Lips that would kiss
form prayers to broken stone
T.S. Eliot
1
Rachel banged her knee and scraped her elbow as she reached under the dumpster outside the Korean grocery store, but she managed to get her palm around the baby kitten she'd seen run under it and which was hiding there all by itself. Gently now she retracted her bare arm, keeping the hand holding the kitten suspended midway between the pavement and the bottom of the dumpster -- in order not to hurt the baby -- but the physics of that move insured more scrapes to her arm, a knock on the elbow, and a kink in her shoulder.
It was that time of evening between day and night when, although it is not darkest, yet it is most difficult to see things - the violet hour, the violent hour.
It was foolish, perhaps, to have stopped when she was late already, but she had long ago lost the reputation for being sensible, and it often got her into trouble, but she was ruled by her impulses. That's what Larry said. And that's why she needed him always to be looking after her and cleaning up her messes. But it never worked, and she always did something stupid again. She never learned. She didn't know what she would do without him.
2
He was surprisingly undisturbed when she got home. She knew that if she wasn't there when he got back from the garage, he didn't like it.
I'm an old-fashioned kinda guy, he explained one night after he'd smacked her around because dinner wasn't ready when he got home and the house was a mess. He'd had a long and hard day, and sometimes a guy loses his temper. He wouldn't be normal if he didn't.
I mean, I work all day to support us, and all you gotta do, I mean all you gotta do is keep up your end of the bargain, right? I mean that's what you wanted, wasn't it? Just when I come home, my slippers are out and there's a hot meal ready, and the house is a place I can be proud to say I live in it. And if you fix yourself up a little, try to look a little, pretty, hey, that's icing on the cake. You know what I'm sayin'?
I do Larry; you're right. I'm sorry.
I know you are, he said, taking her in his arms.
What am I gonna do with you?
I'll get better, Larry. I mean it. I want to.
She was looking up at him, now, wishing he would kiss her, and he did. A frisson of electricity passed through her and her body fell limp against his.
That's it baby. Papa's home, he said and he slid his hand down her back beneath her cutaway jeans and started circling and teasing her budding aureole and then plunged in. She gasped. Her eyes glazed over.
3
He threw her onto the bed spread eagle, face down, and pinned her there with the might of his arms and knees.
Tell me what you want me to do.
I want you to fuck me.
Tell me where.
In my pussy.
Where?
Up my pussy.
He circled her wrists with his fists and pulled her arms back. She felt as if her shoulder blades were cracking.
Where?
Up my pussy, she repeated beginning to whimper.
He pulled her arms more.
She began to sob.
Where do you want me to fuck you, bitch.
In my pussy, she cried.
Where?
The pain was becoming excruciating.
Up my ass.
Again.
Up my ass.
Ask for it, cunt.
Please fuck me up the ass.
Beg.
The pain was intense.
Please Larry.
Please what?
Please fuck me?
Where?
Please fuck my ass. Oh, please fuck my ass. Fuck my ass.
His cock was like a dagger poking at her now, and his breathing was wet with spittle on her neck as he tore into her flesh with his teeth.
Tell me why.
Because I'm a shitty, worthless little bitch and need to get fucked up the ass.
He ploughed into her. She screamed until the pain crashed like lightening, and then everything caught and turned upside down as in an inverting mirror and the pain turned to an ecstasy of pleasure she had forgotten, and she screamed as he stabbed her repeatedly, fucking her ass and digging his fingers into her arm pits and grabbing her breasts in fistfuls and scratching her nipples with his calloused finger tips until he collapsed on top of her and she almost couldn't breathe.
You're gonna feel that all day tomorrow, he crowed, and you're gonna know for sure whose bitch you are.
I'm your bitch Larry, she said, mindless with adoration.
Damn straight you are, he said lifting his body off hers and swatting her ass.
She rolled over.
Get the hell outa that bed bitch and into the bathtub.
She obeyed instantly. He followed her, and when she was stretched out in the empty tub, he took hold of his still half tumescent cock, and standing above her pissed a long hard golden stream of piss all over her.
She quivered.
You like that, don't you?
Yes, Larry.
Now wash yourself, for chrissake. You smell like a goddam street bitch, a fucking fire plug where every dog can go to piss, he said getting into his jockeys.
And don't wake me when you get in bed. Or better still, maybe you better sleep on the floor tonight.
