Jasmine

by Winston Aarons

  Marguerite came back carrying a tray with a plate of grapes with cheese, crackers, and two glasses of white wine. She wasn’t wearing the toucan scarf. The sight of her naked body excited Sor. He wanted her again.

  “After good sex, you should eat,” Marguerite said, putting the tray down on the daybed. She then sat down on the bed facing Sor.

  “Why don’t you do oils?” Sor asked, sipping his chardonnay.

  “Why?” Marguerite asked, a little perturbed by his question. “Don’t you like my watercolors?”

  “Oh, no,” Sor said, “I love them. I just think you should explore that genre of painting. You never know. You might be surprised. Your work has the kind of energy that might be more effective if rendered in oil, and on larger canvases.”

  “It’s odd that you mention it. I’ve been thinking about working with oils for some time,” Marguerite said, putting a grape in Sor’s mouth, “but I’ve been doing watercolors for so long that I’m a little intimidated and afraid to start something new.” She popped another grape in his mouth. “Maybe I will.”

  Through the window, Sor could see the gumbo limbo tree the boys sat under in Marguerite’s painting. There were two rustic-looking chairs, unpainted and unvarnished, that were not in the painting.

  “Life’s unpredictable, isn’t it?” Sor said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way we met. This. Being here, now, with you. Being together, like this. We really don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next. We are like molecules, bumping into each other, ricocheting, colliding with each other.”

  “But isn’t that what makes life interesting, its ability to surprise? Life happens. I love it like that, Sor.”

  “Not me, Marguerite,” Sor said. “I want to know that I have a say in what happens. I want to feel that I have something to do, no matter how minuscule, with what happens to me, where my life goes. If I have nothing to do with the direction my life takes, then why live, why bother to breathe.”

  “I know what you mean, Sor. But I don’t think that’s how it works. Anyway, for me, life would be very complicated and uncomfortable—all the fun kicked out of it—if I were constantly conscious of all my actions, and the decisions I make and how they are going to affect my life. Live free, that’s what I say. We are together on this bed because we were thrown together. You would like to think we are here because we purposely chose to be together.”

  “I’m not saying that, Marguerite. But I don’t agree with Dostoevsky. I don’t think we are like piano keys, and that something, someone plays us, presses down on us and directs our lives. I prefer to think we have some little say in what happens to us. If that’s not the case, why bother to live? Why even speak of individual freedom?”

  “We are given life, Sor, and we must live it, regardless. That’s all. Piano keys or not, life’s more memorable moments are those that come as a surprise and are spontaneous. When I paint, I often don’t know what the finished work will be like. The spontaneous outpouring that brings the work to its completion—wherever it comes from—excites me. Maybe that’s why I don’t believe that life should be lived too guardedly. It might become dull and boring. I want my life to be filled with surprises.”

  “I suppose each individual requires different things from life,” Sor said, fondling the tassels on one of the throw pillows. “Still, I would like to feel I have some control, Marguerite, that I can make choices and through my actions determine where I want to take my life. I have to believe that I can rise from your daybed this minute, put on my clothes, leave your body, your sex, and walk out of this room, walk out of your life, turn my back on the love I feel for you.”

  “But do you want to do that, Sor?” Marguerite said, playing with the end of her scarf.

  Her response took him off guard. She said it so nonchalantly that he was momentarily at a loss for words.

  “Of course not. I’m speaking hypothetically. I’m here because I want to be with you. I’m here because I have chosen to be with you. And you’re with me because you chose to be with me.”

  “But why me, Sor? Why us? Why does it seem as if our being together was unavoidable? Think about how we met. Julian purposely had us sit together at his dinner. Had we not sat together then, we wouldn’t have met, and we probably wouldn’t be here now. And how do you explain our repeated chance meetings at Fresh Market? It almost seems as if we had no say in what was happening. That it had to happen. That we’re piano keys, and that the piano was playing us.”

  “Screw the piano key idea,” Sor said, emphatically, as he bent over to help himself to a piece of cheese and cracker from the tray. “True, there is no doubt that we are drawn toward each other, but it was I… me… you… who chose…”

  The phone rang. At first Marguerite wasn’t going to answer it, but she changed her mind. It might be one of her boys with a question or problem, or Edgar. But it was her Aunt Rachel. She lived a few blocks from Marguerite and was a frequent visitor to the house. She had picked up a birthday gift for Edgar at the mall in Town Center, was on her way home, and wanted Marguerite’s advice as to whether it was suitable or not. She would be there in fifteen minutes. Marguerite, though she so much wanted to do so, thought it would look suspicious if she made excuses. “Oh, please come over,” she said. “I’d love to see what you bought Edgar.”

  Sor overheard the conversation, and reached for his clothes.

  “I’m sorry, Sor,” Marguerite said. “That was my aunt. It’s customary when she calls like this that I tell her to come over. I didn’t want to make excuses, lest she gets ideas. She can be quite nosey.”

  Sor walked over to her and embraced her. “I understand,” he said.

  “I promise I’ll make up for our shortened time together when I see you again.”

  “Oh, so I’ll be having the pleasure of seeing you again,” Sor said, jokingly, as he hurriedly redid his tie.

