by Jorja Tabu
“Fine,” Lena said, her resolve hardening into a pit in her belly. She locked eyes with the boy, feeling the rough finger sliding along her smooth canal to open it up. The boy gulped, looked down; she continued to stare, willed him to watch her. Please, she thought, this is what I want to give you. Please.
No, she suddenly thought, fiercely. Her nipples were hard, and she pushed her breasts out so he could see them better. She wanted something better for him. She wanted him to have a lover that would give him ecstasy and never take anything away from him. Never hurt him. Randy’s tongue slid over her now wet hole, then latched on to her clit. Lena saw the boy staring again. He refused to put down the groceries, but she could see, now that she was really staring, the swelling response in his pants. It made her open her legs wider. Randy slipped two fingers inside of Lena and began rhythmically sucking her clit as she rocked on the bed, pushing her bare breasts up and out for the boy. Look at me, she thought, feeling her body tighten with the coming orgasm. Look at me.
When she finally came, tears swimming in her eyes, he was gone by the time she looked up.
“See?” Randall said, smug. “Isn’t that better?”
“Yeah,” Lena said, staring over his head, out the window.
“You’d better finish getting ready,” Randy said, kissing her shoulder and standing up. “The Merchants are going to be here any minute.”
“Yeah,” Lena said again. She was afraid of herself.
What had she done? What was she thinking?
Maybe she did belong with Randall, after all.
When the Merchants arrived, they brought their son, Nathan, a cocky undergrad that schmoozed all over Randy. They got along like peas in a pod. Fourteen other people slowly trickled into the house, bringing wine and praise for the bohemian ways of their linguistics professor, who punctuated every sentence with fuck--ha ha ha, thought Lena, drunkenly. She spent the dinner silently wondering which of the young women Randy would fuck that night. Eventually, Nathan came and sat down by her.
She didn’t remember their conversation. But she knew she’d regret it if she could. Something about the eagerness in his voice made her afraid of them both; he was too ravenous, too predatory...He reminded her of Randall.
And she...Well, she couldn’t really tell what she might do any more.
Day Three
Lena didn’t see the boy again for the rest of that night, even though she loitered in the twilight, out in the garden, hiding from the other young man. Randall had assumed she’d still been angry and huffed that he didn’t really care who she fucked, as long as something brought her out of this funk; Lena had watched him leave and known he was going to Sarah’s. That was where Randy always went. They might even have an amiable and willing young undergrad nearby that wanted to make good on her promise to herself to learn everything she could while she was away at school.
And something also told Lena that, of course, Randall wasn’t telling the truth; it was just another small drunken moment that he would recant in the morning. He didn’t want her to fuck the boy. He was unnerved by her desire. Perhaps he’d even sent Nathan--a prodigy, another obliviously selfish academic like himself, wearing the clothes of a rogue--her way, to redirect her attention.
It hadn’t worked.
But the boy had clearly been unnerved by their silent encounter, and probably by his response to it. He’d probably never speak to her again, never want to connect on any level with the woman he probably now thought of as a whore. She wondered what had possessed her.
And then, in the morning, he’d reappeared in the garden. She saw him through the kitchen window, pulling on the statue with a new resolve. When she walked towards him in her bathrobe, reeling with desperate humiliation and desire, she didn’t expect him to stay outside.
But he did. He stopped his tinkering and turned towards her with a blank look on his face and bit his lip, blinking once at the ground before meeting her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, when they were standing in silence, locked and staring at one another. “I…I should have kept walking.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lena said, relief washing over her. “Nobody really did anything wrong, I guess. I was just…with my husband, and he likes to leave the damn windows open all the time, and…I tried to tell him, but he didn’t care. And I guess I didn’t care either.” They looked at each other.
“You’re married?” The boy looked down at the statue again, then back at her. He cast a long shadow over the ground, his height undisguiseable.
“Yes,” Lena said, nodding, “for about fifteen years now.”
“But he...” They boy shook his head, turned away. “Nevermind. I’ve never paid this much attention to the lives of other people before, I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m being rude.”
“No you’re not,” Lena said, suddenly understanding. “You saw the girl, didn’t you? A blonde, probably about twenty five or so?” She knew what Sarah looked like, knew what her pussy looked like, even, from that one night two years ago when they’d all had too much wine and Randall’s suggestions had seemed almost reasonable. The experience had been boring, the aftermath personally devastating. “That’s his girlfriend, don’t worry. I know. Randall’s not a liar.”
Which was mostly true. Randall never intentionally lied. It was to his credit, and sometimes a weapon hiding just behind his latest scheme. He always seemed to get what he wanted, Randall did. “She’s very nice,” Lena offered, closing her robe self-consciously. She was wearing a short satin nightie set underneath, a present from her sister when Randall had first suggested they start this polyamoury, or whatever it was. To entice him back to her bed, alone.
It hadn’t worked.
