The Hinky Bearskin Rug (22 page)

Randy folded
his hands on the table. “This is rather complex. I’ve been trying to explain it
to Velvita,” he said and Jewel stiffened. “But she hasn’t the education. In my
centuries of contact with magic, I’ve come to agree with the earliest scholars.
Magic, they say, is the life force of the world expressing itself.”

She was having
a hell of a time concentrating on all the sex-demon jargon. He smelled like
himself. Her nostrils flared.

He said, “When
human beings are involved, magic expresses itself most through sexual desire.
This is why love potions are one of the oldest known forms of magic.”

“Would you
mind not saying that word?”

Five floors
down, the throbbing presses went quiet. Someone far away began shouting.

“I’m sorry,”
he said gravely. “I must. The theory is simple, if you concede that human
sexual desire can be dammed up, or stimulated to flow in excess. Then it
becomes fuel for magic. In this building, sexual desire has been the focus for
over a hundred years. Men have photographed naked women in situations
calculated to arouse. Salacious stories have been printed. Everywhere one looks—”

He waved a
hand, and Jewel noticed more oil paintings of Wilma, naked, willing, and wild,
on the board room walls.

“—One sees
images calculated to excite human desire. This place is a powder keg, magically
speaking.”

This talk made
her squirm. “What does this have to do with the pocket zones in people’s
houses?”

“Attend.
Desire is formless, like a mass of water restrained by a dam. It must have
reached critical proportions for it to manifest in the pastries as an
aphrodisiac, in the magazines as pocket zones. Perhaps the initiation of the
film division poked a hole in the dam. The resultant flood—”

The door fell
open with a crash. Harry, the security guy, tumbled in. “It’s La Migra — Immigration
— they’re arresting all the printers!” He wrung his hands. “Miss Onika’s gonna
be upset.”

Jewel leaped
like a scalded cat. “INS!”

“Also, I
wondered,” Harry panted, “does the new guy have papers?”

Her blood
turned to ice. She said to Randy, “Run!”

In an instant,
Jewel and Randy were through the door into the main stairwell, heading down.

A commotion
came from below. “Halt! You’re under arrest!” Scuffles and shouts followed.

As one, Jewel
and Randy turned and pelted back upstairs. She looked around, frantic. They
were on the fifth floor. “Can we go up?”

Randy jerked
open a grimy door marked HVAC.

She pushed
him. “Go!”

Voices came
from the conference room.

They scrambled
through the door, Randy first. Jewel shut it behind them. Her foot knocked
something on the bottom step, a splinter of wood. She jammed it under the door,
wedging it as tight as it would go, and followed Randy upward. All too soon, a
heavy body slammed against the other side of the door.

The wind blew
fiercely up on top of the building. Jewel pelted behind Randy as he jogged
along beside the block-long parapet wall, looking down over the side. There
were no fire escapes coming up to the roof. “Dammit!” she screamed.

She caught up
with him at the building’s facade, facing down on Washington Boulevard. There
was her car at the curb. Clay stood on the sidewalk below, looking up.

Randy looked
at her, then down at the street. “Jewel.” In the wind his voice sounded hoarse.
He took her by the arms. His dark eyes glittered — were those tears?

Her heart
clutched up. “We’ll get you out of this. Don’t panic.”

He yelled over
the wind, “I have to set you free. Velvita has made me understand that much.”

That made
Jewel clench her teeth. “I understand, too,” she yelled. “About the whorehouse
and the girls and you wanting to do the right thing.”

“She is a free
spirit,” he said, digging the knife deep into Jewel’s guts. “She doesn’t
despise herself. I thought I had time to learn that from her — but the
authorities have caught up with me. I can only damage you now.” He kissed her
hard, then pushed her away and hopped up on the parapet wall.

She shrieked, “Randy!”

“It’s too
late.” He pointed.

Over her
shoulder, Jewel saw a man in uniform in the roof-access doorway. She turned
back to see Randy teetering on the edge, facing the long drop to the street.

“Goddammit!”
she screamed, and scrambled up beside him. He tipped forward before she could
get upright. She snatched at him, got hold of the back of his shirt, and
pulled.

But he was too
heavy.

They went over
together, he twisting to face her, she clutching him around the waist.

Down there on
the sidewalk, Clay looked up, his mouth and eyes getting bigger very, very
fast.

Randy’s lips
touched her ear.

He said, “Are
you afraid because you’re aroused? Or aroused because you’re afraid?”

She never felt
the ground.

Clay was
standing directly under them. Two cell phones, two wallets, two sets of keys,
four shoes, a pair of jeans, a white dress shirt, a three-piece navy polyester
pantsuit, and a white forty-two-double-D brassiere with matching panties hit
him in the face, one after the other.

He didn’t dare
look away. Horror froze him.

At length he
brushed their clothes off his head and noticed a total absence of mangled human
remains.

Uh-oh.

He knew what
had happened now.

He groaned.

Then he
realized what he would have to do to find them and groaned louder.

Up on the edge
of the roof, someone stared down. The night watchman? Clay said some bad words,
then ran into the building.

Inside the
lobby, men in uniform yapped around a crowd of cursing printers like sheepdogs.
A guy in a suit accosted Clay. “You. Do you have identification?”

All became
clear to Clay. In his most amiable fake Texan accent he explained that he was a
citizen, and he showed his ID, and he stood beside Harry the security guy as
half a dozen printers were hustled out into the waiting van.

“Miss Onika,
she’s gonna shit turkey eggs,” Harry prophesied. “That worthless nephew of hers
called ’em on us. Bet you a dime.”

