Topping From Below (16 page)

“If she’d been given the chance to survive at all.”

He sighs; at once, a tiresome look covers his face. “We’re back to that, are we? Did I break her body as well as her heart? I hadn’t seen her for several weeks before she was killed, Nora. I broke it off with her. Why would I go back and kill her? Why would I want her dead?”

“I saw your box in the closet. I know what you did to her. You like pain—other people’s pain. I think you’re a control freak who lost control. You went too far. Things got out of hand, and Franny ended up dead.”

“In the first place,” he says, his tone instructional, “you don’t know what I did to Franny, and you won’t know until I decide to tell you. Second, if that’s your theory—that I killed her in an uncontrolled moment of sadistic passion—aren’t you afraid I’ll lose control with you?”

“You can’t touch me. The police would be all over you.”

“But if I lose control, I won’t be thinking rationally. The consequences won’t enter my mind.”

Suddenly, I feel closed in, as if his car had just gotten smaller. I say, “If I go—you’ll go, too. The police will know you’re involved, and this time they’ll get you. That will be of some satisfaction. You’ll pay for what you did.”

He is silent for a minute. Slowly, like a parent expressing disapproval, he shakes his head. He says, “Nora, you’re extremely foolish. That kind of thinking won’t bring back Franny—it’ll only get you killed.”

I get that closed-in, anxious feeling again, pinched off from the world. “Some things are worth dying for,” I say, but I know I don’t sound convincing.

His eyes still on the road, M. says, “Then the big question now is, will I put you to the test?”

“You tell me,” I say, frightened by his words.

He watches the road. Rain splashes on the windshield. “If I were to kill someone,” he begins, then he glances over at me and adds, “if I were to kill you, for instance, it wouldn’t be in an uncontrolled frenzy. It would be very controlled, deliberate, very methodical. If I were going to commit an act so … final, I would want to enjoy it. I imagine one would lose out on the total experience if one was not in control.”

He hesitates for a moment, thinking, then says, “I imagine I’d begin by tying you up, binding your arms and legs. Then I’d mummify you. Do you know what that is, Nora? It’s a bondage experience. There are many ways to do it, but the basic principle is the same: to completely wrap someone up, head to toe, shutting off as much sensory input as possible, rendering them immobile. You would be helpless, unable to move, unable to fight back, unable to scream for help. It would give me pleasure to see you like that. But I’d have to go a step further, wouldn’t I?—if we’re talking about murder. And I wouldn’t want to get caught. I’d have a wooden box ready, the size of a coffin, and I’d place you inside it, then nail down the top. I’d bury you, perhaps in my own backyard. You would hear the dirt fall against the coffin as I shoveled it in. There would be nothing you could do, just listen and panic as I buried you alive.”

I stare at M. as he says this, feeling a coldness go through my body that has nothing to do with the low temperature outside. He looks at me and smiles, that snide half smile of his that I’m coming to hate.

“But this is all hypothetical,” he adds. “I’m not a murderer.”

Again, I feel my isolation. I should not be alone with M. I look out the window. We’re in the Sierras, the mountains white and hushed, the road banked high with dirty snow. I reach for the heater and turn it up. White firs and the shorter, brown-barked incense cedars stud the mountain, covering the melting snow with a crusty mantle of scaly leaves, pointed needles, and rounded cones. The highway, slick and slushy gray-black, twists around the mountain in sharp turns and bends; M. drives slowly, carefully. The temperature outside isn’t cold enough for snow, and the rain, now just a soft, muffled sprinkling on the car, seems to isolate M. and me, setting up a wet carapace between the two of us and the rest of the world.

“That stuff you had in your closet,” I ask him, “did you use it on Franny? All of it?”

He does not answer immediately. Finally, he says, “The relationships I enjoy most involve some form of sadomasochism, and I usually choose women who also enjoy this. Franny was different; she wanted a more traditional arrangement. However, she was in love with me, more so than any other woman I’ve known, and because of this she allowed me to do virtually anything I wanted with her. I demanded that she prove her love to me, and she did—over and over and over. And her pliancy, her unwillingness to say no, made me even more demanding. I was far more exacting with her than with any other woman. She had a personality that begged to be abused. She refused me nothing, therefore I took it all. So the answer to your question is yes, she had firsthand knowledge of everything in the box—plus more.”

