No Story to Tell

by K J Steele

  Quickly closing the door of the ballroom behind her, she locked it then drew a deep breath. She felt safe here. This was her world. Her sanctuary. Here, Bassman didn’t exist. And yet the heaviness of her mood refused to lift. He had destroyed the delightful lightness that had propelled her through the last few days. She felt cheated.

  She sensed that Elliot was at the back door before he even knocked. There had been no sound of him walking up the alley, and suddenly it dawned on her that he had been standing out there, waiting for her in the bitter cold. She rushed back to let him in, feeling at once both apologetic for being late and leaving him waiting on the steps, and annoyed that he had risked exposing their secret meetings by having done so.

  “Quick! Come in,” she said urgently after she had cracked the door and peered out to ensure the alleyway was empty.

  Elliot swept through the door wearing his characteristic, bemused grin.

  “Relax, Victoria. No one saw me. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I was pretending to fix the railing on the stairs.” An involuntary shiver rivered through him as he slipped free from his jacket and blue plaid scarf, hanging them neatly from the knob of the door.

  Feeling ashamed for her lack of compassion, she envisioned herself reaching up and warming the fierce redness from his cheeks and ears with her hands. Relishing the thought of it, she braced against actually moving toward him. The sheer physicality of such a gesture would be far too intimate. Too close.

  “I’m sorry I’m so late, Elliot,” she offered instead. “Trying to get Pearl to hurry lunch today was like trying to get tomorrow’s news. Look at you. You’re freezing.”

  “Ya, I am. It’s biting cold out there today,” he agreed as he stepped free of his shoes and attempted to wriggle some warmth back into his toes.

  “You should dress warmer,” she advised as she eyed his fashionable but wholly inadequate leather jacket and snow-packed brown suede shoes.

  “Well,” he grinned mischievously, “if I had known I’d be standing outside for twenty minutes, I most assuredly would have.”

  Heat fueled Victoria’s face. “I can’t believe you waited for so long,” she added quietly.

  “Well, I have to admit, I was beginning to think you’d stood me up.”

  She couldn’t imagine anyone ever standing him up and said so.

  Elliot rippled laughter through the ballroom. “Believe me, Victoria, I’ve been stood up before.”

  He was met with a dubious face.

  “What? You think I’ve lived some kind of charmed life?”

  The contrast of their lives rose before her. Him: free as a leaf blown from the tree, exploring the world, successful, confident, free. And her: grounded in the town of her birth, oppressed by a ubiquitous history that refused to die.

  “Well, ya. Don’t you?” she shot back petulantly. Dropping her eyes to the floor, she glanced back up at him, briefly allowing the black swamp of her emotions to flood across her face.

  He was not insensitive to the depths of her pain and stepped toward her softly.

  “Hey what’s wrong, Victoria? Something I said?”

  She shook her head and looked away, savoring the tenderness in his eyes as he’d looked deeply into hers, searching desperately to discover the secrets hidden away there.

  “Victoria, please. You can talk to me. I promise you, I’m a very good listener. Not when I’m working, mind you, but other than that,” he added wryly, trying to ease the weight of the moment.

  She smiled in spite of herself. It had been one of the things she’d been most surprised to discover about him. Originally, she had envisioned their painting sessions would be loose chatty times, the conversation slowly opening up as they got to better know one another. But Elliot didn’t like to talk while he painted, and he preferred her not to as well. Once his focus was drawn to the canvas, he became like a man possessed, consumed by and taken from her into the creation of his work. At first she’d felt disappointed, even a little rejected. But she’d rapidly found a place of pleasure, reveling in his intoxicated desire to re-create her.

  Now, with tears threatening, she imagined for a moment what an indescribable release it would be for her to finally take down the wall that surrounded her and let him in. Sharing with him each brick of hurt and betrayal and self-loathing as she did so. She looked into his clear blue eyes, willing herself to speak. His face was fully open to her, calm and willing and receptive.

