“But?”
“But I’d have to feel safe.”
“Well,” I said, “I didn’t chase you.”
She thought about that some more. Then she said, “I’m only about a block away, sitting in my car. If I agree to come back, will you promise I’ll be safe? I mean, I’ll treat you real good and all, but can you promise not to hit me?”
“Yes. If you want, you could bring someone with you.”
“Another girl?”
I laughed. “No, I meant a guy. You can bring a guy with you, for protection.”
She pondered that a minute. “Is there anyone I’m likely to bring who could protect me if you wanted to hurt me? Even if he had a gun?”
“No,” I said, “but, Lauren, you have my word. This choice I mentioned, like anything else we’ve ever done or might do, is completely up to you.”
“And you have my answer to your offer, right?”
I laughed. “You’ve made it abundantly clear. No hitting, no hurting.”
Back in my room a few minutes later, she asked, “Do you get off on beating up women? Again, no offense meant,” she added.
“None taken,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I would never get any pleasure out of hitting a woman, and I don’t understand those who would.”
“Then why?”
I thought about telling her Kathleen Chapman’s story, how she had experienced years of physical abuse at the hands of her ex. I wondered if Lauren could possibly put herself in Kathleen’s place, imagining the heartbreak, the pain and anguish, the humiliation Kathleen had suffered all those years.
My idea did have one major flaw: when you came right down to it, I’d be beating Lauren up now to protect Janet from getting beaten up someday. Of course, Lauren would have made the conscious decision to be beaten up. I wondered if that type of logic would provide suffcient justification for the way I’d feel later.
In the end, I just waved it off . “My mistake,” I said. “Water under the bridge.”
Lauren looked me over carefully. When she spoke, her voice was clear and steady. “You don’t appear to be a freak,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said, “in my experience, most freaks don’t appear to be freaks.”
“I’ve found that to be true in my experience, as well,” I said. She extended her hands in front of her, palms open, as if to say,
“You’d be crazy not to,” I said.
She nodded slowly.
“Would you like me to take off my clothes now?” she said.
“I’d like that a lot. If it’s your choice.”
“It’s what you’ve paid for,” she said.
“Actually, I don’t look at it that way.”
She flashed me a skeptical look. “You don’t, huh?” There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice.
I said, “Sex isn’t the same as intimacy. Intimacy only works if it’s a choice you’ve made about me.”
She stiffened a bit. “A choice,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“Like letting you beat me up?” I saw the anger flash through her eyes. Now that she trusted me not to hurt her, she was fired up.
“It’s nothing personal,” I said, hoping to diffuse the fireworks I could see coming.
“Really? Nothing personal, huh? So your offer had nothing to do with the fact that I’m just a low-life hooker? Tell me, Scarface, how many teachers, nurses, and housewives have you offered to beat up for money?”
I heard her. I don’t mean I listened to her; I mean that what she said and the way she said it made me see it from her point of view. Now what could I say, except that she had a point.
“Lauren, you’re right, of course. That was a big part of it, the fact you do things for money.”
We sat there quietly and looked at each other, neither of us knowing quite what to say.
“There was something else,” I said. “I didn’t give you my reasons, but a big part of it had to do with an uncanny resemblance. But again, I’m sorry I brought it up. I feel terrible for scaring you. I really care about you and always have.”
We were out of orange juice, but she reached for the champagne and poured some into a clean flute. She glanced at her champagne glass and a strange look crossed her face. She picked it up and held it to the light and stared at the amber liquid.
