Fiends

Slit

The library would be closing in five minutes. Charles knew that the last of the students had already left. He was alone with Lynn.

He saw no point in heading off into the stacks to shelve books, so he lingered beside the circulation desk, arranging volumes in the cart and sneaking glances at her.

She sat on a high stool behind the desk. Her empty loafers were on the floor. Her feet, in white socks, curled over a wooden rung of the stool. Charles could see one smooth calf, the crease behind her knee, and a few inches of bare thigh. Her legs were parted as far as the straight, denim skirt would allow. The skirt’s hem looked so tight against the side of her thigh that Charles wondered if it might leave a red mark on her skin.

She was leaning forward, elbows resting on the desktop, hands on cheeks, head down as she looked through Kirkus. Her white blouse, tucked into the skirt, was taut against her back. Charles could see the bumps of her spine, the soft curves of her ribs, the pink hue of her skin through the fabric, the slim bands of her bra.

He squatted down and placed some books on the lower shelf of the cart. This angle allowed him to see Lynn’s right breast. It was there beyond the underside of her arm, a sweet mound cupped by the tight blouse, its front hovering just above the edge of the desk.

It would look so much better without the bra. The seams, the pattern, the stiffness. All in the way.

Charles pictured himself slicing through its straps.

Lynn reached out, turned a page, flinched and blurted, ‘Ow! Damn!’ She jerked her hand up. She held it rigid in front of her face, fingers spread and hooked. A gleaming dot of blood bloomed on the pad of her index finger.

Charles felt his mouth go dry. His heart thudded. Heat rushed through his groin. He moaned.

She glanced over at him. Her face was red, her teeth bared. Her eyes returned to her hand. She looked as if she didn’t know what to do with it. She shook it a couple of times like a cat with a wet paw, then pressed the bleeding fingertip between her lips.

‘A paper cut?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘I hate those things,’ he said.

A cut. A slit.

He stayed crouched, hard and aching.

Lynn took the finger away from her mouth. It left some blood on her lips. She scowled at the wound, then gave Charles a tight, twisted smile. ‘It’s not that they hurt so much, you know? They’re just so…’ She shuddered. ‘They’re like fingernails skreeking on a blackboard.’ She licked the blood from her lips, then returned the finger to her mouth.

‘Would you like a bandage?’ Charles asked.

‘Do you have one?’

‘Oh, sure. I’m always prepared.’

‘Like a Boy Scout, huh?’

‘Yeah.’ Rising from his crouch, he hoped that the books on the cart’s top shelf were high enough. They were. Their tops reached up past his stomach.

He turned away from Lynn and hurried into the office behind the circulation desk. There, he took a bandage from the tin inside his briefcase. He adjusted the front of his pants to make the bulge less apparent. But it still showed. He took his corduroy jacket off the back of a nearby chair, put it on, and fastened the middle button. He looked down. The front of the jacket nicely concealed his secret.

When he came out, he found that Lynn had turned around on her stool to face him. ‘It’s stopped bleeding,’ she said.

‘Yeah, but paper cuts. You rub them the wrong way and flip back the skin and…’

‘Yuck. I guess I will take a bandage. Would you like to do the honors?’ She held her hand toward Charles.

‘Sure,’ he said. Trembling, he stripped the wrapper off the adhesive strip. He moved closer to Lynn, halting when the wet end of her finger was inches from his chest. He stared down at the slit -a crescent across the finger’s pad, rather like the gills of a tiny fish, pink under a thin white flap. The edge of the flap was away from him.

‘Do you think I’ll live?’

‘Sure.’ His voice came out husky. He felt terribly tight and hard.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. Cuts make me nervous.’

‘You aren’t gonna faint or anything, are you?’

‘Hope not.’ He fumbled with the bandage, peeling the shiny papers away from its sides. He let them fall. They drifted down like petals plucked from a flower, and settled on her shirt.

Pinching the sticky ends of the bandage, he lowered the gauze center toward Lynn’s cut.

He wanted to hurt her.

No! Don’t!

He wanted to grab her finger and rub his thumb back, flipping up the little edge of skin, making her jerk and cry out.

Not Lynn! Don’t!

As fast as he could, he pressed the bandage to her cut and flipped the adhesive ends around her finger. He whirled away and rushed for the office.

‘Charles?’ she called. ‘Charles, are you all right?’

