'How?' as in, *How did you know* and *How can you fix it*? but itjust came out in a little squeak, and he grinned like Christmas was backon and said, 'Does it really matter?'
"I told him it didn't, and then we went back to his place in KensingtonMarket and he kissed me in the living room, then he took me upstairs tothe bathroom and took off my shirt and he --"
"He cut you," Alan said.
"He fixed me," she said.
Alan reached out and petted her wings through her jacket. "Were youbroken?"
"Of *course* I was," she snapped, pulling back. "I couldn't *talk* topeople. I couldn't *do* anything. I wasn't a person," she said.
"Right," Alan said. "I'm following you."
She looked glumly at the road unraveling before them, grey and hissingwith rain. "Is it much farther?" she said.
"An hour or so, if I remember right," he said.
"I know how stupid that sounds," she said. "I couldn't figure out if hewas some kind of pervert who liked to cut or if he was some kind ofpervert who liked girls like me or if I was lucky or in trouble. But hecut them, and he gave me a towel to bite on the first time, but I neverneeded it after that. He'd do it quick, and he kept the knife sharp, andI was able to be a person again -- to wear cute clothes and go where Iwanted. It was like my life had started over again."
The hills loomed over the horizon now, low and rolling up toward themountains. One of them was his. He sucked in a breath and the carwavered on the slick road. He pumped the brakes and coasted them to astop on the shoulder.
"Is that it?" she said.
"That's it," he said. He pointed. His father was green and craggy andsmaller than he remembered. The body rolled in the trunk. "I feel --" hesaid. "We're taking him home, at least. And my father will know what todo."
"No boy has ever taken me home to meet his folks," she said.
Alan remembered the little fist in the dirt. "You can wait in the car ifyou want," he said.
#
Krishna came home,
(she said, as they sat in the parked car at a wide spot in the highway,looking at the mountains on the horizon)
Krishna came home,
(she said, after he'd pulled off the road abruptly, put the car intopark, and stared emptily at the mountains ahead of them)
Krishna came home,
(she said, lighting a cigarette and rolling down the window and lettingthe shush of the passing cars come fill the car, and she didn't look athim, because the expression on his face was too terrible to behold)
and he came through the door with two bags of groceries and a bottle ofwine under one arm and two bags from a ravewear shop on Queen Streetthat I'd walked past a hundred times but never gone into.
He'd left me in his apartment that morning, with his television and hisbooks and his guitar, told me to make myself at home, told me to call insick to work, told me to take a day for myself. Ifelt...*glorious*. Gloried *in*. He'd been so attentive.
He'd touched me. No one had touched me in so long. No one had *ever*touched me that way. He'd touched me with...*reverence*. He's gottenthis expression on his face like, like he was in *church* orsomething. He'd kept breathing something too low for me to hear and whenhe put his lips right to my ear, I heard what he'd been saying allalong, "Oh God, oh God, my God, oh God," and I'd felt a warmness likeslow honey start in my toes and rise through me like sap to the roots ofmy hair, so that I felt like I was saturated with something hot andsweet and delicious.
He came home that night with the makings of a huge dinner with boiledsoft-shell crabs, and a bottle of completely decent Chilean red, andthree dresses for me that I could never, ever wear. I tried to keep thedisappointment off my face as he pulled them out of the bag, because I*knew* they'd never go on over my wings, and they were *so* beautiful.
"This one will look really good on you," he said, holding up a Heididress with a scoop neck that was cut low across the back, and I felt ahot tear in the corner of my eye. I'd never wear that dress in front ofanyone but him. I couldn't, my wings would stick out a mile.
I knew what it meant to be different: It meant living in the secondfloor with the old Russian Auntie, away from the crowds and theireyes. I knew then what I was getting in for -- the rest of my life spenthidden away from the world, with only this man to see and speak to.
