Topping From Below (18 page)
“Finished?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t seem to be concentrating,” I tell him, and yawn again. “I’m really tired.”
“Maybe you should lie down for a while,” he says, and I see him helping me to stand.
Feeling disoriented, I say, “Yes, just for a few minutes.” My words sound slow and unreal. I lean on M. as he takes me into the den, his arm firmly around my waist. He sits me on the couch.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his dark eyes looking into mine.
I nod.
“Lie back. You’ll feel better in a while,” and he pushes me down gently, lifts my feet onto the couch, takes off my shoes. “Just sleep,” he says. “Close your eyes and sleep,” but my eyes are already closed. I think he is saying something else, but his voice sounds distant and I can’t make out the words. Visions of vaginas and disappearing hands cloud my mind. I try to focus my thoughts, but everything is a sleepy blur. Giving up, I roll over onto my side and let my mind slip away.
I wake up slowly, feeling groggy, and when I open my eyes I see the ceiling, the long wooden beam along the length of it, high above. I close my eyes and open them again. This time I see M. Leisurely, he swings in and out of my vision like a doll on a string. I turn to see him better, but my neck feels stiff, restricted; the movement is minimal, and my vision peripheral. He is siting in a chair next to me, leaning forward, and he places his hand on my forehead, but I don’t feel his fingers or the touch of his skin, just a gentle pressure.
“Try not to be frightened,” he says, and I close my eyes again, wondering what he’s talking about.
“You were asleep for a while,” I hear him say. “I put something in your tea. Chloral hydrate.”
I open my eyes once more, still feeling drowsy. I start to speak, but find I cannot.
“It’s a sleeping pill,” he continues. “I only gave you a tiny amount, just enough to knock you out for a short time.”
I’m not as sluggish now, and I realize something is very wrong. I feel as though my mind and body are on a time-delay system, thoughts and senses dilatory. Only now do I recognize the full meaning of M.’s previous words:
Don’t be frightened. I put something in your tea. A sleeping pill
. I struggle to sit up but am unable to move. Then I feel the pressure on my body, the pressure that has been here all along—a tight, constricting sensation, squeezing in on me. Suddenly, I am aware of what has happened.
“Don’t try to move,” he says softly. “It’s impossible—you’ll only exert yourself unnecessarily.” He keeps his hand on my forehead, rubbing gently, as if that alone will calm me.
“Here,” he says. “Take a peek,” and he holds a mirror up to my face. My eyes look back at me, blue and frightened. The rest of my head is wrapped in a flesh-colored elastic Ace bandage. Mouth, ears, scalp—everything is wrapped except my eyes and a small slit for nostrils. He tilts the mirror so I can see the rest of my body. It’s entirely encased in rolls and rolls of Ace bandages. My legs are wrapped together, arms pinioned against thighs, torso covered, no flesh visible whatsoever. I groan, feeling dismay, my utter helplessness, and a wave of panic goes through me. I’m shrouded in bandages. Mummified. A sense of claustrophobia overcomes me, and I feel I’m not getting enough air. I breathe rapidly, shallowly, the pounding of a terror-driven heartbeat exploding in my ears.
“Just relax,” M. says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Try to calm down. It’ll go easier for you if you’re relaxed.”
I look over at him. I try to speak again, but he has stuffed something into my mouth and the words come out mumbled. I blink back tears, refusing to cry.
“Shhh,” he whispers, and he kisses me softly on each eyelid. “You look beautiful like this. Don’t be frightened. Try to enjoy the experience, if you can. I took great care in wrapping you. I wanted you to feel the total isolation, the complete loss of skin sensation. I wrapped your right leg separately before wrapping both legs together—so you wouldn’t feel skin against skin. I wrapped your torso before pinning your arms to your sides, then wrapped you again, over and over, like a cocoon. You should feel no skin at all, nothing, just the tightness of the bandages.”
He puts a hand under my head and lifts it slightly. “I wanted you to be able to see when you woke up,” he says. “I wanted you to understand your predicament fully, but now I’m going to finish the cocoon.”
I groan again, attempting to speak. I try to shake my head.
“I know you’re frightened,” he says, winding the elastic bandage around my head, cutting off my vision, “but try to relax. There’s nothing you can do at this point, so you might as well give in to the feeling, to the sense of isolation, to the knowledge that your very existence depends on me.”
