by Lolita Files
She couldn’t wait to see Dr. Ripkin again, couldn’t wait to point out how wrong he’d been for always trying to burst her bubble of hope. Ripkin had been beaten up by love, and that was all he knew. He was a bitter man. A good doctor, granted, but a sad sack on the inside who could probably stand a hug or ten. She was so glad she hadn’t bought into his cynicism.
It would have ruined everything she was feeling right now.
Penn stood under the stream of water, scrubbing lather into his perfect pecs and rippling abs. He imagined Beryl strolling around the place. Everything had been strategically positioned the week before, when he first began to lay the real groundwork for the plan. She would be looking at things right about now, he figured. Running her hand across a tabletop here, picking up a knickknack there. Fingering the Wagner collection, noticing his high regard for all things Jessye Norman. She’d be walking down the hallway, perhaps peeking in the linen closet, recognizing the repetition of the color teal and assuming, wrongly, that it was his favorite. She would stand in the doorway of the bedroom, not going in right off, getting her first glimpse of Ekeberg, wondering—as all silly women did—just how many others he’d fucked in that mass-produced slumber trough, knowing within her heart that such a thought was a dangerous one, debating whether she should ask now rather than later, deciding at last that neither time was worth the complication, that she was the only one that mattered now. Silly woman.
He grinned, he couldn’t help himself, steam sliding across and around his pearly whites as condensation swelled against his palate and tongue. He squeezed more of the cheap (albeit pleasant and effective) St. Ives Refreshing Aroma Steam Body Wash onto his cloth and scrubbed the lather into his face, making a mental note that, once the money began to roll in, he would go back to his favorite indulgence—bath, hair, and facial products from Lush, especially now that they’d finally come to the States and set up shop in New York.
In time, in time.
The sting of hot water beating against his flesh was as invigorating as an ecstasy rush. He opened his mouth wide, directly under the stream, letting the orifice fill to the point of expanded cheeks. He spit, shook the excess water from his hair, and placed the soapy washcloth on the shoulder-high ledge. He put his hands on his hips, leaned back, and took a long, long piss, watching the dregs of the Defibrillator swirl down the drain, on its way to the Hudson. This was a habit he’d developed after his parents’ death, pissing in the shower. It was a direct defiance of yet another one of their rules. His mother had instilled in him very early that good boys—well-bred boys—only peed in toilets or urinals. Never in alleys or against a wall, or in a shower, a pool, or the ocean. It didn’t matter how much he needed to go. He must always wait until he could make his release within the proper confines of a restroom.
He sprayed the wall with extra flourish.
Beryl would be inside his bedroom now, he figured, having recovered from the momentary catatonia of contemplating Ekeberg. After that, it was just a matter of nosiness. She might try to behave this first go-round. She was on medication for her obsessive nature, after all. It might take a while to get her to crack. Maybe more than one visit. Several even, he thought.
No worries.
He was prepared for the wait. He was already many steps ahead of the game.
Beryl placed the papers on the right side of the bed and set the glass of water on the (IKEA) nightstand. She didn’t sit. Step by careful step, she made her way around the bedroom, keeping an ear alerted for the sound of running water from the shower, lest he come out too soon and discover her prying.
There were no pictures of his dead parents anywhere. She wondered why. She knew the reason she didn’t have any photos of hers. They’d never taken pictures, had never been the kind of family that did things like that, had never even owned a camera. The photos in her home were of her with bosses, authors, associates, and people of other wise import within New York, national, and international society. But Penn was a rich kid. Wasn’t that what his buddy on the answering machine had said? She would think he’d have his parents’ photos around somewhere. Or some pics of old girlfriends, at the least. What kinds of women were they? Drop-dead models, she bet, the kind who would make her feel so insecure, she would second-guess him ever wanting to be with her when measured against their beauty.
“I shouldn’t snoop,” she said. “Better to not know than to torture myself.”
Right. Right.
She very, very quietly opened the first, then second drawer of the nightstand. Nothing but paperbacks in both, all books on philosophy. Philosophy? She moseyed over to the (IKEA) dresser, careful not to make much noise. There was nothing on top but a sterling silver comb engraved with what appeared to be his initials, P.A.H., more stacks of paperbacks—dog-eared copies all—of Shakespeare’s plays, and a dozen tubes of Kiehl’s in three very neat rows of four, four, and four. No photos yet of his parents. Had there been bad blood? Was that the reason why he chose to live so leanly? Or perhaps it was too painful for him to have them around. He said he had abandonment issues, just like her. Could that be it?
“My poor baby,” she whispered. “It must be so hard for him.”
But what about the other girls? If she could just see what one looked like, just one, for practical purposes only, so she would know where the bar was set.
Beryl stood before the dresser, contemplating her next move. Nine drawers loomed before her. Nine chambers of secrecy, potential mother lodes of revelation. She hesitated, listening. The shower was still running. Perhaps there was time. She had to know what was in those nine compartments. The desire to peek was irresistible.
