Busted Flush

A cloud of drunken wasps swirled lazily through the air, doing some intricate aerial ballet as they brought him the condom from his wallet. They reattached to his wrist, becoming his right hand with the condom between his fingers. “Care to do the honors, milady?”

Aliyah giggled. “I don’t know how.”

“I’ll show you.”

Jonathan was drunk and hungry and desperate. Ellen knew that it was probably his first time in a while. A guy who turned into bugs probably got as much action as a woman who channeled the dead. But what he lacked in experience, he made up in enthusiasm, and Aliyah had enough enthusiasm for two. Or even three when you came down to it.

Maybe even four. As Aliyah closed her eyes and felt her growing wetness, Ellen imagined that Jonathan’s hands were Nick’s, Nick whom she’d never touched, never would touch. Nick who’d died before she was born . . .

She felt him sliding inside her, in and out, as Aliyah embraced him with her legs, held his arms with her arms, the old iron bedstead creaking with the rhythm and pounding the bricks of the wall, the rhythm of the jazz from the antique radio. “More,” Aliyah moaned. “Touch me.”

Jonathan slid out, making Aliyah moan harder, craving him, wanting him, but next he kissed her belly, tracing the way down with his tongue. Aliyah clutched his hair as he teased her, his tongue flicking in and out, and then he traced his way back to her navel, then reared up, his penis entering again as he reached one hand under her shirt and squeezed her left breast. “Oh, Jonathan.” Aliyah put her arms over her head, allowing him to pull the shirt free.

The connection faded slightly as the shirt was pulled away, but Aliyah just pushed it aside, pausing to take out the earring where it had caught. The connection faded further but she was still there, heady but lucid. Jonathan reached for the last earring, not understanding, but Aliyah instead guided his hands to her breasts as she clenched him, letting him ride her in and out. Then, when she closed her eyes and began to quake with ecstasy, there was a tiny tug on her left lobe and la petite mort suddenly became la grande mort.

Ellen was back in her body as Jonathan still rode her, quaking himself as his eyes burned in the dark like green embers.

“Not bad for a guy who turns into bugs,” he said afterward, falling into bed beside her. “How was it for you, Ali?” He placed his hand and the final earring between her breasts.

Ellen smiled. “Aliyah liked it just fine, but it’s just Ellen now. I stopped channeling her when you took this off.” She held up the fateful earring, the Eye of Horus twinkling in the dimness.

Jonathan’s face fell. “So I swapped partners mid-orgasm?”

Ellen nodded.

“Uh,” Jonathan stalled, “I should probably be going.” A cloud of wasps literally buzzed across the room and next thing Jonathan was getting on his pants.

“You don’t have to go. I was there the whole time you were with Aliyah.”

“I’ve really gotta.”

He almost ran from the room. Ellen heard the jangling of keys as he let himself into the room across the hall. Tears welled up in her eyes on their own. She’d been spending all day on someone else’s tears, but in the end, there were still a few left for herself. “Oh, Nick . . .”

She didn’t know how she could be unfaithful to a man she’d never touched, but it still felt like a betrayal, to a memory at least. The memory of a man she loved. Ellen clutched the pillow, listening to the soft music in the darkness.

Ellen awoke the next morning to the sight of a used condom, a couple of asphyxiated wasps trapped in the tip. It was not a lovely memento. She turned back over, fresh tears stinging her eyes, but sleep wasn’t returning. Forcing herself, she got up, turned off the radio, and showered.

Ellen didn’t want to touch the clothes from the day before, not Aliyah’s, not Nick’s. She opened her suitcase. The final outfit was a twenties flapper gown, midcalf spangled black silk with jet beads, with a matching cap with black ostrich plume and a steel mesh purse fringed with ermine tails. It was beautiful for a night on the town, but utterly impractical for a hurricane.

To hell with it, she was wearing it anyway. Everyone already thought she was nuts.

At the last moment, she paused and set the plumed cap aside. She reached down and retrieved Nick’s fedora from where it had been crumpled into the pocket of his jacket.

Nick looked at himself in the dressing-table mirror, touching his fingers to the skin below his eye. “You’ve been crying, Elle. What’s the matter?”

Aliyah . . . Ellen thought, but she couldn’t lie to him, not Nick. The whole flood of memories came across in a tsunami.