Nick
J. Dean
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 J. Dean
Other titles by J. Dean at Smashwords.com:
The Summoning of Clade Josso
Fraidy-Cat
Jungle Prey
One Favor Before You Go…
10:15
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The deep exhale of breath cut through the silence of the dark room. A row of spherical light fixtures above the rectangular mirror caused the darkness to fade away. Nick was leaning over the sink, face down, eyes squeezed shut, attempting to push out the thumping migraine in the middle of his head. It had taken a tremendous effort to lift himself off the couch in the still, black living room and lurch into the bathroom; right now, he was content enough to prop himself up and prevent himself from falling over for a few more minutes.
His head rolled upward, eyelids peeled back, looking through strands of blond hair that fell over his face. A brush of the fingers brought back the sight of his square-jawed, stubble-peppered visage: not too disfigured, except that his steel-tinted blue eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into their sockets. That would pass in time.
“You’re quite the devil, buddy.” A low, craggy voice sputtered from his lips.
He let out a deep chuckle-not too deep, though. Brenda was still sleeping in the bedroom, down the hall. She was hard to wake up, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Not after last night, especially. What a night at work.
And after work as well.
Somewhere, in the back of his throbbing head, a pulse of guilt was tapping him in between the rhythmic thump of the migraine. Yes, he had been a bad boy, a very bad boy. Granted, he hadn’t planned on doing it; it had just happened. And guilt aside, it had been fun-more fun than he could have ever imagined. He shouldn’t have done it. There was no denying that. A part of him regretted it, dreading to look Brenda in the face when he would see her after work tonight.
But that didn’t mean it hadn’t been fun at the time.
He shifted his attention to the reflected image of the unbuttoned, wrinkled business shirt he was still wearing, exposing a white tank top. No lipstick or makeup appeared to occupy the collar. A sniff of the shirt material revealed no lingering odor of perfume aside from the remains of his own cologne. Good enough: no physical evidence. As for his late arrival home, it wouldn’t have been the first time. He had been in the office until after midnight plenty of other nights, often making phone calls to-and setting up appointments with-contacts on the other side of the country; contacts who couldn’t be reached in person any other way. That came with the job, and Brenda knew it. But she seemed fine with the arrangement. After all, Nick didn’t have to work the weekends too often, and there had been other days (albeit fewer days overall) in which he could complete all of his work as early as two or three o’clock, which meant a surprise arrival home, often to Brenda’s delight. Nick liked seeing her in a delighted mood.
The thought of Brenda losing that delighted mood caused his mirror image to darken.
I shouldn’t have done it.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” He muttered back.
Still, a part of him-a very small part, but a part nonetheless-didn’t regret it. It was pleasure, plain and simple; a fun little roll in the hay. And he’d made it pretty clear to her at the outset that it was going to be just a one time thing and nothing more. Even now, he mouthed the words again to himself in the mirror, assuring himself that it wasn’t going to happen again.
Was it?
No-it wasn’t. Once was enough. One time, one little slip-up: not a regular affair, not like some of the other guys in the office who really did act like scumbags toward their wives. His was casual, a bump in the road, quickly recovered from and forgotten. Brenda didn’t know, didn’t have to know. It would be a secret sin, buried in his past.
A sin that replayed itself on the silver screen of his mind even now.
There he was again, standing with Donald at the copy machine, when the coworker as tall as a skyscraper and dark as a starless night proposed that Nick come with him and a couple of the other guys down to the Fill Station on the corner of Second and Pine. Nick knew the place: a nice little bar and grill with one of the best cheese steak sandwiches found in the city, complimented with one of the best local-brewed dark beers around. Why not? He’d finished with his calls earlier than expected; a little bite and refreshment wouldn’t hurt before heading home. Besides, Brenda was probably at her sister’s place-again. That was how it often went: if Nick was out, so was Brenda. She beat him home most of the time, of course, and would end up in bed long before Nick ended his night. They were lovers on the weekend, but virtual strangers during the week.
