Beauty

by Christina Chiu

  “No, I’m fine,” he says, shrugging me off.

  We travel I-95 through Rhode Island. Eventually, we cross the Bourne Bridge onto The Cape, where the highway turns into a single lane. We go around a rotary and take Route 6 all the way to Wellfleet. When we finally locate and pull up to the house, the look of frustration on his face gives way to disappointment. It’s a small, grey-shingled, single-floor building. He cuts the engine. The keychain swings back and forth in the ignition.

  “This looks great,” I say. “Let’s go inside.”

  Jeff remains mute and unflinching behind the wheel of the car.

  “Come on,” I say, getting out and waving for him to join me.

  Jeff reluctantly steps out of the car and walks sluggishly up to the house. The owner lives in the house next door, so the entrance is left unlocked. Jeff lets us in. The facing wall is made entirely of glass, and looks out over an oyster cove. A sandbar separates it from the ocean beyond with its curved, protective arm.

  The living room itself has a cathedral ceiling with exposed wood beams and a stone fireplace. Everything else is white, including the sofa, coffee table, and walls. Even the bowl containing shells, starfish and sand dollars. White on white on white. Overlooking the silvery blue water outside.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “This,” he says, drawing me closer, “I can get used to.”

  The first couple of days, we drive to the bayside public beach. We lay out on the sand, heavily armed with sunblock, and sleep until the heat forces us out of our stupor and into the chilly New England water. Around 1:00 PM, we eat the sandwiches we picked up with our morning coffee. In the late afternoon, we head back to the house, wash up, and enjoy a glass of wine before going to meet his friends and acquaintances for dinner.

  The next couple of mornings we decide to spend at the house. A small beach appears at low tide. It’s private—only the owner and the oyster farmer have access—so we forego the bikini and the bottoms, which helps to get rid of the lines and produces a smooth, even tan. I’ve never baked in the buff before. I’m self conscious at first, but Jeff finds an umbrella to block us from being seen by neighbors, and after a glass of wine, we’re having sex, only it’s different somehow. It’s the hot sun and the cool ocean breeze; my knees digging deeper, deeper into the soft warm sand, and my sweaty, lotion-covered body slipping over him. There’s the taste of salt, the taste of him, in my mouth. He bookends my legs between his, pinches my nipples harder than I expect, and says, “Feel all of me, baby.”

  “I feel you,” I say, because every nerve ending comes alive. “God, I feel you.”

  It’s more sensual than I’ve ever felt, and as soon as I rock forward and back, the friction between us sparks something. Then I’m coming faster and more furious than ever. A stranger inside me tucked away so deep and so filled with sorrow rushes out—out, let me out—and then my body goes slack. I shut my eyes and try to pull back, all the way back. But Jeff watches, energized. He continues to slide me by the hips over him. “Again,” he says.

  “I’m done,” I whisper.

  “Fuck me.”

  “No.”

  “All of me.” He clenches his teeth, restraining himself. “Say it.”

  “All of you.”

  Then it happens again, the gushing from within, only deeper and darker. Ecstasy. Anguish.

  Stop; don’t stop.

  For a moment, I’m lost. And when he comes, the sound of him brings me back. I see straight to the suffering caged animal inside him, and then the release and bliss, the escape, that comes after.

  Suddenly, I feel something unsteady happening inside me. I’m not sure what. I wrap myself in a towel, excuse myself to use the rest room, and climb the stairs up to the house. It’s hot and bright outside and cool and dark inside. The shift feels like the floor swoops upwards. I’m going to either throw up or pass out. I curl up right where I am, at the edge of the jute rug, and close my eyes.

  “Jesus, what’s happening?” Jeff asks, appearing over me.

  “I’m fine,” I say, forcing myself to sit up.

  “You’re crying.”

  “I’m just being stupid.”

  He watches me, concern etched in his brow.

