Freefall

by Robin Brande

  The downstairs was divided into three main rooms, or two, really: the kitchen and living room, which occupied one continuous space, separated only by their different furnishings; and a large room off of the hallway that held exercise equipment.

  The living room was Eliza’s favorite: two of the walls made up of multiple windows, one wall looking out on the pool, the other onto a garden. He had a long leather couch, a shorter one upholstered in some sort of soft brown fabric, and several upholstered chairs in complementary colors. There were books stacked on the floor beside one of the chairs, and a pair of shoes lying in front of another. He obviously wasn’t a neat freak, Eliza thought, even though the whole house generally looked clean. Clean, but lived in. The sort of place where you wouldn’t be afraid to drip pool water on the kitchen floor.

  The exercise room housed a treadmill, an elliptical trainer, and several weight machines. There were also a few benches, one flat, the other on an incline, with barbells racked over both.

  “Do you use this?” Eliza asked, pointing to the room. “I mean, not that you don’t look like you do...” She stumbled over her words. “You look...good, obviously. What I mean is that sometimes people get all this stuff and then only use it for a little while.”

  She felt the heat on her cheeks. Somehow in the last few hours she’d forgotten how to talk.

  “I use it every day,” David said. “I don’t like going to a gym.”

  “Oh. Why? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Too many people.”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  He studied her face for a moment, then smiled. “Eliza, are you nervous?”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. I just feel...self-conscious right now, if you must know. Can you just pretend you don’t notice?”

  “I’m usually very nervous around you,” he said. “For some reason I’m all right right now.”

  “Great,” Eliza said. “Any time you want to switch back...”

  He smiled again, then continued with the tour. “Downstairs bathroom—make sure you go in there so you can report to Hildy.”

  Eliza turned on the light and stuck her head inside. “Nice. She’d like the black and white tile. Very classic.”

  “The black towels?” he asked.

  “Manly, which she already thinks you are. What did she say? ‘Everyone knows he has the power.’”

  “‘The power.’ Good. I always liked Mrs. Shepherd.”

  “I think she liked you, too,” Eliza said. “At least when you were younger. She thinks you’re a little stuck up now—you wouldn’t meet with her when we first came to town, and I think you had your assistant call her instead of calling her yourself. Very bad form.”

  “You’re less nervous.”

  “I’m getting there. Don’t draw attention to it. Let me just work on it.”

  “Satisfied with the downstairs?”

  “I think I can describe it.”

  “Ready for upstairs?”

  “I suppose so. How do I sound now?”

  “Nervous again.”

  “Damn it,” Eliza said.

  She knew what it was: She was feeling slightly giddy. She had food in her stomach now, her dog was going to live—and she’d broken the ice with this stranger who had been nice enough to let her bawl all over his shirt. Now that the worst of the crisis seemed to be over, Eliza felt foolish for how distraught she’d been. And David had seen it. It was like knowing someone has seen you naked, Eliza thought. It was hard to act too dignified after that.

  “This is my office, which used to be two guest rooms, but I don’t want guests, so I tore out the wall.”

  “You really are anti-social, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t seem...sorry about that.”

  “No.”

  “Hold on, let me snoop a little,” Eliza said. “Hildy will want some details.”

  She walked around the expansive room, noticing the black bookcases, the black wooden desk and matching chair, the dark burgundy rugs, the black credenza with a framed photo of Bear.

  “You like your dog,” Eliza observed.

  “A present from my nephews.”

  “The dog or the picture?”

  “The picture.”

  “I notice you don’t have any photographs of people.”

  “No.”

  “Because then they might think they could stay in your guest room?”

  “Right.”

  “But there is no guest room, so they’d be disappointed. Very smart. Don’t get people’s hopes up.”

  “You’re not nervous,” David said.

  “Not right now. Are you?”

  “Some.”

  “Good. The personality transfer is almost complete.”

  “I like it when you talk to me,” he said.

  “I like it when you do, too,” she said, smiling. “It’s kind of a shock, to tell you the truth.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I always think of you as Silent Man. I always think you’re angry at me for something. Or annoyed.”

  “I’m never angry at you.”

  “You were when Daisy attacked your dog.”

  “That’s different,” David said. “Bear is defenseless. He looks big, but he doesn’t know how to fight. Other dogs bully him all the time.”

  “That makes me sad,” Eliza said. “I love that dog. He’s great. I loved that he slept on my lap the whole way home.”

  David shook his head.

  “What?” Eliza said.

  “Family weekend at the lake.”

  “Hm. Yeah,” she said. “It was...interesting.”

  David led Eliza from the office, back into the hall. “Another bathroom, please inspect.”

  “You’re not nervous,” she said.

  “Not right now.”

  “I’ll bet I can make you nervous,” Eliza said.

  David leaned against the wall. “Why would you want to do that?”

  She looked down at her feet, considering whether she wanted to broach the topic. But she wanted to know. For more than one reason.

  “Are you still seeing Livia?” she asked.

