The Bride Stripped Bare

by Nikki Gemmell

  Slow, enquiring fingers on your skin in an Edinburgh flat and you took off your pajamas as something flooded through you and you could not dam it.

  Marijuana, once, but you fell asleep.

  Alcohol. Champagne always worked best.

  Porn. A video to soften you up and you were intrigued at first but the monotony quickly repelled and it was the coldest, most unimaginative fuck you’d ever had.

  The urgency in a kiss.

  An expensive hotel room that made you feel guilty.

  A song that turns you on every time you hear it, a line in it: she only comes when she’s on top: crazeeeee.

  Compilation cassettes; and how many men have given you those? Why do they always think they know best? You’d never impose your own taste on them.

  Letters. Letters have always worked.

  But how would you seduce? How would you guard against scaring a man off?

  They seem, often, so flighty, difficult, contrary, easily spooked. And you’re not convinced that it’s the men always chasing for in most of your experiences and your girlfriends’ it’s always the woman biting the bullet and doing the asking out, the hunting down. The looking, the not finding.

  Lesson 58

  you ought never to keep anything whatever under a bed

  Only Martha and you are left at the bar, for the library men have all gone home to their families, and after an awkward pause Martha asks if you’ve had a shag lately and you laugh and say no, not for ages, you’ve forgotten how to do it, it’s been so long. Martha tells you she’s slept on the couch for the last six years while her husband’s in the bedroom, it’s all very English, she tells you. We’re high Catholic, we won’t split. You laugh from deep in your belly, suddenly liking this woman very much. How seductive is honesty. You ask her, casually, about Gabriel, what she knows about him, you can’t work him out. She looks at you sharply. Ah, Gabriel, she says, Gabriel, and she tells you she has a theory and leans close.

  I don’t think he’s had much practice with women. He’s probably only had one or two girlfriends in his life. I think he needs a bit of help.

  What?

  It’s kind of exciting, don’t you think?

  God, I don’t know, and you’re knuckling your hands into your temples, you’re thinking of the letter and the suits and the kind of man who wouldn’t let a woman drive a car if he’s in it, perhaps.

  He’s so … odd, Martha says. I mean, gorgeously so, but you know. There’s something of the hermit about him, don’t you reckon, the way he disappears for months on end and then suddenly turns up. God knows what he really does, or how he ever makes a buck. He doesn’t open up to any of us. It’s all just a bit strange.

  You rub the line between your brow, trying to knead it out, and Martha laughs that everything’s speculation, of course, and there’s even vague talk of a girlfriend, once, who broke his heart but there’s been no sighting of anyone since.

  You know nothing of him. You’ve never even been to his flat. There’s so much you’ve never asked. Deliberately, because you don’t want to hear about a girlfriend in the wings, or a wife. It’s better if you don’t know, so that the spell is never broken; you’re not ready for that.

  But you feel a fatigue, now, at living within the web of your own tightly woven imaginings. Since a real man stumbled into it and began plucking at the silk.

  Lesson 59

  some use pillows stuffed with hops, but the best preparation for sleep is honest hard work and a good conscience

  Cole’s bags and coat crowd the hallway on your return from a late morning trip to Tesco. He’s home from Athens a day early, without warning. Another letter’s arrived but he hasn’t had a chance to sort through the mail and you push the envelope deep into a pocket, listening but not listening to his travel chat.

  The bathroom, as soon as you can. You sit on the toilet seat, tear at the flap.

  Some days apart from you I’m in pain, my yearning is so strong. At times you settle over me like a great warmth. I catch myself smiling into space. I dream of us running away, getting out.

  The fierce pull as you read, like a hand inside your stomach. The words so close you feel you could almost put out a hand. You touch the letter against your belly, feeling the smooth, cold paper against your skin. You get up, you’ve been too long, you kiss Cole absently on the crown of his head as he unpacks his bag and it plunges you back to a time when the love glowed, for a moment, and then it’s gone. You sit at the kitchen table with the day’s paper unread before you, your hands cradling your forehead.

