Vigilando

No tienes que disfrutar viendo mientras Gerald se masturba con su primo hermano, o Nadine se ahoga cuidadosamente con un sombrero antiguo, o Carter se mete en una urna que guarda debajo del fregadero de la cocina. Solo tienes que fingir. Tienes que sentarte, oler el palo de canela que guardas escondido en tu guante y darles lo que quieren.

"¿Para qué sirve el cuchillo, Felix?" Yo digo.

Camina de un lado a otro, y trato de concentrarme en el sonido de sus botas golpeando el piso de madera, en lugar de la sangre que gotea por su barbilla y las marcas de mordiscos que cubren sus brazos.

"No voy a lastimarte", dice Félix. "Sabes que soy gentil como una mosca".

"Quieres decir que no lastimarías a una mosca", le digo.

"Lo que sea. Te pagaré dos mil si me ves hacer esto". Pone su mano sobre la cómoda, al lado de un ladrillo. "No me desmayaré. Me dirigiré hasta el hospital. En serio. Por favor."

"Sabes que no puedo", le digo. "Janette me despediría si supiera…"

"No se lo digas. Mantendremos esto entre tu y yo".

"No funciona de esa manera".

"Lo haremos funcionar".

"No puedo".

"¿Sabes lo que eres, Sebastian?" Apunta el cuchillo a mi cara. "¡Eres una jodida lastima!"

No se supone que esto suceda. Huelo el guante.

Félix mira su arma y dice: "Lo siento". Baja el cuchillo tan rápido que pierde el agarre. Me temo que la hoja rebotará contra el suelo y llegará a mi cara o corazón, pero no es así. Solo se queda ahí.

"Nunca lastimaría a nadie", dice Félix. "Tú lo sabes."

"Lo sé", le digo. Yo pretendo.

Se arrodilla y acuna el cuchillo con ambas manos. Parece que podría comenzar a llorar. "Crees que soy asqueroso".

"No, Felix", le digo. "Si fuera por mí, me quedaría aquí y miraría. Quiero verte hacerlo. De verdad."

Él sonríe.

Y yo también.

Janette busca en mi rostro y trato de concentrarme en las estatuas que están en el estante detrás de ella. Está el Amazonas con su seno derecho perdido. Janette me dijo una vez que estas mujeres mitológicas a veces se cortaban los senos para poder mejorar su tiro al arco. También me dijo que los antiguos griegos creían que las mujeres debían ser domesticadas por sus padres y maridos, de lo contrario todas serían prostitutas salvajes. Ella dijo que es este tipo de domesticación lo que atrae a nuevas chicas trabajadoras a su puerta año tras año.

"Félix apareció en la sala de emergencias una hora después de que terminó su sesión", dice Janette. "Con un dedo perdido".

"Maldita sea", le digo. Me impresiona que Janette haya obtenido esta información tan rápido, pero no me sorprende. Ella tiene contactos en todas partes, más dispuesta a derramar sus entrañas por un descuento. "No puedo creer que realmente lo haya hecho".

Ella me mira por un rato más.

Al lado del Amazonas descansa la sirena, con sus alas de ángel y sus patas de pato. Los antiguos griegos creían que los hombres y los hombres solos tenían el poder de domesticar sus impulsos sexuales. Solo ellos podían proteger a sus familias de los poderes de sirena de otras mujeres.

"Revisé tu sesión con Felix", dice Janette, y toca la grabadora de voz digital en su escritorio. "Ambos son excelentes actores".

"No estaba actuando", le digo.

"Cuando Félix se enoja, tropieza con sus palabras, y no estaba tropezando. Sin embargo, todo lo demás era lo suficientemente creíble. Buen trabajo."

"No fue un acto, Janette".

"Me duele el hecho de que me mantuviste una recompensa sustancial, pero realmente no me importa el dinero. Lo que realmente me molesta es que estés dispuesto a poner en peligro toda mi operación por unos cuantos dólares extra. Pruebo tu sangre y sé que no eres un drogadicto, Sebastian. ¿Para qué necesitas el efectivo?"

Busco respuestas en la sala, pero no hay ninguna. "Nada."

