Icarus w-2, page 16
part #2 of Westwood Series
It was unimaginable.
It would never happen, she finally decided. Could never happen.
She owned him. He belonged to her. He was hers.
At last, she had her own possession. And one did not just let one's possessions up and go. Disappear. Who knew that better than she did?
No, being left was not acceptable. It was too horrible. Too painful.
Unimaginable.
– "-"-"THE ENTERTAINER She was very pretty. Muy bonita.
Really and truly. Es verdad.
Very, very pretty. Muy muy bonita.
She knew that she was, and she was more than willing to take advantage of it. How could she not? She saw how heads turned when she walked down the street, especially when she wore that little black skirt and the gray tank top, the one that just managed to reveal the thin ripple of muscle on her shoulder and down her back. And she knew that her body was superb, as good as it had ever been. Why shouldn't it be? She worked out two or three hours a day now, so her arms and legs were hard and thin, her stomach was cut and flat. Her breasts weren't large, but they were fine. Everyone told her to make them bigger, to have the surgery, all the other girls did, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She liked her breasts, her little chi chis, liked that they were really her. She lost some customers because they were too small but she didn't really care. She wasn't going to start slicing herself up, changing herself. She really and truly would not do that. At least not yet.
Men wanted her, that was clear. And because of that she could get them to give her almost anything she wanted. Presents. Expensive dinners. Or just good old-fashioned money. One man, old, in his forties, probably, maybe even his fifties, with a paunch and saggy chicken skin on his chin and neck, wanted to give her an apartment. He was Indian, she thought. Maybe Arab. She wasn't sure. She just knew he was dark, much darker than her, and had an accent and that saggy skin. She already had an apartment, though, a nice one, with a view of the East River. It was the one thing she paid for herself. She liked paying for it. Really and truly. It made her feel grown-up and as safe as she could ever feel. So she told the dark old man that she didn't want his apartment. It was the only thing of any importance that she'd ever turned down. She thought it would make her feel good, turning it down, paying her own way, but it didn't. It only made her feel sad.
It made her sad, too, that she could get men to beg and humiliate themselves just to touch her. But it also excited her, made her feel powerful, at least for a while. When it was over, she'd just feel empty again. It was like when she was little. When her dad would come into her room at night, when everyone else was asleep. She saw what she could do to him. She would tease him and his eyes would harden; they wouldn't stare at her, they'd stare into her. She would run her little hand across his neck and call him funny names and she could feel him tense, but more than that, she could feel him succumb to her. She could tell that he liked her, even though he rarely said it. She could tell that he loved her, really and truly loved her, even though he never said it. She could tell, even at that age, that he wanted her for some overwhelming and incomprehensible purpose. He never said anything about that, either, but he didn't have to. She saw it in his eyes when they burned into her. He said nothing but his eyes said por favor.
He never touched her, though. He never got the chance. Her mother also saw the look in his eyes and one day said something about it. Soon after that, her father was gone. She was allowed to see him, but only when another grownup was present. At first, he came once a week. Soon, every two or three weeks. Then, less often than that. Finally he just stopped coming. Her mother said she was lucky. They were all lucky. Particularly so when, less than a year after the divorce, a new man came into their lives and her mother remarried. A wonderful man. A pillar of the community. A man devoted to his new family, her mother said. So proper. And good. And moral.
And white. So very white, which is why her dear madre thought he was so perfect. So clean.
But she wasn't surprised when her stepfather came into her room that first time, that night when everything changed. He had been nothing but kind to her. Helped her with her homework. Smoothed things out when her mother got impatient with her. She liked him fine, decided she could probably grow to love him. But she'd seen that same look in his eyes.
For favor.
Only he said it in English. Said it the way a white man would say it.
She wasn't unhappy when he got down on his knees and whispered that he'd do anything for her. He pleaded and cajoled and stroked her hair, so soft, so gently, and yet she knew that she couldn't pull away, that he wouldn't let her pull away. He'd do anything for her, he said, over and over again, if she'd only do one little thing for him. One little tiny thing that would make him so happy. So she did, that night and many nights after that. It always made him happy, just as he'd said, and she never felt ashamed. It thrilled her and made her proud. Until he'd go away and ignore her. Or worse, yell at her. And sometimes hit her. That was always in the daytime. Then he'd be back in the middle of the night, sorrowful and repentant and begging her to be his little girl and let him love her. She tried telling her mother but her mother wouldn't hear a word of it. Didn't believe her. Refused to even listen because it was impossible for this man to be unclean. So she stopped talking about it and just accepted it as a fact of life. She liked the pleasure and could put up with the pain. It went on for a long time, the begging and the yelling and the hitting and the loving. Until eventually it was no longer thrilling. Eventually it just made her feel empty, like everything else.
Really and truly empty.
When she first started her job, she didn't let the men touch her. Just teased them. And flirted, of course. Then, somehow, that stopped, the barrier disappeared, and they were grabbing her, pawing her, breathing hard and rolling their eyes back like they were having a fit. At some point, she realized that the touching meant nothing to her. So she allowed it. And while she would still get sad and empty, it was all somehow funny to her, too. When she would see them, so hungry for her, so hungry for everything, she would laugh. Sometimes to herself, sometimes right in their face. It never seemed to bother them, the laughter. As long as they got what they wanted. That was the number-one lesson she'd learned over the past three years: nothing matters as long as you get what you want.
