“I don’t know anymore,” she said, tiredly.
“Sure you do. You’re itching to share.”
“Really,” she said, her voice ending in a down note. “What do I know?”
“You’re not giving up now, are you? After all you’ve been through?”
“I’ve told you. I can’t give up.”
“Ok, then. I’ll tell you. Sometimes I think I love the women that I’m trying to destroy.”
She looked up skeptically at him.
“I’m actually being honest here,” he assured her. “I feel what I can only think is love when I’m with one of them, watching her struggle, watching her try,
appreciating
her. Isn’t that a kind of love?”
“Noooooo.” Exasperated, she looked up at him, full in the face. “You know? You’re not that different from a lot of other guys. You’re really just a little further out on the continuum. Who think that they love when they just desire or obsess or even, in your case, maybe, admire. Love means you want the other person to be happy. Do you want that woman that you’re tormenting to be happy? Because if you did, then you’d stop tormenting her! You’d want her to be happy, with or without you. That would be your priority. And love is not just what you feel; it’s a mutual involvement. You can’t be involved with another person when you are the only person that’s real to you. You and the things you want. You can’t call that love. You have to care about what the other person wants; it’s not just about you. And if there’s one thing you’ve made abundantly clear, you are solely and completely about you. You want to call something love, without caring about the other person’s feelings. And such a love can not exist.” She stopped and caught her breath.
“Much as I enjoy it when you’re terrified, I also occasionally like it when that look of fear is not in your eyes,” he said, looking at her thoughtfully.
“Well, if you want to see it more, then stop beating me up.”
“I also like beating you up.”
“I, I, I.”
“As you’ve pointed out.”
“Well, that’s your problem, pal.”
He sat back and thought a moment. “You have a point. I
am
the only one who’s real to me. Or at least I was.” He paused, then leaned forward, toward her. “I think you may be real to me. Which is funny, ‘cause you’ve been faking this whole time.”
“Hilarious.”
“Get up here and sit on my lap.”
She obliged him.
“These are very convenient,” he said, lightly tugging on the plastic cuffs that bound her hands together. “See? I can just do this.” He hooked her arms over his head, forming an embrace. “And it means you’re crazy about me.”
“Uh. Huh.”
He kissed her. “You even taste real.”
She said nothing.
“Can I be feeling affectionate toward you?”
“No. It’s not affection.”
“Maybe it’s the way a person feels about a pet, a cat, maybe.”
“You mean the way a cat feels about the mouse it’s toying with?”
“I guess that’s what
you
think I feel.”
She shrugged.
“And you’re right. I do feel that.” He laughed a little. “But it’s not all I feel. In fact, I kind of feel that it would be groovy if you really were my girlfriend. How fun would that be?”
“Please. Don’t stray into delusional territory.”
“I’m just saying,” he said, giving her little kisses around her face. “You’re one of the few people I could imagine actually being willing to spend time with.”
She just grimaced.
“Don’t you think you might just possibly enjoy being with me under other circumstances?” he said in a wheedling tone.
“Yes. I would,” she replied in a monotone, as if hypnotized. “It would be much better than
Cats
.”
“See? You consistently make me laugh.”
“That’s because I’m not in a position to make you cry.”
He took some mayonnaise from the open jar on the table and dabbed it on the tips of her breasts, then he licked it off. There was a small knife next to the jar. He noticed her eyes glance that way.
“If you’re even still thinking like that, we’ve got a very long way to go,” he said.
“Thinking like what?”
“Exactly.”
“You do things to me that make me want to kill you,” she said quietly.
“I know,” he said. “That’s the point. Well, first me, eventually yourself.”
“I’ll want to kill myself?”
“Eventually.”
“But I’m having so much fun.”
“It’s a paradox,” he said. He put his hand on her throat and squeezed it slightly. “You’re like my doll,” he said. “I can dress you up. Or not. And do whatever I want with you.”
“That,” she said, “is exactly the kind of affection you’re talking about. The way a child feels about a doll. You nailed it.”
“Can you hate me if I’m just a case of arrested development?”
“You’re not ‘just’ anything.”
“Thank you.”
