by Sarah Hall
Take your clothes off, she said.
He was aching painfully. He had forgotten everything else. The automatic took over. He undid his jeans, pulled them down, pulled his unbuttoned shirt over his head. He wrestled out of his briefs. Evie knelt up. They did not kiss. She crouched and took him into her mouth. He looked down at her back, past it to the screen, where the man was pushing apart the cheeks of the woman and re-entering, higher. After a few moments Evie took her mouth away, moved back and turned round. He was rough with her. He wanted to slap her. He didn’t understand any of it, but it didn’t matter, everything had become reasonless. She was moaning. The other woman was moaning. A visceral harmonic. On the screen the man was pulling the woman’s hair so hard that she was rearing upwards, her back bent at an extraordinary angle. He knew he would come soon. Between sounds, Evie was saying things that made no sense, some kind of rapturous, blurted language. Then:
Do that if you want. Do that to me.
He put his hand into Evie’s hair, made a fist and pulled. He was breathing so hard he felt crazed. He pulled out and repositioned. He made a series of small movements. The muscle clenched and then relaxed. He worked himself in, began to move. The knowledge of its happening was exquisite. It was too much. He felt himself spasm, noise blared from his mouth, and he slumped against her.
They lay for a while, the film ended, and then he gently moved away. Evie reached over and scrolled through the contents page of the site. He looked at the mess on the sheets, pleased, mystified. Something unbelievable had happened.
It happened every night, and in the mornings, before work. They did not always watch pornography, though often she wanted to. It began with her instigating, but then he realised there was ongoing permission. For anything. They tried different ways. It was deliberate and seemed necessary, as if the arrangement required new terms. They videoed themselves on the digital camera. He saw a man like him performing oral sex, licking slowly, then frantically; he watched his wife handling herself with no inhibition. He didn’t recognise the woman staring straight into the lens. She did not want foreplay or romance. She wanted candid and carnal exchange. While it happened she spoke mad words, unconsciousness.
It’s inside the daylight. Making each other wet. It’s all the way in. In.
There was something almost shamanic about it. She looked as if she was trancing, her pupils blown, as if the act had been incanted and was unstoppable. The expression of confused pleasure and fear and drive was spectacular. Her breasts were heavier and swung beneath her, or juddered when she was on her back. What excited him most was when she talked about other people joining them, another man.
Oh, God, both of you inside me. I’ll do anything, anything. I’ll do anything.
I’ll watch him fucking your pussy. I want to see you ride him, make him come all over you.
The rules were gone. It was easy to say these things; easy to undo himself. They’d suddenly found each other, through irrepression, means he did not quite understand. Her age, hormones, a revival of some lost appetite, the arrival of a new one; it didn’t matter, he didn’t care. He wanted to get close to her. She was on fire. She was lit up.
Towards the end of the third week he noticed she was damaged and bleeding and asked if she was sore. It didn’t matter, she said. She wanted to carry on feeling this way; her body finally knew what it was meant for. She made him, again. There was more blood, an alarming streak up her rump and on the sheets. He didn’t want to stop but there was something wrong. A person did not become so extreme without cause. While she took a bath he searched through her bag, for what he wasn’t sure, drugs perhaps, prescription or otherwise. Lipsticks, tissues, chocolate wrappers, a discreet white vibrator, which he hadn’t known she owned. There was a letter from her work. She’d been cautioned for inappropriate behaviour in the office. When she came out of the bathroom he asked about it.
You dropped this. It says you’ve been saying things to other members of staff. Is that true?
I don’t know what the bloody problem is, she said, throwing the wet towel onto the bed. They’re just so boring, so glass. They don’t get it.
Don’t get what?
What you have to do. You’ve got to make it happen whenever you can.
Make what happen?
I can’t explain it speaking, Alex. Come and lie down.
He lay next to her on the bed. She put his hand between her legs. He took hold of her wrist.
