She settled into her chair and closed her eyes. At moments like this, she allowed herself to dream that one day she would have enough money to open her own shop where she could make and sell clothes. There was a storefront available on the next block uptown. With a little hard work she could fix it up. She could imagine her name painted across the front window in gold letters—Mariana’s Place. The mannequin inside would be dressed in her newest designs. She hugged her arms across her chest and settled back into her chair, sighing audibly. Maybe she could serve coffee and some pastries, to make a little extra and attract customers. Would it be so hard to offer simple sandwiches? A salad or two? She would need tables, of course. Was there enough room for tables?
Then she heard a noise that made her skin turn cold and the tiny hairs on her arms stiffen. A key was scratching against the lock on the front door. It couldn’t be inserted because the locks had been changed at Ms. Larson’s suggestion. “You can’t trust any of them,” she had said. “Even with the Order, you can’t trust them.”
Now, Mariana heard a soft knock at the door. When she didn’t move, it repeated just a trifle louder.
She pushed herself out of the chair and walked to the door.
“Jose, stop it, you’re going to wake JJ,” she said in a harsh whisper.
There was a thin crack between the door itself and the frame. Through it, she could see him bring his face close to the opening and whisper to her in the soft, special tone he had used when they first met. Back then he had treated her with such care, filled her every need. She felt her muscles go slack at the sound of his voice.
“Mariana, Baby. Let me in. Please, baby.”
She turned her back and leaned against the door; her legs felt weak. She told herself she should cover her ears and run to the next room, far away from this temptation.
“I can’t, Jose,” she said. “I have the Order now. You have to go.”
“Baby, I can’t go. I love you, Baby. Don’t you understand?”
“Rosita said you would try to persuade me,” she replied with soft reproach. She cringed, expecting him to yell, but he did not. She could see that he was dressed in his police uniform. He held his hat in his hand. Obviously, he had just gotten off work and hurried over to see her. It was hard for her not to feel flattered. His voice continued in the same fashion: calm, soft, soothing, full of the promise of love.
“Rosita? What does she know about us? She never liked me, Baby. You know that. From the very beginning she only had a frown for me. She was always talking behind my back.”
Mariana closed her eyes. She tried to stay strong. She was strong. But Jose was right about this one thing. Rosita had been suspicious of him from the moment that she heard a cop had started paying attention to her sister, angry that a man of 28 was seeing a girl 10 years younger. Rosy had never wanted to listen, much less believe that she and Jose had something special—a love that was strong and good. It had been so at the beginning, until the problems of the pregnancy and the baby started to interfere. They were going to get married. He had even given her a ring, although they had not set a date. She’d gone to Welfare and gotten the apartment and then things had started to go sour. They quarreled. He started to hit her. If JJ cried, he hit her. If he went out and she asked where he was going, he hit her. If the dinner wasn’t ready. If she didn’t treat his friends ‘right.’ If she didn’t want sex. If she did. Lately, if she even put on makeup to go out to the store, she was a whore. Forget about having a shop of her own.
“Marianita,” he whispered now, using his pet name for her. He only used that when they were in bed together, when he had his arms around her and kissed her so tenderly that she thought she would burst with love for him. “Marianita, I swear I will do better this time.”
“You said that before, Jose,” she replied. She tried to be curt and strong, although she knew in her heart there was nothing but love and regret in her voice now.
“I know I did, but this time will be different, my baby, my love. Marianita, I swear to you on my mother’s eyes that I see how wrong I have been. I was so mean. Like an animal.”
“Oh no, don’t say that, Jose ...”
“I love you, Baby. I miss you so much. Don’t you miss me? Don’t you love me no more?”
She started to cry inaudibly. She turned her face to the door, pressed against the same slim opening as his. They were just inches apart. She craved his face on hers and his lips kissing her; his soft voice, full of passion, whispering into her ear, his warm breath; the ecstasy of being possessed by him.
“I can’t, Jose. I ... I’m feeling so confused. I don’t know what to do. I should call Rosita.”
“Don’t call her,” he whispered. “You know what she’s going to say. She doesn’t know me. She isn’t here to listen to my words and to see I have changed. She doesn’t know what we have when we are together and things are right. She’s jealous of us, Mariana. She has never felt the kind of love we have.”
“Jose, please go away. Maybe tomorrow. Please.”
“I just want to see you, Mariana. Just kiss you once and then I’ll leave, I swear. You can trust me, Mariana. I brought my friend, Rolando, along to make you feel safe.”
“Rolando?”
“You remember him, Babe, from the picnic over Memorial Day. He works out of my precinct. He’s here right now.”
“Hello, Mariana,” a monotone voice said from the hallway behind Jose.
“Mariana, look through the peep hole. Rolando will hold up his badge so you can see it.”
She did as he said. She vaguely remembered Jose introducing Rolando, especially hearing his voice that always seemed curiously devoid of emotion. Still, she thought it was nice of Jose to bring a friend tonight. What could it mean but that he really did want to prove to her he was willing to change? Ms. Larson had said she couldn’t trust any of them, but what did she know about this part of her life? She was a lawyer, not an expert in love. Who was she to give such advice about men?
