A Haunting at Artspace

Naomi was a nymphomaniac. I don’t say that lightly, or with the sly grin that comes over a man’s face when he hears this about a woman. She had been sexually abused as a child—not merely touched, but raped continuously—by her father and cousin from the age of 10 until she left home at the age of 16. She was a stunning woman: Dutch heritage, blonde hair, blue eyes with a body that could have graced the pages of Penthouse even at the age of 35. She could have had any man she wanted. Instead, she had every man.

Apparently the sexual abuse had spawned this nymphomania—sex was the only way she could relate to the countless men she slept with. But there was more to this sickness than that: For her sex was an act of domination over a man. Not with silly whips and costumes; but the mere fact of having a man inside her made her feel powerful—“you couldn’t resist me—you are mine.” Another notch on her belt. I wonder what number I was.

The haunting started soon after she arrived to be with me at my apartment at Artspace, an artists’ community subsidized by the government. New, spacious apartments created out of a 19th century, dormant munitions factory. I was feeling alone and vulnerable to the charms of the first beautiful woman I encountered; I hadn’t been with a woman since my divorce almost a year earlier. For a while, I just couldn’t. Then the loneliness and the longing overwhelmed me, and I went looking. Not for a roll in the hay (though that was certainly on my mind), but for someone I could connect with and I suppose, talk about the pain of life.

Enter Naomi, introduced to me by a couple I knew. She told me all about herself, her childhood sexual abuse, her three marriages and several children, on our first date. I did the same, completely open about the bouts of cancer that had destroyed much of my life. It didn’t seem to faze her, and I admired that. I felt a kinship with her that only a survivor can feel about another survivor. And her beauty—and body–made me hungry.

Our first date was at Mystic Seaport. We ignored the attractions of the tall ships and instead spent our time French-kissing on a bench, no doubt disgusting the parents with children that had arrived for an academic outing on the water. Later, as I closed the door to my apartment behind us, I turned to talk to her. She already had her top off and was undoing her bra.

“Let’s take it to the next level,” she said. I was game.

Two hours later, after experiencing the most uninhibited, multi-orgasmic, multi-orificed sexual fury of my life, I suggested dinner. I went into the kitchen and noticed that my New Balances were perched on the counter, half-on, and half-off. I am not the type of guy to put shoes on a counter, and asked her if she had done it.

‘Why would I do that?” I believed her; I reflected that from the time I rapidly dropped them on the living room floor to the time we left the bedroom she didn’t have the opportunity to do so.

Later that night as we watched television, her head in my lap, the TV blinked on and off half-a-dozen times. The remote was on the coffee table, untouched. Damn cable company, I thought.

I awoke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and I saw the receiver lights on and a faint hum coming from the speakers. I shut it off and wondered when I’d forgotten to turn it off. I thought I would have noticed it earlier, as it was in a wall unit right next to the television. Odd.

Then I noticed my New Balances on the coffee table; half-on, and half-off. I felt like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of my shirt and it was slowly sliding its way down my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. The shoes hadn’t been there when we went to bed; she went into the bedroom directly from the bathroom as I checked the door and turned off the lights. It wasn’t her. And it wasn’t me.

The following morning was a repeat of the previous afternoon: An extended period of sexual mayhem in which she orgasmed seven times. I’d like to take the credit, but I think she was programmed that way: an orgasm machine. She liked to be on top—that domination thing, I believe. I was fine with that—I have a very bad back. From the absolute soaking in my groin, which I could feel running in rivulets running down the inside and outside of my thighs, I knew she wasn’t faking. There was also the smell. A man could get used to this, I pondered.

I took her back to the house where her friends lived and went back to the computer. Later that night I fell asleep on my futon as I watched television. I awoke when I felt a hard slap on my shoulder. I didn’t move immediately, keeping my eyes closed, considering if it was part of a dream. Then I felt a solid poke in my chest, as though someone had formed their fingers into a beak to inflict some damage.

I opened my eyes; there was no one there. The television was on; an infomercial about how one’s life would improve if he or she had six-pack abs. At that time in my life I consumed a lot of six-packs, so I figured I was covered.

Puzzled, I retired to the bedroom and spent a dreamless night without incident.

The following day I called her and asked her to out to dinner. “Let’s sit around the apartment for a while to build an appetite.” I considered the work I had to do, and said “screw it.” It’s amazing what accommodations a man will make for sex.

I remember in the past, with my ex-wife, after nights of ferocious drinking—the next morning, pounding head and nauseous—I still wanted her badly. One time in this condition I actually had to jump off her and run to the bathroom to throw up. I brushed my teeth and returned to the fray…

Naomi required no foreplay—which I found unusual. I’ve always found going down on a woman reaped great rewards—and gave me a hard-on a cat couldn’t scratch. She’d conduct the usual foreplay on me—she had an unusual talent for it. Practice makes perfect. But as to her, she would merely climb on top and would already be well-primed.

“Just play with my breasts—cup them and hold them and squeeze them hard.” That was it. Again I thought that a man could grow accustomed to this.

After dinner, I took her home. I fell asleep in the recliner, watching one of the better episodes (it’s all relative) of Gunsmoke. I had the most appalling dream of my life: An eviscerated man was standing behind me, his face bloody, ears pointed, with his intestines leaking out of his body like sausages. I knew I was in a dream and struggled to move, a hand perhaps, to bring me out of it. I was terrified. Then I felt a hand clap on my shoulder and I awoke. I turned quickly, panting, to see if anyone was behind me. No one was there.