Everything is black now. He has wrapped the bandage several times over my eyes, and no light at all seeps through. I wait, fearing he will wrap the bandage over my nose, suffocating me, but he lays my head back onto the couch.
“I’m going to leave you for a while,” he says. I feel his hand caress my bound breasts, then trail along my bandaged torso. Very softly, he says, “You look wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” and then I hear him walk away, out of the room.
Under the bandages, I feel my body tremble. Blackness, all is black. I remember the description of the second half of his death scenario: the wooden coffin, the sound of dirt as he buries me alive. I breathe faster, desperate for more air. I want to cry out at the unfairness of this. I want someone to help me. The bandages feel tighter than they did a few minutes ago, pressing in on me. Is this how I will die? I begin to cry, feel my body quiver, hear muffled sobs. This isn’t fair, I tell myself.
This isn’t fair
! I think of all the mistakes I’ve made. I thought I had the upper hand; I thought controlling M. would be, if not easy, manageable. I was wrong. So wrong. My breathing is hard and fast, frantic, and I try to slow it down. In and out, in and out slowly, deeply, in to the count of ten … out to the count of ten … in … out …
My body feels heavy, leaden, as though I’m sinking deeper and deeper into the couch. Has an hour gone by? Two? Three? I don’t think I’ve been lying here that long, but I’m not sure. Maybe it’s been only an hour. A dog is barking outside. It’s not Rameau—his bark is lower, more threatening. And a car just drove by. In … out … I listen carefully, trying to block out the thoughts and images running through my mind, grateful for any sound I hear. An airplane flying overhead. More cars. Some kind of insect that got into the house. The low rumble of a distant train …
How long have I been here? And why doesn’t he make any noise? Is he still here? I feel the couch beneath me as pressure points supporting my body, very light under my legs, heavier beneath my torso. There’s a twinge in my lower back, discomfort, and I will it to go away. With each breath, I tell myself I’m getting lighter and lighter, lighter than air. In … out …
I no longer feel my body. I’m separate, detached. There’s nothing I can do. My life belongs to M. I must accept whatever he does. It’s out of my hands, out of my control. There’s no defense, no fighting back, no way to protect myself. Live or die, it’s completely up to M. I listen to the silent words in my mind, louder than spoken ones, and frown. What am I doing? This is what he wants—fear, acceptance, complete submission. I’m reacting exactly how he’d expect me to react. He’s an asshole. He had no right to do this to me. He’s a fucking asshole. A fucking professorial asshole. I hear the words, shrill and clear, as if I’d screamed them out loud. I concentrate, attempt to think rationally. He’s trying to scare me, that’s all. He wants me to stop looking for Franny’s murderer. He wants me to leave him alone. He can’t kill me—the police wouldn’t let him get away this time … .
How long have I been here? I think I dozed off, but I’m not sure. I hear a mosquito, with its shrill, high-pitched whine, circling the room. Outside, an owl screeches. I breathe in and out, very slowly. My nose has taken on monumental importance, and I’m acutely aware of my nasal passages, the left nostril being slightly congested. If I can control my breathing, I tell myself, I’ll be okay. I breathe deeper. Sniff. Expel rapidly. I can’t clear the left nostril. I cry again, knowing I am utterly helpless.
“Hello, Nora.”
Instantly, my body tenses. I feel a knot of terror tightening in my stomach. When did he return? He slides an arm under my shoulders, another under my legs, and lifts me up. He carries me a short distance, a few feet perhaps, then lowers me onto something hard and flat. He’s just trying to scare me, I tell myself, and I struggle to control my breathing, but now it doesn’t work. My breath is rapid, shallow, frantic. I hear a lid closing over me. My screams come out muffled, inaudible. Then I hear a hammer pounding: nails in my coffin. Every muscle is tensed, my chest tight. The hammering stops. Silence. More silence. I wait for the sound of scraping as he drags the coffin outside, but there is no sound. Did I misjudge the distance he carried me? Am I already outside? Still, there is no noise. I wait for the sound of dirt being shoveled on the coffin. I wait, not breathing. When the dirt doesn’t come, I take a short breath. Then another. My lungs ache, my jaw clenches, I feel as though each muscle is constricting upon itself. Time goes by. Minutes, tens of minutes, I don’t know. I wait for the sound of dirt.
