James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“Wait a minute.” Paul backed up against the base of the big, sagging pillar behind him. “Let’s just stop for a second.” Callie was trembling. The soles of her sandals were bent back as she knelt on the sweating stone. She wore the same clothes she’d had on when she’d left his apartment — jeans, a man’s old Oxford shirt — and she’d left his apartment, Paul thought, before he had started dreaming. Maybe, he thought frantically, her presence in his apartment had been part of the dream as well, and he began desperately to wonder just how far back it went. Had his affair with Callie been a dream all along? Had his wooing by Colonel and his cronies been a dream? Maybe all of it had been a dream, he thought, feeling the sweat pouring down his temples: his job at TxDoGS, his life with Kymberly in the suburban ranch house, maybe even his whole experience in Texas. None of this ever happened, he thought. I never lost my teaching job, I never got divorced. I never drowned a cat in a bathtub. This is a fantasy, a cautionary tale, and I’m fast asleep in Iowa, with Lizzie snoring beside me and Charlotte, dear, sweet Charlotte, purring happily at my feet. He glanced all around him for some definitive sign of unreality, but all he saw were the wide eyes of the pale men watching him from below and the dripping stalactites above, pointing at him like spears.

By now Colonel had reached the ledge, and he knelt on the top step and fixed Paul with his gaze and lifted the knife towards him.

“What about her?” cried Paul, pointing at Olivia. “I mean, I gave you her already, right?”

The crowd of murmuring men gasped as one, and Olivia dropped her jaw and goggled at Paul. Colonel sighed and looked exasperated, but before he could speak, Olivia had placed her clenched fists on her hips.

“Outrageous!” she cried. “ Outrageous! ” She swung her ferocious gaze from Paul to Stanley Tulendij, who grinned weakly.

“Now, dearest,” he said, waving his wobbly palms at her.

“Stanley,” said Olivia, her lower lip trembling, “are you going to let this, this person speak about me in that manner?”

“Now, sweetness,” said Stanley Tulendij, and he crossed in front of Paul to comfort Olivia. His arms curled around her; his pale fingers twitched on her bare shoulders. Olivia pressed herself against the wide, blue lapels of his garish tux. “Outrageous,” she sniffled.

Below, the pale men shuffled in place and mumbled to themselves. At the front of the crowd J.J. bobbed anxiously from foot to foot, while Bob Wier clutched his own elbows, looking nearly as pale as the cave dwellers pressed around him. Colonel hissed at Paul to get his attention, and Paul came warily forward, crouching next to Callie, whose eyes darted frantically in every direction.

“Suck it up, Professor,” Colonel whispered. The knife quivered in his hands, casting its gleam across Paul and Callie’s faces. “We’ve all done this. J.J. gave them his girlfriend, and believe me, J.J. doesn’t come across a girlfriend very often. Hell, Bob here gave up his wife.”

Callie groaned. At the foot of the slope, Bob Wier looked up as if he’d heard his name. His eyes widened, and his face paled even more. Suddenly he turned away from the pool. J.J. grabbed at him, but Bob twisted free and pushed back through the crowd towards the rear. J.J. shrugged and faced front again.

“But you didn’t,” whispered Paul, “give up your wife.”

Colonel’s bright eyes narrowed. “You ain’t the only one, Professor, who’s ever had a wild little mustang. Yasumi never knew about her.” He lifted the corner of his lips in a lubricious grin. “You know how it is.”

Callie was watching Paul now, sidelong.

“About cheating on my wife?” said Paul, struggling to control his voice. “Or human sacrifice?”

Colonel shrugged and said, “Call it whatever you want, Paul. We all do it.” He grinned again. “Are we not men?”

“Alright, that’s it!” barked Olivia, and everyone turned to see her push out of Stanley Tulendij’s embrace. She loomed over Paul with one fist balled against her hip, while Stanley Tulendij dithered behind her.

“Are you going to let this slacker , this Yankee get away with this?” she declared, sweeping the crowd below with her furious gaze. “Because correct me if I’m wrong, but these other three losers have already done it.” She gestured with her free hand, her red glove taking in Colonel and J.J. Bob Wier was across the room, doggedly stuffing more wood into the firebox of one of the smokers.

“So what makes Paul so special? Is it because he has a pee aitch dee?” She waved her long, red, satin finger in the air, sistah style. “Puh-leeze . He’s here, he’s accepted the benefits y’all have offered him, and now it’s time for him to do his duty.”

The crowd below was rapt. Their mouths hung open, their teeth glistened, their eyes shone with something like adoration. Even J.J.’s eyes were twinkling. Olivia drew a breath, then she stooped and hooked the satiny fingers of one hand through the collar of Callie’s shirt, and the fingers of her other hand through Paul’s collar, and hauled them both to their feet. Colonel stood, too, under his own steam. Paul felt something smooth and cool and hard against his right palm, and Colonel closed Paul’s fingers around the handle of the knife. Olivia lifted Paul’s left hand around Callie’s shoulders and placed his palm under her chin. Callie flinched at the touch. She had squeezed her eyes shut, and Paul could feel her shuddering.

Olivia stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “So get with the program, mister,” she declared, “and cut her throat.”

Paul’s hand trembled under Callie’s chin, so he dropped it to her shoulder. She flinched again; her breath hissed in hot bursts through her nose.

“It’s okay,” Paul whispered. “This isn’t really happening. This is a dream. You’re not even here.”

“Mmm mmm mmm!” Callie said through the gag.

“I’m waiting,” said Olivia.

“Now, Paul,” said Colonel, holding up his palms and rocking on the balls of his feet, “each of these gentlemen behind me is crazier than a jaybird and hungrier than a coyote. They’re fixed to eat something tonight, and if it’s not her, well, then, we go to Plan B.” He glanced back at the crowd. They were pressing forward, licking their lips, gnashing their teeth, drooling. “Let’s just say,” Colonel said in a low voice, “we’re having you for dinner, Professor, one way or the other.”

Paul could scarcely see six inches beyond his nose; everything else was washed out of all recognition. His mind raced as if he were a dying man reliving his life in an instant. Behind his eyeballs he saw an almost comically speeded-up highlight reel of every bad decision he’d ever made, in glorious, unfaded, mid-fifties Technicolor: himself at his computer, not finishing his book; himself and Kymberly, cheating on Lizzie in his marriage bed; himself cheating on Kymberly with Oksana, et al.; himself lowering the howling Charlotte in her cat carrier into the bathtub and turning the taps on full blast; himself sprawled uselessly on the bed, listening to Callie drive away. .

His heart twisted with regret, and his vision was further blurred with tears. The humid, smoky air around him seemed to cool for a moment, as if he stood in the doorway of a freezer, and for one, delirious instant he swore he felt the smooth, sidelong brush of a cat winding a figure eight between his legs. Then the silky pressure faded and the cave’s dankness once again clung to his skin. His vision cleared as if someone had wiped his eyes, and one thought somehow rang as clear as a chime at the center of his head: If this is a dream, if none of this really matters, then why not be a hero?