Lost in His Eyes

by Andrew Neiderman

  ‘We all want more. Settling for enough seems too much like …’

  ‘Dying,’ I said.

  ‘I guess so. Sad, because no one is ever fully satisfied. The real curse of Original Sin was the creation of too much ambition. Disappointment leads to depression, and depression leads to trouble or finally embracing the exit.’

  ‘So you’ll never be happy either?’

  ‘I’ve made a wise decision. I’m satisfied with the pursuit of happiness and not the attainment of it,’ he replied. He looked at me. ‘I don’t think you can be.’

  ‘You think you know me well enough to come to that conclusion?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’d like to be wrong. Prove me wrong. Be happy.’

  ‘With or without you?’

  ‘Has to be without me. I’m not eternal. Besides, once you discover everything about me, warts and all, you’ll regret and that will lead to unhappiness again. Why do you have to replace everything? If your marriage isn’t working for you, maybe marriage itself doesn’t work for you, and therefore no new one will suffice.’

  ‘I thought you said we were going to avoid being serious,’ I snapped back, now angry at how well he knew me, saw inside me and unwrapped me.

  He put up his hands. ‘Sorry, sorry. You pushed me into it. Shall we continue the walk?’ he asked, standing.

  A little sullen now, I got up and walked faster, remaining a few steps ahead of him. He didn’t try to catch up. At one point when I looked back, I didn’t see him, but I didn’t panic, nor did I stop to wait for him. Either he was deliberately hiding from me to tease me or something off the trail had captured his interest. I walked on. In fact, I walked on even faster and completed the remainder of the circuit without looking back or pausing once for him to catch up to me. I stepped into the cabin and immediately went to take a hot shower.

  When I emerged, I put on the bathrobe hanging on the bathroom door and stepped back into the living room, expecting to see him. He wasn’t there. Shrugging to myself, I went into the kitchen and began to prepare our dinner. It had just begun to get dark outside when he returned. I had set the table.

  ‘You’ve been a busy little bee, I see,’ he said. I knew he was standing there, waiting for me to ask him where he had been and what he had been doing. Perhaps he expected me to voice some complaint, to emphasize that we didn’t come up here to be alone, but to be together. I didn’t say a word. When I was with him, I prided myself on doing and saying what was unexpected. I smiled instead and returned to the kitchen.

  He went to take a shower as well. When he came out, wearing his robe, I was sitting in the living room, sipping some of the red wine I had just opened. He looked at the fire I had started in the fireplace and then smiled. I watched him walk over to the fire and rub his hands in the heat. Then he turned to me.

  ‘You’re not leaving much for me to do,’ he said.

  ‘Feeling like a kept man or something?’

  ‘Something.’

  ‘I was once told that Europeans approach a fireplace first with their back to it. Is that true?’

  ‘I think it’s a mistake to stereotype people. You can miss out on someone quite wonderful.’

  ‘I read that line and I used it on my husband, but he didn’t understand how anyone could be quite wonderful.’

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘I didn’t pursue it,’ I replied.

  ‘Maybe you should have. Maybe you’re not giving him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘I don’t like to hear you defend him,’ I said. ‘It’s as if you’re trying to drive me away.’

  ‘Insecure? You?’

  ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.’

  ‘Quoting Walt Whitman. I’m impressed.’

  He poured himself some wine and sat on the settee. ‘Something smells very good.’

  ‘I prepared some chicken marsala.’

  ‘I thought you were a good cook from the moment I laid eyes on you in the supermarket.’

  ‘Aha! So you were watching me before I bumped into you?’

  ‘You caught my attention, yes.’

  ‘And maneuvered to be in my way in that aisle after all?’

  ‘As I have said, maybe I did.’

  ‘You did. What was it that told you I was vulnerable?’ I asked, now very interested in myself – more so than usual, in fact.

