Quiver

by Tobsha Learner

  In a strange way I can imagine what she must have been thinking, sitting there. Love does that, it makes you one person, one mind. I see her lifting the flowered pillow and pressing it down over my face. My neck suffuses with blood, turns black-red. My arms flail blindly as I fight for my life. She presses down harder, holding on with all the strength of her anger. A superhuman strength, the collective venom of generations of deceived women. Felicity is taking revenge. For fear. For jealousy. For the Fool. I see myself falling back, legs limp, fist rolling open, lifeless. In Felicity’s mind. But I cannot reach her because I am asleep, struggling blindly with my dreams. Sensing her there beyond a cloud of crackling static. Turning on the bed, I believe I am safe.

  FELICITY

  Standing over him, watching him, his breath sour-sweet, cigarettes and hash, the hair on his chest curling defiantly, I find I still want him. Want him more with the strangeness, the lust of another.

  I want to slip my hand under the bedcovers to find his warm penis. He would be half-erect, still damp, fragrant with strange. I stand there paralyzed, debating my next move. My eyes move over the disheveled terrain of his body. His leather jacket is spread across his feet like a faithful dog. The cassette is half hanging out of the red silk-lined pocket. I reach for it.

  The valves flicker for a second and slowly begin to glow. The needles on the dials escalate wildly for a moment, then settle down to mid-point as I adjust the volume. He still sleeps upstairs. I don’t want to wake him.

  I sit down carefully on the battered leather couch and place the headphones over my ears. The leads spiral down like deranged umbilical cords. I am terrified. Frightened my suspicions will be confirmed in an avalanche of evidence. My hand shakes as I push the play button. The orchestrated sound of a woman’s orgasm sweeps through me. A tidal wave of groans, grunts and breath. For a moment I am swept along by the sheer majesty of this human cacophony. I forget myself. I am rolling naked in a landscape of tongues, of lips, of taut skin, on the borderline of pleasure and pain, the music sweating beads of ecstasy. I become wet, I can’t help myself. Quin dances before me, a whirling dervish with a lithe, naked succubus wound around his sweating buttocks. By the first crescendo he is above her, entering her, filling her. Sotto voce and he is buried between her legs, drawing from this witch the sweetest of notes. One minute it is red hair that is thrown across a white back, next minute it is shorn pale blond pressed up against a full bruised mouth. Nowhere do I find myself. This voice is not mine. Nor this body, that can bend in one smooth descending octave.

  I stand over the stove. Bubbles rise in the boiling oil, burst and then course through the thick liquid. I am there and I am not there. It isn’t my hand pouring the boiling oil into the turkey baster, it isn’t my trembling fingers struggling with the plunger of the icing-sugar syringe.

  Still deeply asleep, his head lolls as I prop him up. Carefully tilting his face, I insert the turkey baster into his left ear, then the end of the icing-sugar syringe into his right. There is no doubt in my mind, just the cry of that orgasm, the sound of the woman who betrayed us echoing again and again. I squeeze.

  QUIN

  People think deafness is a sound. It’s not. It’s snow, static snow. A constant blizzard in the back of the head. An ice age of silence. I am a polar bear stumbling through shards of frost.

  I see Mack waving from the other side of a frozen lake. He is trying to tell me that he loves me, that he still wants me to work for him even if I’m totally deaf. I swing my heavy neck and look back toward the blinding white terrain that stretches into infinity. Polar bears are solitary creatures.

  Two men. One, large, on the brink of middle age, leans against an open window. Outside the afternoon traffic rattles past, sending up clouds of dust into the sunlight that cuts into the dingy lounge room. He pushes back his thinning hair and lights another cigarette.

  The second man crouches by a record player, his long arms wrapped around his knees. He rocks himself backward and forward to the vibrations he can feel through the worn floorboards. He knows that the room is filled with the sound of a woman’s orgasm. Her cries fuse with the violins, bounce off the high plaster ceiling and pour out onto the street.

