by Timothy Mulcahy
(06/20/07)

I walk up the concrete driveway to the front door. I reach for the doorbell, my hand quivering just over the button.

It's not as if I'm having a change of heart. It's just that...I don't know, maybe I just didn't picture it like this. Me in a suburban neighborhood with sweat running down the side of my face, walking into a regular-looking house, knowing that I'd never be coming out.

It's hot and wet. Over the last ten years summers have gotten longer, hotter and wetter and the winters shorter and drier. They say it's global warming, but who knows. All I know is that I'm sticky.

My hand is still quivering over the button when the door opens.

"Walter?"

It's the eyes I notice first: black, deep, penetrating. They lock on to me with a kind of peaceful calmness that's intimidating and yet instantly puts me at ease.

"Uh...that's right." Very smooth, Walt. Lucky it's not a blind date.

"Come on in." She holds the door while I walk past her. She smells nice, cinnamon mixed with tea-tree oil. I hear the door close behind me.

"Have a seat on the couch."

There's lots of oak prairie-style furniture. The walls are cream colored. I'm not sure what I expected, certainly not something this friendly, maybe some kind of cross between sultry and macabre.

I sit on a black leather settee. Trianon sits across in a chair and crosses her legs. She puts her hands on her lap and leans forward. Her smile is contagious, and I smile back.

"Can I get you anything -- tea, soda, maybe something stronger?"

Did I mention that I came here to die? It doesn't feel like death. Trianon seems way too at ease, as if this was some kind of family visit that everyone expects to have a different ending. I stammer, looking around the room feeling uncomfortable. "Water, I guess."

Trianon frowns. She gets up and sits next to me on the couch. Her foot brushes my leg. She's wearing black, single-strap, low-heeled shoes. They have rubber soles, not sexy at all. Still, the touch is electrifying. Maybe it was the casual nature of it. She reaches across and pulls my hand to her lap and caresses it. I don't resist.

This woman has power. Her hands are soft and warm. She interlaces the fingers of one hand with mine while stroking the hairs on the back of my hand with her other. It's not sultry. The sensation she creates is more...loving.

It's wrong; I'm not looking for love, not before I check out. For an instant anger flashes. Trianon notices. Her eyes widen in mild surprise before she releases my hand.

From nowhere she produces a rectangular box. We both look down at it for a moment before regaining eye contact.

Trianon smiles again. Her red lips pull back from too-white teeth. After a moment I realize that it's not the teeth that are too white but that the lips are too red. It's not lipstick -- just red, flushed against white, soft skin.

"I think you're ready," she says.

"What's that?" I ask, and she opens the box to reveal a syringe.

"Just something that will heighten the experience."

"And kill me?"

Her smile again. "That will be up to me and you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask.

"You'll see." She screws the gleaming needle onto the syringe, then takes out a bottle containing clear liquid. All this stuff was in a pocket in her robe.

"Roll up your sleeve." Her voice is gentle but firm; I'm compelled to do as she says. A blue rubber tourniquet is wrapped around my bicep.

"It's all set, right? I mean the money and everything?" My voice cracks, as if I'm embarrassed about asking for money. It's stupid after all; it's the government's deal. Agree to check out and the government gives a million dollars to whoever you tell them to. Sure, a million isn't what it used to be, but it might be enough.

"The trust is set. As soon as...you know...the money will be deposited," Trianon says.

The money is going to my daughter, another of my failures. Part of a long list. It's not a lot of money, but I'm hoping it will be enough to get her off the street, maybe a down payment on a house, maybe enough for her to think a little better of me. Too much to hope for.

Trianon stabs the needle into the bottle and, with professional ease, draws clear liquid into the syringe.

"This will pinch just a bit," she says.

I flinch, pull away. Trianon looks into my eyes. Her gaze is soft and compassionate. "You don't have to do this," she says.

"Don't I?"

"You can walk out right now."

"Yeah, to what?" That's the problem. There really isn't anywhere for me to go. I'm fifty-three years old, out of work, competing for whatever work I can get against starving twenty-somethings willing to work twenty-four-seven for dirt. I hear people my age are eating rats in some cities. No, there really isn't any choice. "Go ahead."

