Punish Me with Kisses

by William Bayer

  Afterward, it took her some time to realize what she had done—she had let Suzie take her over. She had indulged in an incest fantasy inconceivable a few minutes before.

  Chapter Six

  Think things are coming to a head now, though hard to say for sure. Now suddenly I got a sideshow on my hands: Child mooning around over her actor; him creaming in his jeans over me. Forget that! First things first! There's a new element, something I didn't suspect, something dangerous, maybe wild and out of control. Feel it coming—the crack-up. A shitstorm maybe. Well—isn't that what I want? We all dig our graves in the end—

  Later she would look back and think that the next ten days were the craziest of her life.

  The day after she imagined Suzie making love with her father she left work early, used the freight elevator to give her tail the slip, then took the IRT to Fifty-First Street, walked a block to Park Avenue, and stood in the frigid air. Her ears were covered by her ski cap. Her winter coat was huddled around her neck. Arctic winds ripped down between the buildings, freezing the moisture on her cheeks.

  She stood across the street from Chapman International watching the workers storm out at five. Her father's limousine was parked in front. She could see his chauffeur inside. She had no idea when her father left work, whether he stayed at his desk until late. She wanted to see him without his seeing her, so she waited a full hour in the doorway of a bank until the sky was dark and the rush-hour mobs were gone. Just before six the chauffeur opened the back door of the limousine. She caught a glimpse of her father stepping in, a quick look at him through the window as the car sped uptown, toward the FDR Drive, she assumed, and the highways that led to Connecticut and home.

  The next night she waited for him again, arriving later, losing her tail in the subway, hoping her father would still keep to his routine. She was in place at a quarter to six, this time on the same side of Park Avenue as the Chapman Building, positioned so she could see him better when he strode out the door at six. He was punctual, his walk firm. She saw him nod to the driver, then settle back in the cushioned seat. As the car pulled out he was staring straight ahead.

  The third night she asked herself what sort of madness it was to hang around outside his office, to catch these fleeting glimpses as he came striding out. This time she leaned against the Chapman building just beside the revolving door, and again he was punctual, walking within three or four feet of where she stood. She felt her heart quicken as he came by, so close she could have reached out and caught his sleeve. She stood there a long time after the Cadillac sped away.

  There was something elating about the strangeness of it all, giving her shadows the slip, spying on her father as she waited for him the fourth night in a row. It was an elation she recognized from the past, the thrill of the voyeur, the spy. She'd watched Suzie, suffered but still had watched. Now, lingering in the shadows of the Chapman Building, feeling it was important that she see her father from as many angles as she could, she experienced that same infusion of power and of pain that had filled her in her rocking chair those summer nights.

  Six o'clock came and went. She saw the chauffeur become restless, check his watch. Her father came out finally, the chauffeur came around to open the door, her father spoke with him, the chauffeur nodded, got back in the car and sped away, while her father took off on foot.

  He was at the next intersection before she decided to follow him. Perhaps he was going to the theater, meeting a mistress at a bar, going shopping, would take the train home later on. He was wearing a black overcoat and his head was bare. It was easy to keep him in sight. He had no idea she was behind, never turned, never looked. They moved up Park Avenue half a block apart.

  At Fifty-Seventh Street he paused, waiting for the light. He turned west, walked over to Madison, turned north again, continued uptown. There were fewer pedestrians now—she decided to drop further back in case he turned. He stopped in front of a wine store, examined the window display, went inside. He reappeared five minutes later carrying a paper bag.

  On the next block he entered a take-out shop. She knew the place, an emporium of over-priced cheeses, cold cuts, quiches Lorraines. She crossed the street, stood in a darkened doorway, could see him clearly through the plate glass as he pointed to this and that. The counterman assembled his purchases. There was something familiar about the way he paid. He'd always handled money like a bank teller, peeling off the bills between his forefinger and his thumb.