  David stood looking at her silently for so long, Eliza wasn’t sure he would answer.

  Finally he said, “No.”

  “Since the lake trip?”

  “Right.”

  “Is there a reason?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  “No,” he said. “Not unless I have to.”

  “You don’t have to,” she answered.

  “Would Hildy like these towels?”

  “No,” Eliza answered truthfully. “She thinks white towels are always a poor choice. They show all the dirt and have to be washed too often. So points off for white.”

  “I’ll replace them right away.”

  “Then I won’t have to report them.”

  * * *

  She knew it was coming. Of course she knew. He was an adult, human male, and obviously slept in a bed. But she avoided knowing as long as she could.

  “Any other rooms?” she asked. “Den, second office, file room?”

  “No, just the one.”

  “I don’t have to see that,” Eliza said. “I can make something up.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Very,” she said.

  “Then we’ll just stand here until you’re ready.”

  David casually leaned back against the wall. And kept his eyes on Eliza’s face. She tried looking away at first, but then realized she felt much braver gazing back at him.

  They stood that way for several minutes, not speaking, just waiting.

  Finally Eliza said, “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

  “I could say the same to you.”

  “I am...a mess sometimes. This morning, for example. Even before I almost killed Hildy’s dog.”

  “What if I d
on’t care?”

  Eliza broke his gaze and looked down. “Okay, now I’m really nervous.”

  He reached out and lifted her chin. “Eliza, what if I don’t care? What if you can say anything, or do anything, and I won’t care?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. Her voice felt thin. She could feel her mouth trembling, and knew David must feel it, too.

  “I’ll wait until you’re ready,” he said, letting his hand fall back to his side. Then he crossed his arms in front of his chest and relaxed again against the wall.

  Eliza laughed. “So you’re just going to stand there? And wait?”

  “Yes.”

  She drew in a breath and slowly let it out. Then reached for his hand. “All right, then, come show me.”

  22

  The bedroom was full of light. The same long, broad windows as down in the living room, again filling up two connecting walls and meeting in the corner.

  The room had very little furniture: a king-sized bed with a black wooden frame, much like the furniture in his office; two matching bedside tables on either side; a dark brown love seat beneath one of the windows; a black bookcase against one of the solid walls.

  Eliza stood just inside the doorway. David stood beside her, not touching, but close enough that she could feel him.

  “This is really pretty.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I like the windows.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “And the bedding—Hildy would approve.” A dark, wine-colored paisley, with solid dark green pillows.

  “No hurry,” David said.

  “Oh, God.” She reached for his hand and gave it a single squeeze. Then she let go and turned to face him.

  Keeping her eyes on his, she reached down and pulled her shirt over her torso. She lost sight of him in that brief moment it took for her the shirt to clear her head, but then she kept on looking him in the eyes. His gaze didn’t shift from hers, even when she pulled her sports bra up and over her head. He didn’t touch her. He just waited.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. “Would you kiss me already?”

  “Gladly,” he said.

  And then it was the strangest sensation, Eliza thought: as if they had skipped years of courtship, years of awkward conversation and missed signals and misunderstandings and makeups; as if they’d grown up together, knew everything about each other from the time they were young, and one day had simply turned to each other and began what was obviously the next step. David kissed her like he already knew her, understood what she liked, how she liked it, touched her breasts as if he’d touched them hundreds of times before and wasn’t just discovering them in that sunlit room for the first time on a day when she’d unexpectedly needed his help.

  Like he’d been waiting for this all along, and had no doubt it would one day happen.

  Eliza slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. David swiftly removed her shorts. She undid the snap on his, pulled down the zipper, and pushed shorts and underwear down his legs.

  The two of them stood naked, still looking at each other’s faces, then David lifted her just enough to clear the floor and carried her to the bed.

  Eliza pulled him down with her. She hadn’t broken contact since their first kiss, and she wasn’t about to. She knew if she let him get too far away, even inches, both of them might have the chance to think, and this wasn’t a time for thought. This was a time for pure physical pleasure. No Jamey, no heartache, no past, no fears. She wasn’t afraid of David. He didn’t seem afraid of her.

  He explored her body with his hands, with his mouth. Eliza closed her eyes and let herself feel. He had a way of pausing just where she would have wanted him to, then moving on exactly when he should.

  He was hard, and she liked the feeling of it against her leg. It felt natural, real, not a memory of lovemaking she had once had, but a man in the flesh, kissing her, teasing her, cupping her breasts, stroking her thigh, sliding his fingers where she was wet, pressing them where she never thought a man would touch her again.

  Abruptly, he got up.

  “No,” Eliza said, reaching to pull him back down.

  “Wait.” He crawled toward one of the bedside tables and pulled open its single drawer. He brought out a short string of connected condoms.

  She waited while he tore open the package, slipped one on. But even then, it took too long. Too much time away. She needed him against her, inside her, not leaving her.

