Her head dropped down to the back of the couch as she released a sigh of pure pleasure. She felt as moist as dewy grass, fluid as molten gold, and Marcus’s mouth on her body took away all the cares of her world as her mind went blank – she could think of nothing except his tongue as it conquered her entirely.
At one point, he picked her up and carried her over to the bed. The bloodstained duvet was gone, leaving only a simple white sheet. He laid her carefully down with her head on the pillow and then lay down beside her, spread her legs and touched her with his fingers. Penny bit her lip and stifled a confused whisper as Marcus’s index finger parted her tender flesh, but it didn’t hurt. It was an indescribable sensation, a tingling, a tremor, a heartbeat, a panting desire. His finger moved slowly – so slowly and so delicately that it surely could not belong to the same hand that only just now had been unleashing those powerful blows on the punch bag.
Penny barely heard his voice in her ear asking, ‘Does this hurt?’
She whispered back an absolutely sincere ‘No’.
So he moved more decisively, touching her inside as if he had a hundred hands on one finger. Penny closed her eyes in the face of those sensations, the pleasure that opened her up like a rose – first a bud, then an open flower, alive and pulsating. It was as if she had another heart down there, a hidden heart. When at last she came, she cried out the sensual and ancient song of a woman in ecstasy. As she emptied her lungs, Marcus kissed her on the lips as if he wanted to swallow her voice, and it was so hard for Penny not to shout ‘I love you’ directly into his mouth.
She thought it though; oh goddammit yes, she thought it all right.
I love you love you love you love you . . .
With this humming in her head, she opened her eyes and looked at him and saw that he was watching her intently.
‘I owed you an orgasm,’ he told her, his eyes both lost and aroused.
He started to get up, but Penny shouted ‘Wait!’ which came from her soul to his.
‘I want . . . I also want to . . .’
He frowned and shook his head. ‘You owe me nothing.’
‘Not because I owe you! I want to do it. I want to touch you . . . like you touched me.’
Giving him no time to say another word, she grabbed him by the arm and made him lie down, tugging at the thin cord of his sweatpants. She held her breath as she touched him and felt a sublime joy, like holding precious briarwood wrapped in velvet. She wanted to kiss him, taste him. She wanted to know every inch of his body, every hiding place and secret. She was unrecognisable to herself. She felt lost in the face of such obscene desire, but was determined to continue. Dropping her gaze briefly, she then looked up at Marcus, saying, ‘I’m sorry if I’m no good. I’ve never done it before, but . . . I want to try.’
‘Oh my God, Penny . . .’ he whispered in despair and disbelief.
‘Don’t you want me to?’ she asked, surprised and a little sad.
‘You haven’t done this either?’
‘No, I haven’t. I’m sorry.’
And so, with enormous courage, she did what she had never done before. She was embarrassed, insecure, and her desire far exceeded her ability. She liked everything about Marcus, every corner of his body, every innermost nook and cranny. She tried not to think if and how much she was messing up, or whether Marcus was bothered by her inexperience, but then she looked at him for a moment and realised that he wasn’t bothered at all.
He was raised up on his elbows, his mighty legs parted, head bent back, with a hoarse low groan in his throat. He was enjoying her awkward kisses and the caress of her fingers as if she were helping him manage some brief respite from all the difficulties of his life.
Suddenly, Marcus put his hand around Penny’s, moving it faster now to show her he was ready to come. She nodded and, complying with his silent request, observed him with dedication and enchantment, her lips slightly parted, breathing lightly, as if he were a living work of art, and these actions and their accompanying soundtrack were precious memories to gather to her heart, eternal moments never to be forgotten.
Eventually, after emitting a longer, harsher, hoarser moan, Marcus fell back on the bed. He ran a hand over her head, lightly touching her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. Penny thought he was maybe trying to shoo her out without being too direct.
Why do beautiful things last for so little time, and why does the darkness seem so much darker when they end?