She took a deep breath, and he noticed that she shook a little while she did it. Given that she had already proved to be essentially an iceberg, that meant that ninety percent of her – the part inside – was almost certainly screaming. He was tempted to feel sorry for her. But all he could think about was himself. He moved his face to hers and began to kiss her with a quiet passion. She hesitated, as he knew she would, but, after a moment, managed to respond in kind. Still kissing her, he rose and, with her in his arms, went over to the sofa in the living room. There, he lay down on his back and arranged her on top of him, and they continued to kiss. He felt her trembling. He began to think that maybe she would blow very shortly. He was almost sad thinking about it. But he didn’t stop kissing her. He wanted to enjoy every second before she dissolved into impotent fury and gave up the fight.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said to him, as they lay in bed together. They had uttered the magic words to each other that night for the very first time.
“What am I thinking?” her future husband asked.
“That I can only love you because I’m damaged.”
He grunted.
“That’s not true,” she said. “I mean, I
am
damaged, but that’s not why. It’s the undamaged part of me that loves you. Because of my peculiar background. Because I can see that you’re not the worst thing in the world by far. Because I can forgive you. Not because I’m damaged.”
He lay still, thinking.
“If you think it’s because I’m damaged, then you’ll always feel bad about it. You’ll feel like you’re taking advantage of me. But I do know what kind of person you are, and you’re really not the worst person in the world.”
”Just the ringing endorsement a man wants to hear.”
She looked at him with her mouth pursed.
“I don’t want what I want to hurt you,” he said, seriously.
“I don’t want you to think something that isn’t true and will make you feel bad. I think you think you don’t deserve love.”
“I don’t.”
”And, fortunately, that’s got nothing to do with it.”
He rolled on top of her, and she helped guide him in with one hand.
“I’m lucky,” he said, looking down at her.
“You’re damn right you are.”
“I can accept luck. I always have.”
“In your line of work.”
“You’re the one who lives for bad news,” he pointed out.
“That’s true. And now I live for you,” she said, as young as she had ever been in her life.
The words he said after that were not ones he could say out loud. He whispered them in her ear. It would have been tempting fate to say them out loud.
“What were you like as a child?” the man with her now asked, as he leaned back against the bottom of the sofa. His legs were stretched up and out in front of him in a narrow V shape, his feet resting, heavily, one on each side, on his prisoner’s shoulders. He had removed a dog’s choke chain from his satchel and looped it around her neck. He held on to it from his position a few feet away with one hand. Her back was against a heavy chair he had moved to be opposite him; her legs, at his insistence, were also spread open in a V on the rug. Her hands were still bound.
“What? Are you now trying to figure
me
out?” He tugged at the chain, and she choked a little. He let it go slack after a few seconds then watched her try to catch her breath while he spoke.
“Well, as a matter of fact, in spite of all my rules, during this whole thing, I feel like you’ve gotten to know me better than I’ve gotten to know you.”
“‘By his works, shall ye know him,’” she muttered.
“Right. Fine. But what about you?”
“What about me?” She was panting a little. She started to raise her hands to her neck, but he pulled the chain quickly again and shook his head. She lowered her hands.
“What were you like?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes for a few seconds. He tilted his head as he gazed at her, well aware of the strength of mind it took just to make that simple, insolent gesture.
“Oh, just the usual kind of kid, I guess,” she said. Her tone was normal, her voice a little weak. “Torturing small animals. The school bully. That sort of thing.”
“No,” he said. “That was me. You.”
“What if I don’t feel like talking about this with you?”
“This is about forced intimacy,” he said. “All kinds of intimacy.”
“I’ve told you before: I could lie about this sort of thing, and you’d never know.”
“I think you’d rather tell the truth.” He only made the gesture of tugging on the leash.
“You don’t know me at all.”
“Exactly. So enlighten me.”
“Why should I?” she asked.
“Well, you’re going to spend the next hour moving your mouth, I can assure you of that. So it’s this, or some other way.”
She gave him an unpleasant smile.
“Great. Fine. Whatever. My childhood.”
“Please.”
“I don’t remember all that much.”
“What about the pain?”
“The pain?”
“The pain someone you loved caused you. I have an excellent memory.”
“Well. There are all kinds of pains like that, from: he promised me things he never did, to: he wanted to fuck me. Is that what you mean?”
“Your father. Did he beat you too?”
“No. Not beating. Smacking. And humiliating face slaps. Did he use a belt?” she murmured, “or did he only threaten to? I’m not sure. But you know what? Breaking promises was the worst. How does that song go? ‘Promises mean everything when you’re little. And the world’s so big.’”