The fluid feels warm as it spreads up my arm and through my body. I don't notice anything different until I smell the tea tree oil and cinnamon again. For some reason it seems stronger. I inhale deeply through my nose, closing my eyes as I take in the scent.

The sharp oil and cinnamon clear my sinuses, opening them to new sensations. Behind the spice I sense something musky, animistic, warm; my heart begins to pound harder. I open my eyes and look at Trianon. The soft look is gone. She leans closer, sliding her hand to my forehead. I feel her soft palm caress my brow and down to the side of my face until she cups my chin in her hand.

She brings her face closer to mine, our eyes locked. As she nears, her lips part.

At first the touch is almost nonexistent, soft on soft: our lips join, the pressure slowly building as she deepens her kiss.

I feel her tongue probing the insides of my lips, the soft tip admonishing me to open. Her tongue plunges in, caressing my teeth for an instant before plunging further, finding my tongue.

Images flow through my brain in waves the instant our tongues touch, melded yet somehow separate: Imelda, my first, when I was fourteen, and Jessica much later. I see each of them, feel each of them, even smell their scents. Then there are the textures. Imelda's youthful softness and the odd, passionate, almost angry bite from Pat.

And through it all I sense Trianon. Her soft hands at the sides of my face, soft lips, playful tongue.

Gradually passion replaces fear. I slide Trianon's robe off her shoulders. Her hands release my face and slide out of the sleeves revealing a black laced bra. My lips disengage from hers; I begin softly to kiss her neck. As I descend to her shoulder, Trianon cups my head in her hands, guiding me toward her breasts.

My hand unclasps her bra. The cups slide back; the straps fall from her shoulders. She lets out a long exhale. Real? An act? I don't care. I'm in the moment, not only with Trianon but with all the women I've been with. Tan, olive, dark brown, soft, firm, I'm sensing them all. My lips explore all these terrains at once.

For one moment my rational mind forces me back. I psychically pull away to evaluate what's happening, telling myself it's the drug, that it's not real. Then my sensual mind bitch-slaps rationality out of the room and I give myself over completely. I grab Trianon and pull her to me, forcing one of her nipples into my mouth. Its hardness pushes back against my tongue.

I'm animal now. All there is, the sex. I'm hard, ready to explode. I want her; I want them all. My heart's pumping so hard it feels like it's going to crawl out of my mouth.

Then something else happens. A new slice of hallucination surfaces in my conscious, joining sensual overload. I see the women -- really see them. Sometimes naked next to me, other times in coffee houses or at movies. I hear their words, their stories. It takes a moment before I realize they're all talking about me. My first wife, Miranda, reminding of a kindness done for Lucia, a nearly forgotten former niece. Gwendolyn, a long-term girlfriend in bed next to me, thanking me for helping her quit smoking. I wonder what ever happened to her, even while my face is buried in Trianon's breasts. The sensual Bianca: Cuban, dark, passionate, kissing my hands, offering me anything I wanted for the money I gave her to get her brother out of Havana. Good things I did for people: for the briefest instant I wonder why I never did more, or at least assembled the acts to cobble together a better life for myself. Decency, yes, but somewhere it went wrong for me.

Trianon runs her fingers through my hair and gently pushes me down. I kiss her stomach. She arches her back and slides down off the back of the couch. I kiss her navel.

I find myself between her legs, tasting her as I work my tongue through the short, cropped pubic hair. She lets out a soft moan of pleasure.

Her sound releases new images: harder, edgier, some filled with love but others merely with coarse sex. Some are with women whose names I've forgotten.

Salt fluid drips over my tongue and lips as I plunge into her. Her legs spread and she pulls my face into her crotch, rubbing herself hard on my face. Sandpaper roughness rubs my skin raw but I don't care. I give myself over to passion, drinking deeply, wrapping my arms around her hips. I growl and she yelps. I disengage only long enough to bite the inside of her thigh before plunging again.