4
In the moments before she fell asleep, Rachel promised herself things would be different. She was going to do a better job at everything.
She got up early the next morning, losing her balance when she tried to get out of bed only to find she was already on the floor. She prepared the coffee, poured him a glass of juice, cut the English muffins with a fork and had them ready by the toaster, poured out some Chocolate Puffs into a bowl and some milk into a pitcher - he didn't like it when the container was on the table -- and started a new jar of Marshmallow Fluff.
She set a dish of milk under the sink. She looked around the kitchen. The kitten was huddled in between a cabinet and the side of the refrigerator.
C'mon, she whispered, squatting in front of it.
But it wouldn't move and she managed to take hold of it and carry it over to the dish of milk.
She had time so she lingered in the bathroom after her shower. She examined herself in the mirror. While never considering herself beautiful, she found that although she was barely twenty-four, she'd really lost whatever allure she used to have. She had put on weight, her hair was shapeless and without buoyancy, and she had become careless about her body hair as well and her skin was all bristly. Her panties, large white cotton things had holes in them so her pubic hair stuck out in patches. Her bra had the dinginess of poorly washed underwear. She took a new tank top from the drawer, lime green, and pulled on a pair of cutaway jeans. She noticed her upper arms, that they lacked tonus, and to add to everything her sneakers were cheesy, and her thighs were beginning to be, too. It was not a good start. The promises she made to herself last night seemed impossible to keep, and she would have sunk into a deep depression, but she caught herself just in time. That would be no way to greet Larry. He didn't need to begin the day burdened by her grimness.
She was lucky; he woke in a relatively good mood and did not pay too much attention to her except to remind her that he was going to the automotive exhibit at the convention center after work, and wasn't sure when he'd be home, and that he might bring Mark home for dinner with him, so he wanted her to be a good little homemaker and have something good ready and not shame him in front of a buddy.
Thanks for reminding me Larry.
You should keep a list or something. I shouldn't have to. Oh, one more thing. I got something for you just in case you forget.
She looked at him.
Forget what, Larry?
Strip.
Larry?
You deaf? Do what I tell you to.
She did.
Turn around.
Without warning he stuck a butt plug up her ass. Several straps radiated out from it. He turned her around and belted one set around her waist, and brought the other set up over her cunt so that it was inaccessible, and buckled that set to the belt. Then he locked the buckles with a little key on his key chain.
Get your clothes back on.
She did and looked at him questioningly but afraid to speak.
Just to help you remember how things are around here. Think of it this way: you're a bitch whose cunt is off limits and outa service.
And before she could say anything, he said, come on and give me a good bye kiss, but it was not his lips or his cheek he offered but his hand. She bent and kissed it.
He scruffed her hair.
Be a good bitch, baby, he said, and tweaked her by the nipple.
5
He must have known she played with her clit and pussy sometimes since he never did her there, and sometimes she was dying for it. But now, it was no longer an option. She'd have to get used to it and focus all her attention...somewhere else. That was probably what Larry had in mind when he locked her out.
He'd been right when he'd said she'd think about it all day, how he fucked her ass last night. She kept remembering it, feeling it again, each time dissolving into impossible desire. That and the plug up her butt now made her burn. Every time she moved she could feel him stretching her out more. She called him at the garage just to tell him how much she wanted him, but he told her to lay off, he was at work
She wanted to do something special. She wanted to show him how submissive she could be, how much she wanted to please him. So after shopping for dinner - she'd fry pork chops tonight with hash browns and apple sauce and finish it off with chocolate ice cream - when she passed a beauty parlor, she got up the nerve to go in.
Hairdressers were faggots, everyone knew that. Larry always mentioned it. Some faggot swish of a hairdresser he'd say when they'd pass someone on the street who looked "that way." And he'd say it loud enough for the guy to hear, as if daring him to respond but confident that he wouldn't have the balls to.
6
Linda looked up from the copy of Elle she was reading. To Rachel she looked like she'd just stepped out of the magazine.
It was her job to be beautiful, and, indeed, she was striking, and a certain hauteur about the eyes and confidence about the mouth added to the rhetoric of her beauty. Many of the women who got facials, manicures, pedicures, body waxing or just their hair done were in awe of her, even intimidated by her, and some, although only a very few of them actually admitted it, were in love with her.
