Tara Ison - Ball - Stories

SIX MONTHS LATERan innocently thin, return-address-less, bulk-stock envelope slips from a sheaf of junk mail and she opens it without thinking. I ask nothing of you, it says, the penmanship lucid and precise, I cannot even ask your forgiveness. But you must know I was very ill. The stresses of my second-chance fortune broke me; the challenge of you triggered a renewed haunting by my past. I abused you in an unforgivable manner and it is the loss of you that has at last shattered my denial and forced me to confront my darkest self, to seek help from

a)

my AA sponsor. I am going to meetings every day, living one day at a time, it is so hard but so true, I finally understand the rigorous commitment it takes to lead an honest and real life, and I have no choice,

b)

a spiritual advisor. I have found a priest, a brilliant Jesuit who understands me and my struggle, is guiding my return to faith, helping me choose and commit to an honest path forward, one grounded in harmony and peace, for

c)

a shrink, a real psychiatrist. I cannot take meds with my history, but I am fully committed to the therapeutic process, grueling as it is, because I have finally chosen to be honest with myself about myself, and

it is time to change my life. Your discretion and respect for my privacy these past months are proof of your extraordinary compassion, and I would be honored (although I have no right to be honored) if you would attend the (ticket enclosed) upcoming

a)

opening night

b)

election night

c)

concert

and celebration event as my respected guest and my tender, tender friend.

HE STANDS SPOTLIGHTEDand dignified and steady-spined before the applauding world, and she can see, even from a distance, the fresh serenity to his face, the clear and buoyant light in his eyes. But she can also discern — she alone, she is sure — the fragility behind his soft-murmured Thank you s, the frightened boy-child pulse. She applauds with the crowd, palms slapping hard and then harder, hoping he will sense her forgiving and respectful presence, her support, perhaps notice she is wearing the (retrieved) dress he once gifted her, and when their eyes catch— You are here! she alone can hear him say — his dignified smile is suddenly a child’s joyous beam, humble and without guile.

He holds out his hand. Heads and cameras turn, rippling the crowd with expectation. He is reaching, hoping, and she finds herself — she cannot leave him just standing there, no — stepping forward, then at his side. He seizes her hand, pulls her closer, and announces to the applauding world: This is the angel who has graced and saved me and made everything possible, the answer to my prayers. Here she is, the woman who has changed my life.

HE UNDRESSES HERthat night as if unwrapping an heirloom ornament from sepia tissue leaves, and as she lowers herself below him to the bed, as she opens to him her mouth, her arms, her thighs, as she feels him slide hard inside her with startling, spearing depth, she hears his soft voice murmur, whisper, tell her, what she will do now is

a) pretend, pretend he is a stranger, a man of steel command, she has been carried off and she will struggle while he positions and binds her, she will cry out

and beg while she is torn and split wide — show me, he says, show me how you bleed — and only then can he, will he, hear her screams and relent, will he soothe and stroke and take her so very tenderly,

b) force him to all fours, make him crawl and howl like a dog, like the ugly animal he is, she will tame him, shame him, beat him down to dirt, will fuck him with — see, he has the tool she must use, it straps on — all her own animal rage and pain, and only when he is fully degraded can he, will he, take her, find pleasure in her, for only then will she be brought down as foul and brutal and bestial as he,

c) lie still, stripped naked and serene, she will lie in the cold water bath — see, there is the snowy crushed ice he will pack her in so velvet soft — and when she is chilled fully and pure to white-blue porcelain flesh, she mustn’t move, no shivering, no chattering, she must not spoil his pleasure, only then can he, will he, pound his heat into her, bring her back to a hot throbbing life,

and only then will they be truly together at last, only then will she fulfill her destiny, her fate.

She struggles against his weight, pulls her body from his clutch, is elated at her flesh resealing shut against him, at the strength of her simmering, resurging self. She breaks his final hold on her wrist, grabs and pulls on her dress, is leaving running fleeing, is at the door, and stops.

For he is not pursuing: he is simply lying there, watching, waiting, in wait. For her to choose. It is up to her to seize at last, for good, this one and only chance at singularity, at saving grace. She reaches for the door, pauses. Everything can be, will be, hers, it is true. But only if she — for she was never she at all, she understands, never a discerned or rarified her —chooses an existence both realized and obliterated. Yes. Only if she

a) is a dead woman

b) is a dead woman

c) is a dead woman

Thank you to the editors of the magazines, periodicals, and anthologies in which many of the stories in this collection first appeared, sometimes in earlier versions: Tin House , “Ball” and “The Knitting Story”; Mississippi Review , “Staples”; Black Clock , “Apology”; Nerve.com , “Bakery Girl;” The Santa Monica Review , “Fish”; TriQuarterly , “Needles.”

In addition, “Wig” appeared in Getting Even: Revenge Stories (Serpent’s Tail Press, 2007); “Musical Chairs,” as “Timing,” appeared in Lost on Purpose: Women in the City (Seal Press, 2005); “Cactus” appeared in Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (City Lights Books, 2001); and “Ball” appeared in Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader (Tin House Books/Bloomsbury, 2003).

Thank you as well to the generous friends and mentors who offered critical feedback on these stories, and to the extraordinary Dan Smetanka, for his wisdom, vision, guidance, and patience.

Tara Ison is the author of the novels The List, A Child out of Alcatraz , a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway , featured as one of the “Best Books of Summer” in O, The Oprah Magazine , July 2013, and the essay collection, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies.

Her short fiction, essays, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Nerve.com, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly, The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly , the Los Angeles Times , the San Francisco Chronicle , the Chicago Tribune , the San Jose Mercury News , and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the cult movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead .

She is currently Associate Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University. Learn more at www.taraison.com.