The Wood of Suicides

by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

  “Are you?” My own tone was wry, critical. I slid my hand up his leg and, before he could answer, was groping in the darkness beneath his robe.

  He responded as any man would, inhaling sharply and snapping the book shut. When he could no longer bear the teasing kisses I placed along his kneecaps, he threw open his robe, exposing his ugly nakedness and taking my head in his hands. I had known what I was getting myself into. Nonetheless, I wasn’t quite prepared for the stifling act he had me perform—an act made more unbearable still by the thick, hothouse air.

  When we emerged, all color had ebbed out of the afternoon. We retired to the bedroom once again, where we lay together for some hours in that twilit land between one climax and another. Given all the time in the world, we probably would’ve gone on that way, chafing, disassembling, and assimilating each other to no end. It had gotten to the point where I wanted it as much as he did; where I could no longer distinguish between his desire for me and my desire, between the pleasure he took in me and the pleasure of my subjection.

  Of course, our time together was limited. I knew our time was almost over when we got up to order takeout, though we’d make love twice more before bed. The weekend was almost over, and it would never be the same again. I’d never be so free with him again, nor, going back to that life of locked classrooms and scheduled couplings, would I ever be satisfied with what I had.

  I WOKE the next morning earlier than he did to cramps and soreness and a familiar, fetid dampness between my thighs—made foreign by my nakedness and by the man sleeping facedown at my side. I looked between the covers. I saw my own blood spotted on the sheets and was filled with horror, a mounting hysteria that couldn’t be explained by the simple misfortune of suffering my monthly curse in another woman’s bed. I touched myself. I saw blood on my hands and began to sob, as I hadn’t sobbed since he first deflowered me. I sobbed and shook him awake, telling him that we had to clean up; that I was dirty; that she would know that I’d been in her house, in her bed. I told him that we had to wash the sheets; that we had to air out the room; that she would smell me; that I was sorry, so sorry.

  That afternoon, he drove me back to school, wearing a clean dress and one of his wife’s sanitary napkins. The main parking lot was crowded with parents and students, all of whom seemed to have arrived back at the same time, and were in no hurry to clear the area. He reversed, taking me instead to the smaller lot on the other side of campus, between the athletic fields and the performing arts center. There, he told me that he loved me, but that we’d been reckless; that it was sheer luck that I hadn’t fallen pregnant that month; that we needed to establish new methods and, moreover, to be careful about how we behaved at school. I listened, damp-eyed, as he lectured me on the importance of keeping things under control so we could continue enjoying ourselves; of his unwillingness to become a father again, at his age. I dried my tears and gave him my cool cheek to kiss, retrieving my bag and stepping out of the vehicle without a word of agreement or protest.

  THE FIRST weekend that he could get away from his family, and I from the loose supervision of the school grounds, he picked me up in the SUV and drove me to a clinic—a place where he was sure that they wouldn’t ask too many questions. He gave me a wad of cash and waited in the car as I went inside, returning forty minutes later with a small paper package.

  “Did you get what you need?” he asked tensely.

  I nodded and patted the package in my lap.

  “Good girl.” He patted my hand, an echo of my previous gesture. He started up the car and, with forced casualness, began: “I saw a motel a little way back. Or we could just park somewhere quiet; there were some nice oaks . . .”

  “Oaks, please.”

  “Anything for my wood nymph,” he smiled, backing out of the parking lot.

  PART FOUR

  Since the beginning of our affair, my grades had suffered slightly, as had my ability to concentrate in classes other than Mr. Steadman’s. Despite this, I felt that my mind had never been more fertile, my daydreams never more rich with possibilities. I neglected my textbooks in favor of the titles he presented me with, which I read through diligently and devotedly, underlining the phrases that seemed to express something of our love. I kept these phrases in mind, wrote them down, or repeated them to him while he held me in his lap, stroking my bare legs or running his fingers through my hair. I was eager to uphold the intertextual nature of our affair.