He didn’t answer. He dropped onto his swivel chair, hunched over and grabbed his knees.

It’s over, he told himself. You didn’t do it. Lynn can’t even suspect…

He heard her quiet footsteps behind him. She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Just… cuts. They upset me.’

Her hand squeezed him through the corduroy. ‘If I’d known… What is it, a phobia or something?’

‘I guess so. Maybe.’

In a lighter tone, she said, ‘That probably explains why you carry bandages around, huh?’

‘Yeah.’

She patted his shoulder. ‘Maybe you’ll feel better if you get some fresh air,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and take off? I’ll close up the library.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

He waited until she was gone, then carried his briefcase outside. The night was dank and misty.

Feverish with memories of Lynn’s cut, he lingered near the library entrance. Soon, the upper windows went dark. He pictured her up there, alone in the stacks, lowering her bandaged finger from the switch panel, starting down the stairwell.

His Swiss Army knife was a heavy lump against his thigh. He slipped his hand down into his pants pocket. He caressed the smooth plastic handle.

And savored thoughts of slitting her.

Just wait for her to come out…

No!

He turned from the library and walked quickly away.

In his apartment three blocks from campus, Charles went to bed. But he didn’t sleep. His mind swirled with images of Lynn.

Don’t think about her, he told himself.

You can’t do her.

But it would be so nice.

But you can’t.

Lynn was a graduate student. Like Charles, she earned a small stipend by working part-time at the Whitmore Library. Everyone knew they worked the same hours. Too much suspicion would be focused on him.

Besides, he really liked her.

But damn it…!

Forget about her.

He tried to forget about her. He tried to think only about the others. How they yelped or screamed. How their faces looked. How their skin split apart. How blood spilled out like scarlet creeks overflowing banks of ripped flesh, spreading and running, forming new streams that slid along velvety fields, that setded to create shimmering pools in the hollows of the body, that flowed down slopes.

So many faces. So many bodies flinching with surprise or thrashing in agony. So many flooding slits.

All belonged to strangers.

Except for the face and body and cut of his mother. Struggling to stop the confusing flood of images, fighting to keep his mind off Lynn, he concentrated on his mother. Her voice through the door. Honey, would you be a dear and get me a Bandaid? He saw himself enter the steamy bathroom, reach high into the medicine cabinet for the tin of bandages, take out one and step to the tub where she reclined. The water was murky. Patches of white suds floated on its surface. From her chest rose shiny wet islands, wonderfully round and smooth, each topped by a ruddier kind of skin that jutted up in the center. Looking at the islands made Charles feel strange and squirmy.

His mother held a razor in one hand. Her left leg was out of the water, its foot propped on the rim of the tub under one of the faucet handles. The cut was midway between her knee and the place where the water rippled around the wider part of her leg. I’m afraid I nicked myself shaving, she said.

Charles nodded. He gazed at the wound. He watched the strands of red slide down her gleaming skin. They made the bath water pink between her legs. She had a hairy place down there. He couldn’t see her dingus. He stared, trying to find it even though he knew he shouldn’t be looking at that place. But he couldn’t help himself. He felt sick and tight.

You didn’t cut if off, did you?

Cut off what, honey?

You know, your dingus.

She laughed softly. Oh, darling, mommys don’t have dinguses. Here. And then she took gentle hold of his hand and guided it down into the pink, hot water. She slid it against her body. Against a cut - no, not just a cut - a huge, open gash with slippery edges. He tried to jerk his hand away, but she tightened her grip and kept it there. Go on, feel it, she said.

But doesn’t it hurt? he asked.

Not at all.

It was almost as long as his hand. Warm and slick inside. And very deep. She squirmed a little as his fingers explored.

Her voice had a funny sound to it when she said, I’m made this way. All mommys are. She released his hand, but he kept it there. That’s enough, now, honey. You'd better put that Bandaid on my leg before I bleed to death.

Then Charles had the bandage ready. As he lowered it toward the small bleeding cut on her leg, she said, You aren’t gonna faint or anything, are you? But it wasn’t his mother’s voice. He turned his head. The woman sprawled in the tub was Lynn.

At dawn, groggy and restless, Charles climbed out of bed. He didn’t know whether he had slept at all. Maybe a little. If so, his sleep had been a turmoil of dreams so vivid that they might have been memories or hallucinations.

