Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates

infected with the AIDS virus.
    CAUTION:
Beware of disreputable modeling schools promising fashion magazine assignments
within twelve months.
    CAUTION:
Perfume, hair spray, and mousse that contain alcohol can cause permanent damage
to silk and acetate garments. Spray before dressing
or place a towel over shoulders before you spray.
     
    * * *
     
    SCORPIO'S MYSTERY. Pluto, God of the Underworld, was originally NOT a man but a woman— daughter of
the Earth Mother Rhea. Pluto is but a masculinized goddess!
It is believed that with the dawning of the New Age long-suppressed Scorpio
powers will be rediscovered and the Scorpion will evolve to a new level—the
PHOENIX RESURRECTED.

 

    She was not screaming now nor was she
sobbing knowing that the oxygen in this
darkness must not be depleted but she spoke loudly and clearly her throat raw I'm here I'm here I'M HERE.
    She
was not hysterical. She was not paralyzed with terror.
    She
could hear him... somewhere above. The surface of the
water was close above. There he moved cautiously in the shallows, he was
diving, swimming to save her where she was trapped in the dark so she must
guide him I'm here I'm here I'M HERE.
    As the black water rose about her, to
fill her lungs.
     
    As
the black water rose about her imperceptibly it seemed to her that draining,
trickling water in thin rivulets like tears on her face, the soft
groping-sucking of hundreds of leeches fastening their mouths on her, no it was
merely water, she was sitting in water, shivering convulsively in water that
smelled of sewage, gasoline, oil, her own urine where she'd soiled herself. Don't leave me. I'm here.
    One
minute speeding along the bouncy rutted road the moon bright overhead and his
kiss hard on her mouth the next minute fighting for their lives and he'd kicked
her convulsive himself in terror to escape but he had not known what he was
doing, it was blind panic, she understood.
    She
understood. She had faith.
    She
remembered now who he was: The Senator.
    She
felt his fingertips on her bare shoulder, his breath that smelled of beer,
alcohol... she was not a bad girl, she would explain behaving, in The Senator's
company, in such a way as to appear to be, or in fact to be, obvious, expected,
banal.
    Yet,
after they'd been introduced, after they were talking so easily, discovering so
much to talk about, Carl Spader for instance, Citizens' Inquiry for instance, Kelly had changed her mind about the man.
    —really warm, gracious. Genuinely interested in other people. And
certainly intelligent.
    Rehearsing the future, in words. Your words. Your story.
    For
you must never doubt there will be a future.
    And such a sense of humor!
    Making him laugh, entertaining him... an exhausted middle-aged man
beginning to go soft in the gut, steely-gray curly hair thinning at the crown
of his head, his left knee he'd sprained back in January playing squash so,
damn it, he's easy game for Ray Annick on the court, wild Ray with his lethal
second serve, yes make me laugh entertain me I want so badly to be happy so
Kelly Kelleher was inspired telling the story (which she'd told Buffy long ago
but sweet Buffy pretended to be hearing it for the first time) of the Gowanda
Heights feud, no it was more than a feud it was outright war, property holders
in the township were forced to choose sides and no waffling was permitted:
either you favored the Gowanda Heights "tradition" of un-paved roads
(which were surprisingly costly—a minimum of $40,000 a year on the average per
road above the cost of maintaining paved roads) or you favored "modernization"
and there were stormy emotions on both sides of the issue but especially on the
side of the traditionalists... like Artie Kelleher of Scotch Pine Way, who
believed his property values would decline if his road was paved and who
quarreled so bitterly with an old friend who opposed him at the township
hearings that Kelly's mother feared he might have a heart attack. Friendships
were shattered,