ONE

What patience. What brave, glorious, undaunted patience. When she had finally thought of it, how proud at her own intellect she had been. And even then she had realized it would take patience -- patience to sit in front of the hot metal, patience to draw her face near, and nearer even as the heat became evident, whispering toward her cheek. Patience at the moment itself, so as to do it right, to pull away slowly, because she did not, after all, want to rip half of her face off and leave it staring back at her from the radiator. She wanted a controlled effort, a specific result. Only a wound, a perfect wound. She was absolutely confident at the idea of it, because what was this patience compared to her life? Three small seconds.

She either winced or smiled as she peeled her cheek away. Burnt, sweet flesh tickled her nostrils. Her eyes welled, swam in their little sockets. When she could see properly again, she rose and staggered, flesh screaming, from the living room to the kitchen.

The first thing she did was pour herself a glass of whiskey. A glass one might fill with milk. She drank it down until the heat in her throat and chest challenged the fire in her right cheek, the fire filling up the whole right side of her face now, making her nostril flare a little, her lip quiver, her eye close. The whiskey streamed down the center of her body: high voltage.

She thought of things her women friends said to her. Advice, consolations over scripted lunches. Come on, be serious, get a grip. You don't really hate him, do you? How cliche. For Christ's sake grow up, be sensible, have a little self control. Go on a diet -- herbs and tofu. Change your hair. Your wardrobe. Your perfume. Your heels. Make something of your life. Sex isn't everything, don't be ridiculous. You are obsessing. You are playing the victim. You are just being lazy. I wish I had your problem! Or her personal favorite: Honey, what you need is a good fuck.

How do you tell women who wear false nails and baby powder between their legs and order chicken salads with vinaigrette dressing at linen-covered tables and who are busy trying desperately to chew without smudging lipstick that women must keep moving or die?

She walked around her living room holding her drink, feeling animated. Alive. Gesturing with her drink to the T.V., the couch, the different objects in the room, speaking aloud from time to time. What advice, she wanted to know, was there for epic anger and hate equaled only in intensity by need? She bent to confront the end table. "Have you guessed at my sense of desperation? Where should I put my anger? Who can my anger take care of? Make love to? Where does a woman put her anger? In marriage? In children? Lovers? Contact sports? Alcohol, drugs, violence? Because buddy," and here she took a step back from the endtable for effect, "we're not just talking about the kind of anger you can bake away or submerge in dishwater or paint with red lips or do lunch over or cover over with some Victoria's Secret silky little treasure . . . I'm pissed . . . I mean, I am fucking pissed off . . . " she paused. She looked serious at the endtable. "Well?" No one answered, the room swelled with shame, silence and ignorance. The now cold pain in her cheek pierced all the way through her skull. She thought maybe her right eye had swollen shut, anyway, she could no longer open it. She went to the bathroom to have a look. On her way to the bathroom she realized this was all a little disgusting, a little over dramatic, a little raw. She realized if she were to tell someone about it, they might just as soon not order anything to eat, they might lean a little away from her in the listening. They would really rather not, not in public, not so close. She whispered to the bathroom door before she opened it, "Should we keep quiet?" She opened the bathroom door, looked herself in the face. Hey! It really was a beauty! She examined it: the outer edge was deep red and crimped, then a kind of purplish welt rising on either side like mangled lips. In the center of that a pus-filled, long, yellowish bubble of blistered skin oozing and retreating like sea foam. An amazing wound. The perfect. The living end. By the time he got home, she'd be out already. By the time he got home, she'll have outlined her own eyes in black, blue lashes. By the time he got home, she'll be blushed and lipsticked -- what else, red as a Coca-Cola can. By the time he got home, after she's stared at the tools of the face for a long while, she'll decide on a gold dust shadow, she'll trace a glow around the thing, precious metal. By the time he got home, she'd be sitting in a bar with the most perfect wound imaginable. There'd be no way to miss it.