Circe (11 page)

Cassie smiled as we walked towards the parking lot. "Perhaps she's more like a pet than a wife," she said. "Something you enjoy being with, but you have no obligation to."

I turned on her ferociously. "Look, I put up with a lot of shit from you, but I don't have to take that. I think, from now on, we shouldn’t talk about Pria. I respect your opinion in clinical matters, but I think it’s inappropriate of you to make those kinds of assumptions about her. You don’t know us and you’re my supervisor, not my therapist."

"Hit a little too close to home, did I?"

"I told you to drop it."

"I'm just curious."

"What does that mean?"

"You’re a curious man. An interesting case study."

I had that feeling again. Like the first time I had met her. I was a specimen pinned down to a dissection plate and she was slowly taking me apart. Our relationship was odd. I could have filed a complaint. I could have pulled back and put a professional distance between us. There were many things I could have done, and looking back, I should have done. But I did nothing. I stood there staring at her.

"Would you like to get a bite to eat?"

"I'm driving the carpool tonight. They'll be happy you’re letting me off on time, for once."

"Maybe tomorrow?" she asked.

"I can avoid carpool tomorrow. I don't think it will make any difference to anyone."

She smiled up at me. With her glasses off, in the shadow of twilight, she was quite pretty. All the things that had once made her ordinary came together in a harsh singularity to give her a predatory grace. Her thinness seemed like a modelesque elegance, and her slate blue eyes seemed like the devil's pool. Her smile animated her marble skin, giving her a vampiric quality, and even as I noticed these things I told myself that I did not. I told myself that all I wanted from her was an excellent review and perhaps a recommendation. I told myself that I wanted to be with her because I wanted to be the best intern she had ever had. It was a career move. There was nothing else driving me. I couldn’t let myself believe that there was more to it than that.

"Taking long sunset walks with Dr. Allen now?" Andy teased on the way home.

"I don't have any idea what you’re talking about." I responded curtly.

"We saw you walking with her. You should be careful, people might gossip."

"Nothing to gossip about. I’m just being the ass kisser you always say I am. She has a thing for history. She thinks Circe is haunted or something. I was just walking and listening and waiting for my sterling evaluation. Better than either of yours."

"Maybe we could join you then, if we get off early. You know that I’m interested in Circe's history."

"Dr. Babcock said it on the first day, all you have to do is ask her and she'll tell you more than you ever wanted to know."

"You're going to get yourself in trouble, you know that, don't you?"

"Fuck off," I said coolly.

"Ahh, the intelligent response of someone who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Are you fucking Dr. Allen? Is that why you stay late?"

"No! I’m a married man. My wife would leave me and my life would fall apart."

"Wow. That was personal. Breaking out of your shell finally? I guess you aren't fucking her. She's pretty, that's all, and y’all are spending a lot of time together lately."

"She's a weird woman. I think she sees me as a case study. I don't know, but there is nothing sexual there."

"We believe you," John said. "It’s just weird, her being nice to someone."

"I know, but I think it’s because I stay late. I think she respects my diligence and my ability to work independently."

"Or maybe she has a crush on you?"

"I don't see that. You would have to know her to understand."

I skipped dinner with Cassie the next night. Andy's accusation still hung in the air around Cassie. I averted my eyes when I looked at her. I avoided time spent alone with her. Cassie didn’t seem to notice. She left her yellow Post-It notes on my desk and smiled slyly when I told her that I would rather do my regular work than go with her to the third floor. She gave me a week of sweet peace. It was almost like it had been before. Quiet and cold. Her office became like a coffin again and her eyes became distant. I left early and Pria happily cooked me dinner. Time stood still.

I felt like I was holding my breath when I was with Pria. My mind wandered and I found myself drifting away to other places when I was with her. I tried to pretend that I wasn’t thinking about something else, but Pria always saw though me.

 “It isn’t like you,” she said. “You’re always so attentive. You’ve been dazed all week. I understand if you’re not ready to talk about it, so I’m just going to give you some room to breathe.”

"I haven't been dazed," I responded. "I've just been tired."

