Tampa

chapter twelve

Though we’d escaped any legal consequences from Buck’s interruption, the sex with Jack had definitely suffered. Puerile buoyancy no longer poured from him like an energy source. This had been one of my favorite things about our sessions together; I was determined to get it back. Prior to the incident, if a camera had been trained on Jack’s face during intercourse, the viewer might’ve guessed he was jumping on a trampoline: the underwater sway of his hair combined with the wordless marvel in his bouncing face made him look nearly airborne when he was on top of me. Now there was a sullen determination to the way he went about the task. When he inserted himself, he did so with a concentrated silence, watching as though our two parts could never fit together without his direct oversight. His eyes, squinting with focus, made him seem like a burdened metalworker performing an arduous task on a lathe. “Don’t scowl,” I had to remind him all the time now. “It causes wrinkles.”

I thought the introduction of props and toys might add some much-needed levity, but this was tricky: my own arousal was based on the juxtaposition of Jack’s long-standing innocence and budding carnality—vibrating cock rings and French ticklers might pique his interest, but they would do so at the expense of my own. If Jack’s requests began to grow more adult and lurid, the effect would be just as offensive to me as his body maturing.

My creative suggestions, therefore, had to be homespun deeds of inverted kink that came from the corruption of something wholesome. I tried having him wear his old Halloween costumes and sports equipment while I pleasured him—a favorite of mine was the now-too-small cup that had been part of his junior soccer uniform. It barely held him; his genitals spilled out from its edges, like a snake-in-the-can practical joke that had been halfheartedly pushed back inside after popping open.

But nothing seemed to nudge Jack back into the mode of abandon I was searching for. The problem, I soon realized, wasn’t simply between us. The way Jack would flinch at the slightest noise when we were alone, the moments during sex when I’d open my eyes to find that Jack’s gaze wasn’t trained on me at all but on his closed bedroom door, made it clear he couldn’t let the catastrophe of Buck finding us together go: it had left Jack with a post-traumatic stress disorder that was heartily interfering with my getting off. It felt like Jack and I were never alone. At every moment, Buck’s leering, potbellied ghost was pressing in upon us at the periphery, threatening to suffocate the best aspects of my relationship with Jack for good.

What was needed was a dual act of revenge upon Buck—a plan that Jack and I could execute together as a team to show him that his father didn’t hold any real power over us. What Jack no doubt really wanted—for his father to know that Jack alone sexually fulfilled me—obviously wasn’t possible; we couldn’t demonstrate for Buck what amazing orgasms I achieved atop his son. But I realized with heavy delight one Friday that we actually could do something a little bit close.

“Jack,” I proposed, my expression flushed and gleeful. “Let’s drug your father tonight.”

I hadn’t predicted hesitation on Jack’s behalf, but he wasn’t so sure; he asked a long series of prudent questions and didn’t agree until I’d sufficiently explained every aspect of it—“You’re sure he won’t feel sick the next day? Won’t he know something happened?” I felt as though Jack was a dubious employee at some stickler government agency and I was applying for a building permit but hadn’t met the zoning requirements. Every detail had to be disclosed before he’d sign off.

He was eventually convinced, and perhaps a small bit frightened, when I relayed how often I’d gone about the process with Ford. “At worst your dad will have a headache or sleep in late tomorrow,” I promised. “I do this to my husband all the time.”

Jack laughed with worried eyes, unsure if I’d made a joke. When he realized I hadn’t, he brought a fingernail to his teeth and chewed for a while. “You’ve never done that to me?” he hesitantly asked, thinking back on whether or not he’d ever abruptly fallen asleep in my company.

“It’s a way of getting a break from people I don’t enjoy, Jack. I’d have no reason to do it to you.” This was what I hoped the evening would convey to Jack most of all: it was us vs. them. Buck and Ford were on the other side of the equation.

That evening, we agreed I’d indulge Buck’s invitation to stay for dinner. Once we were all seated and the wine was poured, I made a request for hot sauce. “I’m feeling spicy tonight,” I said to Buck, who lit up at the connotation with palpable hope.

“Jack,” Buck ordered, chewing, “can you go grab the hot sauce?”

My stomach sank. I hadn’t planned on it being a challenge to get access to Buck’s wineglass, but he hadn’t left my side since he’d gotten home. When we’d sat down at the table, Buck had scooted his chair so close to mine that I could smell the vinegary mix of merlot and marinated beef on his breath.

