Harrowing (4 page)

“Dr. Rheinhardt also offers individual sessions,” he hinted.

I stared at him in dismay.

“I don’t need individual sessions. And I sure as hell can’t pay for them.”

“I’ll pay for them,” he offered brightly. “I’m an architect. I sure as hell
can
afford them.”

He cradled my chin.

“I only want my lovey to be well, you know.”

He kissed me tenderly on the cheek and left me with my first group session.

Things were very different at the Uptown Gym – which was actually located way downtown – where Rudolph Verenich held court over a straggling group of untrained housewives and teenagers.

“Zo you are Annasuya,” he said with his thick foreign accent. “Why you come, Annasuya Adler?”

I glanced at the floor and looked around uncertainly at the other students.

“I suppose I don’t want to be defenceless,” I whispered. “Isn’t that why anyone signs up here?”

“Yeah, yeah. But cut ze crap. No one zigns up for curiosity. Jill there...” He waved at a middle-aged housewife-looking lady with dark hair and a collection of wrinkles crossing a face dotted with age spots. “Jill got attacked by a goon, didn’t you, on a back street one night after a night out with ze girls. Didn’t you?”

“All he did was take my purse,” she put in defensively. “It didn’t have much in it. I’d already drunk up most of my funds.”

The group giggled nervously, apparently wondering whether that was a joke.

“Yeah, yeah. But you got scared, didn’t you? Scared enough to come here.”

Jill bit her lip and nodded.

“How ‘bout Barry there?” He gestured at one of only two men in the group. “What happened to you, Barry?”

Barry snaked a glance around the room.

“Some frigging perv broke into my house one night. Took all my jewellery and silver.”

He scratched his chin.

“We had one hell of an alarm system going on too. Didn’t even make a hiccup when that asshole broke in. Still have no idea how he done it.” He toed the floor with his Adidas. “Wife and me was all cowed up under the sheets there. If I’d had the balls I’m getting here now, I woulda gone out and faced him. Least I woulda had the satisfaction of seeing his face and maybe punching it up a bit.”

Rudolph gestured around.

“Zo you zee, Annasuya. Everyone has a story here. Whatever happened to you, you’re not ze only one. Zo what’s your story?”

I shrugged.

“Sorry I’m different,” I shot out. “I haven’t got a story. Just want to make sure no one ever beats me up for my purse.”

Rudolph cleared his throat and then began the class. That day I only learned basic movements: how to react quickly, how to cover my face, shoot out my fists, twist myself out of someone’s grip.

At the end of class Rudolph pulled me aside.

“Zo who was it, Annasuya? A perv wake you up in your bed at night? Zomeone mug you on ze street?”

I shook my head firmly.

“I told you. I just want to learn how to defend myself. I want to make
sure
no perv wakes me up in the middle of the night or mugs me on the street.”

Rudolph glanced me up and down, grasping my arm with a steely grip. I stared at him.

“I can wiggle out of that grip now,” I said. “You taught me how to do that today.”

Rudolph raised his chin.

“Show me,” he challenged softly.

I twisted my arm with a vengeance. Even with his thick fingers, he was forced to let me go.

“You sure aren’t endearing yourself to me,” I pointed out. “What if I decided never to come back here, after the way you’re treating me?”

Rudolph shrugged and moved away.

“You’ll be back. You know I’m ze best defence artist in ze city. And whatever ze hell happened to you, you want to make sure zat never, ever happens to you again.”

He fixed me with a penetrating gaze.

“Because you still afraid of him. You think whatever going on with him, is not over yet. And he’ll be back for more. Isn’t zat right, Annasuya Adler?”

I remember the first time I felt that surge of power. It happened when I bashed my fist into the face of Brionna, my sister, six years my senior.

I remember I was just a tiny tyke of nine or ten. Brionna had terrorized me all my life. I was scared shitless of her. They say you’re not supposed to hit a girl, but what was there stopping Brionna from hitting
me?

All my life Brionna had got her hots by hitting me, slapping me, kicking me, pushing me down and shoving me over low walls, bricks on the floor, bashing my head into doors. She taunted and teased me no end, even got her mates at school to join in.

“Bruno’s a weeny. Bruno’s the puniest kid in his class. Bruno’s weenie is weeny.”

They’d chant that throughout the schoolyard, and soon the whole school was yelling it into my face.

One morning before gym class a bunch of boys cornered me in the shower room. Bigger boys. Older boys, who’d just come out of gym class before us. The hugest one of them shoved me roughly against the icy wall tiles.

“Come on, Bruno. Show it to us. They say it’s tinier’n Tom Thumb’s.”

I must’ve gone red as a beet. The boys began to pummel against me. I raised my hands in a gesture of truce, desperate.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll show you, if you’ll leave me alone after that,” I whispered.

Every fibre of my being was screaming at me to cower behind a shower curtain. But I was stronger than that. I wasn’t a chicken. I could face them.

