“I don’t know him.”
“Don’t lie to me, Terry. I know that you do. It’s something we have in common, it seems.”
X put the paper down and pulled out the stapled tax forms that Anne had printed out for her.
“You see, I knew him carnally. You knew him because he was your consultant.”
“No,” Compton said. “It’s an error.”
“Look!” she screamed, “it’s right here on his tax return! He worked as a private consultant for you. You paid him a large amount of money.”
“I don’t know him,” Compton said, squirming in his seat.
“His name is Andrew,” she said. “He worked for you shortly after I broke up with him, judging by the year on the tax return. He’s an accountant. In fact, he did my taxes for a couple years. He had all the passwords to my bank accounts.”
Silence.
“Answer me, Terry. I want to hear your side of things. I want to hear how you explain it.”
X took out the gun and pointed it at him. Compton’s pulse accelerated. He had never had a gun pointed at him before.
“Call Simeon,” X said.
“Who?” he asked, her darkest suspicions being confirmed with the timbre of his answer.
“Ryan Simeon,” she said. “Tell him to come to the dungeon,” X commanded, dialing Simeon’s number and holding up a brand-new pay-as-you-go phone to Compton.
*
They waited.
“I want to know why,” X said.
Why? That is a difficult question to answer. Humans are always asking why. Compton was the kind of man who asked why not. But he looked at her and saw that she wanted her answer. X wanted an answer. How could he explain it? Certain things cannot be explained, although people are always trying. They would evaporate the ocean into a handful of salt just so they could hold it in their palm.
“Why did you do this?”
This. He interpreted her pronoun. That was what he did, interpret things. Compton interpreted the markets, he interpreted events and societal shifts and applied these to the markets. Interpretation was a kind of magic, a translation of one thing to another, a type of mediumship. It wasn’t so much that X wanted to know why, he thought, as she wanted him to interpret a logic, a rationale that did not exist. There were a million reasons. Why did people do anything that they did?
Compton tried to explain. “Women would come to my dungeon, but there was always the script, the act. It was pretend. I never knew if they even liked what they were doing or if they were just doing it for the money. How can you tell the nature of a person if they are always pretending?”
Compton was restrained in his chair, but X still held the gun. She wanted to keep it in her hand. It had fused into her flesh. A huge gun. It made her feel safe to hold it. Secure.
“Pretending?” she asked. “Everything you did was pretend. A ruse.”
Ruse. In Latin, it meant deny, reject, oppose. Compton thought that X’s term for what he had done was perfect. He had rejected the accepted way of doing things. It had always been that way. He couldn’t help himself.
“You weren’t pretending,” he replied. “Tell me why you branded Simeon. Tell me why you beat me until I bled and then threw salt into my wounds.” Compton’s penis swelled up at the memories. “You took pleasure in causing pain. That was real.”
“It’s not true,” she said. “I didn’t give you my consent. I didn’t agree to play your sick game.”
“Tell me, X, did you get my consent when you blackmailed me?”
“I took the money so I could get away from you.”
“Did you get Simeon’s consent when you burned him with your mark?”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. Our motivations are different, but our means and ends are the same.”
“How is that?”
“You acted to preserve yourself. You wanted revenge for your own suffering, for the situation you were in. Tell me that you took no delight in taking my money, my painting, tell me that you didn’t get a jolt of pleasure at the thought of me suffering.”
“You think you know my motivations. What are yours?”
X pointed the gun to his crotch. Compton squirmed a little in his metal chair. If he had paid thousands for gunplay in his dungeon, it wouldn’t have been this good, couldn’t have compared to the thrill of a loaded .44 Magnum pointed at him by X.
“You wouldn’t understand it. You don’t want to understand it. You want to retain your moral superiority. Does there always have to be an explanation? Can I not do something solely because it gives me pleasure to do so? Motivations mean nothing; they are a child’s excuse, a childish explanation.”
“It gives you pleasure to corrupt others, to contaminate them, to spread your wickedness like a virus.”
“Why say one machine is bad and another is good when they function the same way and produce the same thing? You felt that you were morally superior and that justified your cruelty. The easiest way to get someone to do something bad is to have them convince themselves that they are doing something good.”
“You put me into this place and that is why I did what I did.”
“You acted out of your own accord, you and Simeon both. I set the stage but the play was your own.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“All those clothes, did you give them all to charity? Did you donate the Van Gogh to a museum?
She hadn’t. That was true.
He continued. “You wanted to dislike the wealth. You wanted to dislike me and Simeon. When you couldn’t hate us anymore, when you started to actually like us, even love us, you felt guilt because you want to be better than we are.”
“I’m not your slave to do with as you please.”
Tell me, X, what slavery is greater than the slavery of love?”
Silence.
Compton spoke. “We are alike, all of us, we are cut from the same cloth. Our essential natures are the same. That is true.”
“No.”
“You hate me now because you hate the parts of us that are the same.”
“I don’t hate you. I pity you.”
