The Naked Face

by Jeffrey Greene

Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

part 7

Since the advent of Masque, which neither of them were old enough to remember, kissing had become an almost suicidally dangerous practice. For those willing to risk infection, it was a hell-with-it expression of love and desire; for most others, it was a grotesque, unsanitary custom that went out with shaking hands.

The living mask-wearer could feel his mask flesh nearly, if not quite, as well as his own. A comedian famous a decade back had gotten laughs calling masks “face condoms.” But the sensitivity of human lips and skin were still beyond mask technology. The nano mesh could be temporarily turned off to eat and drink and practice oral hygiene and, if one were willing to take the risk, the tongue was free to explore what it would, as well as hands and skin.

They touched with fingers, tongues and skin on their way to her bedroom, caressing and licking everything but their masks, which had no physical part in love-making, except as a spur to the erotic imagination. Each loved the way the other smelled. Afterward, they lay together for a long time, not speaking, until she rose and went into the bathroom. When she came back, still naked, he was half dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed.

She sat close to him, molding her sweet warmth against his. She took his hand. “So you’re leaving already?”

He nodded. “But just long enough to drive back to town and tell the Mayor I’m quitting. What you said about Sterns’s life expectancy, you’re right. And I’m no killer, even if she deserves it. Maybe I could rent a room from you for a few days, until I find a place around here to live?”

“Let me think about it,” she said, wrapping her body around him and pulling him backward onto the bed. “Okay, I’ve thought. You can stay here, in the guest room.”

“I thought this was your room.”

“It doubles as a guest room. If I like the guest.”

“Well, I travel light, if that earns me any points.”

“You’re in.”

He stripped off what little he had on and the afternoon continued. After a while, she murmured into his ear, “I do have a phone, you know. You can hand in your resignation to the mayor from here.”

“Come to think of it, he did ask me to check in by phone once in a while, to prove I’m still breathing. I could just call him.”

“Phone’s in the kitchen.”

“Before I do that, is there a place around back that I can park my car? Where it can’t be seen from the road?”

She sat up and looked hard at him. “Why?”

He got up and started dressing. “You know why.”

“So you haven’t given up on her. I thought not.”

“It’s a long shot. Chances are against her coming back here. I hope she doesn’t. But if she does happen to show up, and she thinks it’s just you here, we could end this.”

“Or get ourselves killed.”

“It’s a chance, Amber, probably my last chance. And it would be self-defense. Do you have a weapon?”

“A hunting rifle. I only use it on rattlesnakes near the house. No doubt you’re carrying?”

“Handgun. And in case you’re wondering, I wouldn’t just ambush and shoot her, either.”

“But you said she wouldn’t come back.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But I’d still like to hide the car.”

She dressed quickly, then paused in the doorway. “Come on. I’ll show you where.”

They slept together that night, Ramón sprawled on the rug at the foot of the bed. After breakfast, she packed a lunch and filled their canteens, left food and water for Ramón, and then drove them to a canyon trail about twenty miles away. Amber knew the country well and set a moderate pace through the tight turnings of the slot canyon, its red walls rising a hundred feet or more on both sides of the trail.

Rickard gradually eased into the pleasure of being quiet with this woman, who clearly savored the austere beauty of these unpeopled sandstone distances that had once been a vast inland sea and, though she had a ready answer to all his questions, she would fall silent for minutes a time, as if in respectful awe of the colossal monuments to deep time being traversed. He found himself falling in with her mood.

After several miles in the often close spaces of the canyon, the going got harder as they slowly ascended, and by mid-afternoon they were having lunch on some flat rocks overlooking the ridge, shaded by a Gambel Oak. As they ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apples, he realized that for the first time since the early days of his marriage to Julie, he was feeling comfortable in a woman’s company.

“I owe you for three meals and a night’s lodging,” he said.

“And I’m keeping track of every penny,” she said with mock severity. She had changed masks in the morning, this one another cat, a Russian Blue, that only for a moment reminded him of the Black Cat. The fur was gray, short, with vertical black stripes above the eyes.

“I like you as a cat,” he said.

“I like you as Lonesome.”

“I hope this doesn’t shock you—” he began.

“Oh, please shock me!” she interrupted, laughing.

“I was brought up to believe how important Masque is for the survival of the species, and had the whole catechism drilled into me at school on the long history of the Naked Time, how air-borne diseases freely spread through the population, killing millions. But I still wonder if faces are really meant to be covered up. Aren’t they Nature’s calling card? The mask behind the mask, the one we’re born and die with, not the proto-parasites we let feed on our faces for all the good and bad reasons we do. And just lately I’ve been wondering what you look like naked.”

“You already know.”

“And a lovely sight it is. I meant your face.”

“I know what you meant, and no, I’m not shocked. It’s crossed my mind, too, Evan, to wonder what’s lurking under that Lonesome Cowboy. This repulsion we’re supposed to feel at the very idea of the naked face isn’t natural. If the Indo-5 Virus and its many variants wasn’t so creative in defeating every vaccine developed to fight it, I don’t think the whole Masque thing would have started in the first place. We’d be here right now, looking at each other without the need for so-called variety. Our faces would age along with our bodies, like they’re supposed to. I wish I’d been born in that time, before the virus ruined everything. Then I could see you the way you are. I know I’d like your face, because I like you. Too bad I’ll probably never see it.”

“Don’t rule it out. Deaths from the virus are on the decline, and eventually masks will be medically unnecessary, and people will tire of the expense and all the desperate identity games. Then Masque will become just another quaint period style that came and went, like beauty marks and powdered wigs.”

