The Color of Home: A Novel

by Rich Marcello

  “Good. Maybe this time we can move on from paint-by-numbers and start creating some original art.”

  • • •

  Naked on Nick’s bed, Rachel propped herself up on one arm. “Take off your clothes. I want to try something.”

  He stripped and joined her.

  “Come on top of me.” She reached down and helped him enter her. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she whispered, “Let’s stay like this a while and see how we feel.” She raised her lips to his and gently brushed them. Eyes wide open, she joined with him, barely moving, for a long time.

  “Good?” she asked.

  “Nirvana.”

  “Do you know that tantra means ‘to expand, to be free, to liberate’? It’s my definition of nirvana. Wanna go for it?”

  “I’m game.”

  “It’s not a game, you know. You talk a lot about truth and honesty, but what do you think that means when it comes to sex?” she asked.

  Since he’d met her, he’d thought a lot about that question. She’d pushed him, pulled him, caused him to read even more than usual. Taught him that his body didn’t lie. “That sex is sacred, healing, a way toward enlightenment. That trust and honesty are foundational to getting there.”

  “You have been reading.”

  “One of those overachievers, I guess.”

  “You’re not overachieving yet.”

  “Honestly, I’m trying hard.” He really was. He’d never worked at sex before. Until Sassa, the women were more for him. With Sassa, the sex— great, effortless—focused on love, not expertise. With Rachel, he aspired to that place where skill—honed, perfected—enabled them to find a feeling neither could reach on their own. Generative sex. Who would have thought?

  “On honesty, do you know there are three of us in our bed?”

  “Three?”

  “Yes. You, me, and Sassa.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it’s true. We need to get her out of here. She’s in the way, man.”

  He couldn’t argue the point. Often at the most inopportune moments, a memory with Sassa would wander through. Kissing Rachel on the same subway he’d kissed Sassa on. Watching a movie with Rachel he’d already seen with Sassa. Often in bed right after he’d finished. “How?”

  “We’ll never be able to fully surrender to each other if you remain so tense.”

  “What does that have to do with Sassa?”

  “She’s holding you back.”

  “How?”

  “Get out of your head and focus on what’s happening between us. You won’t let go of her, and it’s causing you a lot of stress. As long as you’re in your head, she’s here with us.”

  He didn’t know how to get her out of his head. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. But Rachel did have a point. Even though he hadn’t seen Sassa, even though a lot of time had passed, she was hanging around. Or he was. It was time. “Do you really think sex is sacred?”

  “Only in Western cultures is sex considered something other than sacred.”

  “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “We need to focus on breathing and clearing our minds. We need to blur our lines to the point where all we amplify is the connection. Think loud music, rock and roll, the Beatles.”

  “Then she’ll fade?”

  “I hope.”

  • • •

  Despite Nick’s best efforts, the ménage à trois continued for the next several weeks. Although he showed steady progress practicing with Rachel, Sassa’s presence remained. He tried everything to get her out of his head. On occasion he believed he’d succeeded, but just when he thought she was gone, he always found her in a recess, on a pedestal waiting to be rediscovered, as if she knew it was only a matter of time.

  “Close the office door.” Nick smiled.

  “Your workers and clients use this sofa all the time.”

  “All the better.”

  Rachel closed the door. She slipped out of her Birkenstocks and pogo danced her way over to him. “You leading?”

  He spun her around and pulled her close to him. Slipping one hand under her shirt and the other in the front of her pants, he kissed the back of her neck.

  “I like it when you lead,” she whispered.

  “I can tell.”

  He pushed her onto the sofa. Balancing on her knees, she unbuttoned his pants and dropped them to the ground. Rolling back onto the sofa, she raised her legs as she undid her pants. He helped her slip out of them. With her legs up over his shoulders, they finished within minutes.

  “Most efficient,” she said.

  “Shhh. Everyone will hear you.”

  “Good. That’s a strange look. What are you thinking?”

