I stop for a moment, rocking. I tell Anna, "Well, he stopped bothering. Benton died because he no longer believed what was ahead was better than what was past. It doesn't matter that it was another person who took his life. Benton was the one who decided." My tears have dried and I feel hollow inside, defeated and furious. Feeble light touches my face as I stare into the afterglow of fire. "Fuck you, Benton," I mutter to smoking coals. "Fuck you for giving up."
"Is that why you had sex with Jay Talley?" Anna asks. "To fuck Benton? To pay him back for leaving you, for dying?"
"If so, it wasn't conscious."
"What do you feel?"
I try to feel. "Dead. After Benton was murdered…?" I consider this. "Dead," I decide. "I felt dead. I couldn't feel anything. I think I had sex with Jay…"
"Not what you think. What you feel," she gently reminds me.
"Yes. That was the whole thing. Wanting to feel, desperate to feel something, anything," I tell her.
"Did making love with Jay help you feel something, anything?"
"I think it made me feel cheap," I reply.
"Not what you think," she reminds me again.
"I felt hunger, lust, anger, ego, freedom. Oh yes, freedom."
"Freedom from Benton's death, or perhaps from Benton? He was somewhat repressed, wasn't he? He was safe. He had a very powerful superego. Benton Wesley was a man who did things properly. What was sex like with him? Was it proper?" Anna wants to know.
"Thoughtful," I say. "Gentle and sensitive."
"Ah. Thoughtful. Well, there is something to be said for that," Anna says with a hint of irony that draws attention to what I have just revealed.
"It was never hungry enough, never purely erotic." I am more open about it. "I have to admit that many times I was thinking while we were having sex. It's bad enough to think while talking to you, Anna, but one shouldn't think while making love. There should be no thoughts, just unbearable pleasure."
"Do you like sex?"
I laugh in surprise. No one has ever asked me such a thing. "Oh yes, but it varies. I've had very good sex, good sex, okay sex, boring sex, bad sex. Sex is a strange creature. I'm not even sure what I think of sex. But I hope I've not had the premier grand cm of sex." I allude to superior Bordeaux. Sex is very much like wine, and if the truth be told, my encounters with lovers usually end up in the village section of the vineyard: low on the slope, fairly common and modestly priced_ nothing special, really. "I don't believe I've had my best sex yet, my deepest, most erotic sexual harmony with another person. I haven't, not yet, not at all." I am rambling, speaking in stops and starts as I try to figure it out and argue with myself about whether I even want to figure it out. "I don't know. Well, I guess I wonder how important it should be, how important it is."
"Considering what you do for a living, Kay, you should know how important sex is. It is power. It is life and death," Anna states. "Of course, in what you see, mainly we are talking about power that has been terribly abused. Chandonne is a good example. He gets sexual gratification from overpowering, from causing suffering, from playing God and deciding who lives and who dies and how."
"Of course."
"Power sexually excites him. It does most people," Anna says.
"The greatest aphrodisiac," I agree. "If people are honest about it."
"Diane Bray is another example. A beautiful, provocative woman who used her sex appeal to overpower, to control others. At least this is the impression I have," Anna says.
"It's the impression she gave," I reply.
"Do you think she was sexually attracted to you?" Anna asks me.
I evaluate this clinically. Uncomfortable with the idea, I hold it away from me and study it like an organ I am dissecting. "That never entered my mind," I decide. "So it probably wasn't there or I would have picked up the signals." Anna doesn't answer me. "Possibly," I equivocate.
Anna isn't buying it. "Didn't you tell me she had tried to use Marino to get to know you?" she reminds me. "That she wanted to have lunch with you, socialize, get to know you, and tried to arrange this through him?"
"That's what Marino told me," I reply.
"Because she was sexually attracted to you, possibly? That would have been the ultimate overpowering of you, wouldn't it? If she not only ruined your career, but helped herself to your body in the process and therefore appropriated every aspect of your existence? Isn't that what Chandonne and others of his type do? They must feel attraction, too. It is simply that they act it out differently from the rest of us. And we know what you did to him when he tried to act out his attraction to you. His big mistake, no? He looked at you with lust and you blinded him. At least temporarily." She pauses, her chin resting on her finger, her eyes steady on me.
I am looking directly at her now. I have that feeling again. I would almost describe it as a warning. I just can't put a name toil.
"What might you have done had Diane Bray tried to act out her sexual attraction to you, saying it was there? If she had hit on you?"Anna keeps digging.
"I have ways of deflecting unwanted advances," I reply.
"From women, too?"
"From anyone."
"Then women have made advances."
"Now and then, over the years." It is an obvious question with an obvious answer. I don't live in a cave. "Yes, I've certainly been around women who show interest I can't reciprocate," I say.
"Can't or won't?"
"Either."
"And how does it make you feel when it is a woman who desires you? Any different than if it is a man?"
"Are you trying to find out if I'm homophobic, Anna?"
"Are you?"
I consider this. I reach as deep as I can to see if I am uncomfortable with homosexuality. I have always been quick to assure Lucy that I have no problem with same-sex relationships beyond the hardships they bring. "I'm okay with it," I answer Anna. "Really and truly. It simply isn't my preference. It's not my choice."
"People choose?"
"In a sense." Of this I am certain. "And I say so because I believe people feel many attractions that aren't what they would be most comfortable with, and so they don't act on them. I can understand Lucy. I have seen her with her lovers and in a way envy their closeness, because although they have the difficulty of going against the majority, they also have the advantage of the special friendships women are capable of having with each other. It's harder for men and women to be soul mates, deep friends. I'll admit that much. But I think the significant difference between Lucy and me is I don't expect to be a man's soul mate, and men make her feel overpowered. And true intimacy can't occur without a balance of power between the individuals. So because I don't feel overpowered by men, I choose them physically." Anna says nothing. "That's probably as much as I'll ever figure it out," I add. "Not everything can be explained. Lucy and her attractions and needs can't be completely explained. Nor can mine."
"You really don't think you can be a man's soul mate? Then maybe your expectations are too low? Possible?"
"Very possible." I almost laugh. "If anyone has low expectations, I deserve to after all of the relationships I've fucked up," I add.
"Have you ever felt attracted to a woman?" Anna finally gets to this. I figured she would.
"I have found some women very compelling," I admit. "I remember getting crushes on teachers when I was growing up."