“That’s the idea. To lord it over you a little.” She put her arms on Eliza’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head, then leaned down farther and kissed her neck. “Oops. Sorry. I left lipstick marks. Here, let me wipe that off.” She grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table; she rubbed Eliza’s neck, then blotted off most of her pale lipstick. “Are you hungry? I have two Cornish hens heating up in the oven. I picked them up at Pusateri’s. How about a glass of wine first?” A chilled bottle was on the table.
“Oh, I suppose.” She put her hands around Shar’s waist, feeling the long, hard muscles there. If she pressed a little harder, Shar would jump; she was ticklish. But Shar slid from her hands and poured them each a glass. “So your meeting was in Yorkville?” Eliza asked.
“Breakfast. A little boutique hotel with an excellent restaurant. What should we drink to?” She put her hand on her hip, which accentuated both her curves and her height.
Eliza smiled and raised her glass. “To your career as a model.” They clinked glasses, sipped.
“So you had breakfast with Benoît this morning?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you’re all dressed up.”
“Dressing up suits the hotel.” The truth was, Benoît loved her to dress up. And Shar missed this part of her work. She had an extensive wardrobe of sexy cocktail dresses that she rarely wore now that she was becoming a civilian. “It was just breakfast. No time for anything else. He’s a busy man.”
But the reassurance didn’t stop Eliza from receiving a clear image of Shar prone on a bed, legs spread, with a man’s hard ass pumping between them. She imagined someone as beautiful as Shar herself, some buff entrepreneur full of energy and sperm. Married, probably. Eliza didn’t know the details; she had never wanted to know them. The thing was that Shar might have been naked with Benoît an hour or two ago, and now she was here, flirting with Eliza, getting ready to strip again. Slut. The word entered her mind, her mouth, hard and sharp. Slut.
She put her hand around Shar’s waist, pulled her close. They kissed aggressively, biting, biting back, swallowing each other up as the zippers came down and the buttons opened in the living room.
It was a perfect erotic misunderstanding. Shar was lustful because (though she had dressed exquisitely and shaved and perfumed herself) she hadn’t had sex with Benoît (he had flown in for an unexpected meeting with a potential American client and would fly out again at the end of the day; with the new blood pressure diagnosis and the medication still taking effect, he was not allowed quickies). Eliza was lustful out of Pavlovian habit, and a big hit of jealousy.
She pulled on the zipper at the base of Shar’s neck. Shar undid the cuffs of her sleeves, pulled her arms out of the long tubes of lace, and let the dress slide off her hips. She was wearing a lace slip and thigh-high stockings. Eliza didn’t know what to touch first. One hand to a breast, the other hand to Shar’s lower back. She immediately began pulling the slip up over her buttocks, and down, to expose her breasts. “Where’s that strap-on you told me about?”
Shar grinned. “No!”
“Yes. I’m going to put that thing on and fuck you.”
“Hold on, I should get to wear it first. It’s my strap-on.”
“No way. It’s in your bedroom, isn’t it? Come.” Eliza pulled her by the hand.
“I’m going to dress up like this more often. I like the effect it has on you.”
—
Eliza blushed over the buckles and straps; then she stared down at her new appendage. “God! It really looks like a penis!”
As Shar cinched her in a little tighter, she said, “Some of my girlfriends never wanted me to say that word, when it came to sex toys. No penis, no dick, no cock. They didn’t want to refer to the male anatomy at all. That’s how this thing got a gender-neutral name. Stacey.”
Eliza took it in her hand. Shar looked down, and said, “Stacey may have a gender-neutral name, but it’s nice to have a big hard cock, isn’t it?”
“It’s not too hard.” Eliza gave it a firm squeeze. “Not too soft either.”
Shar stepped back and said in a singsong voice, “Goldilocks thought it was juuuust right.” She opened her bedside table drawer and pulled out a condom and a bottle of lube. “It’s cleanest to use one of these.” She tore the top off, held the condom up and raised the pitch of her voice. “Do you want me to put it on you, baby?”
