Something to Believe

by D. A. Helmer

He watched her coming up the front walk holding a pamphlet. A tan shoulder bag hung low. He peeked through a crack in the curtain and thought. She’s a babe. Good looking. Stylish. The doorbell rang and shortly after there was a gentle knock. Exhaling a long shaky breath, Reed opened the door.

“Hi, I’m Astrid. I was wondering if you have a minute to talk about the state of the world and to consider what religion has to say about these dire times?” She spoke fast, with confidence.

Reed looked her up and down. She wore a tight, light-green zipper-front sleeveless dress. The green ignited her hazel eyes and her long red hair, and she had curves that could make any man, woman, or Rabbi crawl the gauntlet for her approval. 

“Um, sure. Okay. Ah, would you like to come in and, um, have a seat?”

She came in and parked her bottom on the couch. Reed sat next to her, as close as he could without imposing himself. He wanted to sit closer.    

Astrid crossed her legs, and the short dress slid up. Her thigh was creamy, dessert-like. She opened the pamphlet and threw her hair back as if a breeze had caught it for a second. When she straightened her posture, her small breasts shot upward like vigorous birds in flight.

Reed gasped. Tremors overtook his body. He shivered, squirmed, and squeezed his thighs together. 

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Um, can I get you a drink? Water, juice, bourbon?”  

The bourbon slipped out like confessing to an addiction. He blushed. Astrid smiled.

Reed apologized. “I’m sorry. The bourbon is a habit when asking––’’

“I’d love a bourbon. On the rocks with water. Thank you.”

He couldn’t stop staring at her. She looked about twenty-eight, maybe thirty, and he was taken by her physical radiance and by the fact that she was sitting on his couch.  

“The drink?” she asked playfully.

“Oh, right, um, excuse me.” Reed was gasping for air as he walked away.

In the kitchen, Reed paced like a stallion with a hard-on. His head was spinning, compressing until he finally forced his thoughts on the drinks. He nervously poured two and returned to the couch. Astrid had removed her heels and nylons and was rubbing her feet. Oh, creamy white thighs, he thought.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “My feet were on fire. They hurt so much, and the nylons itched like flea bites.”

Trying to hold a steady hand, Reed handed her the bourbon and said, “Um, yeah, it’s, um, fine.” The ice cubes rattled against the glass. When he sat on the couch, Reed noticed that Astrid had slid closer to where he was sitting. He could feel her body warmth––this caused his head to spin again. He threw back his whiskey.

Astrid took a gulp of her bourbon, waited for it to hit bottom, gulped the rest of it, and with an animated voice said, “Wow. That’s damn good whiskey. I’ll have another, please.”

But Reed felt the need to get back to religion’s worldview, concerned about what would happen if they continued to drink. “Sure, I’ll get you another, but first tell me, um, who are you representing?”

Astrid was sucking on an ice cube and raised her index finger making the wait gesture, while she swallowed the water. Her luscious lips were moist, almost dripping. “I’m with Light of Christo. Well, I’m trying, that is. I’m not religious. Not really. I just need something to believe in. But this door-to-door begging is exhausting. You’re my last call. Thank goodness!”

Astrid fell backward into the couch, as an expression of exhaustion. She unzipped the dress several inches from her neck until Reed could see the lace of a light green bra. He shivered. She continued, “I was thinking, maybe a belief system would help me to focus on things other than myself.” Astrid’s legs were still crossed, and the dress slid up some more, revealing the upper part of her left thigh. There was a maroon tattoo written on the outside of her thigh in lowercase lettering. It read: i need passion.

She handed him the empty glass. Reed answered dumbly, “Yes, um, to, ah, believe in something. Yes, ah, why not?” His mouth felt gummy, sloppy. It made sticky popping sounds when he spoke. And he was at a loss for words. A film teacher at the community college, a scriptwriter, and he was lost for words.

