Topping From Below (28 page)

“Shall I put the cuffs back on?”

I lie still, infuriated, and glare at him. He looms over me, his erection hard, jutting out with a feral intensity, the black hood still on his head, making him look foreign yet familiar at the same time.

After that, we fucked. I don’t know why—I’m still angry for what he did. I think I must be sick or perverted. We lie in the small bed, not embracing, but our bodies touching. M. takes off the hood and drops it on the floor.

“I had lunch in Sacramento today,” he says. “At Paragary’s. Before you came over.”

I wonder why he is telling me this. “It was dangerous to leave me in here alone with the candles burning,” I say.

He changes the subject. “These are nice,” he says, touching the red splotches on my stomach. Round burn marks mottle my skin. There aren’t many of them—most of the time M. held the candle high enough so the wax cooled slightly before touching my skin, burning but not searing the flesh—but those marks he did leave are ugly and painful.

“I like to see my marks on you,” he says, tracing them with his finger. “Turn over—I want to see my handiwork on your ass.”

I roll over on my stomach, watching M. as he smiles appreciatively. “Did you break the skin?” I ask, feeling sure that he did.

“Not even a little,” he says.

“It feels like you did.”

“No—but you have some nice red welts here. I could’ve been much harder on you.”

“I didn’t like it.”

“You weren’t supposed to. This was a whipping for punishment, not for pleasure—you better learn the difference.” He leans over and kisses my ass. “I do enjoy branding you,” he says. Then adds, “But the wounds will heal in several days, maybe a week. They’re not permanent scars. Didn’t I tell you I’d never really harm you? You should’ve remembered my promise. If you had, you wouldn’t have been so frightened. You would’ve known it was only a game.”

I roll over, frowning. I don’t think M. is capable of keeping a promise, and I certainly don’t trust him with my life. “It wasn’t a game,” I say. “You really hurt me.”

M. says, “You still don’t know the meaning of the word—but you will. Soon.”

I cross my arms. Some of the candles have burned out, and the room is much darker. The sword on the wall glints in the remaining candlelight. “Why did you bring your father’s sword in here?” I ask.

M. smiles. “1 thought you’d like that. It’s just for atmosphere, to help create the proper mood of fear. Part of the game.”

“And what about the hoist? And the padded bench? What are those for?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He turns on his side and puts his hand on my breast. “I do believe you’re enjoying this.”

“Enjoying what?”

“The whole scene—the danger, the fright.”

I shake my head. “You went too far.”

“Your pussy told me differently.”

I climb out of the bed and get my clothes.

M. says, “You always like it when I’m a little rough with you, when I pull your hair, when I push you around. You like a modicum of fear with your sex. Face it, Nora, you’re a danger seeker.”

I deny this is so.

“Yes, you are. I could feel the adrenaline pulsing through your body. I could feel it in your wet pussy.”

I put on my clothes.

M. continues. “You’ve discovered you like living on the edge. You think I killed Franny, and you’re terrified I might kill you. It horrifies you, frightens you, and turns you on like never before.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, and open the door to leave.

“Nora,” M. says, his voice harsh.

I turn around, impatient. “What?” I ask.

“I don’t expect to see those clothes again.”

I turn to leave.

“Nora.”

“What now?” I say, pausing in the doorway.

“There’s a present for you on the kitchen table.”

I leave him, without saying another word. I go into the kitchen and see several pages of paper lying on the table. The top page is titled “Water Rat.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

WATER RAT

by Frances Tibbs

The girl is distant with herself, her body, her mind. She has a sister, Nora, and when the sister found out what she’d done, she threatened her with punishment. No television for a week, Nora said sharply, as if that could make her stop. But when she looked at the girl, her anger seemed to fade. Nora sat her down for a heart-to-heart, her eyes soft blue and pleading. She held the girl’s hand tightly, as if she was afraid of losing her, and with a trembling voice she warned her of the dangers, made her promise not to do it again, her eyes so full of love that the girl, just fifteen, with pale skin and light brown eyebrows, lowered her head and nodded, even though she knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep.

