What followed, Artemisia sighed, from the psychological perspective, it was a natural progression. She topped off her glass, refilled mine. He began to question me about my whereabouts. To demand that I tell him with whom I spent my evenings and what we discussed and for how long. Now, with cellular telephones, it is easier to demand this kind of accounting. Then, the imposition was more obvious. At that time, I did not even have an answering machine. Just a rotary telephone. And this telephone was always ringing. Often it was ringing when I opened the door to my apartment. And if I did not pick it up it would begin ringing again, ten minutes later. Or five, or three. Sometimes only thirty seconds would pass between the last ring of one call and the first ring of the next. Not always Virgilio. But almost always. During the day, too. When he knew I would be in class. Or at the library. I think he was hoping to catch me in a lie. I tried taking the receiver off the hook, but a couple hours of silence and I would begin to worry that someone else might be trying to contact me, a professor or perhaps even my parents, and I would replace the receiver, and often, not always but often, I would forget then to remove it before leaving for campus in the morning. The phone rang so often that my landlady asked me to speak to Virgilio. And when that didn’t work she spoke to him herself. And when that didn’t work—Artemisia shrugged. She told me that she would not break my lease but that she could not allow me to renew it for the following year. She said she was sorry but the ringing was giving her headaches. She dreamed only of telephones. Still, Virgilio would not stop calling. Only on weekends, when Virgilio and I were together, was the phone silent.
Finally, Artemisia sighed, one afternoon, I found him waiting for me outside my door. This was a weekday. The building was two stories. The front door opened onto a small landing and on the left side of that landing a hallway led to the door of the landlady’s apartment. On the right side were the stairs. Artemisia’s hands were moving as she spoke, sketching. He must have knocked on the front door and my landlady must have heard and let him in because that afternoon I found him sitting on the second floor. His head was bowed and his back was against the door to my apartment. I remember my cheeks were flushed. It was late March but still cold. I think my landlady let Virgilio in out of pity. She would not have wanted him to wait outside. Certainly that was why I let him in. By then it was clear to me that our relationship could not continue. I had not yet decided whether that meant it had to end or if its—its terms, the terms under which we were operating, if they might still be transformed. We had not had sex in months. Not since our first weeks in New York. By choice. By my choice. It wasn’t that he was controlling—that he was trying to be controlling. In the end this is not what bothered me. It was that his desire to control, she paused. This desire, it stemmed not from his power but from its lack. It was his desperation I despised.
I slipped a cigarette out of Artemisia’s pack and she handed me her lighter, poured more wine into both of our glasses. I let him in, she said. She paused. She took another cigarette from her pack, tapped one end on the table, rotated the cigarette, tapped it again. It happened quickly, she said. I opened the door and set down my bag and as soon as I straightened my back his hands were on my shoulders. He turned my body so that I was facing him and then he pushed me against the wall. One hand was on my shoulder and one hand was on my neck. He pushed the door closed with one foot. This all happened in a moment. I felt his hands on me, I gasped, and by the time I’d finished inhaling, by the time I was beginning to exhale, Artemisia shrugged. The door was closed. She lit her cigarette. Normally, this is where one would say, You can imagine the rest, no? But what I suspect you would not be able to imagine is this: I felt scared only for that moment. The moment of the gasp. Then the door was closed and I was exhaling and what I felt was relief. Relief and also excitement. Because the power dynamic that I was familiar with had been reestablished. As I said, in Buenos Aires, he had been a kind of father figure. But then in New York, I had played the role of the adult. I had protected Virgilio as a mother protects her child. I was the one with hidden knowledge. With understanding. With power. But the introduction of violence, Artemisia exhaled. The effect was regressive. I was again the child.
He left immediately after. I think he was ashamed of what he had done. Virgilio was by nature a gentle man. I imagine that his actions confused him. I waited until I could be sure that he was back in Bronxville. And then I called him. I said it would be best if we did not see one another again. He did not argue. He said very little during our conversation. As far as I know, he left New York at the end of that semester and returned to Buenos Aires. The two of us never spoke again. Artemisia smiled. Actually, we never divorced. I met Pablo soon after. He was a professor. One of my friends was in one of his classes. We fell in love and got married and I became pregnant with Camila. All of this happened very quickly. When we applied for the marriage license, I said I had never been married.
Artemisia paused. The relationship I entered into with Pablo, she said, the marriage we have. It is very like the early stages of my relationship with Virgilio. Only I was secure from the beginning in the knowledge that it would not change. Pablo had lived in the States longer than I had. His reputation here was already made, was growing. I could build a career of my own without fear of overshadowing him. You know, we are both now well established, and still, Pablo is better established than I. I do not mean to imply, Artemisia said, that my marriage is perfect. Pablo has had his girls. And I have had mine, my girls and my boys and my men. We do not deny each other these, she moved her hand, passing pleasures. Only that it works, my cheeks were flushing, for me. For me it works perfectly. But this is not what I wanted to say. For a moment she held my gaze, exhaled smoke. What I wanted to say, she said. The so-called rape fantasy. Most psychologists, Artemisia said, theorize the commonality of the so-called rape fantasy among heterosexual women as linked to shame. Heterosexual women and also non-heterosexual women, when indulging in heterosexual fantasies. Women are raised to believe that they should not desire sex. More explicitly in earlier generations, yes, but the message remains, implicit, today. The difference between slut, for example, and player. The word player, in her accent. Not that she mispronounced it, the mere fact of the word, in her mouth, also because she was an adult. The sound instantly and unavoidably wrong. Briefly I felt, as I had not before, embarrassed for her. The connotations of each word, she said, and how each is applied, across genders. All this you must know. Artemisia waved her hand, trailing smoke. But okay, the rape fantasy. At least theoretically, it allows the woman to have the sex that she desires without also having to admit to the shame of that desire. Force becomes a method of circumvention. A shortcut. But, and here she leaned in, this was not the case with me and Virgilio. It was not because I was released from shame that I found relief in his violence. It was because I was released from control. Artemisia paused and exhaled smoke and took a sip of wine. Of course it was crucial that I did not fear Virgilio. I did not believe he would truly hurt me. And this made it possible to appreciate the, she smiled, initiative he took. To take pleasure in it. I have, she exhaled smoke, never wanted control in my interpersonal relationships. I have only wanted to be cared for. This is what I realized, on the afternoon that Virgilio appeared outside my apartment. Romantically, sexually, economically, I have always wanted to give myself over. And I could no longer give myself over to Virgilio. Not because he was violent. No, precisely the opposite. The outbreak of violence was a sign. Artemisia took a drag of her cigarette, exhaled. It was a sign he was losing control. And violence was the only way he could think to reassert it. A temporary solution. In showing me his strength, he was also showing me his weakness. His embarrassment, afterward, this confirmed it. It was not that I was scared of him. It was that I was not scared enough. Artemisia looked at me then and our eyes met. She stubbed out her cigarette. The heat pulsing through my body, at that moment, I called it admiration. Admiration because Artemisia knew herself so well and I, at twenty-one, did not, had not yet settled on the governing narrative of my life. Had not yet realized the folly of governing narratives. The certainty of Artemisia’s voice, this is what I was responding to. It is what, remembering her story, remembering that summer, knowing that folly, I still, unwilling, respond to now.