The Weirdness(66)

Elisa is the first to return fully to human form, and she sits up, cracks her neck with a sudden, swift jerk to the left, and folds her arms across her tits. She heaves a sigh, gathers up her clothes from a loose pile on the floor, turns around, and begins to get dressed. As Billy’s skull snaps back into shape he thinks: You cheated on Denver. You cheated on Denver and it wasn’t even really with another woman, but with an animal. You’re a monster. And yet, even as he’s hating himself, he sneaks a look at Elisa’s ass, and allows himself to enjoy its admittedly fine qualities.

And then he looks over at the other wolf, and sees who that wolf has become.

It’s his roommate. His missing roommate. Jørgen. Big, hairy Jørgen, rising, naked, in all his wide-bellied Northern European resplendence.

Despite everything, Billy grins: Jørgen is here, and he’s all right, or at least as all right as one can be, in Hell. Jørgen spots Billy, and grins back, and lifts him up into a great embrace. Both of them are still naked, so maybe this should be awkward, but Billy decides to think of it as Greco-Roman and just roll with it. It’s not the only thing he needs to just go with at the moment. Fuck, he doesn’t understand a single thing that’s happened in the last hour. He’s still half operating under the principle that maybe he’s dead, and that this is the beginning of some kind of long review of every person he’s ever met in his entire life.

When he’s released from the crushing hug he gets a look at Jørgen’s ear, which looks, well, which looks like someone bit the fuck out of it. He remembers doing it; he remembers liking it, in the same way he liked fucking Elisa. And he remembers what Elisa said, in the gloom of last night’s bar, after she weighed him in her mind: There’s a part of you that wants to be powerful and that doesn’t give a good goddamn about anything else.

“Shit, man,” is the first thing Billy says. “I’m sorry about your ear.”

Jørgen touches it absently. “It will heal,” he says, after a moment.

“I’m so—I’m so glad to see you,” Billy says. “How long have you been stuck here?”

“Almost two weeks,” says Jørgen. “I think. Telling time here is—difficult.”

“I’m sorry, man,” Billy says. “If I’d known, I’d—”

Billy tries to figure out what exactly he could have done.

“So you two know one another?” Elisa, now dressed, says. Introductions are made, a little awkwardly. Elisa won’t quite look Billy in the face, and he wonders what she thinks about what they did. Whether she enjoyed it. Whether she feels sorry. Whether she would do it again. They didn’t even use a condom, Billy realizes. But reflecting on what just happened, reminds him of the fact of the moment, that all three of them, a minute ago, were all turned into animals—godforsaken animals. Billy gets an upsurge of raw existential confusion, rising like a wave of nausea. His legs go weak.

“What the fuck,” Billy says. He uprights the chair and sits down on it heavily. “I mean—what the fuck?”

Elisa and Jørgen, who are managing somehow to come across to Billy as actually calm, exchange a look.

“I understand your distress,” Jørgen says, finally. “Follow me, and we will talk. I have a room. My clothes are there. I will dress, and I will try to explain.”

“Okay,” Billy says. He breathes hard, tries not to hyperventilate. “Okay. Let me—let me get my clothes.”

But his clothes are ruined. He tries to see if he could salvage them, but they’re totally shredded, not even enough left to make a loincloth. He takes a second to mourn his army jacket, which he loved, mud-and-shit-covered though it had become during the day’s indignities. Deep in the pockets of his burst pants he finds a wadded-up napkin. He knows the words that are written down on it and he opts to leave it behind. He also finds Laurent’s card. The guy is an asshole, but Billy folds the card into his sweaty palm nevertheless: he has a feeling, right now, like any ally might be a good ally.

His socks are gone but his sneakers are intact at least, and he’s seen Die Hard enough times that he knows that it’s probably a good idea to put them on.

“Elisa says there’s no way out of here,” Billy says, as he and Elisa follow Jørgen down the hall.

“She is correct,” Jørgen says.

Billy falls into a worried silence that seems shared by the others. Eventually they reach a door with a broken lock, and Jørgen pushes it open. Inside it looks like any other hotel room: king-size bed, tiny desk, bad art. Billy wonders whether the end table contains a Bible.