Topping From Below (33 page)
Summer is my least favorite season; I think of it as something that has to be endured and waited out, like a friend’s bad mood. I don’t mind it so much when the temperature reaches the eighties, and even the nineties are endurable, but when it gets into the hundreds, I suffer. The air conditioner purls all day long, and when I go outside the heat seems to close in on me, smothering me. I should be inured to Sacramento and Davis summers, having experienced thirty-five of them, but I’m not. Driving down a lonely road, on the hottest days, I’ll see heat waves floating off the pavement, and the black asphalt, in a melting mirage, will seethe and roll before me. Outside my car, the heat penetrates my skin as if I were being irradiated.
I’m having trouble sleeping, and in my dreams I’m overcome with a smothering, drowning feeling. In the mornings I lie in bed, half asleep, half awake. Part of me wants to surrender to the bliss of unconsciousness:
Go back to sleep
, something will urge me.
Don’t get up
.
Why bother?
And I feel myself floating downward in a pool of water, weightless as a falling leaf. But then, just before I hit bottom, I get a nagging feeling—I have to get up, there are things to do, aren’t there?—and the struggle will begin. I have to fight my way up to the surface, fight against that warm, cozy, wet feeling that prods me to relax, to acquiesce.
Just let go, why don’t you?
I wake up, exhausted from the struggle. Sometimes I rise to the surface gulping air and my chest will ache, as if I’d been holding my breath under water for too long a time. When this happens, I go outside and take a deep breath of the fresh morning air, and walk around in my bathrobe, barefoot, on the cut grass that is wet with dew. Little shards of grass clippings will stick between my toes and prickle the bottoms of my feet. I’ll walk around the lawn, and the panicky, smothering feeling will slowly drift off me, just waft away like steam out of a teapot, thinning and diffusing itself into nothingness. The sun wouldn’t have risen yet, and everything—the trees, flowers, the grass, even—blends together in a faded early-morning gray that I find soothing. I’ll sit on the front porch and watch the sun come up. The yard brightens, filling in the shadows with the colors of day. The lawn has a precise edge to it, and the shrubs are well trimmed. Order prevails. There is no sense of smothering out here.
M. has got up early and is out jogging. I get up, then dress and drive home. Franny’s black Cadillac is still at the curb, filthy with dust, the words
Wash me
written anonymously in the dirt clouding the back window. I pick up the
Bee
from the driveway, then go over to the mailbox for yesterday’s mail. The box is located around the corner, in front of my neighbor’s yard in the other half of the duplex.
Flipping through the mail quickly, I recognize at once the plain envelope, no return address, postmarked in Davis. I open the envelope while I’m walking across the lawn, wondering where the photographer will have captured me on film this time. In front of my house? At the drug store? But inside the envelope, there is not a photo but a sheet of white paper with the words “You have two weeks to call off your search—if not, you’ll be next” glued to it. I stop, stare at the words. A stab of anxiety tightens my chest. The letters, clipped out of a magazine, are pasted in the center of the paper very neatly. Nothing else is in the envelope. I go inside the house.
The phone is ringing, but I don’t respond. My answering machine—always activated since I began receiving prank calls—clicks on, and I listen as a woman at the Sacramento Blood Center asks me if I’d like to donate blood. She leaves a phone number and hangs up.
You’ll be next
. The meaning is obvious. I call Joe Harris and read him the note.
“What now?” I ask him.
“We’ll dust it for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll find any. I’ll add it to the MSR.”
An MSR is a miscellaneous service report—for those times when the police can’t find a specific crime—just so they can have it down on record. Joe filed an MSR when I received my first photo.
“That’s it?” I ask. “You know it’s from him.”
“No, I don’t know that. It could be from someone else.”
The last time I met Joe at the Paragon, he told me they were investigating another person for Franny’s murder. I am quiet for a while, then say, “Who?”
Joe sighs. “Don’t ask me to give you that kind of information. You shouldn’t be involved in this at all. If you’re worried about the note, take the standard precautions. Vary your routine, don’t walk in the dark, put an alarm system in your home, get a dog.”
I hang up.