But Jack surprised me, his voice a perfect hue of casual teenage defiance. “You go get it,” he replied, his eyes not leaving his plate. “She’s your girlfriend.”

Buck’s satisfaction on hearing this intimate term and possessive pronoun applied to me completely outweighed any sense of umbrage at Jack’s not obeying. Smiling, he rose from his chair and headed to the kitchen. This was exactly what we’d wanted to happen, though I couldn’t help feeling a small bite of irritation at how clever Jack’s response had been. It hinted toward an ability to mislead that I didn’t particularly want him to have. But the callow lack of modesty in his too-pleased smile as I whispered over to him, “Nice job,” erased my discomfort entirely: Jack was merely pleased that he’d pleased me. He’d done it for the greater good.

Taking the small envelope out of my pocket and emptying it into Buck’s wineglass, I sloshed it around a few times until the powder fully dissolved. The anticipation of having Jack inside me with Buck’s unconscious body there as a witness made me impatient; when Buck returned, I immediately extended my glass for a toast. “To feeling the heat,” I said. Buck’s glass clinked with my own.

“I’ll say.” He winked.

Since it was the start of the weekend, and having received optimistic clues from me, Buck was in party mode. He burned through the glass and poured another in a matter of minutes. It was hard for Jack and me not to laugh as Buck began to nod off, his head falling fully supine against his sternum while the two of us pretended to continue having a normal conversation. “It’s a warm winter, even by Florida’s standards,” I remarked. “Global warming? What do you think, Jack?”

Jack giggled. “Scary stuff.” I took a swig of wine directly from the bottle and passed it to Jack, who also drank.

“Scary stuff indeed. Buck, what do you think?” We both turned to view the fallen crown of his head. “What’s that? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”

It wasn’t long before we were giddy, partially buzzed but also delighted at Buck’s incapacitation. “Do we leave him at the table?” Jack asked.

“Let’s drag him to bed. He won’t second-guess waking up there.” Jack stood and walked over to his father, giving him a few firm testing pokes on the forehead before grabbing Buck’s hair and using it to pull his head upright. He looked into his father’s gaped-open mouth, pulled up one of Buck’s eyelids and peered into the hollow shine of a vacant pupil.

“He seems totally dead.” Jack gave me an apprehensive smile that was only half-joking. “We didn’t accidentally kill him, did we?”

I walked over to join Jack in peering down the wine-stained tunnel of Buck’s throat. “I didn’t give him enough to kill him. Should I have?”

Jack stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed, while I tried to appear earnest, but soon enough I’d broken into hysterical laughter and Jack followed. We began a comical procession of lugging Buck to the bedroom; occasionally his head would bonk up against the wall of the hallway and one of us would say, “Oops!” Then we’d laugh so hard we’d have to put him down for a bit until we regained composure.

When we finally pulled Buck up onto his bed, I began unbuttoning Jack’s pants. Jack started to stand but I pulled him back down with me to the mattress. “Don’t you want to go to my room?” Jack asked.

“Let’s do it in front of him. He’s out, believe me.” Spying a glass of water on the nightstand, I grabbed the cup and poured a small amount of water onto Buck’s forehead. There was the quiet slapping sound of droplets hitting against skin, then a few whispered laughs from Jack. “See? He won’t wake up no matter what we do.” I dropped my bra over Buck’s eyes, followed by my panties—if it had been his father’s face that was bothering Jack, now it was covered up. But this felt like a form of aversion therapy that Jack needed to undergo. He was clearly still stressed about his father having found us, about Buck’s having masturbated inside of me, and here was a way to prove that neither of those things mattered: that Buck, in fact, was helpless.

Jack didn’t seem to understand the empowering angle of the setup. He had an erection but his eyes kept scanning the bedroom, eventually returning to the body lying next to us. “I… I don’t think I can do this,” he finally said.

“Close your eyes,” I said. Taking him deep into my mouth, I began sucking with a zeal and precision reserved for when I needed to get my way. Soon he was moaning, gingerly thrusting against my tongue. I turned around and placed him inside me, climbing over Buck’s body so that my arms and legs were on either side of Buck’s torso as Jack pounded through to climax, the mattress rocking. Buck’s slippered feet hanging off the bed’s edge moved from right to left in a steady flutter.