Esta vez ella me mira como si lo lamentara por mí.

Al lado de la sirena está Baubo, con senos para los ojos y una vulva para la boca. Una vez animó a una diosa mostrándola. Janette me dijo que esto no era una cosa sexual. Baubo reveló el poder de la fertilidad que existe en todas las mujeres. Los antiguos griegos creían que las mujeres estaban sucias por dentro y podían contaminar el mundo que las rodeaba menstruando y dando a luz. Baubo no mantuvo oculto su poder, por lo que los antiguos griegos la convirtieron en una mutante.

"¿Lo comiste?" Janette pregunta.

"¿Qué?" Yo digo.

"Su dedo."

"Por supuesto no. ¿Quién te crees que soy?" Dejo de mirarla por encima de ella y encuentro su mirada.

"Te creo", dice ella. "El problema es que no soy lo suficientemente narcisista como para asumir que no puedo ser engañada. Necesito asegurarme de saber de lo que eres capaz".

"¿Que quieres que haga?"

"En primer lugar, déjame oler tu aliento".

Me paro, me inclino y respiro sobre su rostro.

"No huelo el vómito", dice ella. “O cualquier cosa que pueda usarse para tapar el olor a vómito. Si lo comiste, todavía está dentro de ti".

“Lo vi cortarlo. No lo comí".

"Solo han pasado unas pocas horas, por lo que probablemente todavía tendras un dedo en el estómago". Busca debajo de su escritorio y saca un cubo que me entrega. "Voy a necesitar que vomites. Luego lo enviaré al laboratorio y veré si me estás diciendo la verdad".

"No creo que pueda vomitar por orden".

"Mete el dedo por la garganta".

"Lo intenté una vez y no funcionó".

Saca una botella de ipecacuana de su cajón, como sabía que haría.

Pronto me agito tanto que tengo miedo de que mis ojos salgan, pero no lo hacen.

“Ahora ve a tirar eso al baño”, dice ella.

"Pensé que querías probarlo".

"Te he probado lo suficiente".

Cuando regreso con el cubo, ella dice: "Sé que dije que no me importa el dinero, pero me vas a dar cinco mil por esta traición y las otras que nunca descubrí".

Solo hice tres mil de Félix. Aún así, esto es justo. Asiento hacia ella.

Me entrega un trozo de papel naranja con "Valerie Trum" escrito en la parte superior. “Tienes una noche entera. Esta noche a las siete."

“I can’t work tonight,” I say. “I have a date.”

“You have a date with Valerie Trum.”

Janette may seem like a level-headed businesswoman, but she’s actually a human being. Underneath her pinstriped suit there are scars on her wrists. She showed them to me during my first job interview with her, and scrutinized my reaction.

Now she’s giving me that same look.

She’s waiting.

“I shouldn’t have betrayed you,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

She smiles a little. “Tonight at seven.”

I turn on the voice recorder and say, “I hope you’re happy,” before knocking on the door of Valerie Trum’s two-story cookie-cutter house. I’m not surprised she lives here. This place may look the same as every other home around, with only slits of yard between them, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to enter a new world and see things I’ve never imagined.

What does surprise me is the smile I’m greeted with. The warmth.

“Sebastian,” she says, and holds out her hand.

I shake.

“I like your gloves,” she says. “They look homemade.”

“They are,” I say, holding them out for some reason.

“I’m guessing you’re a cold person. Not…cold-hearted. I mean you feel cold easily. My girlfriend was a hot person. Before she died.”

That’s why I’m here, I’m guessing. Grief.

“It tends to get cold in here at night,” she says. “Feel free to turn up the heat. The thermostat’s over there in the hall.”

“I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” I say.

“Thanks. I’ll show you where I want you.”

So I follow her into a bedroom upstairs. A guestroom, by the looks of it. The only thing that really catches my eye is a quilt-covered column in the corner.

“Sit there,” she says, pointing.

I sit on the comfy-looking chair facing the column. It is comfy.

“There’s leftover pizza in the fridge if you get hungry,” she says. “You can take off the pepperoni if you’re a vegetarian. Or Jewish. Or don’t like pepperoni.”

“Thanks.”

