Love by the Numbers

by Karin Kallmaker

  She left her companions to stand within inches of Nicole. Shouting, she said, “Leaving so soon?”

  “Not now that there’s a reason to stay.” The answer was automatic and the best she could do from her suddenly dry throat. Her nerves tightened in a delicious coil, sending a wave of heat coursing from her face to her feet and back, settling in the low places between her hips. Her hands felt as if they were on fire.

  The swift, primal magnitude of her physical response stunned her. The other woman turned her head to dismiss her companions for the moment. Then she said to Nicole, “Let’s dance.”

  There wasn’t a dance floor, but Nicole let herself be pulled to the far side of the pub where the lights were the lowest. Couples swayed slowly together in rhythms that had nothing to do with the music. The woman’s hands ran up and down Nicole’s sleeves, then around to her back, fitting their bodies together.

  The first kiss increased the familiar hunger in the pit of Nicole’s belly. The second set off a high-pitched hum in her ears and she could no longer hear the music. She heard only the soft sigh and the quiet purr, followed by the low laugh after Nicole jerked her head back to avoid having her lip bitten.

  She let her head be pulled down to another kiss, then shivered as lips brushed her earlobe. “Hard, fast and now.”

  “Now?”

  “Do you have someplace near?”

  Instead of answering the question, Nicole glanced around and said, “What about your friends?”

  “They know me. I’ve found myself a butch and won’t be back until morning.” The woman leaned back, tossing her blond hair out of her face. “Will I?”

  Her eyes were blue. Not green.

  All the heat in her body turned to ice.

  As they’d kissed Nicole had entertained visions of stripping her naked and holding her down on a bed. Pushing her legs apart to find out if she was as ready as Nicole was. Discovering exactly how hard and how fast would please her. Eventually opening the jacket so their breasts could touch, but only after they were both already drenched and panting. Rolling across the bed for the hours of deep pleasure it would take to finally satisfy.

  She had envisioned finally looking down into green eyes and asking, “What more do you need?”

  Into Lily’s eyes.

  “Is something wrong?”

  An unbidden voice of clinical detachment said, “Take her back to the room and engage in sexual relations. Once purged of the biological compulsions and resulting emotional chaos, everything will return to its previous state.” It was followed quickly by a primal dictate: Pretend it’s Lily.

  She couldn’t breathe for a moment. Then her lungs finally filled.

  “What’s the matter? Let’s go.”

  She caught the woman’s hands before they reached her ass. “I’m sorry, I suddenly don’t feel well.”

  “You’re having me on!”

  “No, I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  The surprise and disgust in not-Lily’s face wasn’t a look she’d ever wanted to get from any woman, but it faded from her memory as soon as the music of the pub was lost in the hubbub of the crowded streets.

  For several minutes she was too overwhelmed to sort out her feelings. She tried to find her innate fascination at the collision of the academic superego and the carnal id but she couldn’t focus when another part of her was fixated on the fact that she’d known Lily less than a week.

  Human behavior being what it was, she was certain a number of people followed the urge to use the person they were with as a stand-in for the one they really desired. The problem was, she’d never done that before.

  Her memory served her well on autopilot and she found herself outside her hotel without recalling much of the walk. Desperate not to encounter Lily she shed her jacket and quickly crossed the lobby to the stairs. Once in her own room she plunked down on the bed, legs wobbly and head swimming.

  She’d never used a stand-in before—the impulse to do so was a first. That was because she’d never desired anyone who had a name before. Never closed her eyes, as she did now, and ached for the feel of a specific woman in her arms.

  Why Lily? Wishing she’d drunk the entire beer at the bar, she pushed her jacket into her suitcase, changed into pajamas and crawled into bed. But the dark room lit up with her fantasies.

  Nowhere near sleep, she turned on all the lights, opened the folder of her next peer review project and read until her eyes burned.

  Chapter Nine

  Nicole had changed her presentation again. The bookshop was stuffed to its exposed rafters with women of all ages from Dublin and the surrounding villages. Prominent in the front row were five little old ladies in stout shoes who’d explained they were from the local Women’s Institute and having a day in the city. They were all single and it was never too late to find love, their leader had assured Nicole.

  Lily hoped that the ladies weren’t put off by Nicole’s choice to focus her talk on sex—specifically, the sexual spark that all of the participants acknowledged existed in both successful and unsuccessful relationships.

  “Contrary to romantic comedies, the sexual spark isn’t a reliable predictor of long-term success. Every participant in our study had felt it with both positive and negative outcomes. More than half said that while sex was important, it was not the deciding factor in the decision to make a long-term commitment.”

  One of the old ladies piped up with, “You never miss the water till the well runs dry!”

  The room erupted into laughter. Nicole’s brows knitted for just a moment and Lily could imagine the smackdown a student who heckled would receive. But the glower turned to a grin. “Seeing water does, in fact, make most people feel thirsty.”

  “Seeing a good-looking lad with a pint does that for me!”

  Lily couldn’t help but join the new burst of laughter, but she was glad one of the woman’s companions poked her with a grin and said, “Now you hush, Mary.”