When we were finished I asked Jack to get me a pen and a piece of paper. While he was gone, I took off Buck’s slippers, pants, and boxers, leaving him completely naked from the waist down save for his socks.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked when he returned. His voice was tinged with fear; he was staring at his father’s penis.

“I can get credit for tonight without ever having to touch him.” I wrote a note, unsigned, that read, You were great—thanks and left it on Buck’s nightstand. I had the urge to reach inside my panties, grab a fingerful of Jack’s spunk and trace it across Buck’s lips, but I didn’t want Jack to see me; he wouldn’t understand why I was doing it.

I found it odd that Jack didn’t call me either day that weekend. Usually there’d be at least one offer, even if the window of time was so short that he knew I’d reject it. (“Just come over,” Jack would sometimes plead. “He’s having a beer in the neighbor’s backyard. It’s enough time for something. I could put my thumb inside you. You could lick my shoulder blades.”) When Monday came Jack entered right with the bell and seemed distracted the whole period, staring at either the ceiling or the floor but never anywhere in between. It was enough to raise my anxiety to the extent that when Jack approached my desk after class and stated he had to talk, I got an immediate diarrheal cramp and felt tears beginning to sting my eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Your dad woke up okay, didn’t he?”

Jack’s forehead crinkled slightly. “Yeah. I um, wondered what we’re going to do for Valentine’s Day.”

It had always been my most loathed of the holidays since sex with Ford was inescapable. But perhaps Jack’s interest foretold a conversion on my behalf; I might now get to experience it as so many others did—a day of carnal gluttony instead of torture. I sat down at the desk and reached into the top drawer, pulling out a bowl of candy and offering him some.

“Blow Pop?” He shook his head but I took one and began unwrapping, imagining the lollipop tracing against the blond fuzz of Jack’s abdomen like a sticky wand. Stretching my lips across the sucker, I twisted it between them in a hyperbolic way as a visual aid and removed it with a dramatic pop. “Valentine’s, sure. What did you have in mind?”

The actual holiday fell on a Tuesday, meaning Buck’s schedule afforded Jack and me only an hour to complete a quick act of sixty-nine and a game of Nintendo Mario Kart, but Jack insisted on a weekend excursion. I hardly remember how Ford and I observed the occasion, mainly because I’d drugged myself after getting back from Jack’s house; Ford had switched shifts that evening to arrive home earlier, and we’d gone somewhere bland to eat, then had the planned act of cornball sexual variety Ford always insisted on for Valentine’s—he liked to have sex on the living room sofa while facing the entryway mirror, our warming skin making small squeaks of friction against the couch’s leather. I nearly vomited as I watched the ceiling fan spin above me in my dizzied state; it was only the next morning that I noticed the roses and diamond pendant he’d given me on the counter. He was asleep when I left for work so I called from school to thank him on my lunch break. “I’m glad you like the necklace,” he answered. “Last night I couldn’t tell if you did or not. Did you get a little buzzed?”

Indeed. By the time I’d dismounted the couch, the room had been whirling so fast that I’d had to crawl to the bedroom. Ford had already gone to take his usual postcoital shower; I suppose he hadn’t noticed the extent of my temporary handicap. Did it ever register with Ford that I often seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness during sex? Was this denial or apathy on his part? “I guess so,” I answered. “But that’s what one does for a celebration.”

The following Saturday I told Ford I had to attend an all-day continuing education workshop so Jack and I could drive to a roller-skating rink on the other side of the bay. Something about the colored lights turned our faces into those of strangers, allowing us to momentarily transform into two different people. It was delightful to round a corner, whip back my hair, and through it see not Jack but a boy very similar to him whose entire body was fair game for my roving hands. No onlooker appeared to sense anything out of the ordinary—whether I seemed younger or Jack seemed older enough to normalize the difference between us, I’m not sure. I still didn’t feel it was safe enough to push our luck and join the throngs of teenagers sloppily making out in the arcade room. But when we had a tandem fall and hit the polished wooden floor in an intertwined pile, Jack got the beginnings of an erection as we struggled to stand back up on moving wheels and our torsos kept hitting into one another. I led him out of the ring and we dry-humped behind a coin-operated prize machine until it lit up in a manic flurry of color and sound that almost gave us a heart attack—a young child had approached from the opposite side and put in a quarter. We stayed for a minute and watched her play, feeling the bittersweet pain of heat draining from our genitals. She operated a metallic claw inside the machine and tried to close it over a stuffed animal, and when it missed by only centimeters, it seemed a fitting metaphor for our orgasms that had just slipped away. To recover we bought Slurpees and cotton candy that dyed our mouths blue, and I felt a near-pharmaceutical rush at the weightless feeling in my chest as we sped across the floor for a few final songs, seemingly falling and speeding up at the same time.

