I’d behaved this way from the very first day. Not the sitting in my car part, but the rest of it. Now that I was out I didn’t know how to be with her. I felt embarrassed about the way it had been between us. The way we’d been before. And I thought maybe she did too because we were both like that – shy of each other and cautious. Neither one knowing where to start and, for me, this was made worse by feeling there was nothing to say. So I stumbled around to keep from talking.
I guess that’s how the small talk had begun. That very first day with her asking about my first day at work, and those first days always the same. Going by in a blur and leaving you shaky and faltering. Making you feel like maybe you should go back to the thing you’re good at. Making me feel that way. That pull already there and somehow surprising me.
If she knew this too she didn’t say so. But once I’d got myself sitting down and we’d finished with the weather and the rest of that kind of thing she said, “So how did it start for you?”
If it hadn’t taken me so long to get into that chair I would’ve gotten back up because this is what they all ask. The ones buying it. Sooner or later they do. If you’re young anyway. And while she phrased it different, I wasn’t sure she meant it any different so I teased her along. I said, “How did what start?”
I said this mostly because I wanted to hear how she’d put it. What she’d call it. But she didn’t say anything, which was probably smart.
Her not talking meant neither of us said anything for a while. And just when I thought I wouldn’t be talking to her ever again I began telling her. And I began hating her some because I knew I wanted to tell her. I don’t mean I wanted to tell someone and she happened to be there and asking. What I mean is I wanted her to be the one I told it all to.
But I didn’t think she wanted to be listening. I could see in her eyes how she felt. And it wasn’t what I expected. Not that I could have said what that had been, just that I didn’t think it’d be standard. She looked like she might cry or like she was angry. She looked a lot like she had the day Ingrid came to see me.
I stood up to go because this seemed over. But when I started for the door, she got up quickly and held on to me. It was the same thing we’d done all along. But this time it felt different. Being here felt different. I let her hang on for a while. And I held her, too, because, near as I could tell, it seemed to be what she needed. And because doing this reminded me we weren’t new to each other.
She sort of pressed into me and nothing was terribly plain about it – the same way I couldn’t pin down what I did to her, or could let it go by if I wanted. I could tell you I put my hands on her ass only because it made it easier to keep my balance. I could almost offer this explanation and believe it myself while still knowing the other. But then having two things going on at the same time is not something I question. It’s just something I do. Something we all do. Everyone does. All the time.
Beth wasn’t much shorter than me but I always felt huge around her. My hands large and marauding and her small underneath them. I didn’t pay so much attention to her hands. Not at first I didn’t. But then she put one on my back pretty low. The other one, she kept moving it around on my neck. Not her whole hand, just the heel of her palm. And then she’d tucked her fingers inside my collar, stroking soft there until my knees started to bend.
I don’t know which of us broke away first. I remember her asking me to come back and sit down, and I did this. Sat there all gangly and loose and trying to make sense of the questions she asked. Being slow about this, what with not having any blood in my brain.
She seemed okay, just nervous a little. She said, “What made you try to run out?”
I had to stall because I didn’t remember. Not right off, so I said, “What, was I running?”
“You seemed in a hurry.”
There was this little catch in her voice that would give me a way in if I took it. But at the same time it reminded me of what made me get up and so I left her alone. I couldn’t see telling her it’d been the way she acted, how she’d gone all hot in the face.
I stonewalled her. I said, “I don’t know. I guess I felt tired of telling you things.”
She seemed not at all satisfied with this but she let it go. “Do you still want to leave?”
I didn’t, of course, but that was all about wanting her touching my neck and not at all about talking. I supposed if talking would lead us back there, I’d do it. I said, “No, I don’t want to leave. Not anymore. It’s okay now.”
I’d forgotten what I’d been saying to her. It sure hadn’t taken long to tell her my first time, blowing that guy for the twenty. I remembered that much. Where we’d gotten to after that? I didn’t know.
She said it was Ingrid’s husband, my first time with him. She said I’d told her how he hadn’t seemed to come from the train but from somewhere behind me, that then I’d gotten up.
Now I told her he’d asked me was I looking for something. And that it had caught me off guard because that’s the kind of thing we usually say to them. Right there he’d flipped the game, right from the start.
“And you felt?”
“Interested,” I said, which was true, but I left out wary and guarded. And I left out afraid because it wasn’t the image I had of myself, especially not of myself working. It sure wasn’t something I ever wanted a client to see and I didn’t want her seeing me this way either. Already I found myself measuring her all the time, trying to find where she fit.
“Why interested?” she asked.
“Because he didn’t act like the others. He didn’t check his watch or look around. He didn’t act like he’d ever be explaining anything to anyone waiting at home.”
She didn’t say anything to this and so I went back to what happened, told her how he’d come right out with what he’d wanted. She asked me what that was and I had some trouble telling her. I had to keep myself from getting up again. Settled for shifting my legs around.
“What did he want?” she asked again and her voice was so soft I could almost say I hadn’t heard her but instead I said, “He wanted to fuck my ass.”
