Bailey looked away briefly. They had the information, but he supposed it was hard for Lilith not to play with the things she killed.
He barely looked back in time to see her break his neck.
Bailey sank down on the patio, reflecting that shock seemed to be catching up with him. The world around him, stars and breeze and nightbirds, seemed to be unnaturally silent.
They were all beautiful nights in San Cristobel. Except, he thought vaguely, for the sound of weeping that came from someone unhappy, nearby.
“Teej, stop it.” Lilith’s voice cut through the thick silk of the night like a blade. There was a catch in Teej’s breath. “Bailey needs us now.”
Another long gasp for breath from Teej, and then a slower, more deliberate one; he was obviously forcing himself to come down. Ten seconds; fifteen. Then he spoke. “The car,” he said, surprising Bailey. “He came in a car. It’s down the hill. We can’t leave it there.”
Good kid, thought Bailey. Maybe it was time to stop underestimating him.
“You’re right,” said Lilith. “And we can’t leave him here, either. I’m not worried about his friends, but I do wonder if the police will come.”
She spoke as though it were a hypothetical question in philosophy; nevertheless she came over to Bailey and squatted down beside him. “Bailey?”
“He was never really here on the island, anyway. Good chance he won’t be missed.” What an epitaph, he thought, belatedly. She was still thinking it through, a serious expression on her face. She turned to Teej.
“Take the car into town. Park it behind one of the clubs … Deadeye Dick’s, if you can find a spot. It’ll be weeks before they notice it there. I’ll drive Bailey to the hospital. We’ll explain that he was mugged.”
Teej’s gaze went to the dead man. Lilith said, “I’ll take care of the body when I get back.”
Teej’s eyes were wide and strained, with the look of someone who’s heard too many artillery shells. He said, “What … what will you do with the body?”
She moved to him, stooped down beside him, and lifted his chin in her hand. “Teej. Worry about the car.”
He let out another breath, and nodded.
After a moment Bailey saw him rise and vanish into the house. Lilith walked over to the pool, cupped some handfuls of water, and began washing blood from her face.
Bailey sank back on the patio, resting. Anything else was beginning to seem too much effort. He was vaguely aware that she’d gone to the driveway and returned. He waited.
He heard sandals on gravel, felt the cold reassurance of it as Lilith’s arms lifted him up and carried him to the back seat of the convertible.
“Lilith,” he said, “don’t ever call me ‘heart of your heart.’”
Her voice was amused. “You are,” she said, “but I won’t call you that if you don’t want me to.”
She opened the door and helped him to lie down. A bowl of stars hung over him, diamond-edged and painfully clear. He said, “You know, maybe you could do that thing with me, later.”
“What?” Lilith closed the door.
“You know. That thing with the wall. Watch out for my neck, though.”
“Bailey, you four-star schmuck. You sickest of puppies. Shut up, I’m taking you to the emergency room.”
He laughed. The floor of heaven was thick inlaid with patins of bright gold, and March was a lifetime away.
Heat
Melissa Lee Shaw
HER BREATH
WAS WHAT he noticed first,
steaming as she laughed
into a warm summer evening.
A trick of the light? A cigarette?
But no — arms wrapped around two companions, she laughed again.
Clouds lifted from her mouth into the lamplight.
Those surrounding her laughed too,
like statues — their mouths did not smoke.
He thought of her hot mouth pressed to his lips, throat …
And other places he blushed to name.
He hungered for such heat.
I have felt your eyes on me,
the letter read.
by the pier, where I gather with my friends
to watch the ships sail into the sunset.
We go there often — but lately
I have felt your eyes on me.
What is it you admire best?
Tell me tonight. Eight o’clock.
It named a mansion cordoned from the world by a spiked iron gate.
The letter bore no signature.
I will not go, of course, he thought at seven-fifteen,
taking random streets through the city.
It is madness. How do I know
the letter came from her?
But he knew. And eight o’clock found him pulling up
outside the gates, which opened for him
slowly, soundlessly.
He drove through, down a lane lined with weeping willows and white stone statues. Marble.
Men, all of them, slim and tall, youthful,
naked.
Their bodies bent in all manner of attitudes — crouching, kneeling, standing.
Two characteristics they all shared — expressions of a singular passion and grief,
and erections, gleaming in the electric light. Twenty he passed, then thirty.
And finally, the mansion.
He parked. His nerves made the crunch of gravel beneath his feet
uncommonly loud.
He thought a servant would meet him at the door—
but it, like the gate, opened for him
silently.
He peered inside.
“Come in!” sang out her voice — throaty, amused.
“I’ll be down in a moment. Come in and explore.
No matter where you go, I shall find you.”
He entered, and the door clicked shut behind him.
Nervous, he tried it.
It opened to his touch.
“None enter,” came her voice with a laugh,
“who do not wish to be here.
Leave if you like—
but I will not send for you again.”
A marble hallway, white pillars limned with angular tiles of dark blue and yellow,
a fountain in the middle of a mosaic floor. More stone men stood ankle-deep in the shimmering water.
Naked, yearning — phalluses straining, shining as if polished.
His own body swelled toward a similar excitement.
He imagined her soft hands polishing the statues with green velvet cloths
lingering on their cocks,
rubbing them to a high sheen.
“Do you like them?” came her voice. Her breath warmed his ear.
He jumped — his feet, his skin, his blood.
“I like to look at them,” she said. “I imagine them alive.”
He turned to regard her
and his breath stopped
like a clock set to rest at the moment of someone’s death.
Her eyes, so crystalline a blue they sparked,
her lips wet and red and curved in a teasing, daring smile,
her hair tumbling wild down her back, bright as burning coals.
Her perfume, rose and honeysuckle and sweet musk
seared his nostrils and burned his blood.
He stirred, though he stood still. He stirred.
A sarong of sea-blue silk clung to her body,
tied carelessly in a knot behind her neck.
A belt of gold links hung from her hips.
Around her throat nestled a thin gold chain
adorned with sapphires and diamonds.
Sapphires hung also from her ears.
“Are you hungry?” she said.
Her eyes traveled down the length of him,
lingering.
He could not speak. His mouth opened,
tongue and teeth and lips moved,
but his lungs froze.