Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

  "I know." Her words were almost inaudible. "I should have gone. I kept thinking I might—someday. But then I read that she'd died and all I could think was that I should have been with her; I might even have been with her when she died. I can't stop thinking about that."

  "And you didn't come to ensnare me, either."

  230 ~ Judith Michael

  She smiled faintly. "It was too late."

  Luke slipped the robe off her shoulders and took her into his arms and kissed her. Their mouths opened together, their tongues met, and somehow all the unsaid words that had haunted them—between Luke and Constance, between Constance and Jessica—were put to rest as they held each other and drew each other in. "As if she's watching us," Luke murmured, "and finding a way to take credit for it."

  Jessica smiled. "But she'd be right. She left my letters for you and you did exactly what she thought you would do. Inquisitive Luke."

  "And a good thing." He drew her down so that they lay side by side, looking at each other, and then desire engulfed them and they came together with a new fervor and longing, as if now they believed that this was meant to be and that all the lost years could be made up.

  Luke's mouth was on Jessica's breast, his hand searching out the places in her body that turned molten beneath his fingers, and as her breath came faster she slid down to take him into her mouth. She heard his gasp of pleasure and delighted in that, in what she could do for him, and looked up to smile at him. In a little while he moved as if to come on top of her, but she shook her head. "My turn." She lay on top of him, clasping him with her thighs and bringing him inside her, moving slowly, then faster, then very slowly, as their eyes met and held and they smiled together and she felt the sexual power that they gained from each other, and a new kind of exhilaration, that they had found this, too: the giving and exchanging of pleasure that came not from greed, but from love.

  "I love you," Luke said when they lay side by side again. Night had come, and the black windows reflected their illuminated bed. "You're everything I fell in love with, and so much more. Beyond imagining."

  Jessica shook her head. "You fell in love with a creature you imagined. You didn't know me from my letters."

  "I knew a voice and an intelligence. I was only missing the rest of you."

  She smiled. "Quite a bit. And even now . . ."

  "I know. But we have years to fill in the gaps. A lifetime."

  Jessica grew very still. "You're talking about New York."

  "Not now," he said quickly. "We have to talk about it—you know that—but not tonight. We've torn tonight out of time. Out of the clock, out of the calendar. It exists by itself, and nothing can touch it."

  "Oh, what a fairy tale," Jessica said softly, but she did not try to contradict him.

  A

  1

  CTS of Love ~ 231

  Sometime later, she once again pulled on her silk robe, and Luke took his from his suitcase, and they went to the kitchen where, quietly, with a harmony gained from their week together, they made a dinner of fresh fish they had brought from Orcas, and potatoes and snow peas from Jessica's garden. They talked about Orcas as they ate. "I'd like to go back to climb Mount Constitution," Luke said, to which Jessica made no reply, because she could never climb it and it was one more reminder of all the things they would never do together. Luke, cursing himself, changed the subject and they talked about Robert and Chris at the Inn at Swifts Bay, and Jessica recounted the few stories she knew about people on the island. They already had a store of shared experiences, the kind that could become the foundation of a life together, but Jessica knew that it was not a foundation they were building, but a collection of memories.

  "I don't want to leave tomorrow," Luke said. "Could we have one more day here.'' We have so much to talk about."

  "Yes." She wanted as many as she could have.

  That night, they slept in Jessica's bed. Hope, waiting to lead Luke to the studio, was puzzled and walked through the house, looking into corners, as if to make sure that nothing else had changed.

  "She likes things to be in order," Luke said, amused.

  "Just like the rest of us. I'm not surprised she's confused; she's had more changes in one week than in the past two years."

  Luke turned off the light and when Jessica moved into his arms he held her close, and kissed her. "Sometimes we thrive on change," he said.