So down they went, taking a corner booth, and ordered four cheese steaks-Nick’s with extra onions-and shot the breeze about work, sports, families, work again, politics, work for a third time, and sports again, all of which were peppered with sprinkles of blue humor and crude remarks. Brenda wouldn’t have liked it. Nick looked at it as his right to talk that way after work; it was his idea of winding down. Brenda had countered once that Nick could’ve laughed just as easily at things that weren’t so vulgar. Nick had simply shrugged her off; he hadn’t felt like arguing that night, and that’s all their conversation would have become had he given any sort of defense.
And in the middle of the jokes, the mouths full of hot bites of steak, bread, onions, cheese, and peppers, the gulps of strong ale-that’s when Nick saw her.
She was standing by the jukebox, dancing by herself-no, not quite a dance; more like a sensual swaying. Small, curved just right in the right places, with wavy, shoulder-length blond hair and closed eyes that made her face read internal bliss, shutting out the rest of the world, pushing it away with the rhythmic bumps and pulses of her rolling, blue jean-clad hips, hands on her thighs, shoulders shifting her long sleeved and low cut purple blouse up and down. Next to her, some guy at a barstool was talking, and looking in her general direction, but Nick couldn’t tell whether or not he was trying to say anything to her. Not that it mattered anyway; she didn’t seem to be listening.
Nick hadn’t realized how absorbed he had been in staring at her until Donald had called his name (“Hey! Nicky-boy! Earth callin’ ya, man!”). Nick had arrived back in the atmosphere and had joined his friends back in conversational orbit. But he continued to throw glances back at the solitary dancer, still in seductive step with her invisible partner.
As Nick and the others had finished their meals, the woman’s eyelids drifted upward; her invisible dance partner had left. The unnaturally blue ice surrounding her pupils froze upon Nick’s face.
Nick had sat up in a startled shiver, returning her look with a bobbed head and half a smile. She had kept her focus upon him, a mischievous upturning with the corners of her mouth. The other three had continued with their chatter while standing up, threading hands through coat sleeves. Nick had not done the same thing. Nor had he remembered saying goodbye to the others; all he had remembered was Donald glancing at the woman by the jukebox, then back at Nick with a perplexed frown.
“Don’t be too late, Nicky.” He murmured with caution.
Nick nodded, mumbling something about seeing Donald tomorrow at work, his speech not quite clear. The fill of beer he had downed was not enough to make him officially drunk, but the faint tinge of a buzz had started to cushion the back of his head.
Five minutes later, she was sitting next to him, one ivory arm pushed against his own arm on the table. Somewhere, underneath, the edge of a high heel stroked Nick’s shin. She introduced herself in a soft, liquid voice as Lucy, but beyond that, not much of the talk had centered on her. She wanted to hear all about Nick. And Nick didn’t mind that at all, particularly with the consumption of more beer to make his life sound grander and more glamorous than it would have sounded when coming through a pair of sober lips. Had Nick mentioned Brenda? He thought he had, could have sworn that the last remaining island of conscience in the sea of uninhibited thought forced him to mention her. If he had done so, it hadn’t bothered Lucy. On the contrary, by the time the two of them had been ready to head back to her apartment, Lucy had become quite liberal in permitting her hands to drift across Nick’s chest and shoulders.
Twenty minutes later, back at her place, Lucy wanted to dance again, a much different sort of dance.
And Nick had been happy to replace the invisible man as Lucy’s partner.
**
They were in the apartment parking lot an hour and a half later, standing under a spotlight of dead, glowing blue. More empty chatter, punctuated with Lucy’s bubbling giggles that followed a few of Nick’s fumbled attempts at humor, accompanied by his fumbling for the right car key. She had pressed her lips to his just as he had found success in unlocking the car door-a sweet smear of bloody cherry on his lips and tongue. Nick didn’t protest-he really loved it; it had turned him on when she had first kissed him as they walked through the apartment door-but had replied with frankness that he couldn’t do this again-well, not anytime soon at least. She kept watching him, nodding her head in understanding. As he sat down in his car seat, saying goodnight to her, she stroked the back of his hand with her ruby-painted fingertips, her top teeth biting into her lower lip as she leaned down toward him.