Penny slipped off the bed and retrieved her clothes. She would have to go back downstairs to put herself together again. In her chest, her heart was like a nightingale that dies after singing its last note.
As she headed for the door, Marcus called out to her, ‘Penny.’
She spun around, frightened almost at the tone of his voice. ‘What is it?’
He sat up and stared at her. He was so provocative, so naked and strong, like some ancient statue decorated with ancestral signs, that she wanted to repeat every gesture, go back to that bed and relive all the kisses, the hands, the tongues, and his body everywhere, though she’d have been equally content simply to take a photo of him and keep it next to her heart forever.
Marcus opened his lips as if he wanted to say something important, but then he just said, ‘Nothing,’ and fell back heavily on to the bed.
That night, they walked home from work under an unusually starry sky, with Marcus smoking and Penny lost in thought until she broke the silence by asking him why he’d come to the library earlier.
He inhaled a great lungful of smoke and said, ‘I wanted to know why Francisca’s answer hadn’t come yet and to remind you to bring me that money, but I saw you were busy so I left.’
‘I wasn’t busy. I was only talking to Igor about . . .’
Marcus gave her a wry smile, expelling smoke through his nose, the corners of his mouth pulled up, his eyes dark except where they glinted with tiny reflections of the streetlamps.
‘Why should I care what you and Igor were talking about?’
‘You could have stayed.’
‘Oh no. I saw your game and I wanted to let you play it.’
‘What game?’
‘You’re clearly looking to be with some rich jerk like your slutty friend Rebecca, huh? You tried it with Grant but it went wrong, so now you’re throwing yourself at Igor. I don’t blame you, OK? You should try to get out of this shithole any way you can, if you can’t use your own brains to do it.’
Penny stumbled so hard with shock that she had to spread her arms slightly to keep her balance. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘No need to overact. I’m not buying it.’
‘I’m not jumping on Igor, and I sure as hell didn’t jump on Grant! How dare you? You really are an asshole, aren’t you!’
‘Is that news to you?’
‘Sometimes you look almost human, Marcus, but other times you make me regret . . .’
‘Sucking me off?’
‘Stop that!’
‘That’s what you did, wasn’t it? And I have to admit that it wasn’t so bad in spite of your lack of experience. You have a natural talent for that kind of work.’
Penny whirled around, poised to hit him, but Marcus was faster and stronger and stopped her, slowly bringing her wrist behind her back.
‘I know your game, Penny, and actually I like it,’ he said. They stood in the middle of the sidewalk, in a pool of darkness that hollowed out their features.
‘I’m really not engaged in any games! And let go of my arm, will you?’
‘I said I like it. You show Igor your good-girl face and use me as a fast fuck – and that’s what I’m made for. We’re on the same page. Of course, you would have done better to lose your virginity to him, just to give him the satisfaction. I’m sure you would’ve gotten a nice ring and who knows how many other expensive gifts out of it.’
Penny pursed her lips and stared at him in horror. Her cheeks were on fire and her heart felt skewered, like he’d stabbed
her with a sword, but she had no intention of letting Marcus win by crying or humiliating herself. She wanted to repay him with his own cynicism, so as not to seem weak and defeated. She would far rather he saw her as a whore than a victim.
‘Let go of my arm,’ she told him again. And then she added, trying her hardest to maintain a similar level of confidence, ‘I’m glad we agree on at least one point, namely that the sex is good. You use me and I use you. Anything else is our own business.’
‘I like it when you set clear boundaries. So shall we go do it?’
‘Hell yeah!’
They started making out on the stairs. On each floor, in the usual darkness of that hour, Penny felt Marcus’s hands under her skirt. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t afraid of the dark. Suddenly, he leaned her against the wall and kissed her in a way that made her blood shoot hot and cold through her veins. Her arms pinned over her head, his leg between her legs, his tongue soft as melted chocolate, deep and very hot, his lips biting hers.