  And yet she remained silent. For, although the emotions floated freely near the surface, like tortuous ghosts haunting her, the words themselves were buried too deep. She battled herself. How could it be that she spoke so freely into the void of an anonymous call—all the while wondering if it were really Elliot receiving her offerings— when face to face with him she could not utter even one word of her pain? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps sometimes a person really did need the dividing screen of the confessional in order to exorcise their demons.

  Seeing the brief flash of vulnerability fade from her, Elliot gave her shoulders a tight squeeze, nodding his head as he accepted her decision to keep her pain private.

  “So. I have some very good news to share with you.” He smiled cautiously, not sure where Victoria’s mood had left them.

  “What’s that?” she asked, surprised by the peevishness of her tone. She had expected him to try a little harder to unearth the source of her discomfort. Not that she had any intentions of revealing it, but she craved the soothing balm of his intense concern.

  “Remember that gallery that I said was interested in taking the painting?”

  She nodded slowly, already knowing she didn’t like the direction in which the conversation was taking her.

  “Well, they finally got back to me. They want it. They want it in two weeks.”

  Their faces mirrored each other in polar opposite: Elliot’s enthusiastic, Victoria’s stricken.

  “What? It’s what we wanted. Right?” Elliot flailed about like a man caught in a sudden ice floe, struggling desperately to find some solid ground.

  Emotions dive-bombed Victoria from every angle. It had been one thing to hold the thought of actually ever releasing the painting but quite another to be confronted with the reality of such a plan. The thought of losing their clandestine weekly meetings at the studio, however, fueled her most overwhelming panic: she had not prepared for that. Had not allowed herself to think how diminished her life would once again be when she could no longer bathe herself in the river of his desire.

  “I. . . I. . . it’s not ready, Elliot. We can’t have it ready that soon. I’m far too busy. I’ve never even seen it. I have to make sure no one can recognize me,” she babbled, words tangling together as she attempted to reel the situation back under control.

  He smiled calmly as he waited for her to talk herself out.

  “You really don’t trust anyone, do you, Victoria?” he asked, the faintest hint of hurt tingeing his voice. “I promised you that I’d paint you so you were unrecognizable. That was our agreement. Right?”

  Her eyes left his as she nodded.

  “So, why do you think I’d do anything other than what we’d agreed upon?”

  Uncomfortable now under his intense focus, she shifted her position and shrugged tightly. “Well, I’m sure it’s fine, Elliot. But I still want to see it to make sure.”

  He lowered the intensity of his gaze. “Of course you get to see it, Victoria. I actually can’t wait for you to see it. I just wanted to wait until it was far enough along so that it felt like something more than just sketches on the page.”

  Even just talking about the painting bloomed his voice full of passion, and she looked up at him, fascinated.

  “Okay,” he said huskily, “let’s get it out of the closet and have a look then, shall we?”

  He stood looking down at her expectantly, and she started a bit as she realized he was waiting for the key. Retrieving the key ring from her purse, she walked over to the closet door, sifting through to find the cor
rect one.

  “It’s the shorter one,” he offered gently from behind her after a few abortive attempts.

  “There’s a shorter one?” she asked, holding the keys in a line to see for herself. “How do you notice things like that?”

  “I just notice details, that’s all. Wouldn’t be much of a painter if I didn’t, would I?” he asked, walking past her into the closet as she opened it and bringing the fully draped canvas out to the center of the room.

  Nerves began to dance through her as he turned to face her, one hand holding the edge of the sheet that still covered the painting. They smiled at each other shyly. Like two platonic lovers about to consummate their union, suddenly hyper-aware of their separateness, the illusion of their perceived knowledge of each other about to be unceremoniously exposed.

  And then it was done. The painting erupted into the room, drawing Victoria’s breath into itself. A powerful creature—primal, tangible and exotic with long, languorous, full-moon luminous limbs—dominated the canvas. Explosive in its quiet wanting, the green dress quivered with the vitality of the animal coiled within, the left strap tantalizingly low, offering a curve of porcelain breast, sensual in its simplicity.