She didn't know how long this life could go on. She feared that it would come to an end, and sooner rather than later. Because she knew something. She had a secret. A secret that terrified her. Really and truly frightened her. Kept her awake at night. Sometimes made her break into a cold sweat when all she was doing was sitting on the white, fluffy couch in her living room, having a cup of tea with her feet tucked under her. She was certain that no one knew this secret other than her. She was sure that no one even suspected it. But there it was, and she lived with it every minute, until it got bigger and bigger and now it gnawed at her day and night and scared her and made her sweat.
Oh, yes, she was pretty.
But she wasn't pretty enough.
Her nose was too large and pushed off to the side, ever so slightly. Her teeth were excellent, white and even, but her gums were too prominent. When her lips curled back, they showed too much of her pink gums and she hated that. It's why she rarely smiled.
She wasn't crazy about her skin, either. It was dry, no matter how much expensive moisturizer she kept on it, and it wasn't smooth. There were imperfections, little bumps and hairs; when she stared at it under the bright lights of her makeup mirror it sometimes made her sick. Really and truly ill. She would stare at the magnified flaws in her skin for five minutes, ten minutes, sometimes as long as half an hour, and then her stomach would hurt and she'd have to lie down. And when she'd lie down, she'd think about her hips, how they were too wide, they really and truly were. Oh, no one could tell now, but she knew what was going to happen in another ten years. That might seem like an eternity, but it had already been three years since she'd come to New York and that had gone by in a flash. It seemed like yesterday. So she knew that any minute her hips would widen and her triceps would sag and she'd have her mother's body and once that happened, men wouldn't love her, they'd leave her, just like they left her mother…
No. She couldn't go there. Once that happened, everything would change. But for now, it was her secret. No one else knew what would happen as she got older. The same way no one knew what she was like before. All they knew was what she was now. Muy muy bonita with a perfect body and small chi chis that were still her own.
Then she found out that one other person knew. Just one. She had told him about her past, about her father and the way he crept into her room at night. About her parents' divorce and her stepfather and her mother's religious conversion, and her sister's suicide and her other sister's drinking. Yeah, she was the one who revealed to him what she'd been. But he'd figured out on his own what she was going to become. Somehow, he'd seen it for himself. Watched her as she stared at her own face in the mirror. And when she turned to him, realizing that he was there, in the bathroom doorway, he'd said, "Scared." Said it very plain and simple. Not really a question, much more definite than that. More of an answer.
"Why should I be scared?" she asked, and flipped her streaked blonde hair. Men melted when she flipped her hair. Especially since it had been streaked.
He didn't melt, though. Just stared at her for another few seconds. And then said, "Because you're smart enough to know what's going to happen to you."
She wanted to ask: What do you mean? What's going to happen to me? But she didn't, because he was right. She already knew.
Just as he knew that she wasn't pretty enough.
That was the first time it occurred to her that she was in love with Kid.
It was also the first time she realized what she was capable of.
It was the first time she thought she could kill him.
Es verdad.
Really and truly kill him.
– "-"-"THE MURDERESS She couldn't believe her life was turning out so well.
So far, it had been a dream of a day. She woke up, alone and liking it. Went for a run, did the entire Central Park reservoir twice around. She ran easily, with her mind clear, able to concentrate on exactly what she was doing: putting one foot in front of the other, breathing deeply, in and out. She kept her own pace, competed against no one. Ran out of the park until she was half a block from her apartment building – she adored living on the Upper West Side; what could be better? – then walked briskly the rest of the way, smiled at her doorman, rode up in the quiet elevator, stepped back into the apartment she loved so much. She spent a minute stepping through the apartment, touching the art on the walls, the piece of fabric from India that had been mounted and framed and hung in the living room over the elegant Shabby Chic couch. Touching them made them real to her. The way her life was now real to her.
She had ground the dark, French Roast coffee beans the night before and put the powder in the top of the gleaming black Cuisinart coffee maker, along with a dash of cinnamon and a touch of vanilla, so all she had to do was pour in four cups' worth of water and flick the switch. The aroma of brewing coffee immediately filled the kitchen while she yanked her sweaty clothes off, dropped them on the living room floor and left them there, ran in and took a hot shower, let the steaming water, pleasant little stings of heat, rain down on her body while she scrubbed herself clean and shampooed her hair vigorously, twice.
Her clothes had been laid out the night before – organized was better, she had long ago concluded – and she stepped into the suit she'd decided to wear that day to work. She wouldn't get home before the party she was hosting that night, so this outfit would have to suffice for both. The black pinstriped skirt was short enough to be revealing and sexy but loose enough to be tasteful. The matching jacket was conservative but beautifully tapered. She buttoned it to within two buttons of the top, revealing only her long, graceful neck and the very top of her angular chest. To counter the conservatism of the cut and fabric, she wore no shirt underneath. Let everyone wonder. She had concluded something else long ago: mystery was also better.