"Honey, you've been tired before. I've seen you at your worst, working incessantly. But this is different." Pria looked away. Sadness swam over her features. "You have always been a distant man, but you always noticed me. You always drown me in stupid compliments and kiss me before you leave. These things have meant the world to me. But not this week. This week you've been somewhere else. I know you’re not going to talk to me, but you need to deal with whatever is bugging you."

"I'm sorry. The job has just got a little more intense than usual."

She laughed. "I don't know if you think you’re fooling me or yourself, but we know it isn't that. Just deal with it. Take some time to yourself. I’m going to stay with my mother. I'll be back Sunday night. I need some time with my mom in any case. She says her back has been hurting and she's having trouble getting out of bed. I'm just gonna help her out around the house."

We made love before she left. There were moments when she seemed too perfect. She was too empathetic, too understanding. She knew what I needed and she gave it to me without waiting for me to ask. This only made it harder for me. I knew my sins lay at my feet like a pile of filthy linens waiting to be washed. I ignored them. I rationalized with myself, but in the darkest shadows of my subconscious I knew what I was, and I knew that Pria didn’t belong with me. She was too good for me.

I fell asleep in Pria’s hair. I buried my face in its silky tendrils and smiled happily, but the dream came again. At first there was only Cassie. I think we were at Circe, but the dream offered me no real marker for place or time. She walked towards me in the fog, naked and lithe. I kissed her everywhere, drowning myself in her scent, but her body collapsed in on me. Black tentacles rolled out of her corpse like fog, leaving me wrapped in the demon’s embrace. I opened my eyes to find Pria already gone. She had left me to find myself on my own.

* * * *

The police came again. They didn’t stay long. There wasn’t much of an investigation. There was an ambulance and a team of janitors to clean up the mess. I hid in the corner again, watching the body being pulled away on the gurney. I could almost see the man’s outline through the sheet. His arms had been cut off. No one spoke of the event. No one seemed to notice. The oddity of the silence bothered me. So I did something out of character: I sought Cassie out. I went to her and sat down beside her.

“What happened today?”

“Mr. Beachman died,” she said, without taking her eyes from her papers.

“How?”

“Suicide.”

“I saw the body. He didn’t kill himself. No one kills themselves that way.”

“Suddenly you care about the patients?”

“I always try to help the patients.”

“But you would have never admitted to it.”

“I’m not some sappy counselor who says he wants to save the world, but when my patients are being carted off in pieces, I do care.”

“Really?” she said sarcastically.

“What happened?”

“I was told suicide.”

“And you don’t care to know what really happened?”

Cassie looked at me with her strange, pale eyes. Her lips parted and she leaned forward a little. She was wearing a skirt and she parted her legs, revealing the soft flesh of her upper thigh. For a moment I let our eyes meet. I let her lips come closer to mine. I could smell her hair and feel her breath on my cheek. Her hand rested on my leg and I felt every cell in my body become tense with the desire to move toward her, but I jerked backwards and pulled away from her. She leaned back and smiled.

“Things like this happen here. After you’ve been here for a while, you get used to it,” she responded.

“No one else notices it?”

“Everyone else has been here for a long time. They know the rules. They’re committed to this place.”

* * * *

I had to leave that weekend. I had to escape thoughts of Cassie, Circe, and the dreams. I felt bewitched, and the only possible way to break the spell would be to run away. It was a cowardly action, but it slowed my heart and stilled the water that moved relentlessly under my skin.

Jeremy was always happy to see me. Brooke ignored me, like she did most things. She sat on the back patio and smoked, watching the waves crash onto the beach. She cradled her beer like a baby and rocked back and forth. The dogs curled up at her feet. The only sign I had that she was really there was her occasional cough.

"Hell,” Jeremy said. "I never thought you'd turn up on my doorstep on a Friday night. Isn't Pria gonna be upset?"

"No. I’ve been almost as shitty a husband as you lately."

Jeremy glanced out the sliding glass door of his apartment at his wife. "There isn't much to work with in this marriage."

