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