“Oh, don’t act like that,” she laughed. “You try to talk smart, but you don’t succeed. And you won’t stop looking at my pussy when you do.”
“I’m not looking at your… at you,” he stuttered, “I’m avoiding your eyes. There’s a difference.”
“You know, most men avoid the eyes when they are lying. You do it when you’re intimidated.”
“I’m not intimidated.” Patrick swallowed.
“You know what it means to avoid the eyes when one is intimidated, don’t you?”
“I told you, I’m not intimidated.”
“It means that I’m in control.”
“You’re not in control.”
“You’re not in control,” she mimicked in a patronizing voice. “I am in control, little pussycat. I’m in control, because you are weak. That’s why you keep coming back here. Because I control you.”
She looked at him then. That gaze… that horrible, horrible gaze she had when she knew she had won a victory. Whatever species this wretched creature was, she didn’t revel in the emotions that humans did—success, love, happiness, triumph—no, Dragon Lady only reveled in two things: discomfort and pain. Her facial expressions weren’t merely a betrayal of her success in forcefully extracting those two things. They were an integral part of their extraction. Worse, it was working… and worst of all, she now knew it.
“Fine, I’m intimidated. Does that make you happy?”
“Only two things in this world make me happy, Patrick. Demeaning you, and watching you squirm. Now, would you like to know what I know?”
“I don’t know, honestly,” Patrick said, dreading the answer.
“I know you’ve been cheating on your boyfriend, Freidrich.”
The hammer cracked the anvil, and the hammer followed suit. Perhaps it wasn’t the very-most damaging thing she could have possibly learned about him, but it was very likely the thing that hurt the worst. And that disgusting look of triumph spreading across her face told him that she intended to savor every bit of that hurt.
Patrick had… issues, you see; certain immoral proclivities that he wasn’t able to satiate like normal people. Sure, these proclivities weren’t unique to him, of course. Lots of men in the GDR were just as interested in men as they were women. Patrick knew this because most of his informants were gay or bisexual, which was precisely the main card he held against them. He would call them abominations… and they were, make no mistake. He would threaten to expose them to their families and lock them up in the black cells… they deserved it. They weren’t just sick—they were filthy, abominable sinners for which there was no salvation. Patrick knew this because he was one.
Patrick hated himself for his unnatural desires… for his terrible sickness of the mind. He had tried to stop thinking the things he thought for so long. He had even gone to lengths normal men likely wouldn’t, by attempting to fix himself with some of his female assets. Yet nothing worked the way it was supposed to unless he thought about men. He hated all men that felt this way, including himself. That is, with the exception of his secret: the one person that he refused to think such terrible, damning things about. Freidrich, the beautiful, tortured soul, hated himself nearly as much as Patrick did, and Patrick would do anything to help him feel differently, including lie to him.
Freidrich wasn’t important. He wasn’t anything. He was less than nothing, really. A minor player with a minor job and minor aspirations. Perhaps that’s why he wasn’t minor to Patrick. He was the one secret that Patrick was allowed to keep from everyone—even God. He didn’t deserve God’s judgement, and he certainly didn’t deserve the Stasi’s. Thus, he was excused from the HVA and Stasi’s scrutiny— Patrick had made damn sure of that. But now that Dragon Lady knew… this was disastrous.
“Do I detect some emotion?” Dragon Lady teased, and Patrick hated her for it.
“You…” he began with as much acid in his voice as he could manage, “…how… how dare you.”
“That’s what you want to ask?” she smiled. “How dare I? Not how did I find out?”
“How dare you,” he repeated, as the horror of her knowing this secret sank in. “How fucking dare you. How fucking dare you, you vile bitch!”
“Oh, I haven’t dared to do anything yet, pussycat,” she laughed. “But once dear little Freidrich finds out about your little indiscretions, you will do the damage for me.”
“How dare you!” Patrick repeated again and again, “How dare you!”
“Could you even imagine! Imagine how it will break his poor heart… especially once the Stasi kick in his door and arrest him!”
“You wouldn’t… y-you…”
“Maybe I’ll even have you interrogate him. Oh, wouldn’t that just be a treat? To have you accusing your own secret boyfriend of homosexuality as your coworkers look on? Oh, how he would cry! Such a betrayal!”
The tears flowed freely then, although Patrick did wipe them away roughly with a sleeve. Oh, how terrible and unfair it all was. No one deserved to be tormented in such a way; especially by creatures like her!
“Oh, don’t you worry, pussycat,” she interrupted his tears. “I won’t hurt him. I won’t even tell him… I’m going to just let you dig your own grave and screw it up for yourself. I’ll even be a perfectly magnanimous ‘evil bitch’ and keep your secret from the rest of the team.”
“Why?!” Patrick sniffed, “Why would you? What do you want?”
“I want a great many things. Most importantly, I want to make you wriggle around like the worm you are… but I think the Honorable Lord Piggy already did that for me.”
“I knew it was you!” Patrick screamed, “I knew you were behind that!”
“Of course, I was. You’re a sick little boy—you deserve to be punished.”
“I know I’m sick!” he wailed at her from inside his own head, cursing her existence. Patrick had suffered for his urges since the first day he started having them. He hated himself… worse than hated himself.I’ve wished my own death thousands of times. But I can’t stop, and you know god-damned well that there’s nowhere for me to turn!”
“But misunderstand me, this isn’t about you sleeping with men.” Dragon Lady sneered. “Why would I care who or what you sleep with? I fuck women, and do you see me whining about it?”
“You… you…”
“You’re into what you’re into, pussycat. It’s not that big of a deal. So, you’re into men. I’m into women and…” she paused for effect before continuing, “…I’m into watching you squirm.”
“Why do you hate me so much?!” Patrick bawled.
“Because I hate everything, pussycat. I hate this country, I hate the HVA, I hate the Wall, I hate the Soviets, and I hate you. I’m also bored. I’m bored with everything, just the same as I hate it. Nothing behind our Wall stimulates me. It’s all simple things for simple minds, and the pointless little people living their pointless little lives. I can’t abide it… but whether or not I can, I still have to. Like you, I have no choice in the matter. We’re all stuck here in this prison of concrete and concertina-wire, abiding the stupidity of our beloved ‘countrymen’, in our ‘Grand Socialist Experiment!”
She spoke the last sentence sarcastically in a loud, deep voice, waving her hands about her as if presenting the concept to a great throng of lookers-on. Then, she changed to an acid-laden snarl, with a razor-sharp stare that bored right through to the back of Patrick’s skull.
“One thing I refuse to abide, however, is weakness and insecurity. And you, Patrick, are the very essence of weakness and insecurity. I could handle the fact that you are boring and simple, but your pathetic secrets, and your weak attempts at intrigue, and your trying to scrape together a hidden little world like a cocoon of shit… that’s why I hate you so much.”