Whenever You Call

by Anna King

  “I’m one of the lab techs who might be responsible for the outbreak. It’s just incredible to get this part, and it’s all because of this.” He touched his face.

  “What if it heals quickly?”

  He opened his eyes at me. “You never stop thinking, do you?”

  I wasn’t sure how he meant for me to take that comment, but I was pleased. I thought it was a compliment to be thought of as a thinker, though perhaps not all women would agree. Maybe it was an age thing. Eventually, I would be old. I’d have only the dance of my mind to offer in love because my body had folded into itself like origami, though the origami comparison might be overly optimistic. More like a crumpled paper bag.

  Rob continued, “My part in the script is next week—the scar should stay nice and gruesome until the filming finishes.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.”

  He asked about how it was going at The Harvest, and I described my fall on the first night, which was rapidly becoming one of my favorite stories of all time. Indeed, so good that it was tempting to imagine using it in a novel, though I’m not sure what novel I was referring to since I wasn’t actually writing one. After more chitchat, I knew Al was waiting to hear what I thought of his novel.

  “I haven’t gotten too far with your book,” I said.

  He nodded eagerly.

  “But I will say that you’ve got an interesting main character. I like Rabbit, and I’m intrigued by him.”

  “Okay.”

  I sipped my martini. “I’m not too sure about the mystery part, and since you’re billing this as a mystery, that’s very important.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ah, there it was. Whenever anyone asked for help on their unpublished writing, they really wanted to hear that it was stupendous and instantly publishable. No criticism desired, thank you very much. I will say that I’d never been this way myself. Or I was pretty sure I hadn’t been. More likely, my problem was a lack of confidence, not too much. It was tempting, at times, to conclude that either too much or too little confidence was the key to whether or not you became a successful writer. But the truth was more nuanced than that. Some people did well when they were propelled by their own self-confidence, and others did equally well when trying to prove that they were worthy.

  “I’m not an expert on the mystery genre,” I said.

  He interrupted, “I am.”

  I stared around the room for a minute, hoping to intimidate him. Like, remember, I’m the successful published novelist.

  “I’ve really read hundreds of them,” he said, “as well as all the guidebooks on writing mysteries.”

  He had fucking eyes. Or, eyes that fucked. I thought the experience with Isaac had taken the edge off my sexual desire, but the strangeness of that act with him had been as unsatisfactory as eating fat-free ice cream. I seemed to have discovered my desire all fresh and new. Ready and willing.

  I gestured with my hands, opened like blossoming flowers. You know best, then.

  “But, what were you going to say?” Al said.

  I had to decide about him. I picked up the martini and contemplated it, suddenly having no desire to drink. “Do you find that you don’t want to drink when you’re bar tending?”

  “That’s not an unusual reaction.” He grinned. “Though some go in the opposite direction.”

  He turned his head to stare at all the women who were staring at him.

  Which was when I figured out that I’d have to get drunk in order to go to bed with him and since I had no desire to sip at my martini, much less finish it, much less get drunk, it was obvious I didn’t really want to go to bed with Al. I felt like the color gray. What had happened to me? It seemed okay not to have a sex life because of a rational decision to be celibate, but quite another to simply … idly … oddly … have no desire for a sex life. If I don’t experience desire, then who will desire me?

  Or, if I am not desired, how shall I desire?

  Or. Oh, forget it. I felt too forlorn to carry on. Also, frankly, worn out. I’d worked the lunch shift, and on Friday, the restaurant had been much busier. It was now after nine o’clock at night and all I really wanted was a hot bath and a hot bed. Ideally, I’d have a hot guy in the hot bed, but only if the hot guy was well known to me, the kind of guy who didn’t mind my flannel nightgown and scrubbed face. That wouldn’t be Al.

  So, decided.

