In Its Prime (second half)

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  Filling space with striations down her backside, Joeve makes for the door. Painton's eyes follow, his fangs clicking, slavering for meat. Joeve scoots out.

  Painton smacks his forehead to drive away the demons. Saliva collects in his mouth. He gulps it down and says a prayer he learned during communion then he snarls into the visiocom, "Susie, when's the next?"

  "Mrs. Zerinian in fifteen minutes."

  "Cancel it. Tell her something and reschedule. Give her a voucher to tide her over."

  "Will do. Are you going out?"

  "Yeah, a snack. I have to start eating better breakfasts."

  Joeve has the need to graze too. When she steps onto the street, she spots a parlor. A pizza with extra zucchini seems right. She starts on a second wedge as Painton comes through the door. He places his order and sits up front. The server brings him a bottle of Moosehead. Five minutes later, she slaps two pieces of pizza down. “End of my shift. If you want another slice, just signal a server.” Delicious wiggles through Painton's mind as he stares at the flesh leaving through the door. The pizza does not satisfy him. He wants something fresh and bloody. He rises and rushes out. Joeve waits until the wolves run off, swallows the last bite of her pizza, then canters away as well.

 

  Painton’s mind regains dominance over his urges. Applying the eigenvalue method to loan closure does that. Using the software program he developed to run in the eigenvalues for that flock-of-sheep loan, he plans his approach to Sensel’s application. He just needs enough eigenvalues to fill in a minor matrix. Doesn’t have to develop the full matrix for all 562.

  A mathematician named Alain Connes gave him that. Connes considered it probable to approximate infinite-dimensional matrices with finite-dimensional ones. This result from the Connes embedding conjecture led Painton to discover an application to loan management.

  While he calculates, Sheeta slinks in. “Back at it. What’s the problem this time?”

  “I’ve got to simplify the calculation to get the loan through for Joeve Sensel. Complications seem to be limitations on growth. Need to know the effects of birth rate, food supply, disease and predation. Getting a handle on those would simplify the matrix even though the values would be based on hallucinations.”

  Sheeta leans over. "Birth rates, food supply and disease should be available in the annals. Get the predation figures for herds and you'd complete the picture. Here's an idea: The herd is a hallucination, so you could enter another illusion regarding predation. Have you tried thinking like a wolf, or better yet, a pack of wolves?”

  As soon as he has a realization fueled by what she’s said, he obsesses on running with a pack to pull down a caribou. Because packs so often fail to make a kill, they have developed a secondary thrill, the chase itself. He smells his running mates ‒ the stale odor of feces dominates. He sniffs in the wonder of it. He knows his pack by their exudates. They will chase Joeve Sensel over the prairie and hillocks and they will add the smell of her blood to their own odor. Painton shudders in this delusion and scratches at the fleas behind his ears. His eyes turn to embers. The sound of many hundreds of hooves trampling the ground rumbles his eardrums, then gurgles out in a growl. He nuzzles the air. "Yeah, I can think like wolves."

 

  Joeve wakes after a night of terrors. In the mirror, she scrutinizes her appearance. Steps on the scale. 82.0 kilos stares up from the display. The roll of fat around her waist has mostly disappeared. The flab and bounce have gone. I'm lucky to have a pack of wolves like Mr. Painton noshing on me.

  Nevertheless, as she steps off the scale, sadness wells up. I feel springy and magnanimous, but why this maudlin? Wolves must eat, so Painton eats me. They are doing their job of cleaning out the weak and sick. What’s more natural? Maybe I have reached a catharsis.

  Bending her mind, Painton becomes the greatest loan manager on earth. Probably, he'll give me a year's free interest when the loan goes through. I should get him a present. A tie perhaps? She smiles to herself as her sadness turns from maudlin to beautiful….

  While she decides what color to buy, Painton's secretary phones to cancel Joeve’s appointment. "Mr. Painton isn't feeling well. Gastric trouble or something.”

