Dagger Key and Other Stories

After waking, Grace liked to have a shower. It was not a cleanliness thing—at least so Shellane thought—as much as a retreat. He assumed that she must have taken a lot of showers when she was in the world, hiding from Broillard behind the spray, deriving comfort from her warm solitude. Shellane usually let her shower alone, but the next afternoon, he joined her and they made love with soapy abandon, her heels hooked behind his thighs, back pressed up against the thin metal wall, whose surface dimpled and popped when he thrust her against it. As they clung together afterward, he watched rivulets of water running over her shoulderblades toward the pale voluptuous curves of her ass, gleaming with a film of soap, dappled with bubbles. He saw nothing unusual to begin with—he wasn’t looking for anything. But then he realized that the streams of water were not flowing true, they were curving away from the small of her back, as if repelled by a force emanating from that spot. Curving away and then scattering into separate drops, and the drops skittering off around the swells of her hips. Fear brushed his mind with a feathery touch, a lover’s touch. Instead of recoiling, however, he moved his hand to cover the place that the water avoided, pressing his fingertips against the skin, and imagined that he felt a deep, slow pulse. This was the thing he most wanted, he thought. The seat of what he loved.

“I’m drowning,” Grace said, and pushed him away. “There was a waterfall coming off your shoulder. I couldn’t breathe.”

Her smile lost wattage, and he knew she must have understood the irony of her complaint. He cleared wet strands of hair from her face and kissed her forehead.

“This must be so awful for you,” she said. “To feel comfortable with someone. Almost like normal. And to know it’s anything but.” Soapy water trickled into her left eye and she rubbed it. “It does feel like that sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“Normal? Yeah, more-or-less.”

She seemed disappointed by his response.

He put his hands on her waist. “All the craziness that goes on between men and women, ‘normal’ isn’t the word I’d use to describe any relationship.”

She slid past him out of the shower and began to dry herself. He had the feeling that she was upset.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m cold,” she said in a clipped tone, and briskly toweled her hair. Then, her voice muffled: “Are you always so analytical?”

“I try to be. Does it bother you?”

She left off drying and held the towel bunched in front of her breasts. “God knows it shouldn’t. I do understand how hard this…” She broke off and started drying her hair again, less vigorously.

Shellane turned off the water, stepped out of the shower. The linoleum was sticky beneath his feet; his skin pebbled in the cool air. The back of his neck tingled, and he had the feeling they were not alone, that an invisible presence was crammed into the bathroom with them.

“It’s almost over, you know,” Grace said. “One of these times soon, I won’t come back. Or else you’ll leave.”

“We’ve got a while yet.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about what’s happening.”

A noise came from the front of the house—a door closing. He threw open the bathroom door and peered out. Nobody in sight.

“Who is it?” asked Grace from behind him.

“Maybe the wind.”

He wrapped a towel about his waist and went out into the living room. On the table next to his laptop was an envelope and a portable cassette recorder. The envelope was addressed to Grace. She came up beside him, wearing his bathrobe, and he offered the letter to her. She shook her head. He tore open the envelope and read from the enclosed sheet of paper.

“Once again Avery offers his apologies,” he said. “He regrets everything.” He read further. “He claims he wouldn’t have treated you so badly if you weren’t unfaithful.”

“He never changes!” Grace folded her arms and scowled at the letter as if it were a live thing and could register disapproval. “He was unfaithful to me every day…with footwear! And then when I…” She made a spiteful sound. “We hardly ever made love after we got married. I was just so desperate…”

“You don’t have to explain,” he said.

“It’s habit. I used to have to explain it to Avery all the time. He liked hearing me explain it.”

Shellane set the letter on the table and pressed the play button on the recorder. Avery’s voice, tinny and diminished, issued forth over a strummed guitar:

“Beauty, where do you sleep tonight?

In whose avid arms, do you conspire…?”

“Our boy’s waxing Keatsian,” said Shellane.

“Turn it off.”

“…beauty is everywhere they say,

but I just can’t find a beauty like thine…”

“Please!” said Grace.

Shellane switched off the recorder. “Sure sounds like he loves you.”

“I believe he did once. But you can’t tell with Avery. He’s adept at mimicry.”

They stood without speaking for a time, then Grace pressed herself against him. “I shouldn’t have pulled you into this,” she said.