Excerpts from "Killing the Good Girl"

From Chapter Seven

     By Wednesday morning she had begun feeling like she was slipping sideways, out of the regular pattern of the outside world. Part of her didn’t want to go to lunch with Will, but the other part needed to sit in a room full of people. In her time alone she’d entered a kind of stasis where she'd been drifting without horizons or landmarks. She wasn’t going to try and do anything during this time but she had to admit that she still expected something to happen, however small. A shift was all she asked for, one that would jettison the unease that crawled about inside of her.

     She had dragged several of the garbage bags of clothes in from her car and gone through them looking for something to wear. She shouldn’t care so much, but her pride firmly instructed her to look as sexy as possible. There was one dress in particular she was looking for, the proverbial little black one, a short, sleeveless dress with a deep neckline. This was his favorite. He had told her once that she looked cool and unapproachable in it, like he shouldn’t touch her, which always made him want to. She wasn’t wearing it to try and tempt him, to toy with him. What she wanted was to look like she didn’t care. The dress would say what she couldn’t—their meeting could go whatever way it wanted, it didn’t matter.

     Her car didn’t seem like such a giveaway with most of the garbage bags removed. She threw a blanket over the rest of it so as not to invite any shoppers and drove downtown. A meter opened up by the Walter’s Art Gallery so she only had to walk  one block.

     Jack’s was a renovated rowhouse on Charles Street that had been turned into a bookstore/cafe. The bookstore was in the front, with dark hardwood floors that sloped slightly downhill, and stark white walls. The small space was crammed with shelves of unalphabetized books. At Jack's you didn’t find the book, the book found you. It took away the pressure. Beyond the store was the cafe. It was dim, with walls painted a shiny black and hung with the work of local artists. The tables were pink, the chairs of white curled metal, reminiscent of those in an old-fashioned ice cream store. A piano sat in one corner; sometimes someone played or they had a scheduled musician. That afternoon it was a flautist, a pale, bony woman with glossy black hair in a floorlength black skirt and white silk blouse. She looked like a symphony reject, but she played beautifully, a tune which sounded like an Irish ballad.

     Will was already there. He’d ordered her an iced tea, unsweetened. Habit. For a perverse moment she thought of pushing the glass aside and waving down a waiter for a diet soda, but the service was a little absent-minded, you were often forgotten, this might be the only thing she got for the next twenty minutes. It wouldn’t do any good to complain. The pace was different here; you came to Jack's to duck out, to delay whatever you had stepped in from outside. To sit, suspended, over a hamburger and a book you’d picked up in the other room. Or to politely catch up with a sometimes, but now ex, boyfriend trying not to talk about his recent engagement or reminisce about fond memories like the six hours you spent in the emergency room when he cut off the tip of his thumb trying to splice an electrical cord with a fish-knife, the nights you sat up reading Ulysses to one another, or the last time you had sex in the courtyard behind his apartment building, knowing the neighbors were probably watching.

     So, of course, she went right for it. "I forgot to say congratulations the other day."

     "Are you saying it now?"

     "I’m not sure. No."

     Now she wanted to leave. She had that pre-push twinge in her stomach. "You shouldn’t be arranging meetings with me."

     "It’s okay. You aren’t that irresistible." She raised her eyebrows at this. "Okay, you are, but you aren’t the only one who can change the rules. It was my turn."

     "Are you saying," she said slowly and deliberately to make sure she was clear, "that you’d be interested in continuing our arrangement as long as it's done your way?" This was a bit shocking, for Will, that is.

     "I’m saying I care about you. While you're here I thought we could eat lunch. Once, maybe twice. That's it. Six months ago I asked you to come back and you didn't. I considered that your last word on the 'us' subject." He said all this very reasonably and gently but she still felt defensive.

     "I did come back. I’m here now."

     "I’ve made other plans."

     "But you never mentioned her."

     "'If you don't come home I plan on marrying someone else', wasn't clear enough for you?"

     "Well, I--"

     "And don't tell me your answering machine ate the tape and you didn't get the message."

     "Fine," she gave him.

     He leaned across the table, "Did you come back because you changed your mind?" And just then, for a moment, his whole manner changed, turned towards her again, as if he was saying she could call him back, that he wasn't completely out of reach. Yet. More than anything she wanted to say yes. It would be so easy and she would be safe again. She’d have a place. But she couldn’t lie about it.

     "No. I came back because of the wedding," she said. Picking up her glass she took a sip. Most of the ice had melted and it was just tangy water.

     He sat back. "So you’re going back to California."

