An Uncertain Grace

by Krissy Kneen

  So it is she who coaxes him back to standing. It is her mouth that refuses to pull back, groaning as encouragement when he is close to coming. She swallows but I am here to taste him. The formal coming together of our bodies is mediated, but it is my kiss that picks him up at the end of it and turns him towards me with his big trusting eyes.

  ‘I feel something for you.’ His words, barely whispered. ‘Is that wrong?’

  ‘What?’ I ask him. ‘Love? Do you feel love?’

  And when it seems that I have scared him with my honesty, it is me who holds his hand, and his gaze, for the longest time before I make it clearly known.

  ‘I love you,’ I say. ‘I have been with quite a number of people in my time. I’m not naïve. I’ve had my heart broken over and over, till I just walked into relationships knowing that’s what was going to happen. But I promise you I am telling you the truth when I say I have never felt this kind of love before.’

  Afterwards, when we are dressed and sitting opposite each other with a cup of tea I feel the truth, mellowing like a mouthful of fine whisky held on the tongue.

  Nothing seems impossible in the wake of this confession.

  You’ve got to be kidding me. Her voice in my head, only the other way around. How could you be such an idiot?

  I swallow and the words are gone, replaced now with a sandy rasp. I reach for my tea and sip it.

  It’s time, anyway. Time’s up. You need to go now.

  But the thought of leaving her alone with Anthony is more than I can tolerate.

  I’ll pay you more, I tell her.

  No. Get fucked. No way.

  I’ll pay you double for the day if you give me one more hour.

  It is a bad precedent to set, but it is done now.

  Double for one hour. Our lip twitches. We shrug. I raise the cup to my lips and take a deep gulp of the tepid liquid.

  ‘I have to go,’ I say.

  He looks bereft. ‘You can’t go. How can you go now? After that?’

  I assume he means the confession of love and not the sex, which was, in purely physical terms, underwhelming.

  ‘I have to. I have this thing…’

  It sounds like a lie because it almost is. The truth is my promise of double time will clean out most of my savings. It might be days before I’ll get to see him again.

  ‘I have to,’ I say, and drag myself to standing. Then it comes to me. ‘Get a pen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now. Quickly. Get a pen.’

  He drops the towel wrapped around his waist and I see the small tenderness of his flaccid penis.

  When he has a pen I spell the letters carefully. My email address. This is my body on his page, this address is my physical presence in the world. He writes it down and this, I know, is his true caress, his fingers on all that is left of me. A location. A space where we can finally connect.

  ‘You have chat enabled?’

  Of course he does.

  I kiss him quickly and I am out the door and wet from the rain but happy, joyously happy.

  I’m going now.

  Still double time. I don’t care if there is a half-hour left.

  I’m going now and I will pay you.

  I am checking my account, transferring the money into her bank even as I feel myself disengage. When we are separated I am broke and bodiless, but I am happy. This is what it is to be happy, and in my happiness I can say that I am honestly, truly in the world.

  It is a house without any clean surfaces. Even as I set a cup of tea beside you, I need to pick up a wad of papers, an old copy of Beyond Nautilus magazine, I shift this onto more books on the other edge of the table and the magazine slips off and falls open to an article about gene therapy, gender, the future of things which is becoming the present even now: ‘Have you ever thought of spending some time as a woman?’

  You seem nervous to be sitting in my house. You look up to the paintings crowding the wall, the jars of dried and decaying flowers, each one a little further from its fresh-picked state. I know I should have cleaned the house for you but I wanted you to have a picture of me as I am.

  There is a large bunch of flowers, these ones are fresh, in a proper vase on the floor in a corner of the room flanked by piles of books. The smell of them is sweet and strong.

  Which reminds me. We must go back to the botanic gardens soon, have you been to the scented garden?

  ANTHONY: No. I haven’t. Isn’t that crazy? I’ve lived in this city for the whole twenty-five years of my life and I have been meaning to go to the scented garden. I went on excursions to the food bowl. Everyone does at school. ‘Children, this is how our food is produced. Now draw the lifecycle of a chicken.’ Do you remember that?

  No. It was too long ago. I barely remember school at all. Except the books we had to read for English. And dissecting a frog.

  ??????

  Never mind. It is just a joke.

  I don’t get it. Frog?

  We are digressing. Stay in the room with me. The smell of those flowers is like all of summer. The flowers. In the vase. In my room. You sip your tea and something about the smell of them turns the flavour of the tea into something complex and bittersweet, like memory.

  Don’t expect poetry when it’s my turn to make up the scene.

  This isn’t a competition.

  I’m just saying.

  When you have taken a sip of tea I pick my way through the clutter and settle myself onto your lap, curling my head into the crook of your neck. The flowers, the tea, the sudden warmth of my body, small and plump heavy like the body of a baby bear.

  You aren’t plump. You shouldn’t put yourself down like that. Not a bear. You are something more delicate than that. A flamingo?

  This is my part of the story. I know how I want to describe myself.

