William Vollmann - The Atlas

She bent over the bottlecap. — What sign are you? she said, pretending that he was there. — Leo is my rising sign. — Of course she was alone.

She made the white powder fizz in the bottlecap. She stirred it into the vial, twirling the plunger of the syringe like a cocktail swizzlestick. Then she bit open the rock, scratching her breasts.

Gettin' well, in a safe place, she purred. Don't have to kick anybody down. And a nice healthy bag. See, I always cop from fat dealers, 'cause they don't use. Skinny ones gonna steal for themselves.

She mixed it in with the head of her plunger. Then she shook the syringe, licked the needle clean, stuck it slowly into the underside of her forearm.

Wow, she grinned, a register right off!

Slowly, so sensuously, she slid the long steel point in and out of herself, her face sexual and alive for the first time. Her arm was raised; her hand gripped her chin. Her elbow trembled on her knee like another needle spiraling in. She leaned forward. The red sock was tied halfway up her bicep, and it too trembled and shimmered.

Damn! she said. I'm just having trouble getting a vein.

She pulled the needle out and eased it back into her flesh two inches under the pearl of black blood. She squatted, naked, hunched and dreaming. In that same molasses rhythm of hers she slid it in and out, moaning through her teeth. After a long time she pulled it out of the second wound and halfheartedly tried to smear away the bleeding with her dirty fingers but the two dark trickles only dabbled themselves together in mysterious patterns. She made the third hole equidistant from the others, mumbling softly, on her face the same greedy look as a masturbator's straining to get home.

Suddenly she hissed and let the needle go. It dangled from her poor ruined arm, half gorged with blood. Leaping up in great wonder, she pressed her ear to the wall.

If you hear the name Valerie, let me know, she said. I think they're saying Valerie in there.

Her fingers began their inexorable curl around the plunger again, and she was licking her chapped lips, but then she stiffened again, listening.

She's somebody I went out with for three and a half years, she said. She's beautiful , so beautiful. . but rotten inside.

Oh! she cried. Got it! — The outstretched plunger wavered between her fingers like a dowsing rod of ecstasy. But then she withdrew it again, groaning. Her whole forearm was smeared with blood now. She massaged herself there, with the same automatism as a bee-stung dog shaking its body. That was the thing about her, that living on the basis of little more than a half-ruined instinct, like the dog proceeding as if pain were water. Then she made the fourth hole.

Oh, bleed, she whispered. Please bleed. .

Then she was up on the chair in her stockinged feet, straining to peer through the peephole, licking her lips with desperate smacking sounds, moaning: Oh, Valerie, please let it be you!

She said: Hey, wow, I'm totally well right now. I promise I'll calm down in a minute.

Grunting, she began to thrust the plunger in and out once more.

I know she's up in this hotel, she said, breaking off. I dunno why she don't want me to know, though.

Then she whirled to regard the man who had paid for all this. — Sorry, she whispered.

She bent toward the keyhole, one sock on, one lying on the carpet where she'd wrenched it from her bleeding arm, and she was riding up and down on the balls of her feet so that her hard little buttocks bounced.

Why are they hiding from me? she wept.

She'd pressed both palms up against the door and had turned her ear flush against it. She was fellating the keyhole, licking it with an animal's unselfconscious slurpings.

Suddenly she threw the door open and said: You seen Valerie?

The woman outside wore clothes. She said coolly: I don't know the names, only the faces.

She slammed the door on the other woman and foamed like a tiger. — I don't know why she's hiding from me. It's all fucked up. Now they say they don't know who that is. But I can hear her right through the wall. They knew who it was when I fucking supported her!

Well, I may as well as well finish it. Lemme give myself a butt shot.

A noise came through the wall, a long sigh.

She's probably in there with another girl, she muttered.

She guided the needle into the crack between her buttocks. Another sound came, and she leaped up into a splay-legged crouch with the syringe hanging out. — I do not love her anymore! she screamed.

Now listen, she said to the man. You'll be here all night, right? You'll hear if she fucks someone. She's a really good lover. All the other girls that fuck her, they'll be making noises all night when she makes love to 'em. But her, she don't make a sound.

She fell to her knees again, curling into a sallow ball of sadness. She thrust the plunger all the way in. Then she began to sway while her head rested on her knees.

She was rocking, pressing her clitoris with a knuckle, hunching intently toward the wall. Every time Valerie's girl made another moan, she trembled with joy. Her labia had flushed the reddish-orange of molten copper. The empty needle hung from her like a breast sucked dry as she hunched forward, masturbating furiously.

She smiled and swayed for a long time. Then she turned to look at the man. Defiantly she said: Have you ever been in love?

No, the man said.

Oh, she said. I was just curious.

Slender like candles they let their hair down beneath the trees. He knew that. Hurrying down the tunnel of fingernails, he saw their legs glisten in the rain. He prayed, his hands a knife to cut away sin from his face. But he could not stop knowing.

Under the night I'll help you, his friend said.

He replied: I'm afraid.

Not enough, or you'd have prayed me away! Tomorrow I'll find you. Tomorrow, in the night.

Tomorrow was a morning of shards in the dark dirt, an afternoon of rainbow laundry on white roofs, an evening of children peering over gates. Then tomorrow grew as dark as the sweat under a woman's breasts.

Wide yellow crosswalk-lines sweated yellow in the yellow light. On the corner, a man raised a roof-tarp as if for a market. Girls grew from the sidewalk like nighrfruits, growing up from pink stalks and roots, with hair for flowers. Jiggling their purses and smiling, they tolled the night in the bells of their skirts. With open arms, they leaned into the black windows of cars to ask directions.

Across the street two men were already waiting, one with his hands in his pockets, the other squinting ahead. A third came, tapping his feet, wiping his nose. The corner by the phone booth had a standing army of men whose shirts and jeans seemed bleached, yet bright.

The boy's face was pleasing like a waxed peach as he stood on the night corner, tapping a pack of cigarettes against his palm. His friend was instructing him. His friend said: This little knife is to kill the hearts of all the pretty amigas, so that they'll love me. And this belt, my novia gave it to me, to bind me to her kisses. But I escaped. And this blue bracelet, a young girl wove it to tie me to her side. But I go where I please.

His friend was a squat brown rain idol with round holes in his mouth. His friend's skull glared ahead like headlights.

Another girl left her taxi, crossed slowly, let down her hair beneath the trees. Across the street, the madam opened a red notebook.

Slender like candles they stood on the narrow sidewalk which was their tightrope, and faced the passing cars. Tree-shadows passed through their flesh. Their high heels or knee-high black shiny leather boots glistened. Another taxi pulled up.