Mark Doten - The Infernal

“This is my house,” she whispered.

I stepped on the brakes.

There was no one coming in either direction.

“You think it’s cute to just use racial slurs like that, but it’s because you don’t understand the history of racial violence in this country. Well, it’s a big deal — I’m here to tell you. You know what I think, Jenny, is that someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap.”

I reached into my pocket, but what I found wasn’t soap — it was a knife.

“Get out of my car, Jenny! You get out right now!”

She was feeling around behind her for the door handle.

If she’d just turn she’d find it, but she wasn’t — she couldn’t seem to turn, and she couldn’t find the handle.

I clutched what was in my pocket.

“Just get out of the fucking car, Jenny!”

I reached behind her and opened it up, and she fell into the street, and I drove away before anything bad could happen.

Back home Shawna was watching Jurassic Park III. Remote in one hand, beer in the other. She screamed when I touched her — hadn’t heard me come in. She asked me what took so long. I showed her the roses behind my back, and a bottle of top-shelf bourbon. Then I got a vase and filled it up with tap water. I reached for the change in my pocket and dropped two pennies in the water, then I put the vase of ro1 O0ORCO NG LL5 0 — Y0TZP 1XTC0 O OXU700FM 0K2V 02TY9S

real drinks — and made my way to my chair. The movie looked pretty good.

I mean, you’ve got dinosaurs. Eating people. I always knew this was a good movie, but there was no question now that this was some serious four-star shit. Only here’s the thing. My wife, the restless leg. It’s a serious medical condition that causes all kinds of suffering, but still, does she have to deal with it like that? It wasn’t just that she was leaning back in her recliner and bouncing her big black legs — it was that she was bouncing them in patterns that were getting more and more deranged, symmetrical and asymmetrK1TS0RFLQ6#EX0XBS4 0 TMV0K. EB065A0R1 MO 0 0SP X 9JG8+1KC CK CO10B

circles and stars and squares, she bounced them in odd geometric patterns, legs locked, then mirroring one another, then completely disconnected, like they were controlled by two separate brains.

And here’s the weird thing: while she was watching the movie — and her head never once turned in my direction, eyes fixed the whole time on the screen, neck and shoulders immobile — I saw her turning in my direction, head swiveling for me. I saw her gums pulling away from her teeth, a smile peeling back, the skull beneath. And it came to me that I was really watching five things: each one distinct in my head, each playing on its own screen. Her left foot, her right foot, the movie, the actual head facing the screen, the skull turning my way. And also my son upstairs, so make that six.

The monitor was bal93NLKQ#4YT7NW9NF0RZEUU

Charlie was fine — he was asleep on his back, he was just fine, monitor balanced on the TV.

I tossed a stack of twenties on the floor. Three hundred bucks, give or take.

That got her attention.

“You can have it,” I said.

“What is this shit?”

“Want some money? A little fucking cash-ola?”

“Where’d you get it?”

“ATM at the gas station. All yours. If … you know …”

“If what?”

“Just gotta get me off.”

She spoke slowly and emphatically, like she was drunk. “Stop this.”

“It’s yours.”

“I know it’s mine. It’s our money. Everything’s our money, it’s not yours, you can’t give it to me.”

“I want to do you ,” I said. “I’d really like to do the shit out of you. Let’s fuck, what do you say?”

And I saw something change in her face. Something letting go. Like she’d just realized: Is THAT what you want? Then I thought I saw an idea: if she agreed, gave way to the filth, she could finally end it for good.

Our marriage, I mean.

She touched my face. She stood and walked unsteadily and reached right up and touched me.

“You’re short,” I said. “You are really not that tall when you come right down to it.”

“We should go to sleep,” she said. “I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“I like that you’re short. It’s cute. I like contrasts. Have you ever noticed that — how much I like contrasts?”

I stumbled out onto the porch. When I leaned back against the railing, the snow held my feet — the real foot and the aluminum foot. Shawna followed, she banged her hip against the railing and I realized how drunk she was. But I didn’t understand what that meant, if things that went down now were for good, or if they could be changed, if we were getting into something real, or if this was just another thing. Then she hurled herself at me, frenzied — to claw my face. But here’s what happened — inches away, claws out, she froze. Then she flew at me again, but — and it took me a moment to realize this — only with her eyes. Her eyes leapt at me, claws out. Her eyes alone. I let out a low whistle, or tried to, without understanding why. Then she knelt down and unzipped my pants. Her knees crunched the snow, and she started sucking.

Soon enough we were into something. We were out on the porch, and she was sucking me off, and all of a sudden — I was getting hard, right? Drunk as I was, and in spite of everything, I was rock hard.

There was the overhead in the kitchen, there was the wash of colors from Jurassic Park III , I mean, there I was — there we were —backlit.

Well, and did AOGEPR0 025 K#SHPXPV1OVX0E SSBY UBHPFCQ1M019ABNBX1 O3 ZZ1R K X60L CCOC6 1Z Q

MKH V GE5PBYPBH 0F2KL

Charlie crying? Maybe. Sure. I mean, here’s the two of us, balcony of our town house, doing this. Two silhouettes and a flickering curtain in our subdivision, Jurassic Park III roaring quietly in the background. And when she stopped and looked up at me, all snotty-nosed, kneeling at my feet, it’s like she thought she was giving me some kind of gift. I was leaning back, trying to keep my balance, hands braced behind me on the railing, looking down, one part of my brain imagining how we must look to our neighbors, the other part watching her — my wife looking up at me — white eyes in a black face, this face, resistant to snow — black in all this snow — a face that thinks it’s giving me something real , like it thinks this is what I want. And I don’t. It’s crazy that anyone would think this is what I want, then I’m really using her mouth. I mean, fucking her mouth like I’ve never done. Choking this bitch, pulling her hair, snot running down her lips. I ask her, Is this what you want? I say it again and again, and she pulls away, she actually lets my cock snap free of her mouth and raises her eyes to me. She catches her breath for a second and says, What? Just real quiet, like a kid, like she’s confused and wants to do things right. She looks up at me and says, What? She shakes her head and says, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.

And there’s nothing I can do with this. I really can’t do a thing.

I reach in my pocket for a tissue, something so she can clean her face. But it’s not a tissue my hand closes on.

Back inside I slide shut the door, but only halfway. Normally we’re careful on account of the utility bill, but it’d seem wrong now. No sound out there — no movement, no noise, not even snow crunching under her knees and elbows, no signs of life. And I’m standing in the living room thinking, close door for flies, open for wife , I’m standing there with my back to the door, and these words are actually pounding in my skull, over and over. It’s like the liquor in my skull is on fire — but the fire’s happening far away. My whole brain rushes with distant fire. I don’t know how long I stand like that, thinking close door for flies, open for wife , I don’t know how long, it’s like I’m waiting for something.