  She followed him up to Sixty-sixth, saw him turn, walk toward Central Park. He entered a narrow building between a big Fifth Avenue apartment house and a private club. She waited a few minutes, then walked up to have a look. Suddenly she drew a sharp breath. She knew the building. It was where Suzie used to live.

  Did he own it? Was he the landlord? Or had he just kept up Suzie's lease? She crossed the street, craned her head, found the ninth floor, saw the lights were on. She crossed back, entered the lobby. Beside the buzzers there were names. She looked carefully, found Suzie's buzzer—beside it there was an empty slot. Why had he kept the place? What was he doing up there? He'd brought food and wine. Perhaps he was with someone, waiting for someone to arrive. She left quickly in case his guest should come and recognize her. It was too cold to stand outside and wait. She walked home feeling strange and torn.

  There was something so spooky about him going up there, keeping the place as his pied-a-terre. He could afford much better, but then she realized the building had no doorman: he could come and go without being seen.

  That night, hoping to find some measure of sanity, she looked forward to attending Group. She felt so lonely, so rotten—maybe listening to the others, hearing their troubles, would help her forget her own. But the session wasn't pleasant. Dr. Bowles had them draw caricatures of each other, then passed them around. Later, trying to sleep, Penny found herself dwelling on troubling things: Suzie and her father and what they'd done, and how she might fit into that.

  She'd been lucky, she realized; she had obtained important information. She'd only wanted to see him, study him close-up, but now he'd led her to his lair. If she could just get into that apartment, have a look around. Could she bribe the super? She wondered how much that would cost. She could pretend she was her father's secretary, say she'd been sent to get some papers he'd left behind. No—she knew that was impossible, that she could never tip the super enough. He'd take her money then tell her father. Like Tucker, he was in her father's pay.

  Then, early in the morning, she had an idea. Those keys in Suzie's wallet—could they be the keys to her old apartment in New York? There was a chance they were, though her father had most likely changed the lock. Still there was one way to find out: go over there and see. She was excited, jumped out of bed, got dressed then sat down. She mustn't be stupid, mustn't go over to the building and try to get in if there was a chance her father was still inside. Also, she knew, she had to be careful about her followers, whom she'd shaken off four afternoons in a row. They mustn't think she'd shaken them off deliberately or they might double or triple up. They'd be afraid of being fired if they reported she was giving them the slip.

  She decided to throw them a bone and bore them a little, too. Though it was Saturday she spent the day at the office catching up on work. She wrote some memos to Mac on projects he was considering, recommended against a book on Vietnam, suggested he buy a fast-food industry exposé. That afternoon, on her way home, she walked nonchalantly by Suzie's building. She looked up, checked the ninth floor for lights. The apartment was dark.

  Sunday morning she called Greenwich. Mrs. McIver answered the phone. Penny asked how her mother was doing, and, by the way, was her father at home.

  "He's out playing squash," Mrs. McIver said.

  "Here, in the city?"

  "No. At his club out here. I'll tell him you called."

  "Never mind," said Penny. "I'll call him tomorrow myself."

  She dressed as nondescriptly as she could. In case people saw her in the b
uilding she didn't want them to remember how she looked. She was dizzy with anticipation as she pocketed Suzie's keys, walked to Fifth Avenue, lost her followers in the Metropolitan Museum, then rushed down Madison to Sixty-sixth.

  She rang the buzzer in the lobby just in case. No answer, so she tried the keys. The silver one opened the inner lobby door; she couldn't believe her luck. She rode the elevator to the ninth floor, got out carefully, looked up and down the hall. There were only two apartments, one in back and Suzie's which faced the street.

  She held her breath as she tried the second key, knew it was going to fit even before she turned it in the lock. She opened the door cautiously, stepped inside, quickly pulled it shut.

  From the first moment she was shocked. It was as if the years had never passed. The apartment—no more than a bedroom with bath and kitchenette—was just as she remembered it, as if it had been in Suzie's time. The huge king-sized bed was open, unmade, the blankets crumpled, the pillows askew. The pictures were the same, rock album posters and some blowups of Suzie taken by Jamie Willensen, tacked up on the walls. Suzie's books were on the shelves, her cosmetics on the dresser, her old address book beside the phone. Penny opened the closet, recognized the clothes, dresses and pants suits and an old raincoat from Saks.

