Chapter Two

I’m not exactly sure what instigated my recent spate of sex crimes—Sunny’s monologues on her awakening sexual submission, which I take for just another phase of her evolving life adventure; the night in the beach cottage with Steven and his dark flip side; or the anonymous cryptic note and what it fails to tell me—its sender and its purpose.

My impulsive behavior begins several days after the note arrived. I wonder if someone I know has learned the details of my past—the abduction, the terrorists, the training, the slavery—and thought it cute to throw it at me just to see how I’d react. Obviously, that someone would be deliberately trying to rattle me. Do I have enemies to fear? Has my documentary suddenly become so threatening to the rightwing establishment that they’re out to stop me? This seems so illogical; like most documentaries, mine will hardly make a wave in the public consciousness. We’re fated to do great work and receive little recognition, and certainly none that lasts more than a few weeks. Besides, there’s hardly anyone who knows what I’m doing, or what my conclusions will be. My last documentary—my grand return to the medium following Kovac’s death—certainly made waves, though it was hardly controversial. But the buzz on that has died over the last few months and like all good examples of this craft sits on the shelf more that it’s aired.

Lost in this puzzling quandary, I find myself at the same time obsessed with the male population that moves with regularity in and out of my physical space. I feel them breathe, hear their beating hearts. I shiver when I see a rolled shirtsleeve and a bare forearm, or the sight of tight buns in tight blue jeans. My body dances lively tangos when a man of almost any kind is within three feet of me—which makes walking down a crowded sidewalk almost unbearable. And Steven, I’ve attacked him every night in the last several days, jumping his body like a tigress attacking prey. Of course, he’s willing to have this rougher lover greet him when the lights go out. But I’m sure he’s as puzzled as I am about what has precipitated this atypical behavior. No, I will not tell him about the anonymous note.

My sexual energy seems boundless and unfettered. It’s not enough to have sex with Steven; I want it with strangers, men on the street and in the cafés, the guy that browses the library stacks, the one picking pineapple in the grocery store—and the fellow in the museum who dutifully reads from the program before studying each print with judicious care.

I don’t even like the black and muddy-brown oil painting he sits before, but I sit too. He doesn’t appear to notice me as his