Lunch

by Karen Moline

  She works hard in the silent room, her fingers fluttering furious, fast and sure, until the room grows, alive, on the paper as she intended. She looks at the clock with some surprise that hours have flown by, and puts down her pad, and pencils, and stretches luxuriously. It is so warm in here, and cozy, her jeans are too tight, she will take them off, lying down on the bed to take a break, so cozy, closing her eyes, just for a minute, and quickly falls into sleep.

  NICK STOPS dead at the astonishing spectacle of Olivia asleep atop the bed, a sketchpad at her side. One pencil has fallen to the carpet and he stoops to pick it up, turning back with a signal for me to check the tapes that must have been running since she came in and turned on the light.

  For a brief moment he stands deliberating, pleasure flooding his senses, the unexpected joy of her body clad only in a saggy fisherman’s sweater and her panties, there, so long denied him like this, pliant and supple, helpless in the innocence of sleep, waiting for him. He hurriedly draws the drapes, moves back to the door, and quickly strips in silence before placing her sketchpad on the table and gingerly lowering himself to her side.

  He will awaken her with a kiss.

  Many kisses.

  She stirs beside him, his fingers stroking her into a calm haze, half asleep, wondering where she is, disoriented, those delicious fingers already inside her, sweet, she arches back into him, more, she wants more, she is dreaming, if she keeps her eyes closed it doesn’t matter where she is, the aching dream will never end.

  “Don’t stop,” she says, totally unaware that she has spoken. “More, do it again.”

  The docility of her desire inflames him, but he forces himself to stay as he is, steady and even, calm strokes gradually deepening, slowly wakening her body into rapture. He has no intention of stopping, not now, not this gentle tormenting bliss of her moans beside him, mingling soon with his own.

  I cannot say what moves me more, sunk so deep in the watching, remembering the last time he touched her, crude and violent and furious, in a reeking stall in a public lavatory, or seeing their need for each other now, expressed truly, the only way they know how. Theirs is a language of touch, of sighs and gestures and moans, punctuated by rhythmic breathing and the occasional jarring slap of flesh upon flesh.

  But it is Nick’s language, and only he knows all the words.

  Only with Olivia have I ever known him to make love without props or nasty games. Without a struggle. Without anything but a gentle heart.

  It cannot last.

  “I FELL asleep,” she says, snuggling into him, too contentedly lazy to move, lulled by his tenderness, or think.

  “I noticed,” he says. “What were you drawing?”

  “The flat.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Mmm.”

  He pulls away, kissing her shoulders, then reaches over to the table, bringing the pad into the bed, between them like a nestling baby.

  “I’m afraid to look,” he says, joking.

  “Why? It’s just a sketch.”

  “You know why,” he says, and then turns back the cover. He sees the room I have furnished, the rumpled bed he is lying on, the peonies, petals drifting, he sees the lush folds of the drapes, the curved fat feet of the clock and the table. It’s only a drawing, but it feels alive. There are prickles at his nape.

  It is alive, watching him.

  And then he sees a smudged blur that must be his face, a faint dim ghost, staring at him from the mirror, he sees M’s face, as if underwater, in the other, and he shivers.

  She can’t know, she can’t possibly know.

  “You don’t like it,” she says.

  “No,” he says, careful to keep his voice calm, “I love it. It just startled me, that’s all, my face in the mirror like that.”

  “Always watching, the pair of you.”

  He whips around to meet her gaze, but sees nothing but innocent pleasure in her handiwork.

  “What?” she says, puzzled.

  “Nothing,” he says, kissing her. “Just you.”

  “You can have it, the sketch, I mean. A souvenir.”

  His face darkens. What is a souvenir but a token of memory, embodied in an object? A souvenir is not what he wants.

  She pulls away, shrinking back into the pillows, watching him. “Don’t, Nick, please. Don’t spoil it.”

  There is a blankness seeping into the pores of his face, and he turns his head away. She sighs, relieved. Perhaps it was only a shadow.