The big fella just grinned down at me.

“Yeah. Sure. We’ll leave you alone. Right, guys?”

His cronies all leaned over me, cackling and cracking up.

“Yeah, no sweat ‘bout that. We’ll leave you in peace.”

So I showed it to them. It was just a little peek. I only dropped my briefs for a second.

But that second was enough to get them all pounding on top of me. They all leapt on me, all fifty stone or so of them, punching, kicking, elbowing. They snatched at my briefs and rolled me around on the filthy floor in my skimpy gym outfit as if I were a steamroller. I defended myself as best as I could. But there were at least twenty of them: bigger, older, heftier, more muscular.

Finally they dragged me out the door and all the way down the corridor, chanting “Bruno’s a weeny. Bruno’s weenie is weeny. We’ve seen Bruno’s weenie.”

As they plopped me on the floor in front of my homeroom classroom, they shouted out to all the passers-by:

“Hey, everyone. Catch a look at Weenie’s weeny. It’s just as puny as everyone says.”

I continued to cover my eyes. At least no one could call me a chicken or accuse me of bawling in front of the whole school.

That is, until Brionna showed up.

When I saw the cool, unemotional glance she raked over me, I suddenly realized how evil she really was. Suddenly I knew that even though she was my sister, she didn’t care one whit about me. She didn’t love me. Not even in private, when we were alone in our home. I could’ve been just a lump of coal to her.

At that moment, I couldn’t help but start to bawl my eyes out.

Brionna only laughed. Coldly. Without mercy. The way she always did.

Fortunately, one of the teachers rushed to my side at that moment and pulled me to my feet, wrapping his jacket hastily about me and hustling me out of there. The kids continued to jeer and throw balled up papers and spitballs at me. But what really stabbed a knife into the core of my heart was the pitiless, icy mockery in Brionna’s eyes.

The sister whose love I’d always dreamt of winning one day. The sister I’d longed to endear and win to my side.

That was why it gave me such smooth, flowing satisfaction the day I was finally able to bash my fist into Brionna’s face.

After all she’d done to me over the years, making my life a living hell ever since I could remember, I was finally able to pay her back. And I was holding nothing back, I really let her have it. I went at her with no holds barred, pounding against her until her nose bled, pummelling my fists into both her eyes. I slapped her cheeks and ground them against her teeth until blood started pouring from her mouth. I slashed my grubby nails against her lips, rubbing them back and forth until I’d managed to cut them. I seized her head a few times and slammed it against the floor as well, for good measure. By the time I was finished with her, she was out cold.

I was expelled from school for a month, and my parents grounded me for the same length of time, but it had been worth it.

During detention, I sat in the classroom and copied out a hundred times,
“I will be a good boy”
while underneath, on a separate sheet of paper, as soon as the teacher was no longer looking, I scribbled in my messy, little-boy hand:
“I will be king of the world one day. People will cow before me.”

*

Now, some twenty-five years later, I gloated before my TV. I’d had a good day. A bit rough, maybe, but nonetheless I had to admit, I’d enjoyed myself with that new temp doll. It wasn’t every day I did this sort of thing, of course.

In fact, as far as I could recall, I hadn’t done this for maybe two or three years. After all, it wasn’t like I got up every morning, waltzed into my office and raped an employee every day – even though I had my office to myself most of the time, held free reign over it and could do pretty much as I pleased in it.

I lounged about on my sofa with my scotch on ice in the same glass I used to drink orange juice in the mornings. Okay, I admit, I’m not a particularly fine or elegant man. Although some vague great-great-grandparent of mine – I’ll never know which one – claimed the honour of being some sort of high and mighty Parisian snob, none of his finesse, his gentility or savoir-faire had rubbed off on me. In fact, growing up in a nitty gritty North American urban jungle, I was more comfortable rolling around in the grass with my chums than rolling a glass of champagne in my fingers with my pinkie sticking up. Heck, I don’t even wear a suit to work, and I’m the Vice President.

I raised my glass towards my sporadic partner, Lou-Angela, or Lulu, as I liked to call her. Lulu was lounging around on the chaise longue opposite me wrapped in her trademark scarlet satin dressing gown, ogling at the television. Black mascara coursed down her cheeks after the stressful day she’d had, creating a garish masque filled with harsh concavities. She drank her scotch straight. A grin cracked her face from ear to ear as she imitated my gesture. My office antics with the opposite sex never bothered her, and I did have to give her credit for that.

“So, lovey, how was your latest conquest?” she spat out in her typical sultry growl. Her rubbery, overpainted lips turned downwards at the edges as she spoke.

I merely smiled at her. She raised her glass in a toast again, then threw all its contents into the back of her throat in one swig and turned back to her programme. I didn’t know what show it was, but there were a lot of little kids jumping around in hula-hoops.

I swirled the scotch about in my glass, then swished it around my mouth, savouring the memory of what had happened this morning. Annasuya. I wouldn’t forget that name. An unusual name to match an unusual face. She wasn’t like the others. I wasn’t too sure why. She didn’t
look
all that different.

