The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

I wasn’t surprised; Len had switched to his Sarah Vaughan / Etta James play-list, and I remember how fond you are of those two. And it was late. The party had waxed and waned during my excursion with Lucy on the beach and those who remained were the die-hards: Ben and Dru, sprawled on the sectional, finishing off a bottle of Shiraz; Dennis, holding court in the kitchen with Emile and Prabh and the dates they’d not thought to introduce — at least not to me; maybe a half-dozen others that neither of us wouldn’t recognize if we met them on the street. Len’s party had proceeded without me.

I wasn’t surprised, and I wasn’t unhappy about it. Skinny dipping on the ocean and fucking on the beach are two activities that hardly leave one presentable to polite company. Best then to wait until the polite company had moved along, leaving only the depraved ones.

I made for the bathroom — the second floor bath, which yes, I know, was a faux-pas at Len’s parties, particularly late into the evening. But there was a small crowd around the two-piece off the kitchen, and I needed to tidy up sooner, so I slipped upstairs and made for the master bath. Which, happily, was vacant. The lights flickered on as I stepped inside and I slid the pocket door shut, and confronted myself in the long mirror opposite the showers.

I didn’t think I took that long; just splashed water in my face, ran a wet comb through my hair, shook the sand out of my shirt and tucked it in properly before giving myself another inspection. By my own reckoning, it couldn’t have been more than five minutes. But the hammering on the door said otherwise.

It was Kimi, Len’s Kimi.

In a week, she’d be on a plane back to New York, done with all of us, gone from Len’s circle for good. That party, she was on the verge of it. I slid open the door and apologized. “You shouldn’t be up here,” she said, “not this time of night,” and I agreed.

“Ask forgiveness not permission? That it, Tommy?” she said and brushed past me. She had been spending time in Len’s rooms, and it had gone about as badly as it did toward the end. You could tell. Do you remember that time Len had us all on that boat he’d hired for the summer? And she came hammering on our cabin door — with that fish-hook stuck in just below the collar-bone? And when you opened it, she was so quiet, asking if you knew where they kept the first-aid kit on the boat because “Len isn’t sure.” You knew something awful had happened, I knew something awful had happened. We talked about it after we got the hook out and the wound cleaned and bandaged and Kimi, smiling brightly, had excused herself and skipped back to the cabin she and Len were sharing. What did you say? “One day, that armour of hers is going to crack. When it does, she’ll either leave or she’ll die.”

It was a good line; I laughed as hard as you did.

Well there in the upstairs bath, the armour was cracking. And Kimi wasn’t dead. But she wasn’t leaving either. She leaned against the vanity, arms crossed over her chest. She was wearing a short black skirt. Her shoulders, arms, and legs were bare. There were no visible bruises. No fish-hooks either. She studied me, maybe looking for the same things.

“You go for a swim?” she said finally. “You look like you went for a swim in the ocean.”

“Guilty.”

Her eyes flickered away a moment as she waved a hand. “Nobody’s guilty of taking a fucking swim. And it’s a good look for you.” Then she looked again, reassessing. “But you didn’t just go for a swim.”

“You were right. I took a fucking swim,” I said, and started to laugh, and she got it and laughed too.

“How’s your night going?” I asked. She made a little sneer with her lips — as if she was trying to fish a piece of food out of her teeth. Put her bare feet together on the slate tile floor, made a show of inspecting the nails.

“Len’s very tired,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh dear. That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not as bad as that.”

“If you say so.”

She looked at me. “Are you hitting on me, Tommy?”

I said I wasn’t.

“Then why the fuck are you still here?”

There was an answer to that question, but not one I could really articulate — not the way she was looking at me then. I wanted to talk to her about Lucy, about the eyes… I thought — hoped — that she would be able to help me parse the experience somehow. Or failing that, help me put it away, someplace quiet.

But her armour was cracked. She had nothing to offer me. And although I wouldn’t know for sure until a week later — she wasn’t leaving that night, she stayed the whole time — she was almost certainly planning her escape.

So I left her to it. “I’m very tired too,” I said, and stepped into the hall.

That one didn’t get a laugh. The bathroom door slid shut behind me, hitting the door-jamb hard enough to quiver in its track.

“You’re still thinking about her,” said Kimi through the wood. “Well give it up, Tommy. It’s obvious to everybody. She’s done with you.”

Oh, don’t worry. I know you’re done with me. I’m done with you too.