Richard Laymon: Flesh

“Sort of. I read a lot of books. I played cards—solitaire. I spent more time on my homework. My grades improved. I did all kinds of stuff.”

Alison smiled. “We can read to each other, play cards, study…”

“Strip poker?” He squeezed her hand. “There’s a side effect that I haven’t yet mentioned. I became obsessed with television. Whenever I could, I finagled my way over to friends’ houses to watch theirs. And sometimes I even snuck downstairs after my folks were asleep. I’d turn on the TV in the family room and sit in the dark about a foot in front of the screen with the volume so low I could hardly hear the voice over that humming noise you get. It was pretty neat, actually. I was like a starving man at a feast.”

“Stolen sweets.”

“Precisely.”

“And you think being deprived of sex will have a similar effect?”

“It’s bound to.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“You don’t leave me much alternative. I guess I’ll just have to jack off with your yearbook pictures.”

“Evan!” Laughing, she shoved her elbow into his ribs. He stumbled off the sidewalk.

“You got a better idea?” he asked.

“How about cold showers?”

“I hate cold showers.” He took her hand again. “It is all right, I take it, to hold your hand?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“What about kissing?”

“We’ll see.”

“Ah, the prices we pay for our tactical errors.”

At the south end of campus, they waited while a car approached on Spring Street. After it turned onto Central, they crossed. They walked past the root beer stand where Alison had first met Evan.

She remembered that rainy evening, standing at the counter while she waited for her order and hearing a voice behind her intone, “She walks in beauty like the night.”

A glance back.

Evan Forbes gave her a smile.

“Talking to one’s self is a sign of madness,” she informed him.

“Ah, but I was talking to you. Is that also a sign of madness?”

“Could be.”

She had seen Evan around campus, knew that he was one of the small cadre of graduate students in English, and had noticed the way he watched her the previous night when she’d served him at Gabby’s.

She picked up her hamburger, fries, and root beer.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“No, fine.”

Evan followed her to a table.

“Aren’t you going to order something?” she asked.

Shaking his head, he sat across from her and took one of her french fries. “I’ll eat yours.”

“Oh.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve already eaten. I spied you leaving the library and tailed you here.”

She felt a blush warm her face. “That’s a lot of trouble to mooch a french fry.”

Remembering, Alison found herself smiling. “You ate all my fries,” she said.

“Nerves. The fries kept me from biting my fingernails.”

“Probably tasted better, too.”

They crossed the railroad tracks, walked past the Laundromat where Alison took her dirty clothes once a week, and turned down Apple Lane. Professor Teal’s house was third from the corner. Its porch light glowed, but the ground floor windows were dark. The front windows upstairs were bright, however, so Alison assumed that at least one of her roommates was in. Helen, probably. Celia would still be at Wally’s, more than likely, raising hell and soaking up beer.

A wooden stairway angled up the side of the house to the upstairs door. The light above the door was off.

Evan stayed beside her on the walkway across the yard and remained at her side, though it meant walking on the dewy grass, as she followed the flagstones past the front of the house. They climbed the stairs together. At the top, he set down her flight bag.

“Are you going to ask me in?”

“I don’t think so.”

The quiet, mellow sound of a Lionel Richie song came from inside.

“One of your roomies is here to protect your virtue.”

Alison squeezed his hand. “I’m tired. I just want to go to bed.”

“Sans Evan.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

He nodded. “What now? Am I allowed to kiss you good night?”

“I think that’s allowed.”

In the moonlight, she saw him smile. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “Until tomorrow, then.” He released her hand and turned away.

“Evan.”

He glanced around. “Yes?”

“Don’t be this way,” she murmured.

“Fare thee well, chaste maiden.”

Alison leaned against the door frame and watched him descend the stairs. The planking creaked under his weight. At the bottom, he didn’t turn to follow the flagstones, but headed straight across the lawn toward the sidewalk.

Alison yelled, “You snot!”

Then he was gone.

She unlocked the door. As she entered, Helen peeked out of her bedroom. “It’s okay,” Alison told her. “The coast is clear.”

“What happened?” Obviously, she had heard the parting shout.

“A little disagreement.”

“Little?” With a glass of cola in her hand and a bag of potato chips tucked between her arm and side, Helen went over to the recliner and sat down. She was wearing her bathrobe and sagging purple socks. “I heard you come up the stairs, so I made myself scarce. I thought you might bring him in.”

“Nope.” Alison set her flight bag on the coffee table. She sat on the sofa, kicked her shoes off, and swung her legs onto the cushions. Sitting down felt great. She sighed.

“Want a soda or something?”

“No thanks.”

“Chips?” Helen lifted the bag. “They’re sour cream and onion.”

“I’m too upset to eat.”

“That’s when food is best. Fills up that empty feeling.”

“If I ate every time I got upset…”

“You’d be a tub like me,” Helen said, and poked a potato chip into her mouth.

Alison shook her head. “You’re not so fat.”

“I ain’t skin and bones.”

Helen might have been described as “pleasingly plump,” Alison thought, if she’d had a cute face, but she didn’t even have that going for her. She had a pasty complexion, a broad forehead, buggy eyes behind her huge round glasses, an upturned nose that presented a straight-on view into her nostrils, heavy lips, and a neck so thick that it enveloped whatever sunken chin she might have.

“So, you want to tell me about it?” Helen asked as she chewed.

“Evan’s ticked at me because I wouldn’t put out.”

“Figures. He’s a man. A man’s an ambulating cock looking for a tight hole.”

“Real nice, Helen.”

“Real true. Take it from me.”

“You’ve had some bad experiences.”

“So you think I’m wrong?”

“I’d be hard-pressed to argue it,” Alison said, “the way I’m feeling right now.”

“I’ve never in my life been out with a guy who cared about anything but getting into my pants. Never. And that’s saying something. I mean, take a look at me. You’d think they wouldn’t want to touch me with a ten-foot pole. A six-inch pole, that’s another story.” She gasped a short laugh, blowing out a few crumbs of potato chips.

Alison had heard all this, and more, on numerous occasions during the time when she had been rooming with Helen. The young woman was bitter, and with good reason. She had been sexually used and abused by many men, including her stepfather.

Before meeting Helen, Alison had assumed that men would tend to stay clear of someone with Helen’s looks. Not so.

If Helen understood why she was frequently targeted by men, she never let on. But she rarely dated anymore, so maybe she had reached the same conclusion as Alison; that the men saw her as easy prey—that anybody with a face and body like Helen’s had to be hard up—that she would gladly spread her legs and be grateful for the attention.