Topping From Below (43 page)

I get out of bed and take a shower. I took one before I fell asleep last night, but feel I need another. I wash my hair again, then rub myself dry with a towel. Putting on one of M.’s bathrobes, I walk into the bedroom. From the window, I see Rameau lying on the grass. I wonder if the dog is going to become part of our regular lovemaking, or if M. will want to see me with the dog only occasionally. I am a dogfucker. I don’t know what to make of this. Now, with a clarity of mind illumined by early-morning light, I can see the degradation of the act—for that’s what it is, to M. He wants to see me with an animal, a beast, to prove his mastery over me.

A dogfucker, that’s what I am. As soon as Rameau started licking me, I enjoyed every minute of it. I am a normal person, I am thinking. How can I be a dogfucker?

Rameau sees me standing in front of the window, and his tail beats against the grass. I go into the kitchen and make a fresh pot of coffee, then wait for it to brew. On the kitchen table, there is a video with a note taped to the top of it. “For your viewing pleasure—I kept this as a memento,” it says in M.’s handwriting.

With my coffee mug in hand, I take the video into the den and slip it into the VCR. Sipping my coffee, I turn on the television and sit down to watch the tape. It is black at first, with no picture or sound then suddenly the image appears: Franny, naked, crying, on all fours. Rameau is behind her, his head down between her legs, licking her genitals. The camera goes around her so I can see her and the dog from all sides. “Please, Michael,” Franny sobs, looking into the camera, “don’t make me do this.” But M. doesn’t reply. The camera circles around her again. Rameau brings his head up and climbs on her back, clenching her waist with his paws, and begins thrusting. Franny screams out and starts to shift her body. I hear M.—who is behind the camera, not visible to me, but a lurking presence all the same—yell at her sharply, “Don’t move!” She stays there, silent now but still sobbing, tears running down her face, her mouth in a bewildered, painful
O
, a grim rictus of her humiliation and despair.

I turn off the video. I don’t want to see any more. I can’t watch the rest. Her experience with Rameau was the opposite of mine. Although reluctant at first, I was a willing participant. M. aroused me, made me want the dog, and I was ready for him when he mounted. But with Franny, M. was sadistic, brutal. He enjoyed her humiliation. My pleasure last night, after watching the tape, seems less erotic. It seems, in fact, tainted. There is a fine line, I am learning, between eroticism and degradation. With my sister, he crossed the line. And I know now that everything he told me about Franny was true. The hog barn, the urination, the dog fucking, and everything else—it was all true. I thought he was just tormenting me, getting a twisted pleasure out of making me squirm, but it was all true. Parallels. More parallels. I’m following Franny’s footsteps even closer than I had imagined.

I rewind the video and take it out of the VCR. Franny, if she were alive, wouldn’t want anyone to see this. I get a pair of scissors, then go out to the garage and find a hammer. My intention is to break the video case, then cut the tape into small pieces and throw it in the trash can. I bring the hammer up, ready to smash the video, then stop. This is the only video I have of Franny and, however awful it may be, I can’t bring myself to destroy it.

I go back to the den and put the video inside the VCR. I turn it on, and this time I force myself to watch it, all the way through. I feel that I owe this to Franny, that I have to experience the pain and humiliation with her so she won’t be alone, a vicarious sharing of her degradation. The video is truly despicable, and even though I watch, I find myself concentrating on other objects in the film—the brown carpet, Billy’s medical bracelet around her wrist, the white skin of her body—rather than focusing on the painful sight of Rameau licking and fucking.

When it is over, I sit back on the sofa, feeling drained. The images keep running through my mind. Franny on the floor, on all fours, naked, then Rameau climbing on her. I rub my temples. An image, half formed, cloudy, nags at my mind. Something is wrong, but I don’t know what. Something beyond Franny’s humiliation. She is on the floor, she is naked, the dog licks her genitals. Franny’s head is bowed, tears cover her face, her breasts sag, her skin is so white, her buttocks … What did I see on her buttocks? Some kind of mark. A welt from his whip? No. Something else, more like a birthmark.

