That night, Helen tied and blindfolded Peter and then we both . . . played with him. My memory of it is so clear. Time slowed down. I tried not to look at Helen. I was at such a high level of awareness that reality was too vivid to be anything but a dream. Peter surrendered himself to us. We took him in turns, never speaking, always preserving the convention that it COULD have been just the two of them in the room. But we all knew. And we all wanted it.
My orgasm was like a return to sanity. It sounds an extravagant claim, but it healed me. I felt, for the first time in a very long time, happy.
I moved in with Helen and Peter after that. I had my own room. There was no more sharing. But there was love and support and a space to learn to be me again.
Things might have been fine if the walls had been thicker, or if Helen had been less noisy when she came, or if Peter had not been just a little in love with me. I lay there at night and listened to them having sex. I could tell they were trying to be quiet, but there would always be that last moment in which Helen lost control. I would close my eyes and try to remember Peter being inside me. I would try to come when Helen came.
After a while we all started to become less comfortable with each other in the mornings. We took care to dress before coming down for breakfast. I tried not to watch Peter’s every move. I tried not to yearn for him. I failed.
Later Peter told me that he couldn’t get me out of his head. He said the blindfold had meant that he was never sure when it was me and when it was Helen he was with. He felt like he should have been able to tell. He felt like he wanted to experience the difference.
One evening, Helen went to fix us some drinks. While she was out of the room Peter and I accidentally looked into each other’s eyes. We’d each being trying to sneak a quick look at the other. We were still looking at each other when Helen came back. We broke contact guiltily. Helen just stood there. No one spoke.
I wanted to leave or to apologize. I felt as if she had walked in on us fucking.
Helen handed us both a drink. Then she said “It’s OK. Really. I’ll sleep in the other room tonight.”
Peter started to rise from his chair to protest. Helen stopped him with a glance that I couldn’t read but which brought him to a complete halt. Then she was gone. She took my room.
I was standing too now, staring at the closed door between Helen and us.
Peter and I turned toward each other. I was uncertain. I wanted Peter. Really wanted him. He was so close and so alive that I thought sparks might jump the small gap between us.
I reached up and stroked the side of his face. He was very still. I kissed him.
It was as I had imagined it. Soft lips. Warm. Accepting. Except that it felt wrong. It felt like betrayal.
Peter didn’t kiss me back but he didn’t resist. I know that if I had continued he would have let me. To please me. To please Helen. But I stopped.
Still we didn’t speak. I took Peter by the hand and led him, quietly, into my room. Helen was curled up in a ball facing the wall. She didn’t hear us come in. I said her name. She turned and looked at both of us. There were tears in her eyes. I held Peter’s hand out to her. She jumped up off the bed and hugged him. When I left, they were kissing fiercely, as if they were sucking in oxygen after almost drowning. I went for a drive. They were in their room when I came back and everything was quiet.
The next morning I declared my intent to look for a job. Here I am, five weeks later, ready to move to one.
“B. Are you in there B? Come out, come out wherever you are.” It is Mark’s voice calling from the garden. He sounds drunk. I rush out. The last time he and Peter met there was trouble. I expect to see Peter dragging Mark away, but it is Helen, little Helen, who is blocking Mark’s path.
“B. Please B.”
I put my hand on Helen’s shoulder and she lets me step in front of her. She continues to glare at Mark.
“B. I’m drunk. I’m sorry I’m drunk but I’ve got something important to say to you.”
Mark looks ill. His clothes are dirty and his complexion is pale. I wonder how long he has been drunk this time.
He staggers toward me, reaching for me. I stay still and he stops short.
“I know you’re going away. The lawyer told me. I want to tell you . . . to say . . . to let you know that I love you B. I’ve always loved you.”
He was crying now. He looked lost. I assumed his nympho intern had left him. He looks like he wants me to take him in my arms as I have so many times before.
Everybody at the party is looking at us. I step forward so that I can speak directly into Mark’s ear. His arms fold about me as I say, “I know you love me, Mark. I love you. But it will never be enough will it?”