Afterward in the car, Jack gave me a red envelope; the card inside was covered with glitter-outlined roses and affirmed our love to be forever. “This is incredibly sweet,” I told him, though after our fun day I couldn’t help but be slightly perturbed that he’d do something so stupid. “But you know I can’t keep it, don’t you?”

His first expression was one of angry surprise, but finally, he nodded. “We could do something ceremonial with it… burn it together,” I offered. “Or tear it up and scatter the pieces over the ocean.”

He said nothing, so I started the car. It wasn’t until we got to the highway that he conceded his thoughts. “That just seems depressing,” he said. I didn’t respond, forcing him to dwell on it—I needed him to see that he’d behaved inappropriately. Finally, tinkering with his seat belt buckle, he tried to channel his disappointment into a romantic proclamation of selflessness. “I just wanted to give it to you,” he said. “You know? What happens with it now doesn’t matter, I guess.” I thought he was going to say more, but those were his last words of the evening.

From then on, in fact, he began to talk less in general. It almost seemed like he was trying to express his thoughts physically instead, but that in doing so he encountered equal frustration. Our sessions had gone from being short and multiple to being long and continuous; by the time he came Jack now looked tellingly exerted, so much so that he had to jump in the shower when Buck came home so his wet hair wouldn’t seem suspicious.

It was during one such marathon session in March when it happened, just before spring break was scheduled to start. Thinking back on it, I remember the lighting in Jack’s room as having been different that day—somehow localized and ominous, like the umbral flicker thrown from an open fire. Jack’s hands were cupping my ass cheeks as he pushed inside me; I was pinned against the wall, both of us standing up. Buck’s immediate view would’ve been Jack’s buttocks, clenching and unclenching, his scrotum swinging between his legs, my elbows braced against the wall and my head and throat tilted backward in the clutches of receiving. I was the one who first turned my face, thinking I’d heard a noise.

“Shhh,” I said to Jack. I could feel him tense up inside me as he stopped and listened.

“Shit,” he whispered, pulling out of me and beginning to dress. I began to get dressed too, though not with the same frenzy. I knew I’d seen Buck’s figure moving away from the open door frame, and my mind was racing at a disoriented pace: I had to come up with a plan; seduction alone wouldn’t be able to bury what he’d just seen. Perhaps his pride was the best course of appeal? If he went to the police and this was made public, all his neighbors and coworkers would know that he and his son had been sharing a lover. It was an angle I could take: he didn’t want the shame of it, didn’t want to put Jack through the embarrassment.

Jack’s eyes met mine as a low wailing sound began to come from down the hallway—it would intensify, then fall completely silent and start up again. Was Buck crying? I picked up my pace and finished dressing, hoping his sadness might be an opportunity to go comfort him, even if I was the cause. Maybe I could say that Jack forced me to do it—he’d gotten into my purse, looked up my husband’s number on my cell phone, and had threatened to call Ford and tell him about my affair with Buck unless I slept with him. Even if Buck didn’t fully believe it, perhaps it would be a plausible enough story for him to play along with. In the distance, Buck’s warbled moan was growing louder and more frantic. How long had he stood watching at the doorway before I’d sensed him there and turned around?

“Stay here,” I said to Jack. “Let me try to talk to him first.” Jack nodded but gave me a look that bordered on disgust—his eyes held a fluent jealousy, and I knew he was imagining that if Buck’s catching me with my pants unbuttoned had meant a bribe of sex, who knew what his catching us in the middle of the act might require. “Keep your cool,” I warned him. “The important thing is that he doesn’t call the cops.”

