Instruments of Torture

The Iron Maiden

The Iron Maiden was used primarily in Germany, the most famous version being the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg. This apparatus was essentially a large container, shaped like a woman, equipped with two doors with adjustable iron spikes. Legend has it that a German who had forged coins was shut inside the Iron Maiden on August 14, 1515. His arms, legs, belly, chest, bladder, genitals, eyes, shoulders and buttocks were slowly pierced by the spikes causing excruciating pain but not death. The Iron Maiden's embrace, much like many other investigative methods, was designed not to execute but to torture.

aaIt was inside the Torture Instruments Through the Ages exhibit at the Museum of Man that I figured out why I hate Francesca. Somewhere between the head crusher and the impaling rod it dawned on me. She was Jack's what-if girl, the one he would have (perhaps should have) slept with before I came along, but for some reason never did.
aaTesting the sharpness of an iron spike, she could have been the same girl in faded Levis and sandals we knew at school ten years ago. I'd been looking for some evidence of change in her face since she arrived the night before, but the only thing I found was a new dark freckle on her bottom lip. And Jack, I was beginning to realize, hadn't changed much either. So, as she and Jack leaned into the various displays of chastity belts and stockades while I waddled behind them, eight months pregnant with hemorrhoids and sciatica, Francesca came to represent everything Jack's life would have (perhaps should have) been had I not come along.
aaWhen Francesca called and said she was going to be in town for the weekend, Jack waited almost three days to tell me. I know this, because I heard him talking to her in the baby's room that used to be the office. I didn't need to hear him say her name. I just recognized that tone. When we were all friends and all lived in the same city I used to hate that tone. I remember lying in his bed once while he talked to her in the bathroom, wanting to gag at the way he picked up her accent, that soft Brooklynese that was about as far from his native Wisconsin tongue as Chinese or Swahili. It was that weird adopted New York accent I heard coming out of the office turned nursery-in-waiting, but rather than acknowledge that I'd been eavesdropping, I merely waited for the bomb to drop. And I waited until I was at my now weekly OB/GYN appointment before he dropped it.
aa"Frannie's going to be in town this weekend," he said, casually flipping through a weekly pregnancy guide.
aa"Hmph," I said. I couldn't help it.
aaMy doctor was up to the elbows, so to speak, but looked at me when I grunted.
aa"Sorry."
aa"It's not you," I said.
aaJack looked at me over the top of an illustrated uterus, scowling.
aa"When does she get here?" I asked.
aa"She's actually here already, in San Diego, I mean, at a conference, but she'd like to stay with us for the weekend."
aa"Humph."
aa"Everything looks great, Elaine," my kindly and almost-handsome doctor smiled. "See you next week?"
aa"You bet," I said, flirting a little, ignoring Jack's hand as it reached out to help me off the slippery table.

aaBy the time we got home I'd figured out a zillion reasons why she shouldn't stay with us.
aa"Where will she sleep?" I asked.
aa"In the office," Jack said.
aa"In the crib?" Incredulous.
aa"On the air mattress."
aa"Isn't she allergic to cats?"
aa"Pollen and strawberries. Jesus, Laney."
aaBy the time Friday arrived, I'd given up.

Branks or scold's bridles (1500-1800)

These devices, often elaborately designed, were employed to punish those who challenged prevailing conventions in general and male authority in particular. These victims were predominantly women, and the primary ruling was against women who spoke out either in church or in the presence of a man. Consequently, branks were often placed in the victim's mouth, ultimately mutilating the tongue with it's inner spikes and blades. The victims were forced to endure this method of torture in the public square, vulnerable to the whims of the crowd who subjected them to a variety of beatings and humiliations. They were frequently defecated upon and even fatally wounded in their genitals or breasts.