He felt better after a long shower. Returning to his bedroom, he sat down and stared at the alarm clock. A quarter till six. That gave him just more than ten hours before returning to work at the library. And seeing Lynn again.

He saw her naked beneath him, writhing as he slit into her creamy skin.

‘No!’ he blurted, and stomped his foot on the floor.

There were ways to prevent it. Tricks. He’d worked out lots of tricks over the years to feed his urges - to ease the needs, to keep some control.

Weller Hall seemed huge and empty. Charles knew that it wasn’t empty. But he saw no one as he eased the door shut and made his way to the staircase. Those few students and professors unlucky enough to be burdened with ‘eight-o’clocks’ were already snug in the classrooms, probably yawning and rubbing their eyes and wishing they were still in bed.

He climbed four creaky stairs, then stopped. He listened. Beyond the sounds of his own rough breathing and heartbeat, he heard a distant voice. Probably Dr Chitwood. Dr Shithead to the students who had to suffer through his mandatory (this being a university of Methodist origin) History of Christianity class. Known as Heist of Christ. Not only mandatory, but boring, and forever scheduled for 8 a.m.

It was one of only three classes taking place in Weller Hall on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at such an ungodly hour. Chitwoods’s room was right at the top of the stairs.

Grinning, Charles pulled out his knife. He pried it open and dug into the smooth, worn wood of the banister. He carved a neat, two-inch slot down the rail’s top. He scraped it clean of splinters. Crouching, he ran his thumb over a grimy stair. He rubbed his thumb against the pale cut on the handrail, darkening it with dirt, camouflaging it.

Using needle-nosed pliers, he snugged an injector blade into the slot.

He straightened up and admired his work.

The edge of the blade protruded just a little bit above the surface of the rail. It was hardly visible at all.

Shivering with excitement, Charles hurried outside. He waited on a bench and watched the entrance to Weller Hall.

This’ll be great, he thought. It was always great.

But he’d never done it on campus before. He began to worry about that. He even considered returning to the stairway and pulling out the blade. He could walk into town and set up the trap somewhere else, somewhere safer.

He didn’t want to do that, though. Too often, the trick ended up wasted on somebody old and ugly. He couldn’t take a chance on that happening. He needed to slit a co-ed, a fresh young woman. One like Lynn.

The minutes dragged by. When people began wandering into the building, Charles feared that he might miss the event. He waited a while longer, fidgeting. Then he rose from the bench, trotted up the concrete steps, and rushed inside.

A few students were wandering the corridor, lingering near doorways, entering classrooms. Nobody on the stairs. He strolled to the far side of the hall. He removed a paperback copy of Finnegan’s Wake from his briefcase, opened the book, leaned back against the wall, and pretended to read.

From here, he had a good view of the stairway.

The book trembled in his hands.

He held his breath when a couple of girls walked past him and turned toward the stairway. They looked like freshmen. They acted like freshmen, the way they talked so loudly and laughed and gestured.

The girl on the razor’s side of the stairs held books to her chest with her left arm. Her right arm swung free. At the first stair, she rested her hand on the banister. It slid up the rail as she began to climb.

Her shiny blonde hair swayed against her back. She wore a sleeveless sweatshirt. Her arms were slender and dusky. Her white shorts were very tight. Charles could see the outline of her panties. Skimpy things.

His heart slammed.

As she stepped from the third stair to the fourth, she jerked her hand off the railing.

Got her!

But she didn’t flinch or cry out. She simply chopped her hand through the air. Some kind of damn gesture to accompany whatever inane point she was making to her friend.

She was almost to the landing before her hand returned to the banister.

Charles sighed. He felt robbed.

It’s not over yet, he told himself.

She’d been so perfect, though. Pretty and blonde and slender like Lynn. A few years younger, but otherwise just right.

I couldn’t have seen the look on her face, anyway, he consoled himself.

From above came a thunder of footfalls.

Charles perked up. Heist of Christ was out, the students stampeding to escape. In seconds, the first of them rounded the landing and rushed down the lower flight. Trembling with excitement, Charles watched those near the banister. A boy in the lead. Luckily, his arm was busy clamping books to his hips. Behind him came a lithe brunette, breasts jiggling the front of her T-shirt. But she carried a book bag by its straps and didn’t bother with the rail.

Coming down behind her was a fat guy in a sweatsuit. But behind him was a real beauty with flowing golden hair, her shoulders bare, her torso hugged by a bright yellow tube top. Her hand was on the banister!

