pull away.
No, she says. I’m not in the mood.
Miller holds her by the wrists and she just sits there, glaring at him. I wait for her to headbutt him or something but she just sits there on his lap.
Honey, he says.
Don’t fucking call me honey. I hate that.
Miller’s eyes become slits. His nostrils flare. He slowly begins to twist Jude’s arms and she sucks in her breath as if in pain.
Are your wings broken? he says.
Fuck you, she whispers.
Fly away, he says. Fly away, Jesse.
Jude struggles with him but he is too strong for her. I assume she’s taking a dive for the video, but it looks very real. I glance at her now and her face is stony, watching. I look back to the screen as Miller relaxes his grip and Jude yanks her hands away. She stands over him now and her eyes are terrible with fear and anger. I can’t remember ever seeing fear in her eyes, real or not.
Miller yawns on the screen. Fly away, he says.
And beside me he whispers, fly away.
Jude slowly pulls her underpants down from under her dress, standing on one leg, then the other as she slips the panties over her feet and drops them to the floor. She raises both arms over her head and twirls a slow, seductive circle. Her eyes to the floor,. Jude twirls once more and now she begins to spin, faster and faster, so that her dress rises and falls and the curve of her white ass flashes the camera like a blinking light and finally she stops spinning, dizzy and breathing hard.
I’m Mary Tyler Moore, says Jude. I can make it anywhere.
But you will always come back to me, says Miller.
Zoom on her face, then fade to Miller sitting on the edge of the coffee table, naked. Jude is crouched sideways on the couch, legs folded under her like a grasshopper. Her back is to the camera and I can’t see her face, but her hair is damp and tangled and she makes no effort to fix it. She still wears the black dress, now wet and barely recognizable, ripped open down her spine. There are new bruises along her back, dark plum bruises the size and approximate shape of a man’s hand. Miller lights a cigarette. He offers one to Jude but she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t look at him. Miller reaches for her and she flinches away.
Easy, he says. Take it easy.
Miller leans forward and strokes Jude’s legs with one finger, barely touching her. Jude shivers, or trembles. Then slowly Miller begins to pull at her legs, unfolding them. Jude doesn’t resist, but shifts her weight and allows him to extend her left leg so that her foot is in his lap. Now he massages her foot, rubbing it softly with both hands. He might be an affectionate guy whose girlfriend has just had a long day at work except that she is bruised and trembling and he is naked and sweating and has a cigarette hanging from his lips with more than an inch of white ash.
You have beautiful feet, says Miller.
Jude says nothing and he continues to rub her foot.
It’s too bad, he says.
Why? she says. Why is it too bad?
Miller removes the cigarette from his mouth and impossibly, the ash does not fall.
Because one day I will cut off your arms and legs.
The picture abruptly goes to snow, then blue.
Beside me, the physically present Miller sighs as if bored. I look around and see that all of the screens have gone blue. Miller flicks the televisions off one by one. He moves over to the bar, stopping to whisper something to the big boa constrictor. Then he chuckles, as if the snake said something clever in return. I look at Jude and her face is completely blank. She could be waiting for a bus or making up a grocery list in her head. But I notice that she is flexing and unflexing her hands.
Who shot that video? I say. And when?
Jeremy shot it, says Jude.
When? I say.
Miller pours whiskey into a glass. Anyone want a drink?
When? I say. Your hair is much longer now.
I think we should go see the kid, says Jude. Before I change my mind.
Excellent idea, says Miller.
Jude turns and walks out of the room.
I stand there a minute like a dummy, staring at the blank television.
Miller raises his glass in my direction. Cheers, he says.
twenty-four.
THIS PLACE IS A LABYRINTH. And it seems to me that most of the people who went into the labyrinth were killed by the Minotaur. I mention as much to Jude and she grunts at me. Jude doesn’t want to talk, it seems. She is stomping along in a mild fury and I reckon she wants to inflict some physical harm on somebody or something. I’m curious as hell about that video but tell myself to save it for later.
She leads me through a series of forgotten, unfurnished rooms and narrow passageways. The house is much larger than I imagined and I am forming the notion that it simply expands whenever necessary, like a house in a cartoon. I follow her along a hall that I have not been down before. Bare wood floors, unlit. The smell of dust. I have a feeling this part of the house is never used, possibly haunted. I follow her around a corner and into a library. Thousands of books, from floor to ceiling. Persian rugs, faded with age. Bright splashes of the sun from skylights above. I take a deep breath and release it slowly.
The room is awesome, the kind of room you whisper in whether you want to or not.
Jude doesn’t blink, of course. She acts like she owns the place, and I have a bright strange vision of her when she was nineteen, sailing through here on a skateboard.
What are you staring at? she says softly.
I love her briefly, for whispering.
Don’t, she says. Don’t stare at me.
There is something wrong with her. The girl on the skateboard disappears and now I am looking at the woman who made a very creepy video with Miller, weeks or even months ago and never mentioned it and now her voice sounds almost fragile, torn. Her face is still a mask but slipping at the edges.
Do you want to talk about that video?
Jude folds both arms across her chest. What do you think?
I think your voice sounds strange.
And how does it sound strange, exactly?
Torn, I say.
Don’t fuck with me, she says.
I take a step toward her and Jude does something I never expected. She takes a step backward, into a box of sunlight so bright she appears to glow. She stands very still and for a moment I think she is vibrating, humming. And then she abruptly sits down on the floor, as if standing before me was becoming a nasty chore and she needed to rest or die.
What’s wrong with you? I say.
Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.
Jude moves away from the sun to slouch against a wall of books. I sit down beside her and we share a cigarette. I won’t ask her any more questions, not now. After a few minutes of silence, she brings herself to lay her head briefly on my shoulder, but that is all the comforting she will allow.
Then she stands up.
