That night Gloria had a dream. It was exact in every detail and went back eleven years to her adolescence. Her brain had retained a photographic image of the school she had gone to, the clothes she had worn, the length of her hair, the feel of her shoes, the smell and color of the school corridors. In the dream, she went to a moment she had never left. She walked out of her geometry class into the studentfilled corridor without a glimmer of the years that followed. So this walk would exist forever. Every act was a final one. She went from geometry to the lunchroom, as was her habit. The clock said five minutes to twelve, which was the right time. In the cafeteria, she moved surely to the table where she ate her lunch every day. She opened the brown paper bag she held and saw that her mother had prepared sandwiches from last night' s roast lamb. It was what she had expected for lunch… or had her mother told her? Gloria bit into the dark bread and a blob of ketchup fell on the table. She knew that the red stain made her a criminal, that her body was no longer innocent. She chewed her sandwich methodically. At ten minutes to one, she would have to be in music class. The music teacher had a red wig and was very sensitive about lateness. She must have had a boyfriend who was twenty years late in calling. Someone said, " Hello, Gloria," and she looked up see Margaret moving into the chair opposite her.
She hated Margaret. Once she had touched Margaret' s small breast, and Margaret had laughed and said, " Your hand is hot and sticky." There was something disgusting in Margaret' s mocking knowledge. She knew all about babies and men and kissing, and once had described how some men put their tongues in girls' mouths, and that was called a " soul kiss." Gloria had become faint with nausea.
" Couldn' t a person choke?" she' d asked.
" You breathe through your nose, stupid," Margaret had replied. But the answer said much more. It said, " I know a secret, Gloria. I' ve learned all the things you have to learn, if you can. And look at me; I can take it. Can you take it? Can you accept the things you have to learn?"
Gloria wanted to say, " I can; I can. It' s all going to happen to me."
Margaret' s adolescent face was secretive when she said, " Oh, here he comes."
Darting in and out of the labyrinth of tables and chairs was a tall, dark- haired, dark- jacketed man. He reached their table and sat quietly beside Margaret. He turned disinterested white eyes on Gloria, and her heart smothered in agony.
Margaret turned to Gloria with old eyes in her young face.
" Have you met my future husband?" she asked. Her thin, unformed body did not make the announcement ridiculous.
" No," said Gloria, and her agony was visible. " How do you do."
The white- eyed rapist nodded to her without taking his eyes off Margaret. Margaret turned to him and said perfunctorily, " Sit down and stop staring at me. My God, Gloria, I get the feeling he doesn' t know how to breathe unless he stares right into my eyes."
Gloria looked at the sullen- shaped mouth of the rapist. His eyes were lowered and expressed the sadness of a rebuffed child.
How do you do it? Gloria wanted to ask. How do you enslave the man who refuses even to detest me?
She tried to relax into her own sorrow, to relinquish her pain to her body, to feel it so completely that she would not feel it at all. She lifted a container of milk to her lips, and her trembling hands spilled the milk over the table.
" My, my," Margaret chided, " I believe Gloria is upset. Gloria is very sensitive, rapist," and she turned to the motionless man. For the first time his face altered the expression of slavish devotion he reserved for Margaret. His mouth shaped into a mocking cruel smile. He took Margaret' s hand in his and kissed it. Gloria felt herself melting into her mind' s contortions.
" I think Gloria is in love with you," Margaret continued. " Isn' t that romantic? That' s why I' m marrying you darling, so that I can play with Gloria' s dreams."
The rapist who had not spoken, seemed to say, " Do with me what you will."
Margaret leaned over and whispered something to him. He laughed out loud. She whispered it again, and more urgently. Gloria heard her say, " Kiss her that way."
The rapist got up and moved around the table to Gloria' s chair. He took her head in his hands and pulled it back till her lips were raised to his.
" Do you want to?" Gloria pleaded. " It' s all right if you want to."
His tongue was stopping her words, cutting her breath.
" You breathe through your nose, stupid," Margaret directed. " He' s pretty good at that. I think I' ll hire him out. Rapist, I think I' ll hire you out."
Gloria could no longer hear her; she was choking under his icy unloving caress. She did not have the courage to push him away, so great was her body' s yearning. She sank into his mouth, and Margaret' s laugh. She sank deeper and deeper into a smothering humiliation – the pain beyond tears or flesh. The laughter grew vague. She opened her eyes and found herself panting against the pillow.
She was motionless in her bed for a long time. Her heartbeat settled to an unheard rhythm. The dream was more terrible than her ugly search for the rapist. There was still a more sickening poison within her than the one she had tasted the night of the rape. Would her suffering one day have to equal the dream? Wanting him was a torture, but to be mocked for it would make her insane. For him to prefer another would be an unbearable insult. Then his death would not be enough. It would be too late, too meaningless for him to die. She had to kill him for something that existed between the two of them, not only for the rage in her own heart. She had to kill him because he wanted to die; the rape was an invitation to murder.
She had despised and feared Margaret all of these years. If they met, they would have a civilized lunch and talk fondly of the old days. There would be a mutual contract to deceive.
There is an agony that a man cannot give us. Only a woman who shares our airless dungeon can fill us with final despair. When we cut at each other, we know our futility. A man can make a woman feel like a woman. That' s when they achieve us. But a woman can make a woman feel like nothing – like a shapeless, sexless, mute animal. That' s how we destroy each other.