It was generally good for business. Her customers wanted to please her; they took her esteem as a mark of their merit, and they did nothing to disturb her regard for them, which often translated into paying the prices the salon charged as if they were getting a bargain.
What can I do for you? she said as Rachel stood flustered on the other side of the mirrored counter.
I'm not sure, she said meekly. I don't know. I want to do something about my hair.
The discomfort of others did not bring out tenderness in Linda, and she gave Rachel a hard cold look, but said nothing. And then Rachel had to wait as she turned her attention to a woman in spiked heels and a black pants suit, who gave her a credit card and a smile. The jacket was cut quite low in the front, and it looked like it was being worn over nothing but her voluptitude.
Without even looking at Rachel, who was trying to try to think of some way to get out of the store without totally humiliating herself, Linda pushed several buttons on the imitation Regency telephone sitting on the counter.
Gabriel, she said in something like a throaty whisper, perhaps you can come out front for a minute.
Then, looking not at Rachel, but through her, as Gabriel approached, she said, with a baby doll smile, but not exactly to her, Perhaps Mr. Gabriel can help you.
He was a sight that would have brought out a lot of Larry's hostility - there was no doubt about that -- and Rachel felt awkward, even disloyal just for talking to him. First of all, he was exceptionally handsome, hard-to-look-at handsome. And then, what he was wearing! You couldn't help looking at him, staring even. He wore a pale rose shirt with nearly invisible bright yellow pin stripes and a tie of plum color brocade. His sleeves flared at the wrists, and he wore several bracelets of silver and a gold watch with a plum color face that matched his tie and a brown leather wrist band. And he had rings on nearly every finger, a particularly fascinating jade on his right index finger. His trousers were of a brown you could lose yourself in she'd never seen before, and they fit like a glove. His boots looked like they were made out of highly polished mahogany. They had a small heel and a pointed toe. His hair was thick, wavy, a dark sandy color. His smile, if anything could, almost put her at ease despite herself. And he was wearing a ruby stud earring in a silver setting.
Don't let Linda cow you with that Mr. Gabriel stuff. Everybody calls me Terry. What can I do for you?
I don't know, Rachel stammered. I want to look better. I thought, maybe, I might get my hair cut. It's kind of long and shapeless,
If you come back in an hour I think we can do something.
An hour? She was disappointed.
I have someone on the chair now, Angel.
(Angel?)
I want to do this and I'm scared to do it, and if I don't do it now I'll never do it, she wanted to say, but he sensed it without her having to voice it.
Look, he said. I'll take you as soon as possible, but that'll be around an hour. If you want to wait here, you're welcome to. The chairs are very comfortable. Linda will give you a magazine or you can just rest, relax and get into an easy frame of mind so you can be ready to let yourself experience new things.
Rachel sat; the chair was comfortable.
Good, Gabriel said. That's right, Angel, relax, let yourself drift. Nothing is fixed. There are so many possibilities. Just let yourself drift. I'll be back as soon as I can, and then we'll do something. Ciao, bella.
Ok, she said, as if she had been a cranky baby who had finally been pacified. She began to breathe and everything became warm with a sleepy heaviness.
7
She felt his hand on her shoulder.
Come on dream girl. Cinderella time approaches. That's right. Come with me.
They went passed a number of women (and one guy) covered in white smocks. Some were having their hair done, and some were reclining with a smoky clay mask over their faces. He took her into a private room and indicated she was to sit in a maroon plush barber chair. The room was bright but the light source was hidden. There were mirrors where ever you looked, even on the ceiling.
Ok, Angel, what do you want?
She blushed. I was kind of hoping you could tell me what I should do.
You want me to see you the way you'd like to see yourself, but you don't even know how that is, and then make you look that way.
Pretty stupid, huh, she said, and even laughed.
Not so stupid. The way we know who we are or what we are or how we look is by how other people see us, what other people tell us about ourselves. That's what we tend to give out. So you want me to see you as you'd like to see yourself, and then make you see what I see.
That's kind of crazy, isn't it?
I don't know. Why call names?
Can you do that?
He nodded
But it's not only about your outward appearance, you know. It's not just about mirrors. It's about how you see as well as what you see. Have you ever been hypnotized?
She got excited when he said that, but held it down.
No, she stammered.
How about this, then, he said, I'm gonna put you under, but just a little, just gently at first. See how it feels, and maybe later, we can go deeper.
