Joplin's Ghost

by Tananarive Due

  “You need rest,” Scott said. “I don’t think…”

  Phoenix reached for his hand, relieved when she felt warm, living fingers. The single brush of his fingertip against her wrist made Phoenix jump, her body rigid, thighs pressed tight. What was this new power he had over her? How had he taken control of her body, too?

  “Touch me…here,” she said, and laid Scott’s hand across her breast. She could feel the hot glow of his palm even through her gown, a sheet and the quilt between them. Her body wanted to levitate toward the magnet of his skin. Scott kept his hand flat atop her at first; then, tentatively, he pressed with one fingertip, making a small circle. She hissed when her nipple popped awake against his finger, rolling a gush of warmth across her stomach that came to rest in the swell between her thighs.

  “You know I want to…” His voice sounding clogged in his throat. “But this is the wrong time. After what just happened…your condition…I don’t think…”

  “Touch me,” she said. “Everywhere. Please.”

  He leaned over her, and this time she saw him clearly, all of the deathly worry in his face. “You’re sure?” he said.

  Instead of answering, Phoenix sat up and pulled at her clothes, eager to be freed. He helped her, making her naked with a single yank over her head. Phoenix trembled in the sudden air. She hadn’t realized she was so cold. Or was it just that her skin was so damn hot?

  “What…do you want me to do?” Scott asked, rubbing one hand down her back, gently traversing every bump on her spine.

  “Make me remember you.” She was so hoarse, she was whispering.

  Once Scott had his instructions—once he knew what she wanted—he was ready to give her everything. He nibbled her neck with an assured sensuality that astonished her, and her neck became a tangle of live wires. Phoenix whimpered, forgetting her ailments. Scott dampened his fingertips in his mouth, first his left hand, then the right, and hugged her from behind, massaging her nipples with his slick fingers while his lips chewed at her neck. Her first, gentle orgasm pulsed early, and she felt her body pushing itself outward, bloating and ready.

  Scott’s mouth found its way to her nipple, sometimes suckling, sometimes lapping, and a dam broke inside of Phoenix. Dampness soaked her upper thighs. How did he already know her body so well? How did he know exactly how much pressure and how long?

  Scott’s chest was bare when he climbed onto the bed, hooking her legs around his neck as if he were harnessing himself to her. He stooped to lap his tongue against her quivering right thigh. Then, the other. His tongue plunged into her navel like a harpoon trawling deep beneath her skin, and Phoenix felt her stomach quake. Next, warm wetness darted between the gaps in her thicket of pubic hair, until Scott’s tongue slowly parted her with its delicious, sustained prodding. Phoenix’s buttocks clenched tight, stone. Her next orgasm made her buck as her body tried to devour his tongue.

  Phoenix grasped his swollen penis hard, committing the weight and width of him to her palm’s memory. The pad of her thumb explored his peak, damp from his eager juices, and circled his ridge. She sat up so her tongue could test his flavor: clean perspiration, salt, candied skin. She created a soft bed with her tongue and swallowed him. She retreated slowly, then swallowed him again, locking her lips rigid. She felt tiny veins throbbing against her tongue. He sucked in air by her ear, whispering something as his fingers tightened across her scalp. A prayer?

  They were both wet now, as if they’d been out in the rain. Perspiration glowed from their skin, one fire feeding another.

  He turned her over until she was on her stomach, then she felt him slide his damp, naked weight across her back, a second covering, as if she were inside him. His rigid manhood plied against her, and he gently pulled one of her legs apart to help him burrow, seeking darkness and warmth. He used his hand to guide him, then he plunged, sure.

  Phoenix’s fingers tightened against the sheet beneath her, claws. She was filled to overflowing. The rainstorm had come indoors, because now rain was spilling out of her. The pleasure he forged in her was so large and sudden, she lost herself in its current, feeling his searing breath against her back. Phoenix raised her hips against him as far as his weight allowed above her, and felt him creep deeper inside her, to her core. Her slick body flopped against him. He slid his hands beneath her to cup her breasts, pinching her nipples until Phoenix felt tears of pleasure. With slow, even strokes, his pelvis cleaved behind her, prying her open. Setting her free.

