Steven Brust - Agyar

In any case, there is no time to do anything about it tonight.

Shall I describe it in detail? Why? It is not the sort of thing I am likely to forget. On the other hand, why not? It might help settle me down, to concentrate on striking the right key, and on recalling everything as well as possible, and working to get it all in order, even as it happened.

Besides, I am certain that Jim will want to know about it all, and I’d rather he read this than asked me to tell him; if I try to talk I’ll probably

Yes. I will set it down.

My intention, then, was to visit Little Philly, and I even did so, resplendent in my ugly new coat. The idea-ha! — was to attempt to spare Jill as much as I could. I spent a few minutes talking to Jim and gathering what strength remained to me, then I walked out the door. I took my time getting to the area, watching carefully for police cars.

Even after arriving there I continued to be careful. I spent several hours observing the scene outside the strip bars and the “adult” bookstores-those ugly, windowless brick buildings looking like prisons to house the trapped desire-until I found what I wanted. She was small and artificially blond, and could not have been more than sixteen years old. She wore a white kneelength coat with imitation fur trim, and slung over her back was a tiny black purse with a long strap. She stood near the curb in front of the door of Lorenzo’s Night Club with a cigarette that appeared to be permanently fixed to the corner of her mouth. She was carrying on a conversation with someone in a white Thunderbird, who drove off as I watched. I came up behind her. She turned around and eyed me with false coyness.

“Whatcha up to?” she said. She should have been chewing gum as well as smoking.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Looking for a date?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“You a cop?”

“No. You?”

She laughed. “Not likely. Wanna blow job?”

I explained that I wanted something more substantial-a word that seemed to puzzle her. She said something about charging extra if I wanted anything “kinky.” I suggested fifty dollars. She agreed, but still seemed worried, and wanted details. I promised that I wouldn’t hurt her, and she reluctantly agreed, and said she knew a hotel nearby. Her name was Doris.

I offered her my arm. She seemed to think that was funny, but she threw her cigarette away and linked arms with me. The old world charm and fifty dollars; it never fails.

It was shortly after midnight when I led her into the lobby of the Midtown Hotel. I took a room for the evening at twenty dollars. From the look of the place, I’d have thought they were overcharging by a factor of at least two, but I didn’t find out what the rooms were like, because at that moment I felt something I’d never felt before. I can say it no more clearly than that something took hold of my mind and pulled. It was disorienting, and in a way I had not thought I could be disoriented, and uncomfortable, not unlike the vertigo I felt when Young Don shot me, and again when Susan said she loved me.

Reflexes associated with panic woke up; not strong enough to interfere with me, but there, nevertheless, telling me something inexplicable was happening in my brain, where one never wants the inexplicable happening.

I was dizzy for just a moment, and my first thought was, Kellem. But, on reflection, it didn’t feel like her. In any event, something was happening, and I was a part of it. I felt a clear sense of direction and a great sense of urgency. I took out a roll of bills and threw them at Doris, saying, “Sorry, honey, change of plans. I’ll see you another time,” and dashed out of the hotel. I think I remember the desk clerk laughing, and Doris swearing loudly, though whether at me or at the clerk I cannot say.

At that moment, someone said, “You are Jack Agyar.” It was so strong that, for a moment, I thought it was really said into my ear and I stopped running and turned around. No, there was no one there. It had been Jill’s voice, which was clearly impossible. I didn’t know what this meant, but I knew that I didn’t like it.

Weakness, I thought, be damned; I needed speed.

I sent myself like an arrow through the night, troubled by visions of ropes surrounding me, tying me up; at one point I was unable to move my arms, although I was able to break this without much effort. I could still hear Jill’s voice, though I did not know what she was saying. I stumbled a couple of times, as if something were trying to wrap itself around my legs. At another point I stopped, realizing that, somehow, I had forgotten the way. I stood, trembling from weakness and rage, and made myself recall how I had gotten there before, and eventually I reached the correct neighborhood.

Whatever it was, it was still going on, and it was not without a certain fear that I entered the house. There was no one on the main floor, but I could smell cloth burning upstairs, and so I dashed up to Jill’s room and threw open the door. She stood, naked, facing the north wall, which looked toward Susan’s room and the street. Before her were small bits of cloth and yarn, a black candle, and an ashtray, in which something was burning.

She did not seem to notice me.

I rushed forward, but was stopped, as if by a wall, although there was nothing tangible in front of me. Or, more accurately, it was as if I knew I could go forward if I could make myself, and simultaneously knew I couldn’t make myself. If, years from now, I am baffled when I read this, I will remind myself that I was even more baffled when it happened; I still don’t understand it. She said, “So I am free,” as if speaking to someone who wasn’t there, and, as she spoke, I felt a tearing sensation somewhere within me, as if a piece of myself were being ripped away.

“So I am free.”

As she said it a second time, the feeling intensified, and with it my rage. I knew what was happening, although I didn’t know how.

“So I am-”

“No!” I cried. That got through. She looked at me for the first time, her eyes widening. I caught her in my gaze and we struggled that way for what seemed like forever; a silent, and very deadly struggle in which, I think, neither of us was quite sure on what ground it was being fought, or how the battle was progressing, yet we were both very much aware of the conflict. You are mine, I told her. You have always been mine. Your heart is mine. Your soul is mine. Your body and life are mine. Your will is a shadow of my own.

Something, I don’t know what, hung by a thread, awaiting the decision of our struggle. She was more determined than I had thought possible for her; I was as angry as I’d been in some time.

I am free, she told me. You have no power over me.

You are mine. You are mine.

I am free. I am free.

You are mine.

I fall back on metaphor because there is no way to set down in words what it was like, that battle of wills, a pushing and a pulling, a heating and a cooling, but that only hints at the experience like the description of the act of love can only bring fragments of the sensation to the memory.

But I was the stronger; we can, perhaps, leave it at that. Her will crumbled beneath my rage, like the unraveling of a closely knit fabric that begins to run. I took the end and pulled it, and the invisible wall before me collapsed.

She made a low sound of despair as I came forward, took her, and pushed her against the wall. “Where did you learn to do that?” I said.

She didn’t answer, only made an inarticulate moan; she would have fallen if I had not been holding her.

“Tell me,” I said, with all the force I could. “Tell me who and where.”

She began to tremble, and there were tears running down her cheeks. Some men seem to think women are attractive when they cry; I think such men are crazy. I shook her and said, “Tell me now.”