The Delilah Complex

Twenty-Six

I don’t make house calls except in very unusual circumstances. Since Nicky’s estranged wife was suffering a severe case of agoraphobia, I’d made an exception and had agreed to see them at her house in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Nicky said his wife, a painter, normally spent long periods of time alone and so he hadn’t noticed the phobia creeping up on her, neither did he know what had triggered it. But since he’d moved out to an apartment in the city, he didn’t believe she had left the house. Forty minutes away from Manhattan, she’d imprisoned herself on a twentyacre estate that had been in her family for three generations.

Once a week, my colleague Simon and I drove to an upstate New York prison to work with incarcerated prostitutes. Usually he drove us, but if I was going to help Nicky and his wife, the best time to do it was on Thursday after my stint at the prison. So I’d rented a car, done my work with Simon, and then driven to Fairfield County.

A black mailbox identified number 26 Pondview Avenue. As per Nicky’s instructions, I made a right and drove for five minutes on a road that had been cut through a forest. Tall weeping pine trees on both sides cast a dark bluegreen shadow that blocked the sun and created a sudden evening, although it was only midafternoon.

After twisting and turning for a few hundred yards, the road ended in a clearing. The house was directly ahead of me, and in every direction there were fields and more forest.

I pulled into a parking area where two other cars were parked. The silver Mercedes SUV didn’t have a speck of dirt or dust on it, but the celery-green Jag looked in need of a good wash.

Getting out, I stretched my legs and looked around. The grounds were meticulously cared for and picturesque. In the distance was a pond and beyond that were rolling hills as far as I could see.

The scene dictated quiet, but there was work being done somewhere on the property, and the drone of a mechanical monster was out of place and annoying. If birds were chirping, as I was sure they were, I couldn’t hear them, and the bucolic view was marred by the sound. The air was filled with the perfume of the pungent pine trees and scents of fall. Somewhere close by, wood was burning in a fireplace.

Living in a very crowded city for my entire life, the idea of so much space and such solitude seemed both an enviable luxury and a frightening prospect.

The uneven stone path to the front door was edged on both sides with an English cottage garden. I noticed how many of the plantings were popular with butterflies: bee balm, violets, English lavender, passionflower, columbine, asters and buddleia bushes. Except for the purple, white, and lavender buddleias, the flowers were all past bloom. I had some of them growing in the planters on my own small balcony. It had been a warm fall and there were likely still some butterflies that came to feed in this garden, but I didn’t see any as I walked by.

I rang the bell and heard a long chime sound inside. Footsteps followed and then Nicky opened the door. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, black cashmere V-neck sweater and pressed jeans. He smiled warmly, shook my hand and told me how grateful he was that I’d agreed to come all the way out there.

“Daphne is inside,” he said as he led the way through a main hall, the living room and out onto a patio that had been enclosed as a sunroom. Majolica cachepots graced the end tables. The couch and chairs were oversized, deep-cushioned and covered with a cabbage-rose chintz. The walls were pale, pale blue with white trim. The tile floors were partially covered with almost threadbare, but exquisite, Oriental carpets. Everything bespoke old money. And a lot of it.

As I entered, Daphne stood and extended her hand.

I knew better than to think that something like agoraphobia would show on someone’s face, but I didn’t expect the woman who greeted me.

She was blond, long and lean, and offered a strong, firm handshake. An elegant neck supported a heart-shaped face that was well tanned. From the Cartier watch to the tweed slacks, leather boots, lemon-yellow sweater set and the string of lustrous pearls, everything fit the image of a Junior Leaguer.

I looked into her eyes as I introduced myself. They were a pale green-gray color, intelligent but stormy and defiant. Not the eyes of a woman afraid of going out of the house. Or afraid of anything else, I thought.

