He smiled. “Is this a dream?” he said. His voice was deeper than she remembered. This comforted her in a way.
“Hi, Michael,” she said. He sat, so thin that it seemed as he leaned forward that his arms might buckle, and then, of course, there was Michael’s face. Having not seen him for so long, she could no longer visualize his face. Her memory of it was Cubist, thought of in pieces. She remembered his nose and his dark eyes. His mouth too, but the sum was beyond her. And now here he was, the present apparition, and she looked at him quickly before she had to look away. It was always painful to look at someone she hadn’t seen in a while, the way time is inescapably written on a face. She looked again. It was Michael, yes, but, God, oh, God. He was much more angular, of course. It jarred her. Only a couple of years (actually four) had passed since she’d last seen him, yet she still remembered him as perpetually seventeen, the summer she first met him. No one was younger than Michael at seventeen, no one had more grace in his animation. His confident glide through the world writ all over his smooth cheeks and in his large eyes. He was, at twenty-six, no longer young. His hair was cropped veryshort, chopped, actually, tight against his head. His new angles made his dark eyes larger than ever, and there was tension in his mouth. His lips were thinner and straighter. He was still handsome, but in a dusty, sad, desperate way that only men can wear as handsome, so distant from “cute,” so far from the young man she remembered.
“You are still my most beautiful Lorene,” he said, slightly too loud, and he smiled again. His teeth were bigger than she remembered, but recognizable, not that far off, almost OK. She knew she should approach him, hug him or touch him. But she just stood. She took off her sunglasses.
In addition to the bed, the room had a wood chair and a desk. The chair faced the bed. There was a computer on top of the desk, and a small window above the computer. The opposite wall was stacked with books. The afternoon light from the window was the only illumination, but even in its dust-filled haziness, it was stark enough, and she found her way to the chair, sat, crossed her legs at the ankles and tucked them under the chair. He leaned in toward her from the bed, elbows on knees, and lit a cigarette. He did not stop looking at her, or smiling at her. After a minute, he stopped smiling and pushed his papers aside. He looked at the room, and back at her, and put the sheet he was writing on facedown on a stack on the floor.
“I’m so tired, Lorene. All the time.”
“Me, too,” she said, pulling her own cigarettes out of her purse. He reached for his matches and leaned forward to light her cigarette. She put her hand on his match-holding hand— it was shaking. She steadied it as she inhaled. The touch, instantly over, shocked her. She was suddenly ready to cry.
“You gave me this purse,” she said. He looked at the black leather square-framed bag she was holding.
“A vintage knockoff of the Hermès bag that was designed for Grace Kelly,” she said. He smiled, staring at it.
“Don’t you remember?”
“Yes. A knockoff.” He looked at her. “Same old Lorene. You’re sweet to carry it today.”
“I use it a lot. I love my Kelly bag,” she said. She emphasized the word love too much, she heard emotion in her own voice, and the sound of it upset her. She was starting to cry, and she had to try not to.
“I’m so glad you came. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you sooner. I’ve had a very tough—”
“I know,” she said, stopping him. “I know.” She smoked, and looked at her cigarette and felt him watching her, and felt herself falling again, miraculously, into deeply wanting him. So many times she longed to feel these long-remembered feelings, and now it was frightening, wanting him again. But she did. They sat smoking for what seemed like hours, but it wasn’t even the duration of one cigarette. He put his out and moved up from the bed. He went to the door and turned the lock.
“They let you—” and she stopped.
“Yeah, I’m allowed to lock my door. They have a key, of course, but I do get to lock the door. It’s funny; one is supposed to recover from irrational paranoia in a place of limitless intrusion. Maybe it’s to give you a sane context — he’s not crazy if we supply a reason for his paranoia by keeping him under constant surveillance,” Michael said, laughing. He stood by the door, then took a few steps toward her. She sat frozen, not looking at him.
“It’s OK to laugh about it, Lorene,” he said.
“But, God, no—” she said, and looked at him.
“What?”
“I’m confused,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” and he laughed again. She laughed and then resumed crying.
“I’ve made you cry already,” he said. He stood in front of her and then knelt on the floor by her legs. He put his hand behind one of her feet and started to remove her shoe. He placed it to one side, and then he gently removed the other, placing it neatly by the first one. She put her hand on his head and softly rubbed his hair. He closed his eyes at her touch and then rested his head on her peach crepe-covered knee. He had one hand on her ankle, and as he rested his head against her, he held her ankle lightly with his circled fingers. She stroked his hair, and his ear, and felt a minute release of a subaudible sigh. A body sigh. She was unsure if it was Michael’s sigh or her own. She opened her legs a little. Michael lifted his head and stared up at her. Lorene looked at him, slowly pulling her skirt up, over the tops of her knees. He knelt between her thighs, still encircling her ankle with his hand. He looked at her legs and slid his hand up from her ankle, moving both hands now slowly along her thighs until his thumbs rested on the bare flesh above her stockings. She sat very still. He closed his eyes, and she felt the tiny touch of his thumbs on her skin. He inched forward and she edged toward him on the hard wood chair until her hips were at his waist and their faces were inches from each other. He lifted his hands and put them on either side of her face, holding her for a moment. It was all so slow and silent. She wanted to kiss him, but she waited until he leaned close and kissed her. It wasn’t what she expected, a tentative, initiating kiss, but a deep, hard kiss, a sudden long, intimate kiss, and she opened her mouth as he pressed into her. He tasted metallic, foreign. Then the foreignness faded away. She closed her eyesand felt the room slip away in this opened-mouth intimacy. They were somewhere else, some world of bodies and touch, of thought-effacing pleasure. She only had one conscious thought, lasting a second — when he moved his hand from her face to under her skirt and between her legs — just that thank God she was completely wet and longing for him, and then the thought was gone. His mouth was hungry and unrelenting, but his hand was gentle and coaxing, and when he stopped kissing her and got up, pulling her to her feet and over to his bed, she stopped him and stood apart from him for a moment. She looked at him as she unzipped her dress. He stood by the bed, watching her. She pulled the slip off, over her head, losing sight of him for a moment, but still feeling his gaze on her belly and breasts as she made herself naked. He stood waiting as she bent and removed each stocking. Her gestures weren’t slow or urgent, just plain and necessary. When she finished she approached him and lifted his T-shirt. He undid his drawstring pants and sat on the bed pulling them off until he too was naked. She felt suddenly fearful as he put his hands on her waist and then moved them up to the sides of her breasts.