Dangerous (22 page)

“A fight, mmm? Is she not treating you right?”

My mind whirred, composing a safe reply. “I dunno, it’s just…I really trusted her, but the closer we get, the more she pulls away.”

“Maybe she’s finding out she’s not really into girls?”

“Oh, she is. It’s more like she has a lot of stuff in her past, and it gets in the way.”

“What kind of stuff? Don’t tell me she used to be a man.”

“Well— ” That stopped me cold, and I had to seriously consider that possibility for a moment, but no, I knew it couldn’t be. “No, no, I just think she had it rough as a kid. She has all these marks on her body she won’t talk about.” I didn’t mention the scarification.

“Girlfriend, trust me. The crazy ones are always more fun in bed, but they ain’t nothing but trouble later. You can’t fix people, Koishi. They are what they are.”

I’d have to think on that, later.

“Trish…I have something to confess.” That got her attention. “I saw someone else a couple nights ago.”

“No shit? You been busy.”

I told her about Paul, and this time I held nothing back, not even my brief experience of dominating him. She found that juicy, and it successfully distracted her from the subject of Val.

The rest of the dinner was smooth sailing. It felt good to hang out with my best friend. If only I knew how to talk to her about Val, without her threatening to kick Val’s ass, or thinking me insane. I might find a way to broach the subject another time, but not tonight.

§

Sunday was the worst.

That’s when the absence of Val in my life finally hit home. I told myself it was good to be free of her outrageous moods, her crazy demands, and that I’d finally have time to concentrate on the things I’d neglected since January.

But as I sat in a park on that too-warm afternoon, trying to read the big historical novel I’d bought last year—and people-watching instead—I realized that I missed her.

I was angry at myself for letting her stupid game get under my skin. I should have simply toughed it out. But it had been so unexpected, so strange. Why the sudden isolation, after weeks of increasing closeness?

And then it struck me.

It was a defense. Her way of maintaining a safe distance from anyone who began to matter to her. If I knew anything about Valeria, it was that her issues prevented her from having a normal relationship. I couldn’t possibly guess at her personal history, the life that left such marks on her body, but I knew there had been some kind of abuse. I doubt I would have survived, as she did.

I have high hopes for this particular doll. She’s yet to refuse a request
, Val had told Milton.

I put the book down.

That was how she operated: by slowly raising the stakes until a doll abandoned her, further validating her belief that all emotional investments were doomed. A nice little self-fulfilling prophecy. That was why she had freaked at my painting of the girl and her doll. She’d begun to see I was different, that I really did care about her, and it had terrified her.

Whoever had done this to Val, I hated them. Hated
him
, rather. Because I couldn’t help but see him as a man. And my leaving would only reinforce the violence he’d done her.

It was all conjecture, and I knew Val would never discuss it. Now that the idea had entered my mind, though, I couldn’t put it out.

You can’t fix people
, Trish had said last night.
They are what they are.
I thought of the doomed battery sealed in my glowing ice cube, impossible to change without destroying the thing.

But who else had the slightest chance of breaking through Val’s frightening exterior, her guardian persona, and saving the little girl inside? Not Millie; that woman was too caught up in her own needs. Of her other dolls I had no knowledge. But Milton; he knew something of these matters. He had managed to influence her in the past, but hadn’t won through entirely. What had held him in check?

I needed to rescue her. The fact was, I loved her. More precisely, I loved the vulnerable thing within her. But to get inside, deep enough to draw her out…was that even possible? To survive the ever-more sadistic demands the Guardian would make upon me, before I finally exhausted her defense mechanisms?

I had to try.

§

I called her that night.

Five, six, seven…I counted the rings. She picked up on the ninth, of course, just as my finger was poised to hang up. She knew the limit of my endurance, knew how to dance with it.

“Koishi,” she said, calmly.

“Hello, Val.” No reply. “I’m sorry about my tantrum,” I said into the silence.

“And what are you prepared to offer as a token of your regret?”

“Anything you ask,” I said, more bravely than I felt.

“I expect you to be creative,” she said. “I’ll be at the Santa Monica pier on Wednesday at eight.”

“I can be there.”

“Ta.”

I spent half an hour pondering what manner of gift I could possibly offer Val. It would have to be something intimate, unusual, made of equal parts beauty and pain. And then I had it. After a quick image search on the internet, I dialed Paul’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Paul. It’s Koishi.”

“Hi, crazy lady. It’s nice to hear from you.”

“Look, Paul…remember you said you’d give me a deal on a tattoo?”

16     
grace

I WENT TO that meeting filled with dread and desire.

The pier wasn’t as crowded as I’d expected. I found Val at the end, far over water, standing apart from a group of patient fishermen. She was gazing out upon the dark and churning sea, hands resting lightly on the big wooden railing and standing very straight. If she meant to display self-sufficiency, to my eyes it seemed forced. Perhaps even a little lonely. I stopped three paces behind her.

“Hello, Valeria.” I’d meant to say
Ma’am
, but it didn’t seem appropriate, not yet.

She turned slowly, to behold me through narrow glasses, face shining like a ghost in the bluish glow of mercury-vapor floodlights. Her white hair was up, though a few strands had been allowed to fall at her temples. She wore a Victorian outfit much like the one from our interview at the jazz club: vest over a white blouse, slacks, lovely shoes with slightly pointed toes. This version was darker and lacked the touches of lace at the sleeves.

“Ah. There you are,” she said pleasantly, consulting her pocket watch. It was precisely eight.