And then she gave me a soft smile that defused her hardness. “It’s so nice to meet you, Dr. Snow. Nicky’s told me a lot about you. He’s very enthusiastic about this process. Would you like some tea or some coffee? Something cold?” Her voice matched her prettiness, not the defiant eyes, and sounded like honey and silk.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

She motioned for me to sit, and as I did, she did, too. “I really appreciate that you would come out here to work with us. It won’t be for long, though. I’m working on the agoraphobia with my own therapist and we both feel I’m getting close to a breakthrough.”

The chair was too big for me; I felt lost in it and missed my own office. The estranged couple sat on the couch facing me. It was a good sign that they had chosen to sit together.

“Who are you working with?” I asked, in case I needed to consult with her therapist at some point.

She hesitated. Was she apprehensive about telling me for some reason? A breeze blew in from an open window. It carried Daphne’s fragrance toward me. Lilies of the valley. Fitting. But the perfume wasn’t the only thing I smelled; suddenly, there was something else in the air, too. Clean, sharp and astringent. But I couldn’t place it.

“His name is William Klein. Here in Greenwich. I’ve gone to him on and off since I was a teenager.”

I wanted to ask her why she’d gone to a therapist when she was a teenager, but it was too soon. I filed the fact away. “How long have you and Nicky known each other?”

She looked over at him before she answered. I couldn’t see her face and so couldn’t read her expression. I asked a few more questions that didn’t matter very much except to get the session started and establish a rapport.

“Do you want to work out your problems with Nicky?”

Her answer was quick, and extremely vehement. “Yes. More than anything I have ever wanted. I’ll do anything to make our marriage work.”

“Well, not anything,” Nicky countered.

“Anything that I’m capable of doing.”

“Daphne, can you tell me about the problem the two of you are having?”

“Didn’t Nicky tell you?”

“Yes, but that was his version. I’d like to hear yours. And then I’d like you to tell me what you think the problem is, Nicky.”

“We already went through that at your office,” Nicky said impatiently.

“Yes, but I want each of you to hear what the other thinks.”

“The only thing standing in the way of our having a good relationship is Nicky’s fucking inability to leave the Scarlet Society.”

Her use of that one word seemed out of place in this genteel house. Was she being rebellious or angry?

“He’s told me three or four times that he’s quit, but he can’t stay away. I’m willing to accept that he has an addiction and work with him on it, but I can’t just shrug my shoulders and let him go there two or three nights a week, play the pussy pansy and look the other way.”

If she wanted a reaction to that expression, I wasn’t going to accommodate her. “Do you think shrugging your shoulders is a solution?”

“It’s Nicky’s solution. He wants to be married to me and have a family with me, and on the side get naked and be treated like a-”

“Let’s focus on you and what you want,” I said. “We’ll let Nicky speak for himself when it’s his turn.”

In her lap, Daphne fussed, clasping and unclasping her hands. Her nails were short, unpolished, not manicured. The skin was rough and red. Seeing me look, she smiled and held up her hands to make it easier for me to see. “Painter’s hands. The turp does damage.”

That must have been what I’d smelled.

“I’d like to see your work.”

“Are you an art lover?” she asked.

“I am, albeit an uneducated one.” That was true, but it wasn’t why I wanted to see her paintings. I was curious about what they would reveal about her.

“That’s the best kind. Someone who just looks at the work and decides if she likes it or not based on how it touches her, not based on what some asshole professor or critic tells her to think.”

Hostility now. I was curious to pursue that line, but couldn’t afford to go that far afield from Daphne and Nicky’s relationship in the first session. I turned to him. “Nicky, would you tell me if you agree with Daphne’s assessment of what’s going on between the two of you?”

He nodded. “I can’t give up what she wants me to.”

“Do you want to?”

“I can’t.”

“Are you willing to try?”

“I have.”

“Are you willing to try again?”

Before he could answer, Daphne did. “No-he’s not. He thinks it’s up to me to change. He thinks that since I was once part of that vile club, I should be understanding. But I want my husband to be faithful.”

“I am faithful, Daphne. What goes on there is not about love or even affection.”

“What is it about?” I asked him.