"Things haven't been goin' well?" I asked.

"The same. Nothing ever changes, does it?"

I smiled. "Can we go for a walk?"

"Let me grab a beer."

We walked on the white sand and drank. There were a million things to say, but we said nothing. We walked and drank and watched the ocean. Finally, Jeremy sat down in the sand. He lit a cigarette.

"What the hell are you doing here, Eric?"

I shrugged. "Things have been stressful lately. I missed my brother."

"Don't play your stupid fuckin' games with me. I’m not Pria and I ain't one of your patients. I can still kick your ass at just about everything, so why don't you spill it, 'cause I know you wouldn't be here without a reason."

I smiled. Jeremy would always be my older brother. He'd always be the one that stole my toys and beat me at every sport I ever tried. He'd always be the one that kicked the asses of any bully that messed with me. It didn't matter how bad his life had gotten or how far I went up some imaginary ladder of success. He would always be Jeremy.

"My boss at work is giving me some problems."

"And?"

"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. Nothing has changed. I'm still doing well. She's just toying with me and I can't explain it. It makes me nervous."

"I don't understand."

"She used to ignore me and I think I had become comfortable with that and her insults. You would have to know her, but that’s how she’s always treated her interns. But lately things have changed. She asks me out to dinner and lunch and she just looks at me differently. I've tried to put a distance between us, but you know that my job is my life and if I don't get a good review because I'm snubbing her or offending her or the hundred million other things I'm probably doing wrong, I won't be able to live with myself."

"So why don't you talk to her? Tell her you're married and your wife doesn’t like you goin’ out to dinner with her. Blame it on Pria. Kiss her butt. You’re good at that. And then stop all this shit that’s making you uncomfortable."

It was a sensible answer. Jeremy was a sensible man. He always made sense. "I don't know," I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t think of a reason not to follow his advice.

Jeremy laughed. "As smart as you’re supposed to be, you’re dumb as hell. You wanna fuck your boss. Just come out and say it."

I shook my head. Jeremy just smiled. "Don't shake your head at me. I know how it is. The first time I fell for another woman I couldn't admit it to myself. I kept telling myself I didn't want to hit that sweet ass. But I did."

"I love Pria. She isn't like Brooke."

"Sometimes I don't know if you look in the mirror. I saw you last time we went to New Orleans, and I can tell you that what you did that night wasn’t the action of a man who loves his wife, if any man really does love his wife."

"What did you see?"

"I saw you go home with the pretty little girl with the peacock on her back. You’re smooth, I gotta give you that."

"That was different. She was just sex."

"Is there a difference? Sometimes I wonder if there was ever anything besides sex between me and Brooke. Now we don't even have that."

"There is a difference. Pria’s a muse. She is otherworldly. I've always been hers."

Jeremy laughed again. "That is some poetic bullshit. You got the right words for everything, don't you?"

"It's all part of being literate."

"Whatever. You tell yourself whatever you want to make it through the day, but you and I both know what's really goin' on, and it isn't you fallin' in love with Pria again."

"What is it then?"

"You want your boss. She's got you on a string, and maybe that has something to do with you and Pria, and maybe it don't. But either way, you're gonna do to her the same thing you did to the pretty little peacock, fuck her and leave her in an alley. And I'll tell you why. Because you’re an asshole, Eric. You've always been a worthless little shit of an asshole. You've always used women up and thrown them away, and the only reason Pria is different is because she’s the only one that ever told you no. You couldn't make her love you without loving her. She saw through all your crap. My marriage may not be perfect and I do want to kill Brooke right now, but since the day this ring was put on my finger I been followin' my vows. I may have wanted other women, but I stood in a church and said I'd be faithful and I'm a man of my word. I guess that’s the difference between you and me. You've cheated on Pria more times than we can both count. I bet you can't even remember all the women you've been with. Can you even remember why Jeff gives you shit every time you see him? Do you know how hard it was to get him to come with me to New Orleans with you? You didn't even notice. You didn't even say thanks or sorry. He’ll never forgive you, and you can't even remember the girl's name."