Vapor

Chapter Thirteen

The days passed. Damon kept asking why I wasn’t releasing him, and I said it was because our little conversation wasn’t over yet. He got into the habit of frequently throwing things at me: his toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, the roll of toilet paper, the stopper from the bath, his shoes, his watch, his plastic cup to brush his teeth. I wanted to believe he was not really trying to hurt me, but I couldn’t, particularly when the heavy metal stopper hit me in the cheekbone, cutting me slightly. I then would shout at him some French words that a French friend of mine said to her cat when it was being bad: Méchant! (bad); Arrêtes! (stop); Fais gaffe! (watch out).

During many hours a day I would sit on my reclining chair outside his cage and watch him and talk to him, and, on the whole, get what I began to call “my Damon tan.” I enjoyed these sessions; they charged me up, like a battery. I kept a bucket of ice cubes by my chair, from which I practiced my aim when he annoyed me. My spirits were very high in those days. Damon was my human pet, my hobby, my adviser, my therapist. I asked his advice about all sorts of things. We’d have deep, serious conversations about issues, such as: me. Mostly me. For example, he’d tell me how I should deal with such and such a person. And then he would throw his razor at me with great force. When I asked him why he did that, he said it was because it was normal.

Every weekday we watched The Bold and the Beautiful, and Damon cried. I never understood why. The plot of the show concerned itself with the romantic problems of a family of successful fashion designers, and how one character, the long-lost legless brother, Stem, was making everyone’s life better.

“Why is that so sad?” I would ask impatiently. “Why are you crying? I think it’s kind of nice that Stem told Brooke that Ridge really loves her. It means they’ll get back together. So why are you crying, god dammit! Tell me!”

“Please be quiet,” he’d say, putting his hands over his ears.

As an experiment, I made him watch The Young and the Restless one day, which ran an hour before the other soap. And he didn’t cry. It was therefore something about The Bold and the Beautiful that devastated him. I scrutinized his face, while he watched, and tried to detect a pattern to his crying, but found none.

Occasionally, I would be interviewed at night on live TV, about the movie I was doing, and then go home. After throwing things at me when I entered, Damon would tell me he had seen my interview and found it great.

When the interview wasn’t live, we would watch it together, our feet propped up on things, just like friends, the only difference being the few bars between us. We would drink mint, peach, raspberry, and cocoa liqueurs, and eat unpasteurized cheeses, and chocolate truffles, and Damon would laugh at my jokes to the interviewer or scowl at a stupid question of theirs.

As the evening would wear on, Damon would try to control me from the cage, saying, “Okay, you’ve had enough truffles now. If you don’t moderate yourself, I’ll have to confiscate the box.”

I would then stare at him and stuff three truffles in my mouth and chew them noisily, making sure he saw lots of glistening brown paste rolling around my tongue and over my teeth.

“Oh, Anna,” he’d say, covering his eyes. “What are you doing to yourself?”

I responded once by throwing a truffle at him, which left a circle of cocoa powder on his cheek before it dropped to the floor. Damon carefully picked up the truffle and placed it on the edge of his bathtub. “I am confiscating this truffle until you control yourself.”

I had twenty more in the box, and I threw another one at him, and he repeated the procedure until he had six or seven truffles lined up on the edge of his bathtub. Then I got bored, and low on truffles, and stopped.

Damon wanted to listen to music. So I got him a tape deck, which I placed outside his cage, out of his reach, so that he couldn’t fabricate an escape device out of it. I played him some of my tapes, including the one of Nathaniel playing the cello, without, however, telling him that Nathaniel was my boyfriend, or that I knew him in any way, or that I even had a boyfriend. Nathaniel’s cello compositions made a strong impression on Damon. He seemed mesmerized, and didn’t want me to play anything else. My questions to him, of course, yielded no results, and this happened in the following, rather typical, manner:

“You really like this music?” I asked.

“No, the word like doesn’t apply here,” he said, stretched out on his bed. “I feel a communion with it. It reminds me of certain emotions I’ve felt, and of other emotions that were not mine but were present in the atmosphere around me during a time in my life.”

I threw an ice cube at him. “What were these emotions?” I asked, staring at him intently through two bars.

