“What d’you mean?” I asked, thinking I hadn’t heard Steve correctly.
“I’ve decided to go to Palm Springs the week after next, so you won’t see me for a few weeks,” Steve repeated casually.
“Steve, what about school?”
“My friend John—you know, the guy I visited in Washington—asked me to join him for a week, all expenses paid.”
“But it’s during the school quarter,” I protested.
“I know, but everyone does it. And I’ll be flying first class; I can’t pass it up.” Steve continued to gather up his carry-on and computer.
“Steve, do you think it’s smart? I mean, you’ll miss a week of classes. Can you afford that, especially right at the beginning of a new quarter?”
“I don’t have to ask your permission,” Steve shot back. “John doesn’t want to be alone, and none of his other friends can get off from work, so he asked me.”
Steve’s tone was aggressive, defiant. I knew I wouldn’t win this battle, but intuitively I felt I had to make my point.
“No, you don’t need my permission, but I have to tell you what I think, and I don’t think that taking a week off during the quarter—the most important quarter at that—is wise.”
“Well, I’m going.”
To me, the whole scheme smelt of Cecil’s devious behavior and of Steve’s complicity. Steve’s story about going to Palm Springs with John was another instance of his lying. I had never met Cecil, but from what Steve told me, Cecil was both manipulative and dangerous. School was meant to give Steve the professional credentials by which he would become independent. But now I felt Cecil was back and living in Steve’s apartment.
As we left town, not having spoken since leaving the house, Steve turned to me.
“You’re so fuckin’ negative!” Steve shot out.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s so fuckin’ annoying the way you have nothing good to say about anything.”
“Steve, I don’t know what you’re talking about; I’m never negative.” I was shocked and angry.
“Why can’t you say three nice things before your shit.”
“I don’t know why you say I’m negative,” I said calmly, though inside I was on fire. “I may criticize. I have opinions … and I voice them, but I don’t criticize without reason.”
“Let’s not talk, okay?” Steve replied as he turned away from me.
I drove without looking at Steve, nor was another word said until Steve left the car at the airport.
What were the reasons for Steve’s outburst? It obviously stemmed from our discussion before we left the house. But why the anger, the silence, the unfriendliness? No, there was something going on and Steve was covering up again.
That evening, when I opened my emails, I found several whose addresses I didn’t recognise. Something about these emails…
I couldn’t get Steve’s behavior from earlier out of my mind. My suspicions and doubts had been building up for a long time—and then his outburst this morning. I felt I was in the middle of a cyclone, my head spinning, causing my thoughts to be confused. I wanted him—yet I didn’t.
… all from the same address, stopped me: they were from Cecil.
My heart started pumping hard, and I had trouble breathing. I deliberated before opening the first, but knew I had to know its contents. It wasn’t mere curiosity. I needed answers.
Its subject hit me: “Steve and me”.
Did I really want to know what it contained, given what had taken place over the years since I had known of Steve’s involvement with him? Physical assaults, false accusations, lies, betrayals, and deception all warned me not to enter, yet I knew I had to. I had to know. Nothing sent by Cecil could be worse than my own imagination, and were I to delete the email without opening it, I would always wonder what it contained.
The first was a 30-second video taken the previous year when Cecil, unknown to me, was living in Steve’s apartment. Cecil wrote, “Taken after he’d just hung up with you discussing the house.” Dark and grainy, the video showed two men having oral sex.
I felt queasy, causing me to be nauseous. A dizziness overcame me. I had to hold my head between my legs to avoid passing out. Was this the person I was in love with? The person who monopolized my thoughts?
I put my laptop down and lay on my back—to allow my body to settle, my mind to go blank—and decided whether or not to continue reading the emails, but I knew I had to.
The next four emails consisted of a correspondence between Steve and someone he had contacted on the internet, with suggestive photos of Steve and one sent by his correspondent—not of himself but of a buddy who he was planning to set up with Steve. “Your buddy’s mighty tasty. Wouldn’t mind being fucked by him and having you watch. Does he like being serviced?” Steve wrote.
