Punish Me with Kisses

by William Bayer

  "You could have made a fortune peddling them, I bet."

  "Maybe. But that's not my style."

  "Oh? Really? You must be pretty hot shit then." She yawned, didn't know why she was acting this way, pretending she was Suzie, acted bored, scornful of his integrity. "Let's see —I guess the thing that should make you squirm the most is the time you both went downtown someplace and bought some kind of leather gizmo to tie around your cock."

  He turned away. "What a little cunt she was to write all that stuff down."

  "So—you are embarrassed. Forget it. No one'll ever know." She patted him on the knee, couldn't believe she was coming on this way. "Now that we're through all that, I'd like to hear if you were just using each other or if you really liked her like you claim."

  "Isn't it kind of weird after all these years for you to come around so suddenly and ask?"

  "The diary only turned up a couple weeks ago."

  "And that made you think of her again?"

  "Right. There's a lot about you in it, and a lot about some other guy she was hung up on. An older guy. Know anything about that?"

  "Vaguely rings a bell, but she didn't reveal herself all that much. We had a lot of fun together, we balled and we played around, did some pretty wild scenes, did use each other, I guess. But she kept her problems to herself, and that's what I did, too. She was a good-time girl—sort of. That was the front she put on anyway. You remind me of her. Not the way you look exactly." He squinted at her, the Great Photographer routine, she thought. "Yeah—you could be sisters, though your faces aren't that much alike. No, it's something else. The way you come on. Something in your voice, too. And your mannerisms. Yeah—you bring it all back somehow."

  They studied each other for a moment, both of them smiling, he challenging, she meeting his gaze head-on.

  "Someone really coming over?" she asked. He nodded. "Guess I ought to be going then."

  He didn't stand. "You can stay if you want. It's a guy. If you like each other—well, we could have a three-way if you think you could manage that."

  God—it was like stepping right into Suzie's diary.

  "Tempt you?"

  "Not very much," she said.

  He was smirking, trying to goad her into a scene, saying, in effect, "Prove you're really Suzie's match." She yawned again, deliberately, so as to make sure he got the point.

  "Three-ways, four-ways—people still do that sort of stuff?"

  "Some of us," he said. "And I guess some of us have seen it all."

  She nodded, smiled. He smiled back. They made a date to see each other the following night. Walking home she thought: he's really foul; how much Suzie must have hated herself to have done all those things with him.

  The next day during lunch hour she went to the perfume counter at Bloomingdale's, asked for the sampler bottle of Amazone, dabbed a drop on her wrist. She was about to buy an ounce when she remembered she already had one at home, the bottle that had been stashed along with the wallet and the diary in Suzie's hiding place in Maine. Wait till tonight, she thought, this'll really blow his mind.

  It did.

  "Wow," he said, "you even smell the same."

  "But do we screw the same? That's the question. Right?"

  "Yeah," he admitted. "That would be good to know."

  "Tell me how she balled."

  He scratched his head. "Difficult to explain."

  "You can show me."

  "Show me first."

  She shrugged. "OK." She started taking off her clothes. He watched, smiling, then undressed himself.

  "Well?" she asked him afterwards.

  "Not the same. No, I don't think so—not the same."

  "How different, then?"

  "Can't remember back that far."

  "Oh—I'm sure you can, Jamie. Just close your eyes and try to relive those glorious, comradely days."

  After ten minutes of very technical questions (Did Suzie sigh? Squirm? Cry out? Pump her pelvis? What was her favorite position? Did she grasp tightly? Scratch? Snarl? Like to kiss?) Jamie became annoyed. "Look—what the hell is this, anyway? Am I supposed to be giving Little Sister a sex education course?"

  "Too technical for you?" She reached for him, found him limp.

  "Yes, as a matter of fact."

  "Well, sorry," she said, "but I'm really interested in finding out how my sister liked to screw."

  "Isn't that a little on the sicky side?"

  Penny shrugged. "Maybe. And maybe not so sicky as someone who's into cock restraints."