“Mariana, I swear, I just want to tell you face to face how bad I feel about what happened. I just want to sit with you and talk for five minutes, and then I’ll go. I just want to kiss you once. Then I’ll leave. And if you want me to leave before, you just tell Rolando, and I swear I’ll leave. Please, baby. Please—”
He stopped in mid-sentence at the sound of the deadbolt being pulled back, the lock cylinder turning, the door opening.
She stared at him without speaking, trying to determine if what he said was true. His dark brown eyes could pass between happy amusement and the deepest anger in a matter of seconds. She watched him warily, still not sure if she could trust him.
“Oh, Marianita ...”
He came in before she had a chance to change her mind and fell to his knees in front of her, his arms around her legs, his face pressed against her thighs, her belly, kissing her.
She forgot about Rolando until she heard the sound of the door latch being closed and the bolt being fastened again. She glanced up at him, but he did not acknowledge her in any way. His face was without expression, like his voice. He had straight, gray-flecked hair cut close to his head. His eyes were dark blue and seemed to move on their own, as if they weren’t attached to any other part of him. Now, those eyes were fixed on her chest. She was wearing a t-shirt without a bra and her nipples pressed against the thin cotton, showing how aroused she was by Jose’s embrace. It made her uncomfortable and she tried to lift Jose up from his knees.
“Jose, please.”
“I love you, Baby. I love you so much.”
The tremor in his voice made her think he might start crying. Slowly she raised him upward to stand in front of her, but he did not stop his embraces or his fervent kisses as his face traveled slowly up the length of her body, across her belly, against her breasts, rumpling the t-shirt slightly as he passed and exposing some of the skin of her belly. She felt embarrassed and overwhelmed.
She pulled her shirt down, aware of Rolando.
; “Please, Jose,” she whispered again.
“You don’t love me no more?” he asked, his voice trembling again, his lips on her neck now, on the side of her ear, on her cheek. She could not stop herself from pulling away slightly so that his lips could travel along the curve of her neck. “Am I too late? You want me to stop? Am I too late to show you how much I love you?”
She hugged him tight, pressing the length of her against him now.
“No, Jose. I still love you.”
“Thank God,” he replied, and his hands now ran up the side of her chest, grazing her breasts through the shirt, causing her breath to come quickly.
“But Jose, your friend ...” She swallowed hard. She felt breathless. Her legs were weak.
“Don’t worry about him, Baby. He’s here just to protect you, Baby. And to protect me.”
She stiffened. Over his shoulder she could see Rolando now with a slight smirk on his face.
“What do you mean, Jose?”
Jose buried his face onto her neck making it difficult to understand him. His hands lifted her shirt.
“You hurt me so bad when you got the piece of paper from the Judge. Saying I hit you when I never did.”
“Jose, please stop.”
The shirt was up above her belly now. Abruptly, he stepped back from her, staring at her with mock disbelief.
“But you asked me to come in, Marianita. You opened the door yourself and you begged me to make love to you, right Rolando?”
“Every word is true,” Rolando said.
“You see, I have a witness,” Jose said.
“I’ll scream, Jose. I will.”
“But if you do, then little JJ will wake up. And you don’t want little JJ to see his mother having sex with his father, do you?”
“You can’t do this, Jose. You must stop.”
He took one of her hands in his and hit her hard across the side of her face.
“You understand, Marianita, now Rolando can see that you hit yourself and tried to make people believe it was me.”
She opened her mouth to respond and he hit her again, even harder. She could barely focus for a moment.
“You were bad, Marianita. Very bad.”
“I’m sorry, Jose. Please ...”
“You hurt me, and now you have to make it right. You do want to make it right with me, don’t you Marianita?”
He pulled her hand back so that she flinched, fearing he would hit her again.
“Tell me you love me, Marianita.”
“I ... I love you, Jose.”
The room seemed to move in circles. She felt the pressure on her shoulders pushing her downward. This came from Rolando, who was standing behind her now. She closed her eyes to make the room stop moving and her knees bent slowly under his greater strength until she was kneeling on the floor. Jose pulled her shirt roughly over her head, exposing her naked chest, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered.
She could hear the sound of a zipper being opened, and then another.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’m not surprised those insurance bastards won’t pay for a massage table,” Judith said. “They’re just another part of the Pig network. But maybe I can find you one on Craig’s List.”
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Sheila said. “This is fine.”
Sheila was lying on her stomach and her face was pressed into the mattress, muffling her voice. A towel was draped across her middle. Her clothes were folded neatly on a chair in the corner. Her flesh was slightly bloated from the painkillers she took, especially around the ankles and knees, and the skin appeared to be stretched thin, almost translucent, with a bluish-white cast. She hated the way her body had deteriorated over the last few years. But in the early evening darkness of the room, the lights mercifully extinguished and Judith working over her, she felt almost young again.
In the beginning, she scheduled these sessions twice a week, more often only if strictly necessary, so as not to take advantage of her student. Then Judith had lost her apartment and moved in with her, occupying the room that had belonged to her son before he married and got a job in California. Soon afterward, massage had developed into a nightly ritual that became Judith’s contribution to the rent, along with light housekeeping. Sheila didn’t know how she could live without it now.