aaShe has this knock. I've never remembered anyone's knock before, but after I heard her suitcase rolling up our sidewalk and then the sound of our screen door creaking open, I knew exactly what to expect. Knock, pause, knock-knock-knock. A little tap dance of knuckles on wood that recalled a whole other era of my life. With that single rhythmic gesture, I was in Jack's studio apartment in Seattle again, tangled up in the sheets and Jack's legs. There was probably a thick dripping candle on the windowsill. Everything smelled like candle wax those days. Even sex. Knock, pause , knock-knock-knock. She was always interrupting things. I'd never seen Jack get out of bed so quickly, his hands flying to the top of his head to pat down the mess we'd made. And I remembered not bothering with real clothes, just pulling on Jack's flannel shirt and my panties, hoping that my attire would indicate that she'd chosen a bad time.
aaBut now when I opened the door, she wasn't standing there rain-soaked with a soggy backpack and a half-eaten gyro in waxed paper, but rather tan and smiling, holding out a bunch of irises.
aa"I picked these up at the Farmer's Market up the street. What a great neighborhood this is! Doesn't feel like southern California at all. And the ocean smells so good. I can practically taste the salt. The closest I get to this in New York is the smell of the pretzel guy down my street. I don't mean the guy, but the pretzels."
aa"Hi," I said in a way that an old friend should, taking the irises and hugging her. I held on an extra few seconds, pressing my big belly into her as hard as I could without seeming weird. When we stepped back, she touched my shoulders and examined me like a dress.
aa"Look at you! You're just beautiful," she said, motioning to my stomach. "Does everybody want to touch it?"
aa"The pizza guy asked last night," I nodded.
aa"I'd love to take some pictures," she said. "Could we do that? Maybe on Sunday?"
aaFrancesca is a fashion photographer. She works freelance for a number of different high-end magazines, the kind that you can't find at the drugstore, and that if you do find them cost $12.95 and feature snapshots of socialites and debutantes as well as supermodels. At UW she was a double major in Fine Arts and History. That's how she met Jack. Medieval History.
aa"Oh, I don't know," I said.
aa"Please?" she said, giving the dress a little squeeze. aa"It'll be fun. And it's not like it's some studio photographer, it's just me."
aa"We'll see," I said. "Maybe Sunday."
aa"Where's Jack?" she asked, letting go of me.
aa"He's at school. He's got office hours until 3:00, and then he's coming home. We've got reservations at this Italian place for 6:00. I figured Italian was okay. I can never remember whether it's Italian or Mexican you don't like."
aa"Sweet Jesus, don't let my Italian grandmother hear you. God bless her soul. Actually it's Thai. "And Indian. I'm not such a huge fan of Indian."
aa"Good," I said. "Italian is good then".
aa"Oh, I almost forgot. I have something for you," she said, bending over to unzip her suitcase. Her waist-length black hair swept the floor. She pulled out a wrapped package, brown paper tied with a rustic bow of raffia.
aa"You didn't have to. . . . " I was starting to feel guilty.
aa"Oh, it's nothing. It's just something I did last fall. It made me think of you guys."
aaI carefully untied the raffia and unwrapped the package without tearing the paper, pretending I was saving it I guess, and held up the framed print.
aaThe photo was of a teenaged girl and boy, both of them gaunt, their bare arms bearing black and white track marks. They were standing on a stoop missing the second step, holding hands. The boy looked defiant, his other hand stuffed into his tight jeans. The girl looked enamored, gazing at him, her eyes wide and scared, like a child afraid of letting go of her mother's hand.
aa"They reminded you of me and Jack?"
aa"I mean, they're junkies and all, but look how happy they are. Holding hands. They held hands the whole time I was with them. Like they couldn't let go or else one of them would disappear."
"It's great," I said. "It's perfect. Thank you."

