'Don't!' Amy's whisper was explosive, and she caught my hand. For a moment I thought she'd somehow divined that her child was in terrible danger from me. But she just squeezed my hand affectionately and murmured close to my ear, 'Don't wake her. She'll be up all night.' I nodded, and we tiptoed out of the child's room together.
Despite intense arousal — part horror, part need and gratitude that it would be met, part a disturbing kind of joy — I could not bring myself to respond to Amy's goodnight kiss. I allowed it, though, another moral compromise. Her mouth lingered softly on mine. I all but sank into the billows of her body. I maintained the physical contact as long as I could stand it, absorbing so much from her that I was weak and trembling by the time I pulled away. She smiled tremulously at me and murmured, 'Call me.' As I left I heard Phoebe cry out for her.
I hadn't seen her since then, and now I never would. When I emerged from the steam room and had settled myself on to the massage table with my face in the terry-covered cradle and my open-pored naked body ready for Vonda's manipulations, I asked, 'Where's her daughter?' I'd hoped never to have to ask this question, but it had probably been inevitable. 'Phoebe,' I added, gratified that I had not forgotten her name. 'Where's Phoebe?'
'She's with me.'
Her thumbs and then her elbow found that deep tender spot under my left shoulder blade, and she bore down. Through the exquisite pain I hoped I wasn't inadvertently taking anything from her through this kind of contact; I needed my personal trainer and massage therapist to be strong and focused. As the muscle started to loosen and warmth seeped into the pressure point, I gasped, 'Are you raising her?'
'I'm her godmother and guardian. It's in Amy's will.'
The massage wasn't as good as usual; Vonda's mind was obviously somewhere else, and so was mine. My various aches and pains — Iliac crest, glutes, lower back, feet — seemed to have multiplied and amplified and become more resistant since the last time. I kept thinking about Amy, and Kit and Denise. I kept thinking about Phoebe, whose primal will to survive must be fierce.
'Okay,' she told me after a while, without, I thought, much interest. 'Flip over on your back.'
I didn't draw the sheet up over my beautiful breasts. She gave no sign of noticing. Her fingers shook slightly from the pressure she was putting under the back edge of my skull, stiffened fingers relieving tension in my head and neck as if they were holes drilled into the bone, but it was the weight of my own head that generated the response rather than any direct intention on her part. She let go too soon.
'There you go, Madyson.'
I lay on the table for a few minutes after her hands left me, noting with resentment and panic that my body felt neither relaxed nor supple. I was paying her good money. She owed me more than this.
'Now that I'm a mother,' Vonda said, as though she were talking about the weather, 'I'm not going to work here any more. We can get by without what I make, and Phoebe needs me. She's just lost her mother.'
Bereft, I managed to ask, 'When are you leaving?'
'Today's my last day. You're my last client.'
I could not let this happen. Vonda was a young, vital woman with plenty more to give. Carefully, raising myself on one elbow, I said, 'I'll miss you.'
'Thanks. I'll miss this place, too. Sort of.'
'I hope we can keep in touch.'
There was a pause, and I expected either no acknowledgment of my overture or one of those responses like 'we'll have to get together sometime' designed to be rejecting without quite admitting it. In either case, I'd have pressed. But, to my pleasant surprise, I didn't need to. Vonda looked up at me almost shyly and said, 'I hope you mean it, Madyson. I'd like that.'
Heart pounding, I suggested, 'Let's have lunch. Tomorrow. There's this great little place I know. Charon's. Let's meet there.'
'Great.' Vonda nodded happily. 'I'll see if the day care can keep Phoebe another half day.'
'No!' She raised her eyebrows at my vehemence, and I hastened to moderate it. To control and conceal how much I needed to touch that little girl, to cradle and kiss her, to stroke her baby skin and hold her against my heart and infuse myself with all that raw new energy. 'No,' I repeated, with great effort calming my demeanour. 'I'd really love to see her. Please. Bring her along.'
Forever, Amen
Elizabeth Massie
Two-time Bram Stoker Award winner and World Fantasy Award finalist Elizabeth Massie is the author of numerous horror short stories and books. Her most recent novels include Welcome Back to the Night, Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (co-authored with Stephen Mark Rainey) and Wire Mesh Mothers. A collection of the author's short fiction , Shadow Dreams, was recently released .
For young adult readers she is also the author of the Daughters of Liberty trilogy, the Young Founders series , The Great Chicago Fire: 1871, Maryland: Ghost Harbor, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Power of Persuasion. Her teleplay , Rhymes and Reasons, was the recipient of a 1990 Parents' Choice Award .
'In creating 'Forever, Amen,' I considered immortality blessing or curse? and its various manifestations,' says Massie. 'Vampirism, reincarnation, time travel. The appeal of living for ever is darkened when the future is discovered to be no better than the present or the past, when progress is only technical and not humanitarian, and civil people pound their chests and boast of their foul-smelling goodness. Where is one to go then? Where is one to run?'
Then Pilate went out to the people and saith unto them, Behold, I have found no fault with this man. The chief priests and officers cried out, Crucify him!
Pilate held forth his hand towards Jesus, who bore a crown of thorns and purple robe, and saith, I may release to thee a man on this day of feasting. Whom will ye that I release, the man Barabbas or this man Jesus?
And the crowd cried, Give us Barabbas! Jesus must die!
