Love in Many Languages

by Jamie Bennett

  Someone rattled a key in the lock in the front door and I stopped on the landing with the knife in my hand. There was silence, then knocking, and I hurried down the steps. I peeked out the window at the visitor then swung the door open, holding the knife behind me.

  “Fox,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  He held out a bouquet of flowers, brownish and wilting. “Happy birthday, Ione. I tried my key, but it didn’t work.”

  “Reid changed the locks while I was in the hospital. I’m glad you came because I have something for you.” I stepped back to put down the knife and get the shoe, and when I did, Fox came in and closed the door behind himself. “Here,” I said.

  “One bowling shoe?” he asked, looking at it in my hand.

  I gave him the shoe for the dead flowers, which seemed like an even trade to me. “Thank you for stopping by.” I went back to the door and opened it.

  He didn’t go. “Wow,” Fox said, looking around. “It looks just like it did when I moved in, before everything disappeared. It looks just like how your grandmother had it. How did you get all this furniture back?”

  “I didn’t. It’s all new stuff. I was trying to recreate the past.”

  “You did a good job,” he complimented me. “I thought I had stepped back in time.”

  “No, we can’t go back to how things were.” I looked at him pointedly. Then I actually pointed, with my finger to the open door. “You should leave.”

  “Hold on, Ione. I wanted to talk to you.” He looked at my face in the sunlight. “You look…it’s amazing. You almost look the same as before, just like the house. The only problem is here,” and he made a little gesture on his face where my scar was. It had faded, according to Karis, but I almost always forgot it was there anyway.

  Until now, when this guy brought it up. “You know, Fox, I don’t want to discuss my appearance with you.” I gestured at the door again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, but he still didn’t move. “I know that you don’t care about that.”

  “What made me care a lot was how much you did. How you cared so much, you couldn’t look at me. You said that I was horrific.”

  “No, I meant your injuries!” He held out the shoe to me, like an offering. “Let’s sit for a minute. I’ve missed hanging out with you and talking to you.” Fox plunked down on my couch and patted it. “Just talk to me for a minute.”

  I slowly closed the door and took a seat across from him rather than on the avocado upholstery. “If you liked me so much, then you didn’t show it very well. You acted like a real asshole the last time I saw you and you haven’t spoken a word to me since.” This conversation was very reminiscent of the one I’d had with Dov at work. Except that Fox sat up straight, looking offended by what I had said, rather than sorry, like Dov had.

  “I didn’t act like an asshole,” he informed me. “I was just taken aback by the difference in how you looked. Anyone would have reacted the same way. But you’re fine now.”

  I shook my head. He didn’t seem to get it. He never would.

  Fox leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “Things just got confused between us. First, when it happened, I was concerned about my safety, and rightfully so! If I had been here, I could have been attacked, too.”

  “Or you could have helped me,” I pointed out. “Maybe me getting hurt wasn’t just about you.”

  Fox blinked. “Well, I guess. I did go to the hospital, but then that guy threatened me and told me he was going to throw me out if I didn’t leave. Just like he did when I came over here last time. You couldn’t have expected me to stick around with that going on, right?”

  “Cooper threatened to throw you out of the hospital?” I smiled, thinking about it.

  Fox was still pissed. “He was like some kind of crazy freak, blood on his clothes and raging at me,” he complained.

  “Did you know that it was my blood on him?” I waited for a beat but no answer. “He came here and found me. He put bandages on me, he called 911, he stayed with me. He didn’t leave me.”

  “Is that what this is about? That’s why you’re upset?” Fox smiled now, shaking his head in disbelief. “I didn’t leave you!”

  “Yes, you did. I’m upset that when I needed you to be a friend to me—in fact, when you still thought you were my boyfriend—you were nowhere to be found.”

  “No, that’s crazy. I didn’t leave you. I just took a break for a while for safety reasons. And now we can restart where we left off.” He patted the couch next to himself again. “We were really beginning to make it work as a couple, before you got—before that happened. Let’s try again.”