And so it went for the next month or so. Long sexual sessions, often twice a day. I reflected on the tremendous energy we were releasing into the universe; sex is after all the creative act and holds great power. But I have to say, she had more energy for it than I. I reflected what it would’ve been like to have her at the age of 19, when inserting myself into that square inch or so took precedence over everything.

As it was, I guess I was doing essentially the same thing while ignoring my duties and responsibilities. I hadn’t worked the entire month; long sessions of sex twice each day completely consumed it. I had some money in the bank, not much, and I was slowly going broke. What the hell? It’s passing brave to be a king and ride in triumph through Persepolis. And I felt like the Alexander of sex, at the tender age of 45.

However, I always finished our sessions on top and my cancer-eaten back was behaving badly. Playing through the pain was something I was used to. I’d eat the pain, to satiate the relentless hunger Naomi engendered in me.

At night, I had a habit of watching television as the sound of voices made me feel less alone. Then I could shut off the monkeys chattering in my head, the thoughts of my damaged health, my ruined career and short-circuited marriage. Being away from my sons put a hole in me no amount of meditation, working out or alcohol could fill. Or sex.

But while I was in Naomi I didn’t think. I wanted to please her, to make her hit the tape again and again. And have my ultimate payoff, of course.

One night I fell asleep on the futon again, only to be slapped awake—blows to the shoulder and chest—never to the face. It was odd; when I slept in the bedroom, this didn’t happen. Nothing did. I absolutely refused to sit in the recliner after dark. Whatever energy was lurking in the apartment, playing its tricks, had gotten into my head. It had penetrated my dreams. I found this to be the most frightening aspect of all.

The next day Naomi called me. She was crying. “Bob, I’m scared—come get me. It’s Jim—he won’t leave me alone.”

On the way back from the house where she was staying I got the story: Apparently Jim and his wife were her old friends from Oklahoma, whom had invited her to stay with them after something happened back home. Jim, it seems, had approached her, touched her breasts and confessed his love for her. It seems he was bored with his wife. No doubt to Naomi it brought back memories of being abused by someone she loved.

That night I called Jim on the phone: “You bastard—what were you thinking? Was inviting Naomi to your home a plan—to get into her pants?”

He mumbled “I don’t know.”

“Fuck you. She’s coming to live with me.”

“Fine. She’s all yours.” Before he hung up he said—ominously—“Enjoy the pain.”

I didn’t know what “enjoy the pain” meant. I had a feeling in my gut that it was somehow a harbinger. But I reflected on what it would be like to have Naomi live with me, to envelope myself in sexual madness, and my “analytical mind” overrode my gut feeling.

And to be honest, I felt bad for the guy. Naomi was not only beautiful, but she gave off a vibration of sexual availability that could be felt in the Pleiades. I had seen men react to her when we were out having dinner or shopping at the market. I recognized the look. I felt like clocking a few guys who stared too long—macho bravado–but I realized I would do the same thing in their position.

The next morning we went to get Naomi’s clothes and stuff; it was perched near the back door, packed in boxes. On the ride home Naomi revealed more about herself:

“Did you ever wonder why I came out hear from Oklahoma—when I have children at home?”

“Crossed my mind.”

“Six months ago I was raped. A local guy from one of the reservations. He climbed into a window in my bedroom. He had a gun. At first he just wanted me to give him a blow job—he didn’t have any condoms. I guess he didn’t want to leave any evidence. Then he had me undress, and he changed his mind. He was a big guy—I felt it hard to breathe when he was on top of me. He told me I better make like I was enjoying it. When I didn’t make a sound—he hit me in the face with the gun. So I started moaning, mostly from the pain in my cheek. He came in me; he kept saying “It’s your eyes, it’s your eyes.” He’d been watching me when I was out in the yard. When he was finished he pulled out a Bowie knife and put the point so close to one of my eyes that I thought I could feel it. He said ‘Tell anyone and you’re dead.’ Then he climbed out the window.”

“What happened?”

“I called the cops and they found him drunk in a bar, with the gun and knife on him.”

“I went to his trial and he got thirty years. It wasn’t enough—I started taking Xanax—and drinking heavily. It wasn’t enough. I started shooting crystal meth into my vein. I came out here to dry out and forget.”

I can’t describe the compassion in my heart that I felt for her. She had survived an incredible amount of pain from men. I wanted to hold her, tell her it was alright. I wanted to love her, and from that moment on I did somewhat. Although in the back of my mind was the thought: Why would a victim of a vicious rape want to sleep with a man so soon? Or perhaps ever? I guess for her it was par for the course.

Naomi never cried out when she orgasmed, or made much noise at all. She would just gasp, her body would go limp, and she would slowly sink her head to my chest as though she were bowing in response to a spiritual realization. Once after doing so she raised herself, with me still inside her, and looked at me warily.

“I don’t know what it is with you. Usually I have to think hard—get some picture in my mind—before I can come. But with you, it just happens—again and again.”

I told her about the energy circulation that happened while I did my Taoist energy work: That there is a great orbit of energy in the body, the Microcosmic Orbit, that circulates down the front of the body, through the genital area, and up the spine back to the head. I’d practiced countless hours to stimulate the energy in my body.

“So when I’m inside you, it flows through you. Understand?”

“I guess.”

