by Anne Rice
I moved a little ways into the room. Big curving iron stairs to the far right, tower room overhead. Smell of incense mingled with the smell of the fire. Smell of books.
The distant lights of San Francisco seemed to pulse more strongly beyond the leaded glass.
“I have some things to say,” I said.
He got a cigarette out of his pocket and had a little trouble closing in with the lighter. Glad to see that. Then he threw me a glance the way people throw a punch. Eyes very blue thanks to the darker tan. Got to be one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen. Even when the mouth is mean.
I took a deep breath.
“So go ahead,” he said. He looked directly at me this time and held it.
Chills from his voice.
“I ah . . . came here . . .” Stop. Breathe. “I came here to tell you that I . . .”
Silence.
“Well, I’m listening.”
“. . . that I love you.”
No change in his expression. Then the cigarette rising very slowly to the lip.
“I love you,” I said again. “And I ah . . . I loved you when you told me you loved me. I just couldn’t say it. I was afraid.”
Silence.
“I fell in love with you and I lost my head. I ran away with you and I fucked everything up because I didn’t know how to handle it, didn’t know what to do.”
Silence.
Face changing slightly. Softening, or it might have been an illusion. Head cocked to the side just a little. Temper and the coldness melting so slowly that I really couldn’t be sure.
The fire hurt my eyes suddenly, like there was smoke in the place or something. But what the hell damn difference did it make, whether he was still mad?
I was going to say it all no matter what he did. No matter what he said. I knew that it was right to say it, it was right to come and tell him everything, and right in the middle of it all, dead center in the pain, I felt this strange elation, this relief.
I stopped looking at him. I just looked past him at the glittering outline of the Golden Gate, at the city lights.
“I love you,” I said again. “I love you so much that I am willing to make a fool of myself coming here. I don’t want ever to be separated from you. I’d have gone after you to Hong Kong or Kathmandu to tell you these things.”
Silence.
The lights seemed alive along the curve of the bridge, alive in the skyscrapers that climbed like ladders to the stars.
“I ah . . . I owe you all kinds of apologies,” I said, “for what I did, for spoiling The Club for you.”
“To hell with The Club,” he said.
I looked at him slowly, cautiously, so that if he looked really mean, I could quickly detach, look away. But I couldn’t tell with the flicker of the fire and the shadows. All I could clearly see was that he was Elliott and that he was a little closer to me than he had been a moment ago. But my eyes were watering badly now and I knew I had to take out the goddamned handkerchief for the umpteenth time.
“I mean somebody else would have handled it all better,” I said. “Somebody else would have known what to say, what to do. All I knew was I couldn’t stay at The Club with you and be in love with you. I couldn’t love you and be the person that I was there. I know I should have told you in New Orleans, but I was so afraid that you wanted to go back to The Club. I knew I couldn’t do it anymore, the roles and all. I thought I was going to disa . . . I was going to disappoint you. Make things even worse than they were. Really let you down.”
Silence.
“Well, the fact is I still can’t do it. Even now. Something’s snapped in my head that makes all that impossible. I can’t do it anymore with you. And I don’t know if I can ever do it again with anyone else. It became artificial. It became like a trap.”
I shut my eyes for a second. He was just staring at me when I opened them again.
“But you were never an escape route. It was you—you who made it fall apart—you and me.”
He was staring, but the face softened, becoming obviously emotional yet in a secretive way.
“And if you don’t want me this way,” I said, “the way it was those last few days, I understand. I mean it’s not what you came for, right? I understand if you don’t answer me. I understand if you call me names. But that’s what happened. And I love you. I am in love with you and I’ve never said that to anyone else.”
I blew my nose and wiped my eyes.
And I stood looking at the floor, and thinking, well, it’s done. Whatever happens, it’s done. The worst was over. And I had a splendid sense of that, that it was over. It had its chance now, whatever it was going to be. There was no impediment now.
So let him blow up.
Silence.
“Well, anyway. That’s what I had to tell you,” I said. “That I love you, that I’m sorry for what I did.”
Tears again.
“This is really something,” I said, “this crying at regular four-hour intervals. It’s getting almost to feel natural, like a new kind of sadomasochism, the heat and the chills.”
The room was fading like the light was being closed off. And then coming back gradually and brightly. He had come closer, blotting out the light of the fire a little, and now he was right in front of me, and I could see the light over his shoulder. I could smell his cologne and the sea salt smell of his hair and skin.
I was disintegrating. It was as bad as I told Martin it was. I wanted to reach out for him, to hold on to him. But we were both standing there, not moving. And I couldn’t, didn’t dare be the first one to touch.
“You know, I ah . . . I booked the plane to Venice,” I said. “I had this idea, that maybe somehow we could get it going again. And this time we could really take off. In Venice, we could just walk and we could talk things out. I mean if it could be patched up between us, if you . . . I mean if it isn’t totally fucked.”
Silence.
“You remember you said there is no city in the world other than New Orleans for walking quite like Venice.”
Silence.
“You said that,” he said.
