Hannah’s punishment: Her lover will exact a primitive revenge. He will make love to her in such a way that she is excluded, she will feel nothing but pain, he will feel intense pleasure while she will feel only pain.

  The predator’s body is a fine-tuned machine, impersonal, annihilating, weakly Hannah tries to respond, in a desperate pretense that nothing is wrong; but Y.K. laughs, gripping her wrists, pinning her down in the rumpled bed in such a way that she can’t embrace him.

  She stammers that she is sorry—in a delirium begging him to forgive her … Grunted syllables, sounds choking in her throat like spittle.

  He has spat into her mouth, he is laughing at her distress. A probing snake of a tongue, coldly curious, cruelly jamming her mouth, her throat as if to choke her.

  The pig’s-swill bed, where piteous pleas and cries go unheard amid grunts of laughter.

  The lover’s heart is the heart of the predator, hardened, shriveled. Yet, a still-beating heart, inside the fine-tuned machine that is designed to punish, not to kill but to pound into submission.

  Hannah cannot resist, Hannah has no strength to free herself. She would beg his forgiveness but he pays her no heed. His lovemaking is taut, percussive, without sentiment. Without memory: no idea who she is, not the slightest interest in knowing her. Between her legs is an open wound, bleeding. She is torn, lacerated. He has raked her insides with his nails, before entering her with his hard jabbing penis. She is being punished, but no more than she deserves. Still, she feels a kind of rousing, rising crude sensation, an angry pleasure, a threat of fire, fire that rises in a spasm of pain. Her lover is forcing Hannah to feel what he feels: She is not allowed to take refuge in oblivion, even in pain. He will force her to feel the ignominy of such pleasure, in the pig’s swill of a bed.

  Hannah’s eyeballs shift in their sockets, her spine is arching like a bow pulled ever tighter. A death comes over her brain.

  In a delirium her eyes swim onto a small patch of the ceiling by a window where shimmering light like water is reflected from the river far below. Her breath has been shredded, torn.

  No one can rescue her except the person who has brought her to this place. He is her (only) salvation.

  This drowning, annihilation. The knowledge is crushing to one who has believed herself special, cherished. Desirable in herself, her particular being.

  … hearing soft cries, choked sobs. Humiliation in weeping. Yet a rough scouring-cleansing, in weeping.

  Her lover laughs at her, such laughter is cruel and indifferent. She has been mistaken, there is little tenderness in her lover.

  Through blue-hooded eyes he observes the woman, coldly. As a fighter pilot observes the ground far below, at a distance at which all living things are in miniature, inconsequential. At such a distance there are no faces. No individuals. The most piteous cries go unheard. There is something ludicrous, laughable in such abjection. The woman cannot bear it, this distance, impersonality. The woman cannot bear annihilation. She is helpless, the predator bores into her, tendons thicken in her neck. She hears herself shout, guttural cries like gravel against her throat. She has become a sinewy snake, every sweat-slick inch of her flesh quivering, her skin a damp scaly glisten. He has yanked one of the clammy-damp pillows out of the tangle of bedclothes, there’s an air of caprice in his movements, the play of a cruel child, he lowers the pillow over her face, anguished eyes and gaping mouth, pumping hard between her fattish thighs as if there is a riddle in all this, what he might do to her if he wishes, if she does not resist, if she is complicit with what he might do to her, a woman with no name in this place alit with afternoon sun. Frantically she claws at his hands, she is suffocating, drowning, his wrists are too thick for her fingers to close about, there are coarse hairs on the backs of his hands, hairs like wires at his wrists. She is blinded by the pillow, her eyes are mashed shut. Frantic to breathe but cannot breathe. She has crossed over to her death, there is no going back. Her body begins to fail, her soul is suffocating, dazed. Her lover holds her fixed, she is impaled upon him, a great sinewy snake helpless beneath his weight, her screams are muffled beneath the pillow, she is being extinguished. Tendons stand out in her neck, the arteries swell to bursting.

  She has lost consciousness, in an instant Hannah is gone.