  The ghost of the gothic arch window hovered in the distance. The figure was surrounded by the murky moodiness of the background. But it could not touch her. It served only to further radiate the dynamic contrast of her being. She was a creature-goddess, birthed free. A creature with no thought to look beneath it for the depleted sack, the afterbirth that had held it for so long.

  They stood in silence as she struggled to absorb the pure raging emotions the painting had set off within her.

  Finally, Elliot cleared his throat, breaking her trance. “So? What do you think? Is it okay?”

  She wrenched her gaze from the canvas, forcing herself to look at him, surprised to hear the unfamiliar note of self-doubt in his voice.

  “Elliot. . . it’s just. . . it’s just, unbelievable. It’s just incredible. It’s just . . .” she hesitated as her attention was pulled back to the painting.

  “What? It’s just what?” he replied nervously. “Didn’t I cover your face up enough? I can fix that.”

  “No, don’t worry about that, Elliot. That’s just the thing. Even I wouldn’t recognize myself. I don’t recognize myself. I mean, it’s a wonderful painting, Elliot. Incredible. But, I don’t know who you’ve painted there. Certainly not me. That’s not how I look. Not really.”

  Regaining his sense of composure, Elliot laughed with noticeable relief.

  “Yes it is, Victoria. That’s exactly how you look. That’s exactly how you look . . . to me.”

  ~ Chapter 16 ~

  Sleep numbing her brain, Victoria miscalculated the extent of her reach and sent the receiver sprawling across the floor. Barely a week had passed since the last call, and the spray of static shooting into the room snapped her instantly alert. Her mind scrambled for Bobby’s whereabouts. He was going to be in town late working on JJ’s car. Wasn’t that what he’d said?

  “Hi. Sorry about that. I was just lying down. Guess I fell asleep.”

  She strained against the darkness to make out the wall clock and was surprised to see she’d slept away the afternoon and on into the night. Curling onto the couch, she nestled the telephone beside her and pulled the comforter into place.

  “Mmm,” she murmured warmly. “I was having the most amazing dream.”

  She waited for a signal to carry on, juggling against her fears of sharing such an intimate moment with a stranger. And yet, she argued with herself, really he was not a stranger. He understood and sympathized with her more than anyone she could put a face to. And she felt more comforted in his anonymous presence than she ever had in Bobby’s physical one. If a relationship were to be judged on how it made her feel, then she judged this one as far stronger and deeper than any she’d ever known. It had become obvious to her that the caller, whoever he was, meant her no malice. So far, she’d heard no talk of the calls around town, a fact that made her feel insular, her secrets safe. And besides, she wanted to share the delight of her intimacies with him. It was the least she could do, she reasoned, after all he’d done for her.

  “It was sort of terrifying, but also kind of, you know . . . erotic.”

  She tossed the word away quickly, as if it might be found deviant and she would be rejected for using it. She sat tightly, held her breath until she was assured of his calm acceptance.

  “I was all alone, in this dream, putting makeup on in front of this big mirror. Or trying to, anyhow. I had this tube of lipstick. Bright, bright red. Brilliant red. And I was trying to put it on so I could go out, but I couldn’t get it to work. I kept dropping it and it wouldn’t go on and I was getting incredibly frustrated about it . . . could you hold on a minute? Don’t hang up, okay? I just have to check something.”

  Setting the phone down carefully on the floor, she slid out from under her blanket and tiptoed to the porch window. She surveyed the spot where Bobby’s truck should be, scanned the horizon for lights then opened the porch door and listened into the flat distance for any sound. Somewhat satisfied, she hurried to sit back down and closed her eyes with an almost prayer of relief as the static reached back out to her.