“See what I do for you, Naomi? All the discipline, all the time, all the practice, has been for you—just to get your cork to pop.” Well, male ego. I wanted to take at least some of the credit.

She considered it, looked a little blank, then started riding me again. I squeezed her grapefruit-sized breasts. She kept saying “Harder. Squeeze harder.” Apparently, for some people pain is an aphrodisiac.

And so Naomi came to live with me. And so it went, a schedule, a routine—which normally I embraced as a way to handle the “ablutions” of everyday life and make a living. Now the schedule was simpler: Long sexual sessions, once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. Every day.

My bank account was behaving badly, now that I was no longer making deposits. I had two disability checks every month that barely covered putting a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I did some writing to survive—as much as my disability ceilings would allow. But that was before I embraced Naomi. I recognized that by doing so, I was also embracing ruin. I reflected that the Alexander’s of the world ruined themselves by grasping at continents; and I was engendering my own personal Twilight of the Gods for the sake of a square inch of territory. Every man to the devil in his own way.

After Naomi confessed to me about her rape and subsequent substance abuse, I stopped drinking entirely. I didn’t want to tempt fate. And it was far better for me; I had been something of a weekend alcoholic since my divorce. Work, meditate, workout during the week and never touch a drop. On the weekends drink more beer than Keith Richards. A life completely out of balance.

I had been criticized for this by my tai chi chuan teacher and senior students at the club to which I belonged. “It’s against the art,” they would say. Yet most of them smoked dope every night, which I suppose is much more meditative in its effects. But I figured that having THC in my system continuously—as it was for them—would impact meditation more profoundly. At least during the week my head was clear. The things you tell yourself.

I never slept on the futon again while Naomi lived with me; I always went to bed with her, to hold her and have her rest her head on my pectorals. And I reasoned, an extra session of sex was never out of the question.

But—things kept disappearing and turning up in unexpected places. Once I took out a bottle of ketchup for the hot dogs I was microwaving. The band to the cap broke and I dropped it on the floor. I picked it up and washed it off and left it on the counter near the bottle. I went to take a leak while the hot dogs cooked. When I came back to the kitchen the bottle of ketchup was gone. Instead, a bottle of Paul Newman’s salad dressing was on the counter. Puzzled, I looked in the refrigerator. The ketchup was on the top shelf with the cap on. I always kept the ketchup on the bottom rack inside the refrigerator door. Always. Whom the gods destroy they first make mad.

Utensils from the kitchen drawer—spoons, forks and knives—five or six at a time—would disappear and turn up on the towel shelves in the bathrooms. Or sometimes back in the drawer.

Then something happened in the bedroom. Naomi, on top as usual, ardently riding. I looked at her: Magnificent body; big breasts, with no droop; tiny waist; small ass that I loved to squeeze hard when I finished on top; and long pale legs that wrapped around me and pulled me in deeply as I came.

Then, above her head, a wisp of blue smoke. I thought I was seeing things; one cannot put a lot of faith in the five senses in that situation. I blinked my eyes and looked again. The wisp of smoke had concentrated into a grapefruit-sized orb of white light; it lingered for a second over Naomi’s head, then shot away across the room and disappeared into a wall. My concentration was ruined; I ejaculated immediately, something I’d never done while she was on top. She came as I came, again silently, with just an exhale, and bowed to my chest. I lifted her head and kissed her passionately, but I noticed a look of disappointment on her face that things had concluded so soon.

Later, sitting on the couch with her head in my lap watching ‘L.A. Confidential,’ I pondered what I had seen. Had something been watching us, absorbing the tremendous energy we unleashed during our session? Was it watching us all the time, gaining strength? Across the world, during the billions of instances of intercourse each day, were entities—spirits or demons—silently watching, absorbing energy that would allow them to manifest and play their ungodly tricks?

The scene in L.A. Confidential where the out-of-control detective—played by Russell Crowe—finds the raped girl bound and tied to a bed–detoured me from my thoughts. In the movie, Crowe had a mission to protect women, as a result of his father beating his mother to death. A brutal white knight. The girl moves her eyes and nods her head in the direction of the next room. Crowe enters and shoots the rapist dead. Judge and jury.

I stroked Naomi’s hair, her long, straw-colored hair, and a feeling rose in me at odds with this tender act: I wanted to beat the shit out of every pig that had raped her. I wanted to kill them for warping this child. She wore no perfume; I kissed her neck and smelled baby lotion.

Weeks passed; the same routine. As far as the paranormal, nothing particularly overt or frightening occurred. Just things disappearing. Sometimes the television blinking off, several times in succession. Although once when we were in the bedroom we heard a loud crash coming from the living room, as though someone had knocked over the television and its stand, or the wall unit and its contents. I checked; nothing was amiss. Disquieting, but not especially ominous.

Then, Naomi decided to go home for Christmas. She missed her children; she talked to them every day and the toll calls to Oklahoma were hastening my financial ruin.

“And you know, Bob—this place scares me.”

Things were winding down. And I had mixed feelings, of course. I pondered: I had enjoyed four months of sexual paradise. And I was sick of it. Not a thing most men would admit. It wasn’t just my back, which was in a shambles. It was the emptiness of my life that no amount of sex could really fill.

Frankly, Naomi and I didn’t talk much. She actually hadn’t made it out of the tenth grade before she left home and got married for the first time. For her it was a survival mechanism—she just had to get away from the family that preyed upon her.