“I did? Well, you know the food in Venice, well, I mean the pasta and the wine and all.” Shrug from me. “Well, I thought it was worth a try.” I looked directly at him. “I thought it was worth anything and everything actually . . . I’d do anything to get you back.”
“Anything?” he asked.
“Yeah, anything, except . . .” Be the Perfectionist. You wouldn’t ask me to be that. . .
“Like marry me? Be my wife?”
“Marry you!”
“That’s what I said.”
For a second I was too stunned to answer. He looked as if he was perfectly serious, and he was so beautiful that I could hardly stand it.
“Marry you!” I said again.
“Yes, marriage, Lisa,” he said with the smallest smile. “You know, like walking down the hill and introducing me to your dad? And later driving up to Sonoma and meeting mine? And maybe having a little wedding in the wine country, with your family and my family and—”
“Hold it!” I said.
“I thought you said you loved me. You wanted to be with me forever . . . You’d do anything to get me back. Well, I love you, you know that, you’re probably sick of hearing it by now. And I want to get married to you, Lisa. That’s what forever means to me! That’s what love means, too.” His voice was getting louder, more determined. “No more just screwing around like we did on the road. It’s you and me married, with the rings and the vows and all the rest.”
“You’re shouting at me, Elliott,” I said. I backed away from him. It was like somebody had hit me. Go down the hill and meet my father! Get married. For Chrissakes.
“I’m not shouting,” he said.
He took a drag off the cigarette and went and smashed it out in the ashtray on the table, all of these gestures like some kind of preparation for a barroom fight.
“I mean I am shouting at you, becau
se you’re so stupid,” he said. “Because you don’t know yourself, who you really are. Because I was stupid not to tell you in New Orleans that I didn’t want for either of us to go back to the fun and games at The Club. I let those sexual whiz kids talk me into leaving you there, which was punk as far as I’m concerned. And I don’t like to be ashamed of myself. I want to marry you. That’s what I want.”
“Look, Elliott. I’m so in love with you that I’m going to pieces,” I said. “I’m walking away from everything I’ve done since I was eighteen. My life, the career I built, crazy as it was. All gone because of you! But marriage! Old-fashioned marriage? Ceremonies and rings and vows . . . ?”
“Wrong. All wrong,” he said. “Not old-fashioned marriage. Our marriage.” He took out another cigarette and struggled with the lighter. “And who asked you to turn your back on your career for me?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That I want to marry you, the person you are! And that means Lisa, the brains behind The Club as well as the woman standing here, the woman I was with in New Orleans. You’re the one who’s ashamed of what you do, damn it, and you have been from the start. I never asked you to give it up. I’m not asking you now.”
“Be married and work at The Club? You’re talking crazy.”
“No. I’m talking the way life is. Lisa, neither of us gives a damn about The Club now. We have what we want. We’re clear on that. But the time is bound to come when you’ll think about going back there.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said. “You can’t create something that complicated, that successful for so many others and not feel some pride, some involvement still in what you’ve done . . .”
“And what about you?” I countered. “Will the time come when you’ll want the fun and games again? Are you missing them now?”
“No,” he said calmly. “But to be perfectly frank, I don’t know what may happen as time goes on. Right now it doesn’t seem possible to go that route again. I want you. But whatever happens, I want us to have a bond between us, a contract, if you will, that makes us our own little club of two. I’m talking about the strength to handle things together. I’m talking about fidelity, but I’m talking about honesty, too.”
“Elliott, let’s just leave here. Let’s just go and . . .”
“No way, Lisa.”
I stood glaring at the fire, watching him out of the corner of my eye.
“We’ve been down too many kinky roads, you and me. An affair with us wouldn’t have a chance. You’d wake up one morning, start thinking about The Club, and go catatonic. I’d never know from moment to moment whether I still had you. No way. But marriage, that’s different. We will have our rituals and our contract, and we’ll give it all we’ve got. And that’s what it’s going to need to have a chance.”
I turned around and faced him. And I don’t think I saw all the marvelous physical details, the blue of the eyes, the soft line of the mouth. I wasn’t afraid he’d touch me or kiss me and mix me up. I saw only somebody that I knew really well, that I had been closer to than anyone else I’d ever known. In spite of the tension between us, I felt almost safe.
“And you believe it could work?” I asked.
“Of course, I do,” he said. “If you can make a place like The Club, you can do anything you want.”
“Oh, you’re putting me on.”
“No, I’m not. Just giving credit where it’s due.” He had a defiant look. His eyes were large the way people’s eyes get when they are daring somebody. “Let me love you,” he said. “After all the risks you’ve taken, can’t you trust me this much?”
He came forward and put his arms out, but again I turned away and stepped back.
“Okay!” he said angrily. He put up his hands and backed off. “You think it over. You stay here and think it over. The freezer’s full of steaks. There’s wood for the fireplace. The house is yours! I’m going to Hong Kong. You call me if you want to get married. You say I do. We do. I’ll come right back.”
He marched over to the table, crushed out the second cigarette like he was murdering it, and picked up the phone. He was blazing red again.