  “It’s just…” I grab his shirt in my fist. “It’s so damn frustrating, you know? I mean, I thought it was just biology. Attraction. Fucking. But it’s like I hardly know you, so why do I feel like I know you?”

  “Because you know me.” His face glows with sunburn. “And I don’t mean just literally.”

  He lies at the edge of the carpet. Balances there. He looks at me, and I feel like I’m actually here, I’m real, and he can see me. Me.

  “You’re open, so it allows me to be open,” he says.

  “I mean, what are the chances a person like me would be with a person like you?”

  Jeff nods. “After the party, I wasn’t certain I’d see you again.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “I asked Zach about you, but he said he hadn’t seen you before. He didn’t think you were in the program.”

  “Really?” The fucker.

  “When I saw that you had won the New Star, I put two and two together.”

  “And voila!”

  “Fate.”

  “Here I am,” I shift toward Jeff, and thinking about Zach, feel victorious. “Naked except for a towel.”

  Jeff tugs it off. “Plain naked, now.”

  At the beach house, there’s a languidness to everything we do. We drink, fuck, talk, love. Memories shuffle like those in a deck of cards. The days flow into and over each other like the ebb and flow of the tide. Time expands. Days roll out ahead of us. Then suddenly they contract and are gone. One night we go to the beach with large rainbow swirl lollipops we bought in town. Jeff sucks at the edge of the candy and opens up about his mother, who left him to be raised with nannies while she busied herself with women’s club activities. He says his father was concerned he was a “faggot” for having creative interests in clothes instead of the typical love affair boys have with football or soccer.

  “My father was pretty fucked, too.” I tell him about an ice cream incident I had with Dad. I must have been five or six. Dad, Georgie and I were eating ice cream after dinner. Dad finished his, then asked for a lick of mine.

  “So, I held it out to him,” I say, using my lollipop to pantomime what I say. “Dad licked it, but as soon as I reached for it back, he stuffed the entire thing into his mouth. He even made a sucking sound, like he was relishing its sweet taste.”

  “Heartless,” Jeff says.

  “Isn’t it? I sobbed and accused him of eating my whole ice cream, and you know what he said?”

  “I’ll bet he called you selfish.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “He said, ‘Yours? Your nothing. Everything here, everything that’s yours, is mine.’ ”

  “My mother was like that,” Jeff says. “After I started my company, my mother told me the only reason it did well was because of her. She said without her, my business would fail.”

  Jeff and I continue to swap stories. I recount what happened with the phone call. What Dad’s girlfriend, now wife, said to Ma.

  “Can you believe she’d have the balls to do that?” I ask.

  “Who knew Chinese women could be so vicious,” Jeff says.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Hm,” he says, raising a brow at me.

  “That bed I told you about? We don’t actually have it, anymore.”

  Jeff sets down his glass. “You haven’t sold it, have you? Please tell me you haven’t sold it.”

  “No, I mean it doesn’t exist anymore. My mother chopped it up with the cleaver and barbecued it in the back yard.”

  Jeff emits the kind of sound a person might make if he were hopping on a bed of hot coals.

 
“Yeah,” I say, “When my father finally came back to get his things? He found the charred, black pieces, and guess what? He actually—”

  “Cried,” Jeff blurts.

  The words catch in my throat. He’s correct, only I don’t remember telling him this story. In fact, I know I haven’t, because there’s a tiny part of me that still frets he’s interested in the bed more than me.

  “Well, I would,” he says, offering an explanation. “It’s not just a bed, Amy. It’s art. It’s history.”

  “Right,” I say, more sarcastic than ever. “It belonged to ‘Her Majesty’.” I wink my pointer and middle fingers to indicate quotation marks. “You think the value would go up if she’d fucked in that bed too?”

  “Absolutely,” he says.

  “Honestly, Jeff,” I say, punching him. “He didn’t cry about us. Oh, no, not us—we were only his girls. But the bed? Bawling. Totally heartbroken.”

  “Well, isn’t that perfectly…” He struggles to find the correct wording to complete the sentence.

