Frozen Butterflies Read online

  “I might have found something interesting on Andrew,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “An email I received. The guy says he knows Andrew. Says his full name’s Andrew Pratt. He disappeared over a year ago and nobody knows where he is.”

  “Do you believe this?”

  “Yeah. I think so. We should meet him. Maybe tomorrow if you’re free.”

  We didn’t speak for the rest of the ride, and we soon arrived at the movie theater. There was a group of men wearing tuxedos at the entrance, so I wondered whether we were dressed properly for the occasion.

  “You certainly are, my dear. And I don’t care. I’m a just a blogger,” Nick said, offering me his arm. “Shall we?”

  By then, somehow my memory of the night before had temporary left me. All I could see was him, and I still liked what I saw.

  The theater was packed, and the film was interesting. A love story between an orchestra director and a violinist. The violinist was fragile and insecure; the director, self-confident and extroverted. The two fell in love, but then started fighting and hurting each other, and then separated. When the movie ended, I was left with a sense of emptiness, but I liked it. I liked it because it was brutal and honest, not like those happily-ever-after, nonsense Hollywood movies I hated. I also loved the photography. In fact, that is what I liked the most—the drawings rather than the words that accompanied it. They were powerful. More than the dialogues.

  “Are you hungry? Can I take you somewhere for dinner?” Nick asked, as I was rewinding some of those photographs in my mind.

  “Yes, that’d be good.”

  “I know where we could go.”

  “I trust you,” I said, and sought his eyes but missed them. The word trust wasn’t a conscious choice. I just said it. But then I realized that I did trust him and his feelings for me. I trusted the man who had just cheated on me.

  We drove to the restaurant, but there was no table available.

  “The wait is an hour.”

  “That’s long.”

  “Yes,” he said, and suggested we drive to a liquor store, buy some red wine, and arrange a meal at his place. I nodded that it was fine.

  He came out of the store with a bottle of Merlot and two glasses. I laughed.

  “Why the glasses?”

  “I was thirsty, and I thought you might be too.”

  “How are we going to open the bottle?” I asked.

  He reached over my knees and pulled a corkscrew from the glove compartment.

  “So you’re used to celebrating in your car?”

  “Celebrating?” he smiled again. “Yeah, in a way . . . sometimes.”

  As I watched him pour the wine into my glass, I thought about him and my attraction to him. What did I know about him really? Was my attraction just an idea? I felt hopeless and lost, and I sought relief in the wine.

  “Shouldn’t we toast first?” he asked.

  “A toast? To what?”

  “To lies.”

  “Lies?”

  “Yes, to lies.”

  I didn’t understand that. What lies was he talking about? Andrew’s novel? The journal? Andrew’s lies? His own? Mine?

  When we arrived at Nick’s place I was drunk, and he noticed.

  “I could take advantage of you, but I don’t want to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I care about you.”

  “Really? That wasn’t clear.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’d say having sex with someone after having sex with me is a weird way of showing that you care about me.”

  “That didn’t mean anything. It was just sex.”

  “And so what was it with me?”

  He looked at me, and I just wanted to kiss him.

  “I’m sorry,” he then said. “I told you I’m not into this type of thing. I can’t commit.”

  “And so you fuck around to make sure women understand that you don’t intend to commit?”

  “Susan, you’re drunk. I’ll take you home. We can work tomorrow.”

  I didn’t say a word and started undressing. He sat on the sofa and watched me take off the dress, my tights, my underwear. Then I went closer to him, and when he was about to touch me, I said, “No, don’t. Just watch.”

  He smiled, pulled me closer to him, and tried to kiss me, but I turned away from him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I know you want it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I moved farther away and started putting my clothes back on.

  “What are you doing? Why are you doing this to me?”

  “How does that feel?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond.

  “How does it feel?” I insisted.

  He grabbed my wrist, and pulled me closer to him, over him, then under him, and said, “I get it.”

  “Do you?”

  I had not exactly planned this. I thought I could control his desire, and maybe I could. I just couldn’t control mine. Not strong enough to resist it.

  “I do,” he said, and kissed me. “I want you to have pleasure.”

  “I want that.”

  “Then just let me do it,” he continued to move on top of me and I felt warmer and warmer. That intense physical pleasure becoming metaphysical, something you couldn’t touch or describe. Overwhelming. It took over. He did.

  “You know, pleasure comes with pain. Do you want some?”

  “I want . . . yes, I want it.”

  “How is it?”

  I wanted to scream, but he covered my mouth with his hand. I felt. Pleasure. And pain. The pain lasted a fraction of second, but it was intense, and I kept it with me for much longer than that. At times, I can still feel it.