aaThat night at my favorite Italian restaurant downtown, the one in the Gaslamp District that has all this Italian kitsch (velvet paintings of the Pope, autographed photos of Frank Sinatra, even a ceramic Venus de Milo in the center of our table), Jack and Francesca got drunk on the house Chianti, and I drank so much Sprite I thought I'd either explode or go into a sugar coma.
aa"I was in Rome last year," she said. "For six months."
aa"That's amazing," Jack said. "Isn't that amazing, Laney?"
aa"Amazing," I nodded.
aa"It started with a shoot for Italian Vogue, but I got, how should I say it, side-tracked?" Francesca laughed.
aaJack looked confused.
aaFrancesca's hand shot across the table and grabbed my wrist. "A boy. Of course, some friend of Naomi's. Long pause. He was from Morocco, I think. Gorgeous. Dumb as a box of rocks though. I should have known."
aaI wasn't sure what she was looking for from me. Empathy? Because some supermodel set her up with some exotic African? Or the fact that he was dumb? I shot a look at Jack who was staring at the menu.
aaI nodded empathetically at Francesca, but she held onto my wrist.
aa"Great in bed though," she whispered and Jack's head shot up.
aaOver the bruschetta we shared, Jack and Francesca finished the first bottle of wine, and I silently vowed I would never let this child forget what I'd sacrificed during my pregnancy. I even thought about stealing a few sips from Jack's wine glass while they were exploring the Sistine Chapel Room, but knew that gray teeth and stained lips would give me away. I ordered the veal parmigiana, fully aware of the ironies. I also ordered a salad and more bruschetta. Francesca, who didn't need a pregnancy to alleviate her food guilt, ordered the spaghetti and meatballs with extra meatballs and Jack got what he always gets, lasagna. And while Dean Martin crooned and everybody but me got drunk, I watched them.
aaJack is one of those men who is better looking when he's telling a story. His face, when it's in a state of rest, is highly uninteresting: brown hair that falls into his average eyes, smallish mouth and nondescript nose (not too big, not too small). But when he speaks, when his face comes alive, and he is relaying anything from the weather forecast to his feelings about something important, that's when I remember the flutters I used to get in my gut whenever he was close.
aaAt the Italian restaurant he was talking about the Spanish Inquisition exhibit, about the largest collection of authentic torture devices assembled in the United States. Francesca was positively rapt, and I could tell that she noticed his transformation too. His skin was illuminated by the red glow of the mesh-covered glass candleholder. He was resting his elbows on either side of the plate, his hands fluttering like birds as he described the various instruments of torture.
aaFrancesca had on a simple black linen dress, sleeveless, revealing arms that looked manufactured by a gym, but I knew were just the accidental byproduct of lugging camera equipment around. Francesca was not the gym type. Her hair was up off her neck, but it was hot, and she had to keep pushing stray pieces away from her face. We were all sweating. Being pregnant through the entire summer, I had become accustomed to the misery of being too hot for my skin. But inside that restaurant there was something more than late summer making me uncomfortable. There it was again. Brooklyn coming out of Jack's thin lips.
aa"They've got an executiona's axe, thumbscrews, spiked collas."
aa"Collars," I said. "Spiked collars."
aa"That's what I said," Jack said, looking at me as I sucked more Sprite through my straw. I stared into the red plastic tumbler.
aa"We could go, tomorra, if you want?" he said.
aa"Fantastic. Do they allow cameras inside?"

aaI drove us home, taking the long way around the harbor to avoid the inevitable return to our interrupted home.
aaWhen a stranger comes to your house, suddenly you start to see your things in a whole new way. When Jack finally managed to get the key in the door, and I turned on the lights, I tried to see our things the way Francesca might.
aaWe still didn't have a real couch. It was the one expense neither one of us was quite ready to accept. Since college we'd been sitting on Goodwill couches of various plaids and burlap, fantasizing about the day we'd be able to buy one of those couches they always advertise in the Sunday papers supplements. I favored the velvety type, filled with down. Jack preferred the wooden framed sort, sensible and versatile. And so what we had was a faux patchwork love seat, cushions flipped to strategically hide the tears.
aaJack went to the bathroom. Francesca tossed her purse onto the floor and sat down on the couch. I cringed.
aa"Come here," she said to me, motioning for me to come sit next to her. I set down the Styrofoam container with Jack's leftover lasagna inside and reluctantly went to her. She reached her hand up and grabbed mine.
aa"Sit," she said.
aaI obeyed.
aa"You seem so happy," she said.
aaI didn't know what she was talking about. I'd been quiet and pissed off the whole night. Maybe my Cheshire cat smile had worked.
aa"I'm glad everything's come together for you." I wouldn't even know she was drunk if I hadn't watched her down two bottles of Chianti with my husband. And go figure, her teeth weren't stained.
aa"You have everything you wanted," she said.
aa"What do you mean?" I asked.
aaShe turned to me and looked at me hard. I stared at her eyebrows, their perfect black arches, one raised slightly more than the other, but still somehow perfectly symmetrical.
aa"I mean. . . the house. The baby." She reached for my belly, smiling, and I had to resist the distinct urge to recoil from her long pretty fingers.
aaHer expression turned serious.
aa"Don't you have everything you wanted too?" I asked. aa"Your job? The travel?"
aa"I mean. . . "she whispered, leaning into me. aaThen I smelled the wine on her breath. "Jack."
The bathroom door opened, the sound of the toilet bowl filling with water punctuating the silence.
aa"Anybody want to play cards?" Jack asked, grinning foolishly, and I wanted to run to him and wrap myself around him, to say to her, He's mine. Now go home. Instead, I said, "Let's play Hearts."