But I craved discussion about literature, the arts, and the metaphysical. Naomi’s most elevated insight came when she saw a guy on a chopper drive by. She turned to me and said “Bob, you have to get one of those. I just love to feel a rumbling between my legs.” Our discussions seldom rose above sentiments like that.

I knew after she left I would be lonely again. In a way I loved her; she brought out all my male protective instincts. And she was the first woman I was with after my divorce. I was due to become attached, even to the point of love. Especially to someone whom had endured so much, and was so damaged by life. And when a woman is beautiful it’s easy to fall in love with her, or think you’re in love. Of course, she was insatiable, which most men think is what they want. For a while, I did.

One afternoon after a particularly draining session which I finished by riding her from behind, she fell asleep with her face down in the pillow. I stroked her small, tight, golden buttocks and mused that all this would be coming to an end in a few days. I felt like talking to her, to see how she felt about it. I called her name. Again. I moved her shoulder. Again. She wouldn’t wake up. Suddenly, I felt panic. Had she suffocated?

Finally I grabbed both her shoulders and shook her hard. She stirred, turned her head to me, frowned and said in a deep, guttural voice several octaves lower than her natural voice, “What do you want?” It was actually chilling; for a moment I thought she might be possessed. But it was said with disgust; I realized at that instant how she really felt, not just about me, but about all men. I didn’t say a thing.

She was due to leave on the morning of Christmas Eve. We went shopping, and I put a dent in my credit card buying electronic games and such for the two children she had with the husband with whom she had recently been separated. On the sly I bought her an expensive pendant from a store that sold items for Wicca. The shopkeeper told me it was reputed to ward off demons. You get to a certain point, and you’ll try anything.

A few days before she was set to leave she suggested we go out to a bar and have a few beers. I wavered. She came out to Connecticut to dry out. But my own longing for a few Bass Ales clouded my judgment. One night–I thought it might be fun. What’s the harm? And good to get away from my somewhat haunted apartment.

“And besides,” she said, “I just know I’ll have a good time with a guy like you.”

…our usual morning session. We were due to go out to a bar that night—Billy Wilson’s, a decent place that sometimes had music, a great selection of beer and ale on tap, and had the advantage of being only fifty yards away from Artspace. No need to drive after a number of pints.

That afternoon as I fruitlessly—and half-heartedly—looked for freelance work on the ‘net I noticed she was no longer on the couch. I craned my head; she wasn’t in the kitchen. It was a little early for our afternoon session; I checked the bedroom. She was lying naked on the bed, furiously vibrating her clitoris back-and-forth.

I took off my clothes and prepared to mount her, but shook her head. “No, down here.”

She guided my head down to her crotch, but didn’t let me do much work. She was doing it all herself.

“Here—put your finger here. No not there—here.” I inserted a finger into her anus and held her down. She started breathing hard, and guided my head down to her clitoris, which I took into my mouth. She arched her back, and gasped.

Then she curled up on her side, her back to me. I was at full mast, but she resisted all my advances. “I never let anyone do that to me—ever since they did that to me when I was a kid…I just want to sleep,” she said. I thought this odd; a departure from the usual. I lie on the bed, in a state of agitation and excitement, and felt disappointed.

It was mild for December, about 40 degrees, and the walk to Billy Wilson’s was pleasant.

We sat in a booth in the bar. Clustered at one end was a group of guys I took to be regulars.

“Look at that guy—he’s really handsome.” I looked at the regulars and could see which guy Naomi meant. Medium height, very slim, good-looking guy in good shape with a thick brown mustache that drooped over his top lip. Looked like a player. He was talking to another guy, a bearded big guy about 6’4’ who looked like a former college lineman.

I bought a couple of pints and put one in front of Naomi. She drank half of it—a full eight ounces—in one pull. Even I don’t absorb alcohol that quickly. I’m a fast drinker; that’s why I only drink beer. If I drank the hard stuff that way I’d be falling down drunk in half an hour. But before I could say “Slow down” she had knocked back the rest of the pint.

“I miss my kids. I guess I’m not a very good mother to leave them this long.” She started crying.

“Naomi, you were brutally raped—cut yourself some slack.”

I went to the bar and bought another round. Then I worked on finishing my first one. This went on for five or six rounds. Naomi’s head drooped. No doubt her tolerance to alcohol had been diminished after not drinking for many months. And of course, I realized she was still on Xanax—which probably would’ve doubled the effect of the beer. She propped her head in her hands, elbows on the table.

Into the bar walked a buddy I’d played football with in high school. He sat on a stool.

“I’ll be back in a minute, Naomi.” She sat there immobile, and seemed barely ambulatory.

“Herb! Let me buy you one.” Handshakes, slaps on back, and an in-depth discussion of the Patriot’s chances this year.

After a while a short, stocky guy with wire-rimmed glasses tapped me on the arm.

“Just wanted to give you a heads up. That girl is trouble.” He nodded toward the end of the bar, where Naomi was enthusiastically rubbing the shoulders of the good-looking guy with the mustache.

“Jesus Christ.” As I got off the barstool the stocky guy tapped me on the arm again.

“Hey, do you like to see boys do it?” I looked at him, puzzled. Then I realized he was serious.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” He drifted away. I recognized why I stopped going to bars.

“Come on, Naomi—you’re messed up.” I shot the player I look while I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back to the stool near my pint. She didn’t fight or struggle, just acted like dead weight—like a child resisting being pulled away from a playground to go home.