In one of Steve’s photos, he sat, holding his erect cock, ready to have it sucked—his face lurid with lust and depravity. In his second photo, he was standing, his back to the camera, his hands holding his ass cheeks—spread open, wide—his head turned, his mouth slightly open, his tongue—protruding—his eyes—a vacant stare.
I sat paralyzed. Was this the real Steve, someone I didn’t know? Is this how he spent his time when not with me in Vermont? Was I wasting my time and my emotions thinking he was in some way attached to me?
I couldn’t think; my head kept spinning. The words in the emails pounded in my head; I just felt numb.
The last email contained a threat, resembling veiled blackmail: “There are more of these, and they’ll be sent to your local newspaper.” Cecil was telling me that the person I loved—and who I thought loved me—habitually roamed the internet searching for sex … with anyone.
I didn’t understand; I couldn’t absorb their content and meaning. Who was the person I loved? Here was hard evidence of betrayal of trust. But I needed to feel it all: the pain, the betrayal, the deception, the lies, and above all, the degradation of the man—for what I read and saw was debasement, debauchery. Were the years I’d spent thinking of Steve, encouraging him toward a career that would provide for his security, and loving him—totally a delusion on my part? Why? I couldn’t imagine any reason. Nothing except depravity. Was this his true life, and when with me, my fantasy?
“Hey, babe.” Steve was calling between classes Monday night.
“Did you have a good time?” It’s not that I really cared, but I was stalling for time for Steve to tell me where he’d been, who he’d been with, and what he’d done. “When did you get back?” I asked.
“I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
When Steve called, it was three days later.
“Do you want to come up this weekend?” I needed a direct meeting to watch Steve’s face and his body movements.
“Let me check my schedule, Pumpkin. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
Steve’s reply didn’t surprise me. Were Steve in New York, why would he hesitate? His schedule was quite simple: classes Monday and Wednesday nights, leaving him free until the following Monday. If Steve had gone off with Cecil, and if they were still somewhere and not in New York, Steve might not be back by the end of the week to fly up to visit; he’d still be with Cecil.
After an absence of five weeks, Steve would be back, and I could ask him all the questions for which I needed answers. What I planned to say churned over in my mind. It’s not that I looked forward to finding out that Steve had deceived me once again. I needed to have the truth, finally. No more secrets; no more ‘it’s none of your business’; no more lies; no more subterfuge; no more ‘you can’t control my life’. Just the truth, the plain, old-fashioned truth.
When I picked him up at the airport, Steve said he needed to spend time at the renovation.
“Drop me off before you go home, Pumpkin. You can come back for me at 6:00.”
“Steve, you want to spend six hours at the renovation?” I asked. What were his reasons for suddenly wanting to spend most of the day there?
“I need to measure all the rooms.”
“You measured them the last time you were here,” I reminded him, for this wasn’t the first time I felt Steve was duplicating his efforts.
I left Steve at the renovation, agreeing to return at 6:00. Once home, I decided to continue preparing for my writing seminar. I stopped writing when my phone rang.
“Pick me up at 7:00, okay, babe?” Steve asked.
After Steve’s call, I couldn’t concentrate. I went upstairs to unpack Steve’s carry-on, thinking this might divert my attention away from what Steve might be doing at the house—other than measuring the rooms.
On taking Steve’s Barney’s boots out, I heard an object fall on the floor; it was a phone. I laid it on top of the dresser.
As I was leaving the room, I stopped. Hadn’t Steve just called me? Steve must have his phone with him. I wondered: Did Steve have two phones? Curious, I pressed the ‘on’ button, but then realized I couldn’t open the phone without the passcode.
Returning to my study, I continued writing the outline for my story.
Stopping suddenly, I thought, What if? No, it isn’t possible … but…?