“The same old thing, Anna. The same old thing I can’t tell you about.”

“That thing that makes you cry during The Bold and the Beautiful?”

“Yes. It all goes back to the same old thing.”

“Will you ever tell me what that thing is?”

He was thoughtful for a long time, staring at the ceiling, his arms clasped behind his head. “I don’t know. I’m not having much success imagining a time when I would feel compelled to tell you.”

I threw another ice cube at him, which he then brushed to the floor, so it wouldn’t wet his mattress, I suppose. “To tell me or to tell anyone?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Anyone, perhaps. Perhaps you more than some others,” he said, glancing at me.

“If I tortured you, would you tell me?”

He chuckled. “It’s hard to know in advance. What kind of torture?”

“Is there any kind that would be more likely to work?” I said, walking circles around his cage.

“I don’t know right off. Maybe if I were inclined to think about it, I might come up with one that might strike me as being more likely to work. But I’m not inclined to think about it.”

“Is there any other circumstance under which you could foresee telling me about that thing?”

“I’m not inclined to think about that either right now. Could you please put the music back on.”

I did, hoping I might find out more from his facial expression than from his words. But I didn’t, as it turned out, even though he kept listening to the tape over and over, that day and the next.

Three days later, not having seen Nathaniel since the acquisition of my new man-pet a week before, I agreed to have dinner with him at a restaurant. I informed Damon of this.

“You have a boyfriend?”

“Of course, what did you think?”

“Nothing. It’s good. You just never mentioned him.”

“That’s true. And I also never mentioned that he’s the one who composed and played those cello pieces you like so much. I mean: that you feel such communion with.”

“Really? That’s funny,” he said, without smiling.

During dinner, Nathaniel said to me, “Something weird is going on that you’re not telling me.”

“No.”

“Yes. Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

“Like what?”

“You tell me. Have you met somebody? Are you interested in somebody else? Or is it Damon? Have you seen him again and you’re not telling me?”

“Yes. We’re cohabiting.”

“Just tell me the truth. It’s fine if that’s what it is. I just want to know. Please.”

“That’s not what it is. But I think you’re taking our relationship a bit too seriously. Maybe we should take it easy for a while.”

“No! You mean sexually? Sexually, that’s fine, but not as friends, not as people. I don’t want us to take it easy as people.”

I was touched. “Okay, but then ease off a bit, okay?”

“Sure. Are you living with someone?”

“No. Are you kidding?”

“Just answer me.”

“I did.”

“Prove it then. I want to see your apartment.”

“Why?”

“You haven’t let me see it in a while.”

“No.”

“If you don’t, I’ll assume you’re living with Damon, which is fine, I just want to know the truth.”

“First of all, why would you assume such a thing? And second of all, I don’t care what you assume.”

“You should. If you tell me, or show me, that you’re living with Damon, it’s fine. I’ll be sad and jealous, but I’ll accept it. But if you leave me in a state of assumption, I will react to it; I’ll notify your parents and the police. I’ll tell them you’re living with him.”

“Do you think this endears you to me?”

“I don’t care!” he shouted, slapping the table with his palm. “I just want to know the truth!” He was on the verge of tears, and added: “If you do show me your apartment, though, you must do it right now, so that you don’t have time to hide anything.”

I thought about this for a minute, and then said “Okay.” I didn’t want to risk having Nathaniel talk to my parents or the police, filling their heads with this absurd idea that I was living with Damon. And anyway, I had locked everything sensitive before leaving: Damon’s room and the new closet with my control panel.

I took Nathaniel to my apartment, and he noticed the new closet, and the open sofa bed.

“Who’s been sleeping here?” he asked.

“Me.”

“Why?”

“Because the heater in my bedroom is broken, and I can’t have someone come in to fix it because it’s too messy in there.”

He marched toward my bedroom door and tried to open it. “Why is it locked?”

“Because it’s so messy. I don’t want anybody to see it. It’s embarrassing.”

“This is too weird. I want to see your bedroom.”

“No.”

“What kind of relationship do we have if I can’t see your bedroom?”

“A not very important one.”

“Why are you being cruel?”

