He treated himself to a deep, self-satisfied, another-job-well-done breath after this monologue, then took another drink, licked his lips, and peered down at her. “So, Isabel, is that what you want? Do you have any idea how much I take care of that you don’t even know about? Have you ever paid a bill? Filed taxes? Would you have health insurance without me? I know you don’t appreciate any of it, and you’d rather just play the victim, but I do everything for you. You really aren’t good for much around here besides folding laundry. You’d find out pretty quickly if you left me that you don’t know shit about shit. There’s no way you could live alone, or take care of a baby by yourself. You need me and you need my money.”
I could see how Connor had convinced her to stay in the past. This litany of threats felt as real to me as it undoubtedly always had to Isabel. He said everything so evenly, as if he were stating facts as undebatable and objective as state capitals.
Isabel answered in kind, though. “Oh, I’m not going to leave you,” she told him. She smiled sympathetically, playing his game to perfection.
“So what’s the plan here, then, honey? You’ve gathered your new friends together as, what—an intervention? To get me to stop? To hear me apologize? To make me understand the error of my ways?” He laughed at his own sarcasm, turning away from Isabel and toward us, addressing us finally. “You ladies might not get your money’s worth if that’s the case. Sorry to disappoint.”
Isabel pressed on. “Just humor us, will you? Why don’t you tell us why you do it, for starters.”
“Why I sleep with women? I like them. I like sex. Is that simple enough for you?” He laughed at his own cleverness, and I could taste acid in my throat, remembering how it felt to be touched by him. Kira and Selena wore similar repulsed expressions, and I saw Kira squeeze Selena’s arm in solidarity.
Isabel shook her head, not accepting his answer. “What you’re doing—it’s not about sex. That much is clear to me. I think it’s clear to all of us.” Isabel gestured toward us.
Connor narrowed his eyes at her. “What is it about, then, Isabel? If you’re such an expert, if you want to play therapist—go ahead. Why don’t you present your thesis about why I do what I do?”
Without missing a beat, Isabel said, “I think you crave the power you didn’t have as a child. I think you measure your worth in bowling pins—deals at work, women—because it allows you to convince yourself that you’re winning the game, in control of everything and everyone. I think it’s a distraction, too—from the fact that you’re a bad person and the world would be better off without you.”
Connor popped his eyes wide. “Fascinating diagnosis, Isabel. But you know what I think it is?” He turned to all of us with a flourish. “I can sniff out spineless, pathetic women who will let me do whatever I want. Women who know they’re worthless and want someone to confirm it for them.”
He smirked, well pleased with himself, and took a long drink while we all stared at him. Then he grinned. “You want me to go even deeper here? I’m game. This is therapeutic as shit. Here you go: I think it’s because my mom just let my dad hit her and never did a damn thing about it. He’d crack her in the face and she’d be serving his dinner fifteen minutes later. She disgusted me. If she’d had any balls—or, whatever—she would have left and taken me with her. It’s not like I wasn’t taking a beating myself.
“You know, I don’t know if I ever told you this one, Isabel. But this one time—I was heading into my freshman year and was, you know, not huge yet, but relatively jacked from summer lifting and doing two-a-days before football kicked in—I did get around to fighting back. And I knocked him out. I still remember the surprise on his face before he lost consciousness. And, you know, all conquering hero, I turned to my mother and said, ‘Mom, let’s go. Let’s get the hell out of here.’ And she just shook her head and told me to go to my room, that she knew I hadn’t meant to hurt him and that we weren’t going anywhere. The next morning he beat me senseless while she made breakfast. I guess I have to thank him, though—he gave me all the motivation I needed to get into a good college and get a great job so that I never, ever had to go back to that hellhole. And I haven’t been back since leaving, not once. What I’ve figured out is that she wanted to be hit. If she didn’t, she would have figured out a way not to get hit anymore.” He took another swig of his drink, his jaw hard with the pain of these remembrances.