She made up the stories, of course, having long since exhausted her actual experiences, which she had fictionalized in the first place as to make them virtually unrecognizable. She saw herself as a kind of Sheherazade, though only vaguely aware of who that was. When Isabel looked up the name online, she saw that the analogy wasn’t perfect but close enough to make her feel connected to an oral tradition, in a line of great raconteurs.
Yet after more weeks, this remained the only connection she could feel. Martin never stopped wanting to hear her “memories” (which she assumed he knew were padded with details picked up from porn films she saw online, actually had researched at home in her idle hours, the sites not being “safe for work”, and then made less mechanical and cold when she offered them up as her own) but this remained the extent of their physical relationship. Soon he was not requesting to do it after work any more but only in the office, and didn’t reciprocate by touching her (for she, being shyer, refused to have that done in public and still insisted on going to the ladies’ room by herself, and then even stopped doing that). Isabel began to feel their actions were fading into another form of passivity, more work, in other words, a new and modern job, the pressing of a penis the same as that of a “send” button, etc.
It was around this time that their boss, Owen, requested her appearance in his office after five.
Isabel had spoken to Owen just two or three times – once when he assured her she hadn’t caused Rita’s heart attack, once when she rode the elevator with him after only he and not she had carried an umbrella in that morning’s thunderstorm and she had tried to laugh off the water literally dripping from her hair and clothes and pooling on the marble floor of the car and he had smiled, politely, seeming, she thought, repelled, and another time she couldn’t remember – he hadn’t even hired her; it had been an obese woman named Cybil in Human Resources.
So she had been startled when Owen poked his head in her and Martin’s office, only a few minutes after Martin had excused himself to clean up in the men’s room. Owen had an open and expectant look, as if about to ask if she wanted anything at the store, he was making a run (“I’ll fly if you buy,” they used to say in college) but that couldn’t be it, of course.
When she walked to his office later, it was with trepidation – an instinctive reaction to being summoned by someone in authority, she thought – but she also had a flickering hope that she was about to be fired, though if the cause was her office adventures with Martin, that might turn out to be embarrassing, maybe even featured on the evening news, then splashed all over the internet, where her parents could see it.
When she sat opposite him, though, Owen didn’t mention Martin and only wanted her to do some special project on a freelance basis; he would understand if she were too busy.
“Busy?” She was unable to keep a tone of comic disbelief from her voice and immediately sorry about it. “I mean, no, I don’t think so. All right. Thank you.”
Isabel needed the money, after all – and she tuned out when Owen explained about the mild tax complications that “freelance” would mean, “estimated”, or whatever. She concentrated instead on looking at Owen, who was forty-two but whom she thought was either thirty-five or fifty. He had a boyish, snub-nosed face surrounded by graying hair, reminding her of a modern painting in a gilded frame from another century. He didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke yet what he said couldn’t have been more simple, innocent, and non-incriminating. Was he avoiding something else of which he was ashamed? She didn’t know. She had walked in wondering why he’d chosen her and left convinced it could have been her or someone else; maybe he’d just stopped by her office after counting to ten.
When Isabel got home, there was a message on her machine from Martin. In it, he implied an interest in hearing her talk over the phone that night, having apparently enjoyed it when he’d been ill, unlike Isabel, who’d had mixed feelings. Isabel meant to call him back, yet by the time she’d finished the assignment for Owen, it was midnight and too late. She’d completed the task in just one night, despite the “several” Owen had assumed it would take. Since it had been no more interesting than what she did at work – seemed more boring, actually, like spending a vacation in her home – Isabel was surprised by her diligence and went to sleep without comprehending it.
The next day, she politely demurred when Martin nodded suggestively at the empty hall during lunch hour. They had sometimes missed other opportunities – for instance, when they had had to attend day-long, company-wide meetings after which both confessed they had fantasized doing it in front of the entire workforce, which had fueled and made more exciting their next encounter. This was the first time Isabel had actually said or at least shaken her head no, and she could see the disappointment – which was deep – on Martin’s face. At day’s end, he waited for her to accompany him out, but Isabel simply said she would see him tomorrow.
“I’ll call you?” he said, or asked, as if unsure whether he would or would be allowed to by her, it wasn’t clear which.
As soon as he was gone, Isabel walked quickly to Owen’s office, hoping he hadn’t left for the night. She carried the work she had done, which she had printed out and placed neatly in a folder. She could have emailed it to him but wanted to deliver it in person, she didn’t know why.
“Well, well,” Owen said, impressed, using a way of talking that was older than his youngish face, as if his graying hair were talking or something, Isabel couldn’t express it coherently to herself. “Thank you. I had no idea you’d do it so …”
Suddenly Owen couldn’t finish the sentence – and the final word was almost certainly “fast” or “quickly” – he appeared too appreciative and that made him too emotional. Or was it something else? For whatever reason, his eyes filled with tears.
Standing before his desk, Isabel didn’t know what to do. Had she somehow sensed this aspect of Owen – an instability – and complied with the job so quickly out of compassion? She was suddenly unaware of so much, though many things were presenting themselves. She only knew that something had been building in her, begun by her losing interest in – growing to resent really – Martin. Unintentionally, the older man had stepped into the spill of a searchlight Isabel had been shining around, and now she had stopped it; he had her full attention.
