She didn’t stop me or even say anything. I went into the bathroom, closed the door behind me and locked it just to prove I could. I washed my face, searched out a toothbrush and brushed my teeth. These were things I hadn’t even attempted last night and so I was thorough about all of it. I considered taking a shower and realized my hesitation was fearing Ingrid wouldn’t wait for me. Needing to feel clean won out.
I emerged wrapped in towels. She still lounged on the bed, watched me cross the room and get my bag, watched me take out the clothes I’d packed. I looked at them, but didn’t want to put them on – a blouse and a skirt, garters and stockings. Another version of last night.
Ingrid said, “Over in the bureau there – my daughter’s things. Go on.”
I did what she suggested, and began rummaging through their girl’s things. I found jeans in her bottom drawer, an old soft button-down in her closet, probably her father’s castoff. Even her shoes fit. I tried not to think about how many ways we might resemble each other or what it might mean.
Ingrid watched me dress before she got up to leave. At the door, she told me she’d be downstairs in a little while and would I wait for her there?
I nodded and then listened to her footsteps, listened until I heard a door open and close and then listened some more to be sure before I sneaked down the back way. I took this route because I wanted to stay away from the living room. I wandered everywhere else you could go and still stay indoors. Covered the kitchen, the dining room, the little bar where I’d gotten last night’s vodka.
At last I found a quiet room off the marble hall. If I left the door open, I could see the stairway and so I picked this place to wait. I opened the double doors to a terrace and then settled into a love seat – a comfortable one, not one for show.
I decided this was Ingrid’s room, one her husband never bothered with. I was lost in this thought when I heard her on the stairs and then saw her.
She looked happier dressed this way – pants and a turtleneck sweater, her hair gathered loosely, her face a little easier without makeup.
I guess she probably thought the same things about me because she sort of smiled and held out her hand. I took it and floated to my feet, became caught up in her motion as she swept us out the door, took us outside.
We meandered over to the pool. “It’s getting late in the year for this,” she said, kneeling to scoop out some leaves. “I should call the man and have it drained.”
I agreed with her but was wondering what I’d watch from the bedroom window if this was done.
We walked the rest of the grounds, through a withered garden and a little orchard of some kind. She talked about things she needed to do, about getting screens taken off and storm windows put on. She talked about where in the cellar to store things.
I stayed game for this, volunteered what I could about windows, and storage, and methods of leaf removal. Things I didn’t know much about but that had occupied my parents at times, my mother, and so I could at least talk some of it, knew the words to use.
We went inside after a little more of this. She fed me in the kitchen. I sat at the counter eating eggs while she made some phone calls and then a shopping list. And then we were on our way to the supermarket, and then home again, and I was carrying the grocery bags for her.
By early afternoon we’d finished with these things. She made us large drinks and we sat by the pool in two big wooden lounge chairs, the only furniture still left out there.
We covered ourselves with afghans and just sat there drinking until she gauged it was time to go inside again. This was about two drinks later and so I followed her lead on wobbly legs. Had to hold the bannister all the way up the stairs.
We separated at her bedroom door – her going in, me going back to the daughter’s room. There I put on my own clothes, did my hair, did the rest of it.
I was downstairs when he came home, sitting in the living room, sitting on that couch, which still had no table before it. As he opened the front door, I hitched up my skirt and opened my legs a little, lit a cigarette.
He stood in the hallway. Put his briefcase on the marble in a way that made a scraping sound. He fixed two drinks and I nearly reached for one but he took them upstairs. I heard voices, then other sounds. I waited while their noises grew louder, loud enough to send me back out to the pool.
Quiet out there. Wind and rustling, nothing human. I sat in one of the lounge chairs, cold without an afghan, cold anyway. Smoking, I pretended not to notice the shake in my hands, though before long I needed to go and get my own drink to stop it.
His briefcase still sat there in the hall. I watched it on my way to the bar. And I watched it when I walked to the little sitting room I’d pretended belonged to Ingrid. By now I could pretty much see nothing here belonged to her.
The sounds had stopped and so I listened hard to try and get my bearings. I heard nothing. I waited a long time and still heard nothing. I’d finished my drink some time ago and so poured another one before going upstairs.
I took the back route. Made my way down the hall, turned the door handle silently when I came to my room. I didn’t turn on the light, not even in the bathroom. I lay my clothes on a chair and slipped into the bed.
First I heard the ice in his glass. The sound came from a corner by a bookshelf. It startled me even though I’d known he was there. I’d known while I roamed around downstairs. Known as soon as the sounds stopped. And so now I had the sense of having kept him waiting, of having done something wrong.
It’d been a while since I’d had a cigarette and so I took the pack from the bedside table. There wasn’t a light anywhere nearby so I waited for him. He came across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Lit my cigarette with a match and then kept the match burning, held it close to my cheek.
I tried just to smoke as if he wasn’t doing this. It didn’t hurt. It more felt awkward – the heat from it and him so close and still. And him staying that way until the match snuffed itself out between his fingers.
