Thin Air

"Hey I'm a sensitive guy," I said. "I'm scoring a shrink."

The waitress brought me a second glass of Pilsner Urquell beer, which went especially well with brisket. Susan's single glass of Merlot was sipped but slightly. A thin air woman in an Armani suit stopped by the table and said hello to Susan.

"Sarah Gallant," Susan said. "Don't you look wonderful."

We were introduced. I agreed with Susan but thought it prudent not to say so. The two women talked for a moment. I listened. And Sarah moved on.

"I wonder how she's being treated," Susan said.

"Sarah?" I said. "She looks like she's being treated fine."

"You know I mean Lisa. Aside from the fact that she's probably a captive. We have to wonder what the conditions of her captivity are."

"Freddie Santiago says that Luis Deleon is ferocious."

"It doesn't mean he is abusing her," Susan said. "He may have what he wants."

"Which is?"

"Possession. She is under his control. It may be enough."

"It hangs over everything, doesn't it?" I said. "Even we have trouble bringing it up."

"The question of sexual abuse? Yes, it does, regardless of Lisa's past."

"Any thoughts?" I said.

"On whether he will or won't? Has or hasn't? No. Maybe the control is enough, maybe it isn't. Even if I knew them in a therapeutic relationship…"

"His mother was a prostitute, according to Santiago."

"Where did she turn tricks?" Susan said.

"I don't know. According to Santiago, she O.D.'d in the washroom at his club and died on the floor."

Susan paused and drank some wine. "How old was he?"

"Deleon? Around fourteen, Santiago says."

"And no father?"

"None that anyone knows about."

"If she brought men home," Susan said, "and a lot of prostitutes do, because they have nowhere else to bring them, it would have been very difficult for him."

"I guessed that," I said.

"You are sensitive," Susan said. "They were mother and son, but they were probably a couple too. He would be very angry. And he would be very angry that she died and left him and very angry that she did it for so little reason."

"Would it lead him to sexual abuse?" I said.

"It would make him very angry," Susan said. "And he might take it out on Lisa."

"It is easy to transfer feelings you had for one important person onto another important person."

"They both left him," I said. "He probably had sexual feelings for both. They were both whores."

I knew Susan had started with those assumptions and had already moved on. I was just showing off. Susan made one of those little head and facial motions that she made, which acknowledge that she heard you and didn't indicate what she thought of what you'd said. They probably teach it in shrink school.

"We do much better," she said, "explaining why people did things than we do at predicting what they will do."

I nodded and gave some attention to the brisket and the skin Susan carefully cut the skin from a piece of lemon roasted chicken. She never ate any fat, being very careful of her weight, which was important, because her waist was nearly the size of my neck, and she worked out barely two hours a day.

"Would you say that you know me in a therapeutic relationship?" I said.

Susan widened her big eyes so that she looked like a Jewish Dolly Parton. She shook her head.

"I would say our relationship is more fuckative."

"Well the effect is very therapeutic," I said.

"I know," Susan said, and her wide mouth widened further into her big stu

What does that mean?" he said. "You left your shrink too soon?"

"I was hooking up with another bad guy-my father, Woody, all the johns I did were bad guys. Then I come back and start over, and the next thing I know I'm hooked up with you."

"I am a bad guy? I am like your father? I, who have loved you more than I love life itself?"

She shook her head.

"You love your mother, Luis. You're just working it out on me."

Luis turned from her and pressed his forehead against one of the theatrical flats.

"Do not say this," he said. "Do not tell me I don't love you."

He pounded on the flat lightly with his closed fist as he spoke. The fist keeping time with the words.

"It is to tell me that I don't exist," he said. "I am my love for you, my Angel. I have built this citadel for us, furnished these rooms for us, searched for you since you left, risked everything to bring you here. Do not tell me I do not love you."

Outside the sealed room there was thunder, but it didn't register on either of them. He turned slowly away from the painted scenery and stared at her intently.

"Do not say that I do not love you."

Still seated on the floor, bugging her knees in the dim room, she met his look and held it for a long silent moment. Then she shook her head, almost regretfully.

"Whatever you feel for me, Luis, isn't love. You think it is, but it isn't. It feels more like hate to me."

"Hate?" He seemed nearly speechless. "Hate?"

"Your old lady was a hooker. You probably hated her for it. Now you transfer that feeling onto me, you know? A woman who was with you and is now with another man?"

"You…" His breath came in hoarse gasps. "You… think… I am… like… that? That I am crazy?"

"It's crazy to think that you can make me love you, Luis. You can't. No one can. You can make me fear you. I do fear you. I'm afraid all the time. And you're teaching me to hate you. But I love Frank and can't stop. And I don't love you and can't start. I'd rather die than spend my life with you."

He sagged against the theatrical flat. He opened his mouth, but he didn't say anything. Then he lunged at her, dropping to his knees beside her on the floor and tearing at her clothes. She tried to push him away, but he was much too strong for her. She tried to twist away, but he grappled her back. Her blouse was torn off, he ripped at her skirt. She tried to knee him but missed, hitting his thigh. She scratched at him. He slapped her and her head jerked back. He put his left forearm under her chin and bent her back, pressing on her windpipe while he stripped her skirt from her, tearing the zipper loose with his right hand. A growling noise came from him, and the guttural sound of him gasping for breath. She grabbed his hair, trying to pull his face away from her, but she wasn't strong enough and the pressure on her throat bent her backwards as he fumbled at her last remaining clothes. She managed to turn her head and bite him on the forearm and the pressure on her throat relaxed for a moment. She twisted and rolled over and scrambled toward her bed.

He came after her, grabbing at her legs, as she fumbled under the mattress for her iron pipe. She got the pipe, but he yanked her by the hair and the pipe clattered to the floor as she bent back, her legs doubled beneath her. She drove her right elbow back toward him and caught his nose and heard him grunt with pain. Then she was thrown backwards, entirely, her legs straightened beneath her and she was flat on the floor on her back. He forced himself on top of her. His long hair was tangled and wet with sweat, strands of it stuck to his face. His nose was bleeding, and the blood dripped down on her. He forced her hands back above her head and forced her thighs apart with his knees and tried to insert himself into her. She twisted her hips and struggled harder. He pressed his mouth against hers and with the force of his kiss held her head down as he tried to squirm himself into position to penetrate her. His weight pressed her against the floor, his guttural rage forced against her desperate resistance, and they lay like that on the floor in the dim light of the absurd room, locked in squirming hatred while he struggled to consummate the rape, and she twisted to prevent it. He had penetrated her often in the past, and she had liked it. But in her seemingly interminable captivity, something inside her had calcified and her resolve had achieved an opalescent density. She would resist him until he killed her. She twisted her hip and jammed her knee into his crotch. He seemed to sag, as if his strength was ebbing. Slippery with sweat and blood, she wrenched herself out from under him, scrambling after her iron bar. She got it and, lying on her side, swung it and hit him across the chest. He gasped and suddenly it was over. He slumped and his grip slackened. He fell back against the theatrical flat, his arms folded across his chest, hugging the hurt. Crouching against the far wall, naked except for her torn bra and one shoe, her face smeared with the blood from his nose, her lips swollen and bloody from his kiss, her body gleaming with perspiration, holding the bar, she snarled at him, her voice sounding like someone else's as it rasped between her teeth.