Poison Shy (10 page)

Half an hour later I rolled on a condom and fucked her doggie-style with her face pressed into a pillow.

I woke, took a leak. It hurt less. The antibiotics were kicking in.

Melanie got up a few minutes after the coffee was made. She asked if she could have a cigarette in my kitchen. I said why not. We sat together like an old married couple and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was all very sweet until she decided to turn the breakfast table into a confessional.

“When I met Darcy I was attracted to him right away. He was in our common room going shot for shot with a huge exchange student from Denmark. He drank the guy under the table, made him look like the biggest pussy. The dude ending up puking on Darcy's shoes, and Darcy made him lick it off in front of everybody. I think I fell in love right then. I got drunk, went back to his dorm. He didn't seem interested, though, which only made me want him more. He kept me up all night yapping about Jesus when all I could think about was how bad I wanted to go down on him. He didn't have the most attractive face in the world, but there was something about him. Charisma, I guess. He was the most popular guy in rez. A party animal who got straight As without ever going to class. Treated everybody like shit and still they loved him. He liked me for some reason, though. He said I had the same ideals as him, I was just too dumb to know it. I tried to fuck him so many times, but no matter how drunk he got he wouldn't touch me. I knew he wasn't gay because he'd slept with a few of the other girls, and anyway, I could just tell. By the end of first year we were pretty good friends, and I convinced him to get a place with me off campus. I'd purposely walk around the apartment in my bra and panties, make him dinner, do his laundry, all that stuff. I could feel him watching me and it turned me on, but nothing ever happened. I went out with a few guys and I know it bugged him. He'd get drunk and wait for me to come home.”

She stubbed out her smoke and lit another. “Finally, one night, after I'd passed out on my bed in a G-string, he came into my room and started licking my asshole. I have no idea how long he was going at it before I woke up. It was so weird, but I thought, at least he finally gave in. We messed around and he ended up putting it in my ass.” She paused and looked at me. Blew a couple smoke rings. “No guy had ever done that to me before. I didn't mind. It wasn't the greatest thing, but Darcy loved it. It's all he ever wanted to do. We got into this routine where, if I came home on the weekend without a guy, Darcy would come into my room, make me suck his dick for a while, then fuck me in the ass. At one point he got a pretty bad bladder infection and stuff kind of stopped. We slipped back into our old ways, our friendship before the sex. Then I met you and he started creeping around again, but I'd just laugh. I couldn't take him seriously. I guess I didn't love him anymore.”

I swallowed a thick clump of peanut butter and toast. Felt it slug down my throat, dry as a hairball. What the fuck was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to
think
?

Melanie snorted. “When I saw you at the library with your little orange, reeking of whisky, I thought, this guy needs to get laid. Darcy hadn't touched me in weeks. He was obsessed with this skinny blonde girl Sarah in his philosophy class and I guess I was feeling a little spurned. I didn't know anything about you, but you sort of reminded me of Darcy. Don't get me wrong, you're way better looking. It's weird, though. There's something about you two that's similar.”

“I think I'm going to be sick,” I said.

“I didn't even really like you,” she said. “I just wanted to piss off Darcy. But when we went on our date I could tell you were really into me. You were, like, nervous. It was pathetic, but kind of sweet. Usually guys just want to fuck me. You seemed like you'd rather snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie. Bizarre. You were also afraid of me. I liked that too.”

“I don't want to hear any more.”

“Just listen. After our date, I could tell Darcy was jealous. He wouldn't admit it, though. I thought I'd be happy about it but I wasn't. He turned into an asshole — not the usual asshole Darcy, but a real fucking prick. Whining all the time and insulting me to my face. Maybe that's the way he'd always been and I just couldn't see it, I don't know. Anyway, that keg party was the last straw. I found my way to your place and you let me in. Let me sleep in your bed. I woke up at one point and saw you asleep in your chair. I watched you for a while. You looked so uncomfortable! There was a piece of fluff on your nose that fluttered back and forth as you breathed. Your face was all scrunched up. It was bugging the hell out of you but you couldn't wipe it off. It was so cute, and a perfect snapshot of who you are — oblivious and helpless.”