“I’m just being factual. I don’t want to lead you on.”

“You could be living with someone in your bedroom.”

“Yes, I could be. And I lock him in when I leave my apartment.”

He laughed. The tension seemed to have eased, but suddenly his body stiffened. “Where’s your TV?”

“It’s in my messy bedroom.”

“Why?”

“Because the person I’m living with, in my bedroom, enjoys watching TV.”

We laughed, and I added: “Particularly that soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.”

At this remark, his eyes opened unnaturally wide.

As I stared at him staring at me, it occurred to me that I should write a letter to those producers of The Bold and the Beautiful, asking them if they had noticed a phenomenon involving men and their show, and if so, could they explain it to me.

Finally, he turned away, mumbling to himself, “This doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“But maybe it does mean something,” I said. “And if it does, Nathaniel, what does it mean? What is the meaning of The Bold and the Beautiful?”

“None, as far as I know.”

“Then why does it disturb certain people, like you?”

“And who?”

The conversation went nowhere. I had sex with him, to put his mind completely at ease. It was an interesting sensation to have sex while someone was in a cage nearby.

Nathaniel wanted to see me again, a couple of days later, as was normal for a lover, but I had very little desire to see him. I kept making excuses. He got paranoid and suspicious again. So I saw him.

“You look unhappy,” said Damon, when I came home after being with Nathaniel. With the remote control to the tape deck, he turned off the cello music, which he had rarely stopped listening to since I had introduced him to it.

I plopped down in the lounge chair. “I want to break up with my boyfriend, your precious cellist.”

“Why?”

“Because he threatened to tell my parents, and the police, that I’m living with you. Can you imagine?”

“What gall the man has.”

“I know.”

“So you told him?”

“No. I mean, not seriously. He’s paranoid.”

I wasn’t exactly telling Damon the truth. Nathaniel had not, this time, threatened to tell my parents anything. I wanted to break up with him because for some mysterious reason — a reason I didn’t want to delve into too deeply — the thought of him having sex with me didn’t appeal to me anymore. Not that it ever had. But now, I didn’t even feel neutral or indifferent about it. I was opposed, turned off; I had an actual aversion to it, and the strange thing was that it didn’t have much to do with Nathaniel.

Damon was wrong. I was not unhappy. I felt cheerful and liberated at the thought of breaking up with Nathaniel, light and playful. I imagine it was the same sort of feeling people have after taking a laxative that worked. I didn’t know if I would have the courage to do it, though. I felt sorry for him. But I soon forgot about it as I spoke of other topics with my pet.

Two days later, Chriskate Turschicraw called me, saying she had something important to tell me and asking if we could meet somewhere. We met in a coffee shop. She was disguised in a black wig and sunglasses. She informed me that she had not stopped loving Nathaniel, that she had simply put on a show, hoping to perk his interest. She told me frankly that she was distressed that I was going out with him and that she needed to tell me about something that happened in her past with Nathaniel.

“A few years ago,” she began, “when I was just starting out as a model, and not very successful, I fell in love with Nathaniel. He told me he found me wonderful, but that there was just one thing preventing him from being outright in love with me. He said there was something about me that turned him off, and that thing was that my nose was slightly too long. One millimeter too long, to be precise. Nobody had ever told me I had a long nose, so I was surprised. I was very sad and asked him if he was sure that meant he couldn’t love me. He said yes. I thought that was the end of that dream. But then he said there was a possible solution: I could get plastic surgery. I agreed to do it. He gave me the name of a good surgeon, offered to pay half the price of the surgery, and gave me precise written instructions to give to the surgeon as to how my nose should look. I had it done and went back to see Nathaniel once it had healed. I was very nervous because I wasn’t sure the result would be exactly what he had wanted. But it was. He said the surgeon had done a very good job and that the length of my nose was exquisite. I assumed this meant he would be able to love me, but I was wrong.”

“What happened?” I asked, suddenly realizing I had been gaping for a while now.

“Well, I sensed a certain reticence on his part, so I asked him about it, and he said there was one other thing that he found problematic and was trying to overcome. It was that my eyes were slightly droopy; the skin above my eyes covered my eyelids a tiny bit. He said that plastic surgery could easily take care of that. He once again gave me carefully written instructions to give to the surgeon. He assured me that after that there would be no more obstacles to his love for me. So I had it done.”