  ‘Little things, like the way you chose your groceries. You stabbed at boxes, flung vegetables and fruits into your cart, even looked like you were mumbling angrily to yourself as you went along. I thought, there’s a woman who is not comfortable in her own skin right now. Most of the women I see shopping, especially in supermarkets, seem pleased or to have accepted themselves where they are and what they’re doing. It’s like this is what their mothers had done or it was always their intention.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To accept being a mother and a housewife. They weren’t at war with themselves.’

  ‘And I am?’

  ‘Practically nuclear,’ he said. ‘That’s what I saw.’

  ‘And you prey on such women?’

  ‘Only those as beautiful as you,’ he replied. He sipped his wine and gave me that teasing smile.

  ‘You’re so pleased with yourself.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Are you the best thing that’s happened to me or the worst?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Why put any label on it at all? I’m what’s happened to you right now. Period.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll accept that. For now.’ I rose.

  ‘Need any help?’

  ‘The definition of a man,’ I said. ‘Asking when it’s all been done.’

  He laughed, his laughter trickling behind me like a spring over a rock.

  I brought out the food and we had our dinner. Like Ronnie, he raved about my cooking. There were moments when he even sounded like Ronnie. I don’t mean the words; I mean his voice became indistinguishable with its cadence and the way he complimented me on something. I knew he was being sincere, but it still sounded rehearsed, expected.

  It suddenly occurred to me that this escape to a mountain cabin might, ironically, damage our passionate romance. It was one thing to come up here and take a romantic walk in the woods enjoying nature, but another to permit it to take on some domestic qualities. Domesticity stifled spontaneity. There were responsibilities, roles to play. There I was, clearing the table and cleaning up the kitchen. Unlike Ronnie, he offered to help, but I didn’t want us to become a cute little couple doing the most mundane things together.

  I wanted us to remain characters in an exciting, heart-pounding, passionate romance movie or novel. Domesticity strips away mystery. I didn’t want to know or to learn his eccentricities, nor did I want him to learn all mine either. I wasn’t interested in how he usually went to bed or usually rose in the morning. I didn’t want to watch him brush his teeth or tell me how important this food or that was to his nutritional health. I didn’t want to know his opinion about any of that or have him suggest things I could do to enhance my health, the way husbands and wives advise each other. I didn’t want to hear the latest news about coffee or vitamins, and I certainly didn’t want to discuss politics. I didn’t even want to discuss the latest bestselling books. I wasn’t looking for a husband. I wasn’t even looking for a companion. I wanted only a lover.

  And a lover to me meant not doing things that had to be done. I didn’t want to look at clocks and follow schedules. The day and the night had to flow into each other without any hands on any clock.

  But it occurred to me that what I had done was create a two-day husband. If there was a television set in the cabin, we’d surely be sitting beside each other, watching either his or my favorite program. Then we’d yawn, suggest bed and maybe go to sleep without making love. He saw all this in my face.

  ‘We could go for a brisk walk,’ he said.

  ‘It’s brisk out there all right. Temperatur
e dropped at least thirty degrees since this afternoon.’

  ‘Then let’s just lie here together, hold each other and not speak at all,’ he suggested. ‘I think you need to be held, to feel cherished.’

  I didn’t disagree. At first we sat beside each other on the settee, and then he put his arm around me and I lay against him. I felt his breath on my hair and then the back of my neck. He moved his hand inside my robe and stroked my breasts as if he thought it might mellow me instead of arousing me. His lips were on my cheek and then my neck. The fire crackled. I thought I could hear the pounding of my heart, echoing through my arteries and veins, my blood warming and my skin beginning to tingle.

  I moaned softly, so softly that I wasn’t sure I had. Maybe it was only a thought.

  ‘If I were a cat, I’d be purring,’ I said. ‘Can you need too much love and attention?’ I asked in a whisper. ‘Need more than anyone can give you?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’

  ‘Then you can never be truly happy?’

  ‘I told you. Happiness is the one thing you don’t want completely satisfied. It would be like reaching the end of the universe and realizing there is no place to go but back.’

