Deficiency (7 page)

Enjoyment and fulfillment were the only reasons for life, and who could deny that both of these were enhanced when the individual cared only for himself? There was more of everything for him. He lived to please himself. The weaker and the infirm called that greed or lust, but they were hoping to feed off the success of the stronger, weren't they? In that sense they, too, were selfish.

He loved himself even more for being able to justify that love, and anyone who had seen him on mornings like this one, the morning after a feed, would step back in admiration, in awe, shaking his head, wondering who he was and how they could be like him. He had jogged through the park, past the inferiors like a beautiful fish swimming through a sea of covetousness. They had just wanted to touch him, to be beside him, to learn from him or take from him.

But he was too fast, too graceful, and too clever to permit any of them to do so. As soon as one drew too near, he had driven his feet harder into the soil and had lifted his body away. In moments he had been gone and he had known they had been left shaking their heads and wondering if they had imagined it or they really had seen him.

They would know. Oh, they would know, but only one at a time, and after that knowledge, they would be drained and discarded, left behind like some emptied cartons. He was convinced they existed only for his pleasure and nourishment anyway. He saw them the same way a bird sees worms. And just like a bird, he suffered no guilt when he fed. Indeed, he felt it was coming to him. Why else was it there? Why else was he here?

Questions like these rarely bothered him anyway, and whenever they did, he brushed them aside as he would brush aside some annoying insect. It was just as pointless to stop and wonder why there were mosquitos. Don't wonder about them, destroy them and go on and on and on, he thought…

Just like he was doing now.

Just like he would always do.

Filled with the wonder of himself, he had glided ahead toward the rising sun and into its gradually expanding pool of warmth. Even that existed solely for him.

Late in the afternoon he had read the newspaper while he had sat in a booth in a small Italian restaurant and sipped some white wine. Every time he read a newspaper or turned on the news, it was as if he had been on a journey in space and had just returned to earth. He devoured the headlines and stories like one who had been kept hostage by terrorists for years. He knew that he needed the knowledge and the information in order to conduct himself well in the present. People wouldn't understand if he didn't know what month, day, or year it was, or if he didn't know who was president or what major events like earthquakes or revolutions had just occurred.

Most of the knowledge he had, he had inherited anyway, if
inherited
was the right word for it.
Inherited
implied so many things. It was all just there, at his beck and call. What difference did it make that he couldn't remember how it had gotten there?

When he came to the news story about the young woman who had been found dying in a motel room and read the details, he consumed them with a detachment that would cause anyone who saw him reading to think this was the first he had heard about it.

He sipped some more of his wine and then looked up to smile as the young, buxom waitress with light brown hair brought him his order of lasagna, the special of the day. She had guaranteed him it would be good.

"The pastas homemade here," she pointed out.

He was charming; it came natural to him to be so.

"It's rare that you get a meal that tastes homemade when you are traveling," he replied.

"Where are you going?" she asked. Her name tag on her uniform said Kristin. What a nice name, he thought. Had he ever experienced a Kristin?

"Oh, Canada, I guess."

"You guess?" Kristin had a nice smile. She couldn't be more than twenty, he thought, still fresh and vibrant and full of promises. He envied the man in whose ear she would whisper them, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought about love. The concept flashed past him — wanting someone who wants you forever and ever. What a strange idea; it was like having a milk bottle that continually refilled itself after he had consumed its contents. Wouldn't he love that bottle forever and ever?

Kristin was still standing there, staring down at him, smiling.

"Huh? Oh, I'm on vacation. Sort of a free-wheeling one. I go wherever I have an inclination to go. No set schedules, no previously booked places. It's nice here. I might stay a while," he added and began to eat.

Kristin laughed at how casually he spoke about his future, but he saw that she envied such freedom, such abandon.

"I wish I could do something like that," she said. "But I've got to save up for college or believe me, I wouldn't be here. I ran out of money and had to leave for a year to earn some."

"Very ambitious of you," he complimented. She smiled modestly.

"How's the lasagna?"

"Very good. You told me the truth," he said winking. She blushed. What innocence. It made his heart sing.

Yes, he thought. He would stay here a while longer. There was something wonderful and pure about this area now. It was uncluttered, uncrowded, peaceful, and slow, the villages quiet and quaint, the inhabitants moving at a tranquil and serene pace, traffic nearly at a crawl. There was none of the hustle and bustle of the cities, and the people who lived here, because they were relaxed, were friendlier, more inviting. More important, they were more trusting.

"I just checked in some motel last night," he said, "but maybe I'll hang around a while. Know of a good rooming house or something, where I could rent a room for a week or more?"

"Oh yes," Kristin said, her hazel eyes brightening. "My grandmother runs a rooming house and it's off season now so you could get one very cheaply."

"That sounds great."

She told him how to get there. And then she added, "I live there with my grandmother."

"Um," he said, enjoying every succulent bite of his homemade lasagna. "Maybe I can talk you into showing me around one day."

"On my day off," she replied. "This Thursday."

"Maybe we'll have a date. My name is Karl," he said, offering his hand. He was working his way around the alphabet again and he was on the K's.

She placed her small, soft palm and fingers into his, and he closed his hand over hers slowly, staring down at it as he did so, looking like one who couldn't believe his luck. The sensuous way in which he brought his skin to hers and held her hand sent a tingle through her breasts. She felt her heart quicken. Her physiological reactions took her quite by surprise. Never had she stood smiling so foolishly at a man before. She was very self-conscious and shifted her eyes from side to side quickly to be sure no one around had noticed. But everyone in the restaurant was busy with his or her own thing.

Finally, he released her hand, letting her draw it from his gracefully, the tips of his fingers grazing the tips of hers. It sent another tingle through her bosom, a tingle that seemed to escape through the tips of each nipple. He had such a soft, inviting mouth, she thought and imagined her mouth pressing against his, his tongue searching for hers.

