The Night Church Part 17

How much sanity did she have left? Her composure was growing threadbare. It occurred to him he could, just possibly, help her in his lab. With him at the controls of his equipment there would be no need for the unpredictable 6-6-6.

If he couldn't find out what he he had forgotten about that night, perhaps she would be more accessible. At least then she would no longer fear the unknown. had forgotten about that night, perhaps she would be more accessible. At least then she would no longer fear the unknown.

He looked at her, his heart pounding with love. If it was me. If it was me! me. If it was me!

He did not broach the subject of the lab at once. Instead he waited until they were in the apartment.

They lay quietly together, still fully dressed, on her bed.

"I could find out what you're hiding from yourself," he murmured.

"Oh?"

"In my lab. I really think I could."

"Don't talk about it now. Anyway, if that police hypnotist-"

"Primitive techniques."

"I thought you were out of school for the summer."

"I can always use the lab. The equipment's just sitting there."

"As long as I'm agreeable."

"Not much chance of that, right?"

"Oh, come on, Jonathan! I'm nothing if not agreeable. I'll smile cheerfully during that breakfast. Go humbly to Lourdes. And don't think I won't let you study my head. In the end I probably will."

"Good. We can go this afternoon."

"No, please, darling. I don't think I have the strength."

"Okay, I can understand that."

"But you're disappointed."

"I think if you could remember what happened, you might not suffer so much. The fear of the unknown is the worst thing."

"Maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe? What could be worse?"

She took his hands. "The known," she whispered. "The known is always worse." She rolled across the bed, touched his face. "Part of the problem is that people are trying too hard to help me. They already filled me so full of x-rays at the hospital that I practically scorched my sheets when they rolled me back to my bed. Anyway, your machine's irrele-vant. They also did a CAT scan, which is the definitive brain test."

"I don't x-ray. What I do is make a model of the brain's electrical function. I'm not interested in whether or not it's damaged in some subtle way, but what part of it the thoughts are coming from. I can tell if you're remembering a dream, a reality, or even telling a lie. Believe me, no hospital can do that. Safe too, as long as I don't monkey around with drugs. I can distinguish between truth and lies better than any lie detector.Far better."

"I'm not lying. I just can't remember."

"But there are s.n.a.t.c.hes. Bits and pieces that you do remember."

"I remember people shouting. I remember being lifted up. And darkness. Absolute, black darkness."

"I'll bet we could reconstruct a great deal even from those few impressions."

"Are you sure you want to?"

"Good G.o.d, of course I'm sure!"

She laughed that knife-sharp laugh once again. "You mad scientists will stop at nothing to convince a subject. Next thing I know you'll be saying you can cure my legs."

"I won't say that. But I won't say it's out of the question either. If I could find out what's wrong-"

"Nothing is wrong! Oh, h.e.l.l, Jonathan, Mike and the Holy Namers are right. It's between me and the Blessed Virgin now. Lourdes is probably where I belong." belong."

"Then I demand equal time for science. Let me do a thought-source map."

She frowned. Then she smiled. "I told you I'd give in. One of these days. But there are lots of other Good Samaritans in line ahead of you." The smile became too brilliant. "Holy Name breakfast, here I come.Marvelous! Rubber eggs? Love 'em!"

It hurt terribly to hear her pain. He enfolded her in his arms, and they wept a little together. Finally Jonathan spoke again. "It's a beautiful morning, my love. Let's do our best with it."

"I think that's a wonderful idea, Jonathan." She clutched at him. He kissed her.

"I love you, Patricia. I want to make love to you." At the sound of his own words his heart started beating harder. He was amazed at himself, and at the stunning intensity of the need that had burst forth in him as soon as he spoke.

"Don't you want to get to the breakfast on time?" Her eyes actually twinkled.

"The h.e.l.l with the breakfast." He tried to kiss her lips again but this time got her cheek.

"Mike'll give you a hard time if I don't show up."

"I can handle Mike."

"You're sure?"

"Darling, I don't know how to ask this. I mean, is it safe and all for you to do it?"

"It ought to be," she whispered, "If you're gentle."

There had been a moment once before, in this same bedroom, just as they had embraced on this same cheerful yellow coverlet, when- The hand of his fear clutched at his throat, constricted it, dried it to ash.

But she took his face in her hands and gazed at him. "We have to some time, Jonathan."

He dared not express his own fear when hers tormented her so. He hugged her.

Perhaps she sensed some of that fear, though, because she spoke in a tone of rea.s.surance. "It's going to be wonderful, darling. Just enjoy yourself. Don't be worried. The doctor said I could do anything I wanted."

She unsnapped his belt and opened his zipper.

Through the delicious film of his excitement he sensed something dark and slick and dangerous to them both.

The serpent was sensitive to these things; the serpent could smell pa.s.sion.

She poised her hand above the shaft of his p.e.n.i.s, then began stroking it. "Oh, it feels almost like silk." She touched the gleaming tip of it. "I thought it would be like a bone or something."

The serpent was uncoiling in Jonathan. Is love also death? Am I death?

No. Now whose fears are running away with him? You are a perfectly normal man. Your perfectly ordinary love is not deadly.

He could tear her throat out with his teeth.

She regarded him. "You're like an angel with the genitals of an ape." She giggled. He watched her through a haze of pleasure and growing horror. With trembling hands he reached around her neck and undid her blouse. Then came the bra, then the skirt and the panties.

Her flesh, so perfect, so rich and full and young that it almost left him breathless, glowed in the soft bedroom light. There was only a small scar, bright red, coming up halfway to her navel from her mound of Venus.

"Now you've seen the defect."

"I think you are the most beautiful human being I have ever seen." He touched her full and perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He was awed.

