John Saul: Faces of Fear

For Helen and Frena

and Burt and Lynn

He had to look.

He had to look at it all, and be objective, and make the final decision.

He let the damp towel fall away from his waist and drop to the floor in a sodden heap around his feet, steeling himself as not only his face but his entire body was revealed in the full-length mirror in his bedroom.

He stared at his image quietly, suppressing the instinctive urge to turn away, forcing himself to view it with utter detachment, as if it were nothing more than some hideous sculpture an inept student had produced, and which he must now find a way to turn into a work of art.

Not that it was all bad: he had kept himself lean and strong, and a fit body had at least given him good legs.

The torso would eventually take care of itself.

But the face. The face was the key to everything.

The key to his future.

The key to his happiness.

He took a deep breath and focused his entire attention on what he had come to think of as nothing more than a canvas upon which the original artist had put nothing more than a rough sketch, but that he would turn into a masterpiece. It was simply a matter of analyzing each feature and making the decisions that would not only put them all in perfect balance, but please the viewer as much as the artist himself.

He began.

The jawline was too square, too prominent, and the chin was marred by a deep cleft. Bone would have to be shaved in order to achieve a softer look.

The ears were far too large.

The brow line too prominent, leaving the eyes too deeply set.

The cheekbones were not prominent enough.

And the nose. Though not yet thirty, it was the nose of an old man, a nose that would grow into a bulbous purple-veined monstrosity if it were left alone.

But it would not be left alone; none of it would be left alone. He already knew exactly the nose he wanted.

And not only the nose. He also knew the ears, the brows, and even the lids that would give the eyes the perfect almond shape he craved.

Though anyone else would think it was an impossible job, he knew better. It was simply a matter of removing a millimeter or two here, adding a millimeter or two there, until the framework was right. Then it would all go together.

Beauty was all about proportion.

He knew what he wanted; he’d done his research. And, after all, it was only the face that would require anything even faintly experimental, and he himself had rehearsed the new procedures he had devised to the point where, in all fairness, they couldn’t truly be called experimental at all.

They were perfect.

He himself had perfected them.

He stood back now, finally willing to appraise his full body in the mirror. And now — now that he was looking at it truly objectively — he realized that the raw material was actually excellent.

The skeleton was proportionally perfect.

The soft, supple skin was nearly hairless.

The makeover would be simple, and he would finally be what he was always meant to be.

He gazed deep into the mirror, and in his mind the masculine lines of his body morphed smoothly into the softly curving lines of a shapely woman.

The reflection in the mirror became indistinguishable from the vision of his dreams: a beautiful, perfect woman, desirable, fashionable, successful.

All he needed was patience.

But it had been so long, and how much patience could be expected from anyone, let alone from him? How much longer must he wait before his body and face would be a perfect reflection of the woman he had always been?

Soon, he told himself. Soon. But if he didn’t keep a firm rein on himself — if he lost control and couldn’t wait just a little longer — he’d never realize his vision. Patience. That was the key. Work slowly, work carefully, work methodically. Keep the goal in sight.

And make no mistakes.

He tamped down the emotions roiling within him and went back to the clinical evaluation of what he saw in the mirror.

The breasts would be easy, as would the work on his genitals. Those techniques had been perfected more than half a century ago. But the rest of it…

He rehearsed it all once more in his mind, reanalyzing his image piece by piece, feature by feature, the tips of his fingers twitching as if they held the scalpels themselves. He went through it all a third time, and then a fourth, and as he took it all apart in his mind and put it all together again, the truth slowly sank in.

He was ready.

Finally ready.

Exquisite.

He picked up the telephone from his nightstand and punched in a speed-dial number. “It’s time,” he said to the person who answered. “It’s finally time.”

ALISON SHAW FELT GOOD. REALLY GOOD. SHE MADE THE FINAL TURN around the smooth cinder track with long, easy strides. She’d done six full laps, but with the cool breeze coming in from the beach four blocks away, there wasn’t even a hint of the choking exhaust that usually drifted directly from the Santa Monica Freeway onto the playing fields. She felt she could do at least three more laps when she heard the coach’s whistle. End of period; end of day; end of week. A shower, and she could go home. She slowed her pace so Cindy Kearns could catch up with her.

“There’s a party at the beach tonight,” Cindy said, catching her breath and wiping more perspiration from her forehead than was on Alison’s entire body. “Jeff Simmons is going to be there.” Cindy was pretty sure Alison had a crush on Jeff, but if she did, she wasn’t showing it. In fact, she was shrugging like she couldn’t care less.

“Can’t,” Alison said. “My mom has to go to some fancy banquet for one of her clients tonight and I’m fixing dinner for my dad.”

“How domestic of you,” Cindy said. “What about after dinner? It won’t even get dark until after eight, and it could go until midnight.”

Alison rolled her eyes. “And Jeff Simmons will bring a keg of beer, and everybody will get drunk, and the cops will come, and then we’ll all have to call our folks to come get us. Gee, it sounds like so much fun, how can I resist?”

Cindy decided to ignore her sarcasm. “So if you don’t want him, can I have Jeff Simmons?”

Alison glared at her best friend in not-quite-mock exasperation. Ever since she’d turned fifteen last month, all Cindy seemed to think about was boys — as if some kind of switch had been turned on. “I barely even know Jeff,” she said. “And I’m sure he’s no more interested in me than any of the other boys are, which means not at all, which is fine with me. Besides, even if I wanted to go, my dad’s bringing home a movie. So add Jeff to your list of conquests, and call me with all the details tomorrow.”

Once again Cindy ignored Alison’s tone, and pushed through the double doors into the girls’ locker room, which was even warmer than the air outside, and muggy from the showers that were already going full blast. Cindy quickly stripped off her sweaty gym clothes and dropped them in a dank pile on the floor.

Alison had just shed her shorts when Coach DiBenedetti walked through the locker room, a bra dangling from her fingers. “Lost and found,” she announced. “Who left a bra under the bench?”