Royce Mullins and The Case of Virtue's Burn, A Novel: Chapter 12

by Jeff Hart

My Joining lasted about eight minutes. I didn’t take my time.

The Virtue shoved me onto a mattress and straddled me. She pinned my hands above my head. As per the rules of The Joining there was no speaking and, as per the rules of sex-workers, no kissing. Her face inches from mine, close enough that I could smell the Newports lingering on her breath, and still I couldn’t make her out through the room’s oppressive darkness. Deprived of sight, I wouldn’t have been opposed to some mood music. Instead, I was forced to focus on my increasingly erratic breathing and the growling of my stomach as The Virtue ground against me. If the silence, darkness, and aloofness of partner were meant to coax some spiritual awakening out of me, much like The Virtue, it didn’t come.

Afterward, The Virtue lay next to me for only a moment before slipping into the darkness. I considered what amount of guilt I should feel at making my client Paul Fennel a soul mate cuckold. I decided on none. If Fennel was indeed a clairvoyant, he should’ve seen this sort of behavior coming when he hired me.

“That was nice,” I lied into the darkness. “But now we need to talk.”

My clothes fell in a lump on the bed next to me. I could sense her nearby, but she didn’t speak. I pulled on my pants and tried a tack I’d had some success with in the past when negotiating with women in The Virtue’s trade.

“I’ll pay you a hundred dollars just to talk to me.”

The Virtue shuffled around in the darkness, sighing.

“Jesus Christ, dude,” she hissed. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”

She lit a candle, the tiny flickering light almost enough to blind me. Able to see again, my first move wasn’t to take stock of my surroundings or appraise the woman that’d just finished humping me, but to check my chest for a burn like the one The Virtue had inflicted on Fennel. I appeared to be clean of any spiritually transmitted diseases.

“You didn’t burn me,” I said, surprised by the note of disappointment in my voice. “Did our souls not touch?”

“Come on,” snorted The Virtue. “We wouldn’t be talking if you believed in that bullshit.”

I looked her over. She was definitely more a Darlene than she was a Virtue. I pegged her for mid-twenties but could’ve gone five years in either direction — coquettish mannerisms betrayed by the weathered edges of a workaholic. She was short, but gained an inch or two thanks to a piled mane of hair-sprayed brown curls. She’d pulled an official Unfettered Souls black ritual robe over the curvy proportions of an average chain-smoking Long Island transplant. She fixed me with an impatient look that made me nostalgic for our sex.

“Or maybe,” she continued, pulling a stick of gum from her robe’s pocket and stuffing it in her mouth, “you don’t have a soul to Join with.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today,” I said.

Darlene held an empty palm out and snapped her gum.

“We’re talking,” she reminded me.

I slipped her one of Wayne Maker’s hundred-dollar bills.

“Tell me what you do here.”

“I think you’ve got a pretty good idea, man.”

“Are you being held against your will?”

She laughed at me.

“Are you kidding?”

“So you’re just a whore?”

Darlene scowled, fingering the money I’d just handed over.

“This is a place of healing. I help people open themselves to goodness.”

“Come on,” I said. “We wouldn’t be talking if you believed that bullshit.”

For the first time Darlene looked at me like I might be more than a John playing loose with a roll of bills. She cinched her robe tighter around her waist.

“How did you get this appointment, anyway?” she asked. “You’re not like the other guys.”

“I bet you use that line a lot,” I replied. “Your boss Wayne and I go way back. He set it up.”

“What for?”

“So I could convince you to come with me,” I explained. “I’m working for a kid you’ve previously opened to goodness for. Built like a ghost with an eating disorder. Probably sweat a lot during the whole Joining thing. Hobbies include predestination and Jesus.”

“That could be a dozen guys.”

“You burned a circle onto his chest.”

Darlene hesitated, weighing the pros and cons of opening up to me in the time it took to blow and burst a bubble. She kneeled down next to the bed, slid open a discreet panel, and produced a small wooden kit.

“It’s just a gag, man,” she said, holding up the kit for my inspection. “Something we use to make sure the more committed Souls keep coming back.”

I looked down at the contents of The Virtue’s kit. A collection of small, half-empty vials dully reflected in the candlelight, some containing powders and others oils. It was something I’d expect to see tucked in the nightstand of Claudette’s vegan grocer, various new age wonders for the purpose of erotic massage and tantra.

“What is this shit?”

“Do I look like a scientist?” asked Darlene. “Just tell your friend his rash should clear up in a week.”

A rash. The same part of me that had hoped to find my own heart branded following my dalliance with The Virtue cried out in disappointment. Luckily, my muscular skepticism had gagged that weaker part of me, bound it, and left it to weep in the dark crawlspace of my subconscious. So Fennel had been tricked, mistaking the machinations of unscrupulous people for the hand of fate. Wasn’t that always the way?

Outside the Joining room, I became aware of raised voices. Trouble was here. Yossarian and Pilgrim, the Fennel-hunting marines I’d misdirected into the arms of Unfettered, had crossed paths with Bo Harkins. Something, a body, slammed against the door. Darlene stared in that direction, her eyes wide.

“Do you have real clothes?” I asked. “We need to get going.”

She hopped to her feet, glaring at me.

“I don’t do out calls,” she stammered.

I shoved what was left of Wayne Maker’s money into her hands. There went my one chance to turn a profit. I was back to even. Zero.

“You messed that kid up,” I said. “You need to tell him you’re not his soul mate, that he’s confused. To his face. Until then you’re stuck. Part of the knot.”

“Not fucking what, dude?”

I made a nebulous all-encompassing gesture with my hands. Here I was invoking the concept of cosmic debt to a girl that bilked the gullible and horny out of their money by inflicting them with existential eczema. My brief time with Paul Fennel had made me impractical.

The door rattled again, harder this time, and that was followed by a howl of pain I recognized as belonging to Bo Harkins. Darlene looked frightened. I stood up and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Also,” I said, “those men out there might kill you.”

I stared into her eyes until she believed me. It’d been a long time since I’d needed to do that to a woman. Darlene stumbled back to the bed, opening up another panel where she kept her street clothes.

“I’ll change,” she said.

“Famous last words,” I replied, as I inched out of the candlelight toward the door, beyond which the hallway was suddenly quiet.

Jeff Hart lives in Brooklyn. His other writing can be found over at Culture Blues.

Photo by Fabio, from Flickr.