Before She Knew Him(82)

“Go ahead and take a look around,” Hen said.

“Don’t you want to fuck me first?” Matthew said, a wide grin on his face, his eyes darting.

“We’ve only just met, Richard. Why did you think I’d fuck you?” Hen said, not really thinking about it. Matthew’s eyes dropped down to her, and he looked amused and interested, and she realized she’d said the right thing. If she pretended he was Richard, if she engaged with him, maybe she’d stall him. And if she could stall him, maybe she could get away from him.

“Well, you want to fuck Matthew, don’t you?” he said.

“Actually, I don’t. Matthew and I don’t have that kind of relationship, and besides, we’re both married.”

“You can sit in the chair, if you’d like. You look pretty pathetic there on the floor.”

Hen slid up into the chair, settling onto its cushion. How many times had she sat in that chair, relaxed, thinking about art, drinking tea? And now she was sitting here and it could be the last thing she ever did.

“To Lloyd and Mira,” Matthew said suddenly, and Hen was confused, until she realized he was responding to her saying that Matthew and she were both married.

“Right, to Lloyd and Mira.”

Matthew held his hands out, palms up, and smirked at her. “I mean . . .” he said.

“What?”

“I’m not too impressed with Lloyd.”

“But Richard’s never met him,” Hen said, and knew almost immediately this was the wrong thing to say. Matthew frowned, his eyes going from amusement to controlled rage with one flutter of his eyelids. Don’t question him, she told herself. Don’t question his logic. Just go with it. Go with whatever he wants to talk about, and maybe if he wanders far enough away from me . . .

“Matthew told me all about him. He still tells me things, you know, even though he doesn’t quite trust me with the information.”

“What did Matthew tell you about Lloyd?”

“Nothing you don’t already know about at this point. He’s been putting his pee-pee where he shouldn’t. It’s pretty easy these days, you know. Back in the day you had to go to a brothel to get some pussy. Now you can find it anywhere.” Matthew was staring intently at her, maybe trying to see if she was shocked by what he said.

“Where do you go?”

“Where do I go for what?”

“Where do you go for pussy, Richard?” she asked, holding his eye contact. He flinched, just a little. “Do you go to brothels?”

“My dad went to brothels. He told me all about them. But it’s like I told you, every girl walking down the street now is up for it.”

He looks nervous, Hen thought, and tried to decide whether to push him down this conversational road. She could tell that it unnerved him when she challenged him, but she wasn’t sure if it was good to unnerve him. She didn’t want to go too far, but she did want to keep him talking about topics that interested him. What she really wanted to do—and she knew it would be dangerous—was to reach the real Matthew, get him to come out, and then she’d be safe, at least temporarily. Was he pretending to be Richard, his brother? Was it a true split personality? If she could get him to revert to Matthew, she thought she could talk her way out of whatever he had planned. If he stayed in his current personality, then she thought there was a chance she could run to the door, slam it shut, and lock Matthew inside. It was a peculiarity of all the studio doors on the basement level: the deadbolt lock needed a key on both sides of the door, and Hen’s key—the only copy she had—was in her jacket pocket.

“How come you’re so different from Matthew,” Hen said. “I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, and I think he’s a gentleman.”

A huge smile crossed Matthew’s face. She could see his gums. “He kills people, you know.”

“I know he does. He told me. But he also told me that he would never hurt a woman, and that he would only hurt a man who would hurt a woman. That’s why I said he’s a gentleman.”

“He was a mama’s boy,” Matthew said, and turned his eyes up to the ceiling of the studio, as though he were remembering.

Hen almost thought about bolting for the door, but he quickly turned his gaze back toward her. Was he carrying a weapon? she wondered. It didn’t really matter if he was or wasn’t. She remembered the strength of his hand around her neck, the way he could have crushed her throat with a simple squeeze.

“And you weren’t?”

“Mom was a whore all over town. I even heard once that she was fucking the minister at the church, the same minister that married her and Dad.”

“If that was true, then why was Matthew a mama’s boy? He must have known all about that as well.”

Matthew shook his head, glanced toward the larger of Hen’s two printing presses, and took a step toward it, leaning against its metal edge. It gave Hen a slightly better chance of getting to the door if she decided to make a run for it. “He knew all about it, but he says that Dad made her that way. He says that Mom figured if she was going to be called a whore, and treated like a whore, then maybe she should act like one, too.”

“Your dad used to call your mom a whore?”

“He knew what she was. He knew what all women are.”