Punish Me with Kisses

by William Bayer

  All very faggy, end-of-the-Roman-Empire, Weimar-Germany, 1920s ennui stuff. I nod anyway to show I think it's quite profound.

  Then I ask him to cook something up. "Something heavy," I say, "I want to be—you know—scared---"

  He nods: "Leave everything to me—"

  They drove quickly out of Bar Harbor. A heavy rain began to fall when they crossed Trenton Bridge. Traffic was light; the roads were deserted except for an occasional oncoming truck. Jared drove as fast as he could, but sometimes the rain was so heavy the wipers could barely clear it from the glass.

  "That was crazy what you said in there," she said.

  "Just being in there was crazy," he replied.

  "But that was crazy what you said." He concentrated on his driving, didn't answer. "Well?"

  "What was crazy?"

  "Saying I looked like I wanted to be like her."

  "That's what I thought."

  "But it's crazy."

  "Sure—sure it is. You'd be out of your mind to want to be like her."

  They were silent for a few minutes, then she turned to him again.

  "Why did you shine the flashlight at me, Jared?"

  He glanced at her, shrugged. "Just fooling around."

  "It was as if you were taunting me. You were, weren't you?"

  "Just fooling around. That's all."

  They drove a couple more miles.

  "You wanted me to think maybe you'd done it. You were trying to get me upset."

  He nodded. "Stupid, huh?"

  "More like perverse."

  "Well, everyone else thinks I did it. For a while after I was arrested I even thought so myself."

  "My God. You did?"

  "I actually did."

  "Tell me about it!"

  "Do I have to? Do you really want to know?"

  "I think it would be better if you did," she said.

  He looked at her, then back at the road. "It's not very pleasant."

  "I can deal with it."

  "It's an ugly story."

  "Tell me anyway."

  "OK." He was silent for a moment, then began to speak.

  "At first I really wondered. Everyone was saying I must have killed her, everyone was accusing me, and I wondered if maybe they were right. I didn't remember all that much. That night was so strange, and that dope we smoked, the same stuff we found tonight in her stash, scrambled up everything in my head."

  "When you arrived I was watching you. You stood still suddenly, as if you were worried, or hesitating about going in."

  "Yeah. I remember that. I thought I heard something. Maybe it was the intruder. Maybe he was down there even then."

  "What happened when you went inside? I only heard some snatches now and then. You danced—I saw that."

  "Yeah, and then we screwed. After that we smoked quite a bit of her stuff, and then, I remember, she started getting nasty, said she wondered if I'd performed as poorly with you as I had with her. I remember saying, 'Do you have to be such a bitch, Suzie? Do you have to be such a bitch?' And I remember her smiling when I said that as if it pleased her, and then asking me: 'I really am a bitch, aren't I? I really am—right?' 'Yeah,' I said, 'and you're some piece of ass, too.' And she said: 'If I'm a bitch, then you're a dog, because only a dog would fuck a bitch.' And so I said: 'OK. I'm a dog.' And then she started in. 'Come, Fido—be a good doggy, a good doggy-woggie. Come here! Lap at bitch's pussy! That's a good dog. Oh, yes you are!' That sort of stuff, all that dog motif crap, until suddenly we're into this male dog, female dog routine, this weird doggy game, and it's crazy, we're crawling around on the waterbed on all fours, sniffing at each others' crotches and behinds. I try to mount her, she wriggles away, and all the while we're making these dog sounds—not barks, but little whines, snorts and growls. It's pretty funny and fairly sexy, and we're laughing away, but I wasn't sure just how funny it was to her, because even when Suzie laughed that crazy jaw-boned laugh of hers, there was something serious underneath, like maybe it was more to her than just a game. I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that her laughter didn't ring very true that night. There was something cruel about her, too, I remember, like maybe she really did think of me as a dog.

