PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (23 page)

I
hadn’t heard Gregory coming down the stairs.  He was stood in the doorway,
fiddling with his robe, his fingers probing at his sleep swollen eyes.   His
hair was tousled and free, and there were little white marks on his lips from
where his spit had dried.  To some he would revolt them in this state.  But
nobody looks their best in the middle of the night.  We all smell, exude, and
sweat as the body succumbs to its needs. 

“What
are you doing?”  His words are soft and there is a half smile on his lips.  In
the middle of the night whilst he is sleepy, he is unable to hate me as he does
during the day.  In the dark of his office there is nothing but us, save the
occasional whistle as the wind rattles past the corner of the house.  I can
hear the tress rustling too.  To me, this is how I love Gregory.  This is who
he really is.  Here he is not adorned by anything fancy.  There is no expensive
watch, no glass of brandy, no newspaper to block me out from the character that
he plays.  This is how he looked when I first spent the night with him.  Of
course, I didn’t love the smell or the taste or the dried spit at the time, but
they were part of him and I grew to love those too.  When you love somebody’s
flaws you know that they are the most important thing in your life.  We discard
others when the flaws become evident.  We toss things aside that are no good
for us.  But for the one you love you can tolerate anything.  This is the
distinction, the difference.  Without his flaws, I could not love him as I do. 

I
remember once he had an irregular toenail.  It became brown, thick, and
crusty.  I was acutely aware of it, always thinking about how I was the only
one that knew it was there.  It made me feel privileged.  Like we had a
secret.  Eventually he visited a doctor and treated it.  It was fungus.  It
went after six months, and afterwards I missed its presence.  We had lost something
between us.  He had lost a flaw for me to love him in spite of.  That is why I
believe he no longer loves me, because it is my flaws that he cannot stand.

“I
was using the Internet.”  He walks behind me and he can see the pictures on the
screen.  I thought about covering them up, but he was too quick.  I feel his
hand on my shoulder and for a second I think that he may be rubbing his thumb
against me.  I turn around, and see that he is.  It is moving back, and then
forth, each stroke returning comfort and affection as he sees the tears still
glistening on my cheeks as the light bounces off them and lights my red lips
like a warning flare.  I look up at him.  He is looking at me and I suddenly realise
it is so long since we even made eye contact.

“You
have been crying.”  He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, which for some reason
I find absurd that he has in a dressing gown, and he wipes my eyes.  He stops
and looks at me, my face blue in the light of the screen, just like the day I
returned cold from the fog.  He brushes his fingers against mine, before his
hand reaches up to my face.  He nods his head backwards, encouraging me to
stand.  I do, and he turns to me.  He pushes me with his body against the desk
so that I sit down on the edge.  He puts both hands on my face and his lips
part before he reaches down and kisses me.  It is not a passionate kiss.  It is
soft, like a butterfly landing.  It lingers and I feel his breath against me
before he pulls away.  But he doesn’t move far.  He turns my face and kisses my
cheek, again soft and warm and breathy, his hands moving down and rubbing my
arms up and down and then back up to my neck and face.  With each stroke his
grip tightens and his kiss becomes harder.  He strokes his hands across me,
tracing my form through my pyjamas, my shoulders, my breasts, and then the tiny
swelling which houses my tiny centimetre long fish.  He lingers here, as if he
is trying to feel it.  As if he wants to find it.  He unbuttons my top without
taking his eyes away from my face and I feel scared like this is my first time
with him.  My pulse is racing which can’t be good for the baby and I almost
tell him to stop, but like he is a drug to which I am addicted I don't say
anything.  I feel hot and swollen like I did in the drawing room, and I wonder
if he will use me like he did before and leave me here alone feeling degraded. 
But during my mental absence he has undone himself, and he too is exposed. 
Only the necessary bits of us poke out from our nightwear as he pushes me back.
 He pushes his hand inside my pyjama top, his fingers unknowingly tracing the
black marks that I have made across my body as he moves back and forth,
grunting quietly and breathing heavily in my ear as his lips move along the
side of my neck.  It is fumbled and quick, not like a husband should make love
to his wife, and not like he did to Ishiko, but we have done it.  It is over
and he is shaking as he leans into me.  He is gripping me, cradling me, his
weight pushing me back until I am lying over the desk with his arms wound
tightly around me and his head resting between my breasts.  He is mumbling and
I cannot hear what he is saying.  I am uncomfortable and squashed, but I don’t
want to disturb him, or the moment, or our connection.

