Black Static Horror Magazine #2 Read online

  He stood before the house where Cara had lived—where he knew she still lived—his heart racing, his mouth very dry. They had been virgins in those days and, without a car or a place of their own, lacked privacy in which to consummate their love. They walked everywhere together, holding hands, leaning close as they talked—and talked, and talked. They shared everything in words, all the secrets of their hearts, even a few tentative sexual fantasies. They hugged and kissed often, but beyond that, nothing—except once.

  Once, and once only, they found themselves alone together in Cara's house, her father having driven her mother to the city to see a specialist at a hospital there; they were to have dinner before returning, so were certain to be out until very late.

  Without a word about intention, in silent accord, Heath and Cara walked home from school that day and let themselves in, went straight to her sunny bedroom, undressed, lay down on her big, soft bed and then—

  Somehow, despite their best hopes and efforts, despite their love, it all went wrong.

  He was clumsy, she was frightened, they were both embarrassed and shy with each other, and, finally, virgins still, they clung together, whispering hopeful promises, It'll be okay, next time, another time ... not realizing they had missed their one and only chance.

  Heath shuddered, ashamed of his ignorant, innocent younger self, wishing he had been bolder. He would never have forced himself on her, of course, but with a little more experience, he might have aroused her, relaxed her enough to make intercourse possible. Only later had he learned from other soldiers in his unit, and from magazines and videos, of the things women supposedly liked, tricks to make them “hot and horny."

  He stood before Cara's house, aware of the heat in his cheeks and a crawling in his belly, and he almost turned away. What right did he have to presume? He belonged to the past, whereas she had gone on and grown up. She must have found another, bolder lover by now. Unlike him, she would not still be a virgin.

  Then he reminded himself: Come back to me, she had written. He had not imagined that, she really wrote those words, and whatever else might be true, she remembered, she still wanted him.

  He walked slowly around the house, into the backyard where he had met her so many times, to the tree where, in the orange light of a long-ago afternoon, he had carefully carved heath loves cara into the wood while she sat in the grass at his feet and told him, “Forever. Put forever."

  The tree still stood there, apparently thriving, and in the overgrown grass beneath it sat a young woman, and she was still Cara. The years had not changed her as they had changed him. She still wore her long fair hair in a braid draped over her shoulder. He wondered how he must look to her, and he touched his face, recalling the ashen, shrunken features of the old man who stared back at him from a mirror in a hospital bathroom.

  But something flared in her eyes at the sight of him, and with a swift, sweet smile she jumped up and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Heath! Finally! I've been waiting for days, wondering when you'd get here!"

  Her weight knocked him back—she must have outweighed him by twenty pounds—and he might have fallen except that she held him so tightly.

  "I—I've missed you,” he murmured, a little breathless, but that was wrong, he immediately thought, I shouldn't have said that. How could he miss her when he was always aware of her presence, keeping him alive?

  She let go of him and stepped back with an odd little laugh, and he guessed she sensed the falseness in his words. He felt ashamed, fearful that he had hurt her, especially as she would not meet his gaze. “I'm sorry—"

  "Oh, stop! Since when do we need platitudes between us?” Finally her eyes rested on his face. She looked him slowly up and down, and bit her lip. “You look—oh, dear—you haven't been well, poor darling."

  He nodded, not knowing what to say. In the hole, there had been no need for words. She had come to him when he needed her, and there was never any strangeness or misunderstanding.

  She took hold of his hand. “Come inside. Are you hungry? I made cookies and lemonade. It looks to me like you need feeding up."

  His answering smile felt stiff on his face, but he walked up to the house with her, hand in hand as in the past. He sat at the kitchen table and waited as she got a pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator and a covered plate of oatmeal cookies from the pantry. He remembered that she had made lemonade and oatmeal cookies on the day he went away; they had sat here at the same table, she too sad to eat or drink, he too excited.

  Although he felt no hungrier now than then, he bit into a cookie, watching while she did the same. His first impression of her had been wrong; she had changed. She had been a girl when he left, and now she was a woman, with a ripe, full figure, and very fine lines around her eyes.

  He said, “Your father,” and then stopped, not knowing how to go on.

  "Oh, he's not too bad today,” she said brightly. “I'll take you in to see him in a little while."

  "You mean he's—what's wrong with him?"

  She frowned as if he should have known and said shortly, “Daddy had a stroke. Not a major one, thank God, but now he can't get around so much by himself. I do the best I can, but I don't—I can't—” Tears started to gather on her eyelashes.

  "No, no, of course not. Cara, I'm sure you're doing your best."

  She blinked away the tears, but the frown remained. “You thought he was dead."

  "When I saw the flower-beds all overgrown, and the paintwork peeling—"

  She cut him off with an anguished look. “I haven't got time to do all that, too! I cook and clean and look after him—that's a full-time job! I wanted to hire a nurse, but the expense—and besides—"

  "Hey, hey, hey!” He caught and held her hands in both of his. “I'm not criticizing you, Cara! I think you're the most wonderful...” He faltered again, lost for words. Had this been one of his dreams, by this time she would have been on his lap, stopping his mouth with her kisses, unbuttoning his shirt with her small, deft fingers, but he was not in the hole now, he was sitting in Cara's kitchen, and she was gazing at him, hurt and hungry for his praise.

