Excerpted from HEMLOCK GROVE: Or, The Wise Wolf by Brian McGreevy,
published in March 2012 by FSG Originals, an imprint of Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2012 by Brian McGreevy. All rights
reserved.
And remember: the flesh is as sacred as it is profane.
I forgot this.
Whoops.
The green-eyed boy sat alone in the food court and fingered
the needle
in his pocket. The syringe was empty and unused, he had no
use for the
syringe. He had use for the needle. The green-eyed boy -- he
was called
Roman, but what you will have seen first was the eyes --
wore a
tailored Milanese blazer, one hand in pocket, and blue
jeans. He was
pale and lean and as handsome as a hatchet, and in egregious
style and
snobbery a hopeless contrast from the suburban mall food
court where he
sat and looked in the middle distance and fidgeted with the
needle in
his pocket. And then he saw the girl. The blond girl at the
Twist in
pumps and a mini- skirt, leaning in that skirt as though
daring her not
to, or some taunting mystic withholding revelation. Also, he
saw,
alone.
Roman rose and buttoned the top button of his blazer and
waited for her
to continue on with a cone of strawberry, and when she did
he followed.
Maintaining a discreet distance, he followed her through the
main
concourse and stopped outside a women's apparel store as she
entered,
and he watched through the window as she browsed the
lingerie and
finished the cone. She looked around and stuffed a mesh
chemise down
her purse and exited the store. Her tongue darted to collect
crumbs
from her lips. He continued following her to the parking
structure. She
got into the elevator, and seeing there were no other
passengers, he
called Hold please, and jogged to the car. She asked him
what level and
he told her the top, and this must have been her floor as
well because
it was the only button she pressed. They rode up and he
stood behind
her smelling her trampy perfume and thinking of the
underthing in her
purse and silently tapping the syringe through the fabric.
"You ever close your eyes and try real hard and trick your
brain you're
actually going down?" said Roman.
The girl didn't answer, and when the door opened she stepped
out
curtly, like he was some kind of creep when he was just
trying to make
friendly conversation. But so it goes. The game as it were
afoot.
He took out the syringe and palmed it, stepping out of the
elevator,
and outpacing the clip of her heels he closed the distance
between
them. She was now aware beyond question of the pursuit
though she
neither turned back nor made any attempt to run as he came
on her and
jabbed in an upward thrust, the needle puncturing skirt and
panty and
the flesh of her ass, and just as quickly he withdrew as she
gasped and
he continued past her and down the row to his own car.
He repocketed the syringe and entered the front seat,
putting it back
all the way. He unzipped his jeans, freeing his erection,
and laced his
hands behind his head. He waited. After a few moments the
passenger-
side door opened and the girl got in and he closed his eyes
as she
lowered her head to his lap.
A few minutes later she opened the door and leaned over and
spat.
Roman's hands unlaced and his arms came down and as they did
his hand
fell naturally to her lower back, and just as naturally he
rubbed.
Nothing weird about it, or even a thing you think about, you
rub a
girl's back because it's there. But at the feel of his touch
she
recoiled abruptly and straightened. Roman was confused.
"You don't like that?" he said.
"Oh no, baby," she said. "I think it's totally hot."
But she was lying, and lying, he realized, about the first
thing, about
the needle and sucking his dick, and not what he was asking
about,
about her hate of the barest human-to-human gesture at the
end. He was
depressed suddenly and terrifically by the defeated life of
this lying
whore and he wanted her to be gone now, and to get out of
the f**king
mall.
"It'll take a hose to get the smell of prole out of my
nostrils," he
said.
"Poor baby," she said, neither knowing nor making any
attempt to care
what he meant.
He reached into the blazer and took out the money in cash
and handed it
to her. It looked wrong and she counted it. It was $500 over
the agreed
amount. She looked at him.
"You know my name?" he said.
"Yeah," she said. It would have been pointless to say
otherwise,
everyone knew his name.
He looked at her. "No you don't," he said.