Monstrous Affections (2 page)

“So we kept in touch,” she finished lamely.

Mrs. Sloan nodded slowly and didn’t say anything for a moment.
Try as she might, Judith couldn’t read the woman, and she had always
prided herself on being able to see through most people at least half
way. That she couldn’t see into this person at all was particularly
irksome, because of who she was — a potential
in-law
, for God’s sake.
Judith’s mother had advised her, “Look at the parents if you want to
see what kind of man the love of your life will be in thirty years. See
if you can love them with all their faults, all their habits. Because
that’s how things’ll be . . .”

Judith realized again that she wanted very much for things to
be just fine with Herman thirty years down the line. But if this
afternoon were any indication . . .

Herman had been uneasy about the two of them going to Fenlan
to meet his parents at all. But, as Judith explained, it was a necessary
step. She knew it, even if Herman didn’t — as soon as they turned off
the highway he shut his eyes and wouldn’t open them until Judith
pulled into the driveway.

Mr. Sloan met them and Herman seemed to relax then, opening
his eyes and blinking in the sunlight. Judith relaxed too, seeing the
two of them together. They were definitely father and son, sharing
features and mannerisms like images in a mirror. Mr. Sloan took
Judith up in a big, damp hug the moment she stepped out of the car.
The gesture surprised her at first and she tried to pull away, but Mr.
Sloan’s unstoppable grin had finally put her at ease.

“You
are
very lovely,” said Mrs. Sloan finally. “That’s to be
expected, though. Tell me what you do for a living. Are you still
working now that you’ve met Herman?”

Judith wanted to snap something clever at the presumption,
but she stopped herself. “I’m working. Not at the same job, but in
another salon. I do people’s hair, and I’m learning manicure.”

Mrs. Sloan seemed surprised. “Really? I’m impressed.”

Now Judith was sure Mrs. Sloan was making fun, and a sluice of
anger passed too close to the surface. “I work hard,” she said hotly.
“It may not seem — ”

Mrs. Sloan silenced her with shushing motions. “Don’t take it the
wrong way,” she said. “It’s only that when I met Herman’s father, I
think I stopped working the very next day.”

“Those must have been different times.”

“They weren’t
that
different.” Mrs. Sloan’s smile was narrow and
ugly. “Perhaps Herman’s father just needed different things.”

“Well, I’m still working.”

“So you say.” Mrs. Sloan got up from the kitchen stool. “Come to
the living room, dear. I’ve something to show you.”

The shift in tone was too sudden, and it took Judith a second
to realize she’d even been bidden. Mrs. Sloan half-turned at the
kitchen door, and beckoned with her five-fingered hand.

“Judith,” she said, “you’ve come this far already. You might as
well finish the journey.”

The living room was distastefully bare. The walls needed paint and
there was a large brown stain on the carpet that Mrs. Sloan hadn’t
even bothered to cover up. She sat down on the sofa and Judith
joined her.

“I wanted you to see the family album. I think — ” Mrs. Sloan
reached under the coffee table and lifted out a heavy black-bound
volume “ — I don’t know, but I hope . . . you’ll find this interesting.”

Mrs. Sloan’s face lost some of its hardness as she spoke. She
finished with a faltering smile.

“I’m sure I will,” said Judith. This was a good development, more
like what she had hoped the visit would become. Family albums and
welcoming hugs and funny stories about what Herman was like
when he was two. She snuggled back against the tattered cushions
and looked down at the album. “This must go back generations.”

Mrs. Sloan still hadn’t opened it. “Not really,” she said. “As far as
I know, the Sloans never mastered photography on their own. All of
the pictures in here are mine.”

“May I . . . ?” Judith put out her hands, and with a shrug Mrs.
Sloan handed the album over.

“I should warn you — ” began Mrs. Sloan.

Judith barely listened. She opened the album to the first page.

And shut it, almost as quickly. She felt her face flush, with shock
and anger. She looked at Mrs. Sloan, expecting to see that cruel,
nasty smile back again. But Mrs. Sloan wasn’t smiling.

“I was about to say,” said Mrs. Sloan, reaching over and taking
the album back, “that I should warn you, this isn’t an ordinary
family album.”

“I — ” Judith couldn’t form a sentence she was so angry. No
wonder Herman hadn’t wanted her to meet his family.

