The question is, why would he want me to see this? Is he toying with me? Have I been tricked? Is he some kind of weirdo, and this is his way of having fun?

 

I find myself not touching the mouse, not disturbing the screensaver, just looking at it. The woman’s arm extends toward the camera. She snapped this shot in a moment of their passion. Why would he want me to see it? I ask myself, again and again. It makes no sense. And he was so specific about what computer to use.

 

I swivel on the chair, turning around and around, trying to puzzle this thing out. But I meet the same stonewall each time: motive. I can’t figure it out. There’s no reason that I can see, apart from some sick sense of pleasure. But the Maddox I know isn’t like that. Ah, but how well do you know him? How well, really? Think about it. When you talk, who is it that does most of the sharing?

 

I face the screen, interlock my fingers, and rest my chin on my knuckles.

 

I must be concentrating hard because I don’t hear her sneak in. I only know she’s behind me when her hand rests on my shoulder.

 

“What!” I gasp, jumping to my feet and turning around.

 

It’s the woman with the blonde-pink hair, the busty woman. But now she has a black eye, a big black circle starting above her eyebrow and ending on her cheek. And when I look down at her hand, I see that the knuckles are grazed, red with blood. Her lips are twisted, and tears slide down her cheeks, cutting lines in her foundation, smearing her mascara.

 

“Oh, sweet girl!” the woman cries. “Sweet, sweet girl!”

 

I take a step back. There’s something unsettling about her, something on-edge. Though she’s injured, I’m frightened of her. She squints at me as I take the step back, as though to ask me why I should fear her. I can read the question in her eyes. But I take another step back and watch her.

 

She brings her hand to her forehead. “Poor Eden,” she sighs. “Poor you!

 

“You know my name,” I say slowly. “Tell me yours.”

 

Suddenly the champagne I’ve consumed tonight hits me. How many glasses? Four? Five? This really was a Gatsby party. Thinking gets harder. I just want to sleep. But I won’t let this woman see how drunk I am. I’m not that far gone—not yet.

 

“My name is Cassandra Caraway.” She watches me closely, maybe waiting to see if Maddox has ever mentioned her.

 

I search my mind and come up with nothing. He has never mentioned a Cassandra, or any other woman by name, for that matter. “I’ve never heard of you,” I say, and her bruised face drops. I find myself looking at the bruise, and then at the grazed knuckles. There’s something about them, but I can’t quite pinpoint what it is. But something, definitely. Yes, something.

 

“What happened to you?” I ask. “You’re hurt.”

 

“Oh,” she snivels, wiping her eyes. “Not to worry.”

 

A tear—her bruise—her blood. What?

 

“I’m not here to talk about me, sweet child. I’m here to talk about…” Her gaze drifts over to the computer. When she sees the screensaver, she gasps. “Oh!” she squeals. “Oh, what is that doing there?” She paces to the computer, grabs the mouse, and moves it. The screensaver disappears. “I don’t want to see that. Why would that be on there, in this house?”

 

“I have no idea,” I mutter, moving closer to her. She’s harmless and hurt, I tell myself. Don’t be so suspicious. It’s unfair. I walk until I am a couple of feet away from her. “Why are you here? Did you know I was here?”

 

“I did. I saw you come in.”

 

“Then why?”

 

She shrugs her shoulders, wincing and looking down at her hand. “I needed to tell you while I had the chance. I was shocked when I heard it was Maddox who would do the security for this party. I wondered if he had changed, and when I saw you enter with him, I made it my business to find out who you were. Eden Chase, a quick search online told me. A good woman. A kind woman. A strong woman. I prayed desperately that Maddox had changed. But he hasn’t, has he? I fear that he set that screensaver, and lured you up here. Yes, that is my theory, my fear.”

 

“With this, yeah,” I whisper, voice raspy. I lean down and remove the flash drive from the computer, and then drop it back into my cleavage. “There probably isn’t even anything on it. So you’re an ex-girlfriend, are you?”

 

“I am,” she says. She rubs her eye, and I can’t tell if the mascara has smeared into the bruise, or… Or what? Or what exactly? “Please don’t ask me what happened. Oh, please, don’t. It’s too painful.”

 

I stay silent, watching her. She looks terrified and like she’s in awful pain. She winces almost continuously, and the grazed-knuckle hand trembles.

 

“I need to tell you about him,” she says. “You need to know before you get in too deep.” She takes a long breath and then continues, “I was with Maddox for a long time. A long, long time. Too long, in truth. I was with him for almost five years. We were teenage sweethearts. I was just a silly girl who wanted to be with the bad boy, you know. Just a silly teenager with delusions about what made a man a man. And so when he came to me – charming, arrogant, sexy – I couldn’t resist. He took my virginity, and we had the best first month any couple has ever had. But then…”

 

“But then, sweet, naïve Eden, it all changed. It’s like his true self came out. One night, I came home to find him fucking another woman in our bed, fucking her and moaning, and when I walked in, do you know what he said? ‘Shut the door, Cass.’ I screamed at him. This woman was coked out of her eyeballs, but he wasn’t. He was sober, fucking a drugged up hooker in our bed!”

