Dancing With Cupid

by Jennifer Stevenson

  The lava was boiling up into my middle, above my belly. I hung my chin over his shoulder, squeezing him. Tears ran down my face. “Kama, help me,” I sobbed in his ear. “I’m frightened.”

  He withdrew his hands from my clothes and grasped my upper arms. “Come,” he said, his voice low and calm in my ear.

  “Don’t let go of me!” I sobbed.

  “Press your chest to mine,” he murmured.

  I pressed hard, feeling the heat rise. “Oh lord. Here it comes.”

  “Do you want to look at me, Rathi?” he said, even more softly.

  My heart jumped at his tone. But I couldn’t move.

  We stayed like that a moment, he still as stone, as if he were holding all his muscles tight, I heaving, as if to breathe cool air down into my volcanic insides. Yet our bodies spoke to one another somehow. Do you want to look at me, Rathi?

  He was begging me for something, and I couldn’t understand what it was. I could feel his heart beginning to break, just an inch or so away from mine. That distressed me. It would be too terrible if Kama could never, ever have this thing he wanted to feel or do or become.

  Out of mercy, I pulled my head back so that I could look in his eyes. In his eyes I saw the same strain I felt in his hands, in his tightened body, holding me in his lap.

  The heat boiled up into my heart.

  My panting slowed. I caught my breath and held it.

  Kama, you are a good person. You are real. I see you. Is that what you need? What is it, what can I give you?

  I tried to communicate with my eyes what I wanted for him—he should have some kind of peace, a place where he could feel complete—oh, I don’t know.

  In that moment it seemed to me that my heart dilated open like one of those doors on a spaceship, and as with the spaceship, something flew out of me, straight into Kama.

  The tightness in my throat intensified. If I couldn’t give this to him—if he didn’t or wouldn’t take it—

  The pain in his face eased. He took a breath so deep, I could feel it down into my own belly. His grip on my arms relaxed. He began to smile, and I felt rather than saw a dilating in his chest like the one in mine.

  In the next moment, something bright flew out of him and dove into my chest. It pierced my throat with coolness, it swam into my eyes like a dazzling rainbow of pink, ochre, violet, green, and diamond bright, it sizzled down into my belly and floated up through my skull like a single clear note of birdsong.

  As if I knew that my message had been received, I felt the hard place in my throat soften.

  Desire, which had made me claw and bite and thump him moments ago, was calmed.

  The burn cooled.

  Without a word, we eased out of one another’s arms. We got up and began packing away the picnic dishes. I think we both feared to break the spell. We had so many reasons to argue.

  Yet this one perfect moment could last forever, maybe, if we just didn’t try. Try what? I didn’t know. Don’t try anything.

  We walked back to the bicycle stall and Kama gave the man the basket and some money, I think. In a dream I watched him moving and talking, feeling that with all the noise and commotion of the park and Michigan Avenue beside it, we two still moved in a bubble of silence.

  Yet it wasn’t silent. Children laughed nearby. Bicycle bells tinkled. Gulls cried overhead, yaaaak, yaak yak yak yak. Ravi Shankar’s sitar whined and quavered from the Pavilion. Kama returned from the bicycle stall and took my hand and we walked slowly across the park toward the lake.

  We wandered the lakefront, hand in hand, all Sunday, barely speaking, and yet I felt we filled our time with communication in a language I knew well but couldn’t translate.

  We didn’t make love. That surprised me the most. When he delivered me to my apartment building, he didn’t try to come upstairs with me.

  I even asked him to.

  “Soon,” he said. “I want you to know your heart first.”

  Nine hours before, I would have said that my heart had nothing to do with it.

  Now I could feel it in my chest like a furnace. For once the fire seemed to be in the right place. The heat was slowly penetrating my body. It had not yet worked itself all the way through.

  I realized that he was right. I must know this new heart, and it must know me. Then I could decide.

  Because the world had changed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I floated through the next two days. I smiled at everybody. In the past, if anyone had asked me, Rathi, don’t you ever smile? I would have scoffed. Of course I smile.

