Chapter 11

It was clear as soon as he entered her apartment that SHE was stoned out of her gourd. She sat on the edge of the bed rubbing her nose and nodding off. "I'm sorry, Joseph. I needed it."

"It's okay darling, but I'm beginning behavioral therapy and will not make love to you when you're high. Did you call your father?"

"Yes, and he was thrilled. We'll head down there tomorrow night. You better fuck me by then or I'll be nodding at the wheel."

"I promise."

"I'll be strong if you'll be strong with me. I won't ask you to get high, but if it slips out I want you to know I love you more when you're straight and your mind is going crazy and you feel my life pulsing in your arms and you feel the love and feed it back. How about this, you don't get stoned again until Natty comes home." She continued to nod and recover the whole time she talked, and her words were slow and loose.

"I know what you mean by her home being here. I love that you said that."

"You need my love and here I am too fucked up to feel yours. Why didn't you just leave me and go home."

"Like you said, my little junkie sweetheart, I am home."

"You are, aren't you," she said lifting her head and smiling at him, her pinned eyes apparent. She straddled him and they gently rocked together holding each other close enough to share heart beats though the embrace was loose, as if they knew their was no fear or desire of escape.

"I love you my crazy god man."

"I love you my evil goddess queen."

As they hugged and rocked they talked about near future plans, about looking for a job, about SHE's big gig a week from Saturday, about the band's next practices before the performance and how much she wanted to work up his new song, about her teaching him conversational French and how he knew how to read it, but never had much confidence talking it, about how many times they would fuck each other and how many different places, how he'd make the apartment sparkle by the time of Natty's return, how she'd watch her slave and gloat, how happy she was she had found him, how much he already missed Natty and how much he loved SHE for being there for him and for just being SHE. The rocking stopped and SHE looked into his eyes with a mischievous glint.

"You're supposed to call Sadey!"

"I forgot."

"Don't tell her that!"

"I will if it comes up."

"Maybe you should. I bet nobody ever said that to her before. She'd probably race right over just to make you never forget her."

"She's probably busy."

"You're probably right, but give her a call. Leave a message. Tell her to call here as soon as she's free."

Either she was taking the night off or she was between clients, she didn't say, but Sadie picked up after two rings, the call coming on her private line, only known by two people, including SHE.

"Hi Dawn."

"You remembered."

"Actually I forgot until SHE reminded me."

"You shit. Did Sheila tell you to say that?"

"Sort of."

"How is she?"

"Not up for fucking I'm afraid."

"Me neither."

"You want to come over or go out?"

"Let me get back to you on that. Listen Joseph, I'm all twisted up inside, maybe I've always been but its like when you work out and you get all tight and then you spring for a massage and you realize how truly tight and fucked up your muscles are, but it's good pain but maybe not so good. I guess I'm feeling sorry for myself and maybe I always do but I never dwell on it, you know? But you opened me up, Joe where I thought I was tight as a virgin and it hurt because I realized there was a man I wanted who didn't want me because I'm beautiful and he could afford me but for what was opened by him, for my heart I guess, and then I thought why should he want such damaged goods, such rotted meat, and it's not my cunt I'm talking about, there's no sloppy muscle there, but my heart is a sorry mess and I thought how could a man so beautiful it hurts want such a sloppy mess of a heart? Do you understand? I love you Joe, but I'm facing the fact that I may just be unlovable, some ugly fat bitch covered in beauty."

"I understand Dawn. I have a habit of telling the truth, and truthfully I don't love you, not yet. I like you though. You're strong and funny and charming and self-confidant and you're SHE's best friend, which by default makes you my friend and I certainly have no problems with that."

"Come over, Joe. Do you do massage?"

"Not professionally, but I'm pretty good at it."

"Come alone."

"SHE would need to drive me. I don't own a car."

"Take a cab. Better yet, I'll send you a cab and I'll meet you out front. I could use the air."

"She wants to send a cab for me. She wants us to be alone," Joseph said to SHE.

There was that mischievous smile again. "Let me talk to her," SHE said. He handed her the phone.

"Fucking bitch!" said SHE loudly. "You're trying to steal my one and only man right out from under me! Don't you have enough men in your life you got to steal mine?"

"I was just going to borrow him for a night. He'll still be in one piece when he gets home."

"Yeah, right. You with your perfect body and your perfect face and your big round bed in your fancy apartment and he's going to want to leave?"

"I'm sorry SHE. I just needed to talk. I'm all mixed up." Laughter alerted Sadey that she was the butt end of a cruel SHE joke. "You bitch. I'll get you. I really am pretty fucked up right now," said Sadey, but couldn't help joining in SHE's laughter.

"Send the cab you fat cow, and you better not break him, especially his penis, I depend on it for my sustenance," said SHE winking at Joseph and handing him the phone.