Yes!

‘Ow! Shit!’

The fat guy.

No!

He jerked his hand off the railing and halted so abruptly that the blonde nearly crashed into him. He lifted his hand to his crimson, stunned face. Blood dripped off, streaking the front of his sweatshirt. ‘Fuckin’A! Looka this! Jeeeeez!’

Kids started to crowd around him.

Before long, someone would find the razor.

Releasing a long sigh, Charles closed his book. He tucked it under one arm, picked up his briefcase and strolled up the corridor.

Later that morning, after his seminar in Twentieth Century Irish Literature, Charles sat on a park bench along one of the campus walkways. The bench was fairly well hidden by hedges at both ends and an oak to the rear.

He took two X-Acto blades from his briefcase. Each was about an inch in length, V-shaped, with fine sharp edges. At the blunt end of each blade was a tab that could be slid into one of the several handles which were part of the kit. Charles hadn’t brought the handles with him.

With the blades cupped in one hand, he pretended to read Joyce. He watched the walkway. People kept coming by.

Patience, he told himself.

Before he could find time to plant the blades, a couple roosted on the bench across from him. They had bags from the Burger King a block from campus. Charles waited while they ate and gabbed. He waited while they snuggled and kissed. Finally, they wandered away, the guy with his hand down a back pocket of the girl’s short denim skirt.

He checked the walkway. Clear at last!

Working quickly, he planted one blade upright in a green painted slat beside his right thigh. He scooted away from it, then dug a place for the other blade on a slat of the backrest. After checking again for witnesses, he inserted the blade.

Then he roamed across the walkway and settled down on the bench where the sweethearts had wasted so much of his time. They’d left a fry behind. He brushed it to the ground. He opened Finnegan’s Wake, and waited.

People came by. A lot of people. Alone, in pairs, in small groups. Students, instructors, professors, administrators, ground keepers. Male and female. Slender, lovely girls. Plain girls. Slobs.

Into the afternoon, Charles waited.

Nobody sat on the bench.

Nobody.

Still, Charles waited. Over and over again in his mind, beautiful young women sat down on the bench. Their faces twisted and went scarlet. They leaped up, shrieking. They hurried away, blood from gashed buttocks spreading across the seats of shorts and skirts and jeans, blood from ripped backs staining blouses, T-shirts, flowing down the bare skin of those who wore tube tops or other varieties of low-backed garments.

In his best fantasy, it was Lynn who sat on the bench. Wearing a white bikini.

He often returned to that one while he waited.

Lynn stopped in front of him.

He gazed up at her, puzzled. She wasn’t wearing a bikini. She wore a white cotton polo shirt, pink shorts that reached almost to her knees, and white socks and sneakers. Her huge leather shoulder bag hung against her hip.

‘Hi, Charles,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

He shrugged. He tried to smile. He was reasonably certain this was Lynn, not a figment of his imagination.

‘Ready to head on over to the salt mines?’ she asked.

He glanced at his wristwatch. Ten till four. Impossible! he couldn’t have been sitting here that long.

‘I guess it’s time,’ he muttered.

Lynn tilted her head to one side. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I didn’t get much sleep last night.’

‘I had kind of a restless night, myself. So, are you coming?’

‘Sure. Yeah. I guess so.’ He put his book away, lifted his briefcase and rose from the bench. With a last glimpse at the other bench, he started walking with Lynn.

It’s Fate, he thought. He’d tried to direct his need away from Lynn, but his efforts had failed. They were meant to fail. He was being guided by forces beyond his control, forces that had ordained Lynn to bleed for him.

‘Check out my finger,’ she said as they walked along. She raised it in front of his face.

The bandage was gone. Charles saw a tiny curve of white fringe on the pad of her finger. His heart thudded. ‘It looks good,’ he said.

‘Almost as good as new.’ She smiled as her upper arm brushed against him. She lowered the hand to her side. ‘If it wasn’t for your first-aid, no telling what might’ve happened. Who knows? I might’ve bled to death.’

Charles knew she was joking. But his heart pounded even harder. Heat spread through his groin. ‘From a paper cut?’

‘Of course. Happens all the time. It’s the leading cause of death among librarians and editors. Honest to God.’ She looked at him. ‘You do know how to smile, don’t you?’

‘Sure,’ he muttered.

‘Let’s see one.’

He tried.