  Well, you’re just being mean to yourself. You are so gorgeous. You’re selling yourself short. You’re the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Honestly. I can’t believe you picked me. You could have had anyone.

  I want you to really see how I am describing myself. I want you to visualise me. I want you to see how I see myself. If you want to see the scene differently you have to wait till it’s your turn.

  But you’re taking too long to get to the good bit.

  The sex bit?

  I’ve had my pants off for twenty minutes.

  Okay. Tag. You take over.

  …

  Come on. What happens next.

  …I’m not really good with words. Let’s go to the botanic gardens instead.

  Okay. Take us to the botanic gardens. What are we doing now?

  No. In real life.

  Sure, later. But now. Take us there now.

  I don’t think I can do this. Why don’t we just meet up for dinner and do it for real instead?

  No, you have to learn to do this.

  Why?

  Because if we don’t have this we have nothing.

  That’s pretty dramatic. Let’s just meet up for dinner? I’ve got to get back to work now anyway.

  Not tonight. I can’t meet you tonight.

  Well tomorrow then.

  No.

  Come on. I’m sorry. Did I offend you?

  I can’t see you till after Thursday.

  Why not?

  It’s complicated. I don’t know if I’m ready to explain.

  You’re married?

  God no.

  Do you have a kid or something?

  Nothing like that. If you log on tonight we can talk.

  Should I wear pants?

  No. Definitely do not wear pants.

  Can we video chat instead?

  No. I am afraid we can’t.

  This is a bit weird you know.

  Oh definitely. This is about as weird as it could get.

  Well I’ll see you tonight. Or I won’t. But I’ll be here.

  And I’ll be here with you. I really will. Right here with you. We have to make this work.

  We ease
into the chatting, awkwardly at first but he slowly learns to relax into our imagined landscape. I lead him through the scented garden, which he has never seen in the real world. I draw a picture of each leaf, the smell of kaffir lime pressed between his fingers, those special refrigerated rooms where walnut trees and figs are grown.

  It is truffle season, I tell him. Our hands are linked around the taut lead, the dog pulling, sniffing at the ground. Or it could be a pig? Would you prefer a pig?

  Who wouldn’t prefer a pig?

  I wish there was a way to laugh in text without it sounding sarcastic. I want to draw a smile, but not just a smiley face, which means nothing. I want to draw him my smile, with all its crooked tilt and flawed twenty-first-century teeth. I can’t do any of this and so I send him all I have left. My words on his screen.

  All right then, a pig. Its thighs are huge. Big hunks of meat on them. Have you ever seen a pig?

  Not in real life.

  Well imagine one of those big barbeques they sometimes put in the parks. The biggest ones with the rotating lid to keep out the rain and hail. Imagine that big hunk of metal pulling at the leather leash and so excited, pushing its nose into the loamy ground. You pull him away and hold him, squealing in delight. He rolls and shakes every thick bit of his body in excitement. I am down on my knees…

  …with your low-cut top and that bra you were wearing. The red one with the lace at the edge.

  Sure, but you are too excited by the truffle chase to take more than a second glance at her bra. I am—

  Your bra.

  What? My bra? I said not to worry about it.

  I am just correcting you. You said ‘her’ bra.

  Well, bras aside, I have my fingers around the truffle.

  I have my fingers down my pants.

  Fair enough. It is a pretty impressive truffle. I’m a bit excited by it myself. I break the dirt away from it and there it is, big as a fist and smelling like—

  Your cunt.

  Yes. In a way you might be right. My vulva used to smell like that. Earthy. A pungency, meaty. Meat creeping towards its use-by date, like something dead that has spent a little time, but not too long, in the sun. Then add to this an edge of chocolate and a hint of port.

  Honey.

  Sweetie?

  No. I’m just saying you don’t smell like that. You taste a bit of honey. Soap too. And maybe rockmelon? God. It sounds like a wine review doesn’t it?

  Anthony.

  He has dragged me from myself and I feel Laura’s body on me. For the first time it feels cloying, heavy. I want to shrug the last traces of her and walk beside him in my own remembered skin.

  It is really important you listen to what I tell you about myself. When I describe what I smell like I want you to close your eyes and imagine me the way I tell you that I am.

  You don’t smell like—

  You must do this. You must listen to me now. Here. I am going to stand up. My hands covered in dirt. The truffle cradled in the fingers of my right hand, the left one unbuttoning the front of my shirt. I want you to just stand where you are and watch me now. My breasts are heavy in their bra. My bra. A black bra, solid, thick, but softly padded at the cups. You watch me as I reach behind my back and unsnap the fastenings and it falls away. My breasts are heavy. Solid. They sag a little, but they have not yet begun to shrink back into themselves.

  I remember them. I remember how they looked before my body thickened and changed.