The Saw

This particular large-toothed, four-handed woodsman's saw dates back only two centuries, though historical accounts of its victims abound. The unfortunate subject was suspended upside-down, and the saw was used to split the body in two, beginning at the crotch. Because the victim was inverted, the brain remained adequately oxygenated and little blood was lost, ensuring that consciousness was maintained until the saw reached the navel and even possibly the breast. The saw was frequently assigned as a method of torture and execution to homosexuals of both sexes. In Spain, the saw was rumored to have been used in the armed forces until the end of the eighteenth century. The saw was the chosen method of execution for leaders of disobedient peasants in Lutheran Germany, and in France it provided punishment for witches who became pregnant by Satan.

aI found out I was pregnant the same day I got laid off from my third job this year. In the morning, while Jack was sleeping, I peed on the fourth pregnancy stick in as many days, setting it on the edge of the counter while I flossed my teeth. I already knew what the Magic 8-Ball would say (it had been saying the same thing for four days), so I took extra time, flossing and rinsing, flossing and rinsing.
aaJack's first class wasn't until noon, so I left the stick on the counter and a note in the leftover steam on the mirror. Hi, Daddy.
aaThen I went to work.
aaBut what I imagined, the phone call saying, Come home. Tell them you're sick. I'll be there in ten minutes, oh my God I am so happy. . . didn't have time to happen.
aaI had already lived this scene. The first time it had surprised me: the inevitable crying secretary standing at the boss's door clutching a box of tissues and a framed photo of her three children (or cats, or boyfriend), the computer equipment stripped from the desks, the chaos of workers breaking down cubicle dividers, walls falling around people struggling to get their personal e-mails off the hard drive. And so I emptied my drawer filled with Tootsie Rolls and did what my friend Zelda calls the dot-bomb dance (which typically entails lots of profanity and gesturing toward the boss and workers and crying secretary) all the way out the door.
aaWhen I got home, Jack was reading the paper, eating a bowl of Bran Flakes.
aa"Hi," I said.
aa"Oh shit," he said, like a question. To be polite.
aaI nodded. "My cubicle was missing. They left my desk, but they took my walls before I even got there."
aaJack nodded and folded the newspaper.
aa"Did you get my message?" I asked.
aa"What message?"
aa"In the bathroom?"
aa"You left me a message in the bathroom? Why didn't you put it on the dry erase board?"
aaI sat down at the table and covered my face with my hands.
aa"Well, are you going to tell me?" he asked.
aa"I'm pregnant," I said, staring at his cereal bowl, at the sensible bran, at the brown milk.
aa"Oh shit," he said. And this time it wasn't like a question at all.
aaOver time, of course, we both warmed up to the idea. Jack even transformed into a new but familiar kind of Jack, the kind of Jack concerned with the safety of high chairs and cribs. I was more fascinated with names and how very small the socks and t-shirts were. By the time Francesca arrived, we'd settled into the pregnancy like a secondhand couch.
aaIn the morning, while Jack was still sleeping and the door to the baby's room remained closed, I stared at my naked body in the mirror and thought, This is it. You will never see your ribs again. I rubbed a futile handful of cocoa butter lotion across the great mountain of my stomach. I did it in the beginning to ward off stretch marks that defiantly appeared anyway. Now I just did it because my skin was stretched beyond recognition and itched beyond belief.
aaI pulled the prettiest dress I had over my head, yanking it down over my round middle, and thought about squeezing my swollen feet into a cute pair of strappy sandals. I opted for flip-flops (and a modicum of comfort) instead and went to the living room to wait for them to wake up.
aaFrancesca came out first. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that just reached the middle of her thighs. Her hair was tangled and she rubbed her eyes like a child. "Morning," she said and disappeared into the bathroom.
aaCoffee. The other forbidden beverage. I made a pot of coffee out of habit for Jack, holding my nose against the temptation of it all. Jack emerged from the bedroom and, seeing the bathroom door closed, came to me in the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around me and my big stomach, nuzzling his head into my neck. "Thank you," he said and I almost forgave him for letting Francesca win at Hearts.

