Strange Flesh Read Online Free PDF Page B

to Murder, She Wrote in junior high.”
    Blythe allowed a ripple of laughter and slapped me on the chest. She turned to face me and said, “Milk shakes, then. But I must warn you, I have a lot of secrets.” She wobbled, and I caught her in a half embrace.
    Behind me I heard a soft male voice say, “Blythe.”
    At first I thought it was Coles, in which case I’d have retreated and let her have the fight she was looking for. On turning, however, I saw that it was Blake, headed toward the Bat. Blythe stiffened, her buzz draining right out of her.
    I said, “Hey, Blake.”
    “How are you doing tonight, Blythe?”
    “I guess I’m getting by. James was just taking me for a milk shake to cheer me up.”
    “Well . . . What a gentleman you are, James. Listen, I need to have a word with my sister. Would you mind having your milk shake another time?”
    I shrugged and gestured to her.
    Blythe closed her eyes briefly and said, “Fine. What do you want?”
    He put his arm around her, saying, “Let’s talk on the way back to your room.”
    I watched them cross Mt. Auburn Street, Blake speaking into his sister’s ear. She began rubbing a temple. After another moment of his rebuke, Blythe stopped in the middle of the still, snow-covered street and said, “Blake, I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
    Blake raised his voice too, but he was turned away from me, so I couldn’t hear him.
    Whatever he said, the last bit of his speech caused Blythe’s face to freeze. She slowly straightened, and then unleashed a wicked backhand that connected with Blake’s cheek so hard he stumbled sideways. He grabbed her and shook as if building up to further violence.
    I had enough Texan chivalry in me that I wasn’t going to stand by while a woman was assaulted in the street. I started walking over to where the Randall twins were locked in their vehement pas de deux.
    Blythe saw me move, and she went rigid. Blake, always attuned to her, let go instantly and turned. Doing so snapped him out of his rage, and his face displayed plummeting grief as it dawned on him what had almost happened. A desperate urge to make amends flowed into his eyes, and he reached out to his sister.
    But Blythe was having none of it. Looking back to ensure he was still watching, she marched up to me, took a deep breath, and then, incredibly, kissed me gently on the mouth.
    Even at the time, I was well aware of my role as a mere prop in their family drama, but nonetheless, the touch of her lips was clearly the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. All my thousand versions of this dream uniting in one surpassing moment of consummation.
    I might have felt differently had I known that when she kissed me, that surge of divine electricity she sent through my mind would prove overpowering. So strong that it melted the delicate reset circuitry that would allow me to ever really love anyone else.

5

     
     
    A fter Blythe, I, like my father, transferred my passion for women to one for men: Jim Beam, Jack Daniel, and Basil Hayden.
    Memories of my sophomore summer are pretty blurred around the edges. By the end of it, a vast misunderstanding with the Cambridge police had landed me in a tense meeting with my house master, an old Bat alum. He suggested that I could avoid a dire encounter with the Administrative Board—famously eager to make disciplinary examples at the beginning of a term—by voluntarily taking a year off in order to “better reach my full maturity.” The date was September 8, 2001.
    A week later, I got a message that a grad was looking for me at the Bat. He was a fairly young but professorial guy, and without so much as an introduction, he asked me, “So how’d you like to help us rat-fuck Osama?”
     
    Seeking vengeance quickly cured my depression, and I developed a reputation as a technical asset who also enjoyed the “operational” side of our work. This led to training across a wide spectrum of the clandestine arts, and I discovered a certain