“Wow.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Why?”
“My mother died two years ago. It closed me up to the world, made me hate it. Hate love, mistrust men, everyone.”
“I’m so sorry. What she die of?”
“Oh, a bad case of sadness. She overdosed on sleeping pills. Her long-time lover announced that he was going back to Rome for a younger woman he had met while on business. She never wanted to get out of bed again.”
“Oh God, Anna. I’m so, so sorry.” He widened his eyes and shook his head.
“Thanks,” I shot back as if he had just passed me the salt shaker. “I’m OK, don’t worry.”
I concentrated on carefully taking out my pack of smokes from my bag and lighting a cigarette. I inhaled and exhaled dramatically; it was a necessary release. He placed his hand on my right thigh. He didn’t squeeze or press. He just rested it ever so lightly. His long fingers splayed open like a starfish.
As he rested his limb on mine, I noticed what a feminine wrist he had, despite the generous layer of fur encasing it. It was the first time he had placed a hand on my body, other than to tap me on my arm, guiding me away from an oncoming waitress back at the Red Pony.
I had to explain how I got to that point from the mere mention of that book, even though his heart was coming out of his eyeballs with sympathy. I began telling David about the whole experience with a certain peace I hadn’t felt in years. His whole being was an open receptacle to my feelings.
“After my mother’s suicide I hadn’t been able to read for pleasure, something I relied on since childhood to block out the world or my parents’ high voltage fights. I showed up to the office a few days after the funeral and dived into my work as usual. It saved me. I had just recently broken off a seven-year relationship, and I hardly saw any of my friends.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. It was one of those brutally cold New York winters,” I ex plained. “I would sit on my couch curled up in a blanket desperately trying to escape into another world.”
“You mean, through books, yes?”
“Exactly. But it wouldn’t work. I would start to read the sentences and a voice in my head would interrupt telling me I wasn’t reading. The words. . I couldn’t absorb them; they couldn’t get through all the other noise in my head. I lived in a kind of panic that I would never be able to enjoy reading again. But this book broke through. It took me out of myself for once. Its words spoke a simple truth, and I could follow their trail. The pain of these abandoned little boys in the book finally allowed me to privately mourn my mother’s vanishing from this earth. I mean, those little boys just wanted their mom mies. And I could understand that.”
“I couldn’t put it down myself,” David said. “That journalist really took you there, all those sordid details about eating out of garbage dumps to survive.”
“I know; it’s just terrible,” I added.
I felt self-conscious again. I took another sip of whiskey, and my hand trembled as I brought it up to my mouth. I knew I was acting strangely, telling him about my mother and about not having slept with a man for a while. This isn’t what you’re supposed to do when you first meet someone, especially an accomplished author whom you’re writing about.
I let out a nervous guffaw.
“God! Doesn’t talking about death just kill a mood?”
He gave me a smile more warm and generous than any I’d ever received. “I’m not uncomfortable talking about it, Anna. Go on.”
“You’re probably regretting ever having mentioned that book or saying yes to me interviewing you. See what you did! You unleashed my inner monster.” I was back to flirting shamelessly.
“She’s a wonderful little monster,” he matched, responding quickly.
“Oh yeah?” I thought for second, then went for it. You only live once. I wanted the air, the light around him. “You want to see where I live?”
“I’d love that. But on one condition.” He grabbed my thigh and gave me a serious look. “We need to get some slices of New York City pizza first. My little monster of a stomach is growling.”
He slid out of the booth and excused himself to go to the bath room. I looked around the room to see if anyone was looking. No one was. I pocketed a darling little red ashtray that the barman had just placed on our table.
It would complement the other souvenirs I had accumulated over the years, little mementos from places where something memorable had happened.
The Lower East Side at midnight bustled with street action from every living, breathing walk of life. And something about its energy must have gotten under David’s skin, making him stop short in the middle of the street.
Without warning, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the darkness of lonely Eldridge Street.
“What are you doing?” I asked even though I knew.
“Dejame, just let me,” he said like a boy who wanted to stay up later than his bedtime. He took my two hands and raised them over my head, pushed them up against the rough red bricks of the tenement building I had my back on. I was his prisoner as he breathed on my face, slowed himself down to smell me, and pressed his wet mouth on to mine.
Here was our chance to rise, to overcome the heavy gravity of re spectable, dignified social interaction. We took our time exploring each other’s mouths, opening them slightly, then pulling back and beginning again, deeper and deeper the next time in, for anyone who cared to watch. I remember opening my eyes and seeing his closed so sweetly, tasting the booze and cigarettes on our saliva, smelling the cheese. All the pores on his naked face reeked of the slice of pizza we inhaled walking and giggling on the way to my place. On my ex, Jonathan’s, face I had hated the smell of cheese, but on David it was delicious. Like a sampling of his body’s baser smells to come.
We raced up the five endless flights to my apartment and panted like porno stars from severe shortness of breath. Fucking cigarettes! Still insanely aroused at just listening to his heavy breathing, I fum bled placing the key into the hole.
Once we were inside, I flicked on the dozen little lamps in my place, and David found his way into my bedroom. That’s where all my books were, in disorganized piles all over the floor. I had never bothered to get bookshelves or nightstands, so my books became my flat surfaces for glasses and candles. Now he was sizing me up, like all book people do, by what I had or didn’t have in my collection. I usually never felt self-conscious about the process but with him, I felt instantly exposed.
I took my time and slowly walked into the bedroom. He was sit ting on the edge of my bed reading Death in Venice. He didn’t ac knowledge me. Looking very studious, he was either ignoring me or enthralled with the passage he was reading.
I sat next to him and stared at his perfect Roman profile, and then I leaned into him and kissed his neck. He continued to read without looking up at me, and I kissed it again.
“Can’t you see I’m reading?” he said, without looking at me. The sides of his mouth twitched with abstained laughter.
“Uh-huh. I can see that.”
I got on my knees and unbuttoned his shirt. I placed my hands on the centre of his chest and massaged that hair I had so admired ear lier. His skin was sticky from a night’s worth of sweat. Without saying a word, I pulled at his left sleeve. He threw his shoulder back and held the book out with his right hand. He did the same in reverse when I was ready for the right sleeve.
Shoulders hunched over, legs spread apart, he continued to read, as I sat kneeling on the Persian rug in front of him, taking him in. He was thin but perfectly T-shaped. Bigger on top, narrower towards the waist. His trail of dark body hair mimicked his shape and thickened in the belly area. As I stared at his torso I could sense him eyeing me over the edge of the book.
He was waiting for me. I leaned forward and kissed his stomach gently. Through the hairs, his skin smelled of sweet milk. Like the sticky remnants of a summer day’s ice-cream cone on some sweet child’s cheeks. I licked the area around his belly button. Now I tasted salt. He twitched and grunted softly. Then I inserted my tongue right into it, his inny, and he pushed me away from him. His face morphed from shock to lust in a millisecond.