  Al reached across the booth’s table and touched my index finger where it curled around the stem of the martini glass. It shouldn’t have worked. I was too disinterested, and mature, to react at the touch of a single finger. But it did. The current from his body jumped into my hand, ricocheted up my arm, tickled my neck, and landed with a delightful buzz in my ear. My head tucked to the right, cuddling it.

  So, decided.

  We went back to my place, rather than his, because that’s what I wanted to do. It meant I, presumably, lost a little power by not being in an environment where I could just up and leave when I wanted, if I wanted. But I was confident that I wouldn’t hesitate to send him home.

  I made him follow me in his own car, a VW Beetle with brakes that squealed loudly enough for me to hear at every stop sign and light. I glanced in the rearview mirror, expecting him to pull an apologetic face, but he was obviously unaware. Once I started, I couldn’t stop checking the mirror, watching him, and wondering about what I was going to do. I thought about Jen, as I usually did when I was moving in a dramatic direction. She wouldn’t approve, but she hadn’t felt his finger. Although I had to admit that even if she’d experienced the pleasure of his touch, she still wouldn’t approve.

  Next, I considered Isaac’s opinion. He wouldn’t approve either, given that he was now a monk-in-training with, undoubtedly, clear ideas about how the sexual connection should be sacred. I was shocked that I even knew the word sacred. I mean, of course I understood the definition of sacred, and I’d certainly read the word somewhere over the course of my lifetime, but I didn’t think I’d ever used it in my own head, as a personal thought. Say-crede. Isaac had said we’d experienced something divine when we had sex, and now I was thinking about this concept called sacred sex. Not a subject I’d usually wonder about. Perhaps it came from my long-ago visit to India, where they celebrated the idea of tantric sex as a holy act.

  I’d always had what I would call a great sex life, but I knew there was a difference between great sex without love, and great sex with love. Yet, oddly, it somehow seemed like the moments of sex I might characterize as sacred sex were the ones that happened without love. Not all my experiences of lust warranted being called sacred, but none of the sex done under the auspices love could be called sacred. How weird was that?

  The best experience I ever had, meaning the best sex I’d ever had, was with a guy whose name wild period between marriages. This was the first “between marriages” that I’d experienced, and I established the pattern of traveling far away to heal, celebrate, fuck my brains out, call it whatever. So, there I was in East Africa, camping on the shore of Lake Navaisha. To begin with, Kenya was a country made-to-order for screwing. Its beauty wasn’t ancient, like Egypt or Greece, nor was it wild like Australia or Mongolia. It was beauty at war with itself. Endless beauty jammed against endless beauty, jostling for attention. I was part of a small tour group of mostly Brits, and I’d already gone to bed with the single available man, who turned out to be, for the most part, gay.I never knew. I was twenty-five years old and going through that

  We’d spent the day out on the lake in a slow-moving motor boat, fishing. I’d never fished before, and this was real good fishing. We trolled along, the sun shining from a perfect blue sky, and we reeled ’em in. A constant source of tilapia.

  I hadn’t wanted to fish because I knew they came out of the water alive and squirming, at which point I’d be required to remove the hook in their mouths and kill them. None of this sounded appealing to me, but it turned out differently when you were on a pseudo-safari in East Africa. A fellow
camper, female, caught the first fish, landed it, and then gave the rod to an African who whisked it away. Reassured, I cast the way I’d been instructed and watched, mesmerized, as the line drifted, tightened, and then, tugged. Thrilled, I rapidly turned the handle and saw the line get tighter and tighter. Someone behind me said, “Pull it up, pull it up,” so I yanked the whole rod straight into the air, above my head. More rapid handle-turning, with voices loud and faint at the same time, egging me on. I landed the first of many fish.

  Around the campfire later that night, Africans fried the fish in butter and served it with hot spicy fried potatoes. My skin was stretched and burned by too much sun, and my head whirled a bit from several rum and cokes. It seemed at the time, and still seems so today, that it was the best meal of my life. I crouched over the plate, trying not to wolf the food, and then doing exactly that. We were sipping hot, sweet tea when a man appeared on the periphery of our group. He greeted us with a loud Scottish accent. Our safari leader welcomed him and offered a mug of tea, which he accepted. As luck would have it, and in those days I was always lucky, he sat next to me. He may have said his name then, to the whole group in those first few minutes. I didn’t hear him if he did. We continued to talk, though I could never recall what we talked about.