  The next morning, fog still enveloped the island, but they wanted to be outside and to hold on to the pattern of their days, so they rode anyway, a short ride in the fields and forest nearest the barn, two ghostly figures in a strange twilight that smudged the trees and erased the ocean, the cliffs, the sky. When they got back, there could be no breakfast on the terrace; they set the table inside and once again looked at blank gray windows that made the house seem wrapped in wool.

  "We're like castaways," Jessica said, and her voice seemed hushed. "No horizon, no guideposts, nothing to tether us to the rest of the world." She smiled at Luke. "We could be floating in space, or drifting on a river, or sitting on the ocean floor; we have no clues, not even a hint. What a strange feeling."

  Luke filled their coffee cups. "1 like it. Cut off from everyone but each other, with the whole day stretching ahead of us, and no other plans but

  232 ~ Judith Michael

  our own." Holding his cup, he sat back. "I'd hke you to look at the plays I brought. Could you do that today, instead of my leaving them with you?"

  "Yes, I'd like to."

  "If you don't finish them, I could—"

  "I'm a fast reader. I'll have plenty of time."

  Luke took two bound folders from his suitcase. "I have some letters to write; will you be here or in your studio?"

  "My studio."

  So once again they spent the day apart, Jessica curled up on the couch in her studio, Luke writing at the glass table in the living room. He found it hard to concentrate, looking up every few minutes to wonder what she was thinking as she read. He had wanted to tell her they were rough drafts; that they needed polishing, more work on the details, more development of certain characters ... but he had heard those excuses so many times from so many playwrights that he could not envision himself using them with Jessica. It wouldn't matter anyway, he thought; she'll say exactly what she thinks. She's not the type to coat her opinions so they slide down more easily.

  Was that true? It was something he would have said about Constance, but did he know that about Jessica? The truth was, he did not, and it was only one of thousands of things he did not know about her.

  But this much he knew: two things had not happened in the days they had spent together. Her telephone had not rung once, which indicated an isolation so cruel and complete that he could not contemplate it without aching with pity for her and vowing that he would do all he could to free her from it.

  And she had not said she loved him.

  Nor, of course, did she seem anxious to leave her island, her isolation, her very private life. But that was what they would talk about. Later, when she had read his plays. And when he had given her—though she did not yet know he planned to do this—the first two acts of Kent's new play, with a lead role that he hoped she would find irresistible.

  At five o'clock, he turned on all the lamps, made a fire in the fireplace and put music on the compact disc player. Then, with that familiarity that he did not find at all strange, he went to the kitchen and found two kinds of pate in the refrigerator and a loaf of French bread they had brought from Orcas. He arranged a tray and took it to the living

  A

  /

  CTS of LOVE ~ 233

  room coffee table, added a botde of Cabernet Franc and two glasses, remembered napkins and went to get them, and when he turned from the cabinet found himself face-to-face with Jessica. She looked beyond him, into the living room.

  "How cozy it looks," she said. "Martin should watch out; you're about to take his job."

  "I haven't time to do this in New York. Or the i
nclination. I'm surprised that you remembered him; I haven't mentioned him—have I?— since my first night here."

  "No, but I remember everything. Sometimes I think that's a curse." She sat on the couch facing the fire. "Thank you for doing this. I feel as if I'm being waited on."

  "You are. You deserve to be."

  Jessica watched him open the wine and fill their glasses. "I enjoyed your plays. You're a very good writer."

  "Thank you," he said. "Do I hear a 'but' dangling after that praise?"

  "I think they need a lot of work. Polishing, more attention to details, more development of certain characters. What is it?" she asked as Luke began to chuckle.

  "That was exactly what I was going to tell you they needed, but I didn't want to sound as if I were looking for excuses. Or asking you not to be too critical. Which characters?"

  "Two in particular. Salk and Justine almost disappear just when they ought to be center stage. It's as if you were afraid to deal with the confrontation that's been brewing for two acts, so you let other people tell about it instead of showing it happening."

  He nodded. "I didn't know how to write it without making them sound harsh."

  "Because you think harshness is inevitable in confrontations?"

