JACK OF DIAMONDS

ii

Artie woke up in a sweat.

He was quick to tell himself he wasn’t frightened, but the dream had been a little more realistic this time, a little more intense. Disconcerting if you wanted to be honest. Certainly not what he would’ve considered in the way of a childhood reckoning. Not that anyone would ever confuse such a dream with childhood reckonings. The dream had been about the War. A lot of people have vivid memories about the war, he told himself, it’s all a matter of adjusting yourself to those memories. You have to understand that once you’ve gone though it—you lived it, you lived through it, you fought it and ultimately survived…then it can’t hurt you anymore, can it? It was after all, when it came right down to it, just a dream. He’d had them before. Once you get your head around that idea—that, and the fact that you can never die in a dream, he reminded himself—it makes it easier to accept that dreams are not real.

But what had happened had been real, and there was nothing he could do to change that, he told himself. It only served to remind him of Reggie. He’d also had a recurring nightmare he’d never shared with anyone. The only way Artie knew of his secret was discovering Reggie closeted alone one afternoon while he’d been convalescing in the hospital in Paris; Reggie had been weeping

“Don’tcha have any memories that haunt you?” Reggie had asked.

“I have one I can’t seem to shake,” Artie replied, nodding on the tail end of a cigarette. He looked at Reggie and tried to force a smile. “Maybe two?”

“One?” Reggie said with a slow nod. There was a moment of silence that felt as palpable as a heart beat, and Artie shifted, feeling uncomfortable. “That’s all it takes, isn’t it? It might be enough to fuck you up for the rest of your life--that’s what they’re telling me, Artie--for the rest of my life. Unless I talk to someone about it.” He was looking at the callouses on his hands before turning his attention to a stain on his trousers.

He was looking anywhere, as long as he didn’t have to look at me, Artie told himself, remembering how difficult it had been for both of them.

And who can blame him?

“The mind is its own place, Reg. You can make a Hell of Heaven in it, or a Heaven of Hell, it doesn’t make much of a difference. But dreams can’t hurt you, Reg. You have to believe me. You can’t die having a dream. They all ready tried that and failed, remember? Dreams are nothing but memories. You ever have that dream where you're falling off something? You always wake up. You just gotta learn to control it, and live with it.”

“Live with it?”

“That’s what I do.”

“I s’pose your better at it, then.”

“I’d like to say you’ll get used to it, Reg, but I can’t. You just gotta learn to live with it.”

He sat up on the edge of the bed, looking down at the woman sleeping; her breath was slow and measured. The morning dawned dull and overcast with a promise of rain. The light—what little there was—seemed somehow muted coming through the thin sheers. The sheets were pulled back part of the way and before he pulled them up, he looked at the roundness of her buttocks, the softness that was her left breast; the nipple large and flat in the dull light.

Certainly not what it looked like last night, when I was fucking her, he told himself, but then, that was last night, wasn’t it?

So why the dream then? And why now?

He stood, taking care not to wake her, and still naked, walked to the window and looked out over the city where it spread out six stories below. There wasn’t a lot to see. Many of the buildings in Mayfair were just as tall. And there was a certain majesty about the view, he thought. It was a view he knew he’d never be entitled to; it wasn't something he might inherit--there was nothing for him there--instead, it was something he had to earn.

By hook or by crook.

It’d been months since he’d been to London, and while he told himself he’d come specifically for answers about Reggie, he knew the memory of the dream would haunt him throughout the day. I’ll probably be haunted by it for the rest of my life. He wondered if he’d be having the same dream if he lived to be a hundred? If it’s a recurring dream, does that mean it’s never meant to end? He pictured himself at ninety-seven, looking down at the young man’s face, only to have it snatched away again—just like it’s been snatched away for the last ten years, he told himself.

He stared at his reflection in the window, looking as the woman stirred on the bed, throwing the sheet off her once again. But the memory of the boy’s face was fresh in his mind, even as he remembered pulling the trigger and watching him fall to the ground forty feet below. He’d been so young, he remembered thinking. How old was he, he wondered? That’s the question I always asks myself, isn’t it? Sometimes, he thinks it’s a nightmare because he didn’t know how old the boy was. There's no answer though, and he thinks his searching for the answer is driving him crazy.

It was the climb up the side of the church that had frightened him awake tonight. He’d never felt that fear in a dream before, not climbing up the side of a building; it didn’t matter what the height. He supposed the church had reminded him of what fear was—as if remembering the church, was a reminder of what was at top.

And that makes no sense to me.

A woman he’d once spent the weekend with in Paris told him he tensed up during the night, always kicking his feet and moving his legs while he slept. He’d even looked down at his hands when she said it, remembering how his fingers had bled on bricks broken up by cannon fire. He’d been unable to explain himself to her, and told her maybe it'd be better were she to leave. Was he honestly unwilling to face the horror of what he’d done, she asked him? He thought he had.

Does that mean I can't accept what I've done, or is it a matter of whom I did it to?

His only was solution had been that she had to leave.

In order to understand what the War had to offer, you had to have been there, or been touched by it in some way.

He looked at the clock on the mantle and picked up the telephone on a side table near the window.

“Tea please. Room 608.” He listened. “Toast. For two. Marmalade.”

She stirred, slowly rolling over and stretching her arms over her head as she smiled up at him. He was sure she was making certain he saw the shape of her breasts, as much as she meant for him to look at her soft, downy, cunt. Her nakedness was something she took great pride in. And why wouldn’t she? She was a full-bodied and voluptuous woman.

“I like a lover who trims my quim while sitting in the tub with me,” she all but purred.

Artie turned to look at her.

“I’d be happy to trim your cunt, but first, I’d like to have my tea.”

“Tea? You’d put having a cup of tea over trimming my quim?” she laughed. “I must say, you’re the first person to have ever said that to me.”

“I like the fact that you said person, and not man,” he was quick to point out. “If we’re going to spend the day with each other, who’s to say I can’t fuck you before I trim your quim, while I trim your quim, or after I trim your quim? After all, we have all day, don't we?” he added with another smile.

“Do you promise?” she teased.

He turned away from the window and looked at her again.

“Does this have the look of someone who might be lying to you?” he grinned, his erection standing full of life. “In fact, if I were to walk over there right now, and you stayed just the way you are, I believe I’d be able to make it a perfect fit.”

“A perfect fit?”

“Like this,” he laughed, and walking to the bed grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. She screamed out at the sudden shock of his attention as he pushed his erection into her mouth.

“See? A perfect fit,” he added, feeling her wrap her arms around him and pull him deeper into her mouth.