The Ankle Bug

by Jeffrey Greene

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

“Glad you approve, honey,” he said. “And I fully understand your reluctance to sharing a room with who knows how many Ankle Bugs. With that many in one place, who knows? One of them might fall in love with your ankle.”

Unamused by his sarcasm, she said, “I’m just afraid of being the odd duck in the room. Only those unfortunates ‘hosting’ their own little bastard can truly understand what it’s like. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course. You’ve been great about this, dear. I know it’s been a truly weird week and a half, and I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to get a hotel room somewhere by yourself. Or maybe not by yourself. Can I kiss you goodbye? Caress your leg with my little pal as a new wrinkle on sex, which God knows we’ve been missing lately?”

Her lips were pressed in that white, angry line he knew so well. She all but spat him a kiss from across the room, then with a muttered “Have fun,” she turned her back on him and sprinted upstairs. He regretted everything he’d just said, but he also didn’t feel like apologizing. She wasn’t the one dealing with this nightmare.

There were several cars in the church parking lot. He followed the signs to Room 12 and entered a big, mostly empty room with about a dozen people in folding chairs grouped in a circle. He soon noticed that no one in the group was elderly, their ages ranging from the late teens to middle age, and there were nearly as many women as men.

Most of the ethnic groups were represented, and he was surprised to see some people wearing shorts, a couple of women in dresses, and some of the men and women with long pants had the leg bearing the insect pulled up. He assumed that this unashamed display of their Ankle Bugs was limited to these meetings.

It took him a few minutes to notice the biggest surprise, which was that all of the women’s bugs were attached to their right ankles, and all the men’s, the left ankle. That can’t be a coincidence, he thought, as he shyly approached the group and found a chair. A Black man about his age stood up and offered a smiling nod.

“Hi, I’m Herb, the organizer of the group. Welcome.”

“Thanks. I’m Joseph. Joe, actually.” Pointing to his Ankle Bug, he said, “And this is... well I haven’t actually named him yet. Don’t want to encourage him to hang around.”

Both polite and genuine laughter greeted his little joke.

“Yeah, I don’t think anybody wants to get that familiar with their bug,” Herb said, chuckling as he sat back down. “Glad to see you have a sense of humor, Joe. It’s about all we’ve got to deal with this craziness.”

A young woman stood up, who by her agitation and continuous checking of the bug on her ankle revealed herself as a brand new host and turned her troubled stare on Joe. “How long have you had your Ankle Bug, sir?”

“Ten days. And you?”

“Twenty-six hours, thirty-three minutes,” she said grimly. Murmurs of sympathy followed this.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

“All we have to hold onto,” said the Native American man sitting next to her, “is that we know it’s going to leave eventually.”

“Thing is,” the young woman went on, “I was with somebody I’d just recently met when it... climbed on. A nice guy, I thought. We were good together, and I hoped it might lead to something more, uh, lasting. But when he saw this thing on me, and that it wasn’t coming off, he just... bolted. Then he ghosted me.”

“So sorry, Lisa,” Herb said. “As we’ve all learned, this is one of the things that can happen with an Ankle Bug. It doesn’t just test your own ability to endure its presence, but your partner’s as well. And some, like yours did, fail that test.”

The young woman nodded and sat down. “Guess it’s better that I found out early what kind of guy he really was, before I got more emotionally involved.”

“That’s a healthy attitude, Lisa,” said a blonde, heavyset woman sitting beside Herb. “It’s important to remember, as Sam said a moment ago, that this, um, ordeal by insect, won’t last longer than your ability to endure it. And you’ll come out of it a stronger, wiser person.”

All these self-help platitudes were getting on Joe’s nerves. “Excuse me,” he said, smiling apologetically to the woman who’d just spoken. “Aren’t we forgetting that our lives have been hijacked by an insect? That it threatens to kill us if we try to do what anyone would naturally do when he finds a bug this big and ugly sticking to his ankle: get it the hell off. I, for one, am not feeling too wise and understanding right now. I’m mad, disgusted, freaked out and not getting along with my very understanding wife of twenty years at the moment. All because of this goddamn bug. To hell with understanding; I want it gone.”

There was a ripple of applause at this outburst.

“Well said, Joe,” was Herb’s careful reply. “Please note, however, that the feelings you’re expressing are unanimous in this group. It’s horrible, no question. And we’re all doing the best we can to cope with it. But we need to keep in mind that it’s not a terminal condition, unless we, well, try killing or evicting our six-legged tenant before it’s ready to move on. Now, does anyone else have comments or complaints?” No one spoke.