  Perhaps Gabriel is like Ruskin who, it’s rumored, idolized women so much he was incapable of consummating his marriage when he discovered to his horror that his wife had pubic hair. Perhaps he’s happily married in Spain, has seven kids; perhaps Martha’s made it all up to throw you off the scent. Perhaps he’s having an affair, is gay, caught by fear, can’t bear to let anyone see who he really is. Perhaps he’s one of those men who fell through the cracks—you know several, brothers and uncles of friends, lost men who’ve never found a sure footing with life, who are crushed by the challenge of living in this world and opt out and become loners or drunks. And put their parents, and lovers, through hell.

  And then it hits.

  What if he’s never been with a woman.

  What if he doesn’t know how. A virgin, perhaps, and it all makes sense. The shyness. The pulling back at your touch. The ear tips blushing at a farewell kiss. Is it so implausible? You have an ex-colleague who’s a virgin at thirty-two and you’ve never been sure about Rupert, your cousin. And he, like Gabriel, is a tall, virile, masculine-looking man, and he, like Gabriel, never seems to be attached.

  Would Gabriel be diminished in your eyes, if that were it?

  No. It’s oddly endearing. And exciting.

  An idea, beautiful in its simplicity. To initiate Gabriel, to teach him exactly what you want. To create a pleasure man, purely that, the lover every woman dreams of. You’ll be in control, for the very first time, you’ll be able to dictate exactly what you want. And there’ll be no expectation of how you should act.

  That night Cole slips into your bed and curves his body in a question mark around your back.

  An idea beautiful in its simplicity. And impossible.

  For you don’t do that type of thing. It’s in the quietness of your clothes, your wholesome face, your ready blush. It’s in your horror at hearing of affairs, your stock response: but I could never do that to another woman.

  Or Cole. You don’t think.

  Lesson 60

  some people are terribly afraid of drafts and would rather be poisoned slowly than feel the breath of fresh air. this is grossly unwise and leads to many diseases

  A gift box is delivered. It’s beautifully wrapped.

  A vibrator.

  You gasp. There’s no note. It’s obscene, fascinating, ridiculous, you’ve never seen one up close. You don’t touch it for a long time and then you turn it round, sink back on the bed, turn it on. You can control it, make it go exactly where you want, for as long as you want, or as short.

  It’s small enough to keep in your handbag and your fingers brush it often, imagining exotic trips and Customs officers searching your luggage, having to explain it, stammering. You’ve never been searched, you’ve always been too innocent-looking and respectable for that.

  There’s no note with the package but the address label is typed. Your fingertips run over the letters, the heavy imprint of them.

  Anonymous, of course. How long has he been back? Did he ever go? Is this another game? You ring, leave messages on his machine, he will not return your calls.

  Another letter.

  I want to be the hand in the small of your back pushing you forward.

  Trembling, wet, slumping back against the wall.

  Snared.

  Lesson 61

  it is mostly easier to do wrong than right

  Another letter, until there are four. All typed, all short, and
their words are etched like acid upon you.

  Just to hold you, I ache for it, just to put my lips to the valley of your neck and slide down your body. I don’t like being apart from you, not hearing your voice, not having you close.

  The phone rings, five minutes after you’ve opened the last.

  Heeeey. He draws out the word, he’s always so playful with his greeting, as if it’s such a lovely surprise to hear your voice.

  Hey stranger, you respond.

  I’m back, he says in a gleeful sing-song.

  Since when?

  Since right this second. When can we meet? Are you free?

  Yes, yes, hang on, give me an hour, no two.

  It’s beginning to feel like infidelity as you get ready all stumbly and distracted, and the shower’s too hard and too hot and you force your body into stillness with the slow warm ooze of red wine and then you close your eyes to some music, the Jeff Buckley CD Cole can’t stand, she tied you to her kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the hallelujah, and you smile at the gathering wet, the expectation.

