“No. I can see it in your eyes. You
are
tired. You
are
willing to give up all control. But you’re still in there. Still alive in there.”
A strange look came over her face.
“What’s the matter,” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“That’s not possible.”
“What’s not?”
“You can’t be–. How can you be ... getting hard again? Haven’t you had enough? Aren’t you physically limited in any way? Don’t you get tired?”
“Tired of this?” He pushed her off of him and pulled her down onto the bed again. Then he climbed on top of her, kneeling with his penis inches from her mouth. “Are you kidding? This is The Show. I never get tired of this. Most of my life is spent not doing this – believe it or not. I live for this. And when I’m not doing this, I live on the memory and the anticipation. This won’t feel like days, or even hours. It feels like minutes. And it goes too fast.”
She said nothing for a moment, lying there beneath him. “You should have been a poet.”
“This is better,” he said. He held his penis in his hand, as if trying to decide what to do with it. Then he shoved it into her mouth and fucked her mouth. She gagged and choked, struggling to breathe. He enjoyed this for a while, with his face unusually still and expressionless. She could see him through her tears. His knees were pressing down on the tops of her arms. He looked at her calmly, and she thought she might die right then.
Which is when he pulled out. And shook his head.
“Not yet,” was all he said.
She was choking and trying to catch her breath.
“I’ll bet you’ll never be able to think about sex again without thinking of me,” he said. “If you can bear to ever think about sex at all.”
She tried. She really tried. But she found herself sputtering. “It’s me you’ll never stop thinking about.”
“Ahh. Is she back? Or was that the last gasp?” He laughed.
She just looked sad. And frustrated. “You just don’t understand,” she said at last.
“What?”
“I don’t break. That’s the problem.”
He looked puzzled for a moment. “The problem? You mean, you can’t, but you wish you could.”
“Yes.”
“You will.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t. I never have. I wish I could. This is never going to end.”
“Really. Let me assure you, you will.”
“I know you think you’re right, and in most cases, I’m sure you are. But not this time. And it’s going to mean we’ll both be locked into this forever.” She stopped. “Like that black/white guy and that white/black guy on that old
Star Trek
episode.”
He raised his eyebrows. “
Star Trek
?”
“Come on,” she said, looking up at him. “You know. The one with Frank Gorshin. Where they’re fighting and they’re never going to stop. Locked in mortal combat forever.”
“Please,” he said. “Let me assure you. It won’t be like that. You will break. Everybody does.”
She just shook her head and looked disgusted.
“If I could fake it for you, I would. But you’re too smart for that,” she said. “I know you can tell. You’re a natural genius at this. So you’d know. So it’s just never going to stop.”
“Well, if worst comes to worst,” he said. “That’s ok with me.”
“I know,” she said.
“You need to put a little food down your throat, “ he said with a chuckle. “A woman cannot live on penis alone.”
She gave him a look.
He jumped off of her and the bed and then pulled her out as well. “Let’s see what we can find to give you some sustenance. Get your spirits back up for the next round.”
She just groaned.
He dragged her to the kitchen and pushed her toward the refrigerator.
“What time is it, anyway?” she asked.
“Who cares?” he said. “I feel like an omelette.”
She muttered something from inside the refrigerator. She emerged with eggs, cream, and some other items.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I said, ‘you don’t look like one.’”
He smiled. Then he motioned her away from the cooking implements, instructing her to sit on the floor with her hands behind her back and her legs crossed while he prepared the food. He made two good-sized omelettes, filled with ham and cheese that she had on hand. He also made coffee, not letting her near that device either.
“I thought you knew I wasn’t going to try anything,” she said, “because of the hostages.”
“Desperate people are not always wise,” he said.
He gave her a little kick to encourage her to move to the dining room, and he put the food on the rectangular pine table, seating her at one end, himself at the other. There was nothing but a wall behind her.
“Maybe I’m not being quite fair,” he admitted. “Eat and we’ll talk about this. Maybe you can explain to me how you know that you’ll never break.”
She just nodded and began to eat.
“How is it?” he asked.