  I am watching him closely, curious. The fury building in him is always so predictable any director worth a tithe of his salary would have yelled cut, but for the moment Nick is acquiescent, retreating into that hiding place he rarely lets me see, because it is unbearable. I marvel, actually, at his skillful and near-­instantaneous rearrangement of his features into calm, reassuring solicitude.

  “Does this mean you’ve forgiven me?” he asks, his voice soft, pleading, as he turns back to her with a tenuous grin.

  Her arms pull him down, his head in her lap. “Nick,” she says, in between kisses, still intoxicated by the limpid unreality of her arousal, “will you do something for me?”

  “What?” he says. “Anything.”

  “Let me.”

  “Let you what?”

  “Let me.” Reaching over to him.

  His delight a beacon stabbing the darkness, shining in his eyes. “Why, Miss Olivia,” he drawls, completely bemused, “I do believe you are a slut.”

  “Thanks,” she says, blushing even as she fastens his arms to the silken restraints. “Coming from you that’s a real compliment.”

  Nick is not about to tell her he knows how to slip out of these knotted cords whenever he wants to. This is far too much fun, pretending.

  He watches, his eyes heavy-­lidded, as her hands slide over him, stroking him, her own cat, the scented panther, her mouth, taking him, deep and engulfing, how he wishes he could touch her, and take this cool stranger as he pleases, how he strains against the cords binding his hands as she torments him.

  I am engrossed, watching Olivia take charge of him, surprised that his arrogant dominance has acquiesced so meekly.

  If only she knew what lies hidden in the trunk at her feet, but how can Nick dare tell her? How could I?

  He shudders as she pulls away abruptly and hops out of bed.

  “Come back, you bitch,” he screams as she pads down the hall to the kitchen, bringing back a cold bottle of champagne and sitting down on the edge of the bed, where he cannot reach her, to tantalize him with her prolonged fussing with its opening.

  She takes a long drink directly from the bottle, wiping her chin with the back of her hand and making Nick laugh. Her head spins, she wants it so, she cannot understand why this crazy mood has come over her, so outrageously unlikely, why all her determined anger has dissipated into nothingness, droplets of fog evaporating in morning sunshine, and all she wants now is to remain shut out against the world, suspended in the shadowy half-­world of dreams and delight, the mindless delight in her body and his, and the airy denial of all the thoughts and aspirations that woke her in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and too terrified to breathe.

  “Shut up,” she says, lightly slapping his cheeks, although she is secretly aghast that she can do so, lay a hand on someone, with such gleeful impunity.

  She places the base of the bottle on his cock, stroking it up and down, cruelly slow, and he jerks stiffly against its cold wetness, telling her to stop. She smiles and ignores him, then pours a thin stream of champagne on his torso and begins to lick it off, languidly tantalizing, only her tongue touching him, lapping it up as it trickles off his chest to stain the embroidered sheets, circling his nipples, his lips, light as a spider’s legs.

  She drinks again, deeply. I have never seen her so brazen, so fearless, mounting him, teasingly, r
iding him as she pleases till she throws her head back, heedless of Nick, he is no more than a body beneath her to serve her needs, heedless of anything save the excruciating torment of the implacable, yearning passion she means to satisfy however she can.

  She arches back into his knees, his legs bent up to support her weight, and cries out, then slowly slides down, stretching out languorously along his body, suffused with pleasure, before reaching over to stroke him into willingness, cajoling without uttering a word, making him do it again.

  She is drunk, she knows, insatiably drunk with this shocking, unbelievable craving for libidinous oblivion.

  When she is mine, Nick says to himself, straining against her, moaning softly, mesmerized, the stroking of her hands almost unbearably erotic, intoxicated by her transformation into this liquid creature he is sure he has molded, when she is mine this is how our days will pass, like this, boundless bliss binding them together, castaways from the demands of the world, demanding only this from each other, lost in themselves, awash in lust, the essence of desire.