  But I could never have smiled like this. It felt like a veil had been put aside from my eyes. I saw truly that heaven is on earth.

  Everyone I worked with seemed beautiful and full of light. Every street sculpture and pigeon gleamed.

  A space had opened up in my heart, but it wasn’t empty space. It seemed to be full of gaseous fire. Everyone I looked at had a bit of this fire in them. The air smelled sweeter, too, even on Daley Plaza, surrounded on all sides by buses and rushing taxis. When I breathed, I felt my heart expand, but it never seemed to shrink up again. It just got bigger.

  Even opposing counsel and their clients had an inner glow that maybe only I could see. It made me kinder when I examined them before Judge Green on Tuesday. When I cross-examined, I commanded not just from the place Kama had called my third chakra, the seat of will, but from my heart, with love.

  And they confessed everything.

  Eventually I became aware of how much bigger I had grown. My assistant Janine met me in my office when I returned from court on Tuesday, beaming because we’d won our case—I had won our case. I smiled at her.

  Janine retreated as if I had shoved her. Her eyes grew round. “What happened to you?”

  “We won!”

  I drifted past her, grinning, and dumped my heavy briefcase on the floor in my office.

  She followed me. “You’ve been goofy for two days.”

  I dropped into my desk chair and swiveled idly with my arms behind my head. “And soon I will be goofy and drunk. This calls for a glass of wine.” I beamed at her. “Don’t you think?”

  Janine shook her head, smiling. “This came.” She went to her desk and brought me a little pile of yellow sticky pads rubberbanded together.

  Another gift from Kama. He had been leaving them off with Janine every few hours for two days—a box of pens, a new lightbulb for my desk lamp, staples, a tape dispenser.

  I held my hand out for them, and she brought them, reaching her arm far out as if to avoid too much contact with me.

  Suddenly I realized why. The invisible fire surrounded me must be billowing out, pressing against her. After a little thought, I pictured tugging back on that invisible, fiery balloon so that it would not touch her.

  She hesitated, then came close enough to put the stickies into my hand.

  I smiled reassuringly at her.

  She gave me a long look. “Congratulations,” she said, and left, shaking her head.

  My phone rang. Irene. I answered and heard her, too, say, “Congratulations!” just as Janine said resignedly to someone outside the office, “She’s got it bad.”

  When Janine spoke, I realized that that was why I didn’t mind Kama’s decision to keep his distance from me at work. If I felt like this merely thinking about him—or whatever this was, for it was certainly not thinking—I might go up in flames again if we were in the same room. Or even if our eyes met in the corridor. The elevator might never come down if we both stepped into it at once.

  His eyes were so changeable—young and then old, boyish and then wise, joyful and yet so full of the sadness of the world. He looked at me in a way I couldn’t define, though it warmed me. He seemed to know me better than I knew myself. Even my parts that worried me pleased him.

  And somehow I felt that I could help him. There was a deep, age-old wound in him, very like the one in me, that only I could see or touch. It soothed him to be near me. Knowing this, I
was happy.

  The relief of having told her the truth had me walking on air. I didn’t sleep much. At work, Rathi glowed. It seemed everyone noticed it. That was reward enough.

  But the cherry on top was an unexpected relaxing inside me.

  Relaxing what? My lifestyle was centered around “loose.” I didn’t want to examine that too closely.

  But Tuesday after work, as I was approaching the Lair over the rooftops of neighboring buildings in case that crazy Lotus Bride woman was watching our front door, I suddenly realized I’d had been tight inside, deep down, for a long time…so long that I’d forgotten I felt it.

  That blew my mind. What, me worry?

  Nevertheless, I’d told Rathi the truth. And she hadn’t spit in my eye.

  I was drunk on relief.

  Veek still looked ragged, so I pestered him and Baz into bungee-cording a cooler to the back of my Yamaha and hauling it up to Leone Park Beach, with Veek riding pillion on Baz’s primer-red Harley. It was another gorgeous afternoon. Veek seemed to perk up as a steady stream of women stopped at our blanket and gave him their phone numbers.

