Justice

He walked toward the mirror that, along with a dented steel door, interrupted the room's flat gray, stained walls. He breathed through his mouth, trying to get oxygen from the dead air. He heard a slight whistle as he inhaled, a sound that had always irritated his ex-wife for some reason she never explained. He wheezed again, more loudly. He waited patiently for an uptake of breath from Tony. It finally came, echoing breathlessly. He turned around, watching Tony's eyes, his forehead, his mouth.

"No." Tony spoke slowly, reflectively. His voice sounded artificially deep and hollow in the bare room. He looked up, as though he wondered where it had come from, if it were really his voice. Harris wondered if he knew what he had answered.

"But you did have sex with her."

"No." He answered a little more quickly. Now he looked down at his large, smooth hands, folded carefully on the table. He seemed fascinated by them. Harris found himself staring at them, too, until he remembered where he was and why. He took a step forward, away from the mirror, toward Tony. He leaned casually on the table. It creaked and slid slightly under the weight.

"Tony, you had sex with her. It was obvious. Why are you lying about it? Why are you denying it? You know it doesn't change things."

"I didn't have sex with her."

"Tony" . . . Unsuccessfully, Harris tried not to sound annoyed. It didn't matter. Tony didn't seem to be listening. His eyes reflected a mind watching another reality.

"I made love to her."

"That's a pretty fine distinction, isn't it?"

"I made love to her." Tony said it with stubbornness. Or conviction. Harris wasn't sure which.

"Semantics."

"No."

"I'm not understanding this. Maybe you'd better explain."

"I made love to her." Tony's voice was low, but firm. He wasn't wavering from his story, which seemed to be written in his hands. The hands that had brought him here.

"Yes, we've established that. I believe you. I want to know exactly what you mean by that." Not too exactly, Harris thought. Just enough to understand why, just for the record. He didn't want to know more than he had to. It would be up to someone else to figure out the details. He wanted to be able to sleep without dreaming of what and why. He wanted to forget their faces, Tony's and the woman he'd loved.

Tony's brown eyes became clear, almost glossy. He repeated his theme.

"I made love to her. I made love to her hair . . . do you remember her hair?"

"Yes." Harris remembered; it was only a few hours since he'd seen it, splayed lifelessly over whole-milk shoulders. "It was red." His ex-wife would have spent hundreds of dollars to have that kind of hair—thick, rich, radiant. In this case, it was natural—and framed the pale, still face of a dead woman.>

"It was red. And thick. And wavy. It was like the ocean, only the color was angry and the waves violent. I soothed it and made it my own. Like Poseidon."

"Poseidon?" Dim memories of something stirred in Harris's mind. He looked for a clock on the wall. There wasn't one. There had never been one. He knew that. He shouldn't have thought of his ex. "Then what happened?"

"I made love to her eyes, to her great, green eyes. The gold flecks in them responded to me to my touch, to my thoughts . . . they burned with life."

Tony paused. He seemed to be thinking of something—something that was half memory, half conjecture. Harris saw the outlines; they disturbed him vaguely. Just as he opened his mouth, Tony spoke. Like those of his lover, his eyes glowed. Harris felt a little nauseated, as though he had never seen death before, as though he didn't see death every day. But never like this.T>

"I made love to her mouth. She had the most beautiful mouth—it was like that of a child—full, soft, shapeless . . . I wanted to taste it, to shape it . . .">

Harris turned away and swallowed, then coughed hard. He swallowed sour acid. Not enough food, not enough sleep. He picked up his coffee cup and looked into it. Dry, brown stains taunted him. He set it down again. The sound echoed metallically in the barren room.

Tony didn't notice. "I made love to her skin. Did you notice her skin?"

Harris nodded. He suddenly realized he did remember everything about her. Not just her hair, but her eyes, her mouth, her skin. He didn't know why. He had seen lovely women, but he'd never experienced one. He didn't think he ever would. He probably shouldn't regret that.

"Thousands of tiny pores in a mass of creamy white. I loved every one of those pores."

Tony didn't say anything more. Harris hoped the anatomy lesson was over. He thought he understood more than he wanted to. He knew he didn't really want to understand at all. Ever.

"Yes, well . . ." He hesitated. One second too many.

"I didn't stop there."