I get up and rewind the video. I stop it just before Rameau climbs on her back, then I watch. I see it on her right buttock, some kind of mark, a scar, I think. It’s barely visible, like a wound that has almost, but not quite, healed. The viewer’s eye ordinarily would be drawn automatically to Rameau, and if I hadn’t been looking elsewhere, I never would have noticed it. I press the rewind button and watch the video again. I still can’t make it out. I watch it once more, then press the pause button. The picture freezes. On her right buttock, down low and on the side, there is a circle with a line drawn through it, the universal symbol for no. It is faint, just the barest trace of a mark, but I see it.

I stand back. I know what this means. When Franny was found, her torso was covered with cut marks—circles, squares, lines. Because of the body’s decomposition, the coroner could not identify most of the designs. But one of the marks she could make out was a circle with a line drawn through it.

M. killed Franny. The wound on her buttock, so faint he didn’t notice it, had almost healed when he took the video. And it healed completely by the time he killed her because the coroner didn’t find any cut marks on her buttocks. But it’s here, in the video, the identical design he later cut into her stomach, proof that M. killed Franny. Proof enough, yes, but only for me, not for the police. M. is not in the video, only Franny and Rameau. He will deny the video belongs to him. I feel myself shudder, not with a chill but with red-hot fury. All those pent-up emotions from the previous year—all the anger, the guilt—buRN inside me like a raging fire of vengeance. I won’t let him get away. Not again. Not this time.

I rewind the video, calm down, and collect my thoughts, thinking of what I must do. I walk out of the den, then down the long hallway toward the master bedroom. Until now, M.’s house was fraught with sexual meaning. The living room, the den, the furniture—all of it conjured up past memories that readied me for future encounters. It was phallic and carnal his house, our own private seraglio of licentious pleasure. But now, as I go through the rooms, I sense a different image before me: one of pain and suffering. I am haunted by the video of Franny. She walks here still, down this hallway, her footsteps tentative, her silent cries echoing in my mind. I will never see this house as I had before.

I enter M.’s bedroom and start to get dressed. He has collected my clothes from last night—my blouse and bra from the dining room; skirt, shoes, and panties from the den—and he has folded them neatly and placed them on the embrasure of the window. With me, he is considerate and orderly, and during the last few weeks I suppressed my original claim that he was a cruel, evil man. I was so sure, at first, that he was. Then, as time passed and I became better acquainted with him, I thought perhaps I had been mistaken. My needs clouded my judgment. I wanted to understand Franny, to know what she was really like, and M. introduced me to her. Because of him, I know my sister better than I’d ever known her when she was alive.

But somewhere along the way, I lost my objectivity. I stopped believing he was a cruel man simply because I didn’t want it to be so. I was wrong. What kind of man—other than a brutal one—would force a woman to fuck a dog, and then take pleasure in her tears?

All day, I wait for M., getting ready for his return. I go through his house and put everything that belongs to me—the clothes I’ve left in his closet, my shampoo and toothbrush and deodorant, the Larry McMurtry novel I began but never finished—in a brown shopping bag. I am amazed at my control, at my calm. Now that I know what I have to do, I am resolute.

I open the door to the backyard. Rameau is lying on the grass, and his ears perk up when he hears the door slide open. It’s a gray, sunless morning, and the air is cold and damp. I feel my hair frizzing up, and I button my sweater, shivering. Rameau keeps his gaze glued to me, his eyes big and brown, his tail wagging against the grass, but he doesn’t get up. We stare at each other. I know very little about dogs, and I wonder if he remembers our encounter last night. I step out the door, and Rameau instantly springs up and lopes over to me. He is sleek and powerful, and his black head comes up to the top of my leg. He stands motionless while I scratch him behind the ears, and when I stop he drops his head and nuzzles my thigh. I fill his water bowl and watch him take a few laps, then I go inside and close the door. I get the shopping bag and take it into the living room, hiding it behind a chair so M. will not know I am planning to leave. I walk over to the front window, the sky bleak and overcast. Outside, a cat noses in a flower bed, looks up suddenly, startled by a noise I can’t hear, then streaks across the lawn, disappearing behind a neighbor’s car.

When I saw the video of Franny, the design on her right buttock, when I knew M. was the one who killed her—something inside me snapped. My life, and the small part of the universe I inhabit, I see more clearly now; perhaps the clearest since my sister was murdered. How could I have even considered staying with M.? I gave up too much for him, and I must learn—all over again—how to take care of myself. I’m the only one who can do that.