     "I’m staying here a month. I’m at Claire and Dean’s while they’re gone. After that I don’t know what I’m doing." The push had been growing stronger during the last few minutes. She took another sip of the tea, catching some bits of ice with her tongue and crunching it. The room had begun to tip a little to the right. Was she going to have this anxiety the entire time she was home? She’d never make it.

     Without thinking she reached across the table and took his hand. His fingers automatically curled around hers. The dizziness vanished.

     "I wanted to see you. It wasn’t just the wedding," she said. Something was keeping her from saying, Ask me again. I’ll stay. He might still want to hear that.

     He tried to smile but failed. She thought he looked a little scared. "You’re right. I shouldn’t be having lunch with you."

     And he got up and left. Just like that. No one had ever done that to her before. She sat there, her cheeks hot. Better to leave right away as well. She left some money on the table, rose slowly and moved out of the restaurant into the bookstore. From the window she could see Will walking away, down the opposite side of the street, and suddenly she was overwhelmed by a longing for him so great she actually felt weak in the knees, a longing for that tiny part of him that he couldn’t control, that mysterious, instinctive part he couldn’t deny or ignore, to belong to her. For him to turn around, even against his will, and come back to agree to whatever way she wanted to play it. No, she didn’t really want that. The real truth was that she wanted that tiny part of her to belong to him without reservations, without the plastic shield she kept bumping up against but couldn’t see. For the first time, she worried she might never see him again. But what could she do? If she couldn't commit to Will, if she couldn't allow herself to feel that she loved him, what was the alternative? To not feel anything, to find someone who wouldn't care if she cared?

     "Is that him?" asked a smooth, low voice beside her. She turned. It was the peep show man. Curiouser and curiouser. Immediately, she began blushing. She was beginning to understand the term ‘animal magnetism’, this man was one giant suction cup. She actually found herself leaning towards him a little, and made a conscious effort to step back. He didn’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed to see her again. If she had seen him first she would have hidden in the ladies room until he was gone.

     "That’s him," she answered.

     "I don’t think your present will work. He won’t understand what you’re trying to tell him," he said very seriously, as if he'd read something in Will's walk.

     And he did? "And you do," she said. Predictable.

     "I do," he answered, smiling. He was amused by her disbelief and this suddenly made her believe him. Was that an offer? She had the distinct feeling he was saying, I could show you how it’s done. Then he stood back and looked her up and down. She stood still, surprised, but letting him.

     "You look fantastic in that dress. Very Audrey Hepburn. Just the right mix of alluring and cool, which, I assume, was what you were going for—you can’t touch me, but you can want to. Am I right?"

     He was going way too fast, zooming through any and all barriers like they were false fronts, which, of course, they were.

     While she was trying to decide how to answer and still keep her dignity, he asked abruptly, "What are you doing this weekend?" and pulled a piece of folded, hot pink paper out of his back pocket.

     Here we go, she thought, disappointed that this man who had initially so intrigued her was turning out to be so easily read. Yet she didn’t feel like telling him to kiss off. Something about him made her feel girly, conscious of every inch of her skin. Like she was going to start wriggling, ever so slightly. Like she wanted to lick him, just a little, on the back of the neck. So she said, "It depends."

     He handed the paper to her, a flyer for a film festival to be held that weekend. "I own a theatre down the street. Consider this a personal invitation. You'll need something to keep you busy while you’re waiting." He nodded in the direction Will had gone.

     Was he or was he not coming on to her? It came to her in big, black lettering: she wanted him to. Unbelievable. The little she knew of this guy made her uncomfortable. Her mother would be horrified that she was even talking to him. But that wasn’t why she still felt like wriggling, why she allowed herself one delicate dip of the shoulder to toss her hair back. And he did have a point. She couldn’t sit around Claire’s house day after day analyzing herself.

     "I’ll think about it."

     "I’ll take that as a yes. Feel free to bring those condoms along. It would be a shame for them to go to waste. I’m sure we could put them to good use." He made his voice deliberately suggestive and, even though he didn’t mean it she decided to take it that way; the other, colder way seemed, for some reason, a little sinister to her. How to answer him and regain her boundaries? Normally she would flirt right back but he seemed to come from every direction at once and she wasn’t feeling all that sure of herself. At that moment he was giving her a look that made her think they were both acutely aware of her breasts. She was glad they were well-packaged.

     "You’re very impertinent." She’d never used that word before in her life. Now she was cross instead of cool; she’d shown weakness and he gently took back control.

     He chuckled, as if she had just said exactly what he expected her to. "I was only thinking we could pass them out at the theatre. As a public service." Then he shook his head, smiling as if something amused him that he didn’t intend to share. "I am always amazed when I meet one of you."

     His cryptic comment annoyed her and she had the strongest urge to kick him in the shins. "One of what?"

     "Good girls." He gave her a kind of small bow and walked out the door.

