Deep Desires (Mischief Books)

by Charlotte Stein

  Abrupt rudeness makes him crazy and acquiescent, tentative deliberation gives him time to think, to consider …

  But what exactly is he considering? I don’t know, I don’t know. And the more time I spend with him, the more the idea drives me mad. I’m Bluebeard’s wife, unable to sleep for the thought of what’s behind his locked doors, and, to make matters worse, he actually has one. He doesn’t use the walk-in closet. He uses a wardrobe.

  But the closet is still here. And the door to it is always locked.

  As though he needs to keep the dead body of his wife in, in case she decides to haul her rotten carcass out of there and across the carpet to me.

  Seriously. Is it any wonder I can’t sleep? Is it any wonder I spend my time in his apartment, staring at that door through the darkness? Nobody wants to be murdered by someone’s dead wife. And if this is all just my craziness, if this is all just that hole through my middle trying to force my trust back out again, well, isn’t that better?

  I’ll open the door and find nothing there, and then the hole will be filled and sealed for good. I won’t have to worry. We’ll keep crawling towards some kind of shaky happiness. I mean, yesterday we actually took a bath together, in the same room, while looking at each other. We’ve got to be almost there.

  Or does the fact that I’m trying to prise open his door with a credit card say otherwise? He left me in the apartment this morning – alone. He’s gone out to run errands, to talk with some software developer, to cover the body of his dead wife with lime. Fuck, I don’t know.

  So I’m doing this. I’m doing it.

  And then it opens, and I don’t want to do it anymore. Thinking about using a crowbar to prise someone’s secrets out of them is fun in the abstract. But it’s not fun when you’re actually doing it. There isn’t even a dead body in the closet to make me feel better about being a snoop – though there are a lot of other things, instead.

  There are a lot of video tapes.

  And after a second of feeling bad, I start getting that tight feeling in my chest. The one I used to get when I knew Sid was five minutes from home. The one that happens because that hole in me contracts, and, though I’ve got kisses and I-love-yous to fill it in, it’s still just waiting. It’s waiting for this cupboard, filled with home movies featuring God knows what.

  For a start: why are they video tapes? He’s obviously technologically competent. Shouldn’t he be lining his walls with DVDs or flash drives or some other fancy thing that you can store films on? Instead, he’s just got this cupboard built out of black plastic, like those vaguely creepy backrooms you used to glimpse in video stores. Everything neatly stacked and arranged, to the point where I can run my hand over the stacks and stacks of tapes and feel only a smooth black slickness.

  He’s so perfectly ordered, my Ivan. And so perfectly weird. I can’t even bear to look at the labels on these videos, for a second, in case they tell me just how weird he is. How weird would be too much? Black and white movies of eyeballs being sliced in two? Crackling images of odd children standing at the ends of corridors?

  There are a lot of things that could potentially disturb me forever. And a lot of things that could make me feel awful, forever doing this in the first place. He’s got a little TV and VCR set up in the centre of the closet on one of those stands you usually see in schools, and when I pick a tape at random and put it in, it’s not anything like what I had thought.

  It’s a home movie. It’s not his psychotic art school project or his sideline in murdering people on camera. It’s just a home movie of a little boy in a stripy shirt, running around a garden. Nothing creepy about it, nothing awful. Just this little boy and his funny antics and, oh God, oh God … then I realise.

  It’s Ivan.

  The little boy Ivan.

  All the tapes are of him and his family, being ordinary and cute – apart from his dad’s weirdly obsessive approach to capturing memories. I mean, there are a lot of tapes in here. Hundreds of them. And they’re all labelled the same way: with dates that follow almost every aspect of Ivan’s life when he was just a kid.

  And, oh, he’s so cute. He’s so carefree and so open. My heart clenches to see him running across the grass, trailing a kite so colourful it lights up this faded and almost worn-down image. The sun is setting somewhere to his left, and the dying rays pick up little flickers of blond in his curly hair. No sound, but I can hear what he’s saying anyway:

  Watch this. Watch me.