“You will search for this the rest of your days. In the future when you beat men or ask them to beat you, you will yearn for this, for its authenticity. Consent creates a charade.”
“No.”
“At least I can admit what I am,” he said. A few beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead. “Tell me your name, X, your real name.”
“You know my real name.”
“Do you think that your parents could have ever imagined how fitting your name would be, how perfect? I want to hear you say it. I want to hear the sounds come out of your mouth, see your lips shape the words.”
He didn’t deserve it and she would keep it from him.
“My name is X.”
“Is that your name? What is your real name? The one your parents gave you or the one you gave yourself? Is X true?”
Behind her, X heard a key turning in the lock and she darted into a corner. She had made Compton tell Steinberg to allow Simeon into the dungeon, told him to lie to Steinberg and say that X had already left with the driver.
When Simeon entered the room, he saw Compton secured in the metal bondage chair. Then, he heard a voice behind him.
“We’re so glad you came,” X said, pointing the gun at him. “Put those cuffs on,” she said, motioning to a pair she had set onto the floor, and he obeyed.
Once they were on, X kicked him in the nuts.
Simeon dropped to the floor in pain, gripping his testicles. Pain shot through him, radiating from the center of his being.
“You’re lucky I don’t blow your face off!” she said as she listened to him gasp the air. “Get in the chair!” she demanded, and Simeon climbed onto the wooden seat next to Compton, his face still a tangle of pain.
X pistol whipped him, and it pleased Compton to see this, the full circle of Simeon and X’s interaction,
their cycle complete.
“Good to see you,” a grinning Compton said to Simeon.
“You have some explaining to do,” she said to Simeon, “you both do.”
Simeon, his face still red from the pain, said, “I never thought you’d figure it out.”
X ran the tip of the gun down his cheek. “Is Ryan your real name?”
“Yes,” he answered breathlessly as he stared at the floor. He looked over to Compton and directed a question to him. “How did she find out?” he asked.
X picked the newspaper up and handed it to Simeon who held it with his cuffed hands.
“This picture, back when Terry still had his mustache. I thought it was strange that my old boyfriend, a man who had a real taste for submission, was in that photo.”
Simeon shook his head in disbelief. Fucking newspapers.
Now that he was able to sit up again, X removed the duct tape from her bag and wrapped it around Simeon’s torso, securing him to the chair, keeping the gun in her hand as she did it, and once it was done she just left the roll of tape dangling at his side.
She posed a question to Compton. “Why did you have Simeon imply you were a murderer?”
Compton replied. “It gave you a reason to detest me other than my wealth. A reason to want to punish me. What is more despicable than a murderer?”
X, as she looked at Compton, thought that perhaps she was staring at the answer to that question. He had murdered something within her.
“And you,” she said, pointing the gun at Simeon, “why did you go along with it, aside from whatever money Compton paid you? Why did you get involved?”
When Simeon gave X nothing but silence, Compton answered for him.
“He was there at the meeting when your former boyfriend, Andrew, was going over the expenditures with me. They saw all the purchases of my dungeon equipment.”
“You’re an accountant?” X asked Simeon in disbelief, repeating it to herself in order to try to make it seem real, “an accountant?”
Simeon shook his head yes.
Compton smirked. “Accountants, my dear, are some of the biggest tricksters you might ever meet.”
“But you were shot. I saw the scar on your back,” X said.
Simeon laughed. “The scar isn’t from a bullet. I had a mole that I got removed. They took off a lot of skin.”
“You had CIA credentials.”
“Almost anything can be forged,” Simeon responded. “Ask Compton.”
“But those men who kidnapped me, you shot them. I saw you shoot them.”
“Did you see me shoot them, or did you hear a gun and hear them drop onto the floor? There was a blanket covering you. Did you see blood? Did you see their wounds?”
X had broken out of her subjective reality. No, she hadn’t seen their wounds. Simeon was right. X had been on the couch, covered up with the blanket, paralyzed with fear when she heard the gun, one that clearly had been shooting blanks.
Compton seemed so calm, completely unaffected by what was occurring. It wouldn’t do any good to hit him, or spit at him, or insult him; Compton would enjoy the treatment. Instead, X lifted up her hand and placed it onto his cheek as if giving him a blessing.
She remembered how she had been beaten when she had been kidnapped, remembered how the men had made her beg Terry for ransom money as they recorded her pleas. And what had the tall one said after the smaller one had blackened her eye? He said not to fuck up her face. Now, as she looked at Compton, she knew who the man was ultimately referring to, knew where the instructions had trickled down from.
“You had me kidnapped, Terry. Twice. For your own selfish pleasure.” X pulled her hand away.
She told Simeon, “The bug, and the software, and the list of who he was with—getting me to do that stuff—that was clever.”
“It was Compton’s idea. It had to seem real. And,” Simeon paused, “he wanted to see how you would go about it. He wanted to know how you would complete your tasks. The way you told him that you had put the pencil up your snatch, that was hilarious! We laughed about it for weeks!”