Momentarily, I am unable to speak. I take a deep breath, then say, “I want to know more. Tell me the specifics. Precisely what did you and Franny do?”

He glances at me, then turns back to the road. “We’ve talked enough about her,” he says.

I feel my anger rising. He gives me just enough details about Franny to keep me in line. “How long are you going to do this?” I ask him. “Doling out information at your leisure; giving me a bit here and a piece there. Do you think you can control me the way you did my sister?”

“We’ll see,” he says.

I stare out the window. Ponderosa pines, with yellowish, deeply furrowed bark, drift by as the car curves through the mountains. Both of us are silent for a while. The rain has stopped, and we’re on the backside of the mountain, past the crest of Echo Summit and heading into the lower elevations of South Lake Tahoe. Here the snowfall is already starting to melt. The berm of the highway is splotched with small muddied patches of snow, and the mountainside is dotted with a white icy patchwork quilt, melting around the edges.

M. looks over at me. “You thought of Franny as good-natured, with no problems, an even-tempered, colorless, dull person you had to see occasionally because you were sisters. You loved her, but she wasn’t your type, just as she wasn’t mine. She wasn’t the kind of person you would have chosen for a friend, and if you weren’t related you wouldn’t have seen her at all. Franny knew this; she knew you found her boring and she accepted it. She never spoke badly of you, and she never reproached you for your disinterest. Perhaps she should have. You never took the time to get to know her as an adult. I did know her, however. On Christmas—you remember Christmas, don’t you? The day you spend with family? The day you were too busy to celebrate with your only relative?—on Christmas Franny visited the convalescent hospital so her friend, Sue Deever, wouldn’t be alone. And once a week she helped with a Brownie troop just because she liked being around kids. You never knew any of this, did you? She might as well have been a stranger. Yet she admired you; she thought the world of you and defended you relentlessly. When I said you sounded selfish, she made excuses for you. She said you were busy, you had your own life.”

I’m staring out the side window, seeing nothing. I wanted to know more about Franny, but now that he’s telling me I don’t like what I hear. I felt guilt before—I realize I should’ve made a bigger effort to include her in my life—but now it runs deeper.

He says, “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why all this devotion to you when, plainly, you didn’t deserve it.”

I am unable to answer him. When Franny died, people, many of whom I didn’t know, came up to me and expressed their heartfelt sympathy. None of them chastised me; none was aware of my neglect. Only M. knows the truth. I pray for him to stop, but he continues.

“Earlier, you said she was easy prey—perhaps you had something to do with that. You were her sister, Nora; you should have known she needed you. You should have cared for her a little more.” He is quiet. Then his voice changes, becomes lighter, irreverent.

“Maybe that accounts, at least in part, for my fascination with you. I want to know this person who claimed such loyalty—undeservedly.”

My throat feels dry, and I know if I speak it will be with difficulty. He is correct, of course. I should’ve cared for Franny more. Reflexively, I strike back at him.

“You don’t have any right to judge me, not after what you did to her.” My voice breaks as I speak. With effort, I regain my composure.

M. takes pity on me. Gently, he says, “Maybe that’s why I can judge you—because of what I did to her. Because—”

“Is this a confession?” I ask, rejecting his pity. “Are you telling me you killed her?”

Slowly, with patience, he shakes his head. “What I’m telling you is that we both hurt her.”

“But I did it unintentionally.” My voice sounds unnatural, strained with emotion and with the tears I won’t allow to flow. I want forgiveness, yet realize it isn’t forthcoming, not from this man. “Maybe I wasn’t a good sister, maybe I was self-absorbed, maybe I was a lot of things—but I didn’t set out to hurt her.”

“No, you didn’t. But the end result was the same. Deliberate or not, she got hurt. You hurt her, I hurt her—that’s life. You have to share the blame.”

I look out the windshield. My alliance with M., born of necessity, is taking a new turn. I made a pact with this man, a deal with the Devil, to complete the puzzle of Franny. Now he’s complicating me in the mystery, making me an accessory to her undoing. I hadn’t bargained for this. I don’t want to be part of the puzzle, yet I feel a tightening force uniting me with M., a bond as secure as a manacle around my neck.