  And then the kite takes off into the darkening sky.

  How did everything go so wrong? I was so sure this would be a sign, a foundation for the way he is. Like the signs I give away for free. My jumpers, my hair, my being in here right now searching around for a reason to trust … all scream about what happened to me. But what happened to Ivan?

  These memories are warm and lovely. The only possible clues they give out are to do with watching and being watched, but I can’t see how they would have had a negative effect. It’s not like his dad is evil and into filming his son in his underwear. In all the tapes, Ivan is fully clothed and completely happy.

  And then I see the tape that doesn’t have a date on it. The one he’s centred on a slightly shorter pile, right in the middle of the room, behind the TV. There are words on this one, words that send a little wave of discomfort through me, despite their innocuousness.

  Mum and Dad, it says, and I go all weird inside. I don’t want to look, but of course it’s too late for that now. Who wouldn’t look under these circumstances? Stronger people than me, possibly. People who aren’t scared of everything and able to hurt so readily inside for someone they’re only just in a relationship with.

  Other people probably wouldn’t care about that little boy and his kite, but I do. I do, and that’s why I put the tape in. I’m not afraid it will be Ivan doing something terrible. I know he isn’t now. In fact, I kind of know what I’m going to see before I see it, which mitigates the gut-wrenching shock of it somewhat.

  But not by much.

  At first it’s kind of hard to tell what’s happening. Whoever filmed it is doing so through the slats in what looks like a wardrobe or a cupboard of some type, and they’re not holding the camera steady. It wobbles up and down throughout, and I have to say I’m kind of glad about that.

  I don’t really need to see too much of his parents being murdered. It’s bad enough knowing that he saw it, that he caught it on camera, while trapped inside somewhere. Did he hide when he heard them coming? I don’t know, I don’t know, and I can’t bear to rewind and see. I can’t bear to watch this. One of the blurry, hooded men on-screen struggles with what must be his mother, and I turn it off all in a big rush.

  And then I just stand there in this little closet of horrors, trembling all over, with my heart beating in my ears. Did he actually somehow film his parents being murdered? Maybe they were doing something nice before, some lovely family memory. And then a bunch of thieves and thugs broke in and suddenly it’s A Clockwork Orange. Suddenly it’s someone ruined forever in a way I can hardly stand, oh, I can hardly stand it.

  Everything he let me do to him, every touch he let me have, every kiss, I thought it was so hard won. But now I see: it’s a goddamn miracle that he ever lets me near him at all. It’s a miracle that he ever lets anyone near him. I’m surprised he’s not paralytic in an asylum somewhere, because his blackbird isn’t someone being an asshole to him a few times.

  It’s his parents being murdered in front of him.

  I don’t know what to do.

  And I know even less when I turn and he’s just stood there in the doorway. I think I actually let out a little frightened sound, as though I really did find his dead wife in here. But once that stupidity is over with, my main instinct is to do something even dafter. I just want to cover him with my body. I want to put my arms around him and never let him go, but of course I can’t, I can’t.

  He looks kind of like he wants to kill me. He’ll probably do it out of utter terr
or, but that’s not really the point, is it? I’m still going to die, and, worse, I think I deserve it. I shouldn’t have used the crowbar. I shouldn’t have let my lack of trust guide me. I should have been a normal person who gradually warmed him until he opened up.

  But I’m not a normal person. And so here we are.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ he asks, and it’s no comfort to me that he sounds almost as marvelling as he does upset. Marvelling just means I’ve used my prying tools inventively, and not just the actual, literal ones, like the credit card that’s still in my hand. I mean the metaphorical ones too.

  The ones he’s really gutted about.

  ‘I just …’ I start, but what can I say? I just wanted to know you sounds so lame. I was scared sounds even lamer. I don’t deserve a proper relationship; I don’t deserve this. Which is probably why I don’t protest when he tells me he thinks I should go.

