Spiral

for—and received—a driver’s license. Then, as the weeks went by, I could feel genuine well-being for the first time in my life. Hiding it from Dr. Forbes was child’s play, as he’d already made up his mind about the hopelessness of my prognosis and basically just played drug dealer on every visit until it was time for him to go fishing. Within a month, I discovered I had a rather strong sex drive after all, even disguised myself to visit bars and occasionally indulge that drive thereafter, though one-night stands are not as easy to manage as I’ve heard they were in my brother’s—and your—time.”
    A surge near my left elbow kept me from replying, even if I’d wanted to.
    Helides said, ”Well, as I began to feel even better and more confident, I took to ‘acting out.’ At first, as a celebration of feeling human and only”—a sweep of his hand around the clearing—”out here, in the hammock, where I knew no one could possibly see me.”
    ”At first.”
    A rueful smile. ”Exactly. There were days when, despite feeling better, I had no desire to visit this place. The weather, sometimes a particularly fierce hatch of mosquitoes. On those occasions, and when no one else was in the house, I would slip into the control room and simply deactivate one of the security cameras. Can you guess which one?”
    I thought about it. ”The pool, because it gave you the largest working area to act out’ in.”
    ”Bravo, John. In fact, to extend the metaphor a bit, it was the largest and most desirable theater in the house, so long as no security guard could monitor it.”
    ”How did you get into the control room, though?”
    ”My father had a key. He sleeps from time to time. Not so difficult really to slip it off his ring and have a copy made.”
    ”I still don’t see why you had to kill Veronica.”
    The hollowed features changed. ”During one of my sessions in the pool area, she had Cassandra drop her off at the front of my father’s house. For some reason, Very decided to stroll around to the rear of the house.”
    ”I thought you always called her ‘Veronica’?”
    ”Only for you, John. To bond us, once I noticed you used her full name. Out of your respect for the dead, I assume, no matter how badly misplaced.”
    ”And you didn’t hear her coming?”
    ”Not through the glass wall, and since Cassandra, of course, lived in the house, there was no telephone call from the gate guard. Which wouldn’t have mattered, generally, since my father’s new wife is not the quietest of people, and I therefore always heard her coming in time.”
    ”So, Veronica saw you through the glass wall...”
    ”And sensed immediately that she had an advantage over me.”
    ”One that she—” I clamped down again, this time feeling the sap eating into my neck below the hairline.
    David Helides beamed a beatific smile at me.
    I said, ”One that she... cashed in.”
    ”Blackmail. For a supposed ‘child’ of thirteen, Very already exhibited a remarkable appreciation of how leverage on another person could improve her own position.”
    ”But how did the knowledge that you were recovering give her leverage over you?”
    The disappointed-teacher look again. ”She threatened to tell my father, John.”
    ”That you were better?”
    ”That I was faking still being ill. I told her it was only a recent phenomenon—I said ‘thing’ at the time, of course. However sly Very might have been, she was ignorant as pig dung. But the little bitch knew how to play the card I’d so unwisely dealt her, and so she bluffed going to my father and... exposing me.”
    ”Bluffed.”
    ”To gain what she wanted.” A grotesque caricature now of pelvic thrusting. ”In a word, sex.”
    ”With you.”
    ”Me?” Helides seemed shocked. ”I was Very’s blood uncle, John.”
    ”And that stopped her?”
    ”It stopped me, at least until it helped cover up my crime. But even then, the experience wasn’t terribly pleasant, because I waited until she was... ‘in extremis,’ shall we say? And there were smells—” Helides shuddered delicately. ”No, in any case, Very was more interested in the love that dare not speak its name.”
    I thought about what Cassandra Helides had told me about the incident in her car. ”Veronica wanted a female partner.”
    ”And an experienced one. On top of which—no pun intended—she expected me to find such a slut for her in exchange for not blowing the proverbial whistle on me with my