I took out my phone and scrolled my messages, until I came to the one for which I was searching—a number without a name—one that was not in my contacts. I called it and waited. A moment later, I heard another phone ringing from upstairs.
I looked at the recent emails I’d received from Cecil. Using its address, I sent an email from my phone and waited. A few moments later, Steve’s second phone received my email. I climbed back up the stairs and, holding Steve’s second phone, just stared at it. Was it possible?
This was the phone Cecil had used to send me emails. But why was it in Steve’s carry-on?
Returning to my study, I continued writing the outline of my novel.
I put my story down in mid-sentence. I couldn’t believe what I was thinking. My head started pulsating with the thought; the pounding in my chest was deafening.
I had never actually seen Cecil. The only details about Cecil had come from Steve—or what I had attributed to Steve’s friend. I had been so focused on Cecil as a person, someone in Steve’s life who exerted a profound and, at times, dangerous influence on him, that I never thought to question Steve about Cecil’s very existence.
In the novel I was writing, Mary was part of April, my protagonist. Mary was not a real person, not someone who existed apart from my main character, but a personality trait of April’s I had created to influence April’s decisions, often taking over, causing April to act in ways that were very different from April’s public persona. Mary only existed in April’s mind. No one, except April, had ever seen Mary; Mary was April’s psychotic personality.
It all started to make sense. Every time Steve changed from loving, affectionate, and fun to vicious, irrational, and aggressive, I always attributed the change to Cecil’s influence. But who—or what—was Cecil? During one of Steve’s previous visits, I found crystal meth in the bathroom upstairs in my house, the bathroom Steve always used when visiting, but I never asked Steve what it was doing there. Is it possible? Was Cecil …?
There were periods when I felt that Steve was free of Cecil’s influence. He was loving and affectionate—the person I truly wanted in my life.
But there were other times—many other times—when Steve would spend unusually long periods of time in the upstairs bathroom and in public washrooms, always returning either hyper-exuberant or aggressively nasty.
And the trips—Cancun, the cruise, New Year’s in Las Vegas, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico—when I always assumed Steve was with Cecil. But was he? Even on this last trip, to California, I didn’t believe Steve when he told me he would be going with his Washington friend, John; I had concluded he was somewhere with Cecil.
But Cecil had been with Steve on each trip … because Cecil was part of who Steve was—of who Steve is. Like Mary in my story, Cecil was—is—Steve’s psychotic personality.
Looking at the phone I found in Steve’s carry-on, I now knew.
I took out the pact I had written but had never given to Steve: “No more Cecil. No more drugs. School.”
If Steve and Cecil were the same person, how could Cecil be eliminated from Steve’s life, and how did he get there?
Since we met, Steve must have been using crystal meth. The times Steve told me I wouldn’t hear from him for up to two weeks, Steve must have been coming off the drug. It was his way of rehab. But it never worked; he went right back. He might have thought that the two-week period when he slept, getting up to eat cereal and use the bathroom, were sufficient, but his being free of the drug never lasted longer than a few weeks.
Without understanding Steve’s real problem, I brought the renovation project into his life, thinking it would pull him away from Cecil and closer to me. And school: I had thought that school would reinforce our project; be something that Steve would dream about at night and be there in the morning.
Was Cecil Steve’s real personality, not the charming, loving, sexy Steve I fell in love with? I could neither live with Cecil in my life… nor with Steve’s drugs. Our project and school weren’t enough to pull him away, to get him to stop crystal and eliminate Cecil from his personality.
The ride home was uneventful. Steve told me he had most of the calculations, but they still didn’t match our contractor’s; he might have to return the following day.
“Let me freshen up. I’ll meet you downstairs in a bit,” Steve said as he prepared to go to his hideaway on the second floor.
“What time do you want dinner?” I asked. I glanced at my watch; it was approaching 9:00.
“In a little while, sugar. Just give me time to relax. Okay?”