The rest of
the printers had come upstairs to watch their coworkers leave. Harry offered to
help, and they went back to their lair. The noise of the presses started up
again.

Clay was left
alone with his problem.

He stood under
the big portrait of Wilma on the grand marble landing, thinking. His heart
hammered in his ears. He wanted to search the place, but logic was catching up
with him.

Jewel could
always find Randy when he pulled this stunt, because she was his Number One
Hundred. Or, wait, was it because she was female? Clay remembered that, when
this happened last month, any woman who slept in the bed where Randy was
trapped was guaranteed a good time.

So to be
absolutely sure, all he needed was a woman. Somebody to lie down on every
single bed in the joint and, well, test it for sex demon possession.

He had an
inspiration.
Someone who knows where every
bed is located would be even better.

He went back
outside and collected all the clothes, keys, shoes, wallets, and cell phones.
If Randy wasn’t a complete idiot, he would have Velvita’s number on his cell.

Randy hadn’t
bothered to label the numbers.
Probably
doesn’t know how yet.
That would teach Clay to withhold information from
Jewel’s sex demon.

He started
calling at the top of the list, standing in the lobby, fidgeting anxiously,
staring vacantly up at Wilma’s portrait, and praying under his breath,
Don’t let me down, Wilma. Make this be her.

Wilma must
have heard him. The first number answered with a message.
Lena’s not here. Leave a message. *boop*

Clay let out a
cry of despair. “What do I do now?”

Movement from
above caught his eye.

He looked up.

Up on the
wall, Wilma stepped out of her picture frame as if descending an invisible
staircase. She came straight toward him. She was wearing clothes this time, a
corny, country-girlish ruffled blouse and a square-dance-pouffy skirt, but her
feet and legs were bare.

She smiled
warmly at him. Her voice sounded in his head.

Hey,
baby. Let’s make a deal.

o0o

Jewel found
herself alone and naked, in the dark, falling. She screamed until she ran out
of breath.

Then it
occurred to her that she was still falling.

Off a
five-floor building, she ought to have gone splat by now.

This must be demonspace. But if so,
where’s Randy?

As she thought
this she noticed she wasn’t falling any more.
Randy?

I am here,
came his voice in her head.

Why can’t I see you?
She groped around in the absolute
blackness. Her hands touched nothing.
Where
is this?
She tried to rub her arms and realized that she couldn’t feel
them.

She couldn’t
touch anything.

Panic
paralyzed her.

I was falling. Ohmigod, am I dead? Did
we hit the sidewalk after all?

We are not dead,
Randy said, invisible, intangible.

Well, where are you? I’m scared!
She wanted to thrash, flail her arms,
clutch something, anything.
Randy!

Relax. I am here. Let me find you.

She tried to
control her rising hysteria.

Out of
nowhere, his hand gripped hers.

Where are we?
she shrieked.

He held her
hand tightly.
This place is familiar.
He seemed to be somewhere behind her, not at her side. A moment later he said,
somewhere above her head,
This reminds me
of the brass bed where I lay so long.

She reached
for his hand with her free hand. It seemed to take forever, as if her arms were
miles long, as if she were drugged, as if she had forgotten exactly how her
body was connected to her hands. Then, finally, she clasped her hands around
his.

Are we in demonspace?

We must be. And yet — do you feel
separated from your body?

I remember falling. We were falling
straight down on top of Clay.
The
comfort of his hand in hers warmed her, made her almost sleepy.

His hand
tugged both of hers.
Don’t fade away!
When first I lay trapped in that brass bed—

In the whorehouse?

There, yes. I felt nothing. I saw
nothing. I knew nothing. I almost faded away, as you are about to do.

She woke a
little.
Am I cold?

You have dissociated from your body.
Perhaps from fear of—

Fear of splat.

Yes. It would be best if we made love.
If you drift off, I won’t know how to find you. This is not sleep!

Fear froze her
thoughts.
I don’t know if I can. I’m
afraid we’ll come back and still be falling. What if we have sex and I come and
we materialize and we’re still five stories up?

I don’t think we will. I think we are
in a bed somewhere.

You don’t know?
Fear grew huge. She felt herself
retreat from it. Even the touch of his hand seemed to fade.

Don’t fall asleep, Jewel! I’ll talk to you.
It’s absurd to fear falling. How often have we flown, or fallen, or floated?
Stay with me and all’s well. I’m touching your wrist now, Jewel. Do you feel
it? Answer me.

Yes.
She felt his hand slide, inch by inch, up her wrist.
I feel it.

Good. Once, when I was a boy, I jumped
off a stable roof onto a pile of hay. I didn’t pass out. I stayed awake,
enjoying the rush of air. The fall knocked the wind out of me and broke my
collarbone, yet I wouldn’t have traded the pain for safety. I had never come so
close to flying. His hand caressed her wrist. You must never fear to fall.

What happened to us? Are we both sex
demons now?

She felt
rather than saw his smile.
Hardly. But
you must return to your body, or we cannot get out.

I’m scared. What if I can’t? Why can’t
I see you? Where are we?

We have come to the place where desire
is everything.

What does that mean?

It means you can have anything you
want. But you must want it.

That seemed
kinda deep. But she began to calm down.

I
want to see you.

Again she felt
him smile.
Let there be light.

The first
thing she saw after the eternal dark was his smiling face, his eyes soft, his
hand coming up to touch her temple.
Let
me make love to you.
His voice was gentle inside her head, but his lips
didn’t move. Instead he bent and kissed her very slowly.