The Story of a Marriage

by Geir Gulliksen

  —You’re beautiful, and look, your pants have left an imprint on your skin.

  I ran the tips of my fingers lightly over her skin and showed her. Her pale skin, delicate and winter-white, and chilly from being outside. She knew I liked the fact she was pale in the winter, I used to say that it made her body clearer somehow, and now she had a distinct flame-colored pattern from the elastic around her hips and deep marks from the seams around her thighs.

  —They’re a bit tight, these pants.

  —But it’s beautiful. It’s like nude clothing.

  —Nude clothing!

  —You could go around like that all the time.

  —You’d like that. Everyone seeing me.

  —Yes, I would.

  —But only you think I’m that beautiful.

  —Not at all. You just wait and see.

  —Wait and see what?

  * * *

  —

  Intimate chatter. Meaningless, childish, flirtatious exchanges between two people who know each other well. Or, at least, we had reason to believe we knew each other, we lived in the belief that we knew each other better than anyone else ever could, we’d built our own shadow republic of adult love on that conviction, and on hints and stolen glances over the children’s heads. Everything we said to each other now, we had said many times before, the words needed only to match the actions of our hands. She pulled off my T-shirt, ran her hands over my back, pulled me down to her. She heard me say something, something about her, about her hands, or about her hips, or the way she held me. She put her hand down my pajamas and touched me, closed her hand around my penis, and pulled the foreskin back. It felt like delicate fabric, wrinkled, taut, wrinkled, taut, a thinly worn fabric that had grown soft and smooth from being used so much, easily torn beneath her fingertips. I lay on top of her, supporting myself with straight arms, I placed my face over hers and looked into her eyes, making her look into mine—that was something I did with all of them, made them look into my eyes, I needed it, just like I always had to sleep with everyone, she thought to herself. She liked thinking things I didn’t know she was thinking. She opened herself with two fingers, and guided my penis toward the opening, the lips were moist here, but not so wet further in, a slight tug and she felt me pull out and then enter again. I did this many times, slowly, testing, exploring, with great seriousness. The inner lips were resistant, but then it grew more slippery and she felt herself open up. But I was too quick now, and it hurt, me too probably, she noticed, or perhaps she didn’t, but realized it when I pulled out again. I moved further out, making short movements, it helped, and suddenly we were there, in that moment of surrender, of embrace, of belonging one with the other. We held our fear and boredom at bay, she lifted her hips, she wanted me all the way in, deep inside, she liked that thought, it was a fundamental principle, one might say: to go deep inside. And it wasn’t painful, not for her and clearly not for me. She stopped talking, allowing her voice to be forced from her mouth with her breath each time I thrust myself into her, she pronounced an open, extended ah followed by more air, over and over again, the same sound—ah! ah! ah! ah!—and that did something to me, she knew it, and it did something to her too. We made noises of pleasure and desire and greed, but then she suddenly remembered the kids. She looked up at me, now she was the one panicking, and it was me who said

  —They can’t hear us. The door is closed.

  —Perhaps we should lock it.

  —Maybe, but I’m not coming out of you now, I don’t want to come out of you, not ever, which means we’ll have to cross the floor together.

  And so she closed her eyes, or grew unaware of what she did, stopped thinking, lost sight of herself, she let herself fall downward again as I moved on her, toward her, in her. She put her hands on my back, and felt me shove her further up the bed. I supported myself on one hand and held her hips with the other, she liked that, we must both have liked it, I often used to hold her like that, around her pelvis. She started making noises again, and then she heard the door handle go, it was resolutely shoved down, I heard it too and let myself roll off beside her, reluctantly, my mouth gaping so comically that she burst out laughing. Our youngest son was standing in the doorway. He said

  —Aren’t you two up yet?

  and I lay there pretending to be half asleep, my arms covering my face, and said

  —Are you already awake? We’ll get up soon. How about you go and watch telly?

  and luckily he wanted to. He left the door open, but we’d done this many times before, we could do it quietly, slowly, without the kids hearing, even when they were in the next room. She turned onto her side, shoved her bum toward me, and pulled the pillow to her, she liked to hold it in front of her face. She let herself be taken, she thought—no, she had no thoughts—but that was what she wanted, to be taken, to be done to, and she wanted to scream, but couldn’t, not even into the pillow. Giving voice to our desire generally intensified that desire, but being unable to make any noise intensified it too, oddly enough. She breathed fast into the pillow, smelling the scent of bedlinen that had been dried outside, bedlinen that grew damp with her breath, warm and heavy, like when we kissed for a long time and she inhaled the warm used air from my mouth.

  And then our youngest son called to me, his voice clear and open. He felt secure in his existence and secure in us, he knew we were there for him, he shouted

  —Daddy, can you help me put the telly on?

  And she realized I was incapable of answering, and shouted, rather too loud:

  —Daddy will come soon!