"Okay, you scrawny midget, I will, I mean I won't, I mean I'll send the cab and I won't break his beautiful cock."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Joseph.

"Oh, sorry. Which part?"

"Both."

"Cool. And give your bitch a swift kick in the ass."

"You sure you don't want her to come along so you can kick her yourself?"

"I'm sure. Listen for a honk outside your window. It shouldn't be more than half an hour."

The look of disappointment was unmistakable on Sadey's face when Joseph arrived at her apartment building, Sadey glancing at him from different angles as she paid the driver and waved at him as he tore off, her head was proudly high, resembling the woman he had first met and not the one so transformed early that morning, then it was cocked to the side, giving her a curious warmth, then bowed and straining her eyes up when she was transacting with the cabby, then a lilting bending as she circled him on the sidewalk. "Can't figure it out," she said finally. "You're just a young man, neither cocky nor distinguished, but last night you turned me inside out. Oh well. Come up."

Watching the regal sway of her butt, accentuated by the two inch high heels in matching royal purple to her thigh length well contoured party dress was stimulating, but Joseph was wondering if he should have stayed at home with SHE, perhaps beginning the challenge of cleaning up the place while enjoying the company of his semi-conscious lover rather than being alone with this woman who had demanded his company rather than requested or pleaded for it and who seemed as it turned out to desire his company less than he desired hers, and if she had seemed fragile, confused and needy at the beginning of their telephone conversation, it didn't seem long before her haughty bearing had returned to full strength. Whether he could help her if she crumbled again wasn't clear either, because he too was suffering from the loss of Natty, Karen and Devi so that it wasn't that his heart wouldn't be into salving her pain but it was simply somewhere else. Feeling like a dog with an invisible chain, he let her lead him to her perfect escort apartment.

"So what's so special about you that you could turn me to horny little girl mush?" asked Sadey bending into the refrigerator and pulling out another half full bottle of white wine, setting it on the counter behind her and reaching up to the cabinet and grabbing a couple wine glasses.

"I have a way of turning certain women on with my mind," answered Joseph matter-of-factly.

"Like telepathy. That sounds kind of fucked up."

"No, I don't actually get inside your mind so much as I get inside of mine in a certain way that for some reason makes women want me. It's like an aura of self-confidence that women find irresistibly sexy."

Handing Joseph his wine glass, she looked at him for the first time in the apartment, her smile was as hard as her face, beautiful but hard. Then she tilted her head slightly and the smile and the face transformed into the soft and vulnerable young woman he had glimpsed earlier in the morning. "I remember you," she said sweetly, and his heart skipped a beat, but the moment was brief, her head raised up, the harshness returned and she grabbed a smoke from her small royal purple matching latch purse, looking away from him, lit it, and when she removed the cigarette from her mouth, he saw the ring of lipstick on it, a deep maroon, and when he studied her face, he inventoried the careful makeup, cover and mascara and blush and eyeliner and lip liner, all perfectly placed and subtle. He thought of masks, of Karen's housewife and mother mask and SHE's queen bitch mask and wondered about how common it was and how he had never encountered it in Minneapolis, even with the older Natty, but in Canada and probably everywhere else, people found a part they could hide behind and played it to the hilt, covering the pain, protecting themselves and never resolving what it was that made them hide. In Sadey's case, the pain was humongous, and as much as Karen's deeply sensitive soul felt it needed to be defended or go mad, Sadey's pain may have already driven her crazy, and her disguise was all the more well constructed and impenetrable, a well hewn fortress wall to keep the insanity inside.

"Can you give me a demonstration?" Sadey said skeptically despite her experience with it less than twenty four hours before.

"I could, Sadey, but it shouldn't be necessary. Once we've become intimate, the attraction is made, the love is communicated and you should see me as a lover and not some typical young man without my mind making me attractive to you."

"But you said you don't love me," she said with a seething anger, throwing her glass down so it shattered on the tiled kitchen floor behind her and throwing her lit cigarette at his face, hitting it and when it bounced off he caught it and pushed it into the sink like a cylindrical volleyball quick enough so the hot end barely burned him and then she descended to the floor and wrapped herself in a fetal ball, rocking precariously on her high heels threatening to fall back into the broken glass. Joseph moved to catch her, exerting unexpected speed and strength when a surge of adrenalin took hold as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him until she sprawled out on top of him on the hard floor uncut.

"Clumsy me," she said and began to laugh unrestrained, infecting Joseph and they both laughed uproariously for over a minute.

Once the laughter subsided, Joseph said carefully, "Saying I didn't love you wasn't fair, Dawn." When he said her real name, her face seemed to flow from hard to soft, from anger to love to emotionless and back. "Do you want me to call you Dawn?"

