probably not as young as he thought; women weren’t for some years. It was only when they reached their forties that women began to look their age and men looked younger. But there was something so trusting and simple about her character that he suspected some part of her would always remain a girl.
And she liked him, she clearly liked him. He was no expert, but he could see that. He wasn’t entirely certain how it made him feel to have her respond to him so unambiguously, but he was certain he hadn’t misread her feelings at least. There had been mistakes in the past. Dyce had allowed himself to become infatuated with girls who did not reciprocate, girls who ultimately weren’t worthy. Such episodes always left him feeling ashamed of himself for being so gullible, and renewed his resolve to remain alone. But he was not mistaken about Helen, that much was certain. She had remembered his name, she had thought about him-she had told him that!
Working in a state of distraction as he thought about his meeting with the girl, Dyce prepared himself for what he had to do. It was time, in any event, whether he had resolved to stop or not, whether he now had new interests or not. The man had been dead for three days, and it was time to get rid of him. His coloring had begun to change and the odor, despite repeated washings, was getting hard to ignore.
Dyce lit the incense that he had placed in saucers around the room. He did not like the smell of incense, but it was more effective than the modern deodorizers and Dyce didn’t approve of using aerosols anyway because of the ozone layer. The incense, however, added smoke to the already-murky aspect of the room and gave the whole proceedings an oriental feel which he thought was inappropriate. It would take several days to air out the house after he was done, which meant removing the soundproofing from the windows, a step that made Dyce nervous even when there was nothing to hide. Disposal had always been a problem.
The man’s body was surprisingly heavy in comparison to his ethereal appearance. He should have weighed no more than a ghost, but his body seemed to struggle against Dyce’s strength as he carried it to the bathroom, as if it wanted to remain in the place where it had spent the last ten days, alive and dead, or as if the body was resisting the final insult that awaited it in the bathtub.
Setting the showerhead to a fine spray, Dyce adjusted the pressure so that the body was enveloped in a lukewarm mist. The trick was to make the water warm enough to aid in the dissolution of liquids but not so hot that it would bum Dyce, who would be working in the mist. With the water running, Dyce filled his thirty-gallon, restaurant-sized stock pot halfway and turned the stove burner to high flame. If his tuning was accurate, the water would be aboil by the time he needed it.
When Dyce returned to the bathroom with his knives, the mascara was running down the man’s cheeks and coloring the stream of water that swirled down the drain. In the brighter light of the bathroom, the lipstick on the man looked harsh and cheap and shameful, as if he were a transvestite who had been caught in mid- transformation, frozen forever in his gender confusion. Dyce felt a moment’s disgust as he regarded the man. He was not worthy, after all. Dyce had been wasting his time admiring the beauty of the man. He felt momentarily soiled and ashamed, as if he had just discovered he had made love to a harlot with a virgin’s mask. You are better than this, he told himself. You deserve better for yourself, and you must stop acting this way.
He undressed, kneeled, and leaned into the shower’s spray. Droplets formed immediately and dripped from the blade of the chefs knife. Filled with resolve to make this the last time, to change his life and live in a better, purer, more self-sufficient way, Dyce set to work.
Helen was frantic. She knew she shouldn’t do it, she knew it was precisely the kind of thing that drove men away, but she couldn’t help herself She actually said it to herself, I can not help myself, as if it were permission. She liked to think of herself as someone who was swept along by irresistible forces, a victim of her own tempestuous emotions. The winds of compulsion blew and raged and she was cast helplessly before them, rudder broken, the sails of her spirit swollen to the ripping point by the great force of her wild passions.
At the same time she knew perfectly well that it was this same compulsive behavior that frightened men away. In her sober moments she yearned for some measure of self-control that would keep her from hurling herself off cliffs of impulse, into the arms of strangers. But when the turmoil of passion gripped her, she forgave herself everything. She felt she must continue to throw her heart until someone caught it.
She had found his house with no problem but she hesitated at the door, trying to calm herself a bit, at least. Sometimes when she felt this way, it was all she could do to breathe, and her body would quiver with excitement. Surely, surely, the world could sense the urgency and rightness of what she did when it sent such strong vibrations to her.
There were no lights coming from the house, but his car was in the garage so he must be home. She did not know much about him, but she was certain Mr. Dyce was not the kind of man to be off with friends on a week night.
Glancing at the other houses on the block, she confirmed that it was not too late to call. The whole row of houses, each with its little lawn and full front porch, was lighted brightly, almost festively. Greenish pictures jerked and shifted on television screens and bulbs shone from upstairs bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms. People moved openly and in silhouette behind screens, and at the end of the block two children were still at play, yelling at each other in the night.
It was a family neighborhood, a sane place, secure, not affluent, exactly, but certainly comfortable. A strange location, perhaps, for a single man, but a sign that he valued the right things in life. For a moment, Helen wondered if maybe Mr. Dyce had a family after all, if the lights were out because he and Mrs. Dyce were making love, if even a family of children, in-laws, pets awaited on the other side of the door. He didn’t seem to be connected to anyone. He had not mentioned anyone at the coffee shop when she had given him the opportunity; he had all the earmarks of a lonely man. Helen could not believe that she had misjudged him so completely. His compassion was real; there was no mistaking that, and she would rely on that if nothing else. If she had made an error in coming here, at least his compassion would keep her from suffering too much for it. She knew she could count on him.
She rang the bell, waited, then rang it again too soon, unable to stop herself There was not a sound from the house, and she decided that the bell did not work. A large iron knocker was in the middle of the door, a decorative relic from a pre-electronic time. She opened the screen door and lifted the knocker and let it fall against its metallic stump. That was not loud enough, so she rapped it several more times, holding it in her hand.
Nervously, Helen watched the neighboring houses to see if there was any response to the knocking, which seemed to clang like a shovel slammed against a car. She could hear nothing from within the house, even with her ear pressed against the door. It occurred to her that Dyce might be injured, he might be lying on the floor, unable to respond, the victim of a stroke, a heart attack. She could almost see him groping toward her with outstretched hand, mouthing her name and a cry for help.
Helen tried the door knob. He would want to know she was here. He would not want to miss her because he couldn’t hear. Perhaps he was listening to music with earphones on. What sort of music? she wondered. The knob twisted in her hand, but the door did not budge.
Her hand was still on the knob when the door opened suddenly and without a sound of warning. Dyce stood there in a bathrobe, blinking at her, looking startled.
“Oh, Mr. Dyce,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re here. I hate to bother you but I was so unhappy, I just started thinking about my poor mother again and I couldn’t stop and it was driving me crazy and I knew you would understand…”
She brushed past him and into the house before he spoke. He reached out as if to stop her, then relented. She knew he would want to see her. She waited for him in the little foyer just inside the door. From where she stood she could see into the living room and a portion of the kitchen and her eyes roved curiously as she spoke.
“I just had to come. I knew I shouldn’t, but then I said to myself, Mr. Dyce will understand, he has been through it…”
He still had not spoken. His hair was wet and plastered to his forehead and his face dripped water into the bathrobe. There was something perplexed about his expression, as if he could not believe she was there-or worse, did not remember her.
“I got you out of the shower,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, breaking his silence for the first time. “Yes, I was in the shower.”
“I knew you were here but just couldn’t hear me,” said Helen. The shower was running in the background and she could hear water boiling and a lid clattering in the kitchen. The shower explained why he hadn’t heard her, but the house seemed alive with noise and Helen wondered why she had heard none of it from the