‘Miserable,’ she said. ‘You know, you’d be a pretty handsome fellow if you’d smile once in a while.’

He gazed at her. He pictured how her face would look with bright red blood streaming down it. He imagined himself licking the blood from her cheeks and lips.

‘That’s more of a leer than a smile, actually,’ Lynn said. ‘But it’ll do. You just need more practice.’

Even after all the books were shelved, Charles stayed in the second-floor stacks.

If he went downstairs, he would see Lynn. She would be sitting on her stool behind the circulation desk, checking books in and out, or maybe wandering the floor, cheerfully offering suggestions to students in need of assistance.

As long as I don’t see her, he told himself, nothing will happen.

A few students came up. Some searched for books, while others slipped into carrels along the far wall and studied. There were girls, but he paid them no attention. It would be Lynn, or no one.

He ducked into a carrel himself. For some unknown reason, it had been placed in a corner away from the lights. That suited him well. He felt snug and hidden.

He folded his arms on the desk top and put his head down.

Maybe I’ll sleep, he thought.

He closed his eyes. He pictured Lynn suspended from a ceiling beam, wrists tied, arms stretched high, feet off the floor. He had no rope, though. Too bad. Go back to his apartment and get some? The emergency exits had alarms. He couldn’t leave the library without passing Lynn’s desk.

Maybe use my belt, instead?

That had worked before. He’d put a loop around the girl’s hands and nailed the other end high on a wall.

No hammer. No nails.

A rope would be better, anyway. Even though he didn’t have one, he liked the image of Lynn hanging helpless. He knew she was wearing a polo shirt. In his mind, however, she wore a regular blouse. With buttons. And he saw himself slicing off the buttons, one by one.

Charles flinched awake when someone stroked the back of his head. Her jerked upright in his chair. Lynn was standing close beside him, frowning down with concern on her shadowy face.

‘You really zonked out,’ she said. Her voice was little more than a whisper in the silence.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t…’

‘That’s okay.’ Her hand stayed on the back of his head, caressing his hair. ‘I was a little worried about you, though. You just disappeared.’

‘I was shelving books up here. I felt so tired…’

‘No problem.' A smile tilted the corners of her mouth. ‘I thought maybe you were trying to avoid me. You’ve been acting so strange ever since last night.’

‘I’ve been feeling pretty strange.’

‘Are you still upset because I cut myself?’

‘In a way, I guess.’ He stood up. The chair made a loud squawk as it was scooted away by the backs of his knees. The noise made him cringe.

‘I haven’t been quite myself, either,’ Lynn said.

He turned to face her. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’ Gazing into his eyes, she took hold of his hands. ‘The way you acted last night… You were so sweet, getting me the bandage and everything, putting it on my finger even though you have that phobia about cuts. I just suddenly realized… how really special you are, Charles.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, you.’ She lifted her hands to his face. Gently caressing his cheeks, she eased against him. She tilted back her head. She pressed her mouth against his lips. After a slow, soft kiss, she looked up into his eyes. ‘We’re all alone,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve already locked up for the night.’

All he could say was, ‘Oh.’ He was trembling. His heart was punching, his breath ragged. His groin was tight and the way Lynn pressed against him, he knew she must be able to feel his erection.

She stepped back to make a space between their bodies. Her hands roamed over his chest. ‘I was awake all night,’ she said. ‘Thinking about you.’

‘I was awake thinking about you, too.’

‘You were?’ He heard a tremor in her voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, man.’ She made a soft, nervous laugh. ‘I should’ve cut myself a long time ago.’

Her trembling fingers unbuttoned his shirt. She spread it open. She kissed his chest.

With one hand, Charles stroked her back. With the other, he dug into the pocket of his pants. He squeezed the plastic handle of his knife.

Staring into his eyes, Lynn plucked at the bottom of her polo shirt. She pulled it free of her shorts, drew it over her head and dropped it to the floor.

Charles felt as if his breath had been sucked from his lungs. He struggled for air.

Lynn fumbled at the waist of her shorts. The garment slipped down her legs. She stepped out of it, nudged it away with her sneaker.

The plastic knife handle felt greasy with sweat.

‘Do you like how I look?’ Lynn whispered.

Charles nodded. ‘You look… beautiful.’

So beautiful. Slender and smooth, naked except for her skimpy white bra and panties, her white socks and sneakers.

She had a calm, dreamy look on her face. A hint of a smile. Arching her back, she reached both arms up behind her.

