James Adcox - Does Not Love

The man outside wants to talk to Viola about the dangers of the New World Order. Viola smokes and smiles at Elizabeth, uncomfortably, through the glass. Elizabeth smiles back. “That’s what you get for smoking,” she says, when Viola returns.

“I thoughtour relationship was good,” Robert says. He and Viola are sitting on the edge of their bed. Robert is staring down at the carpet. “I thought we were strong. That we were going to be strong together, throughout this difficult time.”

“Robert, it is good. In many ways it is very good. Possibly in all of the ways that count.” Viola gets undressed. Robert gets undressed. Robert has a patch of sandy blond hair that extends in a nearly straight line from his navel to his pubis.

“Robert, I want you to touch me like you don’t care about me. That is what I want from you right now.”

“I don’t know that I can do that,” Robert says.

Viola closes her eyes tightly. “Robert, please. Robert please just please.”

At work, Robert thinks about the deposition. The questions that the case raises are important, but they are far off, beyond the horizon. Robert is adrift in a sea of facts, small facts, facts that float meaninglessly through and beyond his life.

Viola buysan instructional DVD on rough sex. A gratingly cheerful woman demonstrates on a smiling fellow porn-star the body parts that can be safely hit and how, how hard, etcetera. Several famous rough-sex porn stars give testimonials about their experiences. “I think that any man who has never been dominated isn’t really a man,” says one, a youngish balding porn star lounging shirtless on a bed with burgundy sheets. “I can’t watch this,” says Viola, who has become suddenly, painfully embarrassed.

Robert, alone in his office downstairs, watches the instructional DVD on his laptop while Viola is at work. “A lot of times I find it really hot to start gentle and build up to higher intensities,” the cheerful woman says, demonstrating on her likewise cheerful assistant. Robert writes down: Start gentle and build to higher intensities. Robert resumes the DVD and continues watching it, scanning his notes.

Robert and Viola discuss the concept of safewords. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just tell me to stop, if you wanted me to stop,” Robert says.

“It’s not just for me,” Viola says. “You could use the safeword too.”

“Why wouldn’t I just stop?”

Robert is really not trying to be obtuse. It’s that he feels that the whole safeword thing calls their mutual trust into question. Of course he would stop, as soon as he realized that she wanted to stop. Why would they need a special word for that?

Robert holds Viola down on their bed. He slaps her. “I’m sorry,” Viola says, shaking her head.

“What?” says Robert, suddenly burning with self-consciousness.

“It doesn’t,” Viola tries to explain. “I don’t know, it just feels awkward.” He’s trying so hard, she thinks. Which is of course part of the problem.

Her talk therapist seems uncomfortable talking about Viola’s sex life. “Do you think these… desires… may have some connection with the recent losses you’ve experienced?”

“No,” Viola says. “It just didn’t seem as important to insist on it before, somehow.”

“Hm,” Viola’s talk therapist says, looking carefully away from her.

Robert watches the DVD again in the fading light from his office window. What was awkward, he thinks. What was so fucking awkward.

Near the dumpstersbehind the library, Viola talks with Ricky, the African-American biker, about mojo.

“From the West African mojuba,” Ricky says, “meaning a prayer or homage; more broadly understood in contemporary Hoodoo as one’s overall spiritual valence, akin to for example the Japanese notion of life-force or Ch’i.”

“Chee?” says one of the other bikers.

“Nah,” says Ricky, “it’s pronounced ‘key.’”

“Hoodoo,” Viola says.

“Well sure, that’s where mojo comes from, the Hoodoo system of beliefs.”

The young hoodlumsacross the street have taken to experimenting with small explosives. So far nothing they’ve blown up has been of any importance, but it’s a concerning development nonetheless.

Viola takesa late lunch at an Indian place up the street from the library. Sitar versions of popular songs play, piped in from speakers hidden behind silk plants. The restaurant is nearly empty. Viola sits at a table near the back waiting for her chicken masala, reading a young adult novel about a plucky young girl who transforms into a squid to escape the semi-romantic intentions of her evil stepfather. Plucky young girls turning into things are a staple of the sort of young adult novels that Viola reads. Viola reads a lot of young adult novels, because of her job, of course, but she suspects that young adult novels would be most of what she read as an adult in any case.

She never read young adult novels when she was actually a young adult. When she was a young adult, she read the British Romantics.

She’s just gotten to the part about the squid-girl’s new life underwater when the FBI agent sits down at her table. “Viola St. Clair?”

“Did you follow me here?” Viola says. “Jesus, you followed me here.”

“You are magnificent,” the FBI agent says. “Can I buy you a drink, Ms. St. Clair?”

Viola starts to say something, pauses, tries again, quieter. “I’m just having lunch. And it’s Mrs. Also, Wilder-St. Clair. With, you know, a hyphen.”

The waiter, seemingly unbidden, brings two gin-and-tonics.

“Hope you’re thirsty,” Viola says, pushing hers towards the FBI agent. He pushes it back. Viola takes a little sip, just because she’s feeling so damn awkward , really.

“Cigarette?” the FBI agent says, producing a pack.

“There’s no smoking in here. Besides, I’m not really a smoker.”

“I know the owner. We have an understanding.”

The FBI agent lights Viola’s cigarette. A waiter rushes to their table carrying an ornate ashtray featuring painted scenes from the history of the Gupta empire, so delicate that Viola feels a twinge of guilt each time she ashes in it.

“You think I’m up to something,” the FBI agent says, leaning back in his chair, smoke swirling around him. “You don’t trust me. You are not a trusting person.”

“I would not say I am a trusting person overall, no,” says Viola, ashing.

“Furthermore, you believe in the importance of the confidentiality between a librarian and her patrons for the sake of a free society, whether said patrons have an interest in cookbooks or anarchism or porn or whatever else.”

“Yes,” says Viola.

“You’re idealistic,” the FBI agent says. “I love that. God, you’re beautiful.”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but flattery’s not going to work,” Viola says, taking a long drag on her cigarette. “Anyhow I’m married.”

“Well sure you’re married. I noticed the ring,” the FBI agent says, taking her by the wrist to examine it. “It’s a really lovely ring. Men too often think that women want something ostentatious, something with a lot of diamonds.”

“I’m against the diamond trade.”

“Well sure you are. Injustice anywhere sickens you. A person can tell that just by looking at your face. Is it okay, me holding your wrist like this?”

“It’s actually, um, it’s actually a little uncomfortable. It’s really, it kind of hurts, actually.”