The Judas cradle

This method of torture was perhaps one of the most vicious and painful exercised in the Middle Ages. The victim was first stripped and then suspended over a jagged or pointed pyramid. The torturer, using ropes and pulleys, was able to raise and lower the victim so that the point would penetrate either the anus, the vagina, or the scrotum. Using these ropes and pulleys, the pressure ranged from none to the total weight of the victim's body. The victim was frequently made to fall repeatedly onto the point.

aaWho am I kidding? I guess I've always known that Francesca is Jack's what-if girl. She has been his imagined future since Jack and I first met, since the possibility of Francesca became something unknowable to Jack. Something out of reach. But it really hits me at the torture exhibit. Like a chain flail across my back.
aaJack met Francesca in the Medieval History seminar at UW. They were friends for an entire year before he met me (at the coffee shop where I worked for one semester before the Starbucks across the street put it out of business and me out of a part time job). That year of friendship between them was something I could never catch up on. No matter how long Jack and I were together, Francesca will have always known him longer.
aaThe first few times we went out, Francesca came along. I was surprised the first time when he arrived to pick me up with Francesca following close behind, snapping photos and cracking jokes. At first I thought she was his sister. They had the same accent.
aaI never got used to it. Not when she came with us to the French film festival at the Varsity (Jack sandwiched between us, staring helplessly at Emmanuelle Beart, totally nude for four hours in La Belle Noiseuse). Not when she knocked on the door in the middle of our first night together with news of her grandmother's death (Jack sandwiched between us on the first Goodwill couch, staring helplessly at the pot of tea on the coffee table in front of us as Francesca cried about her Nonna). It wasn't until we graduated and she moved to New York that I finally felt free. When Jack started applying to graduate schools, I sabotaged the NYU and Columbia brochures that arrived in his post box like small slaps in the face. When he got accepted into UCSD, I packed his clothes (tossing the faded UW t-shirt she'd forgotten once that wound up unwashed, pristine, in his drawer).
And for a while, the amputation of Francesca seemed clean. Jack started and finished graduate school. I got my first job with an Internet startup. And Francesca was nothing more than a phantom limb, making her presence known only in postcards and the occasional message on the machine.
aaBut now, inside the dark recesses of the Museum of Man, there was that year all over again. I might have been having his child, but she had that year. That year that they met before I came along, when everything was possible. That year when they spent their afternoons in the coffee shop where I eventually was hired and fired. When they took the bus to the Pike Place Market and wound up at the sex-toy shop giggling over dildos and vibrators and edible panties. That year that they studied Medieval History late into the night, not-kissing.
aaMy back was aching and my skin was itching and my hemorrhoids were burning as we perused the instruments of torture. Francesca made Jack and me pose with the Iron Maiden and clicked several shots.
aa"One more?" she pleaded.
aaJack smiled broadly, and I grimaced when the flash went off.
I wandered away from the Iron Maiden and sat down on a bench near the exit and put my head between my knees.
aa"Nauseating, isn't it?" The security guard offered me a cone-shaped cup of water.
aaConfused, I looked at Jack and Francesca pointing in mutual horror at an iron mask.
aa"Sickening," I agreed.
aa"In your condition, you'd think you wouldn't want to be around this kind of thing," he said.
aaI nodded and accepted the water.