“Great,” she conceded, deadpan. “You make a great omelette. I guess that’s because you know how to break eggs.”
He burst into laughter. “That’s a really good one,” he said. He looked at her fondly.
“Please don’t look at me fondly.”
“But I really feel fondly towards you.”
“Well, that’s your particular pathology. If you weren’t morally insane, you’d realize that you can’t feel fondly toward someone and then hurt them.”
“I thought you said you did have a family, growing up.”
“
Touché
.”
He continued to look at her with fondness.
She focused on her food. “Is that what they did to you?” she asked.
“We’re not here to talk about me,” he said.
“Well, I can’t help wondering.”
“I’m sure you can’t.”
“Trying to figure out how someone like you is created.”
“I’ve told you. That’s a waste of your time.”
“It’s my time.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s mine.”
“Right.”
“You just can’t stay defeated now, can you?”
“I’ll try harder.”
He smiled at her.
“So how do you know that you can’t be broken?” he asked.
“It’s just never happened yet. And there were several times in my life when I really wanted it to.” She took another bite, but didn’t wait to finish chewing. “I mean, I thought, if I just cracked, then somehow, I wouldn’t have to be there anymore. If I could just crack.”
He looked at her. “And what could make you feel that bad?”
“You’re not the only bad thing that can happen to a person, you know.”
“I’ve heard.”
“It doesn’t matter what the specifics are.”
“I’d like to hear them.”
“I don’t know if I want to go into all that.”
“What if I say that you must?”
“Yeah. That doesn’t really work because you don’t know the details of my history. Whether what I say is true or not.”
He nodded.
“Anyway,” she said, spearing and swallowing the last bite. “Boy, that was good. Yeah, anyway, I was very young. I don’t even remember a lot of the details. Just the feeling sometimes.” And now she spoke as if he wasn’t there. Or wasn’t him. “I remember it sometimes in dreams. Unending tension and the air thick with fear and anticipation of the next awful thing. Disappointment after disappointment. No possibility of escape. No. I can’t remember the details. Just wishing that I could lose my mind. That I could go away that way. But bad as I felt, crushed, hopeless, angry, I was always right there. Thinking of the next thing to do or say or not say. To survive. Never could stop thinking.” She brought her eyes back from the middle distance to focus on his. “Do you really think you can hurt me more than somebody who loved me did?”
“Now, I think I’m one of the few people who can actually understand that question. Without the element of betrayal, how could I hope to destroy you?”
“Exactly.”
“But you’re not a child anymore. You’re a grownup. And, even assuming that lovely story is true, breaking a grownup is different from breaking a child.”
“Really. You must be quite the expert.”
“I am. A child
is
helpless; I think it
is
the betrayal that destroys them. But a grownup is – usually – not helpless. Grownups expect betrayal. What they can’t stand to be is powerless. That’s what destroys them.”
“Very neat.”
“People aren’t that complicated,” he said smoothly.
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, I am.”
“We’d all like to think so.” He chuckled.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Careful.”
“You know, your warning voice is kind of chilling.”
“You’ve learned why. That’s all.”
“But I
am
powerless here. I know that. And I’m not destroyed.”
“Obviously, you don’t really believe that you’re powerless. You think you’re going to figure something out and get out of this. You’ll break when you realize you can’t.”
“But people always have some kind of hope. That’s just innate. They’re not rational about their chances.”
“That’s why the point at which they finally do give up hope is the point of destruction. Don’t worry. You’ll get there.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It will be the relief you’ve always sought.”
“Really?” For a moment, she sounded wistful.
“I promise.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“Me too. But you will.”
“Tell me something about your past.”
“No.”
“Just anything. I told you.”
“This is not a ‘
quid pro quo
, Clarice,’” he said.
“Come on.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully. “Just think of me as a force of nature. There is no explanation for me.”
“But there has to be.”
“Really? Does it matter? Will you feel sympathy for me? Will you understand, maybe even forgive me because I know not what I do? I’m just the product of an unhappy childhood?”
“Don’t you want any of those things?”
“You’ve said that I do.”
“What do you say?”
“I just want this. Now.”