Without allowing herself to think about it further, she felt the robe fall open again, and didn’t think about why.
Maybe the boy would like it.
He carefully averted his eyes and went back to work on the statue. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he said slowly, and she knew he meant both the view and her knowledge about Sarah. “There’s a lot going on here.”
“Here? Connecticut?” Lena had noticed his accent, suddenly. It wasn’t familiar, like nothing she’d ever heard. Not anywhere on the East coast, not from the West either.
“No,” he said, and smiled, the golden eyes shining electrically in the light. His smile was perfect joy, unencumbered by anything, the kind of smile only the young have. “Your house,” he said, smiling again. “There’s a lot going on right here.”
“Where are you from?” Lena moved so that her shadow fell across his face while he worked, blocking some of the harsher rays as he leaned over his the statue, and he smiled one more time. She would do almost anything to see that smile, she realized, and shut her gown shamefacedly. He didn’t notice. “Hawai’i,” he said, the latter syllable broken in two. Ha-why-ee. She’d heard it pronounced that way once in a movie, or by an author reading a poem, or somewhere, sometime, long ago. She knew it only as a ghost.
“Hawaii,” she whispered, trying out his way of saying it. That sounds very exotic.”
“Not when you’re born there,” he smiled, but this time he wrenched something with his hand inside of the innards of the statue, and it made a clicking sound. He looked down at the piece in his palm, puzzling over it. “This isn’t going to be fixed over-night,” he said in his gentle voice, caressing the shining gear in with a slow stroke of his thumb. “I was hoping…”
“To make something around here a little bit more beautiful?” She smiled at him now, seeing his kindness plainly. “Help us out a little bit?”
“Well, help out, I guess. Everyone loves a garden, right?” He seemed shy about his accent now, and tried to be careful to keep it wrapped under the simpler consonants and rushed vowels of this state.
”This was supposed to be my studio,” Lena said, looking around them. “I think most of the furniture in there is from that old ambition.” She smiled down at him, until new thoug
hts invaded her reverie. “Did we frighten you, last night?” Lena wasn’t able to help herself. The words came out before she could stop them, and she knew he would understand she wasn’t talking about the dinner party. He stopped working and looked up at her, then stood. His chest wasn’t moving, and she realized he was holding his breath. He shook his head. “I’m sorry if we did,” she said sadly.
“My family is…very religious,” he said softly, unexpectedly. “They …they’ve taught me to think certain things are wrong. It makes the world very…”
“Confusing,” Lena said, nodding. “My family was Catholic, Irish Catholic, and there are things about my life I know I only feel strange about because of the way I was raised.”
“What you were doing wasn’t strange,” Jordan said shyly, once again rubbing his thumb over the brass gear. He couldn’t meet her eyes. “You’re married. A man and a woman. It’s natural.”
“Sometimes it’s not,” Lena said suddenly. The sun moved around them, her confession heavy in the air. “Sometimes--well, only once, really—I slept with him and his girlfriend. And when I look at my marriage I know my own mother would disown me if she knew how we lived.”
“The church doesn’t think what you’re doing is right,” Jordan said slowly in his gentle voice. He sat on the ground, still not meeting her eyes, resting his gaze on the gear in his large hand as he stroked its rough edges. “But how do you feel about it?”
“Sometimes I hate my husband,” Lena said suddenly, her throat automatically filling with tears. She clutched her robe round her body, trying hard not to cry. The boy heard the sound and knew it for what it was, and in spite of the clench of fear in his expression he stood up and moved closer to her, unsure of what to do. “It’s okay,” Lena said slowly, rubbing the rawness out of her voice with her hands, her eyes shutting tight so she didn’t see the pity on his face. “We’ve been married a really long time, and this is just part of what a marriage is, after a while. You don’t mean to hurt each other, but you can’t want the same things all the time. There’s no way any two people can want the same things for their whole lives, it’s just not possible.”
“I don’t believe that,” the boy said softly, his voice quiet and too close. She shivered as she imagined his lips near her ear, but when she opened her eyes he was another foot away from her again.
“Maybe it won’t be true for you,” she said, rubbing her tears away. Why did she act like this around him? Was it just because he was young--something about his innocence made her feel like he wouldn’t hate her for her weakness? She had never said that out loud before, even to Randall; but it was true. Sometimes she did hate him.
“Why not make it untrue for yourself?” The boy stood with his huge hands in the air, lost for tasks; they were clearly the kinds of hands that didn’t sit well. His accent had returned, making parts of the words hard and then blurring them together in his soft voice, but something underneath it was harsh.
“You mean leave him?” Lena shook her head. “I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“I thought you were a Christian,” Lena said, giggling in spite of herself. “I can’t just leave my husband. It doesn’t work like that.”
“I think God would understand,” the boy said, his brow low on his forehead. “If that’s what you even mean. And I am a Christian, I just…I don’t think God is unhappy because of who we have sex with or how we do it, I think God is unhappy when we make ourselves unhappy.”
