Mary Gaitskill - Because They Wanted To - Stories

“Is it helping?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I know it’s going to hurt for a while, and I don’t want to wallow in it. But I don’t want to run away from it, either.” She brightened. “Last week I ran a personal ad in the Guardian. I answered a few too. I’m not looking for sex; I feel too vulnerable for that. I just want somebody to hurt me and humiliate me.” She took an enthusiastic drink. “It’s harder to find than you would think,” she said. “I’ve met a few women for coffee dates and they were nice, but I didn’t really want them to do anything to me. I’m supposed to meet a dominatrix from Germany tomorrow. Mainly, she’s into cutting.”

We went to a peep show known for its humane and feminist work environment, where we poured quarters into slots so that a dismal panel of lead would rise, revealing naked girls dancing and showing their genitals behind a thick pane of plastic.

I came home very drunk. I turned off all the lights and lay on the floor, listening to music. I thought of Erin and Frederick and Kenneth. I sang along to the music. I thought of the boyfriend whose death I had learned of the night I met Frederick. He had once shown me a photograph of himself as a baby, held against his father’s shoulder. He rose eagerly out of his father’s arms, grinning like a wolf cub. Everything in him went up and outward in a bright, excited rush. In its raw form, what he’d had was beautiful and good. But it hadn’t helped him. Probably he’d never even known it was there.

Frederick had that fierce upward movement in him, but more muscular, less bright. I had sensed it when I put my hand on his midsection; it had felt angry, and bitterly wounded, but also vigilant, dignified, and determined to preserve its form. He was a lot like me, actually. I thought of a medieval painting I had once seen of a young man holding a torch high over his head, his eyes focused upward into darkness. Frederick had dishonest, petty meanness, but he also had an idea of honor, and if he had put these qualities together in an odd, tacky combination, then that combination must have held some deep, secret sense for him. He was certainly no more odd or tacky than I, a woman who would debase herself trivially, for sport, and yet who sought, in the sheltering darkness of her debasement, passion, depth, and, most ludicrous, even tenderness.

Erin’s image suddenly shimmered through my thoughts, dispersing them. I saw her smiling, radiating her sweet, skewed gold light. Then, more faintly, I saw Kenneth, his face focused and busy, as if bent on the pursuit of his stuff, a pursuit that held some deep, secret sense only he could see.

My young cat approached, sniffed me cautiously, then walked away. I fell asleep on the floor and woke an hour later, disturbed and anxious, with a buzzing head and a dry mouth.

The next day I wrote Frederick a letter. I didn’t try to describe the things I had thought about the night before. I just said I felt bad about our last meeting. I said I knew I had behaved strangely and that I had done so because I had been afraid. I said that even though what happened between us had been uncomfortable, I had felt touched by him and hoped that if we met again, we could be nice to each other.

I didn’t think Frederick would answer my letter, but writing it nonetheless made me feel pleased and relieved. I pictured him reading it. I pictured him reacting to it with uncertainty and maybe even slight agitation, but I also pictured him being secretly pleased and relieved by it as well. I looked in the phone book and found the address of the computer consulting firm that employed him. After I sent the letter, I bought two expensive cookies from the deli next door and sat on my porch steps and ate them.

Erin called, very excited, to tell me about her cutting experience with the dominatrix.

“We took it slow,” she said. “We had a few coffee dates and got to know each other, I explained about being too vulnerable for sex, and she understood. I told her I’d never been cut before, so the first time she took it really easy. Just a little bit on my stomach.”

Her voice was jubilant, even triumphant.

“But last night she made me beg to be cut and stuff. And then she carved this whole elaborate pattern on my butt in the shape of a snake curled into an S—for ‘slave,’ I think. Want to come see it?”

I went to her house and she dropped her pants. The snake had fancy diamonds all up and down its back. Its mouth was open, and a happy little tongue popped out.

“Is it permanent?” I asked.

“No. She did it shallow, so it’ll fade in a few months.” She pulled up her pants. “I took some pictures,” she said. “So I could look back on it.” She pointed to the bulletin board, to which Polaroids of her cut buttock had been affixed. Her expression as she pointed had the minor, easy pride of a workman indicating a newly repaired phone or dishwasher.

Kenneth called two or three times a week, often late at night. Usually I let him talk into my answering machine while I stood in the hallway, listening. Sometimes I answered, and we would talk for an hour or more. He offered to find furniture and other stuff for me, for my household. “I could help you upgrade your apartment,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with my apartment.”

“Well, no, I’m not saying there is. I’d just like to make it better.” He paused, and I could feel him tensing, as if before a jump. “I’d like to make your life better.”

I rolled my eyes.

Our conversations were much like the one we’d had about the model who wanted to be a lawyer or an actress. They were amiable and opinionated, and sometimes he said things that irritated me, but the irritation didn’t stick: first I wanted to tell him what was wrong with him, then I felt foolish, then I accepted him, and then I lost interest. Under the awkwardness and the arrogance, I knew there was generosity and kindness and that he was trying to give it to me. Not because he wanted anything in return, but just to give it. Still, I couldn’t feel it. I tried. But I couldn’t.

I was walking on the street one afternoon when I saw Frederick again. I was with a colleague, a likable, loudmouthed creative writing teacher named Ginger. We were gossiping so avidly that I didn’t see Frederick until he was right before me. He was with a big man who had a hard, void face. Frederick’s face was also hard, but when he saw me, his eyes became startled and alert, almost fearful. I looked at him, and the expression in his eyes became shapelessly emotional while his face and body retracted and became harder. For a moment, his nonfeeling and his emotionality ran quickly parallel, and again he matched me. Then his eyes hardened too, and as he walked by me, he quite unmistakably sneered. “Hi, Susan.” His voice was soft and caressing, but he said my name like an insult. I was hurt and shocked beyond any sense.

“What was that?” said Ginger.

“This guy I had a one-night thing with.”

“Jesus, Susan, how old is he? He’s not a student, I hope.”

“God, no. I wouldn’t do that.”

Ginger looked over her shoulder. “He’s looking back this way,” she reported. “Guy looks like a fourteen-year-old skeezer.”

“Don’t,” I said. “I liked him.”

She was quiet, and I thought I could feel puzzled embarrassment in her silence. She put her hand on my back and rubbed me. “Sorry,” she said.

I didn’t answer, because I felt terrible. I experienced my tenderness for Frederick as a gross, gushing thing that had oppressed and offended him. It occurred to me that he had sneered precisely to make me feel that way. I hoped that wasn’t true. But even if it wasn’t, it seemed that I had been very stupid to see such complexity in what had happened between us. It seemed equally possible, though, that he was even more stupid not to see it.