by Kristen Mae
“Hazel,” he whispered.
I traced a line between the muscles of his abdomen.
“Hazel, look at me?”
I did.
He stared at me like he wanted to ask me something, and I held his gaze, afraid to break away and give him reason to question me. I wanted to appear calm, but my uneven breathing was giving me away. Even my hands, resting on his stomach, vibrated lightly. Of course Oren could see something was wrong—I was not hiding this very well.
My eyes pricked with tears and my throat burned with the effort of holding back sobs. Oren’s face was only arm’s length from mine, and though I loved him and had no desire to leave him, all I could see in my mind when I looked at him was Claire. It was insane and wrong and unfair, too much a burden to bear alone but too awful a truth to share. I knew my face was turning red and that Oren would say something, and I had to, needed to let him believe I was still upset over my past having reemerged after seeing the puppy tied to the chair.
But he didn’t ask about the puppy.
“The drawing you did of Claire was beautiful.”
He’d seen it after all. I tried to picture how he would react if I blurted out the truth. I opened my mouth to tell him…something, I wasn’t sure what. I wasn’t sure I could verbalize the complexity of my feelings for Claire, the raw desire that often didn’t feel sexual but was more like an indefinable need, just a terrible, engulfing need to be near her. But before I could speak, Oren grabbed my hips and pressed me down onto him, rocked me back and forth along the bulge in his underwear. His eyes narrowed, and I could not distinguish the emotion on his face, if it was confusion, anger, jealousy or…arousal?
He pushed my underwear down lower around my hips, and I lifted up so he could push them the rest of the way off. I pulled my T-shirt over my head and tossed it on the floor, trying to be there for him, trying to show him, look, see, I’m yours, but my heart raced with anxiety. I was afraid to know what he was thinking. His expression held within it a roughness, a demand, a whisper of a dare, all so unfamiliar coming from him that it seemed as though the world had lost some of its gravity, making my skin ripple and surge like my cells were about to separate and float away. But all I did was shiver. Oren slid his own underwear off and settled me so I straddled his hips again. This time he grabbed me more firmly, dug his fingertips into my flesh, slowly dragging me across his hardness.
I was dripping wet, more wet than he’d ever experienced with me—more than the day I’d undressed for him in the living room—there was no chance he wouldn’t notice the difference. I’d been…ready like that ever since the day we’d gone surfing, when I’d been practically assaulted by image after image after image of Claire. A hot flush crept over my body, and now the look in Oren’s eyes was one of knowing. He didn’t say anything aloud, but his intention was so clear he might as well have been shouting at me: Claire does it for you. You’ve never been wet for me.
It occurred to me then that Oren might think I had already betrayed him with Claire. And perhaps I had, if only in my mind, but it broke my heart to think he could believe I would do that to him. “I didn’t—nothing happened.” My words came out tiny and tremulous.
The hard look on his face softened into one of confusion. “I know.” His said it like it was the most obvious fact in the world, but his hands remained tight and possessive on my hips.
I reached down so I could guide him inside me. Poor Oren, my Oren. I would show him. I closed my eyes and focused on the wet heat where our bodies joined together. He did feel good. I knew it was my fault our sex life was so passionless and robotic. Why hadn’t I tried harder to let myself go with him?
I willed myself to connect with him, to forget for once the ugly tightening that always prevented me from feeling. But the harder I concentrated, the more rigid I felt. The more I focused on being wet and sexy and orgasmic, the more my body tensed. I wanted to please him so badly; I wanted to be normal for him. For us both.
After ten minutes of zero sensation, grinding against Oren didn’t feel sexy at all anymore—it felt desperate and pathetic. I gritted my teeth and gulped down the burning in my throat, but even as I felt myself crumble, I kept moving against him, trying to make it work.
He stopped me with a gentle touch to my thighs. “Think about her.” His voice was so soft I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
I opened my eyes and gaped at him.
“Who’s going to know? Just do it.”
“I…I can’t.” I put my hands over my mouth and shook my head.
He smiled. “I’m not mad, Hazel. I mean, I’m a little jealous, but I get it. It makes so much sense. She’s not a threat. Don’t you see it?”
My heart pounded so hard that I was sure Oren could hear it. “I’m too embarrassed.”
Oren’s smile widened and he pulled me down to him so we lay skin-to-skin, my breasts pressing against his chest. He wrapped an arm around me, holding my hips tight against his pelvis, and rolled us so he was on top. My mouth fell open; how did he know how to do that?
He thrust deep into me, startling me with his roughness. “What attracts you to her?” He growled the words in a way that could have been construed as threatening, but I sensed what he was trying to do. He wanted me to let go.
My whole body lit up with a mix of shame and desire. “Oh my god, Oren, no.” Between my legs, I pulsed involuntarily. He had to have felt it.
“Okay then, don’t talk. Just…think about her.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s just a fantasy, Hazel. It’s harmless.” That last whispered word at my ear sent tingles up and down my body as he kept a slow rhythm inside me. I knew he was waiting for me to decide to go along with him. Could I do that? Up to now I hadn’t permitted myself to fantasize about Claire, not deliberately. But now, as Oren sank into me again and again, each time brushing against the same spot I’d been pounding with my showerhead for the last week, I finally allowed myself to think of her.