  Nicole resumed her talk with a genuine smile that lingered. “The sexual spark is one of the strongest neurobiological impulses in most people’s bodies, powered by a cocktail of serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine. For brevity, these are often referred to as the Love Drug. When respondents were asked to rank the intensity of the Love Drug’s effect on their cognitive assessment, it was outranked only by loss of a loved one and imminent fear of death. In short, quoting from the woman in the case study on page two-twelve, ‘When my engine revs up I can’t hear much of anything, especially all the things that should have told me the guy was all wrong for me.’”

  Women all over the audience were nodding. Nicole glanced at Lily, then returned her gaze to her notes.

  “So if sexual attraction isn’t a good predictor of long-term relationship success, what are some of the things that are? One of the most commonly cited personality traits that participants said they shared with their long-term partner was a self-described ‘good’ sense of humor. That doesn’t mean laughter, however. The predictor isn’t that both people can laugh, but that they laugh—and cry, or get angry—at the same things. Their emotional responses to the same stimuli—a pie in the face, the loss of a parent, a national tragedy—are similar.”

  She turned to another page in her book. “From page two-fourteen. ‘I never saw Bill cry but when our first baby was stillborn I knew he grieved as hard and as deep as I did. I knew he understood why I cried.’ Compare that to the statistically significant number of participants who said emotional mystery was a relationship killer. Page three-twenty: ‘She’s the woman I wanted the most ever, but I never knew how Cindy felt and it didn’t last two years.’”

  She watched Nicole set the book down and smooth the cover with the palm of her hand. A gentle touch, almost as if it were a child.

  With a start, Lily realized that Nicole was segueing into her final remarks and she quickly took a couple of pictures. Lupe had e-mailed that they were using photographs to maintain a travel blog for the Love by the Numbers tour.

&
nbsp; Afterward she handled the queue for signed books as she had in London and Edinburgh, and realized she was already in danger of losing track of where she was. It would be easy to do so over the coming weeks. Better to focus on the pleasure of the Irish accents and turns of phrase than the way her heartbeat seemed to leap into double-time every time she made eye contact with Nicole.

  Nicole’s switch to talking about how sexual attraction got in the way of good judgment wasn’t a warning, was it? Nicole couldn’t possibly know…

  She passed another book open to the title page to Nicole to sign, taking care not to touch her. She wasn’t sure what would happen if their fingers brushed, but she was taking no chances given that Libido was busy committing the shape and length of Nicole’s fingers to memory. She wasn’t sure what her camera had caught, but the photograph in her mind was of the smiling, relaxed Nicole and the simple look of indulgence, even affection for the jokester in the audience. Maybe her warmer nature only came out for little old ladies. Lily had yet to see a look like that directed at her. That strangely compelling shared look on the train to Edinburgh hadn’t been…affection.

  * * *

  By the time she was buckled into her airplane seat next to Nicole for their afternoon flight to Frankfurt, part of her mind was reflecting on Ashtown Castle’s beautiful gardens, resplendent with late summer perennials and just a hint of turning color in the leaves. The rest of her energy was preoccupied with the demanding itinerary of the next eight days.

  They arrived in Frankfurt late in the evening and the following morning reported to the opening day of the massive book festival and a cattle call-type of book signing.

  The following day they drove to Bremen where one bookstore and two colleges were awaiting Nicole’s appearance. After that, they turned west to Amsterdam, then south to Brussels and onward to Reims. Each day had three to five hours of driving and two if not three appearances varying between academic and bookstore settings. Just thinking about it she could have cheerfully shot the person who had planned such a rigorous schedule without any breaks.

  They were supposed to stay overnight in Reims, but Lily was considering changing their plans to drive at least part of the way to Lyon and stopping over in Dijon. Since they didn’t have to be in Lyon until mid-afternoon, it would give them one morning to take things just a little bit more slowly. After a university lecture they had a shorter drive to Geneva where two more colleges and a bookstore were on the itinerary. They would spend a second night there and then return to Frankfurt via a long, arduous drive, hopefully arriving in time for the close of the book festival and another large signing.

  With so many cities ahead, surely one or two would have back alleys behind bars, Libido suggested. After all, there’s no point to thinking naked time with Nicole will cure anything. Dr. Hathaway thinks sex is an annoying distraction.

  And she’s not wrong, Circumspect pleaded. Go ahead, make a pass at her, see how long you keep this job and your self-respect.

  Feeling cross that she couldn’t at least doze on the plane, Lily tried to silence the inner argument. Okay, sex was not just a distraction in life, but it could lead to reckless decisions, she told herself. She wasn’t going to be one of those women who later claimed the heat of the moment made her do something astonishingly stupid. She could just picture the look on Uncle Damon’s face if Nicole told him Lily had made a sexual overture.

  There, a decision made. And one that at least silenced Circumspect. Libido would have been silent as well if not for the fact that Nicole had fallen asleep and her head was on Lily’s shoulder.

  Yes, she’d seen some beautiful places and yes, she was worried about the coming weeks of tiring travel in places she’d never been. She tried to focus on those things but it didn’t work. Instead she was inhaling the scent of Nicole’s hair and lost in the pleasurable burning along her nerves as she breathed it in.

