Wallflower

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by William Bayer


  It was only later, upon her realization that the quick kills Diana would be making would preclude the possibility of recording her quarries' cries of pain, that she evolved the notion of trophies. She wanted always to have something, some object taken from the Scenes of Bloodletting, to touch, caress, and hold. It would give immediacy to Diana's reports, and perhaps most important, it could be offered up to Mama on the wall.

  Mama told her: "Truly now, dear, in your training of Diana, you've found your true vocation. I think at heart you were always a behaviorist hiding in an analytic therapist's cloak. Rewards and punishments, increasingly complex tests of obedience—these are the only ways to dominate and compel. Certainly the progress you've made with the lynx proves the efficacy of your approach. My God, Bev, take a look, will you, at the incredible little tool you have wrought!"

  The vigorous training workouts—long, slow, loping jogs along the bridle paths of Central Park; short, sharp wind sprints along the East River esplanade; huffing and puffing calisthenic sessions on the cold basement floor of the house; sweaty muscle building on the Nautilus machines at the Eighty-sixth Street Health Club; harsh, exhausting martial arts training at the West Side dojo; the special intensive ten-day commando course in Boulder, Colorado; endurance exercises; obedience tests; ice pick attack drills performed against straw dummies in your holiest of holies, your bedchamber—all were carefully designed to build strength and speed, refine coordination, increase response time, restore vigor in the face of fatigue, and, most important, inspire a yearning to kill.

  Once the craving was instilled, the obsession would build, and once the obsession was implanted, the command to execute would be ardently obeyed. "It's all in the preparation," Mama told you. "The long, hard months of training will pay off," she said, "in the swift split seconds of attack." But since the kills will be so very swift, you and Tool must receive gratification some other way. Perhaps through slow rituals performed afterward upon the cadavers, rituals of vengeance by which your rage will be satiated and the humiliations you endured will be many times repaid. "Remember, Bev," Mama said, "it's not sufficient to settle your old accounts at par value. Too many years have passed; the interest has built up and by now far exceeds the original charges entered in your ledger."

  Diana Proctor stands poised in a corner of the cellar, sleek and slinky in her black cotton bodysuit. Two specially designed holsters, each containing an ice pick, are strapped to her forearms. Across the room a scrawny tiger cat, abducted from the street, prowls around a plastic dish of kitty tuna bits.

  Beverly studies the human lynx, breathing slowly, deeply, awaiting her order. Finally Beverly decides it's time.

  "Kill it," she orders.

  Diana doesn't move. Beverly approaches the girl, then slaps her hard, smack!, across her face.

  Diana, eyes front, lips trembling, receives the blow as her due. Beverly watches as the pale skin of the lynx's cheek turns pink, then red from the impact. Both understand the meaning of this chastisement. Delay and/or squeamishness will not be tolerated.

  "Kill! Kill the cat!" Beverly whispers her command, and this time an admonished Diana instantly obeys.

  In a single, beautiful, scything balletic motion the tool executes the little creature. Afterward they both stare down at its rigid body, neck up, ice pick thrust through the throat deep into its tiny brain.

  "Clean up the mess; deposit it in a trash can on the avenue; then report to me in my bedroom," Beverly orders. "I have a choice new punishment in mind for you, my dear. One that will, I'm sure, instill a greater eagerness to obey."

  Diana, braced, nods acceptance of this directive. As Beverly turns, she smiles quietly to herself. The little lynx can't wait. She loves correction. She'll be lubricating like crazy by the time she mounts the stairs.

  You told Tool to befriend the girl named Jess, the lovely, strong, brave gladiator at the dojo. You had in mind a kind of recruitment but naturally never mentioned your intentions.

  After Tool flew down to Florida, slew Bertha Parce, and brought back your trophy, a hair curler found in a funny bright blue plastic box beside the old schoolmarm's bed, you quizzed her endlessly about the gluing of the bitch's vagina, what it felt like to slather in the gooey stuff, then squeeze the labia majora shut.

  "Did she smell down there?" you inquired, grinning. "Like a rotten old fish, I bet," you added, pinching your nostrils with disgust.

