If he tells me to relax, I will bolt up from this chair and out the door. If he touches me, I will explode. As it is, everything inside me has gone tight and coiled. I want to shake and can’t.
It’s just a picture.
But he doesn’t take it. Will puts the camera to his eye, but nothing snaps. He just looks. Then he puts the camera on the desk and steps back.
“Another time,” he tells me.
I blink and blink again. “What?”
Will hands me my mug of coffee as I get up from the chair. “Let me show you something else, okay?”
“Okay.” The liquid in the mug should be sloshing, but I guess my hands aren’t as shaky as they feel. I sip. It’s lukewarm, the whiskey more potent in it.
He sees me make a face, and laughs, takes the mug and sets it back on the desk. “You don’t have to drink it. But here, look at this. Tell me what you think. And, Elisabeth...”
“Yes?”
“Be honest.”
I understand what he means as soon as he pulls the sheet off the framed print leaning against the wall below the window. There are others in that stack, half a dozen at least, with a few more dozen smaller frames next to it. The black-and-white shot is of a tree, bare branches like spreading fingers against the cloudless sky. The photographer caught the shadows at such an angle that it looks as if the tree’s spindling branches are its roots. It’s impossible to tell that sky’s color. In the print it’s pure, pure white. I imagine it must’ve been a clear, pale blue.
There should be nothing special about the shot. Ansel Adams took thousands of nature shots, and he’s considered a master. This picture has nothing of Adams’s vast scale. It’s one tree, one sky. It’s beautiful. It makes me want to cry.
“Would you hang it in your house?” Will asks. “Would you put it in your foyer to impress people?”
“No.” I haven’t gone to my knees in front of it, though the picture makes me want to. “If I bought this, I would hang it in a place only I could ever see.”
He smiles. I’ve said the right thing. This is it, I think, when he takes my hand and tugs me a step closer. This is when he kisses me.
Of course he doesn’t. Why should he? We’ve only just met. I’m no cover model. I’m bedraggled and unkempt and old enough to know better. His fingers stroke my wedding band.
And oh, there’s that.
He has a cuckoo clock I didn’t see when I came in, and now it whirs into life at the half hour. Two men saw busily at a log while a waterwheel spins. A bird pops out to chirp once before retreating.
“Shit,” I say, and recover my hand as if he’d never taken it. “It’s late. I have to catch the train—”
“You won’t make it.”
I knew that when I’d agreed to come here, didn’t I? Traffic, distance, the rain. The timing. I could pretend to be upset and surprised, but the truth is I’m only a little upset and not at all shocked.
“Stay here. I have a guest room.” He points to the loft. “You can get up early. Catch the first train home. I’ll make you eggs in the morning, if you want.”
It sounds like a come-on, but I pretend I don’t notice. “Oh...I couldn’t. I’ll go find a hotel room.”
“Uh-uh. No way. I’m not letting you wander around in the dark, in the rain, trying to find a place to stay. That would be ridiculous.” Will shakes his head. “I have a pair of pajamas that will fit you.”
“I really...” I want to say can’t. I want to say shouldn’t. The words clog up my throat. Won’t come out.
“Do you need to call someone? Tell them you’ll be home tomorrow?”
There is nobody at home. The girls are off at college, probably still out at a party or tucked into their boyfriends’ beds—not that I like to dwell on that, but I’m not stupid. Ross is out of town. I should know where he is, what he’s doing, but though he told me, I didn’t pay attention. It didn’t matter, beyond knowing he would be gone.
“No. I don’t have to call home.”
Will smiles. “Okay.”
He gives me a pair of pajamas that belong to him, not a pair inherited from an ex-wife, as I feared. Faded flannel pants, an oversize white T-shirt soft and worn from the wash. I should feel awkward wearing his clothes, but he handed them to me so matter-of-factly, along with a toothbrush still in the package, that feeling odd would only make it so, and clearly it doesn’t have to be. The bed in the loft is soft, the pillows fluffy. He doesn’t follow me up the stairs to tuck me in, so it’s definitely not weird.
I sleep right away and wake when the alarm I set on my phone goes off. I’ve had only four hours of sleep, not enough, but I need to get up and get to the train. Get home.
First, though, I need the bathroom. I dress quickly, not sure what I should do with Will’s clothes. I settle for folding them neatly and putting them on the chair at the foot of the bed. Down the spiral stairs in my bare feet, I’m careful not to trip or knock into anything, because the apartment is big and silent and full of echoes from sounds as soft as breathing.
I hear the shower running just as I move to push open the door, which is ajar. I stop, of course. Or in fact, I don’t, because my fingertips nudge the door just...a little...wider. The way the bathroom’s set up, I have a straight shot gaze toward the claw-foot tub and glass-enclosed shower next to it. In addition to envying the apartment and coveting the cover model’s boots, that shower sends a thrill of jealousy through me. Tiles, glass brick, sunflower showerhead. I want it.
Steam hovers between me and the shower, Will inside it, but there’s not nearly enough to obscure any details. There he is, naked in the water, head bent as it sluices over him. His eyes are closed. One hand is on the wall. The other’s on his dick.