“Wait a minute,” I said.
“Nope, got to go to Hong Kong,” he said. “No more waiting on the boss lady who’s always got to run the scenario, have things her own way.”
He was punching in the number.
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“The hell it’s not.”
“You wanna ride to Hong Kong?” I asked. “In a nice cushy private jet?”
He stopped punching the buttons.
“Nice ride after that to Kathmandu? And maybe Tokyo after that?”
He turned and looked at me.
“We’ll steal the plane,” I said. “We’ll go to Venice and—Hey, I know what we’ll do. We’ll go to the film festival at Cannes!”
“Can’t get into the Carlton now. Everything’s booked. Let’s go to Hong Kong.”
“The hell with the Carlton. The Club has its own houseboat there. We’ll go there first, then we’ll steal the plane and go to Hong Kong. It’s going to make them furious when we steal the plane.”
“And we get married in Cannes. Maybe in a little French church.”
“Jesus Christ. A church.”
“Come on, Lisa!”
He slammed down the phone hard enough to break it.
“Martin was right about you,” I said. “You’re a romantic. You’re mad.”
“You’re figuring it wrong,” he said. “I just like it when things are a little risky. I like it when it’s a little dangerous. You know what I mean?”
He looked ominous for a second, his eyebrows knotted, his mouth just a tiny bit hard.
Then the smile came back, sort of irresistible.
“Like skydiving off a cliff . . .” I said.
“Kind of . . .”
“Like pushing an Ultralite plane as high as it will go . . .”
“Sort of . . .”
“Like wandering around El Salvador and Beirut with a war on . . .
“Maybe, a little . . .”
“Like signing up as a slave for two years at a place like The Club.”
“Yeah.” He laughed, but very quietly, almost as if it was meant to be secret, as if the joke was something I couldn’t really fully appreciate the way he could. He was next to me in a second, his arms right around me, and didn’t give me a chance to turn away.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “I’m trying to think.”
Those blot-out kisses, scent, taste of Elliott, Elliott’s lips, Elliott’s skin.
“Now you know it’s going to be worth it,” he said.
“Stop,” I said softly. I couldn’t see anything. Absolutely paralyzing kisses. “I wonder why the hell I’m bothering to fight.”
“Hmmmm. I’m wondering the same thing,” he said. “God, I missed you. And you wore this damned white dress just to drive me out of my head, didn’t you? And this damned white hat.”
He wouldn’t stop kissing me. He was undoing the buttons at my neck.
“Stop it, wait till we’re on the plane.”
“What plane?” he said. He was reaching up under my slip, pulling at my panties, ripping the zipper down the back of the dress.
“Will you cut it out, you’re tearing the dress, damn it. All right, I’ll do it. Now, stop it. Wait till we get on the plane.”
“Do what?” he asked. He was pulling my hair down, pulling off my hat.
“Get married, damn it!” I shouted. “That’s what!” I went to slug him but he ducked.
“You will. You’ll marry me!”
“Well, that’s just what I was trying to say while you were tearing my clothes to pieces, for God’s sakes.”
“Oh, my God, you mean it. You’ll do it! Oh, shit, Lisa, I’m scared to death.”
“Goddamn you, Elliott.” I swung at him with the purse and got him as he put up his arms. He was laughing.
�
�Well, come on then for Chrissakes,” he said ducking the next swing and catching me by the waist. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go to Cannes, baby doll. And Hong Kong, and Venice—I don’t care where we go!”
He pulled me towards the door.
“You’re breaking my ankle!” I said.
I tried to fix my zipper while he and the driver threw his bags in the back of the car. He ran back into the house to lock up.
It was really night now, and the view of San Francisco was burning out there beyond the edge of the garden, and when the house went dark, it was the only light I could see.
My heart was pounding the way it had that very first time years and years ago when I had crossed the bridge into the city with Barry, that faceless kid whom I never knew. It was pounding the way it had the day I went to meet Jean Paul, or drove south with him to the master’s estate in Hillsborough, or went to see Martin at The House.
But this time the old raw excitement was mixed with a new emotion, too rich and exquisite to be anything but pure love.
Elliott was two steps away from me and the driver had started the engine. And I was holding on to my hat and looking up at the constellations the way I had a thousand times on this mountain ever since I was a little girl.
“Come on, Mrs. Slater,” he said.
He picked me up the same way he had in New Orleans and set me down inside the car.
I clung to him as the limo made its awkward lumbering turn on the narrow hillside, tumbling us even closer together.
“Tell me again that you love me,” he said.
“I love you,” I said.
Also by Anne Rice
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
Blood Canticle
Blackwood Farm
The Master of Rampling Gate
Blood and Gold
Merrick
Vittorio the Vampire
Armand
Pandora
Violin
Servant of the Bones
Memnoch the Devil
Taltos
Lasher
The Tale of the Body Thief
The Witching Hour
The Mummy
The Queen of the Damned
The Vampire Lestat
The Feast of All Saints
Cry To Heaven