After Midnight

38
THE SLIP

Every time I remember it, I get the same awful, sick feeling in the pit of my guts.
Murphy saying my name.
My real name.
(Not Alice, by the way. But my real name was on my driver’s license and on a dozen other items in my wallet, and that’s the name that came out of Murphy’s mouth as we clutched each other in the bathroom doorway.)
Alice, not Fran.
He had searched my purse.
He knew who I was and where I lived.
Letting go of his back, I clutched his hair with both hands and jerked his head back, tilting his face toward mine.
“What’d you say?” I asked.
“Huh? When?”
“Just now.”
“Huh?”
“You called me Alice.”
“Huh?”
“Why’d you call me Alice?”
“Did I?”
“You looked in my purse!” I blurted into his face. Then my right hand let go of his hair and I hit him with my fist. Punched him in the cheek so hard it jolted his head sideways.
And then he staggered backward.
Lurched backward, turning as if he wanted to set me down in the middle of the bathroom floor. But he didn’t really have his balance anymore.
He couldn’t stop.
Couldn’t set me down.
It might’ve turned out all right, but too many things went wrong.
For one, Murphy kicked over the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I heard it go over and roll, and heard its liquid gurgling out, slicking the tiles.
For another, Murphy had me clinging to him. Had me spitted on his cock so I couldn’t jump down, couldn’t get free, couldn’t do anything to stop his sudden backward voyage across the bathroom.
Perched high and able to see over the top of his head, I saw what was coming.
“Watch out!” I yelled.
But he couldn’t.
A moment later, the bathtub kicked his legs out from under him.
I flew face-first toward the tile wall on the other side of the tub. Throwing out my hands, I slapped the wall. My arms folded. I turned my face and my cheek struck one of my forearms.
From lower down came an awful thud like a coconut dropped on a concrete sidewalk. I not only heard it, but I felt it. Felt Murphy jolt between my legs and in me.
Suddenly, I felt a quick, sucking pull inside, and heard a slurp, and he was out.
And I was falling.
I threw my legs apart so Murphy wouldn’t land on them.
My bare feet slapped against the bottom of the tub. For a moment, I seemed to be standing, hunched low over Murphy as if looking for a good way to sit on him. It seemed like a long moment. I saw him down there, looking limp and odd. I sure didn’t want to sit on him. But I probably would’ve done it, anyway, if I’d had a choice.
I didn’t.
Because it was only a moment, and I might’ve seemed to be standing, but I wasn’t.
I was just pausing in mid-fall.
Waving my arms, I tumbled backward. My butt slapped against the edge of the tub—between Murphy’s knees. Then my legs flew up and I dropped to the floor.
My back smacked the tile floor.
Then my head thumped it.
And that, as they say, was “all she wrote.”
At least for a pretty long while.
I don’t know what I dreamed about. Probably something bad. Whatever it might’ve been, though, at least I didn’t wake up choking.
Just with a horrid headache.
I was lying on my back with my legs up, calves resting on the edge of the tub. The way Murphy’s feet were sticking out, I figured he was probably in the reverse of my position, and inside the tub.
“Murph?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Then I remembered the sound and feel of his head striking the wall—and my glimpse of him as I fell.
“Murph?” I asked again. “Are you okay?”
Nothing.
“Are you dead?”
Nothing.
“God,” I muttered.
Then I started to cry.
A word of advice: don’t ever cry when you’ve got a splitting headache. The crying does something to the pressure inside your head. Pretty soon, I felt like I had a team of maniacs chewing and clawing through my brain.
It seemed to get worse and worse. I tore off my wig of red hair and flung it aside. I felt a little better without it, but not much.
The pain still raging, I clutched both sides of my head.
Finally, I figured my position on the floor wasn’t helping matters. I needed to get up. So I drew in my legs. They were pretty numb from the calves down because of how they’d been resting on the tub’s edge. But I brought them to my side of the tub, anyway, and shoved with my feet.
My back slid over the tile floor. As I scooted, the top of my head ran into Murphy’s trunks and pushed them along in front of me. I ended up in the puddle of hydrogen peroxide with the plastic bottle against my shoulder.
For a while, I just lay there on my back, sobbing and holding my head, my legs straight out on the floor.
I knew I should be trying to get away.
But I couldn’t.
And didn’t really care.
I felt too miserable to care about anything.
I’d killed Murphy.
I’d damn near busted my own head open.
Maybe I did!
Raising my head slightly, I explored it with my fingers. My hair was wet—maybe with blood. But I found no gaping fissures, no spilling brains. Just a bump high on the back of my head, as if half a golf ball had been stuffed underneath my scalp.
I looked at my fingers. They were wet, but not bloody.
Pretty soon, I rolled over. I crawled out of the bathroom. Off the tiles and onto the carpet of the living room.
As I crawled toward the coffee table, CNN blared at me about some damn ferry boat sinking in some Godforsaken corner of the world.
Like I could give a shit. I had problems of my own.
The voices made my head throb.
So I took a detour to the television. Kneeling in front of it, I had to squint because of the picture’s brightness. But I found the power button and hit it with a knuckle. The TV suddenly went dark and silent.
Much better.
Turning around, I crawled the rest of the way to the table. I grabbed its edge and pushed myself up. On my knees, I studied the clutter for a few seconds.
I was looking for the Excedrin and the water glass, but the first thing I saw was Murphy’s book. The one that he’d autographed for me. Deep Dead Eyes.
It wasn’t something I wanted to be seeing just then.
I looked away from it fast.
When I spotted the plastic bottle of Excedrin, I reached out and grabbed it. I pulled it over to me, then got hold of the glass.
It was half full of water.
I tossed four Excedrin tablets into my mouth. Then, with a shuddering hand, I picked up the glass. I gulped the water and swallowed the tablets.
They went down fine.
I was still awfully thirsty, though. Holding on to the glass, I struggled to my feet. I staggered into the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and filled the glass with cold water. I drank it all. Then I refilled the glass. This time, I sipped it slowly and looked around.
Murphy’s kitchen seemed to double for an office. Its breakfast table held a computer, piles of paper and stacks of books. I could almost see him sitting at the table, rubbing his hair and frowning with thought.
No more books for him.
Starting to feel worse, I turned away and saw a clock above the kitchen’s entryway.
1:25
Early afternoon. A lot earlier than I would’ve thought.
What’ll I do?
I wanted to lie down on a nice bed and sleep. Make my headache go away. Make all this go away. At least for a while.
Lie down in my own bed…
But I couldn’t do that, couldn’t leave, not without taking care of the evidence.
A major clean-up to get rid of every trace of me.
It seemed like a huge, impossible job.
The way I felt…
I filled the glass once more with water, then carried it out of the kitchen and into Murphy’s bedroom.
As I made my way toward the bed, I saw three of the ropes he’d used on me. They lay on the carpet like pale, dead snakes. Each was still tied to a leg of the bed.
I’ll have to take those…
I saw the condom, too. On the floor where I’d dropped it when I took Murphy into my mouth.
The pale white disk looked like a sea creature you might find washed up on a beach, dead.
I’ll have to get rid of it.
But I could do nothing, now.
I set the glass of water on the nightstand, then crawled onto the bed, sprawled myself out on its rumpled sheet, and buried my face in the pillow.