Control Ch. 01

There's an Amish farm with a light in one window. Why are they wasting the oil? Are they fucking, an Amish couple adoring each other's bodies, pleasuring each other in ways they can't have learned from the world, doing something besides a kiss and a caress and some rutting under the covers? Are Amish women satisfied, knowing nothing of vibrators? Do they frig, or is it too sinful?

Maybe her husband is whipping her with a belt, thinks Geoffrey. Maybe he's punishing her because his dinner was late. Maybe he whups her for awhile, telling her she has to be quiet so as not to bother his mother, then turns her over and fucks her to show her how to please her man, the head of the family even as Jesus is the head of the church.

"Shit," says Geoffrey. He smiles. A ghastly smile. Probably it's just that someone is sick. Probably Geoffrey is sick.

[This is the way my world ends]

The countryside is something from Norman Rockwell or Winslow Homer, if either had had room for dungeons and poor bound figures, women and children and fat men tied and burnt for the pleasure of the mob. Hurt and hurt again, they suck, returning ecstasy for torment, good little girls and boys trying to be obedient, pathetic beings unable to disobey. What would Satan's Web site look like if Homer had painted it? What if the geeky husband in a Rockwell painting could be heard planning to be kinky and diddle his wife all night long? Out of sight of the artist he hands her a pair of gold-plated nipple clamps. "Keep smiling," he says. "I'm going to start tightening them as soon as the kids are in bed." Did Ozzie spank Harriett? And spank her and spank her?

"Shit," says Geoffrey again. He parks his car in some desolate spot and walks.

"Well what did I expect?" he asks out loud. "It's not like Bill didn't warn me." Then, under his breath, "Damn."

The air is sweet with dew. Pure. Nothing evil about it. Geoffrey keeps inhaling it until he gets dizzy, but it doesn't wash away the thoughts: No wonder she left me. She turned into someone else.

A hound barks from the end of a long driveway and runs down to the road. It bays at Geoffrey until he is well beyond the house, but Geoffrey merely stares back at it, daring it to challenge him up close. The hound wags its tail the entire time. Be careful doggy, thinks Geoffrey. You can't tell so easily with people what they're all about. The half moon slides behind a cloud and the road becomes almost invisible.

What happened, he thinks. Shit, I know what happened. He happened.

[This is the way her world ends]

Geoffrey kicks a rock.

There's a mystery to it. There's something beyond my understanding. How did it go down? How did she change? It was so quick.

Geoffrey kicks the rock again, down the road, like a soccer ball, kicking and walking, kicking and walking, finding a new rock when the old one goes into the ditch. The half moon re-emerges and he begins talking to it out loud.

"So that's what makes her happy, now. Can it be? She couldn't really like it, could she? What do you think? I sure as hell don't know! Shit. Could anyone like it so extreme? Could anyone stand it? Maybe he's forcing her. Damn. Maybe that's it! Shit!"

When Geoffrey says "shit" this time it sounds like he means "aha!" He stops walking and looks into a field. The man in the moon looks down on him benevolently, so he stares back up for awhile. He gets a vision of a cruel-faced Ozzie Nelson cracking his belt on Harriett's ass, smacking her over and over, her face buried in a pillow soaked from her sobbing, drowning her screams in goose feathers. Afterwards she looks up at him and smiles, her mouth and eyes wet with tears. Her whole face is wet, but happy. Oh thank you honey. Thank you. Thank you. Geoffrey looks down at the road and says "shit" again, softly this time, as though in mourning.

[This is the way our world ends Not with a bang but a whimper]

I disagree, thinks Geoffrey. It ends with a bang and a whimper. After a few minutes he begins walking back toward his car. It's time to go home.

End of Chapter One.