  Were his hands not bound, were he able to touch her and pull her close, I can almost imagine that this is how it is for other ­people, when they make love. The pure banality of straightforward coupling, so normal for other lovers, is as aberrant to Nick as his twisted games and choreographed ravishings would be to them.

  What I saw between them today I have not seen in countless years of watching Nick, who cannot bear to be vulnerable in bed, or out. I had almost forgotten there are lovers who love.

  This is the tape he will watch more than any other, I know, rewinding and watching, alone, over and over again.

  I will make my own copy, editing out as much of Nick’s body as I can, wanting only Olivia, engrossed in her sketching, or lying there dreaming, or telling Nick to shut up, brazen and selfish, her head thrown back in ecstasy as if she knew I was there, aching to see it. I will keep this tape hidden, safe from Nick’s prying eyes, so I can watch it too, alone, in the dark.

  Chapter 16

  I have a headache, watching.

  It is a dismal day, dank, a sky like seed pearls, milky layers of gray, more opaque than Olivia’s eyes, dense with damp, the cold seeping into your bones like moisture trickling slowly downward on an overwatered plant, raising goose bumps on the flesh above them. All the color sucked dry. The room needs colors, yes, that’s it. Olivia’s head is buried under a white linen pillow, hand-­embroidered by indentured servants in Manila, no doubt, muffling the swelling roll of her moans, endless and even as breakers dwarfing foolhardy souls, the bobbing ants I used to watch from the cliffs over Malibu who’d dared surf those constant rolling waves. I can’t see Olivia’s hair, the bright mass of it hidden as Nick smothers her, moving languorously up and down, he is taking his time, it is his rhythm, pushing in deeper. Even the healthy ruddiness of his skin, usually made even more rosy by the soft lighting and the sheen of sweat from his exertions, seems a pale wash by the creeping grayness of the lunchtime air. Too tedious, the dull metallic glint of the camcorders. I am so weary of gloom and wet and the oppressive walls of this room that I, for only half a second, imagine what a scintillating diversion it would be if Nick tore himself away and flipped open the lid of the trunk, quickly rummaged through until he found the cat-­o’-­nine-­tails, and brought it down to leave thin precise slashes of crimson, sudden dark welts breaking this monotony driving me mad, scattering drops of blood on the crisp sheets like so many rose petals.

  Roses. Flowers. Yes, flowers. Fronds and palms. Green grow the rushes-­so. Peonies, poppies, baskets of pinks. I will go to the market at Nine Elms tomorrow. Rise in the black night and load my arms with blooming live things. I will smile at a flirty flower girl grateful for attention from a man whose face she cannot read. Neglected by a droopy husband who still lies, snoring, beneath clammy sheets and dismal dreams, she will not be hard to find. She will be breathless when I say I want them all. All of them. Every last bloom.

  She is puzzled. No one can want that many.

  I do, I say, quietly unfolding a chunk of pound notes, I do, but only if you help me load them in the car. Her eyes will widen in disbelieving pleasure, two round patches pink as anemone flushing her cheeks. I will follow her guileless and giddy as we load cartfuls carefully in the car, her day’s wages earned so easily, oh how grateful those eyes will shine in the dark as we coast to a secluded edge of the parking lot and I push back the seat and her back with it. Yes, how grateful, how eager when I sweep her cheeks with petals plucked from a rose, how willing to submit when I kiss her tenderly, how she will open herself to me, the fragrance flooding the car as the blooms lie crushed under our weight. Oh yes, her eyes will widen, large now with surprise when I push her arms roughly above her head. No, she will say, a soft moss of fear rising damply from her skin, pushing to get away, rolling her head spasmodically from side to side—­

  —­as Olivia is doing now—­

  —­no stop it, what are you doing let me go. No, don’t—­

  Shhh, I will tell her, sweet, it’s so sweet, you are my darling little flower, shhh. I will muffle her protests with kisses and her eyes will glisten like dew because she is helpless, crushed, she can only kiss me back, gasping, straining away from me as I push into her, hard, harder—­

  —­as Nick is doing now—­

  —­deeper into the blooms, she is buried in a rainbow. She will disappear, yes, her flesh now even pinker than anemone where my fingers trace delicate lines leaving a riot of color in their wake. She will moan now, no longer quite so fearful when my hands cup her breasts, when I kiss her cheeks downy with tears, shhh, I murmur when I push her down, filling her mouth until she gags.