From Chapter Ten

     By the time she got to the theatre it was after ten. It was on a narrow side street with a small, old fashioned marquee that read, in scroll-like blue neon: Independent Film Festival. Tonight: ‘Roulette’ and ‘The Banana Pressure’. Posters with that weekend’s schedule and those of upcoming shows lined the glass cases on either side of the entrance. There wasn’t a ticket booth so she went inside. It was very dark, despite the track lighting. Each wall was painted a different primary color. To the left ran a long counter, behind which were shiny steel coffee presses and machines. In the glass case, softly lit, were cinnamon biscotti, iced ginger cookies, macaroons, pastries stuffed with fruit, tea biscuits, and the coffee bins, the beans glinting a deep brown. To the right—leather couches and black canvas chairs in clusters around round wooden tables. Sitting at one was a heavyset girl with long kinky hair and a small mole above her lip who was drinking espresso out of a delicate white cup edged in gold and reading The City Paper. She was wearing a tight red knit dress and her heavy breasts sagged against the fabric.

     "The second show’s already started," she said without looking up.

     "I’m not here for the movie," Leigh said. What would he think of her showing up so obviously late? Of course he would understand.

     "If you’re looking for Martin, he’s—"

     "Right here." Peep show guy—Martin—walked into the lobby from the theatre. Again, the look. He saw everything; he knew everything. She was no mystery. Her heart lurched a little. Not the way a girl with a harmless crush and a vague idea of what she might do for it feels her heart move, but in an excited, fearful way, because she was heading irrevocably towards something that was going to change everything. Her own ideas were vague, but not harmless. What she did know—no, it was an instinctual feeling not yet gelled into knowledge—was that she would do whatever he wanted. With that, she even shocked herself, and liked it.

     He came forward and offered his arm. "We’re getting a drink," he told her. As she took it he called back, "Lock up for me Patricia."

     He took her to Club Charles, a few blocks away. She allowed herself to walk cuddled close to him, in that bubble of pre-intimacy it was so easy to form with a stranger. That’s what she wanted--that, whatever happened, he would always be a stranger, and so he would be completely honest and direct with her. He knew this too. There would be no pretending that she hadn’t seen him coming out of a peep show, or that she wasn’t looking for some kind of escape from the person she saw inside herself and didn’t like. The good girl. She was putting herself in his hands. It was as if he had advertised and she had answered and it was now merely a matter of initiating her. It would be best to tear off all of the accumulated layers at once, but then, she was sure he had his own way.

     As they were buzzed into the club, she smiled at him, already grateful, wanted to squeeze his hand, but that gesture was too sweet for what they were. She was a block of stone within which he could see her true shape. Though she was frozen, he could see the movement, though she had no face, he knew her, and would name her without using a name.

     Like most buildings in the area, the club was long and narrow. The light was reddish to match the walls. Bar on the left, booths on the right. More tables stretched off in the dark and stairs led up to a quieter section. A jukebox beyond the booths played so loud the music slurred a little, distorted. Frank Sinatra doing Cole Porter. Two raucous couples of sixty (she guessed) were singing along and toasting each other, winding their arms together to drink and spilling more on themselves and the floor than into their mouths. One of the women, in a low-cut white sweater and a too-small denim skirt that showed off her pot belly, leaned forward over the bar, trying to get the bartender (a tall, early Mickey Rourke type in leather pants) to look at her cleavage. Instead, he waved at Martin as they passed by.

     They went upstairs and sat at a table close enough to see what was going on in the bar below but not so close to the music that they couldn’t hear themselves talk. He ordered something, she didn’t hear what and didn’t care.

     "I thought you would take longer," he told her.

     "Why?" she was pleased she had surprised him.

     "To give him more time."

     "I’m not waiting for him," she said, a little defensively. She wasn't. Will had broken the rules and gotten engaged, so she was going to break some too.

     "No? It would have given you a reason not to come."

     "I would have come eventually. Before you said anything to me at the bookstore you knew that," she said. He did know. He knew every move he would make, what she would do in response, and how it would end. He would take care of everything. All she had to do was go as far as she could without holding on. The look he was giving her shut out everything else. Feeling a little dizzy, she reached for his hand.

     There was a burst of applause from downstairs. A tall, black man in a floor-length, fur-trimmed camel coat (in the middle of June! she thought), a brown cowboy hat and sunglasses had come in and was dancing in the middle of the bar with the woman in the tight sweater. Her husband and friends were hooting and whistling and clapping. After a few moments of watching them Leigh felt the wet drip of an inexplicable fear, disturbed by how the woman’s fingers entwined so intimately with that of the unknown man, by how their bodies touched without their looking at one another, by what she felt they were giving away. A boundary was being crossed. She was afraid of the dissolving of lines that had kept everything so neat and clear before.