  I fell on the sofa, drained and even more disoriented. He followed me a few seconds later, or perhaps less. It was intense, and it was fast. But I could feel him throbbing inside of me until the day after, like a sin, like a knife, like something that had given me pleasure and pain, like something that cut my skin and the veins under it to free me of them. Like something, and in fact like the only thing that could give me the peace I was looking for. Like me. Like love, like a search for myself, like something that was expanding me, taking me out of my body, and making me float somewhere high up. And so I left; I left my lighter body close to his tired one. The ceiling fan almost seemed tired too, moving slowly above our heads and breaking the moonlight into silver beams that looked like a futuristic painting on the white walls. I saw all of this, except I wasn’t there. Not anymore. I thought eternity must feel like this. How would I return into the world after this? So much silence, and it lasted, but not enough. He was staring at the fan and did not move for a while. Yes, I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but I didn’t. After a while, he turned and looked at me. His eyes seemed confused.

  “Should we work?” he asked. “I can bring the journal to bed. We have July 25 to review. Will you read?”

  If space is what he needed to understand what was happening between us, he should have it. Any attempt to make sense of what was going on between us would most certainly fail anyhow, and whatever answers I could get to my questions would not change my feelings for him. Yes, I still liked what I saw.

  I read.

  July 25

  * * *

  I’ve not written for a while. I was working on my novel. Worked so hard, in fact, I’m almost done. I need to write the ending, but I don’t know what to write. A happy ending wouldn’t be truthful to the story, although I so want one. But I don’t even know how the story of us should end and whether it actually ended. I felt you still loved me when you decided to leave. I know you always will. And even if we were eye to eye, one in front of the other, and you said you didn’t love me, I wouldn’t believe you. Ed called me the other day and apologized. He realized it was a stupid idea to try to fix me up with someone like that. I’m smarter than that, I said, and he laug
hed. I’ve returned to the place where I had sex with that prostitute and had sex with her at least every other day for the past two weeks. And so, yes, now I’m paying for sex, but I definitely believe the worst experience I had was the arranged date I described in Lies. I thought that story was perfect for the novel. A story of lies within another. Of course I know she lies to me when she pretends to like what I do to her. I lie to myself when I pretend that she’s actually enjoying it, that paying for sex is just something I do for fun, that I could have a normal relationship with a woman if I only wanted to. And my friends lie to me when they say that, after all, it’s OK to seek a stable relationship with a prostitute, which is actually what I have been trying to do. So many lies we tell . . . I asked Pam, the prostitute, to go out with me. “I thought you were just looking for sex,” she said. “Of course,” I replied. But that wasn’t true. Since she said that she was happy when she saw me, I thought she might like to go out with me. She laughed and said she wished she could do that, but couldn’t. Another lie. I showed her a picture of you and me, the one at the park, your favorite. She said you looked beautiful. I don’t think she believed you were my girlfriend. At times I don’t believe it either. Everything started and finished so quickly. I should complete the novel in the next few days, and then will show it to my agent. And you, once again, inspired it. I miss you. What’s next? I’m worried. I’m worried about what will become of me next.

  Nick turned and kissed me, and kissed me again, and we made love again. I don’t remember what happened next. When it was late, I said I’d go home.

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “No.”

  “I insist that you let me do this.”

  “But I . . .”

  “Just let me take care of you.”

  So I let him. He took me home.

  Day Seven

  That day we would meet “M.G.,” Andrew’s friend who had contacted Nick.

  “I’m curious about this guy,” Nick said. “He wants to meet at three at our café downtown.”

  The café was the one Nick and I liked, the one I had discovered, close to my favorite bookstore. When we arrived, Matt was sitting at a table on the first floor, waiting for us.

  “Matt?”

  “Is this your friend?” Nick asked.

  “Yes, Matt, this is Nick. Nick, Matt, my friend who writes graphic novels,” I said. “I had no idea you knew Andrew.”

  “How would you? You didn’t ask,” Matt said.

  “True. There was no time, I guess.”

  Nick and I joined Matt at his table, and we ordered coffee.

  “So you think the author of this journal is Andrew Pratt.”

  “I’m positive.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Emily was Andrew’s girlfriend. She was a dancer, they had some issues, and the story the journal describes is their story. Plus, Andrew’s best friends are Ed and Joe, both graphic novelists. Before disappearing, he completed his novel and gave them a copy.”

  “You said he disappeared after completing his last novel?”

  “Correct.”

  “A year ago?”

  “Over a year. Ed, Joe, and I were having dinner. Andrew called and said his agent didn’t like the draft. He was upset and wanted to know what they thought about it. Ed told him where we were. He came, brought the novel, dropped it on the table, and disappeared.”

  “Were you . . . are you close to Andrew?”

  “Not particularly. I know Ed and Joe, and they often talk about Andrew, so I mostly know him through them. The four of us hung out together sometimes.”

  “Do they know about the blog?” Nick asked.

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Could you set up a meeting with them?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know if the police are looking for Andrew? If they did?” Nick asked.

  “His roommates called the police after he didn’t return home for a week. They didn’t do much.”

  Matt left to call his friends, and I remained alone with Nick.

  “So this is Matt. Do you like him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you attracted to him?”

  “I might be. Would that bother you?”

  “No, of course not. You can fuck who you want.”

