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Authors: Hampton Fancher
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abandoned. It frightens her a bit, but not the man. Stewart is intrigued with Jack, feels he understands her, feels herself at home in his eyes.
He asks if he can see more of her, all of her. It takes her a moment to understand what he means. She stands, watches him watch her take off all her clothes. Sit down over there, he says. Wonderfully nervous, she sits on a single straight chair. Quietly, almost reverently, he asks her to spread her legs.
You are the dream, he tells her, half Venus, half housewife. It is true. She radiates loyalty. Jack goes to her on his knees. He lips her lips above and below. Inside her, he whispers she is the loveliest place he will ever be. So simple how he says these things. That he could live in her beauty forever and that he canât and that he will, at least he will try. Never has Stewart been as happy with a man. Jack tells her she is the one since childhood that has beckoned him.
Stewart buys a sprawling ranch house up the road. She loves the canyon, but Jack knows she wouldnât have done it if he didnât live there. After a year, he realizes she is not as simple as he thought. She is on antidepressants. He never asks about the bite marks on her hands. He doesnât want to know. He knows enough. She wants to keep something to herself, but it is hard. She has to tell him everything. A mistake. Jack doesnât like the likely, the probable; only the impossible could be perfect.
Stewart senses his disappointment and tries to please him, and the more she does, the more disappointed he becomes. He begins to see evidence of something he thinks of as small-heartedness. A lack of wit. She used to laugh at the tricks he played with words, but she no longer inspires him. Her last job, or the story of her day, has ceased to interest him. They make love accordingly. He has become a ruffian in bed. The authority of his sex is as much as she can get, so she takes it and participates voluptuously.
Only once did she become outwardly angry with him. At a birthday party for her agent, Jack told the manâs wife she shouldnât have fixed her nose, that a large one was better than a ruined one. Afterwards Stewart accused him of arrogance and insensitivity. Jack argued his case, had to have the last word, and ended it with a laugh. She never got angry with him againânot the kind that spilled itself. Jack tried once in a while to provoke her, so he could give her the benefit of the doubt, redeem himself, but she never again gave him the chance.
One night over dinner he suggests they should see other people. He isnât thinking of himself, he says, but she knows what it means. It means he is tired of her. There is a photographer who has been calling, who doesnât stop asking her to dinner. Peter Ryles, a South African, famous for shooting retired dictators, thirty-foot crocs, and the worldâs most beautiful women. He is in Beverly Hills for a week doing movie stars. Jack encourages her to accept the invitation, tells her he needs time alone to reflect on his father. The book, she says. Thatâs it. Jack is once more a free man, unburdened from the duties of love.
He keeps a hatchet sunk in a stump next to the fireplace that sometimes he takes up to the Platform to throw at a tree. Heâs never gotten it to stick, but itâs exhilarating to try. He is up there hurtling it when he sees the snake. Itâs at least five feet long and black as licorice.
Exposed, but easy in its own display, the old rattler is making its way across the Platform. Jack comes closer. The snake hesitates an instant, then continues. Jack baby-steps alongside it to the edge of the Platform. The snake slides off the concrete into the dry yellow grass and disappears under a stone beneath the pile of rotting lumber.
He could have cut its head off with his hatchet. The snake could have coiled and bit him in the ankle. Instead it has slithered into a hole, but not completely. It has left
He asks if he can see more of her, all of her. It takes her a moment to understand what he means. She stands, watches him watch her take off all her clothes. Sit down over there, he says. Wonderfully nervous, she sits on a single straight chair. Quietly, almost reverently, he asks her to spread her legs.
You are the dream, he tells her, half Venus, half housewife. It is true. She radiates loyalty. Jack goes to her on his knees. He lips her lips above and below. Inside her, he whispers she is the loveliest place he will ever be. So simple how he says these things. That he could live in her beauty forever and that he canât and that he will, at least he will try. Never has Stewart been as happy with a man. Jack tells her she is the one since childhood that has beckoned him.
Stewart buys a sprawling ranch house up the road. She loves the canyon, but Jack knows she wouldnât have done it if he didnât live there. After a year, he realizes she is not as simple as he thought. She is on antidepressants. He never asks about the bite marks on her hands. He doesnât want to know. He knows enough. She wants to keep something to herself, but it is hard. She has to tell him everything. A mistake. Jack doesnât like the likely, the probable; only the impossible could be perfect.
Stewart senses his disappointment and tries to please him, and the more she does, the more disappointed he becomes. He begins to see evidence of something he thinks of as small-heartedness. A lack of wit. She used to laugh at the tricks he played with words, but she no longer inspires him. Her last job, or the story of her day, has ceased to interest him. They make love accordingly. He has become a ruffian in bed. The authority of his sex is as much as she can get, so she takes it and participates voluptuously.
Only once did she become outwardly angry with him. At a birthday party for her agent, Jack told the manâs wife she shouldnât have fixed her nose, that a large one was better than a ruined one. Afterwards Stewart accused him of arrogance and insensitivity. Jack argued his case, had to have the last word, and ended it with a laugh. She never got angry with him againânot the kind that spilled itself. Jack tried once in a while to provoke her, so he could give her the benefit of the doubt, redeem himself, but she never again gave him the chance.
One night over dinner he suggests they should see other people. He isnât thinking of himself, he says, but she knows what it means. It means he is tired of her. There is a photographer who has been calling, who doesnât stop asking her to dinner. Peter Ryles, a South African, famous for shooting retired dictators, thirty-foot crocs, and the worldâs most beautiful women. He is in Beverly Hills for a week doing movie stars. Jack encourages her to accept the invitation, tells her he needs time alone to reflect on his father. The book, she says. Thatâs it. Jack is once more a free man, unburdened from the duties of love.
He keeps a hatchet sunk in a stump next to the fireplace that sometimes he takes up to the Platform to throw at a tree. Heâs never gotten it to stick, but itâs exhilarating to try. He is up there hurtling it when he sees the snake. Itâs at least five feet long and black as licorice.
Exposed, but easy in its own display, the old rattler is making its way across the Platform. Jack comes closer. The snake hesitates an instant, then continues. Jack baby-steps alongside it to the edge of the Platform. The snake slides off the concrete into the dry yellow grass and disappears under a stone beneath the pile of rotting lumber.
He could have cut its head off with his hatchet. The snake could have coiled and bit him in the ankle. Instead it has slithered into a hole, but not completely. It has left
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