  He scowled. "How would you know anything about that?"

  "Oh, Luke, you had a reputation when I was in New York, for two things: you chose only beautiful women to spend your time with and you were a formidable foe, even a harsh one. Don't you know that's what people said about you? Constance knew."

  There was a pause. "What else needs work?"

  She leafed through one of the manuscripts while Luke watched her. He was unsettled by the change in their roles. For most of the week he had

  234 ~ Judith Michael

  been the aggressive visitor from a hard-driving city; the successful Broadway director who led the way in so much that they had done. Now Jessica was the authoritative one, discussing his work and his character with a kind of cool distance that unnervingly put her in the role of director. But if it was unnerving, it also was intriguing, and he found himself drawn to her in yet another way: no pity now, just pure admiration.

  "Here," she said. "Your dialogue gets stilted in a lot of places, but this is a good example." Luke leaned over to see the passage, but Jessica read it aloud, then said, "Did you hear the problem.? A good cast would alter lines like those, loosening them up, but you should do as much as you can before it gets to that; it's your play and every word should sound the way you want it to."

  "What else.?"

  "Something is wrong with the plot in the second play. There are some places that just don't make sense to me."

  Luke moved closer and they bent over the manuscript, turning pages and discussing the twists and turns and coincidences that brought crises to almost everyone in the story. Now and then Jessica would read another passage aloud and Luke would hold his breath at the uncanny way she slipped into each character. She did it without thought or planning or an attempt to impress: she simply became another person as soon as she began to read. A great actress never stops being a great actress, Luke thought. Even if she thinks she has.

  And how extraordinary to hear his lines come to life in Jessica Fontaine's voice!

  "Thank you," he said when they turned the last page. "I showed Constance these, in an early version, but she was too gentle; probably she thought I'd tell her she was no more an expert on plays than on marriage."

  "But she was an expert on plays."

  "I know. I hope she wasn't afraid of me."

  "Never of you. Of your harshness, perhaps."

  "Are you afraid of that.?"

  "I haven't seen it. I haven't seen anything in you to be afraid of."

  "Oh, my love, thank you for that. For that most of all." He held her close, and as she put her arms around him and they kissed, the bound folders slipped off her lap and fell to the floor. Neither of them noticed. "I've wanted you all day," Luke murmured, "every minute of every hour. I

  almost went to the studio a dozen times to take you in my arms—"

  "But you didn't want to interrupt my reading of your plays," she teased.

  He laughed, his face close to hers. "Caught."

  "But I wanted you, too," she said. "I thought of you in the living room, so close to me I imagined I could see you writing and frowning over a word, or daydreaming—but then I thought, oh, he'll worry that I'm bored with his plays if I come to him, and I wasn't bored, I loved reading them, but mostly I wanted to be with you, naked, with you on top of me, or whatever position we—" With her hand on the back of his head, she brought his mouth to hers.

  And once again they found in each other the passion and exhilaration of unbounded arousal and fulfillment. They lay on the deep, yielding cushions, with the firelight playing on the walls and warming their skin as they undressed each other and maneuvered to touch everywhere, to kiss and stroke and suck every part of their bodies, to explore and discover everything about each other, to make every movement and every position completely theirs, so that they felt again and again, as they had the night before, that they had always been together yet still had endless discoveries to make.

  They made love quickly, and then more leisurely, and later, wearing their robes, they made dinner and took their plates to the living room, back to the couch, where Luke opened another bottle of wine and they ate and drank slowly, lingeringly, sometimes in comfortable silence, listening to the' music, sometimes talking in low, lazy tones. Until at last, with their coffee, Luke said, "I have one more play I'd like you to read. Not the whole play, just the first two acts. Would you do that.'^"

  "Another one of yours?"

  "No. A new one by Kent Home."

  "He wrote The Magician."

  "Yes."

  "Why do you want me to read it?"

  "I want your opinion. Especially of the lead."