I hadn’t noticed the last few miles go by, and I’m amazed to see we’re at the California-Nevada state line. M. drives past the casinos. He pulls onto a side road and stops in front of a two-story redwood house, the A-framed roof covered with snow.

“Why are we here?” I ask.

Opening the car door, he says, “To learn more about Franny.” The cold air rushes in. He reaches in the backseat for his coat, a navy blue wool blazer. He gets out and walks around the car, slipping into his coat, then opens my door. I hesitate, wondering what will happen in the house.

“Come on,” he says, and he holds out his hand. I get out, ignoring the offer of his arm. We cross the driveway, our breath coming out in short, frosty-white puffs, and go up to the front door. M. rings the doorbell.

“You won’t be expected to do anything,” he says. “You’re only here as an observer—unless you decide to participate. All I ask is that you remember you’re a guest in this home. Refrain from making any comments or judgments while here.”

I start to say something, but just then the door opens. M. introduces me to a tall, portly man. His face is round and ruddy, friendly-looking; he’s casually dressed in brown corduroy slacks, and not wearing any shoes.

“You’re just in time,” the man says, and we follow him through the carpeted hallway, then up a flight of stairs. The entire home is done in redwood and glass, sparsely decorated yet elegant. “We were about to begin.” He leads us into a large den with black leather furniture. We sit, and while we are talking a naked woman in red high heels walks in the room. She is not a beautiful woman—maybe in her late forties, ten or fifteen pounds overweight, too much makeup—but her manner is serene. She’s wearing a black studded collar, like a dog’s collar, and she goes directly to the man and kneels in front of him, her head bowed. He ignores her, as does M. Red welts run diagonally across her buttocks and thighs.

“I see you’re admiring her marks,” our host says as he leans forward and caresses the woman’s shoulders. “I just finished punishing her when you arrived.” To the woman, he says, “Get up. Give them a closer look.”

“Yes, Master,” she says, and rises.

“Master?” I whisper, glancing at M., but he ignores me.

She walks over to us and smiles, as if she is proud of the welts, and turns around so we can see.

“Very nice,” M. says, running his hand down her thigh.

I whisper to M., “You brought Franny here?”

He nods.

To me, the woman says, “I’m glad you could come today, even if you’re not going to play.”

Feeling nervous, I wonder what she means by
play
.

“We’ll start now,” the man says, rising from the chair. He spreads a white sheet on the floor, then beckons to the woman. She lies on her back, and her breasts, with thin stretch marks spreading to the nipples, sag to each side. Her hair is short and curly, reddish gold, just like her pubic hair. She closes her eyes and begins to breathe deeply, as if she is meditating. Sitting next to her, the man opens a small leather case. I see a row of stainless-steel needles.

M. seems surprised and oddly uneasy. He whispers to me, “This wasn’t what I expected—I thought he was just going to do a whipping and bondage scene.”

We watch as he pinches the skin above her breast and pushes a needle through a thin layer of flesh. I hear her moan.

“Breathe,” the man says to her, his voice soothing. “Just relax,” and he pushes another needle through her skin, on the other breast, then caresses her forehead. She opens her eyes and looks up at him, smiling. Dots of blood spot her breasts.

“This is play?” I whisper to M. as she is pierced with yet another needle.

M. leans close to me. Quietly, he says, “For some people, yes. As you can see, she is enjoying this. Just watch—I think he’s going to do a design with needles on her chest.”

But he doesn’t. From under a piece of fabric in the case, he picks up a gleaming knife. It looks like a surgical scalpel. I tense, drawing in my breath, knowing what he is about to do. Quickly, I look at M. He is leaning forward, just slightly, his expression wary.

Feeling sick, I walk out of the house and stand on the porch, catching my breath. In a few minutes, he joins me.

He says, “It’s called scarification. You don’t have to worry about her—he won’t cut her deeply. And the scars won’t be permanent.”

The cold air goes through my coat, tingling my skin. “Why did you bring me here?”

“So you could see how they interacted.”

“Is that why you brought Franny here?”

“No. Franny was never an observer—she was a participant. Not with the cutting; we never did that to her.”