No, come on, he said, softly. Try to explain, Evie. What’s going on?
Don’t be angry.
Then she began to cry. Short rapid bursts, without tears. She sounded almost like a baby. A lump rose in his throat. What was coming? He put his arms round her and held her. The flesh on her stomach was plump and warm. She’d become a baroque version, a decadent. The crying did not last long. She did not wind down, but suddenly sat up, the distress forgotten, bright-eyed.
I tried to get Karl to sleep with me. Then I asked Toby. You weren’t there. I wanted you to be, but you were at work.
What?
Will you help me? I have to know how it feels. I can’t stop thinking about it.
About what?
Her face was hovering in front of him; open, beguiling, altered.
You and me and someone else.
He had known she was going to say it; the scenario had featured too strongly, too mutually in their role-play to be insignificant. She had decided to live forwardly, his wife, without limit or reproach. And she had taken him with her. But he knew too that there was a line, over which, if they passed, there was no coming back. The dynamic would always be changed; they would be beyond themselves.
Please. I want to. It would be amazing. Like a sun in us. It tastes like, I can taste it burning.
She put her hand to her mouth with a sharp intake of breath, as if scalded.
You say these things, Evie. They make no sense.
I have to do it. We only live. We only live, Alex. Such a tiny thing. I know how to feel. This is the truth. Do you believe me?
She moved close to him again. She put her hands on his face. Her eyes. Electrical green, and gold, powering the irises.
You choose. You choose who. You bring him. I’ll do anything you want.
In her gaze was something retrograde, pure, unconstructed desire. Somehow she had dismantled everything. She was more beautiful than he had seen.
Why is it the truth? What is it?
I don’t know. It’s a gift.
*
He convinced Richard to come out for a few drinks midweek. Richard asked where Evie was.
Busy. Joining us later, was all he could say.
Which sounded chary; they never deliberately excluded her. He was drinking quickly, nervously. He knew it had to be spontaneous, natural, Richard would never agree otherwise. He looked at his friend across the table in the pub. He couldn’t imagine it. They’d been roommates at university but he’d never really heard any explicit details about girlfriends from Richard, or witnessed moments of intimacy. Perhaps going with a stranger would have been better, but that seemed reckless. He bought them both another pint and then a whisky.
Whoa there, slow down, Richard said. I’m going to get hammered. I am hammered.
Yeah, sorry. Just wanted to cut loose a bit. I tell you what, let’s leave these. Come back to ours and we’ll have a nightcap with Evie?
I thought she was coming here?
No. Come on.
They left the pub and walked back towards the house. They walked without coats. The air was warm. The world seemed looser.
You and Evie are okay though?
Really great. Revolutionary!
Oh. Good. God, I haven’t felt this drunk in a while, Richard said. Thought you were getting me loaded so you could confess something bad. Like an affair. I’d have killed you.
No, he said. Just fancied a fun night. We’re not that old yet.
True.
The lights were on downstairs when they arrived, bu
t Evie was not around. He called up, saying Richard was here for a drink. He was numb enough to make an attempt, but was sure he sounded like a bad actor, overdoing lines, like the hammy utilitarian films Evie had been watching. He didn’t know how she would play it. She’d been so direct, so layerless lately, it was possible she’d scare Richard by moving too quickly. Whatever was in her now used no subtlety. They’d talked about what might happen, what kind of lover Richard might be, how receptive, but the truth was there was no predicting; shock, disgust, willingness. They were gambling.
She came downstairs wearing a nightgown, her hair wet, as if just washed. She smiled at them both. The room seemed charged. Precognition. It was going to work.
Richard, she said. She kissed him on both cheeks and then on the mouth, playfully, laughing.
