You

by Caroline Kepnes

  We settle into our spots and it feels like we’re holding hands and running off the dock, holding our breath as we jump back into the deep, consuming water that is The Da Vinci Code. These are the happiest moments of my life, looking up at you and waiting for you to feel my eyes as you give me what I want. “Two forty-three. You?”

  “I’m on two fifty-one.”

  “Well, take a break and let me catch up,” you say and you remark once again that I am both a fast reader and a thorough reader which is special because most people, men especially, are just one or the other.

  We cry when Robert and Sophie make it to the chalice. We know what’s to come as they cross the landscape and enter the church. You put your hand on the drawer and I put my hand on the drawer and the drawer is designed to keep our hands apart, but I feel your pulse, I do. You sniffle. “I don’t want it to end.”

  “This is like the end of The Corrections,” I say and the problem with books is that they end. They seduce you. They spread their legs to you and pull you inside. And you go deep and leave your possessions and your ties to the world at the door and you like it inside and you don’t want for your possessions or your ties and then, the book evaporates. You turn the page and there is nothing and we are both crying. We are happy for Sophie and Robert and we are jet lagged from travel. We journeyed. At times we were so in the book that you were Sophie, descendant of Christ, and I was Langdon, savior of Sophie, and we are easing back into our bodies, our minds. You yawn and I yawn and your back cracks. We laugh. You ask me how long it’s been.

  “Three days, almost four.”

  “Wow,” you say.

  “I know,” I say.

  “We should celebrate.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know,” you lie, you nymph. “I could go for some ice cream.”

  The Da Vinci Code is the greatest book in the world and someday, when we live together, we will have a shelf—brand-new, not used, I know you and your new things—and there will be nothing on the shelf except our Da Vinci Codes, nestled together, merged forever by the supernatural force that is our love.

  50

  I run out to buy you ice cream and I hear Bobby Short singing in my head—I am your prince—and I am on air on the way to the deli and on the way back. I bound down the stairs, can’t get to you fast enough, with the ice cream you wanted, vanilla. You are simple again; three weeks ago you would have wanted some fucking gelato you read about in the Sunday Styles. I want to tell you about the funny dude in the line at the deli but when I reach the bottom of the stairs you are different. You are naked. I am still. “Beck.”

  “Come over here,” you command, low. “Bring the ice cream.”

  I do as I am told and your right hand moves over your collarbone and onto your breast and you have another demand. “Give me my dessert.”

  I tear at the bag and the spoon falls on the floor but fuck it and I tear off the lid as well as the plastic lining. The ice cream is soft and my dick is hard and I know why Bobby Short felt like a racehorse; I am a racehorse.

  “One second,” I say.

  “Ticktock,” you say, you purr.

  I play the song on the computer. You like it. You command, “Put it on repeat.”

  I obey and I return to the drawer and you kneel before the cage, your nipples hard. You want to know if I can pull the drawer out and make an open window. I can. You tell me to take off my pants. I do. You reach both hands through the new open space where the drawer used to be and I pick up the ice cream and approach the cage. You touch yourself and your finger emerges wet, glistening and I know to bring the pint closer. The ice cream is hotter because of our heat, melting. You immerse your other hand in the magnet between your legs and you don’t let go of my eyes. Both of your hands are covered in your juices and you dip those wet fingers into the melting vanilla. You tease me. You tell me you want my mouth and I give you my mouth and your fingers fill my mouth and your other fingers are touching skillfully, mysteriously, her first rose. My dick. Your hands are The Da Vinci Code and my body is yours. I suck the life out of your fingers and you pry them from my mouth. I look down at you and you are in the vanilla. You dig, deep. Your vanilla hand joins your other hand on my hard cock, and I am cool and hot and hard to your soft. Your hands can dance and they lead me to your mouth and you swallow me and I moan and we are the world and there is barely room for the three of us, my cock and your hands. I belong in your mouth, and when I open my eyes you are staring at me, wide, whole. I need you, all of you. You want all of me. You know all my secrets and your mouth has teeth. You take me out of your mouth and hold me in your hands. You look up at me, pleading, “Fuck me.”

