Sam tried to make an amusing anecdote of it. He talked about the skipping and the poem and the general happiness and well-being he had felt upon completing the game. He omitted the hallucination he’d had of his mother. “Do you know this poem? Something about love being all there is.”
“That’s the Beatles,” Marx said. “All you need is love, love…”
“No, there was another part. Something about ‘a freight and a groove’？”
“That’s Emily Dickinson,” Sadie said. “The freight must be proportioned to the groove. I used it in EmilyBlaster.”
Sam laughed. “EmilyBlaster! Of course!”
“Yes, I was thinking of how strange those lines were when I must have tripped over the curb.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you were Emily Blasted?” Marx said.
“You know, my whole class hated that game,” Sadie said.
“Marx, what was the thing you said when you played EmilyBlaster?” Sam said.
“I said it was the most violent poetry game I’d ever played, and the person who made it must be incredibly peculiar,” Marx said.
“I accept that compliment,” Sadie said.
“So, what’s next for Ichigo now that we’re done?” Marx said.
“We show it to Dov, and we wait to hear what he thinks,” Sam said.
The attending nurse, who was in her sixties and approaching retirement, let them stay until midnight. She was enjoying the sound of their laughter, their banter, and their gentle teasing. A game she often played with herself to pass the time was to try to figure out the relationships between patients and visitors. She liked to name the people, as she imagined what their lives and connections were. The hurt boy, she called Tiny Tim. The Asian boy, who looked like a fashion model or a soap opera heartthrob, was Keanu. The petite, pretty brunette with the thick eyebrows and the whimsically crooked nose, was Audrey. Tiny Tim looked slightly younger than the other two. Audrey and Keanu didn’t seem to be a couple, though it seemed like Keanu wouldn’t have minded if they were. In a strange way, Tiny Tim looked as if he could have been their son, though the ages didn’t make sense for that. Maybe Tiny Tim was one of their little brothers? Maybe Audrey and Tiny Tim were a couple? Or maybe the two boys were the couple? Keanu had been so gentle when the boy had asked for water. And yet, the sense of ease between Audrey and Tiny Tim was palpable. While Keanu sat in the chair, Audrey lay in the bed next to Tiny Tim, their fingertips casually touching, in the way of people who were entirely comfortable around each other. She almost seemed to be an extension of him, and he, of her. There is love here, she thought. In the end, she decided, with some amount of disappointment, that none of them were involved romantically.
* * *
—
Despite Sam’s injuries, Sam and Sadie continued to tweak the game through the rest of the month, and by the end of January, they were ready to show the game to Dov. He had seen and advised a significant amount of the work in progress, but he hadn’t experienced it from front to back, and he didn’t know how it would all come together. Sadie brought the drive with the finished game to his apartment. As he began his first playthrough, she hovered around him, enthusiastically offering him tips and insights into every moment of the game. She was nervous about Dov’s reaction, but she was also incredibly proud of her work. She didn’t want him to miss a single detail of their labors.
“Sadie, back off. I can’t concentrate with you all over me. I want to play this,” Dov said.
“Okay,” Sadie said. “I’ll be quiet.”
Dov had reached level seven, the world of ice and snow, where Ichigo first encounters Gomibako, the ghost-monster who enslaves lost children. “I can feel you watching me. I can hear you breathing.” He took her hand and he escorted her into his bedroom.
“Now be a good girl,” he said.
“But…”
“You aren’t disobeying me, are you?”
“No, Dov.”
“I didn’t think so.” He looked at her. “Take off your clothes.”
“I don’t want to,” she said. “Dov, it’s freezing in here.”
“Take. Off. Your. Clothes. You know what happens when you disobey.”
Sadie took off her clothes.
The first time they’d been together, he had never expressed any interest in S&M. The S&M had only started when they’d reunited in the fall. Sadie had been turned on, at first at least, and then slightly disturbed, unsure of the game they were playing and why they were playing it. Dov wasn’t abusive. He always sought consent. But he liked handcuffs and other more complicated props and ordering her around. He liked making her strip and tying her up and gagging her on occasion; he liked to slap her and spank her and pull her hair. He liked shaving off her pubic hair, which he did with the care and consideration of an artist. He had peed on her once, but when she told him to stop, he had, and he’d never done it again. When he hurt her—and he never hurt her much—he was always tender and sorry after.
Dov also liked to be hit, which was not something she was at all into doing. On the night of his thirtieth birthday, he had asked her to slap him across the face. “Harder,” he said.
She obeyed.
“Harder.”
She obeyed.
Once she’d hit him hard enough, his eyes would tear and then, russet-faced, he would phone his son, back in Israel. She could hear him speaking tenderly to the boy, in lilting Hebrew that reminded her of birdsong. Sadie’s Hebrew was at a Bat Mitzvah prep, High Holy Days level, so the only word she could understand wasn’t even Hebrew. It was his son’s name: Telemachus, who Dov mainly called Telly. Telly was three.
On the night he asked her to start seeing him again, he’d poured her a glass of wine and told her that his wife had finally agreed to a divorce.
“That’s good,” Sadie had said carefully. “If you’ve been unhappy.”
“I have been unhappy,” Dov said. “It will be difficult and costly for me, but it will be worth it in the end.”
They spoke at the same time.
“I don’t think we should see each other,” Sadie said. “I’d like to keep it professional.”
“I’d like to see you again,” Dov said.
“You weren’t here last year,” Sadie said. “I don’t think I can go through another breakup with you.”
“You won’t have to,” Dov said. “I promise.”
But, back to the night Dov first played Ichigo.
After they’d had what Sadie considered to be quick, enjoyable, prop-free sex, Dov opened his nightstand drawer, and snapped a handcuff around her wrist and another to the bed frame. It happened so quickly; she didn’t even have time to protest.
“I don’t want you to leave this bed until I’m done with Ichigo,” he said.
“But Dov,” Sadie called. “You’ve still got, like, thirteen hours left.”
Dov ignored her and closed the door to the bedroom.
Even handcuffed to the bed, Sadie could reach the landline on the nightstand. She called Sam.
“Is he done yet?” Sam asked eagerly.