  The next day, Joeve arrives early enough to note Painton slipping into his office. His skin appears ashen, his hair as mussed as his suit. His hands nearly touch the floor. Joeve follows him in. Hoping to cheer the guy up, she offers the tie, "I'm thankful for what you're doing for me."

  "Really? We managers don't get much praise like that. The thing that keeps us going is that we're the only ones who know what our clients need." Painton whines then gurgles. What a stupid thing to say. I have no idea what she needs without the eigenvector to point the way.

  "You don't say? Still, I think many in your line couldn’t do what you're doing for me. Besides, finance is not the criterion, is it?"

"What do you believe it is then?"

  "Any pack of wolves who knows its job could do the same thing. Too bad so few packs exist. I think I'll join the Wildlife Conservatory and do something about that."

  She’s so damn matter of fact. Painton drools as the six parts of him crouch under the bushes. When his eyes begin subtracting colors from the room, Joeve vanishes into shades of gray then morphs gangly, brownish and quivering.

He applies an anti-depressant to his left wrist. Within a few seconds, Joeve returns to the couch. "Right, right." Painton sighs. "You're the herd, I'm the pack. Okay, let's pick up from our last get-together. You tell me everything you know about your father, but pretend you are a six-year-old needing money. See your father through eyes like that."

  "Actually, I'm much better now. I've got my shit together, getting along fine. Maybe we should leave off on the application for now. See if I hold onto my weight and attitude. Then, maybe I won't need that money after all. I've been offered a job at a greengrocer stand near the zoo."

  All Painton's training and introspection turn to lumps in the minds of the beasts of the North. The hungry lobos weigh him down, pull him toward the floor and make him want to ravage this piece of flesh. He can imagine the taste of her blood, um, good. A blast of air shoots out through his teeth. "Joeve, anyone who considers he or she is a herd of animals does not have his or her shit together. If we could only clear up the thing about your father, you‘d make a breakthrough, but until you cooperate on that, I‘m afraid there‘s no hope for you. Your loan is at risk, and you need it despite what you say.”

 

  "Quit nudging me, you animal. I'm not in the mood. Stop acting as if I'm some beast. You smell like a zoo that hasn't been hosed down for weeks. Why don't you show some consideration?” Mildred prides herself in welcoming her husband's advances, but not this. She flees to the bathroom and locks the door.

  Paul Painton rolls over on his back and moans. Stunned by his actions, he thunks onto the floor, pulls himself up by the edge of Mildred's dresser then staggers into the hall. He navigates the crags and moraines with no problem. His eyes pick out guideposts he does not even notice in daytime, such as the swirl of cornucopia in the design of the wallpaper. When he flicks the kitchen switch merely out of habit, the brightness of the light drives him back out of the room. He creeps back in and turns off the glare.

  He jerks open the refrigerator. Mildred has stocked his favorites. There lies summer sausage, fancy mustard and pumpernickel. Quickly, as if the grub would flee if he lolled for even a moment, he throws a sandwich together, pours a glass of milk.

  One bite, and he leaps for the sink. Gagging, the parts of him confabulate. Long time since that was on the hoof. The milk no better. He rummages in the freezer for something fresher. Animals run around in the chill. He leaps into the snow and brings one down.

  An hour later, Mildred comes out of the bathroom. "Paul.” No answer. She finds him asleep over the table. The wrap from the steaks she had set aside to grill for company lies on the floor. Six bones with only shreds of meat on them litter the table. Paul's lips and hands gloss reddish. A thread of meat sticks to his chin. “Why, he's eaten them raw.” Furrows crease her forehead as she recalls a month ago at Pal Joey's when Paul's steak arrived on the raw side of medium. He had embarrassed her when he sent it back for more cooking. She hardly knows her husband anymore. He demeans himself ‒ an aberration, a mockery of her Paul. His left cheek lies on the table. His upper lip curls up like a window shade, which shows the change in his teeth ‒ the incisors have grown long and pointed like those of a werewolf.

  The next morning, she drives away to stay with her mother.