“All right. As you can see, we’ve got refreshments and some baked goods on the table over there, and it’s become our practice to mingle a bit and continue the conversation on more intimate terms. So, we’re officially adjourned. Now let’s have some wine and try to forget our troubles.”

Joe thought of leaving, but everyone else seemed to want to socialize, or at least commiserate, so he ambled over to the table and waited his turn for a plastic cup of red wine. He found a spot at the edge of this milling group of strangers and stood there, sipping his cheap wine, a long-married man well out of his comfort zone.

Watching these people, all of whom had been knocked sideways by something none of them could have imagined or prepared for, he felt a surge of pity for them, and himself. Thank God for booze, he thought, draining his cup and going back for more. Everyone else seemed to be hitting the wine pretty hard, and who could blame them?

As he filled his cup and was turning around, he lightly bumped into a woman about his age, maybe a little younger, who was also on a refill mission. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

She shook her head, smiled and patted him gently on the shoulder, then filled her cup and followed him to a less trafficked zone. “I’m Bronwyn,” she said, offering her hand.

“Joseph,” he said, taking her hand, enjoying the feel of her smooth, unblemished skin. “Pleased to meet you.”

She was quite attractive, he couldn’t help noticing, with green eyes and a direct, intelligent gaze. She was tall, trim and fit-looking, with thick, black, nape-length hair streaked with gray framing her pale, angular Irish face, wearing a dark skirt, black high heels and a black sweater that perfectly accented her slender figure.

“I appreciated your tirade, Joseph. Or do you prefer ‘Joe?’”

“‘Joe’ is easier. And thanks. I guess I needed to pop off a little. How long have you had your little stranger, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Two very long weeks. And although I might seem calm and collected, I’m actually on the verge of a complete meltdown, so be advised.”

He laughed. “Me, too. The sheer weirdness of all this has just about done me in. I’ve found myself talking to the damn thing. Is that crazy?”

She smiled, showing even, well-kept teeth. “You should hear some of the choice language I’ve used,” she said. “I alternate between foam-spitting curses and abject begging.”

He grinned and pulled up his pant leg. “As you can see, my attempts to reason with it have been unsuccessful.”

“We’re playing a waiting game, the bug and I,” she said. “Guess who’s winning.”

“Strange as it may sound,” he said, “I’ve been trying to understand it. I mean, after all, in their basic drives, insects aren’t much different from mammals. Avoid getting eaten, find food, a mate, reproduce, and die. But what does latching onto a human ankle and staying there for what is probably a good portion of its lifespan have to do with any of those drives? It’s unnatural.”

She looked down at her wedding ring, and turned it around on her finger, a rather secret smile playing over her lips. “I suppose you’ve noticed that the Ankle Bugs on us ladies have all fastened onto the right side, while the ones on you guys are all lefties.”

“Yes, I have. Do you think it’s possible that the right-side bugs are—”

“Female? Yes. It’s hard to tell them apart, but I’ll bet yours is male. What does that suggest to you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Don’t think I’m being forward here, Joe, because like you, I’m married and love my husband very much. But would you be willing to take a walk outside? It’s a nice, cool evening and we could head into the woods on the church grounds. There’s something about this little group that isn’t openly discussed in the meetings, that you need to know.”

“Uh, okay, sure. Sounds mysterious. Something to do with our six-legged masters?”

“Yes. And if you wouldn’t mind, let me leave first. I’ll see you outside in a couple minutes.”

“Okay. See you out there.”

She tossed off the rest of her wine, and made an unobtrusive exit out of a door near the back of the room. He finished his wine, then casually tossed the cup in a trash can and went out the same door. It was a fine, moonlit evening, just cool enough to be bracing. He looked around and saw Bronwyn signaling him from behind a large tulip poplar at the edge of the parking lot. He joined her there, and they walked together on a sidewalk that led up a low hill into the woods.

“Good idea to walk,” he said. “Haven’t done much outside lately. I’m probably oversensitive to the ostracism that comes with having an Ankle Bug.”

“You’re not alone in that, Joe. Let me ask you something: did you go to the ER after you got your bug?”

He nodded. “And they didn’t know much of anything except what not to do. The treatment was no treatment at all.”

“And they didn’t have a theory of why the bug attaches itself, did they?”

“No, but something tells me that you do, Bronwyn.”

“Not through any private research. The group sort of discovered what’s going on accidentally. I’m warning you: it’s weird.”