"Can you stand my scar? Oh, say you can!" In answer he finished undressing himself, straddled her, bent forward and began kissing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s each in turn, tasting the faint saltiness of her skin, touching her nipples with his tongue until they were fully engorged.

Inside him the serpent slithered quickly forth, sweeping the coils of its hatred into his mind, bit by bit possessing him.

He fumbled down below and she took his shaft again and guided it in. The sensation was stunning. For a moment he simply sank down on her, unable to move. It was as if the whole lower half of his body had become a blazing comet of pure excitement.

Then the serpent opened a door in his mind. He looked around himself with new eyes, at the blowing curtains, the partly opened closet, the radiant, pleasuring face beneath his own. He thrust.

"Ouch. Too rough."

"Sorry." His own voice was a rumble. He was scared; he had wanted to thrust even harder. He saw that scar opening again, only wider this time. He wanted to laugh, to scream with derisive laughter.

"Uh oh. Jonathan, this isn't going to work." He thrust again. "Hey, I'm sensitive. Take it easy." The pleasure had gone out of her face, replaced by apprehension. Tears were starting in her eyes.

He strove against himself, fighting the next and harder thrust with all the force he had in him. Finally, trembling, battling his own raging instincts, he drew himself free.

There was silence between them. Then, slowly, bravely, she smiled. "It's a little too soon for the heavy stuff, darling. But just to make it up to you I'd like to do something I've always fantasized about. Okay?"

He managed to speak. "Maybe we'd better call it off. Wait a while longer."

"There's something I could do-oh, I'm such a silly I can't even get up the nerve to say it!" She swallowed. "Here goes." She turned to him, pressed her lips against his ear. "Soixante-neuf." "Soixante-neuf."

"What?"

"You know. Sixty-nine." A blush flared on her cheeks. Without a further word, praying that the lesser acts of the bedroom would be ignored by his demon, Jonathan knelt above her, then bent forward. As he moved his lips upon her richly dampened and sharp-scented v.a.g.i.n.a, he felt her take his p.e.n.i.s.

He thrust a little and heard her choke. He knew that even in this was terrible danger. The serpent was fully awake now, crawling about in his unconscious, seeking access to his outer being.

She tasted wonderful; he had never known that such a flavor existed. His own s.e.xual contacts before had been limited to the frantic couplings of adolescence.

She was sucking and licking him, bringing him very rapidly to completion. But the snake was quick. The snake was going to get out, he knew it was. What anger he felt, and what glee. Suddenly her back arched and the rhythm of her own efforts was interrupted. Then her fingers clutched his b.u.t.tocks, instinctively sought the intimate area there.

That did it. He simply exploded into her mouth. She jerked her head back, then, in an instant, had disengaged from him. She laughed aloud.

"I'm sorry. I hope I didn't-"

"You were lovely."

Yes. I was lovely. One more moment and I would have been ugly beyond belief.

You poor, deluded girl. Beware who you love.

Chapter Eleven.

FARRELL'S, WITH ITS red vinyl booths and its Formica bar and its smell of Sunday bacon and eggs, made Jonathan feel the small relief of being in a friendly place.

In the ultimate moment of his pleasure he had seen something within himself so dark and alien that it seemed scarcely human at all. He could only hope that the serpent was an aftereffect of the drug he had taken, and that it would wear off.

He had wanted to thrust. thrust. Such movement taken to a level of almost superhuman violence had been what had caused Patricia's greatest injuries. Such movement taken to a level of almost superhuman violence had been what had caused Patricia's greatest injuries.

Superhuman violence.

Tommy himself opened the door to the famous Backroom. Jonathan wheeled Patricia in. Inwardly he was desperate. How could he dare to love her? How could he help it? Now that he had seen the true miracle of her beauty and tasted her secret essence, she seemed invested with magical light, as if a G.o.ddess.

Would he kill a G.o.ddess?

Lately he had been retreating to a fantasy of another life, very different from this one. They shared it in peace and privacy and love.

I want her. Even the wheelchair-it doesn't concern me. I want her so much.

Image of the snake: the shadow in the deep, rising to movement above.

His fantasy was of a house on the Pacific coast of Mex-ico-not Puerto Vallarta or one of those tourist traps, but some exotic and hidden vilage where you could rent an old vila. They'd have a pool overlooking the Pacific, and from poolside you'd see yachts and sailboats in the near water, and maybe a cruise s.h.i.+p sparkling on the horizon.

He had a running dream of what they'd do there. She'd want the sun, he'd want s.e.x. He figured they could make love three or four times a day at least. She'd laugh, she'd ask him if he ever got tired. They'd bake awhile in the sun, then go into the air-conditioned bedroom and make love and her skin would taste of sun and coconut oil, and then maybe they'd drink awhile by the pool. . . .

Not a very uncommon fantasy. Just an everyday man's dream. No serpents.

He was jarred from his fantasy by the reality of the room they had entered. Farrell's Backroom was a fluorescent bedlam. Along one wall was a bar covered in wood-grained shelf paper. Behind it was a ma.s.sive mirror completely outlined in blue fluorescent tubing, with a red Farrell's sign in the middle. The ceiling was outlined in more blue tubing, as were the mirrors around the walls. There were round tables with black tablecloths and red napkins on them, and a bandstand that, thank whatever saint presided over the suppression of bad music, was empty of everything except a ma.s.sive red fluorescent F on the wall behind it. The room went zzzt! zzzt! zzz-zzzt! and the gray-green specters that were Mike and Mary and friends looked as if their blood had been replaced by phlegm.

Mike turned, gave Jonathan a look that said, al right, so it's ludicrous, then went back to the conversation he was having with Mary and Lieutenant Maxwell.

"You've obviously, never had the pleasure of coming here," Patricia said acidly. "I love what it does to makeup." The women looked like they were wearing wax masks. Their eyes were glittering holes.