Watching Shar slide the condom down the shaft, Eliza said in a joking tone, “I do feel quite…manly.” It was not really a joke. It was a power, to have this big thing attached to her body. She didn’t want to put her fingers or her tongue inside Shar, not now; she wanted to penetrate her with this.
Shar said, “Doggy-style is easiest for beginners. That way you can see what you’re doing.” They kissed again. Shar turned, her back to Eliza, and slowly pulled her slip up over her ass, then crawled onto the bed. On her hands and knees, she craned around. “I should have asked you if you wanted a blowjob.”
But Eliza’s face had already taken on that glassy-eyed drunken lustful look that Shar loved. “Maybe later,” she said, putting her hand on the small of Shar’s back.
Shar spread her knees wide, eager for what was coming. It was always exciting when a lover did something new, unexpected. Eliza pushed into her slowly, staring down at the cock—her cock!—as it disappeared into Shar’s pussy. This disappearing act was so sexy that she wanted it to go on forever. Simultaneously, she wanted to move faster, to get in, to be inside. How amazing it would be, she thought, to be a man!
She held onto Shar’s hips and slowly pulled herself out. And wanted immediately to push back in, to see what it did to Shar. How keen the urge was, to open her up. They moaned at the same time, Eliza from watching and knowing what it was to be so hungry, and Shar with the pleasure of being filled. Eliza grasped Shar’s hips harder and thrust her own hips forward, awkwardly, the necessary rhythm eluding her. It was like learning the steps of a dance that she thought she knew, but did not. When she finally found the rhythm, it took root not so much in her pelvis as in her thighs and lower back. Every joint told her why sex was problematic when Andrew’s herniated discs were bothering him.
But she didn’t want to think of Andrew.
She concentrated on Shar. She loved seeing her, the audacious nakedness of her ass, her long muscular back. She loved the feel of the harness around her own hips and cheeks, the material slicking up between her legs. They talked to each other now, but differently, Eliza more Shar-like and Shar someone else altogether. She started rubbing her clit and Eliza kept going, varying the pace, watching her, wanting it to go on and on.
Slowly, another realization unfolded, and she resisted it somehow and thrust harder, but that brought her closer to the admission that her rhythms, her movements, her pauses, were all her husband’s. She had learned how to do this—not too fast, not too slow, following the woman’s body, too, her desire—from him. Shar turned her head and pressed her face sideways against the sheets, thrust herself backwards for more, for deeper, and Eliza was pulled down again, into the tumbling wave of black hair, the hot skin, her mouth open, both of their mouths open, wanting and taking each other.
—
Two, almost three hours later, after sex, lunch, wine, a long hot shower, they were sprawled back in bed. Shar was still wearing the strap-on. Eliza whispered, “I really have to go.”
Shar could hear how sad she was. It had happened before: the better the sex, the sadder Eliza could be when it was done. Shar thought of good sex as annihilatingly good. She enjoyed being annihilated—by pleasure, and temporarily. There was nothing more exhilarating than shattering the ego with joyful intensity. It was a relief to close the separation between the selves, the body and the mind, the other and the lover, the inside and the outside. Then it was over. Shar was equally skilled at drawing back, pulling herself into herself again. It had made her a consummate professional. She unbuckled Stacey and scissored her long legs out of the harn
ess. “Onwards and upwards,” she said, a smile in her voice as she leaned over the side of the bed and set the dildo upright on the table. “Let’s not be glum.”
Eliza was still languid, slow. “Why didn’t I let you do that to me before?”
“Power issues.”
Eliza didn’t respond. She knew exactly why she had never let Shar do that to her before. It was too much like having sex with a man. She still liked to think that she was “just” having sex with a woman; somehow it didn’t count. She pushed that lie away and stared at the ceiling. Something else was bothering her. “I was supposed to do something today and I still can’t remember what the hell it was. There’s always something like that. A task I didn’t get to. The list never ends.”
Shar stood up, grabbed a T-shirt off the floor. “We all have a to-do list.”
“Even you?”
“Even me.” She slipped on her shirt, pulled on a pair of old jeans. “I skipped a class to be here this afternoon.” She had also skipped a class to see Benoît in the morning. She worried about her own penchant for writing off commitments that she needed to fulfill, like coursework at the Institute. She leaned over Eliza and finger-combed her messy hair. “I hope you’re not indulging in guilt. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“Easy for you to say,” Eliza retorted, sitting up.
