Page 46 of Rainshadow

An hour later they were back in her room, and Flora was letting him tear off her clothes. She was hungry for touch, and this man’s, a stranger’s, was not truly satisfying. It was like eating a slice of cucumber when what you really wanted was a steak. She undressed him, and liked the way his eyes grew wide as she mounted him in the bed, rocking herself on top of him, looking with feverish intensity into his eyes.

“Are you ok?” he asked, his eyes flickering between her face and her small breasts, swaying.

“Yeah,” she growled. “I need this. I need you.”

“Ok,” he said, “yeah. I need you too. I need you.”

When she looked down at him though, she saw all of his imperfections. Ethan was a perfect image of masculine beauty. This man, with his scruffy hair, his thin lips, and the light smattering of pimples on his chest, was not like Ethan at all. He could not make her feel the way that Ethan could make her feel, that incredible joining of his need and pleasure with hers, so deeply gratifying that it was like burning from the inside out.

After, as she lay next to the stranger, he put a sweat-damp arm around her.

“What are you doing here, in Seattle?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I lived on the islands, but I had to leave. I need a job, I guess.”

“What do you want to do? What’s your dream?”

Her only dream, the only one she could remember really caring about, was about Rainshadow.

“I don’t know,” she said to the stranger. “I can’t remember what my dreams were.”

“I want to be a musician,” he said. “I play guitar, and there’s a lot happening in the scene right now, you know?”

“No,” she said. She had no idea what was happening.

“You should come see me play,” he said. “At The Crocodile.”

She smiled at him but knew she wouldn’t. She felt gross. She felt sick. She had just had sex with a disgusting mortal man.

“I think I want to go to sleep now,” she said, tuning over and hoping the man would leave.

He rolled over, and she felt his eyes on the back of her neck.

“Can I stay here?” She took a deep shuddering breath, hating him.

“I think I kind of want to be alone,” she said, her voice very quiet. “Sorry.”

She tried to imagine Sylvia speaking in such a small voice, saying “sorry” when she wasn’t sorry.

“Oh, well,” he said, running a hand over her back, “I’ll just be quiet then.”

What would Sylvia do?

“Actually.” Flora sat up in the bed, turned to the man. “I want you to leave now. Thanks.”

He looked at her, a little stunned.

“Ok,” he said. “I’ll… I’ll just go then.”

She watched as he dressed, occasionally looking at her as if for sympathy. She stared back at him coldly until he finally shambled out the door and she could lock it behind him. She felt so dirty that she took a shower, scrubbing herself with a washcloth until her skin was pink, then got into the now-soiled bed and cried.

She wanted to go home, but she had no home, no home in all the world. She had always believed that outside forces conspired to keep her on Anderson Island, but now she was certain that she was a pathetic little nobody who, leaving the confines of the island, of Rainshadow, was as vulnerable and exposed as a mouse scurrying around looking for a hole to retreat to.

Flora cried so hard she was choking, barely breathing, a flood of self-pity so deep she could drown in it. She wanted to drown in it. She imagined Sylvia crying. Had Sylvia ever cried? Or was she as cold a bitch as she seemed, immune to the pain she had caused Flora? She ruminated to the point of obsession, imagining a young Sylvia stumbling into a beautiful man, money, horses, everything she could ever want, and not even appreciating it, throwing it all away by being a bitch and a drug addict.

She sobbed and sobbed, hating and hating.

In the morning, she felt empty. She had to get out of the hotel room, contaminated by the man, the stranger who was not Ethan. She packed quickly and rushed to her car in the parking lot, only to find one of the windows busted out. She had kept everything valuable with her, but whoever had busted the window had stolen the stereo, ripping it out of the car.

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