Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

“Come on in,” she said, “before the neighbors see you.”

He laughed and turned to look in the direction of the door at the opposite side of the landing. It was safely closed. Then, letting her help him a little, he entered her livingroom and stood waiting while she closed and locked the door.

“You really are something,” she said, and smiled now. “Let me help you with your coat.” He stood locked into balance, like an old horse asleep, while she drew the overcoat down from his shoulders, shook the sleeves from his arms, then folded the coat and laid it on the straight-backed chair beside the door. Then she came to him and put her arms around him. Her cheap, young-woman smell was foreign, as intensely “other” as the room. “Where were you all this time?” she asked. “I kept expecting you to phone or something.” She was wearing striped pajamas and a gray bathrobe, attire that gave her a childish, innocent look that, when he thought of what she looked like naked, stirred him suddenly toward lust. Her hair smelled of shampoo.

“Sweet, sweet,” he said, grinning, breathing heavily, moving his hands on her back and round shoulders, then down her sides to the smell of her back, then her ass, drawing her against him.

She moved one hand to his crotch, gently rubbing his growing erection through his trousers. “Come to bed,” she whispered. “Fuck me.”

In the bedroom she stood still as he clumsily undressed her, licking and kissing each part of her body as it came into view. When she was naked he kneeled in front of her, licking her treasure box, at the same time unbuttoning and taking off his shirt. “God, oh God,” she whispered, gripping his head in her hands. Her knees went rhythmically out to the sides and in again. Whether her passion was real or only accomplished acting he did not care. He got out of his trousers and underwear and, still with his shoes and socks on, rolled with her onto the bed. Almost as soon as he entered her, lying on his back, Donnie on top, sitting upright, flapping her arms like a bird, he came, and before another minute had passed, he was asleep.

When he woke up, hours later, the first thing he knew was that his head was splitting, his eyes so sensitive that even the dim yellow light from the bedside table shot into his head ferociously, so that his eyes, as if of their own volition, snapped shut again; and the second thing he knew was that Donnie had his stiff penis in her mouth, slowly lifting and lowering her head, wetting it with her spittle, at the nadir of her movement taking his full length. If he came, he knew, his head would, that instant, explode into vastly greater pain; yet he could not make himself stop. His heart began to beat more rapidly, then more rapidly yet. He pressed the heel of his hand to his chest and breathed through his mouth. Her hair fell softly over him. Her right leg, young, magnificently shaped, lay next to his left arm. He reached over with his right hand and touched it, moving two fingers up to her wet vagina, then in. She wriggled, demanding more, and moved her head up and down more quickly. Insane, he thought. Foul! Bestiall Yet it did not seem that. Even when he moved one finger into her anus, it seemed not ugly, not inhuman. “I love you,” he said. He felt the pulsing in his left testicle that meant that in a moment he would come, and he felt the sudden increase of pain in his head that meant he was coming, then blinding, shrieking pain, Donnie clinging to him, sucking and gagging—and suddenly he was violently ashamed, disgusted beyond words, and was at the same time filled with fear, his chest and head screaming, on fire. He clutched Donnie’s leg in a false show of passionate gratitude, to hide from her his wish that she were dead. She brought her face up to his now, smiling, and gave him a kiss that almost made him retch.

He lay still beside her, holding her, and for decency’s sake, or kindness’ sake, kept himself for as long as possible from asking if she had aspirin. At last, when he could hold out no longer, he said as if jokingly, “Wow, have I got a headache! You got any aspirin, honey?”

“I think so.” She kissed his cheek, then rolled away from him, sat up, and went into the bathroom. A minute later she returned. “Here,” she said. When he opened his eyes he saw that she held out three aspirin in one hand, a glass of water in the other. He raised his head from the pillow, and she put the aspirin in his mouth, then held the glass to his lower lip.

“Thanks,” he said, lying back again, closing his eyes.

She straightened the covers, then crawled into the bed beside him, fit her body snug against his, and pulled the covers up over them both.

They lay still for a long time. His chest still ached, but his heart had grown calm again. Little by little the pain in his head sank to tolerable. He began to draw toward sleep—first the falling sensation and the sudden jerks as he grabbed for balance in indistinct dreams, then fitful, slightly deeper dreams—obscure, mumbling voices, uncertain phantom shapes.

“Pete,” she said in his ear, “are you awake?”

“Mmm,” he said. He resisted the climb back to consciousness. He felt stifled, desperately in need of rest. The headache, though reduced, was still with him. He imagined it as black, swollen, like corn-rot inside his skull.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked.

“Mmm,” he said again. But he was back in the world now, miserable.

“You didn’t answer my letter.” When he