Do you trust me, Suzy?
Libertyland
Peter Sacks
Libertyland
Peter Sacks
Copyright © 2024
Published by AIA Publishing, Australia
ABN: 32736122056
http://www.aiapublishing.com
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, audio, visual or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. Nor can it be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar conditions including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN: 978-1-922329-57-8
Act I
Creep
Our progeny will build monuments dedicated to us. Saint Ayn. Saint Garrick. Lord Atlas. Saint Suzanne. Saint William. We are the very origins of the Church of Living Capitalism.
– The Liberation Manifesto
1
Do You Trust Me, Suzy?
Suzanne Dreyfus had been skeptical of Garrick Cripps when they met at MIT in the early 1990s. Brash, handsome, smooth talker. Questionable work ethic as a research scientist but highly popular teaching undergrads. Suzanne had been aloof, spending most of her time alone. He sensed her isolation, and like a predator seeking the lone victim in the wild, he pounced.
They flirted. He mentioned his private dream of creating a libertarian paradise in America. She didn’t take him seriously. Too far-fetched. Un-American, even. She teased Garrick and got him to laugh at himself. She saw his humanity. His kindness toward his mother who lived alone in Indiana. Suzanne and Garrick capitulated to one another. They had crafted their flawed alliance—Garrick with his narcissistic need to be adored, and she with her twisted desire to adore him.
If she had listened to her parents, she would never have met Garrick. Both Suzanne’s father and her mother, a high school math teacher, were leftists who had met in Mississippi at a demonstration where Dr. King himself spoke. They kept preaching the practicality of going to CUNY: she could live at home and save money.
But Suzanne thought bigger. She had the brains to do anything she wanted. It was her time. MIT was looking for smart women to go into science, engineering, and math. She wanted to study astrophysics and join the faculty of a college somewhere in New England, to teach and to discover new planets and stars. She could meet a nice guy in Cambridge, a fellow scientist, and team up on big discoveries. But she also dreamed of having children and a pretty home in the suburbs or in the country. Get a dog. She wanted it all.
What happened? Love wasn’t a choice. Nor was her lust and attraction to Garrick’s cleverness and his insatiable thirst for power.
She was no longer little Suzy Dreyfus, the young head-turner from Brooklyn. Under Garrick’s influence she questioned her beliefs. She loved her parents, but Garrick called them weak and naive. She remembered the one intimate conversation in Morro Bay years after leaving MIT. After a perfect afternoon of sex and slumber, Garrick revealed his true self—or, more accurately, the person he had become.
“Hope for the poor, Garrick.”
“Screw the poor, Suzy. They’re poor because they’re incapable of winning.”
“Education matters, Garrick.”
“Only if you’re intelligent enough to make it matter.”
“Health care for all, Garrick.”
“Where does it say that in the Constitution? The Founding Fathers never guaranteed a right to die later rather than sooner.”
“Equal rights for all, my love.”
“Nice in theory. But in America, we buy and sell rights to the highest bidder, free from coercion. Get over it. It’s called liberty.”
In time Garrick’s ruthlessness repelled her. And yet his hyper-confidence—the corollary of his ruthlessness—attracted her more. Suzanne could have had any man. She knew it—and so did Garrick. She often wondered if Garrick’s badass attitude was an act to fortify his appeal to her.
January 2020 was the last time Suzanne had spent time alone with Garrick. She had moved to Boulder for a new job, but he’d flown her to his cottage in Morro Bay for the weekend. Garrick dropped the bomb that he was going underground until the “endgame.” And it was Suzanne’s job to work with their old friend, William—who now went by Eurynomos—and “make it happen.”
“Make what happen, Garrick?”
They were naked after sex on the library sofa.
“We begin now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It will become clear. I’m asking you to be patient.”
“Why are you being so cryptic? You’re messing with me, right?”
They talked for hours that day. Garrick soothed her, and she softened. They ordered in and holed up for another night in the cottage. They made love again, then enjoyed cognac and crème brûlée. Suzanne’s mischievousness always elevated with her blood alcohol.