  "Wonderful woman,” he finished rather weakly, dropping her hands to pick up another cookie, which he quickly stuffed into his mouth. “Mmm!"

  She smiled rather sadly and a small sigh escaped her. “I guess ... I guess you missed my cookies?"

  He nodded, eager to please, swallowed, and an idea struck him. “Look, I could do the chores—yard work, repairs, sort of thing your dad used to do..."

  She nodded cautiously. “That would be wonderful, Heath. If you can spare the time, I mean. While you're here.” She looked down at the table, pushed a crumb around with one fingertip and went on hesitantly, “I don't know what you want to do, or how long you can stay—"

  At last he managed to say the right thing: “Forever. Forever, Cara.” She looked into his eyes, and her face broke into the most beautiful smile he had ever seen on a human face.

  "I do love you, Heath. I always have."

  "I know. I've always loved you, too. I always will. Forever."

  They said no more. The better part of a minute passed. Then, still without speaking, without even touching, they both rose from the table and went to her bedroom.

  The room was as he remembered it, only not so bright. The filmy curtains were closed, and the late sunlight filtered through them, thin and strange. The same prints of paintings by Monet and Cezanne hung on the yellow walls, however, and the same china figurines shared space with what seemed to be the same books and recordings on the shelves. He recognized the flowered bedspread and fluffy white rug. He saw nothing indicative of new interests acquired during the years of their separation, and he wondered if she had really been here all that time, like the sleeping princess in the fairytale, awaiting the reviving kiss of her prince. Or had she returned only recently to look after her father? Had she left her real life somewhere else, merely fitted herself back into the bedroom of her childhood, too busy, or too
depressed, to bother to redecorate, putting off the major step of moving in all her stuff because to do so would be to admit that this was her real life now?

  He did not ask; he dared not risk this moment of intimacy.

  Cara pulled back the bedspread, and they undressed clumsily, scarcely looking at each other. Horribly aware of his wasted, scarred flesh, pallid, shrivelled, and aged from years of semi-starvation spent crouching in the dark, he was grateful for the maidenly reserve that kept her eyes downcast as she fumbled with her clothes. When she turned away to pile them neatly onto a chair, he crawled beneath the sheet. Moments later, she slipped in beside him, and as they moved closer together he smelled the clean fresh citrus tang of her shampoo, a powdery, perfumed waft of deodorant, and the more subtle, personal scent of herself beneath. He put his arms around her. She shivered at his touch and then lay still, waiting.

  He waited, too.

  He thought of how she had come to him countless times in the hole, of how he would squat and stare and see nothing in that utter blackness until, after a time, he caught glimmers of light, and a faint hint of motion. Then he would hear her voice humming a sad, wordless tune, and the sadness of it would bring hot tears to his eyes. She would murmur his name, tell him that she loved him, tell him what she had done that day, all the simple, ordinary things: how she had gone on her bicycle to the store and then worked in the garden with her father, the music she heard on the radio while preparing supper, what book she read at bedtime.

  Gradually, as he listened to her familiar phrases, the darkness would lessen until finally he saw her, just her outline and a hint of her face. When he opened his arms, she would melt into them, kiss him passionately and explore his body with her hands and mouth while he gasped and shuddered with pleasure. To his wondering amazement, the girl who came to him in the hole was not the shy virgin he remembered, but a lover every bit as practiced, skilled, and uninhibited as the stars of the pornographic videos he had watched with the other guys before his capture. She could do anything, and would do everything he had ever dared to imagine. She knew just what would please him, what would excite and sustain him, and thousands of times she had brought him release.

  And when she left, he would touch his face in the darkness, just to make sure he was still there.

  Now, as he lay in Cara's soft bed, in the dim light, aware of her real, solid body pressed so close against his, he longed for her to make the first move, as she had always done in his fantasies. He was too fearful of spoiling the moment with his clumsiness and ignorance to touch her first. He was still a virgin, just as when they had said goodbye, but then he had been young, strong, responsive to the desires of the girl he loved. Now, he was old and weak as well as inexperienced, and he did not know the woman beside him.

  He heard her sigh, felt her shift a little beside him, and he stopped breathing in the intensity of his hope that it was about to begin at last, for real, that the love that had kept him alive in the hole would bring him back to life. He would be reborn at her hands; it was the only way.

  Nothing happened. He did not feel her hands on him, he felt nothing, only, as he began to breathe again, he thought he heard her whisper, faintly, “Kiss me."

  He turned his head and saw her waiting for his kiss. He pressed his lips to hers for the first time since the day he had left her at the bus station. He kissed a stranger's mouth. He tried to ignore that chill warning and kept his lips on hers, as he felt her hands begin to move on his back. Now, surely, she would give herself to him.