  December was low clouds, the late honey of afterschool lovemaking by the classroom windows. We were so high above everything and the grounds so windswept that we didn’t have to worry about being seen. He would leave me as late as five forty-five on some Mondays and Fridays, stomach growling as he fixed his wristwatch and mumbled about the Hispanic cleaning women who carried keys and came at six. If the hallways were empty enough, we’d sometimes share a kiss outside his door. Usually, however, I’d slip out before him, walking prettily for his benefit and exchanging glances with the last stragglers carrying instruments up from the performing arts center. If we were especially late, I might lock eyes with one of the squat cleaning ladies, rolling along with her blue smock and vacuum.

  There were inconveniences, of course. The Friday when, after circling the humanities wing, I came back to find him talking Shelley with bespectacled Emma Smith, who couldn’t risk another B minus. That other Friday when his daughter called needing a lift somewhere, while I kneeled topless on the carpet, cupping my just-unhooked bra to my chest. The Monday when he was held up an hour and a half by a staff meeting and had to make love to me hastily before the cleaners came—telling me he’d make it up to me later, as he zipped up and smoothed down his trousers. I dealt with these vexations bravely, fatalistically, never letting him see the way my soul sank with every wasted minute of our love.

  At the end of December, before we parted ways for Christmas, he made me a present of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, the inside of which he inscribed as follows:

  Bella Mia—

  These sonnets were not written, as you may think, by the Italian bard Petrarch for his Laura, but by a generous and noble seer who foresaw my love for you all those centuries back and had the benevolence of putting it into words for me—knowing that the mere sight of you on your knees in your green bower would render me incapable of speech. My girl, may all leaves burn, may all temples be defaced, may all poetry fall to ruins, as long as you remain forever Laurel, Laurel, Laurel, my green, my glory!

  Ardently yours,

  Hugh

  I thanked him graciously, though there was a certain hypocrisy about such exalted words coming from the man who, only a quarter of an hour ago, had gotten me to kneel beneath his desk and do for him what I’d done that day in the hothouse. The knowledge had begun to dawn on him that he could use me in more ways than the traditional, that beyond my initial decorum, I was more than willing to be exploited. I came to relish the plush feel of his glans beneath my tongue, the throbbing of his dorsal veins, his salty taste surging into my open mouth. I loved how harassed and exposed he made me feel, bending me over his desk and tugging down my tights to enter me from behind. Perhaps my favorite thing, however, was to be held in his lap, my legs straddling his torso and my face to his. In this position, I felt utterly safe, small.

  He was teaching me how to please and I was learning quickly, shedding more of my inexperience by the day. Instinctively, however, I knew the qualities he wished me to retain: that way I had of lowering my eyes when faced with the brute fact of his manhood; my tendency to hide my face in the crook of his neck when crisis was approaching and for minutes afterward; my unwillingness to talk about anything we did or the body parts involved in doing it, except in the vaguest terms—“love,” “you,” “me,” “inside,” “here,” “this.” I deferred to his large hands, his smooth instructions, his twenty-five years of additional experience.

  Overall, my Steadman was a vigorous lover, an enthusiastic lover, a lover who I suspected thought himself better than what he
was, but was no less appealing for this conceit. He was a lover with experience and arts, which he employed offhandedly, as if believing that what worked for one woman could be applied to any other. He had the amusing habit of breaking off from these arts abruptly, however, whenever his own physical state became a serious concern. It was no secret to me that my pleasure was secondary; that after him came the flood; that, when he used his fingers or tongue on me, it was only to be artful, to add a patina of refinement to the violent act of possession. It was a wonderful, terrible thing to be loved as he loved me—so vigorously, so brutally and, at the same time, with such intelligence, such refinement!