  She started to say she knew what he was doing, but she did not. Luke had told her so much about The Magician that she was curious about Kent Home, and there could be no harm in reading part of his new play. She would give her opinion and hand it back to him, and then they would talk about his leaving. Because of course he had to leave, and she had heard him on the telephone earlier, booking the plane for the next day.

  236 ~ Judith Michael

  But I don't want him to —

  She cut off the thought. "Yes, of course I'll read it," she said, her voice light. "Though there isn't a lot I can say about only two acts."

  Luke went to the studio and brought back a folder identical to his, but much slimmer. He gave it to Jessica, then busied himself building up the fire and pouring the last of the coffee into their cups. With nothing left to do, he sat beside her, gazing into the flames, waiting.

  He heard her close the folder, but she was still silent. He turned. Her eyes were closed, but tears ran from them and she was trying to brush them away.

  "What is it?" he asked quietly, though he knew and his heart ached for what she was going through. But he steeled himself against it. She would go back to New York with him. He had decided that. And though he would rather she came because she wanted to be with him, he was willing to use Kent's play as additional ammunition. "What is it?" he asked again.

  She opened her eyes. "He writes beautifully. It will be a wonderful play." She held out the folder.

  Luke did not take it from her. "And the part? Felicia?"

  "Powerful and exciting. But you knew that." She put the folder on the coffee table, and Luke felt a brief moment of shame for playing games with her, as if he could have forced her to hold on to it, and keep it. "You wouldn't have asked me to read it if it hadn't been the kind of part actors wait for all their lives. But I'm not acting anymore, Luke, and you knew that, too. I have no confidence in myself as an actress—good Lord, I could barely drag myself across the stage—I don't trust my body or my face to work for me anymore; audiences would feel revulsion when they see me instead of belief in my characte
r. Is that enough? Do I have to say any more? This is the second time you've forced me to go through all my reasons, everything that's stopped me whenever I thought about going back. Did you think I hadn't thought about it? For months I thought of nothing else. But I can't. Whatever you may think, or want to think, I'm not the same person I was."

  "You still love the stage, you still miss New York and the theater. If you could see past your fear, we could find a way to deal with everything else."

  She met his somber gaze. "I am afraid. I've been honest with you about that. But you haven't been honest with me. You've been thinking about

  Acts of L

  o V E ~ 237

  ways to get me back to New York for days now, but you haven't talked about it."

  "You forbade it."

  There was a pause. "You're right. I did tell you to stop. But it wouldn't have mattered, Luke. I won't go back. This is my home and this is where I stay."

  "After what we've found together."

  "What have we found? How do you know if any of it is real? I'll tell you: none of it is real. Look at us. Two people absolutely alone, without city or society, with no other voices, no interruptions or schedules or clocks. 'We've torn tonight out of time.' That was what you said. 'Out of the clock, out of the calendar, and nothing can touch it.' And I told you it was a fairy tale. That's all it is. The most beautiful fairy tale imaginable and it has nothing to do with that world out there where you'll go tomorrow and fit right in, in your own niche, your own powerful place. You can't move a fairy tale to that world, Luke; it will crumble to dust."

  "You'll crumble. The world will go on, right past you, but you'll stay here and dry up and your radiance will fade to—"

  "There is no radiance! Good Lord, has a little sex made you so blind?"

  "A little sex?"

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was more than that. It was—"

  "It was love, God damn it, and you can't pretend it was anything less. You've never said it, but you can't pretend now that it isn't true."

  "I've never pretended. I just tried not to say it." She took his hand between hers and bent her head, resting her cheek on his palm. When she looked up, her eyes were shining with tears. "I love you, Luke. I love you with all my heart and with all that I am. I love you and I want you and this week has given me everything I could ever hope for with a man. But that's all it was, my darling, one week. You can't live your life here and I can't live mine in New York. We've both known that from the beginning. What we didn't know was how hard"—her voice caught—"how hard it would be to say good-bye."