“May I close the door?” he asked, still choking up, and Isabel nodded, as if to say, please do.
When he retook his seat, Owen again spoke without looking at her, but occasionally met her eyes and glanced away, testing new waters of trust.
“My wife,” he said, “I don’t – I don’t mean to put her down. She can’t help it. I know depression is a disease, that’s what the doctors say. I understand that. But she sleeps hours and hours a day – sometimes all day. I bring her books and newspapers – I brought her an easel with an expensive palette, for she used to paint. They all go unused. She’s taken every pill invented and none has worked for more than a week. What am I supposed to do? Nothing? That’s what it feels like she wants for me to do, not to leave her but to leave her be. How can I? She stays behind a closed door that seems as big as that space monolith in that movie where – oh, of course, you wouldn’t know it, you’re too young.”
The idea of Isabel’s age had stopped his confession, returned him to reality, and Owen swiveled to the side, seeming grateful that something had.
Isabel felt a bit offended. She had seen that movie, or at least part of it once, had heard of it, anyway, and besides, he was too young to have seen it originally, either; he wasn’t that much older. In any case, she knew that in the only way that mattered, they were the same: Owen was a person going to waste, as she was.
“I do know,” she blurted out, and thought she sounded even younger, a child asserting sophistication. It made him smile – mostly with his eyes, if that were possible, as he barely moved his mouth – and that hurt her even more.
Still, her youth meant something to her: Isabel waited for him to speak before contin
uing the conversation – not because he was her boss, exactly, because what he was going through was something she hadn’t experienced, the depth of his despair was something she had never known. Wasn’t that worthy of respect or at least silence? This wasn’t about her impressing him, after all, though she wanted to, had to force herself not to keep trying, to make him know that she understood him, understood everything, even though she sensed she didn’t.
But Owen wouldn’t respond, so Isabel had no better idea than to leave. When he saw her start to go, he rose at the same time, actually making a decision, moving toward her as she moved to the door. He was faster than she, because he wanted to get where he was going more.
Owen stood before her, no longer on the verge of tears, as if feeling beyond what tears could tell her. He offered himself as a desperate applicant, without any other options, beyond all embarrassment.
“Please,” he said. “Please. Use me.”
At first, Isabel didn’t know what he meant. Then she realized that she was fighting knowing and did not resist as he came closer, in fact placed her hands at his hips to help. Soon he was near enough to whisper, “Anything you want. All for you. Use me.”
As he undressed her, he discouraged her doing anything in return, shaking his head or murmuring “no” when she as much as raised a hand to touch him. She felt she was being prepared – anointed, that was the word – for some ceremony, saw herself in a Roman movie scene, a princess stripped, bathed, and placed naked under robes by female slaves – though, in that case, they would be careful not to caress her, not wishing to offend, they would be killed if they were caught, and, moaning, Owen was stroking and kissing every inch of her he could, after he removed her one good white shirt (which she had feared that morning looked as un-ironed as it was), then her bra, her skirt and, as he placed her with her help upon his – slightly cold – leather couch, her underwear (it had been too warm that morning to wear tights).
Still fully dressed, he moved, a supplicant, down her, and she spread her legs, not sure but daring to assume that’s what he wanted. Then he said softly but she was almost sure, “I want to lick the alphabet on your clit,” and that’s what he did, speaking each letter before he formed it (with surprising efficiency) upon and across her, something she suspected he had seen in a porn film, but a good and imaginative one that she had missed. By the time he licked the three lines for the stems or the arms or whatever you call them of the “E”, she came, feeling more naked even than she was, though this was how he’d wanted her, she was only obeying him by allowing him to submit, or something.
Then he lay his head against her thigh, breathing with what seemed relief that he had actually had an effect on anyone, made an impact, that he might be remembered by someone for doing something. She didn’t dare to reach down and touch his head (the gray hair of which she now decided she liked, without knowing why), though it was her impulse to at least acknowledge how good he’d made her feel. Soon he had recovered and was undressing himself, moving her gently (again with her subtle assistance) so that she lay beneath him. “So big and beautiful,” she thought he whispered though she wasn’t positive and couldn’t say “what?” because that would be weird, given what was going on, though she was curious, wanted to hear the compliment. She realized he already had a condom, was taking care of everything, was weirdly adept at assisting, her sexual valet in a sense, her “man” as they called it in old comedies about butlers, and the word had so many meanings now, she thought, as he entered her, and she realized she was sort of – babbling – to herself, because she was so nervous and so aroused. As he pushed into her, he knew what she wanted though he hardly knew her; he was catering to her, customizing her account, as it were, her AOL or whatever, in bed. Soon she stopped feeling guilty about giving nothing and decided to go along, for that’s what he wanted, to enjoy being on the receiving end, accepting now an action in a way it had never been before.