“What other period?” she asked with bitter sarcasm. “Where’s the next generation going to come from? Clones?”

“There’ll be children,” he replied. “Sterility isn’t universal. Not many births at first, but the species will limp back,” he said.

“Maybe so. It would be enough for me just to be able to feel the sun and wind on my face. But right now, taking off your mask is a crime.” She pulled her sunglasses down and and scanned the canyon lands, mesas and distant mountains. He smiled at the effect of a cat with shades. She smiled, too. “We better get moving.”

“Is it a circuit trail?”

She nodded. “About three more miles back to the car.” Taking a long drink from her canteen, she stood up and shrugged on her pack. It had been very hot from late morning on, but now that they were unprotected by the canyon walls, the heat was blistering. Hats and long-sleeved shirts helped, and it was cloudy enough to hide the sun from time to time. But he wasn’t in as good shape as she was and got winded on the inclines. He resolved to work on that.

* * *

He went into Clifford the next morning, carrying Amber’s grocery list, but first he paid a visit to the office of Mayor Dimes. The mayor, ensconced in a desolate little office in the very modest municipal building on the main drag, his bull mask looking moribund, seemed neither surprised nor upset by his resignation.

“Might I ask why the change of heart?”

“Let’s just say I found a reason to stick around,” he said.

“I think I can guess the reason’s name,” Dimes said with a smile. “Well, good luck to you both, Mr. Rickard. I guess Magda Sterns will meet her maker soon enough without our help. Too bad about the town’s money, though.”

“Wasn’t it insured?”

“Yeah, but it would lower next year’s premium if we could recover some of it.”

“Sorry I’ve crapped out on you, Mr. Mayor.”

“It’s okay. You’re a lucky man. Most of the single guys and half of the married ones around here would kill to be in your shoes. Guess you’ll be needing a new mask. A Lonesome Cowboy no more.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks again for putting in a word with the mechanic.”

“Hasta luego.”

Amber was working the dinner shift, and he’d promised to buy the groceries. She’d thanked him for the gesture, but insisted on making a pot of pork and green chilli stew. She’d either eat at the Green Light or when she got home. He bought a lot more food, beer and wine than she asked for, enough to keep her going for a couple weeks, even with a second mouth to feed. She refused his help with the stew, putting it together with practiced efficiency, and left it cooking on the stove top on low heat. She told him to give it two hours, stirring occasionally, then turn it off.

She hugged him hard, arousing him all over again, then headed out the door. When the stew was done, he took Ramón out for a walk, first around the property, then out on the nearly deserted road, finding him good company. He didn’t stray far from his side and came readily when called.

When they returned to the house, he fed Ramón, then sponged off the sweat and changed his clothes. Confining the dog to the house, he went out to the car and retrieved his pistol from the glove box, and putting on his protective ear phones, walked out to the property line and did some target shooting.

He hated guns but hated incompetence even more and could be proud of his shooting while disliking the noise, the stink of cordite, and the falsely seductive sense of power it gave him. He’d like nothing better than to put the weapon in a box in the closet and never touch it again. But for the time being, he felt the need to keep it close to him, so he unloaded it, brought it back inside and stored it in its holster under his clothes in his overnight bag.

At around sunset, he opened a beer, reheated the stew and ate it with steamed tortillas. He washed his dishes, then sat down in a chair on the front porch to finish his beer, watching Ramón chase, but never catch, the evening jack rabbits, as if he did it more for the exercise than the kill. The dog seemed to have fully accepted his presence, which wasn’t always the case with women-owned dogs in his experience.

The heat of the day was already giving way to the cool dry winds off the mountains. It was a perfect evening, not yet dark when Amber rolled up. Ramón left his side and bounded up to give her a greeting. She hugged him while smiling at Evan, who also got up and met her with a hug and a neck kiss.

“I see why you like living out here,” he said.

“Wouldn’t live anywhere else,” she said.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“No, couldn’t face today’s menu.”

“Your stew was worth waiting for.”

“Glad you liked it.”

“Want a beer?”

“Sure.” The three of them went inside together, and while she changed out of her work clothes, he put a low flame under the stew and opened a beer. He served her a portion and put in on the table with the tortillas and the beer. They sat down together and he watched her eat.

“Guess I don’t need to ask what the job scene is like around here,” he said.

“No, you don’t.”

“But I do have to get some work soon.”

She put her fork down and took a swig of her beer. “I shouldn’t say this, Evan, not this soon. But seeing you and Ramón here to greet me, I liked it. Been a while since I’ve felt that way.”

“Me, too. But you don’t want me living here, not unless I can pay my way.”

“What did you do in Oklahoma?”

“Worked for the city. Water conservation inspector. I’d cite businesses and homeowners for overuse of water. Didn’t make many friends doing that, but I was good at it. And I never took a bribe.”

“We have a serious water problem, here, Evan; nowhere near enough of it, even with our stagnant population. Snowmelt from the mountains is rare these days. You might be able to finagle a job with the mayor, maybe not. But he’s got so little tax base to work with, he couldn’t pay you much, even if he could offer you something in your line. Not trying to discourage you.”

“It’s worth a try. I’ll go in tomorrow and see what’s what.”

They left it at that. She suggested a stroll after dinner, and the three of them headed up the dirt drive, then turned onto the dirt road where he’d hidden his car and surveilled her property. Was it only two days ago? They held hands, and he wondered how long this honeymoon would last, especially if he couldn’t find work. She was probably wondering the same thing. Clifford had nothing to offer him except Amber Stoltz, who was the only reason to settle in a town more dead than alive. Unless he could get a job.

Proceed to part 8...

Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey Greene