Alternatives to Sex

by Stephen McCauley

  “I just wanted to make the sale.”

  She wagged a finger at me. “No, not just. Who else have you met?”

  “Most significantly, Daniel. In addition, a little woman who appears to be devoted to him, or his abdomen anyway, and a tall woman smoking a cigarette on the porch. She works with Sam. A volleyball player is my guess.”

  “Not volleyball. Horses. That’s Kate. Raised with money and horses and now dangerously single after a failed marriage to a homosexual. No offense.” She went to the refrigerator, poured a glass of orange juice, and handed it to me. “I’m guessing you don’t want a real drink.”

  The combination of salt air and suburban ennui made me long for something alcoholic, but for the sake of solidarity with her sobriety, I felt I shouldn’t ask for one.

  “Where is Samuel?” I asked.

  “Probably giving someone a tour of the house. He loves to give tours of the house and show off new gadgets and tiny improvements. They’re horribly uninteresting. Tell him you’ve already seen everything if he offers.” She looked at me with narrowed, exhausted eyes and played with the hair hanging against her neck. “You’re thinking I’ve had too much to drink,” she said.

  “Not at all. It never crossed my mind.”

  “I’m having another minor sobriety setback.”

  “I understand completely.” And then, realizing that I’d been aching to tell someone for a long time, I said, “I’ve been having minor celibacy setbacks for weeks and weeks now.”

  “Really!” she said. “I’m shocked. Not to mention trumped. What form do the setbacks take?”

  “Assignations.” There was something polite and even romantic about the word. I didn’t need to mention parked vans and terrycloth window treatments. But she was gazing at me closely, as if trying to read between the lines.

  “Surely not in that spotless apartment of yours.”

  “No, never. What brought on your setback?”

  “Daniel, I suppose. It was hard sending him off to college, but it’s been worse having him back this weekend. He’s so composed, perpetually unfazed. We never clicked. Almost from the minute he started talking, it seemed as if we didn’t have anything in common. It just hit me when he returned yesterday that he’s gone. Probably for good. The best I can hope for is the occasional birthday visit and, somewhere down the line, a grandchild who’ll stitch us together a tiny bit more closely, unless he and a future wife can afford a nanny.”

  People will tell you almost anything, but it’s rare they’ll be so blunt about their relationship with their kids. I found her confession almost too poignant, and I wanted to look away from her. I’d been emotionally tenderized by my meeting with Alberto the night before, and by talking about it, or some of it, with Edward. I not only heard the longing in her voice, I felt it deep inside me.

  “I’d guess you’re being much too harsh on yourself. I can tell you’re a wonderful mother.”

  “You’re only saying that because I’m fat. If I were one of those thin volleyball equestrian types, you’d have seen the problem immediately.”

  She’d spoken with her usual arch delivery, but I could see that her eyes were filling up. “Despite all of that,” I said, “you look lovely tonight.” I set down the juice glass and put my arms around her. I could smell the same strong, earthy perfume I’d smelled on her once before. “And for what it’s worth, I have a feeling it’s all going to be fine.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “That’s why I told you.”

  Without thinking about what I was doing, I leaned down and kissed her on the lips. “How embarrassing,” she said, but didn’t pull away.

  The kitchen door swung open, and Edward came in, making the moment even more awkward.

  All her Shameful Secrets

  People in various stages of inebriation wandered in and out of the kitchen, clutching little plates of food and assuring Charlotte that they were having a wonderful time. A couple of young, grumpy caterers kept showing up in tandem to replenish their trays and complain to each other about the heat in the living room and the rudeness of the guests, all with no apparent concern for offending Charlotte. Charlotte didn’t introduce us to anyone, and it seemed to me she enjoyed being holed up in the kitchen with two men no one else at the party recognized.

  “I’d love to see the rest of the house,” Edward said. “And if you give us a tour, William can write off the trip as a professional expense.”

  “It’s amazing to me you two are such good friends.”