His face turns toward me. He seems suddenly sober. I wait for the tantrum or the insult. Instead, he says quietly, “Good luck in your new job, B.” and walks, a little too precisely, toward his car. Helen sends Peter after him to drive him home.
The party doesn’t last long. Mark has taken the edge off it. By the time Peter gets back people are already leaving. It’s getting dark earlier already. Summer is over and Fall, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” is here.
The last of the guests leaves just before sunset. I stand and watch the slow ignition of the sky. Peter and Helen come and stand on either side of me. I take their hands.
I don’t know who Barbara will become in Chicago. I hope Barbara the Bold, ready to make her own future. But right here and right now, she feels like Barbara the Blessed.
4. Hallowe’en
“You can’t do this to me, Anthea.”
Mark is more pathetic than fierce. The smell of alcohol preceded him into my office. He looks slightly jaundiced. His cheeks and chin sport small islands of stubble that managed to evade his razor this morning. I’m surprised he can keep his hand steady enough to shave.
“I’m not doing it to you, Mark,” I say. “You’re doing it to yourself. You’ve lost it. Look at yourself. How long can you last between drinks now, Mark? An hour? Two if you really try? I’m giving you a simple choice: either dry out or ship out.”
For a moment I think he’s going to tell me to fuck off. I almost wish he would.
When we first met, before his long-suffering wife finally left him, he was a maverick. He always had a comeback ready. I liked him. He reminded me of Davey, my younger brother. Or at least how Davey would have been if he hadn’t wrapped himself around a tree riding that motorcycle of his.
I’ve never found it easy to talk to men. Somehow it always turned into a conflict: the strong ones saw me as a challenge, someone to put down either by bedding or ridiculing; the weak ones were afraid of me and their fear made me despise them and despise myself for feeling that way. I built a shell around myself. I out-manned them; being tougher than the strong and ruthlessly removing the weak.
I thought Mark was the exception, that for once I could drop the macho crap and make a friend. I liked the way he smiled and he was easy to talk to. Then, one evening, when we were working late, Mark pushed his fingers between my legs. I wanted to kill him. I felt betrayed. Stupid really, he wasn’t to know that he reminded me of my dead brother.
Mark works for me now. I should probably have fired him, but I always hoped that he’d pull himself together and be the guy I wanted him to be. Now he’s sitting on the other side of my desk with nothing to say. Oh shit. He’s crying. Not big sobs. More like his eyes are leaking.
Part of me wants to hug him and help him, but most of me just wants to slap him. How could he fuck up his life like this?
Of course I can’t do either of these things. I’m the boss, Anthea the Hun they call me: strong, logical, unemotional.
I look at my watch. Mark is my last chore before I head home. It’s Hallowe’en tonight and I have things to prepare. I let my eyes rest on the picture of Drazen and his daughter that I keep on my desk. The picture is supposed to remind me of home, give me a smile in the middle of the day; increasingly it just re
minds me that I spend too many hours at work and most of them are wasted on cleaning up the messes other people make. Time to clear up my last mess of the day.
“I’m going to leave these details with you, Mark. If you want to keep your job then I will get a phone call from the clinic on Monday saying that you’ve checked in. If you want to continue to drown yourself in booze, then just clear your desk and don’t come back. This is your last chance Mark. Choose wisely.”
Why do I always sound so pompous when I’m doing something unpleasant?
Even though it’s my office, I get up to leave. I want to be home. I want to be somewhere where I don’t have to be in charge and where I can let people love me. Mark starts to cry quietly as I leave. I pretend not to hear him and keep moving.
The express elevator, a perk of my executive status, is softly lit and lined with mirrors, presumably so that executives can maintain a positive image. I stand in the center of the elevator and stare at the infinite number of Antheas that head off in each direction. I don’t recognize them. I don’t want these uptight, asexual women to be me.
