by Rose, M. J.
“Suddenly, the sea that is saturating her creates a whirlpool around her body, circling and circling, whipping around her, powerful caresses covering every inch of naked skin.
“There is nothing human about what is touching her, it is nothing like being with a man except that the sensations she feels from the water are similar to the sensations she would feel if it was a man entering her and making love to her.
“‘It’s me, inside of you. Can you feel what you hear? That sensation is me,’ he says.
“She’s too overwhelmed by the sensations to respond with words. But she doesn’t have to. He understands what she is thinking and feeling by watching her face, by listening to the sounds she is making deep in her throat, by seeing how her fingers clench and unclench as her own waves of sensation build up inside of her. And he whispers something to her… one last phrase… the one she has been waiting for.”
I was operating on two levels, each fighting the other.
I could see the story playing out behind my eyes, as if I had a movie projector in my head showing me scenes that already existed somewhere else. Following it as it meandered on, I narrated it, while at the same time my conscious self was horrified, surprised, and incredulous that I could be speaking any of it.
There was no precedent for what I was doing – for spinning a sexual dream, for talking about a woman being seduced and aroused by her lover. It required a bravery that wasn’t part of me.
Or rather, wasn’t part of me anymore. It had been, but that was long ago when I was a teenager, when this kind of brazen act, this sexual showing off, came naturally to me.
Except that was different, wasn’t it?
That was about me. My own body. My own relationship. My own feelings. This was not.
This was a story. Something I was getting paid for making up. The man I was doing it for was not my lover, not anyone I was involved with. He was a client.
I heard Gideon’s intake of breath as if he was getting ready to encourage me to go on again the way he had before, but I didn’t want to hear his voice, didn’t want it to interrupt the man who I was hearing inside the curve of a shell.
And so before Gideon could speak, I did.
I was hearing my voice superimposed over the ocean’s song and the man whispering in my ear. I listened and then repeated what he said, as if we were both involved in reciting a responsive prayer.
“‘Lie there and let me do this to you,’ he says. ‘I want you feel to it all.’ And so she does while the whitecaps beat up into a froth that pours over me – over her– warmer than before, as warm as her own blood. It pulses against her legs and her ribs and her back and her breasts in a rhythm that she hears around her. The sounds aren’t outside of her anymore. They’re inside. They are in tandem. Just the way the waves inside her body advance and recede in harmony with their ebb and flow on the shore.
“‘Yes… lie there,’ he says. ‘Keep your eyes closed. Feel the water. Feel the wind. They are my lips, my hands. The sand under you is my body.’
“What is so different about her water lover is that he doesn’t want anything from her. He’s not waiting for her to reciprocate or amuse him or arouse him, and his lack of a demand is a luxury she’s never know before, and it overwhelms her.”
I stopped. Not able to help myself this time. I could see what was coming next and knew I wouldn’t be able to describe it. Without looking, I was certain Gideon’s eyes were locked on me and that he had been expecting me to stop. For a moment I was relieved. Good, if he expects it then I can stop. This torture will be over. He’s inviting me to cease my storytelling.
And then a welt of anger surged up inside me. I was furious at him. As if he’d made me come this far and now was abandoning me. He’d lost faith. I had taken his job at his insistence, I’d pushed myself to accommodate him, but none of that mattered to him. He didn’t think I could do it.
And I couldn’t.
No. That’s not why I was angry.
It was Cole’s fault.
I didn’t care about Gideon having faith in me. That was pure bullshit. What was wrong was what this storytelling was proving to me. About myself. About who I was.
It was almost as if my stepbrother had sent Gideon to me to prove to me that he, Cole, was right – I had no right to be upset with him – that what had happened when I was with him all those years ago was my fault because I was too audacious and bold, because I was too indulgent and couldn’t contain my own passion. That I was the slut and Cole had not taken advantage of me – hadn’t even coerced me. That everything that had happened between us had been consensual.
I was the slut then and again now.
Unable to quench my own thirst.
Except Gideon hadn’t been sent by anyone. He didn’t even know Cole. Gideon was a stranger. And he had not aroused me. This story was not coming to me because I was attracted to Gideon. It wasn’t about him. At all.
And it wasn’t a weakness in me that engendered it. My reactions had been honest and clean.
It was what Cole did with them that turned them prurient.
One day, I would prove that. I would even find a way to punish the man who had twisted me up in knots for so long and changed who I was, making this very moment so much more difficult than it had to be.
12.
“‘I’m going to kiss you…’ he says to her in her ear. The surf had slacked off but along with his words, the water comes rushing back again, kissing her between her naked legs, creating more waves inside of her, and then rising up, over her stomach, over her rib cage, over her breasts and her neck, up to her chin and then to her mouth. The water licks at her lips and then the current pulls it back, back into the bigger body of water and all the while he is whispering in her ear, a voice that is more ocean now than man… ‘this is for you, he says. This is for you.’”