Temp workers came and went in my office. This was the first time they’d sent Annasuya to me. Almost from the start she’d ground on my nerves. First off, she just kept
gaping
all around my office. I’m a private man. I don’t like strangers snooping about.

And when I told her off for this, which I thought was reasonable, instead of apologizing or turning her eyes towards the floor, the way I was accustomed to people responding, she only glanced around and stared at my computer instead. The nerve of her! I started wondering if maybe she wasn’t all she appeared to be. Maybe she was even a corporate spy. Perhaps I should have notified the temp agency and asked them to carry out a background check on this cheeky and suspicious new worker.

I rested my glass on the coffee table and leaned back in the sofa. Now Annasuya probably thought I was a psychopathic monster, and I’m not. I wished I could have had a chat with her afterwards, explained to her why I did the things that I do. Confided to her that this wasn’t my habitual behaviour. Even let her know that she should have felt privileged, special. After all, this wasn’t something I did with every lady who crossed the threshold of my office.

No. I had chosen Annasuya because I saw something extraordinary in her that I don’t usually see in other women. I’m not a pig or a chauvinistic bastard. For me, raping a woman is honouring her. Letting her know, in my own way, that she is special to me. She should have felt cherished, adulated. I don’t understand why she bolted from my office the way she did. Most of the women I had maintained this sort of relationship with in the past usually stuck around to listen to
my
point of view.

I would usually have them lie down by my side, as I stroked their legs and cheeks, and explained to them, in a perfectly reasonable voice, the rationale behind my actions. I would make it clear that they were special. That this was the way I let them know that I thought they were destined for something extraordinary in life.

One woman I had claimed for myself, perhaps a decade ago, had gone on to become a famous politician and social activist. Another is today an award-winning educator with several bestselling books out on the market. A third, although not famous, is a wealthy and successful therapist with a thriving business now. I know that because the other day I passed by the suite where her clinic is located. It was in a building renowned for having some of the highest rental rates in the city. A prestigious clinic housed in a prestigious area.

Yes, women bound for greatness are the ones that catch my eye. It’s like I have an instinct, a sixth sense, almost, to be able to simply sniff out the ones with that fate etched in their DNA. If only she had hung around, I could have explained that to Annasuya. The other women had accepted my explanation without much fuss. They merely nodded and agreed with everything I told them. They didn’t make a big row about it.

I was nothing but a humble, mortal messenger to these chosen few. Nothing more. When I was promoted to Vice President and granted an office all to myself in the penthouse suite, where few people ever ventured, I saw that as a sign that I was to continue with my appointed mission. The mission of letting these specially selected individuals know about their unparalleled destiny.

Okay, perhaps it’s true. Perhaps I also took advantage of my special position to play around with these women a bit. But it was all for a good cause. It was simply my way of bringing my divine message across to them.

If I hadn’t had my wicked way with the current MP Juliette Brault, do you think it would have ever occurred to her to run for parliament under the slogan:
“Women, You Are Not Alone”?
And Louise Brennan won her much-touted award because of the nation-wide campaign geared towards schoolchildren that she herself had fostered,
“For Equality of Rights Within the Household”.
Christy Owens specializes in helping trauma victims in her multi-million-dollar counselling business.

Would any of them be doing the things that they’re doing today if I hadn’t helped them?

So you can see, of course I’m justified in doing the things that I do. The women might not like it. But I have my reasons. And I do believe my ends justify my means.

*

Annasuya’s face wouldn’t leave my mind. She was the one who had gotten away. I’d failed to get my all-important message across to her.

I wondered how I could get in touch with her. I had to finish my mission. I had to let her know.

I couldn’t just ring up the temp agency and ask. I was sure they wouldn’t take too kindly to me anymore. Even if Annasuya hadn’t said a word to them, they didn’t seem too inclined to continuing their professional relationship with me. I hadn’t asked them for another worker to take the place of Annasuya, and they didn’t offer me one.

Or perhaps Annasuya
did
tell them what I’d done to her. I rather doubted it. I’m not a woman, but I would imagine that if anyone had attacked me at work, I wouldn’t exactly be rushing off to announce it to the world. But supposing that she
did
say something to them. I, personally, would have found it hard to swallow. After all, at her age, I doubt that she was a virgin. What proof would she have had?

No. If I had been her boss, I would have just dismissed her. Hysterics. Histrionics. Women are all the same. If you kiss them on the cheek in greeting
,
they’re off to the police to claim sexual assault. If you brush their hand as you walk past they say you mugged them. If you start rummaging through their desk trying to find a pen, they accuse you of trying to steal their wallet.

Even so, I doubted the agency would release any personal information about Annasuya to me. I tried looking through the White Pages but there were only about fifty people named A. Adler in the phone book. Of course there was no one called Annasuya Adler listed.