I am in M.’s cool, air-conditioned house, alone. I walk from room to room, and despite my ambivalence toward the man, I feel a low-level charge pass through my limbs, an undercurrent of illicit excitement. His house: never before has an inanimate object held such erotic promise for me. I think of what we have done here, and what we will do, and my anticipation waxes. I grow wet thinking about it. Sexually, I want M. as I’ve wanted no other man.
Lust. It surges inside me, and it is neither pure nor simple, but born out of desperation and pain and sorrow and guilt—yes, there it is again, the guilt—and it makes me reach out to M., to willingly turn myself over to him. In the sadomasochistic ecstasy of pleasure and pain, in the shadow of M.’s dominion, my guilt is eased. And under his sway new hungers awaken in me. It is like opening your eyes one day and discovering a new range to your vision—you must see everything, you must experience each new optical sensation, your sense of sight becomes heightened, and your craving for more stimuli is insatiable. I am walking a fine line with my lust. I know of its danger, but I long for nothing else. I am willing to risk everything for this chastening passion—Ian, my self-respect, my life. I realize this sacrificial attitude is not an admirable trait. I know the folly of my actions, but I cannot help myself. I have passed from one world to another.
I go into the den and take off my shoes and lie on the sofa. I close my eyes and think of what we have done here, in this den, on this sofa. My arousal is great. I want to masturbate and think about doing so, but M. will be home soon and I don’t want to take the edge off my desire. Outside, I hear crows squawking and a neighbor boy calling for his dog.
Duke! Duke! Come here, boy!
A few minutes later, M. comes inside the house. My car is out front so he knows I am here, waiting. I hear him walk through the house, the kitchen, the living room, silently looking for me. He enters the den, sees me lying on the sofa, then sets some books and papers on his desk. He glances over at his piano and frowns. I am impinging on his territory, his precious time with the baby grand, his true mistress. He has warned me against this—and I know he will whip me later for my transgression. He says nothing, but in the way he looks me over, letting his gaze travel across my body, I know that, this time, I have won—I can see the arousal in his eyes. I wonder what he will do, how he will fuck me today. The choice is his; the choice is always his. Perhaps, that is why my excitement for him never wanes. There is always surprise, and the element of danger, and the knowledge that I must surrender to him, to his desires, to his preferences.
He is still by the desk, waiting, looking cool and crisp in a white linen suit and a charcoal dress shirt. My excitement turns to apprehension, and I know that this is what M. wants. I sit up, expectant, too wary to utter a word. I wonder if he will whip me today for my transgression, or save the punishment for a future occasion. Maybe today he will bind me in restraints.
He’s leaning against the desk, not moving, and I realize now, fully, what his attraction is. When I first met him, I thought he was a nice-looking man, but I didn’t agree with Franny’s assessment. She wrote that there was a sensuality about him she didn’t understand, powerful yet remote. I dismissed her opinion as jejune, the naive writings of a young woman too easily impressed. But gradually, over the months, I’ve seen my own response change, grow in intensity with each encounter. M.’s attraction is hypnotic, more psychological than physical, and therefore much more powerful, riveting, dangerous. Franny was afraid of his sensuality—and so am I—but I long for it all the same. Until I met M., I hadn’t known the attraction of a dominant man, hadn’t known the other side of sex, the darker side, where sexual warfare is as rough as it is sweet.
“Take off your clothes,” he says finally, and he folds his arms across his chest. “I want to see you naked before me.”
No longer do I dress in jeans and T-shirts for M. I am wearing a short summer dress. It’s eggshell white and loosefitting, made of some crinkly fabric. I get up and take this off. Underneath, I have on a beige silk chemise and I slip this over my head. I unhook my bra and step out of my panties. Naked, with my hands at my sides, I wait for his next set of instructions, for the touch of his hand. I feel the cumbrous ache of desire.
“Now sit on the very edge of the sofa and lean back.”
I comply, with no thoughts of disobedience.
“Slide all the way down and bend your legs to your chest. Put your hands on your knees and spread them. Hold them open for me.”
I do as he asks and wait for him, knees apart. My breathing becomes heavy. My exposure, and submission, excites me.