 

  Every so often, it dashes in toward an infirm animal. Its eyes embers, its mouth froths. Joeve cannot spot it, but she senses its hot breath. I'd better talk about my father, she decides, so she tells Painton all she can remember about him, "He hunted a lot, but I don't know if I knew that when I was six. He may have borrowed money for guns and ammunition. I don't know."

Painton had never hunted anything bigger than the ants that had gained purchase in his house. To him, hunting reeks barbaric. But now, he listens raptly as Joeve talks of her father shooting game, and the idea of hunting thrills him. His lips curl back off his gums. His flesh quickens, his eyelids quiver as they slit. He swallows the saliva in his mouth, then yips, "Ah, there we have it. How do you feel about hunting?"

  "We herds forage. I wouldn't know how to begin to hunt. You, on the other hand, must be good at it."

  "Uh huh." Painton cannot understand how Joeve had meant her words commendatory, but he has encouraging ideas just the same. He slinks out from behind his desk and, in measured steps, creeps to the couch where the herd sits. An urge to smell blood tears through his shoulders and arms. He clinches and unclinches his fists in time with the beating of his heart while his filed nails puncture his palms.  

  He touches Joeve's haunch. In a voice several octaves too low, "Hey, girl, I understand. Tell me how you feel about me, okay? Am I the right person to loan you money?"

  Joeve considers the question, balances it against her fear and edges toward the affirmative: "You are the first pack of wolves I've known, or, at least, that I've recognized. You've been keeping me in good condition by weeding out the weak and sickly flesh, but I must keep fighting you anyway. That's nature's way. We balance each other like debits and credits. Still, I'd say 'yes'. You would be the one to lend me money if I needed it."

  The expressions in Painton's eyes make tracks to his teeth. His body shakes as he tries to stand rigid like the statue in front of the city museum. Hiding his contortions, he pirouettes and limps back toward his desk. “If I needed it. What the hell!”

  Desperately, he wants to run, leap and slaughter. For a peaceable man, that desire should horrify him, although now he considers it natural and right. He senses himself a killing machine. He could have run to the top of the tallest outcrop. He would not have missed a movement from a kilometer away. And he knows that hundreds of caribou trample the couch. The odor of sweat and dust and dung that comes across the room sends his anger to hot ire. Leaning on the desk, facing away from Joeve, he mumbles. "I'll kill you, you decrepit herd. No damn loan for you."  

  Paul Painton has no doubt that he has had these thoughts and said those words and that he has meant them. "What's happening to me?" he screams into the crook of his arm. Sucking air, he races from the office startled as a fox snared by a trap, past his secretary and down the hall.

  Joeve watches the wolves run into the bush. Even though culling out disease stays necessary, you must celebrate when they give you respite, time to browse, time for the young to gambol without worrying about getting maimed. This lull allows her to regroup; however, she fuddles herself in the process, What can I do, what is left to me? How might I better help the man who is saving me?

 

  Not a gram of fat appears anywhere on her body. Joeve trots into her bathroom at 6:00 AM. The scale reads 78.9 kilos, same weight for the past month. She passed her annual physical. Exercises at the gym four nights a week. New boyfriend ‒ by the avatars, a fellow vegetarian who loves creatures. The owner likes her work at the green-grocer stand. The loan seems less important now, although she wants to help Mr. Painton win the contest for the quarter.

  The herd hasn't had an appointment for so long, she wonders if he still nibbles around the edges occasionally, keeping one Joeve Sensel trim and alluring. She phones his secretary to arrange a meeting to go over her loan status. The secretary fits her in for 2 P.M.

  Through the door, she steps into the primeval. The air freezes the carpet. Her breath fogs. New pictures of woodland and prairie scenes transform the walls, replacing the avant-garde that had hung there. Forests, copses, plains, mountains and rivers cover most of the space. A National Geographic print of a large herd of caribou hangs behind the settee. Rustic furniture lies about like random growth. Wolves lurk behind every depiction.