With her head turned toward the door, Sheila could see into the small, square, windowless dining area. A dusty chandelier burned brightly over the center of the table. The battered wooden surface was cluttered with newspapers, books, magazines, lecture notes, and student papers, making it impossible to eat there. That was one of her ex-husband’s many complaints—never a proper meal at the dinner table. Good riddance. The kitchen was large enough to accommodate a row of stools lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery. Select graduate students, Judith among them, had enjoyed many a Sunday brunch with hearty food and wine and liquor in abundance and free-flowing conversation on what was wrong with the current capitalistic, male-dominated society and what they would do if only they had the power.
“A suitable table would allow me to massage the muscles on both sides of your body properly,” Judith continued. “When I have to reach across, it isn’t done right.”
“Maybe so. But you’re a damned sight better than any of the physical therapists I’ve been to, with all of their professional tables and expensive credentials. And believe me; I think I’ve been to every one of them on the Upper West Side.”
Judith’s cheeks flushed slightly at the compliment, and she paused briefly before continuing to prod Sheila’s flesh with even more attentiveness.
Massage was the only manual activity in which Judith had ever had any skill. She had been a complete disaster at most sports, especially anything involving a ball. But the same strong stubby fingers that could not cooperate to catch or throw and had made childhood piano lessons a weekly nightmare were well suited for relieving the spasms and aches of tight muscles.
She had stumbled upon her ability almost a year and a half ago, after one of Professor Majors’ evening lectures. Sheila had stiffened up from standing at the podium and, in worse pain than usual, leaned heavily on Judith’s sturdy shoulder and arm just to get to the cab. She had been in such rough shape that Judith accompanied her on the ride home to her apartment. At Sheila’s request, Judith had gone to the kitchen for a glass of water and two ibuprofen tablets. When she had returned, Sheila was sitting on the edge of the bed, grimacing, as she rubbed vainly at her knees, barely able to reach them because of the pain radiating from her hips to her ankles every time she stretched forward. Tears of frustration had fallen over her broad, rugged, handsome face. Her curly gray hair was moist with perspiration against her skin.
“Is there anything I can do?” Judith had asked. By instinct, her hands had reached out and gingerly touched the taut flesh above Sheila’s knees.
“If you could just rub my legs for a minute,” Sheila had said. She’d rolled over onto her stomach, crying out with the effort. Judith helped her remove her panty hose. “Just a little above and below the knees.”
That first night, Judith had done only what seemed obvious, gently kneading and probing the tight muscles with her fingers, but her efforts had brought considerable relief. After about twenty minutes, Sheila had fallen asleep and Judith had extinguished the lights, covered her with a light blanket, and left. When she returned to her own apartment, she had searched the term “massage” and found numerous sites that explained the basics, some with videos. Sleep never came easily to Judith, so she filled those midnight hours learning how to recognize knots in the muscles, where one or another crossed the back and the legs and the shoulders, where the nerves ran, where the tendons attached muscle to bone.
“Just a little higher, Judith, please,” Sheila said now, adjusting her body more symmetrically on the bed. “And then maybe you would do my lower back one more time. It’s especially bad tonight.”
“Of course,” Judith said.
She
’d gotten all of the knots out already, causing little whimpers of pain from Sheila, followed by sighs of pleasure. It always surprised Judith how close the two sounds were and gratified her with the knowledge that she helped her mentor. Now Judith ran her hands over the length of Sheila’s legs, starting at the ankle and moving upward in a slow steady firm motion, over the rounded calves, the knees, along the thighs, all the way up to the beginning of the gluteus maximus. She adjusted the towel so that it didn’t interfere and gently urged the legs apart so that she could apply steady pressure to the full length of the muscles, again and again, as Sheila’s breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.
“You’re a magician, Judith,” she said. “I swear it.”
“Maybe you’ll feel well enough to come with me tonight?” Judith asked. She was already dressed for the evening ahead in a long denim skirt and leather boots. A brown P-jacket and a knitted cap of a matching color completed the effect of a woman in uniform, part of a burgeoning army seeking to fight for women’s rights. “We could go separately, if that’s a problem.”
Sheila let out a loud “tsk.”
“Of course that’s not the problem. Idle gossip doesn’t touch me. And in any event, you’re not my student anymore. In fact, I don’t think I have anything left to teach you.”
“That will never be true,” Judith said quickly.
“I won’t debate the point. The fact remains that this has just been a lousy day for me. The thought of getting into a cab and navigating those steps up to the gallery is very daunting. God knows what sort of chairs Ellen might have there. All the good you have done will be lost.”
“Then I’d work on you again. You know that.”
“I know you would. But not tonight.”
“I just don’t trust Ellen,” Judith said. “Or Susan Hempten.”
“There’s no reason to trust either of them. Or any need, for that matter. This is simply an opportunity to get your message out to a larger audience. I know you will seize the chance and make the very best out of it.”
Praise Her, Praise Diana Page 12