“I'm glad you think so highly of me.”

“I do, you idiot! That's what I'm trying to tell you.”

“You realize I'm going to punch Darcy in the face next time I see him.”

“Right. And I'm a virgin.”

I've read it a number of times in self-help books: we place the most trust in those who are most likely to deceive us. It's not that I believed or trusted Melanie about her feelings for me. As a matter of fact, I didn't trust her at all. My problem was that I
wanted
to — and in my experience, desire not only trumps logic, it scratches it out completely.

A few days after Melanie's testimonial, I went to a lock shop, got my apartment key duplicated, and gave it to her. Like most idiots, I was riding a wave of positivity in the aftermath of disappointment. I even looked forward to seeing Darcy so I could look into his jaundiced eyes, have a good laugh at his ridiculous perversions, and move on. It seemed I'd won the girl. Sure, my soul — which I wasn't even sure existed — had been ripped up and crudely Scotch-taped back together in the process . . . but hey, that's courtship.

The following Saturday I had dinner with Chad and Farah at East Side Mario's. I invited Melanie along, but she wasn't feeling well. It turned out she did have chlamydia, just not the symptoms. The antibiotics made her nauseous. I, on the other hand, was almost completely healed. There was no more pain, just a vague discomfort, and only for the first piss of the day.

“You're one lucky bastard,” Chad said, with a mouth full of garlic bread. “You could've got AIDS.”

“Don't freak him out,” Farah said. “He's been through enough.”

“It's no big deal, really,” I told them. “Aside from the day it hit me, it wasn't too painful. I think I caught it early. I was more ashamed than anything. When you learn about these things in sex ed, you think they only happen to prostitutes and porn stars. I thought I'd go my whole life without even
knowing
anyone with an STD. It was a reality check.”

“So you've forgiven her, then?” Farah asked. “I think that's romantic.”

“Romantic?” Chad snorted. “Can you pass the Parmesan?”

“I wouldn't say I've forgiven her,” I said. “More like we're working through it.”

Chad pitchforked his rigatoni. “Hey — they're your balls.”

When I got back to my apartment, I found two empty beer bottles on my coffee table. The door to my closet was open and the thermostat had been changed. My fridge had been left open a crack, too. I had to throw out a tub of yogurt and a carton of milk.

I flopped onto my couch and cracked a lukewarm beer. Read the first few chapters of Edith Wharton's
Ethan Frome
, a book Melanie had left at my place. She was supposed to be reading it for school but said it was “boring as shit.”

Around eleven my phone rang. The call display said
Frayne Police Dept
.

I let it ring five or six times before answering.

“Mr. Brandon Galloway?” said the gruff and vaguely foreign voice on the other end.

“Yes.”

“This is Detective Basil Darvish. I have a Mr. Darcy Sands and a Miss Melanie Blaxley here at the station. They say they know you.”

“I . . . Yes, I know them. Can I ask what —”

“And you work for Kill All of Them pest control services, is that correct?”

“I work for Kill 'Em All, yes.”

“I'd like you to come down to the station. Tonight. Can you be here in fifteen minutes?”

“I don't understand what —”

“Bring photo ID, please. Fifteen minutes.” He hung up.

It was about a twenty-five minute walk to the police station from my apartment. Instead of calling a cab I jogged all the way there, whispering the phrase “You didn't do anything wrong” over and over again, though I wasn't sure I believed it.

I got to the station, took a few deep breaths, and went inside. Melanie and Darcy were sitting in the lobby playing cards like they were in their own living room.

“Hey,” Melanie said blandly.

Darcy met my gaze for a second, then turned back to his hand. He was wearing my Kill 'Em All uniform. It looked like a baggy straightjacket on him.

“Mr. Galloway?” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see a tall, olive-skinned man with short, curly black hair and a stubbly, greying beard. He wore a pair of chalky old cargo pants and a navy blue sweater vest. His eyes were bulbous and penetrating. His hands were enormous.