“And?”

“And he loved the result. He said it was beautiful. I asked him if he thought he could love me now. He seemed uneasy. He said, ‘Well, there is one other thing, but I hesitate to ask.’

“ ‘What is it?’ I asked him.

“ ‘If your top lip could be a tiny bit fuller.’ ”

Chriskate’s story was very distressing to me. I couldn’t contain myself any longer: “And didn’t you object, at any point, to this charade?”

“I did. Right then I got a bit angry and said, ‘Why are you toying with me this way? Is this your last request?’

“ ‘Yes,’ he said.

“ ‘And you’ll love me?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Okay, I’ll do it, if you assure me that it’s a token of love, and not a whim.’

“ ‘It’s not a whim,’ he said.

“So I had it done, but he still seemed unable to love me.”

“And did he again ask you to alter yourself?” I asked.

“No. He was going to give up trying to love me. I’m the one who finally asked him to feel free to tell me if there was any other alteration I could make that might have the slightest chance of arousing his feelings. After begging him to tell me, he did. It was some other triviality involving my nose. I had it done. Needless to say, it happened again and again. Each time he told me there was only one more alteration before he could love me. In short, I ended up going through fifteen operations that altered my face ever so slightly, but crucially. The alterations were mind-boggling in their subtlety. And each one made me more successful as a model. Please don’t tell anybody about this. It’s not something I’m proud of. It was great for my career, but it never did win me Nathaniel’s love.”

I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.

“After I became the most highly paid model in the world, I started suspecting that my appearance had nothing to do with whether Nathaniel could love me. I knew there had to be something else, which apparently you have. That’s what I so desperately wanted to find out when I met you.”

I could not imagine what that thing might be.

Needless to say, Chriskate’s story made it extremely easy for me to break up with Nathaniel, which I did that same afternoon, by phone, after expressing my horror to him over what he had done. He tried in vain to apologize and explain his vile act.

“I was unable to love anybody,” he said. “I desperately wanted to love someone, and I was convinced it had to do with their appearance, but now I know I was wrong. I know I was sick to think that way. And anyway, it wasn’t so horrible what I did to her, was it? She got to become very successful and she can now get any man she wants.”

“Except you.”

“That’s true. But please forgive me, I’m not like that anymore. I realize it was terrible to prolong her agony. I’m sorry, but I was in agony too. I had never been in love. That was agony. I thought I was incapable of being in love with anyone. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

“There is.”

“Please don’t break up with me over this. I’m a totally different person now. If you break up with me over this, I don’t know what I’ll do to myself.”

“Don’t worry, I was going to break up with you anyway, but I was holding off out of guilt. I don’t have the guilt now. That’s the only difference.”

“I still want us to be friends, at least.”

“I don’t see how it’s possible now that I know what you did to her.”

“Please.”

“If you need anything from me, any favors, please ask. After all, I perhaps owe you my life.”

“I ask for your friendship.”

“Well, that’s asking a lot.”

“Well, I gave you a lot.”

“That’s true. Okay, I can try to be friends with you sometimes. But you must know I’ll feel differently about you from now on.”

“Okay, I’ll accept that for now. But I hope you’ll change your mind. I hope you’ll see I’m a different person. I’m who you thought I was before she told you all that.”

The filming of my big-budget movie began. Luckily, most of it was to be filmed in New York.

When I came home each day, I’d tell Damon all about the filming, and he seemed to relish every detail. He couldn’t get enough of them, down to the hair color, shoe color, and smallest gestures of anyone on the set, be it the director or the gofer. He also wanted to know my feelings: every nuance of my happiness, all my surges of excitement, little racings of my heart, swellings of pride, or blushings, or whatever. We would talk about these things for hours, until either he or I would bring up the importance of being rested for the next day of filming, and then I would go to bed.

