Waiting in Vain

by Colin Channer

  “I’m up against something, what is it?”

  “That’s my cervix. You’re all the way inside me.”

  “I didn’t realize that I was so deep.”

  “You’re very deep. I like to feel you up there, Fire. I like to feel you up there. Now move around inside me and make me wetter. I know you can do that.”

  “Like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Faster or slower?”

  “Just like that.”

  “What should I do just like that?”

  “Make love to me.”

  “What?”

  “Make love to me, Fire. Make love to me.”

  “Fast or slow? Hard or soft?”

  “Fast and hard.”

  “Okay, I’m making love to you fast and hard.”

  “Yes, I’m wet enough that you can make love to me as fast and as hard as you want.” She clamped the phone with her neck. “Pump me.”

  “Can you hear me smacking up against you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you feel my perspiration wetting you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dripping off my chin into your face?”

  “Yes.”

  “Raise your legs for me.”

  “Oh God!”

  “Raise your hips so I can get my hands beneath them.”

  “Oh God!”

  “Move with me.”

  “Oh God!”

  “Now hold still and take me. Take me. Take me however you want.”

  “Come with me, Fire!” she whispered through clenched teeth. “Come with me! Come … with … meeeeeeee!”

  She leaned back against her chair and pulled her knees toward her chest, struggling to catch her breath.

  “Hush, baby, lay on my chest. I have you,” he said. “Lay on my chest. I have you.”

  She composed herself before replying.

  “Fire, I can’t believe that I just did that … I can’t believe that … Oh God, my skirt is all wet … Shit … If someone had walked in—”

  “When are we going to see each other?” he interrupted. “I think it needs to be soon.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied awkwardly. “You’re there, I’m here.”

  “I want to see you, Sylvia.”

  “I want to see you too … Fire,” she replied, while considering that she was back with Lewis now.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because …” she began.

  “Because?” he asked, urging her through her loss of words.

  “When I see you I’ll tell you,” she replied, laughing to ease the tension.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m coming to see you.”

  “You’re joking, right? You’re always joking.”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “Where are you going to stay?”

  “With you.”

  “That’s not … very … practical … right now.”

  “It doesn’t matter where I stay, really, as long as I get a chance to see you.”

  “You’re going to come for how long?”

  “The weekend.”

  “Just to see me?”

  “Yeah,” he said casually.

  “Right.”

  “You think I’m joking, don’t you?”

  “Of course you’re joking,” she said.

  “Well, what are you going to do when you see me sitting on your doorstep?”

  He was laughing. So was she. Then she suddenly became silent.

  “You have company, I gather,” Fire said.

  “Yes,” she replied, trying to sound businesslike. “Can I get back to you on that? … Okay, bye.”

  Virgil had entered her office in a huff. Shit, she thought. That whole thing with the receipts again. She had to get them in tomorrow morning, he said, or there would be trouble.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t know where to find them.

  Sylvia got up the next morning and continued the frantic search that had begun the night before. Her apartment was a mess. Desk drawers were out and their innards scattered widely. Books covered the living room like pebbles on a beach. Sitting on the coffee table in her white pajamas, she covered her face with her hands and tried her best to remember. Where were they? Where could they be?

  It was 8:15 and … Shit, she realized. She needed the 8:00 A.M. train because she had a meeting at … Shit, she needed an earlier train at like quarter of to catch an 8:30 meeting.

  Picking her way over the rubble she dashed in and out of the shower and scrambled to get dressed in the bedroom—she slipped on some slacks and jumped into some shoes and hauled on a top without any consideration, then shot out the door.

  As she closed it, though, she remembered. She’d left her portfolio inside. She bolted back inside to grab it, but it wasn’t where she thought she’d left it. In the hall room. By her computer. Where was it? By the time she’d decided that she had to leave it, it was 8:30. What to do? What to do? Better call the office. But where was the phone? Not where it was supposed to be. Hadn’t she just seen it when she was looking for her portfolio? She thought so. But she hadn’t been looking for the phone then, so she wasn’t quite sure.

  She couldn’t believe she had allowed herself to come to this—to be so out of control. In the first place she should’ve filed the receipts a while ago. But to have the place a mess like this was completely unforgivable. A part of her wanted to smile when she thought of the reason, the force that had exploded within her, creating this shambles in which she was standing now, this outward expression of her state of mind.

  He made me come, she was thinking … with words … over the phone … from a distance. He made me let go. Made me feel okay to step outside myself. Made me feel feelings that I’d locked away since Syd.

  For most of her life she had accepted that it was her, she was thinking now, and her baggage. And although Sylvia had stopped faking orgasms a few years ago, she still had a sense of being incomplete, and felt awkward about touching herself in the presence of a lover. She’d been disappointed every time that she had tried. A lot of men felt it was a form of castration. Others thought it was a show and pulled away to watch. Then there were those like Lewis, who tried but simply didn’t know what to do … no matter how many times and in how many ways she’d tried to show him. So she usually did it alone. Fire … Fire … Fire. She was hearing his voice now. How is it that you just know?

