Avalanche

CHAPTER ONE

Abraded skin, bits of dried, clotted blood, a curious sweetness he recalled dimly, assailed the senses of his inquiring tongue.

Skin, whose softness he remembered, felt serrated and deeply scarred.The extraordinary and symmetric ridges, upwelling, reminded him of the scratch of a big cat.

Perfect and parallel welts, tracings as delicate as the silk of a spiders web, swollen and beautifully scabbed, spoke absolutely of the pulsing blood flowing so closely by, so scarcely out of sight.

He thought of undersea ridges, hints, a continent away, of the inevitable orogeny, mountains rising from sediment, that would ensue.The wounds, he realized like extruded magma were once smooth and creamy skin, an ocean bottom broken only by the implacable uprising below, A sticky wetness oozed from the nails on his fingers.He could not help but recall the images so perfectly.

He had licked the blood from her cuts.He had tasted the clotted sweetness, so distinctive, so reminiscent of fire on the plains, smoke from ancient fires, scents from the dawn of early man.

With each breath, he became aroused and more engorged.

Her moan, he realized, may have been for pain at the pressure of his touch or pleasure from his gentle and tender closeness.His fingers pressed further into the taut and deeply knotted muscle of her back.

A wild cat himself now, he cleaned the scratches and groomed her.The taste of blood, its forbidden sweetness, arose and swelled him.Never had he known such a state.

He pressed his face to her, burying his nose and mouth into the soft loin of her arm and shoulder, prying it open with his lips and tongue.

She murmured.

With a slight but discernible release, she murmured and yielded to him, allowing him to be upon her, open entirely and vulnerable, accepting of his carnivorous and thrusting boy.

He thought it was play but suddenly was delirious.He gnawed at the dried wound under her arm, excited by the sweet, sticky blood flowing now, from his repeated knashings, enticing him further and beyond all reason.

In the morning, stains of blood, the evidence of their passioned play was everywhere, and like the colors on her palate, the smile still lighting her sweet and somnolent girl was radiant.

He fell backwards.

Stunned by the clamor of steel, reverberations from the unholy clang of his cell door, the crack of an avalanche; a shreak of noise rippled through the bowels of the cement warren.

‘I am not alone here,’ he realized again, ‘sealed from the world, locked and buried, like Hannah, from the light of day.’

Oh sweet Jesus,Dempsey whispered to himself.

He grit his teeth, struggling to fill his lungs with air.

Oxygen fled his brain as had blood seeped life from his lovely Hannah.

He sat crumpled on the steel cot that was to be his bed and couch, the only vestige of human kind, the only recognizable artifact of the world outside as he had known it.

Prisoner stand,echoed though the bunker.

The professor listened but thought himself hypnotic, deluded into thinking another human would speak or might even be here with him in this purgatory that was undoubtedly his fate forever.

Prisoner One-two-seven, Jack Dempsey.You have a visitor.

The words seemed too clear and precise, too hateful in the oratory to have been imaginary, but there was no one in sight, no reason he should expect anything but the gas chamber or the electric chair.

‘Maybe I am to see a priest,’ he thought.

‘Maybe I am to have last rights and this is not a kangaroo court.Maybe they will give me one last sight of humankind, one last chance to atone before I meet my maker.’

The professor stood.He clasped his hands to the iron bars and peered into the sickening darkness.

Prisoner One-two-seven, you have the right to an attorney.You have been accused of a capitol crime and you have the right to counsel.

Through the gloaming the professor saw the outline of two people approach.One, a corpulent guard he vaguely recognized, the other, a small whiff of a person severely suited, dressed with no hint of occupation or gender, larger than a young adult, scarcely a full grown-up.

May I have a moment with my client,the littlest one asked.It was a woman, Dempsey realized.It was a young woman as timorous and fearful as he was full of dread.

You can speak here Ma’am,the guard answered, his voice unpleasant, his offer, begrudging, but given his record, I am going to have to ask you to stay on this side of the bar.

The lawyer looked briefly at the court officer trying to see what latitude, if any, there was in his answer, trying to see what was the language his body spoke, the likelihood of gaining a more private space for this interview.

I don’t think we can speak properly,she said to the ill-tempered guard.I mean, we really need a more private place, a conference room, or some place with a table and chairs.

The guard crinkled his nose as if to keep from inhaling the foul air of a dying critter or the offal of kitchen middens.

I’m sorry Ma’am.This is the best I can do.Counterpointing the finality in his determination, articulating his steadfastness, he turned on his boot, and removed himself five yards distant, still within earshot, but far enough to allow a semblance of privacy, a separation of himself from the attorney and the accused.

My name is Miss James,The woman began, I am an attorney and have been appointed by this court to represent you.

As she spoke she squinted in the poor light and had difficulty seeing the prisoner’s eyes.She could not determine if he had heard her or what sort of person, his face and countenance, betrayed or portrayed him to be.

I’m sorry it has to be like this,she continued, apologizing for the iron bars between them, but for now, I think it’s the best we can do.

The professor drew up his face, to be as close as he might to the small space between the bars, to see as much as he was able despite the dark and artificial separation of iron denying any of the natural intercourse in which humans more naturally engaged.

My name is Jack Dempsey.I am, or was,he corrected himself, a university professor.

I taught psychology and philosophy.And I’m here because the court thinks I killed my graduate assistant.

His voice fell as he spoke the last words and he retreated from the bars to the cot, the only furniture against the back wall of the cell.