  Your delighted interest in the aromatic dimension most definitely spurred Diana on. She described everything, as she'd been trained to do, in the most exhaustive detail. And you relished every word, for that was the bliss—the imagining of it, the reconstruction, the obsessive staging and restaging of the execution. Your re-creations, fueled by Diana's reportage, gave you more pleasure, you were certain, than anything you might have felt had you gone down there and done the wonderful deed yourself. Your imagination, embellishing powerfully upon the details Diana provided, could create scenes far more intense than what had actually taken place.

  It was so funny, Mama, when Carl went through the file and kept pulling out the reports I'd planted so carefully, ingeniously, and diligently through the years, flatly written case file summaries which contained no evaluations, no recommendations, and certainly no self-congratulation.

  They purported to be simple factual accounts of Diana Proctor's treatment, and Carl kept quoting them to me, saying things like "Just listen to what you wrote, Bev!" and "Jeez, Bev, listen to this!" and "God's sakes, Bev, can't you see the forest for the trees?" He was using them, see, to try to convince me the little murderess had recovered and was ready for release. And I kept resisting: "I'm not sure, Carl"; "I might have overstated that, Carl"; "But don't forget, she killed them, Carl—killed them, then split their crotches with an ax!"

  I toyed with him until I got him riled. I was acting like a hard-ass, he said, a tough bitch shrink, the kind he hated, and he was genuinely surprised since when he'd hired me, it was for my humanity, not my clinical skills or my degrees. What happened to my compassion anyway, he wanted to know, and had it occurred to me I might have spent too many years playing shrink-goddess to my patients, in the process losing sight of them as vulnerable human beings? At the very least I owed Diana the benefit of a doubt. I'd brought her along this far; why the hell couldn't I see she was ready to go the distance? And I just stared at him, Mama, until he started to rave: What kind of a person was I? Had I become one of those neurotic power-tripping shrinks who refuse to let a patient go because they can't bear to relinquish their control?

  See, Mama, he was using my own words to make his case, and the longer I refused to buy it, the stronger became his conviction he was right. In the end, when I finally relented, his investment in Diana's "rehabilitation" exceeded anything I could have worked up with a direct appeal. I hornswoggled the little twerp, and he never knew it. I'm telling you, Mama, it was so damn funny to watch him fall so easily into the trap that took me the better part of five years to lay. Like taking candy from a baby. It was just, I don't know . . . hysterical.

  There was another little trap I laid, not for Carl but for Diana. Call it my safety valve, Mama. I laid it . . . just in case.

  The trap consisted of creating a traceable path between Diana and the signature, a path that would not run through me. So I instructed her to tell Carl, Sue Farber, the librarian, and a couple of her cronies among the patients that she was a sort of "wallflower type," and that was why she didn't like going to hospital dances. None of them would think anything of it, unless, of course, they were questioned about it later on. Then they'd all remember, wouldn't they? You bet they would!

  I also had her sign a note to me with a droopy flower leaning against a wall, a note I could plant without comment in her file. The best part of it was the way I persuaded Diana that the devalued flower she'd leave at each gluing would, in fact, be her signature.

  A neat little double trap, if I do say so, for although she would only be the tool, she would think she was the
artist!

  Beverly Archer, wearing a prim navy blue wool skirt and freshly ironed white blouse, sits in a chair in her bedroom facing the full-length life-size oil painting of her mother on the wall. Diana Proctor squats on the floor between Beverly's legs, also facing the portrait. The girl wears jeans but is bare above the waist.

  "You know why we're facing Mama?" Beverly asks. "You do, don't you?"

  Diana shakes her head. "I'm not sure," she whispers.

  Beverly, tightening her grip by pressing her knees together, feels the girl shudder. The little lynx is afraid, she thinks. As well she might be, considering she's about to get it.

  "We're facing Mama because we want Mama to see," Beverly explains patiently. "Isn't that right, my dear? I mean we do want that, don't we?" Beverly squeezes her again. "Well?"

  "I guess so," Diana responds.