  Phoenix could barely catch her breath beneath him, but she wouldn’t ask him to climb away even if it meant she would suffocate. Phoenix’s third orgasm made her faint again, or something like it, her mind flickering. She blinked and woke up in time to feel turbulent pleasure gathering itself up to smother her again.

  She craned her neck to find his mouth, sinking against his lips. Scott welcomed her kiss.

  His mouth and breath were as cold as a refrigerator door.

  The moment Phoenix dreaded had come: She didn’t know if she was sleeping or awake.

  Morning light warmed up outside the edges of the aluminum foil taped to the windows. The old Raggedy Ann and Andy alarm clock Nia had kept since childhood said it was six in the morning. If the alarm had been set, maniacal children’s voices would have begun their daily harassing chorus: “We were sent to wake you, so here we are to say…Please get up, brush your teeth, and start your happy day!”

  But this was the wrong clock. The last clock she’d seen had been of angels and trumpets. The wood furniture had been replaced by a double bed with no headboard, and the matched bureau and nightstands were plastic crates and U-build-it white bookshelves crammed with old scripts and books about films and filmmaking. There could be no doubt about it: She was in Nia’s room, where she’d gone to bed last night; therefore, she could not be dreaming. She was where she belonged.

  But something had changed. Something was different.

  Phoenix gazed down at herself, peeking beneath the single sheet. She was naked, and she never slept naked. Even if it was only a T-shirt, Phoenix hated to sleep without clothes.

  Phoenix’s body suddenly quivered with the memory of lovemaking. Her clitoris throbbed, still aroused, and the pressure of her full bladder made the arousal feel urgent. Phoenix’s fingers rested between her legs, comforting her body with the steady pressure. He made love to me, she thought, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the memory. Her body ached for him even as her mind spiraled, confused.

  How could that have happened? How could she have made love to a ghost?

  That was when Phoenix heard breathing behind her, nearly soundless in sleep. She wanted it to be him—prayed it would be him—even when she knew it wouldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

  When she turned to look beside her, Carlos lay naked, asleep. The sheet covered one of his legs, but not the one bent at the knee. His genitals sat in her view, his half-flaccid penis pointing away from her, uncircumcised. She had never seen an uncircumcised penis before, she realized. Carlos’s nakedness embarrassed her.

  Phoenix fought for her memory, and found nothing. All she saw was a face that was not Carlos’s, skin that was a shade darker than Carlos’s, and a room that was not this room. This must have been how Gloria felt when she was a student at UM, on those mornings she’d called Phoenix in a panic after a night of drinking and frat parties: Phee, I think I had sex with somebody last night. Phoenix had told her cousin that having blackouts was a sign she had a problem, and Gloria hadn’t touched alcohol since.

  Now, it was Phoenix’s problem. She felt sick to her stomach. She waited for the spell to pass, then she pulled her sheet up to cover her chest to cover herself. Finally, she nudged Carlos.

  Carlos awoke with a squinting, sleepy smile. He propped himself on his elbows, gazing at her without reaching to touch her. “‘Morning,” he said.

  “Did we have sex last night?”

  He grinned, but his grin broke in half when he saw she wasn’t joking. “What?”

 
“I don’t remember, Carlos. Did we or didn’t we?”

  Carlos’s eyebrows dropped with an expression she didn’t know him well enough to recognize. Quickly, he sat up on the edge of the bed and found his jeans on the floor, which he hiked up in a flash, still scowling. For a moment, she thought he planned to leave without answering her question. “What do you remember?” he said, snapping his fly.

  “Having sex with him,” she said, because she had to tell someone.

  “With Scott.”

  Carlos sighed, combing his hands through his hair, one after the other. Scott had done that, too, she remembered. “I see,” Carlos said. It was the most quiet she had ever seen him. He stared toward the foot of the bed, but occasionally he looked at her through the corner of one eye. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “What do you remember from last night?”

