Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  Marisa followed his gestures with her gaze and a quiver. Marco cleansed the wound with cotton drenched in hydrogen peroxide. He examined it and applied pomade with a circular motion. The cut didn’t seem too deep. He asked if it hurt when he put the pomade on, and she replied no, not much. In a practical manner, Marco cut a large piece of bandage and covered the area.

  Then he smiled.

  “Mari, for goodness’ sake, take it easy.”

  “I am taking it easy, Marco.”

  “Shhh…”

  He picked up a flask of cream on the nightstand and moistened his hands. Marisa concentrated on them—big, tanned, shiny—and recalled when they had first trailed her body in that rainy afternoon belonging to another life. She stared at Marco. In his eyes, she found the same recognition. The dark irises scintillated for an instant, captured hers and steered away as he held her ankle. Marco encircled it and descended to the foot, nestling it between his hands. So he began to massage it with self-assured, deliberate movements. He paused on the tension points. Then on all points. Gradually, his gestures became voluptuous, marked by another kind of precision: the kind that escaped reason.

  As much as Marisa intended to resist, she found it impossible to remain immune to that touch. Slowly, she succumbed.

  14. Frontiers

  Exactly as he remembered. The damp hair and the luminous skin that he loved to feel. The smell of soap when she came out of the shower after they had spent lazy hours in bed. The warm gaze that conveyed the embraces and words of long ago. It was as if Marco had leaped back and the needle of time returned to that period. Now it wasn’t the rational thought guiding his hands: it was nostalgia. And they followed familiar paths, identifying the details on the way. A freckle, a mark, peach velvet, contentment. His hands remembered, they rejoiced in landing there once more.

  Continent, harbor, home.

  They first wended along the feet that were the anchor to the ground, the toes one by one, the arch in the middle and then the ankles, climbing the legs until circling the knees to linger delicately behind them, on the sensitive crook where she liked to be touched. And then they would glide back to the ankles, focusing on the feet and again on the legs.

  Now his hands expanded toward the frontier of the intact thigh, enveloping its full length. They moved with the possessiveness of a traveler well-acquainted with the route. Going up and further up, at times smooth, at times more assertive, always right. The palms caressed, the fingers pressed, triggering ardent sensations in their wake. The surface of her skin bristled against Marisa’s will, her flesh revived.

  Marisa drifted between reluctance and desire. She closed her eyes, unable to stop Marco or venture to touch him, without knowing if she shut her eyes to protect herself or dive blindly in the sensations. His hands brought back all they had shared. The way Marco deciphered her body, and transcended it, awoke in Marisa such a profound yearning it was almost pain.

  His hands also vacillated, revisiting joys and fears. They wanted to surpass the limits. They feared getting lost. And so they halted before crossing another frontier, the one that held the most secret delight. Abruptly, they returned to the present and the reality of those four walls. Then they stopped amid an incomplete motion and began another: to close the robe, retreating with modesty.

  The firm, tender hands now deserted Marisa. She opened her eyes in confusion. Marco was wiping his hands on the towel as he stared at her with a strange glint in his eyes. Marisa shivered. Dawn filtered through the curtains with a weak light. The temperature in the room had dropped. It was the coldest hour of the day.

  Marco slipped into a pair of jeans underneath the towel, then tossed it away and put a white T-shirt on. He would get them something to eat at a twenty-four-hour diner around the corner.

  “I’m having a continental breakfast. What about you?”

  “Pancakes. With all the toppings,” she replied without looking at him. She was hungry, frustrated, somehow discouraged.

  It didn’t take him too long. When he returned, the two sat at the table and had their meal without saying much. Marco flipped through the TV channels until he found a piece of news about the aftermath of the Devil’s Lair mayhem: no fatalities, 116 patrons with no major injuries, a club destroyed. The drag queen that had hidden in the coffin stated in tears: “I feared for my life. It was so scary…”

  Noticing Marisa was about to doze, Marco turned off the TV. He stretched his arms in front of him and let them drop, then suggested they have some sleep. Marisa nodded, and the two went to the bathroom to brush their teeth. Too tired to pay attention to any awkward feelings. Side by side, just like in old times.