“Now just sit here.” She hung her head again and rested it in her hands. “As soon as I take a leak we’re going home.”

I had about three pints to discharge since my latest trip to the head. It took some time. When I walked back into the bar, Naomi was gone. I looked at the booths—empty. I looked down the end of the bar and the player was gone. The big guy was standing against the door looking out. He put his hand on my chest as I went to push the door open. I slapped it away and gave him a double-hand push and he backed off. I got out on the sidewalk in time to see a white Ford pick-up pulling away.

I went back into the bar. No one said anything. I went to pay my tab and the bartender gave me a free pint. He looked into my eyes, and I saw pain in his face. I tilted the pint. The walk home seemed a lot longer than the walk there. I felt hollowness in my chest and my legs felt heavy, like I was suddenly carrying a lot of weight.

What does a man feel in such a situation? Anger, of course. When I got back to my apartment I started pulling her things out of the dresser drawers. I was preparing to throw them out the window into the parking lot. I piled her clothes up on the bed, and, thinking better of it, left them there.

I felt like throwing up. How could a woman do that to me? To cuckold me—publicly. My male ego was annihilated. I wanted to lash out, to return the balance of yin and yang in the universe—and in my life.

Yet my anger was tinged with sadness. I knew her sickness was mostly to blame. And the alcohol probably helped trigger her promiscuity. Going to the bar was a bad call. I knew better.

I sat in the recliner; damn the ghosts. What a chance she was taking—she didn’t know this guy. Would he hurt her? Treat her with no respect, as men treat women they pick up in bars who give it up immediately? I thought back to our first date and how she practically pulled me into bed. I knew she had done it many times before. But at that time I was lonely and a little “backed up.” I guess I didn’t care.

I put the phone on the floor near the recliner. I don’t know what time I fell asleep; perhaps three a.m. No bad dreams. Thoughts kept manifesting in my head, propelled by anger, tinged with sadness.

The telephone ringing woke me up a little after eight a.m. It was Naomi.

“Hey.”

“What do you want—your stuff?”

“I want to come back.”

“What are you—out of your fucking mind?”

“Please Bob.” Then in a whisper “He hurt me. I’m scared.”

Hurt her? Again, I felt the pull of the brutal white night, the archetype that resided somewhere in my personality—or my soul. And I reasoned, she’d be leaving in a couple of days. It would no longer be my problem.

“All right. Come back. We’ll talk.” Immediately after I said it I regretted it. No woman had ever done this to me before. I felt the anger rise.

A half-hour later, a somewhat restrained knock on the door. She walked in, head down, refusing to make eye contact—a teenager missing curfew returning to meet her father’s wrath. And I felt like her father at that moment.

I promised myself I would stay in control. But the damage to my ego was too much to bear.

“You fucking slut. You’re no good—just another piece of white trash.” It went downhill from there. I paced around the living room maniacally. I don’t remember much of what I said—or shouted—except the work ‘cunt.’

She said nothing. She sat on the couch and wouldn’t make eye contact.

Finally I calmed down. I asked her how this guy hurt her.

“In the middle of the night, while I was asleep, he penetrated my ass. It really hurt; I was afraid. I screamed and finally he stopped. Then he tried to quiet me down—saying ‘It’s alright, Naomi, it’s alright.” She paused for a moment, then said “I think he may be bisexual.”

“Well, I guess you got what you deserved. You acted like trash—and that’s the way he treated you.”

Despite my anger at her, I felt my anger rise at him. Just another guy raping Naomi. I desperately wanted to lash out, and hit somebody. But I’ve never hit a woman in my life—under any conditions. It just wasn’t in me. So I decided I had to hit him. It was partly a macho thing; and partly my white night bravado, which I learned growing up. Protect women; a man never hurts a woman. Probably foolish in the modern world—but what could I do? It was my nature.

Honor is a subjective thing; and every man has his own version of it. This man had stained my honor and satisfaction was required. I would beat the hell out of him. I started formulating a plan.

Later, when everything had settled down, she got talkative.

“I didn’t say a thing to Paul this morning. But last night he came twice—he used condoms. He has the body of a Greek god…”

It was too much. “I don’t want to hear that! I don’t want to hear the details! Why are you telling me this?”

She looked genuinely puzzled. She had no idea how this affected me, just as in the past, in many similar situations, she had no idea how it affected the other men she was either married to or lived with.

“It was just sex. It didn’t mean anything. A one-night stand—it can’t compare to what I feel for you.”

It was like somebody had snapped my spine. “Shut your pie hole, bitch.” I’d always wanted to say that to someone. Suddenly I felt like Phillip Marlowe.

“Come on.” I motioned to the bedroom. She smiled. Her comfort zone; soon everything would be alright.

How could I touch her at that point? She was dirty. I realized I didn’t want to make love to her—I wanted to fuck her, like the guy from the bar. And I wanted it to hurt—like I hurt.

She took off her clothes and stood near the foot of the bed, smiling. I didn’t look at her body, just stared into her eyes.

“Well?” I hadn’t taken my clothes off.

I didn’t say a thing. After a minute or so she raised her arms and folded them across her breasts, and shifted her gaze to the floor. Then she rushed onto the bed and slipped underneath the blanket.

I stripped down, pulled back the covers, and attacked that square inch of territory. She was already wet, of course. I was disappointed; I wanted her to be dry, and really feel it.