  Each morning, I took a pill for him, which prevented any life from growing inside my young womb, no matter how often or how strenuously he had me. It happened on average about three times a week: three times a week from November until halfway through June, with allowances for vacations and monthly restrictions. In total, we must’ve been together almost a hundred times—a hundred times without his seed taking root within me, without my girlhood being burdened with a woman’s responsibilities, without my body changing. I could never allow myself to change, to digress from the mythopoetic perfection that he’d bestowed on me, and this was my greatest anxiety as we burned through that winter.

  FOR ALL his appetites, Steadman’s aversion to women at times seemed to equal my own. I remember one afternoon not long after his staff meeting when I broached the issue of Miss Kelsen’s blue-eyed, dimpled, soon-to-be-wedded prettiness. “You mean Suzanne? Oh, she’s lovely now. But you can just tell that she’ll be pregnant in a year and, after that, it will all go to hell,” he responded, more bitterly than necessary for a man simply wishing to dispel his mistress’ jealousy. I was so taken aback by this judgment that I decided to interrogate him further. “What about the girls in class, do you think they’re pretty?”

  “Which girls?”

  “Amanda?”

  He made a face. “She’s cheap.”

  “Christina?”

  “Too plump.”

  “Karen? Or Emma? Or Maryanne. . . ?”

  “Unexceptional. You know they can’t even be compared to you.”

  “What about Kaitlin Pritchard?”

  “Who?” He feigned ignorance, blanking his face of all expression.

  “She isn’t in our class, but you’ve met her. She knows your wife. I heard she went to your house for dinner once.”

  I had him there. He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then made a show of remembering. “Oh, her. Well . . . I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. But she’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Just a younger Danielle.”

  “Your wife is pretty. I’d be glad to look like her when I’m older.”

  “You don’t even need to think about getting old, my nymph.” He smiled condescendingly. “Believe me, you have a long time to go until you’re Danielle’s age . . .”

  WHEN MY mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I requested some cute underthings, dispelling her curiosity by telling her my old ones were all worn out and that I may as well replace them with something nice. As usual, we didn’t have a proper tree—only an indoor bamboo plant, which neither of us put much effort into decorating. Nonetheless, we attended Midnight Mass as we did every Christmas Eve. Before Christmas lunch, we traded parcels.

  I had mounted and framed one of my best Japanese inkings for her, showing the willows and the lake. As for my mother, she’d more than delivered on my request, giving me a selection of lacy things from her favorite French boutique off Fillmore Street. “Thank you, Mom.” I kissed her on the cheek and tried not to look suspiciously overjoyed. “You didn’t need to spend so much.”

  She waved away my concerns. “You’re old enough for nice things now. Just make sure you hand-wash these. This is Chantilly lace, honey . . .”

  I spent the remainder of Christmas break putting the final touches on my college applications, attempting to make up for my lack of extracurriculars—sleeping with teacher, alas, did not count—by dazzling the gods of admissions with my precocious knowledge of art and literature. At my behest, my lover had furnished me with a letter of recommendation, which painted me up, in glowing terms, as one of the most gifted young women that he’d ever encountered in his ten years at S.C.C.S. Moreover, in a fit of passion, he’d promised me whatever grades I wanted for all my upcoming assignments. This promise didn’t mean much, considering I was already getting straights As in English.

  He effused that I had a bright future ahead of me, that I could be anything that I wanted to be, and that I’d get into any school I set my sights upon. “I can imagine you as a Bryn Mawr girl,” he smiled when I reeled off the list of colleges outside my own state that I was applying to. To my disappointment, however, he didn’t remark upon my penchant for schools in the state of his birth. Worse still, he didn’t make any reference to how our relationship would be continued, post-graduation.

  As intense as my attachment to him was, I couldn’t allow myself to consider the possibility of him leaving his wife for me. In fact, if we were to carry on making love once I ceased being his student, it would have to be on a far more sporadic basis—a truth that struck me as too dire to contemplate. The clean break of life in another state was almost preferable to the prospect of a prolonged affair, with me as a student at some Californian liberal arts school. Of course, neither option was even as remotely desirable to me as the self-destructive fantasy of foregoing college altogether and living as a kept woman in a hideout of his choosing.

