by Lucy Taylor
On stage, Myriam lifted the girl up, so that they sat facing each other, the girl astride Myriam’s cock. Again, they became motionless, staring into each other’s eyes.
It’s some kind of hypnotism, thought Nicholas, but even as the idea occurred to him, he rejected it. He hadn’t been hypnotized when he was making love with Myriam, nor in the grip of some sex-induced trance. What he’d experienced, for that matter, hadn’t even been entirely sexual, although perhaps he simply hadn’t recognized it as such, wasn’t as well versed with the parameters of eroticism as he’d have liked to think. Maybe not everyone who coupled with Myriam felt it. Maybe they were too frightened to admit that they did or, like Sonny, their minds could simply not expand to accommodate the magnitude of the experience.
Around him, the orgy grew more lusty, the cries and grunts and moans converging in a strange, atonal symphony. He felt absent from his own skin, detached from the eager pulsings that stirred his cock to stiffness. He stood up, retrieved his clothing from the pile beside the door, went outside to the men’s room in the corridor and got dressed. As he was coming out, a slender woman with a lustrous tangle of frosted blonde hair was hurrying along the corridor. She wore a suede skirt, high heels, a black leather vest over a white turtleneck.
Nicholas considered making some minor witticism about etiquette at an orgy (don’t worry, late-comers are well thought of), but then thought better of it. As she breezed past, she half-turned toward him. He glimpsed her face.
“Wait!”
She kept going.
“Elise!”
He could see she tried to pretend the name meant nothing, but there was a slight cringe when he said it, as though he’d lobbed a small stone.
“Wait, I know it’s you!”
He grabbed her arm, spun her around. “Why are you running from me? What are you afraid of?”
“Let me go!”
“You knew what you were doing to me,” he said. “When I thought back on it, the last thing you said was that you were giving me something, too. You knew you were sick. You did it to me on purpose.”
She pulled away, anger in the twisting of her crimson-lined lips, fear in the overbright sheen of her eyes. “Let go of me!”
“Not until you tell me why you wanted to infect me. You didn’t even know me. Why?”
She turned away, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I know you won’t believe this, but I never in my life purposely set out to hurt somebody like I did you. I’ve thought about you so much, wondering what happened to you and to your wife. I am truly sorry.”
“I don’t give a damn about your being sorry. Answer the fucking question. Why?”
Sooty tears spread from the corners of her heavily mas-cara’d eyes and tracked down her cheeks. “I needed money. For doctors’ bills, all kinds of things. I needed money, and I had to get it any way I could.”
“You mean, somebody paid you to have sex with me, knowing you were infected?”
She nodded.
“Who?”
But the question was already answered in his mind even before she said it for him: “Sonny.”
“Jesus God, that vicious bastard.”
“He’s obsessed with getting revenge on you. Almost as much as he does –” she nodded toward the door behind which Myriam performed “– her.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“He says you rolled on him years back. Set it up so you walked after only a couple years, and he got sentenced to twelve.”
“That’s not how it went.”
“Maybe not, but he thinks it did. That makes it true.”
“So he wanted me dead. Then why did he tell me about Myriam? She saved my life.”
“Myriam cured Sonny, too, but she couldn’t cure him of all the hate he carries around inside him. She also fucked with his mind. Maybe he thought she’d fuck you up, too, and that would be worse than whatever else he could do to you.” She looked toward the door and fidgeted with the buttons of her vest. “I need to get in there.”
“Go on.”
“I’m sorry, Nicholas. Can you forgive me?”
He started to answer with something along the lines of, no way, you fucking little bitch. Instead he said, “Are you cured, now?”
She shrugged. “So far, so good. It would appear so.”
“Good. I’m glad for you.”
“About Sonny – I shouldn’t have told you he hired me. You aren’t going to do anything, are you?”
“Only what I wish I’d done a long time ago – blow the fucking scumbag’s brains out his asshole.”
“I know it was you who sent me this. I want to know why.”