  "Funny—I could barely remember what we did right afterwards. It was very fuzzy and all I could recall was how incredibly stoned I was. But being there tonight, being in there, even though the room was empty, made it all start coming back. I could almost see us crawling around that huge waterbed, which made me seasick, I remember, the way it swayed and rippled and you never could get a steady hold. That weed of hers was really potent, and made it all unreal, like we were floating loose on a raft way out at sea, playing dog-and-bitch, or whatever she called her little game. Then later I remember she had her fingers around my neck. 'My fingers are your collar,' she said. 'My arm's your leash.' And I'm still crawling on all fours, and she's leading me toward the door. 'Bark!' she orders. 'No,' I say, 'I don't want to bark. Someone'll hear.' 'Good,' she says, 'let them hear. I don't give a shit. Who cares, right? Right?' Then we're outside and I'm flapping away at the water, and she's throwing this tennis ball at me, telling me to fetch-and-swim. 'Fetch, Fido,' she says, and, believe it or not, fetch is what I did. She turns on the pool lights, the ones under the water, and there I am swimming around in that huge aquamarine tub, swimming after a tennis ball for Christ's sake. Suddenly she's not a dog-bitch anymore—she's a human bitch, which was how we got started on the whole trip in the first place."

  He paused and looked at Penny. "I guess you saw some of that."

  She nodded. The lights of an oncoming car made streaks on the rain-soaked road.

  "I must have been a pretty sorry sight. I remember feeling really nauseous, and that grass was so strong I was getting more and more stoned out. Then finally I remember grabbing the tip of the diving board with my hands, pulling myself up until just my legs were in the water. And I was still holding that damn tennis ball in my mouth. It's hard, you know, to hold a tennis ball in your mouth. Try it some time and see. I was so tired by then I couldn't even chin myself up, so I just hung there, and then I guess she saw her little game was over because she said something nasty like 'Gee, this is really interesting. I'm going back to bed, OK?'—something sarcastic like that. Then she went back into the cottage and turned off the pool lights, and there I was, just hanging there in the dark, feeling like a fool, with this damn tennis ball still stuck in my mouth.

  "I didn't stay like that very long, maybe a few seconds. Then I spat out the ball and tried to hoist myself up. Couldn't do it, so I just let myself sink back into the water, then I swam round to the ladder, climbed out, got back on the diving board and just lay on top of it on my back. I remember the feel of that board, the rough sort of rope-like texture of it. That's when I should have left, of course, gotten on my motorcycle and charged right out of there with or without my clothes. But I didn't, I fell off—everything sort of goes blank around that point. I was wet and cold, I remember, but I didn't care. I wasn't going back into that cottage; I wasn't going to follow the bitch back in there. I remember thinking that, and then I don't know how much time went by. I heard something. Something woke me, like a dog whimpering, maybe even the sort of sound a dog might make while being fucked. I didn't know, but I could hear it was coming from the cottage, and I thought maybe she was just trying to tempt me back. I was still dazed. The dope had taken hold, and it wasn't giving me any room. And then everything's very vague. All I know is that I suddenly realized she needed help."

  He stopped.

  "Then what?"

  "It gets sort of ugly."

  "Tell me." He shook his head. "Come on," she said. "You can't stop now."

  "Well, I don't remember whether she actually cried out. I do know I was in the pool again before I realized something was going on. So I guess I was on my way back in there anyway, had decided to swim leisurely back, try and clear my head, then join her on the bed again. It's then that all the madness began. I swam across,
pulled myself out of the water and stumbled toward the door. Then there was that beam in my eyes, that light shining right in them. I couldn't see. 'Turn it off, Suzie,' I said. Then I was conscious there was another person in there, and, a second later, I was hit. It happened very fast. There was this moment just before he knocked me down. I don't remember what it was exactly, except that there was something strange. Anyway there was contact. I was straight-armed in the chest, and I was off balance so I went down, and then I was on the floor crawling toward the bed. The floor was all wet and—listen, you don't want to hear anymore."

  "Yes, I do," she insisted.

  He groaned. "I was crawling around looking for her, and everything was sticky. I was crawling on top of her, feeling for her face, and then I suddenly realized she was gurgling blood. There was water all over the place, and stickiness, and then I caught hold of those shears, and suddenly I started screaming, screaming like crazy, and then the lights came on, and the siren sounded, and you know the rest. And the thing was—I wasn't sure. They said I did it. Had I really seen that flashlight? Had someone really knocked me down? I had her blood all over me. I was holding those lousy shears. The police came and took me away, and it wasn't until the next day when I heard that you were saying you'd seen someone, too, that I was positive I hadn't freaked out, that that dope of hers hadn't turned me onto violence and made me kill her—" He shook his head.

