by Jen Sacks
"The man asked if you would like to get raped and you said 'No thank you.'"
"Yes."
"You realize how inappropriate a response that is to the situation you were facing."
"What are you, a shrink? That's not the point. The point is that I don't get excited in an emergency. I stay calm," I said.
"Were you frightened inside, though?" he asked.
"I don't remember feeling anything at all,, if you want to know the truth. Except that I'd be in trouble if I fucked up her jacket."
He said nothing for about thirty seconds and rocked back on his heels. Then he said, "Thank you," and stood up. He stepped over to the big comfy chair and sat down in it, leaning back thoughtfully.
"Who are you?" I asked finally.
"Call me Sam," he answered, if that qualifies as one.
"Sam?"
"Sam."
"You don't look like one," I commented.
"I could say something similar about you," he returned pleasantly.
"I never said my name was Sam," I joked. He didn't laugh.
"Neither did I." He paused to let that sink in, I guess. Then he finally asked, "What happened here tonight?"
"Once upon a time," I began, "I went on a date."
The funny thing is, it was only a midrange dinner, not cheap, but not the most expensive thing around. He paid. I offered to contribute, but Ben refused. I was a journalist and he was a trader and he could certainly afford it, he said. But, you know, since it was, in fact, a midrange dinner, even if he thought paying for it entitled him to some form of recompense, he shouldn't have expected the whole enchilada.
The thing is, I had already killed two guys, and although I wasn't anticipating killing this one, I felt that there was something wrong with my social skills. Perhaps I hadn't tried hard enough to communicate openly.
My apartment felt very small and close with Ben in it. He had walked me home, and so I had invited him in—for a drink, I guess. I only know about this stuff from TV. He wandered around my place while I was making coffee. I felt like Mary Tyler Moore—or rather, like Mary Richards.
When the coffee was ready, I poured it into two cups. Ben came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I felt a little chill, but I wasn't sure from what. He slowly turned me around to face him, paying no attention to his beverage, and leaned down to kiss me. I let him; his lips touched mine, but instead of beginning gently, he forced my mouth open with his own and stuck his tongue in. I let him—for a few moments— but frankly, it wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. It didn't feel sexy, just wet. Still, I allowed him to draw me out of the kitchenette and over to my couch, where we sat together, still physically linked. Then I moved my head back, away from his, and uttered this brilliant line: "Let's slow down a little." What I was really thinking was, Where's the fire, pal? Not here, I can tell you.
"Relax," he responded to my unspoken thought. How unbelievably trite. If you have to tell me to relax, I thought, there's a good chance I'm not in the mood to.
He tried to start kissing me again, but I bobbed my head away when he did, like one of those little duck heads on a stick that children used to play with. I can't help it; that was the vision I had.
"Look," I said. "I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think I feel this way about you… at least not yet." All right, I couldn't be totally honest. I knew right when he kissed me that I wasn't interested. I thought it was a shame, but the chemistry just wasn't there.
For a few seconds, I felt great. I'd told him how I felt, and he didn't look crushed at all. Then I didn't feel so great. He looked mad.
Before I could even see him prepare, he hauled off and punched me in the face. This was a mistake. He didn't punch me hard enough. If he had, that would have been that. But it didn't knock me out. I was stunned, even as I thought that a male friend of mine was right—you don't exactly feel the pain; it comes as a blow. Shock is what I felt. I bounced off the sofa and onto the floor. As he leaned forward toward me, I took both my feet and shoved them into his stomach. With an "oof," he settled for a moment back against the couch.
You know how when you're really involved in having sex, you cease being aware of anything else? You have no idea what's on the TV, and sometimes afterward you discover you've got rug burn on your knee or your back, and you didn't even feel it as you were getting it. Technically, it's supposed to be a little like being in a trance: total, tunnel-visioned concentration. This was like that.
Gone were visions of Mary Richards, and instead I thought insanely of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, in the movie where she's fighting off her evil-demon uncle-in-law. I wished I had a stiletto-heeled shoe like hers to hit Ben with, right in the center of his forehead, but I didn't. Still, I was glad I had kept my cowboy boots on. I had backed up and was about to stand up, with the intention of kicking him again, harder, but he dived at me from the couch.
I tried to twist away, but I didn't make it. He started to climb on top of me, holding me down with one hand on my neck as he began to unzip. I reached toward him with my right hand, looking deep into his eyes and starting to pucker up. His problem was that apparently he wanted me conscious but immobilized. If his goal had been me unconscious and immobilized, he would have done things differently, I'm sure. He hesitated for a moment, confused, while I placed my hand almost lovingly around his neck. Then I pulled his head toward mine and slammed my forehead against the bridge of his nose. It stunned him for a second, and I was able to roll out from under him. I lunged up, intending to head for the door. He lunged up, too, intending to head for me. The long skirt I was wearing tore and got in my way. He got there first and, grabbing my arm, slammed me back into the wall. Near the door, there was a little shelf of stuff that I used to drop things on as I entered my apartment. For a second, it kept me from hitting the wall with my whole body; then it gave way, collapsing. Backing up with me in tow, Ben managed to destabilize a tall but somewhat rickety shelf of books, which came down around me as he pulled me through the living room. With my momentum toward him as he tugged, I managed to turn to face him slightly and shoved a boot-clad foot really hard into what had been, I assume, his erection. That, I believe, was when his goal changed from rape to murder. They always say you don't want to make an attacker angry; but they don't understand the (very temporary) satisfaction of feeling someone's innards seeming to crumble around a well-placed foot. Anyway, it was just as well that his face got meaner, because at first all I was thinking about was defending myself, which meant I was always a step behind. Now I started to think about how to kill him dead. My thoughts turned to my lovely baseball bat, which I'd bought a couple of years ago for home defense, but it was by my bed, leaning uselessly against a bookshelf.