  ‘You make tragedy sound inviting,’ I said.

  He laughed, stroked my hair and turned me toward him. His robe was opened as much as mine. Our bodies touched, his chest to my breasts, his stomach to mine, and his hardened penis nudging its way, parting me softly. When he entered me, we just lay there, neither moving. It was almost a contest to see who would have to move first. We surrendered to each other simultaneously and began a slow but hard drive at each other, demanding more and more until I reached my climax and he rushed to catch up to me.

  Afterward, I fell asleep in his arms, or at least I thought I had, because when I awoke in the morning, he wasn’t beside me. I rose slowly, for a moment confused about where I was. Then I recalled everything and went to the bedroom, expecting to see him lying there, perhaps. He wasn’t and he wasn’t in the bathroom either, nor was he in the kitchen preparing our coffee. The emptiness in the cabin gave me a chill. I went to the front door and looked out at the immediate area. There was no one there.

  Maybe he took a walk for a newspaper or something, I thought. I went to wash up and prepare the coffee. I had bought some of my favorite Danish, too, and eggs, but I didn’t feel as hungry as I had imagined I might be. I sat sipping my coffee and looking out the front window of the cabin. It was like staring at a large photograph. No one was out there.

  Something else unexpected occurred. Time was passing dreadfully slowly. This was how it passed below the mountains, at home, in my world. When you were having fun, enjoying everything you were doing, or were absorbed in work as I had been when I worked for Sebastian Pullman, time always passed too quickly. I had already made up my mind that the moment we had left this place, we’d feel we had spent too little time here. We’d regret leaving. What if that wasn’t going to happen? I felt a terrible sense of anxiety, something I hadn’t felt for a while.

  When I looked at my watch, I saw that only fifteen minutes had gone by. It had felt like hours. Where was he? Why wasn’t he eager to have breakfast with me? Why didn’t he want to wake up to my waking up? That initial moment was very important for lovers. Where had I read it? There was a line …

  The first thing I want to see every morning is your face and the last thing I want to see every night is your face.

  ‘Hey!’ he said.

  I spun around.

  ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘I’ve been standing here watching you for ten minutes, expecting you to realize it.’

  ‘I didn’t hear or see you come in. Where were you?’

  ‘I just took a short walk. When I awoke, you were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you. I did anticipate your waking up as I got dressed, but you didn’t stir, so I thought I would just let you be a while.’

  ‘There’s coffee,’ I said.

  ‘I can smell it. Wonderful. Thanks.’

  He went into the kitchen and returned with a cup.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes … I don’t know,’ I added.

  ‘What’s wrong? You think this was a mistake?’

  ‘No … I don’t know,’ I added again.

  He nodded and sat. I watched him watch me as he sipped his coffee.

  ‘Maybe you’re better off being busy after all,’ he suggested. ‘Remember your Julius Caesar? Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.’

  ‘Thanks for comparing me to an assassin.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Well, isn’t that what you’re about to be, at least symbolically? You’re killing off the old Clea Howard, aren’t you? Maybe not abruptly, but in little ways that will have the same fatal result.’

  ‘So if I had no mind and I didn’t think too much, I’d be in a satisfying marriage and life?’

  ‘Can you be unhappy if you’re incapable of knowing it?’

  ‘And you’re suggesting that’s a preferable way to be?’

  ‘No. I’m just pointing out what you know to be true as well. I suppose the trick is to learn how to live with disappointment if you are capable of feeling disappointed.’

  ‘Tolerate, compromise, sell out, stifle yourself or leap into a yawning grave. Thanks for the choice.’

  He laughed. ‘Somehow, I think you’ll manage to find another way.’

  I spun completely around on him.

  ‘You’re really an optimist, aren’t you? You pretend to rush about, move constantly to avoid being bored or depressed, but the very act of moving about means you’re optimistic. You think there’s hope or you wouldn’t bother.’