I didn’t look at her when I said it and she wasn’t looking at me. I knew this because when I did look at her she was lost out the window. And I could tell that was where she’d been for a while.
“You agreed?” she said, still looking out there and so now I could look at her.
“Uh huh,” I said, but I didn’t say anything more.
She said, “What happened?”
It was her voice, how gentle it was; this let me tell her. I said, “We got into his car – in the front seat. He told me to take off my underwear.
“I did what he said. Then I started to reach for him but he took my wrist. He said, ‘I don’t want you to do that.’
“He told me to lift up my skirt. He looked for a while, then he touched me and I sort of … See, I don’t usually, but they don’t usually. It was the way I started breathing and he knew, he said, ‘Come on.’
“He pulled me out after him; pushed me on to my stomach on the backseat. I was half on my knees and half lying down and it started out not so easy because I couldn’t give in.”
I stopped here because telling her was putting me back there and I needed something from her. She seemed maybe to know this because she met my eyes and the look in hers – I felt like I’d never been cared for this way.
I began talking again. But now my voice was broken and soft and not behaving. “It hurt,” was what I said. “It hurt a lot. That way it does at first if you can’t ease up. But then he said, ‘Come on, kiddo, we had a deal.’
“He put his hand under my belly and then lower and it got easier. Up until the end it did.”
I stopped again. I wanted Beth. She was still gazing at me that same way, and at first I liked it. At first I handled it, but then I had to look down.
When I did this she asked, “What happened at the end?” She had that same catch in her voice, only this time, what with where I was, it made me wary,
tempted me to play her. I looked at her for a little while.
“What happened at the end?” she said again. “What made it hard for you?”
And something about her, or me, or what I needed to say, made me shift, made me hard, but I still told her.
“He got me to come, okay? That was his thing. He’d get me to come and, I don’t know, always before he did. And then I’d be in that place of not feeling so good and he’d …”
“What happened that time?”
“He got me turned over. He got me turned over on my back. And he put his knee up between my legs and he got me to suck him. But he still didn’t come. And I hadn’t said I’d blow him and then he jerked himself off anyway. All in my face, in my hair, like before, like he always …”
“Like when?”
“That night with Ingrid.” And now I didn’t know how I’d gotten here from there, from where I’d been talking. I looked at Beth. I looked to her for help with the how of this. But seeing her convinced me I’d made some mistake. She’d stiffened to where I thought she’d get up but she didn’t and I didn’t either, though I felt this pull to, not to leave but to go to her.
We stayed dead here, neither of us saying anything more. It left me lodged between shame and anger – left me wanting something to hold that could hurt me.
She spoke first. She said, “What exactly went on with you and Ingrid?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and it was true. It’d been something I couldn’t explain to myself because I could never explain Ingrid or my importance to her. I couldn’t believe my importance to her, and it did keep changing. One day with her wanting me and another day not. One day her playing his wife in on the game and another pretending her ignorance of it.
And me, well it left me not a bit easier to see myself in this. And instead of lending compassion or understanding I found hatred. Stronger for her than for him. Him, I could dismiss. Or at least pretend to.
These were all things I thought but didn’t give voice to. I could hardly keep them sorted in my head. I feared terribly what might happen if I let them come out of my mouth. A sleepiness always attended this kind of thinking. An inability to press on with it, and instead a tremendous pull to give in, to give up. And to get up I suppose, too, because that’s in fact what I did, almost without realizing it.
It wasn’t the hurried run to the door like before but more a walking slumber and maybe for this reason Beth didn’t follow. I was in the waiting room, almost to the door before she caught up with me. We sat down on a couch there and I sank so easily into her. I rested. And I didn’t feel her arms or her hands but just felt her as one complete thing to lean on.
I don’t know how long the two of us stayed that way. Don’t know whether I actually slept or if I stayed in this place so nearby it. I do recall waking up, or something similar to that. She’d shifted her body and I started. Jumped up, only to find myself on my knees on the floor. I couldn’t have said what was happening. I remember claiming my leg had fallen asleep, “with the rest of me,” I think I said, trying to laugh about it.
She watched me from the couch, seeming dazed herself and uncomprehending. It was as if the emotions had been sucked from each of us and she looked pale from it. I didn’t know whether I should leave, just leave her there.
I got back on my feet. Tested myself by walking around. I didn’t know the time and there wasn’t a clock in easy view. I considered picking up the phone. Finding out that way because suddenly it seemed a very important thing to know. And while Beth wore a watch, I realized I wouldn’t believe what it said.
I let all this pass before I sat down with her. She’d regained herself. She said, “I think you better leave.” I didn’t question her. I simply did what she said.
On my way home, I drove past the train station. This wasn’t planned or unusual, it was simply the easiest way home, or the second easiest. The route I took most often and usually without too much notice. It was too late for commuters and, while I wanted to, I didn’t drive through the lot. And I didn’t think about wanting to. I didn’t dwell on it. Instead I saw it as something natural. Something bound to happen at one time or another.