The day came when I had to leave my pet alone for two weeks, to go on location for a small section of the movie. I bought a small fridge, which I placed right outside Damon’s cage, within his reach. I bought him lots of cans of tuna, of spaghetti, of fruits, of vegetables, mini cartons of long-lasting milk, cereal, crackers, olive oil. Unlike him, I didn’t have the heartlessness to leave my victim without chocolate, so I left him nine bars of dark Lindt chocolate, and boxes of cookies, and hard candies.

I wanted to buy him a few clothes, since he only had what he was wearing, but I had no success in finding men’s clothes made of translucent white silk. So instead, I bought him a roll of silk fabric with which he could sew himself some clothes if he needed them. I left him a sewing kit that didn’t have more than one needle, and whose pair of scissors was tiny, very blunt, and round-tipped, to prevent any possibility of escape.

“I don’t know how to make clothes,” he said.

“Neither do I, but it can’t be that complicated. I’m sure you can figure it out if you feel like it.”

Before I left, I set up a video camera hidden from Damon’s sight by the one-way mirror. I programmed the camera to start filming him every day at 1:30, while he watched his soap. By placing another mirror at the other end of the room, I was able to get a shot of both his face and the TV screen at the same time.

The last thing I did before leaving was give Damon a custom-made telephone that had no keypad, no numbers that could be pressed. I, and only I, could call him, because I, and only I, had his phone number. There was, of course, the risk that a stranger might dial his number by accident. Damon could then ask for help and be rescued, and I might get arrested. But he had kidnapped me first, so how much trouble would I really be in?

The risk had to be taken anyway. I left Damon in the cage, with his phone, and I went on my trip.

I called him every day. It was fun, having a pet to call. One time he didn’t answer, which worried me, but I tried to convince myself he was doing it for just that reason. A day later he did answer. The cello music was playing in the background, as almost always.

“Why didn’t you answer the phone yesterday?” I asked.

“Oh, did you call? I was out shopping.”

For a second I was alarmed, but then said, “For what?”

“More silk. I’ve made myself three costumes already, and I was getting bored again.”

“I’m glad you’re keeping yourself busy and you haven’t lost your sense of humor. How are the bold and the beautiful ones doing?”

“Fine,” he said, at once sullen.

At some point I would have to figure out what it was all about. I called him once at 1:45 P.M., in the middle of his soapie, to see what he would do. He picked up and immediately hung up, without saying hello.

Another time I called him at 2:00 P.M., right after his soapie.

“Hello?” he said, sounding all stuffed up and nasal.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I asked, feigning surprise and innocence.

He sighed. “What is it?”

“Are you crying? Why are you crying?”

“I just watched The Bold and the Beautiful.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And nothing.”

“Why do you find it sad?” I asked, hoping this was a turn of phrase I hadn’t used before and that he might respond to it. I couldn’t help but feel that all I needed was to discover the magic words, the magic phrasing of the sentence, and I’d get an answer.

But this phrasing was not the right one, for he just sighed and was silent until I changed the subject.

We chatted about my work. He was supportive, saying he was sure I was doing a great job, the best they had ever seen.

And my work was going well. No matter how good an actor I had become, I think I was even better knowing I had Damon locked up in my apartment. It endowed me with an air of power and calm that I might not have had otherwise.

Finally, the trip came to an end, and I returned to my apartment. Before going into Damon’s room, I looked at him through the one-way mirror. He was lying on the floor of his cage, on his side, wearing a long white gown, and watching TV. As he watched, he was raising and lowering his top leg like a ballet dancer, causing his gown to bunch up around his thighs. After a few reps of this, he lowered his leg and rested it on the nearby toilet seat.

I entered the room only after having donned my fencing armor in case he threw things at me. He had so much to throw, and he did throw, immediately: cans, the sewing scissors, more cans. I took everything away. I counted the cans; the empty ones and their lids, as well as the full ones, to make sure he was rid of all of them — lids could be used for cutting me.

“So, you made yourself a dress,” I said, as I took off my fencing gear.

“Yes,” he said, raising his arms and modeling it for me. “It’s A-shaped. It flares out at the bottom to provide me with freedom of movement. Do you like it?”

I shrugged and made a neutral sound. It was indeed A-shaped and flared out at the bottom. It was also coarsely cut and sewn. It was sleeveless, horrid, and looked like a costume from an abusive insane asylum. I’m proud to say it was better than anything I could have made.