  “Oh, you’re still here. Good. Anyhow, like I was saying, I was late for something. In my dream. I don’t know what . . . you know how dreams are. They never seem to make any sense, do they? But I was really getting irritated because I had to get ready and I couldn’t. Nothing was working. I felt like screaming and crying and having this big fit, and then the next thing I know I’m sitting in this huge concert hall. Up on stage and the place is packed and everyone’s looking up at me like they’re waiting for something. Like they were waiting for me to entertain them.” She paused as she reflected back over the moment, fully aware that reality had diffused it of all its power and that her words were impotent to bring it back for him.

  “I know it sounds silly now, but it really was quite terrifying. And then, as I was sitting there filling up with panic, I realized there’s this huge guitar in my lap. So I pick it up and start to play, but I don’t know how. I can’t figure out a single chord.” She settled deeper under the blanket and continued on in a whisper as if the walls themselves might someday bear witness against her.

  “Then, all of a sudden something strange started to happen. Something . . . you know. There was this pressure building inside me as I sat there not knowing what to do. And it just kept getting stronger and fuller and pressing up inside of me until I thought I’d explode. And then I did. Do you know what I mean? It was like I exploded out of myself. Something had to let go, you see. And it was me that finally did. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? It was me letting go. Me.”

  Quietness fell over her as she tried to trace her way back to the pure, raw sexuality that had been born inside of her. Imagining him sharing her pleasure as she celebrated herself she danced on, emboldened.

  “I could never tell my husband anything like this. I mean, sure he talks big, but the truth is sex embarrasses him. Stuffs it away for some cold, dark night then never mentions it again. An animal act. That’s what it’s like with him. An animal act without the intensity.”

  A caustic laugh escaped her as she considered her choice of words and, in an almost reflex reaction, she ran her tongue over her lips like a salve.

  “I want to tell you something. But you have to promise me you’ll never tell anyone else, okay?” She listened for a moment then continued on. “Everyone thinks I can’t have children, you know, but I can. I was pregnant once. A long time ago. Before I was even married. I’ve never told anyone that. Never. Not even my husband. It wasn’t his. It was someone else’s . . . Bassman’s. He forced himself on me, it wasn’t anything I wanted. I lost it anyhow, which was good, but it ruined my chance to audition. I was so sick I’d thought I’d die. Sometimes I wish I had—”

  A quick confusion of noise scattered across the line, and
she felt as well as heard the line being severed. She sat frozen for a moment with the receiver still against her face as something unsettling attempted to work its way into her mind. The sharp burst could’ve been anything. A radio, TV, even the fractured yelp of a small dog. She debated with herself over whether it could have been anything else. A voice maybe. The voice of a young child. Standing up suddenly, she shook away the thought, wrapped the comforter tightly around herself and turned on the light.

  ~ Chapter 17 ~

  The knock came too early. And it came to the wrong door. Victoria placed the chair she was holding into the row she was creating. The swirling list of things she still had to do froze in her mind as she riveted her attention on the ballroom doors. She was not expecting anyone. Other than Elliot, that was, and he would be knocking at the alleyway door. Shortly. Her mind leapt between answering the knock or just ignoring it altogether. A sense of duty finally propelled her forward. What if it were one of the mothers, fledgling dancer in tow, in need of their teacher’s encouragement before their first dance recital?

  Taking a quick listen for any sign of Elliot walking up the alleyway, she pressed a smile onto her face and hurried over to answer the door. She would make this quick. Obviously, everyone would know she would be busy preparing for that night’s recital. No one could reasonably expect too much of her time.

  Opening the door, she was greeted by the long-fingered branches of a spruce tree, reaching in toward her as if to shake hands. The smell of Christmas instantly swaddled her. Too late, her hands flew up to stifle a delighted cry of surprise. Large logger’s hands, roughly reddened and bulky jointed, wrestled the tree in place.

  “Sam! Hi. You brought me a tree?”

  Peering through the maze of branches, she just managed to catch his flashing grin before he looked away.