Jasmine

by Winston Aarons

  Sor couldn’t concentrate on Dean Solomon’s exhortation to the faculty to provide the students with a more challenging education. “Lift the bar” is the only thing he distinctly heard and remembered, and that’s because Solomon had lifted his voice when he said it. Other than that, thoughts of Marguerite slipped between Solomon’s sentences, blocking out most of what he said. Shortly before ten, Sor quietly left the room to teach his ten o’clock class.

  After his class, Sor went back to his office. He graded students’ essay papers until lunch. He’d walk over to the cafeteria and pick up his usual: turkey on toasted whole wheat with tomato, lettuce and a little mayonnaise. Emma, the woman behind the counter, would proceed to make him the sandwich as soon as she saw him coming; he had never ordered anything else, except now and then one of their greasy hamburgers. But first he went to the men’s room. He left his office door open.

  When he walked back into his office Marguerite was standing in front of his bookcase, perusing the titles of the books. They were mostly books he used for the courses he taught. The rest were predominantly biographies of authors whose works he used in his classes, which he brought from his own library at home. He also had a lot of paperbacks, which he kept on the bottom shelf. They were some of his favorite works. He would lend them to students who showed interest in the authors.

  “So this is your cave, Sor,” Marguerite said, playfully, looking around the room. “It’s quite Spartan. You could soften it up a bit with a desk lamp and get away from the glare of the fluorescent lights. No pictures! No works of art! I’m surprised. I expected to find a few pictures on your walls. They’d give your office some life, and tell those who visit you a little about who you are. The kind of art one likes says a lot about a person.”

  “I know, but I’ve only been in this office for the past three months,” Sor responded, finally getting over the shock of finding her in his office. “I’m going to have the room painted. How you see it is how I got it. It doesn’t have my personality as yet. I’ve ordered some prints for the walls.”

  “Why didn’t you answer my e-mail, Sor?” she asked, her back to him, as she continued perusing the books in his bookcase. “I waited all weekend to hear from you.”

  “Forgive me,” Sor answered, closing the door. “I was afraid if I wrote I might say things I shouldn’t say, at least not now. And I regretted what I said in my letter. I’m a very cautious man, Marguerite. I don’t like to make a fool of myself.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I spoke more openly than I probably should have, too.” She removed Federico Zeri’s Behind the Image from the bookcase, a book on art by the Italian scholar. She read a few lines and turned to face him.

  Sor moved farther into the room, closer to her. They were about a foot apart, facing each other. He could hardly control his urge to embrace her. The door was locked, and the Venetian blind that covered the glassed-in portion of the door was closed. He made it a point, as soon as he entered his office, to open the blind. It was a kind of protection in case a student, pissed off because of a low grade, decided to accuse him of sexual misconduct to get back at him. This morning, though, he had forgotten to open it.

  Maybe it was the proximity of their bodies that brought it on. Maybe it was because Sor held her hands, for it was then, as if pulled together by a powerful magnet that they rushed into each other’s arms, kissing wildly, hungrily. The book fell from Marguerite’s hand. Something in Sor collapsed. He felt there was nothing that could save him from this madness that had conscripted his life. Damn Descartes. Damn reason. Damn logic. He wanted her. He heard himself whispering in her ear, “I want you, I want to sleep with you, Marguerite.” He could not believe he had said it. He could not believe what he was doing in the middle of the day in his office. His hands were on her rump. It was soft and firm. He was going mad with her scent. It was in her hair. Yes, behind her ears. Anyone could walk in at any time: Plum, Dean Solomon, Samantha Steele, students. Students! There’d be a scandal.

  “I wanted you from the moment we embraced at Fresh Market, Sor,” Marguerite whispered. “Sometimes I think I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you.”

  “We must meet soon. Soon!” He heard himself whispering frantically in her ear, like a madman, like a Neanderthal, an ape, an orangutan.