When I handed him dinner, he stabbed my hand with the sewing needle I had forgotten to take away. This brought back memories of the ice shards he used to shoot at me. He now held the needle between his thumb and forefinger, ready to stab me with it again.

“Give it back,” I said, and he threw his dinner at me.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“I’m in the cage. And I’ve been in here for two weeks, alone. It is appropriate for me to do this.”

I sat on the easy chair and ate my dinner on a tray. We talked about how my filming had gone. Two hours later, when he was getting hungry, I gave him a sandwich in exchange for the needle.

I didn’t leave the apartment for three solid days, to compensate for having been away so long. At night, I carried my TV back into my living room, to secretly watch the tapes of Damon watching The Bold and the Beautiful during my absence. I got the results I had hoped for. Not knowing he was being filmed, he was less inhibited than he had been in my presence, and I was finally able to detect a pattern to his crying.

It had to do with the legless character, Stem. When Stem would come on the scene, Damon would cry a little more. This also happened when Stem left the scene. I had a feeling Damon’s grief over The Bold and the Beautiful had to do with his past, with that terrible thing he sometimes alluded to having done.

To catch him off-guard and witness a genuine reaction, I confronted him with an extravagant guess, out of the blue: “You cut off Stem’s legs, didn’t you?”

He stiffened. He wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

So I did some research. I called an acquaintance of mine, Jeremy Acidophilus, who did menial labor at Screen, a magazine on movies and celebrities. He had just gotten his job back after having lost if for a few months when he had asked for a raise.

He was able to find out for me the name of the agency that represented Stem, or Philip Jessen, as was his real name.

I called it and left a message saying I needed to speak to Philip Jessen urgently about someone he knew, whose name may or may not be Damon Wetly.

I kept the phone at my side at all times that day and evening. The next day, while I was chatting with Damon, I got the call from Philip Jessen. Without asking me any questions about my reason for calling, he asked if I could visit him in person. I said I would fly there on the next plane out.

When I told Damon I was leaving again, he got mad and asked for how long. I said it wouldn’t be long.

I arrived in L.A. that evening and went straight to Philip’s house in Beverly Hills. A housekeeper opened the door and led me to a den where Philip was waiting in his wheelchair. I sat down, was served tea, and got straight to the point.

“Who is Damon?”

“My brother.”

I let this sink in, and asked, “Why does he cry when he watches you on TV?”

“Does he?”

“Yes. He does.”

“It’s a long story. Who are you?” he asked, and then quickly added, “I mean, I know who you are, from your films, but you only recently came on the scene. Who are you in relation to my brother? How do you know him?”

“Damon kidnapped me.”

“Why?”

“To thank me for having saved his life in the subway.” I explained that Damon had decided to make me happy by making my dream of becoming an actor come true. Then I abruptly asked, “Did he cut off your legs?”

“No, why?”

“He often referred to something terrible he did in his past. And I thought it might have to do with you.”

“No, he didn’t cut off my legs, although he probably feels he did.”

I begged him to tell me what happened. I claimed it would help me cope better with my kidnapping. After looking thoughtful for a while, he agreed. But first, he asked:

“Do you know where he is now?”

“I think in New York.”

“Are you in touch with him?”

“Sort of.”

“How? Letters, phone, meetings?”

“Meetings, I guess. He drives up to me in the street and asks me if I’m happy.”

“Oh, how unpleasant. I had no idea he was so imbalanced. Next time he does that, you can tell him his brother wants to resume contact. That might help him regain some of his sanity. Did you try to have him arrested?”

“Yes. But they didn’t find him.”

Philip then told me the story of his past with Damon, which turned out to be stranger than the most melodramatic plot lines of any soap opera, including The Bold and the Beautiful.

Philip said that before he was an actor, and before he became legless, he was a plastic surgeon. His story revolved around a third man, a former friend of his, who was also a plastic surgeon, named Ben. Ben was apparently extremely talented and ambitious, as well as extremely unethical and unhinged. One day he performed plastic surgery on a young girl without the authorization of her parents. Later, he actually kidnapped two children and worked on them as well, without the authorization of their parents, nor their own. The police searched for the criminal. Philip found out by chance that it was Ben. Ben begged Philip not to report him, and Philip agreed, but Philip’s brother, Damon, who hated Ben, sent an anonymous letter to the authorities revealing the culprit, and Ben was arrested and released on bail while awaiting trial.