Perhaps it is the shock of seeing the wreck Mark has become, or perhaps it is the news I want to give to Drazen tonight, but I feel a strong need to change the images in the mirror. I reach up and release my hair, letting it fall around my shoulders. My hair is thick and soft, I love the feel of it against my face, the taste of it in my mouth. My hair is my freedom, my sexuality. Which is why I bind it so tightly at work, but why I refuse to have it cut.
I bend forward at the waist, letting my hair fall forward over my head. It is almost long enough to touch the floor. Then I flick myself upright, casting my hair behind me like a mane. The images in the mirror, with their legs apart, shoulders back, hair shining in the massaged light, seem more recognizable now. I wave to myself just as the deferential tone sounds to let me know that I have reached the ground.
I opt for a limo rather than taking the train. I tell myself that it’s because I’m late and I need to hurry home, but I know that what I want is the privacy.
In the car, I settle back against the leather seat and slip off my shoes. I will be home in less than an hour, but I need Drazen right now. The wireless earpiece of my cellphone (Anthea the Hun always has all the latest boy toys) is hidden beneath my hair. I say, “Drazen” and the speed dial starts.
“Anthea.” A statement, not a question. Drazen’s voice, soft and calm, slides into my ear and makes me shiver. In his mouth my name is “Ann-Tea-Ah” and immediately “the Hun” is left behind. I remain silent, waiting.
“So . . .” he says, “you can be overheard, but you want to play. Soon, I hope, you will be home, but then there will be other things before . . . I understand.”
I can hear him walking through the house. He will go to his studio. Soundproofed and secure. I recognize the noise the door lock makes as it snaps shut.
When he speaks again he is more relaxed. His voice is still soft but it has an energy to it suggesting the confident strength and controlled arousal of a predator stalking his prey.
“You are in a car. No, it is quiet enough to be a limo. I can hear your breathing, Anthea. Press your shoulders back against the leather seat. Keep your thighs together. Tight together. Squeeze. Close your eyes and remember how it feels when your thighs close against my beard, when my tongue dips into you. Remember the smell of your arousal, the soft drizzle of your juices onto my chin. Remember how hard it is for you to stay still, how much you want to move, to grind, to rock, to press, to drive yourself down upon my tongue until it impales you. Remember all of that but keep a calm expression on your face.”
I look forward at the rearview mirror. The driver’s eyes are on the road, but if he looks up he will see me.
It feels as though Drazen is behind me, breathing into my ear, as if it is him I am pressing into. I want to open my legs, just a little, slide a finger along my thigh, draw small circles on my mound.
“No touching, Anthea. Keep your legs closed and your mind open.”
I smile. I know he will be imagining me smiling.
“Stretch your legs. Feel the muscles at the back of your thighs tense. Keep them tense. Can you smell yourself yet? Do you think your driver can smell you? Not yet perhaps, but soon.”
My face flushes at the thought. I check the rearview again. The driver looks up, then looks away.
“You will feign sleep, Anthea. Let your beautiful head rest against the leather. Hold some of your hair across your mouth. Keep it in place. Remember how my thumb feels, pressing against your lower lip, my fingers resting on your cheek, how good it feels to dip your head forward and feel the thumb press into the roof of your mouth.”
I bite down on my hair as the first little contraction hits. Memory flares. The first time that he fucked me in a public place it started like that, a small dip of my head on his thumb, my face scarlet with embarrassment, my sex damp with need. It ended with me bent over the back of a park bench, Drazen behind me, pushing slowly and calmly into my ass, as if anal sex was a normal pursuit on a Sunday morning stroll in the park.
“Good girl, Anthea. Good girl.”
His voice is stroking me. Soothing me. I hear him unzip his fly and a small moan escapes from me.
“Shh, Anthea is sleeping. She cannot see how hard I am at the thought of her, cannot smell the musk of that arousal.”
I love the smell of him. The taste of him. The fascination of playing with his foreskin. The strong scent that rises when I roll back that soft skin.
“In her sleep Anthea will reach beneath her respectable executive jacket, open one button of her pressed and spotless white blouse, push aside the cup of the plain white cotton bra and let her breast rest in the palm of her hand.”
Slowly, shifting to one side as if in sleep, I let my hand slide onto my breast.