  And it was true, we both saw the joke, but we didn’t laugh, not immediately, she just snorted and I gave an offended grunt. I tried not to lose focus, but it was impossible, not a chance. We heard him getting closer, he was on his way back, he wanted to be sure I hadn’t forgotten my promise to help him, he wanted to be close to us, to his mummy and daddy. He sought warmth, needed our voices, our bodies, needed to know that we knew he was there, that we were watching over him, and he said

  —What are you two laughing at?

  He wanted to join in, to laugh with us, and was about to get up into the bed, but I threw myself out, saying I’d come with him; my pajama bottoms were round my knees and now I pulled them up, bending over in an attempt to stop anything from showing under the fabric; it was easy to see though, so I pressed my lower arm against my crotch and said

  —I’ll come now and help you put the TV on.

  And heading out of the room, I turned to her, we smiled at each other, we were out of breath, flushed and frustrated. She was still lying in the bed and shoved her hand under the duvet, she made sure I saw her shove her hand under the duvet, we might still be in with a chance, and she shouted

  —I’ll have a shower, will you come too?

  and I said yes, conspiratorially, my voice laden with excitement, I could never resist her crazy ideas, and I closed the door softly behind me. She knew why I’d closed it, and she tried for a bit, but it wasn’t happening, not now.

  No matter, a sweet bliss ran warm and alive inside her, she felt protected by it, it lifted her, just as getting up early to go for a ski could lift her for hours, just as reading the papers and having a coffee afterward, just as yoga, or push-ups and sit-ups, or holding the plank position for a minute or two lifted her and made life translucent, helped her to cope. She’d get a bit down, find something to bring her up again, feel good, more than good, and then get a bit down again. She could dip beneath the surface at any time, but she was good at giving herself what she needed to come up again, she was, and she knew it. And now she got out of bed and went for a shower.

  She’d managed to wash her hair before I came in and she locked the door behind me. I took off my pajama bottoms and joined her in the shower. We put our arms around each other and kissed under the running water. Her hand went around my penis, it was softe
r, smaller, but began to grow, and then she turned her back to me, and leaned against the wall with her hands spread flat, and her cheek equally flat against the tiles, as though someone had pushed her hard against the wall. She moved her bottom toward me and spread her legs, felt me fumble and miss, before I entered her, with my fingers first and then with my penis. I pushed myself up inside her, she noticed that the water was streaming in my face and turned the shower head to the wall. I wasn’t quite hard yet, she felt it, and I began to talk, so it would get bigger faster, so I’d come quicker, before anyone could interrupt us again. I asked if she had touched herself, and who she had thought about while she did it, and she replied Wouldn’t you like to know! It worked, she felt me, long and hard, forcing my way in, and she grew wetter, and she felt that too, and I said

  —Imagine if you had a visitor today. Imagine if he came and got into bed with you, while I was in the kitchen looking after the kids.

  —Then I’d have been lying in there underneath another man. Just imagine.

  And she heard me make a noise, a deep moan, as she let herself be pushed against the wall, but she heard something else too, a ring at the door, unbelievable, someone was actually ringing at the door, this early, on New Year’s Eve, and moments later we heard voices in the hallway. Our youngest son came and tried the bathroom door, Una Birgitte was here, he said. Una Birgitte was our neighbor. Timmy looked at me and shook her head, it was hopeless, and we heard our pale, little, wide-eyed boy say

  —Why have you locked the door?

  and she felt it slide out of her with a resigned squelch, wet and limp, such a poor disappointed willy, she wanted to say, but it wouldn’t have been funny right now, so she decided to save it. Instead she put her hand on my face and stroked my cheek, and said you stay here, and said we’ll think of something, we’ll put a film on for them and come back to bed a bit later. She touched my penis lightly, as if to hint that I could do something myself in the meantime, it reacted under her fingers, she felt it, then she dried herself with a towel, quickly and ineffectually, pulled on her dressing gown and went out to talk to Una Birgitte, who had come to borrow something or invite us over for coffee.

  * * *

  —

  My daughter was meant to have been there too, she’d spent Christmas with her mother, so she should have been with us for New Year, but she wanted to go to a party instead. I missed my daughter, I always did. But we’d talked it over and agreed it was a good thing, it was better for her to be out enjoying herself with kids her own age rather than being stuck here with us. Timmy habitually said things like that to me, pointing out the upside of things. I’d needed that badly when we first got together. Not only had I separated from another woman to be with her, but I’d separated myself from my daughter too.

  When Una Birgitte was gone, Timmy found me in our eldest son’s room. He was showing me a game, rather unwillingly, since he’d have preferred to play in peace. It was typical of me to seek out one of the kids when someone came to visit. Especially when I was so keen for them all to be at home. I was still in my pajamas and T-shirt, I was the man she knew better than anyone else. That was how she thought of me. And it felt so comfortable to slip back into the safety of our shared world now. She whistled at me and watched my face light up and, smooth out, like a soft fabric. It was so easy for her to make me happy. So simple. And she liked to observe it.

  —How about you come with me instead? she said.

  I got up and followed her. She put her hand on my face, felt my hand reach down to the small of her back, pulled away for an instant as I went to kiss her, just to observe again how easy it was to make me feel safe, simple, manly and contented.

