The Missing Link 01: Steve

"What happened after you broke down?" I asked. Being forced back into her story obviously bothered her. It had been sweet to just walk together. A cloud settled on her brow.

"I, ehm," she started. "I woke up in a hospital. The doctors told me I was on the brink of total exhaustion, partly caused by the pills and cocaine I took. And the fuck marathons, of course, but they never said that. They weren't entirely clueless, though. An hour later the police visited me; FBI, I think. They had all kinds of questions. Apart from Roger's family and a few others I had no names for them. The herds of men in my beds had always been anonymous. It was hard to even remember a face without mixing it up with others'. Cocks might be better reference, but I doubt they have data banks for that?"

She grinned sarcastically, but her eyes were cold. "After they left I fell into a deep sleep and woke up the next morning. There was a woman at my bedside. She was a psychiatrist. Without meaning to, I gave her the whole story. It must have been due to my weakness, but it ended up being the best thing I could have done. When I flew back here, three days later, I had an appointment with Suzan Atkins. You know her."

I did. I'd been told she was an old friend, though. She often dined with us. "You never told me she was your therapist?"

"She wasn't," Liza said. "She is." I stared past the lawn to a glimmering pool. Two little boys were busy launching a toy sailboat.

"You have many secrets, Liza," I said. "Too many." I heard her sigh. Her hand once again touched mine. And again I refused to acknowledge it.

"In the next few months I took therapy," she went on. "I avoided most people except family. Curiously, Roger never called me or came looking for contact. In the second semester of the next year I started attending college again. Now you know why I struggled with Business Management; I had fallen behind. You may wonder why I decided not to change colleges, but I did not want to leave my mother alone. Thanks to all my therapy, avoiding Roger proved to be quite easy. Especially after he apologized. You see, he is just this little gay boy, crushed by his awful bully of a father. He was really sweet when he handed me an annulment of our marriage and quite a sum of money. I hesitated about the money. Then I decided I would use it as a fake trust to finance my studies. I also used part of it to pay off mom's house."

"Must have been quite a sum," I said. "I guess Roger was afraid you might blackmail him and betray his homosexuality to his father after all." I wondered if I cared.

"Yes," she said, chasing a bee with her hand. "There was that, of course. But there was guilt too. As I said, Roger isn't as tough as he wants us all to believe. He's been bullied all his life, partly growing up without a mother. I think he really felt guilty for letting his father do to me what he did."

"Bullshit," I said, looking away. She shrugged. "Anyway," she went on. "They left me alone. And then I met you and it all became moot." I snorted.

"Clueless me," I said. "Stupid Stevie. It must have been easy to keep the moonstruck idiot in the dark about your slutty past. You must have had a ball with Roger Rabbit, joking behind my back." I sounded bitter because I was. Her sharp intake of breath was followed by both her hands grabbing me. "No!" she cried out. "Never! Oh please, Steve, never say that. Don't destroy all we have. You were the best thing ever happening to me. You are! My love is real. I love you, Steven Stevenson." God, did I hate being called that.

I shook myself free and rose to walk away a few steps. I had to be away. She sat with her face in her hands, but I couldn't see or hear her cry.

"I became friends with the creep, goddammit!" I said. "We partied, did trips, we even studied with him at our flat and you never told me! I invited him last week and you were happy and relaxed around him, all the time keeping this secret from me. Who do you think I am? Who are you?"

She looked up. I saw now that she had indeed cried. "It was you I was in love with, Steve. I still am. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else does."

Another "bullshit" lay on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it. I guess mostly because I felt it wasn't bullshit. I walked away a bit farther before turning again, watching her.

"What about the cufflink?" I asked. "I heard a million words and we still haven't arrived at the retched thing."

There was silence. It lengthened until it seemed to get a life of its own, filling up with the buzzing of insects and the twitter of birds. There were excited cries of the boys at the lake. But at the silent center of it all was her face, closed like a clam. What was it about that damned cufflink? How could it be more difficult than what she already told me? Roger was in the past, or was he? Had he been visiting her? In the bedroom? Was that it? Had he never been gay after all? I exploded: "My God, Liza! I KNOW that the fucking cufflink is Roger's! His initials were on it. So was he in your bedroom while I was gone? Did you lie about him being gay? Did you fuck him for old times' sakes? Are you still with him? Do you want to leave me for him? Talk to me, Liza!"

