Chapter One

 

Hello diary. Sorry to have neglected you so long. I used to spend many evenings pouring out my thoughts on paper, back when I was married to Raul. (That shit!) His philandering drove me to confess my worst fears and most evil wishes to the one listener who would neither tattle nor judge. You were my friend in need, forgotten on better days.

I didn't talk to you about Howard, not even while he lay dying. Money is a real comfort in times of grief, and dear Howard did leave me quite a pile. Of course, there were plenty of lovers to console me. Money attracts them the way shit draws flies.

Through all those years of cheerful prodigality and debauchery, and the inevitable ennui that followed, I never had a word to say to you.

Now I find myself in this empty cell with nothing to distract me from my dread. The view from the window is tedious, nothing but a mowed field all the way to the razor wire. There are no bars on the window, but it doesn't open, and the Plexiglas is at least an inch thick. You can bounce a chair off of it. I've tried. The walls are concrete block, painted a drab shade of institutional green that makes me itch to hire a decorator. Some former tenant has scratched an editorial on the wall. "Welcome to Hell."

There is no closet to hide in. It doesn't matter. I haven't a thing to wear- literally. There is only a desk, (It's built in, I can't use it to barricade the door.) a chair, (No knob to wedge it under, just the key way of that fucking, double lock.) a stainless steel toilet, (No seat) a mattress on an iron cot, (No pillow or sheets) and bare, little me. There is a porthole in the door. Anyone who walks by can look in and see what I am up to. Overhead, a video camera assures my lack of privacy. From time to time, the intercom beside it crackles with static, the preamble to one way communications I don't want to hear.

The notebook and pen were waiting when they brought us in from the exercise yard this morning. I suppose writing is part of the therapy. I will have to assume that anything I say can and will be used against me. Everything else seems to be. (Will that last sentence earn me swats? Probably, they don't need an excuse anyway.) The pen is a potential weapon, but I can't see myself battling my way to the main gate with it. I would have one chance to poke someone. I don't want to think about what they would do to me if I tried.

I did fend them off with the chair one night, like a lion tamer. But these lions always come in pairs. They have training and guile, and they are the ones with the whips. They found my rebellion amusing. I was quickly overcome, cuffed and collared, and led away on a leash. Digging in my heels meant choking and inviting the lash. They had a tearful apology from me by morning. The chair is still here though; perhaps they left it here to tempt me.

 

It began, as so many bad things do, with a dare.

Muffy and I were having Bloody Marys at the club one morning, something we had been doing more and more often lately. Boredom breeds vice, they say. So far, we hadn't crossed that fuzzy, gray line into problem drinking. Muffy's vices were food and thrills, mine were men and nicotine.

Not that Muffy was fat. Back in the fifties, when the physical ideal was Marilyn Monroe or Betty Page, she would have been considered "a dish". By way of contrast, there was me, Regina Snow, ex model. Since retiring, I had adopted a less anorexic regimen. An extra fifteen pounds had taken me from gaunt to merely slender, but at five ten, I looked willowy beside poor Muffy.

Muffy's real name was Margeret Greedley. (Of the Boston Greedleys) When she wasn't stuffing herself with éclairs, she was finding creative ways to risk her life. She had tried sky diving, hot air ballooning, and white water rafting. I was never sure if she was suicidal, merely lonely, or just plain bored. At least all that activity kept her from turning into a real pudge.

I was not so different, I suppose. Men were always a high-risk endeavor, more so now than ever. I had never really been able to get past Raul. I loved the gentle force he took me with, his habit of pinning my hands to the bed with his own while he drove deep enough to hurt. Howard had been too awestruck by his own good fortune. He never had any delusions that I loved him for himself, but he was utterly devoted to me anyway. I met his sexual demands cheerfully and completely, but felt nothing in return. He was gentle and considerate in bed. I wanted a Cossack.

Muffy seemed to have her own problems with the male species. I had never known her to pursue a relationship beyond the second date. She had plenty of friends, but I had known her since college, and I couldn't say that she had ever been in love.

 

"You really ought to quit, you know."

I looked at my cigarette as though I had just become aware of holding it. "Of course I know. I have quit, several times. I tried everything from support groups to the patch. Nothing works."

Confronting me with my own shortcomings is the surest way to get my back up. I watched the half-eaten sweet roll she was gesturing with and thought to myself that she was hardly a model of self-control herself. "I'll quit," I sniffed, "if you lose twenty pounds."

She didn't snap back with the answer I deserved. Instead, she looked thoughtful and nodded. "I have been considering something along that line. Have you heard of a place called The Last Resort?"

"I suppose that I am about to." I rested my chin in my hand and stared around the room, preparing myself for a long discourse on her latest enthusiasm. The room was filled with women just like us- spoiled, bored, and over groomed, discreetly eyeing the waiters while we pretended to attend to our tablemates' vapid conversations.

"I found some interesting Spam waiting in my E-mail last night, advertising their website. It's a spa of some kind, but with a twist. They specialize in changing bad habits. They were rather vague about their methods, but they guarantee results. They promise a whole new attitude within three months. We could sign up together. If you give up the cigarettes, I'll lose some weight."

"This isn't another one of those support group things, is it? I've had my fill of all that self absorption and hugging. It's done to death. We all walk out filled with positive affirmations and firm resolutions that last about a week. I couldn't stomach anymore of that psychobabble crap."

Muffy shook her head, suddenly serious. Life was always a soap opera for her, full of crises and high drama, but now she seemed even more intent than usual. "This is different, I think, more like boot camp and less like summer camp. They take complete control and enforce strict discipline. You shape up or else."

I should have asked about the "or else", of course. We both should have. We had been overprotected children in an over permissive culture all our lives. No threat was dire enough for us to take seriously. That's what we paid lawyers for. We both assumed that we could just leave if the situation proved unpleasant, probably with a full refund.

In my case, however, there was something else at work. Perhaps her phrase "strict discipline" triggered it. Maybe it was because my parents never made me toe the mark. I was a beautiful child who grew into a beautiful woman, and all along the way I had lived easily and well. Everyone thinks that pretty girls have everything, but other girls always resented me, and boys could never treat me like a real person. I never related to anyone in a genuine way. I could get away with anything, but I needed to know that someone cared enough to smack me when I was out of line.

Whatever the cause, I have always nurtured secret fantasies. Strange things turn me on. I get hot watching military recruits standing at attention, or political prisoners marching under guard. Even as a child, I was bored by happy ever afters. It was the dark side of the fairy tale that fascinated me-the cruel stepmother, the captured princess, Hansel and Gretal in the cage.

I suppose Raul represented my own version of Prince Charming. I was looking for a man who would love me enough to put his hand on the nape of my neck and steer me in the right direction. I wanted to be kept like a dog, spanked when I deserved it, and treated like a sex slave in the bedroom. Raul got the bedroom part all right, but the rest of the time he was as much of a child as I was. I was more realistic by the time I met Howard, but the fantasy never died.