“Gregory,”
I whisper, in a way that could or could not be a question depending on if he
says anything.  He is still mumbling.  It sounds like the same words over and
over, and he has worked one hand out from under me and he is stroking me again,
the face, the breasts, the arms.  Anywhere he makes contact.  I say it again. 
“Gregory?”

“How
could you, Charlotte?  How could you?”  His words flutter out attached to his
breaths, barely audible, but I hear them.  “How could you?  How?”  I have no
answer.  Any answer I have may hurt him.  I cannot say anything.  I cannot tell
him that it felt good, that I liked it, or that I crave the same feeling
again.  I cannot tell him that even though today I have tried to be positive, I
cannot guarantee that I will wake up the same tomorrow.  I cannot tell him that
the tablets are lined up in my bedside table ready to feed to Marianne, or
perhaps Ishiko, who I am now struggling, I think, to tell apart.  Or perhaps they
are for me.  I cannot tell him anything because I have no answers.  I cannot explain
why I feel that the lake speaks to me in the voice of my father, whispering its
terrible commands, that I am his, that I belong, that it is my destiny.  I
cannot tell him that on my walks I go there and put my feet in the edge of the
water, even when it is icy and makes my toes hurt.  I cannot tell him that at this
time I feel like I am home more than I do when I am here in this house.  I
cannot tell him.  I have no explanation.

So
I just hold him in my arms.  Eventually he pulls me down to the floor and curls
up alongside me.  I hear from his breathing that he is soon asleep, nuzzled up
at the back of my neck, his sadness giving way to rest.  I close my eyes and try
to sleep, knowing I have no idea if this is real or if I am imagining it, and
just hope that tomorrow when I wake up we are still here together so that I
might know that tonight was not just a dream.  So that I might know there is at
least still part of me that is attached to reality, and to him.

I
wake up to the smell of lavender.  It is bright around me, unnaturally so and
my neck hurts.  It doesn’t take long for me to realise I am on the floor underneath
the office desk, and the smell is coming from Ishiko, a visual and olfactory
reminder of her continued presence in my house.  She is peering down at me as a
doctor might inspect a wound.

“Mrs.
Astor?”  She prods my arm to see if I am still alive.  “Mrs. Astor?  Are you
alright?”  My pyjama top is still open like a theatre curtain at the start of a
show, and I look dishevelled much in the same way as I might if I had been
attacked.  My waking is sent into overdrive once she grabs my arm and begins to
shake me, and I see that Ishiko is whiter than a sheet, her eyes even wider
than normal.  I am certain that she thinks I have died.  Or at least tried to.

“I
am fine, Ishiko,” I say, as I pull my clothes across me and sit up, dazed but
awake.  She backs off, relieved.  I find myself looking around for Gregory who
is nowhere to be found, but the belt from his robe has been left, discarded on
the floor next to me, and so I know at least he was here.  It was real.  I
reach out for it and hold it in my hands tightly, as if it is actually him and
through it he will feel my touch.  “Please take this to Mr. Astor,” I say and
hand her the belt.  “He left it here last night.”  There is a mixture of
confusion and surprise crossing her face like the meeting of two angry rivers
as she takes the belt in her hand.  He has some explaining to do, it would
seem.  She nods and moves out of the room faster than I have ever seen her
graceful legs carry her.  I couldn’t help but let her know what had happened
here last night, and seeing her scurry off, cheeks tinged pink and eyes
squinting, felt good.

Gregory
is still sleeping.  He is in the guest bedroom.  In my bathroom I discard my
pyjamas on the floor in the corner of the room.  I collect the tape measure
from behind the drawer in my bedside table where I have stored it in a Ziploc
plastic bag.  I feel an urge to fondle the bracelet and photograph, but I shut it
out for now, and focus on my task. 

After
rinsing my mouth and washing my sore hands I take a series of measurements,
following the black lines as if they were walking trails on a map.  There is no
change at the hips, but I notice an extra millimetre in both circumference and
length of my stomach.  Growth.  I take a shower whilst trying to avoid the
lines but it becomes a near impossible task that very nearly moves me to tears
as I watch the black fade to grey until in places it disappears altogether.  It
doesn’t matter how much I concentrate the soap in a particular area, the black
lines of growth are inevitably disturbed.  Once I am dry I retrace them with my
black marker pen so that my future measurements are accurate.  I sit on the
edge of the bed and count to three hundred and twelve before I am able to dress
because the fear that I have not redrawn them as they were is overwhelming. 
The backs of my hands resemble dried cranberries at Christmas and they itch
worse than nettle rash.  I thumb at the sore area trying to soothe the
discomfort.  The area which looked particularly fragile last night has become a
crack, right on the edge as if my thumb got bent back and the skin tore open
like tissue paper.  It is bleeding and it stirs an idea.  I look for a plaster
in the bathroom cabinet but there are none there.  They are in the guest
bathroom.  I look at the clock.  It is 6:30 AM.  Gregory will still be asleep.