  He rolled away from her. From the other side of the bed he glared.

  "Know something—you are like her. You're just as much a bitch."

  "Well—" She smiled and then, suddenly, she knew just what to say. The words just came out of her. She remembered them from that telephone conversation she'd overheard three and a half years ago. She even imitated Suzie's voice. It came out almost exactly the way Suzie had said it to him then: "I'm a bitch. OK? If it makes you feel any better just think of me as a bitch. OK? All right? Feel better now, Jamie Sweets? And I'll just think of you as a bitch, too. OK?"

  She got out of his bed, started getting dressed. She could feel the loathing coming off of him in waves.

  "Cunt!" he hissed, "I'll tell you the difference. She was a terrific lay. You screw like a corpse."

  She blew him a kiss.

  "Why did I do it? Why? What's happening to me?"

  Dr. Bowles didn't answer. Penny was sitting on a yellow cushion propped against the wall. Dr. Bowles was in her chair, a kitten nestled in her lap. She was nursing it from a bottle.

  "Do I really want to be like her? That sounds so glib, but that's what it means, doesn't it? Talking to him like that. Forcing him to tell me how she made love. I tried to get Jared to tell me, and when he refused I knew that was the end. But using her perfume! God! I wept when I smelled it in the poolhouse last month. Am I that cold now? I'm scared. I don't know what's going on."

  "We'll work it out," said Dr. Bowles. "In time we'll work it out. It's not enough to say you're trying to be like Suzie. The question is why you'd want to be."

  "It started with the diary."

  "You still read it, don't you? Do you think there's something in there, something you haven't seen?"

  "Yes," she said, realizing for the first time the truth of what she was about to say. "There is something, something between the lines. The explanation for everything. Even the murder. I think that's in there, too."

  "No," said Dr. Bowles, "you unlocked the secret of the diary when you identified the Dark Man. Now you can't deal with it. Oh, you accept it intellectually. You think: 'OK, she and my father had an affair, and then he broke her heart.' But it's too terrible, too frightening, such a forbidden thing, too terrible, too forbidden to deal with. So now you reread the diary and go to people like this photographer, hoping you'll find another explanation, something less painful to bear."

  "Maybe—" Penny thought about it. Perhaps Dr. Bowles was right. She'd reread the diary so many times, looking for something—she didn't even know exactly what.

  "You're using people, Penny—trying to get them to help you act out your sister's life. It's as if you're trying to set back the clock, go back to that time when you think your lives diverged. Now you want to go back and follow her road, and that's a stressful thing to do. There's a part of you that thinks that if you continue like this you'll end up getting killed."

  It was a revelation. She was dazzled by the insight and the astute way Dr. Bowles had brought it out. "Yes," she said, "and that would relieve my guilt about the fact that she was killed and I survived."

  "You do feel guilty about that."

  "I guess I always have."

  "Then maybe you should go on. Deep emotions are controlling you. If you yield to them as you're doing now I think in time they'll self-destruct."

  Afterwards, when the session was over, they sat, as always, facing one another, talking quietly, not about deep subconscious th
ings, but little things in life, and cats.

  "Your kittens are growing now. Isn't it fun to watch them grow?"

  "They wrestle all the time."

  "Sure," said Dr. Bowles. "They're wild. Cats are never tamed like dogs. Even when they're brought up in an apartment they're driven by a primitive feline need to kill for food." The psychiatrist looked matronly cradling the kitten in her arms, urging it to drink from the baby's bottle. "Touch him, Penny. Feel him purr. You can purr like that, too, once you've worked things out. Tell me—how are you and James getting along? Are things better between you now?"

  "I don't think James likes me," she said. "He hisses whenever I come too close."

  "Don't ever think he doesn't like you. He just isn't ready for you yet."

  "I feel uncomfortable with him. I was wondering if you had another older cat."