Fourteen
I went to bed easily that night, what with being already asleep before I got there. Waking up, then, was the hard part. I guess Beth and I had had a late night if I thought back to it. I didn’t get home until sometime like midnight and here I was getting up again. All those hours asleep on her couch making me somehow less rested instead of more.
I went through the motions at work. And they seemed untroubled by this version, which was friendly if a little hazy. They didn’t know me any differently. By mid-afternoon I caught myself already watching the clock, already fidgety.
I took my afternoon break at the bar across the street. Just a quick shot to even me out from all the coffee I’d needed just to wake myself up. I was sure that must be the cause of my anxiousness. After work I stopped by the bar again. I had two drinks this time. And I didn’t stay for more because if I did I’d be late to her office.
I got there as I did yesterday, when everyone else was leaving. Sat pretending to read magazines and trying not to catch anyone’s eye. Trying especially not to catch her eye because she was standing there, too. Was saying goodbye to people. And I watched her the same way she seemed to be watching me – around the corners of things.
After they’d all cleared out, we went into her office, with her following me and closing the door. I did my walkabout thing while she sat down and began asking me stuff, same as yesterday, same as yesterday’s small talk.
I could feel her eyeing me and I kept from looking back at her. I did this for as long as I could because it seemed if I met her eyes I’d be embarrassed for standing and then I’d sit down before I was ready to. So I put my eyes to the things on her shelves, the books and small objects. Ran my fingers along some of them but didn’t really touch anything.
I did all this so intently it took me time to see she wasn’t saying much anymore, not asking me stuff. The silence made everything heavy, especially my limbs. I headed for the chair, following my legs as if they remembered the way by themselves and I was just watching.
Once I sat down she kept quiet for a time, finally saying, “You look tired.”
I didn’t say anything back, not right off. Instead I looked at her for the first time that day. She didn’t look tired and I wondered why not. I wondered why she should’ve gotten anymore rest than I did. I had to work to keep from turning this into something between us, something annoying to me.
“I’m okay,” I finally said.
“Your job’s all right?”
Here I sharpened because I remembered she’d asked about this already. “I just said so, didn’t I?” I didn’t say this meanly, just flat, nearly a question.
She said, “I didn’t know if you meant it.”
I looked away, trying to understand what about her was making me so mad. And I was trying to hide this anger while I tried to fathom it. I sank farther into the chair. My legs ached terribly. Even my hands hurt, and I tried to explain this as the demands of my job. That I wasn’t used to being on my feet all day. I tried to believe this but didn’t even come close.
This didn’t feel like that kind of tired – not something coming from within. This felt imposed from outside and pressing down, and so it made me want to struggle against it. But all the time I knew I’d lose. And I wanted to lose. Because though I was trying to tell myself it wasn’t true, the pull had something very sweet to it, something pretending safety.
I looked up at her, though this took some effort because my head had grown as burdensome as the rest of me. I had to shift myself down, let the back of the chair support it.
She said, “Do you want to tell me some more about Ingrid?”
I looked at her wondering if I had missed something, because feeling the way I did I might have. “Were we talking about her?” I asked.
“Yesterday,” Beth said.
>
I remembered nothing so I didn’t know where to begin. I got hung up because I didn’t want her to know I’d lost this ground. And I didn’t know how to cover myself. I sat there marooned and she kept at me.
“What was she to you?”
“Nothing,” I said in a way that made the opposite obvious. Still I kept on this line and said, “A client. She got him to buy me, okay? Is that what you want to know? How it worked?”
“I want to know what she meant.”
“I told you. Nothing.”
“That’s not how it looked the day she came to see you.”
“Oh, and how did that look?” I felt clearer getting hot at her, not so sleepy. For this reason I wanted to keep it going, to needle her some, so I said, “What was it made you run out?”
“I didn’t like watching it.”
She said this very quietly. And I saw her say it, though she wasn’t looking at me anymore.
I hadn’t expected her to admit even this much. Off base in this way, I felt myself loosening. And so when she held her hand out to me, I took it. Then we were standing and had our arms around each other. I wanted badly to kiss her. And this wanting and not being able seemed so familiar.
She’d tucked her head beneath mine and I could feel her cheek along my neck and her mouth on my shoulder, her hand pulling my collar away. Her dress was the kind that showed a lot of her shoulders and some of her back and I slid my hand underneath it. Believed this could seem accidental.
What she did was lean into me very lax and so I held her tighter. I felt myself going that same way – taut and slack all at once. This made it very hard to stay on my feet. With both of us so heavy there was this tremendous drag toward the floor. I wanted at least to be on my knees.
I staggered away from her and back into my chair. The door seemed where I should go, but just too far away. She stayed standing a while longer. She looked like she was trying hard to remember something, but then her face colored and she sat down. I found myself wondering about the night before. Wondering until it grew flimsier instead of more solid. And then I wondered how much anyone can know of the things they desire too much, these being the most frightening of all and sometimes with good reason.
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