My nipples are so sensitive that I can hardly bare to have them touched. Before Drazen, my lovers had always been too rough: pinching and biting when they should have been caressing. I had begun to think that I was a freak with hair-trigger nipples that would be constantly off limits.
Drazen, with his pianist’s hands, showed me how wrong I was. He would stand behind me, his mouth on my neck, my breasts cupped gently in his hands, just the underside of them resting against his skin, lifted slightly but with no pressure. Then his thumbs, light as butterflies, would graze the tip of the nipples, coaxing them, letting them rise, working them until they throbbed, finally pushing them back firmly into my breasts and biting down on my neck until I was wriggling with pleasure.
“Anthea is dreaming. In her dream my cock slides, slick and stiff, out of her mouth. She guides it to her breasts. Uses it to draw a wet circle around her nipple. Laughs when I flinch with the extremity of the sensation. Rubs the underside of the gland over the stubby arousal of her nipple, then squeezes the head of my cock until the slit opens. She looks up at me, her eyes on mine as she pushes her nipple into the slit, fucking me and fucking me and fucking me.”
Drazen’s voice has a ragged edge now. He will be touching himself. His eyes will be closed as he remembers how I took him that night. The first time I really took the initiative.
“Stroke the nipple, Anthea. Slow strokes. Persistent strokes. Suck on the hair in your mouth. Squeeze your thighs. Sweat for me inside your executive suit in your oversized limo. Come for me. Come hard. Come silently. Come for me, Anthea.”
And I do. Not at once. Not on command. It takes maybe a minute of silent struggle. I can hear him breathing hard into my ear, listening to me, sniffing at me through the phone line. The come is a sunburst of warmth spreading up from my stomach, exorcising the tension of the day.
“Good girl, Anthea. Very good girl. Now come home to me.
The line goes dead in my ear.
I open my eyes and sit up straight. The driver’s eyes flick away a little too quickly when I look into the rearview. I realize that I am smiling. “Ann-Tea-Ah” smiles a lot.
I open the window, even
though the day is cold. I don’t want my smell to stay in the car.
I am nearly home now. We’ve left the freeway behind and are driving slowly through tree-lined streets. I can see jack o’ lanterns on porches. They are all grinning at me. I grin back.
Drazen was my New Year’s resolution. It was part of project APT GAL (Anthea’s Plan To Get A Life) that I dreamed up when I found myself alone in my house on New Year’s Eve. If I’d been sober when I put the plan together, I’m fairly sure that step one would not have read “Take piano lessons”. Nothing might have come of it except for the card I saw the next day on the notice board at the convenience store. It read “Drazen Bebic: Piano Teacher”.
For some reason, “Piano Teacher” had summoned up an image of a kindly old man wearing spectacles and an old brown cardigan and speaking with a Professor Von Duck accent. Drazen was nothing like that. First there was his hair: thick, jet black, and brushed straight back so that it seemed to cascade to his shoulders. Then there was his beard, short, precise, somehow emphasizing the sensual softness of his lips. But most of all there were his eyes, dark but filled with light, and hard to look away from.
He was at least fifteen years older than me and I’d only just laid eyes on him but, by the time he stepped forward and shook my hand, my palm was already damp. When he touched me, my nipples hardened. No one had ever had that effect on me before. Then he said my name, “Ann-Tea-Ah” and I understood what gives cats the urge to purr.
He sat me down in front of the huge piano that dominated his tiny apartment. I felt like Jane Eyre, asked to play for Mr Rochester, and knowing that every note would diminish her in his eyes. Yet I’d been good at the piano once, back before work spread itself across my life like a gorse bush, leaving room for nothing else, so when, standing so close behind me that I could smell his cologne, he said, “I would like to hear you, Anthea.” I started to play.
He listened and watched. There was nothing flirtatious, but I had his complete attention. I played quite well once I got started. Enough to demonstrate some technique at least. He didn’t tell me to stop, so I played every piece I knew. When I finished I wondered why I’d ever given up playing. I was good and this was fun.
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