"Hi," she finally uttered and giggled nervously, hating herself for sounding so young. "I'm Kristin, Kristin Martin."

"Kristin is a lovely name. I don't recall ever knowing a woman with that name," he said happily. The way he said it made her think that if he had known another Kristin, he would pay her no attention.

"My grandmother actually named me. My parents were arguing over Christie and Carissa and she suggested Kristin."

"What happened to your parents?" he asked. Parents always interested him, probably because of the vagueness surrounding his own.

"Car accident," she said. He could see that the memory was fresh enough to bring tears to her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you the only child?"

"Yes."

"So am I," he said.

She smiled.

The chef hit a bell.

"I've got another pickup," she said.

He smiled and watched her walk away, watched the way her hips clung to the light blue uniform, how her buttocks swayed and her shoulders turned. The female form was truly the most beautiful sight on earth, he thought. All of them, every one of them, no matter how tall or how thin, how short or how fat, were beautiful to him. He found something to admire and something to desire in each and every female he saw. That even went for young ones, especially girls just becoming women. Was that part of his special power, his ability to see the promise in a young girl's body?

Why worry about it? he thought and shrugged. Why worry about anything?

He finished his lasagna, had some coffee, and then went looking for Grandmother Martin's rooming house at the west end of this small hamlet called Loch Sheldrake. It consisted of one long main street and a number of side streets, most of the homes vintage late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Grandmother Martin's large home was no exception. It was easy to find because it was so architecturally distinct.

It was a three-story Victorian with rusticated stone foundation, lower story porch supports, and tower. The walls of the upper stories were clad with textured shingles. The steeply pitched roof had intersecting cross gables and multilevel eaves. The windows in the lower level of the tower had Romanesque arches and the windows of the third story were all Palladian windows. There were two gabled dormers, both with three ribbon windows.

He thought there were at least five or six acres of land surrounding the house, and noted a small pond in the rear with a gazebo beside it. How picturesque, he thought and for a moment had a flash of memory that suggested he had lived somewhere similar in his youth. Was that his memory or someone else's? What difference did it make? The important thing was it left him with a residue of nostalgia and made him all the more eager to rent a room.

Grandmother Martin greeted him at the door. She was obviously a feisty old lady with a hard firm face that had inquisitive eyes filled with suspicion. She kept her gray hair neatly cut just below her ears and wore no makeup, not even a trace of rouge to hide the paleness of her complexion. She looked like one who would not deny age nor tolerate anyone who tried. She was small-boned, not more than five feet four at the most, but she stood so erect and secure, it was as though she had a steel rod shoved down the center of her spine.

Old people were more than simply an anomaly to him; they were frightening as well. His world was a world of youth and vibrancy. Age was a disease, not a natural process. He saw it truly as decaying. Wrinkled and gray, toothless and forgetful, crippled and arthritic, old men and women were already dead in his eyes. They offered no sustenance for his well-being. He felt as though he were looking into the face of his own death should he ever fail to provide for himself.

Grandmother Martin sensed his aversion for her, and it triggered warnings, but he was able to manage one of his charming smiles and keep his voice soft, controlled, appealing. He quickly explained how he had come to knock at her door. She smirked.

"Kristin's as good as any booking agent," she said, but she didn't make it sound like something good. "It ain't the season no more, you know. Things is closed everywhere," she warned.

"Oh, I know that, but fall is so beautiful here, I thought I would linger a few days, maybe even a week or so and enjoy the scenery and the peacefulness. Life is so hectic these days. It's nice to find a real escape."

"Um…" she said still leery. Her guests were usually older people who had been coming to her rooming house for years and years. All she had to offer them was home cooking and a clean place. There were no facilities. The pond was too small for boating and too muddy for swimming. Martin's Rooming House was just a place to rest your tired old bones, she thought, and wondered why this young man would want to stay here, especially now.

"I don't heat the rooms, you know," she said, not quite sure herself why she was searching for ways to discourage unexpected found income.

"That's fine. I don't sleep with heat on much anyway. I like it better when it's cool. How big is this house?" he asked gazing up at one of the dormers. "It looks enormous."

"Eighteen rooms," she replied, her arms still folded tightly under her small bosom. In fact, she was pressing her forearms against herself so firmly, she felt she might crack one of her own ribs.

"Is there a room available in the tower? That looks like fun," he said.

"The tower? Yes," she said. "I suppose you could take that one. I got to get some fresh bedding together first. And it needs a good dusting. I've had the rooms closed down for nearly a month, you know," she said defensively.

"Oh, I'm sure it will be a lot nicer than the motel I was in last night. You know how they clean those places," he said. She grunted.

"Where are you from?" she asked. It was more like a demand. She still hadn't agreed to rent him the room.

"New York City. Upper Manhattan on the East Side," he said. It came to him as quickly as a line memorized from a play he had been doing week after week.

"What do you do, Mr…."

"Karl," he said, but he could see she wasn't comfortable with first names. "Karl Stanley. I'm an accountant," he said. "A CPA," he added to impress her. She didn't look impressed. "I have a vacation now and…"

"What kind of vacation is it that you don't know how long you will stay?" she asked quickly.

He felt a chilling sweat break out on the back of his neck. Only old people could do this to him, make him sound and feel defensive. He took a deep breath. Her eyes grew smaller as she waited for his answer.

"Oh, I'm self-employed," he said. "I own my own business and can usually pick and chose my own schedule. So," he said, "will it be all right… the room in the tower?"

"I suppose," she replied. "You'll have to wait until I get it ready, though. You can bring your things into the sitting room on the right here until then," she added, finally backing up to indicate where he should go.