  “A different version,” he said. Talking seemed to cause him pain. “You sang in your sleep for a while. The opera. I brought the camera in here to capture it.” He gestured, and for the first time she noticed the video camera on its tripod, aimed toward the bed. “That was for about an hour. Then, I think you fainted. But you woke right up. You said you were all right.”

  “And we had sex after that? After I fainted?” She hadn’t meant to sound accusing, but accusation crept into her voice like a hatchet.

  “Jesus, Phoenix, I said it wasn’t the right time…”

  Yes. She remembered that part, the conversation. But she didn’t remember Carlos being there. Scott was the one who had thought the time wasn’t right.

  “I was somewhere else,” she said. “I wasn’t here. It was another bedroom, full of antiques. More pillows on the bed, and a kerosene lamp. And it was him, not you.” Even as Phoenix remembered, she could feel the memory draining away. She would never remember it as well as she did at this moment, she realized.

  “Turn the camera back on,” she said, and Carlos jumped behind the camera to do as she’d asked. Phoenix closed her eyes, trying to rescue details. “His friend called him Scotty. It was raining. We were at some kind of boardinghouse, I think. Solomon and Olivia Dixon. Freddie had pneumonia. She was there. She was me, but she wasn’t. He spoke softly, with an accent, like, from the South. Other than that, he talked like you or me. His touch was…” She stopped there. She couldn’t think of the words to do his touch justice, and she wasn’t sure Carlos would want to hear if she could. Phoenix suddenly felt alone, abandoned. “He sang, and it was beautiful. I told him to record his voice, or no one would know…”

  Suddenly, Phoenix heard herself sob. The grief that engulfed her stole her words. She had talked to him, and he was gone. Scott Joplin had never recorded his voice, and he had been dead more than eighty years. Yet, she had heard him speak and sing, and he had touched her.

  The memory of his touch, the part of him that was still living, helped her get past her tears even though she still trembled every few seconds, in waves. “I fainted, but I woke up in a bedroom with him. I told him to touch me.”

  “I heard you say that,” Carlos said. “I thought you were talking to me.”

  “He said he wasn’t sure it was the right time, but I didn’t want to wait. We took off my clothes. He made love to me from behind. Lying on top of me.”

  “That wasn’t me,” Carlos said. “I would never do that the first time. How do you kiss?”

  Phoenix remembered her ghost’s cold, dead kiss. She couldn’t say that part aloud. Already, she wanted to vomit again, and she fought to keep her stomach from lurching. She had never been so sad, but the kiss made her sick to her stomach. Phoenix didn’t know how to feel.

  “How did it happen with us?” she asked, so she could stop thinking about her ghost.

  Carlos looked furtive as he clicked off the camera’s red recording light. “Like I said, you fainted. Then you woke up, said you were OK, and we went to bed. A while later, you said you wanted me to touch you.” He cleared his throat. “It went on from there. Maybe I’ll tell you all about it sometime, but I don’t feel like reminiscing right now. What do I say, I’m sorry? I thought you were talking to me.”

  “You used a condom, right?” Phoenix said, remembering. She’d fallen off the pill on tour, forgetting to get a refill in Memphis. The last thing she needed was to get pregnant—or, worse, to get AIDS. How much did she really know about Carlos?

  Carlos searched the floor for his shirt, which he yanked on as if he had to hurry to get to work on time—even though he made his own schedule. “You woke me up, Phoenix. You put my hand on your breast and asked me to touch you. Yes, I used a condom.” He sounded like he was giving testimony at a trial. Standing across the room instead of lying with her in the bed, he seemed as far from her as he could be.

  “I’m not pressing charges, Carlos. I’m sorry, too. It’s not like I forgot on purpose. I remember asking you to spend the night. Did you think that was all about the ghost?”

  That slowed Carlos’s dressing frenzy, even if his face still looked stricken. He stared at the floor. “OK, sorry. I thought you were implying…I don’t know…” Carlos’s face changed, and he became the same man she’d known. He shook his head at himself, scooting across the bed until he was cradling her, careful not to expose her beneath the sheet, as if he had never seen her nude. “You’re the one who should be freaked out, linda. Are you okay?”