There was a moment of silence. Reed tried not to show his excitement over how far up the dress had slid. He started to perspire and was breathing heavily. Beads of sweat dripped down his neck, dampening his collar. And his mouth watered, while his eyes were on the tattoo, reading it over and over again. His stomach churned from anxiety, and his dick heated up and pressed into his pants like a thick, pulsing finger, trying to work the zipper down.     

Astrid continued, “I’m new at this cult game and the idea that I must keep my head in virtuous thoughts, or that I need to drop my old friends in exchange for new friends from the congregation is, well, troubling. I’m not sure this is the right choice for me. The drink, please.”

In the kitchen, Reed was pacing again, and his thoughts were rapid: I need passion. I need passion. What the fuck does that mean? I’m sure she has a man. She must have a man. Look at her. What kind of passion? Is she lacking in passion? Is she a nymph? Is she married, divorced? Did she lean back that far for me to see the tattoo? And what about pulling the zipper of her dress down? He threw back a glass of whiskey.

“Hey …” she asked, “What’s going on in there? You’re awfully quiet for a man mixing drinks.  Yeah?”

When Reed brought the bourbon to her, Astrid was standing. “Do you have a shirt I can wear?" She asked to Reed’s surprise. "This dress is suffocating me. I hope you don’t think it’s unusual, but if we’re going to drink and talk, well, you know what I mean. Yeah?”

He nodded. His hand that held the glass shook uncontrollably. The ice cubes rattled. “Uh, no, no, um, not weird. No, not at all.” He was thinking: I’m five-nine. She’s about five-five. My shirt will cover enough of her.

Reed went into the bedroom, brought back a white button-down, and handed it to her, while he stared at the pulled-down dress zipper like it was a magic keyhole. It was unzipped lower now, so he could see perspiration beading between her breasts. “Um––the bathroom?” She inquired.

“Yes, right, ah-ah, the bathroom. Down the hall to the left.” The way in which the tight dress formed-fitted Astrid’s body when she walked down the hallway was like watching her swim naked.

Reed sat on the couch short of breath and wheezing. Sweat ran down his back staining his blue button-down. His armpits were cold and clammy. He gulped down another drink and worked on calming himself like his doctor said to do: Breathe from your stomach and not your chest. Hold your breath in, count to ten, and let it out slowly.  

At forty years old, Reed’s marriage had collapsed. His wife of ten years, Zara, left him for a younger man she had met at a mindfulness retreat––where they had kept their minds and hands on each other. That was two years ago. Reed had since bought a Los Angeles bungalow six months back and was working at keeping his nose emotionally above the waterline. It was challenging, depressing, lonely. He couldn’t sleep, so he would pace the house at night. And many times, he thought he heard Zara’s voice outside. Sometimes he sat at the window and watched the dead-looking darkness for hours. His anxiousness had pushed him to the edge, had pushed him into a breakdown.

Reed’s psychiatrist prescribed sleeping pills, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, and pain-killers for his severe headaches. He was advised to cut out the boozing alone, to go out and socialize. But teaching film two days per week was pretty much the only time he went out. Sometimes his good neighbor Benny would come over for afternoon cocktails. Occasionally, Reed would go to a café to work on his script, but he always sat alone and never made eye contact with the other people. That was it for socializing.  

Sitting on the couch Reed’s mind had piled up with paranoid thoughts: What the fuck is going on here? Who is she? What does she want? He felt nauseous and had worked himself into a headache. Astrid made him ache for what he hadn’t had in years: physical passion. And he seriously needed to piss.

When Astrid returned from the bathroom, she looked like a Forties film star, with her wavy red hair, seductive eyes, full lips. Bacall came to Reed’s mind.  “Hope I haven’t overstepped your hospitality by leaving my dress in the bathroom. I can bring it out here if you want.” The white shirt was only half buttoned-up. The mounds of her small breasts edged into view.

