Nick shouldn't have been on the pedestrian mall at all that night; October was sliding down off the mountains, blowing away the last of the fallen leaves and making way for an inhospitable winter. He had a spot waiting for him underneath the church at the other end of the mall. He didn't really like sleeping there, among so many others, arranged in rows like crates in a warehouse. All night long, Nick would lie awake, listening to the soft murmur of everyone else's breathing, wishing for the night sky over his head instead of the ceiling. He figured he would make his way back to the church if he had to, but he would rather explore his options, such as they were.
Thing about the church was that they wouldn't hold the door open all night. The people who ran the program did have homes, after all, and families who cared where they were after dark. They had spouses who might actually worry if it took them a little too long to get home. His ex-wife had probably thrown a party once she had finally gotten rid of him. An elegant soiree with expensive finger foods and a harpist. She'd probably told everyone there about how he wouldn't ever be back, and now everyone's life would be easier. And his son had probably heard, but she wouldn't care. She would lead the assembled guests in a rousing chorus of "Ding-dong, your daddy's gone," and his little eyes would swim with tears and --
He squeezed his eyes shut. If he kept thinking like that, he'd want a drink. Other thing about the church was that drunk people weren't so welcome. Which was another reason he was still outside. Nick was just a little buzzed from a couple of mini-bottles he had gotten someone to buy him after work. It wasn't that Nick had ever been a really big drinker, but every few weeks, he got restless and started wanting to move around or run or pick a fight. The alcohol helped a lot. First it was just a drink or two when he started to feel agitated. But soon, he found that if he didn't have the drink, he would sometimes forget what he had spent the night doing. When he was drunk, he might not be fully in control, but at least he knew what was.
At the very end of the mall, where it opened into the toney neighborhood across the street, there was an art-house theater and a boutique filled with extremely expensive furniture. At night, the store was closed, but the theater ran movies until late at night, and the heat was already humming away. As an extra bonus, the back alley led to a high-rise hotel, another place the heat was always running full-tilt this time of year. This was one of Wayne's favorite flops. It was quiet and warm, and the irony of his homeless ass sleeping next to a store full of needlessly pricey furniture really appealed to him. Wayne was a generous sort, quick to offer a stranger a place near the bonfire, or a pull from a bottle, or uniquely unscrambled and level-headed advice. Nick hadn't seen Wayne in a little while now, but maybe he had reappeared since the last time Nick had tried to avoid the church.
Nick slipped through the shadows, away from the parking lot, and around the dumpsters to the theater's fire exit. The smell of popcorn embraced him as he settled down in the doorway. The thick warmth from the mini-bottles settled in his belly, and he drifted off to sleep.
The dream started up right away, the only one Nick ever had any more. He was running across the well-manicured grass of a large backyard, the cool air of evening on his skin. The long strides carried him to the edge of the property, to a narrow creek, which he vaulted before he ran into a thick forest. A canopy of branches sheltered him as he went, sailing over the interlocking network of roots that plunged deep into the earth. All around him, he could hear things moving away, the rustle of quick feet in the carpet of pine needles on the forest floor. He knew that many eyes watched his every movement, hoping to escape his notice, and they were fortunate. In the dream, he chased something else -- something that wouldn't try to hide or run from him. Something that craved the confrontation as much as he did. A strange curtain of gauzy half-light began to descend over him. Nick was waking up.
Conscious again on the steam vent, he felt a sudden chill and turned over with a jolt, almost leaping off the metal grating. Someone was standing over him, staring down at him.
The long coat covered her lean frame, but it hid little. It draped over her slim hips, around her perfect bust, falling around her glorious hourglass figure. Beneath the brim of her fur-lined hat, her eyes seemed to glow amber in the dark. Nick could see the plume of her breath flowing out over her upturned fur collar. The very faint fragrance of her reached him, something he couldn't quite place. Backlit in this deserted corner of the mall, she was like a statue, tall and beautifully formed, but so still and pale that she wasn't quite human. He didn't like the strange, inhuman color of her eyes as she stared at him, but he couldn't look away from her. And so when she extended a slender hand toward him and beckoned with her long fingers, part of him was honestly compelled to follow her. The movement of her fingers was almost hypnotic as they curled back, one by one, toward her palm.
Nick had heard about things like this happening. Some wealthy society matron picked up a reasonably healthy male from the street to satisfy long-denied hungers. He didn't think it was real, or that such a thing would happen to him, even with her standing right there. Deep inside, he felt a surge of heat. He had been around women since he had come to live on the street, but like the rest of the civilized world, they tended to keep their distance. Their eyes danced away from him as they edged past him on the street. This one was staring right at him. As good as it felt to be desired -- for her gaze was clearly predatory -- it felt just as good, if not better, to be acknowledged as a human being, to be judged useful for something, even if it was just for sex.
Her eyes flashed again from the shadows that concealed her face. Her fingers curled back toward her palm. When Nick made no move to get up, she slowly turned her hand over, palm down, and held up her index and middle finger. Then she curled those two fingers into hooks.
It felt like fingertips digging behind his eyes, pulling at them hard, as if to force them from the sockets. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the pain surged deeper into his skull, and he had to cry out, turning away from her.
"Please!" he shouted. The pain ceased. Gasping, he opened his eyes, rubbing them and then checking out his hands to make sure that he could still see and that the hot wetness on his hands was colorless and not bright, arterial blood. He looked up to find her still standing there, still perfectly composed. Her breath issued from her in slow, regular intervals. Slowly, she raised her hand again and curled back her fingers, four, three, two, one, toward her palm.
Nick got up and went with her.
He followed her away from the mall, her pace slow and languid like a sleepwalker's. They drifted past the policemen posted around the mall as if she had somehow made herself and Nick invisible. Her house was at the very end of the street, far from her neighbors. They walked around it on a gravel driveway. Nick was reassured to see a very sensible Volvo station wagon parked in the garage as they climbed up the rear stairs to the back door. Only real people drove Volvos. This was just some lonely society woman, a former trophy wife, in search of a little action. He had almost forgotten about whatever it was she had done to his eyes. He had been drinking a lot lately anyway.
In the dark, he could see that her place was sparsely furnished. The refrigerator in the kitchen looked ancient, right down to its rounded corners, the handle shaped like a car door's. Across from the kitchen was a closed door. Nick saw the hunched shadows of two couches in the living room, but no television. She didn't turn the lights on before leading him up the stairs, their steps echoing on the hardwood floors. In the upstairs hallway, he saw two doorways on one side, a single door at the end of the hall, and the doorway to which he was now being led.
