Topping From Below (13 page)

The water in the bathroom is still running. I think of what M. said to me last night. I was wary of him, expected something violent; I expected, at the very least, a modicum of pain. He laughed at me and said, “You imagine me a monster, don’t you? What do you think I did to Franny? Use force to get her to submit to me? Everything we did, she agreed to do. She could have said no, but she never did. Oh, it’s true she balked at times. She was unwilling to engage in certain … activities. Nevertheless, she acquiesced. She could have said no, but she didn’t. She could have walked out any time she chose.” Bitterly, I remember his words.

I sit up in bed and lean against the headboard. I’m not wearing anything, so I pull the blankets up to my armpits. This is Monday morning; M. has a class at nine. If he lets me stay here when he leaves, I scheme, it’ll give me a chance to go through his house, a chance to find the physical evidence the police need.

The shower water stops. After a few minutes, he comes out of the bathroom. He’s naked, one blue towel slung casually over his shoulder. He looks at me, says nothing, then goes to the bay window and opens the drapes, revealing an immense silvery sky. The room brightens. I see a vast expanse of lawn, two nectarine trees, a redwood, three Brewer blackbirds roosting on an overhead telephone line. The entire yard is enclosed with an ivy-studded fence. M. walks over to me, confident, at ease, arrogant. In the morning light, without the softening effects of booze and dim bulbs, I view him with a critical eye. At forty-nine, he still has an athlete’s body, but the smooth slimness of youth has been replaced with a hard-edged solidity. There’s nothing soft or vulnerable about him. Placing a hand on my bare shoulder, he leans down to kiss me, but I turn my head so all he gets is a cold cheek. I fold my arms across my chest. I have no intention of having sex with him this morning. He tilts his head, looks amused by my small show of defiance, then straightens, willing to let it go.

He crosses over to the bureau and takes out a pair of socks and underwear. Then he tosses his towel in the bathroom and comes back to the bed, sitting on the edge of it. His penis is flaccid and it lolls over to one side like a lazy dog’s tongue, like Rameau’s tongue. He begins dressing and talking at the same time.

“Your sister had magnificent breasts,” he says. “They were wonderful, simply wonderful. She talked about going to a plastic surgeon to have them reduced. They were so large they hurt her back and shoulders. She said it was quite uncomfortable. You didn’t know this, did you? That she’d considered breast-reduction surgery?”

I didn’t, but I don’t say this to him. He smiles.

“I didn’t think so. Anyway, I told her as long as she was with me she’d leave them alone. I love big-breasted women, and Franny had the largest I’d ever seen. They were spectacular. I loved to touch them. I loved to just look at them.” He smiles thoughtfully, as if he’s deciding how much he can tell me.

“Sometimes, when we were eating, I would make her take her top off so I could look at them during dinner. I’d reach over the table and fondle one while I ate. I never got tired of her breasts.” He pulls up his socks. “Or maybe it was the way she reacted. She hated to expose herself like that. I don’t think it was modesty so much as self-consciousness about her weight. It made her uncomfortable to walk around with her clothes off—and that’s why I made her do it. I found her discomfort … erotic. When I felt like it, I would make her parade around in high heels and a garter belt and nylons, no panties. I have clamps that are attached to the ends of a small twelve-inch chain. I’d put the clamps on her nipples to keep them standing erect, then all I had to do was give the chain a pull and watch it tug on her nipples. I’d make her stay dressed like that all evening: while she ate, watched TV, read a magazine. She never got used to it. Sometimes I’d make her shake her shoulders so I could see her breasts swing back and forth, two great gobbets of shimmying fat. Other times, I’d give them a little slap so they’d jiggle for me.”

He gives me a sidelong glance to see how I’m taking this. I’m furious, my jaw clenched tight. I want to say something, I want to rage at him, but I’m afraid if I do he’ll stop talking. At the same time, I’m afraid he’ll continue. I don’t want to hear any more, and silently I plead with him to stop. Hearing him talk about Franny like this, his cruel treatment of her, is almost unbearable. But I am silent. My need to know the truth is overpowering.

He goes over to the walk-in closet, comes out with a striped button-down shirt and a pair of gray slacks. Walking over to the bay window, he slips on his shirt but doesn’t button it. The window is recessed, goes down to within two feet of the floor, and has a long seat running lengthwise across the bottom. He puts one foot on the seat and looks out the window, setting his pants down neatly next to his foot.

