David Nickle: Monstrous Affections

Mrs. Sloan talked all the way back, her continual chatter almost but not quite drowning out Judith’s recollections. She mostly talked about what she would do with her new freedom: first, she’d take the pickup and drive it back to the city where she would sell it. She would take the money, get a place to live and start looking for a job. As they crested the ridge of bedrock, Mrs. Sloan asked Judith if there was much call for three-fingered manicurists in the finer Toronto salons, then laughed in such a girlish way that Judith wondered if she weren’t walking with someone other than Mrs. Sloan.

“What are you going to do, now that you’re free?” asked Mrs. Sloan.

“I don’t know,” Judith replied honestly.

The black pickup was parked near the end of the driveway. Its headlights were on, but when they checked, the cab was empty.

“They may be inside,” Mrs. Sloan whispered. “You were right, Judith. We’re not done yet.”

Mrs. Sloan led Judith to the kitchen door around the side of the house. It wasn’t locked, and together they stepped into the kitchen. The only light came from the half-open refrigerator door. Judith wrinkled her nose. A carton of milk lay on its side, and milk dripped from the countertop to a huge puddle on the floor. Cutlery was strewn everywhere.

Coming from somewhere in the house, Judith thought she recognized Herman’s voice. It was soft, barely a whimper. It sounded as though it were coming from the living room.

Mrs. Sloan heard it too. She hefted the axe in her good hand and motioned to Judith to follow as she stepped silently around the spilled milk. She clutched the doorknob to the living room in a three-fingered grip, and stepped out of the kitchen.

Herman and his father were on the couch, and they were in bad shape. Both were bathed in a viscous sweat, and they had bloated so much that several of the buttons on Herman’s shirt had popped and Mr. Sloan’s eyes were swollen shut.

And where were their noses?

Judith shuddered. Their noses had apparently receded into their skulls. Halting breaths passed through chaffed-red slits with a wet buzzing sound.

Herman looked at Judith. She rested the shovel’s blade against the carpet. His eyes were moist, as though he’d been crying.

“You bastard,” whispered Mrs. Sloan. “You took away my life. Nobody can do that, but you did. You took away everything.”

Mr. Sloan quivered, like gelatin dropped from a mould.

“You made me touch you…” Mrs. Sloan stepped closer “… worship you… you made me lick up after you, swallow your filthy, inhuman taste… And you made me like it!”

She was shaking almost as much as Mr. Sloan, and her voice grew into a shrill, angry shout. Mr. Sloan’s arms came up to his face, and a high, keening whistle rose up. Beside him, Herman sobbed. He did not stop looking at Judith.

Oh, Herman, Judith thought, her stomach turning. Herman was sick, sicker than Judith had imagined. Had he always been this bad? Judith couldn’t believe that. Air whistled like a plea through Herman’s reddened nostrils.

“ Well, no more! ” Mrs. Sloan raised the axe over her head so that it jangled against the lighting fixture in the ceiling. “No more!”

Judith lifted up the shovel then, and swung with all her strength. The flat of the blade smashed against the back of Mrs. Sloan’s skull.

Herman’s sobbing stretched into a wail, and Judith swung the shovel once more. Mrs. Sloan dropped the axe beside her and crumpled to the carpeted floor.

The telephone in Judith’s parents’ home rang three times before the answering machine Judith had bought them for Christmas switched on. Judith’s mother began to speak, in a timed, halting monotone: “Allan… and… I are… not…”

Judith smoothed her hair behind her ears, fingers tapping impatiently at her elbow until the message finished. She nearly hung up when the tone sounded, but she shut her eyes and forced herself to go through with it.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Her voice was small, and it trembled. “It’s me. I know you’re pretty mad at me, and I just wanted to call and say I was sorry. I know that what we did — what Herman and I did, mostly me — I know it was wrong. I know it was sick, okay? Dad, you were right about that. But I’m not going to do that stuff anymore. I’ve got control of my life, and… of my body. God, that sounds like some kind of feminist garbage, doesn’t it? Control of my body . But it’s true.” With her foot, Judith swung the kitchen door shut. The gurgling from upstairs grew quieter.

“Oh, by the way, I’m up at Herman’s parents’ place now. It’s about three hours north of you guys, outside a town called Fenlan. You should see it up here, it’s beautiful. I’m going to stay here for awhile, but don’t worry, Herman and I will have separate bedrooms.” She smiled. “We’re going to save ourselves.”

Judith turned around so that the telephone cord wrapped her body, and she leaned against the stove.

“Mom,” she continued, “do you remember what you told me about love? I do. You told me there were two stages. There was the in-love feeling, the one that you get when you meet a guy, he’s really cute and everything, and you just don’t want to be away from him. And then that goes away, and remember what you said? ‘You’d better still love him after that,’ you told me. ‘Even though he’s not so cute, even though maybe he’s getting a little pot belly, even though he stops sending you flowers, you’d better still love him like there’s no tomorrow.’ Well Mom, guess what?”

The answering machine beeped again and the line disconnected.

“I do,” finished Judith.

The eaves of Mr. Swayze’s island lodge rattled like soup bones loose in a bin. There was a wind up — a wind roaring across the bay that shook the eaves — a wind that’d knock you down where you stood, if you hadn’t a grip on something solid. It’d knock you down like Janie’d been knocked down herself not long past; except Janie’d have been able to get up right away if it were just the wind, and not her husband Ernie who’d done it to her.

Ernie had hit her bad, worse than usual. And Janie didn’t know why, which also wasn’t usual.

She was looking at the stem of a birch tree, cut short for the leg of Mr. Swayze’s coffee table, and past it to the big front window — which ought to be boarded up, the way the sky was rolling and darkening beyond it. She was on the floor, and her chest hurt and when she tried to swallow her neck felt like a needle was in it, and her head was in some stickiness that Janie figured was some of her own blood.

Why’d Ernie hit her like that?

It wasn’t like she’d been up to anything, after all. She was just looking through one of Mr. Swayze’s little story magazines, the ones that he sometimes wrote for. Her reading was getting better, improving each year, and the magazine had pictures at the front of each story, which gave her a good clue what ones she’d enjoy. Janie’d found one with a pretty girl and what looked like a horse but it had a long, corkscrew horn coming out of its head, which reminded her of something—

—and then her husband Ernie’d showed up.

He was supposed to be out fishing. That’s what he spent the days at, for the entire week they were at Mr. Swayze’s lodge on Georgian Bay.

Sky had been clear when Ernie stepped inside. Janie hadn’t heard the boat, but she was getting going in her story so she maybe wasn’t too attentive. The door rattled closed, and Ernie cleared his throat.

“Hi,” said Janie. She placed her magazine down on her page. Ernie stepped out of the doorway, and scratched at his neck. Sunlight made the hair there glow like copper.