The Book of V.

the king rushes to slam a door, blocking a passage Esther didn’t see before. He throws his back against it and calls back, in a singsong to hide his quavering, “Wait! Not now!” Sweat rolls down his face. Esther turns to the mirror. She is larger in every direction, taller, wider, longer. Her face is made of her features but they have taken on new proportions and aligned themselves at new distances from one another. Her eyes are weirdly far apart and her nose and mouth unnervingly close. Her stomach has swelled, forcing open her robe, revealing breasts as small as kumquats. She pulls the robe closed, but not before she’s sure he’s seen. Her thorny feet are obscenely long, her skin mottled and rashy, her hands so fat they look like paddles. She holds them up for closer inspection and flexes them, then rises on her toes and finds that she can do this, too, and at these assurances that she is still in basic command, the blood hammering in her ears calms a bit. Still, she is shivering as she turns to face the king, who is flat against the door, his eyes huge and desperate. “What is this?” he shout-whispers.

Esther arranges her throat. “This is me,” she answers. Her voice is her own. A minor comfort. “Here I am.”

 WASHINGTON, DCVEE

Banished

The instant she spun away, Vee knew what she had done could not be undone. She fled, taking the back stairs to avoid the women’s party, running until she reached the guest room on the top floor, locking herself in. She shivered uncontrollably. She could not make thoughts. She heard the sound of the house emptying, heard shouting, Alex and Hump, then silence, and time.

A knock, later. Late. She may have slept. Hump’s voice on the other side. “Mrs. Kent?” She opens the door, but he is not the same man. His white-blond hair is damp and pulled into a point between his eyes. His eyes are eerily bright, the blue a marble’s blue. He strides past her into the room, plants his feet, folds his arms, and says, “What will we do with you?”

Vee doesn’t answer. It’s clear from his crooked smile he already knows the answer to his own question, clear that the smile is not flirtatious or even pitying but cruel. Vee holds the doorknob and looks at the floor. She is no longer drunk; her head hurts. She is very thirsty.

“You had to understand it was necessary,” says Hump. “You’ve always been a fun girl, Mrs. Kent. We didn’t imagine you making a fuss. Then boom. Frigid as an iceberg. Shipwreck …”

Hump’s voice is the kind of wave that smashes you to the sand. It recedes, leaves a ringing in her ears, smashes again.

“All it was was a little bit of payback. I got a slice of your wife, you—”

“I understand,” Vee says, wanting it to stop.

“You understand. Oh. Because the senator, he wasn’t sure you did. But look, you’re a smart girl. You figured it out on your own. So what’s your problem?”

The doorknob is wet against Vee’s palm. “Where is Alex?” she asks.

“Crying his eyes out.”

Vee looks up. Hump flashes her a grin that’s gone the next second, a snake behind a rock. “Mrs. Kent. Would you like to tell me about your little ladies’ lib group?”

She stares at him.

“Your husband is not exactly a man of principle, Mrs. Kent. He’s full of information. And you know, that Fiorelli woman was not unhelpful, either. I caught her on her way out. It sounds like there was some tantalizing behavior going on at your party, too.”

“Get out,” Vee said.

“We’ve had a nice thing, you and I.”

She works not to breathe.

“This won’t be permanent,” he says.

“Where is Alex?”

“But it won’t be fun. You were such a fun girl.”

“Where is he?”

“A car will be here at six.”

There are questions she should ask. Where am I going, what is this. Instead she envisions herself disappearing. Not going anywhere, not running away—Hump wouldn’t let that happen—but simply fading. Ceasing to be.

“Hey.” Hump, on his way out, sets a finger under her chin. He makes her look at him. He has never touched her before. “Get some sleep,” he says, and flips the finger and slides it down to the hollow in her throat, then out the ridge of her collarbone. He presses the finger into her shoulder, hard, and Vee realizes, an agony falling through her, that her shoulder is bare, her dress still half-unzipped.

 AND SO

It Was Recorded:

THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER

NOVEMBER 4, 1973

EXCLUSIVE: The wife of Senator Alexander Kent has been admitted to Fainwright Hospital, the renowned psychiatric institution outside Boston, Massachusetts, the ENQUIRER has learned.

According to the senator’s chief of staff, Humphrey Sumner III, the senator’s wife, Vivian, 28, a petite, attractive redhead who hails from a long line of New England statesmen, suffered “a psychotic break following a party [last Friday night] that grew quite out of hand. We’re still trying to determine whether she may have been under the influence of a narcotic. She has a delicate constitution, and the senator is comforted that she is now receiving the best care possible.”

Although Senator Kent was not available for comment, Barbara Haskell, the wife of Congressman Haskell of Illinois, told the ENQUIRER that the Kents’ party was “a terrific time, with women and men on separate floors; I’ve never seen anything like it. There was wonderful music and lots of dancing. Vivian is wonderfully pretty, a fun-loving hostess. I guess you could say it got a little wild.”

Asked what “wild” looked like at a ladies-only event, another guest, Diane Fiorelli, who traveled all the way from Rhode Island to attend the Kents’ party, reported that she was “concerned from the beginning about how things might develop, and my concerns were shown to be legitimate.”

When asked to elaborate, Mrs. Fiorelli declined. But Mr. Sumner shared context that might help fill in the gaps, saying that Mrs. Kent had