I'd been out in the world for only a few years, and I had barely touchedit, moving in silence and stealth, watching and not being seen, but oh,I had *loved it*, I realized. I'd thought I'd hated it, but I'd lovedit. Loved the people and their dialogue and their clothes and theirmysterious errands and the shops full of goods and every shopper huntingfor something for someone, every one of them part of a story that Iwould never be part of, but I could be *next to* the stories and thatwas enough.
I was going to live in an attic again.
I started to cry.
He came to me. he put his arms around me. He nuzzled my throat andlicked up the tears as they slid past my chin. "Shhh," he said. "Shhh."
He took off my jacket and my sweater, peeled down my jeans and mypanties, and ran his fingertips over me, stroking me until I quietened.
He touched me reverently still, his breath hot on my skin. No one hadever touched me like that. He said, "I can fix you."
I said, "No one can fix me."
He said, "I can, but you'll have to be brave."
I nodded slowly. I could do brave. He led me by the hand into thebathroom and he took a towel down off of the hook on the back of thedoor and folded it into a long strip. He handed it to me. "Bite down onthis," he said, and helped me stand in the tub and face into the corner,to count the grid of tiles and the greenish mildew in the grout.
"Hold still and bite down," he said, and I heard the door close behindme. Reverent fingertips on my wing, unfolding it, holding it away frommy body.
"Be brave," he said. And then he cut off my wing.
It hurt so much, I pitched forward involuntarily and cracked my headagainst the tile. It hurt so much I bit through two thicknesses oftowel. It hurt so much my legs went to mush and I began to sit downquickly, like I was fainting.
He caught me, under my armpits, and held me up, and I felt something icypressed to where my wing had been -- I closed my eyes, but I heard theleathery thump as my wing hit the tile floor, a wet sound -- and gauzyfabric was wrapped around my chest, holding the icy towel in place overthe wound, once twice thrice, between my tits.
"Hold still," he said. And he cut off the other one.
I screamed this time, because he brushed the wound he'd left the firsttime, but I managed to stay upright and to not crack my head onanything. I felt myself crying but couldn't hear it, I couldn't hearanything, nothing except a high sound in my ears like a dog whistle.
He kissed my cheek after he'd wound a second bandage, holding a secondcold compress over my second wound. "You're a very brave girl," hesaid. "Come on."
He led me into the living room, where he pulled the cushions off hissofa and opened it up to reveal a hide-a-bed. He helped me lie down onmy belly, and arranged pillows around me and under my head, so that Iwas facing the TV.
"I got you movies," he said, and held up a stack of DVD rental boxesfrom Martian Signal. "We got *Pretty in Pink*, *The Blues Brothers*,*The Princess Bride*, a Robin Williams stand-up tape and a reallyfunny-looking porno called *Edward Penishands*."
I had to smile in spite of myself, in spite of the pain. He stepped intohis kitchenette and came back with a box of chocolates. "Truffles," hesaid. "So you can laze on the sofa, eating bonbons."
I smiled more widely then.
"Such a beautiful smile," he said. "Want a cup of coffee?"
"No," I said, choking it out past my raw-from-screaming throat.
"All right," he said. "Which video do you want to watch?"
"*Princess Bride*," I said. I hadn't heard of any of them, but I didn'twant to admit it.
"You don't want to start with Edward Penishands?"
#
Alan stood out front of th
e video shop for a while, watching Nataliewait on her customers. She was friendly without being perky, and it wasclear that the mostly male clientele had a bit of a crush on her, as didher mooning, cow-eyed co-worker who was too distracted to efficientlyshelve the videos he pulled from the box before him. Alan smiled. Hiringcute girls for your shop was tricky business. If they had brains, they'dsell the hell out of your stock and be entertaining as hell; but a lotof pretty girls (and boys!) had gotten a free ride in life and gotaffronted when you asked them to do any real work.
Natalie was clearly efficient, and Alan knew that she wasn't afraid ofhard work, but it was good