Buck stood hunched over at the end of the hallway, his shoulder occasionally coming to life with a spasm. “Buck,” I called gently, walking toward him with slow steps. Despite my best efforts, my voice was trembling—I had no idea what sort of animal Buck became when unhinged. Was he about to get violent? Perhaps it would be a good thing if he began hitting me; he’d lose a huge amount of credibility if I’d been beaten up when the cops arrived. Jack and I could stick to the story that I’d just been there to tutor a student in need; the rest was a jealous delusion on Buck’s part. But the accusations alone could cause me to lose my job, and Ford, in a misguided attempt to prove my innocence, would probably do something over-the-top like have a forensic team sweep Jack’s bedroom. No, the police couldn’t get involved under any circumstances. I had to win Buck over at all costs.

As I drew closer, I realized that Buck was bent forward in a near-comical manner. His torso drooped toward the ground as though a child had just pointed a toy gun at him and he was pretending to be mortally wounded. Occasionally he’d attempt to take a step, but his stance was so off-kilter that his body merely lurched in place; he was performing the slow, erratic motions of a zombified waltz. I stood for a moment, clearing my throat, confused. It was only as I moved around to the side of him that I began to see the discoloration spread across his neck, heard the restrictive choking sound of his lungs failing to get air. Buck was bent over holding his chest. “Oh my god,” I muttered. He contorted himself as best he could so that his face was looking over and up toward mine—its color alone nearly caused me to scream. His cheeks had taken on a reddish-purple hue. It looked like he was being hung with an invisible noose.

I took a silent step backward, then laced my fingers together and stood to watch. With a wheeze, he impotently tried to call Jack’s name, his contorted lips silently mashing out the word again and again before he finally stopped trying. Though his face had seized up, one eye remained open and focused. His stare was filled with the hatred of clarity—he had now let go of all illusions about me. Yet unless his voice returned, I was the sole person he could appeal to. I glanced down the hallway, training my stare on Jack’s open door. If he peeked out his head and saw his father’s distressed posture, what could I say to Jack that would convince him to stay in his room just a bit longer?

I needed time alone, without the shrill adolescent panic that would overtake Jack, to decide if Buck would honor the system of quid pro quo. If I dialed 911, could he really repay such a favor by turning me in to the police? Seemed impossible to me, yet delusions of morality could make people justify all sorts of actions. Regardless of my heroic efforts, Buck might feel that turning me in was the right thing to do. I could hear him now: The law is the law and my hands are tied.

Looking down, I saw the judgment in Buck’s eye had been replaced with a bulging desperation. Straining, he managed to make a thin, nasal grunt in my direction; the sound caused me to recall the unfortunate memory of Buck dully thrusting between my legs. I looked back down the hall to Jack’s door. If only there were a way to be certain he would stay in his room until it was over—I’d simply have to make sure that he did. If I saw him coming out, I could run to him, pull him back inside his bedroom and say that Buck was very upset; Your father needs some time alone to think. Then, later, we would discover the body together. Jack couldn’t be allowed to interrupt this natural chain of events. Ultimately saving his father’s life just wasn’t worth the risk—Buck’s stumpy hands were no place at all for my fate to rest.

I froze in place as Buck’s mouth grew wider and wider, seeking air, and a last flash of recognition passed through Buck’s eye in a way that nearly made me feel cursed. He was aware that I was choosing to let him die. Realizing he had no hope of convincing me otherwise, I watched every ounce of life he had left channel into a stare of malignant damning that radiated toward me with a tangible heat. One side of his lip raised back to reveal a small portion of tooth, as though he was preparing to give me a vicarious bite.

I had the urge to wave my fingers in a small good-bye, but ultimately that felt too catty—I didn’t need to gloat. Buck’s open eye rolled back into his head and he fell to his knees without a sound—there were truly no words for the plushness of the Patrick household’s carpeting—then his head and the rest of his body surrendered completely to the ground. Buck Patrick had just suffered a heart attack.

I bent down to confirm that he was no longer breathing. His rolled-back eye was frozen open and bulging; I could see a sliver of my reflection in its glazing sheen. I found myself wishing there was a way to stuff his tongue back inside his mouth, simply to avoid the sheer vulgarity of having to look at it: its purple mass had fully extended out from between his lips, as though it was trying to slither away from his dying body. With a manicured toe, I poked at the flesh of his cheeks and got no response; just to be sure I placed my foot gently against Buck’s neck to feel for a pulse. There was none. A flush of excited energy ran through me, as if I’d won the lottery—everything was going to be okay.