  He tried to look away. Too late.

  “Oh.”

  “Let’s get away for the weekend,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “There’s this cool hotel in Rhode Island called Ocean House that’s about two and a half hours away by car. Check out the website.” He reached over to the end table and snatched his laptop. Rachel had been openly patient. She’d understood at some level that it would take time to get Sassa out of his head. Still, her patience wouldn’t last forever. He needed to speed things up.

  “Looks fancy. Are you sure they’ll accept a guest like me?” she asked.

  More importantly, would they keep Sassa out? “I’m sure you’re up to the task of dressing for the part.”

  “I can do New England preppie if I cover my tattoos.”

  “That will work.”

  • • •

  Nick and Rachel raced out of the city Friday afternoon in a rented car. They arrived at Ocean House around 7:00, checked in, then unpacked their shared suitcase along with two guitars. The hotel, the ideal counterpoint to New York, was dressed in New England yellow, with a large white wraparound porch, a mansard roof, and a rolling beachfront—it was perfect for his plan.

  Starving after the drive, they headed to dinner. On the way down, they paused the elevator. He pushed her up against the back wall and slowly kissed her. Propping herself up on the elevator railing, she lifted her skirt, and wrapped her legs around him. A moment later, his pants were around his ankles and he was inside her. A few moments after that, they were both done.

  In the restaurant, she tested out her preppie persona on the waiter. Wearing a brown herringbone jacket with the collar outlined in black and a fake “R” preschool badge covering the left breast; a white blouse; and a subdued green, yellow, and red-printed scarf that doubled as a tie, she said, “I’ll have the lobstah bisque.”

  “Very good. What brings you to the hotel?”

  “Work. Graduated Hah–vahd Business School at twenty-five. Founded my own boutique shoe company in Vehmont. Meeting folks about a possible acquisition.” Crossing her legs, her skirt slipped up a few inches above her knees. She had beautiful legs. She pointed down to her shoes, which matched her jacket perfectly, with confidence.

  Later over coffee, Nick, slightly intoxicated from a three-finger scotch or Rachel’s preppy image, passed right through her eyes on his way to spacing.

  “What?”

  “You’re so strong.”

  “You’re just figuring that out now?”

  “Easier to see outside the city.”

  “Ah.”

  After dinner, they returned to their room to change and pick up a couple blankets and a backpack. They made their way to the beach where, barefoot, they walked arm-in-arm for a long time. The salted breeze filled him with hope, with desire. The sand constantly changed around his feet, tickled him, made him smile. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner?

  “There’s nothing like the smell of the ocean,” she said.

  “Dinner was fun. We should role-play more.”

  “We or me?”

  “We.”

  “Can you do Ryan Gosling?” She darted in front of him, turned around, and backpedaled. “Why did we come here?”

  “I need to practice with y
ou without any distractions.”

  She waited for him to catch up, pulled him close, and on her toes, brushed his lips just enough to salt his thirst. “How long did it take you to come up with that line?”

  “Long enough.”

  “When do we start?”

  “As soon as we find a secluded spot and spread out the blanket.”

  “Guess I should pay attention to the surroundings then.”

  “Guess so.”

  They hiked another solid mile before settling on a spot nestled between two small sand dunes. He spread out one of the blankets on the sand. Without exchanging a word, they undressed. In the same fluid movement that he had learned from her, filled with lust, with safety, he lowered her onto the blanket. He kissed her gently.

  “Just relax and let go,” he said.

  “I can do that.”

  Rachel’s arms. He caressed her left forearm with slow, ever smaller, circular movements that led to specific pleasure points. As he did that, he studied her face to trace her path of arousal. When each point saturated with pleasure, he changed the motion from circular to linear, as if to push the arousal out to the rest of her body. When he finished her left arm, he shifted to her right arm and repeated the movements using the same technique. He continued to watch her face as she drifted into a more relaxed, almost meditative state. After he finished with her right arm, he slowly and repeatedly stroked the back of each ear. He’d been reading.