I had been facing out for the last few minutes that I was talking. Pretending to myself that my voice was floating out to sea and that Gideon couldn’t hear me anymore. I had been in a kind of daze as if the sound of the waves had put me under its trance, too. But I was going to have to turn around and face this man and worry that he might think it had been me who was talking. That it had been my fantasy. When it wasn’t at all.
It was a job I was doing. That I was getting paid for. That was all it was.
“That’s perfect,” he said, speaking for the first time in minutes, shocking me with the sound of his voice because of its sudden familiarity. I heard the acceptance in his words, too. As if he had been aware how difficult the recitation had been for me and wanted to acknowledge that. His words were like two strong arms coming around me, clasping me and pulling me close and comforting me after a long battle that, while not won had its first victory.
I felt the rain almost at the same time as he did. Not sweet hot drops but heavy cold pelting bullets that stung. The sky was instantly charcoal as the wind whipped up. Out at sea, a bolt of lighting flashed electric blue.
“We’d better make a run for it,” I said as I stood.
Never have I been so thankful for a storm. I wouldn’t have to face him so soon after finishing up the story and speaking all of those words and images.
I started to run.
It was almost a quarter of a mile along the beach before I reached the rickety wooden stairs that led up through the dune and sea grass to the deck of the house.
By the time we reached the deck we were both soaking.
“I know where the key is,” I said, as I fumbled around looking for the pot of geraniums that Tina had told me about. I heard a closer crack of thunder and started counting, a childhood habit for the bolt of lightening that would follow. I got the door open a few seconds before I saw it flash through the sky and heard the next clap coming so close behind.
Inside, I stood in the mudroom and shook off like a dog. The rain ran in rivulets down my face. My clothes were stuck to my skin and I realized how cold I was. Gideon was as wet, his hair flat against his head
, his chinos and shirt dripping.
We walked into the kitchen. The rain beat on the roof and splattered against the windows. The wind howled.
“You should take a shower,” he said. “We both should. You’re shivering.”
There were several bathrooms, so I showed him to the one in the guest room, told him I’d get him some of Jim’s clothes and leave them on the bed.
“Take your shower first, then you can bring me clothes. I don’t want you to get a chill.”
I didn’t say anything but was aware of his thoughtfulness.
The water was hot and I stayed under the spray for a long time, not thinking about anything except the sensation of the heat warming me.
After I’d dried off, I borrowed a shirt and a pair of jeans for Gideon from Jim’s closet and a plain white shirt and shorts from Tina’s. I dressed and then took him the pile of clean clothes.
He was standing in the bathroom, towel-drying his hair, with the door open. A thick white bath sheet was wrapped about his waist and his chest was bare. I didn’t stay long, just sort of threw the shirt and jeans on the bed and then walked away, saying I was going to go to the kitchen to make some coffee.
But even though I hadn’t been looking, I’d seen him.
Despite being slender and lanky, under his clothes were well-defined muscles. His shoulders were narrow but strong. His neck was long but sturdy. His arms looked like he lifted weights religiously. Or did manual work. His skin was olive toned and looked smooth.
I tried to wipe the image of his naked torso from my mind as I fussed with the French press and the kettle. Tried to force myself to stop seeing it. I wouldn’t react. Wouldn’t imagine touching the sleek skin.
Coffee.
Focus on making the coffee.
I set about the task I’d set for myself. Measuring. Pouring. It was simple.
He came in a few minutes later, dressed in Jim’s clothes. We were both standing at the kitchen counter and pouring coffee, splashing in milk, mixing in sugar, when there was another clap of thunder and the lights went out.
“Tell me how you started doing collages?” he asked when we were settled in the living room. I was on one end of the couch, he on the other. We both were looking out at the water, sipping our coffee and watching the storm.
“I painted first. It seems like I painted forever. But eventually I realized I wasn’t very good at it no matter how hard I tired.”
“But you loved it?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“The idea of capturing the colors. The streaks and swirls of lapis, vermilion, burnt umber, cerulean… even the ways the names of colors sounded made me happy. I loved the idea of taking something beautiful and, through the process of recreating it, making it last.”
“It wasn’t enough just to see something beautiful?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“I’d see it differently if I tried to paint it. As if I’d gotten inside of the beauty or gotten it inside of me. Art was bigger than any one person. Bigger than anything else I’d ever found. Creating it… studying it… it opened me up. Gave me purpose. And it mattered. Through time. Art counts. And not enough other things do.”
“Do you think you gave up?”
I shrugged. “No… I moved over. It wasn’t what I expected would happen but in my senior year of collage I began incorporating found images and three-dimensional objects and words into the paintings. It was Pavlovian. The more I moved away from traditional painting, the better and more praise I got from my teachers. The more they praised me, the more I moved away from the traditional.”
“You sound as if you were duped.”
“No, that’s not what happened.”
“You’re upset about it.”
“No. Why would you think that?”
“The expression in your eyes. You look betrayed.”
I shrugged. “I just wasn’t strong enough to fight for it. Besides, it’s all for the best. There’s too much competition in painting. I never would have gotten anywhere. Certainly never would have made a living at it.”