Shar pulled away. “You know, it’s not easy for me. You leave, yes. But I’m the one who always has to let you go. I’m aware of your responsibilities and your constraints.” Her voice was cool. “I know it’s temporary.” She waved her hand around the bedroom. “This is a closed box for me, too. That’s what it’s like to live a secret. Thrilling at the beginning but stifling when the oxygen runs out. Relationships are like plants. They need air and light.” She walked around the bed and stepped out into the hall. “I never encourage you to see me more than you already do.”
Eliza got up and began putting on her clothes. “That’s what you say. But you always have to bring up how temporary this is, how it cannot last. It’s like a threat.”
“I talk about that for both of us. We have to be realistic. You don’t want to change your relationship with Andrew.”
“Why do you keep harping on that? We’ve said from the beginning, this is contained, we can contain it. But every couple of weeks, you lecture me about open relationships or being truthful or shifting the fucking paradigm. It’s like being in a women’s studies course with a twenty-two-year-old. If I tell Andrew that I’m having an affair, it will blow a hole open in the middle of my life. It would be a disaster.”
“Telling the truth is too much of a risk for you.”
“Yes, it is. You don’t understand how marriage works because you’ve never been married. And we’re parents. We have two little kids.”
“I’m not suggesting that we ever meet at your house. Haven’t you ever hired a babysitter?”
“That’s not the fucking point! It’s just…It’s not possible.”
“You don’t want it to be possible. Fine. I understand your priorities. And I respect them. Just don’t think it’s all about you and your needs.”
“I know it’s not just about me. You have your own life, too. You see other people. Benoît, for example. And you’ve alluded to other friends.” Their eyes met. Eliza snapped, “You’re always safe, right? Condoms, those dental things, whoever these people are?”
“Dental dams.” Shar knew that Eliza was not worried about safe sex; she was making a point about sexual freedom. “I don’t need dental dams. I don’t sleep with other women. Not at the moment, anyway. As you know, I always use condoms. And it’s not like I have fifty male lovers. I told you that. I have…a couple…friends. It’s a preventative.”
“A preventative against what?” Eliza could not help that what from flying out like a blade.
“Don’t be so thick! It prevents us from getting too attached. Whether or not I see other people isn’t the point. You’re the one who occupies my mind and my bed.”
“But you have to pass it on as soon as you’ve had it, don’t you?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Benoît penetrates you and you have to penetrate me? Is your dick bigger than his?”
“What are you talking about? You wanted to use the strap-on! Is that why? To compete with Benoît? Really?” She laughed, incredulous.
“What’s so fucking funny? You feel no jealousy at all, ever? About anyone?”
Shar took a deep breath. Exhaled. The truth was the most logical thing at this moment. She could trust Eliza with the truth. Couldn’t she? She looked into her angry face. “Benoît is a dear friend. I’ve known him for a long time. Sure, we have sex sometimes. You know that. But we didn’t this morning. We had breakfast. Which is what I said. I told you that.”
“How do I know what you do or don’t do with him? With anyone? You’re free, right? You’re completely fucking free.”
“I never said I was—”
“Instead of running around fourteen hours a day working and housecleaning and taking care of children and a husband, you just swan from one little lunch date to the next, a few fucks here, a few classes there, planning your next trip to France or Italy. Must be nice.”
Shar’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck you! Why have an honest conversation when it’s easier to insult me and feel sorry for yourself?”
That was how Shar, who badly wanted to have an honest conversation, squandered the moment for it.
Eliza did up the last button on her blouse, jerked her head back like a whiplash victim and spat out, “I have to go right now.”
Not to be outdone, Shar replied, “Yes, you do. Go.”
29
Telepathy
EN ROUTE TO THE STUDIO, ELIZA PASSED A MINIVAN speeding in the opposite direction and shouted, “Oh, shit fire and fuck dogs!” It was an old Alberta cuss.