Sonny Valdez took the photo Beth handed him and stared at it as though seeing it for the first time. “I thought you’d be interested in a side of your husband’s past I’m betting he never told you about.”
“He worked for you?”
“Worked for me. Serviced me, whatever.”
“So you were his pimp?”
“An ugly word, pimp. I don’t like it. I’d rather think of myself as a mentor. Nicky-boy was just a kid then, strung out on drugs. He did what he had to do to survive. I showed him the ropes, helped him along the way. Made a man out of him, you might say. Occasionally made a woman out of him, too.”
“And later on, he joined you in the drug business, is that it? Which was how you got sent to jail.”
“I got sent to prison,” said Sonny, “ ’cause Nicky-boy ratted me out. He rolled on me to shorten his own sentence.”
“Why did you send me that photo?”
Sonny shrugged. “Why not? I wanted to.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean why would anyone do something so evil?”
“Ah, you mean you’re asking me a metaphysical question, then?” He must have caught the change in her expression, because he said angrily, “What’sa matter, you think an ex-con don’t use words like metaphysical? Well, maybe ex-cons like your husband don’t, but I do, lady. I read Nietzsche and Plato and Kant. I get my Tarot cards read too and my astrological chart. So you want to know why I’d do such an evil thing? Because I can. Because I like to stir the pot and see what comes crawling out.”
“I want to know where my husband is.”
“What makes you think I know?”
“Because I know he came here to see you. Something happened – I don’t know what – but he’s disappeared.”
“If he ain’t come home, my guess is that he met someone,” said Sonny. “Name of Myriam.”
“Is she one of your whores?”
“Not mine, but yeah, you could say she’s a whore. She does live sex shows. People pay big bucks to watch her fuck.”
Beth swallowed. A debate raging inside her head: Do I want to know any more? Do I go on?
She said, “Where does this take place?”
Sonny shrugged. “She has different venues, but I can’t say where she is. If I knew for certain, I’d be on my way there now.”
Beth flinched and bit her lip. “She’s that spectacular in bed, you mean? That all men fall under her spell, not just my husband? He can’t stay away from her and neither can you?”
“Yeah, but not in the way you think,” Sonny said. “I find out where Myriam is, I ain’t going there to have sex with her. Having sex with that witch is the last fucking thing on my mind.” His eyes shifted to Beth. “Having sex with Myriam, at any rate. But you now, you’re different. More my type. Dark and slender and kinda classy-looking.”
“Forget it,” Beth said, “Short and fat and flatulent doesn’t do it for me. Besides, Nicholas would kill you. If you’ve ever seen him angry, then you know I’m not exaggerating.”
“Maybe so, but he ain’t here now, is he?” He moved closer, slowly occupying the space between Beth and the door. “See, this is how I see it, Beth. Nicky-boy, he fucked me over. I figure, by rights, anything belongs to Nicky-boy ought to belong to me.”
Myriam stared at him with weary eyes. “Show’s over
, hon. It’s time to go home.”
Elise and the rest of the audience had all departed. Myriam and Nicholas stood alone on the small, shabby stage. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you get what you wanted?”
“Yes. The tests all came back negative. My blood’s clean. As far as I know, I’m healthy.”
“Then what are you here for? I’ve done all I can do for you. Go home or, if you have no home, then find one.”
“I can’t,” said Nicholas. “When I was with you, something happened. I have to know what it was and how I can find that again. Otherwise, there’s no point in your having cured me, because I won’t give up searching. I’ll pay you anything you ask. I’ll get myself reinfected if I have to, if that’s what it takes to be with you again.”
He realized what he must sound like: either pathetically desperate or dangerously obsessed.
Myriam brushed at a lock of her platinum hair, shook her head. “Forget about what happened. Go back to your family, if you have one. Make up for the time that you’ve wasted.”