  Dr. Bowles shook her head. "You must learn to live with James. He's a fine old tiger cat. You must learn to compromise and get along." There was something strict in Dr. Bowles' manner, something of the schoolmarm that was as appealing as her sympathy. "People can't go on lording it over other animals. James is there to remind you you're not alone. All of us, people and animals, trees and forests and lakes and streams—we're all interconnected and must share the earth. You must prove yourself to James, win him over. Then you two will get along just fine."

  "Will I get better?" Penny asked solemnly just before she left.

  "It is inevitable," the psychiatrist said, patting her on the arm.

  She wasn't certain exactly when she knew she was being followed. The notion crept up on her, began as a suspicion then grew into a conviction as she came to recognize her followers. There were several of them—stocky, suited, middle-aged men who worked in alternating shifts and pairs. One would wait in a car outside her townhouse, another in the lobby of B&A. She'd see them standing nearby on the subway or pretending to stare into shops as she walked the streets, four or five of them looking pretty much the same, retired cops, she guessed, now corporate security men. She doubted they were the black-bag crew who'd ransacked her apartment. That would have been a specialty team brought in to do a dirty job. These guys struck her as friendly and unthreatening; in fact their hovering made her feel safe. With them around she was less apt to be pushed in front of a subway or mugged or raped, all the awful things that can happen to a woman in New York.

  Once she caught on to them, knew their faces, she began to see them everywhere. And then she felt sorry for them, for they were so incompetent, so easily spotted, engaged in such slovenly work. She didn't want to hurt their feelings by waving or striking up conversations, the sort of taunting games she'd seen played in private eye films by smart aleck detectives trying to enrage lummox police. She felt sorry for them, too, because their job was boring. It wasn't as if she ever did anything except jog and go to work and shop. Her routine was so unvarying she could imagine the staccato rhythm of their reports: "9:57—subject entered office building; 12:29—subject left for lunch; 17:57—subject took subway to 86th street; 23:22—subject's lights went off—"

  No, she wasn't going to wave at them or humiliate them or show them up. If she did they might be replaced. These men, she felt, could be shaken off any time. All she'd have to do would be to go in one entrance of a building and out the other, and she'd be free until she came home and they caught up with her again. She wondered what they thought of her, whether they admired her or found her sexy, or whether they thought of her as a snotty bitch. Perhaps they respected her for her austerity. Perhaps they felt contempt. But as she thought about that and considered what being followed meant, she realized that they were merely pawns and that it was the opinion of the man they reported to, her father, that she really cared about.

  Suddenly then she saw how being followed could be put to use, how her father, out of concern for her safety, had given her a new way to communicate. He'd always been so hard to reach, so cool and distant, self-absorbed, remote. But now, each morning, she could force him to deal with her by doing things which his security men would report. It was a fascinating way of reaching him, forcing him to come to grips with who she was. It struck her, too, that it was almost what Suzie had done in Maine, provoking him, trying to get his attention by deliberate carrying on.

  There were all sorts of places in her neighborhood designed to facilitate relationships which would make superb arenas for what she had in mind. There was a lesbian bar where no men were allowed and one had to ring the buzzer to get in, a tough leather bar called "Strut," and an elegant bar for bisexuals with a brass bamboo decor, and then there were the singles' places, the real hard-core singles' bars on First and Second Avenues, the sole purposes of which were to provide places for young men and women to make arrangements to screw.

  I'm horny, she thought. What would Suzie do if she were horny? She go out and find what she wanted. She'd go to a singles' bar, pick someone up and get laid.

  Her father would know what she'd done. The men who followed her would note it down. Her father would read about it and be shocked. Yes, she would start carrying on as Suzie had and see what he would do. Could she provoke him into rescuing her before her new life turned lethal, give her the love and warmth he'd always withheld? Or would he just look on, remote, removed, a cold and silent man, watching her through the eyes of surrogates?

  She chose a place called Aspen, which sounded healthy to her, implied Ivy League types, rosy-checked from winter weekends on the slopes. She passed it several times, peered in the windows trying to size up the people inside. They looked all right, so on a Wednesday night the third week of January she cooked herself a hamburger, put on her winter coat, and being certain to pick up her Chapman security man, her "tail," she walked over to Second Avenue to try her luck.

