Sex as a Second Language

by Alisa Kwitney

  Katherine stepped forward, closing the space between them, smiling as if she were on to him. Magnus took a step back, and Katherine took another step forward. “You see,” she told the class, “he’s instinctively retreating. I’m also maintaining very direct eye contact, which is making him a bit uncomfortable.”

  I’ll say. Magnus was suddenly very aware that if Katherine came any closer, the top of her head would fit under his chin. And more than that, he was suddenly aware of her as a woman.

  Shit, this hadn’t happened to him in a classroom since Reagan was president. Dead fish, think about dead fish.

  Katherine carried on with her demonstration, oblivious. “Some cultures avoid direct eye contact, and some seek it out. Nabil, if you stood too close or held eye contact too long, the person you were talking to might have felt threatened or misinterpreted your intentions.”

  Magnus forced himself to meet Katherine’s clear gray gaze, but it was difficult. No matter how many times he told himself that he was having an inappropriate reaction, or how intently he tried to visualize a two-day-old halibut, he felt a swelling sense of physical attraction. He could tell the moment Katherine sensed it, too; her face flushed, and she turned away. Katherine glanced at her watch. “Thank you, Magnus, you may sit down now. So, that was a good lesson—in order to practice our English, we may need to practice our North American body language. In any case, we’re out of time today, but tomorrow we can talk more about the trip and any cultural differences we might have uncovered.”

  As the other students filed past, thanking Katherine for the field trip, Magnus took his time gathering his books, trying to get over feeling embarrassed. He had to be professional here. He had to focus. He had to think of something to say to Katherine that would lead to another private meeting. Unfortunately, everything that came to mind sounded like a bad pickup line. I need to work on my colloquialisms, care to go out for a drink? I love your old movies, I watch them at home on video all the time. Did you know that there’s a phallological museum in Reykjavik? Although why anybody wanted to go see a bunch of shriveled whale penises, Magnus had never understood.

  If only he could just walk up to her and say, I’m not really slow, Katherine, I used to routinely field emergency phone calls from the CIA. I’ve made snap decisions that affected thousands of lives. I’ve been at the bottom of the ocean, dealing with an equipment failure in my sub, while everyone around me hyperventilated.

  But he couldn’t, because he’d left that part of himself behind in a long-term storage facility, along with his steel-string Martin guitar, his rock-climbing paraphernalia, and the antique chess set he’d inherited from his grandmother.

  No one had told him that disguising himself as a new immigrant would make him really feel as if he’d been stripped of his career and his status and his entire frame of reference.

  Magnus heard a soft laugh, and turned to see Luc saying something to Katherine that made her smile and glance down.

  Walking up to them, Magnus heard Katherine say “it’s not going to happen,” as she made the last of a series of cuts in the bottom of a piece of paper. “And while I thank you for the compliment, I really don’t think I’m in the kind of shape to be the model for Red Sonja.”

  Luc noticed Magnus first. “But you are perfect. Tell her she is perfect, Magnus.”

  Katherine didn’t give him a chance. “Go pick on someone your own age.”

  “Who is Red Sonja?”

  “A comic book warrior woman,” said Luc.

  Katherine put down her scissors. “Brigitte Nielsen played her in a truly terrible movie in the early eighties.”

  Feeling like an outsider, Magnus thought he should say something about how Katherine would make an excellent warrior woman, but couldn’t find the right words. Instead, he pointed at the flyer. “What are you doing?”

  Katherine squinted at the page. “Do those lines look straight? I need to find a boarder. I thought I’d put this up on the bulletin board downstairs and see if anyone needs a room.”

  Magnus tilted his head to read the page.

  ROOM AVAILABLE

  Sunny, quiet room with private bathroom (half bath, sink, and toilet), plus kitchen privileges in Upper West Side Apartment, immediate avail. No smokers, rock musicians, or opera singers. $200 a week.

  Katherine’s home phone number was written on the precut ribbons of paper.