Reed shivered. He told her it was fine, then rushed to the toilet to relieve his burning bladder. The first thing he noticed was the bathroom smelled of woman, an intense persuasive, sexual scent. The kind that makes a man fall to his knees just to get closer to the source. His dick smelled it too, and it wanted more, it was half-hard while he pissed. Standing at the sink washing his hands, Reed looked in the mirror and saw Astrid’s dress hanging on a hook behind him like a light-green mist that floated over his face. He then noticed her light-green bra and panties on the floor, saw the wet crotch of the panties, and his dick heated up more. He suddenly felt short of breath, while the booze numbed his brain, fogged his clarity, and made him speak out loud, “What the fuck. Is this a setup? Am I going to walk out and a thug boyfriend will be there? It must be a setup, right? I’m going to be beaten and robbed. But I have nothing. Nothing!”  There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Yes?” He was anxious.

Astrid’s gentle voice came from the other side of the door, “Are you sick? Do you need help?”   

When Reed opened the door, Astrid was standing there as naked as an unbridled mare, and his dick had reached maximum pressure, like a hydraulic hose about rip open.

As evening rolled in, the house was dark, but the streetlight through the hallway window was enough for him to see Astrid’s hard raspberry nipples and her fiery, corn-silk pubis. And her wet lips were puffed out like an anxious mouth between her thighs. She came to him, unbuttoned his shirt and pants, then knelt before him, and, like a humid summer night, took him into her hot mouth. Reed shuddered and gasped. When she came up to kiss him, her mouth tasted of sweet corn whiskey and syrupy sex. Reed picked Astrid up and carried her to the bedroom while she whispered, “I need something to believe in.”

Morning came like a two-ton fist pounding his skull. Lying on his stomach, Reed’s head was split in six directions and his mouth was like a dry cotton field. Feeling as heavy as mud, he groaned and rolled over as his glued-shut eyes peeled open. The shirt Astrid had worn was on a hanger—a note stuck out of the pocket. Getting up from the bed and walking, one wobbly step at a time, felt like agonizing physical therapy. Making it across the room, Reed reached for the note with a shaky hand. He opened it and read: A moment of hallucination is all it takes. Call me. We should to talk.  

It was four o’clock cocktail time. Benny, Reed’s neighbor, knocked on the front door. No answer. He walked around to the living room window and peered through the glass. Nothing. He went to the back door and knocked harder. Still no answer. He then went to the side of the house and looked into the bedroom. Reed was lying prone on the bed, head turned towards the window. His unblinking eyes held a clouded, lifeless stare. His mouth was partially open. Dried white foam had accumulated along the corners of his lips. An empty opioid bottle and a fifth of whiskey were tipped over on the hardwood floor––the bourbon had spilled, had stained the wood. There was a piece of paper in his hand that hung over the side of the bed. Benny knocked on the window. No response. He knocked harder. Reed was motionless. Benny dialed 911.  

When LAPD homicide Detectives Harley Jewels and Brick Woodhouse came out of the house, Benny was waiting on the lawn with his wife and kids. Benny’s wife was crying while holding her two small children close to her side. The usually quiet Toluca Lake neighborhood was crowded with uniformed policemen, along with distasteful gawkers hungry to see the failure of another.

Detective Jewels walked over to Benny and said, “The note was from his psychiatrist. I called the doc. Said he slipped the note under the front door yesterday, early evening, after he knocked a few times. Then called out and asked if Reed needed help or if he was sick, but Reed didn’t answer. Reed had missed his last two sessions. The doc was concerned, so he stopped by the house after he left his office yesterday. It’s a shame. A real shame.”

Detective Jewels motioned to the medics. They rolled the sheet-covered body out of the house.

Benny said to Jewels, “All Reed wanted was something to believe in.”

*Originally published by Otoliths Magazine.

D. A. Helmer lives in Berkeley, California where he is working on the manuscript for his first crime noir novel set in Los Angeles in the early 1960’s. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of The Net nominee and the author of eleven books of poetry, published under the name DAH. Connect with DAH via his website dahlusion.wordpress.com, Instagram (@dahlusion), Twitter (@dahlusion), and Facebook (Dah Helmer).