“I took that photograph almost a year after I cut off my fingers,”
said Mrs. Sloan. “Photography became a small rebellion for me, not
nearly so visible as the mutilation. Herman’s father still doesn’t
know about it, even though I keep the book out here in full view.
Sloan men don’t open books much.

“But we do, don’t we, Judith?”

Mrs. Sloan opened the album again, and pointed at the Polaroid
on the first page. Judith wanted to look away, but found that she
couldn’t.

“Herman’s father brought the three of them home early, before
I’d woken up — I don’t know where he found them. Maybe he just
called, and they were the ones who answered.”

“They” were three women. The oldest couldn’t have been more
than twenty-five. Mrs. Sloan had caught them naked and asleep,
along with what looked like Herman’s father. One woman had her
head cradled near Mr. Sloan’s groin; another was cuddled in the
white folds of his armpit, her wet hair fanning like seaweed across
his shoulder; the third lay curled in a foetal position off his wide
flank. Something dark was smeared across her face.

“And no, they weren’t prostitutes,” said Mrs. Sloan. “I had occasion
to talk to one of them on her way out; she was a newlywed, she and
her husband had come up for a weekend at the family cottage. She
was, she supposed, going back to him.”

“That’s sick,” gasped Judith, and meant it. She truly felt ill. “Why
would you take something like that?”

“Because,” replied Mrs. Sloan, her voice growing sharp again, “I
found that I could. Mr. Sloan was distracted, as you can see, and at
that instant I found some of the will that he had kept from me since
we met.”

“Sick,” Judith whispered. “Herman was right. We shouldn’t have
come.”

When Mrs. Sloan closed the album this time, she put it back
underneath the coffee table. She patted Judith’s arm with her
mutilated hand and smiled. “No, no, dear. I’m happy you’re here —
happier than you can know.”

Judith wanted nothing more at that moment than to get up, grab
her suitcase, throw it in the car and leave. But of course she couldn’t.
Herman wasn’t back yet, and she couldn’t think of leaving without
him.

“If Herman’s father was doing all these things, why didn’t you
just divorce him?”

“If that photograph offends you, why don’t you just get up and
leave, right now?”

“Herman — ”

“Herman wouldn’t like it,” Mrs. Sloan finished for her. “That’s it,
isn’t it?” Judith nodded.

“He’s got you too,” continued Mrs. Sloan, “just like his father got
me. But maybe it’s not too late for you.”

“I love Herman. He never did anything like . . . like that.”

“Of course you love him. And I love Mr. Sloan — desperately,
passionately, over all reason.” The corner of Mrs. Sloan’s mouth
perked up in a small, bitter grin.

“Would you like to hear how we met?”

Judith wasn’t sure she would, but she nodded anyway. “Sure.”

“I was living in Toronto with a friend at the time, had been for
several years. As I recall, she was more than a friend — we were
lovers.” Mrs. Sloan paused, obviously waiting for a reaction. Judith
sat mute, her expression purposefully blank.

Mrs. Sloan went on: “In our circle of friends, such relationships
were quite fragile. Usually they would last no longer than a few
weeks. It was, so far as we knew anyway, a minor miracle that we’d
managed to stay together for as long as we had.” Mrs. Sloan gave a
bitter laugh. “We were very proud.”

“How did you meet Herman’s father?”

“On a train,” she said quickly. “A subway train. He didn’t even
speak to me. I just felt his touch. I began packing my things that
night. I can’t even remember what I told her. My friend.”

“It can’t have been like that.”

Judith started to get up, but Mrs. Sloan grabbed her, two fingers
and a thumb closing like a trap around her forearm. Judith fell back
down on the sofa. “Let go!”

Mrs. Sloan held tight. With her other hand she took hold of
Judith’s face and pulled it around to face her.

“Don’t argue with me,” she hissed, her eyes desperately intent.
“You’re wasting time. They’ll be back soon, and when they are, we
won’t be able to do anything.

“
We’ll be under their spell again!
”

Something in her tone caught Judith, and instead of breaking
away, of running to the car and waiting inside with the doors locked
until Herman got back — instead of slapping Mrs. Sloan, as she was
half-inclined to do — Judith sat still.

“Then tell me what you mean,” she said, slowly and deliberately.