Her head started to slowly shake left and right. "It wasn't Roger's," she then said, almost whispering while a new paleness spread to prove she could be whiter still.

I slumped down on the bench right across from hers. So it had been true; there had been a cufflink and she knew whose it was. She'd lied and denied and lied a bit more, just to keep it a secret. She'd even used Eric to beat my brow. "You lied to me after all," I groaned. "You told me I was sick, that I had dreamt it all, that I was a delirious drunkard. You did everything to keep me from knowing what you knew all the time. You'd rather drive me away from Eric than tell me the truth. Who are you, Liza? How could you? Who are you?"

She broke down crying. Not just crying -- bawling. I rose, feeling my knees tremble. Then I walked out of the park. I found my car and drove. I just drove.

***

I'm afraid I drank again. At a bar I met a few people who thought they'd found the same solution to similar problems. As the night progressed, we learned to understand each other better and better. In the end the barman thought it wise to keep my car keys; I didn't want to disappoint him. The cab driver had a problem understanding my directions, which wasn't so strange -- I hardly knew where I was.

Next morning the phone rang too early, ten o'clock, but twelve o'clock would have been early too, as would have been three in the afternoon. When I got the delusive bastard, it went to voice mail. "Please," a voice with a crack in it said. "Please, please, Steven, call me. I'm alone, I'm sad, I'm sorry." It was Liza, of course. The one voice I didn't want to hear. The one voice I ached to hear.

Maybe I was still drunk or maybe I am indeed a sentimental dope, but I called her. We were both silent for a while. She probably was as stunned as I was by my actually calling.

"I'm so scared," she said at last.

"I'm still drunk," I answered.

Maybe our physical distance caused it, or our disembodied voices. Or maybe it was the emotional exhaustion that gave me the feeling that we really talked for the first time since the damn cufflink bit my foot. The truth was not so much in what we said, it was in the sound of our voices.

I told her I admired her courage. "Yes," she said. "Not bad for a coward." I heard her giggle, knowing that she didn't want to, but couldn't suppress it. Humor is such a sneaky intruder, always looking to be misunderstood.

"The more courageous since I think the truly bad part still has to come," I added. This only provoked silence. "You still there?" I asked. "Yes," she said at the end of a mighty sigh.

"Can we talk?" she asked. "Talk some more?"

"But we do talk now, don't we?" She sighed again.

"I love to hear your voice," she said. "But I have to see your face too."

"Why?" I asked. "To see if I'm lying?" Damn, I thought, who needs smart asses?

"I deserve that, I guess," she said. It started a new silence.

"How much will it hurt me this time, Liza?" I asked at last. The easy intimacy had gone; we were back in Iceland.

"You said you wanted the truth, Steve. So yes, it will hurt. It will hurt us both." Her voice trembled.

"Swing, two o'clock," I said and she knew what I meant.

***

The swing was at the tiny park behind our house. Eric had worn it out until he decided that he was "too old for that." He'd made his friends there, two of whom he was still very close with. They kept meeting at the park, but never to use the swing again. And of course we weren't supposed to chaperone him anymore.

Liza and I used to go there, nevertheless -- sometimes alone, sometimes together. It was a nice and often quiet spot to do some reading; or to just talk, like now. One bench was our favorite, as it had some privacy behind an overgrown hedge of sweet-smelling dog roses.

She was there already when I arrived, flipping through a magazine. Her legs were bare under shorts and a tank top; her feet were in flip-flops. The air was sweet; spring was kissing summer.

I watched her from behind the roses. She looked good. When relaxed, her face had this touch of innocence, even in her mid-thirties. But of course that impression didn't last. Memories of what she told me yesterday crept into my head, darkening my view. Seeing her like this and knowing what she had been capable of doing made for a very sick cocktail -- especially since it had an erotic undertone.

I guess I wasn't in the mood for undertones.

"Hi, Liza. Such a lovely day." She looked up, producing a nervous smile. "Hi, Steve," she said and made room for me on the bench, patting the seat. After I sat down, she touched my arm. "Yes," she agreed. "It's lovely." We sat and watched the first roses. Memories crowded my mind, colliding with today's reality. Maybe choosing this place had been a sad mistake, poisoning whatever sweet memories it still possessed.