Richard’s face was flushed, from the beer, the walk, from the pleasure of seeing the woman he cared for. She sat down on the couch and began to talk in the way she did now, synaptically, brilliant and baffling. She had uneven, intense theories about life. She was impressionistic. He could see Richard listening, trying to follow, enjoying her. He left them and went into the kitchen and took a bottle from the wine rack. He uncorked it, poured and drank a glass, then brought the glasses and bottle into the lounge.
Let’s have a really good night, he said, too loudly.
They drank the bottle and opened another. It was fun, it was ridiculous, they played stupid games, Evie flirted with them both, he and Richard conspired. She leant against their legs, against their chests. She dropped the shoulder of her gown and showed Richard a small new tattoo. It began soon after. It began almost unnoticeably, like a season, a regime. It was unreal and then it became serious. The protests – there were only a few from Richard, of, we should stop now, come on guys, this is madness – were overridden. Evie reassured him. He reassured him. Once she was unveiled, once Richard saw her, allowed her to take his hand and place it, once he began to believe there was nothing prohibitive, even in himself, that there was just love, everything accelerated. The laughter died away. They were clumsy and aroused. Richard was surprisingly confident. There were no condoms; they knew each other. It went on for a few hours, each of them took turns. She always invited the other back in. He wanted to watch from the chair; he watched her being touched, grasped, opened, watched her responding. He began to understand: jealousy was only desire; it was wanting to do what he could see was being done to his wife. They went upstairs and fell asleep. Once he woke to see Richard going down on Evie. It was amazing to see, more sensual than anything he’d imagined. He reached over. He felt ill and elated. They were still drunk but there was clarity. They slept, woke. He remembered a moment, or he was in a moment, when Evie was bent over in front of him; he was moving behind her, Richard was kneeling in front and she had him in her mouth. The two of them were joined by Evie’s body. They were facing each other. It would be all right afterwards.
He slept again. The next time he woke it was because Richard was calling his name and hitting him on the shoulder. White dawn light. His head was splitting, his mouth tasted evilly bitter.
Alex!
He looked over. Evie was lying on her front on the bed, her legs apart, jerking. She was making long, low sounds, bellows, almost cowlike.
She just started going, Richard said. I don’t know why. I was on top of her. Help me turn her over.
He moved to Richard’s side and the two of them rolled her. There was foam across her face and in her hair, the smell of bile and alcohol. He tried to keep her head still but her neck muscles were snapping up and down. Her eyes were white in her skull, her jaw clamped, the spit oozing out.
What the fuck. Evie! Evie! Call an ambulance. Should we drive her?
No. I’ll call.
Richard leapt up and went downstairs. The convulsions were so strong it felt as if her spine would break. Then they began to ease. Richard came back in. He had trousers on. His face was ghastly.
They’re coming. Christ, what the fuck is the matter with her. What kind of fucking depraved game is this?
*
A junior doctor asked him questions in the family room of A & E. About the fit. About whether she’d had headaches lately, or vomiting, vision or memory loss – he did not think so, he said. And her behaviour: had there been any changes? In what way? Had he been concerned?
They had ruled out stroke, toxicity. She was sent for a CT scan. The junior was evasive, professional, but the scan was not a good sign, he knew. Richard had followed the ambulance in a taxi, had sat with him on the hard plastic chairs while they’d sedated her and run tests, had fetched coffee. But they did not talk. I didn’t know, he wanted to say, though no blame had been directed. The silence was blame. The repeated enquiries about his wife’s state that he’d been fielding from his friend for the last few weeks were blame. There was no point in them both waiting. He promised to call Richard with any news.
A consultant came and found him in the family room. The scan had shown an area of the brain that appeared abnormal, in the prefrontal cortex. They didn’t know yet what it meant. But the appearance was suspicious.
Do you mean a tumour?
We need to investigate.
The same questions were asked, more focused, the chronology of her cravings, her confusion, her promiscuity, the man nodding at the answers, as if already confirming a diagnosis. When they let him see Evie she was asleep. He found her hand under the sheet. She didn’t wake. In the light of the small overhead lamp she looked normal, unextraordinary.
