He had been so good to her, and always there; she had basked in his love, or blinked and moved away, annoyed by its intensity, but it had seemed a constant, like the sun. It had never really occurred to Sarah that someday Brian would leave her, that the bright, nourishing beams of his affection would be directed at someone else.
Before the final surprise of Melanie, Brian had specialized in good surprises. He would send her flowers, or mysterious telegrams signed “Alexei” or “Nikolai”; he set up a midnight treasure-hunt across a nearby golf course which ended in a cache of champagne and fried chicken for a moonlit picnic; he hired a local band to serenade her on her birthday.
And he had been just as thoughtful, just as clever, just as determined to please her in bed. Once, Sarah remembered, she had discovered a vibrator under her pillow, and looked around to find Brian watching her with his wickedest grin. Another time it had been a can of whipped cream and a jar of chocolate syrup; another, massage oils. He had been an inventive and seemingly tireless lover, quick to learn what she liked, and so eager to provide it that she believed him when he said that his pleasure came from giving her pleasure.
So much love, so much attention—Sarah dreamed of a man beside the bed who brought a pillow down on her face while she slept, and woke, thrashing and panting for air, hot, breathless and disoriented, thinking frantically of escape when Brian put his arms around her and tried to comfort her.
Escape! Fully awake, the thought seemed traitorous and absurd. Sarah’s dreams made her feel guilty, and she winced away from Brian’s smile and tried to find ways around his generosity. He tried to give her more, and she asked for less.
Finally, it seemed, he had taken her at her word, and given her less, so that now she had nothing. She was free now, freer than she had ever wanted to be. Tears came to her eyes, but she fought them off. She didn’t want another miserable, wakeful night spent going over that dreadful litany of mistakes, quarrels, misunderstandings and lost hopes. They’d had more good times together than bad, she and Brian, but the memories that clung now were the ones with burrs, the prickly, uncomfortable ones. Sarah wanted to remember the good times, the long, safe, sexy nights, the lazy mornings; she wanted a sweet memory with which to lull herself to sleep, hand between her thighs.
She commanded a memory: Brian’s lips on hers, the two of them together in bed. But that was too vague. She had to pick out a moment in time, some time when he had been hers.
She remembered coming in from class one afternoon, trudging up the stairs, her head down. She hadn’t seen Brian waiting for her, hadn’t even known he was there until he pounced, grabbing her tightly from behind.
Sarah had squealed, and then giggled as he pawed her and breathed heavily in her ear, but the books in her arms were uncomfortable, slipping. “Brian, could I put my books down?”
“Ha! ’oo ees thees Brian? ’E cannot ’elp you now!”
One book fell. Wincing with annoyance, Sarah let the rest of them go. Why did she worry about such trivial details? Why couldn’t she just forget everything else and play, as Brian did?
But he had done a good job of distracting her. His hands caressing her breasts through the silky material of her blouse, his breath hot in her ear, became the only important things. He tumbled her to the ground, and tugged her jeans partway down, and touched her until her panties were wet and she was wriggling with impatience, but he held her down, held her hands down, not letting her touch him or undress herself, laughing at her, murmuring, “Ah, no, you naughty girl, we’ll keep our clothes on and stay out of trouble.” And he’d gone on teasing her, sucking her breasts through her blouse, until—
She knew what happened next; it was what always happened next. But she was helpless to visualize it. Instead she saw Brian’s face change, saw him melancholy, no longer loving or lustful. And she heard him say, “Melanie needs me. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Brian wasn’t hers anymore, not even in her fantasies.
Chapter Three
On Saturday morning Sarah left the Marchants’ early, while Pete and Beverly were getting breakfast ready.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I may as well go now. I told Brian I’d be there first thing. We’ll get started—don’t hurry.”
Their silence was sympathetic and said more than words. Sarah hurried away before they could suspect her mood. The prospect of seeing Brian again had lifted her spirits higher than they had been in the past two weeks. She had tried to bury the fantasy of winning him back, but it would keep poking up its seductive face.
As she drove the few blocks to Brian’s house, Sarah hoped she wasn’t too early. She wouldn’t mind catching Brian still in bed—she would have loved such a psychological advantage—but not if Melanie was there with him. It was a relief to see only the blue truck parked in the driveway. But, Sarah reflected, Melanie probably wasn’t any more eager than she was to meet her.
Sarah still had her key, so, heart thudding, she opened the door without knocking, and entered the tiny foyer which rose almost immediately into a flight of steps. Suddenly aware of herself as an intruder, she made herself stop at the bottom of the stairs, and called out Brian’s name.
His head appeared at once, looking down over the railing, the slightly shaggy fair hair falling forward in a soft aura around his face. “Hi,” he said. “Come on up.”
Something in her chest seemed to tighten at the sight of him, and she was already short of breath before she had mounted the first of the steep stairs. Brian took a step backwards when she reached the top, and Sarah felt that slight, flinching movement like a slap. All right, so she wasn’t allowed to touch him. She bit back a nasty retort and just looked at him.
“Pete and Bev will be here soon. Pete can help you carry my couch down. I thought I’d get started sorting out my books and records from yours.”
Brian turned and gestured at boxes stacked against the far wall. “I already went through and separated your books and your records, and most of them are in those boxes. The rest of your books are still in your black bookcase.”
Your, your, yours. Each time he said it it was like another little cut. Ours was dead now. Ours meant something else. She wondered if it was Melanie who had put him up to the sorting job—it wasn’t like him to be so organized. She wondered what he had thought, what he had felt, as he went through their mingled possessions and divided them up.
“You’ll probably want to look through and make sure I didn’t miss anything,” Brian said. “And there’re some records I wasn’t sure about . . . things we bought together. If I kept any you especially wanted, just say.”
“That’s all right. You’re the one who mostly listens to records.” Didn’t he know she didn’t care? Had he stopped understanding her so completely, so abruptly? She wanted to weep. His careful, distant politeness and steady refusal to meet her eyes hurt her more than she had expected. The fantasy that had sent her over here in high spirits had dissolved, and she had no anger to protect her. Here in this familiar room, where they had lived together, the distance he maintained—Brian, who had always been so ready to please her—seemed especially unnatural, almost a sacrilege.