“I don’t just mean that,” Lena said, wondering how much of her reluctance to leave Randall had to do with her old religion. “I meant that...Randall has been my whole life for almost all of my life. How do I walk away from that?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan said, watching her. The light hit his eyes and she was struck by how beautiful he was once again. Before she could stop herself, the words were out of her mouth.
“What are you?” The gold widened as he inhaled, and she bit her lip. “I’m sorry, but you’re so exotic looking--especially for Connecticut. I was just looking at the way the light hits your eyes...You know they’re gold? They’re extraordinary.”
“They’re just regular brown eyes,” Jordan said, looking down at the ground, his black lashes fluttering on his cheek. “And I’m half Hawaiian, and a quarter Mexican and a quarter black, or something. I don’t really know much about my dad’s side of the family. They’re from LA, and he passed away from cancer when I was very young. I grew up on Kaua’i.”
The broken syllable again, so foreign to her ear. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” she said, embarrassed. Lena, forever embarrassing.
“No, everyone asks eventually,” he said softly, refusing to look at her again, and picked up the gear he’d dropped earlier.
“Even your landlords?” Lena sat down on the grass, letting her legs stretch out and gather sun. He kept his eyes on his work.
“I don’t really think of you as my landlord,” he said, trying to find a way to get his hand back inside the machinery of the statue. “I think of you more as...”
“That weird old white lady?” She grinned. Something about saying she hated Randall sometimes had taken a weight off of her. She closed her eyes and turned her face towards the sun.
“No,” he said softly, and when she opened her eyes again and looked over at him she realized he’d been watching her. He quickly returned his stare to the statue. “That’s not how I think of you at all,” he finished.
“But I am weird, and I am white,” Lena said, feeling a gentle smile play on her mouth. “And old. Let’s not forget that.”
He gave a low chuckle, running his hands over the thighs of the statue, searching for something. She felt her smile freeze as she studied the way his brown fingers teased across the bronze. “I’ve met a lot of weird, white, old people,” he said, not finding what he was looking for. “Hawai’i is full of them. And none are like you.”
She watched him. “You flatter me,” she said, finally, tilting her head back again and closing her eyes. “And I forgot rude, for asking you where you’re from, and badgering you while you’re trying to be nice and fix this statue, and for not closing the window--” Her head snapped up and her words died in her throat.
He was staring at her again, his eyes still on her chest when her head turned his way. He quickly recovered, but she didn’t pull her robe shut again, letting it fall behind her, her nipples now hard against the soft fabric. “I’m not flattering you,” he said, the words fighting their way out of his clenched teeth. He was pulling on something in the innards of the machine, and she watched the slow ripple of the muscles in his massive arm as he precisely readjusted whatever it was.
“Can I ask you something else that is...rude?” She licked her lips, watching him. He closed his eyes and let his hands drop, but didn’t look at her.
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“Did you like what you saw?” She shivered, not recognizing the boldness in herself. The moment lingered as he opened his eyes and stared at the ground; her chest tightened when he didn’t answer right away.
“Yes,” he said softly, and she sharply inhaled. He still didn’t look at her.
“What did you like about it?” She licked her lips, but stayed utterly still, watching the emotions sort themselves on his troubled face.
“I think...I think you’re very beautiful,” he whispered, his eyes finally meeting hers. There was an unfamiliar fire in them, the kind of brightness that he clearly worked hard to hide. His chest wasn’t moving again; he was holding his breath.
“I think you’re very beautiful, too, Jordan,” Lena said softly. It seemed to break the spell, and he went back to work on the statue, the tightness in his shoulders only escalating his inestimable beauty.
“You’re someone else’s beautiful wife,” Jordan said after a few interminable minutes, finally giving up the pretense and dropping the gear on the dirt. He lowered his head. “And I shouldn’t have watched. I just...I felt like...”
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“I wanted you to watch,” Lena said suddenly, her voice commanding him to look at her again, and he did. His strong shoulders rose and fell as he met her eyes. “I wanted you to see me. I wanted it.”
“Why?” Jordan’s voice was strangled, pushing out of his constricted chest; his face frightened but eager. His hands absently perched on the dust as if he were about to take off in a sprint.
“Because,” Lena said slowly, drawing the word out, “I think I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you. I think you know that, too.”
“I didn’t...” Jordan inhaled sharply, staring. Lena sat up straight, feeling the fabric of her nightie sleek against her skin as it slid over her erect nipples, dipping low as her breasts pulled it taunt.
“Maybe not,” Lena said softly. She stood up, his eyes following every movement of her body with a deep hunger. She was almost surprised; he hid his intensity well. “Can I get a drink of water from the garden house?” His eyes were now level with her pussy; he kept them locked on her face, but she wondered if he could smell her through the thin satin. Would he even know the scent for what it was? “Jordan, time for me to be rude again--have you ever...?” She let the question dangle in the air while she watched him.