Gwen, in Green

That girl had still been in command when the meter reader walked jauntily away and rounded a corner. That girl was no longer present when the sound of the meter reader’s pick-­up truck faded down the road. Instead, it was Gwen, holding her bikini top in front of still-­moist breasts, breasts which reeked with the tobacco and male odor of the meter reader’s mouth. Gwen, back from a far place, screamed, exposing her breasts as she clamped one hand, filled with bikini top, to her mouth, and bit into a finger with painful force. It was Gwen, sobbing hysterically, who ran into the bath, vomited, ripped off the bikini bottom, and stared, horror-­stricken, at the tell-­tale moistness there. It was Gwen, face tear-­stained and drawn, who sat on the red and gold sofa in the living room, George’s bird-­shooting shotgun, loaded, near her lips. She was nude. The inner portions of her thighs were sticky. She felt calm, sure of her decision. Her right toe could reach the trigger. The double-­barreled muzzle of the shotgun stretched her lips as she opened her mouth.

Now.

There was no note. She could not bear to think of telling him. He would find her. She’d be nude and soiled with the seed of another man. The autopsy would show it. Then he’d know without her having to verbalize it or write it down. He’d know.

George. George.

The basic fear is that of death.

“Once,” he’d said, “you had another fear, the fear of having your chastity taken by force. Since that is no longer possible, your fear must be the basic fear of death.”

But he was wrong. She welcomed death. It crooked a bony finger at her and grinned in welcome. It was cold, blued steel in her mouth, the sharp, hard edges of the trigger on her toe. For she had ruined her life. In all her life she’d never had anyone to love her for herself, had never had anyone to love. Then George had come and it had been incredibly beautiful. Her love for George and his for her had conquered. Together, they’d made her almost human, had killed the darkness in her. No. It hadn’t been killed. It had merely retreated, to creep up on her in a different guise.

“Sorry,” the meter reader had said, halting in mid­-stride as he came around the house and, his head level with the balcony, looked up to see a woman in a bikini lying face down on the chaise longue. She had loosened the tie-top. Her breasts were resting on the small scrap of cloth, but the bulging sides were exposed to the sun and to his view. She’d pushed the tiny bottom down until it was a mere string crossing under her buttocks.

“I didn’t know anyone was here,” the meter reader said, backing off.

“Just me,” the girl said, sitting up, holding the halter loosely in front of her breasts, and smiling.

What had happened then was so incredible that it halted her, froze her hand on the shotgun, her mind remembering and being astounded. She had always tried to know herself. She had taken several psychology courses in her search for herself. Now she found that her curiosity was not dead. Death, waiting, folded his arms patiently. He had the rest of the afternoon. Meanwhile, she questioned the afternoon’s events. Why had they happened?