  “Check your e-mail when you get back from your class. I can probably arrange something. Maybe we can meet this afternoon.” She was talking fast. “Maybe at my place. I might be able to make some arrangements. My husband will be away tonight. He had to go to a two-day meeting in Jacksonville and won’t be back until tomorrow night. If we can’t meet today, we’ll meet tomorrow. Neither of us has classes until two thirty—I checked your schedule. My kids will be in school. I’ll see if we can meet this afternoon after your class. But I must go now. I have a meeting in a few minutes with Dean Willoughby.”

  She took the end of her scarf and wiped her lipstick from his face. She then straightened his tie and his shirt collar, kissed him lightly on his lips, and left.

  This is madness, Sor thought, feeling as if the floor had abandoned its firm supportive presence under his feet, and that the only substantial thing left was the hard thumping of his heart.

  TEN

  Sor picked up the book Marguerite had dropped and put it back in the bookcase before sitting down. Marguerite tore through his being like a tornado. She was everywhere in the room. Everything that gave stability to his life—that he had worked so hard to put in place over the years—was abandoning him. His mother and father would be ashamed of him.

  He hoped no one walked in. Her scent, that delicious, overpowering fragrance, was everywhere in the room. He breathed it in like some rough sex-obsessed animal in the rutting season sniffing the scent a prospective mate had left behind.

  He did not go to the cafeteria. He did not leave his desk until it was time to go to his one o’clock class. He was glad he was giving an exam that day and didn’t have to lecture. He was in no mood to teach. In his classroom, he put the stack of exam questions and the blue books in which the students would write their answers on his desk, and sat down and waited for them to come. Even though there were still ten minutes to go before the official start of the class, he would allow those who came early to start the test.

  He wondered if the students smelled Marguerite’s scent on him when they picked up the sheet of paper with the exam questions. He was certain they did. He reeked of it. Or was it his imagination? What was it, anyway? Some scent derived from an herb, fruit, the flower of an exotic plant? He had no knowledge of scents and their origins. Jasmine would not permit herself to wear perfumes that possessed intoxicating scents. Her choice of perfumes was very conservative. He must ask Marguerite, when he saw her again, the name of the scent she wore.

  He looked at his watch, wanting desperately to go to his office to check his e-mail. He hoped the students would find his exam easy and finish ahead of time. Two o’clock: that’s when his class ended. He’d have four and a half hours until Jasmine came home. If he was late, he could say he stopped at the bookstore on Glades Road. She knew he loved to spend time checking the shelves in bookstores.

  He wondered where Marguerite lived. How much driving time would be involved? He hoped she wasn’t one of those faculty members who drove an hour to the campus every day. Maybe she lived close by. Maybe she lived in Delray Beach like Sor, or close by, in Boynton Beach, or Boca Raton.

  He hurried to his office after his class, ignoring everything and everyone. A group of students had respectfully greeted him in unison as he rushed past them. ‘Good afternoon, Professor Avraham.’ He did not respond. It was as if they weren’t there. The Professor Avraham they greeted was somebody else. His whole being was focused on Marguerite’s message.

  There was no e-mail from Marguerite. He checked his phone. No messages. He looked up her office phone number in the faculty directory, dialed t
he number, got her voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. He did not know her home number. But even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t call her at home. He’d wait a while and check his computer again.

  In the meantime, he needed to do something to take his mind off Marguerite. He picked up the new Nietzsche biography he’d bought the day before, read the opening paragraph, and closed the book. Again he experienced that feeling of being tossed in the air and not knowing where he was, where he would land.

  Not able to read or mark his papers, he decided to sit on the bench outside his office. He’d sit there for half an hour before checking his e-mails again. He wondered what could have happened, why Marguerite had not written. The woman had a family, he thought, children, anything could happen. She might be stuck in traffic somewhere.

  At two-forty he returned to his office. There was a message from Marguerite.

  Dear Sor,

  I’m sorry I couldn’t e-mail you before. I would have called you from my cell, but I don’t know your number. And texting you wouldn’t be appropriate for the kind of correspondence I foresee us having.