Ripkin had taught her that when she felt her compulsion getting the best of her, when the urge to do something she was sure she shouldn’t do became unbearable, she should count to twenty very slowly while tugging her left ear with one hand and rubbing her belly with the other. She must focus all her energies on this exercise, making sure she got to twenty, counting as though her life depended upon it. It would distract her mind, he said, reroute it until she could get hold of herself enough to overcome whatever irrational desire she was wrestling with in the moment.
She stared at the treasure trove of squares, trying to approximate how long Penn had been in the bathroom versus how much longer he might remain. He wouldn’t just shut off the water and rush right out, she reasoned. He’d have to dry himself, deodorize, brush his teeth, lotion, perhaps even shave. She’d learned from one of Canon Messier’s books that that’s what men did—shit, showered, and shaved, in that exact order, although Penn hadn’t shat, as far as she knew. Maybe he still had to, once he was done showering, and that would buy her even more time. Between the shitting and the shaving, that was a good ten more minutes, easy. She craned her neck, straining to catch any indication of what he might be doing. Still showering. Plus the shit and the shave. She was going to go for it. Against all logic, odds, and self-restraint (which her medication had no effect on anyway), she was going to look in the drawers.
Penn stood on the teal wide-looped pile rug from IKEA, his bath rug, letting the water drain from his body without the assist of a towel. He opened the cabinet and reached for the bottle of aloe-infused baby oil gel. It was part of his ritual. One of the inexpensive ways he kept his skin soft and supple, the stuff ladies dreamed of. She was awful quiet out there. Probably reading the paper. Or not.
She was eight drawers in and, so far, had come across nothing but well-ordered compartments of socks, T-shirts, more Kiehl’s, folded jeans, more T-shirts, a book on Pilates, some Wagner CDs, and a glaring absence of underwear.
No photos of Mom and Dad. No girls, drop-dead or otherwise. No photos at all. Nothing revelatory, as she’d expected.
There was but one drawer left.
Penn’s teeth were brushed and his face was half-shaven. He scrunched his cheek to one side, checking out his skin. Facials. Yes. He would start getting facials again.
It was going to feel so good to be rich.
&
nbsp; Beryl was bent over, tugging at the very last square in the very last quadrant, the lower right one, of the so-far unmysterious dresser. She found herself half hoping for something juicy, something worth all this trouble. She’d feel ashamed of herself if there was no payoff. Shame. That was the negative benefit of an obsessive rush.
She could hear the faucet running in the bathroom. She went for it. She snatched the thing open with bald-faced necessity.
Untitled, a novel by Pennbook A. Hamilton.
Pennbook? His name was Pennbook? Penn book?
A tiny piece of her brain was trying to wrap itself around that. The rest of it was gagging, choking on the truth.
The Defibrillator was fucking him up. His stomach. It was in knots, the vicious brew proving better than any laxative. He shut off the faucet, reached for a hand towel, wiped the steam off the toilet seat, and sat his clean, aloe-infused buttcheeks down for a spell.
Fuck all.
He was a writer, another fucking writer trying to sell a fucking book.
Beryl was devastated. She’d let this man desecrate her, run his wanton tongue across the most intimate areas of her body, ram her, smack her many, many times on the ass, even stick his big…oh God…in her anus, that undiscovered country…although it was brief, just three or four pumps, five at the most, an accident, he’d said, so sorry.
And worst of all, he knew she was narcoleptic, knew she considered it a damaging secret. He could blackmail her now.
Oh, the shame! She was a sucker. A simple, simple sucker.
She felt her knees buckle with embarrassment and became frightened by what might possibly come next from such a rush of feelings—a medication-defying cataplexy. She breathed in, breathed out, deep, deep, grasping the edge of the dresser in an attempt to stave off the blunt edge of emotion. This man knew where she lived. She had told him she loved him!
The manuscript stared up at her.
Close the drawer, close the drawer, the sane side of her silently screamed. All it would take was one quiet move of her foot to kick it closed.
Untitled.
It was a force bigger than sense.
From the bathroom she heard the familiar spaz-fart that preceded a morning shit. He was doing it all out of order, the showering, the shitting, the shaving. She had time, she had time. She could kick the drawer closed and be out of there, out of his apartment, away from him and his irresistible beauty and shameless penis and extortionistic measures or whatever diabolical plot he’d come up with to get his stupid manuscript in the hands of a potential publisher, a plot where he was willing to stoop to something as low as fucking her, debasing himself for the sake of a deal. Not that she considered herself unfuckable, but who would want to get fucked on terms like these?
Ripkin, in all his British smugness, had been right all along. Her heart dropped through the floor, snatching her dignity along with it.
The toilet flushed.
“Sorry, babe,” he yelled. “It’s the coffee.”
“It’s all right,” she said, her throat so thick she could barely squeak out the words.
Close the drawer, you stupid cunt! Close. The. Fucking. Drawer.
Her logical side had a forked tongue at times, nasty even, the better to get her to listen, it hoped.
The toilet flushed again. Beryl scooped up the manuscript, alarming herself in an out-of-body way by the gesture, then pressed her foot against the drawer to close it. The sound of shit-laden water swirling down the bowl drowned out everything but the pounding in her head. She raced to her oversized Miu Miu tote and tossed the thing in, flinging the bag on the floor next to the nightstand, out of plain sight.
