by Jane Nin
It was so strange and so startling that for a moment I just looked at it, unable to move. And then I was unable not to go toward it.
Of course, as you’ve probably guessed, it was no spaceship. It was the spectacular foot of a flying buttress, and when I got clear of the buildings that blocked the view I could see the whole thing: Notre Dame cathedral, perched weightlessly on the surface of the city like a water-strider, soaring and otherworldly.
As I gaped at it, drops of water hit my cheeks and I realized it was beginning to rain. I took a last longing look at the ancient building, then made haste back to my hotel, miraculously managing not to get lost on the way.
You’ll have divined what was waiting there when I arrived, particularly if I tell you it wasn’t Jack.
A third note:
Won’t be able to make it to Paris—work emergency in Iceland. Tix to Reykjavik @ airport; fly today; I’ll meet you.
Eager to not cry in front of the desk clerk, I hurried up to my room, note in hand, and shut myself away inside it. Though the communication had been there, the arrangements made, Jack’s failure to arrive had set off the panic I’d been keeping at bay since what had been my last day of work. He was right, I thought, I had been rash—people didn’t just throw away good jobs in this economy, and it was, despite its annoyances, a “good job.” Or had been. What the hell did I think I was doing? And the way I’d left, barring any chance for a positive recommendation. For all I knew, back in Houston, the story was front-page news. Of course I knew, rationally, that it couldn’t possibly be… but since I hadn’t been home and hadn’t been in touch with a soul, my imagination was free to concoct every catastrophe.
I felt like I’d blown up the little boat that was my life to climb onto a bigger and more glamorous boat, and only now was I realizing I had no idea where this other boat was headed. Didn’t know if it was haunted, if it had engine problems. If the crew were all ex-cons. Everything in my life was suddenly unknown, and with his failure to arrive Jack seemed to become just an idea, some crazy, reckless notion. Where was I? What was I doing? I felt like I didn’t know anything. I sat on the bed, crumpled the note in my lap and began to sob terribly.
And then, just as quickly, I stopped. Because a bigger, calmer question appeared in my head to eclipse all the little panicky ones, and that question was this:
Who am I?
I lay on the bed and rolled the question around in my head like some kind of big, gleaming marble. The doors to the balcony were closed against the storm outside, which had grown more significant and now pelted the glass panes with drops and wet bits of leaf and twig, the wind pummeling the windows and the sash and the hinges like some sort of being hell-bent on getting in. It was dark out there, a scary, slate-colored dark, and when I looked around the room it had become equally dark and indistinct, a memory, almost, a half-drawn sketch of a place someone had once stayed.
Leaving the crumpled note on the bed I walked to the balcony doors. Across the street were these beautiful old buildings, their facades darkened by the rain. Down below, cars swished through the watery streets with their wipers beating frantically away. Even in foreign countries, most people were living their little lives. Going to work. Going home again. Complaining about the weather.
What had I thrown away, really? A job I hated. It had been armor against the world, but now I realized—why defend myself? Why not go out into it undefended, and dare it to do its worst?
I slid the latches on the balcony doors, first at the top, then at the bottom, and barely touched my hand to the knob before the wind enthusiastically slammed them open. It screamed into the room carrying more rain with it, and the treetops outside tossed and churned like an audience wildly applauding, and to my surprise the wind was not cold at all, but strange and alive and warm.
I am whoever I wish to be, came my answer, and the wind tossed more rain in my face, anointing me.
13.
I showered and combed out my storm-rumpled hair and put myself on the plane as instructed. I was truly exhausted by then, and had hoped to be able to sleep on the relatively short flight. I downed a glass of champagne and closed my eyes, but my mind flashed ahead like a lit fuse. I didn’t even have to stay in Houston. There was nothing keeping me there; all my old school friends were finally gone. Which meant I could go anywhere. Anyplace I’d ever been or loved. Someplace I’d never been at all.
And what would I do?
There I grew more anxious again. Certainly, I could get a job, probably something similar to what I had been doing. I didn’t want to, but necessities were necessities.
A little voice in my head nudged, you won’t need a job, silly, Jack is rich.
But even if Jack wanted me—that is, wanted me for keeps, which I was still afraid to hope for—I knew he wouldn’t want me to just be a satellite. I should have my own goals, my own joys, my own orbit.
At the moment, however, my orbit was on a collision path with Jack’s. I might as well sit back and enjoy it. I checked my watch: an hour left. I pulled my sleep mask over my face and finally drifted off.
I had tried to temper my eagerness by telling myself that he probably wouldn’t be meeting me at the airport, so when I saw Jack’s face searching for me in the crowd descending the escalator I felt a surge of sweet elation. He spotted me, and grinned, and I beamed back.
