Victoria Redel - Intact Woman

Because she finds it once in his closet, she begins looking for it all the
time and comes to find that each month, just before the month ends,
just like magic, there, in the closet on top of the neat stack, is the new
one. But she knows it is not magic, it is him, his doing, his handiwork.
She wants to understand what is in it for him and because she feels she
knows him, she feels she knows what in it particularly interests him,
which pages do the trick - which is exactly what, this trick? - that is
what she is trying to find out. She looks at the pages that she is certain
get to him, and she tries to let them get to her, which she finds is easy
enough, though she is not sure if that is because she is thinking that
they - she and he - are both being gotten by the same thing or because
she has now her own secret which is bigger than his secret because it
includes his secret. She is surprised a little by how easy it is, an abra-
cadabra, a one two three, and she is surprised, too, by how often she
goes to his closet to be with him, though she understands her not being
there is part of what is in it for him. But what if she is wrong? What if it
is not the pages she thinks, but different ones, and when she thinks this
she feels stupid and wrong and embarrassed and tricked by him. She is
angry and feels he has forced her to go there. Then she is angry because
she feels he has deserted her in their secret place. And then she remem-
bers he does not know where she is, but she keeps it open just to what
she thought was right for him because she is right in the middle of things,
and she needs, all on her own, to finish up the dirty work.