Everything after was the penalty for some unknown crime. The MRI pictures. The whitened shape. She was lucky and unlucky, they said. The mass, though probably benign, was big. He couldn’t remember the word after the meeting and had to look it up. Meningioma. It was not in the important tissues – he did not really understand what could be unimportant inside the brain – but pressure was swelling the surrounding area, interfering with her functions, her cognition, her self. Over the next few weeks she had more fits. The second broke her wrist. She choked on her vomit and infected a lung.
She was given drugs to control the seizures. They began radiotherapy. The operation was scheduled. He could barely stand to think about the procedure – the position was difficult, she was ineligible for Gamma Knife or endonasal surgery, she needed a craniotomy. He looked online. The pictures were medieval. Rent-open heads. Pinned-back scalp. Lilac membranes and manes, so horribly wet and delicate. In one video a surgeon described the sound of cracking the skull, like opening a can of Coke. They would try to keep the incisions behind her hairline, but plastics might be required. The risks were extensive; leaks, aneurysms, coma.
She still wanted sex. She still strung wrong words together, talked like a charismatic, her mind slipped and was instinctive. But she knew what it was now. She was self-conscious, and fought for rationality; she contained it. When they were in the act she would claw away and start to howl and they would stop.
This isn’t me, she’d say. I don’t know if it’s me.
She was not afraid. She knew she would live. Recovery would be tough, unpredictable, relearning; she might not be or feel exactly like the same person, ever again, but she would live. He didn’t know if it was her, believing, or the lambency, the mania of the illness. It was an illness now. It had a name.
They had told Richard soon after the final diagnosis, convincing him to come over for dinner, saying that the meeting was vital, not a set-up. He had wept. Evie looked at him, expressionless, and left the room.
Jesus Christ, Alex.
She’ll be okay, he said. She’s tough.
Richard shook his head.
Do you not understand. What don’t you understand.
They sat without speaking, sipping their drinks, until the evening dissolved.
Richard phoned the morning of the surgery but did not come to the hospital. He phoned regularly but did not visit. The decision to withdraw was obvious, even gracious. It was difficult, but he didn’t mind. He
was glad that it wasn’t completely broken off. On the phone they talked about things of no consequence. Work, weather, the past. They never talked about that night, though he thought of it, often, more often than he should.
THE DAYS AFTER LOVE
Yiyun Li
Imbody, Lilia said, spelling for the two children. Patience was not her virtue, but if she had enough to live to her age, there was no reason she could not spare some for the third-graders. Or were they in second grade? It didn’t matter. She would long be dead before they’d grow up into anything remotely interesting. ‘Make sure it starts with an I,’ she said. Lilia, née Church, had kept her second husband’s last name because it was too precious to give up for Milt Harrison, whom Lilia had married only because she had not felt ready for a permanent widowhood. ‘A gentle giant’ was what Milt’s children had put in his obituary, and after that, Lilia had given her life some thought, and decided that three marriages were an adequate record – not everyone could be Elizabeth Taylor. ‘Mrs Imbody,’ Lilia said now. ‘Not Mrs Embody.’
The boy checked his notes before raising his face, the black and white of his eyes in shocking contrast. One only saw droopy lids and fogged-up eyes these days. ‘Mrs Embody, would you like to go by your first name or last name for this interview?’
This was one of the days when she could benefit from playing truant from this life. Coffee lukewarm in the morning; Phyllis Nielsen taking a seat next to Lilia (uninvited) and talking in a circle about what to buy for her granddaughter’s birthday (who cares); Elaine Moniz demanding everyone’s participation in the school project – the head teacher was her niece, Elaine had gone from table to table with the announcement, her two loyal followers trailing behind her (as always one could hear their ‘double double toil and trouble’); and now a child who seemed to be on the verge of tears under Lilia’s stare. ‘Call me Mrs Imbody,’ she said.