Saving Elijah

in her face, followed by an easing of tension, followed by what could be pleasure. The actress's facial expression, mouth open teeth apart, is so similar to her expression at the previous moment of penetration that it might still be pain she's feeling rather than pleasure.
    Of course. The expression is pain. The actress is me.
    I hear noises all around, gasps and sighs. I turn to Sam, sitting in the next seat, and I see that he is gaping back at me, his expression a mixture of revulsion and anger.

    *    *    *

    As I awakened from the dream, I remembered an event I had long buried: Early in the morning after the motorcycle accident that killed Seth, I realized that his dog had been alone in his apartment for the entire day and night. I rang his landlady's apartment. She was a heavyset woman with bleached blond hair and black roots, who reeked of perfume, even in the morning when she was wearing her ratty bathrobe. She was none too pleased at being awakened. I told her what had happened.
    "What a shame," she said, pulling her robe closed over her massive breasts. "No wonder that dog was barking all night. Had to take him out myself. Damned animal did his business on my floor."
    I convinced her that I needed to collect some of my belongings from Seth's apartment, and she took me upstairs, complaining that it was prime D.C. real estate and that Seth owed her three months' rent. We could hear the dog growling behind the closed door. She unlocked it and stood back while I went in. I could smell dog shit. Meph stopped growling and trotted over to me. The landlady came in and looked around while I collected my books, which I'd left on the table in the kitchen area.
    "You want the dog?"
    "I can't have a dog in my dormitory." Even if I could have, I didn't want him.
    "Well, I guess the police will take him away, when they come." She'd moved in front of the gilt mirror. She was touching it. "I think before the police get here, I'm going to hold on to this little item of his to pay for what he owes me." She shoved the dresser out of the way so she could get to the mirror, which she managed to lift up and away from the wall.
    "That is one heavy mother," she said, setting it down on the floor. "Bet it's worth three months' rent. You want any of the rest of his stuff?" She gestured toward the purple costume. "Like that Halloween getup? If the cops don't take all this away, it's going in the Goodwill dumpster."
    "I don't want it." I was looking at something mounted on the wall, just above where the mirror had been. Good God! It was a camera lens. A wire snaked from the lens to the floor to the molding it was tacked to for about ten feet. I'd never noticed it, hidden behind the mirror and dresser, painted white to blend into the wall. Now I followed the wire to where it disappeared under the door of a small closet next to the kitchen. I opened the door. The wire led directly to Seth's 8mm camera.
    I looked at the lens mounted where the mirror had been. A bird's-eye view of the bed. He'd filmed Sexuality 101.
    My face heated with humiliation. I fumbled with the camera until I finally got it open. There was a spool of film inside. I grabbed that. I took every last spool of film there was in that closet, and on the shelves, and got out of there as fast as I could.

    *    *    *

    Now in my bedroom, I blinked. The room seemed so oddly bright. What a queer light, had I forgotten to turn off the reading lamp next to the chair? I looked.
    The ghost was there, perched on the arm of the chair, and I was catapulted once and for all out of my complacency.
    A shrill sound emerged from my mouth. This entity, this demon or spirit or ghost (I wasn't sure what to call it anymore), which had identified itself as Seth Lucien, looked entirely different now. Now it wasn't anything resembling human, it had black eyes and teeth but was blinding white, as if all the light in the world had congealed in a single place, collected and contained within a membrane as thin as a soap bubble. Squinting, I could actually see through it to the plaid on the chair's fabric.
    "Howdy do." The voice was the same, though, still the insinuating, intimate murmur.
    "Why are you doing this to me?" I whispered.
    "Doing what?" It smiled. I knew I'd seen teeth.
    It got up from the chair, luminous and white, advanced and descended onto the bed, wagged a hand—no, a claw—in my face. It even smelled different now, a metallic odor, like a tin can left out in the rain,