  POMEGRANATE

  The house has white Grecian pillars and a small front yard with a pomegranate tree. I was attracted to it because of the tree; I remembered that pomegranates symbolize fertility. When Adrian heard that he said, “Sweetheart, we have to have it.” Before we moved we had an apartment in the city, one of those thirties places, all white plaster and curved balconies. It was beautiful, except for the constant sound of traffic throughout the day, then at night the transport trucks would start up. I’d lie there imagining it was the sea, but it didn’t work. I’d wind up tighter and tighter, my jaw clenched, muscles aching with exhaustion. Adrian said that’s why the baby thing wasn’t working. He thinks eggs and spermatozoa need sunshine and peace. Otherwise we’d end up conceiving an insomniac and that would be worse than no kid at all.

  Adrian is a senior accountant. I have a job at Belle’s Beauty Parlor, along the highway. I do facials, bikini waxes and the odd pedicure.

  From where I sit I can see the long backyard with two rows of citrus trees planted to hide the back fence. If I turn around I face the door of the veranda and our newly renovated open-plan kitchen and dining area. I feel safe here and sort of ripe, like a pomegranate—when its skin splits open you can see all the juicy red seeds bursting to get out. When we first moved in I painted the small bedroom pink, then drew a mural of cartoon characters around the border. Adrian hated it. He thinks children shouldn’t be spoilt. But then Adrian was brought up in a poky little house with linoleum floors and a gas fire while his mother slaved her guts out to send him to boarding school, sometime in the fifties, long before I was even born.

  I painted the house six months ago and I’m still not pregnant. We’ve done all the things we’re meant to do. I’ve got a fertility chart pinned up on the fridge: red for ovulation, pink for just before and orange is time out.

  It’s great, except that Adrian is color-blind and sometimes mistakes orange for red. When we first started it was kind of sexy, like tightrope walking without a net. Adrian got really scared. He said it reminded him of his own mortality. He thinks a lot about his own death. I don’t, I think a lot about giving birth, and feeling the tug of the baby’s lips on my nipples. Sometimes I have this fantasy when I’m trying to get to sleep. I travel down my own bloodstream, imagining that I’m an egg, all fat and juicy, just being released from the ovary. I’m floating along the fallopian tube, bouncing gently against the soft, spongy walls feeling really relaxed and really horny when along comes this sperm, its tail swishing behind it like a long whip. It stops and sniffs and comes plunging straight for me with this really determined look on its face. I reel back as it burrows into my side. I usually have an orgasm then. The trouble is none of the sperm look like Adrian. They all look like film stars or rock singers or ex-boyfriends.

  Afterward, when I open my eyes, I feel ever so slightly guilty. I look across at Adrian, his great cliff of a chin pointing up toward the ceiling, those slightly bulging eyes closed and twitching in his sleep, and I think, fuck it, it’s not as if they can get into your head, is it?

  I’ve explored most of the house, except the attic. I went up the ladder once but I got frightened. When I was a kid we used to go on expeditions up in our attic. My brother would lead the way, pretending he was a great explorer, picking his way carefully over the ceiling beams and over great wads of insulation material. Dad had told us that if we stepped between the beams we’d fall through the ceiling and back into the house. All the history of our parents’ marriage was packed up there: photos, a moldy piece of wedding cake, an old plastic breast pump of my mother’s that we thought was a piece of obscene torture equipment. I stole some of the cake once and kept it for years in a locket for good luck. It went green.

  My father left when I was seven. It destroyed my mom. Be
ing Catholic, she was too ashamed to demand a divorce. I haven’t seen him since. I think they’re still married. After he left I refused to go up into attics anymore.

  Adrian’s been up into ours. He said it was small and dirty. He brought down a small, battered leather suitcase. Inside was an ancient wedding dress. It looked like a 1920s design, with seed pearls sewn into the neckline. There was even a tiny crown of flowers, woven around a tiara of cut glass. Adrian wanted to sell it. But I’m superstitious, so I had the dress dry-cleaned, folded it up with mothballs and packed it into the bottom of a cupboard.

  We’ve been married for three years. Since I was twenty-one and Adrian was thirty-nine. I had to play all sorts of games to get him to marry me. I don’t believe in people just living together—the girl’s got no security. It wasn’t easy, I tell you, this being Adrian’s second marriage and all. Still, I got him in the end.