"Do you think it will stay lovely, Liza?" I asked. "The day, I mean?" She sighed, lifting her shoulders. I always loved the fragility of her collarbones. The silence stretched; there were children's voices in the distance.

"So you said the cufflink wasn't Roger's," I began, just to remind her where we'd left off. She started answering twice, but there were no words.

"It was his father's," she then said. She almost whispered the words, her voice trembling. She never looked at me. I exploded.

"HIS GODDAMN FUCKING FATHER??" I cried, jumping to my feet. "The one who raped you? Who used you as his whore? The one who pimped you out to his buddies? Who drugged you? The one who left you with child and made you abort it? The one who bought and sold you?"

She never answered. I was cloaked in a cloud of blood red anger, unable to form words, let alone string them into sentences. I walked away and returned and walked away again. Then I returned and forced her to look at me by grabbing her chin. Her eyes went wide with fear.

"You still see him?" I asked, only marginally calmer. "You still fuck him? You still let yourself be whored out by him??" She shook her head in denial, but kept her silence.

"Talk to me, Liza!" I said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "Talk to me."

She wrung her hands. I'd never seen people actually do that, but she did. Her eyes were swimming in tears -- tears again. "Please, Steve, sit down," she then said, but I didn't. She sighed.

"I should have told you the first time he called again," she said. "It was in February, you were at that seminar in Denver. The doorbell sounded and as I was expecting our neighbor Anne to visit, I opened the door without checking." The memory made her eyebrows frown.

"He still was... massive." She hesitated before going on. "And he still had the square, ruddy face -- jowls, bushy eyebrows, bristling moustache, big nose with flaring nostrils, fat wet lips and teeth, strong yellow teeth." She shivered, looking away. Her fingers were plucking at her skirt. "But he smiled," she went on, looking almost surprised. "He said he'd been in the neighborhood and suddenly wondered how I might be doing. It was all bullshit, of course, but he covered it with the sick honey voice I remembered. And while he talked, he forced his bulk inside, filling the doorframe -- making me retire into the hall. I should have run or whatever; screamed maybe, but I was mesmerized. I was nineteen again, and completely helpless. I stood and looked, no doubt giving him all the wrong signals."

"You let him fuck you again," I said, sickened by the resignation in my voice. Her head flew up, her eyes wide. "No!" she cried out. "No, I didn't. I love you, Steve. How could I betray you?"

"But he did fuck you."

"He raped me," she said through a veil of despair, her voice shrill, her hands grabbing mine. "He tore the clothes off my body, threw me... threw me face down over the sofa's side and, and rammed his cock up my... ass, ass hole... no preparation, nothing... he hurt me, hurt me..."

Her voice by then had the high, mewling sound of a cat. I pushed her away and stood over her. Her hands went up to cover her eyes. "Rape," I said. "He raped you and of course you screamed for help. You ran to the neighbors, afterwards. You called the police. You called me... But no, you didn't really, did you, Liza? You didn't do anything like that, did you?"

She cried. I shook with anger. The day had surely lost its loveliness. I wanted to run, but my legs refused to obey. Time went on, nothing happened. Then she looked up, her hands baring her tear stained face -- fucking tears.

"I just lay there, hurting, Steve, my face buried in the sofa's leather. His breathing calmed; the bulk of his body lifted off mine; his softened cock slid out of my burning hole. I heard a zipper close. His voice was hoarse when he said I was still the great fuck he remembered. He also said he knew about your new business and how vulnerable it still must be. Then he said he knew where Eric went to school. He slapped my ass hard, marking me with a purple bruise. 'Be a good girl,' he said. 'Wait for my call.' And he left."

I stared at her ruined face. I remembered the bruise and her excuse for it. "So you waited for his call," I said. "Being a good girl for Daddy; never telling me anything." My voice sounded powerless.

"I didn't think I had a choice," she said. "He threatened you, he threatened Eric. I was scared shitless."

I sat down beside her, defeated. "Yes, you didn't think," I said. Her eyes were dark, framed in weeping mascara. "I did think, Steve," she said with a halting voice. "I did, too -- a lot. But please understand. He threatened everything I love -- you, little Eric... What else could I have done? It scared me to death."

Her words pulled the rug from under the last remnants of my sanity, plunging me into despair.