  "Guess! Well, I assure you we most definitely do want her to see. We want Mama to witness your correction." Beverly pauses. "You know why you're going to receive correction, don't you?"

  "I think so," the girl mutters.

  "Tell me?"

  "Because I hesitated."

  "You did, and now you're going to be punished for it."

  Beverly does not feel unkindly toward Tool. On the contrary, she feels quite maternal toward her. But the tool has erred and must be disciplined. The principle of unquestioning obedience must be reinforced.

  "You know I don't like to hit you, Diana. You know how much it hurts me," Beverly says.

  "I know," the girl concedes in a whisper.

  "Especially as I understand what you went through as a child, the beatings you took from your grandmother. You know how much I despise brutality."

  "Yes, I know that, Doctor."

  "So you must concede that when I strike you, there has to be a very good reason?" The girl nods. "What you did before down in the cellar, hesitating, standing there petrified, not even acknowledging my order, was deserving of the good, hard slap you got, wasn't it?"

  Beverly feels another wave surge through Diana. "Yes, I deserved it. I know I did."

  "Well, what I'm going to do to you now is not like that slap at all. It's important for you to understand the difference. I slapped you to shock you into action. The purpose was to sting and stun, make you aware of your responsibility to obey. The correction you will receive now has an entirely different objective. It's to remind you of your status vis-à-vis myself. What is that status, Diana?"

  "You're the doctor and I'm the patient," Diana says as if by rote.

  "Correct. And who is in charge in a doctor-patient relationship?"

  "Doctor is always in charge."

  "Completely, in charge of everything?"

  "Everything."

  "And patient's role is—go on, girl, fill in the blank spaces?"

  "Her role is to obey Doctor."

  "Always."

  "Always."

  "No matter what Doctor prescribes."

  "No matter what."

  "And so if Doctor says, 'Kill the cat,' then patient must kill the cat, correct?"

  Diana nods. "Patient must immediately kill the cat."

  "Easy to forget sometimes, when the assigned task is disagreeable. Nobody wants to stab a helpless creature and make a bloody mess on the floor. We both understand that. But there are many disagreeable tasks to be performed in this life. Mama taught me that, and now I'm teaching you."

  "Yes, thank you, Doctor."

  "Good. Now we shall proceed with the correction."

  Beverly grabs hold of Diana's hair, pulls her head back so her face is pointed up at the portrait. "Look up at Mama, straight into her eyes. Keep your eyes fastened to hers. Don't look down again until I tell you."

  Beverly reaches to the little round marble-top table beside her chair and extracts a pair of stainless steel scissors. Feeling Diana tense between her knees, Beverly freezes with the shears as if posing for a photograph. She looks up at Mama, smiles, and nods, then, taking up a big handful of Diana's glossy black hair, abruptly snips it off.

  Diana, finally comprehending the nature of her chastisement, moans while Beverly looks down at the hair lying inky black in her hand. It is beautiful luxuriant hair, thick and soft, the little lynx's protective fur. And it's going to come off now, all of it, every single strand, until Diana's head is as smooth as a billiard ball.

  Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap! The hair falls fast beneath the scissors. Beverly can feel the sweat on Diana's neck as she holds the girl's head steady, can hear the sobs that rack the poor lynx's body, too. Every so often, out of kindness, she reaches around to Diana's face to wipe away the tears. But still, she cuts, relentlessly.

  "Now, now, my dear," she comforts.

  Tool, for all her distress, is behaving well. Even as she weeps copiously for her loss, her eyes remain riveted to Mama's. Good little tool, brave little tool, but the hardest part is yet to come. Diana's head, now topped by a mop of ragged black, still must be clipped and shaved.

  Beverly, finished with the scissors, takes up a small electric clippers, turns them on, applies the clipper head to Diana's skull. Buzz, buzz, buzz, she mows the hair straight off the top the way she's seen it done in films about marine recruits, slowly, inexorably shaming the girl caught tight between her knees.

