The Last of Her Kind

Caught in the Web

Sludge leaked from the busted pipe into a bucket Darren had hung just beneath it. The women's restroom had flooded over the weekend, and he had moved into the crawl space beneath to deal with the issue, only to discover that the plumbing was completely shot.

The crawlspace was around four feet tall, and was a maze of pipes, vents and cobwebs. When people walked on the ground floor above, dirt trickled through small gaps in the floorboards. Donning a face mask and a pair of safety glasses, he had been underneath the library all day, attempting to repair rather than replace, but the process had been slow going. As the minutes trickled by, his memories threatened to surface like hungry fish, snapping at him for attention.

Moving a particularly large web to the side, he winced when a large brown spider tumbled free, then ran away in a panic.

"Sorry," he mumbled to the little creature as it disappeared around one of the dark corners. "Your house is in the way of progress." He held up the replacement pipe to ensure it was long enough and then slid it onto the old pipe with a fitting. Using his torch, he sweated the pipes and then soldered them together. The intense heat and humidity tickled at his sense memory, but he ignored it.

This morning, Ana had greeted him at his bedroom door, pushing him back to his bed. Leaning forward in her wheelchair, she had sucked him dry once again. Ever since that first night in the park almost two weeks ago, she had become more aggressive, initiating oral sex every day or so. Afterward, it was almost like she was a different person, caught up in some sort of post-orgasmic bliss, which he knew wasn't possible. She had assured him more than once that she felt nothing from the waist down, yet she looked so satisfied after she was finished with him.

Like every other sexual encounter, this one had left him feeling relaxed and at peace. The painful memories were still there, but they were now muted, distant somehow. He no longer heard Cutter's voice berating him, demanding justice for a death he felt he didn't deserve.

Still, the dark confines of the crawlspace did their best to amplify those dark feelings, and Darren kept his eyes on his work, thinking only of the pipes above and Ana. She was still such a mystery to him, but he figured with time he would get to know the woman who hid behind the facade.

Up above, he heard the soft chatter of children, followed by Ana's voice. It was storytime, and he stopped to listen in. No matter how cold she acted with others, she showed a special softness with the children. He wondered if she would be capable of such softness with a child of her own.

"Do you think that's even a possibility?" Dwayne asked him. His brother squinted at the pipe Darren had just soldered. "You've got a weak joint on this side, by the way."

"Oh?" Darren moved the lamp over and frowned. "Yeah, you're right." He grabbed the solder and went to work once more, heating the metal.

"I mean, she's numb from the waist down, but can she function? Like, could she have babies?"

"Hmm. I don't know. Ow, shit." He stuck his finger in his mouth, cooling it. While heating the pipe, he had accidentally touched the edge. "I guess maybe? Not something I figured I would bring up just yet."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Remember that one girl from high school? Kathryn?"

"I do." His lips curled into a smile. Kathryn and his brother had dated for a couple of months when she thought she had become pregnant. "You even got mom's old wedding ring and were ready to take the plunge junior year."

"Yeah. I wasn't ready to be a dad, but I was still excited. Then she had her period and cheated on me with Tommy Stiles." Dwayne chuckled. "Guess it was all for the best though."