I swallow the noise my throat tries to make, but I’m frozen. Can’t move. Don’t want to move, let’s be honest, because everything about this sight is beauty and glory and oh, my God, he’s stroking himself slowly, as if he’s going to take an hour to make himself come. Up, down, twist of the palm around the head of his cock. His knees are bent and his fingers curl against the tile, slipping because he can’t make purchase.
If he looks up, he’ll see me watching. I should go; it’s not right to watch something so private. This isn’t for me.
His hand moves faster. His mouth opens, water filling it and overflowing when he tips his face into the spray. He fucks his fist with deliberation, and I watch the muscles cord in his arm and back, in that spot just above his ass where the dimples dent his skin.
I want to watch him come. I covet and crave it, as a matter of fact, more than I did this apartment or the boots or the shower itself. I want to see Will jerk and moan and finish, and that desire is what finally pushes me away from the door. Down the hall, to the kitchen where I use the toothbrush he gave me at the kitchen sink. I brush and brush, I rinse and spit and rinse again, my eyes closed and my mind filled with the sight of him.
I know he’s there before I turn from the sink, but though I brace myself for the sight of him in a towel, he’s wearing a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt like the one he lent me. Wet hair, slicked back. Bare feet I carefully avoid looking at, as though the sight of his toes could possibly be more intimate than the picture of his cock already permanently sealed in my mind.
“Hey,” Will says. “You’re heading out? I thought I’d make you some breakfast, at least.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m not a breakfast person, anyway. I have to go. Really, you’ve done enough already. Thanks for everything.” I rinse the toothbrush and hold it out to him, as if he’d want it back.
He takes it, but puts it on the counter. “At least let me give you something for the road.”
I want to protest further, but he’s already opening the fridge door and pulling out a pitcher of orange juice. The smell sends saliva squirting in my mouth. I
t will taste like summer.
“Fresh squeezed,” Will announces. “The ex left a juicer, too.”
He pours me a glass, not a quarter full, not half full, but almost brimming. Our fingers touch when he passes me the glass, but the juice doesn’t spill. He watches me while I drink it, and though I think I’ll just sip it once or twice to be polite, the second the flavor hits my tongue it’s all I can do not to gulp the entire glass. As it is, I finish it faster than is mannerly, and I wipe my mouth with the tips of my fingers when I’m finished.
“See,” Will says. “You never know how thirsty you are until someone offers you something to drink.”
Chapter Three
I used to greet my husband at the door every night, no matter what time he got home. I’d wait up for him if he was late. I never wrapped my naked body in cling film or had a martini in my hand, and there were days when the smile on my face was definitely forced...but I always met him.
I don’t meet him anymore.
The way the earth turns you’d think we’d need to run in place to keep from spinning right off it, but the truth is we all just turn along with it. Ross and I married young, had our children, watched them grow and sent them off to college. Jacqueline and Katherine are twenty-two now. Getting ready to graduate from two different colleges, both hours from home. Jac’s got a job all lined up in another state for after graduation, and Kat’s waiting to hear on an internship that could lead to a job for her, too.
When the girls started high school, I went back to work. Naveen had been struggling with his Philadelphia gallery for a few years, asking me repeatedly if I’d come work for him and keep him in line. I’d always declined, partly because being a mom had been a full-time job and partly because I thought working with him might effectively kill the friendship that had already suffered more than its share of ups and downs. Still, taking the job with him was easier than trying to find one on my own, and though I didn’t “need” to work, I wanted to.
That’s when I stopped meeting Ross at the door. Because on the days when he got home first, he never met me. I never came home to dinner waiting for me, or the laundry folded or a glass of wine. Even when the girls were still in high school, I mostly came home to a silent house, dark in the winter, because they had after-school activities or were with their friends. I’d find him in the den, feet up in the recliner, flipping channels on the television set. I would kiss him dutifully while he pretended to listen to my answer when he asked about my day, and I pretended I wanted to tell him.
I don’t remember the first day I resented this. I don’t remember wondering why all the years I’d made the effort were not reciprocated. Nothing jumped up and bit me or slammed like a door in my face. That’s not how it happens. What happens is you get married, you raise your kids, they go off to school, and you look at your spouse and wonder what on earth you’re supposed to do with each other now, without all the distractions of having a family to obscure the fact that you have no idea not only who the other is, but who you are yourself.
Today I come home to an empty house that smells faintly of the lilac air freshener the cleaning woman sprays in all the bathrooms when she’s finished scrubbing them. My kitchen is spotless. My living room, too, the hash mark lines of the vacuum still fresh in the cream-colored carpet we installed after the girls left for college. In my bedroom I fall down on the unrumpled bed, the comforter matching the pillows matching the sheets matching the curtains matching the carpet. I spread out my arms and legs as if I’m making a snow angel, and I move them slowly back and forth. When I get up from the bed, I’ve left behind no mark.
I should be leaving for work soon. Naveen will expect me to call him to go over invoices and details and things I don’t want to talk about. At the very least, I should check my email and phone messages to see if anything important happened since the last time I looked. Instead, I go to my closet. I look at my clothes. Everything in there is black or white or gray or beige. When’s the last time I wore anything bright? A color, a real color?