  She had always said, when she was working as a GP, that it was part of the job to reformulate experiences so they were easier to bear. Patients often needed to recalibrate their understanding of themselves, to learn, for example, to live with chronic diseases. And she applied this technique to herself too, it was her way of staying afloat, almost everything could be reformulated so as to seem positive. And now it was so long since she’d gone out for her morning ski that she needed to lie naked in bed with me, we both needed it. I put on a movie that both our sons wanted to see, Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, I wanted to see it myself too, I said, but my desire to go to bed with her was greater. So when the film had started, we went into the bedroom and she locked the door as gently as she could.

  We got undressed quickly, side by side, like children going for a swim, and slipped under the duvet, not like children, but as adult lovers who knew what they were about. Hands went where they were wanted, where they had been before. She stretched out on her back, I lay at her side, she lifted her thigh across me so I could enter her while she touched herself. She used one hand to hold her top lips open, tight and smooth, with the other she manipulated herself with two fingers. I pushed my penis into her slowly, it struck a point she knew well, a point that released such intense sensations that she’d been known to come just from that, without touching herself at all. She swelled around me, flesh thickened between us, we merged, we no longer knew who was who or what was what, except that it was she who lay with her eyes closed and without moving, while I moved over her and spoke softly and lovingly into her ear.

  I said she had been visited by a man she desired, and that she had locked herself with him in the bedroom while I had to take care of the kids so they wouldn’t notice. I described him to her, tall, slender, light in his movements, told her what he wanted to do with her. I went back and forth between the kids and the locked door. I stood outside listening to the noises she made. She liked it when I said that, her head went from side to side on the pillow, and I liked it too, but it wasn’t enough, not for me. I said that I would prefer to be in there with her, watching her being taken by him, I wanted to see his cock, a word I used when I was with her, said that I wanted to see it grow long and hard, and get wet from being inside her, I wanted to see him thrust himself in and out of her. She did not open her eyes as I said this, but she knew I was looking at my own penis, imagining that it belonged to another man, as I slid in and out of her. She made a noise, no, she didn’t make it, it came of itself, a gentle howl. Her thighs shook, she felt it. A delicious sensation. I asked if I could watch just once, watch her doing it with someone else. She was being shoved up the bed because I was thrusting harder, she opened her eyes and discovered my face closer to her own than she’d expected, I was watching her, eager to see the pleasure flicker on her lips, over her eyelids, the way she tossed her head as though there was something wrong, but of course there wasn’t, and she said yes, yes you can, and a moment later she cried yes, yes, yes, and then she grabbed the pillow, put it over her face, yelled into it. Soon after, she felt me come too, quietly, with a sort of stifled groan, nothing more, and suddenly we both lay there motionless, silent, listening out to see if the kids had heard us. But they hadn’t, we were quite certain, both of us.

  We got up, got dressed and made lunch together. The film was almost finished, the end of Fantastic Mr. Fox is a let-down in contrast to its promising beginning, but our sons sat huddled together with their mouths open, seemingly oblivious to the fact we’d even left the room. She had put the turkey in the oven ages ago, it needed to stay in for three hours and would be ready soon. Now she made the sauce, while I boiled the potatoes and sprouts and laid the table, and I grumbled that she’d taken most of the responsibility for lunch, it was so typical, I felt like a typical man with a typical woman, and that wasn’t how I wanted it to be, everything closed in around me, I said, everything was so limited and ordinary, and then she said

  —You’re forgetting something.

  —What?

  —You’re forgetting that you make the food almost every day.

  And then I was happy again, as she’d anticipated, and she told me that Una Birgitte had invited us over to their place later. But that didn’t make me hap
py, and I said

  —What, tonight, on New Year’s Eve?

  —Yes, but we’re just here at home on our own. And so are they. They thought the kids could sit downstairs in the basement and watch a film together, and they’ve got some wine and cheese for us. I thought it might be quite nice. It’s easy and spontaneous, nothing formal, don’t you think?

  * * *

  —

  The minute she’d accepted Una Brigitte’s invitation, she realized I wouldn’t approve, and that she should have consulted me first. But she hadn’t wanted to say no. She couldn’t see any reason to refuse; besides, it suited her well enough. She liked things to be happening. The effects of her morning ski had already worn off, she wasn’t feeling as harmonious any more. And as Una Birgitte sat in our kitchen drinking coffee, we still hadn’t managed to get our act together in bed. Now, post-orgasm, she’d have been happy to sit quietly for an hour or two. But she knew she’d soon be on the lookout for something else to do. Then it would be nice to be with Una Birgitte and Paul Edvin drinking wine and talking. She liked talking to people, she could get away from herself. Which was similar to the reason I gave for not liking social occasions, I lost myself. I’d always been a bit cranky in her opinion, but during those first years she hadn’t minded it. She’d taken a lesson from it, no longer saying yes to absolutely everything that came along, and becoming more aware of her own needs. But lately more and more things seemed to be an issue for me. Besides which, she’d stopped saying yes to all my suggestions too. She knew I’d prefer to be alone with the kids, and with her, but she’d accepted the invitation instantly without talking to me.