"Fuck you, Liza!" I said, not even raising my voice. The coldness startled her. "Do you even hear what you're saying? You whored yourself out to protect us? Do you think so little of me that you don't even consider I might have protected you and my child -- that I at least should have had the chance? Don't you see that you killed my self respect by not even considering that?" My rising anger increased the volume of my voice until I screamed. "You can't have been as silly as that, bitch -- not then, not now. Don't you see how ridiculous your words are? Fucking the bastard and his degenerate buddies to protect the ones you love?"

She watched me with her mouth open. "It... ," she started. "It was all I could think of. Please, you must believe me. I was so scared, Steve. They would have killed you, us. You, you don't know him, don't know him like I do. He is a monster."

I rose. My legs were like rubber. "Yes, Liza," I said. "I am certain you know him better, much better. But if he's a monster, he's your monster, all yours." Her hands reached out, but I turned away from them. "There will be new divorce papers," I said. "I won't let you keep Eric; not like this. Good bye, Liza."

And I left.

***

It was a silly bluff, of course. No way could my attorney have made it stick. "I can write up any fairytale you'd like," he said. "Including evil mother-witches and bloodthirsty trolls, but you don't have a shred of evidence, do you? All you know is what she told you and she won't testify surely. She would risk losing custody if she did." He shrugged. "Stay with the papers we already got. Make her sign them and find a way to live with it."

She didn't sign, of course, not even our first, generous version. Part of me was infuriated by it -- the angry part. Another part was just paralyzed -- the part of the silly lover who still didn't want a divorce at all. Divorce? What would it get me? Freedom? The very word made me chuckle. I'd never be free. Who's free when he still loves the bitch that tears the heart from his chest? All I would be was the bitter long distance father of a torn-up boy. A child that might not even be mine, really. Last February, she said? I have only her word for that, don't I?

The next few weeks I lived alone in every sense of the word. I worked a lot, as it was the only way to avoid the demons that waited at home. Home? Sorry, I mean the apartment I lived in.

I missed holding, smelling, kissing Liza. I missed reading my son from his children's Odyssee. I could only hope he missed it too -- just like I hoped he missed beating me in a video game or going to the park to practice ball. But how could I miss them -- a woman who obeys another man and a child that might not be mine either?

Liza called and e-mailed me, mostly to offer me time with Eric. I never responded. For two murky months I was one sorry son of a bitch. No one felt sorrier for me than I did.

At last the self-disgust boiled over.

"I have no intention to die, Steve."

I studied the man's face, puzzled by his statement. He was the private detective I had hired. His name was Phil Manson. In the past half hour he had reported about Robert Terence David Frederick Archibald Chesterton, CEO and owner of a small empire of corporations all over the world. He was worth a sloppy six billion dollars and heir to the noble Moreland family estate in Essex, England -- Robert Count Moreland was the name he used, to be precise.

Phil also gave me a glimpse of the more private life of the Count, starting with a flamboyant and well-published youth at locations like Monaco, Rome and Los Angeles. There, to the delight of many a hard working paparazzo, he frequented posh clubs, was seen with half naked starlets and crashed expensive cars. When the old Count died, he changed, though. He took over the family business, proving that the energies of his playboy lifestyle could be easily transferred to the world of global business. As if by turning a switch the limelight went off, plunging the once racy private life of Count Moreland into impenetrable darkness. Of course there were rumors of ongoing orgies and the liberal spending of money in wealthy places. But what the world's eye saw from then on was just a serious and extremely successful businessman. Sure, he entertained, and dazzlingly so, but there were no more scandals, no more playboy silliness.

I studied some of the pictures that accompanied the report. Moreland had been an athletic youth in his playboy-years; tall, dark and handsome, not unlike his later son. But there was one rather large portrait of more recent times, reminding me of how Liza had described him. Sure, he was big and fleshy, wearing his gray hair in a buzz. He had a ruddy skin, but he was nowhere the primitive gnome she'd suggested. He was meticulously groomed. The eyes looked intelligent and there was even a rather paradoxical softness to his smile. A great actor? A wolf in sheep's clothes? Or perhaps a misrepresentation by my wife -- maybe on purpose, who knows? It's easier to believe that brutes rape women, isn't it? Not well-groomed gentlemen.