That he was acting for himself and for her – that he was aware of what effect each push was having, that her pleasure caused his – this was something new. She thought of someone rowing and how the digging of his oar into the ocean moved his boat, rippled the water, and built the muscle in the rower’s arm, a seamless situation, and now she was the water or merely made of water, and when he pushed into her, he was, well, not like the oar exactly but like an entire man disappearing into a wave, which was her, or she was made of water, or anyway, she now knew what “so excited” meant and it was different from what she had pretended it meant with Martin, or to put it simply, it now meant something and not nothing, as it had before, when it had been something from a porn film, and bullshit.
“Oh, my God,” she said, helplessly, as he pushed particularly hard, and pressed the front of his abdomen (which she noticed was flatter than Martin’s, despite his being so much older, fifteen or forty-five years, though she had only briefly glimpsed Martin’s soft stomach through his unzipped and partly pulled down pants) against her clitoris, and she thought of a dolphin, as if she was still in an ocean, and how it butted against you or something when it liked you and you swam with it; he (or maybe just his erection) was like a strong and slippery dolphin, rock hard but really responsive, and making that little chirping radar sound, which she now realized was coming from her own open mouth.
“It’s good, it’s good,” she said, and again she hadn’t meant to say anything at all.
Then, suddenly, he stopped moving, obviously could move no more without ending everything, which meant that she was on, it was up to her; and instinctively she wrapped around him, from the inside and outside: outside with her arms – and inside she had never known she had such flexibility, like when you realize you can bend a finger back all the way without breaking it, only this was better, had never known that she could be tender with a grown man, not just her baby sister or her old kitty cat Monkey, kissing and kissing them – she was passionate, that’s what she was, and why had it been embarrassing to say before now?
Then coming with him felt like (she could not stop comparing things; it made her feel safer to do it, put things in perspective so she wouldn’t feel she had entered an environment alien and disorienting – it was still her own life, she had not gone insane, you know?) coming with him felt like that trick where the magician pulls out a tablecloth and all the plates stay put: and she was the tablecloth, the table, and the plates. And he came, too, immediately after, or actually during, though she suspected he’d started a little ahead of her, could feel him doing that pulsing that, of course, came from his heart and had been weaker in her hand when it came from Martin; and Owen’s sound was bigger: Martin’s was like air going out of a balloon and Owen’s was like one bursting, a whole float in, say, the Puerto Rican Day Parade: or he was a terrorist exploding himself along with everything else, and she had made him into one; and that was so exciting that it made her come again, or maybe it was just the end of her first orgasm, an aftershock, like they say there are in earthquakes.
“I can’t stop,” she said, and perhaps that was another trick, because she wanted it to continue and thought saying that might be the spell to make it so.
Then he placed his lips against her temple, where her hair was wet and slightly stuck to the area above her ear. Would he say he loved her? She didn’t think he did; she didn’t love him; she didn’t fool herself; she wasn’t a baby. Maybe she wanted him to say it so she could feel superior, could feel less than he and so more in control. (She had read once that the young are more powerful in young – old affairs, because, well, they live longer. But what about her uncle’s second wife who was twenty years younger and who died first? Who was more powerful then? Her uncle, obviously, who was still alive.) Soon she didn’t care about creating distance: she found herself kissing him, too, his cheek, which was not unshaven but getting there, with the night coming on; things were changing, growing all the time, and now she knew it, this was proof.
Her boss had wanted to work for her, and that was what he had don
e; he had not been lying, been, what was the word, rhetorical: and that made her want to serve him – not serve, that was subordinate and not what she meant – to give to him, to know what he knew, to get pleasure by giving pleasure, to feel the connection or current, the wet finger in the spilled liquid that was then stuck into a socket, only good and shocking, not bad.
She took him into her mouth, even though he protested, weakly, that this was not for him but only for her, tried to insist and sincerely, not coyly, not to get what he pretended not to want. But she wouldn’t listen and soon, her breasts intentionally squashed against his leg, she kissed at the gray pubic hairs she had not noticed on him before (and which, for reasons she could not articulate, excited her in a new and discombobulating way), and it was only seconds after she started, sort of forced him to experience it, had hardly moved her mouth on him, was just getting ready to do her stuff, or figure out what stuff would do the trick for him, that he came, and more than melting in her mouth (as crass girls in college called it), seemed to completely disappear, his head tilting back, his eyes closing, his arms laid flat, his hands opening, as if going under in that ocean again – or, better, being pushed off a cliff by coming; it almost scared her: she suddenly knew how lonely he had been and yet he hadn’t used it against her but for her, had wanted to deny himself until she wouldn’t let him any more (or was the denial his way of getting over the guilt of sleeping with a young girl who was his employee? If he got nothing, in other words, what had he done wrong? He would be a kind of sex saint).
But then she didn’t care what was his way to explain it to himself was just glad that she had given him this, given him something – God knows she gave him nothing at the job – and soon he seemed to reappear, to float up to the surface again and exist, and she moved to lie against him, and he buried his face in her sweaty neck, maybe ashamed of how much he had shown of himself, uneasy about how much she knew him now, though she liked knowing him – he knew her, so why not? – secretly wanted to know him more, to know everything, even though she suspected that it would be impossible, would probably never happen, that this was as close as they would ever get, this instant, this afternoon.
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