  “Of course, you sweet dummy,” Marguerite said, “what did you expect?”

  They kissed fiercely. She asked him to lift her up and take her to the garage the way he had transported her through the house to her daybed. He took her naked body in his arms, strong with the scent she wore, her skin against his skin, her hair in his face, walked down the steps to the laundry room, and set her down on her feet near the door that led into the garage. They kissed again, fiercer than before. Sor wanted to fuck her again. He wanted to enfold himself in her soft labia, slip his life into hers. Be one with her. From his car, he could see her waving from the half-open door in the laundry room, see her face, her smiling face as he backed out of the garage. Goodbye. Goodbye.

  THIRTEEN

  Jasmine’s a good woman, Sor thought, as he walked into his apartment. She brought stability to his life. He could depend on her, and trust her. She fit perfectly with the way he liked to live his life. She was, in a way, the ideal woman for him. One of the few women he could live with, who respected him for who he was. He had, on several occasions, been thankful that she was in his life. True, they had been going through a rough patch for some time because of the death of their son. But it had not damaged the feelings they had for each other. Sor knew Jasmine still loved him. Their life together had become a little tepid, that’s all. The important elements were still intact. They both loved order in their lives, could not live without it. Sor in particular thought it was vital, indispensable to his well-being and his equanimity.

  He still loved her, he thought, regardless of Marguerite. He knew this, because every time they were separated from each other for any length of time and slept apart—when she went to see her relatives, or when he would go to Canada to see his family, or attended seminars where she didn’t join him—he would soon begin to feel her absence, and miss her terribly. He would feel very alone without her, sometimes even helpless, and he’d be very happy when she returned, and she, too, would
be happy when he returned from one of his trips. Even now, after sleeping with Marguerite, he felt happy to be home.

  The thing is, he argued with himself, a man is with his wife every day, the same two bodies stripped of their mystery. It’s like taking the same walk every day. Seeing the same sights. It becomes boring after a while. You know what will come into view at each corner, which house has the barking dog, the teal awning, the pelican letter box. If relationships are to remain interesting, he thought, there has to be a constant sense of newness. Unfortunately, that’s not how it is in a marriage. Any relationship between two people, if it lasts long enough, loses its excitement as the partners get to know each other. Of course, if you change partners constantly, if you fall into the Don Juan syndrome, then you find your partners exciting because they are new, always someone else, and because you do not stay in a relationship long enough with any one for the relationship to become tired, worn, boring.

  As he undressed, hoping his clothing did not smell of her perfume—it was a very intense fragrance, whatever it was—Sor wondered if that was what was happening with him with Marguerite. Was it the newness factor, the fresh body, voice, sex that attracted him to her? Of course, he felt rejuvenated with her. He could talk with Marguerite like he no longer talked with Jasmine—not since that morning four years ago when the incident happened that changed their lives, crippling them, especially Jasmine, emotionally.

  Sor stepped into the shower and turned the water to a fierce blast. He had not had the chance to bathe after making love and Marguerite’s fragrance was particularly strong on him. It oozed from his skin. He washed his hair to make sure none of it remained anywhere on his body. He had forgotten to ask Marguerite the name of the fragrance. He would do so tomorrow, or when he e-mailed her later. He’d e-mail her before Jasmine got home. He’d have time—Jasmine had left a message saying she’d be stopping on Atlantic Avenue on her way home. She had to pick up a birthday gift for one of the secretaries in her office. She’d be a little late.

  He’d have time to prepare dinner and e-mail Marguerite afterwards. He had roasted a leg of lamb the day before for their Sunday dinner and had quite a bit left over. He had cooked it with the bone in, stuffed with garlic, and a special Moroccan marinade that included olive oil and lime juice to eliminate the smell of lamb from the meat. After his shower he took the lamb from the refrigerator and sliced sufficient meat for the two of them. As he sliced the meat, he thought of Marguerite. Her favorite meal? What she liked to eat? And as he took the leftover mashed potatoes and peas from the refrigerator, though he tried to suppress the thought, he wished it was Marguerite who would be coming home for dinner rather than Jasmine.

  Sor was sitting at his desk when Jasmine came home. He greeted her as usual, as if nothing had happened in his life that day, as if he had not just slept with another woman. She kissed him on the forehead. He got up. They embraced, out of habit, like old friends. There was no provocative fragrance coming from her body like when he embraced Marguerite. She smelled like work, like her office, a hint of cigarette smoke on her clothing. Christ, they kissed before they parted in the morning, but he couldn’t remember smelling the fragrance she wore—he knew she wore something—it was so subtle and understated. The kiss, the embrace, did not send any sexual messages, set off any explosions. They did not tug at any emotional cords. It was the greeting of the long married, no longer lovers, just friends. Life had become a habit, a habit that excluded passion, and almost excluded sex.

  “How was your day?” Sor said.

  “I’m kind of running the place in Paul’s absence,” Jasmine replied. Paul Samuel was the president of the company. Sor had met him at her company’s Christmas party last year. “He’s in Indonesia. He gets back next week. In his absence, I have a lot on my plate.”

