Mercy (29 page)

cold wind, foreign, with freezing, cutting water in it from

some other continent, wrathful, wanting to purge the ledge

and own the sea. A ll night we fucked with the wind trying to

push us down to death and I tore m y fingers against the stone

trying to hold on, the skin got stripped o ff m y hands, and

sometimes he was against the wall and m y head fell backwards

going down toward the sea and on the Roman walls we fucked

for who was braver and who was stronger and w ho w asn’t

afraid to die. He wanted to find fear in me so he could leave

me, so he could think I was less than him. He wanted to leave

me. He was desperate for freedom from love. On the Roman

wall we fucked so far past fear that I knew there was only me,

it didn’t matter where he went or what he did, it didn’t matter

who with or how many or how hard he tried. There was just

me, the one they kept telling him was a whore, all his great

friends, all the men who sat around scratching themselves, and

no matter how long he lived there would be me and if he was

dead and buried there would still be me, ju st me. I couldn’t

breathe without him but they expect that from a woman. I’d

have so much pain without him I w ouldn’t live for a minute.

But he w asn’t supposed to need me so bad you could see him

ripped up inside from a mile away. The pain w asn’t supposed

to rip through him; from wanting me; every second; now. He

was supposed to come and go, where he wanted, when he

wanted, get laid when he wanted, do this or that to me, what

he wanted, sex acts, nice and neat, ju icy and dirty but nice and

neat picked from a catalogue o f what men like or what men

pay for, one sex act followed by another sex act and then he

goes aw ay to someone else or to somewhere else, a kiss i f he

condescends, I blow him, a fuck, twice if he has the time and

likes it and feels so inclined; and I’m supposed to wait in

between and when he shows up I’m supposed to suck and I’m

supposed to rub, faster now, harder now, or he can rub, taster

now, harder now, inside me if he wants; and there’s some

chat, or some money, or a cigarette, or maybe sometimes a

fast dinner in a place where no one will see. But he’s burning so

bright it’s no secret he’s on fire; and it’s me. Anyone near him

is blinded, the heat hurts them, their skin melts, more than

they ever feel when they fuck rubbing themselves in and out o f

a woman. H e’s burning but he’s not indestructible. H e’s the

sun; I’m smashed up against him; but the sun burns itself up;

one day it will be cold and dead. He’s burning towards death

and a man’s not supposed to. A dry fuck with a dry heart is

being a man; a dry, heartless fuck with a dry, heartless heart.

He’s the great dancer, the most beautiful; he had all the women

and all the men; and now he is self-immolating; he is torrential

explosions o f fire, pillars o f flame, miles high; he is a force field

o f heat miles wide. The ground burns under him and anything

he touches is seared. The heat spreads, a fever o f discontent.

The men are fevered, an epidemic o f fury; they are hot but

they can’t burn. H e’s dying in front o f them, torched, and I’m

smashed up on him, whole, arms up and outstretched, on

him, flat up against the flames, indestructible. The whore’s

killing him; she’s a whore and she’s killing you. He can’t stay

away but he tries. He enumerates for me m y lovers. He misses

some but I am discreet. He breaks down because I am not

pregnant yet. I show him m y birth control pills, which he has

never seen; I explain that I w on’t be getting pregnant. He

disappears for a day, two days, then suddenly he is in front o f

me, on his knees, his smile stopping m y heart, he stoops with a

dancer’s swift grace, there is a gift in his hands but his hands

don’t touch mine, he drops the gift and I catch it and he is

gone, I catch it before it hits the ground and when I look up he

is gone, I could have dreamed it but I have the flowers or the

bread or the book or the red-painted Easter egg or the

drawing. H e’s gone and time takes his place, a knife slicing me

into pieces; each second is a long, slow cut. Tim e can slow

down so you can’t outlast it. It can have a minute longer than

your life. Tim e can stand still and you can feel yourself dying

in it but you can’t make it go faster and you can’t die any faster

and if it doesn’t m ove you will never die at all and it w o n ’t

move; you are caved in underground with time collapsed in on

top o f you. T im e’s the cruelest lover yo u ’ll ever have,

merciless and thorough, wrapping itself right around your

heart and choking it and never stopping because time is never

over. Tim e turns your bed into a grave and you can’t breathe

because time pushes down on your heart to kill it. Tim e crawls

with its legs spread out all over you. It’s everywhere, a

noxious poison, it’s vapor and gas and air, it seeps, it spreads,

you can’t run aw ay somewhere so it w o n ’t hurt you, it’s there

before you are, waiting. H e’s gone and he’s left time behind to

punish you; but why? W hy isn’t he here yet; or now ; or now;

or now; and not one second has passed yet. He doesn’t want to

burn; but why? Why should he want less, to be less, to feel

less, to know less; w hy shouldn’t he push him self as far as he

can go; w hy shouldn’t he burn until he dies? I have a certain

ruthless objectivity not uncommon among those who live

inside the senses; I love him without restraint, without limit,

without respect to consequences, for me or for him; I am not

sentimental; I want him; this is not dopey, stupid, sentimental

love; nostalgia and lingering romance; this is it; all; everything. I don’t care about his small stupid social life among stupid, mediocre men— I know him, self-im molating,

torched, in me. His phony friends embarrass him, the men all

around on the streets playing cards and drinking and gossiping, the stupid men who lust for how much he feels, can’t imagine anything other than manipulating tourists into bed so

they can brag or sex transactions for money or the duties o f the

marital bed, the roll-over fuck; and he’s burning, consumed,

dying; so what? H e’d show up suddenly and then he’d be gone

and he never touched me; how could he not touch me? He’d

come in a burst and then he’d disappear and he’d never touch

me and sometimes he brought someone with him so he

couldn’t touch me or be with me or stay near me or come near

me to touch me; how could he not touch me? I went into a

white hot rage, a delirium o f rage; if I’d had his children I

would have sliced their necks open. I used razor blades to cut

delicate lines into my hands; physical pain was easy, a

distraction. Keeping the blade on m y hand, away from my

wrist, took all my concentration, a game o f nerves, a lover’s

game. I made fine lines that turned burgundy from blood the

w ay artists etch lines in glass but the glass doesn’t turn red for

them and the red doesn’t smear and drip. There was a man, I

wanted it to be M but it wasn’t M. He tied me up and hurt me

and on m y back there were marks where he used a whip he had

for animals and I wanted M to see but he didn’t come and he

didn’t see. I would have stayed there strung-up against the

wall m y back cut open forever for him to see but he didn’t see.

Then one day he came in the afternoon and knocked on the

door and politely asked me to have dinner with him that night.

Usually we talked in broken words in broken languages,

messy, tripping over each other. This was a quiet, formal,

aloof invitation with barely any words at all. He came in a car