  I haven’t really had a lot of men. Actually only four and a half. The first was Robin. We never did it until right at the end; mostly we just kissed and touched a lot. Mom brought us up to believe that sex was a spiritual and holy act. I believed that right up until I was eighteen. Then I had my first orgasm and thought I saw God.

  We were in the mountains. It was just after the end-of-year exams. Robin had told his father he was going down the coast with a few surfing mates and I’d told Mom I was going to spend a night at my best friend’s parents’ holiday house. That part was sort of true, I mean I was at Anne’s house, but her parents were away in Europe and it was just me and Robin and Anne and her boyfriend.

  I’d lied to Anne and had told her that Robin and I had been screwing for months. So she’d put us in a bedroom of our own. It overlooked a gully and had windows from the ceiling to the floor, with no curtains. Anne’s father was an architect and he’d designed the house so that the surrounding forest seemed to grow right into it—leaves curled in through the windows and around the arched balconies.

  Robin and I had spent the night naked, lying wrapped around each other, both of us touching and caressing until the early morning. I remember staring out watching the moon fade into the sky. Then, as the bellbirds began echoing across the valley, I fell asleep.

  I was woken by this delicious feeling. There had been a bar of chocolate beside the bed and Robin was running the melted chocolate down from my belly button. It tickled, I laughed, Robin looked up at me. His concentration was intense. Crouching by my side he placed a hand between my legs. I resisted, then shyly let him push my thighs wide apart. He sat there, kneeling between my open legs gazing down at me in wonder. He traced the chocolate across my belly and down toward my pussy. Carefully he ran the chocolate across my lips, barely touching me, the lightest of caresses flicking across my clit. I groaned and tried to move away, but his arms held me down. He gently pushed the bar into me, the chocolate was warm and trickled down. He moved it backward and forward, lubricating me. Then pulling it out, he slowly ran his tongue along the path of the chocolate, around and into my belly button, down the center of my stomach, then, still holding me wide apart, started to lick the inside of my thighs. I’m twisting and groaning and thrashing around in pleasure. His tongue licking everywhere but where I wanted it to be. Slowly he moved toward my clit. Flicking it lightly with his tongue, then fastening onto it with his mouth, sucking hard. I started to shake with excitement. I was out of control. I pulled Robin up by the hair. His sex nudged against me, the tip of it just resting inside. He slid in, it didn’t hurt, I was well prepared, but the size and shape of it filled me in a way I had never imagined. He rolled over and pulled me up over him, so that I was sitting above him. Instinctively, I started to slide up and down his cock. I felt like I was being impaled every time he slid into me. It hurt slightly but the pleasure made me forget the pain.

  I remember looking across the dawn sky as I rode him. The bed was right against the window and I felt as if I was riding into the sunrise like some mythical figure. The sun had begun to fill the sky with a rosy light. My pleasure grew with the flooding light. The more furiously I rode, the higher the sun rose. I felt as if I was in control of the sky, that if I stopped the sun would drop back behind the earth and all would sink back into darkness. Soon I could feel the ripples of intense pleasure contracting upward. As I screamed in the throes of my first orgasm I thought I saw a translucent bluish shadow race across the huge red orb of the sun. At the time I thought I had seen God. I know now that I did see something, because I’ve seen other things since.

  Last night was amazing! I didn’t think Adrian could perform like that. Not that he’s a lousy lover or anything. Far from it, I mean for his age he’s incredible. He’s even had a second erection on a couple of occasions. But last night was truly unbelieveable!

  I still can’t believe it, so I’ll get it down in writing. Adrian came in late after a board meeting. I’d prepared his favorite dish, spaghetti marinara. We ate in silence. I tried making conversation but Adrian was too tired to respond.

  “Honeybun, do you like the meal?”

  “Too much tomato.” He reaches across for the cheese and sprinkles copious amounts onto his plate. I pretend not to notice. I wish he’d say something, anything to let me into his day. He picks up the business section of the paper.

  “Dollar’s down again. Damn Wayne!”

  “What’s Wayne done?”