  “I can see that. You look exhausted.”

  “That’s the corporate world, Sor,” she said. “It’s much more pressured than working with a university.” It was the second time Jasmine had said this recently. Sor sensed a note of resentment.

  “Well, you are home. We have the leftover lamb from yesterday and a nice bottle of wine. Get changed into something comfortable. You’ll soon feel relaxed.”

  Jasmine went into the bedroom to change, as was her custom when she got home, and Sor went into the kitchen to prepare their dinner. That was their routine. But as he set the food in the microwave, he became agitated. Thoughts of Marguerite flooded his mind. He had, he thought, controlled himself particularly well since he got home. He couldn’t believe he had remained so calm. He had hardly thought of Marguerite, when all of a sudden, while he was bringing the tomato salad to the table, he began reliving their time together, filling his eyes with images of them together, Marguerite’s daybed, their lovemaking. What did this woman have, he asked himself, that allowed her to uproot his life the way she did? Just seeing her, he flared up with lust and desire, wanting, wanting her. There was no end to wanting her. What had become of him, Sor thought, since they fell into each other’s arms, since fate brought them together? What had she done to him with her sex, her fragranced cove, her herb garden? I am a horny ape, an orangutan, a monkey. My whole being has slid down into my trousers, screaming like a wild animal for sex, sex, sex, my whole life, aspirations, longings, trapped in my underwear.

  They ate quietly, hardly exchanging a word. Sor looked at Jasmine, studying her while she ate. We loved each other when we first met, he thought. In fact, he had been madly in love with her. She had put up a struggle at first. She was not sure she wanted to be married. Her career was more important than marriage, and the men she had met before Sor had been afraid of her intelligence. Sor, though not having as many degrees as Jasmine at the time, was not intimidated. He knew who he was. He knew he had natural intellectual abilities and a quick mind. That was his gift. He was also persistent. He knew she was the woman for him. In the beginning, when he didn’t know where he stood with her, he had dated other women. But his relationship with them went nowhere because his mind and heart were with Jasmine. He stopped seeing other women. Jasmine was the woman for him. He had to have her.

  Why now, he asked himself. Why should Marguerite come into his life now, upsetting everything? Had she not shown up, he would have continued to live his life without complications, boringly maybe, but soberly. True, there was something exhilarating about Marguerite, an excitement he had never experienced with any other woman, not even that Scandinavian woman in New York that he had gone out with for a few months, or the one from Savannah, her skin like cinnamon, whose body drew him and drew him from his bed night after night, until she went back to Savannah to her husband and children. But there was something about Marguerite, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, that made him forget who he was. He felt trapped, ensnared in a powerful net from which there was no escape.

  When they finished eating, Jasmine cleared the table and did the cleaning up. Sor went into the study. He had not e-mailed Marguerite before Jasmine got home as he had planned. He would have to wait to e-mail her. He was afraid Jasmine would walk in if he tried to do it earlier and look over his shoulder while he attended to his messages. He’d wait until ten when Jasmine would retire to the bedroom to watch one of her shows.

  Sor decided to check his e-mail anyway. After all, he did every evening at the same time after dinner. There were three messages. Two were from students who had missed the exam that day and wanted to know when they could take a make-up. The other message was from Marguerite. She must have forgotten he had told her in his letter not to e-mail him before ten-thirty. It was not even eight o’clock.

  He could hear Jasmine putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. She’d wipe down the counters afterwards, clean the stove, and cut up strawberries and honeydew to take to work with her in the morning. He had time to print Marguerite’s letter and delete it from his computer. He took the printout, along with some student papers he was in the
process of marking, and sat down on one of the wicker chairs near the window. It was a long letter, almost two pages.

  Dear Sor,

  I’m sorry you had to go so early. I didn’t want you to go. I should’ve told my aunt I was going out and would not be home until later, and spent the time with you. When you were leaving, I felt reckless in your arms, I wanted you to take me back to the daybed, I wanted you inside of me again. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. My aunt’s visit is a blur. She came and went, that’s all I know. My mind was not at all on her, or on the snakeskin belt she bought for Edgar. I told her it was nice, that Edgar would love it. She must have sensed that my mind was elsewhere, and she left shortly after she came. Usually I would invite her to stay for dinner, but I didn’t. I told her I had a lot of papers I had to finish marking for tomorrow’s class.

  As soon as she left I decided I had to write to you. I wanted to tell you how alive I’m feeling. I feel like a woman. I feel emptied, yet full. I can’t explain. How intense you are! I suspected that you would be strong, but not this strong. The cool conservative self you present to the world, if people only knew what lay beneath it—your strength, your wildness, your sweetness, your kindness. My centaur. I called you that. D.H. Lawrence would love you: you are intellectual, but you haven’t lost your physical self, your sensuality and earthiness. You are a sensual man, Sor. You hide it well, but it’s there. There’s a wildness in you, untamed, raw, passionate, and at the same time, extraordinarily civilized. I love that in you. Often a man is either one or the other. He’s either bright and intellectually challenging, but lacking in sensuality, or he’s sensual, strong, all animal, without a head, dull intellectually. You are both, my centaur.