  The nipples are fat and dark. The colour of the truffle. The colour of mud. I take those muddied hands and place the truffle gently on the ground beside me. I pull down my pants and there is the dark forest of hair. I lie down beside our truffle. You will be able to smell it when you lower yourself onto me, when you put your lips to my mouth, and breathe in as you kiss. But for now you see my knees falling apart. Here are my lips, partially obscured by a thick tangle. I reach down and part those lips for you. You see that the right labia minora is bigger than the left. The ragged edge of it swells out from within the sweet pout of my outer lips. I part them. I dip my finger into the place that is already wetting with the start of my excitement. I rub the finger round the place, place it firmly on my clitoris. I rub there. In a moment you will tie the pig up and lick where I have rubbed. I will teach you to pleasure me, word by word. You will ease yourself up to where my nipples are hard and dark like little river stones.

  I can’t do this.

  Yes you can. You’ll get into the swing of it.

  I can’t imagine you as somebody else. I love you for who you are. I love your body. I love your neat pink nipples. They are so pale I can barely see the edge of them. I love how your labia are all tucked away, and the smooth hairless space where only the tiniest indication shows me where the place is. I love you as you are in real life. You are the single most beautiful girl I have ever seen. I love that beautiful sweet, pale girl.

  Okay, I tell him. Okay.

  I can feel my anxiety rising. I should back away from this conversation. It’s like my friend Sandra said to me once, there should be a message that comes up before you send any email—are you really sure you want to press send? Really, really sure?

  Well, if you love me because of my pink nipples and my hairless vulva, then you love someone else.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Her name is Laura. She works part-time as a sex worker. She is putting herself through university. I pay her. I pay her a lot of money to be me. But she is not me.

  I still don’t understand.

  This is me, I tell him then. I am just this. Here. Now. This is the real world. This is all that is left of the real world. Laura is just some—body. Someone else’s body.

  Then I pull up a photo of me at twenty-five. Another from ten years later. Forty-five, fifty-five, sixty-five, seventy-five. I leap forward ten years at a time and even without a body I feel like I am squinting, shocked by each older iteration of myself: 105, 115, 125, 128, folded over on myself and almost ready to die. All the photos in an ever-lessening row and then, without anyone checking if I really want to do it, I press send.

  This is me, I type into the silence. This was me. And here I am now. This cursor. These words. You are looking at me now.

  ‘We should really get that fixed.’ I open and close the door a second time and feel the catch of the wood against the floorboards. ‘When was the last flood?’ I ask him.

  ‘Must be four weeks now. Or five? Five, because I have had one session with Genevieve since then.’

  I shake my head. ‘You really should have done something about it by now.’

  ‘Me? Couldn’t you message the landlord?’

  ‘You open it every day. I haven’t seen this door for two weeks, thank you very much.’

  Genevieve sighs. I feel her breath escape my mouth and remember that she is here between us. We have had Genevieve three times now and I like her, but she has no patience for this kind of mundane banter.

  She has four school-aged children. Sometimes she comes to us smelling of lollies. Once she had to pause our session to take a phone call from the school. Sometimes I hear her tutting in our head, her impatience palpable. She is sometimes short with us. It is strangely reassuring.

  Sorry, I tell her silently, hiding my thoughts from Anthony, but you see how infuriating he can be?

  Genevieve smiles and I take her smile and turn it towards Anthony. I step into his arms and he holds me and nuzzles his face into my shoulder and kisses me the way I like it, gently and with a little breath behind it, tickling against my skin. Genevieve has large, slightly sagging breasts. He takes them in his hands. He weighs them. When he pulls our shirt off, he can nuzzle his head there where I like it, one soft warm globe beside each cheek. Her nipples are smaller than mine were but they are pretty close. The last girl had sweet small breasts with very pointy tips, which were nice but so different from anything I had ever had that it kept jumping me out of the reality of what we were doing. My thoughts would
circle back and around on themselves which is what I do in the real world, my real world. I would separate from her and become more myself.

  Genevieve is barely here between us when he picks up my hand and walks me to the bed.

  ‘Oh. I forgot to get parmesan, and I’ve cooked a tomato pasta,’ says Anthony, and I can feel Genevieve’s frustration. She can’t believe we would waste this time on things like cheese and sticking doors and unpaid bills and our ongoing discussion about the ethics of getting a real pet rat. I am beginning to realise she is a romantic. If it was her in someone else’s body she would spend her hours in bed with him and not arguing over pets and payments.

  ‘Parmesan’s important for someone who only gets to taste tomato pasta once a month, if that.’ The comment is aimed at Genevieve but Anthony shakes his head and apologises.

  ‘I have been crazy busy at work.’

  ‘I know, my love. And that’s okay. I’d like a walk down to the shops. I want to see what the new covered walkway looks like in the flesh.’

  ‘Bloody ugly.’

  ‘The opposite of you then.’ And I pull his T-shirt up and over his head and there is his lightly furred dark-skinned chest, the sweet curve of his belly. The tight measure of his lower back.

  ‘I love your skin.’ I touch it. It is like caramel. I put my mouth to his chest and I taste him.

  ‘I love you,’ he says. Touching my chest, pressing his hands against my forehead, one palm on either side of my skull. ‘I love you in there.’ He kisses me.