  I don’t consciously decide to trust you. My body takes over and I can’t unlock the cage fast enough. You rub your hands over your body and you wait. I jam the key into the lock and I miss your touch and I enter your space, you. You do not run away; you run at me, lust. I lock my hand around your neck and inject my tongue into your mouth and you take it. You scratch me. I could kill you and you know it and your nipples are harder than ever and your pussy never felt this sweet, this tight—just vanilla—and we could go on like this forever. You orgasm truly, you’re exploding and it’s an exorcism and an exclamation point. You’re speaking in tongues and I own you and I’m in you and I loosen my grip and explode and you own me, you do. Your back arches, wow. I have taken you places better than the Upper West Side, superior to Turks and Caicos and Nicky’s beige room. I have taken you to France, to the chalice, to the moon, and you cease to move and a smile rolls over your entire body and you’re a lily pad, sun stroked and floating, rooted to the floor of the lake, me, dark, above you.

  The cage door is wide open and I’m half naked and I’d never be able to catch you if you ran up the stairs. If you grabbed my empty dick and kicked and tried to make a run for it, you would make it. The basement doors are unlocked so you could, theoretically, escape upstairs. But the front door is locked; you didn’t work here long enough to learn where I stash the key. Still, if you wanted to, you could risk it all to run naked into the shop and scream for help. Someone would help you and someone would come for me but none of that is happening. Your body can’t tell lies and your goose bumps tell the truth. You lick your lips and look up at me. You purr. “Joe. Wow.”

  51

  AT some point I stop pretending to be asleep and allow myself to watch you sleep. We live in a new world and I kiss you and I stretch. I need to wash up and I walk out of the cage. I don’t lock you in; we don’t lock doors in this new world. I leave the cage door ajar and I do the same for the soundproof basement door as well as the vestibule door that opens into the shop. We are free and I carry the Da Vinci Codes with me, like a kid with a new toy. When I make it upstairs I am genuinely surprised to find the books are where they were before we started reading. They survived the earthquake of our orgasm and the closed sign is where it was when we traveled into The Da Vinci Code and the bathroom is just as it was earlier today, before I fucked you to life.

  I flip on the switch and the tiny bathroom fills with halogen light and the loud, shitty fan that you nagged me to replace. Even the fan makes me smile because of you and I will replace it, Beck. You’re right; it’s too noisy. And it’s so old that it can’t possibly serve any function. It’s also a safety hazard when I’m in the shop alone because one switch controls the light and the fan. You can’t have light without noise and you can’t hear anything above the whir of the fan. And you’re right, Beck. It’s dangerous.

  I flush the toilet and turn on the water and look at myself in the mirror. I look good, happy, and I wonder if I should join Facebook so that you can link your profile to mine. I should get on that now before you have to nag me and I add it to the list in my head. I let the water run hot over my hands and I don’t know if I can really join Facebook for you. I read somewhere that kids now are so dishonest that there’s an actual game they play called “Truth.” You go to someone’s wall—such bullshit
, the language—and you write, “Truth is . . .” and then reveal something both surprising and true. It’s a sad and grotesque thing that you and your friends have become so accustomed to lies that the truth has to be prefaced because it’s inherently surprising, a startling departure from the lies that comprise your lives.

  But you’re done with that now and maybe before you delete your Facebook profile you’ll make one last status update:

  Truth is, I fucking love The Da Vinci Code.

  We’ve got big decisions to make, Beck. Will you move in with me? Will I move in with you? Will we stay in New York? Granted, I have this great job, but I think you’d do well in California—you don’t know enough to be around New York writers—and now that we have each other, we can roam. I look at my Da Vinci Code on top of yours. They look good together, Beck. This is right.

  I pick up the bar of soap and get a good lather going. I am sad to wash off you and the vanilla ice cream. But then again, I am excited to soil myself anew with your sweat and your cum, your juices and your saliva. The fan is loud and my dick is hard and I know what I’m gonna do now. I’m gonna wake you up with my mouth, I’m gonna eat you alive. It’s a good thing I keep a toothbrush handy and it’s dry and I smile because the next time I brush my teeth, the brush will be wet because you will have used it. I feel holy and dedicated as Silas while I brush my teeth and dampen my pits and spray the cologne I bought to smell like the bartender. God, I know you. I splash some water in my hair. I would shave but I miss you too much. I need to eat you and I need to eat you now.

