Author's Note:Thanks to all those who read my previous chapters, to those who faved, and to those who commented. Your comments on Episode 2 were especially valuable, as they helped me clarify the presentation in a crucial way. I'm not sure whether it's considered good etiquette on this site to respond directly in the comments section in one's own story or not, so I figured I'd thank you all here. All feedback, whether positive or negative, is deeply appreciated.
Folie à Deux
Episode 3: Hunger
Over a black screen, we hear a woman's voice. Her diction is careful and precise and her voice carries a thick note of ambivalence. "There are lines no person should cross. And if one is forced across those lines, one shouldn't linger there. The lines are there for a reason, and when one erases them...bad things start to happen."
We now see the speaker, a blonde woman of about 40 years. She has remarkable features, almost Classically Grecian in their chiseled perfection. Her dark eyes are large and intelligent, her mouth wide and full. Her blonde hair hangs in wavy, untameable strands to her shoulders. She is wearing an elegant, plum-colored, Y-neck silk blouse.
We see her name given as
Emily Larsen.
"What was between my son and me began as violation forced upon us by thugs, but it wasn't that anymore," she continues. "We had taken that violation and made it a thing of our own volition. We had become our own victimizers...and more specifically, perhaps, I had become my son's victimizer."
We now see a title card in white letters against a black background:
Folie à Deux
Episode 3: Hunger
After a few moments, the title card is replaced by one reading:
June 28
The title card vanishes, replaced by the face of a handsome young man in his early 20s. The familial resemblance to Emily is clear, with the same high cheekbones, sculpted jawline, and pointed and cleft chin. His mouth is a bit smaller and his eyes are a shade of blue reminiscent of Paul Newman's eyes. His hair is dark brown, straight, and cut in a no-nonsense short style.
His name is shown to be
Mike Larsen.
"I had it rough the night after we did it on the couch," he tells us in a rich, smooth voice. "I couldn't stand myself. I couldn't stand to be in my own skin. I felt filthy and sick. My mom and I had fucked each other like wild animals, like maniacs. I mean, as soon as dad and Olivia left and mom and I were there alone, there was no way we were getting out of that room without fucking. We had to. And that was the worst feeling I've ever had."
During what follows, as in the previous episodes, only one person is visible at a time -- plainly they were interviewed individually and clips from each interview were stitched together to make a narrative whole.
Emily again. "Bob had given me a whole Xanax that night. Normally I only take half a pill when I take it at all, but a whole pill put me to sleep all night long. I had no dreams that I remembered when I awoke that morning. When I awoke I was in the haze of a drug hangover, and for a several minutes I laid in bed with a sort of vague apprehension but no concrete memory to hang that feeling onto. Eventually, though, I remembered why my genitalia felt pleasantly bruised."
"And then?" The female interviewer from Episode 1 is back.
Emily cocks her head thoughtfully. "It is...interesting how massive, crushing guilt looks through the gauze of a narcotic hangover. The guilt is horrific and very obviously painful, but it's held at an arm's length so one may view it with...not objectivity, precisely, but at a distance. When one is immersed in guilt it feels like a sea of quicksand, a glutinous mass that holds one in place and forces one to relive the sin over and over again. However, from a distance it more resembles an iron maiden."
"An iron maiden?" the interviewer asks.
"Yes. It looks like an iron maiden with the doors gaping open. One knows one must enter. One sees each spike and can tell where it will pierce one's flesh when the doors are closed. But because it's being held at a distance, the feeling it evokes is abstract dread rather than immediate misery. I spent the first two hours of that morning lying in bed and contemplating where those spikes would drive into me when the drug wore off and the doors closed."
We see a man of approximately 40, handsome, with icy blue eyes and short, straight, dark hair that is going gray at the temples. His name is given as
Bob Larsen.
"I'd left Emily and Mike alone the day before so they could work things through," he tells us, "but when I got home Emily had a breakdown and Mike was nowhere to be found. I'd had to drug Emily to get her to sleep. I was tired of all this nonsense. I wanted it resolved, or at least out in the open where we could deal with it. And I wanted the damned hallway finished."
"Emily had begun painting the hallway between the mud room and the kitchen," the interviewer supplies.
Bob nods. "It needed to be finished, and I wasn't going to do it. But more than that, I wanted the tension in the house gone. I was starting to think of it like a boil, something that needed to be lanced and drained even though it might stink at first."
"Did you have any more idea of what the problem was?" the interviewer asks.