“One day I called her at the clinic,” he begins again, still gazing out the window. “I told her to meet me at my office that night at seven. She was”—he pauses, searching for a word—“surprised. I’d never invited her before. So she was pleased when I asked her, and surprised. I could hear it in her voice. When she walked through my door that evening it was as if she were walking on air—she looked so happy. She waited, sitting in a chair opposite my desk, while I finished a few things. A huge grin kept creeping across her face; she’d try to stifle it, but in a few minutes it would be back again. That’s all it took to elate her, an invitation to my office. That’s a bit sad, isn’t it?” He stops for a moment, thinking.

“Then I told her to come with me, that we were going for a little walk across campus. I took her over to the hog barn.” He turns to look at me. “Do you know where that is? It’s the building south of the Crocker nuclear lab. Franny had never been there before. It’s one of the oldest buildings on campus, and it houses about two hundred swine. There’s one section they call the maternity ward—rows of pens with sows and their newborn piglets. She thought they were adorable, their little squeals, their miniature snouts and hooves. We walked around the barn, breathing in the musky odor, looking at all the different pigs. She held a few of the young ones.”

I wonder where this is heading. I’ve been to most of the science and agriculture buildings at the university for articles I’ve done for the Bee. He buttons his shirt, then picks up his pants, brushing off a piece of lint.

“I’ve been there,” I tell him impatiently. “I know what it looks like. They keep it locked at night. How did you get in?”

He turns and gives me an indulgent smile. “I know my way around the campus,” he says. “I’ve been there almost twenty years now. Getting into the hog barn is not a difficult task.” He slips on his pants, tucks in his shirt before he zips them up. His movements are fluid, almost sensual, a striptease in reverse. He sits in the embrasure of the bay window to put on his shoes.

“She was strolling around the barn, looking at the animals, enjoying herself. I came up behind her and kissed her on the neck. I told her I was going to put a pig at her breast. She laughed, a sort of nervous laugh. She was hoping I was kidding, but by this time she knew me well enough to know that I probably wasn’t. I took off her coat and unbuttoned her blouse. I was still standing behind her; I could feel the tension in her shoulders, the stiffness in her body. She whimpered, barely audible, then she said my name. ‘Michael.’ It sounded like a plea, as if she was begging me to stop. But she didn’t resist; she knew better than that. I unhooked her bra and slipped it off. Taking off her brassiere was always a great pleasure for me: watching her breasts bounce free, rid of their restraints. I cupped her breasts in my hands, squeezed them gently as I held her to me. Her breathing was heavy with apprehension. I actually felt a little sorry for her, but, more than that, her fear excited me. Her timidity, her trepidation of the unknown, her sheer panic—it was stimulating. I told her not to worry. ‘This is such a minor request,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘Try to relax; it’ll be like having a baby at your breast.’ I leaned over the pen and scooped up a piglet and put it in her arms. I took her left breast and rubbed the nipple across its mouth. He seemed tentative at first, but then he took it. He sucked on her, wanting milk. I stroked her other breast and watched the pig on her tit. ‘You see,’ I told her, ‘there’s nothing to it.’ She smiled a little, relaxing. I thanked her for pleasing me, then kissed her, long and deep. ‘Does it feel good to have him suck on you?’ I asked her, nuzzling her cheek. ‘You like it, don’t you?’ She leaned in closer to me. I told her I was getting turned on. She said she was also—which is what I wanted.”

He gazes out the window, remembering. Then he leans back and crosses one foot over the other and continues his story, his voice distant with memories, not really looking at me.

