She thought about that some more. Then she said, “I’m only about a block away, sitting in my car. If I agree to come back, will you promise I’ll be safe? I mean, I’ll treat you real good and all, but can you promise not to hit me?”
“Yes. If you want, you could bring someone with you.”
“Another girl?”
I laughed. “No, I meant a guy. You can bring a guy with you, for protection.”
She pondered that a minute. “Is there anyone I’m likely to bring who could protect me if you wanted to hurt me? Even if he had a gun?”
“No,” I said, “but, Lauren, you have my word. This choice I mentioned, like anything else we’ve ever done or might do, is completely up to you.”
“And you have my answer to your offer, right?”
I laughed. “You’ve made it abundantly clear. No hitting, no hurting.”
Back in my room a few minutes later, she asked, “Do you get off on beating up women? Again, no offense meant,” she added.
“None taken,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I would never get any pleasure out of hitting a woman, and I don’t understand those who would.”
“Then why?”
I thought about telling her Kathleen Chapman’s story, how she had experienced years of physical abuse at the hands of her ex. I wondered if Lauren could possibly put herself in Kathleen’s place, imagining the heartbreak, the pain and anguish, the humiliation Kathleen had suffered all those years.
My idea did have one major flaw: when you came right down to it, I’d be beating Lauren up now to protect Janet from getting beaten up someday. Of course, Lauren would have made the conscious decision to be beaten up. I wondered if that type of logic would provide suffcient justification for the way I’d feel later.
In the end, I just waved it off. “My mistake,” I said. “Water under the bridge.”
Lauren looked me over carefully. When she spoke, her voice was clear and steady. “You don’t appear to be a freak,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” she said, “in my experience, most freaks don’t appear to be freaks.”
“I’ve found that to be true in my experience, as well,” I said. She extended her hands in front of her, palms open, as if to say, Help me out here, will ya? Then she said, “But if someone were to ask me for an assessment at this stage of our relationship…” she paused a beat. “Can you understand why I might question your sanity?”
“You’d be crazy not to,” I said.
She nodded slowly.
“Would you like me to take off my clothes now?” she said.
“I’d like that a lot. If it’s your choice.”