  “Told me to buy Ampol. They’ve dropped four points.”

  “Fascinating, darling.” A party starts up next door and I wonder about all those warnings my friends gave me about marrying an older man.

  “I’m off to bed.”

  “But it’s only nine o’clock. Do you know what day it is?”

  “No, I haven’t had a chance to look at the damned schedule, Jodie.”

  “It’s a red day. And there’s no need to get aggressive.”

  “I am not getting aggressive! I’m just exhausted. Besides, I’ve got to be in at seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Head office has called an emergency meeting.”

  “Don’t you want to have a child?”

  “Yes, but not tonight.” There are bags under his eyes, and his hairline seems to have receded further despite the implants. I kiss him, but he tastes bitter. “‘Night, love. I’ll sit up for a while.”

  He plods heavily along the corridor as I switch on the television. The party next door thumps through the wall. I haven’t been to a party in ages. The last one was Adrian’s office Christmas party and I was the youngest there by ten years. I get up and dance for a few minutes by myself in the center of the room. I imagine that there is a young dark man leaning into me. He has his knee between my legs and we’re dancing really close. I can smell his thick black hair and his aftershave. He grips my buttocks with his hands as he bites into my neck. He has slicked-back hair and elegant Mediterranean features. I trip over the remote control and knock my head on the side of the sofa. I lie there for a moment, dazed. I can smell the vague scent of aftershave drifting in from the open window. It must be from the party.

  Later I go to bed. Adrian is sleeping on his side. The music is still going on next door. I’m wearing the silk nightgown Adrian gave me for my twenty-fourth birthday, hoping that the feel of the silk will inspire him to take me suddenly in the middle of all this thumping darkness.

  I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling. The wind outside blows the gate shut with a bang. I shiver and turn on my side. The smell of aftershave drifts in again. In my half sleep I see a seascape. A tiny bay, untouched by civilization. The clear blue waves creep up the pale sand; the wind brings the smell of cyprus and eucalyptus across my face. I open my eyes with a jolt. The scent of heat and the trees still lingers in the room.

  The room has grown darker, and the party next door is over. In the distance the last guest pulls away from the curb.

  The room is jet black. I feel his hands move under the silk. They run down my back and creep around to my breasts. I lie there waiting for his usual move, which is to roll me toward him. Instead, he run
s his tongue down the length of my spine. Parting my buttocks he works his way around to my vagina with his mouth, caressing me with his tongue. He hoists himself up through my open legs so that he lies facing me.

  My lover is completely silent. His hands feel altered, changed. I can barely see his profile. His eyes are shut, his lips are pulled back in a strange grimace. He takes my hands roughly with one hand and pins them back against the pillow. With the other hand he squeezes my breasts together. His skin is unusually coarse. He smells different, there is musk on his neck. I find myself trying to remember what I washed his shirt in the day before. He lifts my legs high up above his shoulders, holding me open by spreading my thighs. He plunges into me. His violence is infectious. He grasps my buttocks with both hands. He has me pinned. In the darkness I feel as if there are fingers in every orifice, probing, opening me up. We climax together. It is a first.

  I made a huge breakfast this morning, all Adrian’s favorites—bacon, eggs and American flapjacks. He just sat there and asked what the occasion was.

  “Don’t tease me.” I kissed him on the ear.

  He pushed me away and said, “Really. I don’t know.”

  “You know, last night.”

  “What about last night?”

  “You were pretty damned fantastic, that’s what.”

  “Was I?”

  I kissed his other ear. You know, sometimes he can be really cute, the way he plays games. He went really quiet and didn’t even finish his flapjacks. Male menopause. It makes them so unpredictable. If he doesn’t want to talk about it that’s his prerogative. He’s funny about talking about his emotions. It’s because of Felicity, his first wife. She was a failed jazz singer and an amateur social worker, and she got him to talk about everything. Even when there wasn’t a problem. He hated that. Adrian says that what you see is what you get. He thinks people invent trouble for themselves. He’s a pragmatist, my Adrian. That’s why I haven’t told him about some things—you know, like my second sight. He wouldn’t understand.