  While she returned to the bedroom, Marco switched from the jeans to a pair of white sweatpants hanging on the bathroom door. Then he joined Marisa and proceeded to search the chest of drawers, producing a white T-shirt and a pair of gray swimming trunks for her.

  “I’m not used to wearing clothes for bed, as you know… but you can have this,” Marco said apologetically as he handed her the clothes. Sensing Marisa’s indecision, he added: “You keep the bed and I’ll take the armchair, is that okay?”

  “You won’t be able to sleep over there,” she pondered, shaking her head. “I’d better go home.”

  Marisa felt the warmth of Marco’s body when he held her hand. They stood too close. She lowered her eyes. She saw a bruise on his wrist from the fight and wanted to touch it. Saw an imperceptible tremor in his other hand. Saw his thumb brush her skin in a caress.

  “Mari… I’d like you to stay.”

  The sincerity in his voice disarmed her. Marisa searched Marco’s face for a moment and assented. She approached the bed and slipped under the covers without removing the robe while he took a blanket from the closet and tested the armchair. Before turning the lights off, Marco spotted the clothes he had picked for Marisa on top of the nightstand. He insisted she change into them, but Marisa skirted the subject: it would be only for a few hours, and she was exhausted. In truth, Marisa wanted to avoid contact with his clothes. And the memories.

  As soon as the lights were out, however, her sleepiness evaporated. Marisa remained stiff with her eyes squeezed shut. Everything there triggered an odd feeling in her. She should be in her own bed at the Stevensons, not in that room, not with that man. Things were not going according to plan.

  They didn’t always.

  Marisa heard him trying to make himself comfortable. Sound of fabric rasping, stirring and rasping again. She couldn’t help herself: “Marco?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep knowing you’re in that chair.”

  Marco reassured her everything was fine. No, objected Marisa, he’d better come to bed. A silence followed, and when Marco spoke, it was in a playful tone. He’d better not, as he feared she would take advantage of his innocence. The voice, husky and somehow feverish, vibrated in the dark with forceful joviality.

  “Will you stop it and come here already?” insisted Marisa.

  Marco vacillated. His tone changed: “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Marisa gave room to him and, turning to the wall, shrank to the edge of the mattress. She could not see Marco’s cautious expression when he lay by her side. Neither the smile that at last came to his lips.

  “You’re almost falling out of bed, Mari. Don’t be silly. Come here.”

  Marco pulled Marisa near him, wrapping his arm around her waist. Their bodies fitted together, their breathing adjusted. Exhaustion finally won the two. The warmth under the covers lulled them and the dimness switched everything into a blank screen. In a minute, they were fast asleep.

  Just like in old times.

  15. Vertigo

  Through a gap in the curtain crept filaments of light and fog. The day sneaked gently into the room, gently into sleep. A sleep devoid of dreams but populated with imp
ressions old and new. The mind a caravel adrift, the body a sore sheaf of muscles. Sore mind, body adrift. It lasted one hour. The two woke in the same position of falling asleep. Marisa was disoriented at first. Then she remembered.

  “Take off the robe,” Marco asked in a soft tone, smoothing her hair. “I want to feel you.”

  She stared at the thick dark-green stripes on the wallpaper—solid, symmetric, aseptic. Straight on their path. She wished her heart was like that too.

  “Why, Marco?”

  “So I can be closer. Does that bother you?”

  In response, she clumsily removed the robe and cuddled up next to his warmth. She kept her back to Marco, eyes alert, erratic pulse. He removed his white T-shirt and curled his arms around her. And thus they lay in dimness, as their breathing flowed again in the same rhythm. Then Marisa turned to Marco. She followed the outline of his face with her fingers, feeling the roughness of the unshaved chin. She lingered on his lips. It had been a long, such a long time… He stroked her hair once more and she copied him, brushing off a dark lock of hair that insisted to fall over his forehead. She had ached to be in his arms and now scrutinized his face, afraid to trust, afraid to discover cowardice there. She found none, though. The intensity she met was genuine.

