I knew what happened for her in these moments, that they were the ones she waited for. Fending off this knowledge took stamina, though, the last of mine I suppose, because I could no longer fend her off – if I’d ever been trying to or able.
She’d gotten both her hands under my shirt, was stroking my back and I found myself unzipping her dress. From here I became nearly aggressive. That she seemed to want me this way, like me this way, does nothing, ever, to ease me.
I took her to the floor and took her dress off, and the rest of her things. Then I fucked her. It brought me out of my daze and into some kind of command and it had everything to do with rescuing myself. It had nothing to do with giving her pleasure.
That it had something to do with that for her, with pleasure, only confused me and so returned me to where I’d begun. Gave the game back to her, gave me back to her. I lay beside her, still fully dressed but out of my head again, which meant inside my body. And the things going on there, as usual, distressed me.
Because of this I didn’t try anymore to affect what she did. I found myself looking up at her because she was on top of me now and looking down. This tormented me so completely but I couldn’t see why. I only knew I couldn’t get my breath and that to try to made this sound – a kind of sound I didn’t want anyone to hear.
I tried to throw her off me, go back to where we’d just been, but I couldn’t do this or anything else but lie there gasping.
She unbuttoned my shirt, which frightened me more. I tried again to kick her off me but my legs stayed as useless as the rest of me. She was running her fingers right down the middle of me. She began at my throat and stopped each time at my waist. I thought she’d maybe smothered me because I became very lightheaded. My breath couldn’t follow her fingers, couldn’t go below the place she touched on my throat.
She didn’t stop, though. Instead she did this again and again. And then there wasn’t lightness in my head anymore but heaviness. I let it rest on the floor, only then knowing I’d been craning my neck the whole time.
Once I let my head go the rest of me followed. She kept up the same way and I began to find comfort in it. Began not to want her ever to stop or go further.
For a while it did stay this way. And I could let my breathing follow her fingers. I was breathing into my belly and not caring by now if I watched her. And I didn’t care when she unbuttoned my pants. I told myself I didn’t at all.
I helped her undress me and once we’d done this she seemed to know to go back, to keep with what she’d been doing. I lay there the same way, and we were just as we’d been, except now she was kneeling. She had her knees between my legs and so it was plain that this place we were in wouldn’t last very long.
I did my best to stay there regardless, stay with the comfort and not go beyond it. To keep to my body, keeping my mind at bay. And so when her fingers began to drift that bit further down, each time it helped me. And what I felt when she began saying things? It was all about wanting her close to me. Wishing myself able to hear and believe her.
I had this need to hold her. I tried to prop myself up in order to do this. But I didn’t get very far and what she did was put her hand inside me. I felt her other arm go around my back and hold me up a short while before she leaned into me. Then we were both lying down and I was grasping at her and at anything else that might anchor me.
Her mouth was close to mine and she kissed me. Her tongue took up so much room, left me wordless and hers. She let her hand come out of me. Did this as I came. Both her arms wrapped around me and I held on to her, too, and this kissing felt like all anyone could ever want or ever could need.
It was all that we did now. And it seemed to go on for ever, until it stopped. Then, even with her there and still stroking my face, it was over too soon. And none of it felt like enough. And maybe not to her either because the restlessness didn’t seem mine alone.
Pretty soon both of us were on our feet and staggering around looking for our clothes and clumsy in putting them on. And then, like always, we seemed so much further away from each other. Like maybe we didn’t know who we were, or who the other one was. Or who we’d just been.
After she got dressed, Beth sat down. She stared out the window and I stared at her until it made me want to go to her and I knew I’d better leave. Still, I lingered. Stood there stupidly with my coat in my hand. I think I was waiting for her to say something.
She did but, while it was what I should’ve expected, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. She said, “I think you’d better leave now.” And her voice sounded flat and emotionless like it did each time she uttered these particular words.
She wouldn’t look at me, which was true of the other times too, but this was the only time I’d wondered about her end. Saw it as anything other than disgust for me. Saw it as maybe my having some effect on her. That the things she evoked in me might be roused somewhere in her.
Thinking this way kept me standing there, and I was afraid for her to look at me. Afraid for her, and of her, and of standing there long enough to want her again, or feel wanted by her instead of cast out and alone.
Twenty-Two
I got out of there. I went directly home, and once there tried not to think of the only thing I could think of, which was when could I have her again.
It’d been a Friday, so I should’ve been going to work in the morning. I knew this much, though it didn’t mean I’d do anything about it.
When the time came, I called in sick, not remembering until afterwards that I’d done this same thing the week before. I realized maybe I ought to begin worrying what they would think. I already didn’t make enough there and I hadn’t been making money any other way lately. Something needed to change.
I lay in bed and tried to convince myself Beth only meant trouble. That the thing to do was get away from her. Some part of me knew this completely. But thinking about leaving her left me thinking about her. And once I’d begun that, the will to leave her didn’t last long.
I told myself I had to keep seeing her. That it was merely practical. I tried to reorder my need, make it about legalities. This was so thin even I could see through it. Still I worked hard to stay on this plane. Not drift into thinking about how she could make me feel, when she wanted to, which didn’t seem often enough.
I couldn’t face calling her. Spent the day – Saturday – avoiding this impulse. Finally went out to avoid it because I couldn’t stand that she might play cool and aloof and impossible. That this weekend might completely match the last one, with me ordering myself around her, running to her and not knowing how I’d find her. I already had this sense that she took up too much of my life, or maybe all of it. And right when I needed badly for this not to be true I ran into Burt.
This was not a hard thing to do. It was only a matter of going to certain places at certain times. And so I did these things believing I had no plan in mind. He was at that bar, with Jeremy. And I’d seen his car in the lot with the same guy waiting behind the wheel.
They sat me down at their table. Began buying me drinks and all through this I had that same nagging sense of wondering just what they wanted me for. They weren’t talking to me really, not exactly. I was just there listening to them. Then they got up and we all went out and they gave me a ride home, which was good since I still wasn’t driving my car.