  That hurt.

  When Matt returned to the table, he said Ed and Joe were on their way.

  A few minutes later, they showed up. Ed was tall and skinny. Joe was of average height, with curly hair and big, heavy glasses—the glasses and the hair bigger than anything I could remember after meeting with him. They seemed to be siblings, but when I asked, they said they were not. Their demeanor and clothes were alike though. They both had the same style, slow, lazy, tired, vintage or probably just old. They seemed to be happy to see that we cared about Andrew, or just OK with it. Or perhaps too lazy to have any other reaction or opinion about it.

  “Did you read Lies?” I asked Joe.

  “Yeah,” Joe said, “great stuff.” He looked to Ed for approval.

  “Oh, yes,” Ed confirmed. “Andrew is a fucking genius. That agent doesn’t understand shit.”

  Joe nodded but didn’t say more.

  “How do you know his agent didn’t like Lies? Did Andrew tell you?”

  “Was it the last time you talked to him?” Nick followed up.

  “Yes,” Ed said.

  “No further calls? Emails?”

  “No,” Ed confirmed.

  They both looked down. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether they were more disappointed in Andrew, in our job, or in Andrew’s readers. I couldn’t stand their passive acceptance of whatever came to them, their attitude.

  “Did you guys talk to the police?” I wanted to shake them.

  “Yes, we did. Two or three times. They mostly asked us routine questions, didn’t seem interested. They probably thought he decided to leave and so they didn’t bother to do anything.”

  “We never opened that letter.” I said.

  “Which letter?” Ed asked.

  “A sealed letter we found in the journal. There’s an address on it, but no name. We’ll take a look,” Nick said. “Perhaps, for now, it’s better to stop posting,” he added, while looking at me.

  “Do you guys have a copy of the novel?” He then asked.

  “Yes,” Joe said. “You could take a look if you want to. Where do you live?”

  “Walking distance,” Nick said.

  “I’ll bring it by tonight.”

  They exchanged phone numbers and addresses. We shook hands and left.

  “Do you want to come home?” Nick asked.

  I nodded, and we started walking to his place, mostly in silence. We were both probably thinking of Andrew’s mess or our own. It was hard to say which one was worse. And as I was pondering it, I thought I was—we were—in the perfect place.

  Downtown should be renamed the madness district. Exhilarating and depressing, comforting and scary, a little hell that you could confuse with heaven, or vice versa, depending on your mood. At times I’d been attracted to downtown like Emily was, but at others it repulsed me. I realized I never saw it. Now I was looking at it, and I could see something.

  When we stopped at a traffic light, I was hit by an intense stench, pee or shit or both. When I turned to check where it came from, a man grabbed me and pointed a knife at my throat. It all happened so fast that I have to force myself to remember what actually happened. It all seemed unreal. I became paralyzed, unable to speak. I tried to scream or cry, but I froze.

  “What do you want? You can have everything you want, but leave her alone,” Nick said.

  “She smells so good. She’s a spoiled brat. Is she yours? I want her skin.”

  “Leave her alone, and I’ll give you money. Everything you want.”

  “I told you what I want. I want a piece of her skin.”

  “I’ll give you my skin. Just leave her alone.”

  �
��I don’t want your dirty skin. I want hers,” the man said, almost crying.

  “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you. I swear to God.”

  I stopped breathing, and that’s the last thing I remembered. I lost consciousness and woke up in Nick’s bed, my throat still hurting from the homeless man’s grip.

  “What happened? Where’s the guy?” I asked.

  “With the police. You fainted right before I punched him in the face. You woke up briefly and were still shaking. I gave you something to sleep and put this on.” He showed me his fist, still bleeding through the bandage he had put on. “You couldn’t scream, huh?”

  He gave me something to sleep? I didn’t remember any of that.

  “Scream? Yes, no. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  “You can’t scream?”

  “I think I can. But I couldn’t . . . I wanted to.”

  He remained silent, staring at me with the same look he had when we first met. He was trying to get under my skin, he was looking for something.

  “Come with me,” he said, and dragged me out of the bed.

  I did as he said, but I had no idea what he had in mind. I had only a T-shirt on, but I did not stop to think about what I was wearing and just followed him.

  We took the elevator and reached the rooftop of his building. He pushed a heavy door open with both hands, and we stood in front of Los Angeles. It was early morning, the sun had not yet risen, and the city was enveloped in fog. The air was icy, almost painful on my skin. I was barefoot.

  “I’m freezing!” I said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It won’t take long. Think of something painful. Something buried deep down.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Trust me.”

  “I can’t. It’s too cold.”

  “Susan, try. It’ll only take a few seconds.”

  I couldn’t think of anything. I looked at Nick, begging him to let us return to the apartment.

  “Try harder.”

  I closed my eyes and finally stopped feeling the cold. I remembered something. My father telling me that my mother had died. I started crying.

  “Don’t cry. Scream.”

  I continued to cry, and I bent over because of the cold or the pain or the tears. He pulled me up.