  It was as if he belonged to me. I knew him and I longed for him in my bed, though I could scarcely make out his features and I wasn’t really listening to anything he said. It was a connection without any substance at all. Neither words nor touch. A wireless connection. Slowly, the others drifted off to bed. Then our leader said goodnight. I didn’t wonder about how to make it happen. It would happen. Finally, when we were alone and the fire burning low, he reached over and took my hand. Ever practical, we held hands on our way to the outdoor loo, then inched back to my tent. We went slowly, with care and no rush. You usually imagine that a passionate sexual experience involves desperate grappling and tearing of clothing. But this stranger and I moved in slow motion.

  Because Kenyan nights were chilly, he wore a wool sweater, which I gently pulled over his head without catching his chin or ears. Then he unbuttoned my sweater. Silent, we undressed each other. We could hear the rustle of animals outside, nothing serious or scary. Mostly just the monkeys scavenging. And the wind picked up so that the sides of my tent undulated. The smell of wood smoke from the campfire drifted with the wind. I kept the lantern light low and ran my hands over his chest. He was older than I. I could feel his age in his loose skin, and the way his muscles seemed to have more depth and strength.

  His hands rested on my waist, with the fingers splayed over each hipbone. He tugged at them, pulling me to him and I felt his erection slip between my legs. We fit perfectly. That was the moment when it began to be, as I see now in retrospect, sacred. I guess I mean that the entire event was mysterious. I never knew why it happened, or who he was, yet I felt as though something significant had taken place. This wasn’t just sex. Nor was it making love. This was union. He fell asleep next to me, crammed onto the narrow camp bed, but sometime in the early morning he left, as I thought, to go to the loo. He never came back.

  I didn’t know whether it mattered. Sacred sex, lust-driven sex, loving sex, even celibacy. Did any of it make any difference? Yes and no, yes and no. It made a difference and it didn’t. And, suddenly, I thought about the fact that the one sexual experience I would characterize as sacred had been after … a … fishing trip.

  Rabbitfish.

  Here I was, on my way to screwing a guy who’d written about a man named Rabbit (obviously an alter-ego), and my mind had managed to remember, during this relatively short car ride, a long-ago fishing trip. Rabbit, plus fish, equals Rabbitfish.

  Perhaps I was having sacred sex with Mr. Rabbitfish, albeit without involving either the body or the mind. But the spirit, or the soul, or whatever I could choose to call that third thing, seemed to be conspiring to create a feeling of connection with the mysterious Mr. Rabbitfish. And, yes, maybe I was overstating it. We weren’t there yet, but we were heading for it. I had an uncomfortable feeling that I shouldn’t sleep with Al. Not that anyone, particularly Rabbitfish, would know. Not that, in real life, I had any kind of concrete relationship with Rabbitfish. Not that I really believed it mattered if I experienced a one-night stand.

  Except I’d been celibate for an awfully long time, and I wasn’t sure what difference it made that I’d only just broken that celibacy with one of my former husbands, who was poised to become a monk. As I parked my car on the street where I lived, and checked again in the rearview mirror to make sure that Al had found a place to park, I knew I shouldn’t sleep with him, and I knew that I was going to.

  He made it easy.

  We ended up consummating the deal on the floor of my study, exactly where I’d been with Isaac, the only difference being that Al and I didn’t even have a deflated mattress beneath us. I’d left him wandering around my little house, while I went down to use the bathroom in the basement. When I came out, he was standing in front of a bookcase in the study, head tilted sideways, peering at the books.

  Without turning around, he said, “I love your place.”