  He removed a glass bottle from the backpack, poured a thick creamy white lotion from the bottle on his hand. He caressed her right breast with the same circular motion, culminating on her nipple. When her pleasure saturated there, he cupped her breast and spread the feeling to the rest of her body. He repeated the movements on her left breast.

  Her thighs. As he’d done before, he spread the pleasure out with a shift from circular to linear movements, caressing her entire lower body with his hands. Her level of arousal continued to build.

  It was time. He penetrated her with his index and forefinger, which he maneuvered onto her G-spot, then he used his thumb, still covered with lotion, to track the movements of his index and forefinger. Time slowed. Boundaries blurred. Thoughts evaporated. Later, he replaced his thumb with his tongue.

  Covered in sweat, her body trembled, pulsed, like some quasar about to explode and reshape the universe. She let out a moan that seemed to release some fundamental primordial energy from deep within her. She went completely limp. He imagined, at least for a moment, that she had touched god. He moved up her body and kissed her forehead.

  After some time, she opened her eyes. Smiling, she reached over, and touched his lips with her fingers. “You gave me my first full-body orgasm.”

  “I could tell.”

  “Dakini bliss.”

  • • •

  For the rest of the year, Rachel and Nick lived moment to moment, day to day, happy. Constantly experimenting, they let the Kama Sutra guide them into deeper and deeper physical intimacy. When they weren’t practicing, they played music—together, separately, collaboratively. They recorded her songs, his songs, and songs they’d written together. He sat in on guitar for a number of her live gigs. They even began serious conversations about forming a band, Dakini Bliss.

  One afternoon, they were sitting in front of the mixing console in Nick’s studio, listening to a mix of one of their songs. The song, acoustic with soaring strings and an almost nursery rhyme-sounding piano part, played stronger than anything either of them had ever done. With lyrics like, “I want to walk next to you and be utterly wild / I want to know how it feels to be that strong” and “I want to cover you in safety even when I’m most afraid” and “I want the strength to let you go wherever you need to go,” it was the capstone of their year together.

  She wheeled her chair around, leaned back, and draped both of her legs over his. “We’ve done a full album’s worth of songs.”

  True. And she’d given him much, much more. She’d taught him how to collaborate. She’d shown him how two completely different people could come together and make art. Musically. Physically. “Are you still happy with how they turned out?”

  “Man, I don’t know. I’m happy with the songwriting, and my vocals are outstanding, but I’m not sure about the backing band.”

  “Say the word and I’ll hit delete.” He reached over to his mouse, selected all of her songs, placed the pointer over the delete command. He’d already backed up all of their music, so there was no real risk.

  “Fine. Fine. I guess I can live with them.”

  “I scored a tantric sex teacher and you scored an album.”

  “Fair trade.”

  “I don’t know, I might be a little ahead.”

  “It all depends on how you count.”

  “I’m better at math.”

  She rose and straddled him as he sat in the chair. She kissed his forehead. “I admit you’ve got that one thing over me. What do you think about naming the album Songs of Love and Loss?”

  “Like Leonard Cohen?” he asked.

  “The man is a god, you know.”

  “True enough. Maybe a little too derivative.”

  “Okey dokey. I’ll come up with something else. When is your meeting with Sassa?”

  “Next week.” Just the day before, he’d exchanged text messages with Sassa and agreed to a time and location. Other than that, he hadn’t heard from her.

  “Do you have any idea what she’s been up to?”

  “Nope.” And, since Ocean House, he hadn’t thought that much about her. Every now and then a flicker. That was all. After two years apart, after Brayden, Rachel, and maybe a new boyfriend from year two, had they settled in as lifelong friends?

  “Next week might be the end of the road for us,” she said.

  “Why do you say that? Aren’t you happy here?”

  “Yes. It’s a feeling that came up, and I wanted to say it out loud. Are you still in love with her?”

