Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

By then, Sandy was no longer touching me to give me pleasure. She clutched me to her, grabbing an anchor as she surrendered to excitement. I increased the pace and penetration of my fingers as I remembered — and this was the most terrible, the most awful of revelations — what my mother had wanted me to do. Several times, on those illegal nights, she had squeezed her legs tight on my hand, urging me to press deeper. The demand had seemed angry and I had resisted, confused and, of course, unwilling. But I understood her request at last. I gave the answer she wanted to Sandy and finished my conversation with my mother as though it had been interrupted only yesterday, although she had been dead for six years and my part of our intimacy had been mute.

Sandy gasped, bucked, and moaned.

In a flash, as she climaxed, the mystery of my personality was solved, laid before me as clearly as in a scientific report: silent and manipulated, I had been my mother’s passive lover, learning that I must please others or they wouldn’t love me, and thereafter I re-created this dynamic with everyone else, massaging their pleasure centers so they would hold me close, mute and dishonest though I might be, because that was love to me.

The force of this revelation, one might suppose, ought to have paralyzed my passion and released rage at my maltreatment. I should have become impotent or violent. Instead, I let Sandy maneuver me on top, take hold of my penis and — a little puzzled by something, probably the fear in my eyes — guide me inside her.

And here was magic: horror was overwhelmed by joy. At last my longing had been embraced by someone other than me. My body was gleeful to find a luxurious home for its most deprived part. The psychological report in my head ignited. Its cold language burned off in a flare, forgotten. Insight and science no longer interested me. I became like any other person feeling utter pleasure, like anyone else enraptured by an embrace that, if it’s a lie, is the most convincing ever devised.

BY MONDAY I WAS DESPERATE. WAITING FOR MY SESSION, THE DAY PASSED slowly. Losing my virginity hadn’t chased away the cosmic terror always at my elbow, ready to suffocate me with panic. I composed a sentence that I repeated to myself when I felt it come too close — I am alone, a stranger on a rock spinning in a meaningless universe. Using those inadequate words to describe the awful sensation helped a little, but only as a stopgap until I could turn in all the secrets to my doctor.

“So,” Halston said. “What’s new?”

“I want to tell you the big one.” There were all sorts of odd reactions throughout my body: ears ringing, stomach flopping, throat so tight the words had to be squeezed out.

Halston raised his brows, a vivid expression thanks to his bald head. “Why?”

“Why?” I was astonished.

“What’s happened that makes you want to tell me?”

“I don’t know.” I was annoyed. “I just want to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t you want me to tell you?”

“This is your time to talk about whatever you want.”

I shut my eyes to dismiss the anger I felt at his game playing. When I opened them, Halston had propped his head on his chin and leaned sideways in his chair, an attitude that seemed to indicate only the mildest curiosity. “So. What’s the big one?”

“I …” The speaking of it was harder than I expected. I mean physically hard. There were all sorts of explosions inside. I could have sworn I heard my heart pop and that my chest filled with blood. “I lied about my father.”

“You lied about your father to whom?”

“To the judge, to the police. I didn’t want to live with him anymore so I told lies.” Now the discomfort left me, perspired away, although there was no sweat. I felt that kind of relief: cooling down to a pleasant exhaustion. “I said he was a Communist, that he treated me badly. Whatever Uncle’s lawyers wanted.”

“And they were all lies?”

“Well … Not the part about the passport.”

“The passport?”

“He used a different kid’s picture to make a passport to get me out of the country. It was against the law, but it wasn’t …”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Well, it wasn’t really a crime. He didn’t have time to get one for me and I knew all about it. I didn’t mind.”

“But he did do it?”

“Yes.”

“And it is illegal?”

“Yeah.”

“So, what did you lie about?”

“Well, I said he was a Communist and …”

“He wasn’t a Communist?”

“No, not really. He had been, but …”

“He had been. How recently? I mean, from the time you said he was a Communist?”

“I don’t know. A few years.”

“I see.”

Silence. Halston kept his casual pose.

“So you’re saying I didn’t lie?” I asked.

“I wasn’t saying anything. I just asked.”

“Oh come on!”

“Oh come on, what?”

“You’re playing word games. I said those things to hurt him, to get away from him. I didn’t really mean them. I said he was mean to me. He wasn’t mean to me.”

“I see. Then why did you say those things about him?”

“Because I was angry at him.”

“About what?”

“About leaving my mother and me.”

“Leaving your mother and you?”

“Yeah, after the attack. You know, he went to Cuba. And that’s when she got sick. You know all about that.”

“You keep saying I know all about that.”

“That’s the first time I’ve said it.”

“You’ve said it before. Why do you think I know all about it?”

“Because my mother must have told you.”

“Why don’t we forget what I know from your mother? You said she got sick after he left?”

“Yeah, that’s when she stopped talking, writing things down on paper—”

“She stopped talking?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“She said everything had to be kept—” I stopped before I said the next word — secret. The revelation felt like a slap. I looked at Halston.

He was still sideways in his chair, only mildly interested. “Yes …?”

“I see. I was imitating what she did. But she didn’t — I mean, when she started bothering me, she didn’t stop moving.” I laughed. “She kept painting the apartment.”

“Bothering you?”

“Yeah, when she would, you know, in bed …” I gestured, inviting him to supply the proper term. I had no word for it. Incest was wrong, since that implied intercourse and activity on my part.

Halston frowned. He lifted his chin off his hand and straightened. “When she would do what in bed?”

“You know.” I was ashamed. Besides, I thought, he knows; why did I have to spell it out?”

“I don’t think you should assume I know anything. Why don’t you tell me? If I know already, so what? I can stand hearing things twice.”

My irritation at his playacting was strong. I looked away and talked to the floor, both to spare myself embarrassment and to hide my annoyance. “She didn’t talk. She wrote things on paper, tore them up and flushed them down the toilet. And she kept painting—”

Halston interrupted, a very rare occurrence. Also, impatience crept into his usually neutral tone, “Yes, you said that before. But what did you mean, she bothered you?”

“I was getting to that!” I snapped at him. “She kept painting my room so I had to sleep with her.”

“You had to sleep with her?”

“Well, I couldn’t sleep in my room.”

“So you had to share her bed?”

“Yeah.”

Silence. Halston stared at me. He adjusted his glasses and nodded for me to continue.