  For a moment, Magnus couldn’t speak. Things like this never happened to him. He never won prizes, or got his airplane seat upgraded, or received a free pass. He cleared his throat, reaching inside himself for calm. “You are renting a room in your apartment?”

  “Mm hm.”

  “May I see it?”

  He sounded abrupt, even to his own ears. Katherine looked slightly uncomfortable. “I really wasn’t thinking of renting to a student of mine.”

  “Ah.”

  “No offense, but I think it would be simpler to rent it to a faculty member, or even to a student in someone else’s class.”

  Magnus wasn’t sure how to react. Was this an invitation to convince her otherwise, or would that be deemed impertinent?

  Luc, who clearly never doubted himself, instantly launched into a litany of reasons why his was a special case. “But this is a miracle, this is just what I am praying for! My living situation is unbearable. I am sharing a cheap hotel room with an Israeli and an Australian, I have not the money to go elsewhere. The Israeli keeps spitting sunflower seeds from the top of the bunk bed and the Australian smokes clove cigarettes.” Luc shook his head. “Please consider again, at least you know me a little, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Well…” Katherine paused. “The room’s on the small side,” she said, more to Luc than to Magnus. “It’s what Americans call a maid’s room. The bathtub wouldn’t be big enough for Magnus to soak his feet.”

  Magnus pretended to think about it. “But you are close to Columbia University, and I am supposed to start teaching there.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “But you’re right, it’s probably not big enough,” said Magnus. If Luc was going to be the guy in hot pursuit, then Magnus was going to play it cool.

  “But I don’t need big enough,” said Luc, using his hands for emphasis. “All I need is a little privacy.”

  Katherine appeared to be considering Luc’s argument.

  Of course, Magnus thought, there’s such a thing as being too cool. “All I need is a place to sleep,” he said. “For privacy, I have the Columbia libraries, where I spend most of my day doing research.”

  Katherine looked from Luc to Magnus, took a deep breath and then started to laugh, shaking her head. “Fine, then. Sure. Why don’t you both come see the room?” She stood up, sliding the strap of her briefcase on her shoulder before pausing. “Hang on a moment. Luc, I just thought of something. How much do you smoke?”

  Luc was silent for a moment. “Just one or two cigarettes, in the evening.”

  Magnus snorted in disbelief.

  “Well, maybe a little more than that. But you know,” said Luc, apparently sensing that he was at a disadvantage here, “I was deciding just the other day that it was time for me to quit. After all, I am not in France anymore, and here it is just an inconvenience, you are not allowed to have a cigarette anyplace.”

  A concerned crease had appeared between Katherine’s eyebrows. “I really don’t want anyone smoking in my house.”

  “It is a repulsive smell,” Magnus agreed.

  “Not to me,” she said, her expression rueful. “My problem is, I love the smell.”

  Luc smiled. “So we will be strong together, two ex-smokers.”

  Magnus tried to think of some bad habit he and Katherine could bond over, but realized that the only vice he indulged in at the moment was solitary. When this job was done, he really did need to start dating again.

  Luc stepped in front of Katherine and held the door open with a flourish. “After you,” he said, conveniently letting go so it slammed Magn
us in the face.

  “Oh, pardon, I wasn’t looking.”

  “No problem,” said Magnus, rubbing his nose. “I just need to pay more attention to where you’re going.” Unfortunately, this bit of irony was lost on Luc, who was already three steps ahead.

  chapter fourteen

  i f you don’t mind, take your shoes off here.” Katherine slipped out of her own shoes, which resembled black ballet slippers, and padded gracefully into the living room.

  As he unlaced his hiking boots, Magnus noticed that Katherine wasn’t exactly Martha Stewart. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, but he spotted at least three large cardboard cartons shoved against a wall. In some places, the paint had been stripped down to plaster, and there were splotches of base coat here and there on the walls.

  Luc had already removed his black, ankle-high boots by the time Magnus finished with his laces. Now here was something Technical Services hadn’t covered. How did a man maintain his James Bond mojo while walking around in gray wool socks? Magnus kneeled down surreptitiously to check for odor, and was relieved to detect nothing offensive.