“Things couldn’t get much weirder than they already are. Or could they?”

“I’m afraid so. You’ll think I have designs on you, but believe me, Joe, I don’t. It’s all about the bugs, and why they need us.”

He stopped walking. “Let’s hear it.”

“They don’t just randomly leave your ankle. They’re waiting. What we’ve learned is that, in order to reproduce, the Ankle Bugs employ humans as a kind of sexual symbiote. Their two sexes pair off male to male human, female to female human, waiting for their hosts to... well, find each other attractive. I guess it’s because they don’t fly or even crawl too well.

“One of our group members, a biologist, thinks they evolved strictly for clinging to mammals. And we mobile, abundant, highly sexed creatures are perfect for them.

“The attraction doesn’t even have to be conscious on the hosts’ parts. Ankle Bugs have another chemical in their arsenal, not just the one that can kill you. Very specialized. Somehow, when they sense that two hosts are physically drawn to each other, however slightly, they begin to secrete a pheromone, which increases the attraction many times. I think mine is already releasing it.” She stared intently into his eyes, licking her lips. “What are you feeling, Joe?”

What he was feeling was an erection, a dryness in his mouth, and the sudden realization that this woman wasn’t just attractive, she was gorgeous. And clearly turned on by him. But he didn’t want to do something that would almost certainly destroy his marriage. She had edged nearer to him, now standing so close that he could smell her breath. It was sweet, as fragrant as her body, her hair.

“Look, Bronwyn. I love my wife, you love your husband. I admit that I’m attracted to you, very much so, but I also know that we can’t do this.”

“I feel the same way, Joe. But this isn’t about us, as hard as that is to accept. It’s about the Ankle Bugs. They need us, and we need them to go away. And quite honestly, you don’t have a choice. Just try walking away, right now. Go ahead.”

“All right.” He turned and began walking back toward his car, but he hadn’t gotten more than a few yards when he felt the sharp dig of the bug’s claws in his ankle. He gritted his teeth and kept walking. Then the chill feeling of the venom came, making him so dizzy he almost fell. He sat down hard on the sidewalk and waited for it to subside. He heard Bronwyn’s high-heeled footsteps approaching, and turned to find her standing over him. She extended her hand, and with her help he got to his feet.

“I’m sorry, Joe. It’s degrading, but I think you see now that there’s no alternative. We have to go into those woods and have sex. Right now. And after that, we’ll be bug-free. I promise.”

He nodded, both guilty and at the same relieved to give in to his overwhelming desire for her. “Okay. No choice, right?”

They all but ran into the woods, unable to keep their hands off each other, and on the still-moist ground they frantically released their bug-induced passion. Afterward, they lay together awkwardly, half-dressed, sweating in spite of the chill, and feeling their desire for each other leaving them like water down a drain.

Amidst the almost instant embarrassment and shame that followed, and the awful feeling of having done something irrevocable, Joe reached down and felt for the Ankle Bug, and realized with just as sudden joy and wonder, that it wasn’t there.

“Can you feel it, Bronwyn? Mine’s gone!”

“Mine, too. And look, Joe.” He sat up and saw what she was pointing at. Near their feet, hardly a yard away, the two Ankle Bugs were rolling about the moonlit clearing in a tight ball, furiously copulating. Realizing that they were free not only of the bugs but of their coerced passion for each other, they quickly dressed and left the woods.

“So this is the real reason the Ankle Bug Support Group meets every Wednesday,” he said.

“Yes. These woods have acquired many new pairs of Ankle Bugs. They die soon after mating, and when the eggs hatch they burrow into the ground. No one knows for how long.”

When they reached the parking lot, they shook hands.

“We won’t see each other again,” she said. “But you’re a nice guy, Joe, and I’m glad it was you. One last thing: as soon as I get home, I’m going to tell my husband the truth, and I think you should tell your wife. They deserve to know all of it and, once they understand that this was the only way to get the Bugs out of our lives, I think they’ll forgive us.”

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I hope you are. Thanks, Bronwyn. I’m glad it was you, too. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Joe.”

When he got home he found Sandra in the living room, reading a novel for her book club. He pulled up his pant leg with a grin, and without a word she got up and embraced him.

“Sandra, I need to tell you what I had to do to get rid of it,” he said.

She knelt down, and felt the spot where the Bug had made its home for the last ten days, her fingers running over the six, inflamed red spots where its legs had clung, then she stood up and gave him a long, slow kiss.

“No, you don’t,” she said.