Leisurely, he comes to me. “Yes,” he says. “This is how I like to see you.” He kneels down in front of me. He puts his hand between my legs, the skin of my groin and vulva freshly depilated, smooth and silky soft without pubic hair, and he begins stroking me gently, as if he were petting a small animal. I put my hands around his neck to draw his head down to mine, to kiss his lips, but he removes my hands and places them back on my knees. “Keep them here,” he orders, and he pets me again.
I try very hard to contain myself, but I feel the heat in my loins and I need more than M. is giving me. “Touch my breasts,” I say, wanting more stimulation. “Kiss my lips.”
Grabbing a fistful of my hair, he yanks my head to the side. He looks at me, cocks an eyebrow, and says coldly, “I don’t want your mouth or ass or tits. And I don’t want you to speak. I only want your cunt. Do you understand?”
I try to nod, but he has a firm grip on my hair, preventing any movement.
When he’s satisfied I will obey, he releases my head. He puts his hands on the insides of my thighs and opens my legs even farther; he lowers his head and puts his mouth on my crotch. At the touch of his lips, I let escape a soft moan. This is what I need. I watch him as he feeds, sucking and licking me, rubbing his tongue on my clitoris, then I close my eyes to block out the visual sensations and enjoy the feel of him on a pure, tactile level. I come quickly and strongly, and as soon as I do he unzips his pants and whips out his penis, already hard, and shoves it inside me. He fucks me roughly, slamming into me, his eyes fiery with a rage I don’t understand, and he says, “Can Ian fuck you like this? Can he?
Can he?!
”
He demands I answer him, and, angrily, I say, “Yes, he’s good in bed. He’s great—the best I’ve ever had.”
He stops fucking me momentarily and throws back his head and laughs. “You’re lying,” he says, then resumes his thrusting, pounding hard into me. “Does he give it to you like this?” he hisses.
I hear the jealousy in his voice. My breathing is labored from his assault. “No,” I tell him, panting. “He’s gentle.”
“And boring.” He grips my ass and pulls me up to him, impaling me on his cock. I feel it in the back of my vagina, filling me completely. He begins shoving into me faster. “This is the way you like it, isn’t it? I know you, Nora. You’re just like me.”
“I’m not like you!”
“Oh, but you are, my dear, sweet pet. You are,” and with a final, brutal thrust he comes inside me. He lies on me for a few seconds, then gets up and walks away, zipping his pants. He goes over to an armchair and sits, crossing his legs.
I slide up on the couch, feeling slightly bruised and empty. He knows I hate it when he pulls out of me so quickly. I reach for my clothes.
“Not yet,” he says. “Stay like that for a while.”
I curl up on the couch, tucking my legs beneath me. Disdainfully, M. looks me over, then says, “How could you be attracted to someone like him? He’s weak. He snivels. You should hear some of the things he tells me.”
“Then don’t see him.”
He smiles slyly. “But it brings me such pleasure.”
Over the past few weeks, he has developed an intense hatred of Ian. He’s envious of him because I still want him in my life and won’t let him go. He derides Ian in front of me all the time now. He’ll tell me how he’s befriending him—meeting him for lunch occasionally, playing racquetball once a week, even driving up to Lake Tahoe to spend the day gambling—then he’ll ridicule him. His scorn for Ian is great, and I think it’s because of Ian’s innocence, his inherent goodness and inability to be corrupted. Ian believes they are close friends, almost best friends, and this worries me.
“Stay away from him,” I tell M., but I know he won’t listen. He never has.
“Why? I won’t give away our little secret. And I do enjoy all the information he gives me about you.”
“You’re jealous.”
M. comes over to the sofa and sits next to me. The fabric of his white linen suit brushes against my skin. In his presence, I feel overwhelmed, small and helpless, childlike. He puts one arm around me, and with his other hand he plays with my breast. My nipple gets hard, and so does the one he isn’t touching. He pinches the nipple gently between his fingers, and I feel the heat come again between my legs.
He says, “Ian will never know you the way I do. He’ll never possess you as I do.”
I lean nearer to M. I put my mouth up to his, and this time he kisses me. He pulls me closer to him, pulls my left leg over his lap, and continues to play with my breasts. He takes his mouth off me and says, “I want to tell you something.”
“What?” I ask absently, not really paying attention. I don’t want him to stop kissing me.