  “Did you ever wonder…” Her voice trailed off away with her thought. “Why is it that when we want something so badly it doesn’t happen? And as soon as we stop thinking of it, it does?”

  “It must be because, if you want something that badly, you’re not ready to have it.”

  She meditated for a moment.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This… thing we want so much has the purpose of filling a void. When we stop thinking about it, it means we’re ready to have it because we’re whole.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers, and there was infinite tenderness in that gesture. In an impulse, Marisa stamped her lips on his. When she started to retreat, Marco retained her, tightening his embrace and looking into her eyes. His gaze shifted from second to second. She sensed in Marco the same ambiguity that now paralyzed her. Fear and longing. But what would he fear?

  On his face, she recognized the expression she had detected in their last encounter. This time, however, Marco didn’t leave. He sought her mouth instead. The kiss was tinged with familiarity from the past and the strangeness of the present, expanding into faltering caresses that gradually gained steadiness and purpose. They trailed each other’s bodies in no hurry, on those paths already known to them and on others yet to be explored, persisting on the spots where pleasure emerged.

  When they finally paused, her desire mirrored his.

  “Did you bring the die?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Aren’t you gonna use it?”

  “Not now.”

  She smiled intrigued.

  “It’s our first time without a script, Marco.”

  “In a way, it’s my first too.”

  Marco smiled, and then he was no longer smiling. He kissed her with hunger, and with hunger possessed her in his hands, lips, tongue, teeth. Marisa pushed Marco against the mattress, her hair a dark stream around him. She yanked off the remainder of his clothes and fondled his body with her own, breasts skimming on chest, belly against belly, the tongue on the skin and then a whiff…

  They wanted to prolong that moment, yet against their will urgency budded in those gestures. Marco’s hands ran over her breasts and encircled the nape of her neck. He lifted himself to devour her mouth, she sank her nails on his arms. And the unleashed animal side surfaced. Unveiled flesh. Scent of skin. The smoothness in the hair. Taste of kiss. Whisper.

  As they fused into each other, their barriers dissolved one by one with no further reasoning, no further questioning. They joined the same cadence and lost themselves in the same vortex, spiraling faster and faster, eyes locked, eyes cloudy, the darkness of surrender like an infinite veil in the arch of space, the splendor of vertigo, the vertigo, the vertigo…

  Now close your eyes and forget all thought. Feel it. Feel it. Inside.

  So to learn by heart the rhythm of the heartbeat.

  16. Speaking of Love

  Silk handkerchiefs. Fine, strong, malleable. On her ankles, wrists, mouth, eyes. In his hand. Immobilized, Marisa felt the whisper of the fabric. The touch of silk. Around her breasts, strolling down her arm, playing on the palm of her hand and between the fingers… Levitating to the inner thighs. Lying down on the navel, descending a bit further, pausing once more… Her skin tingled for the more incisive touch that silk would only foretell.

  Her body spread out like a cross on the bed, at his mercy—and vulnerability offered a cup of aphrodisiac to be slowly sipped with a question mark. Marco turned the music on and played a selection she had made for him when they first met. The sounds in the room were muffled by the soft melody. Marisa, however, could hear Marco fiddling with the contents of his suitcase, zippers being opened, the crumpling of clothes, paper, plastic. Then steps dampened by the carpet, and again his proximity.

  The characteristic smell of the fabric, faint, fresh, with a note of bitterness, got mixed with another more poignant and musky. The leather strips of the whip—the whip now gliding on her skin just touched by silk. The caress of leather triggered a different reaction, and Marisa anticipated the moment when, without warning, it would leave its footprint on the flesh. It was like balancing on the edge of a cliff: the fear of falling and the urge to dive into its depths.

