“Say something unsexy, then,” he’d muttered.
“Okay. Tell me what you thought about Charlie’s cousin.”
So that Matthew had been compelled to hear himself discussed, this time without the refuge of gaps in the conversation by way of intermittent relief. He could feel the exchange in its entirety now, pressing at him, urging him to replay it like some elaborate injury one has to relive over and over until its power to hurt runs out.
“Well, he’s a short guy,” had been Wade’s first observation.
“You said. You’re a fat guy. He can’t help it, you can, so what’s your point?”
“That’s my point, sugar. I could lose weight if I wanted to, but he’ll never gain height. That is a big old difference, not of degree, but of ontology-”
“Oh, stop it. Anyway, he isn’t that short.”
“No, but-”
“You didn’t think there was something strange about him?”
“Not that I could tell just from looking at him.”
“I think there’s something deeply strange about him.”
“You mean he has the hots for you? I wouldn’t call that strange, sugar.”
Wade had re-enveloped her in his arms at that point, face against the back of her neck, his large hand reaching around to her breasts. She’d snuggled back against him.
“No, that doesn’t bother me. Or it never used to. Now I’m not sure…”
“He’s getting more serious?”
“It’s almost as if he’s becoming possessive. As if he thinks we’re in an actual relationship. He’s started questioning me-asking where I’ve been, where I’m going. Also… Mmm.”
His other hand was moving between her legs and she broke off, given over to some large wave of pleasure.
“Also?”
She’d had to bite her lower lip, hard, before she could control her voice enough to answer.
“He’s been acting weird with Charlie,” she said as the sensation ebbed sufficiently for her to speak. “Needling him…”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I mean, I haven’t seen it myself, but I doubt Charlie’s imagining it. Charlie doesn’t tend to imagine things.”
“Needling him how?”
“He keeps making these insinuations…”
“About?”
“Me.”
“What about you?”
“That I’m being unfaithful.”
“Well you are, sugar. You are being unfaithful.”
“But he doesn’t know.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m careful, Wade.”
“So why’s he doing it?”
“I think he’s deliberately trying to make Charlie suffer. He knows Charlie has a tendency to get jealous.”
“But why would he want to make him suffer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. Not like there’s anything you can do about it. Right?”
“But it’s so cruel. I mean toward Charlie.”
“You’re awfully considerate of your husband.”
“I love him.”
The words, so unexpected in the circumstances, had shocked Matthew. Her ability to confound him never seemed to exhaust itself. Wade too had seemed surprised.
“You love him?” he’d said, heaving his bulk above Chloe and moving more concertedly. Her phrase had seemed to drive the two of them into suddenly more intense realms of mutual desire.
“You know I love him.”
“You love his dough, I know that.”
“Maybe, but I love him too.”
“More’n you’d love me? If I was that rich? When I’m that rich?”
“More than I’ll ever love you, Wade.”
“Jesus, you are the most… unfathomable… human being… I have ever…”
“Don’t come.”
“Met. And I grew up around Catholics.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Anyway, there’s something else.”
“About you and Charlie?”
“No, about him. Matthew.”
And Matthew had braced himself for another blow, but as it turned out neither Chloe nor Wade were able to distract themselves from the business at hand any longer, and for the next several minutes the only sounds inside the little A-frame were moans of pleasure and the occasional protest from a piece of furniture subjected to forces it hadn’t been designed to withstand. Time had seemed to thicken then, the seconds growing sticky as clay. He’d forced himself to think of dates of battles, variant recipes for choux pastry, passages from Pascal. Two errors, he’d remembered: 1. To take everything literally, 2. To take everything spiritually. Which of the two am I falling into? he’d wondered, contemplating the scene below, where Wade had just enthroned himself in the armchair and Chloe was kneeling down between his sprawled legs, positioning herself with a votive grace that reminded him of one of her butterflies as it settled on the stamen of some garish flower, slowly folding its wings; or again, as they’d moved and her face had reappeared through the next gap in the palings, cushioned sideways on the love seat with a look of rapture as she lay over its arm. Was there an erroneous sense in which this was literal? A true sense in which it was purely spiritual? Turning, she had reached up and drawn Wade down onto the floor below her, in turn lowering herself onto him with a cry of joy. There are perfections in nature to show that she is the image of God and imperfections to show that she is no more than his image. That was one his father had marked and that he, with childishly pleasurable irrationality, had written, No! next to, happily aware that nobody except his ghostly co-custodian of this mystic text could possibly have any idea what he meant.
They’d lain in silence for several minutes afterward, Chloe’s head on Wade’s chest as she idly fondled his detumescing member and ate a piece of chocolate, Wade’s eyes gazing upward, scanning the ceiling, the skylight, the carved wooden slats on the balustrade. For a terrifying moment it had seemed to Matthew the man had caught the glint of his eye in the candlelit darkness and was staring straight at him, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The prospect of what would happen if he did had been so far beyond intolerable that Matthew could only think of it in terms of annihilation. Possibly in some court of ultimate, celestial arbitration his presence here would be found at least partly understandable, even partly creditable. (Was he not in some sense acting on Charlie’s behalf?) Certainly mitigating factors would be given their due. But no earthly judgment would get beyond the point of pure outraged horror. And there would be no mercy. He was well aware of that. No mercy at all.
Wade’s glance traveled on. But as if some unconscious agency had registered what his eye had failed to discern, he said:
“You were saying, sugar, about your friend.”
“I’m afraid of him,” Chloe had murmured. “That’s why I wanted you to see him. He scares me.”
“Ah, c’mon, sugar. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what I think, sugar, I think you’re mixing up your own guilt about Charlie with the little dude’s fixation on you, that’s what I think.”
“I don’t feel any guilt.”
“My point precisely,” Wade had answered with a chuckle.
Chloe had stood up then, and begun getting dressed.
“He’s blackmailing Charlie,” she’d said matter-of-factly.
“What?”
Wade’s astonishment was almost as great as Matthew’s own. At first Matthew thought she was joking or exaggerating for effect, but as she spoke on, it became apparent that she really did think he’d been blackmailing Charlie! He didn’t know whether to weep or laugh at the absurdity of it. As he’d listened to the strange warpings and distortions of reality that made up her tale, the urge to interrupt and proclaim his innocence, to stand up on the gallery and shout out the truth, had been almost overwhelming.