Removed from the thumb of Buck’s accusing stare, I finally had a chance to think. Why hadn’t we heard him come in? I tiptoed down the hall to the living room to peek out the drawn blinds, still not wanting Jack to venture forth from his room just yet. I felt a rare surge of nonsexual affection for him as I thought about how he’d likely stay quietly put for hours more if no one went in to fetch him—I could picture him now, seated on his bed imagining the variety of vile intimate scenarios he feared finding me and his father engaged in if he left the safety of his room. Particularly after the last time, Jack didn’t want to trade the calm security of the unknown for a definitive and cruel reality.

Buck’s car was parked directly in the center of the driveway; mine was in the garage. It was almost as if he’d purposefully blocked me inside. Had Buck known about Jack and me? Had he been planning a confrontation? This seemed doubtful—cardiac arrest would be a dramatic response to something he’d half-expected to catch. No, Buck had been fully surprised, more surprised than he could handle. I had to assume he’d simply come home early and meant to go right back out—maybe he’d come in to see if Jack wanted to go grab a bite to eat with him. “This is complicated,” I said out loud.

I knew Jack’s personal cell phone was in his backpack; if need be I could wrestle him to the ground for it. His secret phone was beneath his bed in a box and would be impossible for him to get at with me fighting him. I took Buck’s cell phone out of its holder on his belt, then walked to the kitchen and grabbed the home phone off its base; I hid them both in a drawer in Buck’s bathroom before heading back to Jack’s room.

Jack was sitting anxiously on the bed. In the haste of having been caught, he’d put his athletic shorts on backward; I noticed the way the seam created an awkward ripple atop his genitals.

“I have some upsetting news,” I began, “but everything is going to be okay.” I made a mental note that this phrasing might also be a good segue when the unfortunate time came and I had to break up with Jack: acknowledge the negative, yes, but don’t fail to highlight how life would continue.

Jack’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. “Did my dad leave? Is he angry?”

“No, he’s not angry. He’s in the hallway.” Outside, a car drove by with its stereo jovially blaring; its vibrations shook the windows in Jack’s bedroom. I couldn’t help but feel like Buck’s death had made the whole world seem a bit younger. Jack’s eyes widened and looked toward his open door.

“Does he want to talk to me?” Jack whispered. I took my shirt back off; it seemed like the best course of action.

“Put your hands on my breasts,” I instructed. “I have to tell you something traumatic and you need to be reminded of all the good that’s here in the world for you to enjoy.” Wordlessly, Jack clutched his palms onto my breasts and swallowed.

“I’ll stop beating around the bush.” I sighed. “Your father had a heart attack.”

Realization crossed his face like a time-lapsed shadow. He ran out of the room but I stayed behind for a moment to collect his two cell phones, secret them in my purse, and prepare myself for the possibility of a heated debate. I flipped through his personal phone for at least a minute, trying to find the photo he’d taken of me and delete it, but it wasn’t anywhere obvious and there wasn’t time to waste. It was the only solid evidence that linked the two of us, and Jack certainly wouldn’t offer it up to authorities. This was a triumph I was intent on maintaining—on Jack’s dresser, for example, there was a plate bearing a hardened scrap of pizza crust, a relic that held the small and perfectly imperfect indentions of Jack’s bite marks, his right incisor slightly askew. I had the urge to place this inside my purse as well; the prop of something his supple mouth had gnawed upon might come in handy in the days ahead if Jack chose to be upset with me and I had to fantasize about his lips. But I knew I couldn’t ever have anything related to Jack in my possession, no matter how organic and disposable.

In the hallway Jack was kneeling over the body and crying silent tears. When I first laid my hand upon his shoulder, he sat down Indian-style and began rocking gradually back and forth. “We’ve got to call 911,” he finally whimpered.

“You will.” I nodded. “Later, when I’m gone.”

Jack shook his head but continued to talk to me instead of attempting to go get the phone. I was, after all, the adult in the situation. “We should start CPR,” he added, somewhat forcefully. But was I wrong to detect already a flat note of resignation in his protests—the knowledge that even if it were possible to revive Buck, it wouldn’t be in our best interests to do so?