“Sex.”

“Sex isn’t about love?”

“It can be. But it can also just be sex. It’s a physical activity. Like playing tennis, or going swimming.”

Daphne let out a long peal of laughter that surprised me with its nasty edge. “He is so full of shit. I know what he wants and-”

“Time out,” I interrupted. “I don’t want either of you to assume what the other wants. Just answer for yourself. Daphne, tell me about the Scarlet Society. How long ago did you join?”

“Years ago. A friend of mine was a member and she told me about it.”

“How often did you go?”

“About once or twice a month. Usually with her.”

“What did you enjoy about it?”

“I don’t see why this shit is important to-”

“Because it has to do with your marriage. The society is what you say is getting in the way of you and Nicky having a good marriage. I need to find out more about that.”

She thought for a minute, and in the quiet of the room I heard the steady drone of machinery along with the beat of a hammer, hitting its mark every five to ten seconds.

“What did you ask me?”

Was she buying time or had she really forgotten what I’d asked?

“I asked you what you enjoyed about being a member of the Scarlet Society.”

“It was like painting in another artist’s hand. I do very realistic paintings. It was as if suddenly I could paint like an abstract expressionist. I wasn’t myself there. Or at least not the self I’d always known.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“It was exciting…also confusing. For the first time in my life, I was in an environment where no one knew who I was, who my parents were, what kind of life I had. We don’t talk about ourselves. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“There was a real sense of freedom. Until then, I’d only known a world where there are right ways of behaving. And wrong ways. Everything about the Scarlet Society was the wrong way of behaving. It was the best damn thing that ever happened to my art.”

I hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean-the best thing that happened to your art?”

“My father was a Supreme Court judge. My mother was a member of the Junior League and the DAR. I am one of three sisters. By the time I was twenty-five, they were both married with kids. And they’re younger than me. My painting was an indulgence that my parents thought I’d outgrow. It was fine that I studied art-as long as I did it at Radcliffe. It was all right that I painted as long as my studio was in the apartment they’d bought for me on Park Avenue. The society was something that would have freaked them out. They would never have approved.”

“And you only did what they approved of?”

“It never occurred to me to cross them. You just didn’t do that.”

“When you were very young, how did they handle it when you did something that angered them?”

Her answer came fast, delivered in a low voice that was almost a whisper. “They stopped talking to you. Completely. Depending on your crime, for hours or for days. You were treated like you were invisible. Until you apologized. Until you repented.”

“Did you feel guilty about what went on at the society?”

“No. I wasn’t me there. I didn’t even use my real first name. It was totally separate from the rest of my life.”

“Some people might find that difficult. To balance two such different lives.”

“Really?”

There was something very naive about that question, which alerted me to watch out for other instances of an ability to distance herself from reality.

“For some people it might be.”

“Well, it wasn’t for me. And it was good for my art. That was the best part.” She clasped her hands tightly together.

“How so?”

She smiled and her face was transformed from a serious, troubled visage to a child’s face, full of wonder. “It would be easier to show you.” She stood.

I wasn’t sure we should interrupt the session at that point, but her enthusiasm was important.

“Is that okay with you?” I asked Nicky.

“Hell, yes, it’s fine. I told you I wanted you to see Daphne’s work.”

I followed Daphne as she led me around the sunroom, showing me four still lifes of flowers and fruit that she said she had done in her early twenties. They were bright and bold and very well done. A combination of Matisse’s colors and Cézanne’s blocking but without either’s originality or verve. So unremarkable that I hadn’t even noticed them while we were sitting and talking.

“This was the kind of work I was doing after college. Competent. Uninspired. I couldn’t get the attention of any serious downtown gallery. A safe, old-fashioned Madison Avenue gallery took me on.” She laughed. “But that turned out to be because my parents had guaranteed the sales for each of my shows.”

“When did you find that out?”

