Free Songs of the Dead by Derrick Jensen Page A

stars.”
    Years later, long after I learned about Jack Shoemaker, long after I experienced first-hand what he does, long after what he did to Allison, to me, to others, long after I learned about Nika, I learned also that Jack had said to Nika much the same thing I’d said to the woman at the wedding, and Nika had given him much the same response. For some reason—I think because the horrors I’d seen and experienced were too large, and even years later still too raw, for me to allow myself to fully feel—the parallel behavior shared by Jack and me tore me up inside. My horror at that seeming similarity became a stand-in for those other, stronger feelings. I wanted, for obvious reasons, to have nothing in common with him. I felt dirty, and for a time I couldn’t bring myself to ask people who they were, what they loved, or what made them happy. It felt as though there was something wrong in this simple act of communication and interest, something intrusive. That feeling lasted maybe a year. Still later, though, I realized that there was something else going on here, something central to the workings of this culture, something central to the workings of the entire cannibal sickness.
    The room is barely lit. The woman lies on a metal table. Her hands and feet are cuffed to the table’s legs. She feels plastic beneath her. She has been here a long time. She says to the silhouette of the man standing at the foot of the table, “You don’t have to do any of this. I will give you sex.”
    â€œDo you think this is about sex, Nika? You don’t understand anything. It’s not about sex at all.”
    â€œI love you.”
    â€œSay it again.”
    â€œI love you.”
    Silence.
    â€œI want you.”
    Silence.
    â€œMore than I’ve ever wanted anyone. I’ve never even wanted anyone before. I want you more than life itself.”
    Silence.
    â€œI am yours, to use however you want.”
    A warmth in the groin.
    â€œI want you to use me.”
    Not a pressure yet, but soon. Soon.
    â€œBecause you are powerful. Because you are a man . Not like other men. A real man.”
    A swelling.
    â€œI was nothing before you.”
    More.
    â€œYou saved me from myself.”
    Hard, harder, hard as steel. A steel rod.
    â€œYou,” she hesitates, then repeats her last sentence, “you saved me from myself. You saved me from the, um, horror that was—”
    He slams his hand down on the table. “No! You never get that right. It’s ‘You saved me from the chaos of life, the horror of who I was. You are the only man for me.’”
    â€œI’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Silence.
    â€œDon’t,” she says.
    The warmth, the steel, the pleasure, the calm, everything is gone. “You’ve ruined everything, Nika.”
    â€œPlease don’t.”
    Allison says, “I lied to you.”
    â€œOkay.” Noncommital.
    â€œOr not so much lied as told only part of the truth.”
    I wait.
    â€œBecause I am attractive, and because that has cost me dearly, not only because I want to be noticed—and for some fucked up reason I want to be noticed even by those I don’t want to notice me—but far more because of what it has cost me when I am noticed. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be hired for a job, and then not to know whether you were chosen because of your talent or your looks? And to want so desperately to have someone recognize your talent—because you’re a young artist, and still developing, and like any young person needing the strokes of your elders—only to lose that position when there are certain positions—as in legs spread— you won’t assume? And to have that happen not once, not twice, but again and again? To have boss after boss after boss presume that his position of authority carries with it rights of sexual access? And to say No, and No, and