  “Sort of,” she said. She sank against Carlos, and she didn’t feel nearly as nauseated and abandoned with him holding her. Her heart slogged in her chest.

  “Is he still here?” Carlos said.

  Phoenix’s eyes darted around the room, but she couldn’t tell. There were no light patterns, no noises, no cold air. The air did not feel electric, as it often did when he was near. Would she be glad if the closet door flew open and her ghost came striding toward her bed in a man’s form, or would she scream? Probably both.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Do you want to tell me more? What happened?” Carlos said.

  Phoenix did want to tell him more, she just wasn’t sure she should. “It’s like…when I’m there with him…I love him already. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s as if I really know him, Carlos. That’s why, when he touches me, it’s so…different. I st-still…” She blinked, squeezing her eyes closed. The grief was receding, but she could still cry for hours if she were alone, she thought. All the pleasure her ghost had brought her was pain now.

  Carlos stroked her hair. “It’s OK. There’s a strong bond, something to do with his wife. We knew that. He scared both of us this time, Phee, but it’s OK. You’re just feeling it more deeply. So now we’ve learned again that ghosts don’t always come the way we expect them to. I just want to be sure you didn’t feel like he…forced you?”

  “No,” she said, plugging her damp nostril with her wrist. “I wanted him.”

  “Would you want it to happen again?”

  Her body sang. Phoenix was too tired for lies. “Yes.”

  “But are you sorry about what happened with us? With me?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m only sorry I don’t remember.”

  Carlos sighed, and she wondered if that seemed like a small consolation. He kissed her forehead. “I can live with that if you can,” he said, in a sober voice.

  “You can?”

  He made a soft, thoughtful humming sound. “We’ll see.” That sounded less hopeful.

  “Did I sing the whole opera, Carlos?”

  “I think so. I might have missed a little at the beginning, but we got the first song on the Live at Night tape. I think you have it now, Phoenix. All of it. You’ve done it, kiddo.”

  “And? How is it?” she said. It had been beautiful to her, but she was biased.

  Phoenix looked at Carlos’s face in time to see his eyes soften from slighted lover to music enthusiast, someone who understood how miraculous Scott was. “It’s masterful,” Carlos said, squeezing her hand. “The lyrics, some are better than others—he’s a little pre
achy—but it’s breathtaking to hear it all the way through. A little folksier than Treemonisha, but maybe as good. Or better. You’d have to figure out the orchestrations…”

  “Maybe he’ll give me those next time,” Phoenix said.

  The mention of next time cut their conversation short.

  Phoenix stared at Carlos’s chest, noticing that he had more curly spirals of hair than the man who had made love to her last night, and his skin’s brown retained a hint more of a Native American ancestor’s, and his face was more angular than round. All of the differences between the men leaped at her.

  “Did we talk about rules last night?” Phoenix said. “Before we had sex?”

  “Since it turns out you were asleep at the time, there wasn’t much conversation, if you know what I mean,” Carlos said, and she was glad to hear him joke about it. When Carlos wasn’t scared, it was much easier to believe she shouldn’t be either. Otherwise, she might vomit and never leave her bed. Phoenix was fighting fear with everything in her.

  “OK, well, that has to be the first rule,” Phoenix said. “There are rules.”

  Carlos nodded tentatively, crossing his arms across his chest as he waited to hear them.

  The student becomes the teacher, she thought. She’d heard that saying somewhere, and she remembered it now because Carlos had been there when she first realized she needed rules, during the eight months she’d mourned him. That was when her rules had been born, when she’d first made vows to herself about the sacredness of her heart and skin. Phoenix had never written down her rules in a diary or told anyone what they were, but two one-night stands and a few bad relationships later, Phoenix was ready to live by her rules.

  “I’m not in the market for a fuckbuddy,” she said. “We’re not going to say yeah, let’s keep in touch, stay out of each other’s business and jump in bed every time I happen to be in town. I tried that with Ronn, and it didn’t work. If that’s what you’re looking for, we can pretend last night never happened.”

  Carlos’s expression didn’t change, as if he were listening to a mission he might or might not choose to accept. No flinches so far.