“You know,” she murmured, “I’m really into you.”
Nick didn’t have a response for that. Anything more might have been trouble, real trouble. He smiled, took her hand in his for a moment, and gave it a tender squeeze before heading off. On the way out, he happened to glance in the rearview mirror. There she was, still watching him, not moving until he was well on his way and nearly out of sight.
The water hissed with gentle force into the sink. Nick had neatly lathered his chin and cheeks with shaving cream. A rinsed hand reached for the razor, dabbing the end into the falling stream before bringing it up to his face and pressing in and downward in a shaving motion. In the wake of the blade’s path lay a fresh strip of hairless skin.
He had covered his bases. He hadn’t remembered telling Lucy his last name, or where exactly he had worked-or even specifically what he did. Maybe Nick said something about working for the city, but that was a safe call: the number of city-operated buildings downtown was numerous enough to prevent Lucy from searching town for him. And he knew for a fact that he was not the only one named Nick in the metropolis bureaucracy. No-Lucy would have to be pretty thorough in her search for ol’ Nick if she intended to track him down. Nor did she come off as the stalker type; he didn’t recall her checking out his license plate or anything like that.
Nope. One time incident; just a one night stand, over and done with. No more. Lucy would be in the past, and that would be the end of it-unless Nick and the others decided to hit the Fill Station again some night, and she happened to be there again. Then what?
What if Brenda wants to go there some night?
Nick paused from his routine of shaving, thinking about this. Brenda didn’t like to eat out often, but she did have a habit of surprising him with wanting to go out on occasion, especially when Nick came home early. And for her to suggest the Fill Station-not likely to happen, but not impossible either. Maybe she’d buy Nick making up a story about it not being that great of a place for food or something. Yeah, she’d take his word for it. She trusted his judgment about food. That wouldn’t be an issue.
He resumed shaving as another thought crossed his mind: What if he ran into Lucy while with Brenda? What if-
“Ouch!”
Nick dropped the razor, slapping his face. He pulled his hand back, smeared with shaving cream. On his face, a thick red drop about the size of his pinky’s tip clung to his cheek.
He cursed with a sigh. The nick caused by his blade had been painful, as if somebody had jabbed the tip of a hot knife into him. He was no stranger to cutting himself while shaving-he’d been doing this the better part of fifteen years-but that had to be one of the worst self-induced slices he had ever performed upon himself.
The drop dripped into the cream-clouded, water-filled sink with a plop. The sting did not drop with it.
With a guttural sound that mixed a groan with a growl, Nick rubbed the cut. Of all the times to get something like this. He had to be to work in an hour, and the last thing he wanted to do was walk in with this ugly, obvious wound. He hated blemishes of any sort on his face, always had ever since the first plague of acne had broken out on his thirteen year old being, making his appearance something more akin to toppings on a New York style slice than a junior high visage. He was past that now, having matured into a handsome, tall, trim fellow fit for Venice Beach. The face he had now he didn’t want to lose; puberty had been cruel enough to him.
He moved his hand. The cut had not disappeared. It still bled-and looked worse. There was now a small rip of skin, widening the injury.
“I can’t believe this.” Nick muttered. He reached to the shelf on the left, fastened to the wall, just above the toilet seat, upon which sat a couple of Brenda’s treasured bathroom decorations and a box of tissue. With a violent tug, he pulled out a piece, tearing off a corner and mashing it against the wound. A thick, crimson splotch spread rapidly over the white material, shaping itself into another droplet that fell into the sink. Nick pressed harder against the cut with his index finger, hoping that would prove to be more effective.
A look at the finger revealed cherry-red juice covering the tip, filling the grooves of his whorls and spilling upon the middle finger pressed next to it.
With a spat-out curse, he dropped his fingers into the water, rubbing his thumb against the pads to dissipate the blood. He brought his hand back up, examining his fingers, to see if-
Another curse dropped from his mouth.