While he stood stock-still for just a second, in agony, I grabbed for a chair and swung around with it. I caught him on the arms as he moved to protect himself, and the chair kind of went flying, just missing my stereo system. It did bring down a halogen floor lamp. He recovered his balance and leapt forward, enveloping me in a painful bear hug, then dragged me across my small living room, into the bed area and onto the bed. He hit me a glancing blow on the nose and my head fell back, exposing my neck. His weight on my chest, he put both hands around my throat and started squeezing.
I've never been closer to death (my own, that is), and that includes a couple of truly terrifying cab rides. And I knew it. So I did the thing I didn't want to do, even so. It's the most disgusting thing you can imagine, even though all the self-defense experts on TV say you should do it. My left hand was caught under me, but my right hand was free. I jammed my first two fingers into his open left eye as hard as I could. It was as gross as I feared it would be. I felt jelly. He reared back, letting go of me, and fell off the bed. There was goo on his face and my fingers. Despite the shiver of disgust that washed all over my body, I grabbed my now-handy bat and swung it at his head right before his scream hit the air; it got cut off midroar. His hands swung out to try to capture the bat, but he m
issed it—what with having only one eye and all.
I jumped off the bed and pounded the end of the bat directly on his windpipe. I brought the bat down from the sky right onto it, like a sledgehammer. I felt the cartilage give, but he wasn't done. This time, he grabbed for my legs and managed to knock me down. I fell on my ass, and as he tried to keep breathing, he pulled himself on top of me and tried to strangle me one last time. I wove my left arm through his and pinched his nose, hoping maybe that would give him even more trouble getting air in. He seemed to be choking on something, and I felt his hands loosen a little, but I think I may have passed out for a few seconds. I came to quickly, but he was dead.
I lay, shocked and exhausted, under him for a little bit. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to see his mangled and bloody face. The apartment was so quiet. I realized I had completely forgotten to scream.
Like any normal human being, Sam looked around again at the apartment at the end of my recitation, imagining, I guess, exactly what had gone on where. The corners of his mouth turned down a tiny bit; a thought had passed by, but I would never know what it was.
"I just missed it," he said, almost to himself.
"Do you mean you wished you had gotten the chance to see it, or that you would have helped one of us out?" It was strange, but I had no problem, actually expressing my worst thoughts to him.
He looked at me sternly and didn't respond.
"What did you do with the body?" I asked, not unreasonably.
"It is gone," he said.
"Gone as in forever, or gone as in someday to wash up on a beach?"
"Forever." He looked at me. "You do not need to know more than that."
We exchanged glances, and for a second I could swear we had the same thought: The only way I'm safe is if this other person is dead. But that was pretty funny really, 'cause he wouldn't have done what he did if he didn't like me or something, and I would be stuck with a dead body on my hands if he hadn't gotten rid of it. It was only for a second, I think.
"What are you going to tell anyone who asks about him?" Sam inquired.
"Who's gonna ask? It was just a first date."
"If somebody should."
I thought a minute. "Well, if I say I went out with him, then someone may know about his ugly habit and might get suspicious, so I guess I'll say that I stood him up. I was finishing up work on a story and lost track of time."
He nodded approvingly. "I will give that some thought. But it sounds reasonable."
What a character! "I will give that some thought," he says, as if it were his decision. On the other hand, he did seem to have some experience in this nether world of crime. Did he see himself as a possible mentor?
"You are going to be sore tomorrow," he warned.
"I'm a little sore now," I said, but he didn't seem to get the pun.
He looked at me steadily for a while but didn't say anything. He appeared to be thinking. I took it for a few minutes, but then I leaned my head back against the couch and closed my eyes. I started to think, too. I thought about cleaning up my ravaged apartment. Then I started to speculate on other ways I could have killed him. If we'd been in the kitchen longer, knives and other utensils could have been used by either of us. Wait a minute—I hadn't wanted to kill this guy. There's an irony for you. I had opened up and told him what my feelings were. He had not thanked me for sharing. He hadn't cared a bit. I guess at the end, there had been no pretense at all on either of our parts. I was glad Ben was dead. I'll bet everyone who knew him well would be—if they ever found out.
I didn't feel disgusted with myself at the memory of my kissing him, though. I felt disgusted with myself that I had expressed any concern whatsoever about what I realized now had to be that bogus story of his about getting in trouble at work. He must have thought I was the perfect sap. I felt embarrassed. If I hadn't been such a nice, concerned little citizen, worried about a total stranger's well-being, I wouldn't have had a tiling to regret.