The Chastity Belt

The myth of the medieval chastity belt was that it was used to ensure fidelity. However, wearing one of these devices for any significant amount of time would inevitably lead to lacerations, abrasions, and even sepsis. More likely, a woman would use the chastity belt as a protective device against rape which was an ever-present threat. So, though not a traditional device associated with torture, the chastity belt still represents the barbarism of the medieval male.

aaJack and I have not had sex for over a month. In the beginning, it was easy to pretend that nothing had changed, that my body wasn't metamorphosing into something neither of us recognized. But after about five months, I no longer remembered what my old butt looked like, and lying on my back didn't make my stomach appear to be flat anymore. Jack's been a good sport about the abstinence, he gave up trying almost three weeks ago, but almost every joke he makes is of the sexual sort lately. He's become the king of dirty jokes, his frustration channeled into one punch line after another.
aa"So this nurse keeps sneezing, and the second nurse says, 'Geez, are you all right?' And the first nurse says, 'Yeah, I'm fine, but I can't stop sneezing.' The second nurse says, 'That's terrible.' The first nurse says, 'It's okay, because every time I sneeze I have an orgasm.' The second nurse says, 'Wow! Are you taking anything for it?' The first nurse says, 'Yeah. Pepper.'"
aaJack slapped the table at the Mexican restaurant, and my rolled taco rolled off my plate.
aaFrancesca sipped on her margarita and I sucked on my Sprite. Jack was contemplating another dirty joke, probably trying to formulate it in his mind.
aa"What would you like to do tonight?" I asked. "It's your last night here."
aaFrancesca licked a bit of salt from her lip and said, "I don't know. Maybe go take a walk on the beach?"
aa"What about a movie?" I asked.
aa"Sure," she said.
aa"Let's get a paper and see what's playing." The idea of killing a couple of the remaining excruciating hours of Francesca's visit by sitting in a dark theater, not talking, seemed like the best idea I'd had in awhile.
aaThen Francesca sneezed. And then she sneezed again. And again. And again.
aaJack's hand shot out for the pepper shaker in the center of the table. He handed it to her, grinning with pride.
aa"Jeez, I must be allergic to something around here."
aa"Hmph," I said. I couldn't help it.

aaSitting in the movie theater was its own kind of torture. Not only did Jack find his usual place sandwiched between us, the mismatched bookends, holding the giant bucket of popcorn we were all supposed to share, but it wasn't one of those new plush theaters with the comfortable seats, and my sciatica was almost unbearable. By the time we got back to the house, I felt like electric shocks were traveling from my hip all the way down my leg.
aa"Let's go walk on the beach!" Francesca said. "It's a full moon. It'll be beautiful."
aa"Go ahead," I said, waving them away. Giving up. If they said they were running away together, I probably would have bid the same fond adieu. I lowered myself onto the ugly couch and clicked on the TV.
aaFrancesca borrowed one of Jack's sweaters to wear to the beach. When she pulled it over her head, her hair was trapped inside, and she didn't bother to pull it out. She looped her arm through Jack's and waved. "We'll be back in a little bit."
aaAfter they closed the door, I heard Jack saying, "Oh, oh, you've got to hear this one . . . so anyway, this priest and this prostitute meet at a bar. . . ."
aaI'd had to do this before ­ let them go. To a Prince concert one night when I had to study for an exam. To the mountains one weekend when I got the flu. To the grocery store, apple-picking, and fishing. Antiquing, bike-riding, to the dentist when Jack had his wisdom teeth removed. I couldn't be there all the time. I couldn't watch over them in the hopes that nothing would happen. I just had to trust. And so far, nothing had. As far as I knew.
aaAll of a sudden the baby kicked and my stomach dropped.
aaAs far as I knew. I didn't know anything. I hadn't been with them in the mountains. I hadn't been in the canoe with them on Lake Washington, or inside the dusty antique store in Fremont. Was I crazy? The only thing I knew was what Jack didn't say. And Jack didn't say much.
aaMy heart beating, my hands sweating, and the electric current in my butt buzzing, I limped into the baby's room and closed the door behind me. Francesca's bags were placed carefully in the corner, the makeshift bed made. The moon shone through the window and through the bars of the crib making a cage on the floor. I sat down on the carpet and opened her suitcase first.
aaInside it smelled like her detergent. Jeans, soft T-shirts, a flowery sun dress. The linen dress she wore to dinner and two pairs of stockings. A worn paperback missing the cover and a jewelry bag full of dangly earrings. I carefully reached into the pocket of her jeans and felt the rough edge of a piece of paper. I pulled it gently out and peered at the handwriting. It had been through the wash. Toilet paper. Film. Benadryl. My hands were shaking. I shoved the note back into her pocket and zipped the suitcase quickly.
aaI reached for the black leather book bag next, my leg a live wire, my throat thick.Inside was her address book, held together with a rubber band. A copy of Interview magazine. The roll of film she'd taken at the museum earlier. I touched the canister and thought about Francesca in her darkroom, the pictures of Jack and I by the guillotine outside, the sun in our eyes, me clinging to Jack's hand. I thought about the heroin addicts in the gift she'd given us and slipped the canister in my pocket.
aaThe air outside exploded. I leapt to my feet, almost collapsing. One leg was humming, and the other was asleep. I was completely made of currents. Outside I could see the small explosions of the nightly fireworks display at Seaworld. This view was one of the reasons why we bought this house rather than the larger one up the hill. A loud crack, and the sky was splintered with red lights. I imagined Jack and Francesca, walking along the deserted beach, noticing the fireworks in the distance. I imagined them holding hands. I imagined everything.
aaBy the time they came back in the door, offering me a warm churro from the all-night taco stand around the corner, I was convinced I'd been wrong all along. Francesca wasn't his what-if girl at all. Everything about the way they came in, giggling at Jack's joke about the little boy catching his parents doing it, offering me the long cinnamony stick of dough (a strange compensatory gratuity) said guilty, guilty.