Simeon broke down laughing. It all made sense now. The way Simeon had gotten invited to the orgy; the way Simeon had made her take photos of Compton, putting the idea of blackmail into her mind; the reason they had tried to get her to dominate Ventura; the reason she had been recorded when she begged for her ransom money: Compton got off on it all.
X lifted up the gun and pointed it at Simeon. “What you did was illegal. You didn’t give me a choice. You didn’t have my consent.”
“Life is an illusion of choice,” Simeon muttered. “We never forced you to have sex with anybody. You did that on your own.”
Yes, she had fucked them, X knew.
“There’s nothing better than a good mind-fuck,” Simeon said.
“I’m not your bird in a cage,” she said dejectedly, realizing that she had only been free to fly within the confines that they had provided.
X felt that she might laugh, might actually break down not in tears, but in laughter. How humiliating it was now to know that she had been fooled, not the kind of humiliation that she had doled out to Compton when she insulted him or made fun of his small penis, a ridicule and teasing which seemed so tame now. No, X’s humiliation was the real thing. She had been caught in the trap of her own assumptions.
All this time, X had lived in the illusion that she had been making her own decisions within the constraints of the situation, thinking she had been acting in obedience to Simeon when in fact it was Compton’s will that had directed her, shepherding her through a labyrinth of his own making, shuttling her to this end. Shame: it entered her and exploded, scattering its shrapnel throughout her being and leaving its carnage. Compton recognized its appearance; its entrance changed the air somehow. He could taste it. He wanted X to develop her own appreciation for the cloying, fermented brine, an acquired taste to be sure.
“So, while you and Ryan and Andrew were going over the receipts for your dungeon, Andrew told you all about me?”
“Yes,” Compton answered. “He told us about you. He told us what you did to him. He told us how you did it. He said that your methods were both physical and psychological. The man worshipped you.”
“That was none of your business,” X said.
“Andrew told us all the details,” Simeon said, injuring her. “He told us about how you would make him go out all day to find you a rock, and if you didn’t like it, you’d send him back out to look for another one. He told us how you used to make him go out to beg on the street, how you made him polish another man’s shoes. He said you were the perfect dominatrix, that they broke the mold after they made you.”
“And Andrew, did he have any part in this?”
“No,” Compton replied. “Later, when just Ryan and I were working together, he and I began to discuss it more, to discuss you more. Andrew had no part in our plans other than the fact that he had told us about your existence.”
X didn’t believe him. They had had her bank statements. Andrew had known about the men before him who had given her money; he had wanted to know what the largest amount was that a man had ever given her as a tribute and then exceed it. He had warned her to make sure men didn’t write her checks in the future, an occurrence which had happened only a few times. He had betrayed her.
She turned back to Simeon. “Answer my question. Why did you go along with it?” She so deeply wanted to know why.
As she waited for his answer, X’s heart pounded in her chest. Finally, he spoke.
“I wanted to see what it was like to truly dominate someone.”
Domination—it was about more than who held the whip—it was about who held the power. That was true: Simeon had dominated her. He had made her do things that she didn’t want to do. And when she protested, Simeon had threatened her with punishments in the same way that X had always done to her submissives. And though he had struck her upon their first meeting, pistol-whipped her and nearly knocke
d her unconscious, the extent of the wounds that he had inflicted now became evident to X, the fissures, lacerations, and mutilation that Simeon had caused was now unwrapped. Torture and abuse, X knew, could be mental as well as physical.
Submission and domination—they were the pasteurized versions of masochism and sadism, purified by the application of consent, an approval which she had never given.
“You should have just gone on the web and found a fucking sub then!”
X spit at him and it clung to his cheek before sliding down his neck.
“And the bet,” Simeon added haphazardly.
“The bet?” X asked, looking questioningly at Compton. “You two had a bet?”
Compton reluctantly shook his head yes.
“What was the bet?”
Compton answered. “It was in regards to what people respected more, submission or dominance. What a woman would love.”
“Tell me about the bet!” X yelled, enraged.
Compton said, “I bet that your favor would fall to the dominant man, Simeon, and he bet that it would fall to the submissive man, the rich man who would do anything or buy anything for you. The best bet is one in which both parties ultimately win.”
“I guess I owe you a dollar,” Simeon said, laughing, and X struck him as hard as she could across the face, causing his lip to split open, causing it to perforate like an overly-ripe tomato that had bust open on the windowsill.
Compton ignored her strike. “I wasn’t surprised when you began to favor Simeon,” Compton said. “It is human nature to worship dominance. You could say that it is the order of our species.”
The words ricocheted through X’s mind, order of our species. A mnemonic phrase came into her head, one that she had not thought of since she was still wearing training bras, something she had used to remember the taxonomic hierarchy for her biology class—Dumb King Philip Climbed Over Five Girl Scouts. And what was the order of our species? The primate. It made sense to her now. Simeon was more than just a name, it was a reference: simian. He probably didn’t even know that Compton was insulting him in the name choice.
“But you play the sub,” X countered.
Compton responded, “True. But only because I, too, worship dominance.”
Edge Play X Page 26