  I’ve been deemed unworthy, and now I’m being cast out of the labyrinth of him. And that’s OK, that’s really OK, because he’s probably right. This isn’t the bit where I hug him and make everything OK. This is the bit where I accept that I’ll never be right or capable of having a relationship, and walk out of the door.

  Though once I’ve done it, I know:

  I don’t think I can let him go.

  I dream that he’s falling through my fingers. Of course I try to hold on, but it’s almost impossible when he’s made of nothing. His arms and legs crumple beneath my grip, and before I can do anything the wind catches his papery body, and blows him away.

  And I wake up sweating and crying, still completely unsure of what to do. I tried a letter: he didn’t reply. I went to my window: he isn’t at his. His phone rings and rings until I feel like a maniac again, madly stalking a man who doesn’t want to be found.

  His door is shut again. He’s closed back up. And all because I just had to know, I had to know, oh God, why did I have to know? It doesn’t make me feel any better now that I do. Instead, I have more dreams in which he doesn’t turn to paper and blow away. He gets murdered in front of me, while I film everything with a video camera.

  That one’s a real doozy, I tell you. Lord knows what kind of dreams he has on a daily basis, after actually going through something like that. I’m surprised he’s functioning at all, but then again he isn’t, is he?

  He has that cupboard full of video tapes and his clothes all in a row, and prior to me he hired thugs to fake-brutalise him, whenever he wanted a bit of intimacy. He had to be forced into doing anything beyond watching.

  And now he won’t even watch.

  Which is a shame, because I’m more than ready to stand at the window for him now. I’d do anything for him now. I dream about doing anything. In some of them, he lets me roam all over his naked body, from that slice of muscle to the jut of his heavy collarbone. And I devour him with my mouth, I do. I taste the glorious curve of his cock, long and smooth and just a little slick at the tip.

  Just a little salt-sweet.

  In my dreams, he always bucks into my mouth. He resists at first, but then he can’t anymore, and those hips lift, forcing him deeper into me. Forcing him over my tongue, filling my mouth – oh God, those dreams are worse than the dying ones. They’re like waking up with the belief that someone long dead is still alive.

  He’s still alive, and he’s going to kiss me at any moment. I’ll answer the door and there he’ll be, just like that longing-filled fantasy I had of our bodies plastered together. Only this time when I imagine it, we’re somehow naked the minute he walks through the door. His chest rubs roughly against the tips of my breasts, and similarly I can feel him between my thighs.

  I feel his hot, strong cock, like an iron bar against my always overheated pussy, and then he lifts me and simply slides all the way inside. As smooth as he did when we first made love, only sweeter this time because it’s a reunion.

  It’s that bit in the movie when the couple realise all obstacles can be overcome, and then he returns to her and sweeps her into his arms. Which sounds like utter nonsense, now that I’m thinking about it. It sounds like three-day-old garbage, and I suddenly hate Hollywood for doing that to me. The one constant in my life – my love of film – has turned against me in my hour of need.

  Or at least I think so. I think so, until I hear my doorbell ring.

  There’s no one else it could be. No one else in the world. Nobody ever comes to my door; nobody cares where I live. It can’t be the mailman or the milkman or someone calling door to door with leaflets.

  It has to be Ivan. He read my last note –Oh my love how you call to me, call to me – and it made him forgive me. It made him come back to me, to offer a second chance I probably don’t deserve. In fact, I definitely know I don’t deserve it.

  Because it isn’t Ivan at the door.

  Of course, I try to close it again immediately. But I think it’s a mistake that I do. Maybe if I’d paused, and tried to be rational, we could have had a calm conversation first. Try to see things from my point of view, I could have said to him. I ran away from you because you hit me with a hammer.

  But, instead of taking this route, I panic and try to shut him out. I try to act like he’s not really there, but naturally he muscles his way in even so. He gets his foot in the door – of course he does – and he laughs in that awful manner of his. Like he’s saying: Oh, Abbie, why do you have to be so silly?

  The answer’s obvious. I’m silly because he forces the door open, and once he’s inside he grabs me by the hair. He doesn’t even pretend he’s going to do anything different. He just pulls and pulls until it hurts so bad I have to be on my knees. I have to be.