  “Shitty? I mean, what a fucking narcissist.”

  He watches, silent. Then he tops off our glasses with more wine. “A toast,” he says, holding up his glass. “To narcissism! May it thrive universally for generations more to come!”

  A couple days before I leave, Jeff asks me again to stay a few more days. He has the house rented through Labor Day. But my head’s already back home: Where else can I send my resume? Does career services at school have any new job or internship listings? I need something. Living with Georgie and Ma is no picnic. Ma cooks constantly, but when Georgie binge eats, Ma nags about her weight; they never stop. Ma gets back from Hong Kong tomorrow, so I need to find a job and get out of there, pronto.

  One afternoon after we come back from the beach, Jeff jumps into the shower to clean up first. There’s a computer in the loft upstairs, so I log onto my school’s webpage. I check career services for new postings. When I don’t find any, I check my email. Ben writes, telling me how gorgeous it is in Milan. Would I like to visit in August? Possibly backpack through Italy? Rick, whom I haven’t heard from in a year, emails to see if we can talk. Would I please get a drink with him? There are also emails from two of the other guys I’m seeing.

  Jeff appears, unshaven but smelling of Dove soap, and in freshly laundered clothes. His hair is downy soft and combed back. “Checking in with your other boyfriends?” he asks, and even though he seems to be teasing, we’re now treading dangerous waters. An unspoken rule is that the mention of others is off limits.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “You can tell them I’m fucking your brains out.” He turns abruptly and descends the steps to the living room. I follow him downstairs to the couch. He offers me a glass of Chardonnay, then pours one for himself. He leans back into the sofa, sips the wine, and stares blankly out at the water. He’s silent.

  “You’re seeing other people too, aren’t you?” I finally ask.

  “Of course,” he says. “Why? Are you jealous?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, you are.”

  “No,” I say, “I was just asking because—”

  “It’s okay, darling.”

  “Wait,” I say, flustered. My pulse beats in my ears. How the hell did he flip things around like that?

  “Truly,” he says, touching a finger to my chin. “I get it.”

  He looks at me, his eyes shimmering with—with what?—Oh, my god, it can’t be. Can it? He takes my glass and sets it next to his on the coffee table.

  He kisses me, and whispers, “I have a surprise for you later. You’re going to love it.”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Later. Tonight.” Then he takes my glass and sets it on the coffee table next to his. He climbs over me and unzips his shorts. I’m still in my bikini and cover up. He doesn’t bother to pull down my bottoms. He tugs the material aside and slides inside me. His eyes roll back. Then he rocks, my head between his elbows. “Oh, darling, I… I…”

  “You love me?” I whisper.

  “Oh, yes.”

  I stare straight into his eyes and ask the big question I’ve mulled over in therapy ever since the day he appeared at my school studio. “What? What do you love?”

  “This. God, I love this. I need this.”

  “No, me, Jeff. About me?”

  “You’re always so wet.”

  “Jeff!” I push him away.

  He sighs, aghast, and rolls off. He combs his hair back with a hand. “Must we really discuss this right now?”

  “I just—”

  “You just—what?” He shakes his head, fixes his shorts and pours himself more wine.

  “I don’t know.” My face prickles with heat.

  “Maybe I was wrong about you. I really thought you were different from the others, Amy. I really thought we could skip such sophomoric, soporific bullshit. Can’t we just share this moment? Can’t it just be about us?”

  I cross my arms. Hug myself to keep warm. He has no right to act like I’m making this about me.

  “It is about us,” I finally say. Yet, something inside me wavers. Is it? In my head, I can hear Dad calling me “selfish” and Ma criticizing me for not appreciating all that she has sacrificed.

  “No, it’s about you and your insecurities,” Jeff says. “You can’t tell how I feel about you?”

  “Can’t we just stop fucking for a minute.”

  “Why the hell would we do that?”

  “To maybe talk?”

  “About what, huh?” he exclaims. “What the hell is there to talk about?”