  You walk tall out the door, alive, greedy, knowing. Possibility is wide open before you, as vast as a lake and you want to plunge in, dive deep.

  No underpants.

  Lesson 62

  the cold plunge: nothing can be more invigorating and delightful to a robust girl

  He’s already seated and you feel a tremor deep inside you at the sight of him, you’re aching with tenderness as he sits in the café, across the street. He looks up and blooms a grin; your heart is filled up.

  You run across to that greasy café with its beans on toast and stewed tea that’s never hot enough, to where it all began eight months ago with a water splash. The letters are in your handbag and you’re bold now, sure, and so thoroughly sick of all the uncertainty and tension, the games, the teasing, the waiting. You need to get this said, there are two red patches on your cheeks and you ask him straight out: why do we go on like this, we could, you know, just get a hotel room, or perhaps go back to your flat, or, I don’t know, and you stop, you smile, so confident of his response.

  His face.

  Pardon, he asks.

  His bewilderment.

  Um, you hear yourself laughing, off-key, too much, OK, I’m sorry, and your face is stinging with embarrassment. But the letters you begin to say and then you stop and you snap: it doesn’t matter. You excuse yourself, you have to go, you have to get out. You grab your bag, it’s caught round the chair leg and you stumble out and walk down the street, bashing into shoulders and almost walking into posts and wait … wait … you hear behind you, but you don’t turn back and at last there’s the mouth of the tube station in which to disappear, to sink.

  What have you done, what have you done?

  Your head is in your hands on the tube hurtling home, knuckling your temples, trying to press it all out.

  Fool, fool.

  To think you knew him.

  Lesson 63

  never remain in wet clothes or boots

  There’s a light from under your front door. Your face is rearranged. Cole’s cooked dinner, it’s a mess, the water that was steaming the vegetables has boiled dry and the apartment’s filled with the sour smell of a saucepan caked black. But he’s tried.

  A tight smile.

  You haven’t been writing me any letters, have you, the jittery blurt.

  Letters, no. Why would I do that? What letters?

  Oh nothing, nothing. I got a couple of letters. They were a bit strange. It might be this kid down the street.

  What’s going on? Is someone harassing you? Should we call the police?

  God no, forget it. It’s silly, harmless. What’s to eat?

  There’s a Pandora’s box of questions flying open in Cole’s head, it is all in his face. You excuse yourself, can’t force food down, feel sick. You’ve blundered from Gabriel, he’s slipped from your life.

  Fool, fool.

  Is there something you want to tell me? Cole’s voice is at the locked bathroom door.

  No, no, forget it.

  Let me see the letters. Who is this kid? There’s concern in his voice, he will not let up.

  I lent him some money for the bus and he’s been on at me ever since. It’s nothing, really, I can handle it. You manage a laugh. It’s OK. All right? Your fingers twist your hair until it hurts.

  OK, OK. A pause. Want a cuppa?

  You wilt, you slam your eyes shut, you smile with your lips pressed tight.

  Yes. Yes, thanks; your voice all choked. And then in the gap under the bathroom door a slim bar of Lindt chocolate appears. You can hardly voice your thank you. For at moments like these the charge in your marriage is suddenly, beautifully, back.

  You succumb.

  Lesson 64

  sweeping and dusting

  But not for long.

  For the next day there’s no call from Gabriel, or the next. Through late winter and early spring there’s no contact, just an answering machine to receive your carefully rehearsed messages and he never returns your calls. The wind of agitation blows through all your nights, blowing away sleep until you fall, finally, into fitful technicolor dreams at dawn. Involving him, more often than not. He’s wended his way into every corner of your life, he’s a plasterer’s fine residue, dust under a bed, a white film on a shower screen that keeps coming back and back no matter how furiously you wipe. You will him to surprise you, knowing in your heart he won’t.