She walks over to the column, and slides off the quilt. She reveals an antique iron birdcage. Or maybe it’s not an antique. Maybe it’s just old.

An ugly orange bird sits on the perch in the cage. No, that’s a doll. A rag doll.

What Valerie’s going to do with this cage and doll, or to this cage and doll, I don’t know., but I’m prepared.

I sniff my glove. Vanilla.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I say.

She smiles at me. “I’m going to sleep at my cousin’s for the night. I’ll be back in the morning to pay you.”

I almost give her a funny look, but stop myself. Instead, I nod. “What is it you want me to do exactly?”

“Watch the doll.”

“Am I looking for something specific?”

“I can’t tell you. Well, I could, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to influence what you see by telling you anything beforehand. Anyway, if you want to drink something besides water, there’s orange juice in the fridge. There might be some apple juice left.”

“Thank you.”

She shakes my hand again, and leaves.

Time doesn’t really fly when you’re stuck babysitting an inanimate object, but things could be worse. You could lack an imagination or have ADD. You could be one of those people who finds himself haunted by his demons when faced with solitude.

I’m lucky.

I could try to sneak out and manipulate the audio recording, but Janette would find out. Plus, anytime I look away from the doll for too long, I feel guilty.

Better to just make the best of a ridiculous situation.

It’s eight o’clock, and Snow’s off work. I’ll call her.

“I’m not going to be able to make it tonight,” I say. “I got called into work.”

“Shit,” she says. “When does it start?”

“I’m here right now actually. It’s OK that I’m talking with you though. My client’s gone.”

“Why’s he gone?”

“She. It doesn’t really matter. I’d invite you over, but it’s against the rules.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. I wanted to say it anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“Can we have a phone date instead?”

“Yeah. Let me drive home first. I don’t have one of those handless phone sets and I don’t want to drive with one hand in the crap-mobile.”

We say goodbye, and I’m alone with the doll again.

My heart beats fast and I don’t feel cold at all. Even after all this time, Snow still makes me feel nervous and excited.

The first time I met Snow, the nervousness I felt wasn’t so heavenly. She was one of my first clients, and I remember the way she touched my arm, comforting me. Even though I was there to comfort her.

She told me how thankful she was that her parents hadn’t mutilated her body as a baby. But she was afraid. She hadn’t told any of her friends that she was an intersexual. And she’d never shown her naked adult body to anyone but her doctor.

Then she showed me.

I didn’t have to look past her large clitoris and pretend that she was beautiful. She was. Is. Mind, body, heart and soul.

I glance at my wrist, but I left my watch at home. No matter. Fifteen minutes until she calls. In the meantime, I can entertain myself by clicking my teeth together in time to the music in my head.

Click click click…

Click click click…

I hate this song.

Click click click…

The doll lifts her arm. Slowly, trembling.

Instantly, I know that Valerie Trum is a cruel woman who’s trying to scare me.

Instantly, I’m clutching the chair, holding my breath.

The doll waves at me.

One of my hands relaxes, as if I’m going to release the arm rest and wave back. I sniff my glove instead.

The moment her arm drops, I stand. I try to focus on the chill slithering up and down my neck, but it’s not enough.

I step forward and don’t see any strings.

I reach inside the cage through the bars, because I don’t have the key to the lock on the door.

She has to be mechanized. I need to touch her to find out.

I wrap my gloved hand around her and squeeze.

Nothing but fluff.

When I release her, she falls off the perch. I’m afraid she’s going to jump back up and lunge for my face, but she only lays there.

I scream a little when the phone rings.

We greet each other with the usual routine, then move on.

“So you’re just sitting around staring at the wall?” Snow says, laughing.

I wince. “Not exactly. Snow, I’m not…doing very well right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…I think I’m losing it. My mind, I guess.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

I shake my head, though I know she can’t see that.

Snow reveals everything. My clients reveal everything. But me, I like to hide. It’s a good thing Snow doesn’t hate cowards.

“I don’t think you’re losing your mind,” she says. “I think you’re starting to deal with something that you haven’t dealt with yet.”

She’s right. Before I can stop them, the words claw their way out of me. “I watched my client eat his own finger.”