  "That doesn't make any sense. You must have known you hadn't done it." Penny looked at him. "You couldn't have—you must have known that."

  "Don't be so sure, babe."

  "How could you even think that?"

  "Because I thought maybe I could."

  "That's ridiculous—"

  "No—I think I could." He looked at her, then back at the road. "Everyone else thought so. So—why not?"

  "Look," she said, "I don't understand. It's as if you want me to agree with that."

  "Don't you?"

  "No!"

  "But you were worried when I came up with that flashlight, and especially when I shined it in your eyes." She didn't answer. "Weren't you?"

  "Yes. All right. For a moment I was scared." She looked at him. "What are you doing? Playing some kind of mental game?"

  He grinned at her. "I'm an actor. I'm into little scenes."

  "You're toying with me. I don't understand."

  "I wanted to test you, see if I could shake you up."

  "But why?"

  He shrugged. "You were the only one who ever believed me. I wanted to see if maybe I could get you to change your mind."

  "It isn't true I was the only one. There was Schrader and all the jurors."

  He shook his head. "It was you they believed. Not me."

  "It's the same thing. You got acquitted."

  "No, it's not the same."

  "What are you trying to tell me, Jared?"

  His face became serious. "Just that I think I'm guilty in a way." He looked at her, then back at the road. "I didn't kill her. Of course I didn't kill her. But, and this is the truth, I could have—given the right set of circumstances I could. She was asking for it. I've always had that feeling about that night. And I could have done it if I'd taken her seriously. I have that in me. That's why I understand what went on inside the flashlight guy. Think of it—stabbing someone you hate over and over again, someone who's tortured you. It's all gone then—all your anger. And what are you left with? Guilt, remorse, maybe punishment. But you're free of tension. You're free. She was asking for it and I could have done it. That's all I've been trying to say."

  She felt for him then, his anguish, understood finally why he'd been acting so resigned. He felt guilty. For this perverse reason he felt that he deserved all the bad breaks he'd had. Being there that night with Suzie, going on trial for her murder, all that had broken something inside of him, and though he'd been cleared, he hadn't really felt cleared at all.

  "OK," she said, "you've convinced me. You could have done it. You feel like you did. I got all that. So let's drop it now. OK?"

  He turned and looked at her. "It's funny," he said, "for a minute I thought—"

  "What?"

  "Nothing really. You sounded just like Suzie then, that's all."

  It was true; she realized it the moment he pointed it out. Unconsciously she'd done an almost exact imitation of Suzie's pattern of speech. A strange thing, she thought, considering she'd never used that "OK? All right?" mannerism before. She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the diary in her lap. She tried to sleep.

  They stopped for coffee a couple of times at deserted fluorescent-lit fast-food joints. It was impossible for both of them to read the diary at the same time so they took turns reading it aloud. Penny found it terrifying. She was entering her sister's mind, finding a new Suzie, familiar yet strange, a Suzie who mockingly described her own debasements, then cried out in vulnerability and pain.

  Some of Dr. Bowles' patients were hanging around the brownstone when they drove up. A black van was double-parked in front of the house, and the patients, young men and women with sensitive faces, had formed a line and were busy passing boxes of cat food and sacks of litter fire-brigade style until they formed a neat pile beside the curb.

  "Jesus," said Jared, "if you think we've had a creepy day, just take a look at them."

  Chapter Four

  Last night was the night. Jamie arranged my "scene."

  "We're going to cauterize your wounds," he told me. Then, waving a finger: "Remember, whatever happens, YOU asked for it. It's all being done for YOU."

  Cindy came by for the afternoon. Can't stand school, she said. Wants to drop out and room here with me. "It was a big mistake, leaving college," I told her. "Don't be a jerk Stick it out Get your degree." Her face fell. She just wants to be close, so cloying, such a whimpering pathetic little thing. Reminded me of myself. Am I that much of a turn-off, that ridiculous, that much of a royal pain to him?