With Oren’s breath warm against my neck, I let myself imagine how Claire’s mouth would feel in the same spot. How her soft, delicate body would feel pressed up against mine. As Oren drove into me, I pictured myself admitting my feelings to Claire, imagined how she might lick her lips and rest a hand on the bare skin of my thigh. My heart would pound, but I would dare her with my eyes, and I would be wet and trembling and ready to fall apart. I wrapped my legs around Oren and pulled him deeper inside me, but it was Claire I saw gliding her hand all the way up my leg…slipping her fingers under the hem of my shorts…
It started in my fingers and toes, a low-frequency buzzing that built on itself, crackled through my body like a slow-moving wildfire until it overtook me, sending me arching and clawing and biting my lip trying not to scream. I couldn’t let Oren know how quickly I’d just come unraveled with only a few flirtatious thoughts of Claire. But a whimper escaped, and Oren, feeling the unfamiliar convulsions inside me, groaned and shuddered as he followed suit. He didn’t stop moving until my breath slowed and my body melted back down against the mattress.
We lay stunned and panting for a few minutes, neither of us quite able to believe what had just happened. I still had my arms around Oren and was pretty sure I’d drawn blood on his back.
He kissed my neck. “It’s okay.”
I choked on a sob as tears streamed down my cheeks.
Oren pulled out of me and lay alongside me on the bed. “Hazel. It’s really okay. People fantasize.”
I opened the drawer on my nightstand, pulled out a tissue, and blew my nose in a decidedly unsexy way. Of course I would have my first orgasm with my husband and follow it up with snot. I hiccupped and laughed disdainfully at myself, an ugly, snorting sound.
Oren rubbed my back. “Babe. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m just going to say one thing and then you can do that thing where you mull it over privately and then stuff it down and we never bring it up again.”
That made me really laugh. My Oren
. He noticed much, much more than I ever gave him credit for.
“You did it. And I don’t care how. And…well, I felt you, and it was amazing.” I made a face at him like he was being gross. He rolled his eyes, but even in the dark it looked as though he was blushing. “I won’t say anything else.” He kissed my forehead, lay back in the bed and wrapped his arms around me.
I nestled against him. I was still catching my breath from crying. “It was nice,” I whispered.
He laughed. “Well I’m glad you enjoyed it. And you know, not that it matters much, but, from what Mike says, Claire is extremely open-minded. I doubt she would give a crap if you fantasized about her. In fact, she’d probably be into that sort of thing, especially with someone as beautiful as you are. I mean, not that you would ever actually do anything like that.”
My heart rate shot up again and the ache resumed between my legs. I had a sudden urge to grab Oren’s hand and press his fingers into me, to start everything all over again.
Maybe Oren and I were both underestimating what I was capable of.
THIRTEEN
“I really don’t think the mics are a good idea,” Claire said, pressing a finger to her lips and glancing sideways at Katrina. “They’ll make us sound like we’re being broadcast out of a tin can.”
It was Monday afternoon, and all four members of our quartet stood on the auditorium stage making final preparations for our concert the following evening. The orchestra conductor, Bill, Katrina’s husband Frank, and her daughter Elizabeth—a flute major in college—were out in the auditorium acting as our audience.
Katrina scrunched up her face. “I tend to agree with you, Claire, but Bill said they’ve sold enough tickets to put people in the balcony. He doesn’t think they’ll hear us up there without the mics.” She shielded her eyes against the bright stage lights and squinted toward the darkness of the auditorium. “Elizabeth, why don’t you run up to the balcony and give us a listen?”
Katrina’s daughter bounded up the stairs that led to the balcony seating. Raymond made a few mic adjustments, then sat down in one of the chairs set up onstage and pulled his viola out of its case. I paced the stage with my violin tucked under my arm. The other three knew the hall better than I did, so they might as well decide without my input. Besides, I was using most of my mental energy trying not to stare at Claire, who could not seem to keep her fingers away from her mouth.
My stomach flipped with shame over how much she got to me. The morning after I’d used her to get off with Oren, I woke up so sick with guilt that I banned myself from fantasizing about her ever again, even if it meant no more “happy endings” with my husband. And now, with her fingers hanging around her mouth like that…god. It was like she was doing it on purpose.
“So we’re running through with mics first?” Katrina asked Raymond. He nodded.
Claire sat and opened her music. She said, “Sibelius?” to no one in particular, then looked at me and winked as she ran her palm down her music to flatten it. Heat spread across my chest and fanned down my body. I shook myself and took a seat with the others.
We played through different passages of varying dynamic range, asking our listeners stationed throughout the auditorium if they could hear well enough. Mics were turned on and off; our seating arrangement was shifted upstage and downstage. We even tried switching Claire and Raymond around to see if it improved balance. In the end we agreed that we would perform the concert without mics but would not play our quieter passages as softly as we usually would in a smaller, more traditional performance venue.