At that point in the story, Philip paused, and softly said, “And that’s when Ben came …”

He was then silent for a long time, and I said, “He came where?”

“That’s where the story really begins. Or ends. Could you please stop drinking your tea while I tell you this. It’s very hard for me.”

I put down my cup.

“Ben came to my house one evening while I was having dinner with my daughter and Damon, who happened to have stopped by earlier. Ben had a gun. He handcuffed us, gagged us, and drove us to his house. He took us to the basement, which was divided into two rooms. He left Damon in the first room, tied down, and brought my daughter and me into the second room. Two heavy chairs were bolted to the floor, facing each other, ten feet apart. He sat my daughter and me down, and tied us up. Soldered to the arm of my chair was a gun, aimed at my daughter in the opposite chair. Ben tied my hand around the gun’s handle. He ungagged my daughter, but not me. She screamed and cried.

“Ben then talked to me, said absurdities like, ‘You had to turn me in, didn’t you. Making someone beautiful; there could not be a more atrocious crime. I should have left these girls to their happy lives of ugly ducklings. Your daughter is far from ugly, poor girl. She doesn’t know what she’s missing, right? Don’t worry, I won’t give your daughter a life of ugliness, at least not for long. I’m not saying I won’t disfigure her. No, I’m not saying that at all. I will, in fact, disfigure your daughter in such a way that even after years of plastic surgery she could never regain her present appearance. But that’s irrelevant, because immediately after I disfigure her, I will continue to torture her in extremely painful ways; ways that will also be, after, let’s say, about half an hour, fatal. Now, I’ll tell you what your choices are. I have generously given you the option of putting an end to the torture at any time, by killing your daughter with that gun. Granted, one way or the other, she’ll end up dead. But still, I’d say, it’s not bad.”

Philip paused. My breathing seemed loud to me in the silent room. So I stopped breathing.

“And he did what he said,” Philip went on, staring at some point behind me, squinting a little as he spoke. “He first disfigured her, cutting off pieces of her face. She was screaming. He burned her in various places, punched her, cut off some of her fingers, and then an ear, and then her tongue, her lips. I didn’t shoot her. He continued torturing her, bringing her closer to death, until she had stopped crying, and all you could hear was her pained breathing, her wheezing. And finally the sound of her breathing stopped. Ben felt her pulse and said, ‘Okay, that’s done. I won’t reproach you for not having spared her the slow death. Everyone makes their own choices. Although, I should have known that about you and spared myself the trouble of soldering the gun to the chair.’ ”

Philip was quiet for a moment, staring at me intently before going on: “Then Ben dragged me into the room where Damon was, and ungagged me. I was in shock and didn’t speak. Ben said, ‘You may think I’m kidding, but I don’t think that what happened in there was quite enough of a punishment. I will also cut off your legs. This may seem a bit anticlimactic, but I don’t care; I think it’s a good idea, especially in the long run, when the pain of your daughter’s death fades a little and you try to start your life over again. The missing legs will be a good, vivid reminder that it’s not so easy to turn over a new leaf.’ Damon was thrashing, screaming through his gag. He wanted to tell Philip that he was the one who sent the letter, not me. But he never got a chance. And I certainly wasn’t about to correct the misunderstanding. I didn’t need to lose my brother now too. As Damon kept thrashing, Philip looked at him and said, ‘You don’t need to see this,’ and he whacked him in the head with his gun, knocking him out. The blow sent Damon into a coma that he came out of only a month later.

“Ben then put me under anesthesia, and I woke up in my house, sitting in a wheelchair, by the phone, my legs missing. Damon was slumped in an easy chair next to me, unconscious. Tagged to his clothing was a note: ‘Don’t know why he hasn’t come to, yet, the wimp.’