  “Thanks.” I glanced at the computer, then away. Fighting the urge to check my e-mail. Fighting the call of Rabbitfish. Fighting.

  Methodically, he inched along the bookcase. He pulled out a book, flipped it open randomly, and began to read.

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow,

  I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

  I learn by going where I have to go.

  His voice had shifted lower, to suit the words, and he sounded unutterably delicious, thick and rich, a heady complement to the language. Hot syrup pouring over pancakes, thunderstorm about to hit, Bach cello suite. The voice of some heretofore unimagined angel. Al’s legs folded beneath him slowly, and he sank to the floor, cross-legged. The reading continued. I found myself sinking just as he had, right where I’d been standing across the room. Instead of sitting, I kept on going until I was lying flat on my back, with my arms outstretched beside me.

  We think by feeling. What is there to know?

  I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  I wasn’t aware that he’d stopped reading because he moved quickly towards me, knelt and kissed me. Except for his lips, he didn’t touch me at all, and he remained on his knees so that he seemed to tower over me. Because the only sensation was in my lips, everything coalesced there. My mouth became my only source. It gave and it received. It tingled and throbbed. With no warning, I came.

  Al pressed his mouth tighter over mine and our teeth rubbed together. My back arched and, distantly, I heard myself moaning. I lost track of time after that, but I had the sense that we moved fast, faster than fast, until it was over and I breathed in hugely, then turned on my side, away from him, and let the breath out.

  I panted hard for a few minutes. So did he. We sounded like we’d run a 25-mile marathon. I rolled back in his direction, opened my eyes, and stared at him. He was on his back, face to the ceiling. His profile was every bit as attractive as the front of his face, the scar hidden from view on the other side. But it didn’t matter because, handsome or not, I needed him to leave.

  I didn’t know why. It had been great sex. He was a gentle, skillful, even interesting lover. But. That wasn’t sacred sex, I thought. It was like we’d been on a roller coaster that stalled halfway up. I closed my eyes, debating. I swallowed. I’d never had the balls to ask a guy to leave, except the one who’d tied me up, and that had been a special situation.

  “Al?”

  “Umm?”

  “I need to be alone.”

  He placed a hand on my waist. “No,” he said.

  My eyes flipped open. “No, I don’t need to be alone?”

  “No, I don’t want to leave.”

  I peeked at him, but he was still staring up at the ceiling.

  He continued, “I like your house.”
r />   “That’s why you don’t want to go?”

  Al nodded vigorously.

  “So it’s not really me you want, but my house?”

  “Right.”

  I was flummoxed. “Shouldn’t I be insulted?” I said, trying hard to be insulted though, in fact, I wasn’t.

  “Your house is you, basically.”

  Now he rolled toward me. We were on our hips, facing each other.

  “The floor is killing me,” I said.

  “How old are you?”

  I laughed. “You’re so tactful.”

  He kept looking at me.”

  “48,” I said.

  No change of expression.

  I said, “How old are you?”

  “38.”

  I started to sit up, but his hand, still on my waist, pressed me not to.

  He said, “On the count of three, we get up together and go to your bed.”

  “On the count of three, we get up together and you go home.”

  Al smiled a smile he had probably been using forever, the one no sane woman could resist. “It’ll be even better the second time.”

  I figured he was right, but it didn’t really matter. I seemed to have crossed some endless divide, which I would henceforth name, “Great Sex Without Love Wasn’t Worth Much.”

  I shrugged and sat up without counting to three. “I really do need to be alone,” I said. Though I was stark naked and mildly self-conscious that my buttocks’ jiggle would prove to be comical, I walked carefully to the bathroom and grabbed my huge bathrobe from the hook on the back of the door.

  “Can I say something?” Al yelled.

  “Maybe.”

  I knotted the tie on the bathrobe and stood a few feet from the bathroom door, which was conveniently near where the stairs led up to the first floor.

  Al was now fully dressed. “I know you think this was just sex or something,” he said.