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He gurgles when his head falls back. I haul him forward again and get back to work while Billy Joel rattles through “We Didn’t Start the Fire” on the speaker. I sing along under my breath, except I don’t know all the words, so I fill in the blanks with my own lyrics as I go.
“Peter Bodner, panic sweat;
Biggest asshole I’ve met yet.
Open mouth, cheek retraction;
Unsedated tooth extraction.
Plastic sheeting, linocuts;
Walls still smell like ironed nuts.
Book of Mormon, cuck chair;
Possum, squirrel, skunk, bear— Last one! Big finish!” I shout, inhaling a deep breath before pulling one more—leaving only his front top two teeth remaining . . . and a whole lotta blood. His head lolls to the side
“Zebra cakes, motel room;
Zip ties, liquid diet soon.
Wolf mask, I love Deb;
Probably bugs inside this bed—”
A pound on the door has my voice catching in my throat. I carefully set down the pliers and pause the music. I stand, then tiptoe toward the peephole. As soon as I see who’s outside my door, my heart drops into my stomach.
Oh shit.
My footprints track through the dusting of snow that barely coats the parking lot. My breath leaves my lungs like steam as fury bubbles under the surface of my skin. The hole in the wall, the receipt, the mirror, the fucking chair—like his spying was casual enough to need a place to sit. He watched me, not recently, since before we got together. Is this something he does with all his clients? In a fucked-up way, that makes it so much worse because then nothing is real.
The image of Casper keeps refreshing in my mind. His patience, his steadiness, his safety—I laugh under my breath. Safety.
And now this.
His car at an abandoned motel. A woman? Drugs? He’s not answering his phone.
As I approach the door, I realize I don’t even have my words planned. I want to scream at him, hear him explain it, watch him attempt to make sense of what the hell he’s doing.
I bang on the door—hard.
Nothing.
“Casper!” I raise both fists to pound on the door. “Open the fucking door!”
The handle jerks from inside and I jump back; Casper steps out and I open my mouth to yell at him but freeze when I notice what he’s wearing. My arms fall at my sides and I grimace. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
The wolf mask from Halloween is pushed up to his forehead and he’s zipped up to his chin in black neoprene, like he’s starring in some zero-costume-budget production of “The Three Little Pigs.”
He looks down. “A diving suit.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I interrupt a fucking reef expedition? Why are you wearing—” I don’t even know why I asked. Shaking my head, I start over. “I found the hole in my wall, Casper. I know it was you!” I fish the receipt out of my back pocket and throw it at him; it softly floats and he catches it in midair, giving me zero gratification.
He turns it in his hands to read the text.
“How long have you been spying on me?”
He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it and inhales, staring me down. A whisper of guilt flashes in his eyes, but then it’s gone. He just stares back, not saying a word. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t fucking speak.
