Decay Inevitable by Conrad Williams Page B

pronounced. Her hips were growing rounder, her buttocks firmer. Three moist, puckered punctures buttoned her abdomen. A curious fingernail made the punctures shiver and relax, betraying a moist, pink velvety lining within. The woman who had provided her with her first real sustenance did not have anything remotely resembling this formation on her. Absorbing her, feeling her body pulverise under the juices she ejaculated, Cheke had pored over the woman’s face, her interest quickening when death settled and her features relaxed. The woman had a rind of colour to her eyes; a dip at the apex of her top lip; just one set of canine teeth. Subtle differences, but they were fascinating to Cheke, who was coming to grips with the slow play of limbs still apparently discovering their true shape. Her body seemed to be going through a variety of minute alterations. She had spent an hour transfixed by the undulation of her knuckles, which dissolved and reknitted themselves in a new configuration. She couldn’t understand the motive for this mischief in her flesh, but she welcomed the freshness it inspired; the gradual improvement in her movement and thought.
    She bathed, baptising this new body of hers. Faces she didn’t know (but seemed maddeningly familiar) loomed in the patterns of oil in the water, inspiring different levels of emotion. Hatred for this tired, ageing man; grief at the appearance of a woman with cataracts in her eyes; desire for a young man disfigured by scars almost beautiful in their symmetry. She realised with disappointment that these phantoms were somebody else’s memories, faces in the fire, tricking her into thinking they bore significance to her own life. She remained alone.
    Her hands made their acquaintance with the fresh geography of skin and muscle, the experience both like self-exploration and the touching of another. Still there existed that vestigial tremor at her core – it transmitted itself no matter where her fingers reached.
    “Why me?” she whispered.
    A car drew up outside. Even before its doors opened she could hear Gleave barking orders.
    She stepped from the bath and wrapped herself in a white towelling robe, the activity in her flesh reaching a new level of intensity. Her mouth filled with drool. A key in the lock. Only when the boy was pushed over the threshold did she realise the nature of its energy.
    The boy stared at her. Ice cream was slicked across his jaws. His hair sprang up stubbornly at his crown. The door snicked shut.
    The boy said, “Mummy?”
    “If it makes you happy,” she whispered.
     
     
    H E WOKE, FRUSTRATED, his heart pounding and his dick hard as a door handle. He had been unable to still Catriona. She had slipped in and out of focus, her words to him garbled, as though coming from a slightly detuned radio. Her smile was genuine enough, her mouth somehow super-real, Technicolor. He had been reaching to kiss her when she sank from view and he was unable to conjure her again.
    But this wasn’t the only reason for his revival. The slap of fast-moving footsteps had him blinking and scooting back in his seat as Known and his gang came pounding across the road. Behind them, Cricket cap had got out of the car and was standing uncertainly in the road, alternating his gaze between the heels of the burglars and the flapping entrance door.
    “Got enough stuff there?” Will asked, indicating the television and stereo equipment with which Known’s gang were laden.
    “Actually, we were thinking of going back for some more. Would you mind?”
    “I don’t care,” Will said. “Was... Cat there?”
    “No. Should she of been? This some kind of kinky trick to jazz up your sex life, then?”
    “Forget it. Did you get my wallet?”
    Hot Badge passed over the wallet, at pains to point out that nothing had been taken from it.
    “And there was something else?”
    Known pursed his lips. “I’m a bit miffed that you think of me as someone who carries small arms around in his