Time to relax? Fuck! What had he been doing for the past eight hours? I let it go—as I had so many times before—and returned to the kitchen to prepare our meal.
10:00 passed and still there were no signs of Steve. I went to the base of the stairs and called. When Steve didn’t answer, I climbed the stairs and knocked at the bedroom door.
“Steve, are you ready for dinner?” I called through the closed door. Not waiting for an answer, I opened the door.
“Wha’d’ya want?!” Steve snapped. He was standing on the dormer bed and appeared to be rearranging the books on the shelf above.
“When do you want dinner?” I asked.
“Not now,” Steve hissed, his voice choked with hidden anger. “Can’t you see I’m busy?! You put me in a room with a lamp shade fit for a child, and these books are a mess.” I stood in the doorway, stunned; I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.
“Fuck this,” I let out. “This is my house … but do what the fuck you want! For all I care, you can go back to New York tonight.”
While I was sitting in the living room thinking—trying to make a plan—Steve came down from his room on the second floor.
“If you want supper there’s food in the kitchen; all you have to do is heat it,” I told him.
I had to figure out how to extricate myself from the messy situation I now found myself in, quickly and without violence.
When Steve came into the living room, I turned to him and showed him the phone I had found when it dropped out of his carry-on.
“Steve, can you explain this?”
“Where’d you get it?” snatching the phone out of my hand.
“It was in your carry-on. It’s Cecil, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s the phone you used to send me emails from Cecil. Why?”
“I don’t have to explain to you.”
“No, you don’t, but we were in a relationship … or at least I thought we were. I loved you. I don’t understand why you needed to invent Cecil and use him against me, against us.” I saw Steve’s face harden. “I made conditions if you were to remain in my life. One was no more Cecil, as you consistently used him to interfere in our relationship, in your life, and in our project.”
“Okay, now I’m getting the drift of where this is going.” Steve put down his joint and got up as though he were about to leave.
“What do you want me to say, Aaron? That I love you, that I want you and only you in my life? Is that what you want? That I’m not in a relationship with Cecil? That he’s the psychopathic asshole monster you say he is? Is that what you want me to tell you? Is it Aaron?” Steve was now sitting, his arms resting on his thighs leaning toward me, shooting flames from his lips.
“I want the truth, Steve. I want you to tell me the truth, for once. I don’t want more lies; I don’t want more deception. I’m through with lies and deception. Now I want honesty.”
Steve stared at me without changing the vacant look on his face; his eyes spoke of secrecy—not fear or anger, or sorrow—just a cloud of secrecy. His words were slow and measured, as though each one weighed heavily on his tongue.
“I’m in a relationship with Cecil. I’ve never been in a relationship with him. Even when I hated him, I loved him. Yes, he’s lied, betrayed, deceived, and assaulted—all the things you’ve said of him … and more. Cecil can do whatever he has to do; I’ll never stop loving him. I’ll always want him. Being with Cecil is better than life. There, now you know.”
Minutes slowly passed.
“Good night, Steve. I’m going to bed. In the morning, I’ll take you to the airport.”
I was upset and mad. My decision had been made. The next day I would drive him to the airport … for the last time. There was no alternative. I no longer had the energy—nor the will—to try to get Steve back.
I felt defeated; Cecil had won. I had done what I thought was best for Steve, but I now realise that for him to be free of Cecil, he first had to free himself of crystal meth. Our project and school weren’t strong enough to fight the drug. I had tried … but I had failed.
During the night, I received a text:
“If you want to sell the renovation project, you’ll have to pay me $50,000.”
It was from Cecil.
E.P. Lande was born in Montreal, but has lived most of his life in the south of France and Vermont, where he now lives with his partner, writing and caring for more than 100 animals, many of which are rescues. Previously, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa where he served as Vice-Dean of his faculty, and he has owned and managed country inns and free-standing restaurants. Since submitting two years ago, his stories have found a home in 75 publications in countries on five continents. This year, his story “Expecting” has been nominated for Best of the Net.