  I flick the switch. The lights go out and the fan slows and I do not open the door. Something is wrong. The silence is cracked by terrible sounds, feet pounding on the floorboards, your distressed vocal cords—Help!—and the front door resisting you as you tug. I grab our books and creep out of the bathroom and you are still up front and pounding and it is, fortunately, four o’clock in the morning and there is nobody around to hear you. Whoever called New York the city that never sleeps didn’t work at Mooney Rare and Used. I walk to the center of the shop and see you at the front, your crazy hair, crazy limbs, in my mother’s Nirvana T-shirt, pulling on the door with both hands, so lost in your mission that you don’t hear me coming. I am quiet as a cat. I take soft, meaningful steps and I set our Da Vinci Codes on the counter. You do not sense me and you are so close to the glass door that you don’t see my reflection. I was right; you couldn’t find the key. I wrap my arms around you and you kick.

  “No! Let go of me you sick fuck!”

  I have a solid grip on you and it’s a shame that you’re in a rage because I could really give it to you right now. But you are an animal—kick, kick—and a handicapped monster. Why do you waste time flailing your arms, little one? You can’t reach me. I carry you down the aisle and drag you onto the floor behind the counter. I slide us to the floor and stretch my legs and hold you on my lap. Even if someone were to pass by, we would go unnoticed, protected as we are by the counter. You fight to get away, but I can hold you for the rest of my life if I have to.

  As always, your anger eventually cools. Your muscles relax and you are my new doll: Sad Beck. You don’t talk. You just cry. You don’t fight me and there is hope. I kiss your neck; you don’t like it. It’s not a time for kisses, I understand. This is a lot to take in, a lot of change and the sun isn’t coming up for a while and I rock you and look at your naked legs on top of mine. This is what love looks like. I know it. You don’t try to claw me anymore. We sit in silence for so long that you must be ready to be good. I begin, I test you. “So, what are we going to do with you?”

  The correct answer: You should beg for my forgiveness, admit that you freaked out when you woke up alone. You thought I had abandoned you, the way your father abandoned you, the way all the men in your life abandon you. And then I promise to stay with you forever and you caress my hands and I forgive you and let you guide my hands to your center, your magnet. I killed for you. I deserve you. I wish I could see your face and you haven’t answered so I rephrase the question, “What happens now, Beck?”

  The correct answer: love.

  You answer, with a voice so flat I almost don’t recognize you. “I disappear.”

  “No.” No.

  “Listen to me, Joe,” you say as you press your hands into mine in a manner that is entirely devoid of sex, of passion. “I don’t care about what you did to Benji or Peach. I get it. Benji really did have a drug problem. And Peach really did have issues.”

  “She was a liar, Beck. She even made up bullshit about her bladder.”

  “I know,” you say and you forgive too easily. “I just loved that she loved me.”

  “And what do you want now?”

  The correct answer: me!

  You sigh. You tell me that you don’t want to be a writer. You want to go to Los Angeles and be an actress. “And maybe if I don’t get any jobs, well, maybe I’ll write something for myself, you know?”

  It gets worse. You tell me that you are basically a “very lazy girl.” I hold you and you elaborate on your flaws. “Blythe is right. Half the time my stories really are just diary entries. Half the time I have to search and replace the names in order to turn the pages into fiction. That’s how bad I am.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say and I am not letting go and these are the wrong answers.

  “You don’t want me, Joe,” and I look at your feet, the toes that Peach molested in Little Compton. “You think I’m this dreamy writer girl but I’m not. Nicky has every right to hate me. I fully admit it. I didn’t really want him. I just wanted him to leave his wife for me. I wanted to fuck up his kids, and yes, Joe. I do know how sick that sounds.”

  No. “You’re not sick.”

  You blurt, “I saw you at my reading that night in Brooklyn. I knew you followed me.”