  Painton, who has worn colorful shirts and ties and $1000 suits, now dresses in a gray, rough-cut, throw-away with a stained white shirt and crumpled silver tie. He has grown a beard, and his gray-streaked hair lies shaggy and long. When he stands up, he stoops over to the point where his neck parallels the floor. He darts out from behind his desk, then changes his mind and dashes back. His voice, a rasp, "Good to see you, Ms. Sensel. How's life been treating you? I would imagine you've been having a rough time."

  "No sir, things are great. Have you found another herd to weed out or are you still taking a nibble off me now and then?" Joeve laughs at the idea of wolves daintily eating.

  Painton fumbles with his tie, then sits down quickly to control his shaking. He has gone over this meeting several times with his priest who warned not to let this woman get to him again. "No, Joeve. Despite what jingles in that brain of yours, I'm not a pack of wolves. I am an individual. I'd like you to respect that." He begins to pare his fingernails with a file. Nearly a half inch long, they sharpen to points.

  “Probably why you are unhappy. You don't acknowledge your true nature." She has assumed increased responsibility for Painton. After all, the pack has helped her in getting her figure in shape.

  "You're not going to get to me with that drivel, Joeve. This is your exit interview. Your loan? Refused! You caused me to lose out to that dullard. Do you have anything you'd like to say? I'll listen for a minute or so." Painton rams the nail file 5 mm into his desktop and loosens his tie while the file quivers. “This damn tie chokes like a leash.” With that distraction gone, his gnawing hunger enslaves his attention.

  Mr. Painton is having a hard time accepting himself. Joeve smiles. "After what you've done for me, I feel I owe you a great deal. You eat what would drag us down ‒ you weed us to perfection. Of course, we try to protect those who gave us life, but without you we become weak. Mind if I eat some veggies? I went without grazing at lunchtime."

  As she chomps on celery, Painton's head and shoulders sway in rhythm with each crunch. He whines. “You’re doing this to torment me. You know how hungry I am.” Yet, he has needed her. The need turned on during that first meeting. He has tried to kick it, but his emotions will not fade. Well, he can last a few more minutes, then the herd will vanish in the dust. "Okay," he says, "What do you feel I've done for you?"

  "You know. Made me the best I can be. That may sound corny, but it's true. You've trimmed me down, made me strong, given me assurance. I didn't appreciate it at first then I realized herds need packs to give them fortitude. I feel that we'll always be together. Why, the loan is secondary now. We can make do with less. Doing without ‒ the healthy way to live anyway.” Joeve gazes around the office, then becomes chatty: "What do I taste like, if you don't mind me asking?"

  Painton does not answer. He has discerned little after Joeve said "best herd." Live things run through his head, churning his brains to mush. They leap out of his eyes and bound around the prairie, sniffing for the herd. They do not try to make it strong. They starve, dammit, and they live to eat, and on the couch only three meters away lives flesh. If he crouches low and crawls on his belly through the brush, keeping hidden, blending in, he will have her.

  He knows he has gone around the bend, crazy without recourse. However, he cares little about that. He glories in his wildness and savagery. He desires to howl in anticipation of his triumph. Then, he breaks from cover and dashes over the terrain, the grass yielding to his paws. No longer in denial, he growls with relief in the knowledge. Without pretense, ready to leap, his eyes craze, scanning the game on the couch.

 

  The wolves hunger. Although these marauders hit the edges of the herd often, most of the time they fail to catch the stringy food. So, the pack turns to rabbits and other varmints. The rare wolf, though, after his mates have gone after easier game, keeps pacing around the herd. Every so often he will get lucky, but usually the bulls and angry mamas beat him off. After so much of that, he goes nuts. He will only eat enough of what he can catch to keep from starving, then he will return to coasting in and out of the herd, his eyes sharp to his chances.

  Painton's orbs come to rest on Joeve's body. Happy to occupy space with her, he puts his feet flat on the floor and his palms on the desk. He straightens his arms so that his shoulders rise level with his ears.