A fast-moving streak of red trailed across his jaw, toward his neck, intent on making its way to the finish line on the inside of the white collar. He slapped his palm against it, rubbing upward, flinging droplets of impure water from his fingers onto the mirror. More mess to clean up, meaning more time taken away from his morning routine. A warm washcloth would have to do for now. If Brenda didn’t like that, he’d volunteer to wipe the mirror down better when he came home.
He ripped free another corner, this one a bit larger, bunching it up and pushing it against his face. An impatient sigh left his nostrils; maybe it would have been better to have just gone to work without shaving. It was a rare thing for him to do, as he despised having the shadow of stubble on him. It made him feel disheveled, dirty, more akin to a street bum than to a shirt-and-tie employee. Brenda had remarked one morning that she didn’t mind it at all, that it gave him a sort of sexy, Don Johnson look. Nick had responded with a roll of the eyes and a smooth face five minutes later.
But the only thing worse than the stubble was the remnant of a cut, still visible hours later. Nick didn’t want a nick; he wanted nothing but flawless cheek and jaw for the rest of the professional world to see-and whoever else might be watching.
He brought most of his hand back from the tissue, still keeping it in place by one finger; another uneven red spot had begun to make its way through the material. The cut continued to release blood out into the open. Time for a band-aid. The rest of his fingers joined the one left to hold the tissue in place, surrounding the bunched-up material to pull it off-
-and dragged a piece of skin along with it in a painful tug.
Nick’s brow furrowed, his mouth open in a puzzled scowl. The cut couldn’t have been any bigger than the tip of a ball-point pen at first. With the pulling away of some of his skin, it had widened to the size of a dime, with more blood filling the wound. Another dribble dropped down his face, this one a bit thicker and wider than the first. A new tissue found itself in Nick’s clenched hand, and was slapped against his face. Nick pulled it away in order to reposition the tissue, and pulled away another, blood-blotched segment of skin. Now the wound possessed the diameter of a quarter; its edges bordered with warm, spreading scarlet, still stinging from the fresh pull of skin away from the face, and now accompanied by something else: an itch around the edges of the wound, begging to be scratched.
But that wasn’t what made Nick frown at his injured doppelganger.
What caused the frown was the strange patch in the middle of the wound. Surrounded by the bloody fringe was skin: pure and white, unblemished. Was that supposed to be there?
Nick was hardly a medical or biological expert, but that didn’t look right to him, not at all. There should have been-well, there shouldn’t be something like this. Wounds didn’t reveal anything this clean looking under them, not without a pooling of blood. And the blood only emerged from the edges of the ripped skin, where the tearing had occurred, not from the middle itself. This wasn’t right.
Nor was the growing itching sensation that now accompanied the wound. It wanted him, it forced him, to scratch, to relieve the tickle of invisible feathers that brushed and flitted against his face. Fingernails obliged in an instinctive reflex, digging into the bloody wound, pulling away more skin, increasing the pain as well as spreading and amplifying the maddening itch.
Call a doctor, Nick, the rational side of his mind urged. This can’t be right.
No, it couldn’t be right, but the itch had to be stopped first. It would not permit him to divert attention elsewhere.
Nick slapped his hand into the sink, flinging water in his face and on the mirror, hoping for relief.
He got none.
Stop the itch. It’s spreading through the rest of my face. Get it. Tear it off.
In vain the scratching tried to tear away the persistent tickle, instead exposing more of the strange, white flesh, bordered with blood. By the time he paused to examine the damage, the wound had encompassed his entire cheek: a jagged patch of ivory, outlined by spattered scarlet, against the rest of his somewhat tanned, blood-smeared visage. Bewildered, furious eyes stared back at Nick.
Getitoffgetitoffgetitoffnowww!!!!!!