He put the shriveled remnant on the nightstand. I wanted to look at the pool but couldn’t see it from this room and then, too, moving at all seemed like a very bad idea.
He didn’t do anything but sit there and I didn’t either. My cigarette had burned down and there was nowhere to put the ashes. I let them fall in the bed like I didn’t notice. He finally took the still-lit nub from me and this scared me, but he just put it on the table next to what was left of the match. Not laying it on its side but upending it.
After this he got up, took his drink from the bedside table and left. I felt someway cheated. Like now I’d have to spend the night sleeping badly, wondering whether he’d be back, what else he’d want.
I searched for my drink, finally finding it on the bathroom sink. I drained it without thinking how I’d get more, what that would involve or invite. I wasn’t up to foraging downstairs and so I tried to convince myself that this one would be enough to put me to sleep.
Five
He didn’t come back, and the next morning Ingrid came in with the same tray. I drank the coffee she fixed me, knowing I couldn’t spend another day with her running errands and talking about the screens and the pool, another day with her expecting me to play her daughter.
She looked like maybe she couldn’t either. This morning she sat a little apart from me, concentrated on drinking her coffee and had trouble looking my way.
I put down my cup when I’d finished. Then I took her hand, the one next to me, which was empty. Her other hand was still holding her cup. It shook a little, sort of trembled and so did her lips. The next sip she took, she spilled some coffee on to her nightgown.
I pretended not to see this and I think she really didn’t notice. I began to worry what he’d done to her, but at the same time I knew it wasn’t anything so very different. What it was, was her running out of ways to let herself take it. Running out of ways to make it her own, make it something she wanted.
Maybe. Or maybe this
was only happening inside me and I wished it on her because together we might make something from feeling these things.
When she put down her cup, I kept hold of her hand. I kissed the crook of her elbow, licked the hollow there. She tensed, not just her arm, but her whole body. And because of this I got on top of her.
I pulled her down under me. Held her face in my hands and looked at her until I couldn’t anymore. I began kissing her for an excuse to close my eyes.
From there it got easier. I pulled her nightgown up a little and then took it off her entirely. Once I’d done that I felt her sink into the bed more. She opened her legs and then put her hand between my legs, began to play me in such a way I rolled off her, lay on my back and just let her.
She kissed my stomach and worked her hand and that was all of it. All she did, and when I came it seemed like something I hadn’t done in a very long time. She kept at me afterwards, kept teasing me until I took her wrist, pressed it into the bed and then rolled back on to her, leaned all my weight into her.
I caught where I was headed and turned gentler. She liked this at first. Wanted me kissing her neck, wanted me stroking her the way she’d stroked me. So I kept at this. Slow and soft. Ignored the way she began moving her hips, the way she’d opened her legs. Ignored it until she wouldn’t let me anymore and was asking.
When I fucked her, I started out that same kind of slow and easy but she was asking for it hard. And then it wasn’t so long before she pulled away from me.
I let my hand come out, let her turn over. I knew what she wanted me to do. And knew I’d be no good to her if I couldn’t manage it. I started playing with her ass. I could tell she was impatient. I tried to pretend, at least to myself, that I had a reason for this. Did it to up the ante. But the change in pace made this unconvincing, and made her anxious.
I could feel the roughness of the burn where it’d healed over, felt her tense as I touched it. I couldn’t be so cruel as to make her ask and so I just did it. Did it as bluntly as she wanted. Did it until she was crying and pulling my other hand under her, but insisting I keep fucking her.
Finally when she’d had enough, when she’d come, she pulled away from me. She drew herself up into the corner of the bed, curled up and unapproachable. So much so I wondered whether I should leave the room. And then I nearly did, but felt too guilty to, until she demanded it.
I pulled on the jeans and shirt I’d worn yesterday and then got out of there. I took the main stairs and then went through the living room, out to the pool. I sat in the chair that was becoming home and tried to find reasons for what I was feeling.
I hated how clear-headed I was, how sober. I would’ve made for a drink except it would’ve meant going inside – something I’d decided I wouldn’t do until she asked for me.
I wanted to leave her completely alone. I knew I’d indulged myself, and not her, by lingering. By making her kick me out while pretending she’d need me or want me.
I understood what had happened between us. Or to her. I knew it, though I couldn’t explain it, or maybe just wouldn’t, not even to myself. I knew it from her side, hated how helpless and feeble I’d become. I could only imagine she felt contempt for me because that’s what I felt for myself.
It took me this long to notice how cold I was, and then longer to see there was nothing anywhere out here that’d help. I hugged myself, rubbed my hands over my shoulders until I could imagine this warmed me. I got lost really, just in how my own hands soothed me. Soon I closed my eyes and soon after I let go of myself and tried to ignore it when I began shaking again.
She finally did come outside and sit with me. She wore a big sweater that looked like the kind someone knits for you. She noticed my shivering and held out her arms and so I clambered into her chair with her, let her wrap us up together and I think then I slept or did something close to it. I don’t know what she did or how long this lasted.