But I didn’t.His voice suddenly displayed the terrible helplessness and distress only humans can articulate.

I don’t know how to tell you everything but I didn’t kill her.

Suddenly the cell was quiet.Only the professor’s struggling gasp for breath, as if whatever devil had held him once in the throes of this terror, now clasped his soul again.

Tell me what you can, professor.You’ll have to try, and the only way is to start somewhere.

For minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, the professor did not move.

Ms.James stood, quietly and with deference to this man who seemed to have a story to tell.

The guard, surprisingly, was quiet all the while.

CHAPTER TWO

Soon after I first met Hannah,the professor began, She invited me to her flat.It was large; two stories of an old timbered, brick manufacturing mill.It was an extraordinary place.

For just a moment the professor’s eyes left the floor, departing the here and now of the cell and wandering through old images and thoughts.He returned to a time where his imagination reconstructed the elements like a photograph coming through the mists, sulfur and nitrates, organizing themselves into the resolution of a clear and pressing image.

The flat was more like a loft, really,he continued, repeating the last word to refocus his thoughts, but apart from a small space where she had a futon, a refrigerator, a table and the most meager artifacts of city life, the remainder of the space was taken by her canvasses.

Miss.James wanted to ask the professor how he met Hannah, where he first came to see her, but resolved not to interrupt.

There were paintings of every imaginable size and color; paintings that I have never seen since and cannot imagine I ever will again.

The professor turned his gaze to an indistinguishable point in the ceiling, somewhere in the past.

Should I continue?His silent query asked.

Trying to piece together the images and simultaneously figure out a strategy for the judge, she was not immediately responsive.

Attentive in the extreme and absent any clear response, he fell silent, for a moment.

She realized her lack of assent occasioned his sudden reticence and, nodding vigorously, indicated he should resume.

I was so struck by the paintings and the unbelievable representations of humanity and their struggles, I was transfixed.I moved like a child from one canvass to another.He looked ashen and seemed suddenly overcome with sadness or perhaps remorse.

After a few minutes, I realized Hannah was not with me.I was in this gallery, face to face with the most incredible portraits of humanity, and completely alone with myself.I turned and could not hear or see any sign of anybody.

"I wondered if she had purposely gone out, leaving me here to see this kaleidoscope of unbelievable fancy.Had she drawn me here to see this most intimate and seductive of worlds for some purpose, to ensnare me?

I was shaken but looked no further for an answer.I was fearful that whatever her motivation, she would just as quickly send me away and close the door.

The professor studied Miss James, wondering if he had transgressed his lawyer’s propriety or perhaps his own sense of the civilized world’s expectations.

She worked to display neither judgment or passion on her face and, in her neutrality, hoped to persuade him to continue.

I would not have minded if she had left.His voice was a low whisper of confident, forthright disclosure.I was overcome by a passion and excitement I had rarely known.

My eyes returned to the canvass, greedily trying to emblazon these images of women, intimate and vulnerable, into my mind.Images evocative of the most unbridled animal and sexual faces of fantasy.Wherever she was, whatever had happened to her, I resolved, I didn’t care.

As I stood in front of one canvass, I felt myself rise, my sex swollen by the image of a girl taking her lover.

The professor looked at Miss James as she imagined patients look at their therapists when they have finally shared their most intimate secrets.

Taken with such abandonment,he continued, such total and abject disregard for their humanity, I was appalled.

The professor again broke from the vivid recollections of his monologue and regarded his attorney.Her face must have betrayed something other than cold, neutral dissonance.

Are you all right?he asked.

She nodded, but didn’t speak.Something in his manner of speech, in his forthrightness, caught her in a way to which she was unaccustomed.

Do you want me to stop?he asked.His voice and question were gentle, as if he had breached an etiquette.

No, don’t stop,she wanted to say, but was fearful she would betray something of her own interest, a growing excitement at the convolutions of the story as well as a peculiar interest for the man in front of her.

She looked at him with as little emotion as she could allow.She turned her face into the cold visage of one who has to deal with hateful court officers.

She raised her brow hoping he would take the cue and she would not be obliged to speak.

The paintings,he resumed, staring off into the corners of the ceiling, were more than I can describe.

He gazed at her now, wide-eyed and wondrous, And I have never since seen anything like it.

They were as clear a series of images as any we carry; the male and female which make for everything we do, more than anything I have ever seen.Do you know what I mean?

She could not speak, taken with his own expression, the now animated manner in which he spoke.

I am a student of psychology.I am also a teacher, yes, but truly I am a student of the human mind.I am always looking to see people underneath the garb of their armor, inside the clothes which make representations of who they want us to think they are while their real person hides inside.People need to be saved from the dangers of uncivilized, unbridled instinct; anarchy.

The professor paused, realizing perhaps that he had digressed and neither the attorney nor the court would care the least bit about his convoluted notions of Western civilization and modern man.

Suddenly there, the whole of my life’s inquiry, the picture I had spent thousands of words, dissertations, and classroom lectures trying to translate and make comprehensible for a world unaware of this underside of life, was in front of me.

He closed his eyes, taking a breath.And it was there,he whispered, as you could have scarcely imagined in your most colorful fantasy.Do you know what I mean?

He didn’t wait for an answer."I’m not sure I know what I mean, but I felt it in my body, such arousal and power.It was as if, for the first time in my life I saw the animal of my spirit, the hunter of my man, of whom I had spoken and for whom I had tried