A few days ago he’d been a stranger; now he was the only familiar thing I had left. I hurried across the polished floor, threw my arms around him, inhaled his smell.
“Hi,” he said, seeming amused by my enthusiasm, and then he took me by the shoulders and held me out at arm’s length. “You look different,” he said. “I guess Paris agreed with you.”
“It was an awkward conversation, but we wound up on the same page,” I said, still smiling.
“And aren’t you clever,” said Jack, smirking at my little joke. Then he added, “But you do. You look great.”
“Thank you,” I said. He was right and I was finally ready to accept that—not bat it away like I had done the other night.
We stopped first at a little café, where we drank coffee and ate buttery, sugared slices of toast. Though my internal clock was all haywire now I felt strangely alert: every sensation, from the clinking of our cups against their saucers to the sweet melting of the butter against my tongue, made me feel alive and joyful in my body. Jack watched me closely, and this, too, felt delicious.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you,” he said. “We lost a rig.”
“An oil rig?” I’d forgotten, briefly, about how my way was being paid.
He nodded grimly.
“Was anyone hurt?”
He looked at me, real sorrow in his eyes.
“Oh god,” I said.
“I keep telling myself accidents happen, because, of course, they do. But.” He stopped.
“They do happen,” I said, lamely but truthfully.
“They had families, you know. What that must be like. Just—one day to the next.”
His eyes shone a little and he looked away. I took his hand, thinking sheepishly about how I’d been sulking over his absence. He let me lace my fingers into his, then returned my gaze for just a moment, gratefully.
“I know,” I said. “Or I don’t. I know that it’s terrible.”
And as our hands were linked I had a flash of losing him with equal suddenness—tonight, or in a week, or even just someday. A pain bled through me and now I, too, was fighting not to show emotion.
He squeezed my hand tight—knowing, maybe. Looking at me.
And then he let go. “Ready?” he said, and I nodded, and we stood.
14.
“I thought we’d do some charity work,” he explained as we pulled up outside a hospital.
I glanced at him, wondering if he’d say more.
“I spent too much time in one of these yesterday,” he said. “It got me to thinking. You know, people stay here for months at a time, some of them. They must miss the comforts
of home.”
“And let me guess,” I said, “am I one of those comforts?”
“I imagine you’re rather nicer than whatever they left behind,” he said, “but that makes the gesture all the more meaningful.”
We walked through the sleek front doors and at the information desk he asked for a name. In the elevator, he extracted from his laptop bag a little folded square of cotton and opened it up. It was a candystriper’s apron, pristine and new.
“Should I put it on?” I asked.
“It’ll be a private room,” he said, “with its own bathroom. You can change in there.”
We stepped out of the elevator and began down a long, mint-green hall. This was the first game where what was being proposed did not automatically excite me. This hospital, its cold hallways, its smell of sickness and sterilization, made me want to run back out into the sunshine and gulp the outside air.
“But won’t that ruin the surprise?”
“I imagine it’ll all be pretty surprising,” said Jack.
“Well hold on,” I said, stopping where we were. “Are you sure he wants this? I know men are men, but it doesn’t seem right to assume.”
“Don’t worry, he’s a horny bastard,” said Jack. “Always talking dirty to the nurses. That’s how I got wind of this in the first place.”
“Oh,” I said, still feeling dubious about the whole thing. I stopped again.
Jack stopped alongside me, looked into my face. “We don’t have to do this, remember? That was the deal.”
“But the game.”
“Take a pass on this round. We’ll come up with something else.”
I considered this. “He doesn’t know?”
“No clue,” said Jack.
I thought a moment longer. As we stood there, a gigantic black orderly in lavender scrubs and a surgical cap pushed a tiny sparrow of a lady past us in a wheelchair. She gazed up at him raptly, like a little girl at a father-daughter dance. There was something sweet about it, human and lonely and sad. He seemed accustomed to her rapturous gaze. As they passed us, I saw him look me over in an instant, and then he flashed me a gleaming white smile.
“Can I see him, and then decide?” I asked Jack.
We went to the door to his private room, and I stood on tiptoe to peer in. I don’t know what I was expecting. Someone old, I guess. Instead, the man who lay in the bed wasn’t much older than I was. Early 40s, I guessed. But he had strange, overdrawn features, like someone had painted him sloppily—eyes askew, lips a little slack.
“What happened to him?”
“A stroke,” said Jack.
“But he’s so young.”
“It happened during a routine surgery.”
“You know him?”
Jack nodded. “We used to work together.”
This could have been Jack, I suddenly thought, and like that I felt a strange tenderness building in me.
“Do you think…”
He caught my meaning: could he even fuck? “I don’t know.” And he paused, and then, “Sylvie, really, it’s okay.”