  “Do you really think I’m going to pick back up with you like you didn’t run out of my house, afraid to look at me?” I asked, incredulous.

  “I ran out of the house because that guy was growling at me!” Fox protested.

  I smiled again, practically from ear to ear. “He did growl, didn’t he? Wow, I’m seriously crazy about him.”

  “You are?”

  “And even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t ever want you to be my boyfriend, Fox. I really do think you’re an asshole. I made a lot of excuses for you before, about you living here rent-free, not really working. About Corrie, too—I tried to explain away why you were sleeping with someone who was so vulnerable, and underage. Wow, when I say it out loud like that, you’re even worse than I was thinking.” He started to say something, an angry word, but I cut him off. “I guess that the woman you were living with after you left here kicked you out, so you thought you’d try me again, but the answer is no. No, no, no, a thousand, million, trillion times, no. I wouldn’t be with you if you were the last man on Earth. If you were the last man in the galaxy.” I thought for a second. “What’s bigger than the galaxy?”

  “I get it!” he snapped. “I didn’t come here for you to insult me.”

  “No, you came here to try to sponge off me again, but I’m not interested,” I explained. “A lot of things are clearer to me now. I wanted you around because I was lonely and I thought that you were someone who you really aren’t. I didn’t see you clearly, but now I do.”

  “Ione—”

  “Cooper is on his way over, the guy who wanted to kill you? So I think you should go.”

  I had to give it to Fox: he had nerve. As I held open the door for him, he tried to kiss me, so I took the shoe out of his hand and whacked him with it. Not hard, but enough to get him moving. Then I threw the shoe out after him, but it didn’t go as far as I would have liked with my weak arm. I wondered when my next physical therapy appointment was, and resolved to do the exercises they had given me immediately. I went and got the flowers he had brought and threw those too, which was more symbolic than anything else because there was no way I could have hit him with the distance he had put between himself and my house. I watched him walk away, no ride this time, no car of his own. Big black clouds were gathering in the sky over us as he went down the block and turned the corner, out of my life forever.

  Thunder rumbled and a little wind kicked up, blowing the flowers across the yard. I thought back through some of the fun we’d had together. Maybe he would have been good for just that, the fair-weather times, but I didn’t need people like that floating around. I was more interested in the kind of person who showed up to paint my house and held me when I was scared, the kind of person who also wanted to kill the people who hurt me, in any way. The kind of person who reminded me of my physical therapy appointments and held my hand when we went up to the studio together because she thought I needed some support, the kind of person who yelled at her mother-in-law over me and invited me to stay indefinitely at her house even though she had a toddler, a husband, a job, a baby on the way, and thought I was weird.

  I sat on my front steps because that was a safe thing to do, now, and I waited for Cooper.

  “Hi,” he called as he got out of his car, and he walked his steady pace to come to me. Steady, but fast, and he was holding out his hands and smilin
g. I stood on the step so we were eye to eye as I put my arms around his neck. “You sent me some very good news.”

  “I’m so relieved,” I answered, so glad to see him, because it felt like a million years since he had woken me up with my first birthday kiss of the day. He had given me a lot more after that one, too. I sighed and nestled closer to him. “I just feel like I want to hug you for a long time.”

  “That’s fine with me.” His arms tightened. “I talked to Ash on my way over here. There’s no way that guy will make bail, and Ash thinks that he’ll be in prison for a very long time.”

  I closed my eyes for a second and nodded. I needed to think of something else. “Did you duck out of work early?”

  He kissed me again, my 50th or so birthday kiss, just from him. “I did. I thought they could handle things at the office for a while without me. I thought about you a lot today,” he said, putting his face into my neck and nuzzling.

  “Did you? I thought about you, too. I thought that after everyone leaves…” I licked around his ear and nibbled on his lobe.