‘Don’t,’ Charles murmured.

Her eyebrows lifted. ‘I was just going to unhook…’

‘I know. Let me?’

Her smile brightened. ‘Sure.’

Charles pulled out his knife. As he opened the blade, he watched Lynn - ready to grab her if she should try to flee.

Her smile went crooked. She stood motionless, eyes on the knife. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘I have to.’

She lifted her gaze to his face. She seemed to be studying him. Then she shrugged one shoulder. ‘Go ahead, Charles.’

‘Huh?’

‘If you have to, you have to. I’ll buy a new one.’

‘Oh.’

She put her hands on his hips. He felt them shaking slightly. They squeezed him when he cut through each of the shoulder straps. Then he slid his blade under the narrow band between the cups of her bra. She closed her eyes. Her mouth hung open. He heard her raspy breathing. He tugged, severing the band.

The bra fell away.

Lynn opened her eyes. A smile fluttered on her face. ‘This is pretty kinky,’ she said, her voice husky.

She shivered when he rubbed the blade’s blunt edge down the top of her left breast. In the glow of the nearest florescent light, he saw the smooth skin go pebbly with goosebumps. Her nipple grew. He pressed it down with the flat of the blade, and watched it spring up again. Lynn groaned.

She tugged open his belt. She unfastened the button at the waist of his jeans, jerked his zipper down, feverishly yanked his jeans and underwear down his thighs.

Can’t be happening this way, Charles thought. Never had anything like this happen. He wondered if he might be asleep, dreaming.

But he knew that he was very much awake.

Lynn’s fingers curled around him.

‘Do my panties,’ she whispered. ‘With the knife.’

He cut them at the sides. The flimsy fabric drooped, but the panties didn’t fall. They clung between her legs until she reached down. A small pull, and they drifted toward the floor.

‘This is so weird,’ she gasped. ‘I’ve never… nothing like this.’ Her soft, encircling fingers slid on him. Up, and down.

The knife shook as Charles moved it toward her chest. Just above her left breast, he pressed the point against her skin. Gendy. ‘Careful there,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t want to cut me.’

‘I do, actually.’

Her hand slipped away. She stood up very straight, searching his eyes. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘But you hate cuts.’

‘I’m sorry. As a matter of fact, I love them. They… they do something to me.’

‘You mean like they turn you on?’

‘Yes.’

‘But that’s crazy!’

‘I guess so. I’m awfully sorry, Lynn.’

‘Hold on, now.’

‘I have to do it. I have to cut you up.’

‘Oh my God.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re so beautiful, and… I guess I love you.’

‘Charles. No.’

He stared at the knife point denting her skin. A slit all the way down to the tip of her breast…

Lynn grabbed his hand, twisted it. As Charles yelped, the elbow of her other arm crashed against his cheek. Stumbling backward, he heard his knife clatter to the floor. His pants tripped him. He slammed the side of the study carrel and fell.

Lynn scurried, crouched, and came up holding the knife.

Charles got to his knees. He gazed up at her. So beautiful. Scowling at him, naked except for her white socks and sneakers. The blade of the knife in her hand gleamed.

‘Oh, Charles,’ she murmured.

Tears stung his eyes. He hunched over, clasped his face with both hands, and wept.

‘Charles?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he blurted. ‘God, I’m so sorry! I don’t know why I… I’m sorry!’

‘Charles.’ Her voice held a note of command.

He rubbed tears from his eyes and lifted his head.

Lynn stared down at him. She nodded slightly. A corner of her mouth was trembling.

She flicked her wrist. She flinched and grimaced as the blade cut a tiny slit. She closed the knife and lowered it to her side.

Charles watched the thin ribbon of blood. It started just below her collar bone and trickled down. It ran along the top of her breast, split in two, and one strand began a new course down the pale round side while another made its slow way closer to her nipple.

‘Come here,’ Lynn whispered.

Charles was embarrassed horribly the next day in the pharmacy.

Lynn was giggling.

She plopped three boxes of condoms down on the counter. The clerk, a young man, glanced from her to Charles. He looked amused.

‘You got something against safe sex?’ Lynn asked.

The clerk blushed. ‘No. Huh-uh.’

Charles wanted to curl up and die.

‘Ring these up, too, while you’re at it.’ Onto the counter, Lynn tossed three tins of adhesive bandages.