The Interrogation Chair

This chair was built of iron and equipped with either wooden or iron spikes (which could be heated up from behind). Also called the "Confession Chair," this chair inflicted unbearable pain to its victim. Still used in some countries to elicit confessions, modern interrogation chairs are sometimes equipped with an electrical current.


aaIn the bedroom I waited for Jack. I turned down my side of the bed, got in, and crossed my arms. I didn't turn out the light. I only waited. I could hear the sound of water running in the bathroom, the shuffle of Jack's feet as he turned out the lights. Francesca's "Night, Jack," and the hesitation before her door closed.
aa"Why are you still awake? "Jack asked, peeling off his sweater and shirt.
aa"Don't get sand in the bed," I said.
aa"You okay?" he asked, crawling in next to me, putting his ear against my stomach the way he did every night. "Good night, baby," he whispered, his lips grazing my inverted belly button.
aa"I need you to do to that thing you do with my back," I said.
aa"It's bad tonight, isn't it?"
aaI nodded, feeling like I was going to cry.
aaI rolled over on my side, and he pressed his bare foot hard against my tailbone. At first it hurt, and I moaned. I thought for a second that Francesca, on the other side of our wall, might mistake my pain for passion, so I moaned again. But then the trick started to work, and for the first time in days the pain was gone. The circuit breaker was shut off, and my leg felt like a leg again.
aa"Better?" Jack asked.
aaI nodded and he reached across my giant stomach to turn out the light.
aaThere was sand on my back from where his foot had been, but I just brushed it away and squeezed my eyes shut.

