Circe (15 page)

“Where is this?” I asked, suddenly a little afraid.

“It never got very cold here, but it used to rain and all the buildings were connected by a series of tunnels, so the staff could travel from building to building without having to go outside. The tunnels were condemned in the ‘50s and mostly collapsed. But a few rooms and tunnels remain. This is my tunnel.”

I stopped for a moment to look at the walls. There were enormous words written in red magic markers up and down the hallway. I was afraid to stop and read. I didn’t want to get lost in the dark without a flashlight, so I followed my only light source into the forgotten recesses of the hospital, shivering in apprehension.

At the end of the hall, there was a large locked door with a huge red triangle in the middle of it. Inside of the triangle was a pentagram. Cassie opened the door and we emerged upon a scene straight out of a bad Discovery Channel documentary on witchcraft in the modern world. There were candles in the corners, an altar, and symbols on the floor. I understood none of it, but that didn’t matter to me. The emotion was the same. I laughed.

Cassie smiled. “I thought you would enjoy this.”

“Did one of the old patients create this ridiculous shrine?”

“No.”

“Some crazy staff member whose wonderful history you’re going to regale me with?”

“Yes. Do you want to hear the entire story?”

“I always love hearing your stories.”

I sat down on a rickety office chair that had been tucked neatly into the corner. Cassie sat down beside me.

“This is the heart of Circe. This room is a temple to all those who know her. It is the place where reality stops and old gods come to life. It is the place where the tear in the veil begins, and those who come here never die.”

“You’re insane, Cassie.”

I looked around again. I examined all of the recently lit candles. The small fire that had been built in the center of the floor looked freshly made and warm. I studied the writing on the face of the altar. It was all her writing. I laughed again. I had been obscenely stupid. Only Cassie would be silly enough to create this homage to ancient myths.

I laughed and shook my head at the same time. “You did this? Cassie, you’ve gone mad. I have no words.”

“You laugh. I laughed once too. A long time ago when I had a family, I laughed. But they’re all gone now. This place is my only family now.”

“Cassie, I have to tell people about this. You need help.”

“They won’t let you do that. Don’t you understand? This place is magic.”

“Magic? Up until now, in my mind, no matter what Jungian shit you professed to believe, I respected you. You liked history. I could ignore your morbid fascination because you…you were a force to be reckoned with. You’ve reached patients none of us could reach. You were cold and hard and your work was admirable. You were a mythical character here at Circe. Respected and hated. I have to admit, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about you and wanting you. I came here hoping for—you know what I was hoping for. Now I can’t respect you anymore than Abby White who receives telephone calls from the devil while she watches TV.”

I could feel the rage brimming over in me. I wasn’t just angry at her. I was angry at myself for following her. I was angry that lust had led me to a cold basement filled with some old woman’s ludicrous attempts at religion. I was angry at everything that had gone wrong in my life. The sacrifices I had made for a wife who made decisions without me. The baby that was being thrust on me. My dead-end career. But mostly I was angry at Cassie. I felt as if I had been deceived by the woman I had believed to be a force of nature at Circe. I had respected and believed in her, yet she was no better than some nutty tarot reader in Cathedral Square in New Orleans. She might as well have been wearing a cape with stars on it and holding a sign that said “The End of The World Is Near.”

“You don’t respect me because I believe in something outside the confines of the natural universe. Because I believe in a power higher than myself? Then you must hate 90% of this country. Most of us believe in something beyond ourselves, God, Allah, and Buddha.”

“This isn’t faith. This is…what is this? Why did you bring me down here? What the fuck do you want from me? You led me to believe that you felt something for me. And now I find out what? That you wanted me to be in your occult club? What? I can’t pretend to understand what is going on or what has gone on between us. I’m leaving and our relationship, whatever it was, is over. Oh, and my wife and I won’t be coming to dinner at your house tomorrow night.”

I headed towards the door, but turned back as I realized I had no light to guide me out. Cassie sat quietly with her back pushed up against the wall. She seemed as calm as ever. She could just as easily have been in her office, rather than sitting surrounded by a mess of archaic symbols next to an altar decorated with a skull.