  She stuck around, ironed some blouses. "Look," I told her, "I got an important date tonight Maybe you better go back to Bronxville now." No—she wanted to wait up for me. Finally I got cruel "Leave me alone, Cin—Jesus! Can't you see I'm not into it? OK?"

  Jamie arrived at eight, took me to Le Cirque. He was carrying his camera bag. "You'll be scared," he assured me. So—it's really going to happen, I thought. Blow my mind. WOW."

  Outside the restaurant a long black limousine. We got in, then the scary part began. "Put your head down on my lap." I obeyed, he stroked my hair, explained I wasn't to know our destination, where we were going, and even afterwards where we'd been. The windows were shut tight. All I could hear was the hum of the car. "Poor baby," he said over and over "Poor, poor baby, about to enter the abyss." We were driving fast, must have been on a speedway, FDR Drive or something, uptown or downtown I had no idea. "Poor baby, poor little girl—oh, what are we ever going to do with YOU?"

  We drove for an hour. The car finally stopped He warned me not to look. I had to be blindfolded first. Outside I smelled flowers, lawn, heard crickets, distant howling dogs. We were in the country someplace. I fantasized a powerful man's estate.

  The doorbell chimed "You're not Suze anymore," he whispered "You're S tonight, S like 0 in The Story of 0." Was I dreaming? Should I laugh, rip off my blindfold, run away giggling in the night? As much as I wanted to flee, I wanted even more to stay and to endure.

  Door opened. Jamie gripped me tight, led me across a deep pile rug. I sensed the others. Six or seven, I thought, men and women, too. "This is S," Jamie announced. "Curtsy to them, " he whispered. I obeyed, heard approving "oohs" and "ahs."

  "You're going to like her, " Jamie said. "S is insatiable. You'll all be able to drink your fill." Already he was unzippering my back. Soon I was naked except for my necklace, and of course the blindfold tied around my head. More approving sighs, mutterings. "Isn't she special?" Jamie asked "Yes. Yes she is." I don't know why but it was the women I really feared. I sensed they were hard, fortyish, severe, not sweet pathet
ic things like Cin, but cruel, and I wasn't pleased by the thought that soon I'd be in their power. It was the men I craved, the older powerful ones.

  CLICK! Steel handcuffs snapped around my wrists. I started to protest but Jamie shushed me up. "You've got to be helpless—you agreed to that." I was led about the room, their hands stroking, feeling me up. Someone pinched my nipples. Someone else put his hand around my neck. "I think she's hot already," one of the women said. A hand thrust into my pussy, two fingers hooked in, probing up. "Yes, she's wet. She'll be ready soon."

  "Look how straight she stands."

  "She's proud, isn't she. She won't be later, though."

  The bed was huge. My wrists and ankles were tied to the corners. I was open, stretched, available to be used. And they came in succession, a lone man first—he was heavy and breathed hard and sweated as he thrust. A wait then—who would have me next? Two of them, I thought, then I suspected there were three—mouths on my breasts, a tongue wagging fast and taut against my clit, fingers everywhere, tickling, stroking, a thick cock thrust suddenly against my lips.

  "Deep throat!" he ordered. Flashes of light. Jamie was taking pictures. Will he sell them to a split-beaver mag? The idea appealed to me. My punishment. What would HE think if he saw me like this? I struggled and writhed to enhance the effect. And then the thought of being photographed made me come.

  "She's got a lot more in her," a woman said. She went down on me, ate me for an eternity. Then they left me alone. How long? Half an hour? After that it was all cocks, each bigger than the next, hard savage ones banging in and out until I ached. I was gang-banged, ravaged, turned over, taken from behind. Jamie's flashbulbs popped. I was Greeked and then released. Jamie led me to a bathroom, unknotted my blindfold, watched me while I bathed. "Thrilling enough?" he asked. I shrugged, blasé. "Shot seven rolls," he said "I'll make you a scrapbook as a souvenir."

  Up yours, sweets, I thought. Thanks a bunch for the trip, but I'm afraid it didn't help. The memory wasn't blotted; all I felt was dry and rather pained.