Submerged: The Final Act
by Zachary C. Bush
Sunlight presses against the thick drapes, tinting the motel room green.
Erica reclines, naked, in a chair near the window. Shiny-wet strands of black hair snake down the sides of her neck, sticking to the tops of her breasts. A long cigarette teeters between her lips. She stares at me through thin spirals of smoke curling-up from the glass ashtray on the table
“What are you thinking about E?” I ask, reaching for the bottle of gin on the nightstand.
Erica leans the chair back against the mildew-peeling wall and opens the slit in the drapes with her foot. Sunlight hits the top of the motel pool and slants through the window, reflecting into shadow-ripples on the wall.
“What the fuck do you think?” she says, taking a deep drag, staring at two girls in pink floaties, bobbing in the water.
From where I am, I can see a woman on a plastic beach chair near the edge of the pool.
“Jump in mommy!” the smallest girl screams. “It isn’t cold, we promise!”
“Is this about last night?” I ask, leaning my head back against the oily palm-prints on the headboard.
“It was your idea.”
I take a long swig.
“Was it my idea,” she says taking a drag, “to watch you fuck her?”
“Well . . .”
I glance at the shadow between her legs, up her arms, to her face.
Erica glares at me, her jaw clinched.
“You can’t even get it up with me anymore,” she says, crossing her legs.
“Come on, we fucked for what, ten minutes!”
I rest the bottle on the nightstand and stare at the rusty razor on the white-dusted mirror on the corner of the table.
“Do you even remember?” she asks
“Baby. . .” I say, standing up.
“Baby, baby, baby, Christ!”
“Baby, we’re out,” I say, shaking the bottle.
Erica pulls the ash-heavy cigarette from her lips and slams it on the table, grinding the butt into the wood.
I walk to the table and sit across from her. I point to the mirror.
“Can I?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says, “have a fucking blast.”
I pull a striped-straw from a Styrofoam cup and blow the end dry. I pick up the razor, while Erica looks back out the window.
The girls climb up the pool ladder and run to the woman’s chair. She sits up between the girls and dries their faces with a towel. The girl’s wave to an old man, on the other side of the pool, flipping hot-dogs over a grill.
Erica turns and faces me and says, “I thought it might’ve helped.”
I hold the razor over the mirror.
Erica stands and walks towards the dresser. Droplets slide down the backs of her freckled shoulders and collect in the small of her back. She unzips the suitcase and pulls a two-piece bathing suit from the bag. She puts the top-piece on.
I snort a line, cock my head back, pinch my nose, and swallow.
Erica bends over, going eye to eye with me, while pulling the bikini bottom up.
I look down and razor-clean another line. Erica grabs a pair of purple sunglasses off the top of the TV and walks to the door.
“I should have known,” she says, opening the door to light splashing all around her, “this is it.”
The door slams behind her.