She stood up suddenly and threw something on the floor. It was a jar of something I couldn’t make out in the dying light. The glass shattered on the hard ground and Cassie whispered something under her breath. She took her hair down and looked at me with her blinding blue eyes. She smiled as she whispered and walked towards me as sweetly as a cat approaching its prey.

“You need help,” I said.

“This isn’t what you think. What I do here isn’t some hippie Wiccan love rite or petty Satanic pledge. There is power here and it wants you. It chose you.”

“I don’t need to hear this. I don’t need to know this. I don’t want to know this. Why did you bring me here? Did you think I would join in? Appreciate the artistic beauty of your faith? I have no faith, and I believe that holding odd cultist sanctuaries beneath your patients is unethical and completely inappropriate. What could have possibly possessed you?”

“It chose you, Eric.”

“How can someone so educated be so irrational? Do you entirely lack the capacity to reason?”

“It’s already too late, Eric. The wheel has turned. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. You're one of us now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She moved forward slowly, dropping her clothes as she approached. A mixture of emotions rose up in my gut. Hate, disgust, fear, apprehension—but foremost was lust. Her tiny, lithe figure appeared to be carved from ivory in the dim light. There was no fat on her body, every rib stood up in aching testimony to her perfection. Her breasts were perfectly formed and her waxen hair spilled over them like the ocean rippling over a sandy beach. Her pale blue eyes glowed with a preternatural aggression on the white slate that was her face. She was sublime.

“You see,” she whispered into my ear. “Every rational part of you is now telling you to run. But you’re only a caged animal, so you’ll fuck me right here, in this place you detest, while your pregnant wife weeps alone at home.”

She bit me and spat my blood on the floor. I hit her and she fell backwards. She was so small I felt like I was hitting a child. She stood up and placed her cold hand on my leg.

“Why are you doing this?” My question had become a dry sob. I didn’t want this. I hated her and I hated myself. Every other woman I had cheated on Pria with had been an unknown fling. Cassie was my boss. Cassie was crazy. Cassie was the embodiment of everything I despised and everything I had grown to desire. It didn’t matter. All I could taste was the blood in her mouth and all I could think about was the way her hand was slowly crawling up my leg. I couldn’t breathe or think. I could only feel. Her breath in my hair, on my chest. My hand on her hard body. She felt so different from Pria. She was all rough angles and bones. There was no give, no surrender. Only bone and muscle with a little bit of flesh. It ended so quickly I hardly knew it happened. She came and I followed and then she sighed.

“It’s done,” she whispered.

“You’re a nasty little bitch,” I said.

“I’m a monster, just like you.”

“I’m no monster.”

“How can you believe that? After all the pretty girls you’ve used and broken? How can you say you aren’t a monster?”

I pushed her off me and started to put my clothes back on. My head was throbbing and my legs were weak. Every bone in my body ached. Cassie hadn’t been tender. There were bruises on my arms and bite marks on my shoulder. I felt drained. I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands.

“You should get home to your beloved wife,” Cassie said as she lit a cigarette.

“Fuck you.”

“I just did.”

“I need you to take me out. You have the flashlight.”

“Give me a minute to enjoy the quiet after the storm.”

“How many men have you brought down here to do this?”

“Only you.”

“Well, at least I’m special.”

“Why don’t you come to a conference with me next weekend in New Orleans?”

“I’m considering telling Babcock about this.”

“It’s three days on nonpharmicological treatments for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. You could benefit from a refresher.”

“We can’t do this.”

“Why can’t we? What’s the problem here? What do you really want? It isn’t me you’re angry at. Be honest with yourself. If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?”

I could see my wife going away in my mind and the baby with her. I wanted to be free again. I wanted to be free of everything. I longed for a place of peace, where there was no Pria or baby. I wanted to climb mountains. I wanted to climb and summit. I didn’t want her behind me gasping for air. I wanted Cassie. I wanted her hard places and bony angles. I wanted her tight, pale flesh. All these images flashed through my mind. I knew that for a long time I had wanted to be rid of Pria. I didn’t want to be a father or a husband. I wanted to unleash the worst parts of myself.