She wore two-inch heels. She'd be on her feet all day, but she decided against flats, went with the Manolo Blahnik slingbacks that had been such an extravagance when she'd bought them. The extra inches boosted her up to five foot five and that, she decided, was a respectable height.
Her reddish hair – once a mousy brown, now lightly hennaed so it had a coppery glow – was layered and cut short. She'd had it touched up the day before. She wanted everything to be in place for tonight. Tonight was meant to be special.
She nudged the toe of her right shoe under her running shirt and sweatpants and kicked them up in the air. Cupping her hands and catching them expertly, she dropped them in the hamper in the hallway closet, went back into the kitchen and had two cups of black coffee – why, she wondered, does four cups of water always make only two and a half cups of coffee – while she read the Times, which had been delivered to her front door.
Even the long subway ride down to work had been particularly nice. A very handsome guy eyed her appreciatively the whole way down. He was around her age, wore expensive jeans and a pressed and firmly starched white shirt, and there was nothing leering about his stare. He got off the train before she did and he smiled at her, an appreciative smile, acknowledging the fact that she looked good and that it was nice to see someone who looked good.
Work, too, had been easy so far. She'd made the sale she'd been hoping all week to make. The clients had been indecisive but ultimately had trusted both her taste and her assessment that the piece they were buying was going to appreciate substantially in value. She was thrilled when they'd finally said okay; she didn't even bother to try hiding her pleasure. She had a bottle of Perrier Jouet sent to their apartment with a note that read, "You made the right choice. Drink this while enjoying your new purchase," and she received a dozen roses from them – sent before they could have received her gift – with a note that said, "Thanks for making our lives easier and more pleasurable."
She had a delicious little lunch right around the corner – turkey on black bread with Brie and honey mustard – and then a cappuccino with skim milk at the Italian coffee place a block farther away, one of the last neighborhoody places, sad to say, left in that part of SoHo. Gianni, the usually grouchy seventy-ish counterman, even threw in a chocolate biscotti, saying, "On you it looks good."
It was only toward the end that the dream of a day took a rocky turn. She was on the phone, doing a favor for another customer, giving some advice to a young artist who was looking for a place to display, when she heard the front door open and he walked in. Flustered, she didn't get off the phone, talked to the artist for perhaps five more minutes. Knowing she was being rude but not really caring, not knowing what else to do exactly. Then the conversation was exhausted and she hung up, had to deal with the situation.
"I wanted to see you," he said.
He looked good. Of course, he always looked good. This was him at his best, though. Tight jeans worn over a pair of brown cowboy boots, a yellow T-shirt. A light beige suede jacket. Hair mussed. Why couldn't he ever keep his hair combed?
"You know I'm happy to see you. But we've been through all this," she told him.
"This is different," Kid said. "It's not what you think. I just need to talk."
She smiled, not exactly believing that all he wanted to do was talk.
He saw her smile and said, without smiling in return, "I need help."
"What kind of help?" she asked and now she believed him because she'd never seen him quite so serious.
"Can you meet me later? Tonight?"
"I can't," she said, and felt as if she were lying but she wasn't. Tonight was too important and she couldn't leave. When he kept staring at her, she repeated it, stressing the word so he'd at least try to understand, "I cant."
He still said nothing, and in the silence she thought, He knows so much about me. More than almost anyone. Then she thought, What he could do with what he knows. What he could do…
"Please," he said. The word was so faint that she wasn't sure she had heard it at all. Then he said it again, firmer. "Please."
"I'm sorry," she told him, and she couldn't believe the words were coming out of her mouth. She was being so strong. Or was she being cruel? Or worse, self-destructive?
She watched him turn, disappointed and hurt, and go out the door, saunter away down the cobblestone street. He did tend to saunter.
The phone rang again. It was the artist-in-waiting, with a couple more questions. She gave him answers but she didn't really hear the questions. She was too busy thinking about the end of her perfect day, and what it meant, him being hurt like this. She realized that she would have to go see him one day. Soon. And she realized what she was going to have to do.
And why.
TWENTY
In mid-March, Kid said it was time to begin the final push. "You are now strong enough to begin phase four," Kid announced. "What I think is that if you stopped now, stopped progressing, I mean, you could live like this. Your body is basically back to normal, your injuries are pretty much healed. There's pain, I know, but it's manageable pain."
Jack thought this over and nodded. "Most of the time it is."
"You can live like this but I don't want you to. You shouldn't have to," Kid went on. "The problem, at this level, isn't so much the pain itself as the fear that goes with it. It's no longer a question of healing, it's a question of strengthening. It's a question of how strong can we make you and the answer is you have to be strong enough to eradicate the fear."
"What's that on your arm?"
Kid glanced down. Peeking out from the bottom of his T-shirt sleeve was a hint of a white bandage. "It's nothing," he said.
"What happened?"
Kid hesitated. "A cut."
"How?"
Now Kid fidgeted. He bit his lower lip, chewed it until it turned white, swiveled his head uncomfortably and finally said, "The Mortician."