The vehicle was not Fleur’s delivery van—unfortunately—but it was similar enough to remind Eliza of the thing missing from her to-do list, now the thing she had not done. “Oh, no,” she said, and swore again. One remembered item dislodged another, and the name of the herb also came to her, the one that could improve a sluggish memory. “Ginkgo fucking biloba.” What she’d had to do was on her work computer calendar. But she hadn’t gone to the studio this morning because, of course, she’d taken Jake to the dentist.
—
Bianca sat behind her desk eating, with her usual neatness, from a small container of yogurt. “I would say…yes. She is upset. Kind of.” Just like Bianca to soften the blow.
“But did she…manage?”
Because Eliza had forgotten, Kiki had had to drive alone to Mississauga after lunch to pick up some lighting fixtures for their first spring wedding. Eliza had promised she would drive the van.
“She didn’t have a car accident, if that’s what you’re asking. But she missed two exits off the highway. Ended up going past Mississauga.”
“How do you go past Mississauga? It’s huge! Wasn’t she using the GPS?”
“The GPS would have helped. A lot. But it wasn’t in the console of the van. Where it’s supposed to be.” Bianca licked yogurt from the edges of her lips as delicately as a cat. “Do you know where the GPS is?”
“Oh, shit. I completely forgot to put it back.”
“After you went to pick up those new planter stands.” Bianca pursed her lips, nodded. “And the GPS is…?”
“In the bottom drawer of my desk,” Eliza responded, her voice dull.
“I looked in your desk,” Bianca said mildly. “But the bottom one is usually locked…”
“Because the good camera is in there.”
“Right.”
“And I have the only key to the drawer.”
“Mm-hm. You know, she printed out Google map directions. It should have been fine. But she gets flustered. I couldn’t go in her place because she wanted to see the lanterns herself. And I couldn’t go with her because we were expecting three deliveries this afternoon
.” Bianca offered up a compensatory smile. “Kiki called you. A number of times.” She put the lid on her little container. “I called you, too.” She put it in her lunch bag. “But your phone was off. You haven’t turned it back on yet, right?”
Eliza did not immediately respond. Then she lied. “I completely forgot to charge it.” Actually, she’d turned it off just before she went in to see Jake at the dentist’s. That was the beginning of her early lunch, a meal that had lasted for a long time.
Bianca chose not to respond to Eliza’s lie, but the way she wiped her plastic spoon with a Kleenex, eyes down, suggested her profound disappointment. “But…the thing is,” she said, with an uncharacteristic awkwardness. Her eyes were still downcast.
Eliza nodded impatiently. “What is the thing?”
“She called Andrew.”
“What?” Her voice cracked; she cleared her throat. “Why did she call Andrew?”
“Because she knows that he’s an excellent driver. He talked her back onto the highway. And…she was looking for you, I guess.” Bianca raised her eyes. “She said she thought that you were with him.”
This was also a lie; both of them knew it. Was it telepathy? Eliza was too agitated to figure out how so much private information got into the air, unless, of course, it wasn’t private. What was private anymore? Emails, texts, recorded conversations: even professional spies were outed on a regular basis, their covers blown or traced. Everything was recorded somewhere, if only on the skin of a person’s face, in the sound of her voice.
Eliza didn’t have a ready lie. “All right. Well…I feel terrible about this.” That was the truth. “I’ll just do paperwork until she gets in. Unless we have a standing order that needs filling tomorrow. Do we?”
“We did. Two standing orders. Sunfish. And the Tauron Tower. Kiki did them before she left. They’re in the fridge. I’ll deliver them tomorrow morning.”
“All right. I better print out the proposals I worked on over the weekend.” That was true, too. She had worked on two August wedding proposals, on her laptop at home; she wasn’t a complete slacker. First she went and stood in the fridge, staring guiltily at Kiki’s expert arrangements. The Tauron Tower management liked spare, architectural flowers. Kiki had used bird of paradise, crimson ginger and some fiery orange orchids to create a tall, elegant sculpture. Eliza stared at the purple and orange bird of paradise, that beaky reptilian bloom, until she had absorbed enough cold-blooded dignity to leave the fridge.
The Change Room Page 22