I ask you why. "I don't know," you tell me. A bullshit, cop-out answer.
"Why didn't you finish the job?" I ask. I know what that question reveals, but I do not care anymore.
"Same reason I started it." I could ask for elaboration but I don't, because I already know really. If it hadn't been you it would've been me. It's what was always at the heart of all our endless games, the insults, the flirtations, the sadistic power games we played out onto the bodies and reputations and hearts and lives of others.
"You could still finish it if you wanted to," I tell you. "But I don't think it's me you want to hurt."
"You're right." You rummage in your pants pockets for your cell phone. "Say cheese!" I do.
Yes Annette, I got your five messages. Yes, I know I'm missing the show. No, I wasn't in an accident. Yes, I'm perfectly all right. Let me show you how all right I am. Did you get the photo?
Blah blah blah on the other end. Crying. I can't make out the words but I'm sure it's something along the lines of, how could you do this to me? I love you. In other words: blah blah blah.
"Do you see now why I will always prefer her? Do you see now why our marriage was a sham from beginning to end?"
More blah blah.
"It might make you feel better to believe that, but unfortunately, it's not. Really, Annette, I'm surprised at you. Look at all the models I photograph. If all I wanted was someone thinner than yourself, I could have pleasured myself with any of them. And yet, I didn't—ask anyone I work with. She was my only infidelity, believe it or not." I don't believe this. But I'm pleased with the answer—it's the kind of answer you give to a conquest. "Look closer. Look at the marks on her neck. Now do you understand?"
Something something vampire roleplay?
Irritated sigh. "No. Those marks are there because I nearly killed her a few minutes ago. I did it because she's a cold-hearted bitch and if I lose her again I will probably turn to drugs. The history we have—"
Loud and clear from Mrs. Kansas: "That's sick! That's obsession, not love."
I laugh out loud, take the phone from your hand and turn it off. And the sweet girl falls away like the paper-thin image she always was.
You take my hand in yours and kiss it, an ironic gesture. Then your lips stay on my hand, and you fall to your knees, and it isn't ironic anymore. You look up, close to tears, silently begging me. Not for sex, for forgiveness. She is nothing. They are all nothing. Hurt me if you want to, fuck other men, take away my pride, even kill me like I nearly did to you. Just please—never leave.
I close my eyes. I'm coming undone now, like I said I never would, like I always wanted to and never could. I cycle back through years of perfection, the student body presidency debates, Mother's charity events, the posture and comportment classes, and me wanting to get coked up and fuck some older guy in a dingy hotel or back alley somewhere because that was the closest thing I could envision to feeling alive. And then you came along, the devil, the tempter, coldly expert seducer, prince of the dark places, and every other girl wanted to reform you and make you feel love but what I saw in you was a vision of what I could be, if I was free. Career secure, no reputation to protect, I slept around and broke hearts without apology but you had already come and gone and there was no one left who knew me at all. And Andrea found me and looked into my eyes, and told me he could see the smile hidden there and it was a real one, a smile of happiness and not of cruelty. And I looked into his eyes, and I liked the vision of myself I saw there, a new me I'd flow into easily, like stepping from the townhouse out into the street, and all I had to do was kill the old one. I tried, Sebastian. I tried so hard. But the back alleys called me and I started fucking strangers again, and then you came back like I always knew you would. Tried to seduce me like I always knew you would. And I despised you and swore that I would break you, and I did break you. And here you are, marriage and sanity in shreds, on your knees before me and not even pretending it's some kinky BDSM sex game, and oh fuck, Sebastian, I'm in love with the broken pieces of you. I join you on the floor, both of us shivering now as we lie down and start touching each other again, slowly this time, gently.
