Have you been a good little boy? Beneath the bangs, she raises her eyebrows at the camera, and I wonder how she can still do that after the brow lift.
Yes, Mommy, I type.
Oh, you have? And what have you been up to? she asks.
I can’t think of any scenarios. It’s very late, and I’m tired. I spit a seed out of my mouth onto a paper towel. Too tart, the acid first, then some sweet.
Are you sure you’ve been a good boy? Or are you lying to me? she prompts.
No, Mommy. I wouldn’t lie to you.
Well, I think you are lying. And I don’t like it when you lie to me, you know that, don’t you? It hurts when you lie to me. She looks severe and yet, I realize, caring. Incredibly sincere. She cares a great deal whether I’ve been good or bad. And when I’m bad, it causes her pain.
Yes, I’m sorry. I’m lying, I’ve been bad.
Well, you know what that means, don’t you? She frowns, and I’m in thrall to her again, at what she must go through. You’ll have to know how much it hurts. You’ll have to be punished. But because I love you so much, I’m going to let you choose. She rises from the chair, opens a small cabinet that holds a variety of props. She removes a round blade of wood, like a pizza slide, like a large Ping-Pong paddle. How about this?
Spank me, Mommy. Of course, I think, we haven’t done that. So obvious. Why haven’t I just asked for that before?
Ah, she says. She puts the paddle back. That’s Mommy’s favorite, too.
She comes closer to the camera, slowly removing the gloves. She sits so that she’s only visible from the waist up, murmuring to me to drop my trousers, drop my underwear, lie down across her lap, That’s a good boy, no, a little higher, Mommy wants this bad little boy’s sweet behind a little higher, and I split open another orange. I hear a slapping sound, she must be whacking an open palm against her own thigh, just out of view. I spit out another seed — the problem with oranges, you have to fuss with seeds, with drip, so sticky, my father would always make me wash my hands afterward. The girlfriend keeps slapping away, This is good, and I wonder, for the first time, where the daughter is while her mother does all these shows. The late-at-night shows, she’s probably sleeping, sure, but what about during the day, when she gets home from school? And how does her mother explain all the equipment, the cabinet with the paddles and crops and enema bag? Has the little girl ever stumbled into this stuff, this special room, by accident? Here, let me stop, rub you a little, good. And did that make her mother angry, that her daughter maybe broke a rule, did something she wasn’t supposed to? I wonder if the mother disciplines her daughter, not like she disciplines her clients, of course, but she probably spanks her now and then. That’s part of being a parent. Part of being the child. Maybe the little girl’s father, the ex-husband, is in charge of discipline. My father was, even before my mother left, he was usually the one to handle spanking. Now that doesn’t hurt too much, honey, does it? Maybe I should do it harder, then, like this? I imagine the little girl’s father stroking her hair, kissing her, telling her he has to do this, punish her, she’s been bad, telling her to pull up her skirt, pull down her panties, lie across his lap, just like my father. Like this, this? I’ve finished the orange but my hand is so sticky, I have to lick each finger one by one. Bent over his lap in a tense hunch, crying, at first, everything clenched, panties around my ankles like soft rope, the jolting slaps like awful gripping sunburn, like growing blaze, Believe me, sweetheart, this hurts me more than it hurts you, me crying and pleading, my body giving up into a drape, but he’d finally stop, when I was finally beyond hurt and fully loose.
That’s good, that’s my baby, yeah, she says.
My hand sticky and acid-wet, rubbing with her, rubbing faster, my eyes on the ceiling, hearing her slaps, she’s breathing hard and I’m breathing hard and then Now, yes, yes. I look at her then and see the sheen on her upper lip, her perfect, chemical-burned upper lip, they were right, it does hurt them more than it hurts me. Then candy, then ice cream.
Thank you, Mommy, I type.
My pleasure, baby, she says, sunny.
Then the screen goes blank and a message comes up: I’m Going On Vacation, Honey! When I’m Back In Town, You And I Will Spend Some Very, Very SPECIAL Hands-on QUALITY TIME Together! Meanwhile, You Be A Good Boy!
ISN’T SHE FINISHED yet? I ask. I move aside the plastic grocery bag of skinless chicken breasts, broccolini, whole-grain pitas, fruit, and skim milk and sit closer to him in the booth.
She’s a work-in-progress, he tells me. He leans past me to riffle in the bag. Oh, shit. I forgot to tell you. No more dairy. She’s switching to soy.
I’m sorry.
That’s okay. I can stop on my way home, I guess.
We don’t speak for a moment, just eat our pasta primaveras without garlic, our salads with fennel and grape tomatoes. I’d ordered a forty-dollar bottle of Pinot Grigio, and we drink it.
So, I say, what’s she doing this time?
Tummy tuck. The liposuction made her pretty saggy. Although she says it was even like that before, from having a kid. He glances under the table, at the seat to the other side of me. Hey, didn’t you get my e-mail?
He has abandoned his old treatment, started all over again, same story but a completely different take. I’m realizing, I think, that this is what he always does. I wonder if he’ll ever be ready to go to script.
Yeah, I got it. I printed it out for myself, but I had finals today, I couldn’t get to the copy place. I’m sorry.
Shit. I’m supposed to be copying right now.
I’ll go tomorrow. Maybe I can drop the copies off at your place?
Excuse me?
Oh, yeah. Well, maybe you can get away and meet me tomorrow afternoon? Or tomorrow night?
Maybe. It depends. I’ll just do it myself. He nudges me with his elbow. How’d your finals go?
Okay. They’re over. Just one semester left.
Yeah, congratulations. Then it’s welcome to the real fucking world, kiddo.
I know.
Wait’ll you have to pay bills. Wait’ll you have to find a decent place to live.
Fine by me. I can’t wait to get out of there. I’m so fucking sick of being treated like a kid.
He shrugs. You just don’t appreciate what you’ve got.
So, what did they do to her? I ask.
It’s like this. . he leans over and reaches under my shirt, trying to pull up a handful of belly flesh. It’s like they squeeze as much of her stomach skin as they can get. .
He pulls, and there isn’t much to grab, so it hurts. But I like the hold he has on me.
. . and they staple it like this — he makes those kachunk noises — she’s got these dozens of staples all across her gut. He finishes kachunking across my torso. And they cut off all the extra.
Won’t that leave a scar?
She says she can wear a belt over it or something. And you can rub vitamin E over the scar so it won’t be so bad.
You didn’t ask me to get any vitamin E.
You do that later, after they take the staples out. Right now her stomach’s all puffed up, like she’s pregnant. She looks like shit. And it hurts, she can barely move.