The Smaller Evil Read online

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Arman said. He meant it, too.

  Beau’s expression grew solemn. “You know, when I was a teenager, I was a lot like you. Trapped in a bad place without even understanding how bad it was. My mother was an unhappy person and her unhappiness poisoned me. Made me scared of the world. Scared of myself, actually.”

  “And your dad?” Arman ventured. Then he held his breath.

  Beau plucked a stem of clover from the ground. Cupped it in the palm of his hand. “My father was worthless. Utterly worthless. When he was around, all he did was tell lies. And not good lies. Awful ones. The kind that let you know that things can always be worse. The kind that let you know some fathers were never meant to have sons.”

  Arman felt dizzy again. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Beau was confiding in him. That felt important. More than important, it felt significant.

  Beau leaned closer then. Until their foreheads almost touched. “You can’t tell anyone about our arrangement, though. Inequality breeds unrest. At least at this part of the process.”

  “Oh, sure. Of course.”

  “Later it’ll be different. Later they’ll understand that self-comparison is the medium in which illness is incubated. But now, not so much.”

  “I see,” Arman said, although he didn’t see. Not at all.

  But clearly he’d said the right thing, because Beau nodded, relieved, standing again to rock back on his heels. “Life isn’t fair, of course, but sometimes the illusion of equity is necessary. This is one of those times.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “So I can trust you, Arman? To be discreet? And to take full advantage of this opportunity?”

  Now Arman nodded vigorously. He could do both of those things. He would. And by not spending the stolen money, well, maybe that meant doing something else when he left here. Like not going back home. Ever.

  He smiled up at Beau. He felt good. The two of them had a secret.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

  Beau smiled back.

  • • •

  The kitchen was located in a building adjacent to the dome and the sweet-smelling garden. Beau and Arman entered through a sliding glass door. The room was large. Impressive. Ceiling fans cooled the air and the whole space was filled with spinning light and warm smells and chipped terra-cotta tiles.

  Arman gazed around. Saw long stainless steel counters and double sinks. Even a walk-in freezer. How many people did they plan on feeding? How many people were actually here? There’d been nine of them total in the van, but then he remembered all the other vans, plus the cabins and the buildings. Beau murmured something about the dining room being through a pair of swinging doors, but Arman wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy watching the cook, a young woman in a yellow dress made of the same gauzy material as Beau’s clothing. She moved with an ease that made Arman embarrassingly aware of how tight his own clothes were. She also had bare legs and bright eyes that stared right back at Arman when Beau asked her to feed him.

  She nodded. But she didn’t take her eyes off Arman.

  “I’m needed in the meeting hall now,” Beau told her. “Please send Arman back when he’s finished.”

  She nodded again, and with that he slipped away.

  Arman sat shyly at the table the cook gestured him toward. She smiled at him when she did this. Or at least he thought it was a smile—a slight twitch of her lips that looked effortless, the way a ladybug might flap her wings. She poured iced tea from a large pitcher she took from the refrigerator and set a full glass in front of him.

  “Thank you,” Arman said, gripping the glass, absorbing its chill. Thick slices of lemon and mint leaves floated among the ice cubes.

  The cook didn’t respond. She turned away from him and returned to her work. Despite her silence, the room was filled with sound: Soft music spilled from speakers mounted on a bare wood shelf, and the atmosphere in the kitchen was peaceful, both drowsy and dreamy. Arman leaned his thin shoulders against the wall and gazed out at the meadow and the woods and drank the tea, slow sip by even slower sip. It tasted sweet.

  It tasted like what he needed.

  A plate appeared before him moments later. Simple food. Chunks of cheese, warm bread, slices of fresh fruit, roasted almonds, and a few drizzles of honey, all neatly laid out on a heavy ceramic plate. Arman stared. Then realized he was starving. He ate fast, using his hands, wolfing down the bread and honey first, followed by the almonds, lightly salted. Next he devoured the fruit: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries—all sweet as a miracle, they must have come from the garden—sitting alongside chunks of pink melon and the tiniest grapes he’d ever seen. Sugary juice ran down Arman’s chin, his wrists, stinging a bit as it hit the patch of raw skin on his forearm, and he winced, forced to pause in his gluttony—a reluctant temperance—before continuing with his meal. Slower this time.