  “This space is fantastic,” said Luc, who appeared to have no self-consciousness whatsoever and was striding around the large and light-filled room in his black T-shirt and jeans, exclaiming over the high ceilings and the big framed picture of red and brown squares. Magnus tried to find something to comment on, but kept noticing things better left unmentioned, such as a steamer trunk passing as a coffee table and three mismatched chairs badly in need of repair.

  “As you can probably tell, I’m in the process of redecorating,” said Katherine.

  If that were the case, thought Magnus, it was very early in the process—Katherine’s apartment looked as if she had just moved in. She herself was so well groomed, and seemed so in control, that he never would have imagined that she could live surrounded by what appeared to be broken hand-me-down furniture.

  “This reminds me of Paul Klee’s work,” said Luc, standing next to the picture of red and brown squares. It was hung crookedly, Magnus noticed, and at the wrong height.

  Katherine stood next to him. “I bought it at a flea market last year, and that’s exactly what I thought.”

  Magnus inspected the rack containing Katherine’s vast CD collection—show tunes, seventies pop, ABBA, a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Better not to say anything about that, he decided.

  Luc walked over to a bookcase, where the books all seemed to have been placed at random. “And I see you have Candide. This was the only book I read in school that did not bore me. Of course, I got in trouble anyway, for making a picture of the pirates forcing Cunegonde.” Luc grinned. “I don’t know about Voltaire, but I know which garden I wanted to cultivate.” He looked at the book again. “But this is English. You read it like this?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Ah, quel dommage. So many phrases don’t translate. Do you know what we call the words you Americans think you know? Faux amis—false friends.”

  Katherine looked intrigued. “Such as?”

  “Deception,” said Luc, using the Gallic pronunciation. “It means a disappointment. Une demande, which means a request. Baiser.”

  Katherine raised one eyebrow. “I take it a kiss is not just a kiss?”

  “Only in the noun form,” said Luc.

  “And when used as a verb?”

  Luc was clearly enjoying himself. “It means to fuck.”

  There was a moment of surprised silence, as if a pebble had been thrown in a well and made an unusually large splash.

  Magnus cleared his throat. “Not a lot of people know this, but some people compare the Icelandic sagas to the work of Homer and Shakespeare.”

  Katherine turned to him. “Really?” He might have been imagining it, but he thought she seemed a little relieved that he’d broken the tension.

  “Especially the saga of Gunnlaugur the Worm Tongue.” Somehow this did not sound quite as sparkling as Luc’s repartee.

  “You don’t say.”

  “And Icelandic is the only Scandinavian language that is like the Old Norse the Vikings spoke.”

  “Hmm.”

  Magnus noticed that Luc was smiling and shaking his head. “And I really like this room,” Magnus concluded. “A lot.”

  “Thank you.” Katherine straightened a pair of candlesticks with a slight air of self-consciousness. “Well, I guess I should make it clear to you both that officially, this room isn’t included in the rent. Just the maid’s room and the use of the kitchen.”

  “Of course it is not,” said Luc. “In France, my mother had a lodger, and he never thought to step into the family rooms. But how very kind of you to show us the view.”

  Mindful of the classic Icelandic saying, Nobody is completely stupid, if he can be silent, Magnus walked over to the window and kept his mouth shut. A lot of tall buildings were visible against the wet, gray sky. There were roof gardens and penthouses on some buildings, water towers and chimneys on others. It struck Magnus as very strange and somehow artificial, like a scene from a movie.

  “You know,” Luc said, coming up beside Magnus, “the best thing about being here in New York is that everything is new and strange, and so I become new to myself. It’s like I am a child again, having to learn what everyone else already seems to know.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Katherine said. “That’s how I feel when I travel.”

  Magnus thought it sounded like bullshit. He was in a new place, and he didn’t seem the least bit new to himself. In fact, he felt as if he’d never been more aware of the sad fact that he was stuck being his own big, silent self, too cynical for optimism and too morose for wit.