  I’ve managed to arrange everything so that we can be together, but only for a short time. My younger boy, Adam, is spending time with a friend, but his friend’s parents will be going out at five-thirty, when the father comes home. That means I’ll have to leave my house to pick up Adam at five-fifteen at the latest. My older boy, Mark, will be studying at a friend’s house until nine o’clock.

  You’ll come to my house. I live in Boynton. The address is 1177 Oleander Drive.

  My house is between Federal Highway and A1A. You can’t miss it. We have a hibiscus hedge in front of the house, the only one on the block, about six feet tall with red and yellow flowers, and it is blooming profusely at the moment. When you reach my house, bring your car into the driveway. I’ll open the garage door and you can park in Edgar’s spot. That way no one will see it. Edgar left his car at the airport until he gets back from Jacksonville. I’ll open the garage door ahead of time so that you can drive right in. My cell number is 561-991-0337. Call me if you get lost.

  I feel like a high school girl waiting for her first date.

  Come swiftly,

  Marguerite

  Was this really happening, Sor wondered, as he drove to Marguerite’s house. Do things like this happen so fast to other people, with such intensity? He was surprised how calm he was, as if he were going to dinner at a friend’s house. But under that calm, his body felt torched, on fire, every muscle, tissue, burning for the woman. What would she be wearing? How would she greet him? He smelled the scent she wore. Maybe it rubbed off on his collar when they embraced, on his face, neck. It’s as if she were in the car. She was part of the air he breathed. Is this what Descartes felt? Jefferson?

  Sor calculated that it would take him no more than twenty minutes to get to her house from the school. She lived even nearer to where he lived in Delray Beach, approximately twelve minutes by car from his apartment. They were practically neighbors. Everything was working out nicely, he thought, for when they wanted to meet.

  He called her when he turned onto Pineapple Way. She reminded him to look for the hibiscus hedge. When he saw it, he would be at her house. The garage door was already open.

  As soon as he turned off the engine inside the garage, the door behind him closed, and the door to the house opened. Marguerite was standing at the entrance in a long, loose, yellow dress. The room behind her was brightly lit so that he could see the contours of her body through her dress. Her hair was loosened, emancipated from the bun she had worn when she came to his office that morning. She wore no lipstick. As she came down the steps to meet him in the garage, neither of them said a word. Instead, they embraced passionately, greedily. “Oh, Sor, it’s good to see you,” she whispered. Marguerite wasn’t wearing anything under her dress. He could feel every pulse, tremor that passed through her body through the thin, silk-like fabric. There were buttons running all the way down the front. He undid the first four buttons and sank his head between her exposed breasts. “Marguerite, Marguerite,” he heard himself saying, over and over, “My gift, my gift.”

  He had not gone out looking for this woman. He had never, since his marriage, sought a relationship with another woman. She was a gift. It was as if some kind god had placed her in his life. He felt like he was in some exotic garden, where a strange flower permeated the air with an unusually sensual smell. He kissed each breast. He let his face rest between them, his nose absorbing her scent, like an animal sniffing its mate before making love. He put her head between her legs like a pig digging for truffles.

  Suddenly, surprising himself and Marguerite, he lifted her up and walked up the stairs with her in his arms into the house. She laughed with delight. “Oh, Sor,” she said, “no man has ever done this to me.” She directed him through the laundry room, kitchen, a spacious living room with a tall ceiling, a corridor, a bedroom, a corridor, and into a room at the other end of the house—her studio and office. There was a daybed under a window at the far end of the room. He put her down on the bed as if she were fragile, as if she could break. He removed her sandals, unbuttoned the rest of the buttons that ran down the front of her dress, lifted the dress over her head and shoulders. She lay naked on the bed. A gift… a gift…