I sat down next to Jack and took his hands, which made him cry harder, and with volume now. “He isn’t breathing, Jack.” I spoke slowly and evenly, doing my best impression of a medical professional on television. “When the brain loses oxygen, cells begin to die. If they even could bring him back, he’d be a vegetable. We don’t want that. Your dad wouldn’t want that. We need to wait before you call the paramedics. We need to be sure.”

“Be sure?” Jack cried. Mucus streamed out from his nose and began to mingle with his lips. His tears and high-pitched cries had a way of making him seem pleasantly preadolescent; in the moment I was not opposed to intercourse.

“Be sure?” Jack asked again. “No.” His head began to shake. “We have to try. What if they can bring him back? What if he’ll be fine if we just get someone here soon?”

Leaning my topless chest in toward him so that my breasts fell just below his chin, I gave Jack a look that told him he was being silly and wiped his face with my fingers. “Jack, he isn’t fine. He’s dead and that’s terrible. But at least he won’t have to be tube-fed on some machine for three months before they pull the plug anyway…” I paused, not wanting to be blatant, but I did need to close the deal. “And you and I can stay together,” I whispered.

Jack’s face broke apart in a convulsion of tears. I wrapped myself around him and comforted him the best I could, holding him in a crouched position just inches away from his father’s corpse. Eventually the hallway began to darken as the sun set. “Let’s go sit down in your room and have a talk,” I told him. He allowed me to help him up, to guide him to his bed. He moved like he was sleepwalking.

I figured that if I made an advance on him now he’d push me away, but I began anyhow—he seemed so dependent and clung to me with such maternal need that it was easy to channel Jack’s embrace into sexual action. I sat him on the edge of his bed and kissed up his thigh, pulled down his shorts and began sucking. I heard him start to cry again but also felt his fingers wind into my hair, grasping my skull tightly. When he came in my mouth he let out a protracted wail and covered his face with his hands. I wiped my mouth on his comforter, then wrapped the blanket around his shoulders to try to quell his shaking.

A glance at Jack’s alarm clock showed that it was truly getting late. I needed to move the conversation forward; the logistics of my exit required planning. “Is your father’s car an automatic? Can you drive it?” I had to ask several times before Jack finally responded.

“I’ve practiced a little bit with my stepbrother.” His voice sounded inhospitably distant, beamed in from somewhere dark and cold through patches of static.

“Your dad’s car is parked in the middle of the driveway. Do you think you could pull it out into the street so I can back out, then put it in the garage?”

“I think so,” he said. After several beats of silence he amended his answer. “I don’t know.”

“I need you to try. Take a quick shower while I wait,” I offered. “It’ll help wake you up. You don’t have to wash anything, just stand beneath the water.” I went to start it for him, then escorted his shaking frame into the bath, supporting him as though he had a geriatric injury as he stepped inside the tub. For a moment I remained there and watched him, the way the water was hitting his face but his eyes remained open. It was disconcerting; I pulled the shower curtain closed.

Walking down the black stretch of hallway toward the corpse, I was resolved to check for any final quivers of life but in the end didn’t even feel compelled to grab his shoulder and shake: Buck Patrick’s death mask was unmistakable. His bottom and top lips had experienced a violent pull to opposing directions that made the shape of his mouth nearly rhomboid. I had a slight urge to look through his wallet and pilfer any cash—there would be a triumphant feel in buying something with money offered up by Buck’s dead body, no matter how minuscule the amount. I imagined purchasing a candy bar and savoring it in my car, the way its sugars would combine with the knowledge that Buck had taken my secret to the grave to form a flavor of extravagant complexity.

Assured that Buck could no longer be revived, I replaced all the phones except the cell I’d given Jack, then went to check on him. Back in the shower, Jack hadn’t moved at all except to drop his head; a wet brim of hair covered his downcast eyes completely. I shut off the water and opened a towel to receive him in, then dried every inch of his body with gentle care as he sat slouched on the closed toilet seat. “Here’s what you’ll do,” I said, toweling at his feet as though he was a businessman I was giving a shoe shine to. “You’ll wait another half hour or so after I leave before you call 911. There might be trouble if someone notices me pulling out one minute and an ambulance pulling in right after. When the medics arrive, tell them you were playing video games and found your dad when you took a break.” Jack’s cold nipples looked like tiny eyes fixed open with shock at the situation. I went out to gather some fresh clothes for him to wear, raising my voice to continue talking at him from the bedroom. “There’s nothing unnatural about the death; they aren’t going to question you much. You’re bewildered and consumed with grief. If anything they’ll be trying to comfort you.” I walked back into the bathroom to deliver Jack’s clothes but wanted to relay the last of the pertinent information while he was still naked and hopefully more vulnerable to suggestion than he might be with his genitals covered. “The last thing is that I have to take your secret phone with me.”