  Marisa breathed heavily, clenching her teeth. She remained there trembling, in wait, her flesh exposed like a flower that blossomed for him. One petal, two petals, three petals. Her body, her frailty, her soul. And the play. The guessing game. Where the next touch? How?

  Soon she learned the answer.

  The leather strips delivered shocks, which started light and then intensified. Leather pet, and suddenly sharper lashes on her belly and thighs. Imperious sensations hurled her into a vortex, fire and electricity mingled, neither one nor the other but something new. The whip petted her once more. Marisa squirmed in fitful moans, unable to tell when one stimulus ended and the next began. Her whole body pulsed in a diffuse flame, simultaneously becoming numb.

  Hot and cold, hot and cold, undulating with the music… The strips climbed her legs, bit her nipples and descended to the junction of her thighs. They paused there, instigating electric currents that expanded throughout her body like flares and returned to her loins with double potency. And they came and went until she was nearly subdued with pleasure. When the electric impulses ceased and Marco removed the silk from her lips, Marisa was still shaking from an endless spasm.

  Marco kissed her mouth for a long moment, waiting for her to quiet down. And quiet down she did. The flares had dissipated, but now the unsatiated desire devoured her. She craved Marco. And he knew it. He untied her wrists and ankles, brushing his parted lips on them. Next came the weight of his body over hers. Marisa received him with a heave. She breathed in Marco, sought his mouth again, wrapped her arms and legs around him. Still blindfolded, she had her senses awoken to what the eyes could not see. Marco’s liquid voice, his perspiration diluting into hers, their desire that would not stanch even after the powerful climax.

  He continued to thrust into her in rough motions while stimulating her with his fingers, until she was sobbing as a chain of orgasms ensued. Then Marco took off her blindfold and they remained lying down with their bodies still united. He leaned on his elbow and kissed Marisa’s forehead. Girdling her by the waist, he rolled to the side and let his head collapse on the pillow.

  Marisa cuddled in his arms and caressed his chest, playing with the fine hair on it. She enjoyed being like that with Marco. In the past, they had abandoned themselves to that same languor, sometimes talking, sometimes in the gentleness of silence. It was always good.

  She closed her eyes and paid attention to t
he song—she hadn’t listened to it since their breakup. Portishead. It Could Be Sweet. Before she met Marco, the song evoked to her the sweetness of a possibility. Now it gained a different meaning. Loss. Like dawn in a dream.

  “Why did we break up, Marco?” Marisa asked bluntly. “Be honest. You don’t need to make up excuses.” She no longer believed she hadn’t met his expectations, but something still bothered her. Something she couldn’t change. “Was it because of my mom? Because you thought she would cause a stir at school?”

  Marco avoided her gaze. He hated evasions. But he would honor his word and omit the conversation with her mother. It was no good telling the truth anyway. She’d resent her mother, who, in spite of everything, deep down only wanted Marisa to be happy. Just like he did.

  “It’s complicated, Mari.”

  “Then explain it.”

  “You’re too young, still have a lot to live.”

  “And you don’t?”

  He remained silent. Marisa, nonetheless, needed to know. To share. Gushing came the memories of what they had lived together and what she’d gone through afterward—lonely, confused, shattered. She wanted to share her being so happy and so unhappy… and the fact that he, Marco, was the magician of it all. He was the sun that awakened, drew, colored, enlivened, warmed. And burned. Burned, seared, carved the raw flesh until it turned black. He was the sun and the darkness. There were so many words choked inside her, Marisa didn’t know how to express them.

  “I loved you, Marco. I didn’t love you more because you refused it.”

  And that said it all.

  “Mari… please…”

  His face contracted and his body recoiled. The words wounded. He had also loved Marisa. He didn’t love her more because he couldn’t. And the situation now was even more complicated than before. He needed to persuade her of the futility of it all. Needed to persuade himself. Marco resorted to the sole defense he had left: the one found in books. A rational wall around a sad castle. If she could be convinced, if she hated him, everything would be easier.