Sam picks up his basketball. He can hear her in the cubby, moving around. Her chains click like knitting needles. Slowly he finds his way to the doorway of the cubby. She is molting, shedding pieces of her clothing, becoming a smoothly female figure. Serene, rapt—she reminds him of his stepmother rubbing baby lotion into his little sister’s skin or anointing her own skin or hair with some fragrant oil. The cubby is cold, since he has not turned on the heater, and her nipples protrude. Naked, she moves fluidly through the darkness; she stoops to gather her fallen chains and resume them. Sinking to the mattress on the floor, she hugs her knees.
He places his ball carefully on the counter. After flicking on the heater, he takes off his sneakers. The cold comes right up from the floor through his socks. He unbuttons his fly and lets the cold mortify his flesh.
Wordlessly, he joins her on the mattress. Her skin is cold. The touch of his warmth makes her shiver as if she hadn’t realized how cold she really was and she snugs up against him hastily. The taste of her mouth is distinctively smoky, nearly the same as it was the night in the parking lot. She winces at the pressure of his lips. Her fingertips go to her upper lip and he takes them off it and lightly feels the bruised area himself.
“What’s this?”
She turns her face. “Nothing. Walked into a branch in the dark, coming through the woods.”
His forefinger against her chin forces her face in line with his again and she meets his gaze calmly. Though he’s sure she’s lying, he doesn’t know why. Maybe she doesn’t want him giving her a hard time about being so stoned she can’t get out of the way of a tree.
She cups her hands at the back of his neck and draws his head to her breast. Wondrous bare flesh. The puckered edge of areola, the curve of the bottom of her breast. Hesitantly, he touches her between her legs. The threads are silky as ever, the soft wet welcome thrilling. He closes his eyes in relief. She isn’t swollen or sticky from someone else.
Her fingers squeeze and stroke his penis while he works a finger into her. She is unhurried, almost teasing, and he tries to match her pace. One finger, two fingers, probing and opening, sliding, slipping. She makes a small throaty noise; she is ready, he’s sure of it. He holds back a little longer, in the hope that drawing it out will help her, but when he tries to substitute his cock for his fingers, she is suddenly dry and resistant and it is too late, he is surprised by a sudden orgasm. There is no way to resist; it just happens, in a mindless hot spill.
At first she reacts slowly but as he apologizes, she registers what has happened. “Shit! You got it all over me. What is this, payback?”
“Payback?”
“You know what I mean!”
He rubs his chest, which hurts with a sudden constriction. His stomach is all knotted up too and he has a headache drilling between his eyes.
“You’re still pissed at me!” she explains, as if he can’t talk for himself.
The flat statement makes his stomach flutter. Jesus. His stomach clenches with the expectation they are about to commence round bazillion in this cosmic mismatch. He wonders how many times he can take this shit before it becomes aversion therapy and he’s cured.
“Why shuh-shouldn’t I be ripped? How do you think it made me feel, you and Chapin?”
She looks up at him. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I suregod don’t. How could you do it? Why, for Christ’s sake?”
“Fuck you, you self-righteous prick!”
Pushing her off him, he rolls to his feet and yanks the chain on the bare bulb overhead.
She flinches and raises her arm to shade her eyes.
“Don’t bother,” he says, “you already told me. It’s nothing to do with you and me. You lay Chapin, he lays dope on you. No big deal, just a little one you’ve been working for years. This is my own goddamn fault for letting my dick think for me. Rick’s right. You’re just another shit-for-brains drug whore like my sister.”
Lowering her arm, she stares up, empty-eyed as Little Orphan Annie. He recognizes her stony piss-off from all the times he ever tried to get through to Karen. Now her lip is exposed to the light, he sees the dark swelling of bruise on it. It spreads around the corner of her mouth. Her skin is startling white and fragile in contrast.
“Oh, you’re all the same,” she cries.
He knows just what she means. They are, he is—no fucking argument. It makes him angrier. “I guess you’d know.” He grabs the coat and clothing that she has flung over the counter and begins to shake out the pockets. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“The shit. Whatever kind of shit you got for tricking with that creep. Did you smoke it all up tonight?”
Various pockets yield a meager scattering onto the floor next to the mattress. He scooches over the mess to toss it—some small change, a crumple of currency, raggedy tissues, a flat plastic box, a wooden tube, an eye pencil, a mascara, a lipstick, a plastic comb with the teeth broken out. No dope, not so much as a linty Midol.
“Shithead!”
She plucks out the flat plastic box and throws it at him, a straight shot to the bridge of his nose.
“Ow!” Sitting down abruptly, he claps a hand to his nose and blinks away the involuntary rush of stinging tears. His hand is wet and when he looks at it, there is a trace of blood.
“It’s just a cut,” she says dismissively, thrusting a crumpled tissue into his hand.
While he blots it, she begins to gather up the strewings into a little heap on the mattress.
Picking up the box she hit him with, he opens it. It is a packet of oral contraceptives.
“J.C. gets