“A few years ago. My mother died and I inherited this house. All of the paintings that I thought had sold to clients from all of my shows were still in their shipping crates in one of the rooms in the basement.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“It was such a kind thing for them to do. I felt grateful.”

“No anger?”

“I suppose it might have made me angry if I hadn’t broken out by the time I found them. I don’t need any help selling my work now. There’s a waiting list for my paintings.”

There was a tone in her voice-this wasn’t self-confidence; it was bragging. Was this her usual way of talking about her work, or was it for my benefit?

“Take a last look around, Dr. Snow.” She waited a few seconds. “Now, let me show you how I evolved as an artist.”

Daphne led the way out of the room. We walked back through the living room and foyer. In front of us was a large and curving grand staircase. Daphne walked toward and around it.

Behind the stairs was a hallway with a glass-paned ceiling. We walked through a breezeway into a large artist’s studio in what seemed to be a separate building.

The walls were painted a stark white. Large skylights flooded the room with natural light. Here, the smells of turpentine and oil paints, which I had only been slightly aware of in the sunroom, were more intense.

In the middle of the room was an easel. The painting on it was facing away from us. Daphne sauntered over to it and turned the easel around.

The canvas was more than four feet wide and at least as tall. The colors were deep and luminous. The paint was thick and heavy. I was looking into a cavelike room. The light source was beyond the edge of the canvas but it lit up the painting, warming the skin tones of the naked man who lounged on a velvet couch, sporting an erection. Strangely, he had been feminized in a way that suggested submission rather than homosexuality. It was subtly done-I certainly didn’t know how she’d done it.

I forced myself to look away from the erotic painting and back to its creator. She was smiling, her eyes shone and her lips were parted. The pleasure she experienced watching me encounter her work was palpable and sexual.

I looked back at the painting.

That the woman standing next to me, of the pearl and the horse-country set, had created the painting would have been hard to believe if not for that edge to her words and the glare in her eyes. She was a fine painter, but what gripped me and kept me staring at the painting was its very real sexuality-as provocative as the video of the society that I’d watched ten days earlier.

You see an expression on a man’s face like the one Daphne had captured only in the privacy of your own bedroom. You try to memorize it because you know it isn’t one you will see often. Many people never get to see anything exactly like it, ever.

That she had painted it said much about Daphne. It was past voyeurism to paint this portrait of this man. It was almost sacrilege to portray the inner depth to his want.

Actors making love in movies do a good job of expressing passion, and if you get caught up in the story on the screen you don’t notice the subtle false notes. They aren’t important.

But the expression that Daphne had caught in this man’s face wasn’t an act. He was gazing at a woman with such desire that it pained him, and he was willing to do anything he had to do-no matter how much it demeaned him-in order to get what he wanted. And he wanted it right then, urgently, and for a whole host of reasons both right and wrong.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

This not from Nicky, but from the artist herself. It surprised me, too. It was not arrogance. Not bragging this time, either. She had separated and become a spectator looking at a stranger’s work.

I answered carefully but honestly, watching her reaction. “Yes, it is very powerful.”

“Before I joined the society I’d never understood much about sex. It was dark and removed and secretive. I learned about need and perversion and fantasy, and even though the sex stayed secretive, I was able to at least understand it. I tried out so many ways of expressing myself sexually, and that impacted me. It fed my work and made me creative in a way I’d never been. It became part of me. Or I became part of it.”

“And you still needed to keep going there?”

“To see this kind of look on the men’s faces. Over and over.”

I wanted to know where she was still seeing this kind of look if she had stopped going to the society a year ago. Who was she painting now? Who posed for her this way? But it was not the right time to ask that yet.

I turned to Nicky to gauge his reaction to what his wife had said. He was looking at Daphne with the same naked expression as the man in the painting. Obviously, he was very attracted to his wife. Either because she was no longer available to him, or because she was talking about her sex life before she married him, or just-and this was not only the simplest but also the least possible of reasons as far as I was concerned-because he was in love with Daphne, in awe of her talents and wanted to be with her.