  Baz kept his hat over his eyes. He liked to keep his beer-buddy time strictly separate from women.

  And I surprised myself by turning down half a dozen offers myself.

  Veek just raised his eyebrows.

  But Baz wouldn’t keep shut. “Not blonde enough for you?”

  Later he said, “Too skinny. Right.”

  And then, “I get it, you don’t want Veek’s leavings.”

  And finally he said, “Isn’t it kind of late in the month for you to say no?”

  I just kept thinking about Rathi, beautiful, happy, kissing me, kissing me…and I felt the burn begin.

  I ignored him and walked into the cold, cold lake.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Wednesday evening I convinced Kama to walk me home from work. The process was ever so childish. Instead of walking my copy requisition to the copy room, as I might have done, I put it into an interoffice envelope and handed it to Janine to put in the out tray on her desk. She would know perfectly well that normally I would bring it directly to Kama. She might draw a conclusion about “how bad I had it” from that, if she saw, and I was sure she would see, that I had addressed the envelope to “Copy Room.” I felt like a schoolgirl passing a note in class.

  On some level I understood the disapproval I would suffer if it became known that I had a tryst with the mail-room boy. But I was soaring on thermal updrafts of a raging hormonal eruption. High above the rules, the worried and disapproving looks, the whispers, I floated in a state of peace punctuated by brief, violent spikes of pleasure.

  Inside the envelope was my folded requisition. Inside the requisition was a folded note. And inside the note was a single hair.

  Not a hair from my head.

  I felt like a very wicked schoolgirl.

  At six I walked out of the office with my heavy document case hanging from my shoulder. I trudged east, toward the lake.

  Kama appeared, walking beside me without glancing at me. At the corner of Wabash and Randolph he took my heavy bag from me and slung its strap across his chest. The light changed. We rugbied our way through the rush-hour crowd crossing Wabash. By the time we reached the park, we were holding hands.

  Stupid, risky, silly! The voice of my lawyer-self was like a fly beating its head against a window. So what. This moment, whether eternal love or a momentary chemical imbalance, would come only once.

  Let the fly brain itself. I’m with Kamadeva.

  I looked straight ahead, not at him. But my heart thumped, and I felt weightless and free. I skipped like a kid.

  When we got to the harbor we decided it was safe to talk.

  “Congratulations,” he said. He sent me a sidelong glance, and I swung his hand, wriggly as a puppy with gladness.

  “Thank you. I don’t deserve it, you know. Their witnesses just rolled over.”

  “You do deserve it,” he said. “That was you, Rathi. Your power. You made them confess.”

  “I? Surely—”

  “Of course, you. Accept it, enjoy it. This is your reward for suffering all the other inconveniences of being my goddess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course! It’s all due to you! How could I have forgotten!”

  “It’s due to you,” he said, his gaze admiring. I caught my breath. “Rathi—goddess—I salute you.”

  Before I could stop him, he knelt at my feet on the breakwater, patting them with both hands in the pad-grahain.

  All at once my perfect moment was exploded. I seized him by the hair and dragged him to his feet. “What are you doing? If this is how you’re going to act, I’m glad we don’t speak at the office! Clown!”

  He bounced to his feet with his usual I’m-so-cute grin. “But you like me this way.”

  I felt myself grinning back. “What good is a clown?” I pretended to smack his head. “Goat! Monkey!”

  He captured my arm and looped his arm through mine. “Knock it off. You’re making a scene.”

  Deeply satisfied, I let him draw me northward along the lake path. Rollerbladers and joggers with dogs went by.

  “I suppose I deserve to feel like this over a fool,” I said, watching the gulls cavort over the Yacht Club harbor, feeling the heat of his body close to mine. “I’ve worked so hard for my dignity. If there is a real goddess of love, she’s laughing at me today.”

  His hand tightened on my arm. “All kidding aside, I really admire what you’ve done. With your life. This crusading stuff. You’re really making a difference, Rathi.”