Instead, I felt the pain. After a couple of minutes my back started aching badly; every thrust of pleasure equaled a stab of pain. This hadn’t been what I meant by restoring the yin and yang of the universe. The thought of quitting entered my mind: Was this worth it? My back muscles were spasming and my spine felt like a dry wishbone in the process of being snapped.

She arched slightly and gasped, and suddenly my groin was wet. She’s enjoying this, I thought. I thrust harder.

The problem with developing one’s internal energy circuits is that it gives one unbelievable staying power. An hour; two if I concentrated. Now, feeling twinges in the sciatic nerve of my right leg, I just wanted it to be over quickly.

Suddenly, three loud raps emanated from the wall. I stopped and Naomi’s eyes blinked open. Then, the sound of scratching from within the walls as though someone with very long nails was attacking the inside of the sheet rock.

“What’s that?”

“Rats.” Ten minutes passed. Sweat poured from me; I noticed it gathered in a pool in the hollow between her breasts.

The intermittent scratching stopped.

Finally I came. As I did, she wrapped her legs around me and gasped again. I crawled off her and lie on my back on the bed, out-of-breath.

“Bob, what were those noises in the wall?”

“Demons. Just our demons.”

After a few minutes I realized that this didn’t even qualify as a Pyrrhic victory. She enjoyed it—every minute of it. For me, it had been the equivalent of one long spinal tap. And in my heart, I felt like a rapist.

A few hours later I ran out to the package store and picked up a couple racks of Bud kingers, a pint of vodka and a small bottle of vermouth. Time to implement the plan. I didn’t have martini glasses, or many glasses at all. Just a few tumblers. I fixed her a double martini on the rocks.

“Here, one last party before you leave.”

Martinis are for sipping; not gulping. I guess no one ever taught her that. I nursed a couple of Bud pints while she gorged. Running from the couch to the kitchen to mix drinks became an aerobic exercise; I wondered how many calories I was burning.

Drunk, she talked about her children; how she missed them, and how great it would be to be home at Christmas. She thanked me profusely for buying them gifts, as she had no money and her soon-to-be ex-husband was out of work and had spent all his money on crank—crystal meth. Then she starting crying about how that guy had raped her. I didn’t know which one she meant. She was slurring her words badly, so I figured it wouldn’t be long.

Within a few minutes her body keeled over on the couch. Passed out. I scooped her up—a mistake because of my back, laid her flat and tossed the afghan over her.

I took a leak, grabbed one of my coats, and picked up the hickory fighting cane I left in a corner near the door. Years earlier I walked with it, my right hip degenerating badly from the cancer damage and the devastating destruction of massive doses of prednisone. Every step shot a dagger of pain into my pelvis; the hipbone had died—avascular necrosis, and the synovial fluid in the joint was wearing away. Finally, when it was bone on bone, I had it replaced.

I felt vulnerable at that time, and I asked my kung fu teacher to teach me a few moves with the cane to protect myself: a quick flip to the groin; blocking a punch with the shaft, hitting an attacker’s temple with the back of the head and then hooking his neck with the pointed crook and pulling him to the ground. And others, which I practiced assiduously.

The cane wasn’t for this guy Paul; I’d taken his measure—a runner, not a fighter. I could take him with a teaspoon. I longed to break his nose, and ruin his perfect face.

The cane was for his friend, the big guy. If he tried to intervene I would hit him as hard as I could across the shins and bring him to the ground. I imagined him writhing on the floor in pain. And, to take care of any of the other cluster of regulars who gave me trouble.

I was limping a bit from the sciatica pain in my right leg, so the cane came in handy on the walk over to Billy Wilson’s. A Victorian gentleman out to deliver a slap to the face of an adversary—and the heel of my palm to his nose.

…the body of a Greek god…I always preferred the Norse gods to the Greek. The Northern gods knew it would all end one day in fire and ice—Ragnarok. It made them more serious about their existence. The Greek gods lived for eternity—an infinity of insipid arguments and petty jealousies, and an existence spent copulating with the beautiful women of planet Earth. Time to lay waste to Olympus.

As I approached to door to Wilson’s I felt a strange calm; emotion had left me; I had no butterflies in the stomach that precede a physical encounter, and only dissipate after the first blow is struck.

I walked in with a smile on my face, carrying my cane parallel to the floor like Achilles carried his spear. It was empty—except for Paul sitting down at the far end of the bar. He pulled back on his stool when he saw me. I pointed toward a booth. He picked up his pint and we both sat down. I hung the cane on the back of the booth behind me—so it was in full view.

“The sex was consensual!” It burst from his mouth.

“No, you’re lying.” I looked him in the eye and he looked back at me. He was blinking more than normal. His eyes drifted to the cane, then he looked back at me.

“And what the fuck were you doing—that woman came with me.” I didn’t raise my voice; I projected an image of insidious calm.

“I didn’t even realize she was with you at the time.” He took a long swallow from his glass. “Look, man, she came down to the end of the bar and gave me a backrub—then whispered in my ear that she wanted to screw me. I’d had five or six pints. What would you do?”

Sober, I would never walk off with a woman if I thought she was with another guy. After a half-a-dozen pints? Possibly—it would depend if I knew the guy. And he had a point; Naomi was down at his end of the bar, slutting it up. But still, he was making excuses.

I felt my left hand forming into a claw—a tiger’s claw. I had practice tiger claw exercises for years to pull energy into my bone marrow. The exercises also gave one a ferocious grip.

“Really, it was consensual.”

