“You could wear sunglasses and a funny hat.”
“Is that what you want?”
The papaya made her burp. She felt that she had to stop being prey, to somehow take the initiative. She was still disinclined to touch him, but she walked over behind him and forced herself to put her hands on his shoulders. She ran them down onto his chest. It had to be done.
He took hold of her wrists so she couldn’t get away.
“I thought you never laid a hand on interns,” she said. “I thought it was bad press.”
“Serially bedding them would be bad press,” he said. “Falling in love with one of them is a very different story.”
Her knees quaked. “Did you actually just say that?”
“I did.”
The wooden spoon, the wooden spoon.
“OK, then,” she said, sinking to the floor.
He let go of her wrists, extricated himself from the desk, and kneeled in front of her.
“Pip,” he said. “I know I’m old. Probably as old as your father. But I have a young heart — I don’t have much experience with real love. Probably not much more than you do. This is new and frightening for me, too.”
The wooden spoon. Her brain was churning. It was more a father than a lover to whom she now pressed herself in her fear; more a father whom she clutched for safety. And yet, the night before, she’d trimmed her personal hair for him with a razor. She was massively confused. He held her tightly, stroking her head.
“Do you like me at all?” he said.
She nodded because she knew he wanted her to.
“A lot?” he said. “Or just a little?”
“Quite a lot,” she said for the same reason.
“I like you, too.”
She nodded again. But even though he’d made her do it, she felt bad about lying to him. If he truly was falling in love with her, it was a mean thing to do. To make up for it, she tried to say something both honest and nice. “I really liked the way you made me feel the other time. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m fairly obsessed with it. I want you to do it again.”
His body tensed at this. She worried that she’d said the wrong thing — that he’d seen through her attempt to turn their talk away from love, and was hurt. And so she kissed him. Urgently, forwardly, offering him her tongue, opening herself to him, and he responded in kind. But the sensible side of her was still semi-functioning. A laugh came out of her before she could stifle it.
“What?” he said, smiling.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m just wondering if we’re both trying to do what neither of us actually wants.”
He seemed alarmed. “What do you mean?”
“No, just the kissing part,” she hastened to say. “You didn’t seem so into the smooching last time. You were honest about that. And, honestly, it’s fine with me too if we skip it.”
It happened again. Again, for a second, for less than a second, before he could turn his face away, she saw a wholly different person, a crazy person.
“You’re a remarkable woman,” he said, face averted.
“Thank you.”
He stood up and walked away from her. “I mean it,” he said. “I’ve never felt so off balance in my life. You make me feel smaller, in a good way. I’m supposed to be the great teller of truth, and you keep cutting me down. I hate it, but I love it. I love you.” He turned back to her and said it again. “I love you.”
She blushed. “Thank you.”
“That’s it?” he said wildly. “Thank you? Who made you this way? Where did you come from?”
“The San Lorenzo Valley. It’s quite the humble, democratic place.”
He strode back over to her and yanked her to her feet. “You’re driving me crazy!”
“All is not so well inside my own head, either.”
“So what are we? How do we do this? What is the way we’re going to be together?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take off your fucking clothes—does that work?”
“It has some promise.”
“So do it. Slowly. I want to watch you. Take your panties off last.”
“OK. I can do that.”
She liked taking orders from him. Liked it more than anything else about him. But as she did as she’d been told, unbuttoning one button of her shirt, and then a second button, she wasn’t sure that she liked that she liked it. She wished she could unhear what Stephen had said to her, in his bedroom, about needing a father. A dread began to build in her as she undid a fourth button, and then the last. She beheld an emotional vista in which she was angry at her missing father, at all older men, and provoked and punished this father-aged man, drove him wild, induced him to offer himself as the person missing from her life; and her body responded to the offer; but it was icky to respond to him that way. She let her bra fall to the floor.
“My God you’re beautiful,” he said, staring.
“I think you mean I’m young.”
“No. The inside of you is even more beautiful than the outside.”
“Keep talking,” she said. “It’s helping.”
When she was finally fully naked, he dropped to his knees and pressed his face to her crotch. “You shaved for me,” he murmured gratefully.
“Who said it was for you?” she said with a faltering laugh. Being so liked by him, she was liking herself quite a lot, but it deepened her sense of dread to hear herself continuing to provoke him, and to feel the effect her provocation had. His hands were trembling on her butt. He was kissing her, inhaling her, and she could feel how it would all happen again, the same as last time, except that this time she would have to submit to the whole deal; there would be no going back on her word.
All at once, at the prospect of being fucked by him, she experienced a different kind of climax. The lack of friction with which she’d arrived at this moment, the speed and directness with which he’d arranged an assignation with her, the ease with which he’d got her standing naked in a hotel room, combined with a complex of misgivings—father, killer, spoon-wielder, fugitive, crazy person—to produce a simple thought: she didn’t want to be his woman.
In the sober light of this thought, what they were doing seemed ridiculous.
“Um,” she said, stepping away from him. “I think I need a small time-out.”
He slumped. “Now what.”
“No, seriously, I’ve been looking forward to this for a month and a half. I’ve been touching myself every night, thinking about it. Imagining I’m you. But now — I don’t know. I’m wondering if touching myself might be enough.”
He slumped further. She picked up her bra and put it on. She put on her jeans, not bothering with the underpants, which were still right in front of him.
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“So what would you like to do instead?” His voice was strained with self-control. “Visit the picturesque town center?”
“Honestly I hadn’t thought past going to bed with you.”
“It’s still an option.”
“Maybe if you order me to. I like it when you give orders. I think I may have a slave personality.”
“That’s not an order I can give. I don’t want it if you don’t want it. You said you wanted it.”
“I know.”
He sighed heavily. “What changed your mind?”
“It just suddenly didn’t feel right to me.”
“Am I too old for you?”
“God, no. I like your age. If anything, maybe a little too much. Plus you’ve got that ageless German male thing going. You’ve got those blue eyes.”
He bowed his head. “So you just don’t like who I am.”
She felt terribly sorry. She kneeled by him and petted his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “Everybody likes you,” she said. “Millions of people like you.”