  ‘So? Is there something wrong with that? Does it disappoint you?’

  ‘No … I don’t know,’ I added.

  ‘You’re afraid to be optimistic, Clea. It’s a leap of faith. Ronnie’s optimistic, isn’t he?’

  ‘Sometimes sickeningly so, but most of the time he likes wallowing in potential disaster.’

  ‘Does he? Maybe it’s just amusing to him. Maybe it means little more than that.’

  ‘I told you that I don’t like you defending him. It gives me the feeling you’re driving me away.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m here as long as you want me to be.’

  ‘Do you want to be?’

  ‘As long as you want me to be, I want to be,’ he replied. He slapped down on his knees. ‘No more of this dull introspection. Let’s have something to eat and maybe go on a longer walk this time. Let’s come back exhausted and fall into each other’s arms, maybe too tired even to make love.’

  I laughed. ‘I doubt you’ll ever be that tired.’

  ‘We’ll play it by—’

  ‘Penis,’ I said, and he threw his head back and laughed harder than ever.

  It was amazing how quickly and effectively he could change my mood. He was better than any drug. I prided myself on the way I had avoided drugs. Some of my girlfriends and their husbands were into cocaine occasionally, but Ronnie was just as determined to avoid that scene as I was. Actually, Ronnie even hated getting too drunk. He didn’t mind a buzz, but he hated not being in control of himself. I had to admire him for that, as much as I admired myself for it. If I wanted to think about it, I suppose there were many things we had in common. Of course, there had to be. We didn’t come together solely for the sex.

  When Lancaster and I had eaten breakfast, I dressed and we went out for that longer walk. The weather had changed quickly. It was mostly cloudy with a stiff, cold breeze that turned into gusts from time to time, scattering leaves, riling up dust and whistling through trees. If anything, though, that made us walk faster, harder. I glanced at him and saw he was as determined as I was not to be defeated by the drop in temperature.

  After a while, it felt like a race, a contest to see who would cry uncle first and ask for a rest. Neither of us was giving in.

  ‘You�
�re in great shape,’ he said, sounding breathless. ‘You exercise.’

  ‘Not regularly and not nearly enough,’ I replied.

  We were taking a harder route, going up and down small hills, rougher ground, twisting past branches to avoid being scratched, going over rocks and occasionally crossing a muddier area. I had my hands clenched as well as my teeth. I felt as if I was on a death march. Soon, every step felt like I was pounding the earth more out of anger than pleasure. We had left pleasure far behind us now.

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of a chainsaw. That made me pause, and when I paused, I realized he wasn’t beside or behind me again. How far back had I left him? I waited, debating whether to go back or continue. If something had happened to him, I certainly would have heard him cry out. He was just resting and now he was too embarrassed about it. I smiled to myself and walked on, more slowly. When I came around a turn, I saw that African American worker cutting up firewood. He didn’t hear me, but when he turned his head a little, he saw me and stopped his saw.

  ‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘You done a walk.’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Well, you just make the turn down here and you’ll be back on the cabin property,’ he said, nodding in the right direction.

  ‘Please tell my friend when he arrives,’ I asked.

  ‘Friend?’

  ‘He’s a little behind me,’ I explained. ‘Women have more endurance.’

  ‘That so?’

  He looked behind me, shrugged his left shoulder and started his chainsaw again.

  I continued on. I was feeling it now. Walking a few miles on a straight road was one thing, but hiking through a forest, over boulders and up and down rough ground was another. I didn’t want Lancaster to see me practically collapse on the bed when I got into the cabin, but that was what I did. I lay there for a good fifteen or so minutes before I heard him enter.

  He came to the bedroom doorway. I turned on my back and looked at him.

  ‘If there was ever a case of someone being chased by demons …’

  ‘That’s what you need – some demons,’ I said.

  He smiled. ‘I think I’ll try that Jacuzzi. Some of these muscles in my legs and rear, I haven’t used since I was eight.’