Andrew Vachss - Down in the Zero

"So she has to— "

"She doesn't have to do anything. There's lots of ways to be into it. Hanky–spanky isn't the same as B&D. Or S&M. Rector's has all kinds of rooms. Private rooms, like bedrooms. A couple of dungeons. All kinds of toys, equipment. A big room too, for group stuff. Some people pitch, some catch. Some switch, go both ways. And some, they just like to watch. That's Charm. She just watches. Mostly in the group rooms. One girl, a long time ago, she told us she was going to get it good that night. Her owner was going to really give her a session. Charm wanted to watch, but they wouldn't let her. She really got mad. I mean, I knew she was mad…I know her. You couldn't tell from looking at her."

"Charm's a voyeur?"

"No. She really doesn't care. It's not like she likes to look at porno or anything. She's a…collector. She collects information. It's from her science, I think. Knowing how things work and all that. She was always like that. I know she read my diary. That's where I learned. To trick her. I'd write stuff in there that wasn't true, just to throw her off."

"Does she go on dates and stuff?"

"Oh sure. But nothing serious. She wouldn't ever get married— she told me that when we were little."

"Okay. So why the scene in the restaurant?"

"The man who saw me…with you. He was going to think you were like him. So if you ever met him, he'd have that. An edge, like. I made out like you ordered me to do it…go in the Ladies' Room and take off my underpants. He saw me hand them to you. Like you were embarrassing me…to teach me who's boss. You wouldn't do that— you couldn't do that— if you were a submissive."

"So it was just to throw him off? About me?"

"About me too," she said, looking straight ahead out the windshield. "Why should people be so sure they know me when I don't even know myself?"

Much later. In Fancy's shadowed bedroom.

"Is there anything you want from me?" she asked.

"How about some of this?"

"Stop that!" she giggled, slapping at my hand. "That's not what I mean. A big thing. Money…?"

"I'm…not sure," I told her. The truth.

"If you'll figure it out for me, I'll do anything you want."

"Figure what out?"

"The mystery. My mystery. I'm not a mysterious woman, but I'm caught in a mystery. All my life, in a mystery. Charm's so sure she knows me, but she doesn't know me. Not at all. She doesn't know me. That's what I want."

"To know yourself?"

"Yes! That's what I want. I can't…do this forever. Not be anything. She was right, you know. No thing. That's nothing. But she's wrong too. This…domina stuff isn't me. It's what I do. It makes me feel things. But it isn't me. Not the whole me.

"What makes you so sure I— ?"

"You could , Burke. I know you could. Will you…?"

"I'll try, girl."

Fancy came out of the bathroom in a sheer nightgown, the radical curves of her body illumed in the backlight. She was holding something in her hand, a long, thin wand.

She came over to the bed. I was lying on my back. She took the cigarette from my hand, held it to her lips, took a deep drag, put it out in the ashtray. She lay across me, her heavy breasts against my chest.

"Do you want to…do something else?"

"What?"

"I told you…how Charm did it to me…put…things inside me…where a man goes," she whispered.

"I remember."

"She put it…other places too. With this," she said, holding up the wand. "Do you want…?"

I shook my head. Fancy climbed on top of me, pulled up her nightgown, fitted herself over my cock, lowered herself. She put both hands behind her. I saw the upstanding wand, felt her soft grunt, heard the insistent buzz of the vibrator as she got herself over the top, anchored at both ends.

She was sleeping when I got up in the dark. The greenhouse was cool, thick with humidity. I looked through the glass at the stars.

Fancy didn't know where she wanted to be. I thought about the Zero.

And for the first time, I knew I didn't want to be there. It didn't wash over me peacefully, it hit like a crowbar, making me dizzy.

I leaned against the shelf in the greenhouse. I wanted to be in a hillbilly bar someplace. Holding Blossom in my arms, slow–dancing so slow it was something else. Blossom. If somebody started a fight, she'd drag you away from it— but if you got pulled along, she'd be right there.

I went into that house to kill what they did to me. Told myself a lot of lies about it before it happened. None since.

People say you can't heal until you can forgive. Fucking liars. Cowards and collaborators. A beast steals your soul, you don't get it back by making peace with him. You make peace with yourself.

I went into that house to do that. With a gun in my hand. And I killed a baby.

Say it!

I killed a baby. I didn't mean to, but he's just as dead. Surrounded by the bodies of humans who tortured him.

Would he forgive me if he knew why I walked that walk?

I got it then. Really got it. The Zero isn't where you go when you die…it's where you go when you volunteer for the ride.

I could feel the dead child inside me— like Wendy's poem, talking across the barrier. The Zero was no good to me— I wouldn't find the kid there. But maybe he could hear me. I heard Wesley sometimes, maybe…

I will always hate them, I promised the child I'd killed. Always. I swear on my true family I will never forgive. And if I could find them, I would kill them.

Quick. Not like they did me.

Like they did you too, child.

I'm sorry, kid , I said inside me. But you're no place I can go to tell you— I can't make it right .

I sat down on the cold floor and dropped below the Zero. Cried myself to sleep like I did when I was a kid myself.

Before they taught me nobody was listening.

The sun woke me, burning through the greenhouse. I was naked, cold, sore.

I didn't want to go into the Zero anymore. Didn't want to be in this rich ghetto anymore either.

I wanted my family back. The family I helped make for myself. I would die for them, but I'd die trying.

I missed Pansy. I felt sick inside. Not sad anymore, sick with knowledge.

A hundred years ago, I was standing on the prison yard, listening to the Prof tell me I couldn't use a shank to settle some petty beef I had with another con. Telling me to chill, get icy, pick my shots. I didn't want to hear it— what I wanted to do was stab the miserable motherfucker who sold me the tickets. "Do it like I say or get on your way," the Prof said, then.

I stayed. I was going to stay now. Stay the distance.

Fancy was sprawled on her stomach, face buried in a pillow, sleeping drained. The tattoo I'd drawn was almost gone. Fading away like the shroud around the mystery of her life.

I slid in next to her, covered her body with mine. She muttered something, still under. I nuzzled at the back of her neck until she stirred. As soon as she was sure it was me, I held her until she went back to sleep.

I was chewing on a granola bar I'd found in her kitchen, washing it down with some ice water. So calm I could count my heartbeats. Fancy walked in. "How's this?" she asked, posing.

She was wearing hot pink stretch pants with a thick black stripe down the side of each leg. The pants ended at mid–calf. Shiny black spike heels. A black cotton bra with wide straps that crossed behind her back. She was holding a black sweatshirt in one hand.

"You going to put that on?"

"Well, of course! I just wanted you to see what's underneath first."

"I didn't see what's underneath those pants," I told her.

"There isn't anything," she said, sticking her tongue out at me. "There wasn't room. Is this okay?"

"Dynamite."

She turned sideways, shot a rounded hip, gave herself a hard smack on the rump. "Boom!" she whispered.