  I hold on to you and kiss your head because we really are the same and we are the house and the mouse and you know it. You do. “I thought so,” I say. “I hoped so.”

  You squish your toes into my pants. “Then you know I’d never turn you in, Joe. I’m the connector in all this. I’m the toxic one. I know this mess is my fault and I would never go to the police, Joe. You let me out of here, and I’m gone. Forever.”

  I give you another chance. “I don’t want you to be gone, forever.”

  “Oh come on,” you say like a friend, no sex between us. “I think you can find another girl to read The Da Vinci Code with you.”

  “Beck, stop.” Tell me you want me.

  “I will walk out of this store and never look back. I swear to God, Joe.”

  “Beck, stop.”

  But you don’t stop. “Joe, listen to me. I swear to you. I will disappear and it will be like I don’t even exist anymore. Let me go and I promise that you will never, ever see me again. I swear. Joe?”

  You failed and you do not get a gold star and I squeeze your neck to make the wrong answers go away. They fester in your bulging eyes and they turn your cheeks Nantucket red and I squeeze, harder. The wrong answers must be choked out through the bubbles of saliva that ooze from the corners of your gnarled mouth. You are a fucking idiot for thinking I want you out of my life, after all I’ve done for you and this is not Reality Bites and you don’t want me over the other douche bags in your life and I was wrong about you.

  You gasp. “Joe.”

  I will not be fooled. “No, Beck.”

  You whisper, “Help.”

  And I am helping because you need an exorcism, a rebirth. You have sinned and you did manipulate Nicky and you did lead Peach on and you did stalk Benji. You are a monster, deathly, solipsistic to the bone and you’re blasphemous because all you want is

  You.

  I squeezed too hard. You’ve gone quiet. I let go.

  “Beck,” I say.

  I want to hear your voice. I call again. “Beck. BECK.”

  Nothing comes from you and fuck. What have I done? I shake your body and I can’t hear you breathing and I need to hear you breat
hing because Reality Bites is a stupid movie and you did push Peach away and Benji did lead you on and Nicky did break the rules. So you said some stupid things—I do too sometimes and I forgive you. I slide you off of my lap and onto the floor. You are so still and all the good in you is in you, beneath those eyelids, latent. I love you for being so lovable. I am sorry, Beck. I can’t hold you responsible for the fact that people go crazy over you and you have to wake up because I want to give you love love love love crazy love.

  I push my hands into your tiny chest. You are breathing, I think. You must be breathing. There cannot be nothing inside of someone as lovely and lit as you; we had an everythingship. You are too robust and full of life and bathrobe rules and orgasms and pies and bitter caramel apples to be gone. I hate myself and I love you and I kiss you and you don’t kiss me back and I beg you to come back and I hold your little hands and I look into your little eyes and at the end of the play Closer upon which the movie is based, the Natalie Portman character gets hit by a car. She dies. In the movie you don’t see Natalie Portman die and I like it better that way and you cannot be dead, Beck. You’re not even twenty-five and you don’t do drugs and you are safe and sweet and studious and I lean over you so that my ear touches your lips. When you breathe I want to hear it and taste it and I wait. I wait for sixteen centuries and eight light-years and I pull away.

  You are gone.

  I stand up and grab my hair and I want to pull it out because you can’t run your fingers through it anymore and maybe I am wrong and I get back down on the ground and mash my head into your hand and wait for you to touch me. Please, Beck, please. But your fingers don’t move and when I lift my head up the silence feels official. It’s hateful and personal unlike the peaceful silence of the basement. You don’t rise up to forgive me and ward off the evil silence that weighs me down more every second that you are mute.

  I look at you. You don’t look at me. Your body is just parts now. You can’t help me because you left me because you wanted to be gone, forever. Your crimes are many and you stole my Love Story and I pick up your Da Vinci Code. I am stunned because some of the pages have never been turned; I know my way around a book. I think you skipped entire passages, you brainless phony. When you asked me where I was in the book, you were cheating. The most romantic time of my life was a hoax and I am so preoccupied with exploring your Da Vinci Code that I don’t see you come back to life.