She breathes three deep, trembling breaths before climaxing. She moans, pulls my hair, digs her nails into my scalp. The pain dulls the images for an instant, but new images, more women and new feelings force themselves into my already crowded brain.

I break free and look at Trianon's face. She's sweating, given over to her own passion. Her eyes seem to penetrate me. She pushes me back, undoes my belt, pulls down my fly. My penis springs out, demanding attention. Strong fingers pull my pants and underwear off. In an instant I feel lips close around my shaft. She works me quickly, taking me nearly down her throat. She slows to the point where she's taking long slow tugs. Then she releases her mouth and works my tip with her tongue. Her fingers caress my balls. New images flood my mind.

I want to come but Trianon holds me back. There's something she wants me to see. The images that flood my mind are different. These are women from later in my life. No love here, only sex, one night stands or short relationships where the only aim is to get off, the only goal is physical. There's no real sharing, only mutual masturbation. It feels good but empty; the women seem predatory -- lonely sensuality, sex without love, intimacy devoid of meaning. It's my life for the past twenty years. The goodness that I had was dissipated.

I reach down and cup Trianon under her chin, guiding her up until her hips straddle my waist. She smiles as she impales herself on me. We stare at each other, taking time, realizing we've reached the end game.

It's now or never. Push her off or let the poison take me?

She's beautiful and I'm insane. She bends and kisses me lightly on the lips before she starts to move. After a moment, I'm caught in the motion. My hips match hers; I grab her ass in both hands and move her. Her labia envelope me. With each move I thrust myself deeper inside her.

It takes a few moments to realize that the images are gone.

All other women have abandoned me, leaving only Trianon. She smiles as she realizes I've come back to her. Somewhere I wonder if she knows the journey I've made or the people I've been with.

She moves with more urgency. My nerves come alive. I move my hands to her waist, then higher, cupping her breasts and thumbing her red nipples. I pull her down toward me.

Trianon continues to move. She bends, kissing me again as I put my hands on her narrow shoulders.

Only then do I realize how small she is. I notice the smell again, tea tree and cinnamon. Part of me wonders if it's the drug. Another doesn't care. She lets out a laugh and gives me a playful smile. I allow her to rise, arching her back. She tightens around me and begins to pulse.

The sensation is unlike anything I've ever felt. With each thrust inside her, a tingling moves out from my crotch. At first it's in my stomach and thighs. I feel like I'm going to cramp, but I don't. My skin is electrified. Pleasure spreads like a puddle of blood through my body. Somewhere in the deep of my rational mind, I realize it's the poison, but as soon as the thought surfaces, it's abandoned. I don't care.

Trianon isn't looking at me now.

The sensation reaches my shins and my shoulders. She pumps harder. Screams with each pump. I scream too as an orgasmic paralysis spreads to my fingers, to my head.

All I can do is pump. I can't pull air into my lungs, but I don't care.

I'm almost there. All I can think is orgasm. Breathing stops. Thought stops.

It feels like my entire body explodes into her. My back arches. My mouth opens, incapable of breath. Every nerve, every bone, every muscle, tendon, and cell seem alive with pleasure. I feel as if I'm extruding gallons of fluid into her body, my life energy exploding from me.

Trianon looks down, her face serene, her smile calm and reassuring. For a moment I think she's going to speak but she doesn't. Instead she puts her hand to the side of my face.

Still inside her, I begin to weaken. It's over. I know it.

I look at Trianon and see love in her eyes. Even though I know it's an act, it doesn't matter. I realize for the first time in a long time that I'm not as bad as I thought. And knowing that makes leaving not so bad. I lost something along the way, empathy, maybe. Compassion. In the last twenty years I've been so much in my head that I was incapable of being in anyone else's. The business of living had drowned the reason for living.

Would I actually change all that now, if I walked out Trianon's front door? Or would the world smash these lessons out of me, leaving me where I was, leaving me shallow? Leaving me a life not worth continuing?

My body relaxes.

Shadow comes in from the edges of my vision. A tunnel forms around Trianon. I become light.

My last image is of Trianon looking down on me, smiling.

I'm fading.

I'm gone.

But that's all right.

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