  Starboy

  When I died the lapping water by the cabin continued unchanged like whispering murmuring voices.

  When I died there came a sound of owls, night birds across North Fox Lake.

  When I died his arm lay heavy over me to comfort me. After the terrible struggle to breathe there was peace as he had promised.

  Promise was Mister R__ would make me into a Star.

  Promise was Mister R__ would never abandon me as others had abandoned me, I took hope from this.

  Said, I am the one who loves you, my Starboy.

  Said, Love you to pieces, Starboy.

  Because my face was young for my age and my skin smooth like a girl’s skin Mister R__ chose me at once, later he would say it was love at first sight and there is no going back from that.

  At first I was shy of the camera. At first Mister R__ laughed at me, and pulled away my hands where I was hiding myself.

  The Only One you can trust, Starboy.

  The Only One who gives a damn about you.

  It was a secret between us—“Starboy.” For Mister R__ did not want the others to know his special name for me.

  For Mister R__ did not approve of my birth name, it was an ordinary name not worthy of my “beauty.”

  Also secret that Mister R__ would be my (legal) father. For the other boys would be jealous and would talk and ruin everything.

  Promise was Mister R__ would adopt me if that was (legally) possible.

  Because there was no proof that my mother was not living, she could not give consent.

  Because my mother was gone and nobody could find her and I was a ward of the state at Saint Vincent’s since I was six years old.

  Because that night at the lake Mister R__ said the legal difficulties had been solved. The adoption papers had been filed.

  Because that was the night Mister R__ said we would never be apart again.

  Said, Love you to pieces, Starboy. Would die for you.

  It was our secret but Father McKenzie knew, Mister R__ said we would need consent from the director of the Mission.

  It was rare a boy was adopted out of the Mission. Because we were not orphans, we were only just abandoned by our parents.

  Because always it was hoped the parents would return. The mother would return. There would be that surprise one morning—Guess who’s waiting out front! Your mom.

  There was pride in this, Mister R__ had chosen me. Other boys he’d photographed but none as beautiful (he said) as Starboy.

  That night, I would remain with Mister R__ in the cabin by the lake and not return with the others.

  Woke up and my heart pounding, I heard their voices fading. Heard car doors slam, the sound of motors starting. Party’s over.

  Even then I could have escaped. Take me with you!—don’t leave me!—could have shouted after them returning to Detroit without me.

  Except I was high, and I was happy.

  Except Mister R__’s arm heavy over me, to comfort me. Starboy!—our new life will begin soon.

  When you are high you are so happy you have no fear.

  When you are high you vibrate like crystal glass that has no knowledge of how it can shatter.

  When you are high there is no time to come only what is now.

  Except I knew, when I was left with just him.

  When it was just me with him, the other guys were headed back into the city, party’s over! All gone.

  Said, Just you and me, my beautiful Starboy.

  That night our blood mingled. Mister R__ “inscribed” his right forearm, and then my right forearm, with a pearl-handled knife as delicate as a surgical instrument, and then he pressed his arm against mine, I felt my eyes shutting, a strong sensation came over me like sleep.

  Something he’d given me, to drink. So I would not be anxious.

  The trail left by the knife was about three inches long and very thin like the line made by a pen. Thin-oozing blood from the wounds that was fascinating to see.

  Said, We will be faithful to each other forever not even at death will we part.

  Said, You believe me don’t you, Starboy? Yes you do.

  I was laughing, I said sure. All the time I can remember I was laughing until then I was not.

  Kissing the wound in my arm, licking the slow-oozing blood and so I kissed the wound in his arm that he lifted to my face, licking the slow-oozing blood that had a thin salty taste for when you have no hope you take hope where it is offered as you take food, drink when it is offered.

  As you take oxygen into your lungs throughout your life not knowing what it is to breathe until that time when you are made to realize that breath can be stopped …

  Said, If I remove this gag you will breathe better if you promise not to scream and so I promised, there was such weakness in me by this time I could not scream and anyway I knew, at the lake in the woods at this time of year there was no one to hear for one hundred miles.

  Above me, aiming his camera. Tender-eyed.

