they can brag or sex transactions for money or the duties o f the
marital bed, the roll-over fuck; and he’s burning, consumed,
dying; so what? H e’d show up suddenly and then he’d be gone
and he never touched me; how could he not touch me? He’d
come in a burst and then he’d disappear and he’d never touch
me and sometimes he brought someone with him so he
couldn’t touch me or be with me or stay near me or come near
me to touch me; how could he not touch me? I went into a
white hot rage, a delirium o f rage; if I’d had his children I
would have sliced their necks open. I used razor blades to cut
delicate lines into my hands; physical pain was easy, a
distraction. Keeping the blade on m y hand, away from my
wrist, took all my concentration, a game o f nerves, a lover’s
game. I made fine lines that turned burgundy from blood the
w ay artists etch lines in glass but the glass doesn’t turn red for
them and the red doesn’t smear and drip. There was a man, I
wanted it to be M but it wasn’t M. He tied me up and hurt me
and on m y back there were marks where he used a whip he had
for animals and I wanted M to see but he didn’t come and he
didn’t see. I would have stayed there strung-up against the
wall m y back cut open forever for him to see but he didn’t see.
Then one day he came in the afternoon and knocked on the
door and politely asked me to have dinner with him that night.
Usually we talked in broken words in broken languages,
messy, tripping over each other. This was a quiet, formal,
aloof invitation with barely any words at all. He came in a car
with a driver. We sat in the back. He was elaborately
courteous. He didn’t say anything. I thought he would explain
things and say why. I sat quietly and waited. He was
unfailingly polite. We ate pinner. He said nothing except do
you like your dinner and would you like more wine and I
nodded whatever he said and m y eyes were open looking right
at him asking him to tell me something that would rescue me,
bring me back to being someone human with a human life.
Then he said he would take me home, form ally, politely, and
at m y door he asked i f he could come in and I said he could
only i f we could talk and he nodded his assent and the driver
waited for him and we went in and he touched me to fuck me,
his hands pushing me down on the bed, and I wanted him dead
and I tried to kill him with m y bare hands for touching me, for
not saying one word to me, for pushing me to fuck me, and I
hit his face with m y fist and I hit his neck and I pushed his neck
so hard I twisted it half around and he was stunned to feel the
pain and he was enraged and he pushed me down to fuck me
and he pinned me down with his hands and shoulders and
chest and legs and he kept fucking me and he said now he was
fucking me the w ay he fucked all whores, yes he went to