What the girl did was walk serenely into the ocean on a chilly, wintry day. Mr. Clancy, their postman, had taken the girl and his own daughter out to the coast for a day trip. The girl didn’t want to go, but Nora—who had to work that day—said she stayed inside too much, all by herself, never playing with other kids. So the girl went with Mr. Clancy and Jeanine, his daughter. Mr. Clancy was a tall man, the tallest the girl had ever seen, and she didn’t know how he’d get into the tiny Toyota he arrived in, but he did—folding himself up as if his body were made of hinges. Jeanine,
in one of the girl’s classes at school, rode in the back with her, talking about a boy the girl didn’t know and didn’t care to know.

They were walking on the beach, bundled in
coats
—
too
cold for swimming, Mr. Clancy said—when the girl waded in up to her neck, not minding the bitter cold water soaking her clothes and seeping into her skin, not heeding the frantic calls of tall Mr. Clancy as he beckoned her ashore. And then it seemed everyone knew of her march into the sea. Around the neighborhood the story went, Mr. Clancy dropping
off
the news as if it were a letter to be delivered.

She just wants to be left alone, but now at school the kids call her Water Rat. They think she loves the ocean, loves it so much she has to play in it on a winter day. Water Rat—she hates the name. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know the ocean scares her more than almost anything. Even Nora, who should know because she lives with the girl and sees her every day and she’s the only one left who really cares—even Nora doesn’t know why she walked into the sea.

Now the girl is in her room, sitting on the bed, Nora beside her.

“You have such pretty hair,” Nora says, brushing the girl’s hair with her favorite pearl-handled brush, the brush that used to belong to their mother. “You should let it grow out.”

The girl doesn’t think her hair is pretty—not like Nora’s. Nora’s hair is shiny black and perfectly straight, very chic, the girl thinks, unlike her own, which is dull and brown and barely reaches the top of her shoulders. It used to be much shorter, bristly, not more than an inch long, but she stopped chopping it off the day her parents died.

“I hate leaving you here alone,” Nora says. It’s Saturday morning, and she has to work today—like most Saturdays. And Sundays.

“It’s okay,” the girl says. “Besides, I won’t be alone. I’ll go to the library.”

The girl closes her eyes and feels the brush going through her hair, slowly, gently, over and over again. It reminds her of the time, more than two years ago, before Billy died, when her hair was long and curly, almost down to her waist, and her mother would brush it every night. But after her brother died, the hair brushing stopped and the girl saw no reason to keep her hair long, so she cut it off, inch by inch, until it was all gone.

“I used to do this when you were little,” Nora says, and she continues pulling the brush through her hair. “It was so silky and smooth—I loved to brush it.” She adds, “I still do. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.” They are quiet.

Nora stops and wraps her arms around the girl, leaning close. Her perfume scents the air, light and flowery. “Tonight we’ll do something special,” she says, hugging her, their heads pressed together. “We’ll go out to dinner, maybe see a movie.”

“All right,” the girl says, but she knows something will come up at work and they won’t do anything special at all. The girl isn’t bitter; she thinks it must be hard for Nora—who works so many hours at a job that’s very demanding, and yet still tries to find time for her. And Nora will try, the girl knows, she’ll try; but still she’ll be here tonight by herself, alone with her memories.

Nora squeezes the girl’s shoulders. “I know I’m not around very much,” she says. “I wish it could be different, but I have to worh.”

“It’s okay,” the girl says, and decides not to go to the library.

Nora gets up and starts to walk out the door. She hesitates, one hand on the door frame. She’s wearing a black suit and red blouse, ready for work. “I’m really proud of you,” she says. “This year has been so difficult, but you’ve done really well. You get straight A’s in school, you help me around here with the cooking and cleaning. Sometimes you act so adult, I forget you’re just a kid.” She smiles and walks out the door.

The girl listens for Nora to leave the apartment. Then, when she hears the door slam, she gets up. She takes off her clothes and puts on a bathing suit, then looks in the mirror. She doesn’t feel like she belongs to her body anymore. She’s outside of it, somewhere, and whenever she looks in a mirror she sees a strange person staring back at her, someone foreign and unrecognizable. She used to be skinny, but now these extra layers of flesh keep appearing on her stomach and thighs. Her bathing suit is red, with diagonal rainbow stripes, and it fits snugly on her round body. Her legs are chubby, the flesh pale. This isn’t a body she’s comfortable with, this isn’t a body she knows.