  More tears now, great rivers of them, as Beverly takes up a shaving brush, dips it into a bowl of warm water, stirs it around in a cup of soap, then applies the rich lather to Diana's head. Swish, swish, swish, she shaves the head clean with a razor. And all the while she whispers: "Now, now, little darling. Now, now. . . ."

  Diana's hair is everywhere, on the floor, on Beverly's skirt, sticking to the girl's bare moist torso, front and back. Her pale shoulders and breasts are decorated with little flecks of black, and her skull gleams white like alabaster.

  Beverly cradles the girl's head in her arms, tenderly petting the back of her neck. After granting permission for Diana to lower her eyes from Mama's, Beverly urges her to turn and sob upon her lap.

  "There, there," Beverly says, gently caressing the well-shaved skull. "There, there, my little precious. It was difficult, I know, but it wasn't as bad as that. And I have a lovely black wig all ready for you, to cover you up when you go out."

  Diana stares up at Beverly, her eyes large, beseeching. "You're not going to let me…?"

  "No, my dear. Every few days we'll be shaving you clean again. I'm afraid you won't be allowed to grow another full head of hair until you've completed all your missions."

  "Oh, Doctor!" The girl's red, teary eyes are filled with pathos. Beverly, slightly touched, knows she must not relent.

  "Think of yourself as a Ninja warrior. They shave their skulls to symbolize their commitment."

  "I so love my hair long."

  Yes, long like a witch's. "And so do I," Beverly assures the girl. "Which is why we shall be saving all the trims. I have a lovely rosewood box to keep them in. Some evenings we'll get them out, feel them, and remind ourselves of the glorious mane you had and will someday have again."

  "Yes, thank you, Doctor," Diana says gratefully, hugging Beverly around her waist.

  Beverly hesitates. There is more correction to be administered, and she wants to assure herself now that the little lynx can take it. It won't do to push the girl too far; the purpose is to humble her, not to wound or break her spirit. There is also something about this additional correction that causes Beverly to pause. She wonders whether she'll be able to inflict it without trembling a little bit herself. Shaving Diana's head was one thing, but the other more intimate area. . .

  Beverly looks up to the portrait, asks Mama what to do. The answer comes back immediately.

  "Make the little bitch shave her own pubes," Mama says. "Have her lie on her back on the bathroom floor, spread her legs before the mirror and scrape herself. Stand behind her, watch her as she does it, and smile as you do. The correction will be more forceful and the submission more complete if she's required to do it under supervision."


  "Thank you, Mama. You're so clever about these things."

  Beverly Archer leans down and whispers into Diana's ear: "Come with me, dear, into the bathroom. There's still a little more hair to be removed. . . ."

  Bertha Parce, Cynthia Morse, Jimmy and Stu MacDonald, Bobby Wexler, Laura Gabelli—I got six of them, Mama, six so far. Cindy was best, I think. Tool did a first-class job on her. Not only glued her up tight but her daughters, too, who (their bad luck!) stayed over with her in Seattle for Memorial Day. Tool also glued Cindy's hands together so I could imagine her begging me for mercy and, while she was at it, webbed her feet as well.

  Remember Cindy, Mama? Remember what she did? I could never ever forgive her for it. My best friend, the one I trusted more than anyone else, whose declarations of sisterhood I naïvely believed. The roommate to whom I confided my secret yearnings, passions, fears. And then, after all of that, to have her turn on me so cruelly.

  You probably guessed it. We were lovers. I'll never forget those wintry nights at Bennington when we pleasured each other, then slept together warm in each other's arms. I'm not ashamed of having loved her, Mama. There should never be shame where love's involved. And I did love her; that is why her betrayal was so calamitous, why it did a hell of a lot more than just sting me to the quick.

  God! Remember what a wreck I was when I came down from Bennington, told you I wasn't going back, that nothing would ever ever make me return? And the way I cried, days of weeping it seems like now, and you were worried because I wouldn't eat and barely got out of bed.

  "Bev's having a little breakdown," I overheard you tell Lisa Walters. But it was a major breakdown I was having, Mama, and it was that lousy traitor bitch who brought it on. What she did was unforgivable. And I never did forgive her for it. No, I never did.

 

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