  But I’m not as acquiescent as I used to be about going. I used to cry for him, prettily, but now I know what it’s like to cry because someone’s been so kind you can’t stand it. I know what it’s like to cry with joy and relief, and I don’t want to cry like this anymore.

  I want to punch him in the groin.

  So I do.

  He isn’t expecting it. Of course he isn’t. He’s halfway through his do you know how hard it is to forgive you speech, which doesn’t include an encore of intense pain between his legs. His thin-lipped mouth makes this big surprised O, and those dark brows I once thought beautiful draw together.

  And that’s the last thing I see before I make a run for it.

  I barrel down the hallway, not thinking of a coat or my things or where I’m going to run to. I didn’t think about it last time either. I just ran and ran and ran and this is where I ended up: almost normal, almost living, almost in a relationship with a man called Ivan.

  It’s almost like a fairytale, if you blindfold yourself before looking at it.

  Except, of course, in this version, the monster is still chasing me through the labyrinth. And there’s no escape, no key to press, no lock to find. I bang on doors as I fly down these green tunnels, but no one hears me.

  I doubt they would if I used a battering ram and a foghorn. That’s the way things are around here, after all: no one hears and, more importantly, no one sees. Once I’m outside, all the closed-curtained windows stare down at me, silently mocking me forever thinking I could have a normal life. That I could just escape so easily.

  And worst of all, of course, is Ivan’s window. As dark and silent as a tomb, completely impassive as I run around the pool and head for the exit to this little cul-de-sac.

  I get close, I’ll say that much. I get to the shrubbery around the water, and almost to the path that leads out of here. And then I hear his breath behind me, grating and awful, and his hand goes to my hair again, and I know it’s going to be bad this time.

  I punched him in the groin. It can’t be anything but bad.

  In fact, it’s much worse. He doesn’t just yank me down to the ground or drag me back to the apartment, kicking and screaming. I catch a glimpse of his face, and he isn’t even human anymore. He’s not real. He’s just a thing who yanks me by my hair, until I’m suddenly floundering
, falling, with the taste of chlorine in my mouth.

  I’m in the water, I think, but such inane announcements from my brain don’t help me. I need my brain to do something else, quick – formulate an escape plan maybe, or remind me how to swim so I can get away. But it’s too slow on the uptake. It just about registers that I’m in the water, and then I’m suddenly plunged underneath it. Liquid fills my nose and stings my eyes; it floods my mouth before I can stop it.

  How could I have stopped it? How could I have expected this?

  He’s going to drown me, I think, and then a second or two later that nightmarish fantasy turns into something real. I can’t breathe. He’s got his hand on the top of my head, and I can’t breathe. I can’t even prise him away with my flapping, fighting hands, because I’m half blind and still in shock and, oh God, everything is going fuzzy.

  Everything is going fuzzy really, really fast, which I suppose is a relief in one way. For a second there, I was really panicked and heartbroken, and no one enjoys feeling like that before they die. I much prefer this kind of odd calm, and the lasting image of all of this neon blue floating around me, as I drift away.

  My life doesn’t flash before my eyes, but that’s OK. My life wasn’t anything to speak of anyway. It was dull and monotonous, with the occasional violent episode. The occasional brilliant moment, when Ivan wrote those words out for me: my thoughts turn to you.

  My thoughts turn to you, my immortal beloved, I think, and then my mouth is suddenly full of salt, amidst the chlorine. I’m not sad. I wouldn’t want you to think I was. I’m happy that my last thought is of something so lovely and romantic it couldn’t possibly be real. I probably made him up, my Ivan.

  I made him up, which is why the pressure on my head suddenly eases. I’m dreaming of him coming for me, of saving me, even though he can’t. He’s not real. I’m just imagining that sudden loss of the hand on top of my head. And I can’t hear the muffled sounds of a struggle, the muffled sounds of angry words and even angrier actions.