  “I still love her. What’s the difference?”

  “You don’t know the difference?”

  “Not really.”

  “One is exclusive and one isn’t.”

  “So you can only be in love with one person at a time, though you may love more than one person at a time? Did I get that right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I love her, then. Don’t worry about her. I’m happy here.”

  “No worries, man. No worries.”

  CHAPTER 12

  After Sassa landed back at her Cambridge studio, her blueprint started to unravel. The plan. Stay in Cambridge for at least another year. Continue working at Sirellina’s as a well-respected, full member of the team. Spend more time hanging out with friends. Stay on the path of most resistance. But in her apartment that night, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been stranded in the middle of nowhere, that Cambridge was no longer on the path, that the time had come to break more ties.

  Walking over to the wall, she placed her hands palm down on the floor and pushed up into a handstand. Upside down, her gaze traveled along the grooves in the pine floor until it reached the molding on the far wall. As she studied the nicks on the molding, blood rushed to her head like sand in a wide-necked hourglass egg-timer. A short time later, she formed a V with her legs and jackknifed to the floor. Light-headed, she wobbled across the room to her desk, picked up her phone, and hurtled it against the wall where she’d just stood, as if the V had left a target.

  At her desk, she logged onto her bank account. Fifty thousand dollars in savings. In her trust fund, $300,000 remained from the insurance settlement. Her mom and dad had taken care that way. As she studied the screen, it seemed to shatter into a thousand glass Scrabble pieces. Letters strung into words, only to have them scramble before full sentences came into view. Whole. Stranded. Light. Nick. Too many Zs, Xs, and Qs to form much more. With her foot, she pulled the computer plug out of the wall and, for a moment, took comfort from the gray screen.

&
nbsp; Later, curled up in her bed, she flipped through Shambhala Sun magazine. “Living in the Age of Distraction.” “Journey to Awakening.” “It Starts from Zero.” “Women on the Path.” Like a Frisbee, she flung the Sun across the room at the wall. She’d spun out, drifted, fallen behind, made small miscalculations and big ones. The time had come to catch up, to find the next step on the path, to go west.

  Major West Coast cities? Vancouver. Seattle. Portland. San Francisco. Any one of them would suffice for a few years. How to make the decision? Finding a job wouldn’t be a problem. Stepping outside of her comfort zone, obtaining more exposure, crossing a few lines—that would be the real work. Maybe organic gardening classes at the San Francisco Zen Center. Maybe teaching Bikram yoga in Vancouver. Maybe cello lessons in Seattle. Blah. Blah. Blah. She fell asleep no closer to a decision.

  • • •

  One night, during her shift at Sirellina’s, a colleague raved about a vegetarian restaurant he’d recently visited in Portland, Maine. The Green Angel specialized in creative vegetarian food based solely on local produce. The organic green tea noodles—amazing. The Asian vegetable stew and the king oyster mushroom tempura—to die for. On a short tea break, Sassa googled the restaurant. More than impressed with the reviews, she planned a visit.

  On her next day off, she motored to Portland and wasted no time making her way to Old Port’s Exchange Street. From across the street, the Green Angel looked like many of the shops housed in a row of renovated nineteenth-century brick buildings. The facade, an attractive combination of cement and brick with wide, ten-foot-high glass windows, allowed a full view of the interior. A green awning with the number thirty-four covered the entrance: a large, ornate oak door.

  She crossed the street. A menu taped to the window next to the door caught her eye. She skimmed the appetizers and entrees. What an eclectic menu. Inside, she found herself in a spacious, tastefully decorated dining room. Tamari and curry infused the air. Local modern art covered the walls— abstract oil paintings, black and white photos of farm workers, a few nude sketches. Simple tables lined the space, discretely distinguished by colorful hand-blown glass centerpieces and surrounded by one-of-a-kind chairs built from reclaimed wood. A small bar in the back of the restaurant, stocked with local beer and wine, finished the place.