The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

Lust

Conclusion

“I stole your ID,” Jenean said when they both lay on the floor of her apartment, naked and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m crazy that way. I didn’t take your credit card, but I wanted some excuse to get a hold of you again.”

Kris’s eyes searched the ceiling for words.

“That is…”

“The most fucked up thing you’ve ever heard.”

“No,” Kris waved that away with his index finger. “It is definitely not the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard. It’s actually kind of a compliment. Truth is, usually women tend to not want to see me more than a few times.”

“Well, we’ve made it to two, so is a few three? That means one more time before I hate you.”

“Well,” Kris turned over on his side, “we better make the most of tonight, then.”

“You know,” Jenean said, pushing the curtain of ash blond hair out of her eyes, “it really doesn’t matter that much when you think of the number of men I’ve hated that I seemed to not mind having sex with. And I totally shouldn’t have said that because it makes me sound like a huge slut.”

“I don’t think I’m in a position to talk,” Kris said. “What’s more, I don’t think it really matters.”

“That’s very renaissance of you.”

“Is it?” Kris said. “I feel like since we just had sex in the backseat of your car on Christmas in an I-Hop parking lot, any other feeling would be hypocritical.”

“What were you doing in I-Hop?” Jenean said, “On Christmas night?”

Kris instantly thought of lying, but then he said, “I had just learned my Dad was dead.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I mean, he went missing half a year ago, so we assumed.”

“But still.”

“Yeah,” Kris said. “But now it’s certain, and then tonight we went to get him, his remains and…. It’s just kind of fucked up, but… fuck it, I don’t want to talk about this!”

He stretched out on the floor.

“I get it. Sorry.”

“No,” Kris said, “You don’t have anything to apologize for. We’re having a good time, and I like having a good time, and tomorrow morning I’m going to go back to all that. All that family stuff. But for tonight… This.”

“Well, my pussy hurts so we need to come up with a different kind of fun for a bit.”

“Fuck!” Kris laughed. “Well, then. Howabout you tell me about yourself.”

“That is as much fun as your story,” Jenean said. “The men in my family are weird and crazy and disappear. They have serious depression.”

“Sounds like the men in my family. Except for the disappearing thing.”

“My dad left when I was about five. My mom could never make ends meet. We were always being evicted, and getting our lights turned off. She turned into a total slut. She married my stepfather who molested me. Uh… there are a lot of real nuggets in my adolescence. It would make some interesting books. Maybe not books you’d want to read, but, still. I left home when I was seventeen, and went in search of my father.”

“Did you find him?”

“Yes.”

“And was that a good thing?”

“Not entirely. But that’s a whole set of stories too. Ends in me narrowly escaping a gang rape in Vegas and making my way back across the country On The Road style, except for the boring white male self pity of Jack Kerouac.”

Kris said, “I always did think that was kind of a whiny book.”

“I fucking hate it, and I’m pretty sure Kerouac was homosexual.”

“Some people say bisexual.”

“Bisexual is what you say when you don’t want to admit you’re gay. The only people who are bisexual are vampires and those assholes don’t exist.”

When she said this a look passed over Kris’s face, and suddenly he thought of being in the chamber underneath the church in Chicago, of the moment when Lawrence, that vampire, had stood beside him and Eve Moreland had handed Kris the letter and then Laurie had handed her the bag and the human head had fallen from it onto the floor.

“At least,” Jenean amended, “they’d better not be real.”

“I’m glad I met you, Jenean,” Kris said.

“Why, cause my life is more fucked up than yours?”

“No,” Kris said, “because you’re strong, and when I listen to you I think, well hell, maybe I can be strong too. Maybe.”

Jim Strauss blinked and realized he was in a dark room in Ohio, which should not have been strange except he had thought he was somewhere else, in a house full of light. He was lying in bed with his lover, and this was not Ryan. He was a handsome man about the same size as him, young, tender. Jim felt tender to him even though he had no idea who he was, even though he was clearly a figment of his imagination. He had a beautiful rounded face, trimmed by the thinnest of beards and he looked quiet and full of peace. This man had lain in the bed beside him, on his back, mouth open and palms up, breathing softly. Seth had known him before. They had lain in this bed together. They had stood on a lake before and he had said to him, or the other way around, “I’ve known you forever.”

The other man said, “I used to not understand my dreams. They used to terrify me but they don’t anymore.”

Jim almost knew his name and every time he was about to say it, the name disappeared.

But now Jim was here, and alone, and the house was chilly the way it got this time before the furnace came back on early in the morning. There was a vague light down the hall, and Jim climbed out of bed, put on his shirt, smoothed his hair out of his face and went into the hallway to see Marabeth’s door half open. When he went to tap on her door, he pushed it open a little. She was not there. He left the room and went downstairs. The light was on in the kitchen and Jim walked through the house and down the hall toward where Marabeth was sitting up with… the Detective from the other night?

“Is this a party?” he asked.

“It could be,” Marabeth said.

“Can I get you guys something?”

Marabeth shook her head.

“I’m good on tea,” she said.

Then she said, “I couldn’t sleep, and lucky for me—or unlucky—Detective McCord had a pair of father’s cuff links to bring over.”

The long tall redheaded man with the broad face nodded.