“Do you really believe?” She grasped her lover gently by his balls.
“I have to believe. My DNA, darling. You’re making me hard, thinking about it.”
“About what, exactly? My hands on your nuts?”
“My lusts. You know what they are.”
“Money and power. Anything else?”
“And you, of course.”
She clung to his nuts, squeezed tightly, then let go. She placed her fingers on his hard-on, teasing him.
She became more mischievous, carefully composing the words she knew would make him even harder. “Garrick, can I confess something to you?”
“Don’t stop now, darling.”
“You taught me to see the world differently. Without illusions. I fell in love with you for that. You seduced me with your ideas. You taught me how to find purity in a complicated, fucked-up world full of insecure people and impure thoughts. I fell in love with a devil who lusted for purity.” She toyed with the tip of his cock, then spat on it.
“I love that, Suzy. Complexity is unnecessary. Our reality can be so simple and so pleasurable.”
“And what is that reality for you?”
“That the strong shall prevail over the weak. Full stop. That simple idea turns me on. Makes me want to fuck you. Again and again.”
“You think I’m weak?”
“You’re one of the strong ones, Suzanne. I’ve always known that. But you tried to fight me at first, remember? You know, right after The Manifesto.”
“What do you think of Lenny Bruce?” she asked, out of the blue.
“Lenny who?”
Her face tightened. She let go of his cock. “Garrick, listen to me. I always wanted us to be the way we were, before you became the one and only Garrick Cripps. I couldn’t stop you, and I wouldn’t leave you. An affair might have ended it, but you’ve always been faithful. Haven’t you?”
“Always, darling. Look at you. What man would look anywhere else?”
“Good answer.”
His cock had softened. She spat on the head and wrapped her mouth around it, sucking the blood from his brain, exploiting the gravity of natural law to engorge his dick with fresh fluid. She looked up, allowing her man to witness her adoring eyes framed by perfect breasts and stiffened nipples, and her wide mouth giving a pleasure greater than he’d ever given in return. But that was Garrick.
When she woke Garrick had vanished from his own home. She left Morro Bay in the morning.
She got home to Boulder, opened her suitcase, and found a note stuffed in her underwear.
From now on, you will deal with Eurynomos. Trust him. He’s built for revolutionary work. You asked me if I was a true believer. To be honest, I don’t know. But I know this: don’t love me. Love the revolution. Garrick had closed with a question: Do you trust me, Suzy?
Suzanne showered and dressed for an evening out. But she wasn’t going out. She slipped into a pair of black Christian Louboutins, and leafed through her closet and found a bright red wool coat, as if to cover her naked body in warm blood. Suzanne grabbed the note from her suitcase. The spikes slapped the hard floor as she walked to the kitchen. She opened the pantry and pulled out a fresh bottle of Campari. Not the candied Aperol. The Campari for its complexity, its herbal bitterness, and aroma of deep earth. Not a simple-minded Aperol cocktail at a Tuscan wedding reception. The New York City interpretation. A cool drink with sensuous purpose. She uncorked a chilled bottle of prosecco and mixed the drink in a fulsome wine glass, topping it with soda and ice. She cut the lights then lit a small candle and placed it in a saucer. With a few strokes on her laptop, the Mark Coppey interpretation of JS Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major filled the darkened space.
She danced over the flame while ripping up the note, tossing the pieces into the wax-filled saucer. She threw another match onto the flame, amplifying the fire, as the prelude reached its crescendo.
Watching the burning note, her face contorted into a wicked smile. She lit a cigarette. Suzanne did not squat over the flame. She stood like a man, drink in one hand and cigarette tipping from her lips.
Celebrating the cello’s burst of energy in her own private bacchanal, she sucked on the cocktail and raised her glass. She dragged on the cig and again pulled from the drink. She studied the burning paper for a moment, then spread her legs in a v-shaped stance, her clit above the fire. She touched herself. Again and again, until she came.
“Fuck you, Garrick,” she screamed. Contemplating the art of revenge, she pissed with pleasure on the dying flame of paper and ink disappearing into a puddle of piss, cum, and betrayal.