I knew he was lying. I wanted to grab his throat and squeeze until the truth rattled out. I looked away toward the bar. The bartender’s hand was hovering near the phone.

“I apologize. I really apologize.” It was said honestly, without any sarcasm.

I looked at him and pondered. This was his bar; he was a regular. If I laid hands on him, the bartender would call the cops and I could be booked for aggravated assault. Jail time. No way was Naomi worth that—under any conditions.

I laughed. He looked uncomfortable.

“Apology accepted. You know, in a way you did me a backhanded favor. And every other guy she’s stepped out on.” I slid the cane off the booth and walked out of the bar.

On the way home I thought of Pyrrhus, beating the Romans in major battles, but losing so many soldiers that he lost the war. In through the out door. Victory by proxy.

I closed and locked the door and put my cane in the corner. Naomi was still out, dead drunk on the sofa. I went to bed. It felt good to sleep alone.

December 23rd. She would leave the next morning. I found the thought of a period of celibacy attractive. She slept until almost noon. I sat in the recliner, sipping a pint of Bud, watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on cable. She raised her head from the pillow and immediately dropped it down again.

“Oh, my head.”

I guess I should’ve bought a better brand of vodka, instead of the store brand—which was in effect antifreeze. That was a shame. It was fine with me—I no longer had any interest in her.

I sipped pints all afternoon watching the usual Christmas shows: “A Christmas Carol,” an early version with the great Alastair Sim as Scrooge; and later, “Miracle on 34th Street.” I thought about my sons and the great Christmas mornings we’d had and our Christmas trees, always spectacularly decorated and in position near the front window of the fireplace room. I thought about how passionately I had loved my ex-wife in the early years of our marriage.

Then I examined my current surroundings: A great, high-ceilinged room, the wall looking out over the parking lot a sheet of windows, white paint all around. A well-lighted room, perfect for artists. Absolutely clinical. It reminded me of the many hospital rooms I’d endured during my cancer battles. No Christmas tree. Only one decoration and she was sprawled on the couch.

Several times I glanced over at Naomi, stretched out, enduring her hangover, and thought: “So this is what Santa Claus brought me? What the hell am I going to get for Easter?”

Around dinnertime she came to life. She stood up, stretched her clasped hands over her head, and exhaled.

“How about some hair of the dog?”

“Another martini?”

“Oh God, no, never again.”

I got her a pint of Bud from the fridge. She took a long pull, blinked her eyes a couple of times, and said “That’s better.”

Tonight was in effect our Christmas Eve. The thought made me a bit ill; I thought back to all the great Christmas Eve’s I’d had with my ex-wife and sons. Now this—with a person of this quality. I had come close to unwrapping the gift I’d bought her—the pendant—and smashing it to dust with a hammer. But I was past the point of anger; I was living in the shallow behind the ocean wave. And she would be out of my life forever after tomorrow morning.

I gave her the box, gaily wrapped by the store clerk in a bright red foil complete with a silver bow.

“But, Bob—I didn’t get you anything.”

She had absolutely no money. I had supported her for the length of her four-month stay. But I had no problem with that. Services rendered.

“Don’t worry about it—just open it.”

“Oh, it’s my birthstone.” She clasped the chain behind her neck and examined the stone.

“Amethyst. It will protect you.”

“Protect me—from what?”

“Addictions, negative energies, and demons of any kind.”

She absolutely beamed; she was transfixed by the stone. I had the feeling Naomi had not received many presents in the course of her life; at least not much jewelry. She fingered it and examined it while I absorbed myself in another Christmas show. I’ve never felt so hollow.

A few minutes later she knelt before me and tugged my sweat pants and boxers down around my knees. I recoiled; I’d had enough. Or thought so.

But all my powers of reason, my damaged ego and disgust with this woman could not override my male instinct. I had an erection before my boxers cleared my knees.

And she was skillful: Cupping my balls with one hand, licking up and down the insides of my thighs; painting long strokes up the shaft with her tongue; swirling her tongue around the tip. Building anticipation for the moment when she would take me into her mouth. Which she did, occasionally gliding her teeth over me, pain that somehow enhanced the pleasure.

But the “energy thing” I had going on meant that this was going to be a drawn out affair. Several times she stopped, arched her back and stretched her neck back as far as it would go. Finally she resorted to her hand; a tight, rapid pumping motion that built the friction necessary for a quicker conclusion. When I started breathing hard she again took me into her mouth and I bled like a hemophiliac. But I didn’t have the usual feeling a man has at the conclusion of oral sex—of taking pleasure while giving none in return. An act of domination; a Pharaoh commanding a concubine to her knees to service him.

Instead, I felt like she had sucked the essence out of me, depleting me, as though somehow she was still on top. She stretched her neck backwards again, and I saw her Adam’s apple move up and down.

Merry Christmas, Bob. I have to say as Christmas gifts go this was near the top of the list. Normally if I can’t drink it or read it, I don’t want it. And I didn’t even have to go to the trouble of unwrapping this gift.

We both sprawled backward on the couch, each exhausted in our own way. My pants were still around my knees; I had shriveled back to almost normal size. I pulled my boxers and pants into place.

Then she turned to me with a look of shame on her face. “You know, Bob, I’m just starting to realize how this thing has hurt you.”

It dawned on me that I had just received far more than a Christmas gift; it was also an apology, tendered in the only currency she understood.