That night worked differently. Because of us really, her and me. We’d gone from the chair by the pool to her bed. I hadn’t been in there since that one night. We’d moved inside because we were cold and cramped. We’d gone upstairs to be comfortable, gone to her room because it was closest. This was the kind of day we were having. Nothing registered except wanting comfort.
We lay on the bed. On top of it, with our clothes on, her in that sweater still. We pulled a quilt over us because it seemed we couldn’t get warm enough and then we drifted some more. Drifted somewhere else, or maybe back to the same place, I don’t know.
It seemed he never came home. That’s how it seemed at first. Then she noticed cufflinks right there on the table beside us. And I saw the suit coat draped on a chair and a tie neatly folded over it. Then I guess we drifted off again because we never did see him, just saw his things.
This started something ticking in me. Started me wondering and I could tell she was wondering too but it was too soon to say anything. I think we were afraid of ourselves. Afraid of what we’d accomplished by accident. What we’d managed out of fatigue and soreness.
For this reason we worked the next day differently. We kept away from each other. She took the car off somewhere. Completely alone for the first time in days I’d stopped counting, I weighed leaving altogether. I could’ve left in the sense I was able to. No one would stop me. But that was because no one needed to.
I pretended to consider it – as if to prove to myself I could. That staying was a choice I was making for money. Money I had yet to see. In truth, leaving had become inconceivable. And, worse, I couldn’t tell for sure which one of them held me.
When she came home, late in the afternoon, both of us dressed for him. Me in another version of the same thing, her in another negligee.
I was ready before she was so I stood in the doorway of her bedroom and watched her. Then we went downstairs to wait. Sat on the couch in the living room – me smoking and drinking, her just drinking.
He was late. We both noticed and it made us jumpy and hopeful. We were giddy, nearly, by the time we heard his car on the gravel, and then his key, and the door, his briefcase on the marble.
He fixed himself a drink and sat across from us. “What have the two of you been up to?” he asked. These might have been the first words I’d heard out loud all day. I searched my brain trying to remember whether Ingrid had said anything today, or even yesterday. Whether I had.
“We’ve been idle,” she said, and her voice scared me like I was losing her and me both to her words.
“Is that true?” he said to me.
“I suppose so.”
I said this not quite sure I was speaking, not sure what he wanted to hear.
“That’s good then,” he said. “You’re rested.”
I tried to figure what this meant. Whether we’d made some kind of mistake. I’d forgotten for a minute that what we said didn’t matter.
He said, “Here, Ingrid. Fix me another.”
She went and took his glass, crossed the room to the bar. He got up himself and sat beside me. He said, “I have something special, something just for you.” He put his arm around my shoulders. With his other hand he dropped a pill into my mouth. And then he began stroking my throat like you would an animal. I tipped my head back into the crook of his arm. Heard him whisper to me that I’d like it.
At first, I felt nothing at all, but soon I’d slumped against him. I could barely see Ingrid coming back with his drink, then felt her sit down on the other side of me. I closed my eyes, though this seemed foolish. His hand had gone from my throat to my chest. He opened buttons, began undressing me. I felt her hands in this, too, until I had nothing on.
In my mind I kept struggling, not against them but to figure out what he’d given me. I couldn’t imagine what had knocked me so far and done it so fast.
He carried me upstairs but Ingrid didn’t come with us. I hadn’t heard him tell her to stay. It seemed she just knew to.
When he put me down on their bed I reached for the bedspread. I wanted to cover m
yself with it. I felt cold and less groggy because of this. He smacked me hard enough that I lay still, then he took off his belt, doubled it over and hit me a few times. Across the face mostly, and my breasts, but with the drug it felt like an afterthought.
He looped it around my neck and cinched it through the buckle, tied my hands together with the end. Pretty soon after that I woke up for real. The goddamn drug wasn’t there anymore and I had him on my chest and taking his dick out. He rubbed it against my cheek until it was hard. Then he slid down me.
“You’re going to like this,” he said. Said it like he knew everything about me better than I did. His hands were between my legs opening me up and then putting his dick in. He fucked me slow at first like to make sure where I was, to make sure I was feeling things.
I paid attention to my arms. With my hands tied that way I could only move them so much before I choked myself. I had to keep them over my head but bent in a way that started to ache very quickly.
He could see how hard I had to work at this – was all over his face. That slight smile I’d come to expect. He had his arms on either side of me. They took his weight so he could hold himself over me. I wanted anything but him watching me so close; felt this pull to close my eyes but as soon as I did he took hold of my arms. Pushed them until I was strangling myself. Or he was.
This meant I couldn’t scream but then I don’t think I tried to. I think maybe I cried, though I’m not sure of it. I know what he did lasted a long time. That he fucked me a long time before he pulled out. That he was still hard when he went back to sitting on my chest and telling me to open my mouth. Smacking me when I didn’t, but not very hard because he didn’t need to.
I didn’t do so well at sucking him. His belt still choked me and his dick did too – made him impossible to swallow. He seemed to like that, though. That seemed to be the point because he let himself come until I was choking all over myself.
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