  It’s so simple. An orgasm, at its core, is a mind thing.

  But, yes, she had to call her office. Where was the fucking phone? In her mind she saw it on the bed and she went to dig through stacks of paper there. There, under the pillow she was sure she felt it. Shit, it was the remote. She tossed it in frustration and heard behind her the crash of glass and the thud of wood.

  She leaped across the bed to investigate, scattering clothes and paper. One of her favorite pieces of art was a small collage by James Denmark. Now the glass was shattered. The frame was broken. And the work itself had a two-inch rip.

  And as she went for the broom and dustpan, the phone began to ring. Where was it coming from? She listened, cocking her head. The kitchen. She stumbled through the mess. The fridge. The fridge. The goddamn phone was in the fridge.

  “Hello,” she said frantically.

  “Hi, Sylvia. How are you?” It was Lewis.

  She checked her watch. It was almost nine. “I can’t talk now, honey. Ring me at the office.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “I have a meeting with Virgil and I’m already late. Is it something urgent?”

  “Actually, Virgil asked me to call you to tell you that the meeting won’t be happening till tomorrow.”

  “Why would he ask you to do that?” she asked, leaning against the fridge. The closeness of Lewis and Virgil had always bothered her. “I work for him, not you.”

  “Well … he’s here at my place. The other night, at Lincoln Center, we sta
rted a dialogue that might turn into something big. So we’re having a breakfast meeting. It started early and now it’s running over.”

  She toyed with a jar of black pepper as she composed her thoughts. “You’re not his messenger boy, Lewis. Let me speak to him.”

  “Sylvia, calm down.” It sounded to her as if he had placed his hand over the receiver. “Virge and I have a friendship that goes back before you. Don’t forget that. Don’t encroach on it.”

  “Do you know what, Lewis? Whatever … this just shows complete disregard for me as a professional. I hope you know that. To ask you to call me to cancel a meeting.”

  “Well, if you’d been at the office as you were supposed to I’m sure I wouldn’t have to do this.”

  “First of all, I’m always on time, so there’s no need to call me out on that, okay? And second of all … I don’t have time for this. Look, I’ll talk to you whenever.”

  She hung up.

  He called back. “Don’t you ever fucking do that again!”

  “Leave me alone, Lewis. You are just so small to me right now. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

  “I did the other day and you came running back.”

  She threw the jar against the wall. It exploded like a powder keg.

  “Are you saying that you don’t want this? Just tell me if that’s what you’re saying. Be big about it,” she said.

  “All I’m gonna say, and I’m not gonna say any more right now because this is all looking very unprofessional, is this. If we split up I know for sure I can survive.”

  “Fuck you!”

  She hung up again and marched out of the house. Fuck the portfolio. Fuck the receipts. Fuck everything right now.

  But somewhere along that short passage from the front door to the stoop, as Sylvia left the safety of her home for a place where she’d lost control, an invisible hand pressed the anger from her and wet her down with fear. For as she stepped out into the bright, hot morning, she was quaking with the primal fear of darkness—a fear grounded in the infinity of fearful possibilities, the fear of not even knowing what she shouldn’t be afraid of.

  Why does he think he can talk to me like that? she asked herself. What have I done? What am I doing? Why did I go back to him? What was there to prove? What was there to gain?

  The questions echoed in her belly like stones dropped down a well. Feeling weighed down, she sat on the stoop in her wrinkled clothes that didn’t match, and thought about the mess that was her life. At times like these, she thought, it would be nice to have a father or a brother or a son—a man to reassure her that it was them and not her that was fucked up.

  How was it that Lewis couldn’t understand her hurt? she wondered. Or was it that he did, but simply didn’t care? He said he could survive if they broke up. What was he implying? That she couldn’t? By what ludicrous standard was he measuring her? She came into this world alone and she would leave alone. At first this declaration filled her with defiance. Soon after, though, as she considered that she was alone now, and had been for most of her life, she began to feel vulnerable. If she lost her job there was no family to move back to, or any sibling to put her up, or any uncle to arrange a job. Unlike him. Unlike most people. Was that what he’d meant? If so, he was right in a way. Which made her depressed now, made her turn her face from the sun and hide it between her knees.

  She began to hum, the monotony of the sound echoing the white noise that filled her head.

  A dog barked. She looked up out of reflex, then dropped her head again.

  Footsteps went by. Three people, by the sound of it. A man and a woman, talking to each other. The third person, the one in slippers, did not speak. Those steps trailed the others.

  A truck rumbled by and stopped a few doors down. She recognized the driver’s voice. UPS. Overhead a plane descended toward La Guardia. Down the street someone was watering their garden. Mr. Jonas, most likely; he was always getting shrubs delivered from Calyx.

  More footsteps. From the direction of Mr. Jonas. Man. Definitely. The bite of the heel into the pavement said that. And the length of the stride. White man, most likely. A black man around at this time of day was most likely making deliveries. Which most likely meant sneakers.