“But that’s just it. Everything in my life feels like a waste, now. It’s all a sham, a lie, a smokescreen covering something else that I glimpsed and then lost sight of. When I was inside you, somehow – God only knows how – I felt you pull the disease out of me. But more than that – it felt like everything that I was or that I am – my history, individuality, my thought patterns and personality, everything I’ve always thought makes me me – that all fell away and there was still something else left. And what was left, that felt like the real Nicholas, the true Nicholas underneath all the fabrication. It felt like there was something underlying everything else, something besides me, or what I used to think of as me, and I touched that for a second. All I’m asking is that you help me find that again.”
“You can’t,” Myriam said softly, and this time there was real sadness in her eyes. “You must be still and let It find you.”
Sonny Valdez leaned against the door, arms folded. Bloody scratches ran diagonally along his cheek. He stared at Beth, whose lip was bloody and starting to swell.
“You really thought that if you took the bait and came here, I’d let you have your say and then just waltz out the door?”
“This is a mistake, Sonny. Let me leave.”
“Oh, I’ll let you leave, all right. Just not yet. And maybe not in quite the same condition as you come in.”
In her mind, Beth had prepared herself for this moment a hundred times, just as she’d also tried to think out what she’d do if she awoke to find the house on fire or found herself caught in undertow or on a plane whose engines suddenly stalled. The trouble was, you couldn’t really predict the specifics of such events – least of all whether it was better to try reasoning with a man like Sonny or fighting back or playing dead and letting whatever happened happen.
“I always wondered what kind of woman Nicky-boy would be shacked up with,” he said. “Some sexed-up little slut with boobs out to here, I figured. I mean, that boy could fuck – anyone, any time, any place, any kind of kink you could imagine. But you – you’re a little more genteel-looking than what I’d conjured up in my masturbatory fantasies.”
“Looks can be deceiving, Sonny. You think I’m not a match for Nicholas in bed? You think that’s not partly why I came looking for him? I can find a man anywhere. I can find a great fuck, if I’m lucky. But a great fuck who also happens to be the person I love – that only comes along once, Sonny. For a lot of people, it never comes at all.”
“So you’re a match for Nicky-boy in bed, huh? Well, you’re gonna have to convince me of that, honey. Fortunately, I got plenty of time to be convinced.”
He came towards her, and she retreated, bumping into the coffee table, upending it with a crash and a shattering of glass. She picked up a shard to ward off Sonny, but before he could come at her, the phone on top of the TV set bleated, halting them both.
The answering machine clicked on, and a woman’s voice, fluttery and nervous, said, “Sonny, it’s Elise. I need to talk to you. Sonny, will you please pick up? I just saw Nicholas.”
Sonny rushed for the phone, but Beth was a step ahead and got there first. “Who is this?” she shouted. “Where are you?”
“Give me that!” Sonny grabbed the phone out of her hand and pushed her away. So engrossed was he in what the caller was saying that she could have easily escaped, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t leave now.
“You stupid bitch, you told him what?” roared Sonny and slammed down the phone. He whirled on Beth. “You want to find your husband? Well, I know where he is. More important, I know where she is, too.” He reached for her, and she brought the shard of jagged glass down in an arc, narrowly missing his face. He grimaced and jumped back. “You gonna try and carve me up with that or you gonna come with me to find your husband? C’mon, what’ll it be, Beth? You scared of me or what?”
She was shaking, but she wasn’t scared – not yet. The fear came a moment later, when Sonny was buttoning his coat, and she saw the pistol tucked inside the waistband of his pants.
“You’re an unusual man, Nicholas,” said Myriam. “After I cure them, a lot of people never want to see me again. They’re grateful, but the experience they have with me is too frightening, too disturbing, to ever want to undergo again. Some of them decide I’m some kind of witch or demon. I’ve had men claim I stole their souls.”
“Or their names,” said Nicholas.
“For people sufficiently entrenched in ego, it’s the same thing. They’re so caught up in their mortal identity, that even a few moments outside their own ego feels terrifying and annihilating. Some of them go insane.”
“So what does happen, Myriam? How do you cure people?”