Mrs. Sloan let go, and Judith watched as relief flooded across her
features. “We’ll have to open the album again,” she said. “That’s the
only way I can tell it.”

The pictures were placed in the order they’d been taken. The first
few were close-ups of different parts of Mr. Sloan’s anatomy, always
taken while he slept. They could have been pictures of Herman,
and Judith saw nothing strange about them until Mrs. Sloan began
pointing out the discrepancies: “Those ridges around his nipples are
made of something like fingernails,” she said of one, and “the whole
ear isn’t any bigger than a nickel,” she said, pointing to another
grainy Polaroid. “His teeth are barely nubs on his gums, and his
navel . . . look, it’s a
slit
. I measured it after I took this, and it was
nearly eight inches long. Sometimes it grows longer, and I’ve seen it
shrink to less than an inch on cold days.”

“I’d never noticed before,” murmured Judith, although as Mrs.
Sloan pointed to more features she began to remember other things
about Herman: the thick black hairs that only grew between his
fingers, his black triangular toenails that never needed cutting . . .
and
where
were
his
fingernails?
Judith
shivered
with
the
realization.

Mrs. Sloan turned the page.

“Did you ever once stop to wonder what you saw in such a
creature?” she asked Judith.

“Never,” Judith replied, wonderingly.

“Look,” said Mrs. Sloan, pointing at the next spread. “I took these
pictures in June of 1982.”

At first they looked like nature pictures, blue-tinged photographs
of some of the land around the Sloans’ house. But as Judith squinted
she could make out a small figure wearing a heavy green overcoat.
Its head was a little white pinprick in the middle of a farmer’s field.
“Mr. Sloan,” she said, pointing.

Mrs. Sloan nodded. “He walks off in that direction every weekend.
I followed him that day.”

“Followed him where?”

“About a mile and a half to the north of here,” said Mrs. Sloan,
“there’s an old farm property. The Sloans must own the land — that’s
the only explanation I can think of — although I’ve never been able
to find the deed. Here — ” she pointed at a photograph of an ancient
set of fieldstone foundations, choked with weeds “ — that’s where he
stopped.”

The next photograph in the series showed a tiny black rectangle
in the middle of the ruins. Looking more closely, Judith could tell
that it was an opening into the dark of a root cellar. Mr. Sloan was
bent over it, peering inside. Judith turned the page, but there were
no photographs after that.

“When he went inside, I found I couldn’t take any more pictures,”
said Mrs. Sloan. “I can’t explain why, but I felt a compelling terror,
unlike anything I’ve ever felt in Mr. Sloan’s presence. I ran back to
the house, all the way. It was as though I were being pushed.”

That’s weird
. Judith was about to say it aloud, but stopped
herself — in the face of Mrs. Sloan’s photo album, everything was
weird. To comment on the fact seemed redundant.

“I can’t explain why I fled, but I have a theory.” Mrs. Sloan set the
volume aside and stood. She walked over to the window, spread the
blinds an inch, and checked the driveway as she spoke. “Herman and
his father aren’t human. That much we can say for certain — they are
monsters, deformed in ways that even radiation, even thalidomide
couldn’t account for. They are physically repulsive; their intellects
are no more developed than that of a child of four. They are weak
and amoral.”

Mrs. Sloan turned, leaning against the glass. “Yet here we are,
you and I. Without objective evidence — ” she gestured with her
good hand towards the open photo album “ — we can’t even see
them for what they are. If they were any nearer, or perhaps simply
not distracted, we wouldn’t even be able to have this conversation.
Tonight, we’ll go willingly to their beds.” At that, Mrs. Sloan visibly
shuddered. “If that’s where they want us.”

Judith felt the urge to go to the car again, and again she
suppressed it. Mrs. Sloan held her gaze like a cobra.

“It all suggests a power. I think it suggests talismanic power.”
Here Mrs. Sloan paused, looking expectantly at Judith.

Judith wasn’t sure what “talismanic” meant, but she thought she
knew what Mrs. Sloan was driving at. “You think the source of their
power is in that cellar?”

“Good.” Mrs. Sloan nodded slowly. “Yes, Judith, that’s what
I think. I’ve tried over and over to get close to that place, but I’ve
never been able to even step inside those foundations. It’s a place of
power, and it protects itself.”