  Katherine had joined them at the window. Up close, Magnus realized, her dark hair had reddish highlights. He caught the faintest hint of a scent from the shampoo she used and felt a return of that earlier, carnal awareness. Over her shoulder, he caught Luc grinning at him. “Of course, it is easy for me to travel, I do not have a big body bubble to carry around.”

  Magnus tried to ignore him. “How long have you lived here, Katherine?” Her name felt oddly intimate on his tongue.

  Katherine hesitated, but before she could say anything, the front door opened and a dark-haired woman in her mid-sixties stared at them in surprise. She was carrying two large Zabar’s bags.

  “Oh, hi, honey. I didn’t expect you to be home yet. Did you tell me you were inviting friends over? I thought you said you were going to the gym?”

  “Mom, what are you doing here?”

  “It’s Friday. I took a half day off and decided to do some shopping for you.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” As Katherine walked over to her mother, Magnus observed that she was trying to conceal her irritation, while there was a faint edge to the mother’s voice that said, attack me and I will retaliate.

  “When were you going to do it? You’ll never have time to get down to the eighties, and wait till you see what I got. A loaf of that rustic corn bread you love, and a marinated skirt steak for our dinner.”

  Katherine ran her hand over her ponytail, smoothing it. “Mom, I’d planned to take Dash out to dinner to the Turkish place tonight.”

  “I thought you were trying to cut down on expenses.”

  “There’s a special reason I have to go.”

  “So go tomorrow.” Katherine’s mother disappeared into the kitchen with the groceries.

  Katherine cast a harried glance in Magnus and Luc’s direction before following her mother. “But Mom, I can’t just switch things around that easily.”

  Magnus might not be skilled at small talk, but after twenty years in the military, he knew a power struggle when he saw one.

  “So,” Luc said, “that is what Kat will look like in three decades.”

  Magnus wasn’t so sure. Physically, the two were very similar, but Ken Miner’s ex-wife had an air of authority that his daughter lacked.

  Which wasn’t the perception of Katherine that he�
��d had in the beginning. His first impression of her had been that she was similar to Guthrun, a strong, practical, fiercely independent woman. Now that he’d spent more time with Katherine, he realized that she was more complicated, and conflicted, than that. She was strong, all right, but also a little frayed around the edges. And while Katherine certainly struck him as pragmatic, there was also a side of her that was warm and emotionally generous, not words he had ever associated with his ex-wife. He also got the feeling that Katherine, like him, stayed up nights worrying about whether or not she had made the right decision.

  While Lia Miner, her voice carrying clearly from a room away, seemed not to have any doubts about the rightness of her opinion.

  “You’re really set on renting out the room? Oh, Kat, are you sure about this? I don’t think Dashiell really needs any more change in his life right now.”

  Katherine’s voice was softer, but still audible. “Mother, this is not the time and place for this discussion.”

  “Well, if you’d bothered to let me know you were planning to show the apartment, we could have talked in private! Who are these guys?” Lia’s voice was louder now, and Magnus heard footsteps. He turned to the window, trying to appear as though he hadn’t overheard their entire conversation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luc do the same.

  “The men in the other room are two of my students,” said Kat, a note of warning in her voice. As the two women entered the room, Katherine took a deep breath. “Luc, Magnus, this is my mother, Lia Miner.”

  Katherine’s mother shook their hands and Luc told her he was very pleased to make her acquaintance, adding that she looked too elegant to be American and too young to be Katherine’s mother. As Luc continued buttering up Katherine’s mother, Magnus wondered if the Frenchman had the sense not to lay it on too thick. Lia Miner was nobody’s fool. On the other hand, seen up close, she was surprisingly youthful-looking, despite the fact that her hairstyle had a hint of early Jackie Kennedy about it. Still, her skin was clear and her hazel eyes sparkled with intelligence and a hint of flirtation. “So, Luc, you’re from France? Paris?”