  “It’s simple. What do you love about me?”

  “Nothing right now, damn it. You’re just like my nagging ex for fuck sake. God help me. This is too fucking tedious.”

  Lumping me in the same category as his despised ex. My hands involuntarily cover my chest. It’s like he stabbed me.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” he quickly says, shifting closer. “I was frustrated. I didn’t intend to say that.”

  “I’m not your ex. I’m nothing like her.”

  “I know. I know that.”

  “Look,” I say. “It’s been fun, okay? Time to move on, that’s all.”

  “Just like that—it’s over? So what are you going to do now? Go home and fuck one of those idiots?”

  “You were one of them,” I say.

  “I absolutely was not.”

  “Right. You’re Jeff Jones. Woooh. And, I’m one of a dozen good fucks, so—”

  “You have no right to be jealous.”

  “There you go with the jealousy thing again. How about you go ahead and call one of those other girls and fuck her instead of me from now on? Hm? How’s that for jealousy?” I get to my feet.

  “Stop,” he says.

  I head toward the bedroom. He remains in the living room as I locate my things. After a couple of minutes, Jeff appears in the doorway.

  “So, you’re leaving.”

  I pack the bikini I wore yesterday at the bottom of the suitcase.

  “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” he says.

  Something in me snaps. I grab a Manolo and throw it at his face. He darts out of the way and it hits the door frame.

  “Jesus,” he says. “I meant all of you.”

  “Me, too, Jeff. Fuck all of you.” I grab the clothes in my designated drawer—three neat stacks—and set them into the suitcase.

  “What I meant is that you’re beautiful both inside and out. Every aspect of you.”

  I retrieve the shoe I threw and tuck it, along with its mate, into matching airline socks; I do the same with six other pairs lined up in the closet. It’s a packing trick I learned from Ma.

  “You’re brilliant,” he says. “I’ve never seen anyone use airline socks in such an ingenious
manner.”

  My dresses are hanging in the closet. I tug one from the bottom, allowing it to slip from the hanger.

  “And obviously hugely creative,” he says. “Especially with design.”

  I shake out the wrinkles in the dress, fold it in four swift motions into a perfect rectangle.

  “And you can fold clothes like they’re origami.”

  I set the dress on top of the shirts.

  “And you’re not like other girls,” he says, and when I continue packing, he adds, “Especially my ex.”

  I pluck another dress from the closet and fold it.

  “Okay, fine—you want to know what I love about you? I’m not going to make any apologies. You’re sexy as hell,” he says, “but you’re fierce, too. You fuck ugly. I’d say like a guy, but really, I mean like me. Not pretty. Most beautiful women fuck pretty. And until I met you, I’ve never met anyone who relishes and needs it as much as I do.”

  “Why don’t we just call it for what it is, okay?” I stop what I’m doing. “It’s okay to say it, Jeff. You’re going through midlife crisis, and, well, I make you feel young again.”

  “You do,” he says. “I’m not ashamed to say it. You’re fearless. You challenge me. You make me go places I’ve never gone before. Places I don’t necessarily even, eh, want to go.”

  His gaze briefly and involuntarily flitters toward the bathroom. The harness I bought for the trip is hanging from the towel rack. I’d brought it with me, kept it in sight as a teaser leading up to tonight, and so I realize he’s alluding to that.

  “Then you bring me there, and I find, well, I see that I definitely want it.”

  Something hard and cold rises up inside me. I’d like to bring him to his knees.

  “Even outside the bedroom,” he says. “You’re making me ‘talk.’ Most women don’t expect that of me.”

  “Except your wife.”

  “Ex.” He flushes. His face, ears, neck. “Please leave her out of this.”

  Fine with me, I think, going back to folding the last of the dresses.

  He watches as I lay the shoes on top of the clothes within the suitcase. From the drawer, I remove the lingerie and panties, squeezing them between the shoes so things don’t slip around during the bus ride.