  Pervading everything was the aroma of Amazone, the scent she always associated with Suzie, the perfume she now used herself. This is madness, she thought; he maintains her apartment like a shrine. She couldn't believe it, couldn't believe he kept the place like this, brought up delicacies and wines and picnicked here, splashed drops of her perfume around, spent nights in her bed. Her head reeled, ideas clashed. Thoughts threw off sparks, exploded like fireworks. She lurched around the apartment, felt faint, lost her balance. She was stunned, baffled, dazed by what she found. She sat down to regain composure, stop the bubbles of craziness rising to her brain.

  What did he do here? Think of her, dream of her, worship her, pretend she was with him in the bed? He seemed more human doing that, making fetishes out of her clothes, sleeping with them, pretending she was there, than as the cold and ruthless businessman devouring companies, whispering orders, ruling his empire from a telephone.

  Her father was a pervert. As she gasped at that notion, turned it over, thought it through, she was pleased for it revealed he had a weakness, was flesh and blood and passionate underneath. The apartment spoke to her of a man with a vivid personality, a strange man with a dark underside who harbored fantasies and lived them out. Suddenly her perception of him was upside down. She'd discovered a man she'd never known.

  She examined the apartment carefully, opened all the drawers, checked everything. He kept an electric razor and deodorant in the bathroom cabinet, side by side with Suzie's razor and a cycle of her birth-control pills. In the dresser she found sets of his underwear and socks, beside her panty hose and underthings. There were matchbook covers from fancy restaurants she'd gone to, a box filled with pennies, her costume jewelry, expired charge cards for department stores. Some of these items were so intimate she could hardly bear to touch them. Reading the diary had been hard enough, her eyes roving the loops of Suzie's script, the orderly handwriting that contained so many feelings, so much hurt. But this was more painful for she was confronted by Suzie's essence: strands of her hair caught in a comb, a jar of cold cream that bore the imprint of her fingers, a lipstick worn down by pressure from her lips.

  She found the letter in the kitchenette, in a drawer filled with steel silverware. Small patches of it were smudged, a letter or two washed out. Had Suzie wept as she wrote it? Did her father weep as he reread it? Or were these smudges the marks of their intermingled tears which they had separately shed?

  Dear Powerful One what are you doing to me? What are you doing? Remember that time you came up to Bronxville, picked me up behind the dorm in your rented car, and we drove to White Plains and checked into that tacky motel with the porn films on closed circuit TV and drank bourbon from a bottle like I was a whore and you were a traveling salesman with sample cases in the trunk? We watched TV and listened to the couple screwing in the next room, and then we made it rough and tough like the ball breakers that we are, and I asked you why you weren't tender with me afterwards and you said maybe we'd played out our string and maybe the time had come to "cut the deck." Oh, Daddy-O! Didn't sleep that night, watched you instead, the sheets around your waist, your head straight up, watched your lovely hirsute chest rise and fall and your beautiful eyes flicker and wondered what you dreamed and if you dreamed of me. OK It was all my fault. It was me who started it. OK, I take the rap. You said you'd be in for it if we were ever found, and you were scared and nervous and had to get away, enough was enough and we couldn't keep this up—we'd be ruined if we did. You said you were worried most of all for me, afraid I'd end up with scrambled brains. But I always thought you were talking about yourself, cause you were the weaker one I always thought, you were the romantic one, and I was just out for kicks. Me—Ms. Kickypants. Ms. Hotbitch, she of the hungry-thirsty-dripping twat, yes, ME, your hardassed daughter, she of the too too solid flesh, your sexaroo little sweetheart, flesh of your flesh, cunt of your cock—she's the one who's got her brains all scrambled, she's the one who's gotten bashed.