I smelled something and opened my eyes. Sam was smoking one of my cigarettes. He looked at me through the smoke, and then he actually smiled.
"This is nice," he said softly. I somehow knew he meant just sitting together, quietly thinking.
"You know, you're every bit as inappropriate as I am," I couldn't help noting.
This time, he grinned. He silently finished his cigarette. Suddenly, I felt very tired.
"Are you planning to leave here ever?"
"Ever," he said with no inflection at all, but his eyes didn't look wounded. "Do you want me to stay here while you sleep tonight?" He sounded a little concerned.
"No," I answered.
"Do you think you can sleep now?"
"Yes." My turn. "Are you going to tell me what you're doing here tonight, at some point?"
"Very likely," he said.
We left it hanging there for a few moments. Then I got up and walked to the door. He followed slowly.
"So is this, like, a first date?" I asked archly.
"But you do not have to kiss me good night," he said, and walked out the door.
18
Sam
She may have been feeling no shock, but I was. Shocked at myself for what I had just done.
I had seen what appeared to be two struggling figures through the sheer curtains of her apartment window, and I did not waste a moment. But I had had to break into the two master locks on the outside doors and run up a set of stairs. By the time I stood outside her door, I could hear nothing behind it, just silence. And at that moment, it seemed that all the autonomic systems in my body came to a jolting stop. I thought she was dead.
I know how quickly that can happen. Every little thought and quirk and mannerism and dream wiped out in an instant.
Everything I loved about her, and somehow my whole future, insane as that thought was, gone. When I knocked on the door and called her name, I was more wishing than hoping that there would be a response. Somehow she held a key to me, this girl. Even if it was to a vault no reasonable person would want to open.
I believe I showed no sign of relief when that door opened. My professionalism took over completely. I realize now that I may have struck her as a little on the cold side, yet she did not respond in any way negatively. She was charming, actually. If the man in her apartment had not already been dead, I would have killed him without hesitation.
After all the explanations I could not keep myself from staring at her. All I could think about was how it would feel to have her in my arms. But I knew I could not act. It would have been in extremely poor taste at this juncture.
I was almost grateful when she finally ordered me out, though I could have sat there much longer, gazing at her silently, pretending that this was a typical evening for us, that we were already lovers, entirely comfortable sharing a quiet moment with each other.
Yes, I could ask myself what in the world I thought I was doing. But I knew, and I am realist enough to accept where I found myself then. I could not think of other circumstances where I would have put myself, with so little to gain, in such a dangerous situation. Disposing of a dead body I had had nothing to do with, revealing myself. But I am human, after all. The motivation: to lie beside her some night after possessing her completely. An inadequate one generally, by my lights, but somehow, in this situation, not entirely ridiculous. A reasonable man must know and accept his own unreasonable side.
I believe I hid my feelings from her successfully—except for my having been there in the first place.
If I had been as intelligent a man as I had always prided myself on being, I would have killed her then. Given my already potentially self-destructive actions, she presented perhaps the gravest danger I had ever faced.
But that is, by definition, love.
19
Grace
I was beginning to think maybe I should start trying to schedule a vacation. The next day, Saturday, I was quite distressed. I mean, this whole thing was starting to take a toll on me. I can't be killi
ng man after man without some ill effect.
That sounds very callous, doesn't it? I don't mean it that way. I'm not going to say that the first two made me do it. I just didn't know what to do with them. But the last one, he did make me do it. The big bully. I showed him. And I can't say that I'm sorry.
I spent the whole day cleaning up my apartment, putting shelves back together, picking up pieces of glass from the remaining rug. It was slow going because, in fact, I was very sore. Everything hurt. It was much worse than a vigorous workout after weeks of doing nothing. Trying to fit my bookshelves back together, I couldn't help thinking that there are certainly times when a man would come in handy. A good man, not a date rapist. Or maybe not so good a man.
Who was he? Sam, I mean. If I closed my eyes, I could see him, sort of. He was tall. And definitely older. Dark, dark eyes and gray-tinged, close-cropped black hair with no part. He wasn't fat; in fact, he was a little on the thin side. Kind of a craggy face. A wide mouth? I know it sounds crazy, but I really didn't have a very specific picture of him in my mind. I mean, there was so much going on, and sometimes when I'm a little distracted, I have trouble really seeing people. I had felt pretty calm at the time, but I had just a general image of him in my brain, so maybe I hadn't been as calm as I'd seemed.
But I knew he wasn't a good man. Maybe good for me, as it turned out. The night before, anyway, but his appearance had raised a lot of interesting questions. How had he known what was happening? Was he just passing by? Please. I don't have that kind of luck. Oh, let's face it, he was dangerous. That's what he was. Probably a lot more than Ben, but the strongest sense I had about him was that he wouldn't do anything to hurt me. It just was his vibe. Not here to hurt you. That's what I got. It was kind of a nice feeling, in the midst of everything that was terribly wrong in my life. There's never been anyone who just wanted to help. God, and I'd been so rude to him. I don't know how I could have been, but it had been so easy.