I hadn’t known what reaction to expect from her. Nothing so blatant as wrath, certainly, but maybe a measured hostility, or at least scorn. So I was unprepared for her familiar tone, and to be safe I remained silent, clutching my purse in front, at the level of my hips.

“Is there something you wish to say?” she asked.

“I’m sorry for the way I behaved.”

“I see. And now you’d like to come back.”

I nodded. “If you’ll have me.”

“That depends upon a great many things. For one, your understanding of our relationship. I trust you’ve given this some thought. What have you realized?”

I considered. How was it that I never seemed to anticipate the obvious questions?

“That I was a sorry excuse for a doll and don’t deserve your Keeping,” I offered.

She frowned. “Spare me the dramatics. Give me a real answer.”

“I’ve missed you, Val. I want to come back.”

She weighed my admission for a moment, before her gaze shifted to something beyond my right shoulder.

I heard footsteps coming from behind, and a blond girl of about twenty walked past me to stand beside Val. She held a cup of chocolate ice cream in one hand and a pink plastic spoon in the other, with which she offered Val a taste. Then her steel-blue eyes surveyed me with a feline regard.

I studied her in turn: a diminutive girl, fully four inches shorter than me and more boyishly built. The narrow velvet choker snug about her smooth throat suggested she knew of Val’s penchant for such things. She wore an expensive cropped leather jacket over a white silk blouse. Even the girl’s immaculate black jeans and designer boots screamed money. Beverly Hills money.

Val did not immediately introduce us, but savored watching me deal with the new variable. The parade of emotions I suppressed must have been a feast for her hungry eyes.

I disliked this person immediately, resented her presence and what she made abundantly clear.

I had imagined Val waiting patiently for my return in her stoic, reptilian way, perhaps even pining for me a little. But to learn she had amused herself with other dolls during my absence skewered my ego as neatly as a sandwich toothpick. That she would bring one of them to my capitulation was an added cruelty.

Val accepted another carefully-offered spoonful of the ice cream. The exchange had an almost sexual quality. Watching a strange doll serve her this way was disorienting.

I stood rigidly before their focused gaze and considered leaving, right then and there.

Finally she spoke, in a voice that was honey-sweet.

“Grace, this is Koishi, the former doll I told you about.”

Former doll.
Ouch.

“Hello, Koishi,” said Grace, with a soft English accent that made me feel very plain by comparison. Her pleasant tone did not match the condescension in her eyes.

“She failed a test last week, and left my service. Now she’s come to offer a gift and an apology. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, a bit dully.

“Why don’t you offer your apology to Grace? We’ll let her judge the sincerity of your contrition.”

The thought of prostrating myself to this fair usurper was galling. The words I had been composing withered in my breast.

During this time, an older couple wandered out to the end of the pier, and stood together at the railing a few paces to my right. While the fishermen were busy on the far side of the pier, these two were close enough to hear our exchange. Their presence amplified my already crushing humiliation, and it became too much.

I don’t need this
, I thought, and turned to go.

“Such a pity,” Val said to Grace, as I broke off and walked away. “Milton was looking forward to seeing Koishi this weekend.”

I stopped short. That Val had said
anything
was as close to an entreaty to stay as I would ever get; it was all that her guardian persona would allow. But it was enough to weaken my resolve. Milton had been my objective, my one chance to learn something of Val’s past. I thought of the little girl locked inside her, and resolved not to abandon her, at least until I knew what I was up against.

With great effort I turned back around, pausing a moment to force down my anger. Val and Grace watched with an air of detached interest. I walked back to where I’d been standing. Took a breath. And knelt before the two of them, facing Grace. With a grave voice and lowered head, I said:

“Ma’am, I showed a lack of faith and humility. I regret it now. I beg your forgiveness and ask you to consider giving me another chance.” I prayed it would be enough. I could do no more.

A moment passed.

“I’ve heard better,” Grace said in a superior tone. I saw red, but held my tongue.

“No, I believe she’s being quite earnest,” Val judged. To me she said, “Have you brought a gift?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Then let’s have it.”

I pushed my hair to the left and exposed the nape of my neck for them both to see. They came closer, bent down. The light was not good.

What they saw was my two-day old tattoo of a swimming koi, based on a Japanese brush painting I’d found on the internet. It was only about two inches tall, but Paul had made an excellent, detailed job of it. It had that graceful simplicity so characteristic of sumi-e paintings: an outline consisting of a few sweeping, organic lines of black ink, augmented by subtle dabs of black and golden-orange.

The fish was seen from an overhead angle, as if swimming coyly away. Its head was uppermost, the body bent in a graceful arc to the left like a comma.

“Tattoos on the neck are very painful,” Val said slowly, savoring that fact.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I answered.

In fact, it had hurt so much I’d barely managed to keep from leaping out of the chair. Paul had warned me it would be so, but I persisted.
This is my penance
, I told myself, and the experience did not disappoint.

In the two days since, I had carefully followed Paul’s instructions for its care so that the tattoo would be presentable now.

Val ran her cool fingers over its lines, which were still slightly raised and tender, not quite healed. The touch provoked both faint pain and yearning, and Val sensed its effect upon me. She and Grace stepped back.

By now the elderly couple perceived the strangeness into which they had blundered, and quickly took their leave. It was almost funny.

“You may rise,” Val told me, watching the flight of the seniors. As I got to my feet she asked Grace for her opinion of the offering.

“It’s nice enough, I suppose,” was her ambivalent reply.

Val said nothing, but I knew the tattoo held a powerful private meaning for her, drawn from my first day in her keeping.