 

She slices her hand through the air. I shiver. No. I’ve been duped. No, no, no.

 

“When I refused to shut the door, he sprang up from the bed and backhanded me across the jaw. The worst part was how casual it was. I could’ve taken a bit of passion. I know how that sounds, but I could have. If he had felt something for me, hit me for something about us that would’ve been one thing. But no—he just struck me the same way he’d hit a dog because I was in the way. He hit me again, and I fell to the floor. Then he knelt down next to me and growled, ‘Get dinner ready.’ I was too scared. So I got dinner ready while he went back to fuck the hooker. She had dinner with us that night, and I had to pretend that everything was okay. I had to pretend that I wasn’t humiliated, that he hadn’t taken away my self-respect in a few short hours.”

 

She tilts her head at me, lips pursed, face quivering as she tries to hold back tears. “Do you want me to stop? I don’t want to hurt you—”

 

“No, Cassandra. Go on.” My fingernails bite into my palms. Blood drips down my fingers, but I don’t care. The pain this woman has experienced is obvious, indisputable. Unless she’s the best actress who’s ever lived, she’s telling the truth. I feel it in my bones. Her pain burns out of her eyes. Where did she get that black eye? I ask myself. Can it be…

 

“It went on like that for a long time,” Cassandra says. “I wanted to leave several times, but he liked to have me around. I cooked for him, and he still liked to…” She bites her lip. I step forward, open my hand with an effort, and place it on her shoulder. Bloodstains appear on her dress, but neither she nor I acknowledge them.

 

“It’s okay,” I say.

 

She reaches up and places her hand upon mine. “He still liked to use me, and I couldn’t resist. I tried, but it was hard. Maddox is a big man, and when he wants something, he gets it. That’s what attracted me to him in the first place, but now… Ah! He took me any way he wanted, as often as he wanted, and I could do nothing. And all the while, he was cheating on me. One afternoon, I returned home to find he’d locked me out of the house. There was a note: your bed is out back. I went into the garden and there, sticking half out of the shed, was a dirty old mattress. He came to the back door, opened it a crack, and said to me, ‘That’s for being an old fucking sack of potatoes last night, slut. Do better next time.’ Then he closed the door. Please understand, I wanted to leave, got to a motel, but he had all the money, and I knew if I did that, I’d get it worse later. So I slept in the shed. It was November.”

 

My head is reeling. I’ve never understood that expression before, not really. But now I do. I feel like cogs are spinning rapidly in my mind. Maddox, charming, smirking, arrogant… will he turn into this with me? And would I take it? I’d like to think not, but no woman can presume to be invulnerable to this sort of behavior, can she? No woman can presume to be invincible against the meanness of men.

 

I take a step back, and fresh bile rises in my throat. With an effort, I push it down. Cassandra steps forward and places her hand on my shoulder. New tears slide down her cheeks, and the bruise… But then she’s hugging me, and I don’t see the bruise.

 

“Get out while you can,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t become what I became. You’re a smart girl, Eden. Get out while you can!”

 

She holds me close to her, and I hug her back. I feel close to her, like I haven’t just met her, like I’ve known her for a long time.

 

“Thank you for telling me,” I say. “Who knows how far I would have…”

 

“Hush, sweet Eden,” Cassandra says. “All you can do now is get away.”

 

***

 

I walk down the stairs feeling like I am in a nightmare. The sounds and the glitz and the glamor and the jazz that half an hour ago was so intoxicating are now only sickening. Is this how he does it? I’ve had five glasses of champagne. That combined with Cassandra’s revelation, and the screensaver trap, combine to make my mind clouded, fury rippling through it.

 

When I get to the bottom of the stairs, Markus and Nat approach me.

 

“Is something wrong?” Nat asks. Her hand is on Markus’ arm. Is he the same? Are they all the same?

 

“Where’s Maddox?” I breathe. “Where is he?”

 

“Out front, I think,” Markus says. “Dealing with a problem guest.”

 

“Okay, good.”

 

I make to walk away, but Nat grabs me by the wrist. “Your hand is bleeding!” she squeals. “What happened?”

 

I wrench my arm away. “Listen out for my call, Nat,” I say. “We might be leaving soon.”

 

“Oh—I’ll stay near the door, then.”

 

I ignore the burning pain in my palm and walk toward the front door. All this training in gender theory, all these years as a feminist, and I couldn’t see this!

 

What the hell is it all for then?