  ELEVEN

  I’m a chimpanzee. I’m an ape. I’m an orangutan. I’m a screaming baboon in heat. I’m a Neanderthal. My spear is sharp and straight and ready. I drive it into wild boars, deer, bison, the flesh of fleeing ibex. I love the smell of freshly killed meat, the sound of wild dogs howling, coyotes, wolves howling, toucans, monkeys making a racket. I love the smell of wild boars roasting on flint-ignited fires. I communicate with grunts, sticks, and my fist. I ride, ride my love, like a centaur, frothing with lust. I enter her cave screaming, howling. I ravage her body like a Goth, like a Roman legion plundering a defenseless village. My body makes music in her body like a cello, like a saxophone, like a Spanish guitar, like a sitar. I bathe in her juices. I dig, dig, dig, into her flesh. I’m a wild animal bellowing for his mate. I’m an incarcerated criminal missing his love, wife, sweetheart. I’m a tribe of monkeys in heat. I lust for flesh and sex, not books or reason. I don’t know Aristotle. I don’t know Descartes. Who is Schopenhauer? My senses pull me, rule me. Feelings and passion replace reason and introspection. I want to be close to the earth. I want to be close to my love. I want to bathe in the sweetness of her sex, giddy with her freshness, her fragrance. I’ll not tire of her scented breasts, perfumed mount, her herb garden, her laughter. I’m a landscape traversed with lava flows that will not cool, that will not turn into cool stones. What have you done to me with your sex, my love, that uproots me so, tears me from my self? I can’t find my life anymore. Where’s Sor Avraham? Who is Sor Avraham?

  TWELVE

  Afterward, they hardly spoke. Their two naked bodies lay intertwined, her head on his chest, his fingers playing with her hair. Sor felt as if he had just disposed of a great burden. His head lifted high on several throw pillows, he thought of a line from a poem he had written a long time ago—it might have been something he wrote in his journal, he wasn’t sure: I miss the dizzying exuberance of fresh love. Well, he thought, your wish has come true.

  He looked around the room. The first thing his eyes focused on was Marguerite’s painting of her two boys sitting on the grass under a gumbo-limbo tree. It was the painting she had described in detail to him at Julian Plum’s birthday dinner. It was hanging on the wall directly in front of him, just a little to the right of her desk and chair. Her scarf, the one with the toucans she was wearing the second time he met her at Fresh Market, was hanging from the back of the chair, one end almost touching the floor. The big-billed birds appeared much larger than he remembered, and the tropical foliage much greener and more lush. And the snake looking out from behind the succulent, moist-looking palm fronds—he did not
remember seeing it there before.

  He felt the boys in the painting were looking at him. But it was just in his mind, he thought. Guilt maybe. He was fucking their mother. Their eyes were turned toward the grass. The younger boy had a stick in his hand. A determined look on his face, he was poking, stabbing at something in the grass with the stick, maybe a worm, or insect.

  Marguerite got up and sat at the foot of the daybed. “I’m going to get us some refreshments, Sor, but I don’t feel like putting anything on,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  Sor looked at her, his hands behind his head on the mountain of throw pillows. “God, you are beautiful,” he said.

  “Is that a yes, or no?” Marguerite teased.

  “Put on the toucan scarf you have hanging on the chair,” Sor said, laughing, amused by the spontaneity of his suggestion.

  Marguerite took the scarf from the chair. She flung it around her neck so that the longer end fell down over her stomach, covering her pudendum, covering the black patch of curly hairs sheltering her pubic mound, her womb place.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, leaving the room, her soft, firm ass swaying, saying goodbye to Sor. What a difference, he thought, seeing someone out of their clothes. You never know what they will look like naked. Marguerite looked better without her clothes, he thought.

  Sor inspected the rest of the room when Marguerite left. The four walls were filled with her works. Others were on the floor, leaning against each other with their backs to the walls. Sor imagined the ones she hung on the walls were those she was thinking of showing at her upcoming exhibit. He liked her still lifes. He liked the fruits more than the flowers. The painting with her boys was good. She painted it with passion, and all the love she had for them. Still, he was not partial to watercolors. They were too impermanent. They didn’t have the longevity of paintings done in oil. They did not stand up well to time. They faded easily. They had to be kept under glass. Too delicate, he thought.