“What is it like? Tell me. You are seeing things?”
“I don’t know. Drugs aren’t my usual sport. It’s as if I had no skin and my hearing is abnormally acute — I can hear your skirt creaking and I can hear your breath in your throat. Visually? I can see that your eyes are not just hazel but a kind of auburn with tiny flecks of gold and green and silver around the iris. I can hear birds rustling out on the eaves and there are children playing with a jump rope down the street.”
She lifted her head and looked to the window. Dalton studied the way the satiny white skin on her long graceful neck tightened as she did this. A large artery under her left ear was pulsing gently. He stared at it and found that he could hear her heart pumping under the swelling curves of her breasts, keeping perfect time with the push and release of that pale blue artery under her ear.
She looked back at him, and as her head moved it left afterimages of her face streaking across his mind’s eye. When she spoke, her voice was like an organ in a cathedral. Her scent was extraordinary and he inhaled it with inner delight as she spoke.
“Yes, I can hear them. Your pupils are very large. The light must hurt. And you are flushed. Your breathing is shallow and rapid.”
She reached out and placed two fingers of her right hand against the muscle of his neck at a point just under his jawline. Her fingers seemed to melt right through his skin. He found that he adored her. He reached for her. She caught his hand neatly as it came up to cup her left breast and held it firmly in the air, smiling a little to herself as she did this, but she kept her fingers under his jaw and she was counting to herself in Italian, a throaty whisper: diciassette — diciotto — diciannove.
When she finally spoke her tone was all business.
“Your heartbeat is febrile. I will call a doctor.”
“No. I’m sorry. I can’t see a doctor.”
“You must. You have been poisoned.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. In his skull ruby red fireflies bounced off the curve of his mind and skittered away over a green velvet horizon. He opened his eyes again and she filled up his sky like a planet.
“I’m stoned. It will go away. I cannot see a doctor. And you’re going to have to back away or I will probably kiss you.”
She smiled again, and stood up, looking down at him. In his mind she was like a tall cypress swaying in a sea wind.
“That is the drug. It has aroused you sexually. But are you always like this? I think maybe no. You are far too dissipated for sex. Whatever it is you do for a living, it is very hard on you. If you go on doing it, it will probably kill you. You are not having a good life and there is in your heart some ugly thing. Although you are a young man, or at least not yet very old, already you have the outward marks of tormenti di spirito. I wonder how long since you have had a woman. With any real pleasure in it. Any joy. Or even with any kind of true libido. Allora, this drug may be an aphrodisiac. Perhaps it is ecstasy mixed with something like psilocybin. The effects are very pronounced.”
“Damn right they are,” said Dalton, trying to conceal his obvious physical response to her. “How about that scotch?”
“Can you stand up?”
“I can get up, I think.”
He tried.
The room started to disintegrate, the walls opened onto galaxies.
“But… I think I better not.”
She walked away and Dalton heard the delicate tinkling of silver bells as she dropped three ice cubes into a glass. The sound of the scotch pouring was like river rapids hissing through his head.
When she came back her footsteps echoed and reechoed around the bare walls of the room. She sat down in the chair opposite him and crossed her legs. Dalton found himself delighted that she had and he sincerely hoped that she would do it again.
“Who is Laura?”
“I talked about her?”
“Not clearly. Is she someone important to you?”
Psicologia.
“What else did I say? While I was under.”
“Something about the snow. And, I think… ghiacciolo?”
Icicle.
The word lanced right through his skull.
He closed his eyes. He heard the creak of leather and the tinkle of the ice in her drink as she leaned forward and placed a warm hand on his knee. He opened his eyes and saw the concern in her strong, handsome face.
“This is something you do not want to talk about.”
“No. I don’t.”
“You should. With someone. The drug has brought it out, but it was always there. May I call you Micah?”
“Please. May I call you Alessandra?”
“No. My friends call me Cora.”
The suggestion of growing intimacy implicit in her use of the word “friends” warmed him for a moment, a feeling that was shattered completely when the ghost of Porter Naumann materialized a few feet behind Cora Vasari’s shoulder. His looks had not appreciably improved in the daylight. He was still wearing those green pajamas.
“I ask you to go help Laura, I find you flirting with a babe.”
Dalton shot him a hunted look, feeling a crawling tingle of sheer panic slithering up his spine. Irreversible brain damage. A lifetime of mental impairment. Delusions. Madness. He shook his head, trying to drive the illusion out of his mind. But when he opened them again, Naumann was still there, looking mildly offended.
Cora seemed unaware of the existence of a six-foot-tall ghost in green pajamas leaning on the mantel of her fireplace, supported by an artful elbow, a half smile on his mutilated face as he took in the large medieval room with evident appreciation.
“So,” she said, “I have a question. You will be honest?”
“Of course. A little. Sort of. It depends.”
“This is nuts,” said Naumann, shaking his head. “If you’re looking to boink this babe — and I admit she is eminently boinkable — then find another method. Sympathy fucks are pitiful.”
Dalton kept his focus fixed on Cora’s eyes as if they were the only doors out of Hell.
Cora touched his hand. “You look terrible. What is happening here?”
“I wish I knew. I really do.”
She frowned. “I too am involved. The man stayed in my home. I could have touched that… thing… myself. I was here. I saved your life. You are… come si dice… obbligato?”
“I am grateful, Cora. I am. But I really have to go.”
She lifted her glass to him in an ironic salute.
“D’accordo. No problem. Ciao! I will watch.”
From over Cora’s shoulder, Naumann watched with evident amusement as Dalton got halfway to his feet before the blue-white tide came roaring back, this time rising up from the floor. He felt the chair creak under him as he fell heavily back into it. She regarded him with a sly smile over the top of her glass.
“So. Aspetta.”
“I’ve got to sleep this off.”
“No sleep for you. You are drugged. Incapacitato. Talk.”
For a time, Dalton said nothing. She waited in a self-contained calm. Naumann watched Dalton’s face with wary intensity, shaking his head slowly.
“I can tell you some of it. I do owe you that.”
“Oh, please,” said Naumann.