III

The week goes by and she avoids them both, Timothy and Israel, as much as she can. It’s too much. She runs errands. She calls Roberta. She pleads another headache, and another. She leaves work early every day and goes straight home, where she crawls into bed and goes to sleep. No dreams. No answers. Nothing.

On Thursday, she stops at a McDonald’s, and from there takes the long way home. She finds Timothy by the water, perched on beach driftwood, staring out. He wears a hat she hasn’t seen before, and as she steps closer he straightens, becomes more alert.

“Lilah.” He turns around and takes off the hat. “Where have you been?”

“What happened to your hair?” she says. He has showered. He is wearing different clothes. He is bald. “Where did you get that shirt?”

“I’m just borrowing it,” he mutters. He does not look at her. “I’ll give it back.”

“Who gave it to you? Why in bloody fuck did you shave your head? Are you in some kind of cult?”

“I was safe,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

Worry. Worry is all she ever does. “You could shower at my house. You can borrow clothes from me.”

“I can’t borrow clothes from you.”

“So I have tits. Big fucking deal. You can borrow a goddamned sweatshirt, at least.”

“Don’t swear.”

“Well? For fuck’s sake, Tim. What am I supposed to think?”

“This isn’t about you,” he says. “Isn’t it enough to know that I’m safe?”

Yes. And no. “You’re not . . . you’re not . . . you know — ”

He smirks. “No. Thanks a lot.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good, then.” She stands above him, awkward, unsure. Someone else had Timothy in their apartment last night, when she was hiding under her duvet. Someone else had him safe.

“You always find me,” he says then. “How?”

“I don’t know.” Other people get pulled around this city for food, for sex. Lilah follows her brother around like a shipman, lost at sea and following the sky.

“How’s Mom?” he asks.

“She’s dying. She wants to see you.”

His breath comes out funny — a wheeze and a whimper all at once. He blinks and he runs a hand around his head. “Do you like my hair? It was falling out. I couldn’t hide it anymore.”

She shuts her eyes and imagines the story she’ll tell Roberta. “Please tell me it’s not a cult.”

“A cult?” He is genuinely perplexed. “Why would I join a cult, Lilah? God lives inside of me.”

“It’s falling out because you’re not eating enough.” She sits beside him, on the log, and pulls out the bag of fast food. All of this travel between Victoria and back has meant little time for groceries — Roberta would cringe to see the shit Lilah is feeding him now. But Timothy is oblivious. He eats his food without comment, and this time he wipes his face with the single napkin that was placed inside the bag.

“Thank you.”

“You always liked Happy Meals,” she says. She thinks of The Actor, who brought Timothy food all those weeks ago. The Actor, Joe-with-an-L, all these parts of her life that are falling away, disappearing. The guilt is sharp and sudden, but eventually it subsides.

“I’m not seven, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I know.” She reaches for his hand; as always, he pushes her away. “You’re a grown man. Completely capable of making your own decisions. I’m aware.”

“You laugh,” he says. He begins, once again, to rock in his seat. “You laugh, but Delilah, if only you knew.”

“Then tell me!” Suddenly she is furious. A woman walking past them jumps mid-stride.

“I won’t hurt you,” is what he says. “Just know that.”

“Tim — you can’t do this forever.”

“Who said anything about forever?”

The sound that comes out of her throat is wild, uncontrolled. She throws the rest of her hamburger at him. Then she stands and shouts so loud that people fifty feet away stop to look at them. “I hate you!”

His face opens for her like a flower, dying even as it blooms. “I know,” he whispers.

Lilah stalks away before she can do anything else. She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t cry. She walks through the city, blind with rage. She walks straight to Israel’s apartment, gleaming tower of metal and glass. She presses the buzzer.

“Delilah.” She whirls around to find him there, in front of the door, holding Chinese takeout in his sleek gloved hands. “How . . . unexpected. I thought you were in hiding.”

“What — I can’t come to see you? We do everything on your clock, is that it?”

He smiles. For an instant, he looks like every other man she’s ever slept with. Then he takes her arm, and she remembers. “Hardly.”

Inside, he splits the takeout onto two plates and pours wine for them both. Lilah sits at the counter and does not eat; the fast food turns her stomach. She runs her fingers over the granite. Timothy’s face, opening and crumpling for her all at once.

“You have seen Timothy,” Israel says.

She sniffs, and immediately hates herself. “No.”

He laughs. “You are a terrible liar.”

“Fine. Yes.”

“Yes. And he is — not well?”

“He’s fine,” she mutters. “He spent the night at someone’s house. He fucking shaved his head. Like he’s in some goddamned cult!”

She doesn’t see his arm move at all. Another backhand, so quick. “How many times must we do this, Delilah? You are more than your body. You are certainly more than your mouth.”

“He’s going to die,” she says bitterly. She speaks around the pain, around her stinging cheek. Then she dips her finger into the sweet-and-sour sauce. “He’s going to freeze to death on the streets, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“But everyone dies,” he says. “Your brother. Your mother. Even you, eventually.”

She stares. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“The truth does not make you feel better or worse. It is merely the truth.” He puts his cutlery down. “You build what you can from that.”

Lilah licks her finger, catches the sauce at the corner of her mouth. Sweet. A hint of chilies. “I hate him.”

“You don’t hate him.” Israel pats his mouth with his napkin. She watches the skin over his collarbone, dark and brown. The pulse in his neck has quickened, like her own. “You love him so much that it feels like hatred.”

“Or I hate him so much that it feels like love?”

Israel smiles his crooked smile. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, Delilah. You see — you are beginning to understand.”

—

This time he ties her completely to the bed, her hands and feet stretched to the bedposts, her knees bent so that she’s exposed, all of her, to the air. To him. She shakes with terror, with anticipation. The pillow beneath her cheek is damp with tears.

“You fear me,” Israel says behind her, “because you think I have power over you. Because you are used to having power over men.” A caress, then the crack of his whip against her thigh. “But what you don’t realize, Delilah, is that this is where the power comes from. This recognition — it is pain, only that. It will disappear. You are Infinitely more than your body.” He stops the whip and then draws it back over her reddened skin. Agony; like nothing else she’s ever felt. Lilah sobs into the pillow, into the bed. She pulls against the scarves until her wrists and ankles chafe — these will be harder to disguise, these marks, and tomorrow at the office Debbie will be overwhelmed with concern. But right now, here, she says nothing. She couldn’t say anything even if she tried — in these moments of calm before the whip descends she’s holding infinity right in her mouth, teetering on the edge of a climax so radiant it’s a wonder her organs don’t implode. Is this what they meant, the saints?

“‘For the Lord disciplines the ones He loves,’” Israel intones, “‘and chastises every son whom He receives.’” At chastises, he snakes an arm around her front and jams his fist into her mouth, so that her teeth clink against the gold of his ring.

She bites him because it is the only thing she can do, bites until his flesh breaks and the warm tang of blood spills over her tongue. Israel grunts behind her and then pulls his hand away. He rams his fist into her cheek — she hears the bone crack, or shift, and then her head hits the pillow again and for a moment she feels nothing. More blood in her mouth. She spits it out onto the pillow.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Never mind.” He pulls his hand through her snarled hair, rests his fingers against her cheek. “It will all come out.”

Lilah rests her head against the pillow and smears her forehead with the blood. Her breath comes in short, ragged bursts. Her skin aches. Her ass shivers. And yet she is calm, focused. She feels Israel ready himself behind her. He presses close, so that her shivers become his shivers, his heat becomes her own. For a moment, just before he pushes inside her, the space between them is filled with something endless, something other. His arms come round and cover her, like wings.