by John Welter
“I don’t know why I told you that,” she said. “Except, well, you know,” she said, pointing her hand at the expansive arch in my pants. “I thought since it was happening to you, you might as well know it was happening to me.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “Are you thinking about Plato?”
“No. Just you.”
Again I didn’t know what to say or do, or how to move or if to move, if I should stay exactly as I was or tilt her face toward mine and kiss her or wait for her to kiss me. Everything seemed immediately possible, and all of it beyond control. I was paralyzed by the joy of it.
“I’d like to go to bed with you now, but we shouldn’t,” Natelle said. “And do you know why?”
“Well, in case I don’t, I’m assuming you do,” I said.
“Because I’m still married.”
“That’s one reason. Do you have any more?”
“Yes. I’m in between lives right now. I’m throwing away the old one, and beginning the new one. You don’t want to get mixed in there now, and risk being thrown away.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I said, “No.”
“I don’t have very much hope left,” she said. “Most of it’s missing. I think it leaked out of me.”
I put my hand on her cheek and said, “There’s hope in my fingers. Can you feel it?”
“Yes. But you need more fingers than that.”
I put my other hand on her face and said, “There.”
“I think you need more fingers than that,” she said.
“But those are all the ones I was born with.”
“And I like your fingers, too,” she said, and put her hand on one of mine and guided it down to the top of her breasts. She sighed very deeply and said, “But we can’t do this now,” and she put my hand back on her cheek.
“My life is still being ruined,” she said. “If we made love now, you’d be a part of that ruin. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to distinguish you anymore from everything I’m trying to get rid of. It’s like you’d be contaminated with all the death in me, and I can’t let that happen. Do you understand?”
“Do you mean the words, or the sentences?” I said. I was either dizzy from what we were talking about, or dizzy from my fever.
“Are you all right?” she said, leaning back to look at my face. “Doyle … you’re white.”
“Caucasian, actually,” I said.
“Are you going to pass out?” she said anxiously.
“No. Or at least not until you know this … not until you know … can you hear me? It sounds like I’m pretty far away from myself.”
“I can hear you,” she said, and kissed my cheek.
“I like that,” I said.
“Not until what?” she said into my ear.
“I’m not going to pass out until you know that I’m not going to be a part of your ruin. Okay? I promise. I’ll wait outside, as close by as possible. And then when you come out of the ruins, I’ll dust you off and hold you, if you want me to. Because you know … I waited for you when you didn’t even know I was waiting. I could still do that. I know how.”
“Oh, Doyle,” she said, and sighed on me, like she was breathing her life onto me. “I don’t know how much of me there’s going to be left to wait for. And I can’t promise you anything. We might never be lovers. We might only be friends.”
“Isn’t life a goddamn mystery? And still I wait to see what happens next,” I said, smiling at her. It looked like she was going to cry, and instead she smiled.
She put her lips lightly against mine and just held them there. Maybe nothing more than a tenuous fondness that she’d later withdraw, although I decided it was a consecration that swelled inside me and made me feel she’d entered me. We made a pact, and the pact was us. I felt lighter and dizzier. It was ecstasy, love, and also bacteria. I had to push her face away, I was so dizzy, and I said, “Do you want to make love with me before I pass out?”
“Should I take you to a doctor?” Natelle said.
“I’d rather make love with you here.”
“Why do you want me so badly?” she wondered.
“That’s how I’ve always wanted you. Badly.”
“How do you know you’ll love me tomorrow?”
“If I’m not dead, I’ll love you tomorrow.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“English is the only language I know.”
She unbuttoned her blouse and took it off, staring into my eyes as she unfastened her pastel blue bra and pulled it off.
“I guess we’re not going to the doctor,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Although you might need one when I’m through with you.”
“I hope you’re never through with me,” I said as she stood up and took her pants off and slid her panties down her legs and onto the floor. She untied my shoelaces and took my shoes off, and unbuckled my belt, saying, “Are you still with me?”
“Present,” I said, as the dizziness of love and bacteria swirled in my head, and Natelle unbuttoned and unzipped my pants and pulled them from me, revealing both my urgent erection and the unhappy-looking bandage on my leg.
“Are you sure this won’t hurt?” Natelle asked, lightly putting her fingers on the bandage.
I put her hand on the ridge in my underwear and said, “There … that won’t hurt.”
Being careful not to bump my wound, Natelle kneeled over me on the couch and straddled my legs. Using one hand on my shoulder to steady herself, she used her other hand to guide me into the luscious warmth of her. She gasped as I slid into her.
“I love it when you say that,” I said.
“I feel like you’re floating into me,” she said.
“Maybe I am,” I said, home within her where it was peaceful and warm and dark as she squeezed tighter against me while my head drooped weakly onto her breasts, and I was so grateful for her as I passed out again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Welter began his writing career as a newspaper copy boy, buying cigarettes for the city editor. Since then he has worked as a reporter for newspapers in the Midwest and the South and published humor sketches in The Atlantic. His first book, Begin to Exit Here: A Novel of the Wayward Press, was widely praised and was selected by Library Journal as a “Word of Mouth” recommendation for 1991. He lives in North Carolina, where he writes a humor column for The Chapel Hill Herald and is a manager for a mail-order company. He has never been a Secret Service agent, but sometimes wears dark glasses.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 1994 by John Welter. All rights reserved.
Design by Bonnie Campbell.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE FOR A PREVIOUS EDITION OF THIS WORK.
eISBN 9781565128040
Also by John Welter
Begin to Exit Here: A Novel of the Wayward Press