“What did she see?” she asked. Bourbon slurred her words and she was ashamed. He didn’t get mad though.
“You know what she saw.”
She didn’t, but she was afraid if she said it he would think she was stupid or being contrary. Then he really would get mad, so she nodded.
“The prince-every story has to have a prince,” he said, and there was genuine warmth when he looked into her eyes and smiled.
I would die for an hour of his love. The thought floated like a bubble on the bourbon and the fear. He was so beautiful.
“The prince paid the ugly spying duckling to keep what she had seen a secret. Oh, they never talked about it; a prince doesn’t share things with fat ugly birds, but he paid. He paid so much that the ugly duckling came to owe him.
“One night the prince came to the duck’s nest to collect the debt.” At this point in the story, he reached down and meticulously loosened the masking tape holding the wrapper in place and folded the brown paper back.
“An axe,” she said stupidly.
“Melodramatic, isn’t it? A child’s weapon, but I need historic continuity so an axe it has to be.” He didn’t move to pick it up or touch it but kept looking at her, smiling warmly
She couldn’t take her eyes off the blade, blunt on one end, sharp and shiny sharp on the other.
“Yore gimmin me nax?”
What she had meant to ask was, Are you giving me an axe? Usually, she didn’t get to the point her lips numbed and her words slurred until she was alone.
“Sort of. See all this plastic? I’m going to spread it out over the floor-assuming there is a floor under all this dross-and you’re going to stand in the middle of it. Sit in the middle; I doubt you are in any shape to stand. That’s okay. Bourbon is a good anesthetic. I don’t wish to hurt you, so I will make the first blow count. If you don’t move, you shouldn’t even feel it.”
The smile was still cozy and comforting on his face. Smile and words were at such odds, it took a moment for the meaning of the latter to sink in. “You are going to kill me.” A jolt of adrenaline sobered her for a minute. “Why?” she wailed and tried to stand. He leaned forward, put a gloved hand on her chest, and pushed her back. Forgotten, the caftan gaped open, her left breast exposed. “Why?” she repeated, the wail degenerating into a confused whimper. “I love you.”
“I know. It will be better if you don’t think about it as me killing you. Think about it as you giving me the thing I need right now. I’m not mad at you. This isn’t punishment. I know you didn’t mean to be a spying, prying little duck. That’s the least part of it, really. It’s something I need you to do so I can make right a wrong. It’s the way you can show me you really do love me.”
While he talked in a nice reasonable voice, he shook out the plastic sheets and spread them over the detritus of the room, careful to overlap them several feet. Together, they covered nearly the entire space.
Watching him, she did not know what to feel. He would kill her; she knew that. Part of her thought to get up and run for the door, but she knew she’d never make it. Screaming crossed her mind, but she didn’t do it. The fear was there, so intense she tingled with it, but it wasn’t the bowel-loosening fear she suffered when she crossed him.
“What do you have to live for anyway? Look at yourself. You are middle-aged and pathologically obese; you live in a sty that any self-respecting pig would be ashamed of. The people you know laugh at you. The people you don’t know laugh at you. The greatest emotion you inspire in others is disgust. You’re a drunk. Liver disease will probably kill you in the not-too-distant future. This is your chance to make your pathetic miserable life end with some spark of meaning. You don’t want to keep on living do you? Not a drunken slut selling blow jobs for five dollars a pop? Yes, I know about your little side business. You have made yourself a whore, and a cheap one at that. Let me take you out of this mess.”
He’d come back to her chair and now held out his hand to her. Tears were pouring down her face; she knew this because she felt the warm drops hitting her bare chest.
“Could you take off your glove?” she pleaded, her voice small and sweet, the way it had been when she was little, before she’d become a lump, then a lard, then a whore, and a cheap one at that. “Please? For just a second?”
If she could feel his flesh, hold his hand, it would be okay.
For a moment she thought he would refuse her but, in the end, he did care for her; he took his glove off and helped her to her feet. She staggered and would have fallen, but he steadied her with an arm around her waist.
We could be dancing, she thought. Her hand in his, moving gracefully around the floor, candlelight turning the world to gold, and him smiling down at her, holding her as if she were the most precious thing on earth.
When they stood in the middle of the plastic he’d spread, he looked around. “This should do it,” he said matter-of-factly. “There will be some spatter, but I think we’ve got it covered. I’ll do you with the blunt end of the axe and let you lay for a minute. If your blood isn’t circulating it will be neater.”
He wasn’t talking to her; he was talking to himself, so there was no need for her to listen, no need at all. She concentrated on not plopping as he helped her to sit on the floor.
Like a lady.
“I’m giving you a present,” she said and was proud that her words were clear.
“Yes, you are. A fine present. ’Tis a far, far better thing and so on.” He took up a towel that had somehow found its way into the living room. “Think of this as a blindfold,” he said as he dropped it over her head. “If I hit too hard, this should take care of any mess.”
“Please, I want to see your face,” she begged, but he made no move to take the towel off.
He wanted her to have the towel over her.
At first, she didn’t think he was going to answer, and she waited for the blow that would end her life.
“Okay, sure,” he said.
He cared about her.
She could feel him leaning close. His hands touched her head gently through the terrycloth. He folded the towel back so her face showed. The smell of his cologne brushed her senses. More than anything in life she wanted him to kiss her-not because she asked, but because she was necessary to him, because she was the Woman in Red and only she could give him whatever it was that meant so much to him, because he was the miracle around which she had formed her life.
He stood and surveyed her. “I think it will be fine. Leave it there, though.” He fetched the axe and came back. “This isn’t something I particularly enjoy. I’m not a lunatic for God’s sake. It has to be done to make things right; there’s no passion involved to speak of.”
He lifted the axe, turned it so the blunt end was down.
The last thing the Woman in Red heard was, “I guess that’s the difference between art and science.”