In the back, shoved behind a bunch of summer dresses in navy and white, the lines severe but classic, I find an emerald-green blouse. Silk. Shoulder pads and a bow at the front, which should make it clear how long it had been since I’d worn it. I bought it to wear for my first job, when I believed making an impression was important and women needed to wear high heels to office jobs because that’s what they did in the movies. The shoes are long gone, as are the black pencil skirts I’d never be able to squeeze into again, but this shirt had been a favorite. I press it to my cheek for a minute, thinking about the rain and the taste of coffee and whiskey. The bright light showing everything.
I know why Will didn’t take my picture. Because I’m bland and gray and beige, and he makes art. I put the shirt back on the rack, but in front, where I can see it the next time I have to get dressed.
I scream when I come out of the closet, and Ross laughs. My heart pounds and I press my fingers to it. I feel the throb of it in my chest, my wrists, the base of my throat. Between my legs.
“You’re home!”
“Yeah. Decided to swing by here, take a shower, before I hit the office.” He studies me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
His hands fit on my hips when he kisses me. Open mouth. Tongue working. No surprises; we’ve danced this dance many times. When I cup his crotch, though, he pulls away to give me a look.
“Well, well.” His brows raise. He’s making a joke.
I’m not.
It’s easy enough to walk him back a few steps to the bed. He sits. I push. I straddle him, already pulling at his tie and the buttons beneath. His body is tan and firm because he exercises even when he travels. He spends time outside in the yard, on the golf course, biking.
I’m not thinking of Will when I work my way down my husband’s body with my mouth and teeth and tongue. There aren’t any surprises. I know the dip and curve of every part of him. I know where he likes to be touched, and how. For how long. He’s hard in my fist in a minute or so. Then in my mouth. His hands tangle in my hair.
I want to be surprised. I want to find something new. I want this to feel different.
I use my hand in tandem with my mouth. Up. Down. I want to hear him groan in pleasure, but Ross doesn’t make much noise when we have sex. He never has. I’m the one who moans and sighs, even if the habit has been lost because of so many years when we had to muffle ourselves so the girls wouldn’t overhear. There’s nobody to hear us now, and I want him to shout from what I’m doing to him. I want him to shudder and writhe and clutch at the comforter while I mouth-fuck him until he can’t stand it anymore. I want him to come saying my name.
There is a surprise when he tugs my hair to lift my mouth from his cock. When he pulls me upward, over his body, to nuzzle and nudge at me through my clothes. Fingers work. We shift, we roll. I’m naked somehow, while he’s still mostly clothed. He pushes me onto my knees and slides beneath me to get at my clit with his tongue, his hands gripping my ass. My hands find the wall above the headboard, my fingers curling against the wallpaper I’ve never liked but have always been too lazy to change.
Oh, this, this, this. Spread wide, thighs trembling, all I can do is ride his face and let the pleasure take me over. He knows how and where and how long. How many times and in what direction. I come, hard, without making a sound.
I slip down his body and find his mouth with mine. The first time Ross ever went down on me, he was shocked when I kissed him, after. But if I can’t stand the taste of myself, how could I expect anyone else to? Anyway, it’s erotic, tasting myself on his mouth.
I slide one hand beneath his head, fingers in his hair. The other goes between us to grip the base of his cock and hold him steady as I slide my body onto his. Our mouths seal for just a moment before the kiss breaks on my sigh.
Twenty-two years. That’s how long we’v
e been doing this. The first time was in a cheap hotel room after his fraternity’s spring formal. He told me he loved me first, and I didn’t believe him, but I let him kiss and touch me, anyway.
Ross doesn’t say he loves me now. He pushes up inside me. His fingers grip me a little too hard. His eyes are closed. His mouth is open.
He might always look this way when we make love, but it’s been a very long time since we did it in the light. I put my hands on his face and trace the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth with my fingertips until he turns his head to capture my fingers with his mouth. He bites gently. Pleasure surges, and I lose myself in it.
This is comfort. This is compatibility. This is familiarity, and it works. We both tip over into climax within moments of each other, and Ross gives me what I wanted. A hoarse shout. It sounds a little, just a little, like my name.
“What’re you up to today?” Ross asks a few minutes later, when I’ve fallen onto my own pillow.
I’d been teasing into sleep, but this wakes me. I scrub at my face before I look at him. “Work. What are you up to today?”
“Gotta put out a bunch of fires. That jackass Bingham can’t do any damn thing right when I’m gone.” He yawns.
I contemplate crawling under the covers and going back to sleep for a few hours, but it would be impossible with him in the house. He will turn on the television or bang the dresser drawers. Run the coffee grinder. He will shake me gently to ask me where to find his socks, his keys. “No, don’t get up,” he’ll say. “I can make my own breakfast.” But I know he wants me to do it, because I’m here and because he’d much rather not do it himself.
I leave my husband in the bed. In the bathroom, I run the water and splash my face. It’s cold, and I swallow it greedily, feeling the chill slip down my throat and hit my too-empty stomach. I fill a paper cup from the dispenser and take it to him.