"Sadey, I'm Sadey; who the fuck is Dawn, fuck Dawn? I'm Dawn. I was Dawn. Not really. But just then ... But just now ... I never was ... and then I was and now I am ... Oh fuck. Nobody else. Nobody else can but you can." The jumble flowed easily, starting out abrupt, but softening, and always quiet and thoughtful.

"Okay Dawn, I want to do something, I want to love you and I know I will but it's all about trust so I want to do something. I won't hurt you, but it might seem a little crazy."

"Crazy, hunh?" she said, and the laughter recommenced. "So why not love me yet?"

"Not enough time together, Dawn. You were right to have me over by myself."

"You resisted. You wanted SHE as your blankey. Am I that scary? Maybe I am."

"Life hasn't been easy for you; in fact it's been impossibly hard. You've done what you can to stave off the pain and the anger and the loneliness, and I fucked that up, didn't I?" He felt her tighten, getting heavy as she lay over him, her face getting hard. "You see, I want to love you, but I'm afraid I'll only hurt you. Intense, powerful, complicated women are the ones who attract me and are attracted to me, but like you've said from the beginning, I'm really just a kid, a teenager, and I'm afraid what I'm doing to you is not good, and I want it to be good, but I don't know how, and that scares me."

The gentle soul returned with a tilt of the head. "I love you Joseph. You make me feel alive if crazy. I want you to love me. What was that something you wanted to do?"

"I want to go to the bathroom."

"You don't need me for that, do you?" said Sadey with a laugh, her heartbreakingly pretty face still on.

"No I mean with you, and not to use the toilet."

Rising carefully off him, she was on her feet, and Joseph soon joined her. She looked at the wet broken glass. "I should clean that up."

"Later, okay?"

"Alright. Follow me." Once out of the kitchen, she unfastened and removed her shoes. Her dress quickly followed which she tossed over a nearby chair. "Unhook my bra," she said.

"You don't have to get naked," said Joseph.

"I want to get comfortable," she said. "Why don't you do the same?" Leaving her panties on, she entered her large bathroom, waiting for Joseph to remove his clothes, his underpants were slightly distended by his thickening penis, but though she was gorgeous naked, the excitement was tempered by his need to love her in an emotional rather than physical way, and that was going to be a difficult process, though he was hopeful and the thought of finding the emotional through line to her heart actually turned him on more.

Of course the bathroom was just how he envisioned it; a large mirror surrounded by light bulbs, even the adjustable lighting was in his vision, the great improvisational actress preparing for whatever stage she was to perform on. The counter was cluttered yet organized, there being so much makeup and paraphernalia involved, even blank heads covered with three different wigs. Also as he envisioned, she stared into the mirror as soon as she was in. "Okay Joe, what's the plan?" She was Sadey again.

"I want you to remove your makeup," he said.

"That's it?"

"No more masks." He played with the lights until they were at their brightest, though not at their least complimentary, he discovered there were multiple light bulbs and some cast the blue of fluorescence, and he immediately extinguished them. The lighting he chose had the look of a sunny day.

Staring at herself with the cold cream in hand, she said with a mean commanding voice, "You want me without makeup, you want me unmasked, you do it."

At first he obeyed, though he wasn't comfortable about doing it because he'd never done it before and had never seen any woman doing it either, all the women in his life wore little or no make-up. He began with her lips, dampening a tissue with water and wiping away the dark maroon. Her mouth when not being pushed around by his aggressive cleaning had a tight smile and her face looked harder than ever. He realized where the soul of the mask laid, what emotional outlet it was propped on. Sadey was resolutely dominant as an escort. Again this was new territory for him never feeling the need to worry whether his relationship with a woman was dominant or submissive, more it was a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with whatever was told him and working through a situation mostly as equals, with a secondary or even tertiary awareness that for instance with Natty, she had the greater wisdom and experience, but with Sadey, and with SHE as well, gamesmanship and role playing were key components of their character. It was clear what needed to be done. He tossed the reddened tissue away and returned to his position behind her. "You take your own damn make up off," he said forcefully, and when she remained frozen, he yelled, "Now!"

Immediately her face softened. As she methodically spread the cold cream on her face, he talked to her quietly but with command. "Has anyone in your life been purposefully harmful?"

"No Joseph," she said quietly.

"Don't bullshit me. You want me to love you, you tell me the truth."

"The worst was my parents, and they just didn't give a shit," she said.

"You're a beautiful woman Dawn. Did anyone think that was an excuse to fuck you without your permission?"

"No Joseph. I've never been raped. I have a way to keep that from happening."

"You take control."

"That's right my brilliant man."

"But you can't take control of me."

"I made you come here."

"Didn't I want to come here?"

"Of course you did."

"Why?"

"Because ... Because..."