They finally made it up to the attic, and made a dash for the couch where he yanked down her stockings with a kind of disdain, ripping them into shreds. He pulled a condom from his pocket and discarded the wrapping with his usual fury. Penny felt a brief flash of anger at the thought that he had brought it with him, and wondered if he had more in the same pocket and had already had sex with other women tonight and she was merely the last in his string of conquests. She felt hurt and disgusted, but nevertheless let him slide into her, and this time it was easier. He slipped in without resistance or pain, and with each stroke it was as if the world had contracted, the universe had disappeared and nothing else existed beyond this one piece of him that filled her whole body with tremors of lust and pure sensation. Their ragged breaths blended into one single hoarse cry as they came together.
Soon after, Penny rose to gather her coat from the floor. Marcus remained on the couch, sitting with his pants down to his thighs, hunting for the lighter in his pocket. A cigarette dangled, ready, from his lips.
Penny tried to ignore him, leaving the attic in silence, with no kiss, no smile, without a word, closing the door with just enough force to communicate that she despised him, even though she had just given herself to him.
And yet she knew that she loved him.
How these two things went together – a piercing hatred alongside an equally piercing need for someone – she had yet to discover.
18
MARCUS
As soon as I wake up I go for a run. I’m dead tired. I don’t want to think about anything, and above all I don’t want to think about Penny and what I stole from her. When I return, I stop for a moment outside her door.
What am I going to do?
Knock?
To tell her what?
Does it still hurt after I broke you? How are you? Are you disgusted by the very sight of me?
But even if I do disgust her, what do I care? It’s not like I actually raped her. If she’d told me, I would have been less aggressive.
No, if she’d told me, I would have opened the door and seen her out. Guys like me aren’t cut out for that kind of responsibility. I have no time to waste on petting and make-out sessions like I’m sixteen or something. What good is it if you can’t fuck hard?
So I don’t knock, but go up to the attic instead and try to forget all about it.
But then my eyes fall on the stained bedding, so I snatch it angrily off the bed, put it in the shower and give it a good scrub, then I wash myself too. I stand under the jet for at least half an hour, as still as I can, and even if I try and try, and I’m tired and my mind should be blank, I just can’t get Penny out of my head.
What. Is. Happening. To. Me?
I go out again and see Sherrie for a bite to eat. The place is full of people. You can eat well for very little. I sit down at a free table and Sherrie approaches me with a wink.
‘You alone today, baby?’ she asks, handing me a plastic-covered menu that I know by heart.
‘I’m always alone,’ I reply. ‘Bring me a medium-rare steak and a beer, will you, and then a slice of your amazing cheesecake.’
‘All right, honey, but next time you bring Penny along.’
‘I don’t want to disappoint you, Aunt Sherilyn, but there’s absolutely nothing between Penny and me. I’m not bringing her here, or anywhere else for that matter.’
‘Bad call. That girl is like a breath of fresh air. She’s clean like the March waters in Montana when I was a child. I used to get up early to help my parents in the barn, and for a good five minutes I’d stay out in the snow and breathe in fresh oxygen! Even now, when someone asks me what’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, I think of that air there, the pure air of my childhood, but anyways . . . I meant to ask you, does your parole officer know you hang around here?’
My lip curls at the thought of that snoop Malkovich. ‘I doubt it. He’s not exactly stalking me. He knows I wrote to Francisca because the prison administration told him, but it’s not like he can constantly monitor everyone on parole.’
‘If he knew, he wouldn’t be very happy about it.’
‘You’re family, Sherrie, and if that asshole puts his nose where it doesn’t belong, I swear I’ll make him remember why they sent me to prison in the first place.’
‘Don’t talk like that. You have to behave yourself. You have your whole life ahead of you, and now there’s Penny to think about. Don’t ruin your future because of your past – not again.’
‘You know I care about you, but quit all this crap about Penny. And bring me my food. I’m hungry!’