  Restless and hungry still, he stands up and crosses his office through the scrub and bushes that border the clearing. After locking the door, he leans his forehead against its wood and pants. In a few seconds, he swings around with his eyes fixed on Joeve. She has become something more than a client. Hiding his cunning, he says, "Joeve, I finally see the truth of what you've been telling me. Thank you."

  Joeve, who studies the painting of a deer on the wall behind Painton's desk, sighs at his confession. What a relief to know she has done some good after all. About to encourage him, she notices too much silence flowing across the room. The birds do not sing, and the small animals fail to scurry through the grass. She turns toward Painton’s desk. He leans on his elbows and knees, crawling slowly toward her. She shrinks against the couch back. Painton’s long hair hangs over his forehead and brushes the floor. Joeve huffs, "Man, you all right?"

  When Painton glances up, strands of his hair diffract the light surging out of his eyes. "Don't move," they command.

  Joeve's legs stiffen, pressing her harder into the couch. The parts of her nervously mill around. The grays must have a new plan. Not circling, but coming straight at her, hemming her in. Joeve stiffens her back. Her hair bristles, and she says, "Mr. Painton, get up off the floor. You're confusing me."

  Painton keeps coming. With each centimeter closer, Joeve becomes more frantic. Fear, sliding into terror, rules the herd. She must get out of this office. If she can get to the other side of the desk, she might reach the door first. But, if the wolves stay put, Painton will block the way. Okay, she tells herself, get up slowly, don't panic, and circumnavigate to the door. She has risen halfway off the couch, when Painton tenses his hands and feet. Instinct from thousands of years of breeding makes Joeve freeze; she cannot run.

  Painton moves closer. Eigenvalues flood into his mind. They fill in a matrix he did not expect. An eigenvector rockets from his forehead accompanied with howls of clear intent, then he launches into a two-meter leap.

  The wolves burst from cover into the midst of the herd. Its defense circle breaks, and the caribou run helter skelter. Their frantic rushing gives Painton a view. His breakthrough in applied mathematics follows them, points at each one, freezes all 562 in a major matrix. He howls.

  He lands full on Joeve's left side and digs his sharp fingernails into her under-belly. As Joeve falls back, her head strikes the frame supporting the couch's upholstery. Through her petrified flesh, she barely feels Painton's teeth sink into her left breast.

Her sight dims as she slips from terror toward apathy. About to pass out, she experiences the wolves ripping flesh off the lead bull. Wait a minute, that's nuts. What, are they insane? The wolves are trying to slaughter the entire herd!

  Immediately, responsible ire brings her into action. She clasps her hands together, then drives the double fist into Painton's groin. When his grip loosens, Joeve rolls off the couch onto the floor.  

  Painton leaps back before she can stand up. He rips skin off her forehead, cheeks and neck. Blood from the gashes pours onto the carpet. He clamps his teeth onto her right ear. The sound and pain of ripping cartilage anger the lead bulls. They must protect the cows. Joeve bucks Painton off.

  Painton falls back a meter, then comes at her again. She lowers her bloodied head and leans forward to take the charge. Wild with rage, hunger and failure, Painton dives toward his prey. Joeve snaps her shoulders up just before the two heads slam together. She falls back from the impact.

 

  The building guard and the detective from the precinct break through Painton's office door followed by the paramedic squad. Painton's terrified secretary, who had phoned for help, stands on tip toes trying to view over shoulders. Joeve sits on the floor shaking her head. Blood drips from her breasts, neck and forehead.

  Painton leans against his desk. His head lies on his right shoulder, chin pointed toward his back.  

  "His neck is broken," a paramedic says.

  Joeve's right ear dangles from a piece of flesh. On her blouse, the dark-red stains have merged with her snot and spittle. Tears create streaks of white through the blood on her cheeks. Vacantly, she gazes at the paramedic who had spoken. She tries to say something; she cannot even work her mouth, dumbfounded that any pack of wolves would attack a herd in its prime.

  The detective studies the corpse then faces Joeve as the paramedics minister to her. “Feel up to making a statement?”

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  A new story will post on or about 1 Apr. 2026

  To get the book Eve Valor: click here.

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