Once we’d decided on our sound setup, we did a run-through of both pieces. With intermission, our concert would be just under an hour and a half. In spite of nerves already frayed by my ever-present attempts to squash thoughts of Claire, I felt a familiar heady anticipation for our recital; it had been a long time since I’d performed chamber music in such a substantial setting.
I thought once again how lucky Oren and I had been to find a place where we could both be happy with our employment. Now if only I could stop feeling like I’d gone insane, everything would be perfect.
Once the others had left, I stood on the stage alone facing the darkened auditorium and pretended the seats were filled with people. Just imagining the crowd there was enough to make my pulse quicken—but in a good way.
I set my violin under my chin and began my favorite piece, the Chaconne, by Bach. I knew it so well that I could sing the music in my mind and my fingers did their work as if independent of my brain. For fifteen minutes I lost myself in the chords and runs, drank in the echoes as they reverberated through the hall. When the last note rang out, I lifted my bow from the string and let the last vibrations dissipate until the auditorium was left in cavernous silence again. I slid my violin away from my neck and sighed.
My hands resumed their slight tremble as I put my violin back in its case and sat down at the front of the stage. I hung my legs over the edge and imagined my mother sitting out in one of the empty auditorium seats, smiling in that heart-brimming-over way she had, her eyebrows scrunched with the usual mix of love and worry. The first time I performed the entire Chaconne for her, she wept with her hands at her cheeks even though she’d been hearing me practice the piece for months. It was different for her, sitting in that silent audience, focusing her ears and finally listening. She cried at that performance because it was the first time she’d really heard me.
A year later, the night of my attack, she came home and found me sitting upright and rigid against the wall of my bathroom, my body covered in crusted blood, my eyes fixed unseeing on the vomit-filled toilet in front of me.
She dropped to her knees beside me, her hands floating nervously in the air like she wanted to touch me but was afraid she might cause additional harm. She asked what had happened to me, and all I could say was “woods.”
She flushed the toilet, started the water in the shower, and tentatively pulled me to standing. My underwear was gone but she helped me remove my skirt and blouse, supporting my arms as I stepped into the shower.
“It was Trey?” Her voice was grainy with dread.
“I popped out his eyes with a key.” I said it clearly over the noise of the running water because I did not ever want to have to say it again.
The rag paused midway down my back, just for a second, and when she resumed her gentle nursing, her hands were shaking.
When all that was left to clean were the torn, stinging injuries between my legs, my mom got a new rag, wet it, and held it out to me. But I couldn’t. The thought of touching myself down there was too much too bear. Instead, I plugged the drain and sat in the tub to soak. I emptied and refilled the tub five times, until the water finally ran clear of my blood.
My mom lifted me out of the bath and swaddled me in her well-worn house robe, then walked me to my bedroom and helped me lie down. She spooned me under the protective cover of my grandmother’s old quilt, stroked my temples, and cried into my hair while I cried into my pillow. As I drifted off that night, she whispered, “He hurt you before, baby?” but it sounded more like a statement than a question. I made a choking sound, and she said, “Shh.”
She quit her second job after that so she could be home more. I panicked at first because I thought it meant no more violin lessons, but my violin teacher offered to continue teaching me for free, “given everything she’s been through.” I prepared my lessons more thoroughly than ever but couldn’t look my teacher in the eye anymore. She pretended not to notice.
I slept in my mom’s bed for a long time after what happened in the woods. It was good to have her there when I woke up screaming and fighting and ready to kill.
I never did find out how she knew to guess it was Trey and not some mysterious stranger. I think, as with the Chaconne, she had just finally listened, paid attention to something that had been right under her nose all along.
Before our bows came off the strings, the audience was already on its feet roaring with applause. We�
�d played the concert with as much precision as if we’d been together for years. There were parts of the Sibelius that made me sick with joy. The Ravel was gauzy and whimsical, and as we flowed through the elusive melodies, I felt the audience breathing along with us, and goosebumps rose on my arms.
The audience applauded so long that we had to return to the stage twice for repeat bows. When they finally quieted down, we exited the stage into the dark area behind the curtain, overflowing with exhilaration. Katrina and Raymond kept hugging and congratulating each other. Claire was actually bouncing up and down and grinning at me, waiting for my reaction. I hadn’t seen much of her outside rehearsal, and her proximity in the darkness made my neck feel hot. But I grinned back at her, unable to contain my own excitement over a job well done.
In the dressing room, Claire and I were the last to finish packing up our things. She latched her cello case and came over to give me a hug. “Was it good for you?” she said, and giggled into my ear before pulling away. An involuntary shiver wracked my body and I shrank from her, my face burning.
“Hey, are you okay? Are you sick?” She reached out and put a hand on my arm. Her eyes were soft, concerned.
I jerked my arm away and zipped up my case. “I’m fine! God, it’s freezing in here, isn’t it?”
Claire thought for a moment. “I’m not cold. Sure you’re okay? You look a little warm.”
Jesus, would she stop already? “No, I’m fine, I promise. Let’s go find the guys.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” she said, lifting her cello case strap onto her shoulder. “So, did Oren come?” We walked together down the hallway back toward the auditorium.