  My gift to you, Starboy: Your beauty will outlive you.

  Never knew his name, or any of their (actual) names.

  He was Mister R__, he stood apart from the others being younger and more like one of us. It was known he had money.

  Even before he drove me to his house in Bloomfield, you could tell.

  Right away with me, Mister R__ was generous with tips. Fifty-dollar bills, even a hundred-dollar bill once when he was high, his skin burned and his eyes were on fire crazy for Starboy.

  Money he gave to Father McKenzie for the Mission. A folder of photographs of Starboy, for Father McKenzie.

  So Father McKenzie saw to it, Mister R__ could spend “quality time” with me.

  Driving in his car along the lake in Grosse Pointe, that was “quality time.” Stopping where there was no one to see.

  Driving to his house in Bloomfield Hills where he said we could be alone, all the McDonald’s burgers and fries I could eat, cheese and pepperoni pizzas that were my favorites, dope to smoke we’d lie in bed and watch TV on a giant screen like in a movie theater almost. Wild! His parents were in “Europe”—he said—he’d told “the help” to take the week off full pay. There was a gate ten feet high, you needed to punch in a code to open it, and such a big house you couldn’t see all of it at once—some kind of stone, and brick painted white, and tall plate-glass windows and sliding doors, Mister R__ had his own entrance you could enter by his door with his own key not needing to pass through the main part of the house that was as big as a hotel.

  In Mister R__’s part of the house there were “venetian blinds” on all the windows he kept drawn, for sunlight hurt his eyes he said.

  In the swimming pool which was sky-blue tiles beneath there was no need for swim trunks, no one would see.

  This is an Olympic-size pool, Starboy. Just for you.

  But I didn’t like the water. Chlorine-stinking water. Flailing like a drowning squirrel, water up my nose, fuck swimming.

  Mister R__ was disappointed. Wanted to take pictures of me swimming like a “sleek little water rat” but none of these turned out.

  Not such a great swimmer any longer himself (he said) but he liked to watch other people swim—boys like me.

  Boys like me?—had to laugh. Mister R__ was always telling me there’s no other boys anything like Starboy.

  In Mister R__’s part of the house there was only one way to get to the main part of the house and Mister R__ had that blocked. Teasing me, he knew I’d like to “roam and wander”—but that was forbidden.

  Smoking dope on Mister R__’s bed. Little shot glasses drinking “tequila.” Laughing telling me he couldn’t wait for his parents to die so he’d inherit and would sell the property (worth millions of dollars—he said), purchase a place all glass walls in the DR (“Dominican Republic,” which was some island somewhere near Cuba—he said) where we would live together “openly”—after the adoption.

  Laughing when he said this. Curling his long white toes, pulling at his mustache.

  (Hair on Mister R__’s head was prickly and thin like he had some kind of sickness that causes bald spots but the mustache was real except for being dyed, up close you could see how it was growing out on his upper lip.)

  When Mister R__ was high sometimes he was sleepy-nice and sometimes not so nice. A sign was, he’d be swallowing hard and fast like something was stuck in his throat which meant he was getting excited and might turn mean so I knew not to provoke him except once when he was talking about the “beautiful Blacks” in the DR he intended to photograph I said shit man, by then I’m gonna be a Star, I’ll be in Hollywood making movies not on some fucking two-bit island and that did it—Mister R__ got nasty-mad and made me regret it.

  Not right away. That wasn’t his way. But when I crashed and was asleep, then.

  It’s okay, it was “discipline.” That was lacking in my life—“discipline.” Father McKenzie had said so, too.

  Except wanting to murder them. Filthy pigs grunting and rutting, liked to slash their throats, saw off their filthy perve heads and toss them in the garbage.

  But it’s okay. All the good things they did for me, I had to admit.

  For instance, never had a dog and always wanted one and Mister R__ promised me definitely, one day maybe in the DR, any breed you wish, how’d you like that, Starboy?

  The guys would ask me what kind of a fuck is Mister R__ and I told them, No kind of a fuck. Best kind.

