It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.
And suddenly it dawned on the late Windle Poons that there was no such thing as somebody else’s problem, and that just when you thought the world had pushed you aside it turned out to be full of strangeness. He knew from experience that the living never found out half of what was really happening, because they were too busy beingthe living. […]
It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and the mundane. But it wasstrange. It had things in it like screws that unscrewed themselves, and little written messages for the dead.
“Andthen he realized why he was thinking like this.
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”
It wasn’t regression. She knew that, as much as she knew it wasn't entirely normal. But this wasn’t her retreating into childhood, trying to cling to innocence lost, finding herself safe and coddled among the circumstances that had her needs catered to, where the only thing she worried about was Hattie Bremner pushing her into the mud by the log during breaktime.
That’s not what it was about, and that wasn’t why she hugged the bear when he looked at her with those eyes. It wasn’t about childhood, no matter what names they may or may not use with one another. On the surface of it, it was about the perversion, of using the roles in a way that was entirely inappropriate. That was the fun parts, that was what had lured her in. But it wasn’t why she stayed, and it wasn’t why she was clinging to a teddy like it was the last thing keeping him from ravaging her.
As if she didn’t want it. But then that was part of it, too.
From the outside, it sure as hell looked like regression, she knew. The way her tone of voice shifted, the way her mannerisms altered and warped, adopting the kind of persona that would cling to a bear like she was. But it wasn’t as if her thoughts were slipping backwards with everything else. She was still who she had always been, just… safer. That was the crux of it.
She’d been submissive for three years, but it was only in these past two months that she’d felt completely comfortable about it. To have him look after her, to be able to step into the bedroom and entirely surrender, to surrender her adulthood along with the rest, to be able to shrug off the responsibilities that forced her to be responsible. It was relief that made her cling. It was safety that had made her stay.
He beckoned with a finger. She shook her head, tucked her chin against the soft polyester of the bear’s fur. He smiled, rolled his eyes, and beckoned again. She grinned behind the stuffed toy.
He arched an eyebrow, and that finger curled a third time, slow as molasses.
The bear fell to the ground, and bounced a few times. Before it was still she had made it across the room and onto his lap, damn near winding him.