“I returned the pig back to its mother and led Franny to an empty pen. I made her get down on the ground, on all fours, then I went to the railing of the adjacent pen and lifted out six piglets, one by one, and set them, oinking and squirming, in the pen with Franny. She was looking nervous again. She started biting her lower lip the way she always did when she wasn’t sure of something. The pigs started sniffing around the pen, acclimating themselves, and Franny was in the middle of it, on her hands and knees, bare from the waist up, her huge breasts hanging down, pendulous, heavy, swaying just a little as she shifted her weight. One pig trotted right up to her tit and put his mouth on it as if it belonged to him. Franny flinched; she jerked up, popping the nipple out of the pig’s mouth, and started to rise. The piglet squealed in frustration. I ordered her to get back down and stay down. The pig went back to her, reached up and started sucking. The others weren’t going to her, so I grabbed one and pushed it up to her breast. I squeezed the nipple, rubbed it on his mouth until he took it. Then I backed up and watched. I had an erection by now, but I was content just standing against the railing, watching the two pigs suck and pull on her breasts. The others began nosing their way in, curious. Franny was still biting her lower lip, trying not to cry, I think. Her sense of erotic play had vanished. The second pig had given up by now and walked away; another butted right in to take his place. Then he left and another came. This continued for some time on her right breast, the pigs sucking until they realized she was dry, another scrambling for its place. The pig on her left breast, though—he wasn’t about to release her tit. He kept at it, greedily, and wouldn’t let the others nudge their way in. I had brought a small camera with me and I took it out of my pocket and snapped a few pictures. Franny kept looking over her shoulder at the barn door. I think she was afraid someone would come in. I don’t know what bothered her most: the pigs on her breasts or someone walking in and seeing her like that. After a while, she started to groan. ‘He’s hurting me,’ she said. ‘He’s sucking too hard.’ I told her it was because he wanted milk. She wanted to stop; she begged me to let her get up. I told her no, to let the pigs pull on her nipples. I told her I liked watching her suckle the pigs. I told her I was going to put other animals on her breasts, a goat, a foal, a lamb, a calf. 1 went over to her and started pulling down her jeans, telling her she had the udders of a cow, telling her I wanted to milk her.”

He stands and gives me a short smile, shrugs his shoulders and raises his hands, palms upward, in a what-else-could-I-do gesture. “So I knelt down behind her and fucked her while the pigs sucked on her tits.”

I’m trying to contain my anger. “While Franny was crying,” I say tensely, my throat tight.

He goes to the bureau and picks up a watch, clasps it on his wrist. He pockets the change on the bureau top. “No, she wasn’t crying. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t crying.”

“She was upset.”

“Yes, of course.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. “And you can tell me this story, calmly, without it bothering you at all.” I shake my head in disbelief. “How can you talk about her like that?”

He comes over and sits next to me on the bed. “I wouldn’t be,” he says, “if it wasn’t for you. Don’t forget—you’re the one who’s dredging this up. I’d just as soon let it go. Tell me you’ve heard enough about Franny and I’ll never mention her name again.” He pauses, giving me a chance to reply. “Well?” he says. “What’s it to be?”

“I can’t let it go.” 1 clutch the blankets to me. My voice, I know, sounds strained. “I won’t.”

He leans toward me and strokes my cheek. Softly, he says, “It would go better for you if you did.”

I shove his hand away. His gentleness does not fool me the way it did Franny. One thing I know for sure: he does not care what is best for me. His warnings are part of his game.

“Is that your plan for me, also?” I asked him. It comes out as a dare. “To take me to the hog barn?”

He raises an eyebrow, turns up one corner of his mouth. “Do you want to go?”

When I say nothing, he gets up and goes back to the bureau. He puts his wallet in his back pocket, then turns around and faces me, leaning against the bureau. “Franny always thought of sex in romantic terms. She wanted flowers, sweet caresses, words of love, and I gave them to her at first. But then, after she trusted me, I changed the rules on her. We had sex on my terms. Whenever we fucked I called her my bitch, my cunt, and told her what I was going to do to her. I pulled her out of that romantic idyll she’d created and slammed her into my reality, into my world.” M. gives me a hint of a smile. “Last night, when we were making love, I called you my whore, and it excited you—you can’t deny that.” He hesitates just a moment to see if I’ll argue the point, but I don’t. I know it’s the truth.

He continues, his tone matter-of-fact, as if he were lecturing his students. “Franny, on the other hand, cringed whenever I called her my whore, my slut.” He looks over at me, his eyes level. “She hated those words. Even when I used them in the context of sex, which is the only time I said them, even then she hated them. She wanted flowery words. When I first put the pig to her breast—while I kissed her, held her, told her it was okay—she liked it. She was uneasy at first, but she admitted it aroused her. It was only when I had her in the pen, on all fours, with me as the observer, that she complained.”