“No,” I said, “I want to.”
Jack waited a moment more, and then at my nod he turned the doorknob and walked in.
“Brynjar,” he said, and the man turned his head slightly in our direction.
“Jack,” replied the man, slowly but clearly. “Long time, no see.”
I didn’t wish to be introduced, so I took this moment to slip into the little bathroom. I took my clothes off and carefully folded them and set them on the edge of the sink. Then I shook out the little apron and pulled it over my head. It hung so that the straps barely covered my breasts. I tied the waist tie, which hung down between the bare cheeks of my ass.
I couldn’t help it. Being half-naked and about to be seen stirred a little ember of desire down deep in me. I took a look at myself in the mirror. From the side my breasts were completely exposed. They looked pretty, gently swelling and inviting to the palm. Maybe he would like to touch them. Maybe I could make him feel good.
I came out of the bathroom. Nodded to Jack. “Brynjar,” he said, “I’ve brought a friend.”
Timidly, I approached the bed. Brynjar took a moment to focus on me, but then his eyes grew wide, his lips parted. His breath grew audible; I could see his chest rise and fall. He glanced over at Jack, as if to ascertain that I was indeed at his disposal. Jack gave a little nod.
“Finally,” said Brynjar. “Someone’s been listening to my prayers.”
But I wasn’t sure what to do. “Can I… massage you, or—”
“Take that ridiculous apron off,” he said, “I want to look at your tits.”
I was taken aback by his directness, but also—well, it was a nice surprise. I obeyed quietly, untying the apron and setting it on the bed. My nipples were erect from the industrial-strength air conditioning—as he noted with a lecherous smirk.
“They keep it freezing in here, the bastards. Come on then, give us a handful.”
I moved to within reach and bent down a bit. With some effort, he raised an arm to cup them each in turn, then gave a hard little pinch to the left nipple. I yelped.
“Oh, good,” he said, “I’m not dreaming.”
“No,” I agreed, not failing to notice the significant erection now tenting the unglamorous hospital sheets. But the reaching fatigued him, I could tell. I moved closer to his head, bent forward so my breasts dangled right down into his face.
He nuzzled them happily, practically slapping them back and forth as he shook his head to and fro. Then he sucked a nipple into his mouth, and with a contented groan, began to suckle it hard.
Waves of pleasure shot from my breasts down to my pussy, which was accommodating itself to any eventual desire by becoming incredibly, hungrily wet.
Again he lifted an arm, this time flailing it in the general direction of my hips. He didn’t seem to have the muscle control to bend his arm so that he could actually touch me. I took his wrist in mine and laid his arm down on the bed. As he realized what I was doing, he released my nipple with a wet popping sound. I lifted my right leg and put my knee in the space between his arm and his side, and then I lowered my spread pussy until I felt it make contact with his fingertips.
Rotating my hips, I slipped my clit and the wet lips of my pussy back and forth across his hand.
“Oh god,” he said, crooking his fingers as much as he was able. I tilted my pelvis back and forth right now, so that the tips of his middle and ring fingers pushed just past the entrance to my vagina.
“Oh my god,” he repeated, as his fingers slipped in and out of me. His erect cock twitched between the sheets.
“Do you want me to sit on your cock?” I asked. “Do you want me to ride your big, fat cock?”
“Oh god yes,” he said, “I want you to slide that sweet wet pussy all over my cock, I want you to bounce up and down on top of my dick with those tits flying all over the place and I want you to scream so every nurse on the goddamned floor will finally wonder what she’s been missing. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” I said, still grinding myself down onto his wet hand, “I can do that.”
“But first,” he said, “I want to taste you.”
“Okay,” I said, uncertainly. The bed was arranged so he was half sitting up, and I didn’t see how I could straddle his face.
“Go get the orderly,” he said to Jack. “The big one, the Algerian.”
Jack glanced at me, making sure I was okay being left behind. “Get him,” I agreed.
“You’re something else,” said Brynjar, grinning wolfishly. I doubted he’d ever been handsome, but I could see he’d had sex appeal once upon a time. He seemed like the type who’d probably regularly bedded twins at ski resorts, things like that. But now that was over. “I’m going to lap at that sweet pussy of yours like a starving kitten at a bowl of milk. Do you think you’ll like that?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure I will.”
“That’s right; you w
ill.”
I heard the door open and close and turned to see Jack and the giant orderly from before, who was doing a terrible job not staring at my ass as I continued to rock my hips back and forth across Brynjar’s sticky hand.
“I want to eat her pussy,” said Brynjar matter-of-factly. “Can you put her on the tray?”
“The tray is not strong enough for her weight,” replied the orderly, glancing around the room, still in some disbelief. Then he glanced up at the ceiling. “Maybe if we used the traction.”