Slave comes up the driveway, past the car that no one can drive, hefting the shopping cart up the front steps two wheels at a time. The sun is down low and the things that whistle in the dark are in position.

The car at his parents’ house is in the driveway over there. He can see that someone has forgotten an ULTRA MAX bag in the trunk and a paper cup on the roof.

Still wearing his glove, he maneuvers the front door open and the cart through, as silently as possible.



Early on, Eye sat Slave down and told him a little story about Marcel Proust, how he used to sleep all day and require his servants to tiptoe into his bedchamber at five p.m. with a tray of fresh coffee, hot chocolate, and croissants, and lay it silently on his nightstand and disappear so that when he, Marcel, awakened, he would discover all was ready for him to sip and nibble right there in bed, as he sat waiting for the long night’s writing session to commence..

“But,” said Eye, back when he’d told Slave this story, “sometimes Marcel did not awaken at five p.m. Sometimes it was six, even seven, even eight p.m.. In those cases, the servants tiptoed back into his room, once every hour, to remove the tray, discard its gone-lukewarm contents, and prepare an entirely new one to place by the master’s bedside. It is said that if Marcel were ever to awaken and catch sight of the servants standing there, tampering with the tray, his entire night’s work would be ruined and … ”

Here Eye segued into a direct threat, “the price those servants would pay for the disturbance was not one any could afford to pay twice. Nor their families.” Slave used to think of this story each time he put away a new take of ULTRA MAX supplies, but now he can remember to keep quiet without needing to remember why.



After unloading the take into the fridge and pantry cabinets, Slave coaxes the cart into its stall, like a horse whose work for the day – week, even – is done. He turns the light out over it and closes the door.



Only then does he remove his glove and hang it on its hook.



Eye appears behind him now, newly awake after a day’s sleep. Slave can feel Eye’s presence but allows himself a split second of peace before turning to face his next round of servitude.



Eye regards Slave’s back during this split second of peace, blinking once, stretching his four nerves taut and letting them go slowly and luxuriously loose.



THEN, DINNERTIME.

On dose nights, Eye needs something soft and simple: oatmeal, how ‘bout? Slave cooks it on the stove, lets it cool. The milk and brown sugar form a gum, just as Eye likes it. Slave spoons it into a broad, shallow dish, and places it on an ornamental mat on the ground, Eye’s place setting.


Then, macramé monkey in hand, he slips off into the bathroom to run Eye’s bath while Eye rolls over to the dish and begins to sup. Slave has never been allowed to watch Eye eat; he could not say for sure how it is achieved.

Slave measures out spices and herbs, pours them into the steaming tub once it’s reached the correct fullness and temperature. He used to fumble with the knobs to get it right. Not anymore.

The bathroom fills with carefully calibrated steam. Slave, a little surreptitiously like he’s stealing, breathes some in.


ON TO THE ALTAR ROOM.



Slave places the macramé monkey, its skin soft with bath steam, on its throne on the high altar, surrounded by Eye’s collection of the antique heads of saints, martyrs, and heroes.
This time, the dose – 30 white pills – is secreted all in a row in the monkey’s intestines, like it smuggled them of its own accord across a border.
Opening the toolkit that contains scalpel, torch, needle, and gauze, Slave removes a pair of forceps and teases the intestines empty.
Humming quietly enough to not be heard but loudly enough to hear himself, Slave removes the pills one by one and encases all but two in a jar. He caps the jar with the monkey’s head, so as to remember which animal the pills came from (the room is full of empty jars capped with the heads of snakes, badgers, toucans, &c).

THE STANDARD PREPARATIONS...

crush, wet, burn, stir, wait, burn, stir, wait.

When the dose has been successfully introduced into its syringe and the stepladder dragged into position, Slave fetches Eye from the kitchen.

EYE ON THE STEPLADDER

veins pronounced.

Slave down below, steadying the syringe with his full bodyweight.

Eye quivers, goes first narrow then wide.

THEN FLIES

downward, pupil-first onto the needle.

Slave holds it fast like a tree that’s broken and wants to fall. He looks away from the point of impact.

Eye slides down almost to the hilt, his lashes touching Slave’s wrist.

The Night Sugar is released; Eye’s four nerves triple in size and turn bright red.

Celestial and prehistoric images – Pegasus, Pterodactyl, runes and maps of sunken cities and non-material planets – play across Eye’s whites like visions in a crystal ball.

FIVE SOLID MINUTES
Gingerly, Slave eases stuporous Eye off the needle, out of the room, and into the bath. Eye dribbles down until only his lids peep above the water. Slave exits, leaving Eye to soak in that fragrant steam until morning.



SLAVE HAS THE REST OF THE EVENING TO HIMSELF.

He cleans the oatmeal dish, then takes out Eye’s debit card from a drawer by the sink and orders Giant Chinese.

“Thirty to forty minutes,” he’s told.

The first twenty he spends aimlessly and all at once.



The next twenty he spends lying on his bed upstairs, looking out his window at the window of his parents’ house, formerly his window, his house.

Now, the Infanta, adopted from medieval Spain, dozes behind it, wrapped in silk and linen on his old bed. The room is decked out in candles and curtains, platters of almonds and oranges.

Her face is inclined toward him, but so glassy he cannot be sure whether she sees him as he sees her.
When the doorbell rings, he is startled, almost frightened. He only remembers about the food he ordered when he sees it outheld toward him like a peace offering in the doorway.