  You are my darling little flower.

  Her eyes will close because she is mine. It is too easy, her surrender. I need her struggling, I will slap her anemone cheeks, pink, pinker. I will kiss the tears once more, anointed, perfumed by lust. Only now will I make her bloom, surrendering, flushed. She has no choice. Lift her face to the sun, breathe in the warmth, widen in delight or die, drooping. She does not want to die. Oh yes, she will breathe in her surrender, intoxicated with the fragrance of crushed beauty, oh please she will breathe.

  Please.

  Later, I will stand outside the car, smoking. She will pull on her tattered frock, dazed, running her fingers over bruised flesh as if it belonged to a stranger. She will not see, as I do, the faint polka of dots, tiny pricks of thorn, dancing like constellations across her backside. She will not feel them. She will not feel.

  My darling little flower.

  I will get in the car and drive in silence. The sky has barely lightened, the usual neon flash of Piccadilly dimmed by morning gloom, the statue of Eros appears to sleep, drooping. I will pull up in front of the shuttered Boots, and place the banknotes in her hand. She will not look at them, or me, but will hold them tight when she pushes the door handle and slides out, stumbling. I will close the door and drive away.

  There are rose petals at her feet.

  There is no color in this room.

  Nick and Olivia lie still, sated.

  I no longer have a headache.

  I am still watching.

  Chapter 17

  There are days meant for languishing in bed, although few of us have the freedom to do so. There are times when the weight of the world presses so heavily on your shoulders that you think there is no reason why your lungs fill with air and you are not poisoned by the thoughts flashing through your mind more evanescent than fireflies. And there are times when the vast yawning abyss of anticipation so jangles your nerves, so awakens your senses, that even the smell of newsprint smudged on your fingers as you read your paper over a hurried cup of coffee is cause for celebration, the faint whiff of yesterday’s perfume lingering as you sit next to a yawning young clerk in the subway, her shoes scruffed down at the heels because she is too poor or too dull to notice, so alive are yo
u to the very cells in your body, aching to be awakened.

  I stare at shoes a lot, they fascinate me. The true worth of character. Not only what is worn but how, and why, and what could that person possibly have been thinking when the laces were tied in clumsy drooping knots.

  It was one of those days.

  Nick does not look at shoes or smell stale perfume. He prefers a more pragmatic approach, even in his fantasies, even as he lies, waiting, his nerves jangling, for the sound of Olivia.

  “I’VE BEEN imagining what I’d do to you when you came in,” Nick says as she is shrugging off her coat, her eyes stormy. “It’s very passive-­aggressive, you know, always being late.”

  “As if you’d know.” She laughs, despite herself. “God, I haven’t heard shrink-­speak since I stopped seeing my therapist after my divorce.”

  “Actually, I do know,” he says smugly. “I played a character like that once. Very handy, the psychological profiles, you know, all the free advice I get from overpaid so-­called experts.”

  “I bet they just love you.”

  “They do.”

  “They believe what you tell them, don’t they?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do they have any idea what you don’t tell them?”

  Nick says nothing, stubbing out his cigarette, and she is sorry, biting her lip. His stillness scares her.

  I sit up, a dark knot of foreboding looping through my gut.

  “So, tell me,” she says, if only to break the dreadful silence, clambering onto the bed next to him.

  “Tell you what?”

  “What you were imagining.”

  His face clears instantly. “What I was imagining,” he muses. “What I’ve done to you before and what I’ll do to you again.”