He made a mistake showing me the video of Franny. It was an error of monumental import. How could he have been so stupid? Even if I hadn’t noticed the mark, why would he show me the video? Why would he want me to view his mental torture of Franny? I can only conclude he doesn’t understand, or refuses to acknowledge, that his behavior—his immorality, his lack of restraint—with my sister was wrong. If he hadn’t shown me the video, I might’ve stayed with him. I could have stayed. Oh, yes, it was in my realm of possibilities. He seduced me easily, led me into temptation as he had Franny, but—unlike her—I enjoyed his seduction. Immensely. He took me on a sexual odyssey of uncommon pleasure, and if I hadn’t seen the video, I might have stayed forever. This is what frightens me. I could’ve lived under his control. I could’ve been slave to his master.

But I did see the video, and now everything has changed. Even if he hadn’t killed my sister, how could I stay with him now? After viewing his torment of Franny? His appalling lack of restraint is evil. He goes too far. M. killed Franny, and I will avenge her death. He will pay for what he did.

I start my preparations. He will not return until three-thirty, so I have plenty of time. I go into his bathroom and open the medicine cabinet. I take out his sleeping pills and put them in my pocket. Then I go into the back bedroom, the training room, and light several candles. This is M.’s favorite room—and I confess it had been mine also—and he brought me to it frequently. Incongruously, a stack of cardboard boxes are stored temporarily near the bed. They contain papers and files and books that M. brought home from campus but hasn’t yet sorted or put away. And in the closet, my clothes hang—my play clothes that M. has purchased. Lace and satin lingerie, bodysuits, teddys, a French maid’s outfit, a little girl’s pleated skirt and vest, a little girl’s babydolls, big-girl bustiers and G-strings and thigh-high nylons. I take out the four-piece black vinyl set and put it on: a push-up bra, fingerless gloves that go up to my elbows, garter belt, and a G-string, all in shiny, wet-looking black vinyl. I sit on the bed and slip into black fishnet stockings, then slide my feet into black high heels. I walk into M.’s bathroom and apply my makeup, then gaze in the full-length mirror. My stomach is flat, my thighs firm. I look good. Except for the bright slash of red lipstick on my lips, I’m all in black, from my hair to my heels. This is how M. will remember me: his sex slave in black vinyl.

I return to the training room and light more candles—all of them. They flicker around the room, on every table, on the TV, on the cardboard boxes, on the floor, shining light everywhere, enough light to get a good picture on the camcorder. I put the video of Franny in the VCR, then check to make sure there is a cassette in the camcorder.

I go into the kitchen and pour M. and me a glass of red wine. I wonder how many sleeping pills to put into his glass, and decide on only one. I want him drowsy, not knocked out. I break open the capsule and stir it in the wine, then write a note and place it on the table: “I’m in the training room, Master, waiting for you.” I pick up the wineglasses and go to the back bedroom. The room glows amber in the candlelight. Everything is ready. I set M.’s glass on the table next to the bed, next to the key for the handcuffs, then recline on the bed and wait, sipping the wine.

At three thirty-five, I hear M. at the front door. The doorknob clicks, the door swings open. He’s standing in the foyer, probably with his brown leather briefcase. My car is in the driveway, so he knows I’m here. He pushes the door shut; it makes a soft, scraping sound as it closes. I hear footsteps. He’ll go into the den, set down his briefcase, then look at the piano. He’ll want to play for an hour or two, as is his custom when he returns from school, but first he will look for me. M. is so predictable. He’ll take off his coat, loosen and remove his tie, then go into the kitchen for a drink and see my note. The note will make him frown. He had wanted to play the piano, not me. He’ll read the note again—he pictures me in the training room, shackled to the wall, and lust wins out. He’ll come to me.

I hear him walking across the house, then down the hall. He stands in the doorway and gazes at me, saying nothing, one eyebrow rising appreciatively at my black bra and G-string outfit. He leans a shoulder casually against the door frame, and with his hand he loosens his tie—I was wrong about the tie, but he’s not wearing a coat. His slacks are dark, his shirt a pale mauve color, his tie an Italian silk jacquard. Even fully dressed, one can tell he’s hard-muscled and lean, his clothes fitting perfectly over a well-preserved forty-nine-year-old body. He’s slender, sensual, and deadly.