"What's sick?"
"Look, I love you, Rafe, but I can't get with this masochism thing of yours."
His eyes suddenly blazed.
"My masochism thing? Lisl, you are the masochist! You've let people put you down, grind you down, chain you down until you've come to accept it as your state of being, your lot in life. Day-to-day life is a masochistic event for you, Lisl. You should be on top of the world yet you're content to live under its heel!"
"I don't want to hurt anyone, Rafe."
He stepped up and gently slipped his arms around her.
"I know you don't, Lisl. That's because you're a good person. But there's so much anger in you it's frightening. You seethe with it."
She knew he was right. She'd never been aware of her anger before. But she could not deny its existence now. She had discovered it since meeting Rafe—a boiling rage deep down inside her. And with each passing week she could feel it bubbling closer to the surface.
"I can't help that."
"Oh, but you can. And you will. You've got to let that anger go before you can be the new Lisl."
"I don't know if I want to be the new Lisl."
"Do you like the old Lisl?"
"No." God, no!
"Then don't be afraid to change."
His words were so soft, so soothing, the touch of his bare skin against hers was so warm. She floated on the sound of his voice.
"That's why I've led you through these little faceless crimes. They're symbolic. They let you bleed off the anger in tiny, harmless doses, and that brings you closer to the new Lisl. The same is true with the belt."
"No, I—"
"Listen to me, listen to me," he said softly, almost cooing in her ear. "It's a symbolic act. I don't want you to really hurt me. Believe me, I'm into pleasure, not pain. Just think of it as comparable to our little thefts—no one was really hurt. This will be much the same. You won't strike me with any force. You'll just lay the strap across my back arid pretend I'm Brian."
"Rafe, please…" She was beginning to feel sick.
"Where's the harm? You won't be hurting me and you won't be hurting Brian. You'll only be helping yourself. This is symbolic, remember? Symbolic."
"Okay," she said finally. "Symbolic."
She didn't want to do this, but if Rafe thought it was so important, she'd give it a try. And if it did release some of this anger in her—although she didn't see how it could—that would be to the good. And if nothing else, once she got through it they could make love. That was what she really wanted to do.
Rafe lay across the bed, facedown, the smooth skin of his bare back awaiting the belt.
"All right," he said. "Twenty strokes. Just think of me as Brian and slap it across my back."
Feeling silly, Lisl raised the belt and let its length fall onto Rafe's back.
He laughed. "Come on, Lisl. That was wimpy. This is Brian here. The guy you loved, the guy you trusted enough to marry."
Lisl swung again and put just a little more into it.
"Is that the best you can do? Lisl, this is the guy who was probably cheating on you during your engagement. And you know from the divorce hearings that he was putting the moves on his female fellow med students the week you got back from your honeymoon."
She swung harder this time.
"There you go. Just imagine I'm the guy who let you work for him all day to help earn his tuition, and then while you were out taking a night course would sneak a little chippy into your apartment and fuck her right in your own bed."
Lisl remembered the savage look on Brian's face when he'd told her that. The belt made a loud slap against Rafe's back when she swung this time. She swung again, even harder.
Slap!
"Good! Here's the guy who took you in marriage not as his wife but as his beast of burden, his meal ticket."
Slap!
"And when he didn't need you anymore, he tossed you away like an old newspaper."
"Damn you!" Lisl heard herself say. Rage suffused her, clouded her vision as she swung the belt with everything she had. And again, over and over, until she saw red… on Rafe's back.
Blood. There was a deep gash across his back.
"Oh, my God!"
Suddenly the rage retreated, leaving her cold and sick and weak.
Did I do that? What's happening? This isn't me!
She dropped to her knees beside the bed.
"Oh, Rafe, I'm so sorry!"
He turned toward her. "Are you kidding? It's just a scratch. Come here."
He pulled her onto the bed beside him. She could see that he was excited. He began kissing her, warming her, chasing the cold and dread and doubt, building the heat within her until it burst into flame.
Afterward he held her close and stroked her hair.
"There. Don't you feel better?"
Lisl knew what he was referring to but didn't feel like talking about it.
"I always feel good after we make love."
"I meant with the belt. Didn't that leave you feeling a bit cleaner, refreshed?"
"No! How could I possibly feel good about hurting you like that?"
"Don't be silly. You didn't hurt me."
"You were bleeding!"
"A scratch."
"That was no scratch. Turn over and I'll show you."
Rafe rolled onto his stomach and presented his back to her.
His unmarred back.
Lisl ran a hand over the smooth skin. There had been welts there only a short while ago. Blood too. She was sure of it.
"How…?"
"I'm a fast healer. You know that."
"But nobody's that fast."
"Which means that you didn't hurt me anywhere near as badly as you thought."
He turned toward her and pulled her down to his side. Lisl snuggled against him.
"You see," he said, "it was all symbolic. You got some of the anger out without hurting me. The anger was real but my wounds were not. You simply magnified them in your mind. The net result: I'm unhurt and you're a little bit closer to being the new Lisl."
"I'm not so sure about this 'new Lisl' business."
"Don't hinder yourself, Lisl. You're on the way to setting yourself free. And when you become the new Lisl, you truly will be a new person. No one who knew you before will recognize you. A new Lisl—that's my promise to you."
"Fine, but this bit with the belt—"
"That's just a part of it—the symbolic part. That must continue. But we won't limit ourselves to the merely symbolic with Dr. Callahan."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll see. My plans aren't fully formed yet, but you'll be a part of them, never fear. Stage one is all worked out, however. We execute that in a few hours."
"A few hours? It's after midnight!"
"I know, don't worry. It'll be fun. Trust me."
Lisl hugged Rafe close, a shipwreck victim clinging to a lifeboat on a sea of roiling emotions. She trusted him, but she worried about him as well. Rafe didn't seem to recognize the same limits as most other people.
Lisl shivered as she stood by Rafe's side at the telephone booth. She glanced at her watch. Five forty-five A.M. What was she doing at this hour standing in the chilly darkness outside an all-night gas station?
For one thing, she was listening to Rafe call her ex-husband. She could have waited in the car and stayed warm but that hadn't seemed right. She wanted to know exactly what Rafe was up to, wanted to hear every word he said. She was uneasy about this whole trip.
"Rafe," she said, "are you sure—?"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand and put a finger to his lips. He spoke into the receiver in an accented voice pitched a few tones higher than his own. He sounded Indian or Pakistani.
"Dr. Callahan?" he said with a grin and a wink at her. 'This is Dr. Krishna from the emergency room at County. So sorry to awaken you at this hour. Yes, I am being very new here. I just started this very evening. Thank you very much. Yes, I have a seventy-six-year-old woman here, a Mrs. Cranston, who says her daughter is a patient of yours. Yes, well, let me see… no, I am not having the daughter's name at hand. However, Mrs. Cranston has suffered a displaced fracture of her left hip. She is being in very much pain at this time. No, I am very sorry to say she is not stable. In fact, her blood pressure is falling. Yes, I have done that. Also she is being very obese and I am worried about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism." A long pause, then: "Yes, I will be doing that. And I will be telling her daughter that you are coming in immediately. She will be most pleased. Thank you. I am most looking forward to meeting you, Dr. Callahan."