“Everything’s okay,” I say.
The guard walks away. His body stiffens. He tries to make himself look bigger. She’s not looking at him. She drums on the table with her fingers. Her hard nails are shiny and red. The red matches her outfit. She gives me a quick, forced smile.
I smile back. “You look great.”
“Oh yeah?” she says.
Her hair is dyed dark blond; it’s shoulder-length. It’s hair used to being outside in the sun. Possibly used to having fingers woven through it. I try very hard not to ask. Is someone doing that? Waving his sausage fingers through her hair?
She’s heavier now. The pounds sit on her bones, weighing her down, making her seem hunched. She’s too skinny to handle being this fat.
She’s wearing a bright red dress. She must be wearing it to divert attention from her tired face. The colour does exactly the opposite, making her seem older. It’s an unusual colour to wear in here. Most visitors try to be anonymous. The two of us must look like some weird Halloween decoration. An orange squash and a tomato in the bland, white room.
“You don’t get the Internet here? It was all over the celeb sites. Your girl has retired,” she says.
“Who?”
“$isi. She has a blog now. It’s all about cancer. But it’s all good news, don’t freak out. Her treatment is working. But she’s done with music. Too bad.”
“Too bad,” I say, but I feel immense relief. Almost euphoric relief. As if I’d been forgiven.
“You really okay?” she says after we don’t talk for a while. This is fine, not talking. It’s more than doing something romantic like sitting and holding hands together and talking. If you can be silent together, that’s a good sign.
“I’m really okay. You?”
“Okay too. Really. Busy. Finished making my first audio for a movie. It was stressful. I shouldn’t complain.”
“What’s the film about?”
“Nothing you’d find especially sexy. But it’s about music, so it’s a bit up your alley. I’ll try to remember to mail it to you when it’s done.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“I really am.”
“You don’t need to be proud of me. I’ve got people to be proud of me,” she says a bit too loudly. “Sorry. God. That’s not what I meant.”
“It is. And it’s okay. You’re throwing a tantrum. But you’re right. You probably have lots of people to be proud of you. So I’m just going to be proud independently if that’s okay.”
She sighs. “Yeah.”
“Why are you here?” I say, even though I’m afraid. What’s the worst answer she could give? She’s curious. That’s the worst answer. Nothing else. Or she’s cruel. That’s a bad answer, too. Pulling wings off a fly.
She says nothing for a while. “Why did you plead guilty?”
“Why?”
The guard is watching us again. Or watching her. To him, the red dress probably signals all kinds of things. She wants it. She wants him. Only sluts wear red.
I was guilty. Not of raping her, but of betraying myself. I’m not here because of my nature, like the pedophile in the cell across from me, or the granny rapist. I’m here because I went against my nature. I am also here because I liked going against my nature.
I called Gloria from here once. She was hysterical. I should appeal. Could she contact Thomas the lawyer? She’d never stopped loving me! I couldn’t calm her down. “Why are you so fucked up? What are you, some kind of masochist? You’re not a masochist! You only think of yourself,” she shouted.
She was confused. I had to hang up.
I think of my dream from long ago, running through the forest. My face smeared with blood, my feet turned into hairy paws sinking into mossy ground. I was hunting. No. I was being hunted. Em catching up with me and sinking her teeth into my artery. Gotcha.
I could free myself. Protest my innocence like a stupid little bitch. Call in favours: Gloria, the Grey Campaign people, $isi. Character witnesses. Petitions. My passion for good causes. My selflessness. My martyrdom. We could find holes in Em’s setup. Proof it was consensual. No tears in vaginal walls, no bruises on the insides of her thighs.
I want to say things to her. It was all for you.
“Fifteen minutes!” the guard yells.
“How is Dolores?” I say
Em sits up straight, her shoulders pushing back. There’s a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth. “We’re not friends anymore. But she’s okay. I think.”
“You’re not friends.”
“She dropped out of school after she met you, after the accident, and went to a loony bin for a bit and came back and got engaged and married some loser. She never left our hometown. The end. I was so mad at her. I blamed you, but I was also mad at her, if you need to know.”
“Has she said anything about –”
“Nope. She just moved on. We never really talked. She met her idiot husband in the psych ward. I went to her wedding and the baby shower. And then we lost touch. That’s all.”
I wish I could slide right next to her. She sits with her elbows on the table. Oh, to touch those elbows. Feel their hardness.Take her head in my hands. Force her to look at me.
“Was she in on it?”
Em shakes her head. “God, no.”
Sometimes I imagined both of them plotting. The two of them sitting on their girly beds. $isi blasting on the speakers. Newspaper clippings about me strewn around. Lots of giggling. A pile of limbs and hugs. Dolores. Open mouth. Protesting. Em outlining a particularly brutal detail (the choking). Or, conversely, Dolores egging Em on. Dolores coming up with the particularly brutal detail.
I’m relieved it was just Em. Her own crazy idea. That’s how much it mattered. I mattered. We are in this together. I feel bonded to her. Married. Another freedom that I would give up for her if she’d let me.
She will let me. Her visit to me is a weakness. She has this weakness and I am it. This is the opening in her, to her. I wish I could reach across this table, feel the warmth of her blood pulsing underneath the pale skin. I would grab the back of her neck. I would smash her chapped lips against mine.
I finally say it.
She looks at me and says nothing. We both look around the room, stopping once in a while to take a break in each other’s eyes. I hold her this way. She lets me hold her. We could be talking right now, but what’s the point? We are saying everything we need to say.
Before she leaves, she leans forward – that guard watching us, inching closer. She says, “Wait for you.”
“Wait for me.” Is there or isn’t there a man weaving his fingers through her hair? It doesn’t matter. The tiredness that seems to permanently reside in her ashen skin signals trouble. I will never make her look this way.
I reach out to grab her hands. The guard starts walking toward us. “Hands,” he shouts. She starts to pull her hands out of my grip. No. Please.
She stops struggling.
We’ll go through years of sexual discovery. Years of sexual plateaus. Years of headaches, lies, infidelities. Reconciliations and – what else? – apathy. It’s better than nothing. I have nothing. This is me capitulating to love. I am its ultimate conquest. I’ve always wanted to cheat it, give it as if it was mine to give. I’ve never meant a word of it. And here I am with a fluttering chest. Inside me, this love like a heart attack. Imprisoning me for life. Because this is for life, this will be a life sentence, her loving me.