  “David, hurry—”

  One more move, and then he was back where she wanted, sliding between her thighs, body pressed against hers, the two of them joined the way she had wanted for years, she thought, even before she met him. Maybe he had been waiting all along for her to turn to him and open and take him in where he belonged. Eliza wrapped her arms around him harder, pulled him in deeper, kissed him and moved with him and found the way they both fit together, no space between them, her body like a puzzle piece lost and now slipped back into place.

  Then they heard a sound.

  Eliza jerked her head up. David was still inside her, but he paused so they could both listen.

  Eliza pushed him away. “It’s Daisy—”

  She bolted from the bed, picked up David’s T-shirt from the floor, and held it in front of her as she went tearing down the stairs.

  Daisy stood in the kitchen, retching. The liquid was clear this time, just water, and Eliza could see why: The dog had obviously woken up thirsty and tried to drink half the water in Bear’s bowl. But she was standing. Awake. Alive.

  “You should take her outside,” David said from behind them. Eliza turned and found him naked, still partially erect, and for some reason that felt fine to her, correct, normal and perfectly expected. “Carry her out to the garden,” he said. “Let her try to walk.”

  Eliza picked up the dog, still managing to keep David’s T-shirt draped in front of her. She hadn’t had time to put it on, but she didn’t want to stand there without it. The top of it flopped over Daisy as Eliza carried the dog across the living room to the door David unlocked. She set Daisy on the short slab of concrete that led to stone steps across the grass. Daisy sniffed the edge of the lawn, then toddled out further, toward some bushes. Then she squatted and watered them for an unusually long time.

  Eliza stood at the window beside the door, monitoring the dog. David stood behind her, gently stroking her hips and the curve of her behind. His hands moved upward, sliding beneath the T-shirt she held with a single fist. Eliza could still feel him hard against her. The whole sensation made her laugh.

  “What?” he asked.

  “This has to be the strangest foreplay I’ve ever seen. You stroking my breasts while I’m watching a dog pee.”

  “We can do whatever we want,” he answered.

  Eliza liked that answer. She closed her eyes for a moment and just enjoyed the sensation of what he was doing. Then finally Daisy was ready to come back in.

  The dog’s nails clicked against the wood floor as she made her way across the living room. She didn’t go far: She found a chair that she liked, leapt up onto it, then curled in on herself with a sigh.

  “Let’s stay down here,” Eliza said.

  “I’ll go get the supplies.”

  David bounded back up the stairs, still taking too long, as far as Eliza was concerned. He returned with a longer string of condoms.

  “Now, go back to where you were,” Eliza told him, padding across the floor to stand by the garden window. She let the T-shirt drop. “I kind of liked that.”

  He followed, and stood behind her, this time closer, cupping her breasts in his hands. She parted her legs. “Do it that way,” she said, her voice low and breathy. She bent over to help him find his way. He pulled on another condom and gently entered her again. Eliza braced herself against the window.

  He was perfect, she thought. This was perfect. Why hadn’t she known he was here? She laid one han
d on top of his over her breast and moved together with him, wanting it faster, harder, wanting it done already so she could find him some other way, climb on top of him, or pull him toward her at the sink, or make love to him in the shower, or back upstairs on that wide, cool bed.

  Eliza cried out with surprise as she felt her body release. She had hoped for it but not expected it. It took several tries with Jamey. She hadn’t known how to get there, what she was supposed to feel. It had been a revelation when the two of them finally got it.

  But now she knew. And her body throbbed with it as David plunged in deeper and found his own release. He held her around the waist and they both breathed hard. Eliza pushed back against him, kept him there as long as she could, savoring the sensation of him inside her.

  She waited until his breathing slowed down.

  Then, “Five more,” she said. “Can you do that?”

  “Over what space of time?”

  “As long as you need, but I’m not leaving until we’re done.”

  “I need to make a few calls.”

  “Me, too,” Eliza said. Or at least one.

  “Are you happy?” David asked her.

  “So happy right now, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  He turned her around so he could kiss her. She laced her fingers behind his neck and kissed him harder. She pressed her body into his.

  Eventually they broke away, and David bent down to retrieve his shirt. “Here, you probably want this.”

  “I do,” Eliza said, not feeling self-conscious at all about wanting to be covered. She tugged David’s T-shirt over her head. It rested against the top of her thighs.

  “Need anything else?” he asked.

  “Not right now. Thank you.”

  She smiled at him, an easy, satiated smile.

  He kissed her lightly and turned around. “I’ll see you in a while.”

  David took the stairs more slowly this time while Eliza watched him go. He was stockier than Jamey, more filled out, not thin and wiry like a climber. He had light body hair instead of Jamey’s dark. He was a grown man, Eliza thought, not a teenager she’d grown older with, a man who had died in his twenties. David was another category entirely. As if Eliza had skipped a stage of her adulthood, and restarted it a few years ahead. She hadn’t met the men in between, the ones who were thirty, thirty-one. The ones who were still too inexperienced, too immature, who couldn’t understand why she felt so much older, how death could make a person feel removed, isolated, too ancient for someone who had never had anything tragic happen to him.