I
cross the landing, avoiding the creaky floorboard.  With as much care as I have
within me I turn the door knob and let myself in.  The guest bedroom is dark,
no light coming from outside which is still in the depths of night.  I close
the door behind me and creep towards the bathroom door.  I push it open and the
small light that he always leaves on illuminates my path.  I push the mirrored
cabinet above the sink and it pops open, inviting me to search inside.  I find
the idea of a stranger’s bathroom cabinet enticing because it is a forbidden
place, highly personal, and this is a little bit like how I feel now.  I don’t
know what to expect in here, and it makes him feel even more like a stranger, irrespective
of what we did last night.  His personal items are no longer muddled together
with mine.  We have segregated parts of our life.

There
is deodorant, shower gel, facial soap.  A razor, foam, and scissors.  There is
a bottle of fungal nail treatment gel, and I wonder if his infected toenail has
returned and I find myself hoping that this is the case.  I locate the plasters
and take one from its wrapper.  Before I can stick it down I realise that
Gregory has woken up.  I can hear movement and breathing.

“Is
that you?” he says.

“It’s
me, Charlotte,” I reply, aware that he may have had other expectations.  If he
had, he didn’t let on.

“Good
morning,” he says as he sits up in bed, beckoning me over.  I do as he asks,
walking over to the bed where he looks just like a shadow.  He lifts the covers
and I slip in beside him.  He wraps his arms around me and like a foot into a
favourite slipper, my head rests somewhere between his face and elbow, and I
see that parts of us still fit together well.  There is a warmth in knowing
that my body still responds automatically to his, knowing the positions of
comfort, safety, and perhaps at some point if I allow myself to dream, pleasure. 
I feel cradled.  He drapes a leg over mine and it pulls me in closer.  His body
is hot and in my clothes I feel too warm but I accept the discomfort of the
impending nausea and instead relish the fact that he has invited me here.  “I’m
sorry I wasn’t there when you woke.”

“It’s
OK.  Ishiko woke me.”  There is a microsecond of concern as I speak her name,
but he controls it and carries on.

“You
are already dressed.”

“I
showered too.”  The lines across my body pulsate and I want so much to show him
so that he can share in the joy of my growth.  I want him to take photos of me
every week like the woman on the Internet last night.  Screw it, every day.  That’s
what I want.  But I stifle the words and shut myself up about the baby.  I fear
his lack of understanding because I know we teeter on a razor thin line of
unity.  I try to be grateful that somehow he has remembered that he is supposed
to love me.

“Shhhhhsh,”
he interrupts.  “Don’t say anything.  Let’s pretend for this morning that there
are no problems.  Let’s pretend that we are fine.  Let’s pretend that you love
me, that I love you, and that in our world everything is alright.”  He plants a
kiss on my forehead and snuggles me in closer.  “Right now it’s just you and
me, the way it is supposed to be.  Can we do that?”

“Last
night, you said.......”

“I
know, I know,” he interrupts again.  He doesn’t want me to speak and ruin it. 
“But last night made me feel you.  I remembered who you are.  It made me want
you, in spite of everything that has happened.”  

“I
want you too," I say.  "I want you to want me.”

He
kissed me.  It felt like a new mouth, a new kiss.  He pulled the sheets over
us,
cocooned us
is what he said, and he whispered
just you and me,
Charlotte.
  After a while I must have fallen asleep because I woke up as he
was dressing.  He told me to stay in bed whilst he ate breakfast, and that I
didn’t have to get up.  I stayed in our cocoon, the one that he had created for
us tucked beneath the sheets and I watched him go downstairs.  I heard him
speak to Ishiko, his voice angry and gruff.  I heard her answer him in a way
that I had never heard before and she seemed angry too.  The words were muffled
but I could imagine them.  He was telling her that it was over, that he loved
me again, that I was his reality and that we would be having a child.  That she
was nothing to him.  Nothing but a mistake.  Not even that.  Just nothing.

After
a while I went downstairs and waited in the conservatory.  Ishiko brought in a
tray with tea, milk, bread, and bacon.  There was a boiled egg on it too.  The
care that she had shown me in the study had evaporated and had left room for something
else.  She was jittery, her actions quick and unconsidered as she dropped the
contents of the tray onto the table without care, almost throwing each item
down.  She wants to get away from me.  She is scared I know.  She should be.

