Christopher WunderLee - The Loony - a novella of epic proportions

He had to get out, leave before she returned, get back in the car, and look like he’d been waiting the entire time, later he’d say: “I saw Cousin Sandy by the play structure,” to let her know that he had waited, not moved. Albert turned quickly, willing himself out of the house, away from their words, and the weight in his arms changed, suddenly lighter, multiple crackles spewed from the floor, the hollow smack of the basket handle, he had time to realize it, see the split carcasses of pastel egg shells and the meaty white and yellow insides gushing out, he tried to get by them, get out before…

Two steps and his body was falling, he saw the modest chandelier, the stains from the stove on the ceiling and felt the thud of his body against the linoleum, the sticky cushion of twenty or more eggs against his back, the tangled shattering reverberation of the serving bowl in the box as it collided with the ground, the sound of footfalls on the carpet in the hall. He’d hit his head, the pain still resounded within it, but he rose as quickly as he could, felt the fragments of egg matter drip from the back of his arms and his rear, and scrambled for the door. She couldn’t know…

“Albert,” he heard her specifically, but refused to accept it, as he stumbled down the steps, and heard the screen door knock against the frame. He got across the lawn, just as the back door was reopened, he was by their car, but couldn’t get in, not dirty. He didn’t turn, he couldn’t see them, they were all on the back porch, he stared at the back window, refusing to look. He felt contact, her hands upon his shoulders, he couldn’t help it, he was weeping, he’d tried not to, tried to contain it, but he couldn’t, not with them standing there, not with the present shattered, the eggs all over the kitchen floor, the words he’d heard spoken, the horrible, horrible guilt radiating within the pit of his belly.

She gently tugged his jacket off his arms, they said something, he didn’t hear, or chose not to hear, as she wiped the back of his trousers with her hand. The car door was opened, she’d moved to the back and opened the trunk. He climbed in, snot leaking into his mouth, his eyes itching with brackish tears, his chest quivering, and buried his face in the seat. The door was shut. Silence. She opened the driver’s door, the car lurched with her weight, the door shut, the car started, the music picking up again, and they were moving…

Albert woke in the predawn hours of the morning; Harris was sleeping soundly, her legs parted as if she’d been riding a horse too long. The coming light streamed delicately over her curves, the blankets discarded sometime in the night, exposing her entirely. Perhaps someone had come into the room and slid them down her body ever so gently, not waking her, but voyeuristically revealing her for their own masturbatory purposes. Perhaps they’d even chanced a touch, petted her silky pubic hair, or nibbled on a nipple. No. Albert had to decide. What he chose, as he looked upon her, saw her uncomfortably sore crotch, was to accept that she had wanted his pleasure that night, wanted to sacrifice something of herself for him. They may have sent her, may have even prompted her to offer her vulnerable hinny, read to her some passage from his file and clung to some anal-retentive character trait, a psychological clue to his weaknesses for girls’ posteriors, but she had made the offer with her one and true asshole. He could either spend those precious moments on Their motives, puppet stringing her onto all fours, or accept that she was genuinely trying to share herself completely. Albert felt saddened by his own manipulation, after he’d made his choice, holding her arm behind her back and forcing her to do that…

It was not as though he’d investigated it analytically, or consciously weighed the decision, he’d realized during the act, when she had been tortured into crying but continued to push back, she hadn’t fought, struggled a little at first, when he’d initially drove her long fingernails inside, but her arm went limp once she was aware. That was not Them, for how could They know he was going to do that, that was her, Harris, relenting, a silent agreement to let him try his perversity out on her, her eyes had said it. It was during that sacrifice and the moments afterwards, when exhaustion had him collapse atop her spent body, probed, aching, and repellent, when her sobs were the only thing left and the stench of her sweat and shit hung on the sheets, when she’d caught her breath, stopped convulsing, turned her head and kissed him lightly on the lips. It was the actualization of her will, her will to allow him, to invite him, to agree to him, in which he found his answer.

Through the rest of her visit, Albert was gentle with her, they walked hand-in-hand as they strolled the grounds of the hospital, cuddled on the benches in the protective shade of the great oak tree he had found so frightening days before, made soft love in the grass behind the rhododendron bushes, near the fence, and no longer talked of Them.

“When you leave here,” she said, her knees pulled up to her chest, a candle the only light, late in the dark, “we’ll find an apartment near the zoo and fill it with trinkets we buy together at swap meets and second-hand stores. There will be pictures on the walls of our time together, travels to sunny places, both of us in bathing suits, with mixed drinks, standing before waterfalls, and on horses. We’ll have a big, plush couch that’s perfect for sleeping on and Sundays we’ll never leave the house, just lay in bed or on our couch and make love and eat and watch television. Then, in the evening, I’ll get up and put an apron on, that’s all I’ll wear, and I’ll make you a marvelously big dinner that we’ll eat in the nude, with wine. Afterwards, once we’ve both had a little too much to drink, we’ll cuddle for awhile, until we can’t handle each other’s skin so near any longer and we’ll make love one last time, before the work week starts.”

“I’m sorry Harris… for… for doing… doing that to you…”

“I wish I could have been you,” she replied instead. “Do you know that? Did you ever know that?”

“No,” he whispered, looking down into his glass, “I don’t understand.”

“Its not bad, you’ve always thought so, I know that, but its who you are. There’s something balanced about you, you’ve known so much that others will never understand — they’re all real, they are…”

“I will make you something, something for our home.”

“Oh Albert, that’s all I want.”

The following day, she was gone, returning to Them, leaving him alone in the prison, to go back to her life with the department. She probably knew it was the last night, had not told him, for she had to disappear again, invisibly, unemotionally, and had refused to let him sleep. They sat up, laying close, her breath against his neck, her body pressed warmly against his, cradled around him, his hand gently sliding over her skin. Albert remembered just before closing his eyes, her love poem, listening to her sing in her sweet, untrained voice, her love song. She said she wrote it while waiting to see him again. Never explained the last time, the rape, and the arrest, the disappearance, the month in a Namibian concentration camp, he’d forgot to try to understand, just accepted it, again, another one of her fabrications, or something she’d chosen not to divulge to him.

He woke and stared at her pillow, the remnants of her weight still impressed upon the down, a string of her hair found on a corner, her smell still clinging to the sheets. He knew, at least he told himself he knew, that she would leave and that he would wake up one morning to her absence, again. He didn’t want to move for fear that he would change the bed, pressure removing the wrinkles she had made, or that the housecleaners would come and change the sheets, remove the pillowcase, walk off with her aroma and the remnants of her presence. As long as the pillow was still indented, as long as her hair was still littered on the mattress, her place in bed still warm, she’d not be gone for too long.