Ok, she said. But what about my hair?
Nothing radical, he said. Let's start by making it real short. See what your face looks like. Get used to it. Then as your hair grows in we can see what it wants to do. How's that sound?
Whatever you say, she said, and smiled.
That's the ticket, he said. Relax now. Marie's going to shampoo you. Feel her fingers working your scalp, getting all the way into you. It feels so good. Everything's going to be new. Let yourself drift. You know you can count on me. You're beginning to feel so light-headed. All that hair that just pulled you down is going to be gone. Your head's going to float. When you walk your whole body's going to float. You're feeling loose as a cloud. Free and floating.
She sighed with relief. Her eyes fluttered. Then they shut.
8
Larry didn't like it at all, not at all, and when Mark left, he flew into a rage.
What the hell got into you? he screamed.
She stood silent, frightened and confused, dreading what was going to happen and resigned to it.
Did I tell you to get your hair cut?
She couldn't find her voice.
He smacked her.
I'm taklkin' to you. I want an answer.
No, Larry, she whispered.
No, what?
No, you didn't tell me to get my hair cut.
Then how come you did.
I wanted to please you, she said, breaking into tears.
Cut the crap. The only person you were looking to please was yourself. Make you feel like hot shit. So all the fellas'll look at you.
It was only for you, Larry.
He smacked her hard,
That's for lying to me.
I'm not lying, she said and the tears turned to sobs.
9
The next morning she had a bruise on her cheek and her shoulders were sore from sleeping on the floor.
Larry wasn't annoyed that she hadn't fixed him breakfast.
I'll get coffee and something at the donut place, he said, quite gently. You can use the bed when I'm gone, he said. You gotta change the sheets today anyway.
On second thought you know, he said, rubbing her feathery scalp, maybe it don't look so bad.
She ought to have been grateful, and she said Thanks Larry, but the way it came out surprised them both. It wasn't sarcastic, but it sounded like she didn't actually care what he thought, that he'd lost hold of her, and it disarmed him. She felt calm.
She slept for an hour after he left, but woke in a panic. She had made an appointment with Gabriel to get her arms and legs waxed and to talk about a starting a new diet and an aerobics class. It was before...before...when she thought that Larry...but now it would only.... Even in her thoughts she couldn't finish a sentence.
But the trouble was Gabriel expected her. She'd made an appointment. She had to let him know she wasn't going to keep it. She could telephone to say she couldn't come, but what if he asked her why not, and then she'd get all tangled up telling a lie. Anyhow, it was beside the point because she didn't know the number, and she hadn't even noticed the name of the shop. She'd just gone in. Just like her, doing everything impulsively. If she'd just thought it over without rushing in, everything would have been a lot...better.
10
Linda took one look and picked up the phone.
Gabriel wasn't surprised.
He gave her his hand.
She took it.
Come with me.
11
Gabriel learned during their first session what the relationship between Larry and Rachel was like when under hypnosis the first thing that happened was that Rachel wet her pants and on questioning explained that Larry had locked her in a contrivance that made it impossible for her to urinate freely.
The second day, when she came back bruised, and when she admitted under hypnosis that she wanted to leave Larry, but was unable to because of her own insufficiency and because she was turned on -- despite not wanting to be -- by violation and that the force of pain brought her a raw sensation like nothing else she'd ever known, he understood the course of action he had to take with her.
He put her more deeply into a trance and told her she was like an onion. One layer of skin was wrapped around another, one layer of desire was wrapping around another, and each time you peeled off the skin, each time she surrendered to a desire, all there was underneath was another layer, all that remained was the desire again. There were only layers and layers of surface, and together they were going to peel off all the layers, one at a time, desire after desire, actualizing all of them until there was nothing left, neither surface nor depth, neither center nor periphery, neither desire nor the inhibition of desire. And then...
12
In classical Greek tragedy, actual violence occurred off stage. Only its consequences and effects were shown to the audience. No one saw Jocasta hang herself or Oedipus pull off her earrings and smash them into his eyes. A messenger told of the events, and then the blind and bloody Oedipus came out staggering mangled and enlightened, afterwards, awing the spectators with pity for him and fear for themselves at his shock of recognition and their own premonition of what unwanted revelation might be hidden from their sight that yet might be waiting to pull them up short.