aaIn the morning, Francesca made pancakes in my kitchen and Jack read the Sunday paper. I took a shower, feeling like I'd slept on the beach.
aaI sat down next to Jack and grabbed the advertising supplements. I scoured them for the battery-operated infant swing we'd had our eyes on.
aaJack looked over my shoulder. "It's on sale," he said.
aaI smiled. "Let's go get it today. After Francesca leaves."
aaJack kissed my cheek.
aa"Let's take pictures today," Francesca said, putting down a plate of steaming pancakes in front of me. "While Jack's at school."
aa"Why are you going to school today?" I asked.
aa"I'm meeting one of my students. She's failing, and she couldn't make my office hours Friday. They've got an exam tomorrow."
aa"Oh," I said.
aa"It'll be fun," Francesca said. "I promise."
aaAfter Jack left, Francesca set up the tripod and umbrella lights that she had in her rental car. She used a large sheet to transform our small living room into a virtual studio. I looked through my closet for something to wear.
aa"Get something simple. We don't want this to be about your clothes," she said.
aaI found the one not-so-little black dress that still fit and pulled it on.
aa"Gorgeous," she said. "Now stand right over there and let me check the lights."
aaFrancesca was actually very good. I forgot for awhile that I hated her, and even felt proud of my belly, even when I looked at her bare midriff exposed each time she lifted her arms to raise or lower the lights.
aaAn hour went by before we took a break.
aa"I'm having such a good time," Francesca said, sitting down on the couch, opening the soda can I brought her. The lights were hot, and we were both thirsty.
aa"Well, I know it means a lot to Jack to stay in touch."
aa"I mean with you," she said. Then she gestured to my stomach. And the baby.
aaI sipped on my lemonade.
aa"I know you don't like me," she said.
aaThe baby kicked me in the ribs, and I winced.
aa"I mean, I wouldn't like me either," I suppose.
aaI didn't know what to say. My face was sweating. I shook my head weakly in protest.
aaBut instead of further explanation, she offered me nothing. Why shouldn't I like her? She was Jack's old best friend. She and Jack weren't exes. They weren't lovers. What was she talking about?
aa"I want some nude photos," I blurted out. "For Jack's birthday."
aa"Perfect," she said, and I took off my clothes.
aaMaybe I just wanted to show her the reality of what Jack and I had. Maybe I thought that my naked stomach and swollen breasts (and ankles) might clarify for her that she might have that extra year, but I had his offspring. His progeny. She couldn't match that. She just couldn't. And so I lay on my back and closed my eyes, while she fanned my hair out like strange mermaid and took an aerial photo of my very pregnant body. After another hour, I didn't feel shy or strange anymore and I thought that I could live like this. Naked. Wild. Beautiful. Maybe I just wanted to prove that I was every bit as exciting as she was.
aaI don't hate you, Francesca. I feel sorry for you. That's what I should have said.
aaWhat I did say was, "My back is killing me and this baby wants food. Let's call it a day."

aaWhen Jack came home, Francesca took a shower.
aaI sat at the kitchen table and stared at the side of the refrigerator. "I need to know something," I said.
aa"What's that?" Jack asked, peering into the cupboard for something to eat.
aaThere was a long drip mark running down the side of the fridge. A misplaced magnet. An old lasagna noodle peeking out from under the fridge. I could hear Francesca turning the hot water on, the sound of her clothes coming off.
aa"I was just wondering if you ever think about what would have happened if I hadn't been working that day. At the coffee shop."
aa"You mean Latté for Work?"
aa"No, the first coffee shop. In Seattle."
aa"You mean if we'd never met?" he said, closing the cupboard door and sitting down next to me at the table.
aa"Yeh. If we'd never met."
aaHe reached out and touched my stomach, absently, in the way both of us had become prone to doing.
aa"Let me think," he said.
aaGood idea, I thought.
aa"Well, I certainly wouldn't have finished school. I probably wouldn't have moved to California. I probably wouldn't have even moved out of that studio apartment."
aaI covered his hand with my own as the baby wriggled under our fingers.
aa"I wouldn't have gotten married," he said seriously.
aaMy heart beat in my throat, and I looked at his face. His honest face.
aa"And I certainly wouldn't have been anybody's daddy."
aaThe baby gave a kick that nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I squeezed his hand.

aaJack helped Francesca load up the rental car and scribbled directions to the airport in her address book. I hugged her, and stood in the door touching my belly as she and Jack walked down the street to her car. I went back inside and closed the door. I did not look out the window. Didn't even peek.
aaIn the bathroom, I tried to flush the stolen roll of film down the toilet, but it resurfaced again. I quickly fished it out and tossed it in the waste basket.
aaWhen Jack came back I was in the baby's room deflating the air mattress. I unplugged the valve and sat all of my 174 pounds down square in the center and listened to the whistle of the air escaping.
aa"Well that was a nice visit," he said and sat down next to me.
aaTogether we waited for the air to escape, Jack pushing the places I couldn't reach, until we were both touching the ground and the air mattress was completely empty.

The Guillotine

The purpose of this device was not torture but execution. The apparatus, comprised of a blade which falls between two vertical columns equipped with grooves, was designed to behead and was used as early as the fourteenth century. It is named after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician elected to the National Assembly in 1789 who mandated that all executions be performed by this painless method. Painless perhaps, but scientists soon discovered (and this has been confirmed by modern neuroscience) that a head that is cut off in this swift manner is well aware that it has been beheaded, maintaining consciousness just long enough to perceive this.

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