We were on the road before dawn the next morning headed for Green Airport in Providence, normally an hour’s drive. It was snowing, a dry, swirling snow that hindered visibility. I drove about 40 m.p.h. And she missed her flight. I felt myself sink; she had to go home today.

Fortunately, there was another flight to Oklahoma in an hour. She asked the guy to reschedule her, and he said “Fine. Twenty bucks.” I glared at him. He repeated “Twenty bucks.” I slipped him the twenty and he arranged things. I put two twenties in Naomi’s hand for expenses; perhaps a taxi from the airport to her home.

We sat in silence for most of an hour, waiting for her flight to be called. I was anticipating the relief I would feel when she was 30,000 feet in the air headed west. I have no idea what she was thinking.

When her flight was called she clasped my hand and gave it a squeeze. Looking straight ahead she said “See ya,” got up and headed for the gate.

On the drive home I had a smile on my face. I was experiencing the “incredible lightness of being.” Or something like that.

The rest of the day I sat plopped in the recliner, exhausted. I sipped cans of Coke; I was thoroughly sick of drinking. And other things.

That night as I watched the History Channel’s ‘The Origins of Christmas’, relaxed and feeling a freedom that a man or woman can only feel when alone—it happened.

Six feet to my right—from the direction of the windows—an explosion with the blast of two barrels of a 12 gauge rocked the room. It’s cliché to say one jumped in his seat; but I actually rose off the recliner several inches. My hands came to either side of my face in a defensive pose. The can of Coke flew from my hands and foamed into the carpet.

I looked—there was nothing there. I scanned that end of the room, again and again. Nothing. It wasn’t a truck backfiring from the parking lot; this was inside the room, a few feet away from me.

I jumped out of the chair and went into the hallway, first hammering on the door across from me, then going down the hall doing the same to other doors. No one was home; probably with their families for Christmas Eve. No one besides me heard the blast; no one could confirm it.

Back in my recliner I pondered what I’d experienced. Thinking back on it, I thought the explosion had a somewhat ‘liquid’ feel—as though some energy—spirit, entity or demon—had punctured a membrane from another reality. A door opening.

Macho bravado—I put my meditation chair over the spot of the explosion and sat for an hour, focusing on my breathing, allowing the thoughts that passed through my mind to go unanswered and drift away. When I was done, I stood up and literally shook my fist at the ceiling: “Fuck you. You’re not scaring me.” I left the chair in its spot.

I slept on the futon that night. Nothing happened. The next morning—Christmas Day—I meditated again in the chair on that spot. I spent the rest of the day at my brother’s house. His wife got on my nerves—always telling people what to do. These holiday celebrations had become tiresome after my divorce—they lasted all day. My ex-wife’s family had been fun, and I got along famously with them. But those days were as dead as the Hittites.

That night I braved the recliner. No dreams; nothing. I woke up late to the phone ringing. It was Naomi.

“Hey, Bob.” Effervescent. “I just wanted to thank you again for the gifts for my kids. Without you, they wouldn’t have had a Christmas.”

“No problem. Kids have to have Christmas.”

“I’m doing good…got a job waitressing at Denny’s—pretty soon I’ll be running the place! And I met a guy named Mark, a really nice guy. I just moved in with him.”

“That was fast, Naomi.”

“Well, Bob, sometimes you just know.”

“Indeed.”

I looked at the meditation chair. Dawn broke. I realized that the disappearance of the energy—or energies—in the apartment had nothing to do with my challenge to it—or them. It had nothing to do with me.

It wasn’t a door opening I experienced. It was a door closing. An energy—spirit, entity or demon—penetrating a membrane to escape this reality and pass into another. Perhaps a parallel universe. Or perhaps it followed Naomi to Oklahoma, to manifest as an orb of light existing above her head. Or it went to dwell in her, within the confines of her reverberating pelvis—a third ovary of energy which no X-Ray or MRI could detect.

I thought of her new lover Mark. Poor bastard.

The next day Naomi’s sister-in-law called and introduced herself.

“Naomi said you were a real gentleman and treated her like gold.”

“Yeah—I was her knight in shining armor.’

She laughed.

I said: “I understand she’s got a job, and a new guy, ‘Mark.’ Maybe things will stabilize.”

“Well, that’s not stopping her—she’s at it again.”

“At it?”

“She’s been seen around town with the fry cook and the manager from Denny’s. You know, that’s how she lost her daughter from her first marriage—the state took her away because she wouldn’t stop running around.”

I didn’t say anything; I sensed there was more dirt coming.

“And that rape thing—we think she picked up the guy in a bar, and things went bad.”

“Why would you think that? He beat her up, right?”

“That’s what the guy kept saying at his trial—they met in a bar. But he had the gun and the knife on him, and Naomi had the bruise on her face. No one believed him.”

“That’s too bad. Bye.”

Thirty years—the guy got thirty years. I got off cheap, with a rap on the knuckles—only a four-month sentence.

Enjoy the pain. Indeed.

–give her gift, birthstone, she beamed, no one had ever given her such a thing as this; protects from demons; of any kind; blow job on couch; thought it was my Christmas present; realized it was her apology, expressed in the only way she knew how in her own currency
–explosion of magnitude the night after she leaves
–she call; Mark; come out and spend a few nights; it’s okay, Mark knows about you; she just didn’t realize; then sister-in-law calls; picked up her rapist
–meditation chair on spot of explosion
–door opening; membrane being pierced; or a door closing

–enjoy the pain, indeed