  The cheese he only nibbled at, out of caution not distaste. Last year he’d been diagnosed with lactose intolerance—along with GERD—and while cheese didn’t usually give him problems, it wasn’t worth the risk or the pain.

  Arman didn’t much like risk.

  Or pain.

  So he left most of the cheese uneaten. That was fine. Sated and satisfied, Arman figured he should get himself to the meeting hall. Join the group. But sitting there, stomach full and stretched comfortably, with the drowsiness in his limbs and the good music playing over the speakers, soothing his soul, well, he didn’t want to leave. He was not unaware that this was the first time in a long while that anyone had taken care of him.

  It felt nice.

  But it couldn’t last, could it? Nothing good did. Besides, he needed to do what he’d promised Beau: take advantage of this opportunity. That meant getting his butt to the meeting. He didn’t need to fall any farther behind than he already was.

  Pushing his chair back, Arman spurred his body into motion. He gathered the plate and glass, and walked over to the work area where the cook was washing lettuces and shucking ears of summer corn. It was strange, he thought, her being the only one here.

  “Thank you,” he said again, setting the dishes down on the counter by the sink.

  The cook whirled to face him. She stared, her eyes narrowed, her brows knitted tight. It was like he’d startled her. Like she’d forgotten his very presence. Wisps of loose hair fell onto her cheeks, her neck.

  Am I really here? Can she see me?

  “Sorry,” Arman said meekly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She continued to stare. She wasn’t much older than he was, maybe college-aged, and she was pretty in a quiet way. It was the dress, perhaps. Or her kindness.

  Arman squirmed. Tried to take a step backward. “I should go.”

  The cook came toward him then, still silent but no longer quiet. No, she was bold in her approach. Imperious. Chin lifted, she stopped right in front of him, mere millimeters away. Arman froze. He’d never been this close to a girl, not alone and not ever, and he had no idea what she wanted. He had no idea where to look. A part of him hoped she couldn’t smell him—all that sweating he’d done earlier, God—and Arman’s lungs constricted, sinking into a breathless knot, as the hairs on his arms rose up in an effort to reach her. Like flowers bending toward the sun.

  “Is something wrong?” he whispered. “Did I do something wrong?”

  The cook’s response was to lean forward and press her lips to his. She proceeded to do this, very gently, while at the same time shoving one hand down the front of his pants.

  At her touch, Arman made a noise. An odd one. Part fear. Part longing. But the cook kept kissing him, kept pushing her tongue around inside his mouth. It was a sensation as invasive as it was pleasurable, a probing wetness that addled his brain while what she did with her hand down lower—all confidence and expertise—sent jolts of electricity thr
ough his stomach. His chest. His limbs.

  His everything.

  Then the cook was making him move—pulling his jeans off, pulling him to the floor, pulling her own dress up over her head so that Arman could see what was beneath. Skin and softness and patches of downy hair. He finally ventured to reach between her legs, a timid approach, because it seemed like what she wanted him to do, but the slippery heat he felt there was almost too much. Somehow the cook knew this. Maybe it was the way his legs trembled. Or the new noise he was making. She pushed his hand away. Got on top of him.

  Realizing what she was going to do, what they were already doing and what would soon be over, Arman couldn’t help himself. This was the second time in one day that someone was giving him something. A gift he hadn’t earned. That had never happened before, and he had to know.

  “Why?” he gasped. “Why are you doing this?”

  The cook leaned down, her body devouring his with little to no temperance at all, and she whispered three words.

  Words Arman never thought he’d hear.

  She said to him:

  I need you.