I expected him to feel this was a betrayal and argue, but it hardly seemed to register; he was staring at the toilet paper dispenser with a gaze of forlorn defeat, as if he’d just taken a hefty dump but was helpless to wipe himself. Still, I wanted to offer further explanation. “You’re going to have too many people watching you in the next few days, Jack. You’re likely going to be in great emotional pain. It might get very tempting for you to call me, but for our sake we can’t make contact again until things settle down.” Suddenly Jack’s frozen stare broke; he squeezed his eyes shut, then began a low scream; seconds later he was violently smacking his own forehead.

“Shhh,” I said soothingly. I knew I had to distract him, give him something to fixate on. “Jack, listen. Do you know the number of my secret phone by heart?”

He nodded, grasping his hair and drawing his knees up onto the toilet against his body. This had the effect of making his testicles, which hung off the ridge of the toilet seat in solitude, seem like a normally internal appendage that had accidentally fallen out. “Good. In a few days, if you’re able to walk to a pay phone without anyone following you, call me around five o’clock. Understand?”

He nodded. I sat down on the edge of the tub across from him and waited for several minutes before Jack finally stood, dressed, then began an automaton-like walk into his bedroom, where he grabbed the comforter off his bed. I followed him out to the hallway and watched Jack place it over his father’s body. There was something charming about the fact that Buck’s funeral shroud was a blanket covered with several months’ worth of commingled seminal and vaginal fluids from his son and me. When I cleared my throat Jack finally spoke.

“I’ll go move the car.” We didn’t turn on any lights in the house; I watched only the outline of Jack’s body ambling toward the front door as I turned and went my separate way toward the garage.

When I pulled out of the driveway and passed by Jack idling inside his father’s car in the street, I noted lights on in Mrs. Pachenko’s house but didn’t see anyone nosily peeking out through the window blinds. Although I didn’t turn to look at him as we drove in opposite directions, I could somehow feel that Jack was not watching me leave.

Unfortunately it turned out that Buck wasn’t the only surprise of the evening. When I pulled into the driveway Ford’s police car was already home. Although I was wary about what change might’ve brought him back early, I was relieved that he wasn’t out on patrol. I didn’t want Ford to be the officer to respond to Jack’s call.

“Hey, I’m in here,” Ford called out from the back room. I entered the den to find all the furniture covered with plastic drop cloths; Ford himself was on a ladder, painting the ceiling a forgettable beige. “Where you been?” he asked distractedly. From his tone I knew I didn’t actually need to answer him; he was about to launch into why he was home and what he was doing and would go right ahead whether I responded or stayed silent, but I felt compliant after the day’s long events. “Went out for a bite to eat with some of the girls from work,” I answered.

“Ladies’ night,” he said, a touch of grandeur in his voice. “Speaking of nights, I got switched again. New shift starting tomorrow. Ten P.M. to six A.M.” There was something sickening about the slick sound of the wet brush’s bristles moving back and forth across the wall, like a large predator’s tongue washing its kill. “Kinda brutal but I’m trying to play the game, right? That’s where they need me for now. At least we’ll get to have dinner together. When you’re not eating with the gals,” he joked.

This news, combined with knowledge of the changes that were sure to come for Jack following Buck’s death, made me feel the sliding nausea of a perfect era untying itself; it would be hard to do much of anything after school with Ford at home waiting, if Jack even continued the year out at Jefferson. The thought suddenly occurred to me that Jack would now have to go live with his mother—did that leave me with enough time to work up to a level of full engagement with another student before the summer break started? “Anyhow, they gave me tonight off to do errands and such before I begin on the vampire crew. I thought I’d finally get started on shaping this den up.” He motioned to a swath of paint samples taped to the wall. “You like taupe for the shutters?”

I swallowed, worried that I might abruptly throw up on my shoes. “Yes, Ford,” I did finally manage to say. “I just love it.”