Free The Bone Parade by Mark Nykanen Page A

what she said about the order of death, I can’t help but wonder if she’s looking for the camera because she knows that she’d be watching too.
    I’ve also become convinced that she’s trying to seduce me. I know that statement would probably raise a Duh! from her, it’s so obvious, what with her tongue on my hand in the van, and the way she went out of her way to expose herself in the kitty box when we first got down here. But even during the hours when I’m out of the cellar, I see the seduction in the way she moves. Sometimes she stretches, does a whole series of feline movements, and she’s always,
always
positioned for optimum exposure, whether it’s her ass rising up in the air when she’s on all fours, or her breasts thrusting into profile when she’s stretching her shoulders back.
    After the first week, I became intrigued enough by her posturing to bring them all buckets of warm water, soap, and face cloths. Towels too. I set them within easy reach of the cage before retreating to my monitor up here in my bedroom.
    First, June and Jolly Roger helped Sonny-boy clean himself up. Then they went to work on themselves, Jolly Roger in the bored, brusque motions of a man who’s past caring about his own stink, and June with the furious scrubbing of a penitent, a woman who hates her body and all that it has brought her, who wants nothing more from a bath than to scourge her own skin.
    Their daughter waited till they stepped aside, then shed her clothes and washed herself without the least hint of self-consciousness.
    I’ve given them buckets and washcloths every few days since, just for the joy of watching Diamond Girl. I’ve just done it again, and once more make myself comfortable in front of my monitor.
    Diamond Girl strips off her top and pants as she has in the past. All very businesslike. But now she’s inching her panties down, as if the waistband were fraught with resistance, a motion that makes much of what is to come. It’s a tease, and it’s definitely different from what I’ve seen up till now. Maybe she really has figured out that I’m watching, and is taking full delight in my desire. I sit forward knowing I’d climb right inside that screen if I could.
    When she does slide her panties past her pubis, she stops to scratch her dark patch idly, provocatively, her upper arms squeezing her breasts together with each movement, making them swell above her bra. I’m aroused by all of this, and filled with a heady sense of anticipation. I couldn’t take my eyes off her if the barn were burning down.
    She’s still facing me when she bends over and slides her panties all the way off. Her hair falls forward, and for a moment she’s the picture of modesty; but then she straightens up quickly, sending it flying up over her head and onto her back. She reaches between the cups and unhooks her bra. But again, she moves slowly, her fingers lingering over their promise.
    I’m not the only one noticing. Jolly Roger shows a keen interest too, the slob, and June tells him to look away. He raises his hands in surrender, as if he’s been caught, and as he turns around he forces Sonny-boy to do the same, on the theory, I suppose, that if he can’t watch, then justice cries out for a similar sacrifice on the part of his son.
    June hisses at her daughter, “What do you think you’re doing?”
    Diamond Girl ignores her, and with surprising grace reveals one breast and then the other.
    June looks around, as if she suspects that Diamond Girl has an audience, then stares balefully at her. I’m staring too. It’s as if I’m seeing her breasts for the first time. They are so abundantly the breasts of a young girl, so taut, so forcefully forward in their trajectory. They have not suffered from children or time or weight gain and loss, the seesawing vicissitudes of most female flesh. They are … perfect … and pale, a pristine white with tiny nipples and a tan line that plummets between them to form a nearly