“Ishiko,
are you alright?”  The answer is obviously no, but I ask it anyway because I am
feeling brave and untouchable.  I have been wanted by Gregory since she slept
last night. 

“Yes,
Mrs. Astor.”  She is already leaving, but I call out for her to return with
fresh juice, and she does so.  Somebody has lit a fire and I can hear it
crackling in the drawing room, and the smell of burnt wood makes me think of
Christmas.  I try to remember last Christmas, but it seems I cannot.

“Ishiko,
please sit down.”  She doesn’t want to sit.  Her mind is telling her no, but
she knows she has little choice.  She protests a bit and mutters something
about the kitchen.  “Ishiko, sit down.  We are going to have this talk, whether
you want it or not.”  I wave my hand to encourage her to sit.  She gulps down
hard.  She sits, her head bowed, arms crossed then uncrossed and then crossed
again.  I tell myself it’s because she is ashamed.  “Ishiko, there are some things
that must change in our house.  I believe that you know what they are.”  She
gulps again but still refuses to look at me.  “When you live here with us it is
very easy to forget your place.  You do so much for us that you may feel more
important than you really are.  You may think that because I was ill for a
while, that your role in the house changed, that you became something
different.  Something better.  Do you think that this is the case, Ishiko?” 
Silence.  I take a sip of the juice.  “Well?”

“No,
Mrs. Astor.”

“Good,
Ishiko.  Then we have an understanding.”  I am feeling brave with the heart of
a lion, the blood of a warrior running through me.  It is like a symphony has
risen within me and I am at the point of crescendo, the zenith of my progress
when I am completely out of reach, nothing higher, nothing greater, nothing
more powerful.  I feel so alive.  But she trying to speak, dragging me back
down, her words demanding that I listen.  “What did you say, Ishiko?”

“I
told you that I know my place in this house.  I asked you if you know.”  She
raised her head to look at me.  Her question surprised me, and I cannot deny,
threw me off track somewhat.  I didn’t expect it.

“Ishiko,
I can assure you that I know my place in this house very well.”  The words were
a bit jumbled at the start, but by the end of the sentence I think I was once
again composed, shield and stake at the ready for battle.

“That’s
not what I meant.”

I
wait a moment, chewing her words, tasting their flavour.  Bitter.  “What did
you mean?”  Silence, but her stare is heavy.  Thousands of words could have
passed between us in that moment when nothing was said.  “Tell me what you
mean.”

“I
wondered if you know my place in the house as well as you think you do.”

“Of
course I know your place,” I say.

“If
you did, we would not be having this conversation.”

“What
is that supposed to mean?”  I am no longer thinking clearly, otherwise I would
have seen how quickly the questions have been turned around on me.  Once again
I think about the other night when I was drugged and she was rattling off ideas
about frogs and wells that I cannot remember but feel it is necessary that I
do.  Something about an ocean that I didn’t know.

“Mrs.
Astor, you forget a lot.  There are many things you forget.  I watch you Mrs.
Astor.  I watch you every day.  I have watched you every day since you got
home, but you do not realise.  I know you well.  Better than you think.”

“You
don’t know anything about me.”

“I
know you don’t take your tablets.  I know you stand at the lake, watching it
with your feet in the water.  I know people call this house to find out if you
are still alive.  I know the photographs in the drawing room don’t move
anymore.”  My strength is wavering and so I have to be quick.  I have to say
what I wanted to say before my strength is lost.

“Ishiko,
know this.  Your place is below me.  What you have been doing, it stops.  OK? 
Things are going to get back to normal.”  I reach up to my chest, my neck
tight, my Triquetra necklace ice cold against my skin.  I swallow hard.

“What
is normal in this house, Mrs. Astor?  Is normal how you were behaving six
months ago?  Two months ago?  Is normal you on a boat on the lake?  Is normal
the depression that nearly killed you, and him,” she accuses, “before you
nearly killed yourself?”  She paused and looked at me for a moment, a pitying
look as she watched the colour drain from me.

“You
leave him alone,” I say.  She stands up from her seat, tucks it back underneath
the table with care and attention, not rushing at all.

“I
cannot destroy what you have already destroyed yourself.  You think my being
here is ruining your future, but you have already squandered it.”

“I
am pregnant, Ishiko.  You know this.  Leave him alone!”  Somehow I have managed
to fill up with tears and my courage and heroism from only moments before has
been washed away in a giant and unexpected tsunami.  The earth beneath me has
fallen away and I am floating freely in the debris strewn current.  I am weak, left
clinging to the nearest rock, trying hard not to be swept away by the swell.