  Faces turned as she came through the door. She was prepared for that and relieved. The room was gloomy, false-romantic, she thought. The people had the look of young lawyers and executive assistants. She didn't care if they recognized her—she was out in the open now.

  Before she even reached the bar she was approached by a guy in a three-piece suit.

  "Seen you around someplace, haven't I?" God, she thought, is this really going to be that banal? "Hey—" he snapped his fingers, "—around the reservoir, right?"

  "Right." She nodded. Jesus Christ, she thought.

  His name was Andy. He'd gone to Williams, was an executive trainee at a brokerage house, an early morning jogger, too. "Quit the park for the winter," he said. "Now I run at the Y. You still go out? Amazing. You must have a lot of grit."

  "Grit. That sounds like the sort of word they use around the hockey rink at St. Paul's."

  He grinned, refused to be insulted. "Wouldn't know," he said. "Went to Andover myself."

  "How's the Y anyway?" She had an image of a pack of males circling a tenth-of-a-mile wooden track, their feet making a roar.

  "It's OK. Warm, at least. Want to discuss running shoes? Adidas versus Nike, that sort of crap?"

  She liked him for that. The score was even, they'd each put the other down, they were New Yorkers and the rules were set: no bullshit conversation, no phony-getacquainted courtship talk.

  "You're neat," he said. "OK if I buy you a drink?"

  "Neat?" she said. "That's even worse than grit."

  They took their Bloody Marys to a table. He came to Aspen a lot and was glad to tell her about the other people in the room. "He's with Citicorp. The girls say he's hot stuff"—"She keeps a record of who she's slept with—gets so smashed she can't remember, and God forbid she sleep with the same guy more than once."

  Penny nodded. "God forbid."

  "I used to see you running with a guy. You and he still go around?" She shook her head. "Glad to hear it. He didn't look like he shaved too well."

  "At least we can't fault you on your grooming," she said. Andy's cheeks were perfectly smooth. His light brown hair was well cut, every hair in place, his clothes perfectly pressed. Even his shoes were shined. "You're
not a T-shirt and blue jeans type, except maybe on Saturdays. Right?"

  "That's me. 'Saturday's Generation.' You'll find me at Bloomingdale's checking out the argyle socks."

  She laughed and was already imagining what he'd look like stripped.

  "You know," he said, "I bet you could be a lot of fun."

  "Is that your way of saying you'd like to try me out?"

  "Yeah, you got it."

  "OK," she said. "Your place or mine?"

  He lived on the corner of Lexington and Eighty-Fourth, and since that was closer they decided to go there. It was a white-brick doorman building with cut-glass lighting fixtures in the lobby, and awful marbled wallpaper in the halls. His apartment was a "studio"—probably cost $1,200 a month, she thought. The furniture was Door Store and Workbench with maybe some Conran's thrown in. He had an expensive stereo, a color TV, a queen-sized bed, a rubber plant, and a bookcase stocked with texts on economics and a complete Will and Ariel Durant.

  It was amazing, she thought, the way you could size people up. The whole setup was so predictable for a trainee stockbroker, an ex-college jock who still worked out. Good upper-middle class taste. Square and proud of it—just the sort of boy Suzie'd screwed that summer in Maine. Yes, she thought, he'd fit in perfectly at Bar Harbor, but his family went to Nantucket, a fact that came out as they talked.

  At one point, when he excused himself to go to the bathroom, she shuffled through the corporate reports neatly arranged on his coffee table. The Chapman International annual report was there. She opened it with trepidation. There was a full-page color photograph of her father on the inside cover. "Dwight Berring," the caption read, "Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board." She studied his face. His head was backlit, his features subtley modeled. The photographer had caught the squareness of the jaw, the graying sideburns, the commanding yet boyish look. He was attractive, handsome, dominant—for a moment, a split second, she tried to imagine what he'd be like in bed.

  She heard the toilet flush. Andy was coming back. She quickly closed the report, stuck it back in the pile.