Dagger Key and Other Stories

“You needed to tell me,” she says. “Otherwise I couldn’t clear things up.”

“You don’t have to clear anything up. I only told you because I thought you’d want to know.”

She shifts closer, a breast nudging your arm. “Richard was a client. He’s right about one thing. I did make a mistake with him, I got too involved. When I broke it off, I tried to maintain the friendship, but…I should have seen how psychologically damaged he was. He became irrational. He accused me of making him worse. Now he’s taken it a step further.”

You rush to assure her everything’s cool, you didn’t give what Reiner said any weight, but she goes on as if she hasn’t heard.

“The diet,” she says. “I’m trying to keep us healthy. I realize it’s not what you’re used to, but…I don’t know. I can try fixing you a separate meal. I won’t cook meat, though. I don’t even want it in the house. If you need meat, you’ll have to get it somewhere else. This…” She reaches behind her and fumbles for the list. “These are some of my current clients. They are in wheelchairs, but all of my clients are incapacitated in some way. I’m not sure how he got their names. Perhaps he followed me.” She lets the scrap of paper fall between you. “If you don’t want me to manipulate your back when we make love, I understand.”

“No, I mean, if you want to, it’s all right.” You’re eager to compensate for the weakness you’ve shown, for half-believing a lunatic, for injuring her.

“I do it to increase our pleasure. To hurry you, so you’ll come when I do. I like it when we finish together.”

“I do, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You kiss, you apologize for doubting her, she apologizes for getting mad, you say you didn’t notice, her anger as mild as her passion, and you kiss again, a deeper kiss. Soon you’re moving together and the shadows crouched in the corners, the hum and gurgle of the pump on the empty aquarium, the candle flames on the night table flickering…you’re aware of these things as extensions of her. They’re her shadows, her flames, her humid breath. Even you are in process of becoming her, an immersion in another human being such as you’ve never known before, and when her hands slide down to the small of your back, her touch tentative, you encourage her, you submit to her. Afterward, dim with pleasure, you recall what Reiner said, how he didn’t notice any ill effects until the next day. But you’re secure in the moment and, holding Abi spoon style, you indulge in one of those passages that come to lovers during which they ask questions that seek to annotate their relationship, trivial questions like, When did you know? and What did you feel then? and When was the first time you looked at me…I mean really looked? You find yourself asking what was it that attracted her to you? She says it wasn’t anything specific. But you insist, you say, “There must’ve been something you noticed first.”

“Your eyes,” she says. “Your beautiful blue eyes. I’d like to have babies with those eyes.”

This being the first mention ever of babies, you’re a little uneasy, but you decide she’s speaking more-or-less in the abstract.

“Yeah,” you say, trying to sound on the positive side of neutral. “That’d be nice someday.”

She makes a forlorn noise and says, “I don’t know if there’ll be time.”

After puzzling over the comment, you realize it probably refers to her sense of foreboding about an imminent doomsday. You’ve begun to think that her obsession with the end of the world is responsible for her emotional detachment and that she doesn’t allow herself to become exuberant about anything, because she sees the inevitable downside. You don’t know what to tell her, so you hold her more tightly. Ten or fifteen seconds flow past and she says, “I don’t believe you understand how serious things are.”

You’re astonished that she wants to get into this now, that she’s willing to trash the afterglow in order to pound on the lectern and talk about the death of nations. You start to say as much, but she cuts you off.

“No, listen! It’s very important that you listen,” she says. “Our future depends on it.”

You tell her, grumpily, to go ahead.

“I know you think I’m a nut…”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is.” She disengages from you, rolls onto her back and locks you with her eyes. “You humor me. You love me in spite of it. But you think I’m nuts. That’s all right. I’m used to it. And I realize nothing I say now is going to change things. But I want you to try, hard as you can, to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Of course I will. You know…”

She puts a finger to your lips. “Just listen. I want you to try to accept that I know certain things, things you don’t know. And I want you to try to accept that this knowledge has an important application. You won’t be able to do it right away, but I want you to try in any case, because there’s going to come a moment when you’ll have to trust me. And if you don’t, everything we’ve working toward will be destroyed.”

“I’m…What am I supposed to trust you about?”