  Between bouts of productivity, I refrained from thinking about my future, hoping that my fate would somehow be decided for me. I lay on the daybed reading the Canzoniere as my father’s books and papers were gradually cleared from the room. Now and then, a spasm of longing would force me to set my book aside and press my thighs together, as isolated memories of our couplings flashed through my mind. I had become physical, dreadfully physical, under his regime.

  My father’s desk was cleared. My father’s bookshelves were cleared. My father’s wardrobe and medicine cabinet were cleared. My mother was keeping herself busy to avoid thinking about the tragedy of our first Christmas without him. “Do you want any of these?” she questioned me at one point, still dressed in her widow’s weeds and carrying a pile of philosophy books out of the room. “No thanks,” I replied, barely looking up from Petrarch’s sonnets. She stopped in her tracks to look at me quizzically. “Where did you get that book, sweetheart?”

  “San Rafael,” I responded coolly.

  “Can I see? That looks like an antique.”

  “Later.” I flushed, thinking of Steadman’s inscription. “I’m reading now.”

  She had other questions too. “Why so many schools in Pennsylvania?” was one of them, which I dealt with by citing the superior number of liberal arts colleges in that state. “Is that all your father’s pills?” she asked another day, showing me the box of prescription medicines that she’d collected from around the house. This collection didn’t include the bottle of muscle relaxants I’d stolen all those months ago and now kept in a private compartment of my toiletries bag, along with my dial of birth control pills. “Have you met any nice boys?” was repeated more than once over the course of my stay, always in a syrupy tone. I never dignified it with anything more than a noncommittal shrug or a typical teen-aged eye-roll.

  Toward the end of break, while my mother was out, I went to the en suite bathroom to admire myself in my new lingerie. I turned. I preened. I posed. I located my parents’ bathroom scales and expected the number on the dial to conform with my self-esteem. Instead, I suffered an unpleasant surprise. Since September, my weight had gone up an entire three pounds; not much, perhaps, in the scheme of things, but a travesty for a girl who ate as little as I did and had formerly monitored herself from one day to the next. When I inspected my half-naked form, it seemed that everything—my breasts, my belly, my backside—had grown more curved. To my own eyes, I was suddenly as grotesquely voluptuous as a Hott
entot Venus. I wanted to weep my weight in tears, to never touch another morsel.

  “I don’t want any dinner,” I told my mother as she was deciding what kind of pasta to cook that evening.

  “Oh, Laurel.” Her face fell. “Not this again.”

  “It’s nothing. I just don’t feel very well.”

  “Are you sure? You know how I worry about you starving yourself . . .”

  “I’ll have something when I’m feeling better. I just don’t think I can keep anything down tonight.”

  “All right, honey, if you say so.” My mother palmed my forehead and frowned at some imaginary fever or lack thereof. “It’s probably from being cooped up with your books all week. All this stale air—it’s not healthy. And your father’s study is the worst. I don’t know how you can stand sitting in that room day after day . . .”

  I didn’t bother telling her that sitting in that room was easy for me. She wouldn’t have understood that what was hardest for me was the simple fact of changing, of enduring change.

  ON THE first day of winter term, Marcelle skipped ahead of me while I was making my way to French class.

  “Ger-man-yyy! Tell us about Ger-man-yyy!”

  Amanda was with her as usual, looking at me with cool, amber eyes. Her gaze reminded me of the lie I’d told eons ago about spending Christmas with my fictive father in Trier.

  “It was cold,” I said simply.

  “Did you eat any bratwurst?”

  For a moment, I thought she was referencing the extra three pounds I was carrying. Thankfully, common sense interceded in time to tell me that this was just Marcelle’s usual crude brand of humor.

  “I ate so much at Christmas,” Amanda complained, falling into step with me. “I’d better be careful. They say it’s even harder to lose weight when you’re on the pill.”