  “Do we seem so different?” I asked.

  “No, I just didn’t realize men have friendships.”

  “I didn’t realize we were men,” Edward said.

  She led us up a staircase off the kitchen in a narrow wainscoted hallway. “The servants’ quarters,” she said. “Their dark little rooms up under the eaves, and then this cramped passageway down to the kitchen to feed the Thompson family. This is where my ancestry would have lived—sweating and praying—in case you were thinking I take any of this for granted. This is where I do my sewing and darning,” she said, waving vaguely at a few completely empty rooms.

  Charlotte’s tour of the rest of the upstairs was equally perfunctory. She carelessly indicated a few doors as we walked down the long hallway. “Linen closet, guest room, bathroom, more closets. Small room with peculiar shape. Daniel’s room. Probably best not to open that one. He has a military love of order. Never a sock out of place.”

  “Something he and William share,” Edward said. He was carrying his tall glass with him, sipping occasionally at the icy mix of gin and tonic.

  At the end of the hallway, she pointed to a narrow door. “Former attic, currently my office. We can go up if you’re interested and promise not to look at anything too closely. All my shameful secrets.”

  As she was opening the door, Daniel emerged from his bedroom, holding the hand of a very small and remarkably pale girl. The girl was dressed in skintight Capri pants with a halter top arrangement above that exposed a lot of soft stomach, but her expression had the calm superiority of virginity, proudly and meticulously preserved. She couldn’t have been five feet tall, but she carried her head as if she were looking down on the rest of the world. Virtue, I suppose, can give you that edge. Despite the way they were holding hands, it was impossible to imagine they’d been doing anything in Daniel’s bedroom other than folding laundry.

  “Mom. There you are.” Daniel said this with the same tone you’d use to scold a child who’d just missed dinner. “People are asking for you downstairs. You disappeared.”

  Charlotte introduced us to the girl, whose name turned out to be something along the lines of Heather, although, when I said, “Nice to meet you, Heather,” she corrected me in an incomprehensible way. She had the same confident look as Daniel, and the two of them, standing side by side, seemed to be waiting patiently for the rest of us to step aside and let them rule the world.

  “I guess I’m obliged to reappear downstairs,” Charlotte said. “The view from the balcony is the best in the house, should you want to go explore on your own.”

  The staircase leading up was so tight and steep, I felt as if we were climbing a ladder. When we were halfway up, Charlotte stuck her head through the doorway and said, “There’s a bag of books next to my desk. Things I’ve worked on in the past. Feel free to take it with you, William, if you’re curious about how I spend my days. They might keep your mind off other things.”

  At the top of the staircase, we emerged into a surprisingly large room with a high ceiling and sloping walls. I was disappointed to see that someone, doubtlessly Charlotte and Samuel, had outfitted the place with skylights, an architectural feature that fills me with the same pessimism about the future as the hot tub. Little high-tech spotlights suspended from a track of wires illuminated the desk. The office was furnished with a couple of comfortable easy chairs slipcovered with flowery chintz and a bulky old sofa that demanded you lie down on it and take a nap. Edward went t
o it immediately and sprawled out, his hands behind his head. There were French doors off to one side, presumably opening up to the balcony Charlotte had mentioned, although the light was reflecting off them and I couldn’t see the view.

  “I’m drunk,” Edward said.

  “That was quick. Half a glass?”

  I went to the desk in the corner and pretended to study Charlotte’s computer, a sleek thing with a flat screen. The desk was covered with neat stacks of paper, calendars, and schedules she’d made for herself regarding deadlines and appointments with her dentist. I quietly slid open the drawers, looking for a shameful secret or two. Inside the deep second drawer was a tattered manuscript held together with an elastic band. The title page read: “So You Said by Charlotte O’Malley.”

  “You and she certainly seem to be hitting it off,” Edward yawned.

  “Jealous?” I asked. I took out the manuscript and flipped through a few pages.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I felt completely abandoned by you when I walked into the kitchen and saw the two of you making out.”

