would put a hand out to brace himself, and the seemingly solid surface of the tub would suck it in, grab it and hold on like some sort of sentient being.

He started to turn. No, the tub started to turn him. He struggled, twisted, strained his already-strained muscles until he ached from head to toe. The tub turned him facedown in the water and held him there. Bruce fought it, broke the water’s surface and sucked in a long, gasping breath. The tub jerked him back into its depths.

This is ridiculous, not real, just your imagination.

Ridiculous: yes. Real: yes. Imagination: no.

He wrenched his head back and managed to suck in another partial breath. In his struggle for air, Bruce almost didn’t feel the tub’s floor reconstituting around his still-hard cock.

If anything was impossible, surely that was it. That he could still have an erection, that he hadn’t wilted like a drowned flower.

Now he was pulling back both his head and his groin. The tub let him get his face above water but wouldn’t let go of his other head. It gripped him tight, jerked him furiously, an overeager lover. Bruce spit out soapy water and screamed. The tub continued jerking, rubbing him raw. Bruce saw some of the bubbles begin to pinken and realized he must be bleeding. His screaming intensified. Water splashed over the edge of the tub, mixed with the puddled beer and pooled near the sink where the floor dipped down a little.

He thrashed. He continued yelping, groaning. And yet, he felt himself approaching climax. Disgusting. Incomprehensible. But true.

The tub stroked for another few seconds, and Bruce spilled his seed despite himself. His hips bucked, and his mind went fuzzy, just as it had when he’d pleasured himself the night before, just as it always had when he’d come inside Eileen with her breathing in his ear and scratching his back.

The tub let go as unceremoniously as it had grabbed on. Bruce swung his legs over the tub’s edge and