But it doesn’t come. Instead, there is only silence. Dark, interminable silence. Hellish. Stygian … Have hours passed? Nothing seems real anymore. I dream I’m dead already, in the underworld ferried along on the River Styx, another soul transported … . How long before the air runs out? Did he cover me with dirt? Did I miss it? …
Something groans metallic. I hear nails squeaking as they’re pulled out of wood, then the sound of the lid being removed. I’m lifted out of the coffin, as if I’m rising from the dead, and set back onto the couch. A hand is placed under my head and I feel the bandages unwinding.
“You may want to keep your eyes shut for a while,” M. says. “The light will seem extremely bright.”
Despite his warning, I open them as soon as the bandage is off. I blink, squint, then open them again, more slowly this time. He continues to unwind the bandages, exposing the rest of my nose, cheeks, mouth, neck.
“Open,” he says, and he pulls a foam rubber ball out of my mouth. Words of anger are on my tongue, but to my surprise instead of cursing him I begin to tremble. He cradles my head against his chest.
“Shhh,” he says. “It’s over now. I’m not going to hurt you.” He stands me up and begins unwrapping my body, layer by layer. I still do not speak, partly from emotional exhaustion, partly from good sense: I want to make sure I’m free before I begin my assault. I sway slightly, unsteady, and lean against M. for support. Looking around the room, I see I was in his den the entire time. There is a wooden crating box in the corner of the room, a hammer and nails on the floor.
“I did this for several reasons,” he says. He finishes another bandage and begins on the next, moving downward from my shoulders, chest, midriff. “I wanted to prove my trustworthiness. You were so convinced I killed your sister, convinced I might even harm you—this should change your mind. I had every opportunity to hurt you, even murder you, if I was so inclined, yet I didn’t. Perhaps now you’ll stop this nonsense of believing I killed Franny—or at least take into consideration that the murderer may have been someone else.”
There are two piles of Ace bandages on the floor. It looks as though he used three- and twelve-inch widths. When he’s finished with my torso, he unwraps my hips and thighs. I still feel weak and unsteady. M. lays me back on the couch, props my head with a pillow, then elevates my legs and begins on them.
“But that was only one reason. You wanted to know Franny better—this was the perfect opportunity. You stepped into her shoes, so to speak, and experienced what she experienced. I can tell you only so much, Nora. To understand what Franny went through, to truly understand, you have to go through it yourself. If I simply told you how I mummified her, you never would’ve grasped the implications of the experience, the depth of feeling that surfaces. Think of tonight’s episode as a tactile filling-in of Franny’s diary.”
My hands are free from my thighs, although each arm is still tightly encased. I move them gently, feeling stiff. As he unwinds the outer cover from my legs, I see my right leg has been bandaged separately and that he has tied rope around my ankles and just above the knees. He unties the rope and begins unwrapping the right leg. When he’s through, I stretch each leg. My body is naked and cold, stiff from lack of movement. M. covers me with a blanket then lifts one arm. He unwinds the bandage.
“The most important reason, however, is simply because it pleased me.”
I glare at him and open my mouth to say something, but he interrupts.
“Not yet,” he says, and begins with my other arm. “Don’t speak yet. I know you’re angry and want to rant and rave at me for a while, but first things first. I have a reward for you; a present for your pain.” He takes off the last bandage and adds it to the pile. There must be two dozen Ace bandages on the floor. I move around under the blanket, feeling the stiffness leave my body. Surprisingly, I have no desire to get up or to see what time it is, or even to vent my anger. I feel drained, exhausted, and very withdrawn, as if I am on an inward journey, inside my head. I have been reprieved. All I want is to stay under the blanket, where it’s safe and warm.
He goes over to his desk and returns with a sheaf of papers. “Franny gave this to me shortly before she died. It’s a short story, sort of. About Franny when she was fourteen, several months before your parents died, before she moved back to Sacramento to live with you. Originally, it was in her diary, but she deleted it. She wanted to destroy this copy also, but I wouldn’t let her. I kept it in my office on campus.”
He hands me the papers. “This will explain a lot about Franny,” he says. “I think you’ll find it a just reward for the ordeal you’ve been through,” and he leaves the room. I look at the first page and begin reading.