Fletcher Flora - Desperate Asylum

Everyone was looking at them, naturally, everyone arrested and fixed in a terrible tableau, and even the High Flyers trailed raggedly to silence in the realization that something had happened and was terribly wrong. Then Merlin turned and ran out of the room with an awkward, loping gait, still holding his seared cheek and whimpering with pain and saying Jesus, Jesus over and over, and someone who turned out to be Avery detached himself from the fixed members of the tableau, and right away the tableau began to break and move in its many parts, and the High Flyers began to play again, and everyone started pretending that nothing had happened. And Avery approached Lisa in the desolate ruins of the worse night that had become worst.

“For Christ’s sake, what have you done?” he said.

“It seems that I have burned the cheek of Merlin Collins with a cigarette.”

“Why? Can you possibly tell me why?”

“Because he is a fool and deserved it.”

“Are you in a position to condemn fools? Anyhow, that is no reason for doing a thing like that.”

“Isn’t it? Then I did it for no reason.”

“I insist on knowing why you did it, Lisa.”

“I have told you the reason. If you don’t believe me, you had better ask Merlin.”

“I shall. I shall also ask him to forgive you for what you have done, though God knows why he should.”

“You may do as you wish. First, however, I would like to go home.”

“It’s impossible. I have guests. I can’t take you home now.”

“I will not stay here any longer. I didn’t want to come, and you compelled me, and now I will not stay any longer.”

She could see that he was angry again, as he had been at home in the living room, and she thought that the only reason he did not strike her now, as he had then, was that they were now exposed to the public. His anger did not disturb her. She regretted a little, perhaps, that she was causing him so much trouble, for she felt sincerely that he did not deserve it, but it was quite evident by now that the trouble was inevitable, something to which she was party but over which she had absolutely no control, and so the regret was really futile and not worth expressing.

Standing, she said, “I’ll go outside to the car. If you want to come, you can come. If not, it doesn’t matter.” She walked across the room and outside, and it was quite a long walk with everyone watching her, the kind of situation that would usually make your arms and legs go in all directions at once, but she felt strangely at ease, not in the conviction that the worst of the night had passed, but in the serenity of resignation to progressive: evil, and she walked gracefully with her head back and her slight body erect. She went to the parking area and got into the front seat of Avery’s black Caddy and sat there with her eyes closed, and after quite a while a man came and got in beside her. The man was not Avery, but she knew instantly without opening her eyes just who he was, and she began to laugh quietly with the merest whisper of sound because it was so perfectly part of the pattern that he should be who he was.

“Avery didn’t want to leave his guests,” Emerson said. “He asked me to drive you home. Do you object?”

“It would not matter if I did. You would still drive me home.”

“If you prefer, I’ll tell Avery to ask someone else.”

“No. It was necessary that he ask you and that you should agree.”

“Why do you say that? I don’t understand you.”

“Don’t you? Perhaps it’s just as well.”

He backed the Caddy out of its position between two other cars and drove out of the parking area.

“Didn’t you drive Avery home from your place one night?” she said.

“Yes. A long time back.”

“I know. In November. The night before he left for Miami. I disgraced myself tonight, didn’t I? Everyone will be talking about it. It was a very beautiful public spectacle, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Lisa.”

“Of course you know. How ridiculous to say you don’t. You were there and saw it all quite clearly. Do you know why I burned that fool’s cheek with my cigarette?”

“Knowing Merlin, I can imagine.”

“Because he pawed me? He did that, of course, but it wasn’t the real reason. It was just a kind of precipitant. Would you care to know the real reason?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? I’m just in the mood for telling you if you’d like to know.”

“I’m quite sure.”

“Oh, very well. Be as smug as you like. Do you know that you are very smug?”

“I don’t try to be.”

“Of course you don’t try. It just comes naturally. Because you are a nice guy who does things. That’s what you are. A nice, smug guy who does things.”

“I’m sorry you find me so unpleasant.”

“You say that you’re sorry, but you’re not. You don’t care at all. You don’t care because you despise me.”

“I don’t despise you, Lisa.”

“Certainly you despise me. Shall I tell you why? You despise me because I’m despicable. That’s very logical, isn’t it? How can you deny anything as logical as that?” She was very pleased with this. She had reasoned logically and confounded him completely. She began to laugh again quietly to herself, continuing to sit with her head back and her eyes closed, and it wasn’t long before she was aware that the Caddy had stopped, and then she opened her eyes and saw that they were parked in the car port beside the house.

“Here we are,” Emerson said. “I’ll see you to the door.”

She looked at him slyly. “Won’t you come in for a drink?”

“No, thanks, Lisa. I don’t think I’d better.”

“You see? I said you despise me, and you do. You won’t even come in for a drink when I ask you. It would only be common courtesy to come in for a drink.”

“God damn it, I do not despise you. I like you very much. I just think it would not be a good idea to come in for a drink.”

“Why? Are you afraid I would seduce you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Would you be surprised if I tried?”

“I don’t think you are going to.”

“Why? Do you think I am incapable? Is that what you think?”

“I don’t think anything about it at all.”

“Perhaps you don’t trust yourself. Is that it? Are you afraid you could not resist?”

“All right, Lisa. Perhaps that’s it. Anyhow, whatever it is, I am not coming in for either a drink or a seduction, and I will take you to the door and no farther.”

“No. Wait a minute.”

He had started to open the door beside him, and now he paused and turned back toward her in the seat, and she moved suddenly with incredible speed and was upon him in an instant, her mouth over his mouth and her body pressing against his body, but he was of course only the necessary medium, and the mouth and the body she sought were not his nor even present, and in her was the wild, aberrant unleashed hunger, and her harsh whisper in her throat had a strangled, dying sound.

“Here,” she whispered. “Right here, right now.”

He sat passively under the attack, neither resisting nor responding, thinking that she would soon withdraw, but she continued to press upon him and devour him, and he began to think that he himself would surely strangle and die. Raising his hands to her wrists, he tried to break her grip but couldn’t, and so he took the fingers of her hands and pried them loose and pushed her away from him. Then he opened the door and got out quickly and went around the car and opened the opposite door. She was now sitting quietly in the seat with her hands folded in her lap, and he felt for her a deep, bitter pity that was like nothing he had ever felt before.

“Come on, Lisa. Let me take you to the door.”