Sherrie smiles and walks away. I look at her: she’s well over sixty but she doesn’t look it. When she was young, she was beautiful – she’s shown me some of the photos she keeps in a tin; she looked like one of those babes in the movies. She tried to be an actress, in fact. She left the mountains and all that fresh air she misses so much and moved to New York City, but instead of becoming a star on the big screen she became a prostitute. The line between a dream and a nightmare can be dangerously thin, and when you get hungry and nothing else comes your way, you learn to adapt. And that’s when she crossed paths with my mother. Who knows just how long fate had been planning to turn them both into whores? And when I say whores, I mean it exactly the way it sounds.
I devour the steak and all the fixings, and then Sherrie brings me a cup of coffee. She sits across from me and gives me a strange look.
‘I’ve been watching you, my boy,’ she tells me.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve been here for an hour and I’ve been watching you.’
‘Did I do something you didn’t like?’ I ask her, with a provocative smile.
‘Well, first of all you look awful. Those dark circles under your eyes are scaring me.’
‘Time doesn’t do me any favours, I guess.’
‘It’s not that – I’m afraid it’s your bad ideas that aren’t doing you any favours. Don’t get yourself into any trouble, promise? No fighting, no wrong crowd, no alcohol.’
‘I don’t go out and I’m honest as a choirboy, I swear.’
‘Until she gets out of prison.’
‘Would this be Francisca you’re talking about?’
‘Obviously, and as soon as she gets out, you’re gonna be back in trouble, won’t you? So you’ll end up with more vacation time on the state’s dime and ruin yourself forever.’
‘You’re just like Malkovich – you don’t understand: I was ruined long before I met Francisca.’
‘That’s not true. You had issues, yes, and you were rebellious and desperate, but you’d never killed anyone.’
‘By some miracle. I’d have killed that other shit if you hadn’t stopped me.’
‘That shit wanted to hurt your mother and you defended her.’
‘The shit I did kill wanted to hurt Francisca. The only difference is you can’t stand her.’
‘It’s not that I can’t stand her, my boy, but try to
understand me: I think we’re put on this earth to find our missing half. D’you know that story? No? They say that in the beginning, every human being was a kind of monster. Two heads, four legs, four arms, but despite being hideous, we felt complete. We breathed even better than we do now, like how I breathed back in Montana – I know what I’m talking about. Then some jealous god, one of those who flies into a rage at the sight of a happy human, divided us in two. Each new person had two arms and two legs and one head, but above all each had a single heart, you follow? And when the same angry god split everyone in half, he sent their parts to opposite sides of the world like a magician shuffling the cards. So all of the people who used to be complete are now looking for their other half. I have nothing against Francisca, but I’m absolutely certain that she’s not your other half. It’s like when you go crazy trying to force the wrong pieces of the puzzle together, and you end up joining a strip of sky to the tip of a cat’s tail, and it’s quite obvious that what you just did is totally wrong. Know what I’m saying?’
‘All I know is that you should open a matchmaking agency instead of a diner. Someone out there will buy these dumb stories.’
‘They’re not dumb. Listen to me.’
‘So you’re saying Penny’s my other half?’
‘Yes, I truly think she is. There was such great energy between the two of you.’
‘It wasn’t energy, it was the onset of pneumonia.’
‘Then answer me this . . .’
I laugh again, uncertain of where Sherrie is heading with this. She looks at me with a half-smile and then asks a strange question. ‘Don’t turn around, just stay as you are and tell me this. There are two beautiful women at the next table. How are they dressed?’
I laugh again, not understanding what she’s after. ‘There are no beautiful women at the next table. What is this? A trick question?’
‘My boy, since you walked in, those two have done nothing but try to get your attention. They were clearly hoping you’d invite them over to your table, and you didn’t even notice. You’ve been here for an hour looking like a sorry combination of sad, tired and crazy. The fact you haven’t noticed them means either you’re going blind or you have something else on your mind, and I have a strong feeling that thing is Penny.’
Trying Not To Love You Page 17