  Other steps from the opposite direction. On the other side of the street. Voices too and the creak of wheels. One voice Hispanic. The other white ethnic … Italian maybe … and younger. Homemaker out with the nanny and baby. Baby who just cried out. “Put da blanket da baby.” The other voice stalled, not knowing if this was question or statement.

  A car washed those sounds away and the other footsteps drew closer. Began to slow down.

  A helicopter cut through above her, heading for Wall Street across the harbor.

  The footsteps were replaced by the silence of a shadow.

  She felt the coolness. Felt the darkness on her skin through her clothes. She anticipated the question—directions perhaps. But none was forthcoming. And the shadow was lingering.

  He was watching her intensely, she could feel it. Which made her uneasy now. The neighborhood was safe but … She was vulnerable with her head down. What if he were a burglar, scoping apartments? Or a rapist?

  She had to look. But should she be discreet or brazen? If she saw his face and he was in fact a criminal, that might scare him. But if he was truly dangerous, should she draw attention to herself? Or even allow him to see her face?

  She heard the pavement crunch beneath his soles as he swiveled to move again. Which relieved her. Until the first step came in her direction. Up the steps.

  On adrenaline now, she raised her head and wedged her hand across her brows to block the sun and defend herself and saw that it was Fire—freshly shaven, his hair brushed back, dressed in a white linen shirt that was open at the neck, and black dress pants and square-toed shoes that shone like the wheels of a new Mercedes.

  Calming her with his shadow, steadying her with his eyes, he smiled at her and called her name softly, and gave her a posy of freshly cut tulips.

  “I can’t … believe … you’re here,” she said, feeling the sweet release of tears. “I can’t believe you came. To see me … I thought … it was a … joke.”

  He lowered himself to his haunches and took her face in his hands, holding it as if it were a porcelain vase.

  “No. I wasn’t joking,” he said, using his thumbs not so much to wipe away the tears as to massage her face. “This is madness between us. And madness is a serious thing. Yes, Sylvia, I’m here. I’m here to see you.” He brushed his lips across her brows. “Why’re you crying, sweet girl?”

  “Just lots of stuff,” she replied. “Nothing I’m ready to talk about right now.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “In the fullness of time. Everything happens in the fullness of time.”

  They walked together to the subway, Sylvia carrying her flowers through these streets that she knew and where she was known, past old houses whose shuttered windows and drawn curtains seemed to turn a blind eye to this indiscretion, no longer feeling fit to judge, having witnessed for over a hundred years this same couple in different incarnations, making this journey toward the blissful possibilities of uncertainty.

  They were lovers now. It was clear to anyone who saw them. Clear but not provable. But people can see things, and know them, without being able to explain. What did it mean, for example, that he would sweep back hedges with the forearm of his new white shirt for the simple pleasure of being beside her instead of ahead or behind? Or that her smaller, more softly shod feet were falling against the pavement in counterpoint to his longer, heavier stride, forming a single rhythm played by two? It meant that they were lovers. Lovers already in heart and mind … and very soon in body.

  As they waited to cross a street, she dared to take his arm, tugging him back toward her as he leaned around a truck to check for oncoming traffic. The sensation of touching excited her. The naturalness of it. The way his smile told her it was okay for her to take responsibility for him
. Desirable even.

  “I didn’t tell you before,” she said as they neared the subway. They were on Henry Street, a thoroughfare flanked with storefront shops and a high-rise condo complex made of prefab concrete. “Thank you so much for the flowers. They are really beautiful. I couldn’t leave them at home. I have to take them to work with me. I hope you don’t think I’m countrified for doing that.”

  “Would it matter what I think, though?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I really want you to like me right now.”

  “Right now and not tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow too. But right now more than ever.”

  “Okay, I like you now more than ever.”

  When they reached the token booth he asked, “So when will I see you?”

  “Call me at the office,” she replied. “We could have lunch. Where are you staying?”

  “The Fulton Inn.”

  “I didn’t mean to cry when I saw you,” she said. “I was just having a very bad morning.”

  “And here I was, thinking they were tears of joy.”

  “You’ve gotten lots of those, I’m sure,” she said. “You don’t need mine.”

  “Yes I do. As a matter of fact I think you should cry for me right now to make me feel really wanted.”

  “Boo-hoo, hoo. There you go.”

  “Thank you.”

  This feels so easy, she thought. So natural. She pressed her thumb against his lips, choosing it and not a finger for its softness and dexterity, for its ability to convey to him the impression of a kiss.

  “I feel like I could just hold you and smooch you right here, Fire.”

  “Smooch?”

  “Yes, ‘smooch,’ like white people in those sixties beach movies. Smooch.”

  “Well, don’t let me stop you from”—he made his brows dance—“smooching me,” he replied.

  “Not here though.”

  “Why?”

  “For me to smooch you to show you how happy I am, I’d have to smooch you too many times … and my train is coming any minute now. You have no idea what you’ve done for me this morning, Fire. You have no idea what it means to me that you’ve come here … to Brooklyn … all the way from London … overnight … for no other reason than to see me. I needed this. But I didn’t know I did.”