'I know,' Susan said, and her wide mouth widened further into her big stunning smile. 'Just doing my job.'
What does that mean?' he said. 'You left your shrink too soon?'
'I was hooking up with another bad guy-my father, Woody, all the johns I did were bad guys. Then I come back and start over, and the next thing I know I'm hooked up with you.'
'I am a bad guy? I am like your father? I, who have loved you more than I love life itself?'
She shook her head.
'You love your mother, Luis. You're just working it out on me.'
Luis turned from her and pressed his forehead against one of the theatrical flats.
'Do not say this,' he said. 'Do not tell me I don't love you.'
He pounded on the flat lightly with his closed fist as he spoke. The fist keeping time with the words.
'It is to tell me that I don't exist,' he said. 'I am my love for you, my Angel. I have built this citadel for us, furnished these rooms for us, searched for you since you left, risked everything to bring you here. Do not tell me I do not love you.'
Outside the sealed room there was thunder, but it didn't register on either of them. He turned slowly away from the painted scenery and stared at her intently.
'Do not say that I do not love you.'
Still seated on the floor, bugging her knees in the dim room, she met his look and held it for a long silent moment. Then she shook her head, almost regretfully.
'Whatever you feel for me, Luis, isn't love. You think it is, but it isn't. It feels more like hate to me.'
'Hate?' He seemed nearly speechless. 'Hate?'
'Your old lady was a hooker. You probably hated her for it. Now you transfer that feeling onto me, you know? A woman who was with you and is now with another man?'
'You…' His breath came in hoarse gasps. 'You… think… I am… like… that? That I am crazy?'
'It's crazy to think that you can make me love you, Luis. You can't. No one can. You can make me fear you. I do fear you. I'm afraid all the time. And you're teaching me to hate you. But I love Frank and can't stop. And I don't love you and can't start. I'd rather die than spend my life with you.'
He sagged against the theatrical flat. He opened his mouth, but he didn't say anything. Then he lunged at her, dropping to his knees beside her on the floor and tearing at her clothes. She tried to push him away, but he was much too strong for her. She tried to twist away, but he grappled her back. Her blouse was torn off, he ripped at her skirt. She tried to knee him but missed, hitting his thigh. She scratched at him. He slapped her and her head jerked back. He put his left forearm under her chin and bent her back, pressing on her windpipe while he stripped her skirt from her, tearing the zipper loose with his right hand. A growling noise came from him, and the guttural sound of him gasping for breath. She grabbed his hair, trying to pull his face away from her, but she wasn't strong enough and the pressure on her throat bent her backwards as he fumbled at her last remaining clothes. She managed to turn her head and bite him on the forearm and the pressure on her throat relaxed for a moment. She twisted and rolled over and scrambled toward her bed.
He came after her, grabbing at her legs, as she fumbled under the mattress for her iron pipe. She got the pipe, but he yanked her by the hair and the pipe clattered to the floor as she bent back, her legs doubled beneath her. She drove her right elbow back toward him and caught his nose and heard him grunt with pain. Then she was thrown backwards, entirely, her legs straightened beneath her and she was flat on the floor on her back. He forced himself on top of her. His long hair was tangled and wet with sweat, strands of it stuck to his face. His nose was bleeding, and the blood dripped down on her. He forced her hands back above her head and forced her thighs apart with his knees and tried to insert himself into her. She twisted her hips and struggled harder. He pressed his mouth against hers and with the force of his kiss held her head down as he tried to squirm himself into position to penetrate her. His weight pressed her against the floor, his guttural rage forced against her desperate resistance, and they lay like that on the floor in the dim light of the absurd room, locked in squirming hatred while he struggled to consummate the rape, and she twisted to prevent it. He had penetrated her often in the past, and she had liked it. But in her seemingly interminable captivity, something inside her had calcified and her resolve had achieved an opalescent density. She would resist him until he killed her. She twisted her hip and jammed her knee into his crotch. He seemed to sag, as if his strength was ebbing. Slippery with sweat and blood, she wrenched herself out from under him, scrambling after her iron bar. She got it and, lying on her side, swung it and hit him across the chest. He gasped and suddenly it was over. He slumped and his grip slackened. He fell back against the theatrical flat, his arms folded across his chest, hugging the hurt. Crouching against the far wall, naked except for her torn bra and one shoe, her face smeared with the blood from his nose, her lips swollen and bloody from his kiss, her body gleaming with perspiration, holding the bar, she snarled at him, her voice sounding like someone else's as it rasped between her teeth.
'Don't… you… fucking… touch… me,' she rasped. 'Don't… you… ever… fucking… touch… me… again!'
He sat empty and flaccid on the floor, defeated, leaning his back against the painted scenery where the lambs gamboled in the Arcadian meadow. His bloody face was anguished, his shirt torn, his pants open. His legs splayed out inertly before him. His shoulders began to shake. Then he put his face in his hands and his whole body began to heave, and he began once again to cry. Her gasping breath and his choking sobs made all the sound there was to be heard in the room, except for the faint sound made by the trickles of muddy water beginning to course down the walls of the room and puddle on the floor behind the theatrical flats.