  Cooper put his hands under my ass and lifted me up so that I was clinging to his front, my legs locked around him. “Sorry, I didn’t get your meaning. What did you think we’ll do after everyone leaves?” He pushed the front door open and walked us back inside while I kissed his forehead and cheeks. “Oh, I know what you were saying,” he told me. “You mean that once we’re alone, you’ll clear the table and I’ll do all the dishes.”

  I laughed, but then he squeezed with his hands and backed me into a wall so that our hips ground together. My laugh ended on a gasp.

  “Maybe instead of the dishes, I’ll do you, Io,” he said, moving me up and down against him. “What do you think?” He set me down on trembling legs then met my mouth and kissed me, hard and deep. “Maybe right now,” he told me, breaking away and pulling my t-shirt up over my head. He unhooked my bra and palmed my breasts. His fingers gently tugged my nipples and I pressed into his hands until he tugged harder.

  “Yes, do me, right now!” I agreed breathlessly.

  He jerked at the front of his shirt, making buttons pop and fly. “Shit, I don’t have anything else to put on.”

  “No one will mind if you eat dinner shirtless. I won’t mind at all,” I told him, and I bent to kiss his chest, the hard muscles beneath his nipples, the indentations around the rectangles of his stomach, sliding down to my knees to undo his belt and pants. I licked up and down his shaft, making him moan, and making a little drop appear on the tip that I licked also. Cooper shuddered when I did and transfixed, I watched another drop appear and I licked again. I was just fascinated by all his parts and equipment.

  Cooper lifted me to my feet and helped me step out of my skirt. “Did you forget your underwear?” he asked, his fingers trailing down my stomach.

  I moved against his hand. “That was on purpose,” I told him. “All day long, ready and waiting…”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Ione.” He yanked off the rest of his clothes and lifted me again so that we fit together, skin meeting skin, his stiffness massaging into my core, sliding though my wetness. I rubbed myself against him, holding onto his shoulders and he lifted me up and down. “I’m going to—I, almost—” I panted. “Cooper!”

  “Condom. Where? Where?” he panted back, and then he was rushing up the stairs with me still attached to him, my legs around his hips. Every step bounced us together, and I was biting his neck and wailing, almost, as we got to the top, begging him to make me come, get inside me, hard, now, right now, now! Finally he came into me, pushing me back into the new mattresses in the green bedroom as I dug my fingers into his shoulders and orgasmed more intensely than I ever had in my life. Cooper kept pushing, pounding, saying my name, and I came again, convulsing around him, trying to hold on to that burst of pleasure. He pulsed inside me with a shout and we lay wrapped together, trying to breathe.

  “Happy birthday to me,” I said on a sigh, and Cooper picked up his head, smiling.

  “Do you think that was your present?” he asked.

  “It was enough. How did you get so good at sex?” I marveled. “You’re some kind of prodigy.”

  “Sweetheart, you bring it out in me.” He kissed my lips. “I’m going to record us some day, so you can hear yourself. And give me a translation.” He pulled away and rolled on his side, leaving me feeling a little empty, but then he spooned up behind me and held me close.

  I snuggled happily and got a few goosebumps with the new air conditioner going, and as Cooper trailed his fingertips down over my hip. He reached and pulled the sheet over us, tucking it carefully around me, then rubbed his hand over my arm, the one that had been hurt. “How is this feeling after the exercises yesterday?”

  “Not too bad, but I definitely need to work on it. I can’t throw very well anymore, especially flowers.”

  “What?”

  I squirmed as his hand moved to my stomach. “Ooh, I’m ticklish there!”

  “I know that, but you have to stay still, because this is science,” he told me seriously. “I’m mapping out your body by quadrants. I have to do some intensive fieldwork.” He gently kneaded my breast. “Here, especially.”

  My hips moved. He just had the most wonderful hands. “You know why I like having sex with you so much?” I asked. “Because every time you touch me, it’s for me. Do you know what I mean? You’re trying to make me feel good, not just yourself. You do that with everything. You think of me, first.”