  Just to hear his voice, so you can have your strength back.

  You never imagined you had the capacity for such annihilation, never dreamt you could be reduced to something like this. The days stretch on, and the silence in the flat, and your nails are gnawed to the ragged quick and you draw blood chewing on your inner lips. You replay his bewilderment over and over in your head and exclaim out loud at the horror of it. It’s like when your faculty boss years ago told you that his wife had just had a baby and how sad you’d replied, God knows why, how sad, and your strange, stupid words have haunted you ever since.

  Why won’t he call, to put your mind at rest? Did he never want to fuck you? Did he just want a friendship, do heterosexual male friends ever just want that? Was he stricken with embarrassment? Did he find himself falling for you and think it could never work? Your Elizabethan author’s no help, she just ignites more questions, more doubt:

  Witness the man who loved a woman so wretchedly and dishonestly that he could not be at rest until he defiled her; he forced her to lie with him, and afterwards, to make up the measure of his wickedness, he hated her more than he loved her before.

  Is it easier to just disappear?

  The questions, the questions and the wind blows through all your nights, rattling the panes and whining to be let in. You toss and turn, as if you’re vomiting sleep.

  Lesson 65

  poisons act in a way which are injurious to life

  But then another letter, more beautiful, more urgent than all the rest.

  … You help me to live. You soak through the skin of my days, it’s wonderful, torturous, transcendent all at once.

  Rubbing and rubbing at the line between your brow. Why won’t he just ring, why is he so opaque, does he always retreat? You’re singed by the uncertainty, can’t be strong in it by yourself, you’ll run from the mess of your world if you have to and be alone, maddened, if you must.

  There’s no one to talk to, to ask advice. You want Theo’s blunt opinion, miss the small pop when the cigarette is taken from her mouth and the talking begins, well, this is what you must do, girl. How many times has she said that in your past? She told you early in your relationship with Cole that she wasn’t sure he was good enough for you; she said remember the Madonna song, don’t settle for second-best, baby. But then she changed her tune when she saw over the years his kindness to you; she stopped her doubt after you told her that his capacity for tenderness always floored you and she was very still as you spoke:
she had no answer to that. You wonder where she is now and what she’s doing, as curious as an ex-lover and unhinged, hating yourself, lost.

  You crawl on your knees in the kitchen, cramming your mouth with chocolate, block-sized bars of it and then biscuits, whole packets of sweetness, and ice cream and peanut butter from the jar, slurping it and sucking it from your fingers in great dollops of crunch, wanting to hurt hurt hurt and forgetting for an instant the power of slim. Unable to think, read, shop, write, to concentrate on anything very much for Gabriel invades all your actions and thoughts. All the efficiency and control of your professional self has been lost, and you’re sleeping until all hours and then lying on the couch and staring into space, trashy gossip magazines unread on your lap. You can’t bring yourself to ring any of your girlfriends, to see them for coffee or lunch, you’re not ready to explain anything, can’t. You don’t want them judging your lank hair and spots, don’t want their rallying or pity or fuss. You’re phoning Gabriel and hanging up after two rings, you’re phoning Theo and doing the same. You can hardly remember the woman you once were, the sensible university lecturer promptly awake, every morning, at six fifty-six.

  Is it love, obsession, infatuation? You don’t know. You think of a strange and beautiful word you read about once, Limerance, a psychological term, meaning an obsessive love, a state that’s almost like a drug. Need like a wolf paces the perimeter of your world, back and forth, back and forth, never letting up. You’re in a state that’s focused entirely on the prey, and your fingers, often, are between your legs, stroking, teasing, stirring as Cole sleeps. You’re appalled by the new appetites within you, kicking their feet and clawing to get out.

  You find a calming, over the days, within the pages of your little book. The author’s strong, singular voice never wavers, there’s such a rigor to the text and its exquisite borders of red and black. Was she ever crawling on the floor over a man? You can’t see it.