  4

  ARMAN WONDERED IF THEY COULD smell it on him. Or if they saw something different in the way he walked or the way he talked or the way he just was. But if Kira and Dale happened to notice anything at all about him, they kept it to themselves, simply walking side by side and going on about the meeting he’d missed. Arman trailed behind, trying to listen. But he felt dazed.

  He felt distant.

  To the west, the sun faded quickly, dipping below trees, and slipping behind hill after hill after hill toward the ocean beyond. Apparently Kira and Dale were heading toward the cabin where they’d be rooming for the duration of the retreat. Only they knew the way. Arman had run into them as he left the kitchen, slinking out through the sliding glass door, and walking . . . well, more like stumbling back through the garden, past the drooping vines of honeysuckle and the apple orchard and the beehives, drained, jelly-legged, and no longer innocent.

  Wasn’t that something?

  “Come on,” they’d called to him, pausing and waving from the main path. “You’re staying with us.”

  Staying where? Arman had wanted to ask, hating how clueless he was, but instead he’d said nothing. He was still too stunned by what had transpired between him and the bare-legged cook, the young woman in the yellow dress who’d fed him and then—

  Arman’s whole body shuddered at the memory.

  In a good way.

  Mostly.

  • • •

  “We’re sleeping in here? Together?” Kira frowned. They stood huddled in the screened doorway of the tiny single-room cabin. Three cots with crisp white sheets were pushed together against the back wall. Three glasses, a flashlight, and a pitcher of water sat on a small round table. A bare-bulb light swung from the center beam, giving the place a stark, haunted feel.

  Dale walked in first, his shoes kicking up dust. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  Kira still balked. “Why aren’t I bunking with the girls? Isn’t there some sort of, I don’t know, protocol?”

  Dale let out a low chuff of laughter. He sank onto the closest cot. The springs squeaked loudly beneath his weight. As if they, too, were unpleasantly surprised by the sleeping arrangements. “Protocol,” he echoed. “Yeah, right. Everything they said in that meeting was so vague, who knows what we’re meant to be doing? We’re here to change, because change is needed. We’ll find answers when we stop asking questions. So maybe the protocol is no protocol. Maybe we’re supposed to spend our nights having some sort of freaky threesome with Arman here while all the old shits get off by watching us. Maybe that’s the damn protocol.”

  Arman felt flush. The mere mention of sex so soon after what he’d just done, it was almost more than he could handle.

  “I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to do,” Kira told Dale.

  He shrugged. “Did you see anyone else in that room you’re dying to sleep next to? Anyone within two decades of your age?”

  Kira grinned and shook her head. Then she bounded across the room on those long legs of hers, leaping and soaring to land on top of Dale with a laugh.

  “No,” she said, staring down at him. “I didn’t see anyone else I’d want to sleep next to. Those people, they were all . . . all . . .”

  “All what?” Arman asked from where he still stood in the doorway, digging at his arm with his finger.

  Kira lifted her head. “I don’t know. I guess they were nothing special. That’s what they were. They were ordinary. A bunch of ordinary old folks.”

  “Well, what else happened at the meeting?”

  “We already told you what happened,” Kira said. “Where were you anyway?”

  Arman dug harder. “I needed to take care of something.”

  “Hmph.” She didn’t look convinced.

  “I’ll tell you what we did. We had to take an oath of secrecy.” Dale held up three fingers like a Boy Scout. “And we had to promise to do every single thing our trainers tell us to do. Or else.”

  “Or else what?” Arman asked.

  “You get kicked out, I guess. Or maybe worse. They have security guards, you know. Armed ones. Maybe you’ll end up in an unmarked grave.”

  Arman gaped. “Armed guards?”

  “They did not have guns,” Kira said.

  “Yes, they did,” Dale scoffed. “Of course they did. They need guns to keep us here, because this place is about Freedom and Discovery and embarking on your Personal Journey. As if there isn’t enough horseshit in this world already.”