Now she was a thief. A humiliated, demented thief.
She should have run out of there, she knew. Should have run like the devil was at her heels, run for cover, run for her life.
But curiosity was a big beast, bigger than shame.
And an unimpeded obsessive-compulsive disorder was the biggest beast of all.
Shar had already left several messages at Beryl’s house and on her cell phone, which Beryl had apparently shut off.
“She must be so embarrassed,” she said.
“Let it happen to her enough times,” Diamond said. “She’ll get over it.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Shar. “You don’t know Beryl. She’s a fragile sort, no matter how much she tries to downplay it. Maybe I should go by her place.”
“Let her be, Shar,” Aurora said. “She’s probably just licking her wounds. Who knows, maybe she’ll surprise us all and come to the party tonight. In the meantime, just give her some space.”
Shar pursed her lips together, knowing Aurora was probably right, but still worried about her friend.
She was on the bed, flipping through the Post, when the bathroom door opened.
“Sorry I took so long,” he said. “You must be starving by now.”
“I’m okay,” she said, her voice noticeably shaken.
Something’s wrong, he realized. He surveyed the room quickly, but nothing seemed out of order. Still, he knew spooked when he saw it.
“You all right, babe? You mad at me for being in the bathroom too long?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” Beryl said, her voice high, very, very high.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute, then we can get out of here.”
“Take your time, Penn.”
Penn. He was Penn again. Something was wrong for sure. She wasn’t calling him “babe.”
He opened one of the dresser drawers and grabbed a pair of jeans. He shook them out and stepped into them. He opened another drawer, glancing back to check her out. She was staring at him, her eyes stretched with panic. At what? What had happened? He hadn’t counted on this unascribable behavior.
“Beryl. Babe. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Huh?”
“You’re scaring me. Your eyes are all bugged out.”
“Huh? Uh…oh. I think, um, uh…I don’t know. I’m not used to being off like this. I guess I’m kind of freaking a little. I haven’t talked to anybody at work all day. I think the guilt must be kicking in.”
“You want to call the office? Use my phone.”
“No, that’s al—”
“Go ahead, call in. It’ll make you feel better. It’ll make me feel better. I’m starting to think I’ve done something bad by keeping you away from work.”
“It was my idea, remember?”
Her tone was weak, shaky. Was she about to flip out on him again? Was this the whole insecure you-can’t-really-love-me-so-fast thing, part deux, coming up?
“Call. Check your messages. Do it now.”
“I’ll check the ones at the house,” she said.
She reached for the phone next to the bed and started dialing. He pulled on an olive-colored T-shirt that gave his golden skin an even bolder glow, if that was at all possible.
“I let you hear my messages,” he said, his back to her.
He didn’t want to prod her. He figured he’d just put it in the air.
“Oh.”
She pulled the base of the phone onto the bed, searching for the speaker button. When she hit it, someone was already talking, mid-message.
“…just worried. Call me, all right? You never take off, no matter what happens.”
“Tell her about the party, Shar,” a voice said in the background.
“All right, all right, just give me a chance. There’s a party tonight, hon. Something Diamond and Aurora have put together on a whim. Come through, okay?”
“Pleeeeeease,” said another voice.
“It’s at Bungalow Eight. I’ll probably get there around ten or eleven. I can come get you, if you want. Please come, Beryl. I’m worried about you. You can’t let this kind of thing get you down. All right? Call me. It’s Sharlyn. Of course. You know that already.”
Beryl hit the speakerphone button, killing the call.
“I don’t feel like listening
to the rest.”
“What’s up, babe?” Penn asked, coming to her side. He sat next to her on the bed, his arm around her. “What’s she talking about? What’s got you so down?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what she means. She probably thinks there’s something wrong because I took the day off.”
He turned her face to his, eyes narrowed, trying to squint out the truth.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said. “Something’s wrong with you. You’ve been different since I came from the bathroom. Who was that? Was that Sharlyn Tate, the writer?”
“Yeah. That was her. It’s no big deal.”
He chucked her under the chin, trying to get her to make eye contact. She wouldn’t. Her gaze was cast at the floor.
“Beryl, baby…what’s the matter?”
“I…it’s…I can’t…”
Tears were now cascading down her cheeks.
“Beryl. What happened? Tell me. This is fucked up.”
“Would you mind…would you be angry at me if…I just…is it okay if I just went home?”
“Okay, babe,” he said, pulling her into a hug. “We can go back to your place.”
She pushed away from him.
“Alone,” she said. “I need to go alone.”
Penn’s mind was racing. Things seemed to be spiraling away from his control. She was arm’s-length now, and there was that cryptic phone message. He searched his reasoning for the best way to handle this, the unknown. Step back. Let her breathe. To smother her now would only push her deeper into the freaky corner she was retreating into.
“All right. Would you like me to grab you something to eat first? I can order some takeout.”
“No, no, really. I think I just need to go home and lie down. This…it’s. Today…”
“Today was a lot. For both of us.”
“Yes. It was.”
She rose from the bed, grabbing her Miu Miu tote from the floor.
“I’ll walk you out.”
“No. Please. Stay. Really. Okay?”