  A lump in my throat stopped me from saying thank you.

  He went on, “You care about people. And you’re kind.”

  “I?” I said again. “I’m a meddling bossoholic.”

  Now he laughed. “That’s not your word.”

  “No, my cousin Sunil calls me that. He’s right.”

  Kama insisted, “You’re kind. You care if I’m a failure.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not a failure. You’re a slacker. A failure can’t help but fail. A slacker chooses not to succeed. You have many gifts, Kama.”

  I could feel him grow larger beside me—even taller. “Okay, where’s the rest of it?”

  “The rest of what?” I sent him a sidelong glance. “I can’t compliment your sexual prowess, mister big shot love god. You won’t take me to bed.”

  “Where’s the part where you kick my ass?” he said. “And don’t try to change the subject.”

  I turned to face him, taking both his hands. We were at the apex of the bridge over the Chicago River. The cool lake wind rushed under us, over us, and past us through the mighty iron struts of the bridge.

  My heart hammered in my chest.

  “When, Kama? When will you take me to bed? I’ve made up my mind.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not ready. I rushed it once before.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “With whom?”

  “With you, dummy,” he said, sounding exasperated. I could feel his pulse beating against mine, in the palms of our hands. “You’re having a rough transition. You don’t need more shocks.”

  My eyes stung. “You are kind. So very kind. You could have made me so uncomfortable when you brought me clothes—and later at work—”

  He scowled. “I wouldn’t. Only a rat would—”

  “Kindness. Another man might have tried to control me through my ignorance.” I swallowed. “I’m still ignorant, I realize that. But I think I have to learn what you want me to learn by going there. Where you’re afraid to take me.”

  The wind picked up, cold and strong. He seized my upper arms and frowned into my eyes. He said hoarsely, “I want to take you there.” He jerked me close and kissed me.

  Fire spiked up into my chest, making a noise like a sudden freight train.

  There was fire in him, too. I felt it, pressed chest to chest with him. I shuffled closer, sliding my leg between his.

&
nbsp; He broke the kiss, gasping. His eyes were wild. He pushed me away to arm’s length.

  I shook him by the shoulders. “When, Kama?”

  “When you can handle this.”

  The fire was still roaring in my ears, but I pulled together my bossoholic voice. “This what? Show me, dammit! You don’t impress me with that grandiose talk, you know!”

  His resistance seemed to waver.

  I felt my will leap forward.

  I met his eyes. I opened the burning space in my heart. I summoned the force in my solar plexus, the power to command I had used in court, the invisible fiery balloon that I’d accidentally pressed against my poor assistant.

  Now I used it on him. “Show me,” I commanded.

  Something snapped inside him—I felt it in my own breast. He looked furtively either way on the bridge. At that moment, the walkway was empty. Then he pulled me into an embrace so close, I felt every inch of his body against mine.

  “Come on, Rathi,” he said in my ear. “Wrap around me. Wrap all around me. I’ll keep you safe.”

  I reached my arms as far around him as I could. He squeezed me. I reached a little farther, until my hands crossed behind his back. I slid my right shoe off and planted my right foot on his thigh, and leaned my right knee toward him until we were again pressed too tightly for so much as a thought to come between us. He reached farther around me—soon his hands were grasping my breasts, but how? How long were his arms?

  I stopped caring. I wanted him in me.

  He said, “Good. Hold tight.” I pulled my head back far enough to see his face. This was no boy. He flamed with certainty, ownership, and triumph. His eyelids half lowered. “Come on.”

  I was more than ready. We kissed. His mouth opened to mine, and lightning ran up my skin and rushed past my ears and blinded me. His arms held me like bands of iron. I clung to him. Yet his kisses were sweet and soft and unbearably slow. I ground my crotch against the burning staff in his khakis and felt a streak of lightning, a sudden slackening of my strength, a slow crumbling like the hiss of a pat of butter in the pan, or a sugar cube dissolving in rain.