So, here, too, perhaps we ought to let the violence of enlightenment and healing be the work of darkness, the practice wrought by a wise hand during sleep, so that waking comes to be what waking seldom is diurnally but ought to be for most of us: the realization that a metamorphosis caused by the experience of dreaming has occurred which has translated us from the tangled mass of conflicting wishes we had been bound to admit constituted us to the graceful elegance and stark beauty we had always seen only in the hidden mirror of our secret awareness but never in the falsifying reflections of reality.
Let us draw a curtain here, too, then, to suggest there is a backstage for this drama, perhaps symbolic of the recesses of the mind. There, Rachel's necessary and hallucinatory sleep can go on undisturbed as our narrative turns away from her and travels elsewhere as the trauma of her transformation occurs.
13
Gabriel's Notebook
I knew something was wrong the first time I saw her, before I ever put her in a trance or probed her. How? I have a feel for things. Not good enough? Ok, how a woman as beautiful as she is could neglect...neglect, no, sabotage her beauty and subvert her personality has to have some kind of reason.
First I laid eyes on her I thought to myself, This girl's in trouble.
There was a guy involved. There had to be, and the situation was potentially very dangerous. That was one of the reasons I started slow - just a simple haircut to begin with - one thing does lead to another -- and that's why I included the post-hypnotic suggestion that she had to feel compelled to come back the next day for a facial and a waxing. I was afraid of what it might lead to. I knew there was a risk. Worse, getting beaten turned her on. It fed into something that I knew she could use much more constructively.
When I saw her the next day and she'd been roughed up, I knew I couldn't let her go back again. I put her under deeply, and took full control. It was a risk. I wasn't freeing her. I was just replacing his domination with my own. For the time being. A risky homeopathy, I admit, but I felt I could work it.
Kirk wasn't happy when I brought her home.
We don't need a housemate, he said.
I know that, I said, taking him in my arms, but she needs a place, I said, punctuating my words with kisses, where she can fall apart and put herself together.
You mean where you can put her together.
Don't be jealous.
I'm not jealous, only I worry about your motives.
In response I took hold of his balls inside his well-worn jeans and pried his mouth open with my lips and filled the cavern of his mouth with my tongue until I felt him yield. And get hard.
You can't have my domination all to yourself. Don't be so selfish.
No sir, he said, his eyes glazing over as I squeezed his nipples.
Or I'll punish you.
Thank you, Sir.
Until you remember there are boundaries which you may not cross.
Yes, Sir.
Now suck my, cock.
Yes, Sir. Do you consider that punishment Sir?
Don't be a wise ass, I said, kissing him.
14
The first night she didn't come home, Larry was torn between anger and anxiety. Actually he was afraid. He couldn't see calling the police to report her missing. He was a bastard. But he wasn't a fool. He didn't want the law poking around in his life.
Maybe she's spending the night at a girlfriend's house, Mark suggested the next day after work when they went out for beer and subs after Larry found that Rachel still hadn't come back.
She doesn't have any friends like that.
How do you know?
She never goes anywhere. She doesn't get any telephone calls. I know her.
During the day?
Hey now, what are you trying to do? My head's fucked up enough already.
Relax. Have another beer.
They sat without talking, drinking.
You know, you been kinda rough with her.
What's that supposed to mean?
Well, how come you assume she's split? Maybe something happened to her.
It woulda been on the news.
Anyhow, maybe she needs some time alone.
Where she gonna go?
How should I know!
The night dissolved, and Larry didn't do anything.
Probably best to let things take their course.
What's that supposed to mean?
Don't be too rough on her when she comes home.
Yeah, but she's gotta know I don't put up with this kinda business. The bitch.
Hey man, tomorrow's a work day. We both need some sleep.
Rachel hadn't come back by the time Larry left for work, and no one answered when he called the house during the day. Nor was she there when he came home. This went on for several more days. He got so edgy that one night the cries of the kitten, which he wasn't feeding, got him so crazy that he threw it out the window. It landed on its feet, and with a mirckirgernaur directed up at him, scampered into the falling dark. And then there was a note on the table as well as her keys one evening when he got home. Otherwise there was nothing changed. The few clothes she had were still there.
I don't need them, she wrote. You can throw them away or do what you want with them. Please don't try to find me. The chapter is closed.
[When you write, please enter the story name in the subject bar. Thanks.]