“I sat there, in a trance, remembering what had happened to my daughter and unable to move. Finally I called an ambulance for Damon. We were rushed to the hospital. They informed me that I was fine, that the amputation had been done very well. Damon was kept at the hospital, on life support.

“The police tried to find Ben, but he had disappeared and to this day has never been caught. When Damon came out of his coma a month later, he wanted to find Ben, of course. He said his purpose in life would now be to find Ben and kill him. I told him I didn’t want him to. Through much persuasion, I made him promise me to never look for Ben, never go near him. I didn’t want to worry about Damon’s safety. He then said that he would devote his life to helping me. I refused this offer as well, saying I preferred we didn’t see each other, because the sight of him would constantly bring back the tragedy. I told him I would contact him when the memory of what had happened had become less vivid and painful. He left, very upset. It’s been eight years. That was the last time we spoke.”

“And there was never any trace of Ben?”

“No. I’ve been afraid, over the years, that Ben would find out that Damon was the one who turned him in, and that he would again seek revenge. The police and hospital personnel, at the time, agreed not to reveal to the press that Damon had written the letter. But three years ago, a journalist wrote a big piece on me for Soap Opera magazine. He was fascinated with my story, and delved deeply into the case. He spoke to doctors, nurses, and the police. Somehow, he found out that Damon had written the letter, and he mentioned it in the piece. I was worried that Ben would see it and go after Damon. I actually wrote to Damon then, telling him to be careful. He sent me back a postcard saying he was fine, and has continued doing so once a month, ever since.”

Philip and I finished talking in the early hours of the morning. I was to sleep in the guest room, but ended up unable to sleep much at all and wishing I could take a plane back to New York immediately. I was scheduled to leave later in the morning, right after breakfast.

My departure had to be slightly postponed, however, because while we were having breakfast, Philip said, “There’s something I hesitate to bring up.”

“Yes?”

“I really hesitate to bring it up, because you’ll think it’s very strange of me.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s a favor I’m tempted to ask of you, but if I do ask it, you must absolutely refuse if it’s at all distasteful to you.”

I started feeling tense. “Okay. What is it?”

“I don’t know if I should ask it. It’s embarrassing.”

I wasn’t sure he should ask it either, whatever it was. “Does it have anything to do with Damon or anything we talked about?”

“No.”

I grew more worried. I picked up my teacup and mumbled into it, “Well, it’s up to you if you want to ask it.”

“Okay, I will ask it, but only if you promise not to let it destroy your opinion of me.”

Beads of sweat formed on my forehead.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you look so uncomfortable,” he said. “Forget I said anything. It’s not important.”

“Oh, okay.”

“But just so you don’t imagine terribly perverted things, all I was going to ask is if you wouldn’t mind throwing me off a diving board. That was all. There are so few women I meet who give me the urge to be thrown by them. But it doesn’t matter. Did you inquire about the flights back to New York?”

I felt I had to be polite. Meekly and hesitantly, I said, “I wouldn’t mind throwing you off a diving board.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But why? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. And I prefer not to think about it too deeply. It depresses me.”

He got on the phone, and I heard him say, “I met a woman I want to be thrown by. She said she’ll do it. Do you mind if we come over?”

We took a cab to the house of a friend of his, who had a pool. The friend turned out to be Philip’s very good-looking costar, Ron Moss, who played Ridge on The Bold and the Beautiful.

It was a strange sensation to lift half a man. Philip was of course lighter than a whole man. I carried him in my arms and climbed onto the diving board. I felt doubly nervous with Ridge looking on.

I asked Philip, “Do you want to be thrown in head first or—” I was going to say “feet first,” but stopped myself in time. I couldn’t very well say “stump first.” Nor could I say, “genitals first,” even though that’s where he ended. And I couldn’t get myself to say “butt first” either. So I left my question unfinished, which turned out to be fine.

He said he wanted me to choose which end of him I would throw in first, that that was part of the pleasure for him.

So I decided to throw him butt first, which I thought would minimize the damage, in case of a bad throw.

As he fell in, he seemed to relish the moment; he opened his arms wide, as if doing an inverted swan dive.

He then swam toward the edge. Ridge pulled him out of the water and placed him back in his wheelchair.

I flew home having made a decision.