In the bathroom, which was right where he’d said it would be, Corrin flicked on the light and breathed a deep breath. The time was neigh: important, before beginning a dance, to ensure that you are well stretched, making sure your apparel is in proper working order, to optimize performance. Corrin undid a small caravan of bronze buttons and slid first pants, then panties down to her ankles. It had been ages since she’d taken the time to trim and groom certain nether-vegetation-growths and a bushman (pun) would have winced at what her new-found nudity exposed: sprawling expanses of curly foliage even the world’s most renowned adventurers could have lost themselves in. There wasn’t anything she could do about that now. What was, well, was. Reaching over she tugged a few squares of toilet paper off a well-oiled roll and dabbed herself clean, after finishing sliding first a single finger and, once alleviating her fears of unused-tightness, added a second for good measure. No pain. A good sign. With a second helping of teddybear-soft paper she removed whatever round one had missed, satisfied that she’d done all there was to do and pulled her garments back up into place, listening for signs of movement outside the oaken door and hearing none. He would still be leaning on the counter, eyes focused on the last patch of space she’d existed in before exiting, object permanence, awaiting her return. Were they thinking the same thoughts, some undiscovered secret-neural-network, both of them imagining a mutual, passionate, bodily entwinement? Oh, but what about work? How long had she been gone? Could look at your watch, Corrin. No. Don’t do that. If you know how late it is already, how little time the two of you have left before the return trip then that’s all you’ll think about. Suck romance through the worry straw and all you’ll taste is air. Better to not know. Leave it to the mystery that brought you here in the first place, leave it to this enigmatic white knight. He’ll take care of you. He already knows everything, a hell of a lot more than he should, which, you know, is kind of eerie, or at least it would be under different circumstances, but… Oh, Christ! How do you explain what’s happening here? How can something so unnatural feel so… well… natural? Corrin… seriously? Do you even care? Go with your gut on this one. What does your gut tell you?
Gut says, “Honey, baby, the tables of loneliness have finally turned.”
Gut says, “Here is exactly what you’ve been waiting for and you are the dumbest human being to ever grace the hills and valleys of God’s green earth if you walk away now.”
Gut is very wise.
How can you ignore advice like that? And hey, if you wont listen to reason than how about your loins? Didn’t you say before that even if all this ended up being was a good, honest, no-strings-attached fuck that you were in, all the way (ha ha!) anyway? So what are you worried about? Just because there’s much, muchmuchmuch more to his man than you can guess at doesn’t mean… doesn’t mean anything. God! Why the hell are you obsessing over this? Who cares about work! You’ve been stuck in limbo for seven, seven years and regardless of what’s going on here the simple fact of the matter is that you. are. here. Not there. Even if you go back that part is over. You’re animate again and if you’re gonna move then you may as well move forward and if the end of this game is all smoke-and-mirrors, outside of all these little fantasies of yours, then all the more reason. Give into the uncertainty, Corrin. Give in to the mystery. Give in to nature.
Just let it all go and go.
So she did exactly that: she shut off every and all brain function that contradicted “logic,” visualized it, as she had so recently visualized her Teller’s-Row-Purgatory forever-and-a-day-ago, and pushing it behind her took an over-exaggerated, bold step across exactly three white linoleum tiles and relinquished it to whatever realm discarded things come to exist in, bring herself back to the “now.” That done she turned to the most likely place on the wall, above the sink, where a mirror would reside, to check her hair, skin pigmentation, general beauty suchandsuches, but encountered only wall. So, naturally, she let those worn eyes of hers scan about the remaining wall space and to a mild surprise saw no reflective surfaces of any kind.
How… odd.
“E.?” There was no answer, at least not a vocal one. She heard a scuffling of shoe soles outside, close maybe but hard to tell. She called his name again, this time what may have been a grunt wafted toward her but she couldn’t transfix the point of origin. She walked over to the door, talking as she turned the knob.
“Why don’t you have any mirrors in here?”
His answer came immediately, the first syllable skipping not a single beat of the cadence their joint vocalizations created.
“Because I don’t like what I see.”
The door opened with the tug of her arm and there he was, not two inches away. She opened her mouth to say… but it didn’t matter what she was going to say, the words so newly sprung across her language centers were instantly erased by the oddest sensation in her chest, just to the left of her breastbone, around the place where she’d once been taught her heart to be. It wasn’t painful, more like a weak, playful punch but it pushed the air out of her lungs and every thought save one out of her head.
Standing directly over E. Tromal’s left shoulder, as if he’d materialized out of thin air, wearing the last blue suite, hounds tooth and neatly pressed, she’d seen him wear, hair combed back poorly, a bit of those persistent curls renegading forward over the baby-soft skin of his forehead, with a warm, welcoming smile and two bright, shining eyes full of nothing but love and longing was Charles, her Charles, a hand held out to her…
“Charles…?’ She heard herself say, the words rolling out her mouth on the last two puffs of breath her lungs had to give.
“Go to him,” E. Tromal whispered, so delicate, so soft, compassionate even, with a loving smile of his own.
That smile reflected itself on Corrin’s face, lips pulling back as the light, once of loneliness but never again, faded out of her eyes. The knife slid effortlessly out of her as she sank, gracefully, peacefully, to the floor.
He stood over the body for a moment, the dripping edge of the knife mimicking the corner of his right eye, a tear for every drop of blood claimed by gravity and what lay below. He never wept fully, was hardly conscious of his crying at all. For that brief period, a matter of seconds, he was all love and understanding, an altruistic euphoria sweeping over and through him… and then the internal mechanizations of order were beginning to grind once more, as naturally and organically as they always had.
The time had come to get to work.
He set the knife in the sink, turning the hot water tap on to keep the blood from coagulating on the blade and bent over the body, tugging off the watch, looking for more jewelry, finding none (which he’d anticipated), going through pockets, collecting every bit of non-combustible metal he could find; the left hip pocket yielded the second piece in a matching set of engraved nuptial rings (he’d later tie them together with a small bit of twine) which he carefully set aside. He was thorough because he had to be. This body was not long from the furnace and all traces had to be erased to avoid Bigger problems. It was tedious work and slow going but he didn’t mind.
It’s amazing how even something as morbid as the disposal of a human corpse can become routine, he mused. Any passion this rite may once have held, or any ill-ease, even paranoia, had long since fallen away. He could have been taking out the trash, bathing, urinating, any one of these common activates so mechanical that they’re more often than not done without conscientious motion, the body animate of its own accord, temporary breaks in mental/physical symbiosis. E. Tromal’s mind wasn’t really mechanical in its separate ward so much as if he were the machine itself, operated by some heretofore unidentified third party, pulling levers, accelerating and breaking, giving quick or subtle turns of various steering apparatuses. He could feel his muscles tighten and loosen by gas-powered belts.
Eventually a thought did appear, starting as a horizon-speck and creeping cautiously forward as he finished cleaning and walked with an experienced, nimble step down the concrete cellar stairs, the body slung sack-like over his shoulder, bobbing with the slow staccato motions of decent. It began as a hum, quiet, without emphasis or emotion, bass and minor as the darkest funeral dirge, a lone lament void of pleasure. Lyrics weren’t far behind:
There is nothing so certain, sang he
No nothing more certain could be
There is nothing so certain
In all of this world
No nothing so certain as me.
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