“Detective Basil Darvish,” he said, approaching me. “I appreciate you coming.”

“Can we go now?” Darcy said from across the room.

Darvish ignored him. “I just spoke with my daughter,” he said to me. “She says she knows you. Her name is Farah.”

“Oh, yeah. She knows my friend Chad.”

Darvish nodded, then gestured toward Melanie and Darcy. “I caught these two breaking into a home this evening. Mr. Sands was posing as an exterminator. He later confessed that the uniform he's wearing belongs to you.”

“Oh jeez.”

“Didn't you notice it was missing?”

“No, Officer. I didn't.”

Darvish cleared his throat. “It's Detective, Mr. Galloway. Please.”

“Sorry, Detective.”

Melanie and Darcy had stopped their game and were looking at us.

“I'm trying to give these two a break here,” Darvish said. “I don't think they've gotten that through their thick skulls. Forgive me for being skeptical, but the uniform has the name Dennis stitched on it. I trust you brought some identification?”

I handed him my whole wallet, which contained my KEA ID, a bus pass, some grocery receipts, and an expired driver's licence. He flipped through it, scratching his scruff. I think he even glanced at how much cash I had in there.

“I suggest you take better care of your professional belongings, Mr. Galloway,” he said. “Of course it wouldn't be appropriate for me to suggest you take better care when choosing friends.”

“Are they being charged with anything?” I asked.

Darvish stood stone-still with his hands in his pockets. “The individual whose home they invaded has decided not to press charges.”

“Can we go now?” Darcy said.

Darvish took a hand out of his pocket and gestured toward the exit without a word. He was looking at me for some reason, not the two morons he'd apprehended.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked when we got outside.

“Darcy's a pervert, that's what,” Melanie said.

“
I'm
the pervert? Excuse
me
, Miss Golden Shower —”

“That has nothing to do with this,” Melanie snapped.

“Will you two shut up and tell me what happened?”

They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

“It's stupid,” Melanie said. “Darcy was telling me about Sarah, that girl from his philosophy class. Apparently she has this rape fantasy —”

“Shut up, I'll tell the story,” Darcy said. “This girl Sarah, she's a strange one — ultra-conservative, hates feminism, thinks it's responsible for what she calls the ‘pansification' of the modern male, the decline of traditional family values,
et cetera
. She likes it when men assert their dominance. Thinks misogyny will lead society back into Eden. She believes so deeply in these things that they've infiltrated her sexual preferences. The other day she confessed to me that if a man ever broke into her apartment to rape her, she'd let him have his way with her. She said she might even enjoy it.”

“What a sick fuck,” Melanie said. “Personally, I'd bite off the guy's testicles.”

“Will you let me tell the story? Anyway, we were sitting around the apartment, bored off our asses —”

“Speak for yourself,” Melanie said.

“Will you shut the fuck up for one second please? God.
Anyway
, I was bored as shit, so I thought it would be a good time to put Sarah's claim to the test. There's nothing I like more than exposing people for the frauds they really are. I didn't actually want to rape her, just scare her a little. See how she reacted. I knew Melanie had a key to your place, so while she was busy painting her toenails, I borrowed her keychain and told her I was going to Sarah's. I knew you weren't home because when I asked Melanie why she was at home instead of sucking your dick, she said you were having dinner with friends.”

“Wait,” I said. “How did you know where I live?”

Darcy laughed and shook his head. “You think I don't know where you live?”

“I followed him because I knew something was fishy,” Melanie said.

“So you broke into my house and stole my uniform.” My hands were shaking. “Maybe I should press charges too.”

“Technically he didn't break in,” Melanie said. “I caught up to him when I realized where he was going, and I let us both in.”

“What the fuck for?”

“So he could break into that bitch's house dressed as a bug guy and scare the shit out of her, that's why,” Melanie said. “I hate that little slut. She spread rumours about me in first year. Told everyone I was a walking STD.”

“How prophetic,” Darcy said.