But even as the thoughts entered my mind, I pushed them pack. I hated them and I hated myself for them. “I just want to be happy with my wife,” I said.

“Who do you think you’re kidding? You didn’t sleep with the peacock in New Orleans because you loved your wife.”

“How do you know about the peacock?”

“Circe told me.”

“Please stop this shit now. If I go to New Orleans with you, will you stop all this magic crap?”

“Of course.”

I leaned over and stroked her cheek. She looked so small and alone. She was sitting in the middle of the floor, completely naked, surrounded by cold tile and filth. If I had walked in upon her without any knowledge of events, I would have thought she was a rape victim. There was a bruise on her cheek where I had hit her. It occurred to me that maybe she was just a lonely middle aged woman. She could have been someone who had given up love and family for work, and now all she could do was lure the few men she made contact with to her insane shrine in a feeble attempt to seduce them, to force them to love her.

“I’m sorry about that,” I whispered as I touched her bruised cheek.

“It was only foreplay,” she said as she began to get dressed. She turned to me with an impish grin. “I like it rough.”

“I’ll go to New Orleans with you next week, but I can’t bring my wife to your house for dinner and I can’t see you like this again between now and then.”

“Why not?”

“This setup you have here. It bothers me. I can’t say enough how unethical and wrong this is.”

“Let’s go.”

The walk back was as silent as the walk there. I parted from Cassie without saying anything. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. As I walked to my car, I saw a young woman sitting next to the peacock. She was dressed white and smiled at me as I walked by. She seemed vaguely familiar so I waved. She waved back. I didn’t stop to talk to her, but I will never forget her face. She was plain, but startling all at the same time. Her skin was so pale it glowed in the moonlight, and her black eyes caught the light that rained down from the stars.

 I drove home alone, missing Andy’s endless prattle. I pulled up in front of my house and sat staring at the door for a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to go in and explain things to Pria. I couldn’t think of a believable lie. I couldn’t even think of an unbelievable lie. After a while, Pria’s form appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a track suit and her hair was tied back in a braid. She walked over the cold earth in her bare feet and tapped lightly on the car door.

I opened the door and grabbed her, burying my face in her belly. She stroked my head. When I looked up at her, I could see shadows under her eyes. She looked tired and she had lost weight. She put her hand in mine and pulled me into the house. The house was messy. The dishes hadn’t been done and there was a potato chip bag on the coffee table.

We sat on the sofa for some time just holding each other. I knew she was crying, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking or feeling and I certainly didn’t know what I was feeling. I had never had much time for introspection. I didn’t like to sit around and question what kind of man I was. I believed in action. At that moment, I became lost in introspection. I couldn’t stand who I was or what I was doing to her. I was beginning to break down.

“Where did you get the bite mark?” Pria asked.

“A patient attacked me at work today. That’s why I’m so late. I’m just a little stunned. It was at the end of the day and I was doing an intake when, boom, this chick just launched at me from across the room. I must have really fucked up with her. I don’t know. I’ve got bruises and claw marks all over my arms and shoulders too.”

“Oh, God!” Pria began to sob. It wasn’t like her to get so worked up. “I’m so sorry. You were hurt and I should have been worrying about you, but instead I’ve just been sitting here thinking about how you must be having an affair, and hating you. I’m so sorry! I always think the worst of you.”

I pulled her so close to me I could feel her heart beating through her shirt. “You should never be sorry. You should never apologize to me. I’m not the man I should be and I have not helped you as much as I should. You’re pregnant, we’re having a baby and all I’ve done is mope around here feeling sorry for myself. Never apologize to me.”

“No. It’s all me. I knew you didn’t want a baby. But, Eric, I wanted this baby so much that I was purposely forgetting my pills. I put this on you without even talking to you. I’ve just been so lonely lately. You’ve been so distant and I don’t know what’s going on. I just wish we could go back to being the way we were.”