but the East has always known it. Death without sex means extinction, sex without death the same. Orgasm is a bridge between the two states, a temporary annihilation of the self, a momentary return to the womb waters, to the mindless timeless flux of nature. It was into this infinite province that he took you.
ERIN› You sound like you know a lot about it.
MAXWELL› Death and life? Yes. I know them well. But you should not long for that annihilation. We all get there too soon. Tell me, why did you not marry this unique lover?
As I describe Erin’s marriage of convenience to Patrick, and his promise never to ask about Holly’s father, I am forced to look into an abyss I have not allowed myself to think about for the past three months. The dark hole where Dr. Patrick Graham has become unhinged, obsessed by a shadow face that lurks in his dreams like a grinning demon that will never grant him peace.
My face.
MAXWELL› Has your husband ever struck you during these arguments?
ERIN› No. Not that I haven’t deserved it. But I’m starting to understand him now. I once thought he could grow to love my child as part of me. But men aren’t built that way. In the animal world, males try to kill the offspring of other males. At some primitive level, I think the same thing is happening in my husband’s brain. The more he loves my son, the more he hates him.
MAXWELL› Yes. And what is your solution to all this?
ERIN› I haven’t got one.
MAXWELL› Of course you do. You simply haven’t found the strength to admit it. You don’t love your husband, do you?
ERIN› No. He’s a good father, though. I picked well in that department, even in desperation.
MAXWELL› Do you love your sister’s husband?
ERIN› I don’t think so. I don’t know.
MAXWELL› If you knew you were going to die tonight, how would you feel about him?
ERIN› I don’t know. I’d be angry that he was going to be left with my sister. Be free of me and my son. I guess I must resent his happiness.
MAXWELL› And your sister’s.
ERIN› No. I was never jealous of my sister. My parents always loved some Nancy Drew idea of me, but my sister really knew me. And she loved me anyway. She still does.
MAXWELL› So why resent her husband’s happiness?
ERIN› Maybe because he’s the only man who ever made both of us love him. He got to screw Mary Magdalene and deflower the Virgin Mary too, all without taking any consequences. I mean _I_ certainly had to take consequences.
MAXWELL› You want your sister to know the truth.
ERIN› I don’t know. But I’m not sure I can keep the secret regardless. My husband is forcing the issue. What if he leaves me? Should I end up alone with my son while his real father lives an idyllic life with my sister? Is that fair? It makes me crazy! I hate him when I think like that.
MAXWELL› Has he asked you for sex since Chicago?
ERIN› No. But he’s still haunted by me. I feel it whenever I’m around him. And now that he knows about our son, he’s really going out of his way to see us. God. Everything is going to hell and I have no control over it. My sister wants a baby of her own. My son is like an unexploded bomb lying between our two families. My husband’s going crazy, my sister’s husband’s going crazy, I’m going crazy.
MAXWELL› Calm down. Tell me one thing only. What do you want?
Out of five different impulses, the right answer comes to me like divine revelation.
ERIN› I want out.
MAXWELL› That’s simply another way of saying you haven’t the courage to try to get what you want, which is your sister’s husband.
ERIN› No! I WANT OUT!
MAXWELL› Out of what? Out of your situation? Out of life?
ERIN› It’s hard for me to admit this, but I still dream of the magical, mystical man out there somewhere who is what I’ve always wanted. Like
MAXWELL› Describe your prince for me.
I close my eyes.
Out of the luminescent afterimage of the computer screen, something is moving toward me. It is formless yet threatening, faceless yet drawing into focus. It is not one thing. It’s a mass of shadows. An army of ghosts, walking with their eyes shut. Ghosts of all the blind men who used Erin throughout her life. And my ghost walks among them. But behind those pale shadows I see something else. A shining obsidian darkness. And within that darkness floats a single pair of open eyes. Terrible cobalt eyes framed by long lashes, eyes that stare into my soul with phallic intent.
Brahma’s eyes.
ERIN› I think my prince is a Dark Prince. He terrifies most women, but not me. He knows the ways of the world, but he’s not _of_ the world. Do you know what I mean?
MAXWELL› Go on.
ERIN› He inspires awe in men, yet abases himself before me, as I abase myself before him. He knows that all men who ever touched me were like slaves who tended me until his arrival. He knows that earthly defilement confers a certain kind of purity. He knows I possess immeasurable love, but that the edge of my love is terrible and cold, and he welcomes that. He can make me scream in the night, loose me from everything that holds me to the earth, cause an explosion in my head that dwarfs the orgasm of my body. He loves me so desperately that he wants to kill me, but that is the one act he hasn’t the power to commit. Because at the hot core of his strength, he fears me. THAT’S what I want!
MAXWELL› Be at peace, child. I AM COME.
A drop of stinging sweat falls into my eye. Somewhere on this planet a man sits in the glow of a computer screen, speaking these words to me and fantasizing a future I do not even want to crack the door on. I am miles farther down the road Dr. Lenz tried to walk, and the only way home is forward.
ERIN› I don’t know what to say. Your words are powerful. I won’t deny that I’m drawn to you. But I know the reality. You’re nearly fifty years old, and you’re sitting somewhere dreaming about _bedding_ this beautiful young girl you’ve found on-line. I don’t think you’re my savior.
MAXWELL› I am more than savior, Erin. I am a second sun burning above the teeming earth. But even suns need sustenance. They consume themselves, as I have done for so long. I am subject to one god above me, and that god is TIME.
ERIN› You sound like you’ve gone a little far with this.
MAXWELL› We are come to the fork in the road. To the time of choosing. You must decide whether to remain where you are, dwelling in darkness, or to journey to the place of understanding. Remember that knowledge is a burden. Knowledge has a price.
My mind has finally gone blank.
ERIN› I need a few minutes to think about this. It’s a lot to take in at once.
MAXWELL› No.
ERIN› Why not? To be perfectly honest, I need to pee. You’ve made me nervous.
MAXWELL› Urinate where you sit. It will bring your mortality home to you.
ERIN› I’m perfectly convinced of my mortality, thank you. I’m going to leave this terminal for five minutes. I do want to know about your life. I do believe you’re different. You might even be the one. But I have to pee, and I want to compose myself. If you’re here when I get back, I’ll be glad. If you’re not, I’ll be sorry.
And with that-with my heart beating like a triphammer and my hair soaked with sweat-I log off.