  “Making out? I don’t think that’s the right term. And why abandoned? What did it have to do with you?” Judging from the lines of dialogue, the pages appeared to be a novel or a collection of stories. I slipped it into the bag of books beside the desk as discreetly as I could.

  “Why invite me all the way out here if you’re just going to leave me to the drink cart and get cozy with the hostess in the kitchen? You didn’t need me here to do that.”

  “I know, but it was more fun knowing you’re here. And if anyone should feel abandoned, it’s me. You’re the one leaving town, you’re the one dating a pilot.”

  He had his eyes closed and his hands behind his head, and his face was touched by moonlight and the deep shadows of the desk lamp. Seeing him on that puffy sofa, here at the top of the house, far from the crowd of strangers down below, knowing that in less than two months he was moving to the other side of the country, I felt closer to him than I’d felt in many years, as if the two of us were connected by a strong, intangible bond I’d taken entirely for granted and just now realized was mutable. More alarming still, I felt a sudden flush of desire and longing for him that reminded me of what I’d felt the night before with Alberto. Except now the whole tumble of events of the past twenty-four hours was a confusion of details—what had really happened, what I’d imagined, the version I’d told Edward.

  He opened his eyes and caught me looking at him. He always knew what I was thinking, and I felt miserably found out.

  “What do you want from me, William?” he said, part question, part accusation.

  “The thing is,” I began, with no idea where I could take the sentence. I moved toward the sofa. But just that slight repositioning of my body gave me a better view through the French doors out to the balcony, and more specifically, a better view of Samuel, standing in a corner with his arm around the waist of Kate, his coworker from the porch. She had her head resting on Samuel’s shoulder in a calm, familiar way that was unmistakably more than friendly. As usually happens in situations like this, I felt like the guilty party for having spotted them. I moved away from the door and onto the arm of the sofa as quickly as I could. I said nothing to Edward, the doors swung open, and Samuel and Kate entered—laughing, as if they’d been blown in by the wind.

  With amazing dexterity, Samuel took in Edward’s position on the sofa and me sitting near his feet and made the best of his own bad situation.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, as if embarrassed for my sake, not his own. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Not at all,” I said. I stood and shook his hand. He tried to introduce Kate, but that deteriorated into a series of clumsy interruptions and broken fragments about the three of us having met down below. Kate was standing next to Samuel, arms folded across her chest. She looked unhappy and slightly bored, as if she was already anticipating the inevitable, tedious discussion of guilt and discretion that she and Samuel would have.

  “You must have come up here for the view,” she said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “And to collect a bag of books Charlotte put aside for me.”

  If Kate was irritated with me for having come upon her with her lover, I felt betrayed by her for turning out to be more of an insider here than she’d portrayed herself on the porch.

  There was more talk of the view and then an unnecessary explanation of how Samuel had brought his coworker up here to show her how clearly you could see, from the balcony, the building in which they both had offices. When that explanation went nowhere, Samuel ushered us all down the little staircase and cautioned us about hitting our heads on the low ceiling. Halfway down, I quietly passed Kate the pack of cigarettes she’d handed me outside, and she accepted it gratefully.

  In the second-floor hallway, Samuel let Kate and Edward get ahead of us while he fidgeted with the latch on the door. “I’ve been meaning to call you for a few days now,” he said to me in a low voice. The door swung open again. “I hate this door. There’s something wrong with the hinges, or maybe the door frame is crooked. I’m not sure which. I’m not the least bit handy. I always thought I’d learn one day, how to do things, but it just never happened.”

  “Funny,” I said. “I figured you’d be the Mr. Fix-It type.” I didn’t. Men who are handsome as Samuel are rarely capable even of calling the right people to do their work for them. “Not having second thoughts about the apartment, are you?”

  “Oh, no.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “Nothing like that. Just a few details to go over, things that wouldn’t interest Charlotte. Call me. Come down to my office, and I’ll take you out for lunch. The two of us. And we won’t mention anything about that.” He nodded in the direction of the attic, but it was unclear if he was asking for a favor or suggesting he was doing one for me.