The itch continued to scamper across him, tingling under his skin, just out of reach from him, making him have to dig harder, faster, deeper, with each swiping movement of the nails. Each stroke removed more of the outer epidermal layer, scattering more bits of blood and flesh, exposing more of the white underneath. Nick let out a frustrated growl, desperate to rid himself of the crazy itch that was causing him to shred his face to ribbons. His clawing hands had now moved to his forehead, scraping down against the nose and the other side of his face-Ow! Pushed too hard on his eye with his fingernail. That had to have cut his lid; his eyes responded with salty water that pushed between closed lashes. More flesh dropped to the sink, floating upon the water in flaked, bloody strips and scabs.
Another look through impure tears revealed a face striped and slashed in red and white, racked in streaks of burning pain. Barely any of his remaining skin could be seen, instead replaced by the white flesh, smeared with sticky, dirty blood. Something about the image reminded him of a clown with horribly mangled makeup, but Nick was hardly in a mood to laugh about this.
The itch prevailed above everything: above pain, above reason, above health, above keeping quiet and not waking Brenda up. It burned and tickled, brushing over his entire face with playful, maddening softness. Nick let out a guttural growl, resuming his scratching with eyes slammed shut.
From the dark outside the bathroom came a soft voice. “Nick?”
Brenda.
Shredded skin peeled away from his nose and lips, revealing more of the lifeless white. The marble countertop displayed smears and speckles of red and flesh, as did the mirror. The sink water had lost any remaining clearness, now a murky, polluted pool of matter-filled brown, as thick and obscure as the agony and confusion that muddled up Nick’s brain.
The itch stopped.
Relieved hands planted themselves into the slicked countertop. The burn had not let up-it gnawed at raw, exposed face flesh, but there was no longer a desire to tear away at the invisible ants which had taken refuge in his face. If anything, Nick felt relief at not having to scratch anymore; he feared that the next swipe would end up revealing bone and marrow.
Nick lifted his tear-smeared eyes up, staring at the distorted, sickly pale blur that was his reflection. A blood-crackled hand reached for tissue in slow motion, pushing against the mirror and moving side to side in a slow, mechanical movement. Little by little, the image sharpened, pushing streaks of water and something else off to the side, bringing back definition to the face.
But not Nick’s face.
Staring back at him above a blood-coated neck in a stare of hungry inquisition were two eyes composed of frozen circles of ice, hovering above a small, feminine nose and delicate cheeks that were full and round: a stark contrast to the high-cheeked, chiseled face Nick possessed. Trickles of blood from the forehead had fallen down the freshly revealed white skin of the nose and had found their way to the mouth, spreading across the full, ruby lips in a gruesome application.
The lips in the mirror were smiling back at Nick.
“I told you I was into you.” Lucy whispered.
“Nick!?”
Brenda’s eyes were no longer squinted, the discomfort of the bright bathroom lights irrelevant. Her husband was crumpled in a pile on the floor, hands clasped over his face, crying with quivering, muffled sobs. She ran to him, shaking off the rest of the fatigue that had accompanied her. There would be no going back to bed anytime soon-the shattering crack sound accompanied by Nick’s gruff shout saw to that.
She caught the source of the loud, awakening smash out of the corner of her eye. The mirror had a web of shatter points stretched across its surface. Some of the glass had fallen into the sink, now nearly overflowing with soap-stained water. Shutting off the spigot, she crouched next to Nick, two velvet palms running against the backs of his own hands.
“Nick,” Brenda called, “Honey, what happened?”
A few more sobs came out from between the fingers, followed by a couple of timid, frightened eyes. “Brenda?”
She helped him sit up. “What’s wrong, Nick?”
“I’m so sorry, Brenda!” He choked. “I’m so sorry!”
Brenda frowned. “Sorry about what? Why are you hiding your face like that?”
“Don’t you see it!? Don’t you see the mess on the sink!?”
“The glass? Yes I see it! What happened?”
“No-no-no! Not the glass! The blood!”
Brenda glanced back at the mirror and sink. “What blood? Nick, what blood!?”
The sobs slowed. Two of the fingers split open. “What does my face look like?”
Brenda coughed a breath of confusion. “Your face? Move your fingers so I-“
“No!!” Nick shouted. “Look at my face!! The part you see between my fingers!! What do you see??”
“Nick I don’t see anything wrong with your face!”
...
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