  * * *

  “Where are we?” Lily’s voice from the passenger side of the compact rental car was groggy with sleep.

  In the low illumination from the dashboard lights, Nicole watched her cup her hands in front of the air-conditioning vent to direct the flow onto her face. France was baking with a heat wave and even with it on full blast Nicole was still lightly perspiring. “About five kilometers from Dijon. Feel better?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Lily straightened in her seat.

  “I felt a little off too for a while last night, but I still slept well. I’m thinking it was the salad at dinner. Probably what kept you up.”

  The day had begun with Lily not arriving first for breakfast. Nicole had found herself quelling irrational fears that somehow Lily was missing, and for the first time understood how people jumped to the worst possible conclusions. When Lily had appeared, ten minutes later, Nicole had felt a wave of relief, but her wan face had immediately alarmed her. In the nearly dozen mornings since they’d left Meredith, she’d never seen Lily anything other than bright-eyed and cheerful. An exception was bound to happen, of course, but she had been taken aback at how much she’d already come to rely on Lily’s unflagging energy and bright “it’s going to be a terrific day” smile over morning tea.

  She’d done everything she could remember that her mother would do: offered antacids, club soda and soda crackers. She had stopped short of offering to tuck Lily into bed. The very idea made her throat too tight to talk. Besides, there had been no time for going back to bed. Another city, another event was always ahead.

  “I think it was the salad too. I usually have a strong stomach. Thank you for driving.” Lily resettled her seat belt and let out a tired breath.

  “Kate would be impressed. Though she’s not inclined to bicker with me at the moment. I sent her an iPad to help ease the boredom of bed rest.” Nicole glanced at Lily but couldn’t see much more than the silhouette of hair not quite in its usually tidy style.

  “That was a sweet thing to do.”

  “I was attempting to avert matricide. At the moment I am Kate’s favorite sister, she says.”

  Lily giggled. “My uncle used to tell me I was his favorite niece. It took me years to realize I was his only niece.”

  “Kate apparently thinks I won’t figure out I’m her only sister. She persistently underestimates my deductive abilities.”

  “You’re both your mother’s daughter.”

  Nicole frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That’s why you’re so alike.” Lily turned slightly in her seat toward Nicole. “You and Kate are peas in a pod.”

  Nicole couldn’t keep her skepticism out of her tone when she asked, “Do you have evidence to support this hypothesis?”

  “Purely observational.”

  “Briefly observational.”

  “You’re both stubborn.”

  “A trait we share with almost all of the human race.”

  “You both know how to get what you want from life.”

  “I don’t agree.” Nicole glanced at the GPS unit’s glowing display. She was learning to like the way the yellow map and large pink arrows gave her plenty of warning about the route.

  “Don’t you have what you want from life? Academic acclaim? Fame and fortune? A quiet place to think and family close?”

  She had everything she wanted in life? Her leather jacket had stayed in the suitcase ever since the aborted outing in Edinburgh. No bars for Cole in Frankfurt, Bremen, Amsterdam or Brussels. Amsterdam had seemed an obvious place to make the desired connections, but after spending each evening either shopping, dining or going to the theater with Lily she’d forced herself to focus on neglected work. They’d found Shakespeare in the park in Bremen and the rousing rendition of Pericles, Prince of Tyre had been delightful. They’d cheered the hero and booed the villains while picnicking on cut sandwiches of wurst on thick pumpernickel. A dessert of large, sour pickles had proven effective relief from the heat.

  So she hadn’t gone out alone in Amsterdam, even though she knew that sex would cure her of this un
fortunate fixation she had on Lily’s body. Knowing what she needed to do but not doing it was a perfect example of the neural-biological disconnect. Psychology might also come into play. Regardless, she was unwilling to examine closely the idea that she might not want to be cured.

  As to Lily’s observation about the tidiness of Nicole’s living arrangements she said, “I could do with my mother and sister just a little farther away. Some of my Indian relatives I would prefer on the moon. They have a long reach.”

  “They can influence you?”

  “Not me—my mother. She’ll get a letter or e-mail from one of her brothers, or my father’s brother, full of recriminations for failing to hold me to my duty and it makes her manic for days. We have the same conversation we’ve been having since I was seventeen. I’m not ever going to endure an arranged marriage. I’m keeping my degrees and my work.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve arranged your life the way you want it.” Now Lily sounded smug.

  “My objection to your premise wasn’t about me, it was about my sister.”

  “Kate has what she wants.”

  “Kate is mercurial. She doesn’t know what she wants. First it’s ballet, then it’s art history, then it’s philosophy. None of it has resulted in a degree. Now she’s unmarried, ungraduated and unemployed.”

  “Did Kate ever want a degree, a husband or a job?”

  Nicole blinked. She wanted to protest that the question was absurd.

  As if she sensed Nicole’s uncertainty, Lily persisted, “You may want her to have those things, but I think what you want matters to her about as much as what your family in India wants matters to you. Like I said, you two are peas in a pod.”

  “Except when looking in a mirror.”