  Daddy-O, daddy-o—I have read deeply in the annals of incest. Yes, I have. Child's given me some hints in this regard. Helped me work up a reading list for a paper I claimed I had to do. Very helpful Child was. Ever hear of a novel Edith Wharton planned to write? Beatrice Palmato it was called. Child dug some excerpts out. The seduction scene between the father and Beatrice is much too much. Listen if you can to this: "—she flung herself upon his swelling member, and began to caress it insinuatingly with her tongue"—Sound familiar? Yes! Except it was old Daddy-O Palmato who started the whole thing off. And Tender Is the Night, old Scotty's Tender Is the Night. Daddy-O Devereux tells Dr. Dohmler what he did: "We were just like lovers—and then all at once we were lovers—and ten minutes after it happened I could have shot myself—except I guess I'm such a Goddamned degenerate I didn't have the nerve to do it." Nicole forgave him: "Never mind, never mind, Daddy. It doesn't matter. Never mind." But then we learn there were "plenty of consequences" and Doc Dohmler looks at Daddy-O Devereux and thinks: "Peasant!" Delicious—right? Except it wasn't like that with us was it Powerful One? Yes, I've read widely in the literary annals and it's never written the way it really is. It's always the baddy daddy-o who does the wicked deed, never the poor little badly used daughter—never NEVER does she take him on. It's always poor old baddy-daddy. Poor old lusty guy. You'd think some of these writer fellas would get it straight for once. You'd think at least one of them would have had the imagination to see it like it was. Well, they don't know anything, don't know whereof they speak. But WE know, don't we DADDY-O? We know who turned the trick.

  You were such a sucker for a piece of fresh young pussy, such an easy mark. All I had to do was set my sights and in a fortnight you were mine. Course I had your paternal affection going for me, had that and the boobs you gave me, the figure, the bod, all that out of your lovely genes. Remember how we used to kid around? Remember that time on your boat when we got undressed and sunbathed nude and I said "I bet I can give you a hard-on, ball breaker," and you bet me a grand I couldn't. . . and then I did? We laughed about it. It was just a joke. You gave me a thousand dollar bill, the one you kept in the salt shaker "just in case," and then when you came back up on deck I was lying there with the money clenched between my legs. How could you resist? How could you? You couldn't. No! You were my mark I hustled you good. So glorious it was, such a perfect match.

  We always thought the same way, saw things the same, knew the world was divided between those who do the breaking and those whose balls get broke. Two hunter-warriors—that was us—a pair of killers with a passion for fucking finally come together to lick each other and to eat—CUT THE DECK! Time to CUT THE DECK! Bastard! Coward! You think it's so simple. You think you can just screw for six months
, have your fling, then cut the deck What the hell is wrong with you? Are you fucking made of stone? What about me? What happens to me? Where do I go now? Twenty-one, a burnt-out case, launched on life, the long ride down? Jesus. I'm crying now, Jesus—I'm crying tears. Me, Ms. Cry-Never, Ms. Drippy-Twat, Ms. Brass-Pussy, Ms. all-screwed-up-inside. Whew! Just wiped my eyes. Got to stop the flow. Don't want to be a pest, you know. Don't want to be boring. (God forbid that anybody be a pest and/or a bore. Right?) Don't want to recriminate. Don't want to play it like I think it's all your fault or something when I know perfectly well it's mine. But that's the problem, see—that's the catch, that's the part that ain't so great. Brought this whole mess down upon myself You were innocent, victim of my game.

  Sometimes, after you left me, after we'd played and you had to go, I'd lie there and think to myself-"This is real cool—balling pop!" Thought it was a gas you see. Thought it was just a fun little deviation. Good way, too, of course, to get back at mom —put a little fire to the old disciplinarian, not that she ever knew what was happening. . . though I sometimes thought maybe she did. Anyway, what to do now Daddy-O? Head in the oven? Noose around the neck? Take a dive from one of the city's lovely bridges? Take a couple bottles worth of pills, pen a little note and end it all in sleep?