Silence. Then, “Why did you do that?”

“Because he paid me to.”

She’s silent again, and I can’t hear anything else. “You have more than enough money,” she says. “There’s another reason.”

I search the room. I even search the doll’s black button eyes. Nothing.

“Jesus, Sebastian. Are you really such a stranger to yourself? You watched him eat his finger because you’re a caring person. You didn’t want him to feel ashamed anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s true. I don’t care about my clients. You’re the only one—”

“You care.”

I don’t say anything for way too long.

“Call me back when you’re ready to talk again,” she says.

We end the conversation with the usual routine, then move on.

For me, that means watching the doll until I’m convinced that I didn’t see what I saw.

I hear footsteps. Valerie Trum must be back to see how shook up I am because of her little trick. She’ll probably laugh. She might even explain to me how she did it if I smile enough.

But no, the young woman who enters isn’t Valerie Trum.

She sits on the floor, holding a bottle in her hands. She looks like she might start crying.

“Hello?” I say. “I’m a friend of Valerie.”

She unscrews the top, and dumps a heap of blue pills onto the floor.

Now she does start crying.

No, that’s not her.

The sound’s coming from under the bed.

I step closer to the young woman. “Are you alright?”

A head slides out from under the bed and the crying consumes the room. Her body continues to wriggle across the floor until she’s lying right beside me. The middle-aged woman runs a razor blade down the middle of her face.

The young sitting woman swallows the pills, handful after handful.

“Stop!” I say.

Watching isn’t enough. I need to do something.

I reach down to grab the young woman’s arm, and then I’m remembering a pink bedroom and a man named Uncle Daniel and—

I race for the door. It closes. Fast.

As soon as I turn around, another woman vomits on the floor right by my feet. I step over the mess, and face the wall. The orange sheet of paper in my pocket soon gives me Valerie Trum’s cell phone number, and I call.

“What’s going on here?” I say.

“You don’t have to talk so loud,” she says.

“What’s going on here, Valerie?” I say, even louder.

“I honestly don’t know,” she says. “All I know is that she wanted a man. I hope you survive. You seem like a nice enough guy.” With that, she hangs up. By the time I think of calling Snow, I’ve already thrown my phone against the wall and broken the damn thing in two.

The room roars with the chaos of women squirming, struggling, crying.

They’re everywhere.

Cutting themselves, killing themselves.

Again and again and again.

The window slips open, and a flock of magazines fly inside. They cover the floor. They cover the walls. Maybe the ceiling, but I don’t look up. They show me models and actresses and they’re all screaming, tearing at their pages with bloody fingers. Trapped.

The women in the room don’t stop suffering. No matter the fierceness of my commands. No matter how much they die.

Every time one of them passes through me, I feel them inside. Mind, body, heart and soul. I scramble around, jumping and spinning, trying to keep from being touched. From being violated. But it doesn’t do any good.

I remember.

I remember the animals I saw in the popcorn ceiling above my bed and wishing that they would come alive and save me or eat me, and I remember how it felt when he ravaged my hymen and called me his sweet princess, and I remember the agony I felt every time my husband used me because they circumcised me as a baby, and I remember more and more until I collapse.

Everyone bends and funnels into the bird cage.

Silence again.

I try to stand, and by the third try I get to my feet.

I approach the cage.

The rag doll’s standing on the perch, arms at her sides. She’s trembling, and I’m sure this has nothing to do with weakness.

She’s giving me that look.

She’s waiting.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She shudders even more. Obviously she’s not looking for an apology.

I consider walking away right now and spending the rest of my life trying to forget this ever happened. But the truth is, Snow was right. I do care about my clients.

This world, this system we live in, it doesn’t treat my clients very well, and watching isn’t enough.

Even after what this doll put me through, I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. She does. She’s charged with the energy of pain that I see oozing out my clients every day, in their blood, their semen, their shit.

The doll’s charged up, and I think she’s willing to do something about it.

If she’s going to assassinate those who abuse power or lead a peaceful revolution, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. She can’t sit back and watch these tragedies go on anymore. Anyway, the lock’s already disappeared.

I open the cage.

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