     The dance ended and the man moved off. The woman turned back to her husband, who had been kissing her friend. She couldn’t help feeling the woman had lost something and that, in some way, she had too.

     Martin was watching her. "It will pass," he said gently.

     She looked up, wondering if he understood.

     "The vertigo," he smiled at her confused expression. "From looking over the edge."

     The drinks came but neither of them drank. She couldn’t move. What she had lost was a little of her daring. She looked at him with the hope that he would see this.

     He did. "Are you ready?" he asked.

     "Now?" she answered. She realized the trip to the bar for the drink had been for her, not him--he'd been giving her a set-up, as a courtesy.

     He stood, still holding her hand, and tugged at her until she rose also. Downstairs, Martin went to the bar to pay for the drinks, then guided her out. As they left, ‘How Much is that Doggy in the Window’ began playing on the jukebox and the two couples joined in, singing and barking at each other.

     He took her back to the theatre. They climbed a set of back stairs to the second floor where he lived in a catacomb of rooms with framed movie posters and worn comfortable furniture. He took her to his office and sat her in the black, swivel chair. He handed her the purple nail polish. He began to show her how to use her mind, usually her biggest enemy.

     In the past her mind had always been too far ahead of her, planning for what might happen, worrying if she would react properly, stockpiling emotional responses, rerouting dangerous input, creating warning patterns. The mind was too careful, too cautious and critical, and she would need to convince it that moving away from past protocol was really what she wanted to do. She would need its cooperation.

     He would teach her to turn her brain into a sex organ, take it down underwater out of its element until it became disoriented, finally stopped struggling, and floated, forced to trust; its synapses stilled. Eventually, in this sense-starved state, it would accept what she offered it.

     The phone rang and he left the room to answer it. She stayed in the swivel chair, staring at her promiscuous feet. How different would her life have been if she had had experiences like this to begin with? If she had laughed off her mother’s lectures about love and sex and experimented without being afraid of breaking 'the rules'. A vague feeling of having done something wrong still came over her now and then, but it only made her try harder to step out of line.

     Even so, she felt cheated. What if, when you were of age, your mother sent you to a man like Martin, a man who would teach you how to claim your whole self without shame, how to claim the natural rhythms of your body with the permission of your mind? There was no way of telling as that kind of custom didn't exist and never would. She'd found her own way and now she could feel herself moving deeper into that black water, feel it slap against her thighs.

     While she waited for him to come back she looked about the room. She read some of the titles of the books, growing more and more impressed--Beckett, Eco, Lorca, Kafka, Camus, Freud. In counterpoint, there was a box of Girl Scout cookies on his desk. The image of this intense, provocative man alongside a burgeoning thirteen-year old gave her a Lolita-esque shiver. On the wide windowsill were two blue porcelain pots from which stretched tall, fuschia orchids. She stared into their deeply-veined faces, marveling at how much they resembled a woman’s sex organs, the inner petals flushed almost purple, their yellow tongues curled out, wanting.

     He came back into the room and leaned down over her, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. Tilting her head, she looked up at him. He wasn’t handsome but he didn’t need to be. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, the full bottom lip, the top one bow-shaped. There were slight grooves in the skin on either side of that mouth. She reached up and traced them. His warm, sharp, woodsy smell swirled over her mind like a pleasant, swooning fog.

     "Do you want me to kiss you?" he asked, not teasing, not cold, but kind, as if he knew she needed something to soften what had happened. She nodded.

     He obliged. Her tongue curled into his mouth, like that of the flowers, wanting, and that mouth delivered, exactly the way she wanted. She’d been kissed enough to believe that there was nothing worse than too much technique or too much passion, to believe that both took away rather than gave, both overwhelmed the kiss, so it couldn’t flicker to life, but was smothered between the pairs of lips attempting it. Martin’s kiss did neither. He put one hand at the base of her throat, his thumb stroking the hollow there. The fog deepened. The hand trailed down over the skin between her breasts, then away and, with it, the kiss.

     She wanted to whisper, More, more, but instead she said, "I have to go." There was Truly to take care of, but she also wanted to go slowly.

     He walked her out. When she was safely inside and the car started, he handed her a piece of paper through the open window. In a strong, slanting hand he had written his phone number.

     "Do I need to make an appointment?" she joked.

     He smiled a smile she was growing used to, as if her misguided way was for his own private amusement. "Call me in a few days." He walked back inside. Her heart lurched again with that disconcerting mix of fear and excitement. She felt like she should be preparing for an important assignment, but couldn’t guess what it would be.

Copyright 2002 by Christine Stewart. All rights reserved.