  Kira winked at Arman. “He’s just pissed because he can’t smoke weed.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Dale slapped her ass then. Kira giggled, returned the favor, slapping even harder, and Arman looked away. Sure, he’d known they were dating or hooking up or whatever. Or at least he’d guessed that might be the case. It hadn’t been anything he’d cared much about. Only now, having to live with them, well, that made him a third wheel, didn’t it? Arman crossed the room and threw his bag down with a huff. Then he dragged one of the cots as far away from the other two as possible.

  Kira watched him keenly, her eyes bright. “You’re blocking the door,” she pointed out.

  “I know,” Arman said. He sat on his cot and kept his back to the other two. The windows to the cabin were open and he stared out at the vast California sky that was just beginning to purple. A heaviness settled in his chest and the warm glow memory of those brief gasping moments with the bare-legged cook was already starting to fade into something less magical and far more profane. More ordinary. It was the kind of heaviness Arman was used to, this steamrolling weight that knew how to press the joy out of him, inch by inch.

  Reaching to pick his forearm again, he tried telling himself to appreciate what he had and the chance he’d been given. That his time here wouldn’t be anything like the lonely month he’d spent at that Gold Rush–themed sleepaway camp his father’s parents paid to send him to back in seventh grade. His first night there, a nervous stomach kept him in the infirmary and by the time he rejoined his cabin, it was too late; everybody already had their friends and understood the rules. He was nothing but a burden. An understudy. Something to resent for daring to exist. Not that he was any better, of course. Arman was rotten that same summer to a girl who liked him because she had hairs on her chin and talked too much about Jesus. But maybe that was just how the world was, he thought.

  Maybe everything was rotten.

  • • •

  When he turned around again, Kira and Dale weren’t fucking or anything. What they were doing was lying face-to-face and gazing into each other’s eyes. And not talking. Somehow that was infinitely worse than fucking. Arman tried to avoid looking at them while he scanned the rest of the cabin—he wanted to find one of those br
ochures Dale had talked about—but he couldn’t take it. He got up and left. The screen door swung shut behind him with a bang.

  Arman went in search of a bathroom. There had to be one, he figured, since there was electricity and plumbing and the compound clearly wasn’t lacking in amenities, except things like privacy and general social norms. He was right, too, because after hiking a little ways up the hillside, and passing another small cluster of cabins, along with a long, institutional-looking two-story building that had dark windows and no signs of life, he found the washroom. It was an A-frame structure, nestled tight in a ring of pine trees.

  Arman walked right in, daring to hope against hope that there might be a good supply of hot water for the showers. That was what was needed to clear his head. Steam. Heat. A thorough cleansing.

  What he found, however, was far less pleasing—an open space lit by skylights, where a half-naked woman sat on a wooden bench, one leg hitched over the other, clipping her toenails. A towel was wrapped around her waist, but not her top half, and she had to be at least his grandmother’s age, if not older. Her thick gray hair dripped water everywhere, like an over-soaked sponge.

  Arman was so mortified he thought he might die right there on the spot. “I’m so sorry,” he sputtered, squeezing his eyes shut and backpedaling himself into a wall with a bang. But it was too late. The woman was balanced perfectly on the bench so that the late-day sun poured down on her like a spotlight, and he’d already seen more than he should have. Way more. Wrinkled skin, sagging tits, age spots. The whole damn mess.

  Even worse, the old woman roared with laughter at his reaction. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “This is your bathroom, too.”

  “It is?” he asked, partially opening his eyes, but keeping them glued to the sealed cement floor.

  “It is.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The woman stood, a move that took both time and effort on her part, and which didn’t involve her covering up. Then she came toward him. Watching her wet, bare, bunioned feet approach, Arman’s stomach lurched. For a panicked instant he thought she was going to do what the cook had done to him in the kitchen. Pull him to her. Rub her hips against his. Undo the button on his jeans and grab on to him with an eagerness he’d be helpless to resist.