  Cooper leaned over me to look into my eyes. “I want you to feel good. I want everything good for you, sweetheart. Everything in the world.”

  “I want you,” I told him, and turned onto my back so I could kiss him. “You’re what’s good for me.”

  He was still looking at me very seriously. “You’re so sure of me. Since we met, you’ve been so sure of me, in everything.”

  I put my hands on his face, because I loved his face so much. “I hope you’re that sure of me, too.”

  Thunder cracked outside and he kissed me, fiercely. “I am.”

  It was a while later when we made it back downstairs. The sky had broken open and I had opened all the windows to let the cool, fresh air flow through the house. Cooper was obsessively checking to make sure the rain wasn’t coming in. “Is everything closed upstairs?” he asked me.

  I picked up the palette knife I had left downstairs earlier to return it to my studio. “I’ll check.” And I would look for the tablecloth, which I was remembering for the third time. Wind blew down the stairs and through all the bedrooms and I decided that even if it made puddles, we had to leave the windows open. It felt wonderful.

  I sat on the green bedroom floor again and slit through the tape to open the box with my grandmother’s things. On top was a pile of mail, letters and cards and bills, all still sealed shut. I had thrown them in, all those years ago, without even opening anything. I studied each envelope and decided to write back to the people who had sent words of sympathy and encouragement. I hadn’t been able to deal with it at the time.

  Underneath was a hodgepodge, a mess of some of her old makeup and costume jewelry that she had liked to wear out, receipts and grocery lists, an ancient packet of dill seeds, and her old appointment book. I picked it up and a wave of sadness went through me at seeing her handwriting. She’d had to write everything down in her book, all the dates and times, or she’d forget them, just like I did. “Ione, wystawa obrazów,” it said on one day. My art show. It had been one of the last times she had been able to leave the house. I looked through the pages, at all the doctor appointments, reminders to get medication. It had been a hard time.

  The next layer was all prescription bottles. I remembered sweeping them off the nightstand with my arm as I had sobbed, the pills rattling in the plastic containers. I picked up one amber bottle. “Warning,” it said on a red label. I picked up another. “Danger.” I sat and looked at them all, rolling the bottles in my palm. Danger, warning, caution, important.


  It was a sign.

  “Cooper? Are you ok?” I yelled down the stairs.

  His head poked around the corner and he looked up at me. “Yes. What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I walked into my studio. Maybe they had arrested the wrong man earlier. Had he gotten away from the police somehow? Water was coming in through the window. I walked over and looked down into the yard next door, at the pool with the surface distorted by the pelting rain. Important, warning. Danger. There was something in the pool and I realized I was screaming, because it was Sania and Devesh’s daughter.

  I passed Cooper bolting up the stairs toward me as I ran down them. “She’s in the pool! Mita is in the water!” I yelled to him and then I ran out of the house, slipping on the wet grass with the cold rain beating down on me, through the gate to the back yard where I had spent so many happy hours as a kid swimming when it had been the Kaminskis’ pool. I dove off the side where I had learned to cannonball, and I heard another splash as Cooper went in behind me, but then I had her, my arm around the little girl’s chest and under her arms, and I pulled her to the surface. I could feel her heart beating, but she wasn’t breathing.

  I started doing rescue breathing, and after a while Cooper moved me out of the way and took over and someone put a towel around me. Vaguely, in the background, I heard people talking and sobbing, but it was mostly just a blur until Mita sputtered and coughed. She coughed again, harder, and tried to sit up, and started to cry for her mom, and then I knew everything was going to be ok.

  ∞

  “Could you grab another blanket?” Cooper asked.

  “Of course!” Karis hurried off to find one.

  I shifted in his lap. Since we had come inside, Cooper had insisted on me being practically swaddled. I was all in favor of the part where I was cuddling with him, and I was also down with the getting carried around in his arms, but I was now getting hot. “No, no more blankets,” I called after Karis. “Cooper, I’m fine.”