  Mr. Collins?

  The drive home was a lot faster, and in the cool dark, the blighted industrial landscape took on a look of garish beauty, with lights sparkling and the tops of smokestacks blinking. Edward slept most of the way, his seat reclined, the gin and tonic having its way with him. It was peaceful with him sleeping there in the passenger seat. Occasionally, he’d wake up and make a comment as if we’d been in the middle of a conversation, then drift back to sleep.

  The street in front of Edward’s building was shadowy and the old trees lining the sidewalk were shedding their leaves in the wind. I tugged on Edward’s earlobe to wake him.

  “I’ve been to worse parties,” he said. “Although not many.”

  “You should get out more often.”

  He sat in his seat for a minute, silently waiting for something. But whatever had passed between us briefly in Charlotte’s study had disappeared. There was a sudden, loud clatter on the roof of the car, and then it began to pour, so hard it was almost impossible to see out the windows. After a minute or two, it subsided to a steady rain. Edward opened his door and waved from the sidewalk without turning around. I watched him climb the steps to his building, drop his keys, fumble for a moment in the wet, velvety shadows, and then slip inside. I wasn’t ready to leave yet; I had no good reason to go home. I had a lot of bad reasons to go home, and some of them had a sticky, persistent appeal. By now, all the fleeting physical pleasures of my erotic adventures were blended in with the feelings of disappointment and regret, so they’d all become part of the same experience. Even the wearying rituals I’d go through upon arrival at home as a stall tactic—the late-night tidying, scrubbing the sink with Tang, straightening out the towels—pushed against me with tender inevitability. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock.

  I watched as the lights went on in Edward’s apartment. I’ve always tried to be patient and forgiving when friends make obvious mistakes. Even lots of obvious mistakes. But it’s intolerable to watch them make the exact same mistake over and over. I’d sat in my car on this street looking up at the lights going on in Edward’s apartment dozens of times over the years. Maybe I was making
the same mistake over and over. Maybe it was time to make a new one.

  I turned off the engine and put on the emergency flashers. I was illegally parked, but what was the worst that could happen? Towed? I could face that later, maybe in the morning.

  At the bottom of his steps, I heard someone call my name with a familiar, mocking tone.

  “Mr. Collins?”

  Oh, don’t let it be, I thought, hoping it was.

  “What brings you into this neighborhood tonight, Mr. Collins?”

  Didier, the last person I wanted to see just then, was standing in the shadows under a tree, a cigarette dangling from his skinny fingers, the branches protecting him from the soft rain. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I could hear his smirk.

  “You’re out of the country,” I said. “You don’t live here any longer. Therefore, Mr. Didier, I do not see you.”

  “You’re mean, Mr. Collins. And lying on top of it. I’m thirsty. Come buy me a drink.”

  Hypotheticals

  “What have you done about cleaning up the marine’s apartment?” Deirdre asked me. She was sitting at her desk shopping online for beds. Despite her claims of having a marriage of unprecedented happiness, she’d spent days hunting down a company in Norway that made something called a Royal Family Super Deluxe–sized mattress. This miracle of construction appeared to have the same dimensions as a few of the studio apartments I’d sold in Cambridge over the years. I’d noticed that the beds of an awful lot of married couples grew in direct proportion to the number of years they’d been together. I suppose increasing the bed size was cheaper than getting separate apartments and had some of the same advantages.

  “She’s agreed to let me rent her a storage unit until the place sells,” I told her. “But given her health problems, I’m going to have to move everything myself.”

  “The newscasters are dithering, so there’s no great rush, but I’d like to get them out of my life as soon as possible. Endless boasting about how miserable they are, flaunting their divorce as if it were a badge of intelligence. I’m going to have to order the sheets for this bed separately from a company in Canada. I hope my washing machine can handle them.”