“As far as how I cure them, I’m not sure myself – only that when the ego dissolves, even briefly, so dissolves the disease. As for the experience you had, all I can tell you is you aren’t the first to search for it. In the nineteenth century, there was a group of occultists who worshipped what they called the ‘holy wisdom fire’, a fire they believed to be embodied in all women. Certain women had the power to help bring about a soul’s spiritual integration through intercourse and awaken in their partner the highest spiritual powers from deep within. These occultists called themselves the Cult of Myriam, which still exists. I studied with the group and took that name for myself.”
“So what happened? You initiated me into some kind of cosmic consciousness?”
“I didn’t do anything, Nicholas, except offer you a glimpse of what mystics and holy people have been preaching for centuries. You don’t have to be Nicholas, you know. You chose to be that person, but that isn’t the real you and, deep inside, you know that. That’s why you feel compelled to search for that experience again.”
“Not just because I’m a crazy bastard obsessed with fucking you?”
He was joking, of course – more or less – but she didn’t smile. Instead, she took his hand and they sat together on the mattress. Sitting turned into reclining, which melted into embracing. Nicholas felt such a surge of longing and desire that it was all he could do not to rip off Myriam’s clothing and take her then and there, to hell with her consent. “You’re thinking you could rape me if you wanted to,” said Myriam, “and you’re right, but it wouldn’t be the experience you’re looking for. It would leave you much further from your destination than you are now.”
“Then make love with me,” said Nicholas, pulling her against him. “You cured me of my disease: now cure me of my ignorance.”
Her arms wound around his neck. Her legs parted. “I think you have a lot of good in you, Nicholas,” she said. “More good than you realize. I think your soul longs for a kind of wisdom few people ever find, let alone experience.”
“I think you’re wrong,” said Nicholas. “I’m not a good man. Thirty seconds ago, I was debating whether or not to rape you if you didn’t want to have sex. And I’m a lot nicer guy now than I used to be, if that puts it in perspective. I haven’t live
d a good life. I’ve been a thief and a drug-dealer and, when I was younger, a prostitute. I don’t long for any holiness or wisdom. The only thing I long for is to slide my cock inside your body and fuck you forever and never, ever leave.”
Her eyes lit up. She laughed gently. “Have you ever considered, Nicholas, that my body might not be the only place you might find what you’re searching for? That if you allowed yourself to love someone, really love someone enough to transcend your own self-centeredness, that might make all the difference?”
But before Nicholas could answer, they both heard the footsteps approaching. Then the door that opened onto the stairwell was kicked open with a crash that reverberated throughout the room. Nicholas leaped to his feet, galvanized by an appalling and incongruous vision – Sonny Valdez, his wife, and the gun that Sonny was now pointing at him and Myriam.
Someone screamed. Maybe it was Beth or Myriam or even Nicholas himself – maybe all three of them were screaming at once – but he hurled himself in front of Myriam, who was still on the floor, and the gun went off and suddenly the room was filled with a terrible red rain.
In the instant it took Sonny to recock the trigger, Beth grabbed his wrist and twisted it with all the strength in both her arms. The gun fired again – this time into the ceiling – as Sonny shoved her away and aimed at Myriam again, firing into her as she lay in a spreading pool of blood on the mattress. With a cry, Nicholas charged Sonny, wrestled the gun away from him, and then slammed the grip into the man’s skull, again and again, like a gong striking the side of a bell, and he didn’t stop, but kept on bashing the caved-in head, even when Beth grabbed him and shouted, “It’s all right, Nicholas, it’s all right! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!”
After the police got through investigating, when they were convinced Nicholas had been justified in taking Sonny Valdez’s life, after Myriam was cremated and her ashes scattered in the churchyard of St Benedict’s, Nicholas and Beth went back to Detroit and pretended to be making an effort to resume their lives. A grim joke, thought Nicholas, given everything that had taken place. He’d told Beth the truth about his past, about Elise, and about how Myriam had somehow cleansed his infected blood: everything except the experience he’d had while he and Myriam were making love. That he couldn’t put into words and he was afraid she’d misunderstand, think he was describing sexual passion and, while that was a component of what he’d undergone, the experience was really so much more.