  Nine times out of ten couldn’t get it up, like some old skinned hot dog. Limp, cold. And he wasn’t old, either—not like the other fags.

  Half the time you’re high your mind is floating and gone. Fuck you care about any cocksucker.

  Okay it did matter, that was my weakness: pride. To know I was Mister R__’s favorite he’d taken like a thousand pictures of.

  Not knowing that he’d had other “favorites” before me at the Mission. And some bad things happened to them, maybe.

  (Like Michel.) (Nobody wanted to talk about.)

  A boy without a family. Desperate troubled kids and most of them illiterate or what’s it called—dis-lex-ic.

  Father Mac did not know any of this—he would claim. He did not, he did not, he did not know. As God is his witness, he did not know.

  Began to happen more often, Father Mac would lose his balance and fall, we’d have to help him up. Breath smelling like whiskey. Gripping our arms, hoisting himself upright.

  He’d entered the seminary when he was just a little older than we were, he’d say. Shaking his head, remembering.

  Fighting Irish, he said. That’s what I am.

  You don’t give up the fight, Father Mac said wiping his red-splotched face. But sometimes, the fight is taken from you.

  Before Mister R__, there was Father Mac. But then I was too old for him, after my eleventh birthday.

  The other, older guys belonged to Friends of the Mission. Mister R__ did not belong. Or maybe he did belong. But Mister R__ came to the motel parties on Woodward.

  The older guys were different from Mister R__ who kept apart from them. Like, Mister R__ had dignity.

  Like, sad-sack losers, fat old fag cocksuckers you could see by the look on their faces like somebody took away their dentures, sad-sack mouths kind of collapsed in, still they’d be all smiling and making jokes, dumbass jokes, Christ! Father McKenzie told us, Be kind, my lads. You will be rewarded but be kind.

  Friends of Saint Vincent Children’s Mission on Woodward Avenue. Called themselves Mister Teddy, Mister Valentine, Mister Moose, Mister Mamba.

  There was even a “doctor”—Dr. Dolittle.

  Laughed at them all, enough to make you puke but when we were high it was just kind of funny. Just laugh and laugh.

  Why Mister R__ kept apart. Wore dark glasses so you couldn’t see his eyes. Mustache on his upper lip covered much of his mouth.

  There was Hawkeye, also not one of the Friends. But some kind of friend of Mister R__, you could see there was some connection. And Father McKenzie, he knew them all.

  Hawkeye provided the supplies—uppers, downers, meth, quaaludes, coke, hash, pot. Hawkeye handled the money.

  There were no parties at the Mission. This was a place of God to be kept sacred (Father McKenzie said). Parties were at motels on Woodward south of Eight Mile.

  It was understood, the old Daddy-Friends gave donations to the Mission but money never changed hands at the parties. Why they called him Hawkeye, he kept a sharp eye on that, he would not allow that and you did not want to cross Hawkeye or any guy who (it was said) reported to Hawkeye, like a spy.

  There was Mikey, who’d been my friend, I thought. But later Mikey showed up, now he had a different name. He didn’t live at Saint Vincent’s, he’d moved away. Some way he worked for Hawkeye, we weren’t sure what it was.

  Sometimes there would come a look on Hawkeye’s face like he’d like to slash the old fags’ throats. But there was a better use for them, Hawkeye knew.

  You did not want to cross Hawkeye. You did not want to wrangle a “tip” unless you were sure that Hawkeye would never know.

  If you were “obstreperous”—Father McKenzie’s word, we thought was a swear word in Latin—you would regret it.

  • • •

  When I died it was not an easy death. He’d pressed a cloth soaked in hot stinging flames to make me sleep for how long, I did not know. Yet as the wire tightened around my neck I was wakened in terror fingers clutching at the wire trying to stop it tightening. Thrashing, kicking, unable to cry out, not knowing what it was that was happening in the night in the dark not knowing where I was, not knowing who this was straddling my naked body grunting and weeping hot tears into my face.

  And then afterward he lay beside me panting and sobbing in relief, in joy that the struggle had ended. For the end of all struggle is mercy and mercy is the purest love.