"I didn't think so." He finally pulled the other chair out, sat down next to Tony, and leaned back. Like the table, it creaked in protest. His body ached all over. He shifted the chair slightly and put a little space between himself and the killer.

"I made love to her thoughts. I could feel them. They were wild, undisciplined, exciting . . . I've never known anything like that."

Harris never had, either, and never would, he hoped. His ex would understand, he thought.

Tony's eyes had become less brilliant . . . softer, more fluid.

"I loved her past, my past, our past. Our past—we grew up together, like brother and sister, inseparable, two people, one mind. Playing together, reading together, discovering the world and ourselves together . . . I found her within me; I was in her. I believed. I thought she believed it, too. Two existences, one belief, one soul. Two children with no thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow, just now . . . just us."T>

Harris sighed quietly, relieved at the change in focus. He wasn't sure what this was accomplishing, but he couldn't stop it, either. It would come to its own conclusion, in its own time. He could neither hurry nor change the ending. The mirror distorted the sadness and tiredness in his face, making him look like a happy clown.

"I loved her future, my future, our future." Tony stopped. Harris remembered the bed, the comforter brightly decorated with bloodstained roses and vines, the girl with the massive waves of red hair, and the 12-inch blade penetrating her heart. Not much of a future for either of them. Tony didn't say anything for a few minutes as he continued to contemplate his hands. Maybe Tony was remembering the future. Or how those hands had changed it. Harris looked at his cup again. Still dry.

In the silence of their thoughts, Tony spoke again. His quiet, low voice became even quieter.

"I was happy. Or I thought I was happy. I thought she was happy, too. We finally belonged to each other."

Harris felt a conclusion coming. He straightened. The air moved a little in response.

Silence.

Finally, "What happened, Tony?"

"I made love to her."

Harris held his breath.

"Or I thought I did."

"You did. That was obvious."

"She wouldn't let me."

Harris exhaled and inhaled as quietly as possible. He thought he could feel his brain dying, one cell at a time. He was becoming too aware.

"But . . ."

"She wouldn't let me."

"Why did you kill her?"

"She let me have everything but the one thing I wanted . . . the one thing I needed. She wouldn't let me have that."

Harris didn't ask—he knew the answer was coming. Tony's voice was sinking slowly, but he seemed determined to hold on long enough to say what he wanted to say.

"I wanted . . . needed . . . her soul. We were one. Our souls were one. Weren't they?"

"Did you tell her that?"

"I told her that her soul was mine. I told her it would be my life and our future."

"What did she say?"

"She laughed and said that I had to leave, that she didn't like the way I was talking, that I was talking nonsense, that she was tired, that it was time for me to go, that she didn't want me there. It was an unkind laugh, an ugly laugh."

"Were you angry?"

"I was . . . disappointed. I thought she understood. I know she did. Didn't she?"

"Then what?"

"I took it. I had to."

"How did you take it?"

"I had her body, I had her thoughts, I had her. Why couldn't she give me that one thing? She always knew how much I wanted her . . . all of her."

Harris wondered how much she had really known. He had no answers, no comfort. "Now you have her. Soul and all."

"No."

"No?"

"It was dead. It had always been dead. I could feel it. It was a decayed thing, a corpse lying under an ancient headstone, killing me. Killing my immortality."

"Why did you kill her?" Harris repeated the question. He wanted a simple answer. Why were there no simple answers? His eyes were starting to throb. He glared at the empty coffee cup.

"I didn't."

"You did. You can't deny it." No more coffee, no more patience, no more time.

Tony's voice rose a notch; he looked up sorrowfully. "I suppose that's how you see it. You can't help but see it that way. You don't understand. You don't believe."

Harris waited.

"I couldn't have killed her. I really couldn't have."

"Why not?"

"I've already told you!"

"You haven't told me anything."

"I couldn't have killed her. She was already dead."

That night, finally in his own bed, Harris had no dreams. He woke up too early, tired and anxious. He didn't know why. His morning coffee made him vomit.

He found Tony's body first thing. The dark mass of blood was a sickening gel. He shuddered involuntarily and shuffled off to report the incident. It would go down as a suicide. Harris knew it wasn't that simple. He understood more than Tony had realized, even if he didn't believe.

Tony had robbed his lover of her dead soul. Now she had taken his.

Revised 24 January 1999.
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