By the hand, she led him back to her tiny bedroom down the hall. When they both entered, Bert was lying across her comforter with his jacket and boots still on, and his fingers laced behind his head. A wide grin stretched across the small lower half of his face. He lifted up at the waist, catching himself with the support of his hands at his sides, and observed Iggy from bottom to top.
"Well, well," he smiled behind his words. "What a good lookin' friend, Becca. Leave it to you to bring the sexy ones home."
Becca crawled over Bert's legs and sat near his feet. Her brown eyes stared down into his. It was obvious that they were comfortable in each other's presence and knew one another well. "No, you'd be surprised who actually brought him here." She patted the other corner of the bed with her palm. "It's OK Robert, come sit down."
Iggy was hesitant to sit down, because Bert was a stranger, dangerous, and staring at him with his buggy eyes that burned with sexual desire.
"Don't be rude," Becca said quietly under her breath. Iggy looked at her, and only seeing her, he sat on the other side of the bed. She smiled and glanced at Bert. "Bert is a really good pharmaceutical engineer-" she gestured toward him, displaying respect "-Which means he makes medicine. He's the one who gave me my supply of painkillers; remember the ones I gave you yesterday?"
Iggy nodded his head, acknowledging what he was being told, but not looking over at Bert in the slightest. A low raspy laugh came out of Bert like puffs of air, a shocking reaction. "You don't like me now, Robert," he interrupted, "but you will. Look at what I brought." With his eyes still planted on Iggy, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his worn pullover jacket and pulled out a white plastic box the size of a palm. The small plastic box was clean and stood out against his brown tinged hand like a white speck against a black wall. With his two unkempt fingers, he clicked the box open.
Inside there were little fluid filled tubes with tiny needles at the end; a strange sort of prepared syringe that Iggy could have recognized without ever seeing them before. Bert picked one out and held it between his fingertips. Watching Iggy from behind the small syringe, he said, "this-" the tube twisted around in his grip "-is real medicine. And I will give it to you, for free."
Iggy glanced at Becca and met her eyes only briefly. He knew the deal. He wasn't getting anything for free, for she was the one wanting to pay the price for him. Bert extended his hand, trying to hand it over, but Iggy's eyes and attention were attached to Becca.
"I don't want you to pay any price for me," he said to her in a whisper. "I can't accept such an offer."
"I won't have it," she quickly replied. She reached over and took the syringe in her own hand. Leaning over on her knees, she passed Bert's dirty legs, and said, "a gift from me to you." Her fingers inched Iggy's right sleeve up past his wrist. The needle pierced the skin on the back of his hand and poured the medicine into him. His skin around the small hole was already numb when she pulled it out. She rested her rear back on her heels and watched him.
Bert lied down flat against the bed again, smiling. The light overhead became thick, like a presence, or like smoke that filled the room. Iggy felt himself melting into the hard scratchy bed alongside Bert, and he knew that it should have felt that way, but it didn't feel like anything at all. There weren't limits, just the squared room, and the three sitting in it. And in this moment, they were all exactly the same.
"Now you can do whatever you want with him," Bert laughed and he stroked the hair out of Iggy's face with his dirty fingers. "But first, it's your turn." Her lips straightened and her eyebrows tightened. Even though Iggy was watching, he couldn't translate her motions into words or ideas. All he could do was see her as she lied down on the other side of him and stiffened rock hard as Bert rolled over on top of her. Then, she turned her face away toward the wall.
Bert's wide wet tongue slithered across the soft scarred tissue on the side of her neck. He moaned playfully, trying to get some sort of reaction out of her for entertainment's sake, but she wouldn't do anything else but lie still and let him do what they'd agreed upon. Iggy couldn't hear Bert's teeth slip into her skin, or his swallowing, but he understood what was happening right before his eyes, and he lied there… accepting it.
Iggy's breath was heavy, as if he was breathing water, just like the first breaths he took after becoming infected. The colors of the room were thumping with vibrancy. The outlines of objects were sharpening, and then swaying into a blur. The rush of energy flooded him, and he grasped his chest with his right hand. His skin was tingly and crawling. Then the thoughts in his head filled his ears, deafening with constant jabber, my two thoughts intertwine and become one confused thought, before two more thoughts are created… He could feel the vibration coming from his voice box, and his mouth kept jittering, but he couldn't hear his own voice.
Time was arbitrary, as he soon found himself sitting on the floor in between the bed and the wall. Becca called him like an instrument humming in the background of a chaotic static of noise. He looked forward, seeing the blurry outline of her frame coming closer. The black holes torn into her neck were clear, even in the blurr. Her hand grasped his and he wobbled up to his feet. He could see that the bed was empty now, but he hadn't noticed Bert leave the room. His knees felt as if they were not connected, as if they were loosely hanging around. He tumbled unto the mattress.
Somehow his clothing practically vanished, and he laid on his back staring up at the ceiling. From above, the light outlined Becca's face and shoulders. Her completely naked chest came down and pressed against his firmly. Her dark, dilated pupils stared through him. Her breath was like a wave, in and out, pressuring against him as she straddled him at the waist. She heavily pet his bare stomach and shoulders with her hands, tracing the paths with the tips of her nails. She started kissing his lips, pressing her tongue against them. Her lips rapidly moved to his neck and ears, while her hand reached down in between his legs.