I don't know what made me hesitate before I knocked. Perhaps I was curious about what was inspiring so much giggling inside, afraid, too, that my depressed mood might bring the others down. I certainly didn't want to intrude and put a damper on their fun. So I stood outside the door and listened. And then I understood: they were talking about me.
'She's too much, Cin. Too much,' said Gretchen.
'Well, I think she's very sweet,' I heard Cindy reply.
'You would. Seeing as how you've been on the receiving end.'
Laughter.
'Sick, sick, sick,' said Karen. they all broke up.
'Play us some more. Come on, Cin. More!' Much giggling again, and then I couldn't believe what I heard. My own voice, on tape, begging Cindy to let me love her: 'Please, Cin. I know just what you need. Please-let me do it. I can make you smile, you know I can. Please. '
The blood rose, boiling, to my face. I felt as if the top of my head were about to explode. My voice! Begging to be allowed to pleasure her! And she recorded it! And was playing it now for them!
'Hey, I've got an idea, Cin.' Gretchen tittered. 'Bring the little mouse down here one night. Share some of that 'please, please, please' with us, okay?'
'I've got some special places she can do.' Karen snickered. 'So long as she begs for it.' And then: 'Sick, sick, sick!'
I wanted to scream. Don't know why I didn't. I wanted to curl up, die right there on the floor. But instead I took hold of the doorknob and shoved the door open. The three of them were sprawled out on their stomachs on top of Karen's bed, the little tape player in the center. Six eyes met mine, laughing, defiant eyes. And then, when they realized I'd been listening, those six eyes turned mean.
'Snooping, Bev?' Gretchen sneered.
But I ignored her. I stared straight at Cindy. 'You recorded me?'
She shrugged, then smiled sheepishly. 'Yeah, well, I guess I did.'
'How does it feel to be a rat?' I spat the words, then reached to the tape recorder and ripped out the cassette.
'Hey, watch it!' said Karen. 'You can screw up the machine. We were just having a little fun. God!'
But I kept my eyes on Cindy and let her have it. 'Is this your idea of fun?'
'Get off your high horse, honeybunch,' said Gretchen Hawes.
'Eavesdropping at the door is like reading other people's mail. Do that, and you deserve what you get.'
I met their eyes with as much contempt as I could summon, then, bursting into tears, ran back to our room and flung myself onto my bed. 'How could she? How could she? How could she?' I screamed into the pillow. I wept and wept and wept.
Cindy turned up an hour later. She'd been drinking. I could smell the booze on her the minute she walked in. I pretended to be asleep. She was noisy as she undressed.
It was clear she wanted to disturb me. Finally she spoke: 'Stop faking, Bev. I know you're wide awake.'
'How could you do that to me?' I asked. 'How could you?'
'You kind of let yourself in for it if you know what I mean,' she said.
I sat up in bed. 'Let myse@ in for it?'
'Sure. The way you've been slinking around all winter, trying to get into my pants all the time. I mean, now and then it's fun, but when I asked you to be my roommate, I didn't know I'd be taking the, you know, lezzy route.'
'But it was you!'
'Uh-uh, Bev. was you started it. I never put the make on you.
I wouldn't want to.' She snickered. 'You don't turn me on.'
I stared at her. This was my Best Friend! 'I turned you on plenty as I remember,' I whispered bitterly.
'Work your tongue around long enough you'll get a reaction. I'm just flesh and blood, you know.' 'So you never cared for me? Is that what you're saying?' 'Frankly I like guys, but I try to understand other points of view. You know the saying 'Different strokes for different folks'? Right?'
I rushed at her then, attacked her with flailing arms and nails. I wanted to scratch out her eyes. Being bigger and stronger, she overpowered me easily. Finally, when I was exhausted, pinned to the floor, she looked down on me and smiled her unforgettable smile.
'Let's not make such a big deal out of this, huh? There're still a couple months till the end of the term.
Let's try and get along, Bev. I'm sorry about playing the tape for those guys. I really am.'
Sorry about playing the tape! What about recording it? What else besides playing it did she have in mind when she taped me when I was most vulnerable?
It all had been a setup, that much was clear; I'd loved her as best I could, but to her I'd been little more than a pest.
The next day I packed up my stuff. She came into the room just as I was finishing.
'Leaving, huh?'
'What did you expect?'
She shrugged. 'Well, it was nice while it lasted, Bev. It's too bad you had to sneak back early on the weekend.' Sneak back! The girl was incredible.
'You hurt me, Cin. Hurt me a lot.'
'If I did, I'm sorry, I really am. I'm sure you'll get over it.
When you do, I hope we can be friends.' She shrugged again and left the room.
Twenty years ago, and I never did get over it, Mama. And I never loved anyone carnally again. I'd learned the risks the hard way and didn't like them. Cindy was the best lover I ever had.
That whole spring was miserable, that whole summer, too, not to mention the whole rest of my life. But as they say, you live and learn. And there was one good thing that came out of our relationship: Cindy steered me to my profession. On her advice I became a psychologist.
By the following autumn, tired of suffering, I decided to concentrate on my anger. And then I began to have fantasies, delicious fantasies of Cindy begging me not to hurt her the way she'd hurt me.
In response I shrugged and smiled and told her not to make such a big thing about it. I was going to kill her; that's all I was going to do. After all, she was only flesh and blood; isn't that what she'd said? And after she was dead, I was going to seal her up with glue.
No big deal, right, Cin? Different strokes for different folks, right? Hub? Right?
I'm looking now at the trophy Tool brought back from Seattle. The yearbook of our Bennington class. Nice book, though I'm not in it.
Nice picture of Cindy as she was then, tossing back her head to flick away the long blond hair that always used to fall across her face.
Reminds me a little of someone I've seen recently, same eyes, hair, same warming, radiant smile.
Carl's bedazzled reaction when you broach taking the tool into your house: 'Sometimes you surprise me, Bev.'
'I don't know what's so surprising, Carl. Diana's my patient, she's my responsibility, and since I've got an unrented basement apartment available, and she's going to be coming to me four days a week for therapy anyway… well, it just seems natural to throw in a little housing, too.'
'Sort of like a halfway house for her. That what you have in mind?'
'Now that you mention it-sure, why not?'
His little eyes dance a jig. 'And you were so against her being released.'
'Never against it, Carl. Hesitant about proposing it, that's all.'
You shrug. 'I guess you could call me conservative when it comes to murderesses.'
He strokes his beard, becoming grayer and more pointy by the month.
'What about a job?'
'There's a lot of possibilities right in the neighborhood-museums, institutes, archives. She's a trained librarian. She'll have no trouble finding a position.'
'Small-town Connecticut girl-think she can hack it in the city?'
You put your hands on your hips. 'I'm from Cleveland, Carl. I can hack it, so why not her?'