“Thank you for that,” Jim nodded to him. Then he said to his cousin, “What kept you up? Uncle Nate?”

“No,” Marabeth shook her head.

“You should tell him,” the detective said.

Jim looked at this man. Why would he know anything? What had she told him?”

“It’s the journal,” Marabeth said.

“You can’t read too much of what Pamela Strauss said,” Jim said, “At least, not from what I know of her.”

“You should read the book,” Marabeth said.

“When?” said Jim, closing the microwave and turning it on.

“Now.”

“But…” Jim began, “what about you?’

“I can’t read it all,” Marabeth shook her head. “In fact, truthfully, I can’t read any of it. Not now. It’s becoming too real.”

Jim raised an eyebrow and looked at her.

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “Not now. But… ”

“Okay,” Jim nodded. “I’ll read it. Where is it?’

“On my bed.”

Jim nodded again. “I’ve been having strange dreams too. I’ll take it to my room and read it with my tea. See if it gets me to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Marabeth shook her head, “I don’t think it’ll do that.”

When Jim left, Marabeth said, “Detective—”

“Call me Jason.”

“Well, alright. Jason, I really should probably be getting to bed too.”

“You sure?” Jason said.

“Well, I mean, I guess I’m a cunt,” Marabeth realized. “Having you come over in the middle of the night and then here I am sort of like saying, see you, and you’re a guest in my home, Well, my family’s home.”

“No, No,” Jason McCord stood up, smoothing his trousers.. “I just mean you seemed pretty shaken.”

“I was pretty shaken.” Marabeth had not said anything about the dream of Hagano or Hagano making love to her. She had not said anything about waking up and… no, best not to think about that now.

“I could sit up with you for a little while,” he said.

“That’s good. I mean, I shouldn’t ask you to do that, but—”

“But I would like to.”

“And I would like you to.”

“We can go to the parlor. Or to the library.”

“I’d like to see the library,” Jason said.

“You know,” Marabeth said as they entered the library and Jason closed the door, “A few days ago I would have never imagined any of this. I mean, how could you? And yet, right now it all seems like it makes perfect sense, like, of course this shit is true. What to do with it all, though, I don’t know.”

“I feel like we’re talking about more than finding your missing father,” Jason said.

“We may be.”

They sat down on either side of the fireplace. She wondered how bad she looked at this time of night. He was the kind of man who, like her cousins, was in trousers, shirt and tie even this late. It went well with his shoulder length red hair.

“I know how you feel, though.” Jason McCord said. “Maybe. I mean, that’s the way I felt about my family. I always heard things, but when I knew… certain things, it made sense. Everything just made more sense. Even if I wasn’t really part of it.”

“Do you wish you were?”

“Not really,” Jason said. “Do you?”

“I think I am,” Marabeth said after an uncertain moment. “I think I am only I don’t know how. Which I guess is better than…” not knowing how to control something that just happens to me.

Jason tilted his head, and then he said, “Well... if you are able to figure out whatever it is you need to, do you think you will?”

“Yes,” Marabeth said more quickly than she’d meant to. “My Aunt Pamela did, and if I can do it the way she did, I definitely will.”

Then she said, “But why am I so afraid?”

And then she said, “Fuck it!”

“What?” Jason almost laughed.

“I… my aunt’s book is making me feel strange.”

“What kind of strange?”

“What I didn’t say…”

But still, she could not say it, and she simply said, “I haven’t had sex n a year. I vowed I would never let that happen to me. It’s making me strange.”

“That isn’t right,” Jason said. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

“I…” Marabeth began, and then she laughed.

“I don’t even have the energy to deny it.”

“And sexy.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“No,” Jason admitted, laughing, “I don’t suppose I am.”

His shirt fit him. She could see the outlines of a fit body through it, and his trousers fit well. She had to stop herself from looking at the bulge between his legs.

What’s wrong with me?

The lust rose in her. Her mouth watered at the same time her cunt did. Cunt. Cunt. Cunt…. She said to herself, feeling the lust build between her thighs.

Neither one of them said anything, and there was simply the ticking of the clock above them, the portrait of Friederich looking to Pamela over their heads.

“Do you think I’m some kind of slut?” Marabeth said.

“What?” Jason said, almost sleepily.

“Women never know how to ask for what they want.”

“That’s a… this conversation has…” everything Jason started to say he seemed too sleepy to say. It didn’t seem quite honest.

“What do you want, Marabeth?”

“You have to not judge me.”

“No.”

She could still feel the ghostly lands of Hagano on her body, his knee pressing her thighs open, his body, heavy, pushing between her legs. She slid down to her knees, and unzipped Jason’s trousers.

“Goddamn,” he said.

His dick popped up, thick and darker than the rest of him, and she took it in her mouth, down, down to the back of her throat, almost gagging, rising up, taking it in again while his hands gripped the sides of the chair. She pulled down his Jockeys and worked at his trousers.

“Do you want to fuck me?” she demanded.

“I want to fuck you,” Jason’s voice was thick as he climbed out of the chair and put her down on the floor, opening her thighs so she wrapped her legs around him.

As he pushed himself inside of her, and felt Marabeth’s hands gripping his ass, Jason growled, “I wanna fuck you so bad right now.”