A Ship Made of Paper

“What?”

“Don’t hit me or anything, but rape me, really really rape me, tear my clothes offand force yourselfinto me.”

“Are you serious?”

She nods yes.

”Iris,”he says, in a fatherly, admonishing tone.But her request has already had its effect on him.His hardness feels urgent, brutal.He grips the band ofher shorts, gives it a tug, waits to see what she will do.

Iris rolls onto her back, she lifts her chin, closes her eyes.She is about to be erased, obliterated, but on her own terms.

“Who should I be when I do this?”he asks.His throat is dry, his voice has a small fissure running through it.

She feels herselfsoftening at her center, the way a peach will ifsomeone has dug their thumb in, softening, beginning to rot.“You’re just you and I’m me,”she says.

“This is strange,”he says.

”Shhh,”she answers.“Come on.It’s all right.”

She has a sense ofhim as completely under her command.She is controlling the situation, him, the night belongs to her at last.But then he surprises her.He tugs her boxers down, fast, with something expert and irrefutable in his movement—just one long pull and they are around her knees.And then before she can even take a breath he turns her over swiftly and a little cruelly, and then the weight ofhim on top ofher presses her nose and mouth into the mattress and all she can think is, Jesus, he is really going to do this to me.

Daniel comes home, closes the door quietly behind him, and tiptoes with exaggerated care across a minefield ofsqueaking floorboards.He is like the henpecked hubby in a cartoon, sneaking back home after a night’s carousing.He sits on the steps, takes offhis shoes, and ascends to the sec-ond floor in his stockinged feet.

Knowing it will only increase his agitation, in some hapless way courting the self-torture, he looks in on Ruby.His love for Kate’s child has taken on the harrowing qualities ofa crime in the planning stage.She is the night watchman in a store he is going to rob, she is going to be in harm’s way.He has a dream ofhis own happiness, and ifhe is lucky enough to one day attain it, bold enough to seize it, man enough to keep it, that joy will be paid for, at least in part, in Ruby’s tears.

Her bedroom is so dark he cannot see her, but he hears her slow breathing.He feels a kind ofthud in the center ofhis consciousness, as if he has just knocked something down to the carpet in the dark.

As he feared, Kate is waiting for him, fiercely awake.Her pillows are stacked up to support her back and she rests her head against the wall, exactly in the center ofthe bedposts.She has wrapped her arms around her chest and she flutters her fingers on her upper arms.Instinctually, his eyes scan her bedside table:a stack ofbooks, a little tape recorder for the taking ofher own dictation, a little blue Chinese bowl holding a United Airlines sleep mask and foam rubber earplugs, and—what he was look-ing for and what gives him the sour pleasure ofa hypothesis con- firmed—a bottle ofzinfandel, in which she has made quite a dent.

“I’m sorry,”she says.

”For what?”

“For giving you a hard time, in the car.”It seems she means to be somehow repentant, but her words are delivered with a little tremor of sarcasm on the edge, though he is not sure who is being mocked—he for being so touchy, or she for behaving badly?

“It’s all right,”he says.“It’s fine.”

“I had no right.”

“It’s okay.It’s just…youknow.Talk.”He feels as ifhe is evading her conversation, she is the bull and he is the matador.

“I would like to apologize,”she says, her eyes narrowing.“And I would like you to accept my apology.”

“You did nothing and said nothing that needs an apology.”

She shakes her head, amazed at the depths ofhis treachery.

”You won’t even give me that?”she asks.

”I wouldn’t know what I was giving.I really have no idea what this conversation is about.”

She takes a deep breath, pours herselfa little more wine, a scientifically minute portion that splashes at the bottom ofher tall glass.“Daniel, I have this terrible feeling about you.No, sorry, not about you.Sorry.

But about what’s happening to you.”

“It’s late,”he says.“I’ve had a long day, we both have.Tomorrow’s Saturday, we can talk tomorrow.”He has peeled offhis socks and now he is stepping out ofhis trousers.For a briefmoment he has allowed himself to wonder what it would feel like ifhe were getting undressed to get into bed with Iris Davenport, and now that the thought has presented itself he cannot get rid ofit.It just flies around and around within him, like a bird that can’t find the window that let it into the house.

“It’s already tomorrow and I want to talk now.It’s no big deal, I just want to ask you a question.Is that all right? One teeny-tiny question? Or maybe not teeny-tiny, maybe more medium-sized.”

“You’re sort ofloaded, Kate.”

She doesn’t mind his saying this.“Do you believe in love?”

“I don’t know.No.Yes.I don’t even know what you mean.”

“O.J.believed in love.Even though he’s lying about killing his wife, in his heart he knows he did it, and he might even think he did it for love.”

“I don’t believe in killing, ifthat’s what you mean.”

“You know,”Kate says, pouring herselfmore wine, less judiciously this time,“people think thatloveis what’s best in each ofus, our capac-ity tolove,our need forlove.They think love is like God, and they wor-ship their own feelings oflove, which is really just narcissism masquerading as spirituality.You understand? Ifwe say that God is love, then we can say that love is God, and that gives us the right to all these chaotic, needy, lusting, insane feelings inside ofourselves.We can call it love,and from there it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to calling it God.But here’s a thought.What ifGod isn’t love?And love isn’t God?What ifall those emotions we call love turn out to be what’s really worst in us, what ifit’s all the firings ofthe foulest, most primitive part ofthe back brain, what ifit’s just as savage and selfish as rage or greed or lust?”

“I don’t know, Kate.It sounds sort ofcounterintuitive.”

“Intuition?What is that?We intuit what we want to intuit.We never intuit things that are against our interests and desires.Maybe intuition is just one ofthe many ways we have ofelevating desire, making it some-thing mystical rather than base.Did you ever think ofthat?”

“No.”

“Love has become some insane substitute for religion, I think that’s what’s happened.And in this country it’s pounded in on us at all times, every radio station, everyTV station, all the magazines, all the ads, everywhere, it’s like living in a theocracy, it’s like living in Jordan and people are shouting out lines from the Koran from the top ofevery mosque.Love, love, love, but what they’re really saying is:Take what you want and the hell with everything else.We’ve even changed the Bible to go along with this new religion.When I was a kid, people used to read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as being about charity—it used to be faith, hope, and charity, remember charity? the humility ofthat?—but now they’ve changed the translation and it’s not charity at all, it’s love.

Big old encompassing love, spreading all over everything like swamp gas.

Love is like a crystal ball, you gaze into its cracked heart and you see what you want to see.It’s really scary.It feels like the whole culture has gone insane.”

Daniel is sure that the best thing would be to remain silent, he has recited to himself his own domestic Miranda rights, but he cannot resist saying,“I haven’t gone insane, Kate, ifthat’s what you’re implying.”

“I know you haven’t, and I don’t think you will.I really feel as ifI’ve found a kindred spirit in you.And this isn’t intuition, or some mystical crapola about our being cosmic twins, or that it was written in the stars, because, let’s face it, that’s not how life is, life’s a bunch ofaccidents, senseless.We improvise, we keep it together.But with you, it’s more.It feels nice.And that’s why ifI were a betting woman, I’d put my money on us.I think we’ll always be together.”

He’s silent.Surely she doesn’t expect him to comment on this.