  Her hands remained lightly pressing on his back, however, holding him in a chaste embrace, never straying below his waist, showing no inclination to go exploring. He continued kissing her until his lips grew numb, and then he drew back. For the first time since they had left the kitchen they looked into each other's eyes, and he saw there bewilderment and sadness, her feelings reflecting his own.

  The love he had come looking for existed only in a dream. He closed his eyes.

  Cara would not let him give up, however. Just as, once, his memory of her had kept him alive, now the real woman refused to let the dream die. She demanded, “Heath, talk to me!"

  Talk was the furthest thing from his desire.

  "Please, tell me what you want!"

  He could not; it was impossible; what he wanted was for her to know without being told, and if he so much as said so, everything would be spoiled.

  Finally, she began to cry. “You don't love me any more."

  "Oh, Cara, of course I do!” He hugged her close. “Please don't cry. I love you. I wish I could show you how much."

  She stilled in his arms. “You—you mean it?"

  "Yes. Loving you was all that got me through the war."

  "Really?” She hesitated, then lifted her head to look him in the eye. “I don't mind, I'd understand, if you'd found another girlfriend, or even—even if you went to, you know—” she faltered, barely whispered the word: “prostitutes."

  He shook his head. “Never, Cara. There's never been anybody but you. Never."

  Understanding lit her face. “There's never been anybody but you for me, either. So we're both virgins—that's why—oh, Heath, it's like before! We just need time, that's all! Time to learn how to please each other. And we have plenty of time."

  When he agreed, she hugged him, then abruptly pulled herself free of his embrace, rolled away from him, out of bed, and began dressing.

  "I have to check on Dad and get his dinner,” she explained. “We'll have to wait until bedtime—think you can manage to wait? Luckily, we go to bed early in this house.” She flashed him a smile he could not recall seeing from her before, sexy and mischievous, and he felt a stirring of arousal. Maybe it would be all right.

  He got up and dressed himself, determined to help. He followed Cara downstairs to the kitchen, assisted her chiefly by being present as she prepared a tray, and followed her back upstairs.

  Cara's father sat in an upholstered hair and gazed through the curtain of his bedroom window. He looked frail and tired and impossibly older than he could actually be. A faint sour smell hung in the room. He only glanced at Cara as she set the tray on a table beside his chair. Then he noticed Heath standing behind her in the doorway, and started violently.

  "Daddy, it's Heath,” Cara said. “You remember Heath."

  "Heath,” said the old man, slurring the word almost beyond recognition. One side of his mouth barely moved; one side of his face seemed unsynchronized with the other. “Heath's dead."

  "No, Daddy. Heath was taken prisoner of war. Now he's back."

  "That's not Heath."

  "Yes, it is, Daddy. They did terrible things to him in the prison camp, but it is Heath, I promise you."

  "No, no..."

  "I'm upsetting him,” Heath said, backing out of the room.

  "Give him time,” said Cara.

  We all need time, Heath thought. He went downstairs and stepped outside. Twilight was already settling; he listened for insect song, bird calls, then for sounds of neighbors, distant traffic, anything, but all was weirdly silent. He imagined the evening holding its breath as it waited to see what he intended to do.

  Then, as he came around the corner facing the street, something small and dark like a dog or a very dirty child yelped and darted away quickly, too fast for him to get a good look at it, disappearing into a gap among the wild shrubbery. Heath stared after it, breathing hard, waiting for his heart's beating to return to normal. When he had recovered, he walked back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the house, always stopping well short of the shrubbery. He glimpsed, as though from a distance, as though through air turned hazy with impossible distance, a few indistinct human figures stirring in the neighborhood. They took no notice of him; wraithlike, silent, those who evidently had jobs were returning from them, others evidently were leaving home for a night out. Heath recalled the closed factory, the empty shops. He could not imagine what sort of jobs there might be, or where, exactly, in this small town, o
ne went for a night out.

  When he re-entered the house, he found Cara putting dinner on the table. They sat opposite each other and ate without talking until Heath finally asked, “What happened here?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Everything. The town. What happened to everything, where did everybody go?"

  Cara stared at him blankly. At last she said, “I'm still here."

  Now he stared. “You mean you never left? But why did you stay?"

  "What else was there for me to do? I told you I'd wait. I never thought the war could go on for so long."

  "No,” he muttered, feeling cold, “neither did I. Nobody did."

  "We were going to love each other forever,” Cara said, her voice growing sharp, “and be together always. But then the war came, and you wanted to go be a soldier."

  "I didn't want to. I had to. It was my duty."

  She shook her head. “It was your excuse. You wanted to get away from this town so much, you couldn't think of anything but getting out, and you left me behind."

  "I said I'd come back for you, and now I have."

  She set her fork on her plate. “Yes. You have. I'm sorry if I sounded a little bitter just then. It hasn't been easy for me, but I know what you've been through must have been so much worse. But it's going to be all right now that we're together."