Serpent's kiss

Two blocks from the Standard station, he suddenly veered right, still not knowing why. A sign said WARNER PARK, TWO BLOCKS. The Beatles sang Paperback Writer.

'Hey,' she said.

'Pardon me?'

'This ain't the way to the gas station.'

'No?'

'No.'

He increased his speed. He was now going forty miles per hour. He had to be careful. He could get stopped by a cop.

She looked at him. 'Don't get any ideas. About me, I mean.'

'Wouldn't you like to look over the city? Just sort of take a break?'

'I don't even know you.'

He turned toward her. Smiled. 'I'm not going to put the make on you, if that's what you're afraid of.' He frowned. 'I'll be honest with you.'

'Yeah?'

'Yes. My girlfriend-' He sighed. His words sounded painful beyond belief. 'My girlfriend left me for somebody else.'

'That's too bad.'

'So right now I could use some company, you know? Just a friend.'

'But I gotta be at that wedding shower.'

'Just a few minutes is all. Just go up and look out over the city. Just a few minutes.'

'Well-'

'And I won't try anything. I promise.'

'You're sure?'

'I'm sure.'

She sighed. 'Some guy dumped me once so I know how you're feeling, the pecker.' And again she sighed. 'I could only spend a few minutes.'

'I've got things to do myself.'

'You mind if I smoke this roach I got in my purse?'

'Not at all.'

'I'm not a doper or anything. I just like a little grass once in a while. It relaxes me.'

'Fine.'

She took out this tiny roach clip and then inserted this even tinier roach in it. He was amazed that she got it going. She took three heavy tokes on it and then leaned her head back against the seat. The Bee Gees sang Stayin' Alive.

'You want a toke?' she said.

'No thanks.'

Her voice was kind of raspy now. 'It really relaxes me.'

'Yes, that's what you said.'

After he parked the car, they got out and went to the edge of a grassy cliff. The night air was slow and hot, filled with fireflies and bam owls. Below them the city lay like a vast drug dream, unreal in the way it sprawled shimmering over the prairie landscape and then ended abruptly, giving way to the plains and the forest again. Next to him, Paula Stufflebeam smelled of sweat and faded perfume and sexual juices. She had a run in her stockings so bad he could see it even in the moonlit darkness and oddly enough it made him feel sorry for her. She wasn't cheap, she was poor and uneducated and there was a difference. He had to keep this in mind whenever he took to judging people from the eyrie of his privileged life.

'So who'd she dump you for?' Paula said after they'd been there a few minutes.

'A lawyer.'

'A lawyer, huh? Bet he pulls down the bucks.'

'No. He's a civil rights lawyer.'

'You mean like black people and people like that?'

'Right.'

'Oh.' She didn't sound impressed. 'Well, you know what my mother told me.'

'That there're plenty of other fish in the sea?'

'Right.'

He slid his arm across her shoulder and brought her closer to him. He'd never been good at making out. He'd always been afraid he was doing all the wrong things. But tonight he felt a curious self-confidence.

He brought her to him and she surprised him by coming along willingly. He felt her press up against him, the shift of her breasts beneath the polyester of her dress, the faint wisp of hair spray, and the bubblegum taste of her lipstick. Their groins were pressed together, too, and he felt a hard, breathless lust start to increase his heartbeat.

'I really don't have time to do anything,' she said after pulling gently away from him.

'I know.'

'But you could always call me sometime.'

'I'd like that.'

And he knew, then. Knew why he'd stopped for her, knew why he'd brought her here.

He leaned close as if to nuzzle her. His hands came up quickly, and found her throat with criminal ease.

'Oh, God!' she shouted there in the clearing, in the night, in the heat. 'Oh, God!'

And he thought of jism and the pink lips of her pussy and of her dark moist pubic hair.

And he thought of her blood intermingled with his come.

And he pressed his hands tighter, tighter about her throat.

And the birds of this vast night watched, and a distant dog barked as if in protest, and from his pocket he took the knife he'd found in the tower, and he put it deep into her chest, brought it down, down, and as it ripped low he felt himself ejaculate, a blind moment of pleasure he'd never known before, and again he dreamed of his jism flowing with her blood, and he ripped all the more.

And then, as she fell in what seemed to be slow motion from his grasp, he thought:

Oh my God.

Oh. My. God.

What have I done?

And, my God, why?

Why have I done this?

And he thought of the tower and of the coiling snake inside him.

He stood as if naked on the very curve of the earth, here alone in frail starlight, and for the first time he knew there was some other reality, some more important one, than the homely truth of the every day.

She was not quite dead, still struggling and vomiting up blood, and he knew now there was time, and he took his sex in his hand and let the jism flow into the blood of her throat and chest, and he cried out to the stars like an animal betrayed.

And when he was finished, he ran. Through whipsaw undergrowth that ripped up his face and arms, running, running, the very breath of him hot and stale in his lungs, until he fell down next to a small creek where he washed from his hands and face the blood of her.

And then, helpless and unrelenting, he began to cry and knew then he was changed forever.

An hour and a half later he stood in the dust and darkness of the tower. He had not set a match to the candle tonight for he did not want to see the snake leave him. He had too many nightmares already of the snake.

And then, as if choking, he bent over and felt the cold slithering serpent begin to unwind in his belly and slide wriggling up his oesophagus and escape, hissing now, its tongue flicking, from his open mouth.

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