“That’s a defeatist attitude.”
“That’s a survivalists attitude. How would I be able to make a living now if I hadn’t become adept at collage?”
“Maybe you’d have become a fine enough painter so that you wouldn’t have to do collages.”
“You have no idea how hard it is to make a living as an artist. Even if you are lucky enough to get a gallery. With how long it takes to do one painting and then you have to subtract the 50 or 60 percent that the gallery takes…”
He was making me uncomfortable, listening too intensely and watching me too intently, even in the dark, as if he were hearing things I wasn’t saying. And when he asked me the next question his voice was too intrusive. It wasn’t a breeze, but part of the storm’s wind. Blowing open the door and tossing everything around, mixing me up.
“Do you want to go back to painting?”
Everything about him was too strong, too hard to ignore. Too suggestive of a sensitivity that I knew he couldn’t have but for some reason I was imagining.
“You don’t know what it’s like… art isn’t a hobby or only a job. Creating, really working to find something worth saying and then struggling to make the expression worth the thought… it’s wrenching.”
He was nodding, almost smiling. I felt – and I couldn’t believe this – understood.
On the other hand, I had to remind myself how susceptible I am to endowing people with qualities they don’t have based on a few aspects of them. I had taken leaps and assumed that because someone was both sensitive and intelligent then he must be understanding and fair. It was as likely that because he was strong and sure of himself then he must be also be arrogant and egotistical. Seeing the way someone holds his head or says my name I have been known to then assume he will fit other criteria that I have in my mind.
I’d been fooled. I’d been disappointed. So I had tried to break myself of the habit, keep my imagination in check and not give people attributes they didn’t have.
But.
A man who asked questions, who seemed so interested in me, might not be at all interested. It could all very well be a well- practiced ruse, a technique, fine tuned to relax his subjects, to seduce a woman into revealing herself so that he could cull what he found and use it for his own reasons.
“What is it you are so afraid of, Marlowe?” Gideon asked.
“I think the storm’s letting up. Maybe we should go while we can.” I stood, and avoided both answering him and looking his way.
In ten minutes we were back in his Jeep and on the road. He turned the radio to a local NPR station and we listened to a news program and then classical music. Our conversation, when we had it, was as direct as the route back to the city.
It was all the things that we weren’t talking about that were the loudest. And not even the most strident phrases in the symphony we were listening to could drown them out.
13.
I went to work on the short story when I got home. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. Anything would have been easier. Anything would have been more pleasant. Nothing would have distracted me as much.
Gideon had dropped me off at six. I didn’t stop to eat anything till nine. And then all I did was heat up a bowl of soup, cut a piece of seven grain bread from a loaf I’d bought the day before and pour myself a glass of wine. I liked to eat but not to cook, and usually kept food from one of the neighborhood gourmet stores in my freezer. But that night I didn’t even want to spend the time defrosting anything.
Even though I’d taken a shower, I could still smell the salt on my skin, as if I’d been swimming in the ocean for hours, not walking by the shore. If I’d found seaweed in my hair, I wouldn’t have questioned it. The feel of the sand on my feet wasn’t gone either, I could summon up the silk grittiness as if I were still walking on it.
As I sat on the bed, propped up by pillows
, working on my laptop, the present disappeared. No longer in my loft, I was back on the beach, hearing the voice in the shell saying the things I’d told Gideon as well as the ones I’d kept from him. I was seeing the water, the clouds, the waves.
My fingers danced over the keyboard. I didn’t even have to think the words. I was the conduit for the sentences and paragraphs.
In a rush, the story poured out in less than three hours. At least the first draft of it. And that was all I could manage that night. Editing it would be the hard work and could wait for the next day.
I got myself another glass of wine and got back in the bed, pulling the laptop over and rereading what I’d written.
That’s what I was doing when the phone rang. I might have reached for it if I hadn’t been so engrossed in the story. Might have picked it up and said hello. Instead the machine answered. And a few seconds later, I heard the message as it came though.
“Marlowe?”
It was my stepbrother. The aftereffects from the beach dissipated. The sensations swirling around me from the story broke apart like a shattered mirror and dropped in pieces to the floor. I sucked in my breath, afraid that if I inhaled or exhaled too deeply he’d hear me. Impossible, I told myself. Take a breath. It’s okay. There’s nothing he can do to you anymore.
“I just left Jeff. He told me you’d been up to the office and seen the invite. I sent you one. So why did he think it was all news to you? Don’t you open my mail? Marlowe, you can’t hold a grudge this long. It makes me feel bad, baby. And I don’t like that feeling.”
I’d stood up, clutching the wine, gripping it too tightly in my hand. I wanted to kick the phone over. To shut off his voice. I wanted to pick up the receiver and tell Cole how selfish he was being. Ask him how he dared use that photograph on the invitation? Mostly I wanted to stop listening to him… but I was immobile. My feet stuck to the floor in the middle of my bedroom. Listening to every single word.
