Bodily Harm Read Free

tried to enjoy them but instead she started to think about Jake’s fingers: he was holding the stem of his wineglass with his left hand, lightly, but the knuckles were absolutely white. He had a habit of never throwing out empty containers; that morning she’d taken down the Shreddies box and there was nothing in it. How could she know when it was time to get more if he kept leaving empty peanut butter jars and honey jars and cocoa tins on the shelves? She refrained from mentioning this. She felt that Jake’s eyes kept slipping away from her face, down to the top button of her blouse; then, as if he’d reached a line, a taboo, back up to her face again. He’s fascinated, she thought.
    They walked home with their arms around each other, as if they were still in love. While Jake took a shower, Rennie stood in the bedroom with the closet door open, wondering what she should put on. Two of her nightgowns, the black one with the see-through lace top and the red satin one slit up the sides, had been presents from Jake. He liked buying her things like that. Bad taste. Garters, merry widows, red bikini pants with gold spangles, wired half-cup hookerbrassieres that squeezed and pushed up the breasts. The real you, he’d say, with irony and hope. Who’d ever guess? Black leather and whips, that’s next.
    She wanted to make it easy for him, she wanted to help him along with the illusion that nothing bad had happened to her or was going to happen. Her body was in the mirror, looking the same as ever. She couldn’t believe that in a week, a day, some of it might have vanished. She thought about what they did with the parts.
    In the end she wore nothing. She waited in bed for Jake to come out of the shower. He would smell of body shampoo and he would be damp and slippery. She used to like it when he slid into her wet like that, but tonight she was only waiting for a certain amount of time to be over, as if she were in a dentist’s office, waiting for something to be done to her. A procedure.
    At first he couldn’t. It had been too sudden; she’d been told, she’d told him, the operation had been scheduled, all in the same day. She could understand his shock and disgust and the effort he was making not to reveal them, since she felt the same way. She wanted to tell him he didn’t have to, not if it was too much of an effort, but he wouldn’t take that well, he’d think she was being critical.
    He ran his hand over her breast a couple of times, the bad one. Then he began to cry. This was what she’d been afraid she herself would do. She hugged him, stroking the back of his head.
    After that he made love to her, painfully and for a long time. She could hear his teeth grinding together, as if he were angry. He was holding back, waiting for her to come. He thought he was doing her a favour. He was doing her a favour. She couldn’t stand the idea of anyone doing her a favour. Her body was nerveless, slack, as if she was already under the anaesthetic. As though he could sense this he gathered skin and muscle, wrenching, twisting, he bit her, not gently, shoving himself into her, trying to break through that barrierof deadened flesh. At last she faked it. That was another vow she’d made once: never to fake it.

    By the time the flight is called it’s already dark. They stand at the gate, a dozen or so of them, watching the plane land. The gate isn’t even a gate but an opening in the cement wall with a chain across it. The airline officials, two kids, a light-brown girl who looks about sixteen and a boy with a set of earphones, can’t decide which gate they should be standing at, so the whole group straggles back and forth several times between one hole in the wall and another. A man in tinted glasses offers to carry her camera bag for her, but Rennie refuses politely. She doesn’t want anyone sitting beside her on the plane, especially a man who would wear a safari jacket. She didn’t like safari jackets even when they