She dresses, putting her clothes over the red bathing suit, then leaves the apartment. The cool air hits her immediately, and she zips up her blue jacket. It’s fall, and brown leaves litter the sidewalks and gutters. She walks quickly down the street, hearing a neighbor kid who lives next door calling her, telling her to wait. But she can’t wait. She has to get to the ocean. She walks several blocks to the freeway entrance, then sticks out her thumb for a ride. It takes a long time to get to the ocean. She always has to start early in the morning so she’ll have time to get back before Nora notices she’s gone.

It takes her four hours to reach the coast this time, and she has to switch rides seven times—once with a lady in a van, a family in a station wagon, a beat-up car of teenagers, and four men in trucks, three of them saying she shouldn’t be hitchhiking, a young girl like her could get hurt. The last ride, the old man in a truck hauling sod, lets her off in a little town on the coast—she doesn’t know the name—on a narrow asphalt road.

She walks briskly, crossing the road to take a shortcut through a bumpy field, knowing she doesn’t have much time before she’ll have to turn around and go back home. Outgrowths of meadow grass give way to sandy stretches; above, water birds glide inland, then curve in a gentle arc westward, back to the sea. She skips between a row of run-down concrete houses and heads toward the ocean, toward a cove beneath the rocky promontory where no one can see her. She’s learned to be careful: her rendezvous with the ocean are private affairs. She rations them out, holding off as long as she can, and never, ever, does she enter the water if other people are in sight.

As she gets closer to the ocean, her pace quickens, her heart beats faster. The sounds of the sea call to her, pulling her nearer, moving her as the moon moves the tides. She walks faster. Soon she’s on the promontory, gazing down at the ocean. A salty breeze tangles her short brown hair. She flinches as she watches the waves coming to life, building up momentum as they roll in, then crashing on the shore in a fury of bubbling froth. Up and down they go, like roller-coaster rides, steep and scary and spine-tingling. Her heart thumping, she follows a snakelike path in the rocks that leads down to the beach.

When she reaches the sand, she shrugs out of her blue jacket, then slips off her shoes and socks. The air is cool, the sky a dreary gun-metal gray; no one else is on the beach. Damp and
gritty, the sand is spotted with pods of burnished seaweed, and the air has the dank, brackish smell that always comes right before a storm. She quickly strips off her jeans and gray sweatshirt. Only in her red bathing suit now, she feels exposed and naked on the shore, vulnerable. Wind whips her hair across her face, and goose bumps pimple her skin.

She digs her toes in the sand. In school she learned this: you can’t always see physical changes. Year after year, waves wash over rocks, and eventually, even though no one sees it happening, the rocks are beaten down to pebbles, then to sand. She sighs, and
grinds her heels into the sand. Wide-eyed, she stares out, far, far ahead, where the ocean is flat and gray, calm. The sea frightens her, the immensity of it, yet she yearns for its calmness. She wants to be out there, out where she can float undisturbed. But the girl also wants its power, its ability to turn rock into sand, to turn something big and solid and overwhelming into nothing at all.

She steps into the ocean, gasping at its iciness, the water raw and cutting on her skin. Still she walks on, farther, willing herself to ignore the cold. A breaker showers her with salty water; seaweed winds around her legs. When the next breaker comes, she dives
under it and lets it crash over her body. She comes up shivering, her wet hair dripping down almost to her shoulders. Another breaker comes and takes her under, pulls her farther out to sea. This time when she surfaces she can’t touch the
ocean’s floor.
She treads the water, waiting for the next wave. This is a game she started playing several months ago: to see how far she’ll push herself; to see if the ocean can scare everything out of her, every memory, good and bad. She wants a wave so big and scary that she’ll be sucked into a black hole of fear, remembering nothing. But each time she comes out here it seems harder and harder to reach
that black hole, each time she has to push herself to go even further.